Fixing Casters, the Right Way

[Tequila Sunrise]

[FONT=&quot]- eventually it dramatically reduces the versatility of spellcasters and spells in general.[/FONT]​

How so?

[FONT=&quot]- more than 1/2 the effects start as 1st level spells, so there’s a theoretical possibility for a 1st level caster to have that repertoire in his hands – leaving few expectations to what lies ahead.[/FONT]​

This is true, though I can't see a way of creating more expectations without arbitrarily designating certain spells as higher level.

[FONT=&quot]- a 6th level spell should be worth a lot more than 2 similar 3rd level spells...[/FONT]​

I think this philosophy is largely responsible for the 'low-level casters = suck, high-level casters = pwn' imbalance. So naturally I don't think it's a valid concern when rewriting spells to rebalance casters.

[FONT=&quot]- the better way, in my book, of dealing with game breaking loopholes is to augment them, not to nix them altogether. Sure I also advise banning wishes & shadow spells – but that’s because I don’t view them as spells to begin with).[/FONT]

I'm completely lost as to how you might want to augment a loophole. Can you give an example?

[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot]Problem: CRs are anything but accurate measurements of an opponent’s true threat.[/FONT]

How would you limit save-or-loses, if not by CR?

 

[Sylrae]

How would you limit save-or-loses, if not by CR?

Hmm. just off the top of my head, instead of a flat out *Doesn't Work* by CR, I'd suggest giving bonuses to the save by CR.

Say You're casting a level 6 spell (making you level 11ish) on a CR 13 Monster (or vice versa).

If you wanna nerf Save or Suck spells,

I just had a better Idea; in conjunction to something like the above

Convert Save or Suck Spells into Ability Damage, with secondary effects if necessary (Like Wight Touch). Possibly make them have primary and secondary damage like poisons for the next couple rounds.

 

[concerro]

To the OP:
Have casters broken your games? If so how? Maybe we can help. If not then leave well enough alone. You seem to be making arbitrary decisions rather than balance anything. There is a reason nobody is agreeing with you. What makes you think all classes can be balanced and the game will still be playable? You can't achieve total balance and keep variety.

What is your baseline for balance; rogue, monk. druid, sorcerer? What are you balancing anything against?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Hmm. just off the top of my head, instead of a flat out *Doesn't Work* by CR, I'd suggest giving bonuses to the save by CR.

Say You're casting a level 6 spell (making you level 11ish) on a CR 13 Monster (or vice versa).

If you wanna nerf Save or Suck spells,

I just had a better Idea; in conjunction to something like the above

Convert Save or Suck Spells into Ability Damage, with secondary effects if necessary (Like Wight Touch). Possibly make them have primary and secondary damage like poisons for the next couple rounds.

Well that would definitely increase spell text word count, but the idea does have merit. What would you say to people who complain that a death spell isn't really a death spell anymore, or that dominate isn't really dominate anymore (because the caster would usually have to wear down a foe's stat for at least a round or two before the save-or-lose effect happened)? 'Cause I've heard those complaints before, leveled against this type of save-or-lose fix.

There is a reason nobody is agreeing with you.

Thank you for that bit of oh-so-constructive criticism. I'm seeing a lot of "I like the gist of TS' fix, but the details aren't right," but very few actual counter-suggestions. I'm not telepathic, so I don't know what everyone is thinking other than by their written comments.

So if you like spells as imbalanced as they are, you can leave well enough alone. Get back to me when you have something constructive to say.

 

[Celebrim]

There is a reason nobody is agreeing with you.

Whoa there, concero. I wouldn't go that far. I think that I'd like to see some refinements here, but I didn't say I didn't agree with him. I mainly said that I thought in play his fixes wouldn't be as elegant as they looked on paper, primarily because I don't think he's thought them through enough.

TS has produced several novel ideas. The quality of his work is high enough that he's immediately placed himself in the top 5% of rule smiths that post in the 3rd edition house rules forum. That I'm critical of it should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm critical of just about everything.

You seem to be making arbitrary decisions rather than balance anything.

None of his decisions look arbitrary to me. We get alot of people posting in this forum that have made arbitrary modifications to the rules, but TS clear knows what he's trying to achieve and has good reasons for doing so.

What makes you think all classes can be balanced and the game will still be playable?

That's nonsense.

You can't achieve total balance and keep variety.

And that's debateable.

As for his work TS has introduced the following:

1) Scable spells: That's actually really cool. I'm sorely tempted to adopt this idea for my own, except that the more I play with it in my head the uglier it gets.

