So im makeing a Wide area non lethal damage spell. Think fireball but non lethal. I am thinking its going to be a third level force evocation But how much damage should it do? same damage as fireball seems under powers sense it can do no real damage. What would be a good number? Double that of fireball?
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To me, it seems like it'd be fine doing the same damage dice. Don't forget, lethal and nonlethal damage stack, and once they drop, thy're unconscious. If you can take the time for a CdG after the fight, it's functionally identical. Even if you want to make it more powerful, doubling the dice is quite excessive.
well i wanted it to be onpar with fireball but it does less so i was trying to balance things out.
only because metamagic cant lower a spells level as far as i know.
I'd reduce the damage to d4s, because AFAIK, nothing resists Force damage, and you get to peg incorporeal creatures with it guaranteed, whereas Fire is frequently resisted/immune.
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If you take nonlethal damage equal to your remaining HP, you pass out.
If a character with 50 HP takes 50 points of lethal damage, he is unconscious and in danger of dying.
If a character with 50 HP takes 50 points of NONlethal damage, he is unconscious... and also in danger of dying, because the thing that dealt that damage is still there, ready to coup de grace him at its leisure.
Nonlethal damage is just as dangerous as regular damage.
I'd reduce the damage to d4s, because AFAIK, nothing resists Force damage, and you get to peg incorporeal creatures with it guaranteed, whereas Fire is frequently resisted/immune.
I thought undead and things with regeneration were immune to non-lethal, or am I having edition issues? I say this because your say incorporeal, and I think ghosts.
If I remember right there were spells exactly like this back in the 3.5 Eberron books. Sharn: City of Towers specifically if I remember right. I can't remember the exact details of the spells, but if you can find a copy of the book somewhere then you'll be good to go.
If you take nonlethal damage equal to your remaining HP, you pass out.
If a character with 50 HP takes 50 points of lethal damage, he is unconscious and in danger of dying.
If a character with 50 HP takes 50 points of NONlethal damage, he is unconscious... and also in danger of dying, because the thing that dealt that damage is still there, ready to coup de grace him at its leisure.
Fairly certain that if you take exactly your HP in damage then you're at 0 and thus disabled.
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Lethal damage and nonlethal damage each have their advantages and disadvantages; neither is really better than the other. It's easy to subdue enemies for capture (as opposed to killing them) with nonlethal damage, a popular strategy if you want to interrogate with skills like intimidate and sense motive instead of using spells that are frequently unreliable. On the other hand, many creatures are immune to nonlethal damage (undead, constructs, etc.), and if you take both lethal and nonlethal, although they stack for determining when you go unconscious, you also heal each equally from magical healing, producing a "double heal" effect. Nonlethal damage heals faster out of combat, but that would only rarely matter, assuming this spell would be a player tool. In the end, I wouldn't adjust the spell level or damage for switching from lethal to nonlethal. In fact, dealing nonlethal damage usually has a cost to it:
1) doing nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon gives a -4 to hit penalty
2) to deal nonlethal with a spell you need to use a feat to get merciful spell
3) putting the merciful property on a weapon costs a +1 bonus, though to be fair this comes with a +1d6 damage boost
So what to do about your force damage nonlethal area spell? How about:
[Spell Name Here] (your spell, you name it)
School: evocation [force]; Level: 3 (basing on fireball, so just a descriptor change)
Casting Time: 1 standard action (looks like fireball)
Components: V, S, M (still looks like fireball)
Range: medium (gotta make it worse than merciful force damage fireball somehow (see below), you likely won't notice the range change)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread (more fireball copying)
Duration: instantaneous (is this fireball?)
Saving Throw: reflex half; Spell Resistance: yes (must still be fireball)
Deals 1d4 points of nonlethal force damage per caster level (maximum 10d4) to every creature within the area. (d4 is the standard force damage die, level 3 spells cap at CL 10 generally)
This was designed with the principles from the PRD: Designing Spells in mind. It's worth a read to get a feel for spell design. The spell as I've designed it is something I would allow my players to have and something I wouldn't feel bad using on my players based on my GMing experience. If I still felt it was too good (and it may well be), I would reduce the range to close.
. . .
So what to do about your force damage nonlethal area spell? How about:
[Spell Name Here] (your spell, you name it)
School: evocation [force]; Level: 3 (basing on fireball, so just a descriptor change)
Casting Time: 1 standard action (looks like fireball)
Components: V, S, M (still looks like fireball)
Range: medium (gotta make it worse than merciful force damage fireball somehow (see below), you likely won't notice the range change)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread (more fireball copying)
Duration: instantaneous (is this fireball?)
Saving Throw: reflex half; Spell Resistance: yes (must still be fireball)
Deals 1d4 points of nonlethal force damage per caster level (maximum 10d4) to every creature within the area. (d4 is the standard force damage die, level 3 spells cap at CL 10 generally). . . .
Oh, and it still sets small, flammable things on fire from... friction... maybe.
Wasn't there a metamagic that made any damage spell non-lethal?
Benefit: You can alter spells that inflict damage to inflict nonlethal damage instead. Spells that inflict damage of a particular type (such as fire) inflict nonlethal damage of that same type.
Level Increase: None (a merciful spell does not use up a higher-level spell slot than the spell’s actual level.)
So same kind of damage, same kind of damage die, only 1 feat away. One could say you can just take any spell and make it do non-lethal damage, and make it occupy a standard spell slot.
So it doesn't work on as many creature types, Does less damage and is the same level as fireball? Force resistance may be rare. But it being nonlethal force damage means there are many creature that are downright completely immune to it. most incorporeal are undead anyway so the benefit of the nonlethal force damage hitting incorporeal is largely irrelevant.
so its not so fireball like we can re-flavor it.
Merlins fist burst.
My means of this spell the caster creates a Ghostly glowing wist that fly's off towards his enemies. Upon impact the fist explodes into a 20' bust of hundreds of smaller fists pummeling the foes with nonlethal force damage. (1d6/level max 10d6) a reflex save is allowed for 1/2 damage those that fail must make a second fortitude save or be dazed for 1 round having been knocked silly by one of the fists.
Pros
Force damage Hits incorporeal
has less resistances.
Dazes
Cons
Cant kill anything
Fist to large to go through small openings like a fireball can.
can't set anything on fire.
Cant melt anything.
Being non lethal damage cant affect any inanimate objects anyway.