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View Full Version : If casters couldn't cast damage inflicting spells



Dr.Epic
2011-12-24, 03:31 AM
Just a random thought. If spell casters could cast spells that dealt direct damage, would that make them more balanced at higher levels? I think at the very least it would make them more interesting. They couldn't just blast their way through NPCs mooks. They'd have to use strategy something that would make the game more interesting for players. It would challenge PC to role play a caster like they should be relying on intellect to solve a hostile problem. It think all magical battles in fiction fought using nondirect means to beat their enemy rather than just powerful fireballs spells are more interesting.

I'm tempted to DM a campaign like this posing such restrictions on the PCs.

peacenlove
2011-12-24, 03:45 AM
Casters can replace direct damage spells with summons. Black tentacles + summon shadow via the undead summon line of spells can severely cripple the opposition if not outright kill them.
Direct damage is something a caster should do after the outcome of the battle is determined.

Jerthanis
2011-12-24, 03:47 AM
Wizards are not actually very good at straight up damage with their spells anyway. Their real danger is in being able to turn people into frogs, statues, or trap them in extradimensional mazes. Their real REAL danger is being able to target anyone anywhere who doesn't have magical countermeasures and teleport the party in and shank the enemy while they're on the toilet.

It's not "OMG Casters are OP, I saw a wizard do 70 damage with a series of empowered scorching rays!" because at that level a fighter who could land a full attack could probably do 90+ easy peasy. Its "OMG Casters are OP because they can use nondamaging means to trivialize encounters while using 1/8th of their total resources."

Unfortunately there is no quick fix to high level spellcasters, alas.

Though this would be a somewhat entertaining flavorful change to spellcasters that might be interesting to see.

Salbazier
2011-12-24, 03:48 AM
I don't think so. I'm under impression that direct damage is the least of the casters problem and the game would be less broken (but still broken) if caster are the primary damage dealers. banning direct damge is likely just going to made people use polymorph, minion armies (summon or undead), save-or-dies ect. Even moreso than before.

EDIT: I know I'm going to be ninja'ed

tyckspoon
2011-12-24, 03:49 AM
Using almost anything besides direct damage already *is* the better option, unless that direct damage happens to be optimized well enough to actually be a kill spell. Banning direct damage a: forces your caster-inclined players to dig deeper into the system and probably discover things that will do more damage to your enjoyment of the game than 'I cast fireball' ever did (in 3.5 it's not a very big step from 'intelligent solving of combat problems' to 'your campaign world is my playground now') and b: disappoints players whose greatest joy in the game is to say "I cast (Explosive/Delayed/Maximized/Empowered/whatever) Fireball!", pick up that double handful of d6s, and knock over every mini on the battle map with a poorly-aimed roll.

Conners
2011-12-24, 03:51 AM
If it was something other than DnD, it could be interesting. Might need to build the system around the idea, too.

Medic!
2011-12-24, 07:46 AM
Tossing another similar looking chip into the pile, the last caster I rolled up was a sorcerer and I refused to take any spells that dealt hitpoint damage. Every other time a player at our table played an arcane caster it was lightning bolts, shocking grasps, and fireballs.

I anticipate an entire caster party next time our group rolls new characters. Encounters ended FAST! My personal favorite was the 16th lvl sorcerer our lvl 10 party went up against. The DM isn't huge on casters, but he tried to make it a challenge by having a delayed blast fireball go off shortly after we entered the room the sorcerer was in. Unfortunately for her, Daddy won initiative, and my imp touch of idiocy'd her followed by her failing her save against Feeblemind. Biggest planned battle of the night ended on the first turn of the first round.

All that being said, delving into the non-explody side of the arcane made it a much more enjoyable experience for me.

gkathellar
2011-12-24, 08:29 AM
It's a lot more fun to play casters without focusing on damage, I agree. If you want to damage things, a melee build is fine — the real joy in playing a wizard isn't tossing out fireballs, but rather knowing that you always have a trick up your sleeve. You basically get to play Doctor Doom.

