I have played since Elf was a class and I have seen how hit points have grown and grown with each iteration. One thing that has stayed constant is the good old fire ball. Back in the old days a 10d6 fireball was a terror since even the warrior would be lucky to break 70 hps.
Now I looks at the players in my new game and even the sorcerer has 8 hps. What is the point of tossing out a 1d4+1 magic missile?
In my game all spells that do hit point damage get +1 damage for each die.
So a burning hands from the dragon blooded sorcerer will do 5d4+15 once she hits level 5. And the call lightning from the druid hits for 3d6+3 each bolt.
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I know that I have definitely been playing for quite a short period of time, compared to many people here, including yourself but my take on it is that while some people may like the thrill of maybe dying if that spellcaster gets just moderately lucky, I know that many of the people my age that I game with do not like the idea that their wizard or sorcerer can die in a single hit (two hits is another story)
The higher hit dice help with this, and this is why when I start running my Pathfinder game in the next few weeks, I am going to also rule in the racial hit points from the Beta.
But that 1d4+1 magic missile still does have a 50% chance of taking out half of that sorcerer's health in one shot
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Evocation magic in 3.5 is kind of weak due to a rapid increase of monster HP and immunities/resistances galore. It's a part of the edition paradigm, not much can be done here really.
Magic missile rocks because it always hits, allow no saves whatsoever and almost nothing protects against force damage. Great "finish him now !" spell.
Jal's point is basically mine. In 1st edition a 5th level wizard had *one* fireball tops. In third he'll typically have three, with Arcane Bond for four.
There's less "sudden death", and less "kill that mage RIGHT NOW!", but the area spells still do plenty of damage.
You have a good fix (+1/die) if you're not happy with it though. Also consider:
A 6th level Evoker would do 6d6+3 with his fireballs. He could also have a rod of metamagic: empower, lesser. It costs 9,000 gp, a bit over half his expected 16000gp wealth by that point. That would make his average damage with a fireball = 36 (6d6+3=24, *1.5). Two of those will be easily more hp than 90-95% of 6th level enemies, en masse.
Another big difference is that saving throws now tend to get *harder* as you level (at least for your not-good save). A 5th level fighter in 1st edition needed a 14 to save against fireball. A 5th level fighter in PF probably has between +2 and +4 to Reflex saves, needing roughly a 13 to save, but it just get worse after that (against the higher level spells). A 13th level fighter in 1st needed an 8 against delayed blast fireball; a 13th level fighter in PF would probably have about +9 to Reflex, and need about a 13-15 vs. DBF still.
Edit: All numbers ignore both Spell Focus feats, and Lightning Reflexes and such, and estimate a Cloak of Resistance and modest dex scores. One of the great things about 3rd edition is the ability to overcome weaknesses.
I'm kind of waiting to see the beastiary before I start looking at the nuking spells again.
I think nuking spells have been relegated to the role of mook killers. You are 5th level and encounter a group of 2nd level orcs (10-16 HP). You have a good chance of killing them all... this doesn't scale extremely well to the higher levels though as the mooks HP accelerate faster than the blasting spells. All is not lost though. You have a plethora of great spells to freeze them in place then you have 2-3 rounds to finish them off. Things like Evards black tentacles, transmute rock to mud, solid fog... etc. So in the end the wizard is still super effective at killing folks, you just have to be more creative about how you do it.
I like wizards...the first character I played almost 25 years ago was a wizard. I wasn't attracted to a wizard cause they could blow things up (although that helped), I played them because they did stuff with magic.
Yeah, the fact that Metoer Swarms 24d6 is a lot less impressive these days than it used to be kinda bums me out. But I also look at what attracted me to the wizard in the first place...and I love all the stuff thats been made more useful. The fact that I get more spell slots to do it with is just icing on the cake.
That being said, if you feel a wizards (and sorcs...both arcane casters...) damage output per spell is to low, sure, boost em a bit. +1 per die probably won't be to much, as long as you don't tinker with monster resists and all...the only thing I would caution about is making sure they don't overshadow all the other characters (its ok for them to shine, as long as they share that spotlight)
Well, if everyone in your group feels the same way on the matter, the fix is quite simple. All spells deal double damage. Or triple, if you want Fireball to really be the terror it once was.
