Unfair spells

[Rekijan]

With PF1 you seemed to have made a point of removing a lot of save-or-die stuff. I liked that because losing a character with a single roll always seemed way too unfair to me. I hoped that with PF2 you would want to improve on this more but some spells still seem unfair.

Fatal aria: No save? 16th level or lower just insta-die no save? I mean I know its a rare level 10 spell, but still insta-kill mechanics are never fun. The rules for encounters list a scenario of CR being equal to PC levels +4. So a level 20 bard against a level 16 party could kill 3 PCs in a single turn with no defense?

Feeblemind: Losing a PC over one (critically) failed save seems way too harsh, not to mention on a level 6 spell. And unlike other spells it actually makes you a NPC so its not like you can ress the poor thing to fix it either.

Finger of death: Again dying to a single failed dice roll is lame.

Power word spells: The fact that they are level only, and offer no defense make them feel really unfun. Like fatal aria but less severe.

[DerNils]

Fatal Aria as mentioned is Uncommon Level 10, so on the Level of Wish and Miracle. You are entering Cheese Country.

Feeblemind is a curse, so I would expect a heightened Remove Curse to remove it's effects.

Finger of Death: Save or Die being relegated to Critfails is a step Forward. This is 2 Levels after Death Ward, which would give you some serious protection from it.

Power Words. Uncommon. Meaning you must explicitly allow them in your game, not the other way around.

Add to that that Counterspelling has IMO improved mechanics, what with it being a reaction now, These are the Things to look out for and save some heightened Dispels for.

[Xenocrat]

DerNils wrote:

Add to that that Counterspelling has IMO improved mechanics, what with it being a reaction now, These are the Things to look out for and save some heightened Dispels for.

You can’t counterspell with Dispel Magic, only with the spell you are counterspelling. You must have the spell being cast known (Sorcerer) or prepared (Wizard) to do anything.

[Draco18s]

Counter spell is just as bad as it used to be, it just uses a different action economy.

[Rekijan]

DerNils wrote:

Fatal Aria as mentioned is Uncommon Level 10, so on the Level of Wish and Miracle. You are entering Cheese Country.

Feeblemind is a curse, so I would expect a heightened Remove Curse to remove it's effects.

Finger of Death: Save or Die being relegated to Critfails is a step Forward. This is 2 Levels after Death Ward, which would give you some serious protection from it.

Power Words. Uncommon. Meaning you must explicitly allow them in your game, not the other way around.

Add to that that Counterspelling has IMO improved mechanics, what with it being a reaction now, These are the Things to look out for and save some heightened Dispels for.

I am not really convinced on the whole uncommon part. Just because its uncommon doesn't mean it should never be used. And I think a big part of this is learning uncommon spells from enemies you defeat, so you would have to face them first. Granted it doesn't have to go that way, but it could and even if it doesn't it is still not unreasonable to give such an epic spell to a BBEG. Or if doing so is extremely cheesy then doesn't that prove my point that the spell is not fair?

For feeblemind I will concede that I misread the duration as instantaneous. But its permanent in the crit fail part. Though the NPC being under the GM's control from the failed save on is just so weird.

As to finger of death and death ward. Death ward has a duration of a measly minute. So chances are you cannot count on having that buff up. And even with it up you can still potentially crit fail it and get slain instantly.

As to counterspelling. Only the sorc and wizard have that ability. So that would be very limiting in design if those classes would be mandatory just to deal with it. In addition some of these are uncommon spells, so the PC might not even know (them all). While counterspell is a reaction now, you only get one and you cant use dispel magic anymore as a catch all try and negate the spell.

All in all in don't expect a ton of deaths from these spells but the fact that it could happen (a PC dying from one bad roll or no roll at all) is just bad design in my honest opinion.

[Xenocrat]

Finger of Death, Fatal Aria, and Feeblemind are in fact weak spells.

Finger of Death does 25-50 damage on an expected result. Who cares. If you're casting a 7th level spell at a single enemy that has a decent chance of critical failing you're wasting a resource that could be better spent on actual difficult opponents.

Fatal Aria is the least powerful Bard capstone option, just an autoheightened Power Word Kill. It's bad. Again, you don't need autokill abilities against scrubs, you need things that enhance your ability to survive and kill against equal level opponents. Against enemies that are worth your actions and resources at 20th level you don't want to do only 50 points of damage even with a single action, when that action can't be repeated.

