RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I'd sure like to see Magic Missile get a revision. It's hands down the most powerful attack spell for all of the first level spells, and better than many second level spells too.
I strongly disagree with this. If anything MM needs a boost at lower caster levels and maybe a very slight tweak once you hit 9th level.
At levels 1-2, sleep, grease, and color spray are far superior to a single 1d4+1 damage. Once you hit level 3, then shocking grasp and burning hands do more damage, through level 6, and only at level 7 does MM come into its own. At level 9 it's certainly a better choice.
Compared to 2nd level attack spells, there aren't many, but scorching ray is way better than MM at all levels but 9-10, since by 11th level you get 3 rays for a 12d6 damage output, plus you can crit with them. Acid arrow is admittedly weak, but that's it's own problem - it should be moved to 1st level or have it's damage in subsequent rounds increased and shorten the duration.
As for MM, I would propose the following progression. At 1st level you get 2 missiles, with an additional one every 3 levels, so 3 at 4th level, 4 at 7th level, and 5 at 10th level.
Teleport: Don't directly "nerf" it, just add a handy high-level spell that diverts teleports from their intended target to a specified location. Give it a large area of effect and let your villains divert those teleporting into their demesnes into "more interesting" locations.
Detects: Give them a saving throw and a significantly expensive material component. I've always ruled that most people and creatures only radiate an alignment when they are intent on appropriate actions: The sinister necromancer may actually radiate good if you tested him while he was tucking his 7-year old into bed, while the virtuous paladin might show flickers of evil while he's contemplating vengeance against the rogue who stole his boots.
Teleport: Don't directly "nerf" it, just add a handy high-level spell that diverts teleports from their intended target to a specified location. Give it a large area of effect and let your villains divert those teleporting into their demesnes into "more interesting" locations.
Book of Eldritch Might has a number of 'mess with Teleport' spells that I'd personally love to see as variants of the base Teleport spell: Redirect Teleport, Block Teleport, Trace Teleport and a handfull of others.
Boy, do I ever disagree with this.
I'd like to see more HD based spells switch to work off hit points instead. The Power Word spells are a fantastic model for that type of work. There's a simple reason for this...
At the moment, for many spells, the wizard and the fighter have completely opposite goals. If the wizard has, for instance, Dominate Monster, then he wants that monster unharmed, so it will do the most good to the party if it fails its save. This is true of all save-or-die spells too - the wizard adds the most to the combat if the monster was undamaged before making its save. The fighter, I take for granted, has as his goal damaging all creatures he can...
Now, if spells were limited based on hit points, rather than hit dice, the two character types are suddenly working together. If those spells were limited by hit points, then the wizard might need the fighter to "whittle them down" until they're susceptible to his spells. Suddenly we have synergy.
Drew Garrett
The "fails above certain HD/hp" sounds good in theory, but the main problem is that characters generally don't know the true level/HD of a foe, making the timing of throwing those spells chancy. No one likes to waste a high level spell just to watch it auto-fail. It's not as disappointing if the target shrugs the effect off with a save.
I just dislike how the wizard has to metagame certain spells, "guessing" or using out-of-game knowledge of how powerful a creature might be (which-save-is-the-weakest is another metagame strategy I'd like to downplay, but I'll get what I can take). Besides, it rather sucks to not be able to throw something like a Circle of Death at anything level appropriate (a 6th level spell you get at 11th level that can't kill anything over 9 HD/levels? WTF?) and have the chance it might take out something.
I wonder if changing the HD/hp limits of some of the spells to effects based on amount save was failed by would be better (well, not for the ones that don't allow a save in the first place, but on maybe something like Color Spray - or maybe even Sleep (drowsy vs. asleep vs. sawing logs) and Hold Person (restricted attack/move vs. Held vs. Paralyzed)?
Also, put me in agreeance with upping the duration of Summon spells while lowering the casting time.
In regards to enlarge/reduce, I think these should simply affect any creature type...otherwise you're left asking why can a human get larger through magic, but a dragon, demon, etc. cannot?)
