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Rogue Shadows
2012-05-20, 09:25 AM
DISCLAIMERS
- I fixed every spell Core spell that I did not cut entirely from D&D. Please note that every single 8th and 9th level spell has been cut.
- I also included some non-Core spells and made up a whole bunch of new ones, mostly 0-level spells (I particularly like my cantrip snuff). The former have been "fixed" as much as possible while the latter are hopefully too small in scope to need fixing.
- I do not claim to have done a good job fixing every Core spell in D&D

The end result, though, is that the below is a 101-page document with the majority of spells in Core D&D "fixed" in some way. For most spells, the fix is minor, something as simple as changing something from a Standard action to a Full-round action. Others require more work: Spells like planar binding and planar ally now have a clause specifically stating that a called creature will not grant wishes. Limited wish and polymorph were completely re-written, and a new spell, divine intervention, was added to basically serve as a limited miracle. Spells schools were shuffled around - there is no more Conjuration (Healing), it's now Necromancy (Healing). The Sorcerer and the Wizard were given semidistinct spell lists; mostly the Wizard gets spells that the Sorcerer does not but the Sorcerer has its share of Sorcerer-only spells. And so on.

Here's hoping I did at least a passable job. If nothing else I should get props for simply having the patience to go through everything, read every spell and decide whether to keep, cut, or change.

The Master Spell List (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B86CqQWWW_t7cFVVaW5GeUxxRWc)

For reference, here (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B86CqQWWW_t7SmwtT2xFN3lQdjQ) is the latest version of the Rebuild, which contains all the spell lists starting on page 51.

AN EDIT
Also I changed spell ranges:
- Close (10 ft. +5 ft./3 levels)
- Medium (30 ft. +10 ft./2 levels)
- Long (50 ft. +10 ft./level)

gkathellar
2012-05-20, 12:53 PM
This is one hell of an impressive effort, sir. My hat's off to you.

Yitzi
2012-05-20, 01:22 PM
Looking at some of the worst lower-level offenders:
-It looks like you not only didn't nerf mirror image (an extremely powerful defensive spell for its level), but actually strengthened it.
-Invisibility (also extremely strong) and Greater Invisibility are also not really weakened significantly (they're an FRA rather than standard, but that isn't really much to mitigate the "non-wizards can't see me as long as I stay far enough away from clerics" effect.)
-Glitterdust was nerfed somewhat by range and casting time, but is still pretty strong.
-Grease is still way overpowered at least according to the common interpretation; any "lose DEX bonus to AC, no save" spell should be at least 7th level.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-20, 02:43 PM
Looking at some of the worst lower-level offenders:
-It looks like you not only didn't nerf mirror image (an extremely powerful defensive spell for its level), but actually strengthened it.
-Invisibility (also extremely strong) and Greater Invisibility are also not really weakened significantly (they're an FRA rather than standard, but that isn't really much to mitigate the "non-wizards can't see me as long as I stay far enough away from clerics" effect.)
-Glitterdust was nerfed somewhat by range and casting time, but is still pretty strong.
-Grease is still way overpowered at least according to the common interpretation; any "lose DEX bonus to AC, no save" spell should be at least 7th level.

Thank ye kindly; I'll make changes.

A suggestion for Glitterdust that I've seen is that it should dazzle rather than blind.

By the way, as long as I'm here, the Internet has been useless in answering this question: what's the difference between a casting time of 1 round and a casting time of 1 full-round action?

tarkisflux
2012-05-20, 03:03 PM
The difference:
-A full-round cast time just uses up both your move and standard actions. If you are hit during your turn, the spell could be interrupted. The spell takes effect at the end of your turn.
-A 1 round cast time uses both of those as well, but also all of the time between the end of your turn and the beginning of your next one. If you are hit anytime before the beginning of your next turn, it could interrupt the spell. The spell takes effect immediately before the start of your next turn, not at the end of your current one.

Do you have a list of the spells that you cut laying around? I'm not particularly interested in the larger work because of the loss of 8th and 9th level spells, but it would be interesting to know what you cut from the other levels for reference. And I'm too lazy to do a direct comparison ;-)

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-20, 03:34 PM
The difference:
-A full-round cast time just uses up both your move and standard actions. If you are hit during your turn, the spell could be interrupted. The spell takes effect at the end of your turn.
-A 1 round cast time uses both of those as well, but also all of the time between the end of your turn and the beginning of your next one. If you are hit anytime before the beginning of your next turn, it could interrupt the spell. The spell takes effect immediately before the start of your next turn, not at the end of your current one.

Thank ye kindly.


