Balance one spell

[Random Bystander]

The rules are simple: Pick one ninth-level spell, and balance it versus the revised time stop. Once all OGL spells have a revised version, then I will pick one first-level spell and the set will continue from there. At the end of this thread, there will be a selection of balanced spells for use in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e games.

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Time Stop is open in my browser, so that is the spell I choose.

[h=1]Time Stop[/h] [h=4]Transmutation[/h]

Level:	Sor/Wiz 9, Trickery 9
Components:	V
Casting Time:	1 standard action
Range:	Personal
Target:	You
Duration:	1d4+1 rounds (apparent time); see text

Spell Resistance:

Yes; see text

This spell seems to make time cease to flow for everyone but you. In fact, you speed up so greatly that all other creatures seem frozen, though they are actually still moving at their normal speeds. You are free to act for 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time. Normal and magical fire, cold, gas, and the like can still harm you. While the time stop is in effect, other creatures are invulnerable to your attacks and spells; you cannot target such creatures with any attack or spell. Spell that affects an area and have a duration longer than the remaining duration of the time stop end once the time stop ends. Effects that would normally move, transport, or alter a targets' location do not work. Summoning and Conjuration spells cast during a Time Stop take effect at the end of the Time Stop; however, the duration of the time stop counts as part of the duration of their summoning or conjuration . Most spellcasters use the additional time to improve their defenses, summon allies, or flee from combat.

You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time, but you can affect any item that is not in another creature’s possession.


You are undetectable while time stop lasts. If you enter an area protected by an antimagic field while under the effect of time stop, the time stop immediately ends.

Any creature with a Spell Resistance equal to 10 + the DC of the time stop spell becomes part of the time stop and may act under the same rules as the caster.

Changes: You may no longer set up "death zones" while under the effects of Time Stop. You no longer have action immunity to anti-magic fields. Wizards should generally use the spell to prepare defenses, conjure allies or flee. You may not use the spell to "get the drop" on an enemy, regardless of challenge rating.

 

[Grydan]

One cannot 'balance one spell' in isolation. Balance requires at least two things to be compared.

Trying to balance a spell in isolation is like trying to balance an old-fashioned set of scales while only placing anything on one side.

You need a baseline, a spell that establishes the desired level of power. Then other spells can be compared against it, to see whether they exceed that power, fall short, or match it exactly. Exact matches are, in any complex rules system—and D&D spell-casting is pretty much always a complex rules system—unlikely, to say the least. What you want to try to achieve is 'close enough'. You want advantages to be balanced out by disadvantages. If it's ever obvious, absent campaign-specific or personal-preference specific considerations, which spell a player should take, then something has probably gone wrong. To a certain extent, it's unavoidable: if not all spells are mathematically identical, then there's going to be a most and a least in any numerical comparisons. If not all spells are applicable in all situations, there's going to be a spell that can be used the most frequently and one that can be used the least frequently (though that's going to be affected by campaign considerations much more than some aspects). What people seeking balance are striving for is to make the gap between the best and the worst as small as possible, so that players who make the choice—for whatever reason—to not take the 'best' aren't left in the dust.

It's important to always work from the same baseline. Not doing so results in power creep. You start with your baseline, make a bunch of spells that are 'close enough', with a few being just a bit more powerful. Then someone works up a new batch of spells using one of those slightly more powerful spells as their baseline, and you wind up with some spells that are 'close enough' to that new baseline, but noticeably more powerful than the original baseline. Continue this pattern of adjusting the baseline long enough, and you'll find that the last spell you 'balance' isn't even remotely balanced with the first spell you began with.

 

[Random Bystander]

One cannot 'balance one spell' in isolation. Balance requires at least two things to be compared.

Trying to balance a spell in isolation is like trying to balance an old-fashioned set of scales while only placing anything on one side.

