Great project, I really hope you will manage to keep going on!
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Great work.
Tho I disagree with 'Virtue' being bad for everyone. It's rather situational, but it can save your behind if you're at 0 HP and in need to escape/go 'death or glory'.
Would it be rated as Average in your opinion? I would need a little more convincing to change its rating. I will add in your advice to use it to help out someone at 0 hp and in need a bit more hp for a death or glory/ escape.
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Okay, there is a troll who seems to think my document is a great place to lurk. I didn't realize how flawed the comment system was for online documents like my own. Not only cannot I not delete his comments and replies, but he can resolve comments. I can bring them back, but when I did that he just resolved them again, thus hiding them from view.
I like that people can make comments on the document, and I really enjoy reading them. They have helped me, and some of them gave further ideas and insight. However, unless I lock the document up so tight you can't leave comments, trolls are going to be able to continue coming in and be a nuisance.
justinstoner, you win. I am locking the document so only I can edit the document and leave comments. I will keep working on this project though. If anyone feels it is unfair he ruined a good thing, take it up with him.
If you have comments or feedback, leave it here. Sorry Google can't make it easier to fight and stop trolls.
Truely lame a troll broke the comments, he should be ashamed.
I wonder if this project should be done on PFSRD's website instead where the contributors are a little more controlled?
It really is too bad about the comments, they were a good tool for immediate feedback. Though getting rid of them was the right move.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I wonder if this project should be done on PFSRD's website instead where the contributors are a little more controlled?
Do they have a similar, but more controllable, comment system? I might consider it if they do. Otherwise, I will just rely on people commenting here. I will go research that as an option later tonight.
No one could blame you about the comments: we can still leave them here and you can cite them in your analyses, as I've seen you did with burning hands.
Now, on business:
Challenge evil: a truly amazing spell, but it's will negates and subjects to SR. This is a problem for paladins, with reduced caster levels and low DC. The spell is fantastic at low levels but it's usefulness fades at higher levels (which is a pity, as this it a really cool spell for paladins: it would be so much better if the will negates was only against the sickening effect)
Color spray: I'd be explicit in stating how good this spell is at low level (most people would say that this it THE best spell when you play at level 1 or 2).
Compel hostility: what I don't like is that you have to cast this spell a the beginning of the combat (and you have other things to do). It also has the same drawbacks of "challenge evil". I'm not sure if it's worth the good mark
Corrosive touch: I agree with the rating for the magus but I'd downgrade it for everyone else.
Faerie fire: It's a great spell, marginalized only by the better glitterdust. It nobody in the group can cast glitterdust then faerie fire is a lifesaver (and druids tends to have some of the best perception checks, so they probably know where to cast it)
Keep working on this beautiful project, I support you wholeheartedly!
readability would greatly benefit if you would colour-code the spellnames in my opinion.
First one will better see where one spell ends and the next begins, and second it's way easier to skip the red ones.
For the colour coding itself, what if a spell is great to have as a scroll, is it still red?
Anyhow, a big thanks for making such a complete list, it's a great thing.
Edit: after more reading, it's not that big of a deal anymore, but it would still help, also spells split between 2 pages aren't optimal. And there are a lot of spells, I never knew, good luck and thanks again.
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75 1st level spells, and 112 in total. That is about 11 spells a day, so I should be done in about 108 days! (Math was never my best subjects, so I might be way off there...)
Alright, onto replying to comments.
Challenge Evil: I have no experience playing paladins, so I totally missed the fact their DCs and caster levels are lower. Your point is good on the fact that the usefulness fades at higher levels.
Color Spray: I'll look at what I wrote and try to point out how awesome it is at levels 1 - 3.
Faerie Fire: Glitterdust is better against invisible foes, mostly because of spell resistance not being applied to it. I plan on bringing up its superiority when it comes to invisible foes when I get to that spell.
I plan on going back and proof reading the entire thing in the next day or so. When I do I will be sure to adjust things based on the feedback I am given.
Richard: About the rating and scrolls. Yes, if a spell is great to have as a scroll but rated bad for a spell slot it is still rated bad. I had to decide what I was rating the spells for, and rating them for spell slots made the most sense. I will try to clear that up in the introduction part of the guide.
As for the spells split between two pages, try going to View, Document View, and clicking Compact. It is meant to be viewed that way, as I don't plan on printing this thing out. I will try to point that out in the introduction as well.
Gravity bow: enlarge person specify that ammunition that leave your body get back to their original size, so the combo you list does not work as intended. I also disagree with the poor opinion you seem to give to the damage increase in itself: a +2,5 to damage is not bad, it's not subject to energy resistance, can help piercing DR and as one of the few buffs available to archer it's a useful way to use either the standard action left after positioning/drawing the bow. The duration of minute/level helps too.