Actualy it is working well so far.
I am running ROTRL for my group and the dragon blood sorcerer is becoming quite the terror for the goblins 1d4+3 fire damage takes the little guys down hard.
We will see what happens when she hits level 5.
Before anyone gets unhappy with damage in 3.5 or pathfinder I urge you to look at 4e. You'll get a huge wake up call.
Before anyone gets unhappy with damage in 3.5 or pathfinder I urge you to look at 4e. You'll get a huge wake up call.
My beef is not specific to any edition. The only change to spell damage was in 3rd edition when they applied caps on the maximum a spell can do. Each edition has increased the health of characters and monsters so casters has come to lean more and more on buffing and the save or be screwed spells which everyone hates.
What I am trying to do in my game is bring back the fragile spell cannon concept.
BTW this applies to druids and clerics also. That flame strike should be an impressive spell.
What I am trying to do in my game is bring back the fragile spell cannon concept.
BTW this applies to druids and clerics also. That flame strike should be an impressive spell.
I understand.
Mages have gone from glass canons and more towards versatility, lately. Sure, they can still throw around fireballs and lighting bolts, but their moment usually comes when they unlock that event that no one else can unlock, simply by magic.
Rogues tend to outdo mages in context to damage, almost without a fight. However, if they were to get a boost in damage it would blow any semblance of balance right out of the water.
It simply isn't fair nor fun for one class of people to be better then another, no matter the faults of that people.
It is the job of the DM to make every character important at each point of the adventure. I do my best to lessen the impact of save or die spells because I do not find them very fun and too unpredictable. A 10% chance to end the fight or be completely useless isn't very fulfilling to me.
Most of the "must be done with magic" to further the adventure is all plot point gimmicks and if no one plays a caster you can just as easily make it a rogue trick or a hidden key or puzzle.
The cleric wants more to life than being a healing battery and the mage wants to be useful in combat.
Everyone agrees that the damage spells are useless except for clearing the room of mooks so that the fighters can face down the real threat. In my game people will be scared of the meteor swarm again.
With the new cast defensibly rules I am finding casting gets interrupted more not less. Also in all my first edition games I can not remember more than 3 or 4 times any caster was interrupted that was not part of a plot point.
The argument that 2/3rd of all fireballs were interrupted and now you are doing more damage with level caps is a weak argument.
Also the spell saves are infinitely easier now with variable spell DC and the commonality of evasion. I found a giant worm in the dark sun rules with evasion for pities sake. The huge worm on a successful ref save was considered to have pulled itself under ground just as the spell goes off.
Anyway this was not supposed to be an argument over how casters are to powerful or to weak. This is the house rule I have put into place.
So far things are running pretty good and the level 1 sorcerer is being a real asset in combat. I will let you know if things get to unbalanced as she levels up.
You are missing the fact that this coincided with spell casting becoming more or a sure thing. Prior to 3rd edition, a caster would attempt to cast 3 fireballs in a day and be glad he got 1 off without being disrupted. With the shortening of casting times to a standard action casters get their damage spells off every time with rare exception.The difference is that instead of one big spike out of 3 attempts the damage is spread out over those multiple castings since all of them are going to go off instead of just 1 in 3.
The caps were put in place so the caster couldn't chain cast damage spells and drop not just the mooks but the BBEG as well before the fighter got in more than 1 swing.
True, but EVERYTHING from 3rd edition increased in scale (with the notable exception of saving throws for the fighter). Prior to 3rd edition, the fighter would be lucky if he landed more than 15 points of damage in a single blow... Now this number is almost routine for a 1st level barbarian!
What I mean to say is that the (relative) reduction of damage of the wizard's attack spells is more of a shift in the paradigm that high level spellcasters were openly admitted as being more powerful than their melee counterpart, and their spells backed this statement up.
