What do you think of the 3.5 spell changes?

What do you think of these changes, and under what edition did you start playing D&D?

  • Love the changes, and started with 1st edition (or earlier)

    Votes: 33 39.3%
  • Neutral about the changes, and started with 1st edition (or earlier)

    Votes: 21 25.0%
  • Hate the changes, and started with 1st edition (or earlier)

    Votes: 9 10.7%
  • Love the changes, and started with 2nd edition

    Votes: 8 9.5%
  • Neutral about the changes, and started with 2nd edition

    Votes: 4 4.8%
  • Hate the changes, and started with 2nd edition

    Votes: 5 6.0%
  • Love the changes, and started with 3E

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Neutral about the changes, and started with 3E

    Votes: 2 2.4%
  • Hate the changes, and started with 3E

    Votes: 2 2.4%

Started with red box/1E (1981) and ...

Generally good changes, though I'm a little disappointed with the duration on polymorph self as it make it useless for scouting or long-range travel.
 

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Gothmog said:
Oops, you're right Eric, I forgot to put OD&D as an option. So without a moderator going in and changing to poll, I guess count OD&D and 1st edition as the same era.

wash your hands with soap.:mad:
 

EricNoah said:
Speaking of Hold Person -- you know what would be kind of neat? A "hold" spell that also makes the victim invulnerable while held. Kinda like held inside a tight-fitting force-field. That way they lose their turn like Hold Person, but it's not necessarily an insta-kill spell.

Shadow Well in Magic of Faerun. It's fourth level, and those who fail a Will save are "sucked" into the Shadow Plane for a few rounds (1 rd/lvl). They are effectively out of combat (like Hold), but since they aren't there they can't be CDGed.
 



Same here... I like the non-spell changes (barbarians, rangers, druids, bard), and think the racial changes will add lots of character (gnome).

I think there were some obvious inbalances: haste was too potent for it's level, for example. I don't think some of the other changes were necessary though.

- hold person, will save each round? I think I've only seen a PC held once, and this spell is rarely used by my players (since they usually have "bigger guns"). Save each round means they'll never take it.

- disintegrate. I'm trying to reserve judgement until I see the actual damage caps. We certainly never had a problem with it.

- buff spells. Well, my sorcerer will probably not bother learning any of the buff spells now, there are too many other things that are useful at that level, and will scale over his career.

- polymorph spells. This is the one that bothers me the most. My sorcerer took alter self and polymorph self as key spells - they were supposed to be my "bread and butter" utility spells, and used more for travel than anything else. At 1 min/level, polymorph is useless for anything _except_ combat.

Overall, I'm worried that they're removing effective options for spellcasters. This might not be the case - we're potentially only seeing a small percentage of the actual changes.
 

First off, I've not seen all of the rules. My opinion of these spells may change after I've seen the whole 3.5 package.

* Buff spells like Bull's Strength have a 1 min/level duration, and bestow a +4 enhancement bonus

I don't like this change one bit. I'm with Monte Cook on 1 min/level durations, as they promote the "dash to find the next fight" mentality. A flat bonus seems OK, but I prefer the random roll.

* Polymorph Self has a 1 min/level duration now

See above. Plus it rules out a lot of the non-combat uses of the spell. Overall, not a good thing.

* Disintegrate is no longer an instant-kill spell, now inflicting something along the lines of 4d6 per caster level on a failed save, or much less on a successful save.

Not really bothered either way about this. Works either way.

* Stoneskin is DR 10/adamantite

This I like. I'm a big fan of the new DR rules.

* Haste no longer allows casters to cast two spells per round- it is purely extra move or extra physical actions.

This is by far my least favourite change. For me, the simple fix for this spell would have been leaving it's effect as it is, but upping it to 4th level. It makes no sense at all that combat should be speeded up, but not spellcasting. Plus the effect just isn't powerful enough if the spell stays at 3rd level. I can see this one going from the "must have" list to the "never taken" list...

* Hold Person allows a save every round to break it

Good idea, this. There's nothing worse than being left with nothing to do. Making a saving throw every round also stops the low-level auto-kill tenancy this spell can have.

* Harm does 10 hps/level of damage on a failed save

Um, that seems like a heck of a lot of damage for a failed save. Are you sure that's right?
 

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