[D&D 3.5] "Fixing" Core Spells

[Fiery Diamond]

I'd like to devote this thread to "fixing" core spells. Before we begin, let's clarify and set up some premises.

First: We assume that spells are broken/unbalancing in core for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons (feel free to add reasons to our list) include...

1) Too powerful for the level at which they become available
2) Steal the role/ability of other party members
3) Allow for one-spell domination of encounters
4) Are a "ha-ha, you can't get me!" button
5) Permit abuse of rules in order to achieve things not to be gotten

Second: We assume that a reasonable DM will get rid of things that are obviously unintended and unreasonable, such as infinite looping, and that we don't need to focus our attention on closing loopholes.

Third: We assume that in "fixing" the spells we determine are broken/unbalancing for one of our specified reasons, we may need to rewrite how the spell works in its entirety, simply assign it to a higher level, tweak it a little, or give it up as a lost cause and get rid of it (as a last resort).

Fourth: We assume that not everyone will agree on what is broken/unbalancing or why it is broken/unbalancing, so when we address a spell, we must state why we believe it is broken/unbalancing.

Fifth: We are not messing with the classes at this point, just the spells themselves. There are plenty of other threads devoted to fixing the classes, but this is a hopeless task unless we work on fixing the spells- so this thread focuses on the spells rather than the classes.

Sixth: A poster may add to the list of spells to be fixed (providing reason for its inclusion), post a proposed fix for a spell on that list, or both.

Seventh: This thread is focusing on CORE spells.

AND SO, LET US BEGIN!

Here are a few spells to start us off...

Knock: Invalidates open lock
Alter Self: Invalidates mundane disguise
Rope Trick: Ha-ha-can't-get-me button
?Glitterdust: Too early, encounter domination?
Grease: Too early?, encounter domination
?Fly: Ha-ha button?
Any Save or Die (let's make a list): encounter domination
Any Save or Lose (let's make a list): encounter domination
Cloudkill: encounter domination
Tenser's Transformation: Invalidates martial stuff
Baleful Polymorph/Polymorph/PaO: SoL, Rules abuse, steal roles
Time Stop: Encounter domination

Example proposed solution: Knock - now only works on magical locks.

[Greenish]

Polymorph chain, from Alter Self to Shapechange. Nix entirely, or use PF versions.

Knock - allow Open Lock to open magical locks (without huge DC increase).

Casters who can learn/prepare any spell on their insanely bloated list - nix entirely, replace with spontaneous casters.

Planar Binding, Lesser, Greater, Gate, Planar Ally, Lesser, Greater - nix entirely, if the caster wants her own BSF, have her party with one.

Wildshape (not really a spell, but close enough) - Shapeshift variant from PHBII, compulsory.

Entangle - reduce area, duration.


…Might think up some more.

[Godskook]

What level of power are you desiring to fix core spells to, relative to the tier list that JaronK made?

[Godless_Paladin]

What level of power are you desiring to fix core spells to, relative to the tier list that JaronK made?

Spells don't have tiers in JaronK's system. Classes do.

[Urpriest]

Alter Self invalidating mundane disguise is a little more reasonable an issue than others. For one, your disguise modifier is still relevant, it simply changes the stakes involved. Thus, it would be better to make shapechanging spells intended for disguise (rather than buffs) available to non-casting classes. I'm thinking than an alchemical alternative would be good. Have it not be too costly, but require 6 ranks in disguise to apply. Thus everyone with an interest in disguising themself gets that +10/+20 bonus. Raise the DCs accordingly if this puts the bar too high.

[Urpriest]

Spells don't have tiers in JaronK's system. Classes do.

True, but certain spells are characteristic of Tier 1/2 classes, while others are characteristic of Tier 3/4 classes. It's a reasonable question, if poorly phrased.

[Rising Phoenix]

Freedom of movement:

1) Allows unhibited movement over difficult terrain
2) Allows you to fight normally underwater
3) Against effects that grapple, entangle, paralyze or similarly inhibit your movement, provides a bonus to the appropriate roll equal to your caster level.

Glitterdust, web, protection from alighnment, magic circle against alighment, black tentacles, mind blank all follow the PF rullings.

[Godless_Paladin]

Freedom of movement:

1) Allows unhibited movement over difficult terrain
2) Allows you to fight normally underwater
3) Against effects that grapple, entangle, paralyze or similarly inhibit your movement, provides a bonus to the appropriate roll equal to your caster level.

