Wording Help - Increasing a Damage Die Size

[Oramac]

Hey all. I'm just looking for some help here on the wording of a feature. The idea is that the player can use the feature normally, and it does 1d6 damage (scaling at the tiers of play), or they can expend a resource to increase the damage die size (1d6 > 1d8 > 1d10 > 1d12) for each resource expended. I'm just trying to figure out how to word this so it's as clear as possible.

Here it is:


Psionic Blast

At 1st level when you follow this order, you learn to assault a target's mind with psionic power. As an action, make an energy attack roll against a creature you are aware of within 120 ft. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 psychic damage, and you may expend Psionic Energy to increase the size of the damage die by 1 for each energy spent. The damage increases at 5th (2d6), 11th (3d6), and 17th (4d6) level.

I think this works, but it feels a little clunky. How can I make it simpler and clearer?

Thanks!!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hey all. I'm just looking for some help here on the wording of a feature. The idea is that the player can use the feature normally, and it does 1d6 damage (scaling at the tiers of play), or they can expend a resource to increase the damage die size (1d6 > 1d8 > 1d10 > 1d12) for each resource expended. I'm just trying to figure out how to word this so it's as clear as possible.

Here it is:



I think this works, but it feels a little clunky. How can I make it simpler and clearer?

Thanks!!

"Energy attack" isn't defined. Did you mean "spell attack"?

I would word it as

Psionic Blast
At 1st level when you follow this order, you learn to assault a target's mind with psionic power. As an action, make an energy a spell attack roll against a creature you are aware of within 120 ft. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 psychic damage. The number of dice increases at higher levels: 2 dice at 5th level, [...].

When you use this feature, you can spend one or more Psionic Energy Point to amplify the effect. When you do so, the damage die increases by one step (d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12 -> d20) for each Energy Point spent but the number of dice does not change. For example, a 10th level <class> deals 2d12 damage with this feature when he spends 3 PEP and hits.

[kosh49]

"Energy attack" isn't defined. Did you mean "spell attack"?

I would word it as

Psionic Blast
At 1st level when you follow this order, you learn to assault a target's mind with psionic power. As an action, make an energy a spell attack roll against a creature you are aware of within 120 ft. On a hit, the target takes 1d6 psychic damage. The number of dice increases at higher levels: 2 dice at 5th level, [...].

When you use this feature, you can spend one or more Psionic Energy Point to amplify the effect. When you do so, the damage die increases by one step (d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12 -> d20) for each Energy Point spent but the number of dice does not change. For example, a 10th level <class> deals 2d12 damage with this feature when he spends 3 PEP and hits.

This seems reasonable except for the step up from 1d12 to 1d20. That step up is 4 times the size of any of the other steps up, so this should be capped at 1d12 as the OP originally listed.

You could take a step up from 1d12 that has the same average magnitude as all of the other steps if you go to 3d4, but that seems needlessly complicated.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This seems reasonable except for the step up from 1d12 to 1d20. That step up is 4 times the size of any of the other steps up, so this should be capped at 1d12 as the OP originally listed.

You could take a step up from 1d12 that has the same average magnitude as all of the other steps if you go to 3d4, but that seems needlessly complicated.

To be honest, I just missed that limitation. And I agree. Capping at 1d12 seems reasonable.

That said, each step up is only +(die count) damage on average. So if you've got other things to spend Psionic Energy on, boosting this seems rather pointless.

[Oramac]

Sorry for the delay here. Holidays!

Thank you both for the help! I really appreciate it. And yes, it's capped at a d12. I specified that as well.

[Yakk]

Unless PEP don't scale with level, I'd suggest changing it to +1d6 per PEP instead of +1 die size.

At lower levels, going from 1d6 to 1d8 is 1 point of damage. Unless you have a lot of PEP, that sucks.

At higher levels, when I'd expect you to have lots of PEP, each PEP produces 4 damage; 4x as effective.

If the number of PEP scales roughly linearly with level, then this is a quadratic contribution to character damage output, which doesn't match 5e power curve design; it looks more like 3e power curve design.

You could make it work in 5e, but you are fighting the game design, and mainly you'd make it work by making the ability not have a significant impact on the game at most levels.

On the other hand, a resource that scales with level that adds damage (each PEP adds +1d6 damage, capped at proficiency bonus PEP per use) fits 5e design pretty closely.