Hey, everybody. Sorry I didn't blog more from New Orleans, but the hotel internet was poo and totally not "high speed." Anyway, I didn't get any pictures taken, so nothing to post on that front.
Anyway, today's topic is gaming and more specifically, being the Dungeon Master/Game Master.
I was looking over some forums and came across a thread that was something like 7 pages long about things that were banned or nerfed (decreased in power or effectiveness) in their campaigns. A lot of the postings had things that would seem to be taken care of by simply good DM'ing. One in particular was that a spell called Planar Binding was easily broken (able to be abused by players). Planar Binding allows the caster to trap an outsider in a magic circle and demand or bargain for services, with release from the trap being the "payment."
Some of the problem this person had with Planar Binding were that you could summon and Imp and use it's Commune ability. That would make non-combat situations easier. Okay, I can agree with that, except that IMPS ARE EVIL! They are allowed to lie. And the spell says that you can demand or bargain for the outsider's services. Nowhere does it say that the creature has to AGREE to the task. It can simply stay imprisoned.
The next problem was that you could summon a Glabrezu (a demon) and take his monthly Wish spell. He says that you don't call a specific Glabrezu, just "Glabrezu" in general, and you should get a new one every time you summon, so you can do it multiple times a day. Under the Monster Manual entry for Glabrezu, it says that "unless the Wish is used to create pain and suffering in the world, the Glabrezu demands either terrible evil acts or great sacrifice as compensation." Now, unless you're playing an evil campaign, you're PC's are the "good guys." They probably aren't going to go in for the 'evil acts' part of the deal. The poster goes on to say "If you fail to overpower his spell resist, he's only CR13.
So, right before that, if your party can't kill a CR13, summon an Archon and request he help you with your next encounter against a demon or devil, something they're happy to do (so it should succeed)."
Well, that's fine and dandy, but what happens when the Archon shows up and sees that it's being asked to help with the outsider by the people WHO CALLED IT ONTO THIS PLANE? Seriously, Archons are not stupid. Once they deal with the outsider, they're more than likely going to go after the person that called the outsider in the first place. That would be the caster.
Next up is to "bind a Succubus and have her seduce the local King/Lord/Magistrate/High Priest and you have blackmail against them, which again can trivialize a lot of non-combat encounters." Well. If you read the spell description, "If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete through its own actions (which I think seducing someone would count, since seduction requires two people to complete, not to mention that 'seduce' is and badly defined word), the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level and the creature gets an immediate chance to break free." And it gets another chance every day. Since a wizard has to be 11th level to case Planar Binding, that means the succubus will have 11 chances to break free from the spell.
You can, apparently, "summon an Efreeti for unlimited wishes for only a 6th level spell at no real cost to the player. Take a piece of it's flesh before it leaves, make a simulacrum of it, and you've got three wishes every day for the rest of your career." Okay, except the spell states that unreasonable requests are not granted. I can see getting the first three wishes that the Efreet can cast per day, but after that, I'd assume he/she would get a little hardheaded about this.
Now for the fun fact: unless you use the spell Dimensional Anchor, any outsider with dimensional travel abilities can simply poof away from your Planar Binding. Succubi can use Ethereal Jaunt, so that problem is solved. A Glabrezu could use Power Word Stun on the caster and then Dispel Magic on the trap, since there's nothing in the spell description that prohibits the creature from using magic.
The larger problem here, though, is that if your DM/GM let's you do things like that, then they aren't doing their job. If nothing else, a trapped outsider will be EXTREMELY angry about being trapped and will try to twist the wording of the demand into something they can do without breaking the contract, usually trying to involve the death of the spell caster. If they can get free of the Planar Binding, you can bet your bippy that if they don't attack now, they will be back. And they won't be happy.
Until next time, be excellent to each other.
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