Director of Game Design
|
Hey there all,
I was going through the massive spell chapter over the weekend for the Beta and it occured to me that I have never asked you, the playtesters, about spells. So, here I am. What spells do you think need some work?
Here are the Rules!
- Try to keep it to one post per poster.
- This is not a thread to talk about the ideas of other posters. I just want your ideas.
- Feel free to list the spells and give a brief thought about what is wrong with each.
- This is not the place to talk about spells we have already worked on, or Save or Die spells, or Polymorph.
- Keep it civil. I am way to busy to wade through flame wars.
Alright.. Go!
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
|
Someone's mentioned this in another thread but I thought it worth mentioning here. Ranger Spells in Core are awful.
I've moved the rest of this post somewhere more appropriate. It's a bit off topic for this thread.
-- Dennis
|
Hey there all,
I was going through the massive spell chapter over the weekend for the Beta and it occured to me that I have never asked you, the playtesters, about spells. So, here I am. What spells do you think need some work?
Here are the Rules!
- Try to keep it to one post per poster.
- This is not a thread to talk about the ideas of other posters. I just want your ideas.
- Feel free to list the spells and give a brief thought about what is wrong with each.
- This is not the place to talk about spells we have already worked on, or Save or Die spells, or Polymorph.
- Keep it civil. I am way to busy to wade through flame wars.Alright.. Go!
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Phantasmal Killer & Weird (Can kill instantly making them more powerful than other previous SoD spells now)
Silent Image, Minor Image, Major Image, Persistent Image, Permanent Image & Programmed Image (I've always felt that these spells needed more clarification on what could and couldn't be created and what happens when they are interacted with. These spells have generally in our games relied heavily on DM adjucation. Would just be nice to have a clear idea on what can and can't be accomplished with an illusion.)
(don't have the p3 with me at work- please ignore if I mention a spell that's in it.. I'll edit it from home later)
Scry:
Why does the Wiz/Sorc version have such an expensive component with the druid's is free and the cleric's is only 10% the cost?
And: Clarification on whether or not other folks nearby can view through the pool/mirror/whatnot and see the scry?
Paladin Spell: Heal Mount
Wizards, Rangers, and Druids should
get a similar spell at fairly low level
that allows them to heal their familiar/companion.
Mage Armor:
Should be Abjuration.
Cause Fear:
the HD requirement should be removed for Necromancer Specialist wizards. (or perhaps graduated on some scale, to not make the spell worthless later on)
Scare:
Same treatment as Cause Fear.
Deep Slumber:
Should effect 10hd of Creatures, or One creature up to (caster level HD).
Summon/Binding/Gate (any spell that causes a creature to come to you from elsewhere, or bends a creature's SLA's to your will)
Insert a line or paragraph either stopping sla's that used to use Xp to cast, or to make them cast XP to the Summoner/binder whatever, to close that loophole..
The most thing I don't like about the spells is that the schools seem to be mixed around.
F.e. Mage armor as conjuration not abjuration
but especially healing as a subschool of conjuration instead of necromancy!
(which would make good/white necromancers more playable BTW)
Oh, and Jason: Thanks! Keep the good work going!
- DD
|
Invisibility and Greater Invisibility
A successful Perception check made by the observer against the invisible's creature Stealth check allows the observer a saving throw against the illusion. On a successful saving throw, the illusion is revealed to be false and the invisible creature appears as a translucent outline and gains concealment (20% miss chance). It regains total concealment and all the other benefits of invisibility on a successful Stealth check.
Note
The saving throw reintroduces consistency with other illusions.
The tweak reduces the very cheesy effect of attacking without uncloaking (greater invisibility) by giving the target a chance to spot for a brief moment the invisible attacker.
Enlarge Person needs to drop the "person" bit, and apply equally to all creature types. Beyond the fact that this limitation makes no sense, it will not require exceptions for monsters that rely on size alteration (like the efreet).
Ditto for its opposite, Reduce Person.
|
Reincarnate
- it causes headaches in the game
- turning into or out of LA races or racial HD races is a headache
- it's too crunch-intensive when you try to figure it out
I offered a suggestion in another thread after that part of the Alpha came out ...
Reincarnate
Transmutation
Level: Druid 4
Casting time: 10 minutes
Components: V, S, M, DF (1,000 gp oils)
Range: touch
Target: dead creature touched
Duration: instantaneous
Saving throw: none, see text;
Spell Resistance: yes (harmless)
With this spell, you bring back a dead creature in another body, provided that its death occurred no more than one week before the casting of the spell and the subject’s soul is free and willing to return. If the subject’s soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work; therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw.
Since the dead creature is returning in a new body, all physical ills and afflictions are repaired. The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature’s body still exists, it can be reincarnated, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death. The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand. This process takes 1 hour to complete. When the body is ready, the subject is reincarnated.
A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains its alignment, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The two highest ranked skills of the dead character grant the new body a +2 racial bonus to those skills, if the new incarnation did not have those bonuses already. The class that the reincarnated character had the most levels in becomes an additional favored class for the new incarnation. The new body is effectively a new character, except for the preceding effects.
For a humanoid creature, the new incarnation is determined using the following table. For nonhumanoid creatures, a similar table of creatures of the same type should be created. Roll below, and if you roll an incarnation with a starting level that is equal or higher to the dead character, roll again to ensure the new incarnation is at least one level lower than the previous creature. IF the dead creature is 1st level, and cannot roll an incarnation of a lower level, it suffers a -2 to its generated Constitution instead.
The new incarnation starts at its starting level, which includes any racial hit dice or at least one level in a given class, and levels up in class levels one level each day, until it reaches a level of one lower than the dead creature, at which point it can advance as normal, gaining experience points normally. It’s possible for the change in the subject’s ability scores or race to make it difficult for it to pursue its previous character class. Regardless, the character may choose any starting class or skill set as it is effectively a new character.
