wow that's a lot of space for Fabricate debating
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I've thought the Create Pit series are pretty powerful when used in unusual ways
+ cast it on a tarp and throw it over people
+ cast Acid Pit on a ceiling for dumping acid on people
+ cast on the surface of a lake for an interesting hiding place
these are pretty powerful when combined with another effect or under certain circumstances
Emergency Energy Sphere shot from an Arcane Archer can be a way to stop baddies.
Frostbite/Frigid Touch + Rime Spell
Skinsend + Touch Injection
Wish + Thoughtful Wish-Maker
For those having issues with detect magic finding magical traps:
First, I suggest interpreting the spell very strictly. Remember it doesn't actually make magic things glow, it just tells the caster what 5 foot square they are in, after three rounds. So you might know there is an abjuration effect present, and what it does(with a skill check), but you don't know it's exact location, or how it's triggered or how to bypass it. Also remember that the caster has to be out front while detecting or else he gets false positives from all the party's equipment.
Second, if you want to be a bit mean about it, throw in a few magic traps whose triggers are being within the area of effect of a divination. Now detect magic sets off the trap.
Yeah the problem is that people try to say it autodetects traps and cancels invisibility, but it does neither. It takes 3 rounds to nail the square down and even then nothing is proven.
Example: If someone cast a spell in an area an aura will linger. Maybe someone was just there. Maybe it is a trap. Maybe it someone invisible is there. Maybe a spell effect from a magical device was just operated in that location.
How about a first level witch with sleep hex?
Is that OP or what?
My favorite combo from way back was stinking cloud plus a mass of summoned undead and maybe my golem constructs that didn't need to breathe.
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Find the Path
Why has nobody else mentioned this one? This can ruin entire adventures.
"We must embark on an epic quest to find the lost City of The Ancients. But where in the world could it be?"
<Druid casts Find the Path>
"It's that way."
not every spell is overpowered.... do you mean that spellcasters in general are overpowered?
Ill Omen is pretty good, no hit/no save reroll your next d20 for the worse
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Find the Path
Why has nobody else mentioned this one? This can ruin entire adventures.
"We must embark on an epic quest to find the lost City of The Ancients. But where in the world could it be?"
<Druid casts Find the Path>
"It's that way."
I dunno..like most divinations, this can be nerfed hard depending on how your GM interprets things. For example, for an 11th level caster, how likely is it that the Lost City is less than a two hour trip away? FtP won't tell you where to teleport so you have to journey under your own power somehow.
But there's a reason most high level adventures don't involve finding a lost, but well-known and easily named, location. There are plots that just don't work as well at high levels. Personally I consider that a feature not a bug.
Or, as has been shown by Wayfinder and the very first Shackled City AP, the direct path to your destination does not have to be anything resembling the safest.
I have to ask the OP's definition of over-powered. Fabricate is hardly overpowered in a combat sense. Out of combat used wisely, it will break an economy.
Blood Money will destroy WBL.
Simulacarum can destroy a campaign.
Planar Ally for Efeeti wishes can take something off the rails.
Snowball is far more powerful then other attack spells its level.
---See the difference? One of those is not in balance. The others can turn 'magical reality' into a train wreck because of what they can do.
==Aelryinth
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I think instead of accepting the terrible balance paizo does, the community should hold them to a higher standard
I reject this idea, completely. You seem to assume that everyone abhors the fact that wizards are uber powerful beings and that martials can't keep up with them at high levels. It isn't true. I for one love the fact that the jocks must bend the knee to the frail wizards at high levels. Magic is supposed to trump "dudes with really good cardio", that's the whole idea.
And to infer that Paizo is responsible for this concept is misleading and not based in factual evidence, as the game is based on D&D 3.5, which was in turn based on previous editions of D&D which ALL had the wizard as the kings of high level play.
What is the means by which Simulacrum will destroy a campaign?
