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Make SPELLS Balanced
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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8840832" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>Looking closer at the "ongoing" damage spells. They are all over the place. The following are my current impressions.</p><p></p><p>The "standard" ongoing damage spell targets multiple creatures.</p><p></p><p>Ongoing damage typically targets any "creatures", including harming friends too. "Safe" spells that only target chosen hostiles are uncommon.</p><p></p><p>"Ongoing" can mean various things. Creatures might incur damage per-turn at start or end. Bonus actions might inflict damage. Extra damage might add to weapon attacks. To inflict the damage might require an Attack Roll, or allow a Save, or be Automatic. A creature might need to make multiple Saves, each time the damage occurs, or the Save might end the ongoing damage. The creatures might need to waste an action to end the ongoing damage. The caster might need to spend future actions to wield a "heavy weapon", like <em>Call Lightning</em>. And so on. In some way, new damage continues to occur in future turns after the spell has been cast.</p><p></p><p>Summon spells that position an additional creature as an ally, come with their own complications. Even so, a summon spell is a kind of ongoing damage spell, and it is important to consider how much ongoing damage the summoning contributes.</p><p></p><p>It is "Good" when the creature incurs damage at the "start" of its turn. But it is "Less Useful" when the creature incurs it at the "end" of its turn. If at the end, the hostile can continue to harm the team of the caster before elimination.</p><p></p><p>Ongoing damage from an unmovable area is seriously Less Useful. Compare <em>Wall of Fire</em> or <em>Mordenkainens Faithful Hound</em>. The caster can probably catch creatures when the area first appears, but afterward the creatures can simply avoid the area, so that there is no more ongoing damage. If the damage incurs at the end of the turn, so that the creature can walk away without taking any damage, then the spell is almost pointless. An immovable damaging area is moreorless equivalent to a one-time instantaneous Fireball, so the initial damage at the appearance of the spell must be worthwhile, and the possibility of future damage later is more like a "situational" minor ribbon.</p><p></p><p>By contrast, a movable damaging area, such as <em>Call Lightning</em>, is Good, to bring the ongoing damage to the creatures in future rounds.</p><p></p><p>An area that deals damage if the creature "enters" can be worthwhile, because the team can Push the creatures into the area for respectable extra damage once per turn.</p><p></p><p>The "standard" ongoing damage spell has duration of 1 minute. This means, the damage remains in effect for one very long combat encounter, or two or three interrelated combat encounters. The duration of 10 minutes is not meaningfully better. It might be useful, it might not. A 1 hour duration is more significant, so at least the spell remains in effect for some session or mission.</p><p></p><p>Almost always, ongoing damage requires Concentration. The few spells that dont might even seem accidental. Designers view layering many ongoing damage effects as seriously imbalancing to the gaming engine.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In 5e so far, the amounts of ongoing damage that these spells do are all over the place. I have in mind how much damage these should do: at least 4 damage per spell slot. So, a 2nd-slot spell should deal at least 8 damage per round to each creature, and a 4th-slot spell should deal at least 16. I will post more about damage in a later post.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 8840832, member: 58172"] Looking closer at the "ongoing" damage spells. They are all over the place. The following are my current impressions. The "standard" ongoing damage spell targets multiple creatures. Ongoing damage typically targets any "creatures", including harming friends too. "Safe" spells that only target chosen hostiles are uncommon. "Ongoing" can mean various things. Creatures might incur damage per-turn at start or end. Bonus actions might inflict damage. Extra damage might add to weapon attacks. To inflict the damage might require an Attack Roll, or allow a Save, or be Automatic. A creature might need to make multiple Saves, each time the damage occurs, or the Save might end the ongoing damage. The creatures might need to waste an action to end the ongoing damage. The caster might need to spend future actions to wield a "heavy weapon", like [I]Call Lightning[/I]. And so on. In some way, new damage continues to occur in future turns after the spell has been cast. Summon spells that position an additional creature as an ally, come with their own complications. Even so, a summon spell is a kind of ongoing damage spell, and it is important to consider how much ongoing damage the summoning contributes. It is "Good" when the creature incurs damage at the "start" of its turn. But it is "Less Useful" when the creature incurs it at the "end" of its turn. If at the end, the hostile can continue to harm the team of the caster before elimination. Ongoing damage from an unmovable area is seriously Less Useful. Compare [I]Wall of Fire[/I] or [I]Mordenkainens Faithful Hound[/I]. The caster can probably catch creatures when the area first appears, but afterward the creatures can simply avoid the area, so that there is no more ongoing damage. If the damage incurs at the end of the turn, so that the creature can walk away without taking any damage, then the spell is almost pointless. An immovable damaging area is moreorless equivalent to a one-time instantaneous Fireball, so the initial damage at the appearance of the spell must be worthwhile, and the possibility of future damage later is more like a "situational" minor ribbon. By contrast, a movable damaging area, such as [I]Call Lightning[/I], is Good, to bring the ongoing damage to the creatures in future rounds. An area that deals damage if the creature "enters" can be worthwhile, because the team can Push the creatures into the area for respectable extra damage once per turn. The "standard" ongoing damage spell has duration of 1 minute. This means, the damage remains in effect for one very long combat encounter, or two or three interrelated combat encounters. The duration of 10 minutes is not meaningfully better. It might be useful, it might not. A 1 hour duration is more significant, so at least the spell remains in effect for some session or mission. Almost always, ongoing damage requires Concentration. The few spells that dont might even seem accidental. Designers view layering many ongoing damage effects as seriously imbalancing to the gaming engine. In 5e so far, the amounts of ongoing damage that these spells do are all over the place. I have in mind how much damage these should do: at least 4 damage per spell slot. So, a 2nd-slot spell should deal at least 8 damage per round to each creature, and a 4th-slot spell should deal at least 16. I will post more about damage in a later post. [/QUOTE]
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