I agree wholeheartedly. I always thought it was ridiculous that other creature types wouldn't have developed similar spells. Add to that the necessity to waste space writing out monster abilities to duplicate these effects (see efreeti, for example).
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Everything save or die: Killing the BBEG in the second round of battle isn't fun. Being killed by one of his lieutenants the instant you come round a corner is also not.
The issue here is that *all* save or dies (or save or lose) spells and abilities need tweaked. If a Clerics Hold Person and Harm spells are going to be tweaked, then a Bodak's stare and a Basilisks gaze also should be tweaked.
All 'instant death' effects should drop the target to Dying (-1), IMO. Yes, they will kill you, but you can be saved.
Save or 'lose' spells, like Sleep, Color Spray, Hold Person, and effects, like Ghoul paralysis, should have saves to break free per round. That save might suck, if the DC is high, but it's not a free ride, just not a guaranteed 'lose.'
Other spells, intended to have a permanent nature, such as Bestow Curse and Flesh to Stone should have one immediate save, and then perhaps allow another save 24 hours later. (Or even every day if you want to further reduce their effectiveness.)
Summons: Agree that these spells should be x+1 round/level. Summoning for 1 or 2 rounds isn't fun. I always houserule 3+n rounds.
Instead of a houserule for one specific set of spells, it might be interesting to increase *all* /level spell durations by a base number of some sort, perhaps equal to the Int/Cha/Wis mod (as appropriate for a Wiz/Sor/Clr or Drd). So a 1st level Wizard with a 14 Int would get 2 free rounds for his Int mod of +2, and 1 round for his level.
Alternately, just throw out the /level paradigm and have all of these spells last a flat minute or something.
Permanency: Really wouldn't miss this one. Works for wizards with their spellbooks, but not for sorcerers.
With the more popular option to take permanant Detect Magic as a class ability or path option or whatever, I think it might be time for Permanancy to be retired. It's no longer needed for 'item enchantment,' and it's rapidly becoming obsolete for personal empowerment.
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Alter Self (for similar reasons as above - I think it should allow all sorts of minor features and visible appearance, but have a set limit on mechanic changes it allows - i.e. it can give +2 to natural armor, claw attacks that do 1d4 damage for medium casts, bite that does 1d6, and one of a list of extroninary abilities, like swim speed, climb speed, etc. These changes would remove the need to find the 'best' humanoid that can be changed into)
I think this is a great idea for alter self.
Alter Self
Transmutation
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level (D)You can make minor alterations to your physical form which last for the duration of the spell. When you cast this spell you gain one of the following special qualities:
- Physically alter yourself to resemble another humanoid creature of your size, your abilities do not change but to all outward appearances you are a creature of that race. If you are using this to disguise yourself as a specific creature you gain a +10 to disguise checks.
- Gain an enchantment bonus to Natural Armor of +1
- Your toes lengthen and webbing grows between your toes and fingers. You gain a swim speed of 30.
- Grow gills which enable you to breath water for the duration of the spell
- Grow claws which give you 2 primary natural attacks. These claws do 1d4 slashing damage + your strength bonus (1d3 for small creatures, and 1d6 for large) each and threaten on a 20.
- Your jaw extends giving you a bite attack which deals 1d6 damage
At 5th level and ever 5 levels after this you choose an additional ability from the above list, choosing the same one twice does not increase the benefit gained.
You can cast this spell to gain multiple effects but the benefits from any single effect do not stack.
Really... the list of alterations could be even larger than this. But IMO should be limited to at most duplicating the effects of a 1st level spell. I suggested Nat Armour +1 because barkskin which is second level grants a +2 bonus and this second level spell shouldn't be able to do what barkskin does PLUS a ton of other stuff.
Also, IMO this should be a possible druid spell also.
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I'd sure like to see Magic Missile get a revision. It's hands down the most powerful attack spell for all of the first level spells, and better than many second level spells too.I strongly disagree with this. If anything MM needs a boost at lower caster levels and maybe a very slight tweak once you hit 9th level.