A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be returned to life by this spell. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be reincarnated. The spell cannot bring back a creature that has died of old age.
D% Incarnation Starting Level
01 Bugbear 4th (3 HD, 1 LA)
02-13 Dwarf 1st (1 class)
14-25 Elf 1st (1 class)
26 Gnoll 3rd (2 HD, 1 LA)
27-38 Gnome 1st (1 class)
39-42 Goblin 1st (1 class)
43-52 Half-elf 1st (1 class)
53-62 Half-orc 1st (1 class)
63-74 Halfling 1st (1 class)
75-89 Human 1st (1 class)
90-93 Kobold 1st (1 class)
94 Lizardfolk 3rd (2 HD, 1 LA)
95-98 Orc 1st (1 class)
99 Troglodyte 4th (2 HD, 2 LA)
00 Other (GM’s choice) Varies
The reincarnated creature gains all abilities associated with its new form, as it is a new character, including forms of movement and speeds, natural armor, natural attacks, extraordinary abilities, and the like.
A wish or a miracle spell can restore a reincarnated character to his or her original unchanged form.
Spell Schools got seriously messed up in 3.5, it's as if some decided that things needed to moved about and started doing so with a D8....
I'd really like to see this given some consideration and have the lists moved back to resemble 2nd Ed or 3.0 more closely. I think that this aspect of the magic system is a unique and important one and it wouldn't be D&D without spell schools.
More spells for the Paladin and Ranger would be welcome but is in no way an essential change for me and my group.
Peace,
tfad
|
|
Planar Binding/Planar Ally/Summon Monster/Gate
Summon Monster - The summon monster tree of spells is a bit underpowered at high levels. Once access is gained to either the Planar Ally or Planar Binding trees, Summon Monster becomes too superfluous and at the highest levels irrelevant. In the low to mid levels it works fine I think, but by the time you get to Summon Monster 6-9 the power of the creatures summoned just doesn't mesh with the level of the campaign. The strongest creatures on the 9th level list are probably the Elder Elementals which are CR 11 creatures when the caster is 17th-18th level. I know summoning creates wanky problems because of free spellcasting, but perhaps if you could put an option in at certain caster levels where you can get multiples of creatures on the same list instead of just lower level lists that would help. Then you don't have to ditch the core list of creatures but can allow a caster to have more of the creatures on the highest level version he can cast. Even introducing a feat that does this would have tremendous utility for dedicated summoner builds
Planar Binding/Planar Ally/Gate - The first issue with these spells is the XP costs to cast them. Since PFRPG is going away from XP costs for spells, these need to have something subbed in for the XP cost of doing so. Due to the lengthy casting time and chance for the creature to break free, the Binding spells are fine as written other than the XP costs. This is true of planar ally as well as there is a costly price paid by the characters in gold or quests to enlist the aid. Gate though is more problematic. Creatures called by gate should not be able to cast spells that cost XP freely for their summoner without any cost to that summoner. In addition, if you choose to use it to call one creature whose HD are equal to or less than double your caster level and assign it a task that takes no more than 1 round per caster level, then the creature automatically serves without any chance of breaking free or disobeying. The result is that you can use Gate to summon creatures more powerful than you are and force them to do your bidding with no chance of them refusing. I've seen this used in a battle to summon a pair of Solars with back to back spells. They then just sat back and fired slaying arrows at the BBEG until he failed a save.
I think the function of connecting two planes is fine, and I think the bargaining for long term service is in line with the Binding and Ally spells and doesn't need to be changed. That said, the ability to summon a creature of up to 40 HD and have it obey for 20 rounds without fail is a bit overpowered in my opinion even at 17th level. Perhaps just adding a saving throw to that function of the spell with a +4 to the DC if the task requested lines up with the creatures own goals (like summoning a Solar to fight a Demon Prince would result in the Solar being less likely or able to refuse). Another option would be to reduce the number of hit dice a character can summon for that specific purpose to 1 HD per caster level. In that way a 17th level wizard could use gate to call a Planetar that would do any task up to 17 rounds in length with no chance of refusal, but even at 20th level a wizard couldn't use the spell to gate in a Solar or an angel with class levels on top of everything else. My personal preference would be to reduce the hit dice the spell can effect for that purpose because I like the flavor of using your most powerful summoning magic to bring in a high level demon or angel or whatever. It is great flavor and fits well with that aspect of the game. You could also limit it by CR instead of by hit dice, but that creates other problems. Other than those issues 5000 xp cost needs to be fixed.
Mage Armor - Should probably be an Abjuration
Thats all that comes to mind right away. I will post again if I can think of anything else.
Fix Scrying and Teleport. Both of these used together can be campaign killers. Please nerf the range of Greater Teleport. Unlimited range is just too much. Magnificent Mansion lets you get out of trouble too easy. I'd like it to be eliminated or altered.
|
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
|
Several of my suggestions have been made earlier in the thread, but I'm going to summarize them to emphasize that I'd like to see them changed:
Sleep and Deep Slumber should not have a HD cap that's fixed, but should instead somehow be tied to caster level to give them more life at higher levels. Also, decide if spells should affect a certain number of HD of creatures or a number based off of caster level and be consistent - sleep and deep slumber - 4 or 10 HD, but calm animals is 2d4 + caster level.
Enlarge Person and Reduce Person should work on any corporeal creature type, to allow non-humanoid casters and targets the ability to magically change their size.
Even though it's in Alpha and you asked us to skip those, I have to second the request to provide better guidelines on reincarnate to address level adjustments gained and lost and racial abilities other than ability score modifiers.