Do you have a list of the spells that you cut laying around? I'm not particularly interested in the larger work because of the loss of 8th and 9th level spells, but it would be interesting to know what you cut from the other levels for reference. And I'm too lazy to do a direct comparison ;-)

I do not, but off the top of my head I do know that a huge portion of Cleric spells took a hit due to the change to the way clerics cast spells. Off the top of my head I do know that I got rid of find traps and knock.

NeoSeraphi
2012-05-20, 09:27 PM
Huge problem here. You have animate dead listed in the Master Spell List as being Death only. That means that necromancer wizards...can never learn basic necromancy. In the sor/wiz spell list from your Rebuild PDF, you list animate dead as being on the list, but the spell's text trumps table. So which is it? Is animate dead for Death clerics only, or do necromancers get it as well?

Yitzi
2012-05-20, 10:42 PM
Thank ye kindly; I'll make changes.

Feel free to look over the changes in the link in my sig for ideas.


A suggestion for Glitterdust that I've seen is that it should dazzle rather than blind.

My system was that if you fail by 10 or more it blinds, if you fail by 5 or more it causes blurry vision (-10 to spot and search, all creatures have concealment), and if you fail by less than 5 it merely dazzles.


By the way, as long as I'm here, the Internet has been useless in answering this question: what's the difference between a casting time of 1 round and a casting time of 1 full-round action?

A lot. A casting time of 1 FRA means that it takes your whole round (except for a 5' step and a swift action and any free actions) but finishes in your round (so it can't be interrupted except with an AoO or readied action.) A casting time of 1 round means that it doesn't finish until the beginning of your next round, so if anyone attacks you in the meantime you could end up having to make a concentration check or lose the spell.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-20, 11:05 PM
Huge problem here. You have animate dead listed in the Master Spell List as being Death only. That means that necromancer wizards...can never learn basic necromancy. In the sor/wiz spell list from your Rebuild PDF, you list animate dead as being on the list, but the spell's text trumps table. So which is it? Is animate dead for Death clerics only, or do necromancers get it as well?

Oops, that's a mistake. There's a few of those I've noticed, actually, looking it over. Animal Shapes should have the (Polymorph) subschool, as well.


A lot. A casting time of 1 FRA means that it takes your whole round (except for a 5' step and a swift action and any free actions) but finishes in your round (so it can't be interrupted except with an AoO or readied action.) A casting time of 1 round means that it doesn't finish until the beginning of your next round, so if anyone attacks you in the meantime you could end up having to make a concentration check or lose the spell.

Ah. That's...unnecessarily unclear. Casting times of 1 round should probably be called 1 turn instead...

Eldan
2012-05-20, 11:55 PM
Suggestion for Mirror Image:

It gives you one mirror double, giving you 50% miss chance until the image is destroyed. Which I think is already pretty good, compared with other spells of the same level. Maybe, if that is too weak, two images.

Rapidghoul
2012-05-21, 01:23 AM
Wow, that's... almost ridiculous. I'm gonna definitely go through this for my current campaign. Kudos on the hard work. Any possibility of work on other books?

togapika
2012-05-21, 01:49 AM
Awww... Stupid no storm of vengeance *grumble grumble*

jedipilot24
2012-05-21, 05:11 AM
why is Deathwatch still an evil spell?

Why is Alarm now a Druid only spell?

Eldan
2012-05-21, 05:18 AM
I had a proper look at it now, and I must say, I am very impressed. I know from experience what a huge effort it is to rewrite hte core spells (as in, I started and got only about two dozen of them done, and most of those didn't need much rewriting).

Kudos, even if I don't agree with all the changes. I'll have a nother read through later and hopefully give some actually constructive criticism.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 08:18 AM
Wow, that's... almost ridiculous. I'm gonna definitely go through this for my current campaign. Kudos on the hard work. Any possibility of work on other books?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH No.

...

who am I kidding? I'm already at work on the DMG...I refuse to go outside of Core, however. It's just too much work for one guy.

I'm going to be completely honest: I am disappointed something like this wasn't done already.

I'm disappointed that Wizard of the Coast never sat down and seriously re-examined every spell some time during 3rd Edition's run. I'm disappointed that Paizo didn't sit down and seriously re-examine what they were inhereting from WotC for Pathfinder. But...well, mostly, I'm disappointed in the fanbase. D&D 3rd Edition has been out for, what, eleven years now? It's print run stopped four years ago? Something like that? And yet at no point, as near as I can tell, was an enterprise like this undertaken. Everyone constantly agreed that certain spells were broken, that they needed to be fixed, and even how to fix them, but no-one ever took the effort to actually compile everything.

Even though what I've done is full of holes and not a particularly good attempt, I can at least stand up as The Guy Who Finally Tried.


why is Deathwatch still an evil spell?

I was interested mostly in fixing spells, not with making spells make sense (unless that was part of fixing the spell), Healing subschool move and [Acid] descriptor moves nonwithstanding.

