Level Up (A5E) Community Design Project Proposal: Free Generic Elemental Spells

[xiphumor]

One unfortunate thing that A5e has inherited from O5e is a general dearth of generic, elemental spells. Although you can certainly port over some of the old O5e spells and other 3PP content for your personal game, there are certain design possibilities that are noticeably harder to pull off both in an official capacity and as a 3PP because of this lack.

To give an obvious example, the DDG gave us the Stoneheart sorcerer which focuses on earth-themed spells and effects. To me, it's simply begging to be joined by additional archetypes centered around fire, water, and air, but that's hard to pull off when there are no damage-dealing spells in the water school below 4th-level. Likewise, I've seen an excellent and flavorful draft for a GPG article from another designer that wound up getting stuck on the fact that there are no force damage cantrips in A5e.

While a 3PP compendium of elemental spells (akin to what KibblesTasty Homebrew created for O5e) would help address this problem, it wouldn't allow for official archetypes, magic items, and monsters to be created using these spells, and enabling future design work is the primary aspiration I have for this project.

As such, here would be my ideal scenario: Interested designers would sign up to create generic spells for the following schools. (I am very open to editing this list.)

• acid
• air
• cold
• earth
• fire
• force
• lightning
• necrotic
• radiant
• poison
• psychic
• plants
• thunder
• water

The goal would be for each of these schools to have at least:

• One damage-dealing cantrip.
• One damage-dealing spell for each level between 1-6.
• Two spells for each level between 1-5, damage-dealing or not.

(Optional goal: generic minor magical effect cantrips similar to gust or control flame from O5e, with the caveat that they actually be useful.)

Some of the schools are closer to this goal than others. E.g., fire probably only needs two more spells at levels 1 and 3. Meanwhile, there are only 3 acid spells in the entire game. The requirements for each school would be tabulated in advance of any assignments.

The designers would submit their spells to a common document where the other designers could read their drafts and offer feedback. Once the designs were generally satisfactory, the document would be handed over to EN Publishing on the following conditions:

1. Any edits to the spells prior to publication would not subvert the minimum stated goals of the project.
2. The spells be published in a manner that is easily accessible and free to access (most likely the Level Up website, similar to how the Necromancer wizard was released).
3. An SRD document designating the spells as Open Content is released at the same time that the spells were published.

At this point, I'm mostly interested in seeing if there is sufficient community interest and will for such a project, as well as knowing if there are any glaring flaws with my suggestion.

Thoughts?

 

[aco175]

A couple thoughts.

Should all the elements have damage spells? I can see some being less damage and more effects and others being just damage. Similar to firebolt just dealing 1d10 fire and other cantrips having a save or dealing 1d6 and slow or something. I can also see a few of the spells not doing damage, but just focus on other things. A water spell or plant spell could just restrain people instead of damaging them.

Should people be balanced with only one element? Should there be a penalty if you only focus on fire or acid? There is some about monsters resistant to a certain element, but is that enough?

 

[VenerableBede]

I’d be willing to try my hand. Acid sounds like a fun challenge, although I’m not certain I’d have the time for it, so I might sign up for something more limited.

Have you spoken to someone at ENWorld already to confirm a necromancer-type situation, or is this proposal as much to them as it is to the community?

Is there any room for designer names to be put on the document that goes on the website?

 

[xiphumor]

I’d be willing to try my hand. Acid sounds like a fun challenge, although I’m not certain I’d have the time for it, so I might sign up for something more limited.

Have you spoken to someone at ENWorld already to confirm a necromancer-type situation, or is this proposal as much to them as it is to the community?

Is there any room for designer names to be put on the document that goes on the website?

It’s a proposal to them as much as us. And possibly! I don’t see a reason why we couldn’t at least have a credits page.

A couple thoughts.

Should all the elements have damage spells? I can see some being less damage and more effects and others being just damage. Similar to firebolt just dealing 1d10 fire and other cantrips having a save or dealing 1d6 and slow or something. I can also see a few of the spells not doing damage, but just focus on other things. A water spell or plant spell could just restrain people instead of damaging them.

Should people be balanced with only one element? Should there be a penalty if you only focus on fire or acid? There is some about monsters resistant to a certain element, but is that enough?

I love status effects, and I want many of these damage spells to include status effects, but you can’t win a fight with status effects alone. Someone, somewhere, will want to theme their character entirely around a single element regardless of power, perhaps because they’re an eight-year-old girl who wants nothing more to be Elsa from Frozen. We should strive to at least make that dream viable, if not necessarily optimal.

I don’t see a reason why you should be penalized for focusing on one element aside from what’s already built into the game with resistances. Elemental casters are a very common trope, and we already have a few archetypes built around a single element, like the Pyromancer wizard.

 

[Corinnguard]

What about converting spells from an earlier edition of D&D or 1st-edition Pathfinder to A5e? curious

 

[xiphumor]

What about converting spells from an earlier edition of D&D or 1st-edition Pathfinder to A5e? curious

I mean, I’m not picky. We can also use the Kibbles spells from the linked source above.

 

[Faolyn]

What about converting spells from an earlier edition of D&D or 1st-edition Pathfinder to A5e? curious

I've done that!

Although there's always room for new spells.

 

[Tonguez]

Personally my design philosophy is to look at effects so that all spells have the same seed then modified by element choice but dnd has weird distinctions in its elemental spells for instance why does acid splash do d6 damage, firebolt do d10 and lightning grasp do d12? Why dont they all do d8?

 

[xiphumor]

Personally my design philosophy is to look at effects so that all spells have the same seed then modified by element choice but dnd has weird distinctions in its elemental spells for instance why does acid splash do d6 damage, firebolt do d10 and lightning grasp do d12? Why dont they all do d8?

Easy. Acid splash can hit multiple targets, making it 2d6 in the right circumstances. Fire bolt can be shot from 120 feet away, so it needs to do less damage than shocking grasp, which requires you to be in touch range.

 

[Corinnguard]

I've done that!

Although there's always room for new spells.

The more, the merrier. pulls out the Infinite Compendium of Magic