Cause Fear and Scare should not have a HD cap tied to the spell itself, but should work on any creature - the higher HD creatures will have better saves and resist easier; that should be enough. This same principle should apply to all spells with a HD cap. If magic missile or burning hands can affect 20HD creatures, then why not all spells? As an alternative, make the HD cap tied to caster level - so that cause fear would affect a creature up to caster level +3 HD, scare up to caster level +4HD, etc. (Other spells in this group: Daze, Daze Monster, Hypnotic Pattern, Rainbow Pattern, and Scintillating Pattern.)
Bull's Strength, Mass, etc. - all of the mass versions of the ability booster spells should drop a spell level to level 5. They're simply not that great compared to 6th level spells, especially since many targets by that level will have items that grant an enhancement bonus - lowering them to 5th level would make them more likely to get some use. Another option would be to have them grant a +6 enhancement bonus to the ability score, which would often be greater than the ability enhancing items in the party - this option should probably be renamed Bull's Strength, Greater instead of Mass.
Clone needs to be updated to grant a permanent negative level instead of a level loss, similar to raise dead, etc.
Command and Greater Command should once again allow any word instead of the fixed list to allow for creative uses of the spells. Keep the 4 current options as options to define the standard effects, but allow alternatives to be used as adjudicated by the DM.
As mentioned on another thread, update consecrate, desecrate, hallow and unhallow to use the new channeling rules.
Change the school for contingency to either divination or universal (I can live with either).
Enervation should have a restriction that it cannot kill a creature - instead it makes them helpless for the duration of the spell if they have negative levels equal to or greater than their HD. This spell is designed to hamper, not kill - phantasmal killer is the same spell level and requires 2 saves to kill, this only needs a touch attack. It's not at all unreasonable that an enemy caster could have this spell and get a 4 on the d4 vs. a party of 4th level characters. If you want to kill someone via negative levels, you should need to use the 9th level spell energy drain.
Eyebite should lose the [Evil] descriptor - other spells that cause these effects aren't evil, why should Eyebite be?
Flaming Sphere should have the damage increased to 3d6 or change to reflex half instead of reflex negates. Scorching Ray is the same level and starts at 4d6 damage with a ranged touch attack and no save. Lower level damage spells like burning hands still get half damage on a save.
Hold Portal should have the duration increased to 10 min/level. This spell is pretty weak and could at least provide a decent duration. Alternately, make it a cantrip.
Ice Storm should have the damage increase with caster level to keep it more useful at higher levels. Perhaps 1d6 bludgeoning/2 caster levels (max 5d6) plus the 2d6 cold.
Phantom Steed should have its speed capped at 200 feet (at caster level 10). This would put it in line with other 3rd level spells with a cap, such as fireball and lightning bolt, and phantom steed is still the fastest thing in the game other than wind walking or shadow walking. (For nitpickers, teleportation effects don't grant a speed or speed bonus, though they do get you somewhere very quickly.)
Poison needs updating to work with the new poison rules. This also applies to other spell effects that cause poisoning, such as the various prismatic spells.
As other threads have mentioned, Polar Ray should get either a boost or a level reduction. Compared to Horrid Wilting, it does the same damage but only to one target instead of a whole area of effect. True it has no save and only a touch attack, but I think a carrier effect would be a nice addition - such as a -6 dex penalty, or encasing the target in ice that they need to break out of.
Regenerate is pretty weak, especially since there's no longer swords of sharpness in the game that remove limbs and require a regenerate to restore them. Either add in some effects that take off body parts, or find a way to boost the spell's other effects - maybe just make it work like the heal spell but it also will regrow lost body parts.
Wind Walk should provide a perception check with a DC equal to what the saving throw would be from the spell to determine if the subjects are mistaken for clouds instead of a flat 80% chance.
Gate, for sure. That 2x Hit Dice limit is absolutely insane.
Second place, Planar Binding (et al.). Using outsiders as a source of free money/power is a bad idea.
Hideous Laughter, Stinking Cloud and Solid Fog are maybe a little on the strong side, but they might be O.K. as-is.
Spiritual Weapon. It's a great spell, but the description is way too long. It should be such a simple effect, but it's so hard to determine what it does when looking it up during play.
Regenerate could probably be simplified and made into a 3rd- or 4th-level spell.
Summon Monster/Nature's Ally/Planar Ally - There should be a list of what monsters/animals that you can summon and no other monsters should be possible. This will enable these spells to actually be balanced, otherwise they suffer from all the same pitfalls that the polymorph spells do (too many monsters aren't properly balanced). In a similar vein, be sure to carefully examine what spells the monsters can cast as this is a common area for abuse (the unicorn is just one example).
Gate - Same deal. An 17th level character should not be able to command and control an ancient red dragon (CR 23!) and have his own actions on top of everything else. I suggest CR 13 as an appropriate power level of creature to summon with this power (though, again, it should be limited to a specific list of options).
Scorching Ray - Violates the rules for spell damage by level. I suggest 3d6 per ray, additional ray every three levels to a max of 3 at 9th level or leave it at 4d6 per ray but have it max at 2 rays.
Stat buff spells (Bear's Endurance, Bull's Str, etc) - We play these as adding 5 instead of 4 to give odd numbered stats a little extra boost.
Barkskin - Should be a natural armor bonus rather than an enhancement to natural armor bonus. This sort of AC inflation is not a good thing.
Blink - Either sneak attack should be clarified to not work with miss chances (blink gives your outgoing attacks miss chance not concealment) or blink should give everyone concealment against you. As currently written, the ring of blinking is essential to all rogues which is undesirable.
It would be helpful to have an official general specification indicating that versatile spells cannot duplicate or give access to effects normally created by spells of equal or higher level (except for illusions covered differently) or avoid paying the component costs of such spells (a la Limited Wish description).