(it seems powerful and open to abuse but I'm not seeing the campaign breaking abuse)
I would start with a big pile of outsiders who can spam 50 buffs on the party. This destroys all concept of resource management
Then I would move on to using prayer beads+orange prism ioun stone and start making simulacrums of very high level outsiders. The simulacrums won't be nearly as powerful what they are duplicating, but even then a level 13 wizard being accompanied by Empyreal Lord simulacrums(that cost about 8k a pop) basically amounts to: All challenge is gone, the campaign is dead and on fire, please collect your "Fantastic Kosmic Power" pin at the door.
F***ing wizards.
Don't forget that you can also build simulacrums of your enemies to learn all their plans (though I guess they can do the same to you. Snow sculptures all the way down!)
Simulacrum is a spell that's incredibly abuseable, since there's nearly no limits on what you can make with it. Or rather, the limit is just that the base creature's hit dice isn't greater than DOUBLE your level. Hardly anything in the game has over 40 hit dice.
In practice, most GMs will shut that sort of crap down, but you'll occasionally see people on the boards seriously recommending making simulacrums of efreeti for endless wishes, multiple simulacrums of sorcerers to have roving fireball brigades, multiple simulacrums of Nocticula so you can get a Profane Ascension for every stat, etc.
2) Karzoug the Claimer has blood money.
3) If the GM chooses, the party could also find blood money in Mokmurian's spellbooks, and in the spellbooks of the various Runeforge wizards in book 5 (most of whom have spellbooks contain all Core Rulebook spells of particular schools up to level ____ (including the spells books of a 17th level illusionist, so 9th level spells right there), plus whatever other spells the GM would like to put in.)
wizards shine during high level play
warriors shine during low level play
it's a reality of this game that everyone should accept
The thing is that this is a LEVEL-BASED SYSTEM for a reason: people enjoy getting more powerful as the game progresses. Which casters inarguably do, so it's a success there. But martials, while they get a little bit more powerful than they were, get progressively LESS powerful compared to their peers and enemies as the game progresses. Which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what a level-based game is supposed to do.
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The thing is that this is a LEVEL-BASED SYSTEM for a reason: people enjoy getting more powerful as the game progresses. Which casters inarguably do, so it's a success there. But martials, while they get a little bit more powerful than they were, get progressively LESS powerful compared to their peers and enemies as the game progresses. Which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what a level-based game is supposed to do.wizards shine during high level play
warriors shine during low level play
it's a reality of this game that everyone should accept
really? Please get over it the game has been like this since the 70's man. This is not new. This is the game i love. paizo would get more flack gimping wizards than they would reinforcing the martials, WHICH THEY HAVE DONE SINCE DAY ONE.
Also, bashing paizo constantly seems to be thing for some of you now. How about you lot go bash D&D 5th edition for a while and see if they listen...
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you hate what Paizo has done? ok, that's your choice, and you can go play D&D once again if you want; you have a choice
as far as I'm concerned I think this has become a wonderful game and I wouldn't change it for anything; the new rogue has answered all my prayers and then some; the new fighter is great, and he can now have a battle worthy familiar that shares all his combat feats...
ladies, gents: this game is really fun; just stop whining and enjoy yourselves
Don't forget that you can also build simulacrums of your enemies to learn all their plans (though I guess they can do the same to you. Snow sculptures all the way down!)
Simulacrum is a spell that's incredibly abuseable, since there's nearly no limits on what you can make with it. Or rather, the limit is just that the base creature's hit dice isn't greater than DOUBLE your level. Hardly anything in the game has over 40 hit dice.
In practice, most GMs will shut that sort of crap down, but you'll occasionally see people on the boards seriously recommending making simulacrums of efreeti for endless wishes, multiple simulacrums of sorcerers to have roving fireball brigades, multiple simulacrums of Nocticula so you can get a Profane Ascension for every stat, etc.
** spoiler omitted **
Nowhere does it say a simulacarum of a being actually gets that being's memories. So, they don't.
They get the skills and knowledge rolls that are appropriate for those skills. But nothing specific to a specific creature they share the appearance of.
