Quote from: jibbajibba;564614I picked on Wish because its a pointless spell. I can't wish to be as strong as a Storm Giant because the rules specifically limit it for gamist reasons.

So you're complaining because Wish isn't broken enough?

Quote from: S'mon;564608Polymorph Other (taking 1e version) is fine as a 1-shot kill that allows a save IMO; if you have actually taken the months of play needed to get an M-U 1 up to M-U 7 then you deserve that kind of power.

But it is broken as a spell that lets you turn all your level 0 mook followers into dragons, as per the example in the PHB.  Polymorp Other to frog or pig is fine but I'm not allowing Polymorph Other to Red Dragon, Gold Dragon etc.

Part of the problem with the original question is that so much of a person's subjective opinion on whether a spell is broken or not depends on so many other factors. What's your setting? What's your playstyle? Which write-up of the spell are you using? Which other rules are you using? Is getting to 7th level easy or hard? Is gaining a new spell easy or hard? Are you using system shock? Are you using spell components? Are you adding any house rules?

For example, so much of the (supposedly-imbalanced) "turning henchmen into dragons" issue depends on whether you are using the loyalty rules. Ignoring the issues of system shock, personality change, and which red dragon write-up you are using: Does your henchman want to be a dragon? Does your henchman trust you to turn him into a dragon and not something else? Does your henchman think he'll be safer in dragon form, or does he think you'll make him take bigger risks? Does he as a dragon think you are treating him with the respect he's due? Does he still think he should obey you? Does a whole team of red dragons feel the same way about you as just one red dragon?

Quote from: Bill;564646How about a charmed follower who is told it is a helpful enchantment?

Another example of "Which rules are you using, and are you using all of them?" Do you think Charm Person is mind control, or just an automatic best friend? Will your "best friend" believe anything you tell them? Will your "best friend" do everything you tell them? Will Charm Person work when the victim is no longer a person? Are you still using loyalty rules for charmed followers?

And all of these questions are in the context of one big question: who drives the plot, GM or player? To people who play GM-driven plots, creating an army of polymorphed dragon henchmen sounds scary. To those who play player-driven plots, it sounds like an opportunity. Imagine you *aren't* the 7th level caster, for a moment, but a bunch of low-level guys in a world where this one 7th level guy starts creating an army of charmed polymorphed red dragon henchmen. How do you react to this news? How does the world as a whole react to this news?

Quote from: Bill;564804Did you miss my example of 'All elves removed from the world and imprisoned in Archeron' ? The child was one example. Not that a child lost among the planes is the same as child lost in the local woods

What are the challenges that you think are fit for a high level party?

Impersonate an Emperer?
Trivial.
Scry, true seeing, etherealness, improved invisibility, teleport, esp, alterself , etc...etc...

Absolutely. An appropriate challenge is to infiltrate the prison of lost souls on the plane of Acheron itself, recover the rune child that is key to the ritual that will fade the barriers between the worlds and cover the material plane in second darkness, facing opponents who have similar abilities, who can summon legions of their followers to their help, track the PCs across the planes by themselves scrying, plane jumping, teleporting and so on.

Quote from: Bill;564804I will not use an example of "Conquer a nation" as that is a bunch of smaller tasks, each of which is trivial. Assasinate a leader, frame a contender, lead an army astray, all are trivial with high level magic.

Indeed, those are challenges for mid-level characters, around level 7-12. Giant series and all that.

Quote from: Bill;564804Again...the only obstacle is 'Your magic fails'

No. The obstacle is "okay, your magic succeeds, AND the situation is WAY more complicated than facing a bunch of orc marauders, AND your opponents can do the same things right back at you, AND the stakes are higher than ever, which has more consequences on the rest of the campaign, etc etc."

Quote from: talysman;564827So you're complaining because Wish isn't broken enough?

?

No i am complaining that wish is so broken that it comes out of the box nerfed

It's like buying a porche and finding it comes limited to 3rd gear and 40 MPH....

Why include it if its too tough to actually use.

Quote from: Benoist;564822Because that's not the kind of mundane threats the high level party is supposed to face. It's not a problem for beings that are quasi-mythical, unless of course other quasi-mythical beings, including maybe the child himself, are involved. And THEN, well, the adventure becomes a whole 'nother kettle of fish, and involves different kinds of opponents, caveats, problems which are not necessarily solved with just a crystal ball and a teleport spell...