Include the CMB in buff effects if applicable or specify that attack bonuses apply to CMB.
Include the text from “Bag of tricks”: “It can follow any of the commands described in the Handle Animal skill.” to the Summon Nature’s Ally description.
A list of Allowed creature for Planar Ally with type requisites and references to deities’ heralds would also help.
Include Vermin affecting spells, either specifically or included in Animal oriented spells.
More fluff for Arcane Mark.
Blade Barrier could be a little clearer.
Review Cantrips and Orisons to consider the “at will” situation.
Orisons given as 1st level spells to Paladins or Rangers could work “at will” when selected.
Info. for creating variants of energy type spells.
|
|
Summon XXXX I - The first level summons spells are almost worthless as written. The duration on the spells is too short at 1-3 level and by the time the duration is long enough the creatures that get summoned are nearly useless. Summon XXXX II is slightly better but suffers from much the same issues. I suggest making the duration 1 round/ level -OR- Concentration + 1 round. Higher level spell casters will use the 1 rnd/ level and lower level casters can use the concentration version.
Rope Trick - The spell is too powerful the level it is. Maybe if the rope stayed in place to anchor the dimension (thus it was detectable and assailable) then it would be more reasonable.
Flaming Sphere - Too weak for the level it is... darned near worthless.
Darkness - Not very worthwhile, as written maybe it should be rolled into fog cloud spell.
Magic schools are far from balanced and much doesn't make sense. The Enchantment School is just pitiful. It should be broken up to boost other fairly weak schools of magic (Abjur, Divination, and Illusion) or vise versa.
Sorry to add a second post, but I just realized this one:
1) No mixing of 0 and 1st level spells for rangers and paladins!
give them orisons like every other class. This won't affect the balance and will make casting more fun for this classes!
2) Review the cleric/druid spells and add those which aren't SOLELY/OBVIOUSLY/CLEARLY divine spells (like divine power f.e.) and wouldn't blur the line to much to the sorcerer/wizard list.
(Why the heck can't a necromancer cast death watch?!)
|
|
A few suggestions for spells that need tweaks (spoiler tag):
Aid/Bless: My players always look up in confusion when I state the attack bonus doesn't stack. If a cleric takes up two spell slots for these spells, they should get something in return. One of them should be a different bonus.
[Divine] Water: All the alignment quadrants should be available in one spell entry (holy, unholy, chaotic, lawful). This might avoid any OGL problems with anarchic/axiomatic water spells.
Color Spray: Not something wrong with Color Spray per se, but why is it the only first level "status" spell with no upper HD limit? Maybe some others like Cause Fear and Sleep should get an upper-HD minor effect. As it stands, Color Spray is too attractive an option.
Disintegrate: To differentiate this spell from Disintegrate or Destruction, maybe one could do Con damage to living creatures (1d4/2 caster levels seems reasonable - that would kill most creatures at 20th level).
Magic Circle: The casting time should increase to full-round. That would get rid of the problem of tracing a 3-foot circle on the ground in less than 6 seconds.
Find the Path: I have suggested this on another thread, but change the material component to include something valuable or related to the target location.
One overall comment is that most of the 1 min or 10 minute per level durations could be extended (along the lines of 3.0). I would hope Monte would agree with this, as it eliminates a lot of the bookkeeping problems that many people have with 3.X.
|
|
Enlarge Person needs to drop the "person" bit, and apply equally to all creature types. Beyond the fact that this limitation makes no sense, it will not require exceptions for monsters that rely on size alteration (like the efreet).
Ditto for its opposite, Reduce Person.
Enlarge Person is no longer as good as it once was - thanks to the CMB only giving a +1 for being Large.
This is a change I feel needs to be to the CMB - large to have +2 (and all sizes in increments of 2 - huge 4, etc).
Then this spell is fine again, IMO.
Robert
|
|
Previously mentioned spells that I would like to completely agree with:
The monster summoning is pretty weak. The CR of creatures being summoned by 12th level casters is far below what would ordinarily be a threat to a creature that a 12th level party is facing (typically.)
Summon Monster etc to have a fixed and specific creatures it can summon (and no others) will make the planning for these spells much easier to ajudicate.
Bull Str. Mass - etc - level 5 is more appropriate than level 6. By that level MOST have a Str.Enhancing item anyway.
Darkness.
Things I don't necessarily agree with:
I'm sure Mage Armor in Conjuration is as much for "balance" as it was for assuming it belongs in Abjuration vs Conjuration. If it's for balance, I can swallow it being in conjuration since you are conjuring a force-field (much like Wall of Force) around you.
Barkskin giving a bonus rather than enhancement as someone suggested only exacerbates the stacking problem - because amulets of natural armor provide and Enhancement bonus to natural armor. If you change the spell, then someone could benefit from stacking the amulet and the spell. Not a good idea.
My own spell suggestions that need revisted are:
1) PF is already address Polymorph (good job).
2) PF is already addressing many of the save-or-die spells. - I think thats a good idea and there's a big thread on that - I feel instead of switching them to damage (only) as Alpha3 did, to make them have multiple save or die (such as Phantasmal Killer). Fort save first - failure means damage. Next round Will save to fight off the clinging magic - failure means death - save means no further effect.
3) Haste!! By far the most popular 3rd level spell is Haste. Its chosen and used by just about every wizard I've ever seen played (and many party sorcerers, too). No other spell provides +1 To Hit, Reflex Saves, AC, and Intitiative AND an extra attack to several people with just one casting. It affects too many people. I limit it to 1 person per 3 caster levels. For the record, even WITH that change - it is still the most memorized and cast spell in the wizards repertoire in my Shackled City game. In fact, the sorcerer has it, too and they take turns casting it. That validates how potent it is.
