Late in the cycle of 3.5E, an oft and unfortunately little talked about innovation was the idea of spells being able to be multi-functional, a spell could be cast as a defense and then become expended to become an offense. In my D&D revamp I'm trying to combine this concept with the idea of Psionic Power Points and augmentation. The goal is fewer spells that are more interesting. The numerical system used will be different and the numerical bonuses are subject to change. I wanted to get you all's thoughts in presentation of the below spells and ideas for what to do with other spells in the same venue.
Idea #1
Fire Surge
Evocation
Level: Evoker 1
Components: S
Casting Time: Standard Action
Range: Personal or Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: Personal or One Creature or Object within Range
Duration: 1 Round/Level or Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Points: 1
An array of brilliant flames surround your body, granting you 20 +1 Energy / Level bonus to AC. As a swift action, you may expend the spell into a bolt of flaming energy that on a successful attack roll, deals 20+Level+Int Damage.
Augment
For every additional Spell Point spent, increase the AC and Damage bonus by 1
Idea #2
Fire Surge2
Evocation
Level: Evoker 1
Components: S
Casting Time: Standard Action
Range: Personal or Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: Personal or One Creature or Object within Range
Duration: 1 Round/Level or Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Points: 1
An array of brilliant flames surround your body, you may either gain 20 +1 Energy / Level bonus to AC OR send a bolt of flaming energy that on a successful attack roll, deals 20+Level+Int Damage
Augment
For every additional Spell Point spent, increase the AC and Damage bonus by 1
Material Component - A small cinder
Idea #3
Magic Missile
Evocation
Level: Evoker 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Standard OR Immediate
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets: One Creature or Object OR One Ranged Attack Targeting You
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Points: 1
A missile of magical energy darts forth from your fingertip and strikes its target, dealing 8+Int+Level points of force damage (The missile strikes unerringly, even if the target is in melee combat or has less than total cover or total concealment; specific parts of a creature cannot be singled out) OR as an immediate action send a missile of magical energy dart to deflect one ranged attack targeted against you (if a ranged attack affects multiple targets, only you are unaffected).
How about not setting the random number generator on fire with bullshit bonuses that get stupidly titanic at mid level? I mean fuck, by level 10 that fire surge is half the entire RNG by itself, and it is a fucking "Energy Bonus", whatever the fuck that is.
The proposed system this will work with will use a D100 base for attacks, skill checks, etc.. Thus base AC is 50. HP and damage values for everything are designed such that in roughly 4 hits, a character will fall unconscious. For the moment I'm playing with the idea of an average attack dealing 25 hp and average starting hp being 100 hp.
Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp wrote:The proposed system this will work with will use a D100 base for attacks, skill checks, etc.. Thus base AC is 50. HP and damage values for everything are designed such that in roughly 4 hits, a character will fall unconscious. For the moment I'm playing with the idea of an average attack dealing 25 hp and average starting hp being 100 hp.
Ugh. Opposite problem. You're seriously handing out +1 percent bonuses to AC? You could seriously play the game for 10 years and not have statistically valid proof that such a bonus actually existed.
If you're going to use a spell point system then you might as well just lmake a list of effects with spell point costs and let spellcasters build their own on the fly. And put a premium on stacking multiple effects in a single spell.
I've changed Fire Surge to grant 20+Level bonus to AC. I'm universally changing everything to power points. That way spells, psionics, and warrior maneuvers can utilize the same pool easily and we can have a universal chart for power point acquisition by character level rather than individual class charts.
I think I'm going towards more of the options line of allowing spells to do more things rather than stack more bonuses on top of them. I like the idea of the variability and open-ended use of Silent Image and want to see other spells and powers have more versatility.
Right now, I have to ponder exactly how many spells points are received at each level and the interaction of augmentation. I like the idea of a 1:1 ratio of using power points to augment spells, i.e. 1 extra power point grants +1 attack, damage, AC, or whatever.
I think that was one of those "innovations" that they borrowed from Ed Greenwood's magic wank at the end of AD&D. He had this thing where each spell - at leas the named ones he liked to write - was sort of its own magical entity with different ways to interact with different spells/magical effects, so that in different situations the same spell could do different things.