Warlawk
2011-12-24, 12:11 PM
Just a random thought. If spell casters could cast spells that dealt direct damage, would that make them more balanced at higher levels? I think at the very least it would make them more interesting. They couldn't just blast their way through NPCs mooks. They'd have to use strategy something that would make the game more interesting for players. It would challenge PC to role play a caster like they should be relying on intellect to solve a hostile problem. It think all magical battles in fiction fought using nondirect means to beat their enemy rather than just powerful fireballs spells are more interesting.

I'm tempted to DM a campaign like this posing such restrictions on the PCs.

You've got it backward. Casters that focus on damage spells are roughly balanced. This goes out the window with extreme metamagic abuse of course, but a straight up wizard who mostly blasts things is pretty well balanced.

My RL play group is pretty low optimization and the two players that usually run wizards like to blast. One likes to blast/utility and the other likes to blast/buff. They use some utility spells when situations demand it, but do not use them to trivialize the game and things stay pretty balanced. When I played a wizard, I shelved it at level 7 because I was already starting to break things a bit and I was avoiding the really broken stuff and just focusing hard on ray of enfeeblement. I think it was when I just destroyed a tough hill giant encounter at level 7 with a chained[easy metamagic]/empowered[easy metamagic] ray of enfeeblement[arcane thesis]. After they had their strength neutered the encounter was pretty much over. We got hit a grand total of 2 times for mediocre damage after their AB/damage took a big hit.

So yeah... damage casters (barring Mailman style builds) are pretty much ok. Its the batman types that break reality.

kaomera
2011-12-24, 12:46 PM
Screw balance, it's awesome. I definitely recommend it.

SowZ
2011-12-24, 01:56 PM
Wizard's damage ability was what they tried to balance D&D against. The blaster wizard. Yes, their spells do the most damage compared to a single swing. But they are limited and the Wizard has little health/no armor. If anything, to balance the wizard against lower tier classes give them only damage spells. But then they are boring and take away alot of the mysticism.

bloodtide
2011-12-24, 02:18 PM
Just a random thought. If spell casters couldn't cast spells that dealt direct damage, would that make them more balanced at higher levels? I think at the very least it would make them more interesting. They couldn't just blast their way through NPCs mooks. They'd have to use strategy something that would make the game more interesting for players. It would challenge PC to role play a caster like they should be relying on intellect to solve a hostile problem. It think all magical battles in fiction fought using nondirect means to beat their enemy rather than just powerful fireballs spells are more interesting.

No.

Spellcasters don't really do all that much damage, it's all the other effects that people whine about anyway.

But there is a better way to 'balance' this spellcaster problem. Simply raise both the magic and fantasy of the campaign. Yes, a high level caster can take out a 100 3rd level human warriors with a single spell, but make that 50 xill and a single spell won't have as much effect.

HMS Invincible
2011-12-24, 03:55 PM
You could switch it around, and give wizards/sorc nothing but damage spells. Then they'd have to find the damaging spells that had good debuffs/buffs, or battlefield control on the side. It would definitely cramp their spell pool. Then again, you might as well shove 4th ed spells down their throats to see how they like it. All utility spells are now rituals, eat it tier 1!!!!

olthar
2011-12-24, 04:09 PM
I ran a one-shot a while ago where almost all magic was illusionary and the spell effects were simply things that people thought were occurring.

Mechanically, it added a will save to all spells that were not already in the school of illusion, removed spells that obviously couldn't work as illusions (e.g. feather fall, comprehend languages, knock, teleport, etc.), and removed the image line. Besides adding two points of failure (will save and regular save) it greatly weakened all casters by restricting spell pool and restricting effects (if the guy you're casting power word kill on doesn't understand that you're using magic that should kill him, then it can't work).

