The Spell Reformation: Part I-II of V (General Changes and Conditions)

[Vadskye]

EDIT: Part II is now up.
Part III is finally up too!
And Part IV! Almost done!

Here begins my attempt to rewrite every spell in D&D. Fixing the entirety of the spell system is too great a task for a single post. Even if I could do it without exceeding the word limit, it would be so immensely complex that I doubt anyone would care. For this reason, I have broken down my proposed changes into five parts. These are purely out-of-game constructs and are never referenced within the rules; they exist only to the extent that it makes the changes easier to understand.

1. General changes that affect all spells. This includes ranges, areas, durations, spell resitance, etc.
2. Changes to "Condition" spells, which impose some negative condition on their targets. This includes Glitterdust, Hold Person, Web, Dominate Person, etc. For reasons which will become apparent later, instant death effects such as Finger of Death are also considered to be Condition spells.
3. Changes to "Damage" spells, which deal damage to their targets. This includes Fireball, Scorching Ray, Magic Missile, Meteor Swarm, etc.
4. Changes to "Buff" spells, which provide bonuses to their targets. This includes Bless, Fly, Haste, Heroism, etc.
5. Changes to other spells, which do... stuff. This includes Bless Water, Scrying, Hallow, etc.

In this post, I will address the first category. Future posts will deal with the other categories - most likely, in the order that they were listed above. First, I present the guiding principles that I use.

Foundational Principles of the Spell Reformation

• Spellcasters are too powerful.
• Spells are poorly designed. (see this list of 45 things wrong with spells.)
• An ideal spell rewrite will decrease the overall power level of spells and spellcasters.
• It is possible to reduce the power level of spellcasters while actually making them more fun to play.
• An ideal spell rewrite will be as modular as possible, allowing changes to be applied individually.
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  It is unreasonable to think that one system perfectly fits everyone's game. Everyone has different ideas of what makes D&D fun. I would hate to see someone throw the 95% of the revisions that they like because the other 5% changes something that they regard as essential.
• The problem with magic in D&D lies with the spells, and not with the casting system itself.
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  This is not to say that I endorse the Vancian prepared casting sytem. I personally think the "spells known and spell slots" method that the sorcerer uses is the best casting system, followed by the "spells known and power points" method, and finally followed by prepared casting. However, the casting system used isn't the problem by itself. Whether mages use prepared casting, power points, or spell slots, they are still broken if the spells they cast are broken.
• An ideal spell rewrite would work regardless of which casting system is used.
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  All of the changes here are designed to be system-agnostic, and compatible with whatever your favorite method of casting is. Note that this also means changing some spells that only work under a Vancian prepared casting system. See the Rituals section for more detail.
• While perfection is impossible, it should still be the goal.
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  Some problems with the spell system are game-breaking. Some problems are trivial - but they are still problems. The Spell Reformation strives for perfection, rewriting or removing every single spell in the game. Insane? Perhaps. But I think that the outcome is better for it.
• Players must never be forced to choose between the interesting and the powerful.
• Minimize complexity!

General Spell Changes: New Systems
Rituals

Observations:

• Some spells have effects that are not worth a spell slot of their level, yet are difficult to reduce in level.
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  Consider a spell like Consecrate. Is it a magical effect? Absolutely. However, its effects are fairly minor - notable only for their duration. I have a hard time justifying spending a 2nd or 3rd level spell slot on this effect; it's just not worth it.
  
  With that said, it doesn't seem fair to let a 1st level caster Consecrate an area, either. This is a significant magical effect - it's just not a useful one.
  