4) Ray of Enfeeblement is way broken for a first level spell. 1d6+5 max is still too much. I had a 10th level caster empowering that all the time. A roll of a 6 was 16 points of strength for effectively for a 3rd level spell!!! After just a ranged touch attack (which means it rarely misses) and no saving throw allowed. I changed the spell long ago - 1d3 + 1/3 levels. (6 pts max at 9th level - empowered to 9 pts).
5) Detect Evil etc. Nothing causes more headaches (as DM) than this spell getting used - detecting the slightest bit of evilness. Paladins in the party exacerbate this issue (and this is coming from a BIG-time paladin lover). Its hard for DMs to keep 'secrets' from the party when its so easy to detect one's alignment. It forces a lot of DM Fiats to not spoil the truth too early in an adventure. I've house-ruled this long ago - that ONLY those creatures that have "Auras" and/or "Evil" descriptors are the only ones who are detectable by these types of spells. Thus evil outsiders, evil clerics, etc are detectable. But the City Guardsman who is sitting at the bar contemplating going out and cheating on his wife being detected as evil is simply too much for a 1st level spell. Thus rabble, goblins, kobolds, etc are not detectable as evil. Sure their cruel and mean, but not "EVIL" which IMO is inherent and truly something to be feared - thus devils and demons are evil - and some other creature PF wishes to add the "evil" descriptor to it - dragons, maybe...?
6) If we're going outside SRD for a moment - the ORB spells are too lucractive as they deny saving throws AND Spell resistance. Allow the latter if you're including them. Most casters love to have them for this reason.
As for spellcasting feats:
Maximize Spell needs to only be 2 levels higher - not 3. Often, Empower Spell is a better option and potentially does more. Both being 2 spells higher gives the caster the choice to go for the "guaranteed" full max damage, or the POTENTIAL of possibly doing more than maximum with a good roll. Finally using them in concert with one another - raising the spell by 4 levels is perfect for Max damage times 1.5 (90 for a 10th level fireball cast as a 7th level spell seems appropriate - considering by that level the number of creatures with energy resistance, good saves aginst a 3rd level DC etc) - yes at that point it would do more than Delayed Blast, but the DC for that spell would be 4 higher, ensuring more people fail and multiclassed rogues without true evasion yet would still take full damage with their failed save.
Robert
Having Darkness create darkness again is great, but having it countered by normal light and darkvision causes some problems to my way of thinking. I understand effectively blinding subjects of the spell can be pretty powerful without some balancing factors, but here were some ideas I had for this:
1. The caster always has concealment while in the area of effect of the spell. This gives casters fighting beings with darkvision a reason to still cast the spell.
2. If normal light sources affect darkness, let them shift it from true darkness to the "shadowy illumination" of the old spell, meaning that instead of being completely blind in the darkness, a character with a light source just has to deal with concealment.
|
|
Having Darkness create darkness again is great, but having it countered by normal light and darkvision causes some problems to my way of thinking. I understand effectively blinding subjects of the spell can be pretty powerful without some balancing factors, but here were some ideas I had for this:
How about that even characters with darkvision are blind for one round while their sight adjusts (like walking into broad daylight after spending all day in the basement playing D&D)?
|
|
Teleport/Dimension Door/Other Teleportation Effects
If not modifying the spells, set a series of baselines so that all "Conjuration (Teleportation)" spells act the same and fail the same. Blow a teleport and Die, blow a Dimension Door and take 1d6 damage...
And what happens if you blow a Dimensional Step?
BTW, what kind of action is Dimensional Steps?
I will explain why this bugs me in the spoiler if you care.
I never really thought about the rules for teleport and didn't really link Dimension Door to Teleport mechanically but I now have to. I have an Eberron campaign with 2 marked Oriens one of which is a blade. They constantly do stupid cool but stupid things with Dimensional Leap and their other powers. Both are greater marks and the blade is up to 4 or 5 DLs every day. We have had to address repeatedly questions like:
- Can I teleport by Dead Reckoning? Dimension Door says yes, Telport says no.
Can I teleport into thin air?
Can I teleport into Water? Snow? Rain?
Does Teleportation make noise?
What happens if someone is standing where I teleport?
What if someone moved the furniture?
It took 6 pages of house rules including a List of Orien "laws" of teleportation to bring it under control. I had to tell them these "laws" have been beaten into you since you were children on the off chance you did develop a dimensional mark. (you can't, not train the children, or half of them kill themselves the first time they gain their mark powers) and to deliberately go against them requires a WIL save. Kept them from trying really stupid things except on special occasions.
I think if we start with a paragraph or 2 of "this is how teleport effects work" we can save everyone or just me, a lot of grief.
I have always felt that illusionary/phantasm spells are so weak. I love the Trickster/Illusionist, but there has always been a poor result from casting that line of spells. Honestly I would like to see that path fixed or defined a little better.
|
|
I can think of a few spells that could use a little tweaking. The problem more often then not is if any fix wouldn’t break backward compatibility. Still, I’ll list my thoughts and let “The Man” decide :)
1) My players and I really hate the “Spike Stones” spell and find it overpowered. Here we have a 4th level spell that does 1d8 of damage per 5 feet of movement, without any save, and that lasts 1 hour per level. But, the worst of it all is that it is invisible. You need to be a rogue (and a good one at that) to spot the effect. This makes it that much harder to dispel or know where to run to go around it. Granted, this spell only on stone floor and rocky ground… but isn’t that your average dungeon dressing? I believe that at the very least, a reflex save should be allowed to negate damage.
2) We don’t like the “Silence” spell because it is so powerful.
