RangerWickett
Legend
Let's see, off the top of my head, what were some of the nastiest changes. . . ?
Originally, everything was designed to be balanced to the core rules spells in terms of cost. Thus, a 5th level Mage who knew Evoke Fire could cast a spell that was identical to a fireball cast by a 5th level wizard. Two problems immediately became apparent, though. First, we needed to up the costs to balance out the greater flexibility. Second, and far worse, was that when we extrapolated the costs involved, you were getting 20th level Mages casting 40d6 fireballs. Combine that with the revised quicken spell feat, a prebattle application of a haste-ish spell, and the spell that could increase a caster's Charisma by 14 so that all her save DCs increased by +7, and we ended up with a mage who could easily dish out 60d6 damage each turn, with a save DC of 32 or higher. Sure, he'd only be able to keep this up for four turns before running out of MP, but most things would be dead by then. We fixed this problem way back in June when we were first discussing the revisions.
We decided to go for a different approach to mages, with the intention that warriors should be the primary damage dealers against single targets and small groups. Mages still kick butt against hordes of minions, but they're geared more toward being able to cast lots of average-to-strong spells, instead of a handful of uber-potent spells. I mean, fighters can fight all day long as long as they have hit points, so we designed the spell system in such a way that it's possible to get along with spending just a few MP each round in combat.
Hmm, next problem? Scry and Fry. We worked in a mechanic where you can cast a rider spell with a Scry attempt, allowing you to do nifty things like scry on your buddy who's in prison and teleport him out, or scry on the bad guy and fireball him. Well, that became abusive, because no one ever actually went to confront each other after about level 7. It's still an option, but is much more expensive and difficult to pull off.
Problem Three: Allow me to introduce Robo-Technology. This one actually isn't broken, just a little silly. Since summoning a CR 10 monster is available with a high-level spell, why not be able to make your own CR 10 monster? And do you know what monster is CR 10? The colossal animated object. In one naval battle we tested this week, the party wizard transformed their ship into, basically, a mecha. It attacked on its own, rammed the other ship, and eventually got a fly spell cast on it so it could take to the air (see, casting a fly spell on an object is expensive because you have to control its movments, but giving flight to a creature, even an animated galleon, is rather cheap when you're 20th level. I was awed at first that my players would think of crazy crap like this, and realized that, indeed, I am playing with a bunch of anime fanboys who love Final Fantasy. But when I looked at the actual stats of this new airship monster, and realized animated colossal objects aren't that tough to kill, I relaxed. A few quick volleys later, and the airship was disabled, and it crashed into the ocean. So, this isn't a powergaming problem, just an issue of what's appropriate for the world. That sort of stuff is covered in the Worldcraft chapter of the final book.
Problem Four: Dispel Magic. I tried to create a version of Dispel Magic that would match the pleasure I used to have playing a counterspell deck in Magic the Gathering. After coming up with all these lovely (complicated) rules, I remembered how much of a pain it was to play against counterspell decks. With the rules as originally written, the only viable way to get around a mage devoted to counterspelling was to use a quickened spell so that he couldn't counter both. It was just too easy to counterspell things. If you look at Magic nowadays, all the super-cheap counterspells have been done away with.
Problem Five: If it's good enough for Jesus then it's good enough for me! Yes, we actually had rules that let you make a contingent true ressurrection spell that triggers three days after you die.
Overall, the spells work with a great balance that I'm completely comfortable with up to the stuff 10th level Mages can cast. Beyond that is a little iffier, but mostly just because there's not much to compare it to in the core rules. Evoke and Heal spells are easy to deal with because there are lots of examples of those, but spells that improve AC or ability scores tend to level off after 4th level. Certainly, the tactics of a 20th level EOM Mage and a 20th level core Sorcerer or Wizard would be very different. A high-level Mage has to use all the many various options available to him, and is more of a super-toolbox than a battleship.
I think the most broken thing I let survive into the final rules is the spell (equivalent to 9th level) that lets you take two full rounds worth of actions each round. It will last at most ten minutes, and it doesn't stack with other haste effects, plus you have to know the Quicken Spell feat to use it anyway.
When the book comes out, I'm hoping people will be willing to post their creations on the E.N.Publishing forum, so we can develop a huge spell library. Hopefully six months of playtesting will have weeded out most of the super-broken abilities (like turning the air in someone's lungs to lightning; that one was nasty, but it's gone now).
