Elements of Magic - Spell Creation and Critique

[Kemrain]

I disagree that glitter would make it much harder to hide. In some situations, yes, if you're hiding in an area of shadowey illumination, what light there is will be reflected off the shiney glitter and make your position more visible, though, I doubt it would reveal what is hiddien there. In total darkness, though, glitter is no more revealing than chalk, or dust, or water. When hiding with cover, and not consealment, I can't see how the glitter would make it harder, unless you're leaving a trail to your hiding spot, and then it would simply allow people looking for you to move around your cover and see you.

Make an invisible creature visible? Check. Keep you from hiding without cover even, maybe check. -40 to all hide checks, hells no!

- Kemrain the Hidden.

 

[Verequus]

Reading the section of that article on marking invisible foes with flour, it looks like it would just make them visible so you wouldn't suffer any miss chance. They would get a reflex save to avoid the flour. It really would make no sense to suffer a miss chance to hit the humanoid shaped area of flour.

It means that invisiblity is realitively easy to negate if you can pin down the general area or get a large area effect. I've got no problem with that since the spell is relatively easy to pull off (3 MP and you can still attack). So for the same number of MP I can glitter (or firefly juice) up a 30' radius from myself - sounds fair.

The glitterdust spell would probably still have a penalty to hide checks because of the glitter - effects your attempts to hide if you are invisible or not and that makes sense.

How would you rule it, if someone uses Intensify Lightning?

 

[Archus]

How would you rule it, if someone uses Intensify Lightning?

In that case I'd probably give the invisible person the 50% miss chance. Even though you have totally disbelieved the invisibility spell because the person is covered in "paint", some part of your mind still thinks they are invisible and you keep hearing this little voice that says "there isn't anyone there, why are you swinging at that random lump of flour?"

Weird thing I ddn't even think of (or really know about). I'm operating on only reading EoMR and making several spells with not pratical EoMR application (just a great deal of d20 application that is a year old).

More and more I'm itching to run a d20 game and use EoMR. The only thing that bothers me is the cost of some general enhancement (especially range). Although I could probably get by with add a Scry effect to spells to get cheaper range.

 

[Verequus]

Archus:
I see, that your OGL on ArcaneArcade isn't correct. You have to include at paragraph 15 everything found at the place in EoMR and to mention that the materials are from EoMR or respectively from the creator, unless nothing is mentioned. IANAL, so please check it with someone else, you can trust in those issues. Furthermore, the recent changes detail, that some links haven't been created. And how do I see, what changes are really made?

 

[Archus]

Archus:
I see, that your OGL on ArcaneArcade isn't correct. You have to include at paragraph 15 everything found at the place in EoMR and to mention that the materials are from EoMR or respectively from the creator, unless nothing is mentioned. IANAL, so please check it with someone else, you can trust in those issues. Furthermore, the recent changes detail, that some links haven't been created. And how do I see, what changes are really made?

I'll fix the OGL when I'm a bit more awake (you are welcome to fix it if you wish but for now I pulled the one out of EoMR along with the section from the credits. Since everything in the book is OGL (except for some phrases and art), I could pull all of the spells from the book out into the wiki - provided that Ryan and EN Publishing don't mind. One of my personal goals is to add a d20 OGL spell a day.

The recent changes with missing links was caused by a rename of some files. I'll try to keep the renaming down to a minimum, but right now I'm trying to find a good naming scheme.

Thanks for posting to the wiki RuleMaster

 

[Verequus]

I didn't posted anything - I simply deleted some superflous material, I came across. But that reminds me- instead the simple copy/paste-technic, could you remove/change text, which is more commentary? If I want to use such a spell, then I would have to ignore such things anyway, and it would look more professional, too.

BTW, I won't touch the OGL in any way - just in case, you would get sued and I get pointed at, being the culprit.

 

[Archus]

I didn't posted anything - I simply deleted some superflous material, I came across. But that reminds me- instead the simple copy/paste-technic, could you remove/change text, which is more commentary? If I want to use such a spell, then I would have to ignore such things anyway, and it would look more professional, too.

I was going to clean-up the spells some, but the first round was just to pull over everything I could find. My cleanup will include renaming some spells, cleaning up and unifying their formats, and removing some duplicate spells. I'll probably favor one fairly generic "Magic Dart (Evoke [Element|Alighnment] 0/Gen 1)" spell to several Firebolt, Acidbolt, etc spells - let the players come up with cool names for the spells.

I will also favor d20 names for spells that approximate the d20 spell in question, so it will be easier for people looking for a particular spell from the standard magic system (in that case I'll have Magic Ball and Fireball).

One final personal guideline will be to make all spells using the minimal possible configuration with some scaling options. For example I'll probably keep a 1 min duration on all the spells - for most spells this will work fine and the standard duration costs will apply.

Hmm, therein is one of my only problems with EoMR. 1 minute duration is perfectly acceptable for many spells, but a range of touch isn't and most standard d20 cantrips have a range more than touch. I've considered allowing one of the following:
* You can overspend MP for range.
* Feat: Ranged Specalist - all your spells start at a range of 30 ft (or range costs are reduced by 1).
* There are 2 ranges, touch and sight (800 ft); anything else requires scrying.
* Just having my spellcasters use scry and rider spells a great dea.
* The default range is just 30 ft.
* Quit being a whiner and live with it.