  As a further example, consider Remove Disease. It's an effect that a an archetypal cleric should be able to create, provided that she is sufficiently powerful. However, it's hard to justify spending a 3rd level spell slot on an effect like that. It's even worse if you look at it from the perspective of spending a whole spell known just to get the ability to remove diseases. Spellcasters who have specific lists of spells known (Favored Souls in vanilla, or a variety of homebrew classes) should be able to remove diseases without having to lose spells known.
• Some spells have extremely long or permanent durations, yet cost no permanent resources to use, making them abusable.
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  Explosive Runes is the archetypal example here, but any multiday spell can cause these sorts of problems. Any spell which lasts for multiple days should impose some sort of cost beyond the initial spell slot, since that will be recovered by the time the spell is actually relevant - thus making the spell effectively free.
• Some spells thematically feel more like rituals than spells.
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  This is fairly subjective, so I don't assign it too much weight. However, I would simply note that rituals have a long and storied history in fantasy tropes, yet no representation in core D&D. This should be changed.
• Some spells can dramatically alter the nature of the world when they are freely usable without permanent cost.
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  Do you know the easiest way to get through the Tomb of Horrors? Just cast Clairaudience/Clairvoyance every day for weeks until you've mapped out the entire area. Need to get information on an enemy? Just cast Scrying ad infinitum until they fail a save. Then cast Scrying on every single person you see in the first Scrying. Most campaigns don't run into these issues for for one of two reasons: either the players and the DM have a gentleman's agreement not to actually use the spell system as written, or they haven't thought of it yet. I have yet to see any campaign actually run in the Tippyverse. However, I think we deserve a spell system that isn't painfully abusable.
• Some spells provide benefits to the entire party, yet extract resources from only the caster.
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  Divination, Restoration, Scrying, and Teleport are all important effects that everyone in the party benefits from. However, they all require the caster to expend spell slots (and even more painfully, spells known, in systems that use spells known) to get these results. This amounts to a hidden tax on the caster's capacity, forcing them to choose between having personal power and contributing necessary effects. Now, casters have historically been so powerful that this is not a serious detriment to their utility. However, if casters were balanced against the other classes, this tax would be a problem. It would be better if party gain came from party resources.

Solution:
Convert the problematic spells into rituals. Rituals require material components instead of spell slots to cast, and require a scribing cost instead of a spell known to learn. They always take time to cast. Additionally, each ritual is tied to one or more skills, solidifying their flavor and preventing casters with large amounts of money from having access to every ritual in the game. Full mechanics in the spoiler:

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Rituals
Rituals are ceremonies that create magical effects. You don't memorize a ritual as you would a normal spell; rituals are too complex for all but the mightiest wizards to commit to memory. To cast a ritual, you need to read from a book or a scroll containing it. Rituals are considered to be spells for many purposes, such as for spell resistance and for effects related to spells, but they are learned and cast in very different ways.

Ritual Descriptions
Like a spell, each ritual has a school, a level, and a magical effect. The description of each ritual follows the same format as other spells, with three differences. First, unlike spells, which have levels based on class, rituals have levels based on the source of magic: arcane, divine, or both. A ritual always matches the magic source of the person performing the ritual. For example, Scrying is an arcane ritual when performed by a wizard, but a divine ritual when performed by a cleric or druid. Second, each ritual has one or more skills associated with it. In order to learn and perform a ritual, a character must be trained in one of the skills associated with the ritual.

Ritual Books
A ritual book contains one or more rituals that you can use as often and as many times as you like, as long as you can spare the time and the components to perform the ritual. Scribing a ritual in a ritual book takes an amount costs an amount of precious inks with cost equal to 100 * ritual level * ritual level.

Ritual Components
Every ritual has a material component cost. Unless otherwise specified in the ritual description, the material component cost for a ritual is equal to 20 * ritual level * ritual level. This cost can be paid with precious metals or gems.

Casting Rituals
To cast a ritual, you must have a ritual book containing the ritual and the material components required for the ritual. At the end of the ritual, make a skill check using a skill appropriate for the ritual. If you are trained in multiple skills associated with the ritual, you may choose which skill to use. The DC for the check is equal to 10 + twice the ritual's level. If you succeed, the ritual is cast successfully and the material components are expended. If you fail by 9 or less, the ritual is cast successfully and the material components are expended, but channeling the magic drains you and you gain a negative level. This negative level persists for 24 hours before disappearing. If you fail by 10 or more, you botched the ritual. The material components are expended, but the ritual has no effect, and you gain a negative level that lasts for 24 hours.
You can take 10 on this skill check if you are not threatened, even if the skill required to cast the ritual is a Knowledge skill. You can also take 20 by spending twenty times the normal time to cast the ritual, and expending twice the normal amount of material components.

Explanation:

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Tying rituals to skills serves several purposes. As mentioned above, it keeps the system more balanced even when casters have a lot of money at their disposal. It also neatly ensures that wizards are better at rituals than sorcerers, no matter what casting system is used. The skills are tied to the definition of the ritual. Consecrate is Knowledge (religion), Awaken is Knowledge (nature), Endure Elemental is Survival, Teleport is Knowledge (arcana), and so on. The material component costs involved in learning and cast rituals limit their use to situations where they actually matter.

I am still finalizing the list of ritual spells. However, if it feels like a ritual and/or it meets the criteria described above, it probably is a ritual. There are no spells that are not rituals in the Spell Reformation with casting times of longer than 1 full round.