The reason that spells still worked against mages was that really powerful mages could make spells that actually had substance (epic magic was shadow (school)). Epic was also huge for mages since spells like tongues and teleport suddenly became available. It was basically the huge consolation prize for being very weak HP-wise and much easier to stop from 1 - 19.

The Underlord
2011-12-24, 04:58 PM
Well there goes all of every caster's except cleric at-will, encounter, and daily powers.

What? You never specified edition(or even dnd :smalltongue:)

Leon
2011-12-24, 05:02 PM
The best spells are already non direct damage ones - the spells that augment the fighting/defensive capability of the group.

jaybird
2011-12-24, 09:17 PM
Removes a bunch of the fun without any of the brokenness. I LIKE throwing down more dice then the rest of my table has put together and nuking me a 40' (Widen Spell, always) circle of bad guys. The most fun character I've played so far is a Wilder who could throw a 15d10 blast DC 27 Will to negate.

erikun
2011-12-25, 01:46 AM
Shall I assume 3rd edition D&D, because I haven't heard such a complaint outside those and earlier D&D editions?

As others have pointed out, though, the wizard's damage potential is not its strongest point. A base wizard throws out 20d6 at 20th level, which sounds like a lot, until you realize that's only 70 damage average. A fighter with Leap Attack can probably do that in a single hit, and most monsters at that level have several hundred HP. You could certainly metamagic it up, especially with a Mailman sorcerer, but you still aren't doing much better than a similarly optimized fighter.

A far better way to end an encounter is not Polar Ray, but Solid Fog or Forcecage. Yes, the enemy is not dead, but it isn't doing anything for a long time either. This means you can clean up the encounter and then kill the monster (or not) at your leisure.

HMS Invincible
2011-12-25, 03:59 AM
I loled when they give wizards all this broken awesome stuff, and then balance the game by comparing fireball (oooh, it does less damage, but it's an aoe, an aoe!!!!) to some guy stabbing something.

Eldan
2011-12-25, 09:12 AM
I don't think they gave the wizards awesome stuff in 3rd, at least not at first.

Instead, they translated AD&D spells, more or less verbatim, just by updating the jargon. Then they changed everything else.

J-H
2011-12-25, 10:02 AM
Other solutions: Limit the number of spells, so that wizards and sorcers don't have 4d4+4 ways of breaking the world.

Wizards: Two spells per level on level-up, must come from schools that they already have spells in (since they are "figuring these out" rather than copying from a scroll). No magic mart for scrolls. They have to find a scroll, or find a friendly (or dead hostile) wizard with a spellbook they can copy from. Re-introduce the chance to fail at copying a spell. Make magic "special" again by making it hard to acquire.
Also, give them the ability to research a spell, if they have in-game knowledge of it or something similar, at the cost of time, components, xp, and a bit of HP.

Sorcerors: Pick 4 spell schools at character creation. They can only learn spells from those 4 schools.

Tengu_temp
2011-12-25, 10:23 AM
What are you talking about, OP? There are no damage-dealing spells in WotG and LotW already. Damage is the domain of kung-fu, magic serves a different purpose.

Or is it about DND 4e? Well, I'd say casters are already balanced with non-casters in that game, and taking their ability to deal damage so would nerf them way too much. How many non-damaging powers do wizards even have, for example?

Oh? You're talking about DND 3e? Then why is this on the general RPG forum, not the 3e subforum?

Aron Times
2011-12-25, 01:22 PM
Wizards in 4e deal little damage. What makes them dangerous are the numerous status effects they inflict on their targets. For example, the level 3 spell, Color Spray, deals 1d6+int damage. With 18 int, that's 7.5 damage. However, its rider effect is Dazed, which is a very painful status condition, functionally similar to the Slowed condition in 3.5.

Color Spray is often used with Enlarge Spell, which increases its area and decreases its damage. The damage penalty from Enlarge Spell is not that big of a deal since Dazed is such a terrible status condition and you get to daze even more monsters.