Hello all,
Admittedly, I am not a fan of large groups of characters doing arial acrobatics. Actual spellcaster fine, whole party no. So I'm musing over the following changes:
Fly has it's Level changed to: Sorcerer/Wizard 4, and it's Target changed to: you.
However I can see the need at higher levels for the group to be able to travel rapidly so,
Overland Flight has its Level changed to Sorcerer/Wizard 6, and its target changed to: You plus one willing creature per three caster levels.
Additionally I absolutely detest teleportation for long range travel, but I don't want to totally remove it from the game so I'm proposing these changes:
Teleport has its Target changed to: You. In addition the chance to arrive off target for an area increases to 25% for "very familiar", 35% for "studied carefully", 50% for "seen casually" and 60% for "viewed once".
Quite an increase in the danger level there, I feel that only high level mages should be able to reliably teleport and move groups so,
Greater Teleport has its Target changed to: You plus one willing creature per three caster levels.
In case you don't see it, I am a big fan of the journey and using the environment as a challenge. But I understand that at higher levels sometimes you have to get there "now" so I didn't want to remove the teleportation/fly option altogether, just make it more difficult. I don't have any problem w/ dimension door since it's a short range thing. Likewise I have no problem with gates or portals or backroads/crossroads or other permanent magic.
So I wanted to get opinions on the changes to the spells as well as solicit any suggestions on other spells that I may want to review/change.
Thanks,
stonechild
While you at it, you might make all mounts vanish, or state that all players can not ride mounts. This would slow everyone down to walking speed, so they can better enjoy the journey. After all, you do not want them just riding by, and missing all that scenery or monsters.
You say you're a fan of the journey and the environment. How do you cope with the following spells:
create water
create food and water
longstrider
phantom steed
endure elements
tiny hut
water walk
etc.
With these simple low-level spells, the environmental hazards most PCs face vanish, except for the occasional storm, flood (wait, water breathing), and avalanche. You've reduced instantaneous travel to some degree, but the spells above would reduce the effects of the environment to almost nothing.
Another comment: fly. Flying monsters appear by the time the typical wizard gets the spell. You've not only delayed his acquisition, you've made sure he's the only person who can use it. The ability to cast fly on another person (e.g. the paladin, the fighter, the rogue, etc.) is what makes that spell truly shine. The wizard himself might need it to bypass a chasm, but the fighter will need it to bypass the chasm as well as to engage aerial opponents. Yes, being fair, keeping a backup missile weapon is always a good idea. But some characters are played to their concepts, and won't have one. Others won't be able to do as much damage to their foes with a projectile weapon, making flying encounters more dangerous. You could easily have fights where the spellcasters do all the work while the fighter and rogue play marbles, waiting for the fight to end since they can't meaningfully contribute. It's something to look out for.
As you've described it, greater teleport: does it teleport reliably, or is it subject to the greater chance of failure of regular teleport? Just want to clarify this.
Regular teleport: why would anyone want to use this spell? Now it's too unreliable for anyone but the most desperate or reckless or crazy mages to use. The wizard has to be 9th level to cast this spell, the sorcerer 10th. They're professionals, experienced combatants, and have a good grasp on magic. They've worked their way up to this point-and now the quintessential translocation spell is nigh-useless. They've seen the throne room of the king once; when they need to tell him to expect an orc horde out of the mountains, they've got a 60% chance of not getting back there properly. This would be rather sad, the wizard volunteers to go back and warn the king and ends up missing the throne room, instead crashing through the roof of the stable.
Other high-level spells to look at:
planeshift
shadow walk
wind walk
word of recall
Think that sums it up. I'm not a fan of messing with the powers that PCs get as they advance, and I've learned what it's like to have your travel spells not be as effective as you've hoped. Make sure your players are prepared as well.
Hello all,
Admittedly, I am not a fan of large groups of characters doing arial acrobatics. Actual spellcaster fine, whole party no. So I'm musing over the following changes:
(...)
So I wanted to get opinions on the changes to the spells as well as solicit any suggestions on other spells that I may want to review/change.Thanks,
stonechild
First, don't let the sarcasm of others get to you
Second, all of this is clearly a matter of style of play, which deviates from default pathfinder core. Make sure you explain your style of game to your players so they get the feel and don't simply feel frustrated.
[edit] This last bit is of most importance. All kind of change and houserule is justifiable by theme or style, but you need to make sure that everyone around the table is 1) aware of it and 2) OK with it. This golden rule, when not respected, is what give houserules a bad name.
