D&D 5E QB's Spell Conversions - Help Requested

[QuietBrowser]

I love the Arcane Casters. Not for anything to do with the Linear Warrior Quadratic Wizard thing, but because magic has always excited me the most about any fantasy setting. D&D, more than any other RPG I've seen out there, has always made magic accessible and powerful at the same time, and that's why it has my ultimate loyalty.


Now, I'm comfortable enough with 5th edition to happily call it my 2nd favorite edition, but I can't help but notice that in terms of spells, it's rather... lacking... at the moment. And I'm not the only one. I don't know if I'm the only one who feels that there are just not enough Conjuration and Necromancy spells to really make the "themed spellbook" style of character viable, but I've seen plenty of complaints elsewhere about how Evokers and Dragon Sorcerers are screwed over by the fact that here's practically no variation in evocation magic - Fire Spells outnumber pretty much every other kind of damage-dealing spell, with Poison and Acid users in particular being screwed over.


Luckily, there's hope for both whilst we cross our fingers and wait for WoTC to put out a 5e Tome of Magic or whatever: conversions. 4th edition's spell lists really impressed me, and whilst I'm not as caught up on Pathfinder in comparison, I do like the mechanic that Pathfinder used of trying to 'break up' the power blocs of Conjuration, Transmutation & Necromancy spells by creating more specific spells dictating what you can summon, animate or turn into. So, I think both can serve as a potential source of converted spells.


Which is why I'm here. Although I have the 5e DMG, and thus access to its rules for creating new spells, they mostly focus on damage-dealing spells. That's fine and dandy for the most part, but the various summoning, animating and transforming spells I want are more complicated. Thusly, I was hoping folks would be willing to not only critique my efforts, but share their opinions when the minutia of converting a specific spell is bugging me.

 

[cbwjm]

Post your spells and we can take a look. For both damage dealing and non-damage dealing, I look to the examples in the PHB for comparison. Damage spells are definitely easier in that there are guidelines in the DMG.

If you're working on creating a summoning/conjuration spell, it would be useful for you to look at what is currently available and see roughly where you think the power level of your new spell lies in comparison. Sometimes it's fairly obvious, if it is a spell that is an enhanced or diminished version of another then that informs the spell's level. For other spells, like a new transmutation effect, you may want to look at the power level of the spells alter self, polymorph, flesh to stone, shapechange, and true polymorph to determine the level of your new spell.

Feel free to post here for comments on your spells, I'm always happy to look at more homebrewed spells.

On a side note, a couple of my favourite spells have been developed on these boards. One was an updated 2e (I think) spell and the other was someone's idea based off a movie.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

The main problem with summoning and necromancy spells is there ability to completely dominate other spell types. Because of action economy, concentration, and 5e's approach to simplification, summoning and necromancy spells are difficult because they add complexity to battles by the sheer prospect of allowing the caster to break normal action economy and bogging down battle.

That said, I would be happy to look at and provide feedback to any spells you post.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think that evocation wise, you can look at 2nd ed spells and port them over. A 2e fireball did 5-10d6 damage. A 5e fireball does 8d6. It's pretty close. The rule of thumb seems to be that you do *not* increase damage even though 5e monsters have more HP.

Range will probably have to be shortened.

I would pop my tome of magic and give a few examples, but unfortunately I've packed most of my books for an incoming move...

 

[QuietBrowser]

There's only real problem (besides working up the drive to write) for Evocation related updates that's bugging me, and that's this:

In 4e, a lot of spells inflicted two or even three types of damage simultaneously. The Sorcerer spell Caustic Vapors enveloped foes in a cone of fumes that either froze or melted depended on which of their defenses it successfully hit, for example.

Now, given the very different way the two editions handle damage resistances, how would you actually cover these kinds of spells?

My knee-jerk response is to just put up a sidebar like this: "Multiple Damage Types: A spell that inflicts multiple kinds of damage simultaneously ignores the Resistance and Immunity traits unless the target is either Resistant to all inflicted damage types (grants Resistance) or Immune to all inflicted damage types (grants Immunity). If the target has Vulnerability to even one type of damage inflicted by this spell, then it is Vulnerable to the spell. Multiple Vulnerabilities do not stack in terms of increasing damage."

But, I don't know how well that works. I don't want to make this overly complicated, and maybe spells like Caustic Vapors work better using the "roll X amount of type A damage dice and then roll Y amount of type B damage dice" mechanic, sort of like how Fire & Ice worked in the 2e-based Planescape: Torment game.

What are peoples' opinions?

 

[Hawk Diesel]

There is precedent in 5e for spells that do multiple types of damage. The one that most readily comes to mind is flame strike, which deals fire and radiant damage. The way flame strike handles it is it deals (for example, not sure of the exact numbers off-hand) 4d6 fire damage plus 4d6 radiant damage. This separates the two damage types to be able to apply resistance, immunity, or vulnerability as appropriate for each damage type. If you had spells that utilized multiple damage types, this would be the most appropriate way to handle it in 5e. The only problem is that it does make such a spell require more book keeping, but also reduces the possibility of it being outright resisted.

I feel like evocation spells are the easiest spells to create in D&D (personally). These spells are relatively easy to quantify and compare against similar level spells, and easy to create if one utilizes the guide presented in the 5e DMG.

It's the spells that create unique or more subjective effects that are more difficult to balance, since there is inherently less guidance and comparison against existing spells and their levels. In fact, I personally feel that consistency is very poor between spells of a given level in 5e, which is one of the biggest weaknesses of this edition. Fore example, for no reason other than their iconic nature, fireball and lightning bolt deal significantly more damage than other damage dealing 3rd level spells, and even go beyond the recommended guidelines given to create spells in the DMG. I also have a big problem with how upscaling spells using higher level spell slots works. But this is perhaps not the best place to have this conversation and may be beyond the scope of answering your original question.

 

[QuietBrowser]

Alright, here's my only other Evocation query, then: if a multi-damage spell uses the "seperate amounts of dice for each damage type" approach, should the damage die used be equal to the recommended amount in the DMG, or lower? For example, say a normal group-hitting spell is supposed to do 4d8 damage; should one spell that does acid & poison damage do 4d8 + 4d8, or 3d8 + 3d8?

 

[cbwjm]

I think the total should be equal to the recommended. A frostfire ball (fire & cold fireball) should probably do 4d6 fire + 4d6 cold. You could probably keep it the same level as a regular fireball, I'm not sure that multiple damage types is worth an increased level.

 

[Harzel]

Alright, here's my only other Evocation query, then: if a multi-damage spell uses the "seperate amounts of dice for each damage type" approach, should the damage die used be equal to the recommended amount in the DMG, or lower? For example, say a normal group-hitting spell is supposed to do 4d8 damage; should one spell that does acid & poison damage do 4d8 + 4d8, or 3d8 + 3d8?

Maybe I have misunderstood your example, but it seems like the obvious answer is 2d8 acid + 2d8 poison. Using the example of Flame Strike, it is a 5th level multitarget spell, for which the DMG recommends 8d6 damage. It does 4d6 fire + 4d6 radiant.

 

[CapnZapp]

No spell is broken - it's just not high level enough.

By this I mean, post your spell ideas. The worst thing that can happen is that we'll suggest you up its level one or eight notches...

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app