Evocations & How Much Damage Is Enough

[JonSetanta]

Stop me if this has been done before, but I came to a halt with spell design and a class writeup recently because of an old nagging problem.

Evocation spells, and to a lesser extent any D&D 3.5e or Pathfinder spell that deals damage.

It's not enough. We know this. It's been proven and debated and ranted to death.

But then the proposals come out, and I see things like "2d6 per level" damage. That's absurd since given the probability of someone rolling all 6s is slim the chance to kill even a stalwart warrior in a single failed save is there. That shouldn't be.

So, I though what's the medium? Sure, it's fine to punish those d4 or d6 HD spellcasters that didn't put anything into CON, but what about everyone else?
IMO it's fine to reward the "high end" such as Barbarians with 18 CON, they're the exception.

I figure most everyone else, especially NPCs in the lower-mid to mid levels, will have d8s with 14-15 CON. That's 10 HP per level. The median.
This is without item or spell enhancements to CON. Just plan ol' naked target, taking in a failed save against an average Evocation.

So 5 damage per level of caster seems about right. As usual I like to tack on an extra die for randomness but this isn't always necessary. Some people like it, some don't.

And we progress from there.

[ModelCitizen]

Why are you maximizing those d8 HD?

If you take the average on those dice the character has 6.5 HP per level, which is right around the point where a 1d6/level Fireball two-shots him. You've been posting about Bloodied threshold and condition trees and stuff which would also make debuffs two-shot. If you leave hitpoints alone and do any of the things you're considering with SoLs, then 1d6/level evocations are right where they need to be. (Compared with SoLs at least. I have no idea what you want weapon damage to look like.)

[JonSetanta]

Hit dice for players should always be maximized. I've played that way in almost every group except for one since 17 years ago back in AD&D.

HP is stable, damage is random. If both are random you're playing Dungeon Crawl or some Roguelike PC game where you make a new character every 10 minutes, and only the characters with the best stats and HP survive.

EDIT: The strange thing about weapon damage and first level in 3e is that it's exceptionally fatal. Kaelik for instance can bitchmoan about porting 4e rules into 3e all heshe wants, but ultimately it's deadly for someone with only d4 HD to encounter a Greatsword held by someone with 18 STR.
I actually enjoy adding CON score to HP rather than the bonus at level 1.
Alas.

As for higher levels, Frank has stated many times that damage doesn't scale well, and I see that plainly.
A sword is 1d8 or 2d6, plus STR. That's it. Unless you're delving into maneuvers, there's no "add your level to damage" or shit like that coming.

Spells however scale almost all the time, and that's just not fair.
While I could go on about how every 3e warrior class should use maneuvers or at least have a feat or class ability to scale their damage, it's not widely accepted. So I'll leave this discussion about Evocations & Friends to just that.

[Lokathor]

Hit dice for players should always be maximized. I've played that way in almost every group except for one since 17 years ago back in AD&D.

Nooooope. Most people do not play that way at all. They might do a "you roll and then at least get half if you roll below that", but even that's not assured. The majority of groups I've ever played with do HP rolling, and your 4th cleric level guy might have 12hp and that just sucks to be you play it anyways.

EDIT: The strange thing about weapon damage and first level in 3e is that it's exceptionally fatal. Kaelik for instance can bitchmoan about porting 4e rules into 3e all heshe wants, but ultimately it's deadly for someone with only d4 HD to encounter a Greatsword held by someone with 18 STR.

Nope, Within a 3e context, every other level should be roughly like this too. That you can't make people fall over in 1 or 2 good hits with a sword at later levels is a failing of the system.

[Ice9]

Actually, I've seen "high average" more often than maximized:
d4 = 3, d6 = 4, d8 = 5, d10 = 6, d12 = 7

But what I've seen more than either is "roll, but with a minimum of half the HD" (so 4 for a d8).

[erik]

Most often HP house-rule I've seen was high average as in Living Greyhawk, and most of my friend-circle DMs would permit a round-down average as an alternative to rolling.

I certainly would not mind the maximized HD roll house rule. It gives more meat to the fighty classes, and they could use all the help they can get. Still, I wouldn't assume that rule was in place as I've never had the joy of playing under it.

[JonSetanta]

I am actually quite stunned by your responses about rolling HP.

Is max HP just a Baltimore thing? Were those dozens of groups and hundreds of sessions just flukes of chance?

I'll investigate further on another forum later.

