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NikolaTesla
2013-08-11, 03:10 AM
It's a little late, but welcome everyone to the voting thread for NT's Home Brew Spell Competition 2! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295656)

Voting will be a little different this competition, as last competition's method was too time intensive for both me and probably you as well. Here's how it will work...

Official voting rules:
Like last competition, there are 3 categories: Originality, Utility, and Awesomeness. There will also be a legality category that acts as a penalty to the other 3.

Voters may vote one one spell or all of them, it's their choice. All spells will start out with a score of 3 stars in each and a legality penalty of 0. Voters will then give a star rating from 1 to 5 in each category and issue a legality penalty of 0-3. The legality penalty will be subtracted from EACH of the other categories. Once all the votes are in, the number of stars given in each category will be averaged, including the original score of 3. For example:

The spell Bugs Bunny's annoying hand received votes from one person, who gave it a 3 star rating in Originality, a 5 star rating in utility, and 5 star rating in utility, but a 1 point legality penalty, reducing them all by one to 2, 4, 4. These scores will then be averaged with the base 3 star score, to come up with a final score of 2.5 originality, 3.5 utility, and 3.5 awesomeness.

Clarifications:

1) The legality penalty is your way of saying there is something wrong with this spell that makes it so that in your opinion it should not be allowed in a game. This can be for any reason, its up to you.

2) Everyone may nominate one spell of their choice to the most likely to see play award.


Spell score card (not required, provided for convenience)

Spell:
Wizard:
Originality Score:
Utility Score:
Awesomeness Score:
Legality Penalty:
Most Likely To See Play?


Voting ends August 20th at midnight. Good luck everyone!

AttilaTheGeek
2013-08-11, 02:31 PM
Wizard: NikolaTeslaSpell: Hypnotic Stupor
Originality Score: 2 It's not anything too different. It's an aoe save-or-die on will, but that's about it.
Utility Score: 3 It's an encounter-ending beast of a spell. However, winning encounters is all it does. I suppose it has some out-of-combat uses, but no more than, say, Fireball.
Awesomeness Score: 3 I guess it could be cool to hypnotize an entire room, but it just doesn't have that wow factor.
Legality Penalty: -1 As overpowered as it is, that's not what the legality penalty is for. Actually, that is what it's for. -1 for being ridiculous.

Wizard: VadskyeSpell: Ablative Ward
Originality Score: 4 It's like Energy Resistance, but I like how it reads as "DR /- for spells" instead of "Resistance to this energy type". That shows that you had a different train of thought there, so it's an original spell despite being similar to one already there.
Utility Score: 4 I like that it's basically for a single spell, but the one around duration means it could possibly reduce damage from multiple spells. If you turn a corner and there's ten guys with Magic Missile readied, this could be a lifesaver.
Awesomeness Score: 4 It doesn't have a big flashy woah, but the fact that it's a situational lifesaver gives it a solid score.
Legality Penalty: 0 You have a couple minor typos, like referring to the spell in lowercase or not ending a sentence with a period, but that's not enough for a legality penalty.

Spell: Bloodbond
Originality Score: 3 It's uncharted territory, but it is based off spells that already exist.
Utility Score: 5 It has as many applications as the enchantments it's based off of, which is a lot. It's not as limitless as the Image spells, but it's near impossible to make spells with that many applications.
Awesomeness Score: 3 Using your own blood as a focus is cool, but it still doesn't wow me.
Legality Penalty: 0 I feel like this is just barely enough for a -1 legality penalty. You misused "mind-effecting", but that's a grammar error. You didn't say how much damage is caused by that amount of blood loss, but that might be stated somewhere else. The duration line should say "and" instead of "or", and spells you reference in the text should be capitalized. You also have an unstated material component, which is just barely enough to push it into -1 territory. Edit: you talked me out of it.

Wizard: IronwizardSpell: Time Compression
Originality Score: 4 Man, that's pretty cool. I can tell it's based off Time Stop because it gives roughly the same amount of extra spells, but spread over a number of turns.
Utility Score: 5 Who wouldn't cast it? It would let you unleash hell in a Time Stop. Can you say yes to three spells per round for 1d4+1 rounds? What even do you do when you can cast 15 spells instantly?
Awesomeness Score: 4 That's pretty awesome. Not incredibly awesome, but pretty awesome.
Legality Penalty: -1 It's strong enough that I can see it possibly not being allowed.

Spell:Temporal Stasis
Originality Score: 3 It's cool, but I feel like it's been done before.
Utility Score: 5 We're talking campaign-breaking levels of power. Making any number of key NPCs disappear for a minimum of a hundred and forty years is basically death, but they don't even leave any remains. High-level monsters, who tend to have low reflex saves, are also very weak to this spell. If it was ever allowed (which it wouldn't be), it would be a staple.
Awesomeness Score: 4 Bonus points because being on the bad end of this spell could be a campaign premise all on its own.
Legality Penalty: -3 I can't see it being allowed in a game, ever. It is just that good. Also, the area is ambiguous.

Wizard: PalananSpell: Burning Skin
Wizard: Palanan
Originality Score: 5 It's unique, it's like nothing else, and in my book that's enough for a 5.
Utility Score: 2 It's situationally helpful, but even when you're being grappled or forced to fight unarmed it's not all that great.
Awesomeness Score: 3 It seems alright, but not too impressive.
Legality Penalty: 0 No issues.


