House Rule - level bonus added to damage?

[Mercurius]

I'm wondering what sort of impact this would have, whether it would be unbalancing or not. What if all attack spells, and maybe even martial attacks as well, added a bonus to damage based upon level--probably the standard half-level that is applied to attack rolls. This means that at 20th level, a magic missile would do 2d4 + 10 + INT Bonus (up to +7), for a range of 14-25 HP (not including any relevant feats or magic items that would boost this). That hardly seems unbalancing for a 20th level wizard.

I just think it is kind of strange that the magic missile of a 1st level wizard and that of a 20th level wizard is basically the same in strength; wouldn't it make sense that the higher level the wizard, the more powerful their spells, even their puny at-wills?

And why not add this to all attacks, no matter the power source? That the half-level bonus applies to damage as well as to hit rolls?

 

[Mort_Q]

A 20th level wizard is going to have an appropriate implement for their at-wills...
... that said, I doubt you'd break anything, but I'm not sure there is anything to fix.

 

[James McMurray]

If you do it, be sure to add it to everyone, or you turn controllers and some leaders into strikers with area nukes. Also add it to the monsters, or you'll find it a lot harder to challenge the PCs.

 

[Tale]

wouldn't it make sense that the higher level the wizard, the more powerful their spells, even their puny at-wills?

It would make sense. However, it does not necessarilly follow.

 

[Byronic]

It would reduce the need for damage related feats and speed up combat.
It would also reduce the impact of encounters and dailies (relative to at wills).

That said, try it out and see what happens.

 

[Victim]

A higher level wizard will almost certainly have a higher INT for more damage/hits and a better magic implement. Plus, at level 20, he's one level away from the epic level damage increase.

There are two main changes from your rule. First of all, there's the pretty obvious result that damage increases. Characters/monsters drop faster, resistances are less effective, etc.

The actual problem is that some powers will do something like 1W+mods and then 1W+mods again, while others are like 2W. The more damage you add in per hit bonuses, the more powerful powers that generate multiple hits (via multiple targets or single target multiattacks) get compared to single big hits. And those powers already tend to be better...

 

[ValhallaGH]

It seems like an unecessary house rule, but it does have a couple advantages.
Encounter and Daily powers are less necessary, since at-wills are unlimited and can do almost as much damage (the +1/2 level will make all those extra dice much less attractive).
The already powerful wizard (who's magic missile damage normally has increased by +7 [+3 Int increases, +4 magic implement]) is even better at slaughtering monsters.
Because of the impressive increase in damage output, fights will last for fewer rounds, resulting in better PC survival and longer adventuring days.

If you apply this to monsters as well as heroes then things go silly. Fights start off lasting for 4 to 6 rounds, and end lasting about 2 to 4 rounds from the insane damage being thrown around by everyone. The flavor, style, and tone of encounters shifts dramatically to hyper-lethal as a character increases in level. It goes from heroic to gritty as you go up in levels. A very odd disconnect, the high level Fighter lasting for fewer rounds than the low level Fighter.

 

[Mengu]

If you implement this rule, the percentage difference between damage output of strikers and non-strikers will diminish.

Similarly the difference between damage dice will become less and less significant.

The already small feat bonuses and other conditional bonuses to damage will also become less significant.

People would just stop trying to qualify for feat bonuses, and go for raw stat boosts to increase their accuracy. You don't want to give people more reasons to do this. I would recommend against this.

If the reason for trying to do this is to speed up combat, decreasing monster hit points (and increasing monster damage) is a better way to do this.

 

[Rafe]

I've thought of this same thing myself - take more of a SW Saga approach. That said, you'd need to up all enemies' damage as well to balance it. Also, as some have said, it makes damage-increasing feats a little less appealing.

What I might do is simply give a +1 to damage every 4 levels. That might give you the little boost you're looking for without it increasing astronomically or having to adjust monsters' damage. All you'd have to do is increase XP budgets for encounters, but only slightly. Perhaps make make 4th level 5th instead (so 800 instead of 700, as per p.122 DMG), but only begin the adjustments at 4th level and higher. Or just add 10% or something to the XP budget for encounters at 4th level and higher.

So the row for 4th level on p. 122 would look like this:
4 PCs | 5 PCs | 6 PCs
..770. | .960. | 1155

 

[jedrious]

actually the biggest problem is shrinking the disparity between at-will and encounter

at 30th

Dagger Wielding Rogue

Hurricane of Blood
5d4 + 6(enhancement) + 8 (26 dex) for 19-34 damage (34-49 under your proposal)
Piercing Strike
2d4 + 6(enhancement) + 8 (26 dex) for 16-22 damage (31-37 under your proposal)

under current system minimum damage ~20% increase, maximum damage ~50% increase
under proposal minimum damage ~10% increase, maximum damage ~25% increase

you litterally cut the disparity from expected damage output between at-wills and encounter powers in half

Cleric with Greataxe

Godstrike
7d12 + 6(enhancement) + 8 (26 str) 21-98 (36-113 under proposal)
Priest Shield
2d12 + 6(enhancement) + 8 (26 str) 16-38 (31-53 under proposal)
under current system minimum damage ~33% increase, maximum damage ~160% increase
under proposal minimum damage ~17% increase, maximum damage ~113%

while not as drastic a dip but still a noticable lowered disparity between at-wills and DAILIES