Originally, everything was designed to be balanced to the core rules spells in terms of cost. Thus, a 5th level Mage who knew Evoke Fire could cast a spell that was identical to a fireball cast by a 5th level wizard. Two problems immediately became apparent, though. First, we needed to up the costs to balance out the greater flexibility. Second, and far worse, was that when we extrapolated the costs involved, you were getting 20th level Mages casting 40d6 fireballs. Combine that with the revised quicken spell feat, a prebattle application of a haste-ish spell, and the spell that could increase a caster's Charisma by 14 so that all her save DCs increased by +7, and we ended up with a mage who could easily dish out 60d6 damage each turn, with a save DC of 32 or higher. Sure, he'd only be able to keep this up for four turns before running out of MP, but most things would be dead by then. We fixed this problem way back in June when we were first discussing the revisions.
We decided to go for a different approach to mages, with the intention that warriors should be the primary damage dealers against single targets and small groups. Mages still kick butt against hordes of minions, but they're geared more toward being able to cast lots of average-to-strong spells, instead of a handful of uber-potent spells. I mean, fighters can fight all day long as long as they have hit points, so we designed the spell system in such a way that it's possible to get along with spending just a few MP each round in combat.
Hmm, next problem? Scry and Fry. We worked in a mechanic where you can cast a rider spell with a Scry attempt, allowing you to do nifty things like scry on your buddy who's in prison and teleport him out, or scry on the bad guy and fireball him. Well, that became abusive, because no one ever actually went to confront each other after about level 7. It's still an option, but is much more expensive and difficult to pull off.
Problem Three: Allow me to introduce Robo-Technology. This one actually isn't broken, just a little silly. Since summoning a CR 10 monster is available with a high-level spell, why not be able to make your own CR 10 monster? And do you know what monster is CR 10? The colossal animated object. In one naval battle we tested this week, the party wizard transformed their ship into, basically, a mecha. It attacked on its own, rammed the other ship, and eventually got a fly spell cast on it so it could take to the air (see, casting a fly spell on an object is expensive because you have to control its movments, but giving flight to a creature, even an animated galleon, is rather cheap when you're 20th level. I was awed at first that my players would think of crazy crap like this, and realized that, indeed, I am playing with a bunch of anime fanboys who love Final Fantasy. But when I looked at the actual stats of this new airship monster, and realized animated colossal objects aren't that tough to kill, I relaxed. A few quick volleys later, and the airship was disabled, and it crashed into the ocean. So, this isn't a powergaming problem, just an issue of what's appropriate for the world. That sort of stuff is covered in the Worldcraft chapter of the final book.
Problem Four: Dispel Magic. I tried to create a version of Dispel Magic that would match the pleasure I used to have playing a counterspell deck in Magic the Gathering. After coming up with all these lovely (complicated) rules, I remembered how much of a pain it was to play against counterspell decks. With the rules as originally written, the only viable way to get around a mage devoted to counterspelling was to use a quickened spell so that he couldn't counter both. It was just too easy to counterspell things. If you look at Magic nowadays, all the super-cheap counterspells have been done away with.
Problem Five: If it's good enough for Jesus then it's good enough for me! Yes, we actually had rules that let you make a contingent true ressurrection spell that triggers three days after you die.
Overall, the spells work with a great balance that I'm completely comfortable with up to the stuff 10th level Mages can cast. Beyond that is a little iffier, but mostly just because there's not much to compare it to in the core rules. Evoke and Heal spells are easy to deal with because there are lots of examples of those, but spells that improve AC or ability scores tend to level off after 4th level. Certainly, the tactics of a 20th level EOM Mage and a 20th level core Sorcerer or Wizard would be very different. A high-level Mage has to use all the many various options available to him, and is more of a super-toolbox than a battleship.
I think the most broken thing I let survive into the final rules is the spell (equivalent to 9th level) that lets you take two full rounds worth of actions each round. It will last at most ten minutes, and it doesn't stack with other haste effects, plus you have to know the Quicken Spell feat to use it anyway.
When the book comes out, I'm hoping people will be willing to post their creations on the E.N.Publishing forum, so we can develop a huge spell library. Hopefully six months of playtesting will have weeded out most of the super-broken abilities (like turning the air in someone's lungs to lightning; that one was nasty, but it's gone now).