[erik]

Well, if you encounter it once, you're likely in a position to be a lot more likely to encounter it more than once. I reckon the meme got passed around.

[TarkisFlux]

I'll add my experience to the "don't use max hp" list. The most common one I've seen is a "what PC or MC rolls, whichever is higher", but it's still less than the default "max at 1st, roll for the rest" games I usually play in.

[Seerow]

My groups tend to actually roll hp. But the few that don't use mechanics that normalize it, either to more strongly weight towards the average, or flat out give you just the average. (for example I see things like d4+1 per hd step above a d4. So a d12 becomes d4+4. I've also seen roll your hit die twice and average it. Once I saw reroll all of your hit dice every level, and take the better of your old total or new. Things like that)

[Blicero]

I usually revised HD to something like the following:

1d12 -> 1d6+6 or 1d8+4
1d10 -> 1d6+4
1d8 -> 1d4+4
1d6 -> 1d4+2
1d4 -> 1d2+2


That way, you still have a bit of variation that prevents total homogeneity, but no one is going to get totally screwed over.

[wotmaniac]

@evocations:
sure, the direct-damage spells were indeed ported directly from 2e->3e verbatim ... and with the HP inflation that happened in 3e, .... yeah, everybody gets it.
However, there does exist in 3e something that wasn't even considered in 2e -- metamagic. Now, as presented in Core, you're usually better off ignoring metamagic (at least in regards to direct-damage evocations and so forth); however, we then get presented with metamagic economizers, at which point, the juice is now well worth the squeeze (hell, if you munchkin it right, you don't really need anything above 3rd-level spells for damage, ever). So, the whole dichotomy issue is bullshit once you scratch below the surface.
So, if it's really an issue, you throw in abilities like from Warmage (CArc) and War Mage (DL-AoM) that give you some extra points to throw on there.


@HP:
If you go an just give everybody max HP all the way down the line, you get the problem of even greater HP disparity. Martial characters will stay at having 3-4 times the HP as your arcane casters. As early as 10th level, a front-line melee will have 100+ more HP than a wizard -- WTF is that about?
But whatever.
Additionally, using 1st-level as the basis for judging anything that scales is bullshit as well. The first 2 levels of D&D are nothing more than the tutorial for the game (4e may have broken from this mold - IDK). The 1st level is to basically show you how to make a character and how to use your abilities; the 2nd level is to show you how to level-up and integrate new abilities. Done. Then comes the real game.

[Seerow]

As an aside: The assumption of 14 con is good at first level, but between inherent bonuses and enhancement bonuses, both of which can be easily obtained by mid levels, that number goes up significantly.

On top of that, most monsters have more HD than their CR and even high constitution values. So while a level 5 character with 30 hp may be fairly average, a CR5 monster is very likely to have double that. A spell that will deal appropriate damage to the monster will one shot the average player character.

[Koumei]

I tend to go "Whatever level we're starting at, maximise that. Afterwards, when gaining levels in the game, roll for it."

Anyway, 1d6/level works as a good baseline, particularly if one of the following is true:
[*]There isn't a save for halflol everyone has Evasion
[*]You can make multiple such attacks a round at higher levels

See: Spherelock, Fire Mage (and its variants)

For more powerful (and probably limited with few uses per day) abilities, going a flat 5 or 10 damage per level is certainly acceptable, likely with a save for half or requiring a *melee* touch (that provokes) or ranged *attack* or something. Or just a 1/day RTA for 10/level, BAM, I guess.

I'm okay with just having higher level things do a set amount of damage (see the upper levels of the basic damaging strike of the Soldier).

Anyway, while I still prefer "Damage + some effect" or "Damage, interacting with other spells in a cool way (like an acid spell that ignites for extra damage if you then hit them with a fire spell, or some kind of Cold damage to freeze then Sonic to shatter effect), I apologise for years ago when I slagged you off for just wanting direct damage, Sigma. Insulting people is the norm here, but those particular insults were kind of uncalled for.

[Grek]

My group usually does max HP at first level and then player's choice between rolling and taking whatever you roll or just taking the mean.

[Neurosis]

Actually, I've seen "high average" more often than maximized:
d4 = 3, d6 = 4, d8 = 5, d10 = 6, d12 = 7

This is how I've generally seen it done, with max at first level.

