Protection Spells (scaling)

[rferries]

Planning to trim the fat for spells at some point (the psionics subsystem was right, there's no need for mage's armour and magic weapon and shield and barkskin etc all to exist in the same setting), so here's my first stab.

Arcane Ward
Abjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

You call upon the powers of magic to protect your ally.

The target of this spell gains damage reduction 2. This damage reduction is overcome by magic weapons and weapons made from any special material (adamantine, cold iron, or silver).

At 5th level this damage reduction improves to damage reduction 5.

At 9th level, this damage reduction is no longer overcome by magic weapons alone.

Divine Ward
Abjuration
Level: Cleric 1, Paladin 0
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

You call upon the power of your deity to protect your ally.

The target of this spell gains damage reduction 2. This damage reduction is overcome by magic weapons and any weapon with an alignment opposed to your deity's on either axis. If your deity is true neutral, the damage reduction is overcome by magic weapons and weapons of any extreme alignment (chaotic evil, chaotic good, lawful evil, or lawful good).

If your deity is chaotic-aligned, the damage reduction is also overcome by cold iron weapons. If your deity is lawful-aligned, the damage reduction is also overcome by silver weapons.

At 5th level this damage reduction improves to damage reduction 5.

At 9th level, this damage reduction is no longer overcome by magic weapons alone.

Whenever this spell is dependent on a component of your deity's alignment (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful), it is a spell of that type.

Fey Ward
Abjuration [Chaotic]
Level: Bard 1, Druid 1, Ranger 0
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

You call upon the power of the wild to protect your ally.

The target of this spell gains damage reduction 2. This damage reduction is overcome by magic weapons, cold iron weapons, and lawful-aligned weapons.

At 5th level this damage reduction improves to damage reduction 5.

At 9th level, this damage reduction is no longer overcome by magic weapons alone.
Arcane Arms and Armour
Abjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature or item touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

Your magic lends strength to weapons and armour.

You cast this spell on a weapon, piece of clothing or armour, or creature.

Casting this spell on a weapon grants that weapon an +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls.

Casting this spell on armour, a shield, or clothing grants a +1 enhancement bonus to that item's Armour Class (clothes have an effective armour bonus of +0).

Casting this spell on a creature grants a +1 deflection bonus to their Armour Class.

In all cases, this bonus increases by +1 for every two caster levels above 1st (to a maximum of +5 at 9th level).

Divine Arms and Armour
Abjuration
Level: Cleric 1, Paladin 0
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature or item touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

Your deity lends strength to weapons and armour.

This spell functions as arcane arms and armour, except as noted below:

Weapons you target with this spell also gain the alignment of your deity (chaotic, evil, good, and/or lawful) for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

If you are a cleric or paladin of a good-aligned deity, casting this spell on a creature instead grants a sacred bonus.

If you are a cleric or paladin of an evil-aligned deity, casting this spell on a creature instead grants a profane bonus.

Whenever this spell is dependent on a component of your deity's alignment (chaotic, evil, good, or lawful), it is a spell of that type.

Fey Arms and Armour
Abjuration
Level: Bard 1, Druid 1, Ranger 0
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

The Seelie (or Unseelie) Court lends strength to weapons and armour.

You cast this spell on a creature to enhance either its natural weapons or its natural armour.

Casting this spell on a creature's natural weapons grants a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls made with those weapons.

Casting this spell on a creature's natural armour grants a +1 enhancement bonus to that natural armour's Armour Class (a creature without a natural armour bonus has an effective natural armour bonus of +0).

In all cases, this bonus increases by +1 for every two caster levels above 1st (to a maximum of +5 at 9th level).
Adamant Armour
Abjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

Your magic deflects weapons and energy attacks from your ally.

The target of this spell gains hardness equal to your caster level (maximum hardness 20). Do not halve or quarter energy damage or damage from ranged weapons before applying this hardness. Adamantine weapons ignore this hardness, as normal.

Fool's Fortune
Abjuration [Chaotic]
Level: Bard 5, Chaos 6, Luck 6
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 hour/level

The gods protect children, drunks, fools, and jesters.

You gain a luck bonus on attack rolls, Armour Class, saves, and skill checks of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5).

Whenever you roll a natural 1 on a d20, it is treated as a natural 20 instead.

Foresight (revised spell)
Divination
Level: Knowledge 9, Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 hour/level

The future is as easy for you to see as the past.