You need a baseline, a spell that establishes the desired level of power. Then other spells can be compared against it, to see whether they exceed that power, fall short, or match it exactly. Exact matches are, in any complex rules system—and D&D spell-casting is pretty much always a complex rules system—unlikely, to say the least. What you want to try to achieve is 'close enough'. You want advantages to be balanced out by disadvantages. If it's ever obvious, absent campaign-specific or personal-preference specific considerations, which spell a player should take, then something has probably gone wrong. To a certain extent, it's unavoidable: if not all spells are mathematically identical, then there's going to be a most and a least in any numerical comparisons. If not all spells are applicable in all situations, there's going to be a spell that can be used the most frequently and one that can be used the least frequently (though that's going to be affected by campaign considerations much more than some aspects). What people seeking balance are striving for is to make the gap between the best and the worst as small as possible, so that players who make the choice—for whatever reason—to not take the 'best' aren't left in the dust.

It's important to always work from the same baseline. Not doing so results in power creep. You start with your baseline, make a bunch of spells that are 'close enough', with a few being just a bit more powerful. Then someone works up a new batch of spells using one of those slightly more powerful spells as their baseline, and you wind up with some spells that are 'close enough' to that new baseline, but noticeably more powerful than the original baseline. Continue this pattern of adjusting the baseline long enough, and you'll find that the last spell you 'balance' isn't even remotely balanced with the first spell you began with.

A good point, thank you. To resolve the question, the new thread rule is to pick a ninth-level spell and balance it versus the revised Time Stop. There is now a template, and a comprehensible category that can be more easily contemplated than the set of all spells in the book.

Once we have run out of ninth-level spells, the next set would be 1st-level spells, of which I will pick one.

 

[Empirate]

Sorry if this is harsh, but this rebalancing effort is silly. Just to pick a single out of several problems (the most glaring oversight IMO):

"Any creature with a Spell Resistance equal to 10 + the DC of the time stop spell becomes part of the time stop and may act under the same rules as the caster." WTF?!

First, SR usually takes a caster level check to overcome; not a single effect I know of just works or doesn't work based on the actual amount of SR a creature possesses. So, clunky design.

Second, SR is a faculty of the creature that possesses it; if Time Stop only affects the spell's caster, not any other creature, and by speeding him/her up, not slowing everybody else down, why the hell should SR allow other creatures to partake of the spell's effects?

Thirdly, and most importantly, every single creature with high SR on the planet just got a speed boost from a single casting of Time Stop by some idiot in Mexico?! What gives? No. Nonono.

Finally, this doesn't really rebalance the spell at all. Extra prep time for buffing, summoning or getting out of there is already what Time Stop does so well it's hard to counter. And you don't adress the fundamental problem: instead of facing a squishy Wizard, Fighter McWarrior blinks and suddenly finds himself confronted by a large rock, encased in a Prismatic Sphere and guarded by two Celestial Gold Dragons. Because that's what Time Stop does. Sure, some outsider or dragon will be speeded up along with the caster with your reworking of the spell, but that just means it's all about initiative again, and the caster has already won that. Also, if said outsider/dragon acts "under the same rules as the caster", they can't even affect the caster. Hell, they can't even detect the caster, and neither can they be detected by him!



Not to bash on you, but rebalancing Time Stop is really, really not where I'd start. The game has been falling apart for several levels already before you ever get Time Stop troubles.


Also, here's a repost from an older thread concerning the same question:

Spells that need fixing (for their level, and for diverse reasons) in my book include, in alphabetical order:

Alter Self [fix: remove the natural armor clause]

Astral Projection [fix: spell ends if the recipient leaves the Astral Plane by any means; OR doesn't make copies of worn and carried items]

Black Tentacles [fix: allow a Reflex save to leave the area un-grappled]

Comprehend Languages [fix: gives a set bonus of +10 to Decipher Script skills instead of auto-deciphering]

Divine Power [fix: remove the ability to cast spells while under the effect of Divine Power]

Enlarge Person [fix: reduce duration to 1 rd/CL, and move to 3rd level]

Entangle [fix: reduce radius to 10'; OR move to 3rd level]

Freedom of Movement [fix: move to 6th level]

Gate [fix: delete the clause "In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD do not exceed twice your caster level."]