Spell Durations

Observations:

• Buffing before combat is time-consuming and unnecessarily complicated.
• 1 round/level durations scale strangely, being useless at low levels and extremely long at high levels.
• Level-scaling ranges and durations increase complexity substantially for little gain.
• If spell durations are too short, it restricts the degree to which spells can be used for utility rather than combat.
• If spell durations are too long, it allows casters to cast many spells before combat with ease, increasing complexity and hurting balance. (More on this when the Buffs section is published).
• If spell durations are too long, it is impossible to "wait out" powerful spells such as Fly.
• Spells should use unified durations; buffs and condition spells should use the same basic measurements of duration.

Solution:
There are four basic duration categories.

• Short: Concentration + 5 rounds
• Medium: 5 minutes
• Long: 1 hour
• Extended: 12 hours

There is a rule clarifying that a caster can concentrate on a typical spell for up to 5 minutes before he becomes fatigued.
Explanation:

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The Short duration is the largest change here. Few combats last substantially longer than 5 rounds, regardless of level, unless the combatants are intentionally prolonging it. A spell of that duration is long enough to last for a typical combat, but short enough that trying to survive until a spell duration wears off - whether a debilitating condition or an overly buffed opponent - is a viable tactic. Additionally, it makes it impractical to have a massive number of buffs active before a combat. (Again, see the Buffs section when it is written.)

The Concentration component means that a caster can keep an important spell active until the combat starts without having to know exactly when it will begin, limiting the amount of boring duration-tracking. Additionally, it ensures that creative or noncombat uses of short duration spells are still possible, such as commanding a (single) summoned monster to explore down a path and report back on what is found.

The changes to the other durations are more minor. Minor benefits include making it virtually impossible to overlap buffs between days at high levels, which is an unnecessarily complex bit of chicanery that I'd rather avoid.

Ranges

Observations:

• Level-scaling ranges and durations increase complexity substantially for little gain.
• Spell ranges are confusingly formatted on area spells.
• High-level casters can cast spells at unnecessarily long ranges.
• Radius spells cast at the limit of their range have very odd and unintuitive shapes.

Solution:
There are three basic range categories:

• Close: 30 ft.
• Medium: 100 ft.
• Long: 500 ft.

Area spells centered on the caster do not have a listed range; the Area line specifies the extent to which the spell extends from the caster. A listed range refers to the limit on where the spell's point of origin can begin; a spell's effects can go outside the spell's listed range.

Finally, many spells moved to a shorter range category.

Explanation:

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These ranges are beautifully simple and easy to use. It still allows many spells to be used outside of charging distance, which I think is a reasonable expectation for a properly squishy caster. Casters should fear melee; it's just rude to force them to enter essentially melee range just to cast their spells. However, they can no longer throw spells across football fields, either.

And did I mention how much I love how easy these ranges are to remember? Ever since I started using these ranges, I can't think of a single time there was confusion about spell range with my players.

Effects (Manifestations)

Observations:

• The word "effect" is overused, and should not be used to refer to objects or creatures created by a spell.
• Both the Area and Effect sections of a spell define a "spread" independently; this is redundant, and should be combined.

Solutions:
Effects are now called "Manifestations". I'm open to a better name if anyone has suggestions.

Spells like Fog Cloud no longer say "Fog spreads in 20 ft. radius, 20 ft. high". Instead, Fog Cloud has an Area line of "Medium (20 ft.) radius spread", and the Manifestation line reads "Fog in the area".

Areas and Targets

Observations:

• Spell ranges are confusingly formatted on area spells.
• Area spells affect arbitrarily chosen and difficult to remember areas.
• Spells which affect multiple targets have inconsistent limitations.
• Spells which affect multiple targets specify the size limitation within the "Targets" line. This should be done in the Area line to maintain consistency.
• Spells which affect cylinders can pass through walls.
• Line spells are confusing.
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  How many squares does a 50 ft. line spell affect? That depends - if you aim it in any of the four cardinal directions, it affects 20 squares. If you aim it very slightly to the left or right of that, it affects about 10 squares. This is, frankly, stupid.

Solutions:
There are three basic area categories. Each is defined in terms of the number of feet of the relevant dimension for each shape. For lines and cones, this is the length of the effect. For spheres, it is the radius of the effect.

• Small: 10 ft.
• Medium: 20 ft.
• Large: 50 ft.

Almost every spell was changed to fit these categories. Some, like Lightning Bolt, have unique areas (affecting a 100 ft. line), but most follow these limitations.

Line spells are defined to be 10 feet wide unless otherwise specified. They affect the closest two squares to the line chosen. It's hard to give examples without drawing pictures, but basically, a line going due North is virtually identical to a line going very slightly to the right of due North. Let me know if this is confusing.

