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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4994980" data-attributes="member: 4937">Sure, at 5th level it is comparable, but it falls slowly behind after that.Average 3.5 damage for 10th level caster: 10 * 3.5 = 35Average TS 3rd level fireball damage for 10th level caster: 3 * 5 + 10 = 25.Max 3.5 damage for 10th level caster: 10 * 6 = 60.Max TS 3rd level fireball damage for 10th level caster: 3 * 8 + 10 = 34.On the other hand, what I didn't notice initially was that it starts to catch back up again after 10th level.   On the other hand, by the time it does catch back up, fireball is basically an obselete spell that is at most a nuisance to the sort of foes the wizard would be facing.  What is cool is that he's tried to scale the spell to every level, so that you can cast fireball as a 10th level spell or a 5th level spell.  I like the mechanic on display there.   I'm not at all certain though that it is actually balanced.  As far as clearing mooks goes, fireball is nearly as powerful as a 1st level spell as it is as a 5th level spell.  It's significantly more powered than existing spells like 'Burning Hands'.   On the other hand, the flattening of the power curve has the benefit of making high level spells much less powerful.  The 9th level fireball isn't remotely broken (65 average damage).  Of course, that only means that if you don't fix the 9th level spells that it will never be cast, much like you don't ever really see maximized empowered fireballs because its a waste of a spell slot.I'm not saying that he doesn't get some things right, and it does have the advantage of giving me something to think about and being on the right path, but I'd be alot more impressed to see him rolling out fixes wall of force, forcecage, and find the path than fireball to say nothing of mindblank, freedom of action, and death ward.  Do these go the way of disjunction, wish, or polymorph?  I don't consider simply banning something to be a fix.I'd also don't like the inclusion of CR into the spell rules.  Estimating CR is dicy enough as it is without it having an in game mechanical effect.  I do not agree that CR is in general accurate.  Additionally, the result is to screw PC casters hard compared to NPC casters, because the rules he writes grant single NPC villains (who are generally higher level than any member of the party) virtually immunity to PC spells while letting a BBEG spellcaster cast spells with impunity at the PCs.  The rock/paper/scissors defence issue now just goes one way.   I'm not sure that's an improvement.Likewise, I find alot of naivity in his description.  He says that he made 'cure' a swift action to encourage healers to do more than heal on their turn, but more likely it will just encourage them to cast two healing spells on their turn.  There's just alot here that screams to me, "This has never been play tested."  It is a good idea to reduce the power of many spell caster's high level spells, and while this goes in alot of the right directions I'm not at all pleased with where it has arrived.</blockquote>

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