I'll probably change it.


Why is Alarm now a Druid only spell?

Because the system I used to edit the "Level" line in each spell was, in retrospect, stupid.

That is, I nearly doubled the number of Core cleric domains and shuffled around several spell levels, so what I did was delete every "Level" line and then manually re-inserted them for the Cleric domains, Universal cleric spells, Druid spells and Paladin spells according to the new spell levels. Then when it game time to do the Sorcerer spells and Wizard spells, I had a mental breakdown. Despite them having a somewhat unique spell list, the end result is that there's still a lot of overlap between the Sorcerer and the Wizard, so I would have had to edit about a hundred Sorcerer spells, then go back to mostly the same hundred spells, plus about thirty more that only the Wizard has, and re-write "Wiz X" on each one.

So I said screw it and just after I was done with the Sorcerer spells, went "Find > Replace," changed every instance of "Sor X" to say "Sor X, Wiz X," and then went through and inserted in the Wiz-only spells and edited the Sor-only spells, which I did have a handly list of at the time.

At a guess there are about 424 spells in there. You try editing that many and see what happens to your mental well-being. It's a miracle I didn't delete every spell description and replace it with "DM Fiat."

TL;DR: You guys are my proofreaders! The spell lists from the Rebuild document trump the individual spell discriptions.

Oh, hey, opinion time: Should the Universal cleric list include the summon monster spells?

AND: I'm seriosuly tempted to change a goodly number of spells with the [Evil] or [Good] descriptor to instead have the [Negative] or [Positive] descriptor, resepctively. Mostly here I'm thinking about animate dead. I'd also be giving the descriptor to the cure and inflict lines.

In other words, mostly for Necromancy, which I've sort-of wanted to imply is basically the magic of positive and negative energy. And that evokers hate it for controlling energy types that they can't.

Sgt. Cookie
2012-05-21, 10:09 AM
The link redirects me to google docs...

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 04:23 PM
The link redirects me to google docs...

Well, they are google documents, so that makes sense to an extent...

Having logged out of my Google account and checked, the links are working fine for me, so any problem is probably on your end.

Yitzi
2012-05-21, 06:01 PM
While I still think I want to post my own rebuild first as a series of posts, afterward making it into a PDF seems a good idea. How did you make yours? (And does that method allow sidebars?)

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 06:04 PM
While I still think I want to post my own rebuild first as a series of posts, afterward making it into a PDF seems a good idea. How did you make yours? (And does that method allow sidebars?)

I used this site (http://www.pdfonline.com/convert-pdf/); and no, unfortunately, it doesn't. Unless you pay for the full thing, probably, but this way is free, so that's what I stick with.

Eldan
2012-05-21, 06:09 PM
Okay. I was just looking at a few spells I spent some effort on fixing myself when they came up. I think I will post a few of the ideas I had, just for reference.

Black Tentacles, in my version, created an area of difficult terrain that also forces concentration checks to cast spells. They could also be ordered to instead grapple one single creature, opening up the area. This was because people complained that the spell effectively shut down entire groups of enemies.

It seems you took out Astral Projection entirely, which is probably a fair guess. I made it one of the ultimate scout/spying spells, instead. It creates an astral spirit copy that can not interact with the world around it in any way, only observe, but that can easily travel across planes and vast distances. (The level was lowered a bit, from 9).

Shadow Conjuration and Evocation. You removed them, which I guess is fair enough. I split them into several spells, instead, with a shadow blast (blasty illusion, will save to ignore damage), shadow structure (quasi-real, weightless structure, to build e.g. walls, floors or bridges) and shadow creature (a bit like astral construct, but can also take the appearance of another person).

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 06:42 PM
Black Tentacles, in my version, created an area of difficult terrain that also forces concentration checks to cast spells. They could also be ordered to instead grapple one single creature, opening up the area. This was because people complained that the spell effectively shut down entire groups of enemies.

Well, that's sort of what it's there to do. Fireball also shuts down entire groups of enemies, after all.

[qupte]It seems you took out Astral Projection entirely, which is probably a fair guess. I made it one of the ultimate scout/spying spells, instead. It creates an astral spirit copy that can not interact with the world around it in any way, only observe, but that can easily travel across planes and vast distances. (The level was lowered a bit, from 9).[/quote]

I like the idea in principle, but experience with astral projecting in Vampire: the Masquerade has made me extremely wary of including it.


Shadow Conjuration and Evocation. You removed them, which I guess is fair enough. I split them into several spells, instead, with a shadow blast (blasty illusion, will save to ignore damage), shadow structure (quasi-real, weightless structure, to build e.g. walls, floors or bridges) and shadow creature (a bit like astral construct, but can also take the appearance of another person).

My belief is that no spell school should be able to duplicate the spells of another spell school; else what is the point of specializing and banning?

