Genuinely Broken Things

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Lago_AM3P
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Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Remember a long time ago, back when 'broken' actually used to mean that it literally completely stopped the game, as opposed to causing people who had a preconceived notion of 'perfect balance' to throw a hissy fit? I do. Nowadays, you see trivial stuff like 'bastard swords: broken?' or 'are kensai broken' littering the boards. So, as a memorial to things that are truly, utterly broken in this game, I've started this post.

Things that are or were genuinely broken in this or the last edition.

Spelldancer infinite combo (3.0E)
Shapechange 3.5E
Polymorph Any Object
Mirror of Opposition
Gate
Simacrulum
Maho Tsukai
Prayer beads of karma (3.5E)
Dust of Sneezing and Choking
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by da_chicken »

Orange prism ioun stones
Incantatrix's Improved Metamagic (MaoF)
Miasma
3.0 heal and harm at epic levels
3.0 haste over 15th level
Fabricate
1E Quiver of Ehlonna (taken literally, could be commanded to produce any item even if it wasn't stored within it)
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

I'm going to have to disagree on Miasma, Fabricate, heal, and haste. Remember "broken" does not mean "you would be stupid not to use it" or "it's really good" or even "it's so good that other people feel inferior when you even mention that it is available to you" - it means that the game cannot continue because the numbers generated by the effect are so big that the game simply folds in on itself right there and then.

Miasma makes a living creature die unless it gets help, after the battle. In a tactical wargame, that doesn't make any difference - so it's not broken (it's just very deadly when used against PCs).

Fabricate just gives you all the money you want - to the limit of the saturation levels of the area you are in. That breaks the game if there are purchasable items in the game which will themselves break the game. That's such a big "if" that I submit that what is broken is not, in fact, Fabricate (there are other money loops, after all, including simply being an Elf and working a day job for 200 years between adventures) - but rather the DMG guideline that you should be able to purchase arbitrarily large amounts of magic items. After all, if such magic items are purchasable, they are also available to be stolen - which means that we must consider skills like Sleight of Hand and Move Silently to be "broken" by equal or greater measure.

Heal allows people to overcome hit point damage in 3rd edition. At Epic Levels, people can do thousands of points of damage (killing you beyond the reach of even Heal), but more importantly, everyone and their mom hands out a death effect. Hit Points don't really mean anything at 28th level, so the ability to cure all of them in one go isn't broken or even meaningful.

Haste gives everyone an extra action. Everyone. It's used by both sides and every party member at 15th level. It isn't even close to broken because everyone has it. It doesn't give any special advantage to anyone over anyone else. The only time Haste is "unbalancing" (by which we mean that it gives more weight to one group than to another) is for a brief period around 10th level when Wizards have it and Rogues don't.

Note also that the Karma Bead was stackable and affordable, even mass producable, in 3rd edition. It is probably broken tin 3rd edition as gaining 40 caster levels pretty much bent the game over a chair (although of course, gaining 400 levels in 3.5 is naturally even better).

Now, here's some additions:

1> Blasphemy/Dictum/Holy Word/Word of Chaos.
2> Wildshape
3> Trap the Soul
4> 3.5 Alter Self.
5> Awaken
6> Ur Priest combined with Nar Demonbinder (or any other class whose caster level is dependent upon your other caster levels)
7> Planar Binding
8> Shades
9> Minor Creation (and Major Creation)
10> Hallow/Unhallow
11> Unlimited Use Wondrous Architecture
12> Vampires
13> Polymorph in either addition

That ought to do it. If you need a run down on how any of these provide for unlimited power, irresistable force, or immovable objects I'll be happy to oblige.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Alright, how about unhallow/hallow?

I can easily see all the rest of those, but I'm wondering about hallow/unhallow, as I'm collecting all the hideously broken things and attempting to fix them, I'd like to know any that I've missed.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

Unhallow is an instantaneous spell. While it can be countered by Hallow (or Unhallow, for that matter), it cannot be removed at all save by a very generous reading of Desecrate.

While up it prevents Angels/Demons from even entering the area.

Since the spell is huge, lasts forever, can't be removed, and is quick and free for powerful demons and angels, one can logically conclude that weak angels and demons are unable to enter every patch of land big enough to rub a Balors thumb and forefinger together in.

