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<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 3849822" data-attributes="member: 40961"><p>I see no reason why spells will stop scaling. I see good reasons why they would scale more than they do now.</p><p></p><p>The reason that spells had limits on scaling in the past was that the spell slot system meant that lower level spells absolutely had to be weaker than higher level spells. A spell which scaled indefinitely broke the system. However, lets say there are no spell slots. If a wizard of a particular level simply picks 3 per day combat spells, there's no reason to mandate that lower level spells must be weaker than higher level spells.</p><p></p><p>See what I mean? When spell slots are held in common, there's no reason to have a level 5 fireball that does 20 damage, and a level 10 fireball that does 40 damage. Just have the one fireball.</p><p></p><p>Nonscaling abilities are an artifact of a system in which players have abilities of multiple power levels (spell levels) all held at once. Without that, you don't need to have nonscaling abilities.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I sincerely hope you are right.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure. The reason that high level spellcasters are likely to be more powerful than martial classes is because spells get to break rules. A fighter has to roll an attack roll and hit in 3e. It doesn't matter what level he is. To stab someone he must 1) get adjacent to his foe, 2) roll an attack roll and succeed, 3) do enough damage to over come DR, and 4) avoid any miss chance he may be suffering. To accomplish these things he has a set list of abilities. Spellcasters have little boxes of extra rules, one per spell, that let them bypass the normal system. I suspect this will continue to be the overall system, even if martial classes get maneuvers. So fighters will continue to be vulnerable to rule-avoiding abilities, like Wall of Force, that stop a fighter from even getting to try at succeeding in all of the rolls he has to make to stab someone.</p><p></p><p>This could be balanced, of course, by letting fighters stab people <em>really really hard</em> when it works.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>MY PREDICTION!</p><p></p><p>Flipping saves from defender to attacker (almost certainly) makes saving throws <em>automatically scale.</em> This is perhaps the biggest likely change in 4e that no one seems to have noticed.</p><p></p><p>Right now, a wizard's 1st level spell has a save DC of 11+int, always. Int grows, but not very fast. Flip the save, and have the caster roll something like 1d20+caster level+int+item. This means that a level 25 spell and a level 1 spell will have the same saving throw when cast by a level 25 spellcaster. The level 1 spell may have a smaller effect, but the save will be the same. So that aspect of scaling will be even bigger in the future.</p><p></p><p>I'm reasonably certain they will do this, since I can't see a reason not to. The only reservation I have is that they didn't do it in Tome of Battle. They should have. Its the one flaw in an otherwise very good book- if a maneuver that Dazes a target when it hits is appropriate when given a DC of 14+str and used at level 7, it is still appropriate with a DC of 18+str when used at level 15.</p><p></p><p>The game could be written so that spell BAB or whatever we're going to call it doesn't automatically scale. You could make a spell's "attack roll" equal something like "spell level + caster stat + item." But that creates a lot of problems, such as messing up fighter/mage multiclassing. I don't think they will.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 3849822, member: 40961"] I see no reason why spells will stop scaling. I see good reasons why they would scale more than they do now. The reason that spells had limits on scaling in the past was that the spell slot system meant that lower level spells absolutely had to be weaker than higher level spells. A spell which scaled indefinitely broke the system. However, lets say there are no spell slots. If a wizard of a particular level simply picks 3 per day combat spells, there's no reason to mandate that lower level spells must be weaker than higher level spells. See what I mean? When spell slots are held in common, there's no reason to have a level 5 fireball that does 20 damage, and a level 10 fireball that does 40 damage. Just have the one fireball. Nonscaling abilities are an artifact of a system in which players have abilities of multiple power levels (spell levels) all held at once. Without that, you don't need to have nonscaling abilities. I sincerely hope you are right. I'm not sure. The reason that high level spellcasters are likely to be more powerful than martial classes is because spells get to break rules. A fighter has to roll an attack roll and hit in 3e. It doesn't matter what level he is. To stab someone he must 1) get adjacent to his foe, 2) roll an attack roll and succeed, 3) do enough damage to over come DR, and 4) avoid any miss chance he may be suffering. To accomplish these things he has a set list of abilities. Spellcasters have little boxes of extra rules, one per spell, that let them bypass the normal system. I suspect this will continue to be the overall system, even if martial classes get maneuvers. So fighters will continue to be vulnerable to rule-avoiding abilities, like Wall of Force, that stop a fighter from even getting to try at succeeding in all of the rolls he has to make to stab someone. This could be balanced, of course, by letting fighters stab people [I]really really hard[/I] when it works. MY PREDICTION! Flipping saves from defender to attacker (almost certainly) makes saving throws [I]automatically scale.[/I] This is perhaps the biggest likely change in 4e that no one seems to have noticed. Right now, a wizard's 1st level spell has a save DC of 11+int, always. Int grows, but not very fast. Flip the save, and have the caster roll something like 1d20+caster level+int+item. This means that a level 25 spell and a level 1 spell will have the same saving throw when cast by a level 25 spellcaster. The level 1 spell may have a smaller effect, but the save will be the same. So that aspect of scaling will be even bigger in the future. I'm reasonably certain they will do this, since I can't see a reason not to. The only reservation I have is that they didn't do it in Tome of Battle. They should have. Its the one flaw in an otherwise very good book- if a maneuver that Dazes a target when it hits is appropriate when given a DC of 14+str and used at level 7, it is still appropriate with a DC of 18+str when used at level 15. The game could be written so that spell BAB or whatever we're going to call it doesn't automatically scale. You could make a spell's "attack roll" equal something like "spell level + caster stat + item." But that creates a lot of problems, such as messing up fighter/mage multiclassing. I don't think they will. [/QUOTE]
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