Further, I've never really much liked the idea of "it's an illusion so powerful that it's actually real!" Illusions are, by definition, fake. And something can't be "semi-real." It either exists or it doesn't, even if that existance is, for example, confined to the Plane of Shadow (in that case "semi-real" should probably just mean that it's flickering between the Prime and the Plane of Shadow, like how blink flickers you between the Astral and the Prime). If an illusionist want to throw a fireball, then he needs to take Expanded Knowledge and learn Evocation spells. If he wants to summon creatures...he can't because Conjuration is a banned school for Illusionists, and he's going to have to accept that.

Eldan
2012-05-21, 06:53 PM
Which is, I suppose, one way to see it. I actually really like the idea of the plane of shadows as a place where things sort of flicker between being real and not real, with no good way of telling what they are, at the moment. I suppose that would make them dual school conjuration/illusion spells, if you know that weird little rule.

That said, I came into D&D via Planescape. For me, believing things enough makes them real in D&D. So creating an illusion so credible it becomes real isn't all that unlikely.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 07:04 PM
Which is, I suppose, one way to see it. I actually really like the idea of the plane of shadows as a place where things sort of flicker between being real and not real, with no good way of telling what they are, at the moment. I suppose that would make them dual school conjuration/illusion spells, if you know that weird little rule.

I'm cool with things flickering between being real and not real as long as they're never "semi-real." We can be not sure whether something is real, like gravitons, but at the end of the day gravitons are either real, or they're not. But that's not really an illusion, that's more like a conjuraton or evocation effect.


That said, I came into D&D via Planescape. For me, believing things enough makes them real in D&D. So creating an illusion so credible it becomes real isn't all that unlikely.

Again, I don't mind the idea of an illusion so credible that it becomes real, much, though that seems like something that should be outside the scope of a single spell. What I don't like is the idea of "semi-real." That's like saying something is gigantically small, or soaking dry.

Eldan
2012-05-21, 07:12 PM
Okay, that was maybe slightly stupid wording. Semi-real was just my personal shortcut for "maybe realy, maybe not". What we can probably agree on is that the current way it is handled in vanilla 3.X, with the X% real, even on a successful save, is really weird.

However, I still think there is place for something like this:

Shadowfire
Illusion (Phantasm) [Fire, Shadow]
Sor/Wiz 3
[Details, it's a ray]
Will negates (see text)

You mimic casting a powerful evocation spell and throw illusionary at your enemy, burning him.

On a successful ranged touch attack, this spell deals 1d6 points of fire damage/level to a single enemy, unless they make a will save to disbelieve the illusion (having the spell cast on them automatically counts as interaction(.

Special: The DC for making a spellcraft check for identifying this spell is 5 points higher than normal. Enemies who fail this check instead mistakenly believe it to be an evocation spell.

It could work. Its quite a bit weaker than an equivalent level real evocation, but gives some nice versatility to illusionists and targets an unusual save.


But anyway. This is deep into homebrew territory, and not really what this thread is about.


Edit: to your above comments: my Astral Projection fix was acutally a ritual, not a spell, which I guess makes quite a bit of a difference. It also had a few safeguards built in, including several conditions which would bar an astral projection from entering an area, and ways in which they could be banished.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 07:16 PM
Shadowfire
Illusion (Phantasm) [Fire, Shadow]
Sor/Wiz 3
[Details, it's a ray]
Will negates (see text)

You mimic casting a powerful evocation spell and throw illusionary at your enemy, burning him.

On a successful ranged touch attack, this spell deals 1d6 points of fire damage/level to a single enemy, unless they make a will save to disbelieve the illusion (having the spell cast on them automatically counts as interaction(.

Special: The DC for making a spellcraft check for identifying this spell is 5 points higher than normal. Enemies who fail this check instead mistakenly believe it to be an evocation spell.

That is really neat, but I'm not sure if I'd want that in core D&D. Maybe if I was interested in making something called, I dunno, Ignis Fatuus: the Book of Illusions.

...which now I am.

DAMN.

Eldan
2012-05-21, 07:18 PM
That is really neat, but I'm not sure if I'd want that in core D&D. Maybe if I was interested in making something called, I dunno, Ignis Fatuus: the Book of Illusions.

...which now I am.

DAMN.

May I bow before you and call you master if you actually do that? Illusions are my favourite school, by far.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-21, 07:20 PM
May I bow before you and call you master if you actually do that? Illusions are my favourite school, by far.

Ugh...I will...eventually...probably...I have a My Little Pony fanfiction I really need to keep working on, though...

No, I am no ashamed, and it's worth noting that Trixie Lulamoon (an illusionist or beguiler if ever there was one) is the main character.