@ Fly and Overland Fly: You could also tie the spell to a spell focus, like a cape or a special vest, boot etc. While easy to circumvent, a focus will limit the uses of fly on the fly (pun intended); it will need to be a slightly more prepared thing.
@ Teleport: You are making a spell you don't like suck. I'd propose leaving it unchanged, but add an expensive component to avoid the "casual" teleport. Let the players use it somewhat reliably when it really counts.
Also, shameless plug of my overland round houserule
'findel
Hello all,
Admittedly, I am not a fan of large groups of characters doing arial acrobatics. Actual spellcaster fine, whole party no. So I'm musing over the following changes:
(...)
So I wanted to get opinions on the changes to the spells as well as solicit any suggestions on other spells that I may want to review/change.Thanks,
stonechildFirst, don't let the sarcasm of others get to you
Second, all of this is clearly a matter of style of play, which deviates from default pathfinder core. Make sure you explain your style of game to your players so they get the feel and don't simply feel frustrated.
@ Fly and Overland Fly: You could also tie the spell to a spell focus, like a cape or a special vest, boot etc. While easy to circumvent, a focus will limit the uses of fly on the fly (pun intended); it will need to be a slightly more prepared thing.
@ Teleport: You are making a spell you don't like suck. I'd propose leaving it unchanged, but add an expensive component to avoid the "casual" teleport. Let the players use it somewhat reliably when it really counts.
Also, shameless plug of my overland round houserule
'findel
I'll apologize if I came across with too much sarcasm or snark. I just read too many threads that consist of 'I'm making these changes, what's going to go wrong', I think. Maybe I need to hide in the off-topic threads for a while?
To continue with Laurefindel's ideas, maybe you could do something classic with fly. Give it the extra person per X caster levels and require the focus:
You: a cape or cloak
+1 person: a broom
+2 people: a carpet
Just using ideas from the classics here, but it'll let you still have the spell but require the party stick together and also be vulnerable together.
For teleport, I like the idea of adding an expensive component as well. You'll have to decide what it is as well as what is fitting for the campaign. When all else fails, fall back on diamonds or diamond dust as so many Pathfinder spells now do.
One final point (for this post, at any rate). At mid to high levels, environmental hazards by their very natures are going to become obsolete. The number of spells that are available to casters at these levels makes things like heat, cold, and wind irrelevant. Druids, barbarians, and rangers will have enough Survival ranks to deal with quite a few problems on their own. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but a better route may well be to encourage the players to see the scenery rather than to force them to do so. Instead of altering those spells, put them in situations where they have to go overland. They need to scout out the location of the orc horde in the thick forest. Flight's not useful in heavy forest (can't see through the canopy), so now the party has to stay on the ground and search. That kind of thing.
You say you're a fan of the journey and the environment. How do you cope with the following spells:
create water
create food and water
longstrider
phantom steed
endure elements
tiny hut
water walk
etc.With these simple low-level spells, the environmental hazards most PCs face vanish, except for the occasional storm, flood (wait, water breathing), and avalanche. You've reduced instantaneous travel to some degree, but the spells above would reduce the effects of the environment to almost nothing.
Another comment: fly. Flying monsters appear by the time the typical wizard gets the spell. You've not only delayed his acquisition, you've made sure he's the only person who can use it. The ability to cast fly on another person (e.g. the paladin, the fighter, the rogue, etc.) is what makes that spell truly shine. The wizard himself might need it to bypass a chasm, but the fighter will need it to bypass the chasm as well as to engage aerial opponents. Yes, being fair, keeping a backup missile weapon is always a good idea. But some characters are played to their concepts, and won't have one. Others won't be able to do as much damage to their foes with a projectile weapon, making flying encounters more dangerous. You could easily have fights where the spellcasters do all the work while the fighter and rogue play marbles, waiting for the fight to end since they can't meaningfully contribute. It's something to look out for.
As you've described it, greater teleport: does it teleport reliably, or is it subject to the greater chance of failure of regular teleport? Just want to clarify this.
Regular teleport: why would anyone want to use this spell? Now it's too unreliable for anyone but the most desperate or reckless or crazy mages to use. The wizard has to be 9th level to cast this spell, the sorcerer 10th. They're professionals, experienced combatants, and have a good grasp on magic. They've worked their way up to this point-and now the quintessential translocation spell is nigh-useless. They've seen the...
Don't worry about coming off as too sarcastic Lathiira, I asked for input and you gave constructive input, so I thank you.
