Level Up (A5E) Spell Creation Help

[Indagare Nogitsune]

While I know A5e/Level Up is supposed to be backwards compatible with 5e, I have to note that the spells in general are a problem. Most specifically, elemental-related spells. For Fire, this is not an issue at all. There's at least one Fire spell at every level. Air and Water cap out at 6th level with Air missing 4th and 5th level spells and Water missing 2nd and 5th level ones. Earth caps out at 8th level and is missing any 2nd level spells. I'd like to create more to fill in the gaps and maybe expand outward, but I'm not sure exactly how spell creation works (other than looking at spells of the same level and getting a 'vibe' off it).

Note: I'm aware there are 3rd Party things out there. I'm not always sure where to look and, realistically, can't afford to buy anything right now.

Air: 8 [1 shared] + 2 [all elements]
1) Circular Breathing [Cantrip : Air, Water]
2) Air Wave [1st : Air]
3) Gust of Wind [2nd : Air]
4) Levitate [2nd : Air]
5) Shattering Barrage [2nd : Air]
6) Gaseous Form [3rd : Air]
7) Wind Wall [3rd : Air]
8) Wind Walk [6th : Air]

Earth: 10 [1 shared]+ 2 [all elements]
1) Earth Barrier [1st : Earth]
2) Grease [1st : Earth]
3) Stonesense [3rd : Earth]
4) Fertilize Field [4th : Earth, Plants]
5) Wall of Stone [5th : Earth]
6) Flesh to Stone [6th : Earth]
7) Move Earth [6th : Earth]
8) Ravaging Roots [6th : Earth]
9) Enrage Architecture [7th : Earth]
10) Earthquake [8th : Earth]

Fire: 18 [2 energy shared] + 2 [all elements]
1) Fire Bolt [Cantrip : Fire ]
2) Produce Flame [Cantrip : Fire]
3) Burning Hands [1st : Fire]
4) Continual Flame [2nd : Fire]
5) Flame Blade [2nd : Fire]
6) Flaming Sphere [2nd : Fire]
7) Heat Metal [2nd : Fire]
8) Scorching Ray [2nd : Fire]
9) Fireball [3rd : Fire]
10) Fire Shield [4th : Fire]
11) Wall of Fire [4th : Fire]
12) Flame Strike [5th : Fire]
13) Infernal Weapon [6th : Cold, Fire]
14) Delayed Blast Fireball [7th : Fire]
15) Fire Storm [7th : Fire]
16) Unholy Star [7th : Fire, Necrotic]
17) Incendiary Cloud [8th : Fire]
18) Meteor Swarm [9th : Fire]

Water: 7 [1 shared | 1 energy shared] + 2 [all elements]
1) Circular Breathing [Cantrip : Air, Water]
2) Create or Destroy Water [1st : Water]
3) Water Breathing [3rd : Water]
4) Water Walk [3rd : Water]
5) Control Water [4th : Water]
6) Freedom of Movement [4th: Water] It is unclear why this doesn't also have Earth since difficult terrain is more usually Earth-based.
7) Freezing Sphere [6th : Cold, Water]

All:
Conjure Minor Elementals [4th: Air, Earth, Fire, Water] (a bit unclear why this can't be "at higher level" for the Conjure Elemental, since in theory it could offer more minor ones or one major one)
Conjure Elemental [5th: Air, Earth, Fire, Water]

 

[Katarhas]

Do you have specific questions on creating new spells? Generally, you're gonna wanna look at spells of the same level for general balance on the classes you want to have access to that spell, as well damage/effect/casting time/duration/range/material component cost (if applicable), think of what you want a spell of a certain level to do to represent the fantasy you're aiming for. If you want to get more into the nitty gritty, you can also add the "formal" spell school (think the basic O5e spell schools) plus additional spell schools (full list is in the adventurer's guide under Spellcasting, but you can make up your own as well).

My recommendation is to find a spell that matches most of the attributes you want your new spell to be (does it do damage, create an effect, impose a condition, or a mix), match up those values with casting range and casting time, then change things like the damage type or effect to match the fantasy you're aiming for that element.

