Author Topic: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?  (Read 26153 times)

Offline Kethrian

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #60 on: July 04, 2012, 08:43:53 PM »
One other problem with scaling penalties to damage, it adds more complexity and time needed to get through a round of combat.  Is it really worth it to add that if it means the fights last 1.5 or 2 times longer, in real time?  If you get 5 fights in a session normally, you might only get 3, 4 if everyone knows the new rules well and prepare the calculation modifiers in advance (most players I know would not).
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Offline veekie

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #61 on: July 05, 2012, 12:38:05 AM »
I've seen Wound Penalties work out, but it requires that damage be consistent, so you can be sure a given character won't easily fall through multiple tiers of penalties in one shot. Its not in D&D, damage goes all over the place.

It also helps if overall less damage is being flung around in a battle of equals(unequal combat can go splat just fine), so the numbers are easier to adjudicate.
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Offline linklord231

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #62 on: July 05, 2012, 04:03:37 AM »
In my opinion, wound penalties do not belong in a heroic fantasy type game like the latest editions of D&D.  They work fantastically in gritty games or "realistic" games, but D&D is neither of those.  I feel like D&D is closer spiritually to the superhero genre, but set in a medieval/high fantasy world.  In such settings, the characters and villains alike can withstand obscene amounts of punishment without breaking a sweat, and wound penalties run counter to that idea.
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #63 on: July 05, 2012, 01:41:49 PM »
Excuse me, but Humanity was talking about heroes (and monsters) that could whitstand tremendous amounts of damage since there's recorded sagas and legends.  If anything, the superhero genre just copied that concept.

Offline veekie

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #64 on: July 05, 2012, 02:29:06 PM »
Exactly, in fact, the deed of shrugging off ridiculous amounts of damage becomes MORE significant, when not everyone in the tale is capable of it!
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Offline midnight_v

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #65 on: July 06, 2012, 03:47:37 PM »
In my opinion, wound penalties do not belong in a heroic fantasy type game like the latest editions of D&D.  They work fantastically in gritty games or "realistic" games, but D&D is neither of those.  I feel like D&D is closer spiritually to the superhero genre, but set in a medieval/high fantasy world.  In such settings, the characters and villains alike can withstand obscene amounts of punishment without breaking a sweat, and wound penalties run counter to that idea.
I agree with you.
D&D is neither of those. Superhero genre exists and we know whats meant by that as a standard. Regardless of the fact that there are regenerators like "The green knight" in arthurian legend, thats not the "Rule" like it is in "random comic book land" D&D is superheroing which is why that type of wound system isn't in the game. You can make another D20 game that incorporates such things but so many changes would be made there that it wouldn't be acceptible to sit down with people who've come to play D&D and then spring a wound system on them. I ... I can't remember if theres a game that already does something like this though.

To the op. If you want a sytem by which blasting is as good as sod's/s battlefield control... then the question that I gather from the begining's of your post is: Is it okay for a wizard to blast the encounter to death himself X times perday.
If thats okay then you can theoretically see how much damage it takes to be level appropriate and do that, though there are spell effects that are way more powerful that are hard to equate with simple blasting.

Example: Hold Monster, Mass.
Has its drawbacks I know... but in a bubble right, in a bubble if this spell goes off it ends the encounter. Doesn't work on undead etc blah blah blah, but still...

So if you made an uncapped fireball that did that, how much damage would be acceptable to end an encounter all by itself, because thats ultimately being asked when someone says make evocation equal to other magics, "ON SOME LEVEL"

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Still, lobbing a fireball at the average level 10hd monster just doesn't cut it, since they have pretty much massive con bonuses. Doing 35 damage save for half just isn't enough vs your basic cr 10 monster.
Therefore, regardless of the fix you decide to you, the acknoledgement that there is a deficency there is pretty paramount.

I see the popular solution right now is turning all blasting spells in to some variation of "Wings of Flurry" and that ... that works, in some way but still you've made evocation in to basically a save or suck brand of magic. Which isn't much different from playing "God" except that the theortical caster would potentially have to cast 2 spells where as God might only have to cast 1 more often that not (depending on the lighting at the moment, aka the enemy)

The 2 problems I see that are non-starters imho is
  1. to increase the damage of blasting spells you have to take away their eligibility for "shennanigans" via metamagic as the op calls it. Thats a reasonable thing in actuality, because while I'm not from a school of banning much, I've met, read about, and encoutered many a Gm who would take grievance with a mailman type build. So if you're making a "BETTER" evocation then one of the thing that has to be removed is the "Ways we've bent and stretch to make it work before"... people w/system mastery will resist that idea in my experience, but you can do better, if you want.
  2. "What about when the mosnters use these new spells on players" a particularly misleading question, because... well the question is how do we make evocation equal to "God spell" if god spells are already being used against the players for an" auto-win like" scenario then it doesn't matter WHAT Was cast. Unless the gm is relying on evocation to be a threatning-yet-non-effective magic, in which case they genuniely wouldn't want evocation increased in power no matter WHAT solution you brought to the table.
So really, the "New bad spells used vs players" is no different from "Current bad spells used vs player" or is shouldn't be.

Sorry so long winded, started streming consciouness there...
« Last Edit: July 06, 2012, 03:51:24 PM by midnight_v »
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Offline veekie

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #66 on: July 06, 2012, 09:11:36 PM »
I do think a comprehensive fix would be actually lowering everything, including nonmagical damage sources, debilitating effects and monster outputs to the approximate strength of blasting. Too bad its so much work you'd be releasing a new edition.
Everything is edible. Just that there are things only edible once per lifetime.
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?
« Reply #67 on: July 07, 2012, 07:35:56 AM »
Knockdown Power might be useful for psionic characters.