Luck Spell

[jjordan]

Self-scrubbing for reasons.

[Breccia]

Um, I mean, that could easily stack up to twenty or more checks even in a mid-level combat. Is that the kind of bookkeeping you really want?

Also, why wouldn't the PC just try to climb a ten-foot wall fifty times and "burn" them all off?

And also, why wouldn't they just cast the spell again? The imposed Disadvantage, if it even happens, would be eaten by the Advantage.

I think that for something as amazing as "you get Advantage on everything for an entire combat" you need a penalty that's harsher, and overall easier to keep track of. Otherwise you run the risk of, um, racking up a huge "debt" against dragons and paying it off against kobolds.

Perhaps I could offer some suggestions:

1) Make the spell higher level, and therefore, remove the need for a penalty at all.

2) The spell has a finite number of Advantages to grant by its cast level. The target declared before rolling which they'll use. Again, I don't think a penalty is called for.

3) Replace the penalty with "the DM will, at some point in the future, choose XXX rolls made by the target and impose Disadvantage on them. If those rolls are not expended by the time the spell is cast again on the same target, the spell fails."

4) Not my favorite, but "fair": keep a running tally of checks that only succeeded because of the granted Advantage. Then use #3 that many times.

5) Use #3 or #4 but instead of Disadvantage, target gets -X on the roll.

6) Spell becomes a cleric domain ability (possibly via Channel Divinity).

Simply put, the spell as written seems too strong for something you can chain-cast with a drawback you can basically handwave. The bonus needs to be toned down, or the penalty needs to be harder to juke.

[jjordan]

Um, I mean, that could easily stack up to twenty or more checks even in a mid-level combat. Is that the kind of bookkeeping you really want? Me? I'm fine with it because it adds depth to the game by adding lasting consequences. I think that most people don't want that.


Also, why wouldn't the PC just try to climb a ten-foot wall fifty times and "burn" them all off? I think that the folks that would do this are the kind of people that wouldn't use this spell. And I, as a DM, would put a stop to that pretty quickly. "After that second successful attempt you've got this figured out and can do this without having to check."


And also, why wouldn't they just cast the spell again? The imposed Disadvantage, if it even happens, would be eaten by the Advantage. The spell lasts a minute and takes spell slots and isn't a ritual spell. Beyond that I'll alter the wording of the spell to fix this. Thank you


I think that for something as amazing as "you get Advantage on everything for an entire combat" you need a penalty that's harsher, and overall easier to keep track of. Otherwise you run the risk of, um, racking up a huge "debt" against dragons and paying it off against kobolds. Yes, and no. It could work out that way but the structure of most adventures argues against it (progression is to ever more difficult foes). But even if it did work out that way it would make the kobolds more dangerous.


Perhaps I could offer some suggestions:Thank you for doing so.


1) Make the spell higher level, and therefore, remove the need for a penalty at all.

2) The spell has a finite number of Advantages to grant by its cast level. The target declared before rolling which they'll use. Again, I don't think a penalty is called for.

3) Replace the penalty with "the DM will, at some point in the future, choose XXX rolls made by the target and impose Disadvantage on them. If those rolls are not expended by the time the spell is cast again on the same target, the spell fails."

4) Not my favorite, but "fair": keep a running tally of checks that only succeeded because of the granted Advantage. Then use #3 that many times.

5) Use #3 or #4 but instead of Disadvantage, target gets -X on the roll.

6) Spell becomes a cleric domain ability (possibly via Channel Divinity).

Simply put, the spell as written seems too strong for something you can chain-cast with a drawback you can basically handwave. The bonus needs to be toned down, or the penalty needs to be harder to juke.
I understand your point of view and I agree with it from a general standpoint, which is to say that if I'm homebrewing this for general use it needs to be better balanced to account for players who game the game. My counter to that is that I shut down metagaming pretty well when I'm running a game and that is the balance.

Thematically this is about balance and choices and consequences. This is the sort of cool spell that players can discover and use and laugh and groan about the consequences. But as they adventure further in the world they discover more sinister applications of variations of this spell. Luck amulets that grant you luck with none of the drawbacks applying to you. Those drawbacks end up applying to the children tied to the amulets by the curse/spell of the amulet makers. Or overusing this spell and building up so much bad luck that it starts creating good luck for your opponents. Now you're rolling at disadvantage and they're rolling at advantage against you.