Quick and dirty fixes

[RandomCasualty]

Nerfing the Charge Whore

You can't use spirited charge (and its cavalier derivatives) and pounce in the same action, you muts choose one or the other.

Charge multipliers work only on base damage, strength damage and weapon enhancement bonuses. Everything else isn't multiplied. This includes power attack feat bonuses, as well as smite evil.

[MrWaeseL]

That's only good if you nerf casters as well, since charge whore is pretty much the only viable fighter build at high levels.

[RandomCasualty]

1132226741[/unixtime]]That's only good if you nerf casters as well, since charge whore is pretty much the only viable fighter build at high levels.

Well yeah... and that brings me to some of my high level caster nerfs..

9th level spells

Shapechange: Big red X. Doesn't exist anymore along with the rest of the broken polymorph mechanics.

Time Stop: Gone as well. Extra actions just aren't balanced.

Gate: Summoning ability gone. It's purely a transportation spell now.

Astral Projection: Gone.

DIsjunction: Doesn't dispel magic items unless you specifically target them (this reduces the spell to a target: one magic item). Otherwise, it just dispels all spells in the area.

Other magic stuff

Free Metamagic: A character can only apply one instance of free metamagic to any one spell. This includes free metamagic from a metamagic rod, the incantatrix's instant metamagic ability, divine metamagic and any other abiltiy that grants you metamagic without increasing the spell's slot.

[PhoneLobster]

OK I was lost as to why with the charge nerf thing (can you nerf something that unspectacular?) but the one instance of free metamagic thing?

What the heck do you expect them to do thats so nasty?

[RandomCasualty]

1132268024[/unixtime]]OK I was lost as to why with the charge nerf thing (can you nerf something that unspectacular?) but the one instance of free metamagic thing?

What the heck do you expect them to do thats so nasty?

It prevents casters from just doing pure "nuke" tactics. Combine an incantatrix, a sudden maximize and a metamagic rod, and you've got a crazy instant kill attack.

I pretty much try to remove all the nuke combos, because nukes aren't fun. A big BBEG battle ends instantly and the rest of the party might not even get to take a single action. That sucks. What sucks even worse is when the BBEG mage nukes the PCs. That's a campaign ender right there.

Rocket launcher tag isn't fun. Why allow it at all?

[User3]

1132268024[/unixtime]]OK I was lost as to why with the charge nerf thing (can you nerf something that unspectacular?)

Unspectacular? Whadda whadda wha?

I will grant that it is all fighter types have to be on par with casters, but that is precisely because it is so far removed from any other fighting manuever they're capable of.

X3 damage is wacky fun. You don't even have to milk it fully for it to be impressive. I play a charge whore myself, and I am actively trying to find ways for my character branch out from that one-trick routine, just because it is a combat-ender, and kind of boring.

I was playing my level 5 halfling charger with a nearly all-cleric party whose average level was around 10, and they were lucky to have my character there. A stinkin thaksor was being quite the obstacle until I gave it a few charge attacks... and I didn't even use power attack or pouncing shenanigans. If the clerics had heaped their buffs on my lil guy instead on themselves then that combat would have been a cake walk.

Lance and Spirited Charge damage multiplication is definitely a broken mechanic. Probably about the only one that fighters independently get access to without much fuss. It is in many ways superior to auto-critting even.

[PhoneLobster]

So whats so wrong with a a suden maximized energy admixtrued empowered spell that isn't wrong with one spell of each of those?

After all there are plenty of combat ending nuke spells sans the metamagic available by a level at which you have that many "free" metamagics available.

And it does diddly to stop a sudden instant death spell on the oh so valued big bady.

An empowered maximized fireball isn't even as good as a sudden fireball followed by a maximised fireball, which is legal under your house rule. And thats still a one round "nuke" routine.

Do you just hate people using large direct damaging spells or something?

And times three lance damage is still rather unspectacular, and I don't care how many times you get to take five off your attack and miss afterwards.

[erik]

1132303316[/unixtime]]
And times three lance damage is still rather unspectacular, and I don't care how many times you get to take five off your attack and miss afterwards.

Ehhhh, is it unspectacular for a character with average stats and equipment to deal out an average of 50+ damage every round at level 5? It just gets more insane as you keep leveling up and finding more synergies. Pounce pretty much doubles your damage for a nice X6.

Taking 5 pts off your attack lets you channel in 30 pts of damage. That's not bad. Especially when your attack bonus is still quite decent. I can usually set up a flank with my guy and eke out +10 to hit when full-on power attacking- more if kind party members are blessing, using bardic music, or anything else. Of course, you usually don't need to put all your mojo into power attack to get the job done.

I'll say again, a level 5 fighter type showing up a party of level 10 clerics.
If that isn't spectacular then we need to repolish our definitions.

[RandomCasualty]

1132303316[/unixtime]]
An empowered maximized fireball isn't even as good as a sudden fireball followed by a maximised fireball, which is legal under your house rule. And thats still a one round "nuke" routine.

While throwing a quickened fireball and a maximized fireball is good, it's not as good as...

