Treebore
First Post
I am sorry but you will have to tell me how to differentiate between a 20th level spell and a 30th level spell. That is just silly imo. The only way I can see that as a possibility is if you have 20 different versions of the same spell as opposed to one version and it scales in some fashion (memorize at a higher level for more damage or auto scales based on caster level). I vote for going back to 7 spell levels + 0 level (illusionist, cleric and druid style) for all casters. 30 spell levels is not good.
Really? Well I am glad your not on the design team. Scaling spells is not hard, even to spread them out over 30 levels instead of 18. As well as slowing down acquisition of them.
A large part of the problem with spell casters is not only how powerful the spells are, but how many of them can be cast. Slow down acquisition and power escalation and you make it easier to deal with the highest level spells.
If WOTC sticks with the current XP per level costs more games will get into the higher levels faster, and since they will be easier to deal with, and be more balanced with non spell casters, more DM's will actually run such games rather than stop them because they don't want to deal with the power level issues. So I think it would be very smart of WOTC to make higher level play more viable. The only way to do that is slow down power escalation and rules bloat. Spreading it all out over 30 levels would go a long ways towards making that happen.
So spread out the level 0 to 3 spells over the first 10 levels, spread out level 4 to 6 over the 11th to 20th levels, and the rest over the last 10.
Very possible, and relatively easy, to do.
Mearls has already addressed the challenges of higher level play, so if they want to make it more viable to run and play, they have to not front load the game so heavily, and spread out the power acquisition over more levels.
The question is, will it satisfy the people who "I want it NOW!" enough to have them become interested in playing a game, with the same character, for 30 levels instead of the 8 to 12 levels most game groups currently play?
With the current power escalations, most games never get into really high levels. Those of us who go above 12th level are the exception, not the rule. So why not design the game to make more games much more likely to go all the way? Make it so more players will actually get to see 9th level spells, rather than never see them because so many DM's never want to deal with them?
Personally I think its a no brainer to encourage more GM's to get into running games into the higher levels. That is not going to happen with the power scaling models of the previous 4 editions. A new model is clearly needed.