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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5001003" data-attributes="member: 4937">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.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.  That's nonsense.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).</blockquote>

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