The Beginnings of a Complete List of good/Great/AWESOME spells from all sources.

[X-Codes]

Eh, I guess that's how it's supposed to be.  They really could have worded that last paragraph better.  Disintegrate still came a level earlier, though, and is in a better school, does unresistable damage, and destroys forcecages.  The fact that it's level 6 instead of 7 is also huge since it can be used with standard-level meta rods instead of greater meta rods, which is really important when you consider how expensive quicken rods are and how, in high-op games, it's going to be used for it's anti-forcecage effect far more often than it's damage (except against undead).

[Kethrian]

That is all very true.  Still, when your foe doesn't have resistance, you can still deal 20d6 on a successful save.

It's probably at its most useful when used in conjunction with Time Stop.  Then, you can store multiple charges in the same spot, and when Time Stop ends, they all go off at once.  Even better if you have Arcane Spellsurge and can cast spontaneously, so you can swift cast a normal version and a metamagic one in each round.

[JaronK]

One you're missing from Fiendish Codex is Extract Gift.  It's a terrible spell... unless you can make it spell like.  Then it's absolutely jaw dropping, because the cost was the only thing that balanced it.

Consider what happens if you're a demon somehow and use this spell on someone.  Now you can see through their eyes!

JaronK

[Empirate]

Most spells that are only balanced by their cost are horrible broken if you can get them as a spell-like ability. Animate Dread Warrior on a spellstitched Necropolitan spellcaster with the corpsecrafter feat line comes to mind...

[TravelLog]

I hope this is continued. I was eagerly awaiting your review of the Spell Compendium.

[X-Codes]

I've got a lot of projects going on right now, and this is one of the lower priority ones.

[Echoes]

For wings of flurry, there's no friendly-fire issue. The spell only hits designated targets. The short range is still a problem, though.

[X-Codes]

For wings of flurry, there's no friendly-fire issue. The spell only hits designated targets. The short range is still a problem, though.

It's written oddly, but the spell clearly hits all targets within 30', friendly or not.  If it only hit enemies, then the Area description would be something like "Enemies within a 30' radius burst."  See also: Bless.

[Kethrian]

For wings of flurry, there's no friendly-fire issue. The spell only hits designated targets. The short range is still a problem, though.

It's written oddly, but the spell clearly hits all targets within 30', friendly or not.  If it only hit enemies, then the Area description would be something like "Enemies within a 30' radius burst."  See also: Bless.

And if you read the rules for the word "Target", you will discover that the spell can only hit those that the caster has chosen to be targets.  Therefore, the spell will also not hit invisible/hidden enemies in the area.  If it did hit all creatures, regardless of friend or foe, then it would hit the caster as well.  See also: all other PBAoE spells, which all specifically exclude the caster from the effects, unlike Bless/Recitation/Prayer.

[deuxhero]

Surprised Core/PHB isn't among the stuff you did.

Should note the potential of spell stiching Animate Dread Warrior, given an NPC is apparently doing it.


Battletide is a 3.0 spell right? I don't think the haste is "improved" so much as based on 3.0 haste instead of 3.5 haste, and as such quite likely for the DM to ban.

On Statis Clone, it's complete shit if you can make a custom magic item of Gentle Repose as it would be very cheep. While custom magic items are all DM calls, keeping clones in a vat is so integrated to fiction your chances of approval are fairly good (and I wouldn't be shocked if some book printed one)

[X-Codes]

For wings of flurry, there's no friendly-fire issue. The spell only hits designated targets. The short range is still a problem, though.

It's written oddly, but the spell clearly hits all targets within 30', friendly or not.  If it only hit enemies, then the Area description would be something like "Enemies within a 30' radius burst."  See also: Bless.

And if you read the rules for the word "Target", you will discover that the spell can only hit those that the caster has chosen to be targets.  Therefore, the spell will also not hit invisible/hidden enemies in the area.  If it did hit all creatures, regardless of friend or foe, then it would hit the caster as well.  See also: all other PBAoE spells, which all specifically exclude the caster from the effects, unlike Bless/Recitation/Prayer.

There is no "Target:" entry in the spell description, therefore the cited rules are irrelevant because that's explicitly what they're referring to.  Also, just because many other negative PBAoE spells specifically cite that they don't affect the caster, often times such exceptions are in parenthesis, which suggests that you should know better than to think that this spell would exist if it blew up the caster, too.

As for PHB, that's a very long list of spells.  Probably only longer list is Spell Compendium.  That said, I think Spell Compendium is actually next unless I'm overlooking some cache of books I haven't gone over, yet...

[shriekingdrake]

The spell flavor says: "Immense, scaled wings unfurl from behind you and beat at nearby foes in a savage flurry before vanishing as quickly as they appeared." (Emphasis added.)  The meat of the description says "...wings that strike at every target in range, dealing 1d6 points of damage per caster level to all designated targets..." (Emphasis added.) 

