Damage spells nerf

[ImperatorK]

I'd like my casters to be mostly support or utility, leaving dealing damage in the hands of mundanes. That's why I'm going to nerf damaging spells. My idea is to lower their damage dice by one step, thus lowering their average and maximum damage.
Opinions?

[Raineh Daze]

You want to nerf the least powerful thing Casters can do and leave level 1 casters less dangerous than peasantry fisticuffs? Pointless.

[ImperatorK]

Yes. I want to nerf the least powerful thing casters can do, because that least powerful thing still outperforms what mundanes can do. If mundanes should have something over casters, I want decent and consistent damage to be that thing in my games.

[ketaro]

If you want to then.

Leave the damage die alone and just reduce all scaling dice per caster level to 1/2 CL IF not already at 1/2 CL.
So something like Fireball would be 1d6/two caster levels (5d6 lvl 10) instead of 1d6/caster level (10d6 lvl 10)

Because thats about as much damage an average melee at 10th level would be dealing per hit.
Average average. Not optimized average.

[Raineh Daze]

Yes. I want to nerf the least powerful thing casters can do, because that least powerful thing still outperforms what mundanes can do. If mundanes should have something over casters, I want decent and consistent damage to be that thing in my games.

I still don't see the point. You basically want to penalise anyone that focuses on the thing Casters are worst at without optimisation, and with optimisation will still trash fighters without trying. Mailman builds, for instance. Cleric buffing. Natural Spell.

[ketaro]

Yes. I want to nerf the least powerful thing casters can do, because that least powerful thing still outperforms what mundanes can do. If mundanes should have something over casters, I want decent and consistent damage to be that thing in my games.

I still don't see the point. You basically want to penalise anyone that focuses on the thing Casters are worst at without optimisation, and with optimisation will still trash fighters without trying. Mailman builds, for instance. Cleric buffing. Natural Spell.

Unless you're gonna join their game, I don't see the point in arguing the rules he wants to impose. *shrugs*

[Raineh Daze]

Yes. I want to nerf the least powerful thing casters can do, because that least powerful thing still outperforms what mundanes can do. If mundanes should have something over casters, I want decent and consistent damage to be that thing in my games.

I still don't see the point. You basically want to penalise anyone that focuses on the thing Casters are worst at without optimisation, and with optimisation will still trash fighters without trying. Mailman builds, for instance. Cleric buffing. Natural Spell.

Unless you're gonna join their game, I don't see the point in arguing the rules he wants to impose. *shrugs*

I'm just saying that it most harms the people that don't know what they're doing and go with iconic abilities rather than powerful abilities.

[ketaro]

Nobody is gonna sign up for a game they don't like the houserules too. He'll get people who are okay with his decisions. So I don't see the point in worrying about it; thus I offered suggestions 

[ImperatorK]

I don't want casters to be blasters. Or rather, I want casters to be primarily support or utility, as said in OP. I don't have a problem with blasters per se, but I want damage to be the thing that non-casters are out-of-the-box better at than casters. That requires nerfing caster blasting, because non-casters don't need any more damage. If you like blasters, tough luck. I'm not forcing you to join my game.
And what's "iconic" is of no importance to me.

Because thats about as much damage an average melee at 10th level would be dealing per hit.
Average average. Not optimized average.

That's the thing tho. I want non-casters to be better at damage.

[ketaro]

They still would be in that the blaster is doing about as much damage in their round as a melee would if he were only granted one attack. By 10th level you've got at least 2 attacks on a fullround to basically be doubling the blaster's output so long as you can hit.

Ah....hmm, thinking over it again though, AoEs damage die should be lowered as well then to reach the result you probably want. On top of slowed die number progression. Because AoEs really would be the biggest problem in terms of outdoing the melees.

Yanna what, yeah, you could probably just universally lower the damage die on all blaster type spells and then slow the d#/level progression to at most 1/2 CL and that'd probably work about right for your needs. Combing both the ideas!

[ImperatorK]

I don't want to nerf them to uselessness tho, lol.
Lowering the dice just seems easiest and simplest, ya know? And I'm all about easy and simple.
Besides, I'd rather have the spells improve every level, than just every other level.

[ketaro]

Well, I wouldn't imagine that'd nerf them to uselessness, AoEs would still rock....it'd just make single target spells......useless *cough*.

Okay I see your point. Your original idea works well enough

[linklord231]

What are some reasonable "average average" numbers for mundane damage?  That would give us a ballpark for how much lower blasting damage needs to be.

Let's see.  Assume a generic dude with greatsword at level 10 (the level Fireball stops scaling).  He's probably got 22 Str (18 + 2 race + 2 enhancement), and the cleric hit him with a Greater Magic Weapon so he has a +2 sword.  Optimization by the Numbers says the average AC for a CR 10 is about 23, so he should optimally power attack for about 2.  Total average damage per round comes to something like 28, more if he can get some more pluses somewhere.