Glitterdust [fix: "Spell Resistance: Yes (blinding only)"]

Knock [fix: adds a set +10 bonus to Open Lock checks]

Mage's/Mordenkainen's Disjunction [fix: does not permanently destroy magic items, but does suppress them for CL rounds]

Magic Circle vs. Evil/etc. [fix: see Protection from Evil, and move to 5th level]

Mind Blank [fix: reduce duration to 10 min/CL]

Mirror Image [fix: move to 3rd level]

Planar Binding line [fix: don't set a HD cap, set a CR cap instead; or use Summon Monster-like tables for call-able creatures]

Protection from Evil/etc. [fix: only protects from possession and mind control originating from creatures of the warded-against alignment, and move to 3rd level]

Polymorph [fix: only allow polymorph subschool spells. Sure, this has been said by WotC, but many groups still allow Polymorph all the same]

Polymorph any Object [fix: there is no fix. This spell must go]

Resist Energy [fix: do not increase the energy resistance at higher CLs]

Shapechange [fix: remove the ability to use the spell-like and supernatural abilities of a creature you shapechange into, and introduce a clause stating that you cannot use any natural spellcasting the creature you shapechange into might have (such as a Planetar's Cleric spellcasting)]

Wall of Stone/Iron [fix: these spells need a duration other than instantaneous, I'm open to suggestions]


What do you think?





Also, here's the link to that thread. It was quite good, and rather long, so you may find lots of good stuff in there.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-leg...ell-fixes.html

 

[Random Bystander]

Sorry if this is harsh, but this rebalancing effort is silly. Just to pick a single out of several problems (the most glaring oversight IMO):

"Any creature with a Spell Resistance equal to 10 + the DC of the time stop spell becomes part of the time stop and may act under the same rules as the caster." WTF?!

First, SR usually takes a caster level check to overcome; not a single effect I know of just works or doesn't work based on the actual amount of SR a creature possesses. So, clunky design.

Second, SR is a faculty of the creature that possesses it; if Time Stop only affects the spell's caster, not any other creature, and by speeding him/her up, not slowing everybody else down, why the hell should SR allow other creatures to partake of the spell's effects?

Thirdly, and most importantly, every single creature with high SR on the planet just got a speed boost from a single casting of Time Stop by some idiot in Mexico?! What gives? No. Nonono.

Finally, this doesn't really rebalance the spell at all. Extra prep time for buffing, summoning or getting out of there is already what Time Stop does so well it's hard to counter. And you don't adress the fundamental problem: instead of facing a squishy Wizard, Fighter McWarrior blinks and suddenly finds himself confronted by a large rock, encased in a Prismatic Sphere and guarded by two Celestial Gold Dragons. Because that's what Time Stop does. Sure, some outsider or dragon will be speeded up along with the caster with your reworking of the spell, but that just means it's all about initiative again, and the caster has already won that. Also, if said outsider/dragon acts "under the same rules as the caster", they can't even affect the caster. Hell, they can't even detect the caster, and neither can they be detected by him!



Not to bash on you, but rebalancing Time Stop is really, really not where I'd start. The game has been falling apart for several levels already before you ever get Time Stop troubles.

The solution would seem to be to not allow the caster to summon or conjure creatures during the duration of the spell, remove the poorly-thought out SR mechanic, and point out that Prismatic Sphere is an area effect and ends when the time stop does, and is thus ineffective.

Alternative or additional solutions include toning down spells which summon and conjure monters, reducing the effect of prismatic sphere, and otherwise balancing other spells that are themselves overpowered.

Thank you for contributing to the discussion.

 

[Greenfield]

The new version of Time Stop becomes the only single target spell I've ever seen that can "accidentally" include other characters. That seems odd. And how far does this free "piggy back" effect extend?

Additionally, why would you be able to affect objects outside of the effect, but not creatures or their possessions?

And what, in the spell's description or function, prevents my character from using it as a way to arrange a sneak attack, set up a flank or position him/herself in a position of tactical advantage? Or, to use your phrasing, "get the drop" on someone? Could one not enter the cast Time Stop, enter the enemy's chamber, cast a Wall of Stone or two to obstruct the Big Bad's allies, and then Ready Action for the spell to end to give yourself a perfectly prepared surprise round? Or is that not "getting the drop" on them?

How about coating them with a triple dose of a nasty contact poison, or squirting some into their open mouth? The poison, not being a spell, wouldn't expire, but instead take effect as soon as time starts again.

It seems as if, before we can begin rewriting spells to balance against this one, this version of Time Stop itself needs to be rewritten.