One reason is that some effects which might be fine at level X, because the challengese the PC's face can 'deal' with it, are totally inappropriate at level X-1 because they create a walkover. For example, I'm not convinced that the level 1 fireball is balanced at all. I'm not sure any area of effect attack that hits as many targets as fireball is balanced at 1st level. Since most 1st level opponents have under 5 hit points, 1st level fireball turns almost every encounter into a walkover. However, his fireball is perfectly fine as a 3rd level spell because by then, many challenges the PC's will face can deal with it. Fireball becomes useful, but not a game breaker.

So, there are two options, start fireball at 2nd level with no 1st level entry, or modify the area of effect and range depending on spell level. For example, maybe 1st and 2nd level fireballs have a 10' radius burst and a range of just 30'. Conversely, 7/8/9 fireballs might have 30' radius burst and a range of 120'. The problem with the first option is it breaks the idea, forcing us to create more specialized spells to replace the missing spell. That might not be too bad, but it limits the value of the idea. The problem with the second option is it that it makes the spell entries increasingly complicated, which undoes the work he's done to make spell entries simple and intuitive.

The other problem is that I think he's maybe gone too far the other way. Yes, it's true that 6th-9th level spells are often too powerful (and a few standouts at lower level as well), but he's reined in power so much that arguably high level spellcasters will be too weak. I'm concerned that role of the wizard will be limited entirely to 'provides buffs', which speaking of, he seems rather less scared of providing strong buffs than he is blaster damage. It wasn't blast damage that dominated high level play in 3rd edition. It's for this reason that I'm really interested in him play testing his spells at high levels.

Frankly, his work is at least as good as Mike Mearls in this regard though. Testing high level play always seems to be the last thing people get around to, but its central to the goal here.

2) The second mechanic he introduces is capping the CR that save or suck spells can effect. In my opinion, the idea is fundamentally unsound for reasons I've alluded too. Most importantly, it makes 'save or suck' spells one directional - PC's can't use them on their foes but NPC's can use them on the PC's. This problem is so glaring and so fundmental that I don't see a good way around it. It's an example of a fix that seems to be balanced, but in play just sucks.

3) The third mechanic he introduces is the 'double spell resistance' immunity mechanic on display in his fixes like 'Mindblank'. The problem with it is that it doesn't really address the problem. It sounds good, but in practice it doesn't work. To see why, we have to look at why 'Mindblank' is dominating high level play to begin with, and the answer to that is the fact that its easier to raise the DC of your spells than it is to raise the bonus to your saves. As a result, at high level your 'poor' saves are almost impossible to make, so you absolutely have to have immunity. But the whole 'spell resistance' thing fails for such a PC because at best it protects him 50% of the time he fails the save. But, if he's failing the save 80% of the time (because he needs to roll a 17 or better to save), then only failing 40% of the time is better but still sucks if 'save or die' is on the table.

But it's much easier to be critical than it is to fix. If it was easy to fix the problem, we wouldn't have this conversation - someone would have patched it up a long time ago (and likely a pro).

 

[Celebrim]

Wall of Force
Evocation [Force]
Level: (Arcane) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Component: M, S, V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 30 ft.
Effect: Wall of 200 square feet
Duration: 5 minutes
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
You create an immobile wall of force with hit points equal to your normal maximum and an AC equal to 10 + your caster level. The wall is immune to most effects that allow saves, except for Disintegrate which automatically destroys an appropriate portion of the wall.

I know that this was quickly thrown together, but do you realize that your 1st level spell is just as powerful as your 10th?

Also, without DR, a wall of force is pointless. I suggest partially fixing both problems with a line like: "The wall has hardness equal to 5 x spell level." I further capping the maximum hitpoints of the wall at 10 x spell level.

PCs are also immune to those effects unless their foe is 5+ CRs higher than party level; I figure once a foe gets 5+ CRs higher than the PCs, the party is venturing into TPK territory already.

Not true at all. For example: a 3rd or 4th level party encounters a 5th level evil spellcaster and his 4 1st level orc minions.

This a fairly typical encounter or boss fight (depending on party level). However, under your rules the 5th level spellcaster can cast 'Dominate' on the party fighter, turning it into a pretty quick TPK if the fighter fails to save. Because the party's level is below that of the spellcaster, they are subject to his save or suck effects, but he is immune to theirs. This would utterly suck for PC's spellcasters and players in general.

The problem runs right through your rules. He can put the party to Sleep too. And that's to say nothing about lack of attention to detail in things like 'charm' being strictly inferior to 'dominate'. And you can't easily fix it by playing with the numbers, because if you raise them high enough that the PC's aren't effected by the NPC bosses, then conversely the PC's can't effect the boss minions. The result is to just make 'save or suck' suck much as evocation sucks in 3rd edition, but maybe even more so.

