Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Well, I'm skimming through the PHB and I have to admit that I'm amazed at the vast number of changes they've made to spells.
It wasn't just the obvious problem ones that they've fixed, there is a whole range which are different now.
Burning hands is a 15ft cone instead of a 10ft semicircle.
Shocking Grasp does 1d6 per caster level (max 5d6) electric damage (touch attack)
Lightning bolt is now a line attack with a fixed range of 120ft rather than the option of Medium range and 5ft wide or half that range and 10ft wide. It is no longer as good at clearing our wide corridors, and this change seems to have been to fit in with the battlegrid description of spell effects.
Shillelagh - happily specifies that it affects both ends of the quarterstaff at once (yes!) but it ups the damage by two size categories (thus a medium qstaff does 2d6(!)). Presumably a change to give different benefits to Small and Medium druids?
Globe of Invulnerability *doesn't* negate previously cast spells, so the wizard could buff himself up with his 1st-3rd level buffs and *then* sit inside a globe (although it does eliminate it's usefulness as a counter to being silenced
Endure Elements only protects from adverse cold and hot weather, not against damaging energy at all.
Sleep is a full round casting time and a max of 4HD who all get a saving throw - that used to be a real killer spell and now its almost completely useless!
Cone spells (like Cone of Cold) all seem to have a fixed range
The Enlarge spell metamagic has been redefined to only increase the range of spells without a fixed range (i.e. if they are close, medium or long it works, if it is a cone or line it doesn't work). Wonder why they wanted to stop people getting longer lightning bolts and cone effects? I think that is a change I'll be ignoring (I wonder how long my list of ignored changes will be?). Oh, I know, it is so we might take the *Widen* feat instead to increase the area of Cones. At +3 caster levels
There are many more I could mention - some of which were necessary IMO (blade barrier becomes a barrier rather than a brilliant area attack spell, harm and heal and haste become more manageable as we know and were expecting)
On the other hand we know about spells being broken up (emotion, symbol) or changing level (shades, Greater Shadow Conjuration etc) which particularly hurts sorcerers (and I guess bards), and the changing of spell levels in most cases seems really pointless. If they wanted some more high level illusions, create new stuff! Don't cause problems for existing PCs!
I almost get the feeling that the designers got a bit carried away here amongst the spells. Some changes were good and necessary, sure, but there is a whole range of other spells which have been changed when there doesn't seem to have been a pressing need to do so. I've not decided yet whether I think this is a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm surprised that their approach hasn't been to extend and add new stuff in preference to changing old stuff except in the bare minimum of cases.
It wasn't just the obvious problem ones that they've fixed, there is a whole range which are different now.
Burning hands is a 15ft cone instead of a 10ft semicircle.
Shocking Grasp does 1d6 per caster level (max 5d6) electric damage (touch attack)
Lightning bolt is now a line attack with a fixed range of 120ft rather than the option of Medium range and 5ft wide or half that range and 10ft wide. It is no longer as good at clearing our wide corridors, and this change seems to have been to fit in with the battlegrid description of spell effects.
Shillelagh - happily specifies that it affects both ends of the quarterstaff at once (yes!) but it ups the damage by two size categories (thus a medium qstaff does 2d6(!)). Presumably a change to give different benefits to Small and Medium druids?
Globe of Invulnerability *doesn't* negate previously cast spells, so the wizard could buff himself up with his 1st-3rd level buffs and *then* sit inside a globe (although it does eliminate it's usefulness as a counter to being silenced
Endure Elements only protects from adverse cold and hot weather, not against damaging energy at all.
Sleep is a full round casting time and a max of 4HD who all get a saving throw - that used to be a real killer spell and now its almost completely useless!
Cone spells (like Cone of Cold) all seem to have a fixed range
The Enlarge spell metamagic has been redefined to only increase the range of spells without a fixed range (i.e. if they are close, medium or long it works, if it is a cone or line it doesn't work). Wonder why they wanted to stop people getting longer lightning bolts and cone effects? I think that is a change I'll be ignoring (I wonder how long my list of ignored changes will be?). Oh, I know, it is so we might take the *Widen* feat instead to increase the area of Cones. At +3 caster levels
There are many more I could mention - some of which were necessary IMO (blade barrier becomes a barrier rather than a brilliant area attack spell, harm and heal and haste become more manageable as we know and were expecting)
On the other hand we know about spells being broken up (emotion, symbol) or changing level (shades, Greater Shadow Conjuration etc) which particularly hurts sorcerers (and I guess bards), and the changing of spell levels in most cases seems really pointless. If they wanted some more high level illusions, create new stuff! Don't cause problems for existing PCs!
I almost get the feeling that the designers got a bit carried away here amongst the spells. Some changes were good and necessary, sure, but there is a whole range of other spells which have been changed when there doesn't seem to have been a pressing need to do so. I've not decided yet whether I think this is a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm surprised that their approach hasn't been to extend and add new stuff in preference to changing old stuff except in the bare minimum of cases.