That's why it's broken. Summon Monster and its ilk simply cannot function if Hallow and Unhallow work as described.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Terror_Beach_Party »

hi everyone!

First post here, and i like what i see so far!

just curious about your assertion that Shades is broken?

We used to use it with Major Creation in a broken fashion back in 3.0. Although I thought with Conjuration (Creation), the loophole was fixed.

So how is Shades broke?

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

In 3rd edition, Shades can be used to great hillarity to reproduce lengthy Calling and Creation spells and break the game.

In 3.5, Shades has become higher level and thus now allows you to cast Trap the Soul, with a range, instantly, with no material components.

You can cast any version of the spell, including the targetted one which allows no save or SR.

So they get one Will Save, which if it succeeds still leaves them with an 80% chance of becoming your Pokemon.

Even if you don't know their name - a Trap the Soul gem lasts forever until used - which means that you can store Shades castings for an unlimited duration. Every time you cast it you get a new Pokeball that lasts until used.

It always bypasses time components, maerial components, vile components, and xp components. Which means that fundamentally any time you have any duplicable spell which is so powerful for its level that it is limited by, well, anything at alll - that limitation is gone.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Terror_Beach_Party »

interesting.

i wonder what the designers had intended on the average d&d gamer to use the Shades spell for? they must have foreseen or playtested Shades applying to 7th and 8th level Conj (Summ) and Conj (Creat) spells. my guess is they realize that Shades can abuse Trap the Soul (especially circumventing that expensive material compontn) and just figured that this is the power level that a 9th level spell should have in the first place. Again, i'm just trying to figure out the designers way of thinking here (I know, probably not a wise thing to try and do. :tonguesmile: )
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

TBP wrote:they must have foreseen or playtested Shades applying to 7th and 8th level Conj (Summ) and Conj (Creat) spells.


Looks at 3.5 PHB, notices that there are no playtester credits.

Here's an anecdote for you:

Andy Collins was having a question and answer about 3.5 online. He was proudly displaying his "fix" of Gate so it now cost 1,000 XP to cast the calling version.

But then someone pointed out that you can still use Gate for the Free Vacation on the Negative Material Plane: No Save. That is, you call your enemy to go hand roll taquitos on the negative energy plane, where he'll take damage every round and just stands there like a valet while your entire party does knee-drops on his spine. Even Epic creatures have no particular way to survive that.

Andy Collins wrote:Congratulations, you just found a 1000 xp death effect.


Which means that

1: He did not, in fact, foresee the uses of the 9th level spells, or even keep up on what people were actually able to do with them in previous editions.

and

2: He didn't read DMG where it says that killing a CR 17 enemy gives players more than 1,000 xp.

So I think the designer's way of thinking here is to look at one problem at a time, then change the spell so that the particular problem you were considering can't be reproduced, and then wander off and claim victory regardless of the fact that you may have just created another larger problem or left other problematic aspects undamaged.

So as soon as you could no longer Shades in a Lesser Planar Binding - he stamped the spell "solved" and moved on...

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Tae_Kwon_Dan »

For the Gate cheese I need a canned Frank response to the argument that you don't get CR for creatures you Gate in yourself. I think it was you, or Paul S., that made a compelling argument as to why that didn't apply here and I can't remember it.

I also loved how Andy missed that Gate is immune to Deathward and has no saving throw or SR which makes it utterly unlike a death effect in any way.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

That was originally Paul Sulin, yes. While I invented the Simulacrum farming, Paul S gets the credit for the Free Vacation: No Save.

As to the canned response to the argument that you don't get CR for creatures you Gate in yourself, it goes something like this:

The rule is
Do not award XP for creatures that enemies summon or otherwise add to their forces with magic powers. An enemy's ability to summon or add these creatures is part of the enemy's CR already.


Which completely does not apply.

However:

a dangerous encounter that the PCs defeat handily through luck or excellent strategy is worth full XP.


Does apply in this situation.

The question is: would the monster be a threat if you didn't gate it into the beatings room?

With the "summon monster" spell line - the answer is no. The creature would not even exist. With Gate - the answer is definately yes.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Absentminded_Wizard »

I don't get this. How can an encounter with a creature you control, and who disappears at the end of the spell's duration anyway, be considered dangerous?
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

The same way that waiting until a minotaur is asleep and then stabbing them is dangerous. The same way that you casting hold monster on an enemy and then slitting their throat is dangerous.