-A quickened maximized fireball.
-A maximized empowered fireball.

[PhoneLobster]

While throwing a quickened fireball and a maximized fireball is good, it's not as good as...

-A quickened maximized fireball.
-A maximized empowered fireball.

A Quickened maximized fireball is actually not as good as a quickened and a maximized fireball, which deals more damage. The only trade of for a +35 average points of damage there is that it isn't all a quickened action, but so what it still fulfills your "and may occur before anyone else gets an action" problem.

A maximized empowered fireball also deals less damage than a quickened fireball followed by a maximized fireball (and thats just on average). And takes the same amount of time.

Now if you were talking a quickened maximised fireball AND a maximised empowered fireball well, heck your using four metamagics vs two in total, 4 of those over 4 spells will make for bigger numbers just like 2 over 2 spells was bigger than 2 over 1.

And exactly how many of these free uses of metamagic and what number of different metamagic feats are you assuming are available at any level at which there aren't a large pile of spells that just do the whole instant nuke thing on their own anyway?

Its not like sleep isn't a 1st level spell.

[RandomCasualty]

The idea was that you can fire off both of these in the same round using free metamagic.

-A quickened maximized fireball.
-A maximized empowered fireball.

[Murtak]

The idea was that you can fire off both of these in the same round using free metamagic.

-A quickened maximized fireball.
-A maximized empowered fireball.

Under your proposed rules change you can still do that. That's a 7th level spell + free metamagic and a 5th level spell + free metamagic. The incantatrix gets the second use of free metamagic at what, 9th level? At that level you can cast 7th level spells for sure.

As PhoneLobster said, I don't see the point of nerfing free metamagic if you think it can be used to deal too much damage. The best case for free metamagic damage I can come up with is maximizing and energy admixturing a horrid wilting at caster level 20. Additionally you will probably want to cast a quickened 10d6 orb spell or something like that. This will deal an average 20d8 + 160 + 10d6 = 285 damage.

Alternatively you could admixture a horrid wilting and quicken a second horrid wilting, for a total of 60d8 = 270 damage.

So, using a best case scenario stacking free metamagic deals an extra 15 damage - at character level 20. That is barely noticeable, let alone nerf-worthy.

[Essence]

No. The best case scenario of stacking free metamagic looks like this:

incantatrix with Free Maximize, rod of Empower, rod of Quicken and Divine Metamagic: Energy Admixture (with Turning from levels of Sacred Exorcist.)

She pops off a Quickened Maximized Empowered Admixtured Horrid Wilting and a Maximized Empowered Admixtured Horrid Wilting in the same round.

That's 20d6 base + 20d6 Admixtured = 40d6 maximized = 240 + (20d6 Empowered = 3.5*20=70 average) = 310 average damage from the first spell, plus another 310 from the Quickened version, for a total of 620 damage in one round, or about 2.5 times the damage of your non-stacking tactic.

[User3]

1132961565[/unixtime]]...and Divine Metamagic: Energy Admixture (with Turning from levels of Sacred Exorcist.)

DMM only works on divine spells. It can still be done as you say, but takes a bit more work.

[Murtak]

Firstly, that is not actually an example of stacking free metamagic with more free metamagic.

Secondly, why add more specific items, feats and classes to the equation?

Thirdly, if you want to provide "an example with gear" or something like that, why not actually provide an example for both sides of the argument?

Fourthly, all metamagic feats only affect the base spell, so your example actually deals 20d6 base (maximized to 120) + 20d6 (70 average) Admixtured + one-half 120 (60) Empowered = 120 + 70 + 60 = 250 damage per spell.



Now, for comparison's sake, stacking free metamagic:
You would repeat or twin or whatever the first spell for an extra 70 damage and not maximize the second spell, for a loss of 60 damage. Note that if maximize actually doubled damage (like twin and repeat spell do) you would end up with a net difference of zero damage.

Really, the only way stacking free metamagic uses makes any appreciable difference is when you houserule metamagic feats to affect not the base spell but the modified spell.



P.S.: Why the heck did Horrid Wilting get changed down to d6s in 3.5?

[User3]

Horrid Wilting? Ew.

I've found that Fireseeds' Holly Berries are the most bang for your buck when it comes to damage spells.

8d8+8*caster level. Huzzah!
Say 36 average from the 8d8, and 160 for caster level 20. That's 196 average damage for an unmodified level 6 spell.

Empower it, free or not if you like.
Admixture it too.

And after that feel free to cast it another half dozen times and pile all the Holly Berries into one big boom baggie. You're going to put a serious hurt on whatever fails it's reflex saves or doesn't have evasion. It really makes the free metamagic pretty moot.

As PhoneLobster said, you have limited uses, and the empowering, maximizing and everything else just isn't that impressive for a limited use ability. Other spells do it better (Fire Seeds!).

[Crissa]

Why do we even have that rod?

-Crissa

[Kirin_Corrigan]

all metamagic feats only affect the base spell, so your example actually deals 20d6 base (maximized to 120) + 20d6 (70 average) Admixtured + one-half 120 (60) Empowered = 120 + 70 + 60 = 250 damage per spell.

