D&D 5E Spell Creation System

[CapnZapp]

Don't need to tell me that. WotC's the one looking to create an evergreen system.

At least until they don't, and by the way, here's sixth edition, we're ready for your cash in buying the PHB all over again.

 

[CapnZapp]

That hasn't been my experience. At my tables, the power differential becomes noticeable around level 5, and substantial around level 9.

I'm looking at this from a system-wide perspective, not strictly in terms of DPR. Versatility is a hard to quantify but no less important factor in my assessment of personal PC power, and spellcasters simply have a bigger bag of tricks than martial classes. Martial classes tend to be better at single target damage and personal damage mitigation, but that's about it. Spellcasters can do those things equally well or better if they build toward it, and still have options non-spellcasters will never get. In addition, more skills key off Int/Wis/Cha than Str/Dex, granting Spellcasters an edge independent of other class features.

Briefly, spellcasters consistently do more to drive the success of parties in my games than non-spellcasters. The only way I can think of to bring them into balance in this respect is to run a combat-centric game featuring primarily solo monsters. Not really my kind of game.

This is before acknowledging the reality that most DMs aren't running the 6-8 encounters per adventuring day upon which class balance is predicated. I don't say this as a strike against the OP's concept. In fact, it's good design to run with the assumptions baked into the math. The reality, however, is that implementing this system at most tables will exacerbate an existing imbalance.

Sure, but still, the casters would have been dead without the fighters and barbarians and paladins with Great Weapon Master.

In other words, if your casters outshine your martials already at level 5, perhaps you should tweak your game parameters?

If this happens at level 9 or 13, sure, it's bound to happen sometimes since its built into the system. But if it happens already at level 5, know you can change stuff around.

And I'm saying this as somebody who find it next to impossible to force my players into 6 encounters a day, let alone 8.

If my campaign averaged 7 encounters a day, the casters would probably not outshine the martials even at level 13!

PS. Full disclaimer: I do tend to skip trivial encounters, though, focusing our limited play time on the stuff that's actually exciting and challenging.

 

[Kinematics]

Without delving into your details, I've been around long enough to conclude any free-form spell design system will fall into one out of two categories:
A) the unbalanced one. The PHB spells can be faithfully reproduced, but the system is wide open to powergaming and abuse.
B) the restrained one. Costs are so heavy you really can't abuse the system. However, the iconic PHB spells are way out of reach.

In other words, any balanced open system will be able to create scores of mediocre spells, just like most PHB spells.

Well, I'm hoping my system can be considered relatively balanced, not because I'm trying to create a balanced system, but because I'm trying to reverse-engineer the system that WotC uses, and presumably they've done a lot more work towards making sure spells are balanced than I would ever be able to do.

Creating unbalanced spells is easy. Just ignore the limits. If someone wants to go that way, there's nothing I can do to stop them.

However I don't feel that these rules so heavily restrain you that you can't reach the 'iconic' PHB spells. Fireball is overpowered, but it's really easy to see how its design fits with respect to the guidelines. And in fact you can see that it fits exactly as a 5th level spell, just as many people have described it when trying to judge its relative power.

As far as "lots of mediocre spells", that seems to be almost immediately countered by the idea that casters are already pushing ahead of non-casters in power and versatility. If the system can replicate every spell in the book, then it should already be capable of doing something on the strong and interesting end.

Instead, have your player describe her new spell in broad strokes, and then design the final spell yourself, by hand as the DM.

That doesn't really solve the problem. You still need a way to judge if the spell is properly balanced. And if you do have a way to judge if the spell is balanced, it should be as easily usable by the player as by the DM. Obviously the DM still has to judge the end result, but even the DM needs some guidelines to work from. For example, I could rebuild Shocking Grasp as a 3rd level spell:

Shocking Grasp @3rd level
VS - 9 points

Dmg: 8d8 (single target, no damage on miss): +6
Range: Touch: -2
Bonus: Advantage if target is wearing metal: +1
Bonus: Target cannot take reactions: +2
Duration: 1 minute (con save each round to end effect): +2


And you'd have to judge whether that's balanced. It does more damage than Fireball, but it's single target, and the target takes no damage if you miss (unlike Fireball doing half damage). So the damage rating is appropriate for a 3rd level spell, according to the DMG. The rest of the features are taken directly from the cantrip, but you end up with 1 spare point to spend. Is it OK to bump the duration up to a 1 minute effect, instead of a 1 round effect? Or I could have left the duration at 1 round, but increased the range to 15 feet. If the player tried to increase the range to 30' or 60', would the DM be able to recognize that as going past acceptable boundaries? How much should damage be reduced if you wanted to use it at a 60' range?