There is a new type of area: in addition to burst, spread, and emanation, there is also "limit". A spell with a limiting area does not automatically affect everything within the area; instead, it always includes a "Targets" line which specifies which specific targets it affects within the area. For example, Mass Haste has an Area line of "Medium (20 ft.) radius limit" and a Targets line of "One creature/level within the area".

Any mobile area spell centered on the caster specifically states that it is "centered on you". Any immobile area spell centered on the caster specifically states that it is "centered on your location". (As mentioned above, those spells would not have a listed range.) If that text is absent, the point of origin for the area can be anywhere within the spell's range.

Cylinder-shaped spells now ignore all vertical obstacles, not all obstacles of any kind.

Save DCs

Observations:

• Any low-level spells which depend on a saving throw are useless at mid to high levels.
• Low-level spells that do not depend on saving throws are very powerful at mid to high levels, thanks to metamagic.
• This dichotomy is unnecessary and harmful to game balance.
• Calculating saving throw DC individually for every level of spells adds an unnecessary level of complexity to the game.
• Effects which improve spellcasting by only improving DCs arbitrarily help some kinds of spellcasters substantially while providing no benefit to others.
• Most effects which improve spellcasting improve only DCs, contributing to the imbalance between damage spells and nondamaging spells.
• Not enough effects improve spellcasting in interesting and consistent ways.

Solution:
Spell saving throw DC is calculated by 10 + 1/2 caster level + casting ability modifier. Effects which used to improve DC instead improve caster level, granting +2 caster level instead of +1 DC. Effects which used to improve caster level continue to do so. I recommend that there be magic items that can also affect caster level, such as wizard's robes (a classic fantasy trope which has never had proper representation in D&D), but it is outside the scope of this fix to actually create those items.

Damage spell formulas and other spells which depend on caster level will be rewritten such that increasing caster level in this way does not make them overly strong or overly weak. This will be discussed in Part 3 of the Spell Reformation.
Explanation:

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I know that a major objection to this will be based how allowing caster level to be much more variable will break existing spells - particularly damage spells and effects like Holy Word. I have taken this into account. I would ask that this change be judged based on whether it is a good system on its own, not based on how it interacts with spells that were not designed for it (and which have been rewritten accordingly).

This change dramatically increases the usefulness of low-level spells in combat. This is completely intentional; it gives casters more flexibility and encourages them to take higher level spells because they are actually better, rather than by forcing old spells to be useless. However, allowing low-level spells to have a potentially significant role makes the next change even more important.

Quicken Spell

Observations:

• As has been said many times, Quicken Spell breaks the action economy like crazy.
• Casters should generally be limited to one major action per round, just like everyone else in the game.
• Quickening is essentially useless (without metamagic abuse) until very high levels, at which point it is overpowered.
• Quicken Spell should scale more appropriately with level, being useless at many levels but never becoming game-breaking.

Solution:
Quicken Spell is rewritten as follows:

Benefit: Casting a quickened spell is a swift action. You can perform another action, even casting another spell, in the same round as you cast a quickened spell. However, casting a quickened spell is mentally exhausting. In the turn after you cast it, you lose your standard action. You may cast only one quickened spell per round. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 standard action cannot be quickened. A quickened spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level. Casting a quickened spell doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity.
Special: All spellcasters can cast a quickened spell as a swift action, even if they would normally increase the casting time of spells with metamagic applied.

Explanation:

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This allows Quicken Spell to fulfill its iconic role of "casting spells faster" and allows many opportunities for interesting tactical decision, yet never allows Quickening casts to completely escape the "1 action per round" constraint. I really like this fix; it takes some getting used to, but it neatly addresses a huge problem with high-level casters.

Spell Resistance

Observations:

• Spell resistance is crude and noninteractive.
• Casters typically ignore spell resistance rather than ever interacting with it directly.
• It takes too long for a creature to lower its own spell resistance.

Solution:
Spell resistance is rewritten as follows:

Spell resistance is a special defensive ability. If your spell is being resisted by a creature with spell resistance, you must make a spell resistance check (1d20 + half caster level + casting ability modifier) against a DC equal to the creature's spell resistance + the creature's relevant saving throw modifier. If you succeed, the spell affects the creature normally. If you fail, the spell has no effect on the creature, though it may affect other targets (if any) normally. The defender's spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks.

The Spell Resistance entry and the descriptive text of a spell description tell you whether spell resistance protects creatures from the spell and what saving throw the creature adds to its spell resistance. In many cases, spell resistance applies only when a resistant creature is targeted by the spell, not when a resistant creature encounters a spell that is already in place.