(a) There is no saving throw for the “area” version of the spell, so if you can corner the greatest BBEG caster, you can cut him/her in pieces. That sounds somewhat akin to the complains about PCs using grapple a bit too much.
(b) From a role-playing point of view, my group has too often been deprived of a climactic speech because of that spell. That sounds like a weak argument, but when every single final fight ends in complete silence, it can leave a bad taste in the mouth.
This is an example of a spell that is hard to change for backward compatibility reason. I was thinking of making it more like a “dampening sound sphere” which would still make spell casting possible given a Spellcraft check, but that’s not the iconic “Silent” spell people know…
3) I find that Charm Person is in a way the most powerful 1st level spell. It can turn the most hated enemy into your best buddy. I was thinking the following fix might be acceptable: upon success, it increases the attitude of the target by two levels towards helpful. So a complete stranger (indifferent) would look at you as his best buddy, while making the evil orc who was trying to torture you a minute ago not care so much anymore… In other words it gives a free DC 20 diplomacy check. From there, of course one could work more diplomacy and increase the attitude level some more with a good old skill check.
4) Find Trap lets the Cleric use his (probably abysmally low) search/perception check (+1/2 his level insight bonus) to look for traps. When comparing this with a spell like Detect Secret Door (1st level spell compared to 2nd level spell), it makes me believe there’s room here for improvement…
5) I find that some useful low level spell should have higher level counterparts. Take for example Mage Armor or Bless. I could see a level 4 spell, say, called Greater Mage Armor that acts like the 1st level version of the spell, only giving a +8 instead.
6) With PF RPG 0th level spell being at will now, maybe there should be a clear statement as to how one applies meta-magic to those spells. I believe it is straightforward (it starts taking a spell slot like it did in 3.5), but maybe it is worth clarifying.
7) I agree with a previous post here that the Summon Monster Spell has too short a duration at level 1. Maybe making the duration something more along the lines of 5 rounds + 1 per 2 caster level would make more sense.
8) Again already mentioned: the Rope Trick spell that encourages the 5 minutes adventuring day (blast, rope trick, sleep without risk of being interumpted in your rest, repeat).
9) My last point is not so much about a spell in particular; it has more to do with making things clear in the area of “enhancement”. I believe it would be a good thing if PFRPG PHB could contain a clear list of the different types of enhancements out there. Then, by clearly labeling each buff spell (by an extra header info line, or italizing in the spell description), it would make it transparent to the players that, say, Protection from Evil does not stack with a ring of protection, but Bless and Prayer bonuses stack…
That’s it for my 2 coppers.
Good luck in making your Friday the 13th deadline, Jason !!!
My thoughts go out to you.
|
Summon XXX spells:
Increase duration to 1 minute per level. Avoids the uselessness of SMI/SMII at low levels, let's higher level summoners actually summon something before combat, instead of wasting a full round action in the heat of combat. Also, allow customization of the summon lists, with CR guidelines instead of short lists. Clerics already have their lists truncated by alignment restrictions, and CR guidelines (with templates for variation) allow new monsters from future works to be retrofitted into the lists.
(As an aside, IMC I have linked these to Knowledge skills, Religion for clerics, the Planes for arcane casters, Nature for Druids. The number of creatures on a casters spell list that he can summon for each level of spell is equal to his ranks in the appropriate skill minus the level of the spell. So a druid with 6 ranks in Knowledge Nature can have 5 summonable creatures on his Summon Nature's Ally I list, 4 on his SNAII list, 3 on his SNAIII list, etc etc. I furthermore let casters customize this list by CR, with clerics using the alignment templates (celestial, fiendish, anarchaic, or axiomatic), arcane casters using elemental templates (air earth fire or water) and druids getting non-templated critters and fey instead of outsiders like the other two. This requires more work, obviously, but the ability to use templates and custom lists adds SO much more to summoners).
Silent Image and derivitives:
All of the illusion spells like this need hard clarification as to what can effectively be created. Either 2HD/CL worth of critters, or tie it to a skill (Craft: Illusion? Profession: Illusionist?). Hard and fast rules about what constitutes interacting with an illusion, plus some guidelines for creating more or less believable illusions perhaps altering the save for each. I'd be happy with letting them do subdual damage if believed, but that's just me.
Hold Person:
Get rid of the save every round thing. If Hideous Laughter doesn't let you resave every round, this one shouldn't either.
Dimension Door:
Make everyone disoriented when using it, not just the caster.
Teleport:
Give it a much longer casting time. Or require the caster having had to actually been at his intended destination previously. Or make it higher level. Or SOMETHING. Personally, I feel there should be high level spells introduced that block teleportation across it's boundaries entirely, for loooong periods of time, as well as those that automatically divert teleporters to another area, or bounce them back out (with scrambling).
Scry:
Like Teleport, make some high level, area of effect spells that totally bar scrying within its boundaries. All heads of state/church patriarchs/BBEGs should have a basic, more-or-less permenant defense against the Scry-Buff-'Port-Kill tactic.
Globe of Invulnerability:
Clean this up. In previous editions, it was pretty straightforward. In 3.x's legalese, it's a nightmare. "So my Bull's Strength works inside the Globe?" "Depends, was it cast on you before you entered the Globe? Then no. Oh it was cast on you after you entered the Globe? Then yes" "What about Magic Missile, can I cast it through the Globe?" "From outside, to in? No. From outside to outside passing through the Globe? No. From inside the Globe out? Yes." etc etc.
Mass Cure Light Wounds:
If the current version of "Turn Undead" sticks around, then this spell is a dog. Let's see, I can Raise the Dead, or cast a spell that isn't as good as the healing I was doing 5 levels ago with my channel energy ability that I can do a half dozen times a day. Gee, decisions, decisions....