 

[Sylrae]

Well that would definitely increase spell text word count, but the idea does have merit. What would you say to people who complain that a death spell isn't really a death spell anymore, or that dominate isn't really dominate anymore (because the caster would usually have to wear down a foe's stat for at least a round or two before the save-or-lose effect happened)? 'Cause I've heard those complaints before, leveled against this type of save-or-lose fix.

This is my idea, off the top of my head.

The way you set up the damage, is that, the amount of damage done should be enough that it will PROBABLY kill someone outright if they would have probably failed their save.

Depending on the damage possibilities, I might argue for ramping up the DC, or dropping the save, in favor of just damage. (people might gte pissier about that one, but I think if you play with the numbers so they have a more reasonable chance of surviving, and the survival is linked to more than a single roll, it'll be an improvement). You'd have to do the math to figure out the probabilities if you want it to work out right though. Either do the math or spend huge amounts of time playtesting and adjusting.

As for the continual damage: Basically:

You cast spell:
They fail their save.
they take damage(3d6 maybe): You rolled low on the damage, or they have an unusually high ability score. (say they put an 18 in con, +2 for dwarf). they have 12 Con remaining. They were lucky AND tough.
The next round, at the start of their turn, they make another save.
If they fail it, they take damage again, if it reduces an ability to 0 then the death/petrify/w/e takes effect (Polymorph would be will instead of fort).
If they pass it, the spell ends. They regain their ability score at a rate of 1/round (or slower maybe.) They're weaker to other similar spells until it all comes back.

The question is how many times you let it happen. I'd say until they pass the save. If you want to limit it more, you could say it lasts at most X rounds.

I'm seeing a lot of "I like the gist of TS' fix, but the details aren't right,"

You have some great Ideas! they just need refinement.

The quality of his work is high enough that he's immediately placed himself in the top 5% of rule smiths that post in the 3rd edition house rules forum.

Am I in that 5%? o_o. I know I post here more than pretty much everyone else, but I don't know what people think of my Ideas. *looks nervous* lol.

 

[nonsi256]

[FONT=&quot]- eventually it dramatically reduces the versatility of spellcasters and spells in general.
[/FONT]​

How so?​

Because now most spells would have to abide by the multi-instances (level-wise) constraint.


​

[FONT=&quot]- more than 1/2 the effects start as 1st level spells, so there’s a theoretical possibility for a 1st level caster to have that repertoire in his hands – leaving few expectations to what lies ahead.[/FONT]​

This is true, though I can't see a way of creating more expectations without arbitrarily designating certain spells as higher level.​

Spells mess around with the laws of reality – they’re arbitrary by definition.


​

[FONT=&quot]- a 6th level spell should be worth a lot more than 2 similar 3rd level spells...[/FONT]​

I think this philosophy is largely responsible for the 'low-level casters = suck, high-level casters = pwn' imbalance. So naturally I don't think it's a valid concern when rewriting spells to rebalance casters.​

Not at all. Take Chain Lightning for example. Aside for the higher damage cap, it also provides a better battlefield control while keeping you allies out of harm’s way.​

“Better” is in no way restricted to just numbers.


​

[FONT=&quot]- the better way, in my book, of dealing with game breaking loopholes is to augment them, not to nix them altogether. Sure I also advise banning wishes & shadow spells – but that’s because I don’t view them as spells to begin with).[/FONT]​

I'm completely lost as to how you might want to augment a loophole. Can you give an example?​

Check out my HRs – especially entry #3 and you’ll find out (whether the execution is good or bat is entirely a matter of test runs plus personal taste).


​

[FONT=&quot]Problem: [/FONT][FONT=&quot]CRs are anything but accurate measurements of an opponent’s true threat.[/FONT]​

How would you limit save-or-loses, if not by CR?​

1. Make all SoS (and battlefield-control, btw) splls full round casting time.​

2. Instead of CR, I’d require both min hit-dice AND min base save bonus.​

 

[concerro]

Whoa there, concero. I wouldn't go that far. I think that I'd like to see some refinements here, but I didn't say I didn't agree with him. I mainly said that I thought in play his fixes wouldn't be as elegant as they looked on paper, primarily because I don't think he's thought them through enough.

That is what I said, just not so nicely. I guess I will go back and rephrase everything.

 

[concerro]

My second attempt to question the OP. Hopefully it goes better than my first attempt.
Why do you beleive the spells as they have been rewritten are still viable for play?
What is your baseline for balance? In other words what class are you using as the example of how powerful a class should be?