I think, really, what needs to be nerfed is the metamagic feats for blasting.  10d6 isn't all that much, really - average is what, 35 damage?  That's peanuts, even if your baseline is only 28 damage to a single target.  It only starts to get out of hand when you add things like Energy Admixture or Twin Spell.  Ban those (and similar abilities), and you should be golden.

[SolEiji]

I think, really, what needs to be nerfed is the metamagic feats for blasting.  10d6 isn't all that much, really - average is what, 35 damage?  That's peanuts, even if your baseline is only 28 damage to a single target.  It only starts to get out of hand when you add things like Energy Admixture or Twin Spell.  Ban those (and similar abilities), and you should be golden.

Bumped for emphasis.  Being a metamagic abuser and having witnessed metamagic abuse (as well as continuing my campaign of convincing a certain someone on the wiki to stop uncapping low level spells), I can say with certainty it's not the blasts, it's the metamagic.

If you want to keep metamagic but want to nerf it, do a psionics.  Limit to one metamagic per spell, no matter the source.  Does wonders.

[Leviathan]

If AoE spells are a major problem, you could increase the damage (or leave the damage as is, if you really want to nerf them), but split it among all creatures in the area.

[ImperatorK]

What are some reasonable "average average" numbers for mundane damage?  That would give us a ballpark for how much lower blasting damage needs to be.

I was about to ask the same question.

Let's see.  Assume a generic dude with greatsword at level 10 (the level Fireball stops scaling).  He's probably got 22 Str (18 + 2 race + 2 enhancement), and the cleric hit him with a Greater Magic Weapon so he has a +2 sword.  Optimization by the Numbers says the average AC for a CR 10 is about 23, so he should optimally power attack for about 2.  Total average damage per round comes to something like 28, more if he can get some more pluses somewhere.

Weapon Focus, Greater WF and Weapon Specialization if a Fighter. That gives potential for additional 6 damage.
Rage if a Barbarian. That would be also 6 more damage. 8 if we give the Barb WF.
Smite if a Paladin. At least 10 more damage, more if he has decent Cha. Also depends on spell choice.
Two-handing (6 + 3 = 9) a +2 greatsword (2d6 => 7 + 2 = 9) and Power Attacking (2). With two attacks that makes it 40 average damage in a round. And that's just baseline, with no real optimization. Heck, I should add some obvious feats or class features, because using those is barely optimization, but whatever, it's not needed.
A 10th level Fireball will deal 35 damage on average. That's less, yes, but in an area, so it can actually be much more. Also, it's just an average, so it can be even more than that.
With my houserule the d6 would turn into a d4. Average damage would then be 25. A much more reasonable number, IMO. And the maximum damage would be only equal to the non-caster's damage.
(It's my first time "analyzing" mechanics, so if I did any errors, tell me.)

If someone optimizes for blasting then that's okay with me. Optimized blasting is not the problem. Banning or limiting metamagic misses the point and screws over non-blasters.

If AoE spells are a major problem, you could increase the damage (or leave the damage as is, if you really want to nerf them), but split it among all creatures in the area.

They're not. Damage is the problem. You have an interesting idea, but it does nothing to non-AoE spells. And they still can be used against a single enemy.

Guys. If you post an idea, please explain how it's better than my houserule. My system mastery is too low for me to figure that myself.

[Leviathan]

If AoE spells are a major problem, you could increase the damage (or leave the damage as is, if you really want to nerf them), but split it among all creatures in the area.

They're not. Damage is the problem. You have an interesting idea, but it does nothing to non-AoE spells. And they still can be used against a single enemy.

My suggestion wasn't meant to replace, but rather to supplement whatever else you might do. If you drop fireball from Xd6 to Xd4, you still have the problem that when there are three enemies a fireball's effectiveness is tripled, but a sword doesn't get any better.

[ImperatorK]

Weakening AoE spells when used against multiple enemies kinda misses their point, don't you think? The only problem that I have is when they hit multiple enemies AND deal more damage to a single enemy than a non-caster.

Let me reiterate:
Spells dealing damage is fine. I'm not trying to make blasting obsolete or pointless.
Optimizing for spell damage is fine. Equally optimized non-caster damage will still be greater.
AoE spells dealing damage to multiple enemies is fine. Non-casters will be kings of focused (single, double, maybe triple) target damage. Blasting will be king (or at least optimal) for spread out/splash damage, like it's supposed to.
Spells dealing more damage to single enemies than non-casters isn't fine. I'd probably ban single-target spells, but it wouldn't make much sense from the in-game perspective, at least to me.
My goal is for spell damage (on a single enemy) to be lower than non-caster damage.