I think it reads, both RAW and RAI, that the spell affects only those targets designated by the caster who are in range.  While it is not untenable to argue otherwise, to me, it is unreasonable.  The use of the word "target" instead of the word "creature" is significant, as is the use of the word "designated". 

It seems clear to me that the spell functions to affect designated targets rather than all targets.  While I'm not suggesting that this is the best idea for a spell or the most well-drafted spell, it strains  reasonableness to interpret the spell as affecting all creatures within the area.  (I do understand that the stat block does not include the category "Target", but I'm not sure it needs to in order for a spell to have a target.)

[Kethrian]

There is no "Target:" entry in the spell description, therefore the cited rules are irrelevant because that's explicitly what they're referring to.  Also, just because many other negative PBAoE spells specifically cite that they don't affect the caster, often times such exceptions are in parenthesis, which suggests that you should know better than to think that this spell would exist if it blew up the caster, too.

If you can show me where in the description it says all creatures instead of targets, even once, I'll agree with you.  Otherwise, by your logic, a caster could centre Fireball on himself and be unaffected, while Recitation would never buff the caster because it doesn't specifically say so, even though the very description of "allies" in the PHB states, "references to 'allies' include yourself."

It seems clear to me that the spell functions to affect designated targets rather than all targets.  While I'm not suggesting that this is the best idea for a spell or the most well-drafted spell, it strains  reasonableness to interpret the spell as affecting all creatures within the area.  (I do understand that the stat block does not include the category "Target", but I'm not sure it needs to in order for a spell to have a target.)

You must have line of sight to or be able to touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target.

The rules already define what a target is, so the spell does indeed hit both "all" and "designated" targets.

[Cagemarrow]

I've recently had very good luck with the spell Create Trap from Dragon Magic, but one thing you left out of your description of it that I think is significant is the Scything Blade trap as an alternative to the Fullisade of Darts. Its true the darts hit a larger area and do more potential damage but the Scything Blades are an automatically resetting trap, which means that they will remain to defend the square for the full duration of the spell, which is not insignificant. My Warforged Artificer created an at will item of the spell and used it to hold back an entire goblin warband from attacking a small town. Didn't stop the sheer numbers from clearing the defenses but gave us time to get everyone out with their lives.

[X-Codes]

The spell flavor says: "Immense, scaled wings unfurl from behind you and beat at nearby foes in a savage flurry before vanishing as quickly as they appeared." (Emphasis added.)  The meat of the description says "...wings that strike at every target in range, dealing 1d6 points of damage per caster level to all designated targets..." (Emphasis added.)

The spell flavor is meaningless, and the description isn't the target line.

I think it reads, both RAW and RAI, that the spell affects only those targets designated by the caster who are in range.  While it is not untenable to argue otherwise, to me, it is unreasonable.  The use of the word "target" instead of the word "creature" is significant, as is the use of the word "designated".

No, they're not significant, because there's no target line.  It can just as easily mean everything in range of the spell, and that's, indeed, what you have to interpret it as because there's no target line.

Now, if you want to continue this, make another thread.  This thread is not for debating the RAW of particular spells, and I'm not going to change my review of the spell just because you come in here and complain.

[shriekingdrake]

I don't believe I was complaining.  Rather, I was disagreeing with what I still believe to be your erroneous assessment.  These are, after all, forums for colloquy.  And when one member issues an opinion, others are free to politely address that opinion.  If you don't want your opinions challenged, you should consider not issuing them publicly.  If you'd like to continue this discussion on another thread, feel free to start one. 

All this said, I agree with you that the flavor text is not the rules text.  It nonetheless offers at least some impression of the rules as intended.  As for the rest of your logic, I'll let my original comments stand.  You should also feel free to maintain your own conclusions and post what you like, whether or not people agree with you. 

[X-Codes]

I don't believe I was complaining.  Rather, I was disagreeing with what I still believe to be your erroneous assessment.  These are, after all, forums for colloquy.  And when one member issues an opinion, others are free to politely address that opinion.  If you don't want your opinions challenged, you should consider not issuing them publicly.  If you'd like to continue this discussion on another thread, feel free to start one.

That's not the topic of this thread.  The topic of this thread is whether or not Wings of Flurry is a top-tier spell, and it is.  If you want to challenge THAT idea, then I'll listen to you.

[shriekingdrake]

I don't believe I was complaining.  Rather, I was disagreeing with what I still believe to be your erroneous assessment.  These are, after all, forums for colloquy.  And when one member issues an opinion, others are free to politely address that opinion.  If you don't want your opinions challenged, you should consider not issuing them publicly.  If you'd like to continue this discussion on another thread, feel free to start one.

That's not the topic of this thread.  The topic of this thread is whether or not Wings of Flurry is a top-tier spell, and it is.  If you want to challenge THAT idea, then I'll listen to you.

It is unquestionably a top-tier spell.  Wizards should be jealous.

[zook1shoe]

Ring of Fire (exemplars of evil)

[zook1shoe]

Yeah yeah double post....

Overwhelm + Elven Spell Lore = amazing!