Necropolitans, episode 66: Boneshatter, Boneshatter, Boneshatter

Makoa now has one solution to all problems, in Episode 066: Boneshatter, Boneshatter, Boneshatter.. Weird undead template things that I did continue to make life more difficult than necessary. There is much levelling-up and some attempt to work out how Cheliax, and especially its rebellious provinces, actually work.

Boneshatter is one of those spells - you get some at every level - that is simply extremely good for most combats. Like most such spells it does so by having an effect even on a successful saving throw, and a nasty one: on top of hefty damage that works against most living and undead creatures, it applies exhaustion (on a failure) or fatigue (on a success). A fatigued creature can't charge or run, besides minor stat penalties; an exhausted one has larger penalties and also moves slowly. The condition lasts for minutes per level, while the average combat lasts for less than a minute. Some monsters and NPCs are designed to lean heavily on charges - rhino-type monsters, feline beings that can attack multiple times on a charge, creatures that inspire their allies by charging, mounted combatants - and simply being targeted by this spell automatically negates those abilities entirely.

Either condition also entirely prevents barbarians from raging; since almost every barbarian ability (particularly the offensive ones) relies on being in a rage, this effectively turns a barbarian into a warrior with some extra hit points. There are few other things that can simply turn off an entire class, beyond somehow trapping a spellcaster in an antimagic field. So it's great for squishy targets (with poor Fortitude saves and low HP, who'll suffer a lot of damage) and for combatants (who'll be inconvenienced by the side effects even on a successful save, and in some cases are crippled by it).

Oh, and of course, you can guarantee that something becomes exhausted by simply casting this spell twice. While that is two spell slots, it doesn't matter how tough the target is. Assuming it doesn't have spell resistance that shrugs off your spell entirely, two castings will halve its speed, render it incapable of raging, prevent charging, and impose a hefty penalty to attacks, damage, Reflex saving throws, and defences.

Between scaling damage and a hampering condition that remains useful at high levels, it's a very good spell. When looking at other spells available at the same level (especially to the wizard, who gets it as a 4th-level spell) it is simply far more flexible and widely useful than the alternatives. To me, this suggests some kind of imbalance. There is virtually no situation where casting boneshatter on an obvious important enemy is not one of your best options. Even by the time you have disintegrate and so on, you'll then have enough lower-level slots available that throwing a boneshatter is relatively cheap as well as effective!

Anyway, Makoa's player makes ample use of this spell for a while, but he is reasonable and does not use it for absolutely everything.

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2. Episode 001: Character Generation
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4. Episode 007: Screaming blue murder from his waist (start of Castaways)
5. Episode 023: Everyone knows that mummy octopi are not scared of cooking (start of Nautical Shenanigans)
6. Episode 027: The crumpling noise you can hear was Book 2 (start of Nameless Ancients)
7. Episode 049: Mint Ice Cream (start of Trouble in Cheliax)