NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9715946" data-attributes="member: 6796468">Unfortunately, I can't game design more hours into the day or days into the week in the real world. The only solutions I can offer have to be within the confines of the game itself.If a game falls apart because of DM-Player mismatch, no amount of game design will fix that, either. Nor is there a way to design the game to be played during wedding receptions or tragedies or on moving day so that you don't have to miss a session.Trust me, if I had the power to design a version of D&D that could somehow be played regardless of external issues like problem players or scheduling, I would leap on that so hard Gygax's head would spin in his grave.But it's just not possible. So I'll offer what suggestions I can, instead.Personally... I'd just keep 6th level spells as the 'high end', myself, if you're going that direction. It's the last level where the scaling still makes sense with spells like Chain Lightning or Sunbeam.Though... if I had -my- druthers...1) 1st level to 9th level spells would be granted by level 12.2) The list would be shifted -sharply- to cut out stuff like Simulacrum gaming. A bunch of spells would simply -not- exist, anymore. Or be so drastically rewritten they need to be renamed.3) The progression of spellcasting would be way more linear in it's actual function with breakpoints clearly defined and balanced against each other by scaling damage values that maintain power parity even through upcasting (a 7th level Fireball should do as much damage as a 7th level Delayed Blast Fireball, it's just the other benefits that make DFB useful over regular Fireball)4) Class-Separation results in different 'max level spells' for different classes with Clerics/Druids casting up to 7th level spells, but 7th level Cleric/Druid spells being as strong as 9th level Wizard Spells so there's a different progression of power between the two where the Wizard is smoother but has less room for class-benefits while the Cleric gets more class-benefits but larger scaling jumps between spell levels.It would a disaster a of Biblical proportion. Real wrath of god type stuff. Fire and Brimstone coming down from the sky, rivers and seas boiling! 40 years of darkness. Earthquakes! Volcanoes! The dead rising from their graves! Human sacrifices! Dogs & cats living together...mass hysteria!Maybe someday I'll sit down and write the "Ultimate D&D Variant" to go on the shelf with everyone else's Ultimate D&D Variant to collect dust.</blockquote>

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