OMG Fireball, Noooooooooooo!

[hopeless]

What problem?

James Wyatt updates:

!!!

No offence what problem with maths?
Its 1d6 per caster level up to a maximum of 10d6, then you can maximise it if you don't fancy rolling dice and have a character who can cast 5th level spells.

This is almost as bad as when after my cleric was aged 60 years and reduced drastically in physical abilities that i asked if he could multi-class as a sorceror as I was wondering how that class worked.
The dm then turned the sorceror into a blaster ignoring the fact he doesn't get to select my spells for me and then two new players joined in an one promptly went for a 9th level sorceror with the maximise feat so he could maximise magic missile ONLY.
Sorry but I see no reason for modifying fireball rules especially as that should entail effecting ALL other spells that require a die roll either for damage or other effects just because someone can't count a number of d6's.

A bit of an explanation is required and not one that would offend even a kindergartener thank you.

 

[BartD]

My current theory is that you have few slots for at-will spells, few for per encounter spells, and few for per day spells, and you fill them with whatever you want.

Yes, I think this is very likely. It's a very clean way to do it and it is somewhat similar to how it's done in Bo9S (maneuvers are per encounter, stances are kind of at-will).

Off the wall: Would it work to simply let all spells come from one list but work at different caster-levels depending on whether thay are readied as at-will, per encounter or per day?

Another (unlikely) possibility is that each spell has a "refresh" for how long you have to rest before the spell can be used again (or altered). It could be something like immediately, 5 minutes and overnight. Then you can choose whether you want to pack many at-will spells or rely on big per-day spells. The last option is why I think this flexibility is unlikely. However, it is still possible that the same basic effect (e.g. fire blast) simply has different magnitudes depending on whether it is readied as an at-will spell or whatever.

I am hoping for some scaling of spells in 4e, mostly to remove "redundant" spells that are basically the same spell with a higher numerical effect (cure X wounds, in particular). However, since I prefer the idea of generic spell slots to a table of which level caster gets spell slots of which level, I hope the effects scale by caster level instead of spell level.

Yes, it would certainly be preferable to avoid redundant spells. However, at least to me that also implies that the wizard should have relatively fewer spells available since he will never "waste" a known spell because it has become redundant.

Anyway, what about spells with "lesser" effects, will they become better at higher levels, e.g. will the "manipulate object" spell be like mage hand at level 1, levitate at level 3 and telekinesis at level 9? The problem with extending spell effects like that would be in making spell descriptions much longer and more difficult. So to keep it simple, I think such effects will remain seperate spells.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

If there's a fireball equivalent at every spell level, how is that different from Iron Crown Enterprises's Spell Law. We used to laugh about "fifty different ways to boil water" with that system.

Damage sounds more like it's going to be the X+ a couple dice. So a 10th level wizard gets to do 25 hp +2d6.

 

[Vigilance]

Do they get a save?

(ducks)

Obviously they do. And spell resistance too.

Given the number of times I've seen Teleport survive the nerf bat that's going to make it NOT a pain.

 

[Slife]

Less snarky version: Speculating that things are going to be underpowered or overpowered, with the next-to-nil information available to us, is quite literally worse than useless.

Really? I'm currently speculating that the 4e druid will be either underpowered or overpowered.