Hold portal: Rating is not color-coded
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Gravity bow: enlarge person specify that ammunition that leave your body get back to their original size, so the combo you list does not work as intended. I also disagree with the poor opinion you seem to give to the damage increase in itself: a +2,5 to damage is not bad, it's not subject to energy resistance, can help piercing DR and as one of the few buffs available to archer it's a useful way to use either the standard action left after positioning/drawing the bow. The duration of minute/level helps too.
Hold portal: Rating is not color-coded
Ah! I totally missed that on Enlarge Person. Thanks.
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125 1st spells.
The work computer I use while I have down time at work crashed and was only recently replaced.
My laptop seems to hate Google, and it takes me about two hours to write four guides. I am going to be receiving another one, and it is a faster then my current ten year old brick.
With two new, faster, and nicer computers I should be able to do this at my old rate of 6 - 10 guides a day.
Great resource - just one minor thing I noticed, though. Activating a scroll always takes at least one standard action, making a scroll of Litany of Weakness kind of unimpressive. Fatiguing someone for just one round isn't a particularly impressive use of a standard action in most cases. While it's cool that it has outright no save, it's hard to imagine an Inquisitor or an Antipaladin not having a better option.
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Great resource - just one minor thing I noticed, though. Activating a scroll always takes at least one standard action, making a scroll of Litany of Weakness kind of unimpressive. Fatiguing someone for just one round isn't a particularly impressive use of a standard action in most cases. While it's cool that it has outright no save, it's hard to imagine an Inquisitor or an Antipaladin not having a better option.
Whoa, I missed the swift action casting time! Good catch there. I changed the guide for that spell. It is 2am where I am though, so I will probably change it again when I do a proofread pass.
To everyone else:
I love seeing all those colored squares that tell me how many people are viewing the document. I really encourages me to keep working on this. Thanks for taking the time to at least look at what I am working on. My goal is to have this done before PaizoCon so I have something to brag about when I go there with my beautiful wife this summer.
Thanks again everyone.
Just dropping by to tell you that I'm still reading your guide, I simply approve everything so there is no need to comment.
Just to feign being useful, I'll add that you could say that longstrider is also useful for tactical movement for skirmishes. Not that you will see so many ranger skirmishers not hasted, but some may exist.
Good to see some love for Chill touch and Frostbite, as a couple of guides had those rated as red (have written at length about this on other threads. good to see i'm not alone/being heard, whichever the case may be). like your format and explanations, as they're easy to read and informative.
Good stuff.
Hideous laughter is a bard1, sorcerer/wizard2, you have it as a 1, 1 just so you know, I didn't check all the spells obviously but thought I would put in my 2 cents to your awesome undertaking.
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Hideous laughter is a bard1, sorcerer/wizard2, you have it as a 1, 1 just so you know, I didn't check all the spells obviously but thought I would put in my 2 cents to your awesome undertaking.
Nice catch! I normally just copy/paste from d20pfsrd.com. I must have typed that one out. Teaches me to double check stuff.
Keep up to good proof reading, I need it.
That's amazing. Even if people don't agree with your interpretations, just having this resource is a marvelous labor of love.
Happy Valentine's day.
Keep going its great to think of all of this in one place! I hope you don't get burned out on it.
Magic missile is not that good in a wand, actually: you only shot one missile and when you have the money to spend on it you are not impressed with 1d4+1 per round.
mirror strike: strange spell, but even for magus it does not seems to be good. If you can really kill two minions dealing half damage to each, chances are that you can just ignore them.
ray of enfeeblement: I'm not sure I agree with the harsh rating. True, it's weaker than it was in 3.5, but you give a malus at both attacks and damage in a fairly reliable way. Being first level it's a good candidate for empowering later on, I'd rate it as good.
restful sleep: depends on the style of play. In my groups we never want to have damage left on the assumption that "night will cure it", we prefer to be always ready for that night-time surprise attack. I'd rate it not higher than average.
shocking grasp: for magus this one is excellent. A magus worth its salt will be using this spell with the intensified spell feat for 10d6, later empowering for 15d6.
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Magic missile is not that good in a wand, actually: you only shot one missile and when you have the money to spend on it you are not impressed with 1d4+1 per round.
mirror strike: strange spell, but even for magus it does not seems to be good. If you can really kill two minions dealing half damage to each, chances are that you can just ignore them.
ray of enfeeblement: I'm not sure I agree with the harsh rating. True, it's weaker than it was in 3.5, but you give a malus at both attacks and damage in a fairly reliable way. Being first level it's a good candidate for empowering later on, I'd rate it as good.
restful sleep: depends on the style of play. In my groups we never want to have damage left on the assumption that "night will cure it", we prefer to be always ready for that night-time surprise attack. I'd rate it not higher than average.
shocking grasp: for magus this one is excellent. A magus worth its salt will be using this spell with the intensified spell feat for 10d6, later empowering for 15d6.
