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<blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 6509329" data-attributes="member: 30022">Well... meteor swarm is pretty iconic. And, arguably, it was underpowered in both 3e and 4e. In 3e, save-or-suck spells ruled the roost. And the less said about 4e's meteor swarm, the better. So, I'm glad it's back in force.My understanding is that 5e's rules for 9th level spells are basically: these are game breaking. They should feel suitably epic. You shouldn't be simply doing a carefully measured amount of damage to the enemy. You should be messing them up. An army of onrushing giants shouldn't be lightly toasted (3e, 4e), they should be utterly obliterated. Keep some semblance in balance in the game for most of the campaign, and then put your pants on over your head for the last couple of levels, because it's going to get craaaaazy up in here. Which I kind of love. Consider that, even if you make it to this level, you might only get to cast this spell a half-dozen times in your adventuring life... it needs to be something really special.Also, meteor swarm has a massive drawback already built into it. That 40' radius blast area (...which extends around corners)? Frequently, that makes this spell just as scary for the caster and his allies. In fact, there are going to be plenty of times when it's darn-near unusable. Once the minis hit the battlemap, you'd be surprised at how often my group hesitates to cast even the humble fireball with it's &quot;mere&quot; 20' radius blast. Plus the fire resistance thing. So, it's not perfect, even just looking at the mechanics.I think it looks okay. I'd be way more concerned if a 1st-3rd level spell was unbalanced, because those are going to get used all the time, for months or years of game-time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lancelot, post: 6509329, member: 30022"] Well... [I]meteor swarm[/I] is pretty iconic. And, arguably, it was underpowered in both 3e and 4e. In 3e, save-or-suck spells ruled the roost. And the less said about 4e's [I]meteor swarm[/I], the better. So, I'm glad it's back in force. My understanding is that 5e's rules for 9th level spells are basically: these are game breaking. They should feel suitably epic. You shouldn't be simply doing a carefully measured amount of damage to the enemy. You should be [B]messing them up[/B]. An army of onrushing giants shouldn't be lightly toasted (3e, 4e), they should be utterly obliterated. Keep some semblance in balance in the game for most of the campaign, and then put your pants on over your head for the last couple of levels, because it's going to get craaaaazy up in here. Which I kind of love. Consider that, even if you make it to this level, you might only get to cast this spell a half-dozen times in your adventuring life... it needs to be something really special. Also, [I]meteor swarm[/I] has a massive drawback already built into it. That 40' radius blast area (...which extends around corners)? Frequently, that makes this spell just as scary for the caster and his allies. In fact, there are going to be plenty of times when it's darn-near unusable. Once the minis hit the battlemap, you'd be surprised at how often my group hesitates to cast even the humble [I]fireball[/I] with it's "mere" 20' radius blast. Plus the fire resistance thing. So, it's not perfect, even just looking at the mechanics. I think it looks okay. I'd be way more concerned if a 1st-3rd level spell was unbalanced, because those are going to get used all the time, for months or years of game-time. [/QUOTE]

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