I'm sure that this has been discussed at least once before so I apologize if I'm bringing up a dead and beaten horse for a quick re-beating, but I'm too tired to search and confirm that, and would like to just go ahead and make sure I'm not ever accused of abusing an exploit or some business.
Was testing spells earlier on my cleric. I was told that Banishment autokills all outsider PCs, including Aasimar, Tieflings, and all the elemental planetouched and that there was absolutely no way to counter it, with the exception of Spell Resistance or Spell Mantle. I thought that was bullcrap. (I was right.) With a bit of testing, I discovered that while yeah, it'll kill outsiders (or at least Aasimar, because that's what I was testing against) the DC is fairly low and isn't likely to kill many Paladins or other high-will toons unless I were to focus heavily upon Abjuration as a caster. Also, the spell can be countered with Death Ward, and if the outsider fails his will save he takes around 100 points of damage instead of being smote. No damage if he passes the save.
With a bit of looking through my spellbook though, I saw that Word of Faith has a similar effect, also slaying outsiders and summons, and with a "colossal" area of effect with, unless I'm mistaken, no limit to the number of HD it can destroy? That would mean that I could auto-splatter any number of outsider PCs in the vicinity with just that one spell, right? Again, I might be mistaken. (I'm really hoping I am, honestly.)
However, my cleric is an evocation-focused caster cleric, and his current DC for Word of Faith is mid to high thirties. Pretty obnoxious, considering the size of the AoE and the simple killing potential, along with the fact that it blinds everyone in the AoE for a fairly large number of rounds. Now, I'm not sure if Death Ward prevents that, because the buddy I was testing the spells on needed to log out. If Death Ward -does- prevent the spell being treated as an AoE death spell against outsiders, do they still receive a damage score similar to that of Banishment's?
Basically, I'm of the mind that some sort of change needs to happen with Word of Faith, if much of that is true - at least as far as how it affects outsider PCs. Death Ward isn't a buff that people fire up automatically, and with an AoE that large, I could probably nuke a caster type even if he were sanctuaried and busily buffing his way into using Death Ward.
I wouldn't think that even though Monks are outsiders that it would have an effect on them, being as how they're still native to the prime material plane, and seeing as how they have nice will saves and spell resistance anyway, I'm not terribly worried about blowing them up with WoF.
Again though, it seems like the spell is terribly overpowered against outsiders. I was curious to find out what I had gotten wrong in the ten minutes of testing I did today, and was hoping you guys could just go ahead and do all the work for me while I go to sleep.
Thanks.
Also: If in the course of RP which turns to PvP, I Banish/WoF an outsider, it says that they are returned to the plane from whence they came. Does that mean for Outsider PCs that they are banished from the prime material plane? And if -that's- the case, how in the blue hell does one RP raising the poor sod?