If you hadn't controlled them with Gate, how dangerous would it be? If you hadn't frozen them with Hold Monster, how dangerous would it be?

The only difference between Gate and Hold Monster is that your enemy does not get a save or spell resistance. Which means the spell is broken, but does not mean that you don't get experience for using it.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by User3 »

Vow of Poverty

Become 18th level. Liquify all assets and spend them on tomes and permanent spells from npcs like greater magic fang. Have an epiphany and become an ascetic. Take Vow of Poverty as your 18th level feat. You now have, effectively, the wealth of an 18th level character and all of the benefits of Vow of Poverty. Retarded.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Lago_AM3P »

That's not broken.

That's handing out power above what the rules say you should have, but that won't bring the game to a grinding halt.

When I say 'broken', I mean things like mirror of opposition, where you can use it quite trivially to gain unlimited wishes and cohorts and magical items or unlimited anything that's tangible. That's broken.

Druids getting to keep enhancement bonuses to their stats when Vow of Povertied (especially doing it at 18th level) is not.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by User3 »

Yeah, you're right. I just came up with the idea and was anxious to share heh.

It does at least have the potential to screw up the game by throwing off the party's power balance and pissing everybody off. You can't really compete with it too well.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

Better, you can actually gain alll the tangible benefits of wealth while being an Ascetic from day one.

You see, you are allowed to keep "spell components" - which in turn can include Diamonds, and other precious gems. So long as you take only precious stones as your share of the treasure - you can still get and keep a full share. Meanwhile you get all the Ascetic benefits and are accumulating a grip of extra feats.

At sixth level, take Leadership, and have a cohort and some followers - who will use all of the magic items out of your share of the treasure. Spend your "spell components" money on having permanent beneficial spells cast upon you.

All of the benefits of wealth, and all of the benefits of "poverty". Probably overpowered, and certainly stupid, but not on the level of "broken" as discussed here in this thread.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Absentminded_Wizard »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1076433882[/unixtime]]The same way that waiting until a minotaur is asleep and then stabbing them is dangerous. The same way that you casting hold monster on an enemy and then slitting their throat is dangerous.

If you hadn't controlled them with Gate, how dangerous would it be? If you hadn't frozen them with Hold Monster, how dangerous would it be?

The only difference between Gate and Hold Monster is that your enemy does not get a save or spell resistance. Which means the spell is broken, but does not mean that you don't get experience for using it.

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There's another difference between Gate and Hold Monster. Hold Monster makes a creature that is in your immediate vicinity helpless. If you're fighting something and you cast Hold Monster and then do a coup de gras, you've used a spell to defeat an encounter that was already there.

OTOH, if you use Gate to call a creature and order it to count do something innocuous while the party beats it to death, you're using magic to create an encounter that isn't even threatening. Not only is the creature helpless, but it wouldn't even be in your immediate vicinity if you hadn't gated it in. This use of the spell can barely be called an encounter, which pretty much rules out the possibility that it's a "dangerous encounter."
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Lago_AM3P »

OTOH, if you use Gate to call a creature and order it to count do something innocuous while the party beats it to death, you're using magic to create an encounter that isn't even threatening. Not only is the creature helpless, but it wouldn't even be in your immediate vicinity if you hadn't gated it in. This use of the spell can barely be called an encounter, which pretty much rules out the possibility that it's a "dangerous encounter."


You mean like sending a DC 30 demand to Teh World's Greatest Fightah to, when he challenges the party's PC fighter to an arena duel for the fate of a planet, to leave all of his magic gear at home and fight in the buff?
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

Exactly. Once you are casting spells on a specific character you are having an encounter - regardless of the fact that you may be too far away for them to fight back effectively. If you fly in to an area guarded by Ankhegs and mow them down with archery - that's still an encounter despite the fact that the manner you entered it precluded them from fighting back.

If you use divination magics to find out when the Minotaur will sleep, then sneak in and cut his throat - that's also an encounter.

Casting Demand on someone who is standing at the brink of a volcanic caldera to jump in is an encounter and you do get experience for it. Casting Gate to force someone to hand roll taquitos is also an encounter, or rather, it's the beginning of one.