Disintegrate:
Please make this spell actually Disintigrate foes. Yeah, save or die isn't making the cut, but they nerfed this one in 3.5 into oblivion. The damage output is pathetic for it's level, and the save keeps anyone from actually being disintegrated. The option of instantly killing a BBEG is pretty much outweighed by the loss of gear the foe might have on their person in most cases. Maybe find another way of keeping it from being the ruiner of BBEMs (Big Bad Evil Minions).
Polymorph:
I love what has been done with the new line of spells, except for one thing: Sorcerers get screwed with the new rules. When once, a single 4th level spell was incredibly useful (by way of it's variability), now it's a one-trick pony. There needs to be a "Shapechange Lite" version that lets you assume one of several different form types, to recapture some of the variety previously available.
Animal Shape X:
Why is this not on the druid spell lists??
Darkness:
Yes, it needs to be actual darkness, not "shadowy illumination", but what good is it if you can negate it with a match? Kinda like saying the entire world is under a permenant Darkness effect, but somebody circled the globe with a torch and negated it. ??? So long as it isn't a disbelieveable illusion, total REAL darkness shouldn't be a problem.
Silent Image of a Fog Cloud:
This loophole needs to go away. For those who are unaware, you can cast Silent Image to look like a Fog Cloud, except that since you can see through illusions if you make your save, everyone in the party will be able to see through it but foes outside of it won't, until the "interact" with it. In essence, Silent Image makes a better fog cloud than Fog Cloud.
Prismatic Stuff:
If save or die is going away (and I don't think it should), then these have to be looked at.
That's all I have for now, but I'll go home and pontificate on it some more.
Regarding Domain and School first-level abilities (not spells, I know, but this seemed the best place for this).
Many of the first-level domains and schools have a Su ability that allows an attack roll for 1d6+(1/2CL) damage. These have to be activated as a Standard action, so allow for no iterative attacks. Some of them (Plant Domain) allow you the ongoing ability to deal extra damage without provoking on all attacks.
I'd like to see these act more consistently. I'd prefer to have each of these abilities usable as a normal ranged/touch attack rather than as a Standard action. This would make these abilities viable even at higher levels where a 12th-level caster would get two attacks for 1d6+6 damage each, which is not overpowered. Even a 20th-level cleric would only get three attacks for 1d6+10, which is not very impressive at that level.
Other Suggestions:
Detect Evil (and others) should only detect auras (per the cleric ability). This should be paladins, clerics, outsiders, undead, spells, and magic items with an evil aura. An evil fighter does not radiate as evil in any of my home games, and I think this should be specified in the spell description.
Reincarnate. What a pain this spell is... Please don't spend a lot of time on this one, as I find it always gets house-ruled to what the DM wants, anyway. A mention of what happens if you get a form with LA is in order (I vote to ignore the LA and play on with the form - there should be a good to outweigh the risk in this spell). I also think that something should be done with the new human/half-elf +2 to any ability bonus. Should this be ignored if you Reincarnate into one of these forms? It should also specifically say what happens with feats, particularly racial bonus feats, both for the form you "leave" and the form you "enter".
Thanks!
-Scott
Ray of Enfeeblement: Strongly Brokenerated for first level. I can see this being at least a 3rd or 4th level spell.
Otto's Irresistable Dance: Is a horrible boss-killer. One sucessful touch attack and a win against SR and anybody is effectively dead as the party gets several rounds to gank him with full attacks while he can't do anything to defend himself. Considering that Power Word Stun is the same level for Sorcs/Wizards and only affects creatures with 150 HP or less, something is seriously wrong here. I wouldn't mind seeing this spell leave alltogether.
Glibness: Dear gods I hate this spell. Either the bonus is too high, or the circumstance mod for absurdity is too low. This spell alone gives you such a high bonus, your bard can easily hit the 50s mark for bluff checks at level 7. This means you can convince just about anybody of a lie "way out there, almost too unbelieveable to even consider". Tack on that the lie can't be magically detected, and you have a horrible problem on your hands.
Greater Magic Weapon: This is painful for me to write. On one hand, I really *like* greater magic weapon as a spell. But it has always had the problem of -why would anybody bother getting a +4 sword instead of a +1 flaming, shocking, frost sword when GMW is around to give you the bonuses for one spell slot. Also this is a MAJOR issue in your system because of the way you're doing damage reduction. All of a sudden, GMW is letting you get by just about all types of damage reduction, in addition to its already amazing effects.
Fire Seeds: Easily the equivalent of Polar Ray, but 2 levels lower. We've had some real problems with this spell, essentially if there is a druid in the party, the druid can blow his 6th level spells on fire seeds as many times as s/he wants choosing max d6 fire bombs each time, then give them to a sorcerer/wizard. The wizard then hurls these at the enemy with telekenesis. End 20th level result: 15 touch attacks, if they all hit, (and overcome SR) 300d6 points of fire damaage in one glorious standard action. Add Empowered or Maximized Fire Seeds for additional effect. And while we're at it....
Telekenesis: So they're no druid in the party? No problem. A wizard can simply buy/create a bunch of Alchemists Fire or Acid or soemthing and use them instead. (use quickdraw and handy haversack) That's almost as good anyway because there's not even any SR against that. If using Alch Fire, 15d6 damage on the first round, and burn for 15d6 the following round.
Holy Word/Etc: Finally, I was a bit saddened by what you did with Holy Word/Blasphemy/etc. Namely, you added a save. I feel that if you add a save agaisnt it, than a HD cap is no longer necessary. I would like to see the HD dependent benifits changed a bit. Perhaps you could word it so that on a failed save, the first (and weakest) effect still happens, regardless of how many HD the target has relative to your caster level.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
|
First off, I would like to request that in the interest of backwards compatibility, spells should not change level. If it's a choice between changing the effect of a spell and bumping it up or down in level, keep the existing level, please!
