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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 3081571" data-attributes="member: 141">Yes, it does.  My worries generally revolve around providing minor features of a seed; blinding someone with a [destroy] effect, say.  I think your intention is to do this with a descriptive seed; to include a bit of the [afflict] seed in a spell that is mostly [destroy], apply 1/3 the cost of [afflict]; +8 SP if the seeds are standardized at 24 SP.  I've been wanting to add the full seed, but with the unwanted effects removed with mitigating factors.  Practically it would probably result in much the same thing; around +8 SP to blind someone that you are trying to [destroy].  I'd like to narrow the difference between these two methods by honing the methods whereby factors are applied.What I really want is a "break even" rule for the design of seeds.  If we base a seed on fireball and then later tinker with it so it has statistics corresponding to dbf we should include mitigating factors that allow players to restore the original seed to a pretty good approximation.  Same thing if we make a seed based on blindness and bestow curse; mitigating factors should be made that allow someone to approximate either of those spells for close to the expected SPs.  Maybe a spell level will be off a bit (especially outside the 4-7 spell level range), but it should be close.I think the special effects of [afflict], [destroy], [dispel] and similar seeds should be explicitly priced (at +4 or something). Spells iincorporated as secondary or descriptive seeds (if we do things that way) wouldn't have these benefits.  After all, if a debuff spell is mostly the [dispel] seed, but also includes the "do nothing" curse of the [afflict] seed, then the [dispel] should be able to affect things normally immune to dispel magic, but there's no reason that the curse aspect should be removable only by miracle-level magic; it's intended only to temporarily hobble the person being debuffed.One thing that has been hindering me is the fact that the relationship between SP and spell level varies according to what you are doing. When looking at metamagic, 2 SP = 1 spell level; these are the basis for most full-factors. When looking at non-epic spells, 6 SP=1 spell level.  Since half factors are implicitly twice as efficient as full-factors, we have a 4 SP = 1 spell level rule. I get confused all the time about what kind of values I'm supposed to be using, but I can generally sort it out after a while; sometimes I get interesting insights.For instance, 10 levels of metamagic (from fireball to dbf) is 20 SP, which is 3 and 2/3 levels according to the formula for non-epic spells: a good fit to the 4 levels between fireball and dbf, especially if you think that that [dbf] is a little weak for its level (but too strong for 6th).  But if you are trying to tinker with the [energy] seed you would use half-factors and add +4 (enhance damage) +3 (delay effect) to the base 10 SP, and ignore the Heighten effect (since seeds all have the same base DC).  This gives 17; again a good fit for a 7th level spell (normally SP 18).Although if we were players and trying to replicate a dbf from [energy], we'd have to spend +10 SP (for extra damage) + 6 SP (for the delay effect), and then we'd complain that the final cost (26 SP) was too much.  Hmmm- such a criticism would be valid, I think.How about having the [energy] seed do 20d6 for SP 14, and including a delay factor for +3 SP.  +1 SP should be +2d6, considering what Empower will do for a dbf. (2.5d6 is too finicky!).  This would work well as a mitigating factor, too: -2d6 = -1 SP.  Sure you get 12d6 at SP 10 instead of 10d6, but that's OK, I think.I guess you could make it 40d6 (cost at 24) as long as the -2d6 = -1 SP factor is included.  40d6 seems reasonable for a 10th level spell.Similarly, a SP 24 [dispel] is fine if it provides a +20 dispel check bonus.  The +4 factor could be to do the things that epic dispels can do, that dispel magic couldn't.  It can be removed for -4 to SP.  But I'd still want to include a -1/-1 factor for less effective dispels.  Then people could scale it back to a dispel magic if they felt like it.I still suspect it's procrustean to take this approach for all the seeds, but I might be wrong; it seems to work all right for [energy] and [dispel] at least.</blockquote>

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