Such threats need not be mundane.  I've had high level characters faced with the problem of finding someone important to them for 'personal reasons'.  A child pick-pocket that was a recurring character from the beginning of the adventuring career might very well be a child that they 'want to find', and not know why the child is missing.  

Such a set-up CAN be the beginning of a high-level adventure.  But if that's the setup you're using, you also have to start figuring out why scry won't work.  High level adventuring is HARD for the DM - because unless you have a level of rules mastery to really know what the PCs can do with a particular 'combination' of spells or abilities, what is supposed to be a 3-session mega-adventure could turn into 5 minutes of bypassing everything and skipping to the end.  Or, if you don't allow that, you have to figure out 'why not?'.  That's probably alright if you've been working that type of stuff in from the beginning - but why is it that 1st level dungeons are easy to teleport inside, but high level dungeons have teleport blocking walls.  

The problem with high level spells is that ensuring they don't 'break' the game in 'unforseen ways' means using a lot of foresight - which can be a lot of unncessary work if the game never reaches those levels anyway.  And if you haven't played at those levels a lot, you probably don't have direct experience to help you understand what the problems might be anyway - a good DM that has tons of experience at low- to mid-levels can easily be overwhelmed or rely on DM-Fiat as a game breaking crutch when they get to high-level games.  Not every game breaks.  No game NEEDs to break; but most games do.  At least, that's my experience.  The game isn't as fun at high levels if the challenges aren't as rewarding.  High level players are seldom in 'real danger'.  Not the way you were at 1st level when you were a single crit away from defeat...

Quote from: Benoist;564828Absolutely. An appropriate challenge is to infiltrate the prison of lost souls on the plane of Acheron itself, recover the rune child that is key to the ritual that will fade the barriers between the worlds and cover the material plane in second darkness, facing opponents who have similar abilities, who can summon legions of their followers to their help, track the PCs across the planes by themselves scrying, plane jumping, teleporting and so on.


Indeed, those are challenges for mid-level characters, around level 8-12. Giant series and all that.


No. The obstacle is "okay, your magic succeeds, AND the situation is WAY more complicated than facing a bunch of orc marauders, AND your opponents can do the same things right back at you, AND the stakes are higher than ever, which has more consequences on the rest of the campaign, etc etc."

Divination/Legend lore/etc... will warn of the threat beyond the orcs. Its only a surprise if... "Your magic fails"

Yes, you can zing pc's with uber magic just like they themselves use, but in my experience that is not fun for the players.

If every obstacle has a hidden obstacle behind it, you are essentially telling the players they can't succeed. That can work, but you can't do it all the time.

Or....It sounds like a series of trivial tasks. Adding another easily achieved task does not add challenge.

On 1e Polymorph Other, on reflection I may have been back-projecting my bad experiences with 3e D&D's broken polymorph spells onto 1e. The 1e version as written does have several limiters. As long as you don't let it turn NPCs into Pit Fiends or Solars, I think it may be ok.

Quote from: Bill;564834Divination/Legend lore/etc... will warn of the threat beyond the orcs. Its only a surprise if... "Your magic fails"

Yes, you can zing pc's with uber magic just like they themselves use, but in my experience that is not fun for the players.

If every obstacle has a hidden obstacle behind it, you are essentially telling the players they can't succeed. That can work, but you can't do it all the time.

Or....It sounds like a series of trivial tasks. Adding another easily achieved task does not add challenge.

This is a typical High level Magic user game.

Her Most Melificent Empresses Melisande D'Ostermel is hosting a Gand Ball to celebrate the quintruple birthing of her quixhound Selima Mountjay out of Belorashon Highpeaks. She has asked the Long Staves to take care of the event on her behalf and rovide everytign from the catering to the entertainment.

There you go. The party are the members of The Long Staves a famed and reputed brotherhood of wizards. All they have to do is throw a super party.

Of course we have to decide who gets to be the Master of Ceremonies, who gets to provide the entertainment and so on and so forth. it will no doubt involve them stealing eggs from beneath the noses of the Glittering Frondes  of Hessibub, recruiting the services of the great minstrel Hepizub Hoachan III.
Of course the players will each want to present a gift that outshines all the other gifts.
Now in the background they may be a darstardly plot or they may not.

Quote from: jibbajibba;564852This is a typical High level Magic user game.