Ernir
2012-05-22, 05:58 PM
Om nom. This is a lot to chew on.

How long did it take you to do this? Working in (very sporadic) bursts, it took me months to cover the core spell lists. :smalleek:

The only comment I have so far is that you reference Polymorph Any Object (under Locate Object), but the spell has been removed. :smalltongue:

Will try to get you a readthrough...

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-22, 06:04 PM
Om nom. This is a lot to chew on.

How long did it take you to do this? Working in (very sporadic) bursts, it took me months to cover the core spell lists. :smalleek:

Two weeks. But a lot of that was helped along by the fact that I was able to eliminate a lot of spells from the get-go by my directive to eliminate 8th and 9th level spells entirely, as well as a huge portion of Cleric and druid spells just outright exploding due to changes in the way they gained spells.

And, well, an old thread on EN World helped, a little bit.

Straybow
2012-05-22, 07:15 PM
DISCLAIMERS
- I do not claim to have done a good job fixing every Core spell in D&D haha


Spells schools were shuffled around - there is no more Conjuration (Healing), it's now Necromancy (Healing). I added a school of Vivimancy. Some vivimancy spells are mirrored (lifewatch = deathwatch) while healing is vivimancy. Arcane casters with access to vivi (unless prohibited by choice due to specialization) and divine casters who don't have access to vivi (just in case, who knows with the builds and deities people come up with) get healing spells at about double the spell level, and arcane/necro healing dazes subject one round.

For this, negative/positive energy is no longer the basis for healing/harming or channeling. Inflict wound spells are distinct and are force evocations, so only certain healing spells are reversible to inflict non-wound conditions. Channeled energy is aligned and has fatigue/morale/bless type effects.


Also I changed spell ranges:
- Close (10 ft. +5 ft./3 levels)
- Medium (30 ft. +10 ft./2 levels)
- Long (50 ft. +10 ft./level) 30 ft. +10 ft./2 levels = 30' + 5'/level ???

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-22, 07:32 PM
30 ft. +10 ft./2 levels = 30' + 5'/level ???

http://i47.tinypic.com/5r6t0.png
This seems relavent


Vivamancy

I'm old skool in this hizzouse. To me, Necromancy is the magic of life and death, so it makes perfect sense that necromancy spells can both heal and harm.

I did briefly consider making Evocation (healing) spells, though, since, y'know, positive energy manipulation, Evocation is the school of energies, etc.

Straybow
2012-05-22, 08:46 PM
haha

Well, it implies a discrete math at 2 level intervals:
30 ft. +10 ft./2 levels = 30' at 1st level, 40' at 2nd & 3rd level, 50' at 4th & 5th, etc

30' + 5'/level = 35' at 1st, 40' at 2nd, 45' at 3rd, 50' at 4th, etc

re: necro implies both, dividing the one school into two forces the choice more clearly, and allows the hinky positive/negative energies to be dismissed. Use of one doesn't preclude use of the other. Specializing in one doesn't get you specialization in the other, nor force prohibition of the other.

Pos/neg energy is a hugely flawed mechanic that leads to the dark side. Like PF channeling (blecch, what an awful conflation), goofy rules about undead, etc.

Rogue Shadows
2012-05-22, 08:50 PM
Pos/neg energy is a hugely flawed mechanic that leads to the dark side. Like PF channeling (blecch, what an awful conflation), goofy rules about undead, etc.

How's it a hugely flawed mechanic? It seems pretty straightforward: If you're alive, positive energy heals; if you're undead, positive energy harms. The reverse is true for negative energy.

I like Pathfinder's Channel Energy...

Jaquettie
2013-01-13, 08:02 AM
This whole revision of core is great, this whole project of fixing the major problems is somethimg that should have happened a long time ago. Anyway I have a few sudgestions for a few spells, namely fly, invisibility and silence.

As a utility spells fly and invisibility essentially makes Move Silently and Hide redundant skills, almost making a infiltration Rogue useless as a Wizard with fly and invis is silent and, well invisible. This is bad.

So to fix this particuar combo, fly makes noise and replace the invisibility spell with something that simply gives a hide bonus. Maybe have invis available at higher levels, or reduce the duration, but as is it makes the hide skill usless, as it can be replaced with a wand of invis.

Also silence is a little broken, as it can basically allow an entire pary to sneek well, silently. At such a low level this is a little ridiculous. The way I think this should be adressed is that poeple inside the radius are made deff, but everything insicde the radious still makes noise. i.e. you cast scilence on a stone and throw it next to a guard. That guard does not hear the stone hit the ground or anything else, however the guad 50 ft away hears the stone and the guard talking to himself trying to figur out what is going on. This makes the spell still functions as a silence effect, now it is just a little less "ultimatly effective". Another idea would be to make make the spell instead of being a targeted spell, to creae a small pebble or orb that radiates the scilence aura. This makes littering an area with scilence effects require a bit of infultration to place the orbs in the first place. Although that bit is not so crutial to the fix.


