I had a similar post a while back. I was pointed to a great pod cast that discussed all of your questions. My take away was Words of power not better than normal casting just different and in many cases more versatile.
Believe the pod cast was called the gamers guide to pathfinder.
I had a similar post a while back. I was pointed to a great pod cast that discussed all of your questions. My take away was Words of power not better than normal casting just different and in many cases more versatile.
Believe the pod cast was called the gamers guide to pathfinder.
Thanks Mage Evolving!!!
The podcast we did is here: The Gamers' Guide to Words of Power
If you are interested you can find more episodes on other subjects at www.35privatesanctuary.com where we are one of several great podcasts on their gaming shelf. You could also subscribe through iTunes or if you would like I can post a direct feed.
Sean Mahoney
I had a similar post a while back. I was pointed to a great pod cast that discussed all of your questions. My take away was Words of power not better than normal casting just different and in many cases more versatile.
Believe the pod cast was called the gamers guide to pathfinder.
Thanks Mage Evolving!!!
The podcast we did is here: The Gamers' Guide to Words of Power
If you are interested you can find more episodes on other subjects at www.35privatesanctuary.com where we are one of several great podcasts on their gaming shelf. You could also subscribe through iTunes or if you would like I can post a direct feed.
Sean Mahoney
Sweet! listening to your take on the party loot and loving it.
I'm sure this has been debated back and forth before (so if anybody can point me to that thread i'd be grateful as I can't find it) but now that the Words of Power system has been out for a while what are the pros and cons of it compared to regular casting?
From what I can see it does offer a reasonable amount of versatility, especially for spontanious blaster casters in that they can adapt their magic to a greater degree to suit what they're facing, facing cold immune mobs? just swap out the cold word for an acid word, prepared casters can do the same but only to th extent that they can read their GMs mind and guess what they're likely to face.
But they seem to offer a significant number of disadvantages to the caster, all the targetting words have greatly reduced ranges if you don't use the boost word which bumps the spell level up dramatically, I believe the standard example is fireball vs 'burst fire blast' where without boosting the wordspell has a close range and a 10ft radius instead of a long range and a 20ft radius, an exact match isnt possible but to get the 20ft radius you have to boost the spell by 2 levels to spell level 5 and to get the long range (and a 40ft burst) you have to boost by 4 levels to spell level 7 (which is a fairly steep cost to do 10d6 of damage at 13th/14th level)
You are mis-reading the burst target word description (granted, the typo of "this effect word" instead of "this target word" didn't help). Normally, a burst wordspell is close range, affects a 10 ft radius, and is minimum level 1; using boost on the burst target word, the spell is medium range, affects a 20 ft radius, and is minumum level 3; alternately, a boost burst wordspell can be long range, affect a 40 ft radius, and is minimum level 5. So both the burst fire blast and the boost burst fire blast wordspells are 3rd-level (burst minimum 1, fire blast minimum 3; boost burst minimum 3, fire blast minimum 3).
Words of Power is a slightly "weaker" version of spellcasting that allows a greater degree of flexibility/power in some cases, while being less versatile than normal spellcasting. As stated, it's very good for spontaneous blasters (as well as controllers; they can both mix and match targeting and effect words to the circumstances at hand); since all wordcasters know all the targeting words for free, being able to cast a 1d4/level damaging spell (either electricity or fire) as a 10 ft burst at close range, a 10 ft cone, a 20 ft line, or touch spell/ranged touch (ray) spell at close range by learning one effect word at level 1 is actually a pretty good deal.
IMO, the flexibility from combining effect words at higher levels is really where the system shines. For example, frost fingers cramp as a 3rd level spell to do 5d6 cold damage (can be increased with Intensified Spell), with a save against the staggered condition and half movement for one round; depending on the target word, the damage may also be saved against for half damage.
If you look at the second example on page 165 the Selected Ice Blast Life Leech it starts off as a level 6 spell but says
A sorcerer or wizard can boost the target word to make this spell affect multiple targets but doing so increases the spell's overall level to 9The Selected targetting word does have a different wording to its boost effect in that it says "This boosted target word increases the level of all the effect words in the spell by 3 levels" compared to the "boosting this effect word increases its level by X" which all the others have, I just would have expected boost to affect all the targetting words in the same way.
I suppose Selected might have its own rules due to the fact that there are a significant number of effects which you just cant use with words like burst, cone or barrier so being able to extend them out to multiple targets is a huge boost to them which would come with a corresponding level increase but you could argue that doubling the radius of the burst spell ought to come at the same cost as you can use that to hit more targets.
A boost selected wordspell is very powerful: one target per caster level, without a limit other than "no two of which can be more than 30 feet apart." No chance of allies being caught in an area.
Ice blast and life leech are both 4th-level effect words. A boost selected ice blast life leech would raise both effect words to 7th-level. Per Table 4-1: Effect Word Combinations, that's a 9th-level wordspell.
I rather like the Words of power system, but it didn't go quite as far as I would have liked. The scope of a lot of words is quite limited especially when you want to combine words for new effects.
Over all thought I think it's a nice middle ground between the regular system and the True Sorcery System Green Ronin made.
I recently played a wop cleric in Carrion Crown. The standard action summonings (which I always boosted) and the ranged healing made for an interesting character. Yes, there were certain things I was not very good at dealing with, but overall it was a surprisingly powerful character.
I do disagree with most people though about WoP's versatality. It really isn't. Once you figure out what the "best" spells are at each level then that is all you will ever cast. For arcane types it's summons and then blasting, for divine types it's summons and then ranged healing. If a class doesn't have access to these words then it isn't really worth it.
