The Shrink spell alone can be used by a DM to justify why nations that would otherwise have the resources don't set up anti-magic zones over their cities.

Damn.  I love the thread, but I wouldn't know where to start.  I've been playing D&D for 25 years and at one point or another I think I've come across just about every piece of broken/op stuff in the game.  Hell, I ran what was probably the first live-action 4E game ever, for the game developers, at GenCon UK when they previewed it (I got advance copies) and told Bruce Cordell about a serious RAW exploit I found in the first hour of reading. 

Didn't make me hate it less though. 

There's just so much stuff, quite aside from the basic equipment you can use for unintendedly powerful effects.  Spells which can be cast into an anti-magic shell, infinite power loops (Artificers FTW!), how to make shadow illusions which are more than 100% real, how to give a party infinite actions in a combat round, how to make a thrower build that can take down a great wyrm in a full attack action by L11, which spells are actually good (status effects >> damage)... hundreds of things, all of them using the rules as written 

Of course, you don't do that stuff in a PnP game unless by agreement, but as the person who invariably ends up running campaigns I love it when players come up with clever stuff.

Guru-Meditation wrote on Apr 16^th, 2014 at 11:08am:


Think about it.  Shrink Item makes big, bulky things into little, light things, lasts for a day per level and doesn't require a caster at the other end to undo the magic.  It has massive implications for the economy.  Can you *imagine* the effect that would have on, say, the ability of merchants to get goods into the city quickly and without spoiling?  Or the ability of an army to move wagonloads of equipment around?  Or how quickly large buildings or city walls could be constructed if you could carry large blocks of stone as small pieces of cloth?  If you can shrink a burning fire and its fuel (the example given in the original spell text), the definition of "a single object" is obviously quiiiiiite broad.  There are millions of possibilities.

I had a mage/thief in 2e who used to use it as an assassination method.  Works very well with anything which can be swallowed whole, bearing in mind that the caster of a spell can always dispel their own magic with no chance of failure...

I have a tip for D&D PnP. Dread necromancer party. That will fuck with your DM and be a riot.

Contagion is a super fun spell in political/intrigue settings.

Some of my favorite campaigns involved politics. We (the player party) knew exactly who the bad guy was, and yet we couldn't strike openly.

There's nothing like being taunted by the bad guy that you can't do anything to stop his plans, while at the same time you know in about a week he's going to develop a dysentery-related difficulty attending the king's council.

Edit: Adds a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Whisper in the king's ear."

NOTSunnyshadow wrote on Apr 20^th, 2014 at 7:17pm:

Distributed wrote on Apr 26^th, 2014 at 1:59am:

Revaulting wrote on Apr 20^th, 2014 at 6:59pm:


Buildings. Or "pebbles" which turns into a shower of boulders.

Otherwise you're wrong.

5 Foot Step wrote on Jun 1^st, 2014 at 12:08am:


Why? They always do so in movies, highly trained commandos. So it must be the right thing to do.

And if you find a strange alien giant ball, touch it. What could happen?

5 Foot Step wrote on Jun 1^st, 2014 at 6:59am:


I had it TWICE. But he was the cleric, so we couldn´t drown him on a nearby puddle.

He rang some huge bell at "the city of the spider queen", so a nice dragon came nearby to check.
Then, a bit later, we are observing how a group comes out from the building that is under siege, sneaking. I throw with great skill a small bottle to make noise, so the besiegers notice the group. We are hiding and both groups are hitting at each other. Until our cleric casts a flame strike, of course...

As long as the party does and goes where I want, we will not split. Every game is a quest for power, nothing else matters.

5 Foot Step wrote on Jun 4^th, 2014 at 11:53pm:


No, he is a lot worse.

Starkjade wrote on Mar 6^th, 2014 at 11:05am:

I was DM for two 11-year old kids, they got into a corridor with a big devil head sculpture at the head, mouth open with a dark hole in it, they detected strong necromancy magic.

What's the first thing they did after detecting the strong necromancy aura? Put their arm into the hole.
It was a Sphere of Annihilation
Game Over.