Talk:Holy Hold (3.5e Spell)

Ratings

	Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	That thing is way way way way too long and the effect is mediocre. I feel the spell is extremely complicated and way too long to read.

Paladette Spell List

It would be nice if you added a link to the spell directly on the Paladette page: Because they have SRD spells, that's supposed to be the complete list; and it's a watched page so I get to be informed when you add something and decide whether I agree. --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Time Stop Stupidity

Time stop doesn't work that way for a very very good reason: Being able to stop time, teleport into battle, kill everything, teleport away, and then have the time stop end is far more irritating than even the normal scry-and-die tactics. Potentially as much as 6d6/level damage, Fortitude half is quite drastic. --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

And yet delayed blast fireball minefields are perfectly legal. Your point is...? --Luigifan18 (talk) 05:10, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, at least delayed blast fireball is two levels higher and deals half as much damage. --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

At least holy hold only does damage if you can set the opponent up to be crushed by something. It's situational, so I feel that it should be a bit stronger in exchange for that. Plus, well, there's the alignment descriptor, which restricts this spell's availability. --Luigifan18 (talk) 05:19, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You can position the center of holy hold essentially anywhere you want. It's situational, but the situation is "the target is next to a wall".

And using the alignment descriptor restriction as a balancing method is a joke. --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:32, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Alignment descriptor isn't a balancing method all by itself. At most, it justifies adding 1 extra die of damage/healing/whatever. (Restrictions based on deity, on the other hand...) And... can you center the holy hold inside an object? I'm pretty sure you can't. And I'm also pretty sure that you need line of effect... I'll have to look at the spell description. --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

So you have to do a bit more thinking in the scrying phase. --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't intend for the spell to flout line of effect, so I changed that, actually. (What do you mean, you have to do more thinking in the scrying phase?) --Luigifan18 (talk) 18:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The scrying phase is that long period of time before you cast time stop and kill your target with a barrage of spells before they get a turn or even an immediate action. --Foxwarrior (talk) 19:06, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Wait, I thought your spells couldn't affect other creatures while time stop was in effect. Really, the best you can do is litter the field with hazards. Or delayed blast fireballs.

The only reason why holy hold can work in conjunction with time stop is because the period when the ring is shrinking is treated as a delay before the actual effect of the spell kicks in - said actual effect being the immobilization. Holy hold is actually just like delayed blast fireball in that respect. The reason for holy hold having a lower spell level than delayed blast fireball is the delay being mandatory and non-adjustable in the case of the former. Though now that I think about it, holy hold can also be likened to a stultifyingly long-lived hold monster set up as a contingent effect, with the triggering condition being bull-rushed into a confined space by a ring of forceful hands working in unison to enclose the creature into a space smaller than it's actually capable of occupying.

And I still don't quite get what you mean by "scrying phase". --Luigifan18 (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Well I was going to rate this, but...

...but then I couldn't force myself to read past Volume 3: Chapter 9: Verse 84 of the Three Part Novel that is this spell.

Good god, shouldn't this just be "This spell grapples you, DC whatever" or whatever its supposed to do? Why is it so loooooooooooooong? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 05:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Because, as always, I want there to be as few loopholes as possible. --Luigifan18 (talk) 01:17, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The more you write, the more chance there is for loopholes to appear. I find it hard to imagine anyone using this. Even if it was perfectly balanced, it's still so freaking long that it would grind the game to a screeching halt in the middle of combat as they have to suddenly read this legal document. --Dragonexx (talk) 00:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)