Spell changes: good or bad?

[EPRock]

Bull's Strength etc.: 1 min/level
IMO that's OK...

It is good if the party goes from battle to battle, with little in between. Items which perform the action are much more useful now.

We have house ruled it to last for 10 mins/level instead. Works alright.

Plus you do not get it dispelled the first round of combat either.

Having a set value of 4 is pretty good as well.

Longstride: 1h/level
A bit strong for a first level spell...

Not a bad spell, Good to be cast on everyone except monks and barbarians.

Enables small size characters to keep up with larger characters.

Sleep: up to 4 HD
Was 2d4 overpowered? Wouldn't have thought so...

Sleep was only really useful in the first or second level anyways, wizards are very weak at low levels.

Invisibility: 1min/level
Pretty short!

Does prevent the rogue from running around a whole dungeon mapping it out and finding all the future encounters.

Scorching Ray: 4d6 and it scales! Wow, wouldn't wanna miss that one!

Good spell, each ray requires a roll to hit, not bad. Can get criticals which double the damage for the ray. Even better take weapon focus (ray), and if you had fighter levels you can specialize (rays) and deal more damage

 

[MerakSpielman]

IMHO, the duration change for Invisibilty has rendered it near-useless. My group hardly ever uses it for combat - it's used for espianage. For tailing somebody. For watching the entrance to a lair to see what goes in and out. For infiltrating said lair. Etc... We pushed the envelope of the 10 min/level limit, and wished it lasted longer.

The buffs, in general, are ok. I don't like the reduced duration for Death Ward.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

They did a decent job fixing the much needed harm, though it's still too powerful by there own damage cap system.(so either change the damage cap system, or except that harm is still broken) Haste needed a fix I would of gone with a higher level slot but oh well this is still good. Virtually every other spell change sucks IMO.

As for you specifics.

Bulls str, way too short a duration. I wasn't sure it needed a fix. All the broken spell talks revolved around people using multiple feats and really high level slots. And I always thought so what. Still if it was unbalnced a simple to 10/min fix would of been more than enough.

Sleep, lord the 1 round casting time made this so useless its pathetic.

Longstride maybe a bit long in duraiton but it doesn't nothe rme.

Invisibility sucks at 1/min a level. It doesn't fullfill its IMO designed purpose as a scout aid. Then again I think invis is a skill class spotlight dealer so I wanted a fix. I would of upped its level to 3.

scorching ray breaks the damage caps by a smidge but requires an attack roll which for wizards is far form guarnteed even at high levels so it works for me.

Darkness is all kinds of dumb.(as is rogues only sneak attacking in broad daylight)

The big hate I had was for the breaking up of spells like emotion. I would of been ok if emotion was kept and they simply added lower level versions with a specific effect. but dang they screwed up the spell list big time with this crap.

 

[dcollins]

I'm sure it was all discussed to death but still.
What do you think of the changes of these spells in 3.5:

The 3.5 rules edition made more widespread and radical spell changes than any version of D&D since the original rules in the 1970's. The fact that they did this in a supposedly compatible half-edition is incredible to me. It's my biggest problem with 3.5, and a primary reason my group doesn't use it.

More: www.superdan.net/down3-5.html

 

[James McMurray]

Huh? I'd say the changes between OD&D and 1e were pretty radical, and the changes between 2e and 3e were even moreso.

The change between 3.0 and 3.5, while widespread, were certainly not incompatible with older products.

But then again, this topic has been argued to death, and some people still refuse to see that I'm right, so why bother bringing it up again?

 

[The Souljourner]

Just a point about scorching ray - it's actually a LOT weaker than it looks. Sure, touch attacks are usually easy... for fighters. Assuming you have the usual complement of melee types, you're looking at cover and -4 for being in melee, which means even against a guy with *no* dex (unlikely), you have to hit AC 18. Your 3rd level wizard with +1 BAB is rarely going to hit. Now add in the fact that at 3rd level it has a 30' range, and you're starting to get the point. Adventuring outdoors or even in a dungeon that doesn't just have corridors and closed doors to rooms? I've seen our wizard charge towards combat just so he can cast scorching ray.... and then miss. In fact, of the 4 or 5 times I've seen it cast, it only hit like 2 times. And yeah, it was good, but 4d6 is only 14 on average, and a fighter with a greatsword can do 10 with only 14 strength.

So... it's decent, but only really shines at higher levels when you have the BAB and a feat or two to make it hit more often.

Longstrider is fine... it's only available to people with sub par spell lists, and is only +10 movement. Whatever. It's handy, fun, and not at all game breaking.

-The Souljourner

 

[Saeviomagy]

Bull's Strength etc.: 1 min/level
IMO that's OK...

