Scaling spells by spell level

[Sadrik]

either direction is fine for me... but magic missile that only stays at 1d4+1 damage is bad bad bad...
(I could perfectly see a spell called missile barrage though)

Just to firm up your ideas here... are you ok with the concept of spellcasters being just as good as a warrior type at low level with infinite blasts that auto scale up to be as powerful as a fighter and then the spellcaster gets higher level spells on top of that and those also auto scale? Meanwhile the warrior does not get higher level spells...

This has been traditionally a huge argument for D&D. The infinite magic only works in my mind in 4e where everyone gets the same AEUD. Even then in my thematic book it does not work but at least mechanically it does.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In a prior thread regarding magic, I suggested a system in which casters learn few spells, but the spells have 3-4 forms: cantrip, lesser, greater, and ritual.

Cantrips would essentially be at-will versions of the spells, but very weak and non-scaling.

Lesser and Greater versions would be more like the versions we see in prior editions. Lesser ones might scale up to a point, Greater would scale even more.

Rituals would be the most powerful and flexible versions, but would be costly in time & material.

Spells themselves would not have levels- a spells level would be determined by the spell slot used to memorize/cast it. A 1st level Wizard could cast a Cantrip version of Fireball, perhaps a 1st level Lesser version, but not any other version...and only if he memorized it as such. The 1st level spontaneous caster (is that still a Sorcerer?) would be likewise limited. As they level, they learn the other forms of their spells (maybe).

(Essentially, this is a more complex version of what I was talking about with spell tricks.)

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Just to firm up your ideas here... are you ok with the concept of spellcasters being just as good as a warrior type at low level with infinite blasts that auto scale up to be as powerful as a fighter and then the spellcaster gets higher level spells on top of that and those also auto scale? Meanwhile the warrior does not get higher level spells...

This has been traditionally a huge argument for D&D. The infinite magic only works in my mind in 4e where everyone gets the same AEUD. Even then in my thematic book it does not work but at least mechanically it does.

I think you are misunderstanding [MENTION=59057]UngeheuerLich's[/MENTION] position. 1d4+1(3.5 average) damage is a viable at-will back-up action at level one when none of those limited-but-powerful spells are useful, but, after a point, 3.5 damage isn't very useful or viable and the effect of spending an action to deal 3.5 damage is roughly equivalent to spending an action twiddling your thumbs. An additional missile(+3.5 damage) every 5th level isn't going to break the game when the the fighter is doing twice that much damage on average every round.

 

[Sadrik]

I think you are misunderstanding [MENTION=59057]UngeheuerLich's[/MENTION] position. 1d4+1(3.5 average) damage is a viable at-will back-up action at level one when none of those limited-but-powerful spells are useful, but, after a point, 3.5 damage isn't very useful or viable and the effect of spending an action to deal 3.5 damage is roughly equivalent to spending an action twiddling your thumbs. An additional missile(+3.5 damage) every 5th level isn't going to break the game when the the fighter is doing twice that much damage on average every round.

So oh well it's an unlimited resource I might as well do it. This is something that has been debated to death so I'm not going to go into all the details of why not to have unlimited "minor" magic.

Just to point out the 3.5 damage is effectively twiddling their thumbs as you say. However you are using the opposite argument that they will be twiddling their thumbs because they are not doing 3.5 damage.

 

[Leatherhead]

Just to firm up your ideas here... are you ok with the concept of spellcasters being just as good as a warrior type at low level with infinite blasts that auto scale up to be as powerful as a fighter and then the spellcaster gets higher level spells on top of that and those also auto scale? Meanwhile the warrior does not get higher level spells...

Why do you want to bring back the 5min workday?
Because when a fighters at-will sword swings are comparable to a daily spell slot, that's the only way a caster can possibly keep up.

 

[Li Shenron]

i voted No autoscale, but i don't like even the spell memorization scale.

I'll prefer Wizards, if they have to use slots at all, to memorize normally the spells in their right slots, and must burn one or more of the memorized spells to power up the spell they want to cast.