The seccond problem is the way that fly is broken in combat, in that any melee (im thinking specifically of a fighter/barbarian class) has no answer to "i cast fly and am now 100ft in the air you can't touch me" other than by answering with "i use potion of fly". I feel that a fighter like this MUST have another Wizard, wand or potion to let him fight a little silly, and feel that the fighter should have a mundane answer that works if they are on their own. The best I could think of was that a fighter could jump, although it would be difficult for a fighter to reach much higher than 20 ft without focusing on it too much. So the obvious nerf to fly is to give it a altitude limit of around 20ft (have it scal with level or something tho). This way the spell still functions in the same way in combat (bonus move speed and distance between you and the badies) but it is something that can be countere reasonably easily wihtout just " I also use fly", which is boring. This change also means that fly does not make climb and jump usless in all situations. This would of corse require the changing of the entire line of fly spells. The regular fly could also me called greater fly or something and be a higher level spel. Esentially with greater fly being a "I win/ ultimate solution" spell, it should cost a bit to use it (i.e. high level spell slots)

So in summary:

Invisibility

Old: made hide redundant as a utility, OK in combat I.e. not too broken I. Combat, tho a little powerful as an escape mechanisim.

Fix: either reduce duration to round/level (making it not useful for seeking) or replace with a hide bonus.


Silence:

Old: made move silently redundant as a utility, also good at silencing casters in combat.

Fix: is no longer ultimately effective at move silently, but still a useful spell for sneaking. Still as good in combat.



Fly

Old: made a bunch of skills redundant when used as a utility, basically ans essential for all fights, for everyone involved, making all battles air fights :smallannoyed::smallsmile:

Fix: still useful as a utility, but the skills that it would normally replace are still better than fly. In combat still usefull, but not an essential, and does not turn all battles into dog fights.

Eldan
2013-01-13, 08:08 AM
If you look at the epic skill section, Invisibility can already be beaten by spot checks. The DCs are just very high. It was already proposed in G&G to make invisible merely give a bonus to hide checks, it would make hte whole business much simpler.

Rogue Shadows
2013-01-13, 10:57 AM
Holy Hell, thread necromancy. Sweet!

http://www.lwpcenter.ru/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

Right, let's see...


This whole revision of core is great, this whole project of fixing the major problems is somethimg that should have happened a long time ago.

Thanks!


So to fix this particuar combo, fly makes noise and replace the invisibility spell with something that simply gives a hide bonus. Maybe have invis available at higher levels, or reduce the duration, but as is it makes the hide skill usless, as it can be replaced with a wand of invis.

Hmm...I think the way I'd make fly work, is that it makes you grow wings. Batlike, birdlike, insect-like, or whatever at your choice, but the point is they're not owl-like, so you can't really move silently with them.

Invisibility has a weakness over hiding: it can be both detected and dispelled, whereas if you're hiding behind a rock, then you're just plain invisible (in the sense of "can't be seen"). Once I get to skills, I'm going to re-work Hide so that you don't need to actually be hiding behind anyone or anything in order to Hide because, well, in real life it's totally possible to get the drop on someone even if there's nothing to hide behind, just by staying out of their field of vision.

You'll take a penalty, of course.


Also silence is a little broken,

I don't really mind silence as-is, because it inherently gives itself away: if you suddenly can't hear anything you're going to notice it, unless you weren't really paying attention anyway, which means you wouldn't make the Listen check regardless.


Fly

I don't want to entirely nerf flying, because it is a kind of iconic spell. Having said that...

1) Spell ranges have been drastically shortened in this. A wizard can no longer fly outside the range of a bow or crossbow and just cast spells down at the puny mortals
2) If the wizard casts fly and the barbarian or fighter does not have a crossbow or a bow or some other ranged weapon to deal with it, then that is the fault of the barbarian or fighter, not the wizard. Even a barbarian or fighter not built for ranged combat is still going to have a very good ranged attack, almost certainly enough to hit the wizard.


If you look at the epic skill section, Invisibility can already be beaten by spot checks. The DCs are just very high. It was already proposed in G&G to make invisible merely give a bonus to hide checks, it would make hte whole business much simpler.

I'm probably going to lower the DC to beat Invisibility with Spot checks, on the ground that prior to 3rd Edition, you explicitly could because it creates shimmering in the air, like with the Predator or a cloaked ship from Star Trek.

A person with a high enough Hide should be able to functionally turn invisible anyway.

Straybow
2013-01-15, 07:25 PM
Hmmm, the link on OP is to a document that says, "This item is in the owner's trash." Did you mean to make it link to a newer version of the file?