That said, my suggestions:
Cure spells should be Necromancy; Mage Armour should be abjuration.
Also on the subject of Cures, if they're used to attack undead, they require both a touch attack and a save. I would get rid of one of them (probably the save).
Virtue is rather useless; 1 hit point is too little to be worth anything. On the other hand, with infinite orisons, any more could be a problem.
Haste should probably only affect one person at a time
I'd like to see Arcane Mark become somewhat more flexible and allow you to write or draw whatever you want.
Invisibility seems way too useful for a 2nd level spell. I would add some way for the person to be detected anyway; remember in The Hobbit Bilbo still cast a faint shadow when he was wearing the Ring? Something like that would be helpful.
I'd like to see spells like Sleep stay somewhat relevant at higher levels. Perhaps a creature over the HD limit would become Fatigued?
Darkness now seems a little too easy to defeat. I would say that the spell should still grant concealment even if there is a light source in the area.
|
|
First off, I would like to request that in the interest of backwards compatibility, spells should not change level. If it's a choice between changing the effect of a spell and bumping it up or down in level, keep the existing level, please!
For the most part I agree with this. I'm not opposed to a spell that changes level if there's no other way to change it's effect; but I think that the onus should be on trying to change the effect before thinking to change the level.
The only spell I saw and agreed as a suggestion to change the level are the mass - ability buff spells lowered to 5th level.
Robert
|
|
Another thing I've never appreciated as DM - and I make get a lot of flack form this, but:
I really really wish that "detect" spells such as Evil and Magic should NOT be able to detect through solid barriers. I dont' care that it can only penetrate 3ft of wood....who has 5' wide wooden walls, coffins, chests, dressers, desks etc!!!
Perhaps a higher level spell (3rd) MAY be able to penetrate barriers- but these low level and often "at will" spells are just too thwarting IMO.
Robert
I just want to point out that I feel these spells are much more powerful for their level than it appears. Detect Magic, for example, can be used to detect invisible attackers and Arcane Sight can do the same, even though that is not the design intent of the spells. Illusions can also thus be detected. The spells can also tell whether somebody is enchanted or not and so on. The potency of these spells is further enhanced by the Pathfinder RPG rules that 0th level spells can be cast at will, since detect magic is a 0th level spell.
I think the solution to this problem would be to require an opposed caster level check to detect magic if the original caster wants to hide the spell from such detection. Specialists could get a bonus on the caster level check both on hiding and on detection when it pertains to their chosen school of magic.
I could also envision something like modifying the strength of the detectable aura by one step for specialist wizards casting spells from their chosen school if they so desire. So a weak aura would become undetectable (or perhaps faint aura) if shifted downwards or a moderate aura if shifted upwards. A moderate aura, by contrast, could be changed into a strong aura or a weak aura. If not for all specialists, an ability of this nature would be particularly appropriate for Illusionists or perhaps Enchanters.
I should also mention that caster level checks could potentially also be used to mitigate the use of other 'detect' spells, such as detect evil.
I would like to see many spells go back toward the 3.0 spell duration myself. That is one of the key factors in the 15 minute adventure day.
The entire CURE family, specifically CLW:
Problem:
At low levels, when the party's healing resources are limited, CLW can be little more than a band-aid, especially when the cleric blows his die roll.
At level one, spell slots are at a premium, and healing spells are at their least reliable (being very dependent on random numbers). Thus there is a higher chance than at any other point in the game that all of a cleric's spells will be used for healing . . . and that's no fun for the cleric.
Possible Solution
Maximize the first die of all healing spells. CLW heals 8+level hp, CMW 1d8 + 8 + level, CSW 2d8 + 8 + level, and so on.
This has the added bonus of allowing any healing spell to reliably pop characters in the negatives back to fighting shape, even from -9, eliminating much of the problem of 3.x's "negative HP debt", but keeping the death mechanic intact.
I like the idea of at will orisons and cantrips, but I'm a little skeptical about a few of them. I know cure minor was axed, but the spells create water, purify food and drink, resistance, and virtue also don't seem like they should be unlimited. With unlimited create water and purify, you've pretty much just ended drought and disease in the campaign world. With resistance and virtue, you might as well just say that everyone in the party has +1 hp and +1 to save all the time, and that the casters are poking them constantly to make sure of it.
There are two changes off the top of my head:
1) Magic Missile: Allow additional missiles above 9th level. For example, a 13th level caster would fire 7 missiles.
2) Summon Monster Spells: Expand these lists. Evil casters have a distinct advantage in their summoning choices. While the rules do not state that a good character cannot summon an evil creature, such a character would hesitate greatly in doing so as he would not wish to bring evil into the world, even if it is temporary.
Better yet, on the summoning spells create rules for the DMs and players to create their own lists. CRs for each level of summoning do not seem to be set in stone. There should be some kind of guidelines to follow on this on how to determine the CR that is acceptable for a given summoning level.
I know I’m not supposed to double-dip but I think these may be useful:
Limited Wish / Wish: Extra component costs for duplicating spells with expensive components should be paid in diamond dust to keep the spells versatile.
Magic Item permanent alteration spells: With long casting times these different spells could adapt size, modify weapon type (staying in the same base melee/ranged/missile type) and (in the case of divine spells) re-habilitate evil items into good versions (or vice versa) a little like bells from captured cities would be reforged in the invaders’ capital or even church. This could solve some equipment size problems and could limit the shopping or hiring for magic items.
Just thought of this one . . . you may want to spell out that Eschew Materials doesn't get rid of the need for a bit of the creature you are turning into with the new polymorph replacement spells. A piece of some exotic animal may be considered expensive, but still, spelling it out would be good.