Glitterdust, web, protection from alighnment, magic circle against alighment, black tentacles, mind blank all follow the PF rullings.

Worse, Freedom of Movement is a dissociative mechanic.

But that's only if you care about game design principles instead of how powerful it is. If you only care about mechanical efficacy, ignore this.

[Aron Times]

I had a Fridge Brilliance moment when I figured out why virtually all powers in 4e deal damage. Basically, hit points represent a character's fighting ability, and anything that reduces his fighting ability should reduce his HP.

The problem with save-or-die and spells in 3.5 is that they bypass the target's HP and instantly win the fight. Furthermore, when a save-or-die spell fails, the caster isn't contributing anything to the fight that round. A monster who succeeds on his save against the spell doesn't get significantly easier to defeat. When the caster finally succeeds on his save-or-die, it invalidates the noncaster's actions because he could've done it singlehandedly had he been luckier.

This is not the perfect argument against save-or-die spells, and I feel that another can make this argument stronger.

[Godskook]

Spells don't have tiers in JaronK's system. Classes do.

Except most of the 'troublesome' spells fall on the same 3 lists: Druid, Cleric, and Sorc/Wiz. Essentially, any problem with those spells also brings up the question of how powerful the class that are based on them are supposed to be. If tier 1 power is, on average, ok, than only minor changes need be made to the worst offenders. If tier 3 power is the desired result, heavy revision is required, and for tier 5 power, we're pretty much looking at a complete re-write.

[Greenish]

Alter Self invalidating mundane disguise is a little more reasonable an issue than others.

That would be Disguise Self.

Alter Self gets you flight speed, or a huge chunk of natural armour, or a few other effects, for 10 min/level as a 2nd level spell.

[Zaq]

Worse, Freedom of Movement is a dissociative mechanic.

But that's only if you care about game design principles instead of how powerful it is. If you only care about mechanical efficacy, ignore this.

I think that I understand what you're getting at, but I feel that an explanation would be interesting nonetheless. Please, do go on.

[thompur]

Glitterdust: Eliminate blinding effect
Rope Trick: Duration 10 min./level
Grease: Objects only or 1 5' square
Web: 20' cone starting from caster. Duration 1rd/level
Hold Person/Monster: Any action against held creature ends spell effect.
Evard's Black Tentacles: Allow a REF. save and Escape Artist skill check
Fly: 1rd/level Avg Maneuverability/maybe require flapping of arms...
Polymorph: Maximum 1 size larger or smaller.
Polymorph any Object: objects only, no living creatures. Duration 1 min./lvl
Overland Flight: You still gotta flap!
Permanency: Eliminate
Limited Wish, Wish, Miracle: eliminate(for higher beings only)
Gate: Travel only
Shapechange: Maximum 2 sizes larger or smaller, HD=level, duration 1rd/level

[Godskook]

Rope Trick: Duration 10 min./level

That's an all-or-nothing kind of spell. Reducing the duration like that makes it useless for the only thing its supposed to be doing.

[Tyndmyr]

Knock: Invalidates open lock

It does. It can be used to be a jerk, if the wizard is displacing the rogue. Alternatively, if you don't have a rogue, it's fairly cool. Therefore, easier to handle by just not being a jerk about how you use it.

Edit: Having it give a modifier to open lock, as alter self does to disguise, might be apros.

Alter Self: Invalidates mundane disguise

It's a +10 modifier to disguise. This is quite helpful, but does not actually invalidate disguise, as someone who pumps the skill can easily get more. And of course, they stack.

Rope Trick: Ha-ha-can't-get-me button

Well, for resting. And frankly, being attacked while asleep is something that gets old pretty quickly. Magic SHOULD have a means to provide safety, and this is the next logical step after alarm.

?Glitterdust: Too early, encounter domination?

Well, it's the same level as see invisibility, and serves a similar purpose. Both have pros and cons, but the blinding effect is powerful in addition. Tacking another level onto it seems reasonable.

Grease: Too early?, encounter domination

I suspect the real problem is the no save portion. Rewrite the whole thing so it has a save, like the pathfinder version(but without the min/level increase in duration), and you're at an appropriate level for the spell. Still handy, but less crazy.

?Fly: Ha-ha button?

Well, you need fly to appear before dimension door and your superior fly options. Otherwise, it doesn't have a useful niche. It's already fairly short duration for a handy buff. About the only thing you could do is mess with the fly speed, like they did going from 3.5 to 3.0, but frankly, the speed is generally not that important. It's an iconic ability, and making it irrelevant would be unfortunate. So, not a lot to be done about it.

