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May 28, 2012 -- 6:58AM, Bodyknock wrote:

May 28, 2012 -- 6:38AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

On Silence, the OP is correct. A WIS based caster needing to make a DC15 INT check to cast is pretty much borked. .

The original poster wasn't correct since he said it was an "automatic failure". It's not automatic, if you have INT 10 then a DC 15 chance of failure is 70%. That's high but obviously not 100%.

Mind you, I'm not commenting one way or another on whether the spell is too powerful. It very well might be, in which case either the DC should be lowered or possibly instead of being an Int check you do a check against whatever your spell casting ability is (so clerics would make a Wisdom check, wizards an Int check, etc).

Yeah, it isn't an absolute casting preventer, that's true, but 70% kinda might as well be. No sane opponent will stick around and fight you when its main capability is subject to a 70% failure rate. If you have the spell-casting BBEG cornered and silenced, sure he'll have no choice, but it is a pretty harsh SOS.

The problem I see is this is right back to the old situational but highly effective and pretty much trivial spell-using tactics. Given that clerics can cast whichever spells they have selected up to their slot allotment it is even more trivially useful than it was in the old days. This speaks to a highly spell-focused problem solving regime where the casters do all the heavy lifting. The cleric doesn't even need to suffer a severe opportunity cost of memorizing it. He can always use the slot to cast his CLW or whatever if it doesn't happen to turn out to be useful that day. He can just pick several of these sorts of situational but extremely useful spells (and will presumably accumulate a bunch of the lower level ones like this as he levels up). We'll see how things pan out of course, but there's a real smell there of people doing the design work not getting it.

May 28, 2012 -- 6:22AM, Bodyknock wrote:

Hold Person: As mentioned in another thread, "cannot move" is undefined.

Good catch. I have a feeling that in the context of this particular sentence "cannot move" means "the target has speed zero", in which case they should probably change the wording to say that.

Not a good catch, IMO. Cannot move appears in a variety of locations as does many other phrases without definitions like "drops whatever it's holding" and "can't hear anything" or "cannot see."

During one's turn, one can move up to your speed and take an action. Cannot move would seem to most directly mean you are denied the moving portion of your turn. I would say it also prevents you from taking the Hustle action since that is an action that allows one to move (something you cannot do).

Furthermore, the ability to move is a requirement for the Dodge benefit. 

May 29, 2012 -- 4:47AM, Bodyknock wrote:

May 28, 2012 -- 9:30PM, zgrose wrote:

May 28, 2012 -- 6:22AM, Bodyknock wrote:

Hold Person: As mentioned in another thread, "cannot move" is undefined.

Good catch. I have a feeling that in the context of this particular sentence "cannot move" means "the target has speed zero", in which case they should probably change the wording to say that.

Not a good catch, IMO. Cannot move appears in a variety of locations as does many other phrases without definitions like "drops whatever it's holding" and "can't hear anything" or "cannot see."

During one's turn, one can move up to your speed and take an action. Cannot move would seem to most directly mean you are denied the moving portion of your turn. I would say it also prevents you from taking the Hustle action since that is an action that allows one to move (something you cannot do).

Furthermore, the ability to move is a requirement for the Dodge benefit. 

Well if you have Speed 0 then Hustle is useless since by definition Hustle only lets you move up to your speed. That's a good point on the Dodge action, though, you wouldn't be able to Dodge either.

Probably the best solution would be for them to add Cannot Move or Immobile as a condition with something like the following definition:

CANNOT MOVE:

- Speed of zero
- Cannot take Dodge action
- Cannot take any action that requires the ability to move away from your current location



As far as "cannot see" and "cannot hear", as far as I can tell those phrases only appear as part of the Blind and Deaf conditions.

I find it amusing how all this must pretty much exactly parallel the discussion at WotC during 4e development, with of course the result that we have both immobilized (can't move) and restrained, lol. You'd think maybe the devs would actually remember all that, or crack open a 4e book and remind themselves how all these issues have been solved already.

So, yeah, I'd call it 'immobilized'.

On the subject of specific spells:

I find it to be rather interesting that two different healing spells are proposed:  Cure Light Wounds and Healing Word.

Cure Light Wounds being a touch spell and Healing Word being a spell that can be cast at a distance.

I would hope that the example of editions of 3.0/3.5 will be followed with the logical progressions of these two spells;
with Cure Light Wounds as a 1st level spell, Cure Moderate Wounds as a 2nd level spell, Cure Serious Wounds as 
3rd level spell and Cure Critical Wounds as a 4th level spell, along with Light Healing Word as a 1st level spell, Moderate Healing Word as 
a 2nd level spell, Serious Healing Word as a 3rd level spell and Critical Healing Word as a 4th level spell.

I have heard many people express their disgust that being compelled to play the cleric is a 'real downer', that it is a 'real drag' to be the party's only source of healing and that these people want to do something else rather than simply cast cure spells.   Well, let these other people play something other than a clerical character; let these people play the rogues, scoundrels and knaves that lurk in their little black hearts.   But, give me ample opprotunity to garner all the healing ability that I can.   Give me the 3.0/3.5 option of converting any memorized divine spell into a cure wounds spell of the same level.   For me, it is not a 'downer' to play a cleric, rather it gives me the perfect opportunity to wag my finger at the rogues, scoundrels and knaves as I endlessly remind them in my daily sermons that they will eventually be required by the gods to atone for their craven misdeeds.