Damage Scaling

[kmdietri]

I'm curious on people's thoughts about damage scaling.

Specifically I'm thinking about things like magic missile.

Do you think they will continue to scale up in damage like it does in 3.5 or do you think a wizard will likely just swap out that power for a higher level, higher damage power?

I guess it's probably 6 of one half dozen of another...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah I think it will be half and half as well.

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

In the most recent podcast of The Tome, Andy Collins mentions that a wizard tossing a d4 Magic Missile at 1st level is iconic, but it is implied that the d4 will change over the life of the wizard.

So it may be that while powers will be swapped out for other, newer powers as the character levels, it may also be that the die changes to represent the growing power of the character as well.

 

[Gargazon]

Seeing as the Rogue powers in the preview on the WotC site explicitly mention the power increasing in damage at 21st level (I think this was the case for both the at-wil powers shown) I doubt you'll be switching out powers at higher levels.

Magic Missile will probably go up from 1d10 to 2d10 damage at 21st level, or something to that effect.

There's of course a flaw in this idea, and that is that a Rogue is not a Wizard :\

 

[Plane Sailing]

We might see something like this

Heroic tier [W] damage
Paragon tier 2[W] damage
Epic tier 3[W] damage

(or in more generic terms Paragon +1W, Epic +2W)

This is a complete guess though - I've got no idea what they've got planned.

 

[Revinor]

We might see something like this

Heroic tier [W] damage
Paragon tier 2[W] damage
Epic tier 3[W] damage

I doubt it. If you look at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20071128 for the paladin smites, all of the are 2[W], because all of them are encounter powers.

at-will = 1[W]
encounter = 2[W]
daily = 3[W]

So far it is almost always true for single-target abilities.

I don't think we will see a lot of damage scaling in abilities themselves. Magic weapons, feats, some passive abilities of classes (like sneak attack/etc) may be improving, but abilities will have just better special effects rather than plain better damage (at least for melee types, wizards/warlocks may work different)

 

[Gargazon]

I remember someone somewhere (maybe in the latest WotC podcast?) mentioning that you will start rolling extra damage dice for your weapons as you level up. Now, this might just have been a Fighter-specific feature, as I think they were discussing the class, but I do see it being a possibility.

Seeing as weapons now seem to be listed in the PHB purely by dice size (i.e. d8 instead of 1d8, taken from another article) though, I can see this being the case for all characters.

 

[kolpo]

I remember someone somewhere (maybe in the latest WotC podcast?) mentioning that you will start rolling extra damage dice for your weapons as you level up. Now, this might just have been a Fighter-specific feature, as I think they were discussing the class, but I do see it being a possibility.

Seeing as weapons now seem to be listed in the PHB purely by dice size (i.e. d8 instead of 1d8, taken from another article) though, I can see this being the case for all characters.

Yes I think abilities scale by letting the weapon or implement damage scale. So while a smite shall remain 2[W], shall W increase over time. Maybe can you buy better weapons/implements after a certain level or do the weapons themself scale like you suggested.

 

[Stalker0]

I remember someone somewhere (maybe in the latest WotC podcast?) mentioning that you will start rolling extra damage dice for your weapons as you level up. Now, this might just have been a Fighter-specific feature, as I think they were discussing the class, but I do see it being a possibility.

Seeing as weapons now seem to be listed in the PHB purely by dice size (i.e. d8 instead of 1d8, taken from another article) though, I can see this being the case for all characters.

My thought as well. At some point, magic missile "damage" will increase from 1d10 to 2d10.

With such scaling, it greatly lowers the number of powers that a person needs to feel "complete". I mean, when you take away the window dressing, magic missle is just a single target damage spell. As long as its competitive, wizard would have little need for other such spells....other than perhaps one that does a different kind of damage or that targets a different defense.

 

[Crashy75]

Does anybody know if ability bonuses will play a part in this? What if they increase by 1/2 per level? So, if m.m. does 2d4 plus int mod the dam bonus would increase by 1/2 level (this would simplify BAB/def/skill progression as well)