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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 2821954" data-attributes="member: 8158">I think the subsequent design alterations were not a matter of ignorance or apathy, I rather believe they just noticed that in practice there was a scalability problem with the likes of acid arrow, acid fog, and incendiary cloud. The only attribute that improves with caster level is duration, but one of the counter-intuitive elements of D&D is that, by and large, combats don't last any longer at higher levels than they do at lower levels--in fact, they're probably shorter overall. This not only means that improvements in spell duration don't provide that big a help in killing off the bad guys,  but the caster (and his allies) can even wind up with big blobs of acid and fire that hang around longer than he probably needs them too (big mistake not to make all area-affecting conjuration spells dismissable).I remembered playing previous editions, and encountering magic resistance was a short drive from terrifying to aggrivating. There's only so much novelty in scratching off spell slots that accomplished nothing and knowing that, most likely, I might as well be armed with spitballs against this foe...and many more foes to come. The higher level a mage got, the higher MR got. It was a case of diminishing returns.Having said that, I do think there are some areas where the designers went overboard. Originally, the orb spells scaled by having extra orbs appear, which each required their own attack roll. This limited their preeminence in a number of ways but remained a viable offense against high-SR foes. I don't know why they were condensed into a single orb, although I suspect that it may have had something to do with the change to how energy resistances worked. Personally, I can live with SR-bypassing damage spells. What I don't like about the conjuration school is the flat-out nastness of its "tar-pit" spells like grease, web, and black tentacles. As both a player and DM, I find their mechanics much more unsatisfying.</blockquote>

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