Most Likely To See Play:*drumroll*As much as I wanted Refraction to win this category, I'd be lying if I said Ablative Ward by Vadskye didn't deserve it.

ironwizard
2013-08-11, 10:26 PM
Wizard: AttilaTheGeek

Spell:Refraction
Originality Score: 4.5
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 5
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: Proper timing and use of actions can lead to a very strong spell. Pop one copy on the front line, Immediate action just before turn X to get over three, cast your short range spells, then Immediate action away after your turn ends (using your immediate from turn X+1). A lot of utility here, really like it.

Spell: Ethereal Flash
Originality Score: 3
Utility Score: 3
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: 1 round is a bit short to do anything too devious, but a nice way to avoid a known imminent attack, like a DBF, or anything when combined with Celerity.

Spell: Out Of Time
Originality Score: 4
Utility Score: 5
Awesomeness Score: 4
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: The more clever you get, the more you can make this spell shine, which is an excellent quality in a spell IMHO.


Wizard: NikolaTesla

Spell: Hypnotic Stupor
Originality Score: 4
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 4
Legality Penalty: 0
Most Likely To See Play?
Thoughts: Decent spell, though it might be a bit high level for what it does, which could limit it's use.


Wizard: Vadskye

Spell: Ablative Ward
Originality Score: 3
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 5
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: First of all, "ablative" is one of the best words in the English language. This is a really nice spell, though I might pass on it as a L2 spell. (Would be a no-brainer at L1). Scaling damage absorption would improve the life of the spell dramatically.

Spell: Bloodbond
Originality Score: 5
Utility Score: 3
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: This spell... is kinda creepy. In a good way. Looks rather difficult to use, but that's reasonable considering the effects.


Wizard: Palanan

Spell: Burning Skin
Originality Score: 5
Utility Score: 3
Awesomeness Score: 4
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: A nice low-level deterrent to would-be grapplers, though the low damage limits it's use there. Running the risk of damaging your own gear also is a drawback. Very interesting, but I think it could use a little bit of a boost to really shine.


Most Likely To See Play?
Because 2 mouse clicks adds a tiny amount of tension.
Ablative Ward by Vadskye
This spell is useful in enough situations to be ubiquitous, and is a very reasonable power level. I can't see any DM outright refusing this spell.

Vadskye
2013-08-12, 12:05 AM
Wizard: Attila

Spell: Refraction
Originality Score: 4
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: 0
Thoughts: Illusion (figment) gets teleportation? 1d3 times during the duration of the spell, you can spend an immediate action to completely negate essentially any attack. Immediate action nigh-invulnerability is scary. Discretely assigning move actions for every image sounds like a hassle. Why does area damage destroy the figments when it doesn't destroy figments from similar spells (Mirror Image, etc.)?

Spell: Ethereal Flash
Originality Score: 3
Utility Score: 5
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: -1
Comments: Completely obsoletes physical obstacles of any kind as a 1st level spell. The utility of this spell is insane, and its ability to ignore or surpass normal obstacles exceeds anything that comes to mind until Dimension Door. I'm afraid this is just too powerful for 1st level.

Spell: Out of Time
Originality Score: 2
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: -1
Comments: Are all times before "when they were intended to" equally likely? What happens if you choose a 1 round duration, and they make their save? The fact that this gets rid of an opponent for roughly 1 round/4 levels even on a successful save makes this hugely powerful. Even if this only removes the creature for 1 round, all it would take is a single caster doing this repeatedly to completely nullify any foe. Compare to Resilient Sphere, which is higher level, allows a save to negate, and is much less of a total removal (still allowing the creature to cast spells and act while segregated from combat).
Wizard: NikolaTesla

Spell: Hypnotic Stupor
Originality Score: 3
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 4
Legality Penalty: -1
Comments: Enchantments don't get Pattern effects; Pattern is a subschool of Illusion. Dazing for 2d4 rounds completely ends a fight. This dazes everyone in a 30 ft. radius? That's staggeringly powerful. Compare to Hold Monster, which is less effective (allowing a save every round) and targets a single creature. This is much more similar to Mass Hold Monster, an 9th level spell, though even the 9th level spell allows a save every round to negate the effect!

Wizard: Ironwizard

Spell: Time Compression
Originality Score: 4
Utility Score: 4
Awesomeness Score: 4
Legality Penalty:
Commments: Have you seen Arcane Spellsurge, from Dragon Magic? That's basically what this is.

Spell: Temporal Stasis
Originality Score: 2
Utility Score: 3
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: -1
Commments: No area is mentioned in the spell description, making the spell's effect unnecessarily ambiguous. This spell is more powerful than the original Temporal Stasis (why make a new spell with the same name?), but lower level, targeting a better save, and undispellable. Also, Reflex saves don't actually move the creature; that should be revised.

Spell: Temporal Flash
Originality Score: 4
Utility Score: 3
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: 0
Commments: The area should be listed in the primary description. Reflex saves don't move a creature.

Wizard: Palanan

Spell: Burning Skin
Originality Score: 4
Utility Score: 2
Awesomeness Score: 3
Legality Penalty: 0
Commments: The "Effect" line is wrong. (read up on what the Effect line means. I won't take points off for that because it's not your fault that the PHB uses a dumb wording.) Why force a Concentration check? It's not like the spell would be overpowered otherwise; it's already a pretty weak spell, and adding a Concentration check just means that I risk destroying my own equipment when I cast it, which is definitely not fun. Is the Concentration check made only once? Do I have to maintain concentration? This is ambiguous.

Most Likely To See Play: Refraction, by Attila. It's interesting and creative, though not without issues.