New use for Spellcraft

[Shadeus]

When I made my last wizard, I didn't want to be stereotypical and be throwing fireballs and magic missiles at everything. He was evil and had a sort of demonic twist, so I wanted my magic missile to appear as ghosts or spikes. We toyed around with using a feat, but figured: who would waste a feat on "favor" magic.

So instead we came up with a Spellcraft check to alter your spells. It should be noted that this use of the skill only changes the appearance of the spell. It cannot make a fireball do cold damage (there's feats for that already). The basic levels of difficulty were:

[COLOR=ORANGE]
        DC                                   Effect
 10 + spell level        change color of spell (blue fireballs)
 15 + spell level        change or add sound to a spell (minor sounds)
 20 + spell level        change appearance of spell
[/COLOR]

Color change: you can mage your magic missile pink if you wanted to show girl power (*shrug*)
Sound change: you can make your magic missiles whistle through the air, or make a low cackling noise upon detonating a fireball. It's not meant to immitate speach or anything.
Appearance change: you can turn your magic missile into a tiny force skull that gnaws on your foe. Or make the fireball appear as a flying dragon (not affecting the area of effect).

So they are just interesting things to do with Spellcraft. And you can combine them. So you can make a magic missile spell into green cackling skulls (DC 21).

The caster can do this as a free action when casting the spell and does not need to do anything to prepare the spell differently. If you fail, the spell functions normally. None of these modifications effect the spell result in any way (its strictly for flavor). In addition, Spellcraft checks to identify the spell are the same as if the spell was cast normally.

This skill doesn't work with all spells, but its just something fun to add to the game. Hope you like it.

 

[Crothian]

I like it. You might want to increase casting time to a full round and also make it harder for others to figure out what spell you're casting.

 

[Shadeus]

Hmm, that could be a good variant. Maybe double the spell's level on the Spellcraft check to identify the modified spell. Or a flat +5 could do it too. An increase in casting time is pretty harsh, especially when it just changes minor things on the effect.

I'm not sure what you meant, but maybe have it be a full action (like a full attack, 5'-step only) instead of a full round (like the monster summonings). So have it add a move-equiv action and it increases the DC of the Spellcraft check to identify the spell.

 

[twjensen]

Spell flavors

I've always figured that spell flavors are essentially free, else why do I have to make a spell-craft check to ID a spell? If all magic missiles are red and look like Star Trek photon torps, then even the dumbest fighter can ID the spell after seeing it a whopping one time.

Certain effects are so signature that they really can be ID'd by anyone like fireball or lightning bolt.

The ability to *change* the flavor of your specific spell on the fly should probably involve a spellcraft roll, and the rules you've posted look good.

 

[Crothian]

Identifying the spell, once it's cast is rarely the problem. It's figureing it out while it's being cast, that gets tricky.

I did mean for it to be a full round action, and not like the Summon Monster spells. That would balance the more difficuly spellcraft check to determine thew spell.

 

[drowdude]

There is something like this already in print. Check out the Spell Thematics feat from Magic of Faerun.

Actually, dont check the book... check the Eratta sheet at the WotC site. The revised version in there is *much* kewler.


That said, I really like this idea. I am always in favor of adding additional options rather than feats, since there are already *soooooo* many feats in print.

Good job!

 

[drowdude]

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