How's it a hugely flawed mechanic? It seems pretty straightforward: If you're alive, positive energy heals; if you're undead, positive energy harms. The reverse is true for negative energy. You asked but I didn't respond back then and didn't want to necro, but now I can answer. It is flawed because material plane beings are not energy beings. You can't heal them just by dumping some corny "healing energy" into them.

Even if that were the case, just because a cleric's connection to the powers of a deity can turn/destroy undead doesn't mean that same power heals flesh and blood. Thus it is a "conflation," a joining of two dissimilar things because of one similarity that is not truly essential to the nature of the things joined.

Energy channeling is basically lazy game design. Even if one could use a "channeling" to do either healing or turning, making it automatically do both takes away the strategic decision to do one or the other. It isn't as though clerics were a weak class that needed a power boost.

As a game mechanic it's almost as bad as 4e surges (ptooey)... don't let me get started...

Jaquettie
2013-01-16, 05:17 AM
Crap I didn't realize that I doing was thread necromancy when I posted that, eh oh well.


Hmm...I think the way I'd make fly work, is that it makes you grow wings. Batlike, birdlike, insect-like, or whatever at your choice, but the point is they're not owl-like, so you can't really move silently with them.

That's a a good fix for fly in order to make it less of a Uber sneaking spell, and it would be cooler, maybe you could like enemies could chop the wings off? Anyway I think that and the nerff to spell range does kind of balance things but I realy don't agree with this:


If the wizard casts fly and the barbarian or fighter does not have a crossbow or a bow or some other ranged weapon to deal with it, then that is the fault of the barbarian or fighter, not the wizard.


For a fighter or barbarian, its not really a matter of "counter fly with bow", because by forcing a fighter or barbarian to engage you with a bow makes them seriously weaker. Also said fighter is probably in melee so yeah, to archery for them. Without fly, an enemy fighter could disengage whoever they were in melee with and charge a wizard (risking an attack of opportunity on them, but also locking the wizard down in terms by threatening them with AoO), no there is no way of doing that, other than having a potion of fly of their own or a wizard friend.


Onto invisibility...


Invisibility has a weakness over hiding: it can be both detected and dispelled, whereas if you're hiding behind a rock, then you're just plain invisible (in the sense of "can't be seen").

This is true, but the big advantage in invisibility is that you can walk out from that rock, in face you don't need to be stealthy at all, you just instawin at hide.

Now yes, invis can be dispelled and detected, whoever is going to dispell or detect you needs to know you are there first and chose to use dispell or see invis. So long as you use invis BEFORE you try and sneak past someone, you should be fine. So in almost all mundane simple situations the wizard always wins with "I use invis and waltz through" rather than the rouge's "I use the many skill points I have spent on hide, along with role-playing/interacting with the DM environment to hide behind stuff while risking being seen if I roll bad".

So yeah, invis is a little too powerful for a 2nd level spell. I would just make it say in the spell description that sheen of invisibility can be seen with a reasonable DC spot (something like 15 or 20) so that you still need to be stealthy with it. And maybe have a hide buff spell separate as well.


A person with a high enough Hide should be able to functionally turn invisible anyway.

That would actually be a good idea, you could re-write the hide in plane sight to work that way, with the ability you effectively camouflage yourself, requiring a spot check to see you.


Now for silence...


I don't really mind silence as-is, because it inherently gives itself away: if you suddenly can't hear anything you're going to notice it, unless you weren't really paying attention anyway, which means you wouldn't make the Listen check regardless.

I don't get what you mean, if you cast silence on yourself, or on an object that you carry, you make no noise. That doesn't give itself away, that's why I suggested that the effect be changed to "makes noise unable to enter the area, but able to leave it", so that it must give itself away if you want to use it in a stealthy way (by casting it on guards to make them def).

Another alternative to fix silence is to keep its current effect, however make it only able to target a space, not a movable object so the silence effect can not move. This would make the spell useful for making fights silent, but not useful for sneaking silently, which was the broken use for the spell.

Straybow
2013-01-16, 02:26 PM
I don't get what you mean, if you cast silence on yourself, or on an object that you carry, you make no noise. That doesn't give itself away, that's why I suggested that the effect be changed to "makes noise unable to enter the area, but able to leave it", so that it must give itself away if you want to use it in a stealthy way (by casting it on guards to make them def).

As soon as the area of effect encompassed a person, he or she would suddenly be aware of the absolute silence. Even the sound of their own breathing, jaw movements, and other background noises normally subconsciously tuned out are silenced, and this would alert any animal or higher intelligence creature.

It may be useful for sneaking past creatures at a distance, or approaching to within missile range, but not for melee surprise or sneak attack.