BTW, I won't touch the OGL in any way - just in case, you would get sued and I get pointed at, being the culprit.

Hopefully that won't happen. I'm always happy to comply with the industry.

 

[Verequus]

Isn't this enough? "Target: A creature, object, or point in space." You have a reach of at least 5 ft. for cantrips. Another question: "You can overspend MP for range." What do you mean with that? I would have thought as an alternative rule, that you can pay two cantrips and get a range of 30 ft. This would be in the framework of the existing rules.

Edit:
And what is the second thing, you don't like?

 

[Archus]

Isn't this enough? "Target: A creature, object, or point in space." You have a reach of at least 5 ft. for cantrips. Another question: "You can overspend MP for range." What do you mean with that? I would have thought as an alternative rule, that you can pay two cantrips and get a range of 30 ft. This would be in the framework of the existing rules.

When put in light of having a range of 5 ft it may not bother me much - or I'm just going with my final option of quitting my whining. While you can't get cantrips that have a real range and have to spend more than I think is justified for range - you can do things that you can't in normal d20 (short range teleport or turning into a bird/fish for 1 MP for example). Overall EoMR makes much more sense.

I was considering allowing people to spend more MP than their caster level for general enhancements - hence overspending for range. Maybe I'll add a feat "Overcasting" that lets you spend 1 or 2 MP over you caster level limit for General enhancements only or "General Enhancment Specalist" that reduces the cost of General Enhancements by 1 or 2 MP.

Edit:
And what is the second thing, you don't like?

I've grown accustom to fireball like damage, but this is just whining. Sure I can't dish out 10d6 fireballs at 10th level, but I can do a whole bunch more stuff as an EoMR spellcaster. Also my biggest complaints about D&D evaporate using EoMR:
* Multiclassing spellcasters are screwed. EoMR makes caster levels stack like base attack does for fighters.

* Clerics are a hideously overpowered class - better armor, weapons, hit points, special domain powers and about the same massive damage potential as wizards. EoMR puts all spellcasters on a level playing field.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Lyceian Arcana to start a game.

 

[Verequus]

When put in light of having a range of 5 ft it may not bother me much - or I'm just going with my final option of quitting my whining. While you can't get cantrips that have a real range and have to spend more than I think is justified for range - you can do things that you can't in normal d20 (short range teleport or turning into a bird/fish for 1 MP for example). Overall EoMR makes much more sense.

I was considering allowing people to spend more MP than their caster level for general enhancements - hence overspending for range. Maybe I'll add a feat "Overcasting" that lets you spend 1 or 2 MP over you caster level limit for General enhancements only or "General Enhancment Specalist" that reduces the cost of General Enhancements by 1 or 2 MP.

Lyceian Arcana has a feat like Overcasting, but it will result in Ability Damage. Any overspending beyound the actual caster level has to be carefully considered regarding its consequences. E.g., if you could spend more on Range, then you strengthen (not only) the fireball spells, because you undermine the cost of Flexibility vs. Power. I think, that a fireball spell needs two MP more than its into MP coverted core counterpart for being equivalent in its base variant. Taking into account, that ALL spells would profit from a feat like your "General Enhancement Specalist" and that normally a specialist needs normally Mastery over his field of expertise, then this feat is grossly overpowered.

I've grown accustom to fireball like damage, but this is just whining. Sure I can't dish out 10d6 fireballs at 10th level, but I can do a whole bunch more stuff as an EoMR spellcaster. Also my biggest complaints about D&D evaporate using EoMR:
* Multiclassing spellcasters are screwed. EoMR makes caster levels stack like base attack does for fighters.

* Clerics are a hideously overpowered class - better armor, weapons, hit points, special domain powers and about the same massive damage potential as wizards. EoMR puts all spellcasters on a level playing field.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Lyceian Arcana to start a game.

"To fireball like damage"? Is this English? If you mean, that you don't get more damage with an increased caster level, then you don't take into account, that with adapting damage it would be greatly unbalanced. In such a case, you can toss out tons of damage and pay only 5 MP for each spell, while having hundreds of MP. It is only a different way to adjust the power - in the core rules, the magic system without the use of the caster level would be simply unusable, because you would have to research every level a new spell for the slots, which have to be changed, too. Yes, everything balanced in its own way.

I agree with you about the clerics, but I have to disagree with you about the multiclassing. While the wizard/cleric combination is easily achieved and in every regard as viable as every other pure caster combination, a fighter/mage is still screwed. Feats like Practised Spellcaster or the other one in your wiki help to mitigate the problem, but it kinda like to say: "In a Undead-heavy campaign the rouge has to take a feat, which allows sneak-attacking of undead" - give one of your precious resources up to be viable again. Actually, I don't believe, that it is possible to balance a fighter/mage out without changing MP per day, spell lists known, bonus feats and so on, and if we are at this area, then it is simpler, if we can give up classes and switch to a system like the one of Buy The Numbers.