To address some of your issues, if a spell doesn't bypass or cheapen travel (IMO) I'm not concerned about it so much. All the spells described help with the journey, not bypass it altogether.As for fly yes I'm kinda old fashioned and believe that's exactly why you keep a ranged weapon, to reach foes you can otherwise, but I can see the value of allowing multiple persons flight which is why I more or less didn't change overland flight much. But I must admit, that the Laurefindel's idea of a broom or carpet is so classic that I'll go that route and change the spell level back to 3rd.
I do intend for teleport to be a last ditch escape spell, kinda like "anywhere is better than here!". Like I said, I feel that only high(er) level mages should be able to teleport reliably, through the use of greater teleport (which still has no chance of error). However I like 'findel's idea of an expensive material component to help reduce the "off target" chance so I think that per 100 gp in diamond dust added as an optional component, it reduces the off target chance by 5%. How does that sound? I do think that with that change I could return the target to the way it's described in the PCR.
Generally if a spell is at least 6th level, and by default a caster is a at least 11th level, I don't much see the need to mess with it.
Laurelfindel, I do like your overland round houserule and if it's okay I'll probably use something like it.
Thank you both for your excellent suggestions. I do put out a listing of all house rules before I begin a game so that my players are able to work around my pecularities (d12's for falling damage anyone?).
hi, you've got really good ideas, and I normally handle those spells similiarly for the very same reasons.
So climb becomes a lot more useful. With teleport, I would limit it to places you know well, so spent around a day there. Same goes for greater teleport, however this makes makes up for earning money, by showing other wizards new places and spending money by letting other wizards teleport you to places you need to go, but where you've never been.
Also about the fly spell, you might want to think about every spell that lets you move into 3 dimensions. Like phantom steed at later lvls and others.
For those sarcastic comments, I know that there are people that don't want to play in a campaign that doesn't have invisible flying wizards that throw fireballs and teleport directly to the evil dudes lair by scrying him out, however I really prefer to GM plays without this, or it would only be hack&slay at higher lvls.
btw. Stonechild do you still want scrying to be that popular in your campaign, you might want to downgrade that ;-)
Stonechild,
I have often had the same lament -- the journey there is half the adventure, IMO. But mid-level characters are always blowing right past all that stuff, popping into the bad guys front doorstep, quick-escaping danger to heal up and return...
It all just seemed like so much "convenience store" cell-phone adventuring...like you, I wanted them to use those spells (especially teleport) but not as an everyday means of travel.
Here's what I came up with:
It's a different approach than you've yet seen...bases the teleport spell on a Spellcraft check. As a caveat, it hasn't been playtested in actual use, but I've run the ideas through a vast array of scenarios, and it checks out.
TELEPORT
To cast teleport, you must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.
You must mentally plot a path to your destination through the Astral Plane, locating your desired continent, country, region, city, house, room, etc.
In order to plot the course successfully and teleport to it, you make a Spellcraft check. The base DC of this check is 30, modified as follows (the DM may apply additional circumstance modifiers):
You can change the Casting Time...
Increase casting time to 1 full round: -5 to DC
Increase casting time to 1 minute: -10 to DC
Increase casting time to 10 minutes: -15 to DC
Increase casting time to 1 hour: -20 to DC
Familiarity with destination makes a difference...
You can currently view destination (either normally or magically): -5 to DC
You are “very familiar” with destination: no change to DC
You have “studied carefully”: +5 to DC
You have “seen casually”: +15 to DC
You have “viewed briefly”: +25 to DC
You only have a “description”: +40 to DC
Very familiar -- a place you have been very often and where you feel at home. You know every detail about this place through many collective years of being here.
Studied carefully -- a place you know well, either because you have been there often (at least 10 separate visits lasting an hour or more each), or because you have purposefully spent the past 24 hours remembering details about it, possibly even while viewing it through magical means.
Seen casually -- a place you have visited or viewed magically fewer than 10 times, or where you have spent less than an hour of time per occasion.
Viewed briefly -- a place you have visited or seen on only 1 to 3 separate occasions, possibly using magic. Each visit or viewing lasted less than 10 minutes.
Description -- a place whose location and appearance you know through someone else’s description, whether verbal or written, or perhaps even from a precise map.
Check: If you fail the check by 5 or less, you appear near your intended destination, 1d10 x 1d10% of the original distance away in a random direction (roll 1d8 for points on a compass; 1 = north). If you fail the check by 6‐10, you appear in an area that is visually or thematically similar to your target area, though it can be anywhere on the same plane of existence. If you fail the check by 11 more, you suffer a mishap. You may “take 10” on this check, but you cannot “take 20.”
