[3.5] Archmages Affected, Spell Power Clarified!

[Celtavian]

Re

I'm going to need to do some tweaking if it doesn't allow a person to exceed spell caps.

I am getting the feeling that though they made some beneficial changes, this Revised edition was rushed and is going to have some serious kinks.

 

[3d6]

I don't think spell caps need to be tweaked to make Spell Power viable. A +6 to overcome spell resistance, for example, is a very good ability.

 

[Celtavian]

re

We probably have differing opinions on what Archmagi should be like. I like my Archmagi all-powerful, overshadowing the other classes in the group. The way they are presented in fantasy novels.

I don't want water-downed Archmagi. I would imagine that most of the folks who tend to put more stock in game balance don't mind the change, but I'm more of a story guy. I like my archetypes to fit the power level they might have in a story rather than the power level the game feels is balanced.

Let's face the truth here, in all but a few fantasy novels, the wizard is usually the most powerful, though usually not the luckiest, character in the story.

 

[Staffan]

Re: re

We probably have differing opinions on what Archmagi should be like. I like my Archmagi all-powerful, overshadowing the other classes in the group. The way they are presented in fantasy novels.

If you want an archmage to be more powerful than the other characters, there's already a perfectly good mechanic for that. It's called "higher level". A Wiz15/Acm5 is pretty much guaranteed to overshadow a 14th level party.

 

[Apok]

Well, so much for the "The Spell Focus nerf doesn't matter because Archmage is core now" arguments. Although, if the caster level increase counts for purposes of penetrating SR, it would still be a big help.

Yep. That kills that argument.

Now, I'm definitely not going to use the 3.5 versions of SF and GSF. I just don't understand why they are making it so difficult for a wizard to increase his save DC's. Granted, it was too easy before, but they've gone too far now.

What's needed is a happy medium.

 

[Apok]

I don't think spell caps need to be tweaked to make Spell Power viable. A +6 to overcome spell resistance, for example, is a very good ability.

I guess they figured that if they were going to eliminate the save DC boost (which was really the bread & butter of Spellpower), they had to give it something else to compensate.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Yep. That kills that argument.

Now, I'm definitely not going to use the 3.5 versions of SF and GSF. I just don't understand why they are making it so difficult for a wizard to increase his save DC's. Granted, it was too easy before, but they've gone too far now.

What's needed is a happy medium.

I'm getting the strange impression that they had a list of problems, and then came up with like 3 fixes to each problem, but forgot somewhere along the line those 3 fixes where either or fixes and not and fixes.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

<snip>forgot somewhere along the line those 3 fixes where "either or" fixes and not "and" fixes.

I had to read that comment a few times to figure out what you were saying. The quotes should help others.

I like the fact that raising DCs will be extremely less abusive. I mean it was just no fun to see the guy playing the red wizard/archmage and killing everything with a single wave of the hand.

On the other hand, if saves for monsters are getting a boost, then I'm a bit concerned. Aside from raising stats and spell focus, the only other source of increased DCs seems to come from higher spell levels. That seems a bit too limiting to me, but I'll wait to see the entire new rules until I complain about it too much.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I had to read that comment a few times to figure out what you were saying. The quotes should help others.

I like the fact that raising DCs will be extremely less abusive. I mean it was just no fun to see the guy playing the red wizard/archmage and killing everything with a single wave of the hand.

On the other hand, if saves for monsters are getting a boost, then I'm a bit concerned. Aside from raising stats and spell focus, the only other source of increased DCs seems to come from higher spell levels. That seems a bit too limiting to me, but I'll wait to see the entire new rules until I complain about it too much.

Yes I don't use, I abuse the english language. Sorry for any confusion. And yes I'll wait and see, and honestly the DCs mean nothing to me since I never went for massive DC boosting.

Its like with stat buffs. They said hmm maybe these are too good, what's the problems. Hypothetical conversation follows.

They last too long.
Extend them and they really last too long.
you can empower them, and even empower them multiple times.

Hey we could shorten the duration?
Not bad, anything else?
Well we could make it a flat bonus so they couldn't be empowered?
Good, good., any other idea.
Oh we can make it so you don't stack metamagic?
Another good idea, but which should we go with.

Lets playtest them all and see which we like?

3 months later, what do you mean which one, I thought we were using all of them? Oh well its too late now.

 

[LGodamus]

Blech..... at the level that you have to be to even take archmage there isnt much point in getting the new spell power ...what a joke.... I like alot of 3.5 stuff, but not this