I would like to see some additional words get released. I wonder, are WoP open for 3rd party to develop? Heck, how would I even find that out!
Pros:
More versatile with regards to damage type (especially for the spontanious casters)Cons
Short ranges and smaller AoEs unless they are boosted which puts up the spell level significantly
Similar effects are generally weaker for the same spell level
There are some spells that just can't be duplicated by words of power.
Some words start out at a higher level than their closest spell equivalentsEither/Or
Some spells gain versatility but lose damage
Some spells lose versatility but gain damage
That seems like a reasonable list, but I'd add one more "Pro" (as noted above):
And I'd add another few "Cons":
Pros:
-Versatile effects for Spont Casters, especially Sorcerors
-Some effects are unique to WoP (ranged cures that can crit, for example)
-Some unproduceable effects in standard casting are available in WoP (Mass Fly, etc.)
Cons:
-Limited possibilities due to lack of material converted (pretty much only Core Rulebook spells were converted)
-Bad for prepared casters, especially Wizards/Magi (the rules specifically call out that it's difficult for Wizards/Magi to locate additional Effect Words to copy into their spellbooks)
-Limited range on all spells without use of Boost, Reach Spell, Extend Spell, or the range increasing Meta Word (Long? Far? I can't remember what it's called)
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My group has a 9th level human cleric who casts spells the traditional way but has taken Experimental Spellcaster for every feat. Here are some pros and cons I've noticed, some of which are tied specifically to hybrid trad/WoP casters:
Pros:
Extremely versatile to the point of filling both the healer and blaster role in the party;
A player dedicated enough can make WoP spells that are better than their traditional counterparts;
Because the nature of WoP spells change every casting, the WoP player's turn takes twice as long because it is accompanied by an explanation of the spell every time.
Cons:
As a subsystem, there is more onus on the GM to understand the rules or on the player to use them correctly (and truthfully, depending on your player);
I often get confused between the playtest WoP and the published WoP.
There are some spells that just cant be duplicated by words of power
I just can't see this as a con. If you wanted to cast fireball and magic missile, why pick words of power as your spellcasting?
Anybody who has actually used this system in a live game care to chime in with how versatile it actually is in practice? Do you feel limited by the number of available words at lower levels?
I'm playing a level 2 Words of Power oracle at the moment. I think there's just barely enough level 1 words that are worth taking, but not enough so that I could create two completely different oracles out of it. Some of the level 1 words are just kind of lame (Radiance should be level 0, Fortify is a dud, Spook is a waste for a spontaneous caster).
I just can't see this as a con. If you wanted to cast fireball and magic missile, why pick words of power as your spellcasting?
The fact that the list of Words of Power spell effects for sorcerers is (almost) a strict subset of regular spell effects is a disadvantage.
Note that for other classes, there's less overlap between the list of WoP and non-WoP effects. For instance, druids get quite a few wordspells that aren't really on the normal druid spell list.
The main problem with WoP is that it doesn't have any of the Effect Word equivalents to compensate for 3 full source books of Vancian spells. APG, UM, and UC all have a ton of spells and none of them are covered by WoP. In all likelihood, WoP will not be expanded in official content, so a 3rd party publisher is probably going to have to take on that mantle, which raises that specter with the GM.
While many of the Effect Words look like direct rip-offs of existing spells, a couple are particularly good by comparison to normal. Corrosive Bolt, for example, can do ridiculous damage if properly supported with Intensify Spell (Metamagic feat) and the Lengthy Meta Word. If you Boost Selected with it, you can have a level 6 spell doing 10d4 per round for 4 rounds against as many targets as you feel like hitting with rays. Otherwise, it's a level 3 spell that does 10d4 per round for 4 rounds against 1 target as a ray.
By the way, it can crit and I haven't heard one way or the other as far as whether ALL the damage is doubled or if just round 1 is doubled. I challenge anyone to find a spell in Vancian casting that duplicates this. Moreover, I challenge someone to make a Crossblooded dip Blaster to maximize this. Yes, I know that violates my earlier post about Wizards not effectively utilizing WoP compared to Sorcerors.
There are real gems out there if you know where to look.
I challenge anyone to find a spell in Vancian casting that duplicates this.
If you're looking for a spell that allows you to fire one ray at each creature within a certain area, I think that's only a Words of Power thing. So you win, I guess.
If you're looking for a spell that can do damage each round for multiple rounds, there are a few spells like that (e.g. Ball Lightning from the APG).
There are real gems out there if you know where to look.
I don't think anyone is denying that there are some Words of Power spells that are better (in some aspects, at least) than their non-WoP equivalents.
I liked the concept of words of power, but thought that it was to Restricted being based spell levels.at low levels words of power are almost worthless. I think the words of power system would work better on a point buy system like 3.5 psionics. This would allow the versatility that words of power are supposed to grant.
I liked the concept of words of power, but thought that it was to Restricted being based spell levels.at low levels words of power are almost worthless. I think the words of power system would work better on a point buy system like 3.5 psionics. This would allow the versatility that words of power are supposed to grant.
May I direct you to Lock Ward, A.K.A. Brew Potion without the feat or level restriction (ok, ok, it caps at Effect level 7)?
I liked the concept of words of power, but thought that it was to Restricted being based spell levels.at low levels words of power are almost worthless. I think the words of power system would work better on a point buy system like 3.5 psionics. This would allow the versatility that words of power are supposed to grant.May I direct you to Lock Ward, A.K.A. Brew Potion without the feat or level restriction (ok, ok, it caps at Effect level 7)?
That would work as a great bridge until your high enough level to make use of words of power hmm..