Any Save or Die (let's make a list): encounter domination

Core SoDs suck. These are not your problem. Consider that any charger build essentially does the equivalent of a SoD every turn. The only difference is that it's called an attack roll. It's very easy to design characters to plaster single targets. If anything, SoDs are poor when compared to control.

Any Save or Lose (let's make a list): encounter domination

Well, things like curse are particularly nasty. Consider the duration, and the power of the debuff. Losing half your actions, for instance? Crazy strong. There's a lot of weak willed targets, too.

Now, we have the aoe SoLs. Those are probably more important because a good portion of encounters have multiple mobs, and single target spells, while helpful, do not dominate those. Even worse, consider no-save targets. Consider Solid Fog as one example.

Cloudkill: encounter domination

Situational. A great many boosts to saves vs poison exist(all but two of the phb races have a boost against the save for this spell), and the HD restrictions prevent it from being a BBEG threat. Hardly overpowered.

Tenser's Transformation: Invalidates martial stuff

It's a trap.

Baleful Polymorph/Polymorph/PaO: SoL, Rules abuse, steal roles

The whole polymorph line is pretty problematic. Limit them in some way(Possibly longer cast times), and keep PaO from being a permanent way to avoid level adjust and RHD for awesome creatures.

Time Stop: Encounter domination

Well, yeah, it's crazy. But it's a 9th level spell. They're pretty much all crazy. There's not much you can do with this tier short of avoiding it. It's just a training ground for the insanity of epic spellcasting.

[Telonius]

Forcecage. Currently: Unless you have some sort of teleportation, you lose no save. Change to: Reflex negates.

Divine Power. Currently: nyaah, nyaah, I'm as good of a fighter as the Fighter now, and I can still cast spells. Change to: War Domain only.

Divination/Contact Other Plane. Currently: No limits on times cast means extremely paranoid spellcasters can find out exactly what's coming at them at all times and prepare accordingly. Change to: Contacting divine or extraplanar beings in this manner can be accomplished once every 30 days with no penalty. More often than that carries an amount of risk. Each contact thereafter carries a cumulative 5% risk of angering the being and incurring the Int/Cha decrease (or Wis decrease if the divine version is cast). [Alternates: Cumulative 5% chance of being driven insane, being given a Geas, the being sends an Aleax after you, similar effects]

Summoning spells in general. Currently: Possibility for spellcasting abuse. Change to: Summoned creatures will not use spells or spell-like abilities that would cost you XP if you were to cast the spell. Called creatures will only cast such spells free of charge if the action would directly serve their own interests (i.e. a Planetar might freely cast Greater Restoration on a person who Called it if they were fighting a Pit Fiend, but not if they were fighting an Inevitable). Otherwise Called creatures will not cast the spell unless the person who Called it provides the XP for the casting.

[Psyren]

Forcecage. Currently: Unless you have some sort of teleportation, you lose no save. Change to: Reflex negates.

That's a bit harsh - utterly defeating a level 7 spell with a prohibitively expensive material component by rolling a die.

I would at least put a penalty on the save, which reflects the difficulty of getting to the edge of the spell in time to be able to roll out of it before it forms. Alternatively, I would only allow a save if the character is near one of the edges (which makes the "barred cage" version more attractive than the "windowless cell")

[thompur]

Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange: You have to have knowledge of what your changing into. If you haven't encountered the creature 'in game', you need to make the appropriate knowledge check.
AS - DC 15
PM- DC 20 plus 5 for Ex abilities, plus 10 for Ex qualities
SC- DC 30 plus 5 for Ex qualities, plus 10 for Su Abilities

[Urpriest]

That would be Disguise Self.

Alter Self gets you flight speed, or a huge chunk of natural armour, or a few other effects, for 10 min/level as a 2nd level spell.

Hence why I specified its effect on mundane disguise. Obviously the fact that it's a member of the polymorph chain gives it problems of its own, which would be solved through different means. But the OP seems concerned with its applicability to disguise.

[Urpriest]

Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange: You have to have knowledge of what your changing into. If you haven't encountered the creature 'in game', you need to make the appropriate knowledge check.
AS - DC 15
PM- DC 20 plus 5 for Ex abilities, plus 10 for Ex qualities
SC- DC 30 plus 5 for Ex qualities, plus 10 for Su Abilities

This kind of restriction, while useful in some games, is not useful in general. There will always be games where a character encounters broken monsters, and you don't need all that many broken monsters to exploit the spell.

