D&D (2024) Make SPELLS Balanced

[Horwath]

all spells need to be redone, and fireball should NOT be better then other damage spells. Now the argument can be made to bring other spells up to that level, or bring it down. Same with Meteor Strike.

I also want hold and tasha laugh NERFed to heck... there is NO amount of damage is equal to "take a turn or more away from target" let alone "Take a turn away AND debuff target"

a 20th level wizard running into a non legendary 20th level threat can use a 1st level Tasha laugh spell to more effect then any damage spell. Heck since saves don't go up with level if facing a target with low save it may just knock them right out of the fight... compare that to any damage causing spell.

no 1st or 2nd level spell should be powerful enough to negate a threat like that

yes.

1st and 2nd level spell should have levels of debuffs in range of:

halve speed of target,
inflict disadvantage on attack and/or saves,
prevent spellcasting except cantrips for one round,
"weaken" condition: all damage you deal is halved,
have attacks gain advantage vs target,
targets provokes AoO,

 

[Yaarel]

I disagree that fireball should be downgraded to 6d6.

I think 7d6 would also be ok.

A 7d6 Fireball would be fine.

7d6 is powerful but between 6d6 and 8d6 is still within the parameters of a 3rd-slot spell.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Wildfire druid should get it as a bonus spell instead of Plantgrowth or Revivify.

Our last campaign had a wildfire druid, and he was teased all the time for not having fireball lol.

 

[Horwath]

A 7d6 Fireball would be fine.

7d6 is powerful but between 6d6 and 8d6 is still within the parameters of a 3rd-slot spell.

hmm, might work.

1st level fireball, 3d6, 10ft radius
2nd lvl, 5d6, 15ft radius
3rd lvl, 7d6, 20ft radius
4th level, 9d6, 25ft radius
...
9th level, 19d6, 50ft radius

Fireball is now 1st level spell. This is now canon.

 

[Yaarel]

all spells need to be redone, and fireball should NOT be better then other damage spells. Now the argument can be made to bring other spells up to that level, or bring it down. Same with Meteor Strike.

Yeah, it is important every spell in a slot is comparable.

I also want hold and tasha laugh NERFed to heck... there is NO amount of damage is equal to "take a turn or more away from target" let alone "Take a turn away AND debuff target"

1st-slot Entangle and Tashas Hiddeous Laughter and 6th-slot Ottos Irresistable Dance are roughly comparable to each other. Entangle restrains as an area effect, Laughter incapacitates, and Dance denies an initial save so requires an action to try stop granting advantage.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

1st-slot Entangle and Tashas Hiddeous Laughter and 6th-slot Ottos Irresistable Dance are roughly comparable to each other. Entangle restrains as an area effect, Laughter incapacitates, and Dance denies an initial save so requires an action to try stop granting advantage.

way back when in 1e spells were not balanced with level... over the years as they tried to, the 'legacy' spells have been proud nails standing up and need to be hammered down hard

 

[tetrasodium]

The base fireball spell in the hands of a generalist or a caster specced towards some other niche should be 6d6 or less. The reason for that it because that gives evoker & similar archetypes more room to carry meaningful class features that bring it up to wow-worthy levels. By extension non-evoker type archetypes that focus in some other niche have room for their niche to carry meaningful contributions to their making niche wow worthy as well. Spells themselves have more room to scale better too & it doesn't matter as much if an evoker type upcasts an already wowworthy fireball because said evoker has less power elsewhere that some other caster carries on their class/archetype.

I like 8d6 fireball.
There are more problems with casters than removing HP from targets.
Control, battlefield manipulations are far more effective than removing HPs.
Most monsters are huge bags of HPs anyway.

All spells should be around fireballs damage at 3rd spell level.

also damage spells need better scaling.

banishment goes from 1 target to 2 targets at spell levels 4 and 5.
+100% efficiency.
fireball goes from 9d6 to 10d6 from 4th to 5th level.
+11% efficiency. What a joke.

depending on side effects, damage types, AoE size, most, if not all damaging spells should be based on d6 and d8 only.

upcasting of damaging spells should be 3 dice for single target, and 2 dice for AoE.

I.E.
fireball should deal +2d6 extra per spell level. with +5ft radius increase.

Scorching ray should be 2 rays for 3d6 at 2nd level and gain one 3d6 ray per spell level.

That bold bit is why nuke type spells need a portion of their power shifted to archetypes & buff/debuff/control type spells dialing back their excessive limits is so that an evoker can't also be a master of buff/debuff/control. With god wizard types carrying class features that make them masters of wow-worthy buff/debuff/control spells they don't need 8d6 fireballs either. Casters who are masters of a given niche likewise should be leaning into their niche of helping their party shine however their niche does that; In the case of casters other than blasters that is usually done by letting the party do the damage at lower cost than by throwing out an unimpressive fireball just because they could.

 

[Stalker0]

While I could see the case for fireball being toned back down its not even close to the biggest spell abuse in the game. Something like hypnotic pattern is far more disruptive.

On the flip side, there are a number of garbage spells that could certainly use love, Mordenkainen's Sword being near the top...there's actually a lot of 6th+ level spells that just aren't worth the pay grade.

 

[Kobold Stew]

The Wildfire Druid should probably have both Fireball (and Lightning Bolt since lightning normally causes natural wildfires) as well as Plantgrowth (since the forest burnings fertilize the soil).

The Wildfire Druid also needs access to Revivify if serving as the party healer.

Wildfire druids have access to both Revivify and Plant Growth.

 

[Yaarel]

Wildfire druids have access to both Revivify and Plant Growth.

I was responding to what seemed a suggestion to swap the Circle Spells out to get Fireball. I was saying, all of these spells, including Fireball (and Lightning Bolt) are appropriate for the concept of the Wildfire Druid.