I’m considering adding this spell to my module, but I’m not sure whether to add it as a 9th level spell or to make it an Epic Spell. For those who don’t recall, this is an old Bioware spell that they disabled at some point during their processes. It does 30-100 points of Divine damage, no save, no spell resistance, centered on the caster, colossal range (10m radius), but it also does 30-100 divine to the caster. It was given a 9th level innate spell level under the Transmutation school.
More importantly, I’m curious why Bioware chose to abandon it from the 9th level spell lists. Was it too powerful? It’s not broken, for I’ve tested multiple times it works 100% of the time. I’m keen to hear other’s opinions, insights, and suggestions regarding this spell.
In my own observation, it does seem powerful but that is balanced by it’s ability to do the same damage to the caster (so chain casting might be hazardous to one’s health, though I suppose Greater Spell Mantles might mitigate this somewhat). It certainly doesn’t appear more powerful than IGMS or some of the Bigby spells, Implosion, or even Horrid Wilting.
Anyway, just curious to hear other peoples thoughts and opinions on this old spell.
There is no reference to such spell in DnD rules so most likely they decided that adding homebrew spells is not a good idea.
And you can notice that this spell doesn’t follow any of the usual spell mechanisms. If not the scroll I would say, they intented it to be used by some monster only, but the scroll exists…
As for your original question, the self-damage resembles epic spells so personally I would inclined towards making it epic. It isn’t more powerful than IGMS, but that applies to all epic spells - they are really weak especially because of the single use.
IIRC, it was one of several epic spells that got left on the cutting room floor by WotC when they were making the Epic Level Handbook (or whatever they called it). Several of those chopped spells popped up later as lower level versions in other supplements with slight name changes and far different effects, e.g. Battletide.
Its possible, Bioware had access to a pre-release version of the ELH and was later told to drop the spell by WotC. There are also several other spells in NWN that have no pnp reference aside from playtest versions of the books they would have appeared in - Mass Bull’s Strength for example (I’ve never been able those mass versions of those spells).
Yes, how interesting. I was aware that Bioware had a beta version of 3.0 before it went public, and that WotC changed some things during and after the fact. One will see vestiges of this in some of the old feats and code work.
Thanks, Shadooow, and Pstemarie for your insights. Think I’ll change the name and stick it around Level 9 and see what happens (not a fan of the name because it is too similar to Battletide).