IS this a viable and balanced Level 9 spell

[Empirate]

And here is the argument that destroys the game.


Every single time a new supplement comes out we "rebalance" any new spell against the most powerful spell in that or any previous supplement.

Dandu lists some of the most powerful spells in the game and says "balance against these".... end result? Another ridiculously powerful and potentially broken spell. The Player Equivalent of "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies".

There are certain general rules set out for magic, one of which usually being that if it can be cast it's possible to be avoided. If it doesn't have a save it has a touch attack, if it doesn't have a touch attack it allows resistance and so forth.

But consistently "rebalancing" the spells against the most powerful spells ever to come before it just causes endless power creep.

Seriously? You mean the words you just typed in there?
Let me rebuff your post:


Game destroying... hardly, for a 9th level spell that does 90 damage.


'Supplements' refers to the PHB here? I mean, the only 9th level spells cited were from the PHB. We're not talking about anything but PHB spells and one new homebrew spell here. Don't bring up the (often refuted, but that's beside the point) 'power creep by way of too many books' thing.


'Most powerful spells in the game'... yeah. 9th level, right? Also known as the highest spell level there is? Why shouldn't another 9th level spell be balanced against these? Don't you balance 2nd level spells against other, popular, 2nd level spells? Or 5th level spells against other 5th level spells? Do you really think you're doing game balance a favor if you DON'T do it that way? If your benchmark are the most worthless, never memorized, never learned, most craptastic spells a level has to offer, what does that have to do with game balance in the game as it's actually played?


'General rules set out for magic'... where? Point me to the page. You have already admitted that some of the most iconic, long-standing favorites among 9th level spells (which are right there in the PHB) go out and break the rules of the game into a hundred itty bitty splinters. Where do the rules you cited apply, then?

Also, the 'must be able to resist' thing is ridiculous if you consider Forcecage (no save, no SR, you're screwed), Summon spells (those critters are just THERE now), Glitterdust (try hiding), True Seeing (hide from that!), Reverse Gravity (no save, no SR), Prismatic anything (roll seven times? Might as well be no save, no SR), Quench (no save, no SR, no attack roll to heavily damage fire creatures - situational, I know, but it's a lot of spell levels lower!), Pass Without Trace (track that!), Web (made save? no helpy!), Wall of X, Summon Swarm/Insect Plague, Sleet Storm (no save, no SR), Black Tentacles (no save, no SR), Acid Fog (no save, no SR)...
All in the PHB, btw.


'Rebalancing against most powerful spells'... where is the power creep in that? If I can choose from among Grease, Mage Armor and Unseen Servant, I won't be picking Unseen Servant - but how does choosing Grease murder game balance? How does balancing a new 1st level spell against Grease cause power creep? Similarly, how does balancing a new 9th level spell against Gate, Time Stop, and Shapechange cause power creep.

The way I see it, providing new options for a game is only helpful if those options represent a viable choice. I.e., new options that fall behind the general power curve are not options in that they are not optional: choosing them is always a worse choice that choosing the options the game was already providing in the first place. You have added effectively nothing to the game then.

If you were playing chess, but instead of your Queen you had the option of choosing another Rook, would you do so? No. So adding that option doesn't further the game in the slightest. If, on the other hand, you had the option of replacing one Bishop with a third Knight, you might consider it. Knights, while about as powerful Bishops (in fact, slightly less so), move differently, so this is indeed an option.

If you don't balance new options against powerful options that are already available (i.e., don't balance Ray of Light against Gate, Shapechange, Time Stop), the new options will be disregarded. This is not power creep.

 

[Empath Negative]

Seriously? You mean the words you just typed in there?
Let me rebuff your post:


Game destroying... hardly, for a 9th level spell that does 90 damage.


'Supplements' refers to the PHB here? I mean, the only 9th level spells cited were from the PHB. We're not talking about anything but PHB spells and one new homebrew spell here. Don't bring up the (often refuted, but that's beside the point) 'power creep by way of too many books' thing.


'Most powerful spells in the game'... yeah. 9th level, right? Also known as the highest spell level there is? Why shouldn't another 9th level spell be balanced against these? Don't you balance 2nd level spells against other, popular, 2nd level spells? Or 5th level spells against other 5th level spells? Do you really think you're doing game balance a favor if you DON'T do it that way? If your benchmark are the most worthless, never memorized, never learned, most craptastic spells a level has to offer, what does that have to do with game balance in the game as it's actually played?


'General rules set out for magic'... where? Point me to the page. You have already admitted that some of the most iconic, long-standing favorites among 9th level spells (which are right there in the PHB) go out and break the rules of the game into a hundred itty bitty splinters. Where do the rules you cited apply, then?

Also, the 'must be able to resist' thing is ridiculous if you consider Forcecage (no save, no SR, you're screwed), Summon spells (those critters are just THERE now), Glitterdust (try hiding), True Seeing (hide from that!), Reverse Gravity (no save, no SR), Prismatic anything (roll seven times? Might as well be no save, no SR), Quench (no save, no SR, no attack roll to heavily damage fire creatures - situational, I know, but it's a lot of spell levels lower!), Pass Without Trace (track that!), Web (made save? no helpy!), Wall of X, Summon Swarm/Insect Plague, Sleet Storm (no save, no SR), Black Tentacles (no save, no SR), Acid Fog (no save, no SR)...
All in the PHB, btw.


'Rebalancing against most powerful spells'... where is the power creep in that? If I can choose from among Grease, Mage Armor and Unseen Servant, I won't be picking Unseen Servant - but how does choosing Grease murder game balance? How does balancing a new 1st level spell against Grease cause power creep? Similarly, how does balancing a new 9th level spell against Gate, Time Stop, and Shapechange cause power creep.

