Dungeon Crawl Classics has a mechanic that lets magic users sacrifice HP/ability score/etc. to get a bonus on their spell rolls, upgrade the magic effect, or whatever.
Has anyone tried implementing anything similar? Seems like a fun risk/reward option.
Something like, sacrifice HP times the spell level to add to the roll/save DC, and you can choose how much HP you want to sacrifice. Casting a level 3 spell, you can sacrifice 3 HP to raise the attack/DC by 1, 6 HP to raise the attack/DC by 2, etc.
Players could also play with the different spell effects and what they could sacrifice to boost them. Like, how much HP (or something else?) would it cost to cast a level 3 spell when you don't have any level 3 spell slots left? How much would they have to sacrifice to fire two fireballs in a single spell? (it would be a lot!)
In 1st edition Pathfinder, people complained about this as players were KO'ing themselves with the Kineticist class. They would spend all their hit points, then fail to take out the target. Personally, I don't understand why it was a problem.
The 2E Legendary Kineticist gets around the issue by having you stun yourself instead. Personally, I don't understand whether that's better or not.
In 1st edition Pathfinder, people complained about this as players were KO'ing themselves with the Kineticist class. They would spend all their hit points, then fail to take out the target. Personally, I don't understand why it was a problem.
The 2E Legendary Kineticist gets around the issue by having you stun yourself instead. Personally, I don't understand whether that's better or not.
I'm not familiar with Kineticist class, but if it was too weak that you had to sacrifice HP, I could see it being a problem. But in this case, it's entirely optional, nothing is changed about the basic character build math.
It was optional. But it was tempting. Temptation leads to addiction and failure.
Or so they tell me. Personally I did not have a problem with the kineticist.