Actually, since as you said metamagic feats only affect the base spell you end up with 120 (20d6 Maximized) + 20d6 (Admixtured, 70 avg) + (20d6 * 0.5) (Empowered, 35 avg) = 120 + 70 + 35 = 225.

[Josh_Kablack]

1132973917[/unixtime]]
Fourthly, all metamagic feats only affect the base spell,

Haven't we had this argument before ? Link

Now, I'm down with it if you want to consider metamagic which would have a multiplicative effect on spell damage (or other "variable numeric effects") to only apply to the base spell as your quick and dirty fix for both overly strong metamagic stacking and the apparent ambiguity in the official rules on such.

However, I am totally against using interpretations where Widened, Empowered spells get to have a seperate blast radius for the Empowered part and the Widened part.

[Murtak]

Haven't we had this argument before?

That thread you linked is all interpretation and no facts. I vaguely remember reading some article Skip wrote explaining how you apply everything to the base spell, akin to how "double damage" really means "add your original damage again". A quick search on the wizards site turned up nothing though, so it is entirely possible I got it all wrong.

[Username17]

You want facts? The facts are that:

[*] There is a special rule pertaining to combining Maximize Spell and Empower Spell. It's right there in the feat descriptions.

[*] That's it.

The rest of the rules don't tell you to do that for anything ever. The whole idea metamagic is applied to the "base spell" somehow is not a rule. It's not even implied. At all. Anywhere.

If you twin an admixtured spell, you twin an admixtured spell. Period.

-Username17

[Murtak]

That still leaves errata, rules addendums and the like though. I could not find anything relevant on the wizards site though, so either they are too well hidden for me or more likely I am simply wrong. And in that case, stacking metamagic is indeed better (in terms of total damage) than using it separately. That is, other than stacking empower and meaximize (Why the heck have this silly rulee anyways? It only ever made sense to me as reminder text.)



Back on quick and dirty fixes:
Problem
"Fights in DnD just do not last long enough!" or "With all the instant-kill spells flying around, combat can be over in just one action and an unlucky saving throw".

Solution
Everyone has two lifes. Only when you "die twice" do you truly die. While you have not lost your first life you heal at an arbitrary but fast rate (say, fast healing 5). Once you lost your first life you require healing as normal, until you recover your first life.
If you fail a save or die spell while in your first life you lose your first life and go on with your second life, with as many hit points as you had in your first life when you failed the saving throw. If you lose your first life through damage you start your second life with full hit points.

Optional addons
- The first time you die you lose all ongoing spell effects (mainly to keep Hold Monster from staying a save or die spell).
- You may lose a life to end all ongoing spell effects (or maybe just a single effect of your choice?) on yourself (reason: see above).
- "Lose a life" may also be added or substtuted as a cost for abilities the DM or designer does not wish to be used over and over again or to only be used sparingly during combat.



As a side note this fix also helps with another problem, namely raw damage not stacking with save-or-die effects.

[RandomCasualty]

1133200049[/unixtime]]
Everyone has two lifes. Only when you "die twice" do you truly die. While you have not lost your first life you heal at an arbitrary but fast rate (say, fast healing 5). Once you lost your first life you require healing as normal, until you recover your first life.
If you fail a save or die spell while in your first life you lose your first life and go on with your second life, with as many hit points as you had in your first life when you failed the saving throw. If you lose your first life through damage you start your second life with full hit points.

So when do you get your lives back? Each adventure? Each day? Each combat? And does that apply to monsters too or just PCs?

[erik]

That two life rule sounds more like a bundle of at least a dozen rule changes once you start figuring in all the little side bits. Everyone having two lives doesn't seem like a quick fix, just dirty. It raises more issues than it solves as it doesn't actually solve much.

The raw damage dealer now takes more than twice as long to kill stuff, compared to the wizard's two spells (can quicken a save or die to still double kill in one round I reckon if you really want to rub the fighter's nose in it). It really doesn't help let save or dies and raw damage help each other, it just makes raw damage much worse (and thus save or dies more powerful relatively).

There are many ambiguous or unanswered results of this mechanic.
* Fast healing 5? WTF? Intended to slow down raw damage dealers even more I guess.
* Regaining your first life? How/When?
* This messes with much of how healing, spells and many many other abilities function. You're going to find it's tentacles reaching into many aspects of gameplay with unintended results.

[Essence]

The Myth of Metmagic Interaction as laid out by Turin. Five-star article according to whoever ranks articles in Regdar's Repository.


The two-lives thing, I would turn around thusly:
Everyone gains the following ability at 11th level --

Heroic Comeback (Ex): When the character would die for whatever reason, he instead becomes unconscious for 1d3 rounds, then springs to life with half of his ability, level, and energy damage and drain healed. During this time, he takes damage as an object, and can go into negative hit points/attribute points/levels with no ill effect. If healing half of all forms of damage is not enough to make him functional at the end of his unconciousness, he dies. Once used, this ability cannot be used again for 1d4+1 minutes.