The way I see it, providing new options for a game is only helpful if those options represent a viable choice. I.e., new options that fall behind the general power curve are not options in that they are not optional: choosing them is always a worse choice that choosing the options the game was already providing in the first place. You have added effectively nothing to the game then.

If you were playing chess, but instead of your Queen you had the option of choosing another Rook, would you do so? No. So adding that option doesn't further the game in the slightest. If, on the other hand, you had the option of replacing one Bishop with a third Knight, you might consider it. Knights, while about as powerful Bishops (in fact, slightly less so), move differently, so this is indeed an option.

If you don't balance new options against powerful options that are already available (i.e., don't balance Ray of Light against Gate, Shapechange, Time Stop), the new options will be disregarded. This is not power creep.

Did I say spell, or did I say argument?

 

[Empirate]

Huh? You said both, actually, which is only logical, since you were talking about an argument referring to a spell. So?

 

[Empath Negative]

"and here is the argument that destroys the game"

Thats the statement that sent you into blithering histrionics, yes?

 

[Sekhmet]

Gentlemen, remember to be civil.
Empirate's argument is accurate, the spell isn't as powerful as it could be in comparison to other ninth level spells. Why would you memorize or choose this if you could memorize or choose Shapechange or Gate?

Empath's argument is also valid, he's saying that if we were to only make spells as terribly broken as Shapechange and Gate, the disparity in classes would become even greater. Sort of a reductio ad ridiculum.

Neither of the arguments belong in this thread, though.

 

[Empirate]

"and here is the argument that destroys the game"

Thats the statement that sent you into blithering histrionics, yes?

My, are we being touchy today. While I can find nothing histrionic about my argument, I guess it has a touch of the 'blithering' (I had to look that up, actually: talking nonsense, going on at too much length. Thanks for broadening my vocabulary!). I am indeed profusely sorry for the wall of text. It seems you cannot be bothered to read that amount of words in one go, so you will be excused of coming up with an actual answer.

 

[Celebrim]

Conjuration (light)
Level: Sorc/Wiz9, Clr9, Dru9
Component: V,S,M
Casting Time: Standard
Range : Long (or medium)
Target/Area: One Creature
Duration: Instant
Save: None (special)
SR: Yes

With a successful ranged touch attack, the target creature takes 2d6 radiant damage per caster level (max 40d6). Undead take double damage unless they make a successful fortitude save.

Fixed. Compare with maximized or empowered disintegrate, which is the closet equivalent in my opinion.

I consider 'Meteor Swarm' and 'Time Stop' to be balanced 9th level spells, at roughly the limits to either direction of what a 9th level spell should be. 'Gate' and 'Shapechange' are, as written in the SRD, broken and need to be rebalanced before they should really enter the discussion. 'Wish' is a special case with its own restrictions.

 

[Celebrim]

And here is the argument that destroys the game.

In general, I agree. This argument leads to Pun-Pun. I've seen this argument used as justification for everything up to and including Hulking Hurlers. The basic argument goes something like, "CoDZilla is broken even in core, and this is less powerful than some theoretically optimized version of CoDZille or God Wizard; hense, if you don't like this then you are just oppressing the players unfairly/don't think fighters should get good stuff/etc." Else the argument goes that the game is supposed to be broken as wide open as the highest theoretical optimization allows or that the balance is only supposed to be held by table agreement.

I don't feel that the suggested spell is particularly broken especially compared to what is out there, but I do totally agree that comparing any new thing to the most broken known thing is just a recipe for madness. The correct way to do this is to pick things that you can generally agree are fair and then balance against that. Those things - even if canonical, official, and core - which are generally agreed to be problimatic should be seen as the mistakes that they are and treated like mistakes. We may not agree what the fix is to be, that's why its a house rule, but there ought not be much disagreement that 3.5 era shapechanging spells are breakable almost across the board.

 

[Empath Negative]

Unsoul
Conjuration (light)
Level: Sorc/Wiz9, Clr9, Dru9
Component: V,S,M
Casting Time: Standard
Range : Touch
Target/Area: One Creature Touched
Duration: Instant
Save: None (special)
SR: No

This terrible spell draws the animating force from any creature, and dissipate it into nothingness. Regardless of the origin of this animating force (Magical Construct, Undead, Living Creature and so forth) the results are the same. The Caster reaches out his hand, lays it upon his targets hapless body, and draws out this animating force until it becomes a ball of quickly evaporating soulstuff in his hand. He then clenches his fist tight. Unsoul deals 2d8 damage per caster level.



(The above is an example of a spell that has a defense (requires a touch attack), is worthy of being a 9th lvl spell (does significant damage to any creature, regardless of type), and is interesting enough to be useful to a DM who wants to make a rather "cinematic" character death).

 

[Belzbet]

and to make it strictly better than Polar Ray, I'd make it have no maximum caster level variable.

Thank you for the responses everyone. I know that this spell is relatively balanced if you do not consider epic levels. My main concern is in epic play. It seems that saves in general increase quicker than DC,which is probably intended (not considering the potential boosts epic spells can give you to Int. Ch. Wis.). So, I want a spell that does damage with no save. Although it would be desirable for a caster to implement the NO MAX CL variable I think that would make it WAY too overpowered (since a 100lv wizard would NOT need the 8 enhance spell feats to get up to 100d of damage, this spell shouldnt be able to replace 8 epic feats). To make it balanced with polar ray I was thinking that no touch attack should be necessary. That would mean that only creatures with high SR can defend against this spell. However, it seems the consensus is that a ranged touch should be necessary. Considering a spell with NO touch attack, What if we make the damage die a d4? Is that too low? It may be worth it just to use a d6 damaging spell and take half damage (d3 vs. d4 isnt much different).