 

[aco175]

Is there something with the system that is set up to have some elements only go to certain levels. Maybe fire spells go to 9th level, but are also the most common to have protection from? I tend to think not, but there might be something to look at.

Older editions had things where you could change fireball to iceball or lightning ball and make it one level higher or cost more stuff. It seems that this is the lane of the sorcerer in 5e/A5e and maybe be avoided. Not to say that people do not research a spell that copies others. A5e has rare variants of spells that does cool things and making a iceball might be one.

When I make a spell or look at spells, I tend to just guess and feel. Nothing based on much except the other spells and years of guessing. Nothing to say you cannot create a 9th level water spell and call it mass flood by looking at meteor storm and play with the levers of size of impact and damage involved.

 

[Morrus]

I'm pretty sure that for a lot of them you can just change the damage type without breaking anything.

The only caveat is that some types of damage resistances are more common than others, making a spell which does damage of a rarer resistance relatively more 'powerful'. I don't know if there's any stats anywhere of the commonality of each damage type though.

But generally, a fireball could just as easily be an iceball, etc.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Do you have specific questions on creating new spells? Generally, you're gonna wanna look at spells of the same level for general balance on the classes you want to have access to that spell, as well damage/effect/casting time/duration/range/material component cost (if applicable), think of what you want a spell of a certain level to do to represent the fantasy you're aiming for. If you want to get more into the nitty gritty, you can also add the "formal" spell school (think the basic O5e spell schools) plus additional spell schools (full list is in the adventurer's guide under Spellcasting, but you can make up your own as well).

My recommendation is to find a spell that matches most of the attributes you want your new spell to be (does it do damage, create an effect, impose a condition, or a mix), match up those values with casting range and casting time, then change things like the damage type or effect to match the fantasy you're aiming for that element.

It's hard to be specific, but here's a couple examples from my head:

1) Water Wall. There's Wind Wall (3rd), Wall of Fire (4th), Wall of Stone (5th), and Wall of Ice (6th). In theory, the Wall of Ice could also fall under Water, since that's also usually within its domain, but stylistically it could be more like Wind Wall but with water instead of air. Then this gets into stuff Morrus mentioned of simply replacing one type of damage type with another. Wall of Fire could be Wall of Cold at 4th level, but then that begs the question of altering Wall of Ice to Fire. Basically: why is this spell at this level? What about Wall of Stone makes it a 5th level spell instead of 4th or 6th?

2) Move Water. Like Move Earth but instead lakes and rivers and other bodies of water. But, again, would this be in the same category? Not everywhere has water, after all, while most places tend to have earth. This would also likely cause severe havoc with the ecosystem given how vital water is.

Is there something with the system that is set up to have some elements only go to certain levels. Maybe fire spells go to 9th level, but are also the most common to have protection from? I tend to think not, but there might be something to look at.

Older editions had things where you could change fireball to iceball or lightning ball and make it one level higher or cost more stuff. It seems that this is the lane of the sorcerer in 5e/A5e and maybe be avoided. Not to say that people do not research a spell that copies others. A5e has rare variants of spells that does cool things and making a iceball might be one.

When I make a spell or look at spells, I tend to just guess and feel. Nothing based on much except the other spells and years of guessing. Nothing to say you cannot create a 9th level water spell and call it mass flood by looking at meteor storm and play with the levers of size of impact and damage involved.

I don't know. I can truthfully say some do, but the design reasons I don't know.

Morrus mentioned the possibility of more common damage types, and it'd be hard to argue Fire doesn't get a lot of love. But energy-damages can be swapped pretty easily. More unusual effects (like a mass flood) take more thought. And even further extending it (a 9th level Earth spell more powerful than Earthquake) takes some work without getting into very over-powered things.

I'm pretty sure that for a lot of them you can just change the damage type without breaking anything.