This spell grants you several powerful benefits, as follows:

Limited Prescience
You may use augury at will as a supernatural ability with a 100% chance of success.

You are never surprised or flat-footed.

You gain a +6 insight bonus on initiative checks, attacks, Armour Class, saves, ability checks, and skill checks. This insight bonus is lost whenever you would lose a Dexterity bonus to AC.

You gain a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and your allies against any imminent threat (e.g. pull an ally back from a trap about to fire, cast a spell of fire protection before a red dragon attempts to breathe on you, and so on).

Acute Omniscience
The spell also allows you to see the immediate future and act to alter it. As an immediate action (even when you would otherwise be slain) you may negate the events of the past round. Reverse the effects of damage dealt or healed, attacks and saving throws made, spells cast, objects and creatures moved, resources expended etc. It is assumed that you were merely "looking ahead" to see how the events of that round would play out.

Whenever you view the immediate future in this way, you are free to act differently than you did in the "first run" of that round in an attempt to alter the outcome. All other creatures and effects play out the same way they did the last time, but you are free to either act differently or even to take no action at all. Note that creatures acting after your initiative count are free to react to you logically if you act differently, rather than simply repeating their actions from the original round.

You are free to replay the same or different rounds as many times as you wish, but doing so taxes the spell's power and is resisted by the universe itself. Each time you use this ability the spell's duration is reduced by one hour, and by an additional hour for each time you have already used it to repeat the same round. Additionally, for each attack and effect made in the most recent "retake" you and your allies must use the results of their worst rolls and your enemies gain the results of their best rolls (selected from the current retake and all prior iterations).

For example, if your ally was subjected to a fireball in both the original round (where he succeeded on his saving throw) and in three retakes (where he saved successfully on all but the second retake), he would still automatically fail his saving throw in the current retake. In this way, repeated attempts to alter the future quickly become more trouble than they are worth.
Deities, artifacts, and similarly powerful forces are unaffected by mortal magic such as this - you retain most of the spell's benefits but if you attempt to alter the future the spell's duration is simply shortened to no effect. The same occurs is there is an enemy present with a foresight effect - there are simply too many possibilities for either of you to comprehend.

Inviolability
Abjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

Your magic protects your ally from the subtler forms of attack.

The target of this spell gains the Evasion and Mettle class features.

The target gains a +2 resistance bonus on saves. This bonus increases to +3 at 12th level, and by +1 every four levels thereafter (to a maximum of +5 at 20th level).

The target gains spell resistance equal to your caster level + 5.

Invulnerability
Abjuration
Level: Protection 9, Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: 1 hour/level
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

Your champion is immune to virtually all harm.

The target of this spell gains hardness equal to your caster level (maximum hardness 25). Halve all energy damage and damage from ranged weapons before applying this hardness (unless the weapon is a siege engine or something similar). Adamantine weapons ignore the first 20 points of this hardness, as normal.

The target gains the Improved Evasion and Improved Mettle class features and a +5 resistance bonus on saves.

The target gains spell resistance equal to 15 + your caster level.

[johnbragg]

I didn't read through all of it, but the first couple are WAY too good. DR 5 for a first level spell would be overpowered for a single combat, and you have it at 1 hour/level.

And what's wrong with spending 2 1st level spells to stack shield and mage armor?

I'd also advise picking a design philosophy. You separate ARcane, Fey and Divine Armor into different spells, then write Magic Armor with details for every caster type. I'm not saying either approach is better, but I don't see why you switched tracks.

[rferries]

I didn't read through all of it, but the first couple are WAY too good. DR 5 for a first level spell would be overpowered for a single combat, and you have it at 1 hour/level.

And what's wrong with spending 2 1st level spells to stack shield and mage armor?

I'd also advise picking a design philosophy. You separate ARcane, Fey and Divine Armor into different spells, then write Magic Armor with details for every caster type. I'm not saying either approach is better, but I don't see why you switched tracks.

Very fair point, I could have sworn there was already a DR/magic spell but I can't find it in the Spell Compendium so I've reduced the power of mine.

I switched tracks out of sloth :D, I've broken the AC spells down appropriately now.

