This thread is being started out of an interest to provide formal discussion for the suggestions.
Background:
Spell Breach exists in NWN2 to provide high-level counter-play against targets with many buffs, and against casters who are immune to Greater Dispel.
This spell does not exist in P&P, and was pointed out by one user to have possible oversights in the list of affected spells (specifically FoM in the initial comment).
The maximum CL of Greater Dispel (1d20+20 ∴ maximum 40), cannot affect spells cast by a level 30-caster (DC 11+CL ∴ DC 41). This results in full-caster characters being immune to any of the Dispel line of spells, and require a Spell Breach[link] or Mordenkainen's Disjunction[link] to remove effects.
This corner-case does not prevent a cast Dispel Magic of various strengths from being highly effective against low-level effects or many UMD buffs.
Suggestions proposed:
These are for consideration individually or collectively.
1) Review and expand list of Breachable spells and update Wiki.
- Reason: The list on the wiki[link] appears to be outdated (per the comment at the bottom of the pages), and the publicly visible list does not include many divine spells such as Freedom of Movement. This makes FoM a hard-counter to various other effects like Grapple and Bigby spells without having apparent counterplay outside of Disjunction.
- Effects:
- Increased visibility of affected spells
- Address current hard-counters or spell-source biases. (For example, OG-list was almost exclusively Arcane)
2) Increase the CL of Dispels by a die equal to the epic-CL of the caster (from +1d1 at CL 21, to a maximum +1d10 at CL 30).
- Reason: The Dispel Line of spells (Lesser, normal, greater, wall, greater wall) and effects that duplicate the spells (Pilfer Magic, warlock invocations, etc) are designed in P&P with a 1-20 level scale, and quickly become nonfunctional as epic levels increase. At endgame states, the primary utility provided is to target partial-casters, lower-level targets, and targets using consumables; while being completely ineffective against CL30 targets, even when the caster is themselves CL30.
This results in buff-counterplay to rely on Spell Breach (which is limited to a curated list, and a constant fixed number of buffs removed per cast), or Disjunction (a 9th level Arcane/Magic spell). Spell Breach variants are available on wands to anyone with UMD and independent of CL and are of Arcane nature, making them readily accessible and useful to many groups outside dedicated casters. Disjunction is unavailable outside a limited selection of spell-lists, and scrolls do not have innate CL to address CL30 spell-effects.
Increasing the effect of Dispels helps address this dichotomy where the options for buff-removal are "common consumables" vs "mage pulls out big-guns" with very little between, and allows non-wizards/sorcs/Magic clerics to get involved in caster-counterplay. While a static value was considered, it would simply replicate half the effect of Disjunction, and completely swamp utility against partial-casters and consumables. A variable value preserves that difference, while improving the ability of many casters to use 5 common spells in late-game engagements and content. - Effects:
- Provides distinction from Disjunction while still enabling the spells to have utility late-game. (Dispel being variable, Disjunction as full maximum CL)
- Permits an Epic Caster (and only an Epic Caster) to potentially remove buffs applied by a CL 30+ caster using Greater Dispel (5% to ~20% chance depending on level).
(Yes, this would include CL30 elixirs by definition and permit possible counterplay without resorting to Disjunction). - Increases random roll window, improving statistical effectiveness against lower CL effects without guaranteeing certainty in most cases.
3) Change Mordenkainen's Disjunction to apply Partial Spell-failure instead of Breach effect.
- Reason: Disjunction as a potent, 9th level spell in P&P[link] is described to decompose magical effects, render items mundane, and sunder Antimagic Fields and Artifacts (at the minor trade-off of permanently risking your spellcasting abilities and the ire of one-or-more deities). In NWN2, it appears to be one of the few effective means of removing buffs on high-level targets, while offering no ability to address permanent effects or consumables being used to replenish those buffs. The extra 6 spells removed by the Breach effect make the spell highly effective at its already pinnacle role in spell-removal, but offers no utility against a target bearing additional consumables or magical sources that the spell implies.
As Disjunction is already cast with full CL, and is the only Dispel check that may reliably impact high-end casters, replacing the Breach effect with Partial Spell failure for [1 minute || 1 round/level] would be a thematic and interesting option. This would give Arcane casters a high-level proxy to Silence at disabling other casters and inhibit immediate replenishment of buffs by spells or consumables.
Options discussed for the Failure% were:
A) Fixed percent (example: flat 50%);
B) Opposed roll (example: roll difference x 5%);
C) Increasing with dispelled effects (example: 20% + 5% per dispelled buff)
The third option appeared the most dynamic and incentivizes the use of the spell and target-selection strategically, and is the recommendation of this post. - Effects:
- Unique effect rather than being a merged super-Dispel + super-Breach
- Provides distinct caster counterplay, akin to Silence
- Provides proactive utility of the spell, with higher potency against buffed vs unbuffed targets
I am aware that I tend to make giant walls of text, but hopefully the reasoning and provided suggestion works to open up constructive conversation.
I continue to invite and appreciate any comments, concerns, and perspectives.
Cheers,
Kit