"TAKE THAT YOU FIEND!!!" or Simplification of Attack Spells

[Calico_Jack73]

Looking through my old 2e AD&D Wizard Spell Compendiums and at the new Spell Compendium I've come to the conclusion that in D&D most attack spells are really unneeded and perhaps Tunnels & Trolls had it right all along. In T&T there was really only one attack spell you needed and it was called "TAKE THAT YOU FIEND!!!" (or TTYF for short) and it leveled up with you. Look at Lightning Bolt and Fireball. They both do Caster Level x d6 damage... the only difference is the effect shape and the force involved. Personally I'm of the mind that for 4e D&D perhaps WOTC should rule in the favor of simplification for attack spells and give the spell caster an attack spell that levels up with the caster that they can change the force and shape of. They moved in this direction with the Warlock and the Eldritch Blast. Do we honestly need an uncountable number of attack spells that in the end all do the same thing... deal damage to a target?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

If you care about energy type resistances, you'll need to either allow TTYF to change at-will, or by feat, or something. If you care about differing save types (particularly Ref vs Fort), you'd need some way to differentiate that. Same with ranged-touch vs cone vs area-effect vs auto (magic missile?).

BCCS/True Sorcery accounts for some of this, but that certainly isn't an easier way to do things

AE's +1/-1 spell level (I forget the exact terminology) might work better. Have the base spell be single-target auto-hit, the lowered form be single-target touch attack, and the heightened a cone. Similarly, have the base effect be Fort save, the lowered be Ref for half, the heightened Will.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Hmm.

You could also just do straight +/- damage dice. Say the spell does 1d6 per caster level, usable at will or x/day or reserve feat or whatever. The base spell is single-target, ranged-touch, so a 10th level wizard would do 10d6. For auto-hit, it's minues 5 dice (so he'd do 5d6, roughly the same as a 5d4+5 magic missile at one person). For each additional target, -1. Energy type fire or ice, -0 dice. Energy type sonic or force, -2. Area-effect -3 dice, reflex save for half +3 dice, etc.

Then you could reduce the number of spell slots, and make the spell lists consist just of the quirky spells, the utility spells, etc.

 

[Nebulous]

You should check out what Steven Kenson did with Mutants and Masterminds 2.0. It does exactly that: damage attacks are just damage, it is the descriptor that makes the difference. And i definitely think that DnD should move to a more free-form flexible system. The antiquity of the classic D&D magic system has long since faded for me. Arcana Evolved (and the Spell Treasury that goes with it) showed me just how much more interesting d20 spells can be. Ars Magica showed me just how flexible a magic system can be PERIOD.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

You should check out what Steven Kenson did with Mutants and Masterminds 2.0.

Blech. No thanks. M&M works ok for superheroes, but I really dislike most of the mechanics when applied to other genres.

 

[The_Gneech]

I've always thought it strange that more spells didn't level-up with you. Using sleep as an example, it rapidly becomes useless past 3rd level or so due to the HD cap, requiring you to replace it with a higher-level version of the same thing which is a different spell! Bleah. I'd much rather see a single sleep spell that you could then prepare as a 1st-level version, 3rd-level version, 5th-level version (etc.) with correspondingly increased power and saving throws.

-The Gneech

 

[TwoSix]

I've always thought it strange that more spells didn't level-up with you. Using sleep as an example, it rapidly becomes useless past 3rd level or so due to the HD cap, requiring you to replace it with a higher-level version of the same thing which is a different spell! Bleah. I'd much rather see a single sleep spell that you could then prepare as a 1st-level version, 3rd-level version, 5th-level version (etc.) with correspondingly increased power and saving throws.

-The Gneech

Gosh, that sounds like psionics...

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Probably a lot of spells you could just change to a flat X HD per level the spell was cast at. Eg, cast a sleep spell as a 5th level spell and affect 20HD of opponents.

 

[Doug McCrae]

We need more HEROisation. There are far far too many different spell effects even in the PHB. I also don't like how these are then used for monsters powers and magic items. We need a small number of base effects that are combined with metamagic type modifiers to make spells, powers and items. Spell descriptions would be shorter and refer to those effects, like:

Magic Missile: ZAP 1, single target, force, medium range
Fireball: ZAP 3, area 2, heat, long range
Web: ENTANGLE 2, area 2, medium range

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Personally, I think the problem is too much emphasis on blasting spells and not enough on cool, quirky, spells that actually feel like magic as opposed to 'guns 'n' grenades' with different names.