AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Considering the actual name of the thread . . .
Brainstorming on spell fixes
- Thread starter Dannyalcatraz
- Start date
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
And since this thread is about, well, fixing spells, this isn't the place for you. I strongly suggest you try one of the thousands of other useful threads rather than derail this one.
Thanks
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Do people still talk about the power of Sleep? I'm astonished! in 3.0 and then 3.5 it was literally nerfed into uselessness!
Admittedly back in 1e it was a fantastic spell (take out 4d4 HD of creatures, none of which more than 4HD with no save? it was an encounter winner, and justified having that 1st level wizard along!)
But what is it now? 1 full round casting time to knock out up to 4HD total, and they get a save? I don't think I've seen a wizard take it, much less cast it, for years!
I do think there are still some problematic spells though:
Web: Save or not, you're still screwed by it. A successful initial save should allow you to just leave the area. I can't believe any designer has really read the web rules for years!
Wall of Iron: As I understand it the main argument about this one is economic. I think a 1hr per level duration would probably be fine (and use permanency for longer duration)
Polymorph: I like Eldritch_Lords solution better than anything else I remember seeing. Simple, straightforward.
Mirror Image: Personally I'd fix it by removing the scaling number of images. Just get 1d4 images. It is still a greeaaaat spell for wizards, but not quite so insane.
(I don't have a problem with comprehend languages, knock and so forth - I guess it is more of a problem if they appear in wands or cheap scrolls; without that they are taking up valuable spell slots and can't be used as often. Plus rogues are sometimes rather pleased to not have to always be the trap point man! If I was concerned about it, I'd just make it range: touch. That means that if a wizard wants to open a door/chest/something he is going to be just as vulnerable to the poisoned needles etc!
Holy Word/Blasphemy etc: Should be will negates for all effects, otherwise it is just insane (especially when used as a spell like ability by monsters...)
Most really problematic spells are introduced in supplements, to my mind. I've never allowed them, but as an example I'd look closely at any spell which claims to be a conjuration and thus avoids spell resistance but does 1d6 per level - it badly breaks the implied structure behind such spells in the PHB.
Problematic feats
Persistant Spell feat - should probably never exist
Divine Metamagic feats - also highly problematic
Problematic magic items
Incense of Meditation - they must have been insane to keep this one in!
Prayer Beads - the one that increases caster level is huge (e.g. with holy word, with damage causing spells)
Cheers!
Ranes
Adventurer
Celebrim
Legend
Yeah, I agree. Sleep was probably overpowered in 1e (although it did give the underpowered low level wizard something to feel proud of), but its not problimatic for me in 3e. Far more commonly Color Spray is an encounter winner, but it's not so bad that I'm particularly worried about it. The fact that it is a cone with limited range, is HD capped, is mind effecting, and it effects only a limited number of targets often produces problems for its caster.
Web is very powerful, but typically I find that a PC's best approach to the spell is to treat it as an area of effect fire spell that does limited damage and just wave their torch around. Because Web provides cover, it's best usage against NPCs is usually to isolate part of the opposing force from the rest so that they can be dealt with peice meal.
My biggest beef with it is the DC of the strength/escape artist check is not appropriate for a spell PC's will first encounter around 3rd levell, and that the movement rate resulting from such a difficult check is too slow. Drop the DCs by 5 and allow half movement rate, and I'd be happy.
I personally find the ability to conjure lasting material is too flavorful to give up despite the risk to the economy of mining conjured walls of iron. I think that among other things 'Break Enchantment' should be extended to destroy conjured materials like a wall of iron, and conjured material should be excluded from being part of the reagents of spells. This changes the economic uses of the spell to be more akin to fraud (although the idea of a nation ruled by wizards that requires all weapons to be forged from conjured iron amuses me).
Yes, I feel that these are the most problimatic spells in the SRD. Although, it's worth noting that the 3.0 versions of the spells were far less broken because they didn't scale with caster level. Currently I'm using the 3.0 versions of the spells, but would consider some fixes including the possibility of a saving throw.
Ashtagon
Adventurer
This reminds me of a simple change I have long proposed for spell saving throws. Rather than make the DC 10 + spell level, it is a flat DC 15 check. Spell resistance is not affected by this change. This makes spell saving throws more closing mirror how they worked in 1e/2e games.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
My beef with Web is a personal one - I was playing a strength monk, with evasion no less, and I was in a room where a web was cast - and despite making my Ref save with ease, it still took about 3-4 rounds to exit the room! Gah!
Celebrim
Legend
I've been using essentially the stock rules with the one change of not adding spell level at all and so far it has worked quite well. It's amazing the difference that this one change makes in the relative power of casters to non-casters. Remove spell level from the calculation and suddenly the math favors the non-spell caster.
I threw a 6th level caster at my 3rd level party, and just having the DC of the saves (vs. his best spells) change from 17's to 14's was enough of a difference to change an encounter that could have been under RAW a TPK into a fun extended romp of a fight. And when I say 'could have been', I literally mean that there were some saves made by throwing 14's and 15's without which the whole party probably would have gone down. With 17's, even the 'good saves' in the party would have only had about a 50% chance of saving, so it wouldn't have been long at all before the whole party would have been disabled and out of action. The ultimate result was that the 6th level non-twinked spellcaster was only slightly more of a challenge to the PC's than a 6th level non-twinked fighter probably would have been in the same circumstances.
Another cool thing about this is that the metamagic feat 'Heighten Spell' which I've tweaked to directly increase DC actually has a point to it. Normally, you'd not heighten a lower level spell because some higher level version of the spell is almost always strictly superior. But with this change there is actually a real point to taking a low level spell and heightening its power. You won't get as powerful of effect, but you have a better chance of getting that effect.
Actually, I liked the whole Extend/Persistent/Permanent spell feat set. They just need better strictures in their structures.
Celebrim
Legend
I largely agree. I also agree that the Persistent Spell feat as written is just ripe for abuse.
The biggest problem here, and it is a pervasive problem that can't be avoided simply by banning the Persistant Spell, is that at no point did the 3.X rules consider the difference in power gained between making a spell with a normal duration in rounds continuous and making a spell with a normal duration in hours continuous.
In the case of a spell with a normal duration in hours, making it continuous with the Persistant Spell feat or with a magic item that is use activated does not represent that big of an increase in utility. The writer of the spell almost certainly balanced it while factoring in the assumption that the spell would have a long duration. But making a spell continuous with either the Persistant Spell feat or an always on magic item when that spell has a normal duration in rounds is a massive increase in utility, because the writer of the spell almost certainly balanced it on the assumption that the spell would have a short duration. So clearly the two things are not a like, even though the 3.X rules treat them as a like.
In my opinion, the trick to writing the Persistant Spell feat (or making a truly liberating but balanced item creation system) is to make the number of spell levels it raises the metamagic'ed spell variable with the normal duration of the spell.
One other issue that this raises now that I'm thinking about it is the issue of the simplistic duration model that 3.X uses by comparison to 1e. For example, in 1e I wouldn't have been surprised to see duration on a 5th level spell listed as something like "1 round + 1 round/per level of the caster above 9th". But in third edition almost all durations are listed as something like "1 round/caster level". As a result, all spells by a high level caster tend to have 'long' durations even if they are powerful spells that the caster has only recently learned and presumably not yet mastered. This helps exaggerate the exponential curve in power growth that casters experience.
