Ramifications of kicking the Greyhawk spells out?

[Alias]

Specifically these spells: Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, Mordenkainen’s Faithful Hound, Leomund’s Secret Chest, Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Mordenkainen’s Sword, Otto’s Irresistable Dance, Drawmij’s Instant Summons, Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum, Bigby’s Hand, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Nystul’s Magic Aura, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Tenser’s Floating Disk

I don't have anything against these spells in particular - I'm just looking to smooth out my spell distributions across levels. After pulling them and further working on the color assignments of spells I was able to get a smoothed out curve of 12 spells per color for levels 1-3, 8 spells / color / levels 4 & 5, 6 spells / color / levels 6 & 7 and 4 spells / color / levels 8 & 9. 360 spells in all. 46 new spells will need to be written to fill the gaps to get to this arrangement.

I don't think I'll outright ban them - they just won't appear on the setting treasure tables and so won't appear on found scrolls or the like. Players also won't be allowed to select them at play start or on level up - but they can be researched as if they where a brand new spell, because as far as the setting is concerned they are.

Thoughts?

[lianightdemon]

Why not just remove the names from them?

Magnificent Mansion
Faithful Hound
Secret Chest
Tiny Magical Hut
Telepathic bond
Arcane Sword
etc

[Rallicus]

... Why? Is there a point to limiting the amount of spells available to players (which is already quite limited to begin with, confined to what's available in the PHB)?

Is it because of the names and the association with Greyhawk? Why not just drop the names, then?

[randomodo]

well, it's your game world, so your rules, but unless I thought any given spell was woefully out of balance, I wouldn't dream of banning it.

(I presume when you say "color" you're talking school - conjuration, evocation, etc)

[Gnomes2169]

I'd suggest just dropping the names and references to the creator, as it stands those are just 100% fluff and have no real application to the crunch as of yet.

[Alias]

No, color is color - see here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?375527-The-Magic-of-Dusk-%28Magic-the-Gathering-inspired-setting%29

The problem the spells present is in the color they'd need to be assigned to. Many of them are blue causing the spell count for blue to go up 14 or so on certain levels. This becomes a problem because if I don't drop the spell I need to create 4 more spells to balance them out in spell count.


... Why? Is there a point to limiting the amount of spells available to players (which is already quite limited to begin with, confined to what's available in the PHB)?

In the end the players will have more spells, not less. There are currently 17 of these spells, and 46 open slots lie across. I can (probably will) rename them for the spells that have an open slot (Melf's Acid Arrow is one). Others however have no space - Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter is 2nd level, and it is green, but green already has 12 spells.

If I learned anything from Pathfinder, it's that more isn't better. I allowed 1,200+ spells into that game - I'm not doing that again.

[Rallicus]

If that's the case, then I really think you should be more concerned about the ramifications of adding new, homebrewed spells instead of what would happen should you take the Greyhawk spells out.

[Alias]

If that's the case, then I really think you should be more concerned about the ramifications of adding new, homebrewed spells instead of what would happen should you take the Greyhawk spells out.

I'm quite aware. I've had bombs before.

[Totema]

Why not just remove the names from them?

Magnificent Mansion
Faithful Hound
Secret Chest
Tiny Magical Hut
Telepathic bond
Arcane Sword
etc

IIRC this is what Pathfinder did, and no one seems to be complaining.

Also, the discussion in this thread reminds me too much of optimizing Magic decks. :smalltongue:

[Alias]

IIRC this is what Pathfinder did, and no one seems to be complaining.

Pathfinder also doesn't set a limit on the upper bounds of spells in the environment. I'm doing this now - at the design step of my next campaign - to prevent overwhelming new players and myself with spells.


Also, the discussion in this thread reminds me too much of optimizing Magic decks. :smalltongue:

More like the design of a drafting cube than a deck. I have five colors of magic - and each color will get 72 spells each. What are the best 72 spells to give them, that describe the personality of the ethos and which are strong enough (or have a niche) to see play?

I would rather not drop any core spells but they just won't fit into this limit. Cutting most of the Greyhawk spells (Nystul's Magic Aura and Melf's Acid Arrow made it back in - both are purple which is hurting bad for spells that do something other than zombie... braiiiiiins... )

I may end up letting players pick the spells out, but leave them off the random spell generation table, which means they won't be found in treasures in the form of scrolls or wands.

[stitchlipped]

There aren't any ramifications, really. None of those spells are 100% essential for a caster to have - it's not like you're trying to remove Cure Wounds or anything.

It basically won't make a difference if you have them or not, it just means people won't take/rely on them for their caster concepts. Do what you want, it's your game!

[rollingForInit]

I don't really understand why the colors are so important, it sounds rather arbitrary. Why not design a system of reference around the spells that exist, rather than try to fit the spells into an arbitrary new system of categorisation? If the spells don't fit, it sounds like your system of reference is flawed, not the other way around. Design it so that the spells fit, I would say.

Still, if you're going to be dropping spells, you'll have to consider the spell lists of all the classes. Wizards are probably fine since their list is very varied already, but consider the Warlock, for instance. Your removal would wreck the Great Old One pact's additional spells, since Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Evard's Black Tentacles are two of the spells granted by that pact. Evard's Black Tentacles is one of the better ones, as well. Removing it would hurt that class, imo. Whether you agree with it or not, you have to replace all spells lost on a spell list with something else of equal power and ability. Is a blasting spell lost? Replace it with another blasting spell, preferably of the same damage type. Is a crowd controlling spell lost? Add a new crowd controlling spell on the same level.

This gets more important the more limited the spell list. The Warlock has a very limited spell list already, removing anything without replacing it would hurt a lot. The Sorcerer is also quite limited.

[Theodoxus]

One thought, since I agree with Rolling in respect to loss of class functionality - is why not refluff the extraneous spells to the colors that are underrepresented? You say you did this with a few spells already... why not the rest?

Make Evard's Black Tentacles do necrotic damage - or refluffed to be necrotic in nature and shoehorn it into Purple.

If you have an overabundance of Red blasts but lacking a Green one, refluff Fireball into Caustic Spores, that do acid damage to everything in a 20' radius.

You have a huge pool of spells to pull from to cull down to 360. Refluffing existing ones fit your schema will at least keep the balance inherent with the current rules without disrupting it with untested concepts.

[rollingForInit]

That sounds like a good idea, Theodoxus.