Imprecise maps, false descriptions, and attempts to teleport to places that don’t exist or are out of the spell’s range cause automatic mishaps.
GREATER TELEPORT
Functions as teleport but grants a +20 bonus to the Spellcraft check, and there is no chance of incurring a mishap.
...my analysis:
A 9th-lvl wizard will likely have Spellcraft bonus in the +14 to +20 range. The typical "let's get there now" teleport is DC 30 as a standard action, 25 as a full round...DC 10 if you take an hour to cast. If the caster is familiar with the destination, no problem. If attempting to escape battle (it's DC 30 and he needs to roll 10-15); if he just wants to skip the scenery, he takes a hour and doesn't need to roll.
Holding a map to the villain's HQ he's never seen before and which is shielded against scrying, he looking at a total DC of 70, which if he takes an hour to cast reduced to 50. Impossible for a 9th-lvl Wiz, but a 15th-lvl Wiz with 22 INT and Skill Focus (casting Gtr TP)? He's +46 on the roll and needs only a 4.
Thoughts??
Laurelfindel, I do like your overland round houserule and if it's okay I'll probably use something like it.
Be my guest, that's why I posted them. Take what you like, ditch the rest, rebuilt them to fit your game...
keep gaming!
'findel
Nice to see there are some other folks on the boards that have similar thoughts about the journey.
I like the idea Malachai, I may end up instituting it or a variant thereof. I will definitely be using your descriptions of familiarity, thanks.
As for scrying Leon, I'll take a look at it but I always had it so that you may see something that you don't want to see in the BBEG's home. Watching someone qualifying for the lichloved feat tends to ruin the scryer's day ;). Besides I tend to have areas of high magical concentration be harder to scry upon anyway.
To address some of your issues, if a spell doesn't bypass or cheapen travel (IMO) I'm not concerned about it so much. All the spells described help with the journey, not bypass it altogether.
As for fly yes I'm kinda old fashioned and believe that's exactly why you keep a ranged weapon, to reach foes you can otherwise, but I can see the value of allowing multiple persons flight which is why I more or less didn't change overland flight much. But I must admit, that the Laurefindel's idea of a broom or carpet is so classic that I'll go that route and change the spell level back to 3rd.
I do intend for teleport to be a last ditch escape spell, kinda like "anywhere is better than here!". Like I said, I feel that only high(er) level mages should be able to teleport reliably, through the use of greater teleport (which still has no chance of error). However I like 'findel's idea of an expensive material component to help reduce the "off target" chance so I think that per 100 gp in diamond dust added as an optional component, it reduces the off target chance by 5%. How does that sound? I do think that with that change I could return the target to the way it's described in the PCR.
Generally if a spell is at least 6th level, and by default a caster is a at least 11th level, I don't much see the need to mess with it.
All right, I've got a better grip on what you're looking for.
For teleport, I wouldn't think of it as a last-ditch escape spell. That's dimension door. Look at the range on d-door: it's easily over a 100 yards at the lowest caster levels. You can get away from just about anything with it, as you are likely going to be completely out of sight after using it. Teleport exists as a true travel spell, since it's range is in miles, not hundreds of feet. I'd go with an expensive material component of some sort, something like, oh, a specially-made compass encrusted with diamonds and beryls. Actually, make that a focus, then add a material component for more fun. Instead of using increments of diamond dust, you can reflect improvements in the spell more simply by reducing the chance of mishap by 1% per caster level to some minimum (say 5 or 10%).
I find it interesting that you don't feel the need to mess with spells of levels 6+, just several mid-level spells. Magic if you look closely is designed with the idea that you get an effect at lower levels of spells that improves as you gain access to higher level spells, but you're changing fly, which is arguably the foundation of long-range travel magic and/or evading the enemy magic, and teleport, the foundation of long-distance travel magic. Whatever you decide, look at other spells at the same level to compare the power of the new versions of the spells to their peers. Also note that you can share spells with your familiar...
Have you talked with your players about this perchance?
Oh, one other spell came to mind: find the path. You don't want to bypass travel, but this spell takes you by the shortest route to your goal.
Oh, one other spell came to mind: find the path. You don't want to bypass travel, but this spell takes you by the shortest route to your goal.As a GM, I LOVE Find the Path for that very reason. The shortest route is rarely, if ever, the safest or easiest.