A good change. The spell is now set up to basically last for a single encounter, giving a decent boost for the duration of that encounter.

Longstride: 1h/level
A bit strong for a first level spell...

10 feet of movement isn't that amazing, and the classes that get it are fairly restricted.

Sleep: up to 4 HD
Was 2d4 overpowered? Wouldn't have thought so...

Sleep was THE low level combat spell all through 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition, and typically left the fighters of a group with absolutely nothing to do. 4HD means it's still a good spell, but not a dominating one.

Invisibility: 1min/level
Pretty short!

Let's take a look at some scenarios:

1. Rogue goes scouting on his own - he can't go too far from the rest of the group, because there is always a chance he'll be seen or heard and need backup. The party as a whole is involved in the adventure, and additionally the rogue gets some mileage out of his hard-earnt skill ranks.

2. Wizard casts invisibility (old version - 10 minutes a level) and goes scouting on his own - While the invisibility runs, the wizard has basically got no chance of being seen. He can go way ahead with minimal risk. The party basically may as well not be there. The result is that the wizard gets to do a lot of stuff for a long time, and everyone else just sits and watches. Additionally, the rogue may as well just pack it in as a scout.

3. Wizard casts invisibility (new version). Lasts for a minute a level, so the wizard has to stay close to the party. He still has no chance of being seen, but he can't go on such huge extended scouting missions any more. The rogue still loses a lot of power, but at least he's superior for long scouting missions.

Scorching Ray: 4d6 and it scales! Wow, wouldn't wanna miss that one!

Woohoo! A decent 2nd level damage spell! I don't think the problem is that it's too powerful - I think that the 2nd level damage spells (apart from it) are much too weak.

Darkness: I better skip that!

Bad writing means that it lights up areas. Apart from that I think it's a much better spell.

The old spell was awful - it basically 100% shut down any fight, and counters to it were few and far between.

Heaven forbid you met a juvenile black dragon - his blindsight and breath weapon combined with his darkness power basically meant that he'd TPK anyone unless you had daylight memorised or were immune to acid.

 

[Eldragon]

I dont like 90% of the spell changes in 3.5. I'm not one of those "Change is Bad" kind of people. It's just a simple matter of the shorter spell durations are less friendly to my campaign style, and the weaking of core lower level spells only served to annoy everyone concerned.

For example, the Jump spell. in 3.0 it added +30 to jump checks. Simple, and not overpowered. A first level spell caster could use it to leap over a city wall, or jump a river. Very handy. In 3.5 it scales depending on level. +10 to jump checks for a level 1 character is worthless. It lets the PC jump farther than they normally could, but there is still a VERY high chance of failure. an 11 on a jump check is pretty darn poor. By the time the spell scales up to +30 (level 9) most players will have learned the fly spell by now. MUCH more useful than being able to Jump long distances. I don't see how any designer could believe jump remained to be a useful spell to anyone.

Generally My players have about 1-3 combats per day. 1 min/level might as be 1 round per level for us.

 

[Stalker0]

Basically a lot of the spell ideas were to make a characters innate abilities a bit more needed. For instance, when there's invisibility, why get hide? With the jump spell, why get jump?

Same reason spider climb got moved to 2nd... heck with the old slipper of spider climb you never needed climb. WOTC tried to make skills and innate abilities become more equal to magic.

But I agree they went a little overboard... buff durations are too short. Sleep sucks.

I like the new darkness.... it basically draws out combats.. which is sometimes useful for a party.

I don't know if I like scorching ray. We have an 8th level sorc in TOEE right now.... and he don't miss very often.

 

[Li Shenron]

The people who are unhappy with the change to Invisible have scored the critical hit to 3.5 spell changes. Now that I think about it, many (maybe all?) the changes to spells were driven ONLY by the consideration of combat. Spells that were too effective in combat were toned down. Spells whose duration could have covered more than one combat were shortened. Who cares about the ones who used spells out of combat mainly (which is IMHO a much more entertaining way of playing spellcasters)? We've got a whole miniatures line to plan, let's focus on combat, everything else will be flavor text. Yes there are new spells for out-of-combat only, Overland Flight and Longstrider for example, but they are made exactly to try compensate later, and it doesn't help creative playing to chop useful spells into more specialized ones.

Anyway, I say again I don't bother that much, to me there is not much difference between 3.0 spells and 3.5 spells, and that's why I may allow a player to take the other version if he wishes so.

I had one and only concern about spells in 3rd edition: I don't like spells which become useless at higher levels. I think every single spell should be always still usable. This was not improved but neither worsened by 3.5. But it lead the 3.5 designer to introduce the stupid (but of course nowadays quite necessary) spell-swapping of Sorcerers and Bards, which is the one and only case of a character "forgetting" a previous ability.