But it's all the power of more spellcasting and more free high level labor then anything, and the fact you can make simulcrums of very powerful beings you haven't even met yet.
==Aelryinth
Nowhere does it say a simulacarum of a being actually gets that being's memories. So, they don't.
They get the skills and knowledge rolls that are appropriate for those skills. But nothing specific to a specific creature they share the appearance of.
But it's all the power of more spellcasting and more free high level labor then anything, and the fact you can make simulcrums of very powerful beings you haven't even met yet.
==Aelryinth
They are an exact copy.
If they had no memories, they could not roll knowledge skills
Incorrect.
They can look like a snowball-clay version of a creature. They still become a version of it.
In the same way that Summoned creatures are not 'real' and don't have specific knowledge to individuals, yet can make knowledge checks despite ceasing to exist at the end of the spell, Simulacra can do the same.
If it had specific knowledge of the thing it was copied from, the spell would say so.
===Aelryinth
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I think instead of accepting the terrible balance paizo does, the community should hold them to a higher standardI reject this idea, completely. You seem to assume that everyone abhors the fact that wizards are uber powerful beings and that martials can't keep up with them athigh levels5th level and beyond.
Edited for truth.
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you hate what Paizo has done? ok, that's your choice, and you can go play D&D once again if you want; you have a choice
as far as I'm concerned I think this has become a wonderful game and I wouldn't change it for anything; the new rogue has answered all my prayers and then some; the new fighter is great, and he can now have a battle worthy familiar that shares all his combat feats...
ladies, gents: this game is really fun; just stop whining and enjoy yourselves
There wouldn't be a Pathfinder Unchained (that you obviously enjoy) without the tireless effort of 'critically minded' people like myself and others who so call 'bash Paizo' on this forums.
The designers listen to us, maybe you could as well.
A thank you would be nice.
i just came back from my regular Friday game... had a great time with my unchained rogue 2; I'm taking advantage right now 'cause you know, I have only 3 levels left before the fun runs out apparently
I didn't say the fun runs out. The term you used was "keep up". Without caster support, martials do not "keep up" so well. Magic items can help close the gap, but spellcasters have marked advantages that cannot be overcome without magical support.
Back in 3.5, a friend of mine played a barbarian through 20th level. He never stopped having fun. However, he certainly couldn't "keep up" with the spellcasters (in the party or their NPC foes) without his allied casters enabling him to do so.
i just came back from my regular Friday game... had a great time with my unchained rogue 2; I'm taking advantage right now 'cause you know, I have only 3 levels left before the fun runs out apparentlyI didn't say the fun runs out. The term you used was "keep up". Without caster support, martials do not "keep up" so well. Magic items can help close the gap, but spellcasters have marked advantages that cannot be overcome without magical support.
Back in 3.5, a friend of mine played a barbarian through 20th level. He never stopped having fun. However, he certainly couldn't "keep up" with the spellcasters (in the party or their NPC foes) without his allied casters enabling him to do so.
This has been my experience as well.
The party fighter in the group I am playing with manages to lay down the beats pretty well.
He would have been dead long ago if my sorcerer wasn't providing fly, prot/evil, glitterdust, haste and so on.
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Blood Money - there's a few places in RotRL you can get it.:** spoiler omitted **
2) Karzoug the Claimer has blood money.
3) If the GM chooses, the party could also find blood money in Mokmurian's spellbooks, and in the spellbooks of the various Runeforge wizards in book 5 (most of whom have spellbooks contain all Core Rulebook spells of particular schools up to level ____ (including the spells books of a 17th level illusionist, so 9th level spells right there), plus whatever other spells the GM would like to put in.)
For the first, that is not the case, either in the original printing or the Anniversary Edition... unless you were counting the random effect, I suppose, but that seems like it would require either luck or explicit player knowledge as an access method. Not all GMs have equal patience for the latter method.
The second has none prepared, just a wand (which would be harder to learn a spell from - I'm not sure there's a RAW way to do so). This is likely an oversight based on the original version, since the new version does not work well as a wand.
