Have the existing Schools of Magic ever been ranked according to relative power level?
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
it's not that they nerfed it per se, but it's the HP of monsters that has increased.
in 2e, fireball is 5-10 d6 damage. Ogre has about ... 4HD+1 in hp, so on average about 20 hp? Even a 5d6 fireball has a decent chance of killing an ogre.
In 5e, a fireball is a flat 8d6 damage. If you want to make it more powerful, you cast it as a level 4, 5 etc spell. It's not exactly nerfed. BUT the average ogre has ... 78 hp if my memory serve? So it can easily survive 2 fireballs.
I'm writing this away from my books so the numbers may be a bit off, but the broader picture is correct.
Imaculata
Hero
Some of the new editions definitely suffer from a case of the damage spongyness. I've always felt that with 3.0 and upwards, the amount of HP on enemies does not entirely scale correctly with the damage of spells. Spellcasters such as the wizard and sorcerer tend to be pretty squishy, but the power of their spells is what offsets this weakness.... or it should on paper. But if the monsters can eat 2 fireballs, then some of that balance kind of goes out the window. Since they have a limited selection of spells to begin with, it becomes rather important to have those spells actually be a big deal. I guess they really wanted the spellcasters to be backliners.
Tuzenbach
First Post
A 78 hp ogre? Wow! Didn't know that. Thanks!!!
Yeah, I haven't bought new D&D books since about 2001, so I'm out of the loop....
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
Well I checked and I was a little bit wrong... a 2nd ed ogre has 4HD+1 (so 4d8+1) and a 5e ogre has 59 hp (not 78)... but that's still almost triple the 2nd ed value. Such an ogre can take 2 fireball hits, but will be in poor shape after that.
aaaanyway, the end result is that evocation is less effective than before.
Neonchameleon
Legend
Evocation got very screwed up by 3.0. Hit points got higher without spells doing more damage - but this was counteracted by the wizard getting more spells for a slightly longer, more tactical combat. So far so good.
Unfortunately with the change to saving throws so save or lose spells used the same numbers as direct damage spells rather than the petrification/polymorph or even the death or poison column as well as feats and stat bumps and picking the target's low save meant that save or lose gained a vast and unexpected power boost.
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