New Spells: Mage Bolts, Vacuum Burst, Gravity Warp(edited)

[Merlion]

I think it should be evocation (keeping it in the school that does such effects), and do d4/level with a Fort save or d6/level with a Reflex save. I also think it should not affect incorporeal opponents (is that also true of disintegrate? It should be.)

Your right about the incorporeal thing...they should be entirely immune since gravity has no effect on them.
As far as the save thing...I dont understand why people see some saves as more powerful than others. They are each easier or harder for some classes than others, but as near as I can tell it all balances out. With Reflex, you have Evasion..but only 2 classes have evasion..although their are items. Also, only 4 classes (previously 3) have good Reflex saves. 7 classes have good Fort saves, and some creatures are immune to most things requiring fort saves. And, the classes with the good fort saves are also the ones with the higher HPS.

Does it really matter *how* the spell accomplishes its task?

To me it does. When I first started DnD I was fascinated by the concept of the schools of magic..and how they were divided according to type of magical effect, and how they operate.

I could make up a conjuration spell that brings a mass of flaming hot gases from the sun to a point I designate, and specify that it does d6/level fire damage in a 20' radius with a reflex save for half. The DM would look at me, laugh, and say "Nice try, but you picked evocation as one of your forbidden schools. Don't try to get around that.

Ok first here we go again with the assumption that PCS are always doing things just to increase their power.
next, there are already damaging spells in schools other than evocation
3rd...dont you think a specialist wizard iwithin the reality of the game would try to create spells for his school that do things it doesnt currently do, in its own way? It makes sense.

Don't try to get around that." You could lawyer your way into making almost any spell fit any school, which would make the concept of schools meaningless.

well I think it would be pretty hard to "lawyer" Fireball into Enchantment, or Silent Image into Abjuration.
Part of the problem is, I dont think they should have done away with multi school spells, as many effects are very hard to classify to a single school.

and it is better than Polar Ray (an 8th-level spell that requires a hit roll). It probably will be better in most circumstances than disintegrate (2d6/level, but requires a hit roll *and* allows a save for less-than-half damage).

I'm sorry but this is absurd. Polar ray deals 25 dice of damage. Disientegrate deals up to 40 dice of damage, and if you are reduced to 0 you cant be braught back except by a 9th level spell..and it can be used to entirely obilterate nonliving matter.
Theres no real comparison there.

I still think that area-of-effect versus single-target is a wash. No real reason to give one more damage than the other.

then why do the DMG guidlines give pretty much every spell level a higher damage cap for single target spells that for multi target ones?

Look, I'm not trying to be a stickler for the rules for the sake of the existing rules. I am trying to get you to think about the concepts behind the rules. Why are certain spells the way they are? Why are there no spells that are "Reflex Save or be Helpless"? (because it would provide a super-easy way to kill a party's cleric - and, no, Merlion doesn't have such a spell) Why doesn't transmutation have the mass-damage spells that evocation has? (because it already has the most versatile and best spell list in the game) If a rule is simply arbitrary and does no good, feel free to change it. But if a rule balances the game, keeps it fresh by preventing any one option from being the "The Best," and otherwise makes the game more fun, think carefully before discarding it. If you want to ditch the theories behind the rules, then come out and say that. But I didn't think that was what Merlion was pitching.

I'm not. I'm pitching in game logic. A spell that alters things is Transmutation whatever the final effect of that alteration may be. Evocations dont change things, they make them. They create energy. Gravity Warp could possibly be Evocation, but Vacuum Burst doesnt fit, accept that it deals damage.
I dont think thease particular rules are arbitray and do no good..but then they arent really rules either. Theres no rule that says every damaging spell most be Evocation (indeed there are ones that are not, and many more than werent until recently). Nor is there a rule that says every damage spell must have a Reflex save for half (again, there are a number of such spells that dont).
I am not accussing you personaly of anything, and I dont think anyone else was either. I am simply discussing your statements and my agreement or disagreement with them.

Comments on ideas are NOT inherently worth more than comments on the rules. This is, as the name says, the House Rules forum. It's about rules. Part of the point of this forum is for other players to make suggestions and comments on the impact of your house rules on the game

Your partialy right about this. In the end I'd say there equal..but only when the comments are. Many people will simply stop by and post and say "its overpowered" and not really give you much more. You havent done that, but it is a common practice. And that isnt worth much.
Comments that dont at least acknowledge the concept as well as the mechanical execution arent worth a lot to me either (again not saying your in that catagory).

As a player and as a DM I've come up with hundreds of ideas of things that would be cool in my mind but that could just possibly have the effect of making the game less fun for some players in some way I hadn't thought of. That's the hard part. Coming up with good ideas, while challenging, is far easier than determining what the impact of those ideas will be. How does a change to this spell affect that class? Does a spell render a given class obselete? Does a spell make wizards much more powerful against many more foes than they were before? That's the hard part. You need a lot of opinions on "How will this change affect my game" because there are so many factors to consider. It's taken TSR/WOTC many years to design a halfway balanced game in which there isn't One Best Weapon and One Most Powerful Class. This isn't simple.

This is very true (in fact there is still One Most Powerful Class as things stand now as far as I'm concerned but I digress).
But some times people get so afraid of imbalance, they immediately jump on anything that is (1 somewhat new or unique, nothing in the PH like it either at all or at its level or (2 seems to be at all strong...as in, not weaker than everything in the PH.
Thats why some of us get a little touchy some times...we've come to expect negativity. I acknowledge and apologize for this in my case. But after a while it gets hard to help.