The words "If the GM chooses..." in the third are probably the most relevant portion - it's plausible, but is not inherently so. The 17th level <redacted> in question is specifically noted to have no transmutation spells, for obvious reasons.
i just came back from my regular Friday game... had a great time with my unchained rogue 2; I'm taking advantage right now 'cause you know, I have only 3 levels left before the fun runs out apparentlyI didn't say the fun runs out. The term you used was "keep up". Without caster support, martials do not "keep up" so well. Magic items can help close the gap, but spellcasters have marked advantages that cannot be overcome without magical support.
Back in 3.5, a friend of mine played a barbarian through 20th level. He never stopped having fun. However, he certainly couldn't "keep up" with the spellcasters (in the party or their NPC foes) without his allied casters enabling him to do so.
This has been my experience as well.
The party fighter in the group I am playing with manages to lay down the beats pretty well.
He would have been dead long ago if my sorcerer wasn't providing fly, prot/evil, glitterdust, haste and so on.
Loosely related but, my brother was playing a Paladin in my main campaign right now. He would have been dead with 0% chance of survival if he had been a Fighter. Heck, he would have been sweating it as a Barbarian or Ranger even, but we all noted that if he had been a Fighter there would have been no hope for him.
The thing that wrecked him so hard? Magic missile from some low level mooks. Some 3rd level CR 2 sorcerers. There were a few of them in the encounter and they picked a character and started nuking them with magic missiles. It's remarkable how frighteningly unbiased 6d4+6 damage is each round when the only defense is "be a mage" or "have a specific magic item that's rather expensive at low levels".
If he hadn't have been holding himself up with Lay on Hands spam every round, he'd have been a magical smear on the ground. As a Ranger, he probably could have at gained concealment and Stealthed before attacking from a better vantage (though Barbarian would have struggled).
Amusingly enough, a party that's actually mage-heavy has surprising longevity and killing potential. When 3/4ths of a 4 person party can loose scorching rays or acid arrows onto an enemy, it's essentially a death sentence for level-appropriate enemies, and these lower-level spells are the exact sort that you can spam to wreck enemies as your levels rise.
I've GM'd for mage-heavy parties before and they are very, very, veeeery effective. In fact, some of the tactics generally frowned upon as wastes of actions become obscenely strong in a party with multiple mages. For example, direct damage is questionable as a primary tactic for mages...unless there's lots of mages, in which case "save for half" means "save four times and still die".
Want to 1-round stuff way tougher than you? Have four mages all open up on a single high-profile target with a Book of Harms magic missile. 100 defense-ignoring damage. Costs them 1d4 HP each and a 1st level spell slot for an almost assuredly dead or critical enemy and they aren't even digging into their good spells.
When you start factoring in things like comboing spells and forming tactics to work with one-another, it gets really brutal. Being able to intelligently use party resources is really strong as mages as well. For example, converting that extra dosh that'd be going into expensive +X weapons into more pearls of power and components for spells like animate dead is really solid. Likewise, everyone talks about planar binding because you can bind djinn, but it's also an amazing spell for just getting meat-shields that can combo with your spells. For example, it's trivially easy to bind elementals into your services (their Cha sucks and they are no threat to you should they manage to resist, they can be bound with any magic circle, and their will saves make 'em easy pickings) which act as very potent meat shields against most foes (elementals pre-buffs tend to have pretty fair ACs and most have perfect damage reductions).
It can be a lot of fun to GM for.
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Book of Harms?
Yeah it's a special mage book you can buy. It's from Ultimate Magic. Basically whenever you prepare spells (wizards can prepare them multiple times in a single day) and prepare a certain number of evocation spells, you get a boon from the book. Specifically, when casting an evocation spell you can maximize it in exchange for taking 1d4 damage per level of the spell when it's cast. Magic missile is 1st level, so to maximize a magic missile from 5d4+5 to 25 damage costs 1d4 (average 2.5) HP.
