Control Winds & your game world

[MarauderX]

So a 19th level druid character fired up a Control Winds spell as a few hundred enemy orcs went to swarm a fight that was underway. Per the spell and the DMG for wind speed, the character could whip up a tornado on a whim and let it decimate for some time, while those in the mess have to make a save each round or get sucked up and take decent damage each round.

It seems to me that an 11th level evil druid could wreak some serious havoc on civilization if so inclined. Am I interpreting the spell correctly?

As an enemy caster, cleric, druid, or wiz/sorc standing in the mix, what are my options for escape?

 

[Bad Paper]

An 11th level caster is quite powerful. A 19th level caster is insanely powerful. Yes, this power is in line with the spell.

Your escape options are teleportation spells, fortitude-save-buffing spells, and dispelling the damn thing.

 

[MarauderX]

So... we're looking at a 9th level druid that can wipe out a lot of things. A village she is unhappy with with pallisades doesn't stand a chance, even with a 9th level party leading them. The winds would tear the place apart, all cast in a standard action to get a tornado effect.

Just making sure I have it right for when I do it.

 

[Rystil Arden]

So... we're looking at a 9th level druid that can wipe out a lot of things. A village she is unhappy with with pallisades doesn't stand a chance, even with a 9th level party leading them. The winds would tear the place apart, all cast in a standard action to get a tornado effect.

Just making sure I have it right for when I do it.

Depends on the weather that day. Most days will be light wind, which is upgraded to severe by a 9th-level druid and does no worse than Check a Medium-sized creature.

 

[Patlin]

Also, the area of effect is large but not unlimited. You'd be taking out a section of the village at a time, even on a day that had naturally severe winds.

I think the natural winds in Denver this morning were about 100 mph, though I haven't heard any tales of mass destruction as yet...

 

[Brother MacLaren]

The main check on the power is the possible wind speed increase -- 1 level per 3 caster levels. Note that the DMG has seven levels of wind power (the spell description omits the lowest levels), so to go from the lowest (0-10 mph) to tornado category requires an 18th-level caster. A lower-level caster could inflict this devastation on days that were naturally very windy.

Yes, tornado-strength winds are CONSIDERABLY more powerful than Storm of Vengeance against most opponents. (In a previous battle, at 17th level, Jerrin found SoV to be far better, because he had only hurricane-force winds available.) SoV does damage even on a made save (and has some no-save effects), but takes 1 full round to cast, only lasts as long as concentration, and has a smaller radius of effect. On the other hand, the save DC for Control Winds isn't very high -- Jerrin would save against his own spell on a 2 (DC 22, he has +20 Fort save).

Even though MarauderX has removed most teleport spells from his game, enemy casters could still use Rope Trick, Mord's Mansion, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Dim Door, Plane Shift, or Dispel Magic to escape or negate the effect. Or Shapechange into something too big to be sucked up into the funnel cloud.

The main defense against it on a city level is that characters of 11th level or higher are "LEGENDARY" as per the Legend Lore spell. They don't exist everywhere. They can raise the dead, summon demons or angels, and turn the mightiest hero into dust. You know about them and you stay on their good side or you hire heroes to take them down. That's true no matter what caster class we're talking about.

From non-core sources: there are a couple of "Lair Wards" in the Draconomicon, magic items that keep the weather in a 2-mile radius either nice or nasty. Casters attempting to change the weather in this area must succeed on opposed level checks. A similar item of higher level that *only* protects against magical weather alteration might be sensible for large towns. Or a spell like "Nature's Whim" that has a similar effect.

 

[Neijin]

Yes, I find this spell to be quite powerful when increased to maximum wind strength. It manifests instantly, unlike Control Weather, and can have a very large area. For example, a widened, Control Winds has a radius of 800 ft + 80 a caster level. At 20th caster level (Bead of Karma, Orange Ioun Stone to bump as needed), this spell has a radius of 2400 ft. That is almost half a mile! Sure, you would need 4 casts of it to cover a square mile, but 4 casts of this would ruin a city rather quickly, even if dispelled after one round.

The DC to resist being picked up by the funnel is 30, not 22, as listed in the DMG on page 95. 6d6 points of damage, even for just one round, will kill all the low level commoners. Really, a widened Contol Winds spell is like setting off a bomb if the caster chooses the winds to go outwards in all directions.

I'm speaking here as someone whose character has destroyed an army using Control Winds. By selectively Dimensional dooring around the battlefield and casting this over and over, an army of low HD creatures will all die.

If you find this spell to be totally out of line, consider having the DM cap the Wind strenth to Windstorm level or leave it in and deal with the effects. My DM had the major powers of the campaign world sign a treaty considering the casting of some spells with certain areas to be "spells of mass destruction", equivalent to modern day "weapons of mass destruction".

Forgive the slight tangent, but tactics like this keep reminding me that terrorist tactics in D&D would be difficult to stop and far more prevalent than in the modern world. Once a villain gets Mind Blank, they can strike with virtual impunity and pull stunts like this.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Yes, I find this spell to be quite powerful when increased to maximum wind strength. It manifests instantly, unlike Control Weather, and can have a very large area. For example, a widened, Control Winds has a radius of 800 ft + 80 a caster level.

You can't Widen it -- the area of effect is a cylinder, not a "burst, emanation, line, or spread."

The DC to resist being picked up by the funnel is 30, not 22, as listed in the DMG on page 95.

I disagree. I think you use the DC of the spell itself (which for Jerrin is a 22 -- 5th level spell, +7 Wis), not the DC of a "natural" tornado. Since an argument can be made either way, I think it's best to go with a ruling that preserves game balance.

 

[hong]

So it's a plot-device spell. So what? Raise dead, teleport, commune, contact other plane, plane shift... D&D has always had lots of plot-device spells, and they all start turning up around 5th level.