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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Runestar" data-source="post: 4356889" data-attributes="member: 72317">I personally feel that scaling spell dcs is a very bad idea.The encounter guidelines suggests that an encounter of EL X is supposed to deplete a party of average lv X of roughly 20-25% of its resources.This was probably made with the assumption that for spellcasters, only your highest 3 lvs of spells are worth casting in combat. The rest are left for support/utility. For example, say I am a lv15 wizard. Against a cr15 enemy, the spells which can affect it meaningfully are probably my 8th, 7th and possibly 6th lv spells. Anything lower may either have too low a DC, deal too little damage or generally have too weak of an effect to sufficiently affect the foe in question. Your houserule would upset this equation.There are quite a number of lower lv spells which remains very useful all the way to higher lvs, the only reason why they do not see play is because their otherwise low DCs make them very unreliable. I wouldn't use grease on a wyrm dragon because I know my DC would suck. But I certainly would not hesitate to use grease, glitterdust or stinking cloud at lv15+ if their DC was the equivalent of an 8th or 9th lv spells. Previously, heightening them proved too great an opportunity cost as they were competing with powerhouses like forcecage, maze, limited wish, mindblank, and the entire array of 9th lv spells for precious slots.Likewise, some lower lv spells are virtually indistinguishable from higher lv spells save for a higher DC. For instance, against a humanoid foe, dominate person is mechanically the same as dominate monster, save for a lower DC. If we allowed spell DCs to scale, this could be problematic as the wizard would then be getting the equivalent of a 9th lv spell from a 5th lv slot!. As long as he leaves a 9th lv spell uncast, all his other spells have been freely heightened to the equivalent of 9th lv, without the need to expend a higher lv slot.As mentioned earlier, this houserule also interacts poorly with metamagic feats. Why bother with a cone of cold, when an empowered fireball deals more damage at 10th lv and still has the same DC?In addition, I fail to see how this would discourage your spellcasters from going nova. Lets say I am a focused specialist spellcaster with a high int. At any odd lv, I would easily have 4 slots of the highest lv spell I can cast (for example, at lv13, I would have 4 7th lv slots). I see no real tradeoff in setting aside 1 paltry 7th lv slot to power the rest of my other spells, since I still have plenty of 7th, 6th and 5th lv spells to burn through. Conversely, this might encourage me to go nova. Without your rule, I might cast a 7th lv spell, followed by either a 6th or 5th lv spell, and then maybe a 4th or 3rd spell if situation calls for it. Now, there is nothing stopping me from spamming my lower lv spells, since I am literally overflowing with spells prepared, and they are no less efficacious because of their improved DCs.All in all, I would say to scrap it.</blockquote>

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