Another Spellcasting Thread

[Draco_Argentum]

I've thought of squishing XPH augs, Frank's caster level = character level and that Shadowrun bit into one system.

You'd get your spell and it'd look like one of the powers with aug options, only more of them and more damage would be free.

Each aug would have a a number similar to power points associated with it. You'd add that to the base number of the spell. The total would have to be less than or equal to your caster level.

Then you'd make a save to see if you get slugged with fatiguesque penalties. The DC of the save would be determined by the base number of the spell plus some more from any augs you added.

This would let you take a generic fire spell. At level one you'd be stuck with a single target. As you increased in caster level you'd be able to add augs to give it an area of effect in various shapes. Another option could be that the targets catch fire, inflicting damage and status penalties. Importantly the damage and save DC would scale automatically so you wouldn't have to choose between doing a decent amount of damage and hitting an area.

You'd be able to throw non augmented stuff all day against mooks without much danger of fatigue. When you needed to kill someone powerful you'd aug it and make it more likely that you'd suffer the fatiguesque penalties.

[Draco_Argentum]

Another idea inspired fromt he XPH. Some augs could require you to know a specific spell. For example incendiary cloug could just be an auh for fire damage added to the fog spell. You'd have to have the fire spell to use the aug though.

[RandomCasualty]

1095903608[/unixtime]] Importantly the damage and save DC would scale automatically so you wouldn't have to choose between doing a decent amount of damage and hitting an area.

I don't quite know if this is a good idea. Don't you want single target spells to do more damage than area?

[Username17]

Why would we want that? If single target spells are doing a decent amount of damage, then there's no tactical difference between a Barbarian and a Wizard. Basically, one of them is better and the other is worse.

If, however, one of the characters is really good at fighting hordes and the other is good at fighting dudes, then there is a tactical difference and the DM can adjust the spotlight to compensate for good/poor character designing by adjusting the dude/horde ratio.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1096042462[/unixtime]]Why would we want that? If single target spells are doing a decent amount of damage, then there's no tactical difference between a Barbarian and a Wizard. Basically, one of them is better and the other is worse.

This might be a nice argument for 2nd edition when we didn't have things like cleave, whirlwind attack and all those other nice horde beating stuff for fighters.

Back then the wizard was crowd control and the fighter took out individuals.

Now, you are supposed to be able to design a character to do both. What's the difference between a fighter and a wizard? Easy,... resistances. If you've got a creature wtih high magic resistance, but low AC, the fighter beats it. If you've got a creature with high AC and low magic resistances then the wizard beats it. Relatively simple to design situations where one character shines.

[Draco_Argentum]

Since single target is the base spell and area of effect is an aug the single target version has more room for other augs. Sure the damage won't be better, but you'll do more other stuff to them.

[Draco_Argentum]

I want to reduce the number of dice beng rolled for damage while keeping the D&D HP system. I figure 1d6/caster level is enough damage but rolling 20d6 and having to add them is dodgy. (A la Frank's theory)

Unfortunately I can't think of a better option. It would need to generate a similar average damage and keep the nice smooth progression of a constant increase to average damage per level.

Does 1d6 +(4 per caster level above first) have enough randomness?

[MrWaeseL]

If you do that, keep in mind the repercussions for Empower and Maximize (and Intensify) spell.

[Username17]

If you want to keep the amount of damage of a 20th level fireball but want to get things down to the level of playability of lower levels (more or less), remember that 4d6 + 56 is the same amount of damage as 20d6. It is, however, a lot easier to deal with, and stays approximately equal to the Fighter's damage for longer (a 20th level Warrior-type character, for example, might have a +5 greatsword which inflicts 2d6 + 37 per hit and attack four times per round).

You can either institute a second kludge for Maximize Spell to give it a 5/7 increase in the static bonuses of the spell in order to make it identical to its original effect, or you could accept the fact that maximize has never been balanced in the first place (what with some spells being based on d4s and other spells being based on d10s) and move on with an entirely different mechanic of some kind.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

Metamagic having to be thrown out the window dosen't bother me, I was going to do that anyway.

How did you generate 4d6 +56?

[Josh_Kablack]

1098794991[/unixtime]]I want to reduce the number of dice beng rolled for damage while keeping the D&D HP system.

Your options are then:

*More Dice (the option you don't want).
*Fewer, but Bigger Dice.
*Fewer Dice but a bigger constant add.
*Fewer Dice with a multiplier factor.

[Username17]

How did you generate 4d6 +56?