It's one of my favorite spellbooks. It 2nd and 3rd level spells are frequently worth it as well since you can drop a maximized scorching ray spell for 2d4 damage to yourself, or a maximized lightning bolt or fireball for 3d4. Trading 7.5 Hp for 60 burst damage is pretty solid.
(No offense meant.) Binding and bargaining for allies and navigating planar politics.
None taken. As a GM, I've used my players using Planar Binding to drop plot-hooks into the game. There was a mini-campaign that went on during an old 3.5 campaign that was born of efreeti-dealings. Basically the party got on the good side of these efreeti who were granting them wishes, so then one day when they called 'em up, the Efreeti asked them to come help them because the efreeti themselves needed some heroes to come fix a problem they were having.
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One issue I always had with certain spells is that there's not really parity, especially when it comes to interaction.
Haste vs. slow is my preferred example. Since slow allows a save and haste doesn't, the former is a rare sight, while the latter is an absolute must-have for almost every party. The same applies to almost every buff - a character who would be competent is now near-untouchable, and 90% of foes can't interact with that part of the equation at all. My players tend to be pretty buff-crazy, and it's hard to keep up power-wise.
I don't really have a solution. Just venting, I guess. :)
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And I'm pretty sure that barbarian is the only reason those casters made it to that high level on more than one occasion. Especially if they were played Treantmonk style.
Back in 3.5, a friend of mine played a barbarian through 20th level. He never stopped having fun. However, he certainly couldn't "keep up" with the spellcasters (in the party or their NPC foes) without his allied casters enabling him to do so.
They were not played treantmonk style. At least not most of them.
One was a kobold sorcerer who spattered some neat spells and some polymorph stuff to model himself after a dragon (kind of like a kobold version of Ryu from Breath of Fire, he'd turn into a dragon when stuff got real). He eventually became a lich. On a side note, liches are actually really amazing in melee.
One was a wizard who favored abjuration/evocation magics. He broke spells and he broke faces. At one point during the game, he dropped the barbarian player's jaw when he obliterated everything in a room, including the room, melting faces and floors alike. The barbarian player was like "That was awesome!", and he was like "Yeah and I've got another one just like that prepared for later"! He also loved the resilient sphere spells.
Another was a shugenja healer. Arguably the weakest in the party in terms of tactical casting prowess, he basically threw healing spells around like a dispenser. He had a number of utility spells and trivialized encounters with undead creatures. Later on, he picked up dismissive spells to banish outsiders with and became a very effective sweeper as a result.
Another was a conjurer who specialized in summoning things and save or die spells. She kept some bound minions for certain utility purposes (succubi are great interrogators for example) and would summon creatures tactically. She would also one-shot enemies whom the rest of the party debuffed.
Each of them had their given specializations and roles and all of them had some measure of overlap as well. For example, if there was a high profile target, they could chain their castings to take that individual out in short order. The abjurer would strip any magical defenses from the target, the shugenja would Intimidate them, the sorcerer would pop a limited wish, and the conjurer would drop spells like flesh to stone, finger of death, or other "now you die" spells on that enemy. This is part of what I meant by comboing spells together to be incredibly potent.
EDIT: And actually, the barbarian was often as much a threat to their safety as anything else. Besides being a heavily armed (the casters made the barbarian lots and lots of magical shwag) and brutally strong, she also had a berserking weapon (which stacked with barbarian rage) that made her kind of a wild card when she started fighting so the party actually planned for the barbarian to be trying to kill them as well as the enemies and just made sure that the barbarian would be killing their enemies instead.
You can't put that kind of open ended geas on someone.Geas is 10 minute casting time with no save
Limited wish->Geas is 1 standard action to make someone do whatever you want ("obey me" is a good start, for example), no save.
If the instructions involve some open-ended task that the recipient cannot complete through his own actions, the spell remains in effect for a maximum of 1 day per caster level. A clever recipient can subvert some instructions.
Please check your facts before you post.
And I'm pretty sure that barbarian is the only reason those casters made it to that high level on more than one occasion. Especially if they were played Treantmonk style.
