| Tatterdemalion |
Probably just a (silly) thought.
Does it seem a reasonable allowance to let wands be enchanted with weapon enchancements - specifically, create a wand etched with a weapon potency rune? The point would be to allow a bonus to spell attack rolls the way most weapons can receive bonuses on attack rolls.
If this has been addressed (and possibly ridiculed), I couldn't find it.
| First World Bard |
I disagree. Spell attacks are seen as inferior to spells that force a saving throw, because of a lack of item bonus to accuracy. (An item bonus to Save DC would be overpowered, so don't do that). Additionally, the damage scales well enough, so striking runes don't make sense.
That said, this is probably more of a Homebrew thing than a Rules discussion thing. Nothing will break if you do this, though I'm not sure what the right cost to balance this is, or if e.g. you need to just have a +1 wand that doesn't have a spell in it.
As an aside, I'd expect that there will be some way to get an Item bonus to spell attacks in the APG, though of course that's not 100%
| Claxon |
From what I've seen lots of people do complain about the lack of bonus to spell attack rolls.
And low spell save DCs.
And low bonuses to martial attacks rolls.
Everyone is complaining their numbers aren't big enough.
Hell, I'm definitely on the martial attack bonuses aren't enough train.
But to that end, I think no, no one deserves any more increases compared to where they're at. Not right now. At least not yet.
I still feel it's too early to introduce something like this to the game.
And First World Bard accurately points out this would be a house rule, so it's not really a rules questions, I'll flag for wrong forum.
| Megistone |
While spell attacks lack an item bonus, they are inherently better than causing saving throws on the target: being the one who rolls the dice comes with a net advantage.
I don't remeber which thread it was where I made a similar example just a few days ago, anyway let's assume a 10th level Wizard with expert spell proficiency and +5 Int, for a total bonus of +19. Then, a level 10 target with an average (moderate) save, +19, and a moderate AC, 29.
Case 1: the Wizard casts a spell that the enemy must save against. The DC is 29, so the enemy will crit fail on a roll of 1 (5%), fail with 2-9 (40%), succeed with 10-19 (50%) and crit succeed with 20 (5%).
Cast 2: the Wizard casts a spell that involves a spell attack. Against AC 29 they critically miss on a roll of 1 (5%), miss with 2-9 (40%), hit with 10-19 (50%) and crit hit with 20 (5%).
As you can see, chances are reversed and the spell attack 'works' 10% more often than the spell that forces a save.
There are other factors to consider: spell attacks usually do nothing on a miss whereas the other kind of spells usually have a partial effect on a successful saving throw; and AC could easily be slightly higher (+1) than the moderate save DC. On the other hand, most enemies will have a weaker save that you can exploit.
I think that things are quite balanced right now, and adding an item bonus to spell attacks is not needed.
Themetricsystem
|
While it might seem like spells are weak versus the fighter accuracy that EVERYONE seems to jump to for no good reason, the reason they're less accurate is because ...well, they're just WAY WAY better than any singular attack that's not a 2 action flourish.
Adding Item Bonuses to Spells to-hit or DC would invariably end up completely destroying level/encounter balance and Blasters would once again be wiping out entire encounters in the first or second round consistently since the Critical Hit effects of spells are just DRASTICALLY better than any crit specialization ability normal weapons have.
If you want to be more accurate then you have to play smarter, apply conditions, get someone into flank, ask your martial buddies to chip in in crowd control effects. You're a spellcaster and magic is wild and difficult to control, that's the nature of it, you're not using a fine-tuned sniper rifle with 20 years of active combat experience, you're trying to convince reality itself that your zap-zap finger should deal electricity damage to a ghost.
| Krugus |
I've home brewed Cantrip Attack Wands for my world but they can only one one type of rune. You might have one that is flaming that deals an extra d6 damage each time you cast an Attack Cantrip with it or you could get (if you are part of the right guild) a +1 to +3 Potency Attack Cantrip wand.
So far its not earth shattering or game breaking for a Cantrip to have an extra bonus. Now for slotted spells. I have yet to add any item to effect those. So ATM the Cantrip attack wands are about all they are getting :)