The only caveat is that some types of damage resistances are more common than others, making a spell which does damage of a rarer resistance relatively more 'powerful'. I don't know if there's any stats anywhere of the commonality of each damage type though.

But generally, a fireball could just as easily be an iceball, etc.

Well, Fire seems to be bog-standard as energy-damage types go. Cold, Lightning, Acid, and Poison tend to immediately follow or, at least, would be unlikely to break anything (this, I think, harkens back to Tiamat and the original Chromatic Dragons).

Radiant and Necrotic tend to follow Outsiders from Celestial/Infernal realms, so less common.

Thunder, Psychic, and Force all basically meet no resistance under normal circumstances. Though, with Thunder, it seems a bit more likely given Bards.

Personally, I've found the World Tree system (based on Ars Magica) to be very interesting as it allows a lot of possible combinations.

 

[aco175]

Keep in mind that if a caster can choose the damage of each spell at casting, they would all do force damage unless something had vulnerabilities to something else.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

Keep in mind that if a caster can choose the damage of each spell at casting, they would all do force damage unless something had vulnerabilities to something else.

I mean, yes. The apparent inability of Wizards to create a ball of force could be due to any number of reasons, ranging from divine intervention to how it always ends up looking like a dodge ball.

 

[zombusey]

If you're ever looking for 3rd-party A5e content, I'm pretty sure almost all of it (if not all) can be found under the Level Up system filter on DriveThruRPG, alongside the official books: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/bro...-level-up-advanced-5th-edition&src=fid1000104.

There's also the A5e data sheet that is maintained by members of the community. It has pretty much everything you could possibly want in terms of raw data, including all of the spells currently available from both 1st- and 3rd-party sources: A5e Data Sheet

As far as designing spells, there's a host of factors that you need to take into consideration beyond damage type and the prevalence of a given resistance/immunity. Casting time, opportunity cost in the form of spell choice (this is a big deal on spontaneous casters and half-casters in particular), utility vs. damage, target(s) and area of effect, duration, whether it requires concentration or can be ritually cast, etc. all affect what spell gets assigned to what level. You also need to take into account which classes will have access to the spell, and how that spell could interact with class features like a sorcerer's metamagic or a wizard's Arcane Recovery.

There unfortunately isn't a concrete rubric I can point you to like there is for monster creation, but I can give you the questions I ask myself as I'm coming up with new spells for publication:

• What is the flavor? Your above examples are all obviously elemental in nature, but what about a particular element are you trying to evoke? Water and Air say movement moreso than damage to me, for example, so how do I incorporate that into what the spell does?
• Am I Adding Something Meaningful? Is there already a spell out there that more or less accomplishes what I want out of the above? If so, what about the spell that I'm working on makes it different enough to warrant it existing alongside the preexisting one? If it's just a difference of flavor with no mechanical alterations, then I tend to stop here and abandon the idea. Players can always work with their Narrators to adjust the flavor of a spell to fit the character vibe. Or, if it's just a matter of changing fireball to ice ball, then that can be accomplished without further adjustment outside of damage type.
• Could I Give It More? However, using the above example of fireball to ice ball, what if, on impact, the area of effect becomes difficult terrain? Or, instead, what if creatures who fail their DEX save are grappled as their feet are adhered to the floor by the ice? That gives it an additional layer of complexity that the original spell doesn't have. In this case, it would also certainly turn this into a higher-level spell because of the additional effects. I also would ask myself at this point if ice ball can be upcast like fireball, and if so, what about the spell changes if cast at a higher level?

After I ask myself all of those questions, I either go to the data sheet or the tools site and start rummaging around spells of various levels to get a feel for where it theoretically falls in the 1st-9th level spell progression. Character options only become over- or under-powered because they're out of line with everything else that is available at that level, so getting a general feel for what a 5th-level spell "does" helps keep everything in line with the other available options. This part of the process is extremely time-consuming, but it's crucial. Then, based on what the spell does and what its overall vibe is, I settle on it being available to X, Y, or Z class(es) and then double-check class features to make sure there's no conflicts there.

Hopefully some of that at least helps!