Awesome, this is the type of feedback that I need. Thanks for it.
Magic Missile: I forgot that it is a home rule in the games that I play that wands of magic missile will shoot five missiles as long as you expend five charges. That would make the wands far more useful.
If the magus is doing all they can to up their DPR (and they should be anyway,) Mirror Strike will deal enough damage to justify its use. The effect that it grants if you are flanked is pretty useful as well, and the magus will be more likely to be flanked with their battle field positioning.
Ray of enfeeblement doesn't deal ability damage, it gives a penalty. That is the biggest reason behind the low rating. You can't stack the spell, and you are more then likely only going to impose a -1 penalty to attack and damage. Empowering it will help up the save, but those who you want to hit with it still have high Fort saves, and the levels you will be empowering it to will have spells that deal ability damage or impose higher penalties to attack and damage.
Restful sleep is one of those spells that really depend on your play style. My groups have always done some healing right before resting, and so this spell has helped cut down the amount of cure spells we needed to cast, and the amount of resources we use up healing.
I agree about Shocking Grasp, and changed things accordingly.
Celebrate and set off fireworks! I just finished all of the 1st level spells. That feels so good.
So good in fact that I am going to Disney Land!
(I am actually going to Disney Land but not because of this. It is a planned family trip.)
Have fun in the Magic Kingdom! (Not Qadira, the other one.)
Comments:
From the "No DM in their right mind, but it's RAW" files - You can combine the spell Spark with the feat Glorious Heat to (slowly) heal your allies out of combat for no resource cost. You just need a sufficient supply of fine things to burn. (Or the same fine thing over and over, I guess.)
It's kind of unusual to call sleep "bad", since it's generally - rightly, in my opinion - considered one of the better spells available for those who can cast it. Yes, it has a low HD cap, but while it does work, it just flat-out makes you win the encounter. It certainly is going to turn the tide of more encounters than say, unerring weapon.
Tiny nitpick on Shocking Grasp - I don't know exactly how you counted, but I believe that fire is the most resisted/immune'd damage type. I have 268 creatures with some resistance to electricity and 318 with resistance of some kind to fire.
If you need another reason to hate on Play Instrument, you can refer to Summon Instrument. Which is a cantrip.
I'm not sure how Mirror Strike is "Good" for the Magus. It takes a standard action to cast it - a standard action you can often just use to make a regular extra attack. Then you had two normal attacks instead of two half-attacks. I guess you could cast it in the surprise round, but is splitting your damage generally worth having this spell prepared? There are certainly circumstances where it works out okay - charging weenies, making the most of some other effect on your weapon, etc., but they all feel so improbable that I can't imagine ever preparing Mirror Strike. If it was just something Magi could do, then sure, it'd get busted out from time to time. If it was a swift action, then it would still be unpreparably bad, but it would be worth it way more frequently. As it is, the number of situations where it's advantageous just seem super small.
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Hmm... Mirror Strike seems to be a topic of controversy. Because this has repeatably come up, I will go ahead and look into it even more AND lower the rating. It seems as if I am the only one to like that spell, but I also haven't used it, or even played a class that could use that spell in the last few years.
I will try to find my notes on the energy resistance thing. I could be wrong, and I have been in the past. Are you counting all of the Bestiaries? (Fifteen minutes later:) Huh... I have 309 monsters immune or resistant to fire and... 264 for electricity. Yep, I was wrong. I will change that.
Sleep: hmmm... Maybe Excellent in the first few levels, with the rating going down one step at level 4 and another step every level after that. I plan on reading through all of the guides I have written so far and doing an editing pass. I will probably change Sleep, as people are echoing your remarks.
Glad I could help :)
Unprepared combatant: I don't know if it's really GOOD. I would not waste a round to try to land it and I'm not sure it's worth quickening. My point is: if I really need to kill a single target, I'm not going to do it with a spell that target reflex save. If I want to kill a group, the single target make this quite useless. I don't know, it doesn't suck, but it's not something I can see myself preparing and using regularly. Still, level 1, you can probably spare some of those later on. Dunno, I'd say something between AVERAGE and GOOD.
Veil of positive energy: In normal games I'd rate it BAD. Even in undead games I'd rather have protection from evil, but the duration is better for this one(it's its selling point of course, but it's not hour/level, so may not be enough for a long dungeon crawl).
Wrath: This spell is excellent, the problem is that Inquisitors have a lot of just as good stuff to use. Between this and divine power (and later even better stuff), you have done nothing for 2 full round since the combat started. Yeah, now you are really powerful, but the combat is midway through and you have yet to do anything to the enemy. Still, if you don't have a bard in the group this is strictly better than divine favor so it deserves its rating of excellent.
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CRAP!!! I accidentally selected all and then started typing. Then Google DOcs flipped out and I had to refresh the page. IF anyone has a copy of the doc, please, please send me a note. I haven't backed it up in a while. Stupid me.
