Please let me know what you think of these spells and magic weapons.

[herald]

Actually Monte Cook, one of the main guys who revamped D&D has said that d6's are in fact the perfered dice for Arcane spells and d8's are for divine. I'm going to go with that guide line.

Dropping the damage failed to work when I tested it the other day. It looses to much of it's effectiveness and disirablity.

Something that did seem to bring some balance to the end result was making all the damage the same (d6) but giving the dice a boost against undead. (d6+ 2, 3, 4). I had even contemplated making the formula Nd6 +Nd4, Max 10d6+10d4 vs. undead.
This seemed like a math boondoggle, but the couple of players I asked seemed to like it.

 

[Felix]

herald,

it seems like you are very attached to Monte Cook's little statement about d6's and d8's. Right. What that means is they started the spell off with those dice, and when the spell appeared too powerful for that level, the d6 was dropped to a d4. It really is no biggie to drop the size of the die. And it seems like you might need to do that or raise the level of the spell for those reason already stated.

By the way, is there another spell in the PHB or the suppliments that uses positive energy to damage living creatures? I was under the impression that Negative energy harms living creatures and heals undead. Positive energy is the opposite. When the paladin Lays on hands is he not channeling positive energy to heal living things?

Interesting idea to give wizards some long distance artillery against undead, but that is kinda the realm of the cleric, yeah?

 

[herald]

I am attached to the concepts of that Monte set out. I'll admit it. and I like the idea of consistancy.

As for positive energy healing and negative energy damaging, to a certain degree, you are right to a certain degree.

Some of my idea comes from reading Manual of the Planes and Planescape. Characters that enter the Positive Material Plane heal up to 200% of their hit points, and then explode, without the posibility of resurection. Hence, Positive energy can be just as damaging as Negative energy.

My idea was sculpting positive energy to zap some one like feeding too much energy into a battery, or overloading a capasiter. Thats the modern interpretation anywas.

My Medieval interpritation is that Humaniods are a ballance of humors and Negative and Positive energy figure into that. When those humors, as well as others, get out of wack, bad things happen. Hence the idea of using Positive energy as a weapon.

It's not to hard to look at real world situations and see that many things that were designed to be quite benign, and then turned into weapons.

 

[Felix]

Well, dropping the die # is only one way of making this spell less overpowered. Look at it this way (line for line comparison vs fireball):

Both Evocation
FB [Fire], PEB [Positive Energy]
FB Sor/Wiz 3, PEB Sor/Wiz 4
Both V,S,M
Both 1 action
Both Long Range
Both 20-ft.-radius spread
Both Instantaneous
Both Reflex Half
Both SR: Yes

Damage to run of the mill enemies: Nd6 (max 10d6)

PEB deals additional damage to undead. (origanally, an additional 160% damage. Now from 60-70% more.)

Something needs to change here. Damage dice, level of the spell, affect vs. undead, range, size of spread, casting time. But something really needs to change. As written, this is an absurdly good spell for a Sor/Wiz at 4th level.

[Devil's Advocate] So if Positive Energy can hurt you, does this mean that Negative Energy (the channeling of which is an Evil act) can benefit you physically sometimes? [/Devil's Advocate]

[Edit] Don't take consistency to excess. (I'll be damned if my alignment is Lawful!)

 

[herald]

I'm sorry if I forgot to mention that I tried droping the range of the new spell to medium. That's another differance.

And what can I say, I like consistancy. I want spells to be easy to implement.

The channeling of negative energy is not strickly a evil act. Otherwise an Arcane spell caster would have to modify thier alignment for casting chill touch.

The Manual of the Planes states that the Energy planes are Neutral and not aligned good or evil.

As for Negative energy healing; Vampiric Touch does transfer hit point from one to the other.