If the manner of you entering combat makes your opponent worthless that does not make people get zero xp for it. You don't even get less, it's just good tactics.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by da_chicken »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1076313612[/unixtime]]I'm going to have to disagree on Miasma, Fabricate, heal, and haste. Remember "broken" does not mean "you would be stupid not to use it" or "it's really good" or even "it's so good that other people feel inferior when you even mention that it is available to you" - it means that the game cannot continue because the numbers generated by the effect are so big that the game simply folds in on itself right there and then.


I'm not going to argue on the semantic meaning of "broken". It's a stupid argument. To me, something is broken if it wrecks game balance completely or changes the game by itself in some fundamental way. But then, I come from M:tG, where that's what broken cards do.

IMX, those spells made the game unplayable when employed. Maybe not until the levels I cite, but once there the game was an exercise in futility.

Miasma makes a living creature die unless it gets help, after the battle. In a tactical wargame, that doesn't make any difference - so it's not broken (it's just very deadly when used against PCs).


Yeah, well, "hit and run" is a valid tactic. It's one that should not be as deadly as this spell makes it. A druid with ye olde wand of miasma can time kill a party in under a minute and then leave them to die. It's like the death counter from FF. The spell also transforms a spellcaster into a warrior or commoner for an entire battle.

Fabricate


Actually, I should have said wall of iron. Fabricate itself makes the game pretty stupid in a lot of ways, but doesn't break the game.

Wall of iron, however, is just stupid. Iron is a commodity like food or gold. It has inherent value. The game is predicated on having limited quantities of wealth at hand. Why is there a spell that allows me to create unlimited quantities of this stuff? Wall of stone is almost as bad.

Heal allows people to overcome hit point damage in 3rd edition. At Epic Levels, people can do thousands of points of damage (killing you beyond the reach of even Heal), but more importantly, everyone and their mom hands out a death effect. Hit Points don't really mean anything at 28th level, so the ability to cure all of them in one go isn't broken or even meaningful.


/me shrugs. My epic games have differed greatly from yours.

Haste gives everyone an extra action. Everyone. It's used by both sides and every party member at 15th level. It isn't even close to broken because everyone has it. It doesn't give any special advantage to anyone over anyone else. The only time Haste is "unbalancing" (by which we mean that it gives more weight to one group than to another) is for a brief period around 10th level when Wizards have it and Rogues don't.


"Everyone needs and has it so it's not broken"? The heck kind of argument is that? Especially since many would say that if everyone needs it then it is broken. If the game wants to give an ability to everyone, give it to everyone as a rule, not a spell. Just give us more actions, movement, etc.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Lago_AM3P »

"Everyone needs and has it so it's not broken"? The heck kind of argument is that? Especially since many would say that if everyone needs it then it is broken. If the game wants to give an ability to everyone, give it to everyone as a rule, not a spell. Just give us more actions, movement, etc.


On what grounds?

It seems to me that almost any character needs these things on a basic, basic level: hp, saves, AC, and attack and damage bonuses. If you want to become even more basic, it's the ability to survive attacks and overcome the opposition.

You need these things. No fooling. This means that everyone not on a natural armor scheme either wears armor or has a high dexterity. Or they lose. Having that, along with other things, is just a part of the game, like a row of pawns in front of your pieces for Chess or being able to put houses on your property in monopoly.

Now, if only people who played the battleship could not buy houses or white had to forgo half of its pawns, that would be hideously broken. But you have these things at no cost or virtually no cost. For example, blowing 8,000 gold pieces for a +1 magic beast bane weapon pumped by Greater Magic Weapon is not broken, as it costs parties able to take on the tarrasque NOTHING, even though you pretty much need it to survive. This is still fair even if the tarrasque has damage reduction 60/epic. It is not fair if magic beast bane weapons were a +8 enchantment.

Or if that example is too outlandish, incorporeal undead. If you don't have magical weapons, period, you just roll over and die. Of course, by the time you get to fight wraiths and whatnot, you already have them. Big deal.