EDIT: Fixed it. Lost some formatting, but that isn't as bad as losing the entire project.
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I am giving some love to the spread sheet and trying to work out some of the kinks. Due to requests from a few people, I added in columns for each of the class and started to place the spell level into each the correct rows.
Is there anything else that can be done to make the spread sheet easier to use?
Are there any 1st level spells that I have missed?
While I am fixing formatting issues and proof reading the document, are there any changes I should do to make this better?
What spells should I give second looks?
Would placing second opinions from other guides be a good idea?
Would placing second opinions from other guides be a good idea?
What?
As for the spells
Ablative barrier: this may be a corner case but it's extremely good if casted on a invulnerable rager. Also, the damage cap may be (I think) increased a bit by the use of the intensified spell feat.
Acid arrow: nice spell, I'd mention it's good against casters as they have to keep making concentration checks to cast.
Adjuring Step needs review:
You comments speaks toward Cleric advantage but it is not a Clerical spell. Also ...
I think you underestimate the tactical advantage of being able to take 2 5-foot steps AND cast without provoking AoO! ...
Some examples:
So much for that fighters full round attack ...
Who cares if he has Step Up Feat ...
I'm a Bard and my main retinue of spells are non-harming ...
I'm a Bard helping my rogue get a flank attack, I take a 5-foot step, heal the rogue, and take a second 5-foot step back to where I started to maintain our flank ...
If I want to move more than 5 feet, I can Dimension Door and NOT lose this spell, WITHOUT an AoO for casting as I've moved as part of a standard action vs. Move Action!
I could go on .. but this spell is EXCELLENT. IMHO
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@Crysknife - good points, I will probably add them in.
@Akasharose - I will have to go back and look at that spell, It is very new and a little outside the box, so I suffered from inexperience with it. Thanks for the examples, those really help in figuring out how to usethespell properly.
Sorry to everyone else for the sudden slow down in work. This last week was a bit out of the ordinary, and the week before that was busy.
Thanks for the support!
maybe I'm just an idiot, but i can't get the filter to work on the spread sheet. Any guidance.
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The first 25 2nd level spells are finished. I hope to have another 25 done within a week now that life has settled down and returned to normalcy.
If anyone has some free time and would like to help me speed things along, I am still struggling to return the document back to normal after almost losing it entirely. I mostly need help with bookmarking all of the spell names and linking those bookmarks to the spreadsheet. If I had some help I could speed this project along and have it finished before PaizoCon. You do need to have a google account, and I will need to add you to the list of people allowed to edit, so please let me know if you are interested.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I am going to split up the spell guide into sections by spell level. Each spell level will have their own document, with links on the main page to the different documents. This will make the guide easier to view, make load time faster, and prevent me from losing the entire guide to mistakes like I made a month or so ago. This will cause issues with the spreadsheet until I can restore the bookmark links, which may not happen for a long, long time unless I can find some help.
I apologize if this is going to mess people up at first, but I will warn everyone viewing guide at the time of change.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I am not sure why I didn't think to do this sooner, but I am going to go through and rate all of the spells first and then go back and write the individual guides. This will make the guide useable faster, and mean that should something happen that prevents me from finishing it we don't have half of the spells unrated.
Expect to start seeing this change this weekend.
The spreadsheet will be updated as I have time to do so, as I realize that is also a useful tool. However, because of the recent change of having a document for each spell level the links will just go to the document that holds the spell and not the spell itself.
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I like what you have so far, but have a few suggestions:
- Detect Poison has an additional use: detecting poisonous creatures, even through walls. It's still not a very good cantrip though.
- Open-Close does not require the targeted object to be unattended. So backpacks and spell component pouches are fair game. As are codpieces or bodices.
- See Alignment has one advantage over Detect Evil: it shows actual alignments, not auras. So the 1HD cultists will show.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I like what you have so far, but have a few suggestions:
- Detect Poison has an additional use: detecting poisonous creatures, even through walls. It's still not a very good cantrip though.
- Open-Close does not require the targeted object to be unattended. So backpacks and spell component pouches are fair game. As are codpieces or bodices.
- See Alignment has one advantage over Detect Evil: it shows actual alignments, not auras. So the 1HD cultists will show.
Wow, those are great points! The open-close use on clothing is amusing. You might be able to use it to catch people with their pants down.
I think you rated Timely Inspiration too high. Immidiate action is good, but the bonus is very minor. And the biggest flaw is the bonus type: competence. The same bonus type granted by inspire courage and inspire competence. If you are in a combat and need a to hit bonus so badly that you think about using a spell for such a minor one-time bonus, cahnces are you use Inspire Courage anyway.
You should at least mention that. Also, the same applies to Gallant Inspiration.
inspire courage is morale