User talk:MisterSinister/Power Word Catatonia (3.5e Spell)

Ratings

	Ganteka Future opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	There really isn't anything here that's fun. It's just a "if CR is less than caster level, you win", granted that is a bit of an oversimplification, but not by much. No thanks, you could sandbox this though.

	Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Same as the others.

Tarkisflux opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

I'm gonna jump on board the hate train, which is really, really weird for me to do with a MS authored article. This deviates pretty strongly from the rest of the power word line with it's CL reference, which is not difficult to boost into nonsense land. It screams for the same sort of spam as blasphemy abuse, and that's not something that should be written into and new spells. Rather, this actually seems like one where the hp scaling of the regular power words would make the lack of save work out to be a level appropriate finishing move for locking people in suspended animation forever. But as is? Extra no thank you. The school is also a bit off, but that concern pales in comparison to the effect portion.

Blocked Rating

TK-Squared is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

Block Reason: This is a legacy rating from before our current ratings scale. While the reasons should be valid, it is not counted in the ratings on the article page because of the inaccurate scale.Eh, I don't know about this spell. As far as I can tell, it's a SoD without the So. You just die. Sure, it's level 7 and there are probably spells out there that do a similar thing, but maybe it just clashes with my values. It has a limitation, I suppose, but Caster Level isn't all that hard to raise.

Eiji-kun opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

As above, so below. However, this is a bad thing IMHO. This has the same problems as Holy Word and its ilk in that it's a Just Die based on CL, a bad way to balance. While the hp limits of other power word spells are far from perfect (they tend to be too low) they worked in that it was for crushing things weaker than you or weakened by battle. This one, give it to a Red Wizard of Thay and watch him murder anything CR 39 and less. Also this smells more like Enchantment to me. Debatable I suppose. Opposed, it has not grown on me at all.

Comments

Can't say I'm a fan of standard action, permanent duration, no save, just go wither and die spells. There are some interesting things you could do with trapping someone in a false sensory world, or joining a bunch of people in one, but I don't think they work so well here.

So, suggestions. Standard action cast time, target gets a save. Duration based on current hit points, like PW Stun so this isn't flat better than it, but duration is permanent at 0 or below (if you feel like trapping someone). If you cast this on a target who is touching someone already in the state, they join them in their weird state instead of entering one by themselves. If cast on a willing target, they may stay in the state until they feel like leaving. Maybe add in some notes about variable time inside, to make staying or going a more complicated decision.

Otherwise, it could be reworked into a 10 minute cast time spell that allowed a bunch of people to join a shared dream. It wouldn't have combat utility at that point, but it might be rather good for avoiding divinations. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 18:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The whole idea is that it's a power word, which by definition don't allow saves. Would there be any way that we could keep that aspect of it? - MisterSinister (talk) 21:03, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The other power words are all single target, so pulling the multi-target out is probably good. The other power words also have hit point requirements, which might be more appropriate than the CR <= CL thing you have here. Level boosting isn't really worthwhile because while I consider this stronger than PW Stun, it is also rather easily removed at this level. So I guess the single target only + hit point limit thing would probably sort it. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 22:00, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Single-target I have no issues with. However, I'm unsure what kind of hit point limit is suitable for this. - MisterSinister (talk) 22:05, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

If you're willing to mess about with the duration, PW Blind has a scaling duration based on hit points that would be ok here I think. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 22:20, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

(RESET INTENT) Bumping this for visibility, since it's still a stinker. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 10:09, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

6 month bump-a-rump. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 22:54, 9 January 2017 (MST)