This sounds like what Sorcerers would do, if spells can be scaled by used slot, due to their willpower (spell points) mechanic. They just burn more points which could have been used to cast a separate spell.

In that case, instead of giving the same option to Wizard, why not using it to further differentiate sorcerers and wizards tactically?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So oh well it's an unlimited resource I might as well do it. This is something that has been debated to death so I'm not going to go into all the details of why not to have unlimited "minor" magic.

Just to point out the 3.5 damage is effectively twiddling their thumbs as you say. However you are using the opposite argument that they will be twiddling their thumbs because they are not doing 3.5 damage.

That is a totally different beast, actually.

I have no problem with limited magic missiles. I really would like at will magic to use up cheap components etc. Maybe some cheap fokus. Maybe even an unscaled magic missile withut components, but a slightly improved magic missile with a component.

Really, we speak about a fighter doing 1d4+2d8+strength damage with his fists. At-will. So a magic missile that does 1d4+1 damage does not sound reasonable at all at higher levels. It has nothing to do with costing components or beeing really at-will (which i am also no big fan of).
You should regard those failings of the current magic missile as two different problems.

You also should ready my post again:
At-will spells need to be slightly less powerful than the lowest possible spell level you can memorize at any given character level.
IF your 1st level slots fade out, and you cap at 12 spells per day, cantrips should still be useful IF you want at-will magic at all.
IF first level spell slots don´t fade out, 1d4+1 magic missiles are ok, but pretty useless later on.
We don´t know how things are going at higher levels, but I really hope, that memorization is the core of a wizard, meaning, that the highest levels should always be vancian, but to make spell memorization somehow more manageable, his lower level spells/cantrips should be usable more freely...
(always staying well away from the damage, a high level fighter can do at will or well away from the utility a rogue of equal level brings to the table)

 

[B.T.]

Autoscaling is one of the key issues that makes for "linear fighters/quadratic wizards."

I think something needs to be done about it. Changing up spell levels sounds like an interesting way to do it.

-O

No, it doesn't. LF/QW is caused by more powerful options for wizards, not autoscaling. The 3e wizard isn't overpowered because his fireball does 5d6 more damage at 10th level than it did at 5th leve; the 3e wizard is overpowered because his enemies are one saving throw away from being turned into minions or statues or corpses. Not to mention the capacity to teleport thousands of miles in the blink of an eye...and that's what he can do halfway through his career.

 

[Ahnehnois]

No, it doesn't. LF/QW is caused by more powerful options for wizards, not autoscaling. The 3e wizard isn't overpowered because his fireball does 5d6 more damage at 10th level than it did at 5th leve; the 3e wizard is overpowered because his enemies are one saving throw away from being turned into minions or statues or corpses. Not to mention the capacity to teleport thousands of miles in the blink of an eye...and that's what he can do halfway through his career.

You're essentially right about the rest, but I do feel compelled to point out that an average wizard never comes close to being able to teleport; reaching double-digit levels is an unusual outcome even for a player character. Thus, I think "halfway through his career" is misleading because of the career it assumes.

 

[Wiseblood]

No, it doesn't. LF/QW is caused by more powerful options for wizards, not autoscaling. The 3e wizard isn't overpowered because his fireball does 5d6 more damage at 10th level than it did at 5th leve; the 3e wizard is overpowered because his enemies are one saving throw away from being turned into minions or statues or corpses. Not to mention the capacity to teleport thousands of miles in the blink of an eye...and that's what he can do halfway through his career.

This is where it is at. I'll add that most Fighters don't mind a fireball softening up the bad guys or destroying entrenched and difficult to reach enemies. He does damage too. These actions stack so to speak. It's when the casters spam SOD's or SOS's while fighters are in the mix lowering HP totals. When the enemy flunks a save it completely nullifies everything the fighter has done up to that point. Except for the beating he took.

If HP total's stay low in DDN all will be fine. If they inflate like in 3.5e damage quickly becomes less and less attractive for a spellcaster.