Why I love flying, invised and silenced. You bypass all those annoying ground encounters and almost all aerial ones (except the monsters who have scent).
Now they just need to have hour/day versions of Invis and Silence, and get rid of that annoying limitation of "Target:You" for Overland Flight.
:D
All right, I've got a better grip on what you're looking for.For teleport, I wouldn't think of it as a last-ditch escape spell. That's dimension door. Look at the range on d-door: it's easily over a 100 yards at the lowest caster levels. You can get away from just about anything with it, as you are likely going to be completely out of sight after using it. Teleport exists as a true travel spell, since it's range is in miles, not hundreds of feet. I'd go with an expensive material component of some sort, something like, oh, a specially-made compass encrusted with diamonds and beryls. Actually, make that a focus, then add a material component for more fun. Instead of using increments of diamond dust, you can reflect improvements in the spell more simply by reducing the chance of mishap by 1% per caster level to some minimum (say 5 or 10%).
I find it interesting that you don't feel the need to mess with spells of levels 6+, just several mid-level spells. Magic if you look closely is designed with the idea that you get an effect at lower levels of spells that improves as you gain access to higher level spells, but you're changing fly, which is arguably the foundation of long-range travel magic and/or evading the enemy magic, and teleport, the foundation of long-distance travel magic. Whatever you decide, look at other spells at the same level to compare the power of the new versions of the spells to their peers. Also note that you can share spells with your familiar...
Have you talked with your players about this perchance?
Oh, one other spell came to mind: find the path. You don't want to bypass travel, but this spell takes you by the shortest route to your goal.
Actually I'm hoping all this work is for naught really. I have a core group of 3 players who pretty much feel the same way about travel. However, in the last game I ran I had two players who felt the need to bypass all the travel. Quintessential hack and slashers or should I say teleporters/flyers. This caused a large disruption at the table because the other three players did not wish to bypass most of the adventure and the two (now gone) players constantly haranged the others for doing things "the hard way". So I'm just trying to head off trouble before it has the chance to rear it's ugly head again as I'm looking at two to three more players for an upcoming campaign.
Perhaps because my core players generally play a paladin, cleric and rogue they may feel somewhat upstaged by a mage type, but we all tend to be somewhat old-school. I definitely would like to have a mage in the group as the ability to have firepower like that would make certain battles much more likely to end in victory.I don't want to have to play an NPC mage (I'd rather play the monk or heavy hitter type that are the other two desired classes). Which is why I'm trying to work this issue out so that if the new mage player is not completely on-board with the rest of the group at least they should not be using these spells all the time.
Stonechild,
Your style seems to match my own quite closely. I would really like to play in your games. But, the chances are uber-high that we don't live anywhere near each other.
Here's a houserule to discourage scry-and-die:
If a creature targeted or a creature in an area targeted by scrying or a similar divination spell or ability detects the spell or is otherwise informed of the scrying sensor, it may target the caster with spells, spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities as if the caster were standing at that very location.
good houseroule, I might use that one. Till now I had anti-scrying-stones that cost as much as an everburning torch ^^
@stonechild your mages don't necessarly need to blast to be combat effective, pit-spells are awesome, and other combat-hindering spells might do the trick, summoning can also be damaging. Fireballs are really a bit oldschool, and hard to be really useful.
@stonechild your mages don't necessarly need to blast to be combat effective, pit-spells are awesome, and other combat-hindering spells might do the trick, summoning can also be damaging. Fireballs are really a bit oldschool, and hard to be really useful.
While it's true that summoning can be effective, I tend to try to limit their use, for the same reason I discourage Leadership, it slows the game to a crawl. It's not much fun for the other players to sit around while one player hogs the majority of the combat round.
It's true that battlefield control spells can be useful, but like I said I'm old school and I still believe in morale checks. From a character perspective, what is more discouraging, a 10' pit that you have to circumvent or watching a couple of your allies get incinerated/electrocuted/melted/frozen/blown apart?
Its your game, you have right to remove or change any spell you want as long as you warn players in advance (i.e. before they created character around concepts removed/changed). If you can convince them to change character concept you can do it anytime.
Did you considered changing teleport to extended ritual that allows party to travel to specific predetermined nodes like in 4th edition? With lower level version only castable in teleport nodes - with casters having to learn complex formulae of each node in advance to be able to access it.
Or completly scratch teleport for a shadow walk-like spell that allows travelling through other planes, demiplans and dimensions instead of truly instantaneous movement (I am fan of Steven Erikson Malazan Book Of The Fallen and travelling through Warrens).