A d6 averages 3.5 points. If you have all the dice past 4 dice or so inflict average damage, you have not changed the average. So take 4 dice off the 20 die pot, and then have the remaining 16 inflict average - 3.5 each. 16 * 3.5 is 56, so the new result is 4d6 + 56.

Note: Evocations suck ass. Over and above the fact that they are annoying as crap to actually use, they also do really shitty damage that I wouldn't wipe my ass with. The problem is that Hit Dice and Constitution rise as levels rise, so the number of fireballs it takes to lay anyone out goes up as levels do. That's all fine and dandy, but the entire rest of the game is moving towards a paradigm in which combat at higher levels takes less actions to take someone out. Not more. Less.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

1098863728[/unixtime]]
A d6 averages 3.5 points. If you have all the dice past 4 dice or so inflict average damage, you have not changed the average. So take 4 dice off the 20 die pot, and then have the remaining 16 inflict average - 3.5 each. 16 * 3.5 is 56, so the new result is 4d6 + 56.

Fair enough, I can turn that into a mechanic with a short explanation.

Note: Evocations suck ass. Over and above the fact that they are annoying as crap to actually use, they also do really shitty damage that I wouldn't wipe my ass with. The problem is that Hit Dice and Constitution rise as levels rise, so the number of fireballs it takes to lay anyone out goes up as levels do. That's all fine and dandy, but the entire rest of the game is moving towards a paradigm in which combat at higher levels takes less actions to take someone out. Not more. Less.

I intend to couple the weak damage with secondary effects along with culling SoDs. Hopefully thats enough to make evocations decent.

[Oberoni]

I see no reason why higher-level damage spells don't use bigger damage dice, or add extra damage for each die rolled.

[Draco_Argentum]

Mostly because both of those only work when you roll a bunch of dice, which I don't want to do.

[Username17]

Mostly because both of those only work when you roll a bunch of dice, which I don't want to do.

Not necessarily. If you roll Nd8s, then that's the same as rolling 4d8s + 4.5*(N-4). Of course, that's also the same as a d6 generation method in which you add N to the total. Going to d10s from d6s is the same as adding 2N. And so on.

There's no reason why 3.5 damage per level has to remain a standard if hit points go up faster than that and spell actions per turn stay static.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

I'm more inclined to keep random chance a factor by introducing some kind of multiplier and an addition system along with it. Something like 3d6x2 + X. And when X gets to a certain amount then the multiplier goes up to keep the random factor something important.

One of the things I really dislike about high level D&D is how the randomness of damage dice become worth basically nothing at high levels, especialyl for fighters. Your 2d6 greatsword doesn't look all that much different from his 2d4 falchion when you've both got a +25 damage to each hit. the amount of difference between the two weapons is nothing compared to the huge static bonus. Evocation spells on the other hand still have dice, but by having tons of dice, they make it much more likely you'll land close to average damage due to the laws of probability.

I'd really like to see some kind of system that puts more emphasis on the dice at later levels instead of purely static additions. Multipliers seem the best way to do that.

[Username17]

One of the things I really dislike about high level D&D is how the randomness of damage dice become worth basically nothing at high levels, especialyl for fighters.

What the hell are you talking about? In a hit point system, the only difference that the random factor makes is how often people die, which is in turn determined by the rate of growth of the death margin compared to the rate of growth of the random factor. In D&D, the death margin is static, while the random factor becomes larger at all, so the game becomes more lethal at higher levels. The random factor does not keep up with the total damage output, but that's because total damage output is competing in rate of growth with total hit points to determine combat length.

Under hit points, you can alter the rate of growth of:

Total Hit Points
vs.
The Staggered Window
vs.
The Death Margin

And in so doing you can change the relative amount of time people will spend concious, staggered, or unconcious. Further, you can float the ratio of total hit points growth to attack size in order to change how many attacks combat lasts; and change the rate of growh of the random factor to the size of the death margin to determine how fatal the game is. And that's the whole fvcking point.

That is, the only reason to keep hit points at all is because you like allowing the amount of attack variance to grow slightly while the staggered window and death margin stay constant, causing people to spend more time relatively concious and dead as the game progresses. That's it. That's the only "advantage" that the extremly convoluted hit point systems have.

If for some reason you didn't want the amount of randomness to change in the game as people went up in level, you'd drop hit points like a xenon balloon. Complaining that the random factor doesn't keep up with the total damage is just straight up madness - the two things aren't competing against each other to change any of the variables of combat.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

It's a personal preference really. I like early on in combats when the 2d6+5 damage your greatsword deals and the 2d6 actually means something. Later on it hardly really matters what the actual dice come up as because all your damage comes from other sources, and that makes the damage roll almost pointless as well as making high critical range weapons more powerful than big dice weapons like greatswords. Because the minor difference in average damage from dice ceases to mean much in comparison to the other factors.