And all this is vs the cantrip version of the spell doing just 2d8 damage at the character's 5th level. 8d8 seems extremely excessive — except that that's the expected damage for a 3rd level spell that's single target and does no damage on a miss, given that it uses a spell slot instead of being at will.

Without some way to measure the impact of any changes to a spell, you're just swinging in the dark. Even if you punt to the DM, that doesn't make the DM any more qualified to judge whether a spell is balanced or not.

This. It's perhaps the most direct example of what I had in mind when I wrote previously that any balanced system will be able to create lots of mediocre spells that can't compete with the blue- and gold-rated spells of the PHB.

Except possibly not? Aside from Fireball, the poster child for unbalanced spells, there are many spells that are considered 'good', and many that are mediocre or bad. Would you be surprised to know that Lightning Bolt actually falls within the spell point limits?

Lightning Bolt
Level 3, VSM: 10 points

Range: Self: 0
Area: 100'x5' = 20x1 = 20 units = Level 2 area: -1
Damage: 8d6 = Level 5: +10
Bonus: Sets objects on fire: +0.5

Cost: 9.5/10


In general, from what I've seen, the 'bad' spells are those that either don't use the full allotment of points (Snilloc's Snowball Swarm uses 2.5 points out of an 8 point budget), or aren't willing to accept a sacrifice in a less necessary area (eg: range) in order to bump the primary purpose of the spell up to a reasonable level, or have requirements or features that fundamentally don't make sense (eg: Dust Devil requiring a target to end its turn next to the spell effect).

Elements of Magic.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to check it out and compare how it does things.

 

[Kinematics]

Various points of note in Elements of Magic:

Range and Area are interlinked effects, rather than independent. Might need to consider this.

Conceptually it's similar to the work I'm doing, but it's fiddling with things on a much lower level. It seems mostly about setting costs for all the 'bonus' features that I've been treating in a more abstract manner.

So. Many. Tables. And much of the costs and benefits are tied to the elemental system, which is an entirely separate beast, and likely completely broken with respect to the bounded accuracy of 5E.

3.5 is so fundamentally built into the system that it would be a major undertaking to convert it to 5E. If someone did, however, it would be an interesting model for sorcerer spellcasting. Just, that person probably isn't going to be me.


Enhancements costs for one of the early spell sets give a nice progression. 0 for a single weak effect, or +1 for each of more than one weak effect. +2 for moderate, +4 for strong. Those are a bit similar to how I'm doing bonus effects. Likewise, elemental damage spells have side-effects of various levels, from mild to extreme. These tend to be common by element.

However in general, you're still just judging how strong a bonus effect is, and using an estimated cost based on that. It's just a matter of what baseline you're using.

So, in a way, it's approaching spell design very similarly to how I'm doing it. I'm limiting the points based on spell level, and it's using mana point limits (and even that is a refinement from the previous version, which also based points on spell level). It's applying costs based on range and area, just like I am. And it's detailing tons of bonus effects, which I'm only lightly touching on.

It was a useful review, but probably won't change much about how I'm approaching the spell creation system.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not seeing enough detail to do this myself. A few spells I would like to ask about.

How do these spells rate?
Bless
Healing Word?
Hold Person?
Suggestion?
Shield?
Hellish Rebuke?
Burning Hands?
Sleep?
Spirit Guardians?
Spiritual Weapon?

How much more expensive does a spell become by requiring a bonus action or reaction instead of an action?

 

[Kinematics]

I'm not seeing enough detail to do this myself. A few spells I would like to ask about.

How do these spells rate?
Bless
Healing Word?
Hold Person?
Suggestion?
Shield?
Hellish Rebuke?
Burning Hands?
Sleep?
Spirit Guardians?
Spiritual Weapon?

How much more expensive does a spell become by requiring a bonus action or reaction instead of an action?

So far I've mainly focused on the hard mechanical bits of spells — casting time, duration, range, area, damage — while the extra bonuses and flaws have been kept in the examples, or tracked in my head. Now that I've got a baseline to work from, I was going to start transferring the known effects to another pair of tables for the flaws and bonuses. I'll probably get those filled out in the doc later tonight. I'll work on adding the above spells to my example lists and see how they look.