[noob]

Most of those spells are still significantly more powerful than already existing protection spells in the phb.
(for example critical failures is the result of most failed saves in our group and just being able to get rid of that for a single spell would help too much(just buy some wands of the bard version))
Also foresight is unclear since you say that you always see what is in the next turn and can replay simply by looking less far in the future but somehow you can not look less far if there is a god or artifact(while it should rather result in you being unable to see it in your far sight as if it had mind blank and then getting surprised when you discover in your far vision that you are wounded by something you can not see and then you swap to present vision and see there was a god at three feet of you who just stabbed you).
Basically the fluff for that version of foresight is incoherent.(you make it behave as if it was time travelling in respect of gods while it is in fact the ability to see the future and of deciding to see less far in the future)
Also it looks a whole lot like having Caster Level forced dreams (http://www.psionics.info/powers/forced-dream/) and a regular foresight rolled up in a single spell(with extra duration) which is the kind of major power creep most of the spells in this page have.

[rferries]

Most of those spells are still significantly more powerful than already existing protection spells in the phb.
(for example critical failures is the result of most failed saves in our group and just being able to get rid of that for a single spell would help too much(just buy some wands of the bard version))
Also foresight is unclear since you say that you always see what is in the next turn and can replay simply by looking less far in the future but somehow you can not look less far if there is a god or artifact(while it should rather result in you being unable to see it in your far sight as if it had mind blank and then getting surprised when you discover in your far vision that you are wounded by something you can not see and then you swap to present vision and see there was a god at three feet of you who just stabbed you).
Basically the fluff for that version of foresight is incoherent.(you make it behave as if it was time travelling in respect of gods while it is in fact the ability to see the future and of deciding to see less far in the future)
Also it looks a whole lot like having Caster Level forced dreams (http://www.psionics.info/powers/forced-dream/) and a regular foresight rolled up in a single spell(with extra duration) which is the kind of major power creep most of the spells in this page have.

Bumped up the levels of adamant armour and fool's fortune, though I'd argue even if you had a wand of fool's fortune you'd still need a bard or cleric with the right domain to use it.

Foresight - I'm not quite sure what you mean (but that definitely reflects my own poor wording of the ability, not yours!). Thanks for the link to that psionic power, it's exactly the type of reference I needed! I've tried to clear it up a bit, and I've added a quasi-disadvantage mechanic from 5e to limit the power.

[Xzoltar]

I like the idea of thoses spells, but they are stronger than the other spells already considered staples. Do you think a Constant Divine Ward or Fey Ward spell balanced ? At level 0 they can be cast at will and last 1 hour per level. At higher level they wont be that useful, but early one, this is very very strong. Even at Spell level 1 for Paladin and Ranger that would be very solid options. Arcane Arms and Armour is also stronger than Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment two other staples spells.

I dont know what you wanted exactly with thoses spells, boost Buffing spells ? They are already considered strong and this just make caster even more powerful.

In my campaign PC are really strong (In our Current campaign the Tank deal an average of 206 damage every two rounds at level 9) and so theses spells will probably not change anything, but in most campaign, this will break encounters as low level monster won't do enough damage to the characters.

At least your Divine and Fey version are good alternative to the normal spells and I will add them in my game, just a little bit toned down, thanks for the inspiration.

[rferries]

I like the idea of thoses spells, but they are stronger than the other spells already considered staples. Do you think a Constant Divine Ward or Fey Ward spell balanced ? At level 0 they can be cast at will and last 1 hour per level. At higher level they wont be that useful, but early one, this is very very strong. Even at Spell level 1 for Paladin and Ranger that would be very solid options. Arcane Arms and Armour is also stronger than Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment two other staples spells.

I dont know what you wanted exactly with thoses spells, boost Buffing spells ? They are already considered strong and this just make caster even more powerful.

In my campaign PC are really strong (In our Current campaign the Tank deal an average of 206 damage every two rounds at level 9) and so theses spells will probably not change anything, but in most campaign, this will break encounters as low level monster won't do enough damage to the characters.

At least your Divine and Fey version are good alternative to the normal spells and I will add them in my game, just a little bit toned down, thanks for the inspiration.

Hm is DR/2 really that useful though? It definitely takes the edge of for martial characters, but they deserve the help. I intended it for 3.5 rather than Pathfinder so paladins and rangers wouldn't get the at-will... but even in Pathfinder I don't think that's a huge problem.

Arcane arms and armour and the others are intended as replacements for the preexisting spells (mage armour, magic fang, shield, etc.)

My foresight is definitely a buff, but the original foresight is often considered underwhelming compared to other 9th-level spells. The other spells are generally of the same power level as stoneskin, spell resistance, superior resistance, etc.

Hope you have fun with them!