Her Most Melificent Empresses Melisande D'Ostermel is hosting a Gand Ball to celebrate the quintruple birthing of her quixhound Selima Mountjay out of Belorashon Highpeaks. She has asked the Long Staves to take care of the event on her behalf and rovide everytign from the catering to the entertainment.

There you go. The party are the members of The Long Staves a famed and reputed brotherhood of wizards. All they have to do is throw a super party.

Of course we have to decide who gets to be the Master of Ceremonies, who gets to provide the entertainment and so on and so forth. it will no doubt involve them stealing eggs from beneath the noses of the Glittering Frondes  of Hessibub, recruiting the services of the great minstrel Hepizub Hoachan III.
Of course the players will each want to present a gift that outshines all the other gifts.
Now in the background they may be a darstardly plot or they may not.

That's pretty close to what I do in games, but the actual tasks that the wizards perform are trivial with high level magic. Stealing eggs, for example, is too easy with magic. Much more fun when you have to be clever.

That scenario would be ten times as fun with level 2 wizards.

I would amend my previous list. New spells in bold, also added explanations.

3.5

Spells which actually make playing the game unfun if used/used in any obviously good way:

Lesser/Regular/Greater Planar Binding: Being able to turn spell slots on off day into companions is broken. Having access to anything you can fish out of a MM is broken. Being able to spend three spell slots to have a Creature of Greater CR than your character as a combatant in every combat is broken.

Gate: All the problems of Planar Binding. Also, Gating the BBEG to stand still while you beat on him.

Wish: it's really easy to avoid the XP cost, and then wish for any stupid item in the game, instantly breaking it.

Dread Warrior: When your party level is level 11 because your party consists of a single level 15 Wizard, but you also have level 20 Dread Warrior Wizards and Fighters, that's fucking broken.

Mordenkainen's/Mage's/Game Disjunction: There is a reason it's called Game Disjunction, and it's not just that you permanently lose wealth from casting it or having it cast on you, though that is also a problem. The broken part is that this is a level 20 Wizard.

And while he's not particularly standard for a Wizard, his item list is pretty standard. And when you cast Game Disjunction on him 1) All his buffs disappear, which requires a lot of accounting. 2) You have to roll 25 will saves, and adjudicate what happens when each item that failed it's save is destroyed. (IE, Bag of Holding is different from Luckstone is different from Circlet of Rapid Casting is Different from Headband of Intellect.)

Mindrape: Same as Dread Warrior, but even worse with Gate. Gate in an Epic Dragon, Mindrape.

Spells which fundamentally change the nature of the game to be very different:

Animate Dead
Charm/Dominate Person/Animal/Monster
Control Undead.
Anything else that gives a permanent minion: Changes the game to Logistics and Dragons, where you have to minion micromanage for absolute power.

Scry/Teleport Combo: Fundamentally changes how people operate in the world by enforcing weird rules about always living in weird as fuck ways. I always forget this one because I play Tome, which fixes it.

Quote from: Bill;564826Depends on the nature of the child, the circumstances. But regardless....

Why can't you solve those problems with a crystal ball and teleport?

You are not following. You can use crystal balls and teleports, but that's not an adventure ender by any means. Let's say you do use the crystal ball and somehow look over the planes to find out where the Runechild is. You find out he is imprisoned in a Forcecage in the Tower or Woe overlooking the Ocean of Impure Thoughts, a psychoactive sea where the souls of all the worst criminals and wrongdoers float for eternity waiting to one day maybe becomes lemures themselves, spreading their tendrils from the depth to reach the cage hanging over them. The Tower itself is part of the Fortress of the Seven, a physical incarnation of the powers all Seven Sins hold on mortal men.

Sure you might teleport or plane shift there. Then you'll have an army of this hell's denizens waiting for you, aware of the ruptures caused to the planes as they are themselves ripping through its fabric to call their brothers and sisters to their help. Assuming you miraculously get there and don't get slammed by dimensional anchors to then escape the tower right back, you are going to be hounded down not only by this hell's denizens who surely will want the Runechild right back, but also by their mortal servants, spellcasters and clerics themselves, who will be contacted by their overlords and will use their own crystal balls to locate you.

The point is: you can use crystal balls and plane shifts and teleport spells, but where these would have been adventure enders at low level, these are actually adventure starters at mid-high levels, because the opposition can and will do it right back to you. It's a LOT more complicated than one thinks, and not just a matter of getting in and out of Hell. Now. Take any spell, and complications come in in similar fashion due to the nature of the milieu as its scale grows around the PCs and its powers become aware of the threat they represent. A spell like Find the Path is fine when you have a straight path to your goal, but what if that straight path reveals itself to be the most challenging and complicated out of them all?