3rd edition brought more parity to the whole system (same rules for everybody, same built-up for characters and monsters, same relative power for two characters of different classes of the same level etc.) It wasn't exactly right, but we know how the quest for the politically-correct power-per-level led to its own issues (as in the 4th edition).
In other words, the relative diminution of damage makes wizards in par with melee combatants. Whether this SHOULD be the case is a matter of personal taste IMHO. As it has been stated before, the 3.X wizard has more survivability at low level than what it used to have when it totally ruled the top 5 levels. Increasing the damage of damage spells would be to tip the scale in the favor of the wizard, which I don't think is wrong, but it should be a conscious decision.
'findel
I find myself in an odd position on this one - I thought fireballs were powerful in 1st edition, and find them to still be powerful. This past weekend a 7th level minion fireballed the 11th level party once and that was almost as much damage as was done to them the rest of the fight.
Once everyone has greater rings of universal energy resistance it can be tough to do a lot of damage, but most of the time they're rather effective. And I've found saving throws generally *start* easier in 3rd, but stay harder longer than in 1st.
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Before anyone gets unhappy with damage in 3.5 or pathfinder I urge you to look at 4e. You'll get a huge wake up call.
by huge wake up call do you mean add another 0 to your damage and the hitpoints of your foes. 1d4 damage vs a goblin with 6 hitpoints is like their 1d6+4 vs a goblin with 30 hitpoints (actually worse)
i guess you could be talking about nuking a bunch of 1hp minions ( which i can never hold my supension of disbelief for, i mean if they bump their toe the explode....)
Before anyone gets unhappy with damage in 3.5 or pathfinder I urge you to look at 4e. You'll get a huge wake up call.by huge wake up call do you mean add another 0 to your damage and the hitpoints of your foes. 1d4 damage vs a goblin with 6 hitpoints is like their 1d6+4 vs a goblin with 30 hitpoints (actually worse)
i guess you could be talking about nuking a bunch of 1hp minions ( which i can never hold my supension of disbelief for, i mean if they bump their toe the explode....)
LOL
That's actually what killed it for me. I was looking through the 4E MM, and came across Orc. 1 HP.
1
ONE
SINGLE
A SINGLE HITPOINT!!
Then I had this flash of 5000 orcs, in full battle armor, weapons draw, charging down into a valley to attack 500 human warriors.
I saw thousands of them left laying on the hill as they were killed by their companions as a stray sword swipe killed them, a trip and fall and being ran over...
I saw more thousands of them die as they hit the spikes set up by the human warriors rangers the night before, 5 inches high, hidden in grass, stabbing up through the foot doing 1 hp.
I saw a great cloud of arrows arch out over the human warriors, not even aimed, falling like rain amongst them, every hit killing an Orc dead on the first hit.
The poor few dozen that got to the human warriors who had been waiting patiently scythed under by the first rank who all had Cleave and Greater Cleave, each warrior killing 3-4 orcs with a single swing.
I put the book back on the shelf and walked away.
by huge wake up call do you mean add another 0 to your damage and the hitpoints of your foes. 1d4 damage vs a goblin with 6 hitpoints is like their 1d6+4 vs a goblin with 30 hitpoints (actually worse)
i guess you could be talking about nuking a bunch of 1hp minions ( which i can never hold my supension of disbelief for, i mean if they bump their toe the explode....)
No, I mean that damage doesn't scale. Hitpoints go WILD crazy as you get higher in level, with solo monsters getting plus of 1000s of hp, but your damage never increase, but a neigh one die of damage at level 21.
It's not fun.
by huge wake up call do you mean add another 0 to your damage and the hitpoints of your foes. 1d4 damage vs a goblin with 6 hitpoints is like their 1d6+4 vs a goblin with 30 hitpoints (actually worse)
i guess you could be talking about nuking a bunch of 1hp minions ( which i can never hold my supension of disbelief for, i mean if they bump their toe the explode....)
No, I mean that damage doesn't scale. Hitpoints go WILD crazy as you get higher in level, with solo monsters getting plus of 1000s of hp, but your damage never increase, but a neigh one die of damage at level 21.
