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View Full Version : [3.5] Evocation, and taking a page from Psionics



Greymane
2009-03-02, 04:23 PM
In a game my home group has recently begun, we've decided to give a 'round robin' sort of game a shot, where we all take turns DMing. While this provides an odd gaming experience with problems all its own, we've also taken to modifying a few things, and I'm curious if you folks could tell me if they're reasonable, and help me a bit with a few numbers.

We use the Spell Point system as outlined in Unearthed Arcana (though, I'm thinking of reducing the amount of points prepared casters get or increasing the number spontaneous get), and we've decided to take a page from Psionics in regards to a few spells. Namely, a few Evocation spells that I tend to overlook these days because they just aren't as useful as other spells.

The two examples are from the PHB, and somewhat iconic: Fireball and Lightning Bolt.

The thing we love about psionics, is its adaptability with its spells. Though ML doesn't often scale powers the way CL does with spells, we thought 'augmenting' some spells would just give them more effects, but because CL already handles so much, and with how prevalent Metamagic is, I don't know what a reasonable amount of points to spend on a spell is.

Lightning Bolt, for example, when augmented enough with spell points, has the bonus of also acting as a Bull Rush made by a Large creature with a 20 in strength. I figure if someone wanted to continue to augment that (if we went with that idea), more points would give a larger bonus to the Bull Rush, and maybe a bonus to the Reflex Save DC. They are only affected by the Bull Rush if they fail their Reflex Save.

Whereas with Fireball, we merely got lazy and tacked on the Explosive Metamagic feat to it when augmented.

We haven't had a chance to play test these things yet, but how does this sound to all of you? I realize buffing magic in 3.5 is really unnecessary, but in our group especially, we'd like to make some of these spells useful again. Thanks for any and all feedback.

Morandir Nailo
2009-03-02, 10:50 PM
My solution to this was to reduce monster HP. Fireball does 1d6/level in 3.x just like it has since OD&D, but monster HPs have gone up quite a bit, especially if they have a high Con. So instead of giving Con bonus every level, I give it once. This puts their HP more in line with older editions and makes direct-damage spells more effective; actually, it makes direct-damage anything more effective...

Mor

Fizban
2009-03-02, 10:55 PM
The first thing you have to do with spell points is force prepared casters to allot their spell points when they prepare their spells. None of this "I prepare a list then choose what to cast, becoming infinitely better than a sorcerer" crap. Prepared casters divide up their spell points into a set of prepared spells the same way they would prepare their spell slots. Or, now that I think of it, you could impose a "unique spells per day" limit similar to the Erudite, but I'd then impose a similar xp cost to learn spells beyond what you gain for leveling, to help slow codex creep.

After that, I'd modify all damage dealing spells to gain +1 DC with every 2 effective caster level increases, and remove the dice caps. So for the fireball example, it would cost 5 points (6 for sorcerer) and deal 5d6 (6d6 for sorcerer), with the augment "for every extra spell point spent, increase damage by +1d6, and for every +2d6 add +1DC". This makes damaging spells behave like damaging powers, letting the DC scale up so that spending enough points for a level 5 effect on a level 3 spell will at least get you the level 5 DC.

There are plenty of powers that don't have many augmentations, so there's no need to make sure every spell has one. I'd suggest as a base line that you either change basic damage spells like fireball and lightning bolt to let you choose your energy type, or add some sort of extra effect. The bull rush and explosive ideas are good, as would be extra targets or area chunks. Powers usually don't give you extra damage with these, so it'd be more like "for an extra 2 spell points, you can make the fireball explosive...", meaning you'd sacrifice damage for niftiness, and meaning that higher level spells still have a use (most begin to have extra effects that in this case would be effectively free compared to a lower level spell with augmentation, giving you more damage). Buffs would probably have options to increase their base duration/level and add extra targets and some spells would have options to decrease their casting times. Basically just browse through the psionic powers for inspiration, and take note of the changes they made for psionic (spell name).

Finally, you'll want to reduce spells known to compare to the psion/erudite. The wizard should be fine, since he's either locked into preparation as usual, or using the erudite's own mechanics (heck, with the convert spell to power web enhancement ability, they might as well be the same already). I think I once counted up the sorcerer's spells known, or maybe spell levels known, and found that he compared to the psion, so you could rip the numbers off the psion and call it good. Maybe a little boost to make up for spells that clash with the augment system, though they're more likely to make him more powerful instead of setting him back.

Essentially, if you want to do spell points right, you'll have to retcon a lot of the system by reverse engineering it from psionics, assuming you don't just file the serial numbers off psionics and use them instead. I don't think it would be too bad since you can just make judgement calls on most of the spells if you want to augment them. Adding more extreme augments like bull rushing lighting bolts and explosive fireballs would be a good way to differentiate them from psionics, which have more low-key augmentations most of the time, and would make up for being stuck with a single energy type (which is another restriction that would keep the two distinct).

Other things to do to make the direct damage evocations useful again: You could drop the SR for them, since half the reason conjuration does it better is because they don't have SR. I'd also suggest some sort of low priced way to get past energy resistance in general for any blaster. So many outsiders have resistance to basically everything that you need some way to beat it, and the Scorching Heat/Piercing Cold metamagic feats cost +2 levels each. I can't think of anything that wouldn't seem like a clumsy tack on, but you could have evocations ignore some amount of energy resistance, up to CL or spell level for example. Maybe evocations are affected by SR, but penetrate resistance instead, making the choice between conjuration and evocation a bit murkier damage wise.

More suggestions for augmented effects, apply to appropriate spells as needed, compare to psioncs for balance: trip (cylinders, rays), blown to edge of effect on failed save (any area), bull rush (rays), daze, stun, slow, immobilize, check, greased area (DC 10 or more balance check when moving or fall and more), area covered in light/dense rubble, save penalties, dazzle, blind, deafen, entangle, fatigue, exhaust...now I'm basically just moving down the conditions list from the DMG. Why not blown away (blown back 1d6x5', taking 1d6 damage per 10' travelled)? Some are piddly inconveniences, and some are staples of battlefield control. I'd suggest no more than one or two choices per spell, and no other options besides more damage. Basically what you're doing is giving a slight control option to the blasting spells by letting the caster trade some of his damage for a light debuff.

Edit: following the above poster's idea, you could instead increase damage. Adding +primary casting stat per die would probably be too much, but you could assign non primary mental stats to the classes for their damage, or make it static. Adding +1 per spell level to each die doesn't sound to bad compared to some of the bigger con scores out there. I think I actually like the apply con bonus to hp once idea better though.

Also, that went wall of text fast. Sorry.