 

[evileeyore]

CZ pointed this thread out to us so here at Nutkinland I figured I'd wander in hand out my two cents:

Mage Bolts: I love it. The only knee-jerk reaction I have is to raise it to 4th level. I really don't know why but it 'feels' fourthy to me. However I'd allow it as stands in any D&D game I ran.

Vacuum Burst: It feels to me to be a Fortitude save. How can you 'dodge' the inrushing air front? I really don't know why, it does say Fort save to me. However I have the same problem with many D&D spells, so again I would allow as is. Also I agree it becomes an awesome spell in the hands of a Rogue/Mage, and buffs up the combat for his Rogue buddies something fierce...

Gravity Warp; I love it! This spells really has no wrong. It is all right. However I do ask from whence comes the 1d4 slowed effect? I can almost see a good reason for it, but I would like to hear from you.

If you already addressed that, sorry. I kinda skipped some of the 'arguements' as they weren't adding anything to the conversation. Shesh, how many times must you be called out on the same thing?

To chime in on the 'Evocation front'. Well they do have a point. I see yours clearly, but I too would strongly weigh whether I would allow them in my games as Transmutation or not. I really don't have a pat answer here (I admit D&D is not my ball) but from my perspective they have some valid points. Knee-jerk response: use it as is, if it broke-fix it!!1!

Now might you share some linkies to your other threads and locales for your house rules? I have no search function here.

--All in all good spells--EvilE

 

[Merlion]

Mage Bolts: I love it. The only knee-jerk reaction I have is to raise it to 4th level. I really don't know why but it 'feels' fourthy to me. However I'd allow it as stands in any D&D game I ran.

Logicaly one could also have a 5th level, 7th level and 9th level version. One of the big things in my spell design, when it comes to levels...I tend to think in terms of, "How advanced of a magical affect is this, and how advanced of a mage should have access to it?" Mage Bolts is made to represent the basic hurling of magical energy. And thats something I think a mage of any deccent skill should be able to do. But they should get better at it.

Vacuum Burst: It feels to me to be a Fortitude save. How can you 'dodge' the inrushing air front? I really don't know why, it does say Fort save to me. However I have the same problem with many D&D spells, so again I would allow as is. Also I agree it becomes an awesome spell in the hands of a Rogue/Mage, and buffs up the combat for his Rogue buddies something fierce...

As much as I love the lack of complication brought about by the 3 save types, its some times hard to fit everything into those three narrow and specfic catagories. Some times it leads to accasions where no flavour especially fits, so I go with whatever seems most mechanically sound.

Gravity Warp; I love it! This spells really has no wrong. It is all right. However I do ask from whence comes the 1d4 slowed effect? I can almost see a good reason for it, but I would like to hear from you.

It just seemed a fitting secondary effect for gravity distortion

To chime in on the 'Evocation front'. Well they do have a point. I see yours clearly, but I too would strongly weigh whether I would allow them in my games as Transmutation or not. I really don't have a pat answer here (I admit D&D is not my ball) but from my perspective they have some valid points. Knee-jerk response: use it as is, if it broke-fix it!!1!

I understand the point behind the arguements against it. They feel that the schools have been balanced by role...Evocation does all the damage dealing, Enchantment does all the mind affecting etc etc. And this is somewhat true. but I feel all is well as long as the schools are balanced in overall effectiveness. I dont think giving up Evocation should neccesarily mean giving up essentially all damage dealing. For instance.

Now might you share some linkies to your other threads and locales for your house rules? I have no search function here

Well, its a lot of threads. I would recomend going to the bottom of the page, and sorting by poster, from the begining, and find my threads that way. Or if you prefer I can just send you my stuff directly.

I wouldnt mind a link to this Nutkinland of which you guys speak. What is it?

 

[evileeyore]

Nutkinland

Don't let the hippy giving tree fool you, it is a place of much hat*.

More of a cut loose on politics, media agendas, and BS with not-so-like minded fellows than a 'gaming' community like EnWorld. However we do have a gaming forum, and are a lot more open towards non-d20.

Not that EnWorld frowns on non-d20, but it is a d20 proganda-machine.

So just wander on over, ignore the hippies or join the love in.

Just don't throw chip* without expecting backlash.

Pip, pip?*

--No, I am the one true Brannich Blacksmoke--EvilE

*Management is not responsible for the degradation of the meme used at Nuttieland. Hello Teifling!

 

[Merlion]

well I'm pretty much purely D20 myself. mostly what I would like is a place with less of those knee jerk reactions and a little more open mindedness. A place where you dont have to worry about getting attacked for seeing mechanics and flavour as two sides of the same thing

 

[The Fifth Elephant]

I can see lowing the damage slightly for Gravity Warp if it's Transmutation, and here's why:

Evocation is /easy/ damage. You make a fireball. You evoke cold. Is that hard? All you're doing is calling an element; the element itself is doing the damage for you.

Transmutation, on the other hand, isn't easy damage. Take Gravity Warp as written. You're manipulating space-time in such a way as to create gravitic flucuations. As opposed to a fireball, where you basically point and say, "Boom!". Transmutation is harder; maybe it shouldn't have quite the same effects? Or if that makes it underbalanced, maybe give the secondary effects more Ooomph. I would lower the damage to 1d6/2 levels, but I would have the effect not go away instantly. It creates a field of instability where gravity is still "bouncing" around; every round after, everyone must save against half the original damage, until it reaches 0. That gives it more flavor, I think. While also making it slightly weaker than traditional Evocation spells in the pure Damage area.