Talk:Spell Leech (3.5e Maneuver)

Balance Point

I'm a little confused about the mandatoriness of the purely mental standard action, especially given that everyone (except maybe the caster, it's psychological) should be able to easily realize that this caster isn't doing any important things with its standard actions. If the mental standard action isn't mandatory, then this doesn't actually stunlock a caster or ruin them in moments, so it could probably be put at High balance. --Foxwarrior (talk) 03:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The standard action is necessary to attempt the Will save. If the caster being targeted does something else with their standard action, then the initiator of this maneuver is free to wipe a spell slot. --Luigifan18 (talk) 03:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, so the reason it's Very High is because it's a no-save scry-and-sabotage. That makes sense. --Foxwarrior (talk) 04:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a save, it just has to be made round-by-round and you need to spend a standard action to take it. By the way, what's a "scry and die"? --Luigifan18 (talk) 04:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

There are essentially no situations in which a Very High-balance caster would spend a standard action to get a chance at holding onto a spell rather than spending a standard action to cast a spell to deal with you. "Scry and die" is when you scry on someone, and then teleport up and kill them. Scry-and-sabotage isn't that, but it seems like a reasonably good description of an effect that lets you know things and sabotage later battles. --Foxwarrior (talk) 04:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

May I just point out that the mechanics behind this maneuver are really confusing? So basically, you must concentrate on your target to maintain the connection, effectively expending a standard action and hope to God your target also expends their standard action to retain their spell? Or am I missing something? And, is this equivalent exchange (at best) of standard actions not absolutely unworthy of 9th level? --Sulacu (talk) 14:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The whole maneuver is based on spell worm, so it had to keep the stealth aspect. I only made this a concentration maneuver because spell worm's an epic spell and spell leech is supposed to be a 9th-level maneuver - it had to be weaker in some respect. Anyways, like spell worm, spell leech is unobtrusive. Until your target tries to cast a spell and succeeds on a Spellcraft check, he is completely unaware that you're in his head killing his spells. He therefore ends up taking a standard action to attempt a Will save every round by default without consciously realizing that he's doing so. This stops him from taking double move or full-round actions, and he doesn't have a bloody clue that such actions are being denied to him. If he tries to take a double move or full-round action, he instead takes a move action and spends a standard action to resist, and he's completely oblivious to his mind being tampered with. Only when your target tries to spend his standard action on something else can he even begin to suspect that something's wrong, but that's nothing more than a faint feeling of unease until he casts a spell (or tries to, anyways) and finds out that some of his spells are missing (e.g. he succeeds on the Spellcraft check). If he's spending standard actions to concentrate on a spell, you're completely free to wipe out the rest of his spells (unless he has another standard action to spend resisting you) and he won't find out until he stops concentrating on his current spell and tries to cast another one. Once that's happened, he can spend his actions however he wants, including taking double moves or full-round actions, but he understands that if he does not spend a standard action to try to fight you off, you'll delete a spell from his mind. And if you use this maneuver before your target is aware of your presence, you just might wipe all of his spells out before even having to confront him! --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

This spell would be a heck of a lot sneakier (and more concise) if the Wizard's pals weren't always going to immediately say "hey, why aren't you running?" or "weren't you going to cast something, instead of just standing there looking like an idiot?"

If the caster is completely unaware that he's wasting his standard actions automatically, when does he have an opportunity to try to cast a spell and find out? --Foxwarrior (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

That and the whole D&D experience is just rife with metagaming most of the time. There's no way that you can't know something's going on when you're stuck doing nothing but waddling around half-cocked, and when you're forced to roll a will save every round while nothing appears to be happening. That sort of shit puts a player on guard. Even disregarding the fact that you don't get to do shit, there's no way your character won't notice it when he suddenly loses the ability to move 60 feet per round or fails to channel a spell. And you know what else? This is a really, really boring way to lose actions. If I were a DM, I would not use it more than maybe just once for fear of boring my players, and if I were a player using it, a DM would know how to deal with it anyway. --Sulacu (talk) 18:19, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The target only uses a standard action to resist by default. Since this is meant to be weaker than spell worm, the target can still use a standard action for other things, and this will override the usage of a standard action for resisting the maneuver. So he can cast a spell at any time - and once his buddies point out that he's (as Sulacu put it) waddling around half-cocked, he'd have to be an idiot to not realize that something's wrong. Then he casts a spell and attempts the Spellcraft check to figure out exactly what is happening to him. Of course, once he knows what's happening, he still has to actually find the martial adept sucking his spells away. (And by the way, the DM is supposed to be making the rolls secretly - the player's only told that something's stopping him from taking double move/full-round actions, but not a standard action and move action. Once he makes the Spellcraft check - that's when he gets the full picture.)

This maneuver isn't meant to be quite as potent as spell worm - that one forces the victim to spend a standard action shedding a spell every turn. He literally must use a standard action to just lose the spell slot, so he can't use standard actions for anything else unless he actually has more than one standard action to use in a round. He has no way of knowing what's going on until the effect goes away (which usually isn't until his spells are all gone). And spell worm doesn't require its caster to concentrate on it to continue wiping spells. It's really the gold standard for high-level spell wiping, but as it's an epic spell, nonepic effects shouldn't be allowed to actually measure up to it. So spell leech is basically spell worm with a couple of big restrictions. Namely, the target can actually figure out what's happening to him and take steps to nip it in the bud himself, rather than relying on his allies to have a way to dispel it before his spells are all gone. --Luigifan18 (talk) 19:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Suggestion - drop the action bit from the spellcaster's side of things. Just let them do whatever with their actions until they are aware of the effect, and start making will saves each round as a free action to end the effect. The maneuver initiator is already spending standard actions to purge spells (and also concentrate on the effect) and requiring two of those actions per round and tons of hidden rolls is just weird. An initiator level check vs 10 + their caster level to purge a spell on any given round, where failure by more than 5 (or a roll of a natural 1 or 2 if you prefer) reveals your presence, would simplify it as well. Retaining the spellcraft check for determining where a lost spell went would round it out nicely. Then they aren't suffering under something obvious but might notice it when the initiator slips up or when they go to cast a spell that isn't there, and once they figure it out they aren't hamstrung on actions for dealing with it.

Yeah, that's possibly a bit weaker than it is right now, but it is a similar effect with a simpler mechanic and also better fits into the H balance of the rest of the discipline IMO. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 20:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions followed (except for the initiator level check to remove spells - may add that later). BTW, what do you think of spell worm? How about mystical plague? --Luigifan18 (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Will have new comments on this in a bit (maybe), but to your other questions - I think spell worm is a joke. I could do the same thing with suggestion or dominate person. The part where they don't know they're doing it is potentially interesting but extremely situational and not worth being epic on its own IMO. Mystical plague looks like a nice contagion variant. The extra effect thing is a bit odd and strikes me as unnecessary, but it's hardly bad and makes a certain amount of sense in the strike context. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 19:52, 18 November 2012 (UTC)