I do have one other thing that I'm not sure how to price, related to Bless and similar spells: How to value a spell that lets you select the targets, compared to just flat AOEs. That'll have to wait til I get more spells like that checked out.

 

[cbwjm]

It seems to be a decent enough system. Not sure I'd use it as I tend to be more freeform with my spell design judging on general feel of the spell and its level more than anything. Mind you, I have had a couple of spells that could benefit from a system to evaluate them.

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[Kinematics]

I'm not seeing enough detail to do this myself. A few spells I would like to ask about.

How do these spells rate?
Bless
Healing Word?
Hold Person?
Suggestion?
Shield?
Hellish Rebuke?
Burning Hands?
Sleep?
Spirit Guardians?
Spiritual Weapon?

How much more expensive does a spell become by requiring a bonus action or reaction instead of an action?

OK, some answers for you.

Bonus actions are a +2 compared to actions (default 0). Reactions I have as a +1.

I've put numbers on the spells you asked about. Will give a summary for each. Mainly uncertain about Shield and Sleep. They might be spending above their budget.

[sblock]
Bless

Level 1, VSM = 6 point budget
Range 30' = 0
1 action cast = 0
Concentration, 1 minute = 0
Target three creatures = +4
+1d4 to attacks and saving throws: +2
Spent: 6/6


Healing Word

Level 1, V = 4 point budget
Range 60' = +1
1 bonus action cast = +2
Heal 1d4 + spellcasting mod = +2
Ineffective on constructs and undead = -1
Spent: 4/4


Hold Person

Level 2, VSM = 8 point budget
Range 60' = +1
Concentration, 1 minute = 0
Can only target humanoids = -5 (using -0.5 per unaffected creature type, capped at -5 for 10/12)
Paralyze = +12
Spent: 8/8


Hold Monster

Level 5, VSM = 14 point budget
Range 90' = +1.5
Concentration, 1 minute = 0
Cannot target undead = -0.5
Paralyze = +12
Spent: 13/14


Suggestion

Level 2, VM = 7 point budget
Range 30' = 0
Concentration, 8 hours = +3
Suggestion = +4
Spent: 7/7


Shield (not comfortable with this one)

Level 1, VS = 5 point budget
Casting time reaction = +1
Range Self = 0
Duration 1 round = +1
+5 AC = +2?
Null Magic Missile = +1
Spent: 5?/5


Hellish Rebuke

Level 1, VS = 5 point budget
Casting time reaction = +1
Range 60' = +1
Damage: 2d10 = Level 1 = +2
Spent: 4/5


Burning Hands

Level 1, VS = 5 point budget
Range Self = 0
Area 15' Cone = 6 units = level 1 = 0
Damage 3d6 AOE = Level 1 = +2
Ignites flammable objects = +0.5
Spent: 2.5/5


Sleep (not comfortable with this one)

Level 1, VSM = 6 point budget
Range 90' = +1.5
Duration 1 minute = +2
Sleep 5d8 hit points = +2? +4?
Spent: 5.5?/6


Spirit Guardians

Level 3, VSM = 10 point budget
Range Self = 0
Area 15' = Level 3 = 0
Concentration, 10 minutes = +1
Damage: 3d8 = Level 2 = +4
Half movement speed = +1
Designate unaffected = +4?
Spent: 10?/10


Spiritual Weapon?

Level 2, VS = 7 point budget
Range 60' = +1
1 minute duration = +2
Damage 1d8 + spellcasting mod = Level 1 = +2
Can use again each bonus action = +2
Spent: 7/7
[/sblock]

 

[CapnZapp]

Bonus action at a static and low cost? Not balanced.

The cost to transform a regular spell into a bonus action needs be expressed as a fraction of the total cost.

In other words, the bonus action component needs cost more for a 5th level spell than a 1st level spell.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Gadget]

Well, I'm hoping my system can be considered relatively balanced, not because I'm trying to create a balanced system, but because I'm trying to reverse-engineer the system that WotC uses, and presumably they've done a lot more work towards making sure spells are balanced than I would ever be able to do.

I think this assumes that WotC uses a "System" with defined costs and measurements like you have put up here. I find that notion...debatable at best. I have no doubt that WotC has a more or less loose set of guidelines, along with tradition, play testing, comparison to existing spells, and gut feel, that they use to refine their spell design. D&D spells have always had each spell be more or less a rules engine unto itself, albeit with shared elements that have become more common and standardized over time thus making it more difficult to come up with a universal formulae to generate new spells.