Talk:Under the Ice (3.5e Spell)

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Ratings[edit]

RatedDislike.png Eiji-kun dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
I dunno. There's a Reflex save but, barring teleportation (which is a standard, not a move action) there's really no way to escape that Jesus-Christ-That's-Huge area. So really this is 20d4 cold + 20d8 bludgeoning + prone + pinned, no save, and that... not a fan. This would be neutral were the numbers, the area, the everything not just so big.

As a side note, and not a reason to downvote, but I find the lyrics in this inspired-by-a-song spells silly to tacky. Mostly just makes me roll my eyes and go "reaaallly?" Oh well.


You did notice that you can be squished by your own glacier, right? So if you use this spell in the wrong sort of situation (like, say, while directly under attack), the Jesus-Christ-That's-Huge area can work against you. You also aren't going to get at anyone in a crevasse or other narrow space with this spell. So it's really only useful for massive battles in wide-open spaces, or other situations where you can cast it from safety, not squish yourself or your allies, and squish your enemies without the glacier getting caught on something. And now that I think about it, it'd be nearly impossible to not squish some of your own guys in the aforementioned big battle sequence. Not unless you cast it so the edge of the glacier coincides with the edge of the... front... flank... whatever you call the front lines where soldiers are directly clashing with each other. And in that case, it would be entirely possible for at least some of the enemy soldiers to dodge. But if you can actually get everything right? That massive damage will be so, so worth it. You can down huge chunks of an army with one fell swoop. Which is the sort of thing you'd expect level-9 spells to do. --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:33, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, and?
You could also hit yourself with your own fireball, but I wouldn't call that a balancing factor. What is a factor is 2 round casting, but then it just kind of places it into the realm of "impractical" rather than balanced. The big problem here is getting the spring of a target (and you're a wizard so of course you will). It won't be an issue of "we need to go into castle doom and stop lord badwrong" and more of an issue of never actually entering his dungeon/tower/citadel as you bury it under ice.
Yeah, ok, some of that is possible already. Control Weather spreads for miles, and can do some serious damage to places. But the thing about these wide area damaging threats is usually low damage over a wide area, damage over time, or the like. Control Weather is good because it can obliterate crops en masse and force ships to stay in dock, and not because it is sure to deal hundreds of damage in an area and cripple anything which survives. Which, for the example of wiping out an army, is far overkill. If you're facing the legions of endless hoardes, they're going to be mooks, not level 20 badasses that need that much effective-no-save damage and statuses. So I stand by the idea that the numbers are simply too high for its apparent purpose. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 15:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
This isn't quite as wide-range as Control Weather. The area of effect is a bit under a tenth of a mile. And hitting yourself with your own fireball usually would never be a problem given the 20-foot area of the explosion, not unless you're way closer to an enemy than a wizard who gives half a crap about his own well-being has any right to be (well, outside of touch spells and the like, but even those are usually cast in a position of safety before going into combat — there's a damn good reason spell flower is one of my favorite spells ever, namely efficiency). This spell has a 500-foot area. So if the enemy is within visual range, it's quite hard to use it safely, and logistically, it's damn near impossible to cast it within an enclosed space (like damn near every dungeon ever). The extremely high damage is justified by this spell being next to impossible to use for self-defense purposes (actually, the high damage helps to reinforce the "can't use in close range" factor, since there is no way a wizard, or even something a bit sturdier like a Viewtiful Monarch, is going to survive all that damage).
As for Lord Badguy's castle, well, he should have countermeasures by the time he's a big enough fish to have 17th-level characters going after him. Like, say, archers instructed to shoot anyone who looks like they're casting a spell within 1000 feet of the castle without his permission, or forcefields set up to intercept any gigantic plummeting objects. Or both. Or he could live undergound, or in a cave, where this spell wouldn't be able to reach him.
Oh, and I checked the Reflex save. Even if you can't escape outright, you still take half damage if you make your Reflex save. Which can make all the difference between survival and being pwned. (As for those who have evasion, well... yes, they can manage to completely escape being harmed by this spell even when the glacier lands right on top of them. It may be best not to think too hard about that.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)