Similarly, pumping up the party with mass haste or haste boots or whatever cost either side of the opposition essentially nothing. Just like pumping up a batch of arrows from a level 8 party with extended greater magic weapon (before the wizard prepares real spells) before you take on lantern archons. It's just part of the game.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Lago_AM3P »

I'm not going to argue on the semantic meaning of "broken". It's a stupid argument. To me, something is broken if it wrecks game balance completely or changes the game by itself in some fundamental way.


You mean like magic swords, prestige classes, cohorts, teleports, healing, form-changing, etc.?

Haste changed the game fundamentally, it's true. But overcoming challenges just by being able to act more in a given time span doesn't sound silly or unwanted--I don't find the fact that the Big Boyz all having to move superfast (from haste) straining my suspension of disbelief any more than ALL of the successful basic fighter-types being bulked-out masculinists in pastel bikini briefs by lieu of a strength score surpassing the mid 30s.
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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Username17 »

Especially since many would say that if everyone needs it then it is broken.


Such as trail rations, holy symbols, 50 feet of rope, pitons, and water?

Something can be broken if not having it causes you to lose and it's difficult to get. If you don't have water, your character dies of thirst and you lose. But water isn't hard to get. Not only is it available for free in most places, but enough water for everyone to live on can be conjured with a cantrip by multiple characters in the party. So water is not broken.

At higher levels, more things become required - magical weapons or force effects to damage incorporeal enemies; sources of fire or water to kill enemy trolls; and so on. So long as these things are available, however, it's not a problem or "broken" any more than the water requirement is.

Haste at 17th level is a trivial expense. If you don't have it you are at a distinct disadvantage - but you don't even automatically lose like you would if you didn't have access to elemental damage sources and were going up against Trolls. It really fails all possibilities of the brokenness query - having it does not make you automatically win, not having it does not make you automatically lose, and getting it is not beyond the means of any character.

If you want to talk marginally broken - let's talk about people in 3.5 who have large Silver DR. Alchemical Silver weapons in 3.5 are expensive and crappy, so getting one is a large drain on your resources with relatively little tangible benefit - but if you don't have one against a vampire you are about to get your butt handed to you. It's something you need, but you probably don't have it - which means that you can make a compelling case for it being broken.

I don't know what to say about Miasma that hasn't been said a thousand times. It's not difficult to get around.

As for Wall of Iron, or Fabricate, or Planeshift, orany other money making scheme - if you can generate enough money to buy enough swag to unbalance the game, then you could just steal it with equal or less effort. The concept of balancing the game by cash value is inherently unworkable and broken if the PCs don't feel like playing along. Previous editions were not balanced by gp value, it's a new concept in 3rd edition and it doesn't work unless the players actively choose to allow it to. So no individual money-making scheme is individually broken. The rule which is broken is the money/power guideline.

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Re: Genuinely Broken Things

Post by Absentminded_Wizard »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1076518328[/unixtime]]Exactly. Once you are casting spells on a specific character you are having an encounter - regardless of the fact that you may be too far away for them to fight back effectively. If you fly in to an area guarded by Ankhegs and mow them down with archery - that's still an encounter despite the fact that the manner you entered it precluded them from fighting back.

If you use divination magics to find out when the Minotaur will sleep, then sneak in and cut his throat - that's also an encounter.

Casting Demand on someone who is standing at the brink of a volcanic caldera to jump in is an encounter and you do get experience for it. Casting Gate to force someone to hand roll taquitos is also an encounter, or rather, it's the beginning of one.

If the manner of you entering combat makes your opponent worthless that does not make people get zero xp for it. You don't even get less, it's just good tactics.

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I'll concede that point for situations where the creature you gate in is a creature that you must face in order to complete some task necessary to the adventure. But this whole conversation is based on TKD's idea that you could pull this trick with a really high-HD creature that has nothing to do with the adventure just to get cheap XP. He didn't explicitly state it here but that's what he's been saying in other places. I'm arguing that this use of the spell in those circumstances wouldn't earn XP. AFAICT, based on my reading of the (admittedly 3.0) DMG, it's only an encounter if the DM has decided that it's part of the adventure.

I agree that Gate is well and truly broken, since it allows any party with a 17th-level wizard or 18th-level sorcerer to defeat almost any non-divine being in the universe, making any BBEG short of the god of ultimate evil no challenge whatsoever. But it doesn't allow you to get free XP just for the heck of it.
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