And with spells it becomes the same. You roll more and more dice, but the dice roll means less and less, because things get closer to average the more dice you add.

The point I'm trying to make is that it gets to a point where you might as well not even have a damage roll, since the variation is so small, and you stop really caring when you roll a 12 on your 2d6 because its such a small fraction of the total damage dealt it might as well have just been a 5.

[Username17]

It's a personal preference really. I like early on in combats when the 2d6+5 damage your greatsword deals and the 2d6 actually means something. Later on it hardly really matters what the actual dice come up as because all your damage comes from other sources, and that makes the damage roll almost pointless as well as making high critical range weapons more powerful than big dice weapons like greatswords. Because the minor difference in average damage from dice ceases to mean much in comparison to the other factors.

Again and still, that's simply not true. What the random damage does is change the probability of killing your opponent with the same attack as renders your opponent unconcious. It does not especially change the number of attacks needed to take your opponent out of action, which is most likely one (since most opposition has 4 hit points at first level, 2d6+5 has no chance whatsoever of failing to incapacitate on any hit). So the 2d6 is being compared to the static 10 point death margin for purposes of "how much difference it makes", and not being compared to the total amount of damage being done.

At higher levels, the death margin is still 10 points, but the greatsword is most likely on fire, which means that it is now the random result of 3 dice determining its random element attempting to fall within the 10 point spread to see if your victim is unconcious and not dead. This means that the tangible effect of the random number - the chance to kill an opponent rather than incapacitate - has increased.

---

D&D damage becomes hugely more random at higher levels, such as the random effect matters at all. If you say that you like the degree of randomness at first level, then you should remove all bonus dice from the game - not try to increase the random effect over time!

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Well, I shouldn't realyl say "1st level" I should say low level. It's actually more like 3rd that ends up being pretty random. Basically any point before you get lots of adds to your weapon and you're dealing with mostly the 2d6.

As for the -10 thing, I really think that threshold needs to go up as you gain levels. It's stupid that it's static when your hit points constnatly go up. It should be more like GURPS where it goes down to -Max HP before you're actually dead. That way we wouldn't need as much resurrection magic.

[Username17]

As for the -10 thing, I really think that threshold needs to go up as you gain levels. It's stupid that it's static when your hit points constnatly go up. It should be more like GURPS where it goes down to -Max HP before you're actually dead. That way we wouldn't need as much resurrection magic.

OK, if you are going to do that, there is officially no reason at all to have hit points anymore. You could just have a health levels system set to the value you like and then have attacks and defenses scale together.

The only reason for hit points at all is to have the dynamics of relative health states change as power levels advance. If you aren't going to make the game more fatal, the hit points aren't bringing anything to the table. Bottom line being: if we take as given that you're using hit points because you want to, then we also take as given that systems of scaling the death margins with hit points are perforce not part of the discussion.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Well, the advantage hit points bring to the table is that they're already present in the game. It's much easier to implement a change to the hit point damage system than it is to introduce a totally new injury system.

And sure, we could introduce a new system, but that'd require a lot more work and fine balancing than the topic of the thread which was simply to fix evocation spells.

[Username17]

No. See, if you are presenting the idea that Hit Points should instead work just like Health Levels, then you are going down a slippery slope which involves changing entirely over to a health levels system. In short, since the thread presupposes that hit points as a concept is going to be retained, any suggestion which involves changing over to Health Levels is therefore "derailing the thread".

Or to put it another way: You can use the fact that death margins fall behind the random element of attacks rapidly as the power levels expand, or you can start your own damn thread.

The Hit Point System requires the world to become more fatal while granting easier access to raising the dead. That's what the hit point system brings to the table, and if you aren't going to play by those rules, you should go to a different thread. One in which health levels is being discussed.

-Username17

[User3]

Capping the max damage per level would make HPs work. It really would.

Crits could do something like ability damage, instead of making dudes heads explode.

I've never liked the health level/soak system simply because it involves a lot of "yeah I hit....for no damage..." or "crap I'm hit, and now I suck."

Some people like playing games where for half the adventure they are a bloody mess and barely functioning. I don't.

In my mind, getting to 0 HP is the "I'm all out of tricks" instead of a "how many pints of blood are in my viens."

I mean, we could give back all your HPs at the end of every combat if we liked, and the game would run better. Ability damage could stay for those diehard "bloody messes" guys out there.