You meant Druid I'm sure.
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On the other hand, those spells are useless without something to cast them on of appropriate level, and are meant for that purpose. I don't see why we are supposed to treat this as a one on one arena game with two characters at the opposite ends of a field with someone yelling "FIGHT!!!" Buff spells are meant to buff. Others are meant to receive buffs. As part of the party. You know the group of pcs not collection of individuals who are completely self contained.i just came back from my regular Friday game... had a great time with my unchained rogue 2; I'm taking advantage right now 'cause you know, I have only 3 levels left before the fun runs out apparentlyI didn't say the fun runs out. The term you used was "keep up". Without caster support, martials do not "keep up" so well. Magic items can help close the gap, but spellcasters have marked advantages that cannot be overcome without magical support.
Back in 3.5, a friend of mine played a barbarian through 20th level. He never stopped having fun. However, he certainly couldn't "keep up" with the spellcasters (in the party or their NPC foes) without his allied casters enabling him to do so.
Which spells are you talking about, exactly? Buff spells? Because most of the best buff spells in the game are personal range only, unfortunately. A Cleric cannot cast divine power on the party's martial, they just become the party's martial with better will saves and immunities. >_>
If we're talking about spells like haste or whatever, actually those spells are amazing for casters. In some cases they can double the output for minions. For example, a hasted celestial t-rex has more than 100% throughput increase in damage from haste. And since haste affects 1 target / caster level, you can haste your entire team with it, which means hasting your caster buddies plus all their undead minions, bound outsiders, and so forth.
If you mean spells like greater magic weapon, it looks pretty badass when you slap it on the weapons of your Marilith. I mean, when you've bound a marilith, gifted her some better gear, cast greater spell immunity to make her immune to banishing spells, and buffed her up to 11th like you would a martial, well... >_>
For example, a Marilith (who's actually pretty weaksauce for her CR) has 6 full-BAB, full-Strength attacks with her weapons. Hasted brings her to 7. She has a naked AC of 32. If the party gives her their trash-items (a ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, whatever) and casts mage armor on her, her AC will be adequate for her intended purpose.
She's also a good target for chump spells like bull's strength and eagle's splendor, and her attack routine explodes under the might of greater heroism or good hope or god forbid Inspire Courage.
Which by the way, the mages have since your Lillend minion is granting +2 Inspire Courage to the marilith's attacks and damage.
And if the marilith dies, you can either reward her service by resurrecting her, or decide that there's one less demon in the universe and then animate her as a bloody marilith skeleton to serve as a fallback meatshield. She loses all of her SLAs and her aura and such but she's still a six-armed melee monstrocity that's now fanatically loyal and possesses fast healing 8.
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And I'm pretty sure that barbarian is the only reason those casters made it to that high level on more than one occasion. Especially if they were played Treantmonk style.You meant Druid I'm sure.
I've found that druids can solo most adventure paths at low levels. Having played/GMed through the beginnings of Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne, I can say with confidence that a 15 point buy druid can wreck the first books of those by her lonesome, if not the entire campaign.
Honestly the only thing that makes casters "weak" at low levels is they tend to be somewhat fragile by comparison to martials. However, humorously, at low levels the real differences in their stats are almost solely tied to their ability scores. A Fighter only has a +5% chance to hit over a 1st level bard, cleric, druid, wizard, or sorcerer assuming the same ability scores.
I'd definitely take a Cleric though. A good cleric will have a similar ability score loadout to a Fighter, better saving throws, and way better utility, at the cost of 1 HP / level. The BAB loss isn't even much of an issue because cleric buffs are great and at later levels when the BAB difference actually means something, quickened divine power says you're actually better than the base Fighter (+5% more hit chance, more HP, etc) and you get a +6 to damage to boot (which actually means that you essentially have uber-weapon-specialization). That's 1 buff. The fact the cleric is also immune to lots of bad spells and has freedom of movement on demand without spending an action is icing on the cake.