[sake]

Would simply uncapping most Direct Damage spells help any? I recall Neverwinter Nights 2 had it's own special version of the Flame Arrow spell that functioned almost exactly like Scorching Ray except it didn't have a cap on the number of rays it could eventually produce, which combined with being a resonably low level spell slot, meant it would do direct damage you'd actually care about all the way to the game's epic levels where a couple of maximized castings of the spell could just outright kill any SoD immune epic level trash mob, and chew through greater spell mantles like candy.

[hogarth]

For HP, I've played in a game that used max HP once before. But more usually we either roll, or roll with some kind of floor, or take 1/2*max+1, or take max-4+1d4.

When I GM, I like to use max-2.

[violence in the media]

I've played with Bilcero's variant there, as well as max HP for all levels.

[Username17]

The reason why no one has come up with a satisfying answer to how much damage an evocation should do in D&D is that there is no simple answer to the question.

As you go up in level, enemies have more hit points per level and more resistances.

• But...

As you go up in level the cost of "a spell slot" during combat drops precipitously.

• But...

The amount of combat rounds you have to express yourself in a combat also drops as you level.

---

Personally, never played with max hit points. I've played with high average, and I've played with the higher of the rolled result and low average. I've even played with "roll hit dice but reroll 1s" (this one obviously screws Barbarians) and "reroll until you get an over-average roll". But I've never played with max hit points at all levels. Mostly, games I've been in involve rolling the hit dice, come what may.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

On top of that, most monsters have more HD than their CR and even high constitution values. So while a level 5 character with 30 hp may be fairly average, a CR5 monster is very likely to have double that. A spell that will deal appropriate damage to the monster will one shot the average player character.

I've noticed this, too. Any quick-and-dirty fix I've seen tends to turn Evocations into save-or-dies, or worse yet, die-if-you-don't-have-Evasions.

[the_taken]

For the 3.x game I'm going to be running, I'm going to adjust monster hit points to be more in line with the PCs. They're going to get a ((d8 + CON mod) * CR. For small battles, I will roll HPs, but if more than a score of monsters show up, I'm going to use high average.

[RobbyPants]

For the 3.x game I'm going to be running, I'm going to adjust monster hit points to be more in line with the PCs. They're going to get a ((d8 + CON mod) * CR. For small battles, I will roll HPs, but if more than a score of monsters show up, I'm going to use high average.

So you haven't tested it yet, then?

What are you going to do about things like zombies, that have a really high HP to CR ratio to begin with, and have no Con mod on top of that. You'll have to let me know how this works out once you've tested it a bit.

[JonSetanta]

These are all good responses, and I thank you for being informative about your personal experiences.

Again, I must state my dislike for rolling HP, as my first character ever was a Fighter/Mage Elf with 3 HP because I rolled bad. He died to a rat bite in the sewer and they couldn't cram a potion down his throat in time.
That's level 1 in AD&D, BUT....

In mid to later levels in D&D 3e there's this arms race between racial/enhancement/inherent bonuses to CON, and ever increasing damage.
What if we were to assume a PC would only half-assedly go about boosting CON rather than spending a good chunk of their wealth per level on it? What's the average on that?

I realize monsters are an exception, but if you think about the higher CON opponents they are either lumbering melee idiots that can afford to soak a few blasts while they close in, or are pompous fiends with resistances out the ass, SR, and can probably shrug off most direct damage anyway.

What's the assumption on how much CON and average HP per level a PC can afford so that Evocations can scale their damage per level while still retaining that expected 2-to-3-shot combat duration?

I apologise for years ago when I slagged you off for just wanting direct damage, Sigma. Insulting people is the norm here, but those particular insults were kind of uncalled for.

I remember, and I already forgave you. Forums are nothing but opinions. Meanwhile my own desire back then for blowing spell damage through the roof was an impossible goal and I should have realized that back then, but I was fed up with the failure of Evocations in 3e at the time and desperate for a change.
Hence, this thread.

[the_taken]

For the 3.x game I'm going to be running, I'm going to adjust monster hit points to be more in line with the PCs. They're going to get a ((d8 + CON mod) * CR. For small battles, I will roll HPs, but if more than a score of monsters show up, I'm going to use high average.

So you haven't tested it yet, then?

What are you going to do about things like zombies, that have a really high HP to CR ratio to begin with, and have no Con mod on top of that. You'll have to let me know how this works out once you've tested it a bit.

Zombies still get to roll 2d12*CR, while intelligent undead use their CHA mod instead of CON mod using the normal formula. Constructs would get their size bonus instead of the CON mod, if I used them, I guess.