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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 1710430" data-attributes="member: 5890">Well, as a quickie you could lay down some ground rules:1. To counter a spell, a spell of equal or greater level must be expended. Additionally for every spell, a spell of equal level or greater WILL counter it, once.Upside: A lot of the spells in the book are there just to counter other spells or groups of spells. This eliminates all of them.2. All spell-based bonuses are unnamed. Since there are no discrete types of spells, bonuses never stack (because in all cases the bonus would be stacking with itself).Upside: spells don't require you to re-evaluate all of your bonuses to find those that stack and those that don't. Just add the bonus from the spell3. All spell damage from a single spell is of one of the following types:Energy descriptors (acid, sonic etc)Piercing, bludgeoning, slashingAlignment based (holy, unholy etc)Note - force doesn't exist. Just assume that spells are no better or worse at attacking ethereal or incorporeal foes, unless the spell is crafted to do so.4. Spells will have schools and subschools as judged appropriate by the DM. Creatures with immunity to schools or subschools may be affected by a given spell, but in this case the spell affects ONLY those creatures.Benefit - if it looks and smells like something, it is. If you want a level 1 spell that charms undead, then go ahead, but it won't charm other creatures.Finally, you should have some guidelines on the total effect of spells of certain levels, which don't hinge on the precise effects of the spell.For instance: Spells may create items which the characters are capable of purchasing for a minimal outlay. Look at the level that the slot is gained, look at the level of the PC, and look at the value of the item given the level of the PC, and allow the spell to create it if the PC could buy one with 1/10th of his expected wealth. Naturally creating it for a long period of time should require a higher level spell. Start with a base of 1round/level, +1 level bumps it to minutes, +2 to 10s of minutes, +3 to hours, +4 days and +5 permanent.Spells which disable can use the CR estimations - generally a spell should have the potential to kill a creature of lesser CR to it's minimum caster level. It should be able to cripple a creature 0-1 cr's above, inconvenience a creature 2-3 cr's above etc.Then let restrictions decrease the spells level, and additional powers increase it. So for instance - 8 creatures are 3 CRs higher than a single creature of the same type. So a spell with the potential to kill 8 creatures should probably be 3 levels higher than the spell which kills one of them.The key here is that D&D already has some restrictions built in as to what characters should be able to defeat, and what they should be able to buy. It makes sense to USE those restrictions to base spells off, especially if you want a fast-and-loose magic system.</blockquote>

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