Wish is in a ballpark all of its own. Be careful. VERY careful what you wish for, because it'll always bring complications you did not intend.

Quote from: Bill;564834Divination/Legend lore/etc... will warn of the threat beyond the orcs. Its only a surprise if... "Your magic fails"

Let them find out how complicated the situation really is, and let them formulate their own plan of rescue and try to work out their strategy and tactics to get in and out of the Tower of Woe. You've done your own job as a DM. This place is reknowned to be impregnable. Are the heroes going to succeed where no mortal soul has before them? It's up to them. Let them scry, divine... and have a conversation with the Tower's Overlord as he becomes aware of them looking down upon his Domain. Have him laugh at them, taunt them, dare them to come down and teleport right where he stands. Challenge them to bring their best game at the game table. The Legions of Hell are waiting for them.

Quote from: Bill;564834Yes, you can zing pc's with uber magic just like they themselves use, but in my experience that is not fun for the players.

I have the completely opposite experience. Players have fun at high level when they are properly challenged. It takes you, the DM, to know what you are doing, to know the spells, the forces in presence, to have a milieu that is indeed challenging to the players. The PCs aren't in Kansas anymore. It's time to up the game and see what they can do with the big guns, when the guys they're facing can do the same right back.

Quote from: Bill;564834If every obstacle has a hidden obstacle behind it, you are essentially telling the players they can't succeed. That can work, but you can't do it all the time.

Not necessarily hidden all the time. It's not about hiding threats, or negating magic by saying "nope your teleport doesn't work just 'because.'" That's lame DMing. That's a DMing made of Pure Fail. If you resort to what I call TGCM (Ta Gueule, C'est Magique, in English: Shut Up, It's Magic), then you are prepping inappropriately.

Now you can tell me "I don't like high level play" and it's fine. But for those that do like it, as I do, the game isn't 'broken' and doesn't 'fall apart' the way you guys experience it. You are projecting your own issues and your own preferences (which is to NOT play a high level game how it's supposed to be played because "it's too much work, it's a different game than low levels, it's not appealing to my group, etc etc") onto high level games to conclude 'they don't work'. Wrong. They work for me. They can work for you too, with the proper mindset. And it's cool if you don't want to play that way. But don't tell me the game as a whole breaks down for everyone everywhere, objectively. It doesn't. Not for me. It hasn't for the past thirty years.

Quote from: Benoist;564771You guys actually don't want to play high level D&D.

Excluded middle again. Taking exception at one single spell, or even at half a dozen spells, is not the same as rejecting the entirety of high-level play.

There's plenty of epic stuff left for everyone to do if you remove or nerf a few high-level spells.

Quote from: Bill;564865That's pretty close to what I do in games, but the actual tasks that the wizards perform are trivial with high level magic. Stealing eggs, for example, is too easy with magic. Much more fun when you have to be clever.

That scenario would be ten times as fun with level 2 wizards.

Ah I fear you miss the thrust.... stealing eggs is not trivial . Because the other wizards are going to be the ones stopping you getting them. They will like nothing better than you totally failing in the trivial task of fetching eggs.

The game would start with an extraordinary meeting of the Long staves and an argument would break out as to who should do each job with each wizard trying to outdo each other in insane ideas at the vote the temptation is to cast timestop so you can open the ballot box and change all the votes but you know that everyone else has timestop as well so you have to be the last one to cast it.

Etc etc .....

Quote from: The Butcher;564894Excluded middle again.

Well fine, but I don't appreciate the other excluded-middle that says that the game is somehow "objectively broken" and "falls apart" as soon as you guys are having trouble dealing with PCs with certain powerful abilities and spells thereof, which somehow gets then blamed on the game's design, and not what you are willing or not willing to deal with as you GM the game.

Quote from: Benoist;564897Well fine, but I don't appreciate the other excluded-middle that says that the game is somehow "objectively broken" and "falls apart" as soon as you guys are having trouble dealing with PCs with certain powerful abilities and spells thereof, which somehow gets then blamed on the game's design, and not what you are willing or not willing to deal with as you GM the game.

I never wrote any of this. I thought IMHO, YMMV, etc. were implicit. I made it abundantly clear that it's my personal preference that one particular spell be toned down. Why the fuck are you quoting me on that post?