It's not fun.
*boggles*
Wow...me and my group skipped 4e since the changes we saw in the PHB were a little more than we wanted to deal with, but seriously? Sheesh...its like a pnpmmorpg (now isn't that a reversal for ya)
I have played since Elf was a class and I have seen how hit points have grown and grown with each iteration. One thing that has stayed constant is the good old fire ball. Back in the old days a 10d6 fireball was a terror since even the warrior would be lucky to break 70 hps.
Now I looks at the players in my new game and even the sorcerer has 8 hps. What is the point of tossing out a 1d4+1 magic missile?
In my game all spells that do hit point damage get +1 damage for each die.
So a burning hands from the dragon blooded sorcerer will do 5d4+15 once she hits level 5. And the call lightning from the druid hits for 3d6+3 each bolt.
Remove spell level caps. This is very, very necessary. HPs continue to grow to infinity, but the damage of spells, no. This causes damage spells do not work.
Remove spell level caps. This is very, very necessary. HPs continue to grow to infinity, but the damage of spells, no. This causes damage spells do not work.
Not a bad idea. Would make lower level spells a LOT more powerful.
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look at the new version of Phantasmal Killer if you want a Nuke Spell.
Two failed saves and die... 4th level spell... not bad! WILL Save and FORT Save... not many things are good at both. Sure make one save and you live, but there will be times the die doesn't go in the monster's favor.
I just hope to never run into anyone with the spell cause with my luck I'd be DEAD DEAD DEAD!
look at the new version of Phantasmal Killer if you want a Nuke Spell.
I hate save vs disabled spells. Just convert them all to Disintegrate-like: do gobs of HP damage, don't just 'kill' a guy no matter who he is or how tough he is.
Remove spell level caps. This is very, very necessary. HPs continue to grow to infinity, but the damage of spells, no. This causes damage spells do not work.Not a bad idea. Would make lower level spells a LOT more powerful.
It is the only change I have done to damage spells, but it works. Thus, a spell makes less damage than a melee PC, but as another source of damage and often affect multiple enemies makes them useful. If you want to do as much or more damage than a melee, you need to resort to metamagic, which means investing feats or money and become a very limited resource (over the limited resource that the spells are themselves)
Mematamagic need new rules, too. As it is not works (too expensive), but to stack multiple metamagic feats makes it too powerful (that causes the damage spells are a waste, but with one or two metamagics become too powerful bombs) I have some rules about it, but it isn’t the appropriate topic to talk about them. It's a shame that Paizo has ruined so many spells instead of solving the real problems of the magic.
Anyway, 1d4-damage spells should disappear in Pathfinder, since d4 hit dice are gone. To play with PFRPG I would escalate the damage to 1d6
Fireball (3rd level) becomes better than Polar Ray (8th level) Sure Polar Ray has it's uses, because it's a ranged touch and skips saves and evasion, but its an 8th level spell that hits a single target for cl d6 of damage, up to 25.
[..]
The reason the caps are there is to make the levels different, and provide a reason for casting a bigger spell.
Polar ray is a shame. Nobody uses polar ray! Cone of cold before was more powerful than fireball, because there was less resistance to cold. But in 3.X/PFRPG this isn't true (or it is in a lesser extent), so the spell is obsolete.
The problem is that HP and monsters have changed much since the early editions of D&D, but the damage spells have not changed.
Designers should having updated them taking into account the new rules ... but they have not done, and now there are many spells that are obsolete.
Low-level spells increase in damage every two or three levels (magic missile, scorching ray) This makes them different of lighting bolt or firewall, which are scalable to each level (and high-level spells can affect to more targets). So, high-level spells are better. Now if you want to have a Cone of cold that is best but do the same damage than fireball (and with worst area!) you should make it more appeal with the same reasons that before: it can bypass better ER, for example, or SR, and so on. You can not use as example spells that require review because they are obsolete
look at the new version of Phantasmal Killer if you want a Nuke Spell.
