Talk:Mantissa's Theft Avenger (3.5e Spell)

Ratings

	Qwertyu63 likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	I'm going to counterpoint the other ratings. I can see the "intent" in inventing this spell. If someone steals your spellbook, you hope they cast this not knowing what it is. It's not super effective for that (low spell level, low spellcraft to understand), but it's a neat idea.

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

Hm, it took a long time for me to decide to oppose this. It's not like most opposes; it's not badly written, broken in play, offensive, or anything like that. But it's so... useless. I cannot think of a reason why you would ever do this. Combined with a baffling name, and I cannot rely on fluff to save this. It mostly seems a thought experiment. And while quirky, I can't really justify it's presence in the mainspace.

	Fluffykittens opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Useless, unless you find a way to stick it to someone else, in which case it's powerful beyond a cantrip.

Double-checking the rules for finger of death, the necromancy school and the undead type confirms my earlier conclusion that this spell does not affect undead.

As for 'tomb tainted' whatever that may be and wherever it may be from, the only 3.5/d20 books my homebrew pursues full compatibility with are the 'core books': the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Otherwise, I stick to general compatiblity stuff such as incorporating core mechanics where those will do. --Ideasmith (talk) 03:35, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

You're right: as a death effect, it doesn't affect undead. I'm not sure whether it affects people who have taken tomb-tainted soul (I don't remember the feat's precise phrasing offhand) but it will certainly not heal them. You could probably nullify this rating on grounds that its justification is just flat wrong, if you care to do so and notify Fluffykittens. --DanielDraco (talk) 02:08, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

My mistake. It's still terrible. (re-done) Fluffykittens (talk) 05:13, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

	DanielDraco opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Alright, well, we're all on the same page about what this spell is and is not, so I'm going to go ahead and rate it. It is, as the author says himself, useless. I could accept it as an April Fools article, except that it's not really funny.

Comments

SoD at spell level 0 is an odd start. Making it personal is even weirder. If it's meant to be used in magic items, why not just make a magic item instead and skip the suicide cantrip? --DanielDraco (talk) 00:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't making it a magic item drastically limit the variety of magic items this spell could be made a part of?

What level do you suggest this spell be? (Making this higher than 1st level would require changing the name, since I've decided that Mantissa's spellcasting ability consists of a single level of wizard.)--Ideasmith (talk) 02:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It would not limit anything. You can make it an item template, like those things in PHB2. EDIT: It would certainly be less limited than it is now, because it requires further homebrew before actually existing in any item. The magic item pricing guidelines are not rules, and are really just homebrew guidelines.

The lowest-level SoD, requiring 2 failed saves, is level 4. --DanielDraco (talk) 21:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

"It would not limit anything. You can make it an item template, like those things in PHB2."

Even if I were willing to purchase the PHB2 in order to write such a rule, wouldn't the result be useless to the many 3.5 players who still wouldn't have it?

"EDIT: It would certainly be less limited than it is now, because it requires further homebrew before actually existing in any item. The magic item pricing guidelines are not rules, and are really just homebrew guidelines. "

True of staves (to my disappointment), but check the wording to Scribe Scroll and Craft Wand.

"The lowest-level SoD, requiring 2 failed saves, is level 4."

Since I am not sure what books you are considering, or what you are counting as an SoD (I gather that death knell doesn't count), the relevance is not clear. --Ideasmith (talk) 04:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Why on earth would you make a scroll of mantissa's theft avenger? Why not make this a spell with a material component that you cast on items? --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:25, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

PHB2 was just somewhere to find examples of item traits being put into a template form rather than a specific item. You don't need to do exactly what it did. An SRD example might be armor spikes. Or, hell, weapon enhancements. Just make the same kind of thing as those.

What Fox said. A scroll or wand of this is uber-useless. Even with UMD, you need to know what spell is in a scroll or wand before you can use it, so it will never trick anyone into killing themselves.

A SoD is something that instakills someone. Death knell isn't an instakill, since it requires them to be mostly dead already. I would be shocked to find a SoD of a lower level than 4. --DanielDraco (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Oops, you are both right about the spell being useless. Fortunately for me, researching useless spells is totally in character for Mantissa. She researches spells as art for arts sake, without regard to actual usefulness. Have revised summary. --Ideasmith (talk) 21:02, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty torn on this spell. While it's not too strong by any measure (because "and then I kill myself" is not a particularly good option in most cases), I don't think it makes sense for a spell that replicates a 5th level spell to be dropped to cantrip level just because of targeting restrictions. It sets up weird magic fluff where an effect is higher level if it does bad stuff to other people and low level if it does bad stuff to you, but the magnitude of the bad stuff doesn't seem to be particularly relevant. It's setting the level based on the benefit to you (someone else dead vs. you dead) as opposed to the magnitude of the effect (someone dead), and I'm not down. I can see level drops based on range restrictions in some cases, but not of this magnitude and not with a "someone dies" effect.

But on the other hand, it's also basically useless most of the time. And in the few edge cases where it would be useful this is just simplifying the "let's play a new game already" discussion. So I don't like it, but I also don't care about it. I can't decide if or what I want to rate it, despite the fact that I think the power level is completely inappropriate for a cantrip.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, I just felt like sharing. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 05:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)