Here's an illustrative example: many DMs consider restricting animal companions to reasonable environments the druid could live in. This is all well and good, until you run a game set in a jungle full of awesome dinosaurs. I actually encouraged a druid player to get a fleshraker because it fit the setting, unaware that it was the most powerful animal companion out there. There will always be campaigns where this sort of thing happens, because all monsters have a use somewhere.

[Lans]

Forcecage. Currently: Unless you have some sort of teleportation, you lose no save. Change to: Reflex negates.

Couldn't we give walls of force hp/hardness?

Divine Power. Currently: nyaah, nyaah, I'm as good of a fighter as the Fighter now, and I can still cast spells. Change to: War Domain only.

I think dropping the strength boost to +4 would also be a good option, or even scrapping it entirely.

Summoning spells in general. Currently: Possibility for spellcasting abuse. Change to: Summoned creatures will not use spells or spell-like abilities that would cost you XP if you were to cast the spell. Called creatures will only cast such spells free of charge if the action would directly serve their own interests (i.e. a Planetar might freely cast Greater Restoration on a person who Called it if they were fighting a Pit Fiend, but not if they were fighting an Inevitable). Otherwise Called creatures will not cast the spell unless the person who Called it provides the XP for the casting.

Another problem is that the calling spells are that they are based on HD and not CR. Which can just be fixed by just putting CR in for HD.

[Chess435]

Time stop, Cloudkill, Forcecage.

Otherwise known as Game, Set, Match.

[Urpriest]

Another problem is that the calling spells are that they are based on HD and not CR. Which can just be fixed by just putting CR in for HD.

Eh, I feel like this latter is a bad idea. CR isn't supposed to be part of the mechanics of anything besides XP gain.

Frankly, even a CR limit wouldn't be useful, since CRs are differently calibrated than player resources. Summoning, like polymorphing, either needs to be limited to specific cases, divorced from the actual monsters (like PF did with the polymorph chain), or fixed along with the monsters themselves.

[Godless_Paladin]

Time stop, Cloudkill, Forcecage.

Otherwise known as Game, Set, Match.

Except for all the people who can actually do something about it.

[Eldan]

Well, here's a few I've implemented:

Knock: Takes a full round to cast. As part of it, make an open lock check with a bonus equal to half your caster level (max +5). Allows opening magical locks.

Grease: Increases balance checks on slanted or narrow surfaces by +4. Otherwise, only requires reflex saves and covers a single 5ft. square.

and in the other direction, but in my opinion just as important:

Fireball deals less damage, but has the effects of explosive spell quasi-included.

[Godless_Paladin]

There is such a thing as going too far with the nerfbat. If you make a spell into something people will not prepare, you didn't fix it, you removed it from the list of viable options.

[Urpriest]

There is such a thing as going too far with the nerfbat. If you make a spell into something people will not prepare, you didn't fix it, you removed it from the list of viable options.

True. Any examples here you intended to point out?

[Lans]

Eh, I feel like this latter is a bad idea. CR isn't supposed to be part of the mechanics of anything besides XP gain.

Frankly, even a CR limit wouldn't be useful, since CRs are differently calibrated than player resources. Summoning, like polymorphing, either needs to be limited to specific cases, divorced from the actual monsters (like PF did with the polymorph chain), or fixed along with the monsters themselves.

Even if the CRs are calibrated differantly from players resources basing the spell off of it will still be better than basing it off of HD, and will bring it to a more balanced plane. The other fixes involving Exp spells and the like would be necessary also.

[Eldan]

Additionally, CR is really wonky in 3.5. Just compare your average dragon to, say, an inevitable of the same challenge rating and you'll see what I mean. An Ethergaunt, if played cleverly, will eat any amount of demons his level for breakfast.

[Chen]

For the Polymorph line I'd suggest:

Polymorph should grant size bonuses to your stats instead of actually changing your physical stats. You should gain movement modes of the form you're in and the natural attacks and natural armor. Alter self should really just be like disguise self. No granting of movement modes, natural armor or whatever. It just makes you look different. Hell merge it with disguise self and remove one of them. Remove Shapechange completely and leave PAO with the same restrictions as polymorph when changing into other creatures.

Glitterdust should probably not make the creature blind but rather give them something like a 20% miss chance. More in line with the level of the spell I'd say.