Rogue Shadows
2013-01-16, 02:30 PM
As soon as the area of effect encompassed a person, he or she would suddenly be aware of the absolute silence. Even the sound of their own breathing, jaw movements, and other background noises normally subconsciously tuned out are silenced, and this would alert any animal or higher intelligence creature.

It may be useful for sneaking past creatures at a distance, or approaching to within missile range, but not for melee surprise or sneak attack.

Exactly this. You don't make a person or object silent, you create a radius of silence centered on a person or object. Completely different in terms of useful application. Silence might as well be named Tasha's hideous silence, or, more appropriately, by the way, you're about to be stabbed in the back.


You asked but I didn't respond back then and didn't want to necro, but now I can answer. It is flawed because material plane beings are not energy beings. You can't heal them just by dumping some corny "healing energy" into them.

...so in other words, it's not a flawed mechanic (i.e., Truenaming), so much as a mechanic for which you do not like the flavor.

Straybow
2013-01-16, 05:12 PM
...so in other words, it's not a flawed mechanic (i.e., Truenaming), so much as a mechanic for which you do not like the flavor. There are two other paragraphs further detailing my judgment of its flaws. So in other words, you have no support of the merits other than enjoying the overpowered mechanic? :smallsmile:

Second, there are people who would say the truenaming mechanic works, it just sucks. Saying it is flawed and pos/neg channeling isn't flawed is just as much a "flavor" complaint. The difference is that channeling is giving substantial power to a class that doesn't need the boost, while truenaming just plain sucks.

Another measure of how overpowered is the channeling mechanic: to duplicate the power would require a 5th level spell, Mass Cure Light Wounds. By ninth level, when MCLW would be available, the average healed would be 13.5 points, while channeling is raised to 5d6 averaging 17.5 points.

MCMW at eleventh level averages 20 points, while channeling averages 21 points. You have to go all the way to MCSW at thirteenth level to exceed the individual effectiveness of channeling (26.5 vs 24.5 points).

But then you still have the huge difference in total effect. Mass healing is further limited to healing one creature per caster level within the 30' area, while channeling can heal an unlimited number of creatures within a 30' radius. That encompasses well over 100 5'×5' tiles, if you only count "ground level." Add two or more levels above and three or more levels below, the total climbs into the hundreds. You can heal a small army, at 1st level.

IMO Pathfinder tends to cater to the inner power munchkin. :smallsmile:

Jaquettie
2013-01-17, 02:37 AM
About silence, I think you are both kind of missing my point about silence, yes it gives itself away in a combat, but I'm talking About how it is OP as a utility, i.e. non-combat situations. For seeking into a building to steal stuff, or just scout it is in every way better than move silently, which is my problem.

I have no problem with the spell in a combat sense, the benefit it provides in combat I feel is balanced. Its that having the radius of silence be mobile allows it to be used to replace move silently (in fact being better than any reasonable number of ranks in the skill). This is the problem that I think needs to be addressed. Either by changing the effect of the radios (my initial suggestion) or keep the effect the same but make it so that you cannot move the effect radios (a slightly better change that I didn't mention in the first post). This is purely about fixing broken uses the spell has out of combat.


I would quote but I'm on an iPad at the moment so I can't be bothered
(it's tricky to copy paragraphs with the iPad)

Jaquettie
2013-01-17, 02:54 AM
Also, just noticed that you have fireball as a 4th level spell in the spell list in your version on the PHB but 3rd level in the master spell list.

Rogue Shadows
2013-01-17, 12:01 PM
IMO Pathfinder tends to cater to the inner power munchkin. :smallsmile:

In my opinion, the version of the Cleric presented needs the power boost. Remember that:
1) What spells they can cast come in prearranged lists of five domains that can only barely be customized;
2) Unless the Cleric decides to be of no deity in particular, in which case they get their pick of any four domains, and still have to deal with prearranged lists that can only barely be customized;
3) the "bare customization" mentioned is that when they gain a new spell level, they may swap out a single spell for a spell on the Universal Cleric list, meaning that they can at most-gain seven new spells over 20 levels, and those spells are drawn from a very small pool;
4) They only get up to 7th-level spells, and their spellcasting has been substantially slowed.

Far from being half of the CoDzilla nightmare, the Rebuild cleric is actually a fairly weak class, maybe even Tier-4, though probably still Tier-3, if you believe in such things as Tiers, which I do. Given that Tier-3 was my design goal for the casters...


You can heal a small army, at 1st level.

...yeah, that sounds about right for a 1st-level warrior of the gods.


Also, just noticed that you have fireball as a 4th level spell in the spell list in your version on the PHB but 3rd level in the master spell list.

Whoops! Thanks for catching that. The spell lists trump the spell descriptions as I did the spell descriptions...stupidly. Fireball should be Fire 3, Sorcerer 3, Wizard 4.