Two failed saves and die... 4th level spell... not bad! WILL Save and FORT Save... not many things are good at both. Sure make one save and you live, but there will be times the die doesn't go in the monster's favor.
I just hope to never run into anyone with the spell cause with my luck I'd be DEAD DEAD DEAD!
This is exactly the kind of stuff I hate. Wizards and sorcerers load up on these all or nothing spells that rarely work but when they do have a massive impact over the combat.
The reason they load up on these is because everyone agrees that with; dice caps, huge hit points, elemental resistances, and evasion; the "nuke" spells are all but useless. Ask anyone who has played a successful wizard will tell you that Magic Missile is worthless compared to color spray, Ice storm is a joke against enervation, and Wierd tops the list of nastiest spells while meteor swarm is an impressive looking light show.
This is exactly the kind of stuff I hate. Wizards and sorcerers load up on these all or nothing spells that rarely work but when they do have a massive impact over the combat.
The reason they load up on these is because everyone agrees that with; dice caps, huge hit points, elemental resistances, and evasion; the "nuke" spells are all but useless. Ask anyone who has played a successful wizard will tell you that Magic Missile is worthless compared to color spray, Ice storm is a joke against enervation, and Weird tops the list of nastiest spells while meteor swarm is an impressive looking light show.
That's a bit extreme and entirely true. It's true, though, that death spells are too powerful and broken.
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Bigby's Crushing Tactical Nuke
Spell Level: 9th level wizard spell
Sphere: Entropy
Range: 1 mile per caster level
Duration: Special
Effect: Those within are forced to save vs spells up to three times regarding (1)the blinding flash, (2)the Fireball, (3)the fallout.
It unleashes firstly a blinding flash requiring anyone within 1d6 miles a fireball to save vs spell -1 or be blinded by the light permanently.
The Fireball descimates everything within 1d6 x 100 feet of origin save vs spell or be incinerated to ash. Anyone making the save is subjected to horrorfying burns (1d6 per level of caster).
Of course the mushroom cloud is in the longterm the most destructive Falllout causes diseases in those within a mile per caster level who fail to save vs spell against this third effect.
Bigby's Crushing Tactical Nuke
Spell Level: 9th level wizard spell
Sphere: Entropy
Range: 1 mile per caster level
Duration: Special
Effect: Those within are forced to save vs spells up to three times regarding (1)the blinding flash, (2)the Fireball, (3)the fallout.It unleashes firstly a blinding flash requiring anyone within 1d6 miles a fireball to save vs spell -1 or be blinded by the light permanently.
The Fireball decimates everything within 1d6 x 100 feet of origin save vs spell or be incinerated to ash. Anyone making the save is subjected to horrifying burns (1d6 per level of caster).
Of course the mushroom cloud is in the long term the most destructive Fallout causes diseases in those within a mile per caster level who fail to save vs spell against this third effect.
I'm guessing this is some Second Ed BS?
This is exactly the kind of stuff I hate. Wizards and sorcerers load up on these all or nothing spells that rarely work but when they do have a massive impact over the combat.
Kind of sounds like what Fireballs were back in 1e, no?
This is exactly the kind of stuff I hate. Wizards and sorcerers load up on these all or nothing spells that rarely work but when they do have a massive impact over the combat.Kind of sounds like what Fireballs were back in 1e, no?
Forgive me if I am wrong, as I wasn't there for 1ed, but didn't fireball in 1ed say "It does some damage... make up the amount."
Not really something to be relied on for comparison?
Forgive me if I am wrong, as I wasn't there for 1ed, but didn't fireball in 1ed say "It does some damage... make up the amount."
Not really something to be relied on for comparison?
Even in the original 3 pamphlet set (1974) the spell was 1d6 per level.
I am not quite that old. I got into the game when the second printing of the"new" boxed set came out in 1979. Keep on the Borderlands is still my favorite modual even though it has allot of weaknesses. The game didn't have dice they had strips of cardboard with numbers. You were supposed to cut them up and draw from the d20 cup.