At levels 1-2, sleep, grease, and color spray are far superior to a single 1d4+1 damage. Once you hit level 3, then shocking grasp and burning hands do more damage, through level 6, and only at level 7 does MM come into its own. At level 9 it's certainly a better choice.
I don't think it needs to be fixed either way. Since under the pathfinder RPG specialization rules most wizards gain an at will ability at first level which gives them a 'free' attack per round wizards at low level will likely skip MM as redundant and take more area effect/ utility spells.
At higher levels a caster might take this as his fallback/ damage anything spell but the damage isn't so high that it's devastating.
I have a house rule for Save or Die spells that has proven quite effective at removing the fun-kill effect.
When you are forced with a save or die effect you make a save. If you fail you are dropped to negative hit points equal to the amount by which you failed your save to a maximum of -9. So at the minimum you have 1 round to save your comrade from death after a death effect. The closer you are to making your save the better off you are. This is real damage that must be healed.
This has had the effect of increasing the tension when such a effect is used. Suddenly the party must scramble to save their dying friend rather than simply saying 'well, he's out until we have 10 minutes to raise him.'
My only other major modification is to alignment detection spells. They cannot detect actual alignment, but they can detect intention. That is they will not detect a murderer, but they will detect someone who is about to actively involved in committing a murder. Committing an evil act causes a lingering aura of evil on the person, but eventually they're just another person. Undead, evil clerics, evil outsiders, etc still detect as evil normally. Same things apply to other alignments (someone lying or stealing reads as chaotic, some one saving the innocent or being merciful as good, and so forth.)
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I like the save or die effects becoming save or go to -x hp. To further refine the concept, low level effects, like phantasmal killer could send you to -1, death spell could send you to -5, destruction to -7, and wail of the banshee to -9, etc.
This will actually make the many save or die effects a bit more varried than they are now, where you have a whole bunch of spells that if they work all do the same thing.
I think that Pathfinder should try to keep all the core spells and just fix what's broken. That being said:
1) A lot of people dislike how teleport etc. change the flavor of the game, so IMHO that's worth a sidebar on how to remove that family of spells
2) The same thing for detect spells, although Ravenloft may be your friend.
3) I think buffing falls into the broken/overcomplicated area. There's just too much difference between a buffed and unbuffed party after a certain level, and that doesn't feel in genre to me.
If there was some limit on the number of buffs a caster could sustain at one time, then that would limit buffing -and- simplify tracking duration. It isn't unbalancing if a 1st level mage wants to keep mage armor on all day, although the round-a-level spells like displacement are a different story.
My problem spells:
Forcecage - it should grant a reflex save, the same as wall of stone does if you try to trap someone.
Mage's Disjunction should be limited to Buff-b-Gon, and not have the ability to permanently a heap of magic items. That's a fun-eater, for sure. I house ruled it to be 1) an auto-dispel or 2) a targeted effect suppressing a single magic item for 10 minutes (Will save to resist)
The save-or-minus-x hit points is an interesting mechanic that I'll have to think about. I wouldn't cap the negative hit points at -9, though, so a really bad roll can still kill you, but that's just me.
I'd sure like to see Magic Missile get a revision. It's hands down the most powerful attack spell for all of the first level spells, and better than many second level spells too.
I agree that Magic Missile needs work. In my house rules it requires a touch attack if the target has any cover at all.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Kill/Gimp: Raise deadD&D 4e, for all of its flaws, fixed this one very, very nicely, I thought. I would say that the 3.5 version could be fixed in a very similar way.
4e states (from what I have read) that Raise Dead (and some other spells, for that matter) only work on those that have a "destiny" or "fate" or "<insert metaphysical explination here>" that remains unfulfilled. So if the rich and powerful noble is not "one of the chosen few" then raise dead just has no effect on him. Player Characters, by default, have this spark within them and can be raised...
How is this any different from 3.5? In 3.5, only those souls willing to come back can do so, which is just another way of saying that only if you had some greater destiny would you WANT to come back from the afterlife. Effectively, both systems put it firmly in the hands of the DM as to which characters can come back to life.