I'm sure upon reading the title you thought oh no! Broken!
But if this was the baseline effect for all spells of the evocation school, no matter your class, how do you think that would change the game?
Would it make people actually play evokers as an effective choice rather than just for fun?
What unexpected glitches might come out of this?
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I'm sure upon reading the title you thought oh no! Broken!
But if this was the baseline effect for all spells of the evocation school, no matter your class, how do you think that would change the game?
Would it make people actually play evokers as an effective choice rather than just for fun?
What unexpected glitches might come out of this?
To make the specialist Evoker a little more 'extra' in such a scenario, I'd be inclined to make Intense Spells work kinda like the Toughness feat, granting a bonus to damage equal to the Evoker level, or the Int modifier, whichever is *most.* Thus, even a 1st level Evoker with 16 Int would get a +3 damage with that magic missile, and when he hit 4th level, it would start progressing to +4 and up.
I've got no beef with a buff to the evocation spells. In 1st edition, fireball, lightning bolt and magic missile did the exact same damage (or more, as some weren't capped at 10d6), and the toughest red dragon had 88 hit points. By 3.5, that same dragon had 660 hit points, spell resistance, and a better chance of saving.
I'd look carefully at the evocation spells that do tend to get a lot of play in specialist builds, like magic missile and scorching ray, to make sure that they don't get a bit over the top. That first 'free empowered' scorching ray at 6d6 is gonna be an eye-opener at 3rd level, and I'm not sure if that will be the good sort of eye-opener (woo-hoo, Sparky blew someone out of his boots! The wizard feels his oats!) or the bad sort of eye-opener (whaddya mean, twin empowered arcane thesised split scorching ray?).
Still, as the last example indicates, quite a bit of the scariness comes from stuff like Twin Spell, Split Ray and Arcane Thesis (or the Argent Savant / Force Missile Mage PrCs), which aren't as readily available in a pure PF game (or might be easier to take as a trait, in the case of Arcane Thesis...).
Why not for the spells that doesn't allow a Saving Throw?
I.e. Polar Ray, a 8th level spell that requires a ranged touch attack and deals the amazing ammount of 1d6 cold damage per level. Oh, drains 1d4 Dexterity points and has a cap of 25d6.
I have seen that some new metamagic feats from the APG help the Evoker to deal more damage, but someone else will explain it better.
The idea is not to give it just to the evoker wizard, but to any and all characters that decide to throw a spell made to do damage. Some sorcerers like to blast, too. Clerics as well. Maybe even some of the non-evocation blaster spells need a boost.
My first tought was "why?", not "broken". It would produce some more casters, but I still wouldn't want to play one.
I tought it was great, that now Damage-Dealers are again Fighters and Rogues with Pathfinder. And the wizard can concentrate on the cool stuff, not generic do-damage-thing.
This gift would give a little more of the 3.5 wizard-feeling, if you like that, empower, you won't shift any balance too much. That's my humble opinion.