Feeblemind is inferior to a Reach Spell metamagic Touch of Idiocy (level 2 vs. level 6) for most purposes. But if you do critical fail it, of course the GM should control your character, or we'll have a surfeit of weirdly smart mindless PCs flawlessly executing combat tactics and cooperation with their former allies.

[Rekijan]

Xenocrat wrote:

Finger of Death, Fatal Aria, and Feeblemind are in fact weak spells.

Finger of Death does 25-50 damage on an expected result. Who cares. If you're casting a 7th level spell at a single enemy that has a decent chance of critical failing you're wasting a resource that could be better spent on actual difficult opponents.

Fatal Aria is the least powerful Bard capstone option, just an autoheightened Power Word Kill. It's bad. Again, you don't need autokill abilities against scrubs, you need things that enhance your ability to survive and kill against equal level opponents. Against enemies that are worth your actions and resources at 20th level you don't want to do only 50 points of damage even with a single action, when that action can't be repeated.

Feeblemind is inferior to a Reach Spell metamagic Touch of Idiocy (level 2 vs. level 6) for most purposes. But if you do critical fail it, of course the GM should control your character, or we'll have a surfeit of weirdly smart mindless PCs flawlessly executing combat tactics and cooperation with their former allies.

I think you are missing the point. I am not writing this from a PC vs NPCs perspective where you optimise your spells and options.

I am saying these spells make it possible for a player to lose a PC with one bad dice roll or no roll at all.

So using your 7th level spell against a single NPC is indeed bad in that scenario but a NPC might cast it at PCs and they would die if they ever roll a 1. Same with Fatal Aria. As I said in my opening post a level 20 bard is an encounter that is considered 'appropriate' CR wise against a level 16 party (PC level +4). And it could take out 3 PCs in one round with it, no save.

Like I said in my previous post, these spells probably won't be an issue most of the time. But the fact that they have the possibility to really screw over a PC in a very anti climatic way just rubs me the wrong way.

[Gaterie]

DerNils wrote:

Add to that that Counterspelling has IMO improved mechanics, what with it being a reaction now, These are the Things to look out for and save some heightened Dispels for.

Counterspell doesn't work.

it costs a second feat and a reaction to identify a spell being cast. If you uses your reaction to identify the spell, you can't counterspell. If you don't identify the spell, the counterspell feat can't trigger.

[Rekijan]

Gaterie wrote:

DerNils wrote:

Add to that that Counterspelling has IMO improved mechanics, what with it being a reaction now, These are the Things to look out for and save some heightened Dispels for.

Counterspell doesn't work.

it costs a second feat and a reaction to identify a spell being cast. If you uses your reaction to identify the spell, you can't counterspell. If you don't identify the spell, the counterspell feat can't trigger.

The fixed that in the last errata. If you have the spell prepared or have it on your spells known list as a spont caster than you automatically recognise the spell.

[Draco18s]

Gaterie wrote:

Counterspell doesn't work.

it costs a second feat and a reaction to identify a spell being cast. If you uses your reaction to identify the spell, you can't counterspell. If you don't identify the spell, the counterspell feat can't trigger.

That's not why it won't work. Even with the errata changes if you:

1. Have the spell prepared
2. Haven't used it
3. Have the 1st level feat Counterspell
4. Use it

You have a 50% chance of doing f$&#all.

See page 197 I mean 319.

Quote:

You expend a prepared spell to counter the triggering creature’s casting of

that same spell. You lose your spell slot as if you had cast the triggering spell.

Quote:

Treat this as a counteract check using the

spell’s level as its counteract level and a spell roll for any
necessary counteract check.

Quote:

When attempting to

counteract an effect, compare the counteract level of
the effect with the counteract level of the ability you are
using. A spell’s counteract level is equal to its spell level;
If your ability has a higher counteract level than
that of the effect to be counteracted, you automatically
succeed. If your ability’s counteract level is the same as the
effect’s counteract level or lower, you must succeed at a
check using the relevant skill or ability against the DC of
the target effect. You take a cumulative –5 penalty to this
check for every level by which your ability’s counteract
level is lower than the target’s.

You're literally better off just casting the spell back at the target on your turn.