A "typical" spell resistance value in this system is 10; that is the equivalent value for any creature which used to have a SR value of 11 + CR. Mind flayers would probably have a 15, and Celestial creatures would probably have a 5. Additionally, spell resistance can be lowered as a swift action.
Explanation:

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This means that casters can actually take direct action against a creature with spell resistance. It acts as a limitation on the caster's actions, but one which is heavily dependent on the individual creature and the spells that the caster has available. This makes it more interactive and fun to play with - and therefore, better.

Spell Description Formatting

Observations:

• Including "Casting Time: 1 standard action" and "Components: V, S" on 95% of all spells just makes it difficult to notice when the casting time or components are different from the norm.
• Many, many spells are poorly or confusingly formatted.
• Many, many spells are poorly or confusingly worded.

Solution:
All spells are defined as requiring verbal and somatic components unless otherwise specified. The "Casting Time" and "Components" lines are omitted when they the spell has a standard casting time and components, just like the Saving Throw and Spell Resistance lines are omitted for Personal spells.

Also, individually all the poorly worded spells have been rewritten.

Arcane Invocations

Observations:

• Low-level spellcasters have two modes: "useless" and "broken".
• Firing a crossbow every round is boring and doesn't capture the feel of being a wizard.

Solution:
Sorcerers and wizards have at-will spell-like abilities called "arcane invocations". Unlike other spell-like abilities, they have verbal and somatic components and are subject to arcane spell failure. All arcane invocations take a standard action to cast. They are weaker than 1st level spells, but more powerful than shooting a crossbow. For example, Magic Ray is an arcane invocation that deals 1d6 force damage + 1 per caster level as a ranged touch attack to an enemy within Close (30 ft.) range.

Arcane invocations are designed to only be useful in combat, and are explicitly intended not to risk breaking any world continuity through their abuse. Their power scales smoothly at low levels, avoiding massive power jumps. Full details of arcane invocations will be given after the sections of the Spell Reformation describing their functionality.
Explanation:

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Arcane invocations don't dramatically change the power level of the game. Firing a crossbow can be moderately effective in a pinch. However, using an arcane invocation - particularly one with more fluff than the comparatively basic Magic Ray - feels much more magely than existing magic-users do at low levels. No more will low-level level wizards alternate between being boring and being godly; they will be characters like any other, with the ability to act in combat each round without constantly worrying about spell slots.

Spell Schools, Subschools, and Descriptors

Observations

• Spell schools, subschools, and descriptors are poorly defined and poorly implemented.
• Some schools have well-defined subschools that capture most spells in the school, while others lack subschools entirely.
• Good, robustly defined subschools and descriptors provide convenient and valuable ways of categorizing similar spells. This provides guidance to players and the opportunity for interesting and entertaining homebrew.

Solution:
Add good, solid spell schools, subschools, and descriptors. Allow dual-school spells. This process is 95% done. See the Subschools thread if you have an hour to kill and want to get an idea of where I'm going with this. Otherwise, I'll have this done... soon.

This concludes Part I of V of the Spell Reformation. Unless I forgot some things that I changed, which I probably did. Looking forward to see what you all think.

EDIT: Some additional changes that missed the cut when I wrote my explanation the first time! The first two are formatting changes, but the last one is very important.

Clarifying Partial and Separate Spell Effects

Observations:

• The text "Will partial" (and similar) is unnecessarily ambiguous.
• Effects such as Mettle that negate "partial effects" interact poorly with effects which allow no save for damage, but which allow a save against a separate effect.
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  Polar Ray has "Saving Throw: None", it cannot be resisted by Mettle. Imagine a "Polarer Ray" was the exact same as Polar Ray except that it slowed the creature if it failed a Fortitude save. Polarer Ray would say "Saving Throw: Fortitude partial", so the whole spell could be resisted by Mettle - including the damage, which allows no saving throw!
• Spells with multiple effects, each of which has a separate duration, list the spell durations ambiguously.
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  For example, Blasphemy is listed as having an "Instantaneous" duration, but it lists three different durations in the description of the spell.

Solution:
Separate attributes on a spell are listed separately, distinguished by a slash. For example, "Polarer Ray" would be listed as "None/Fortitude negates".
Explanation:

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It's easier to read, and allows Mettle to function as intended against spells with "rider" effects.

Improving Spell Readability

Observations:

• Keeping the fluff description of a spell in the exact same place as the mechanics can lead to confusion over what has direct game significance and what does not.
• Separating fluff where feasible makes it much easier to reskin spells for different campaign settings or homebrew systems.
• Since "Effect" is no longer being used for other purposes, it can be officially used to describe the effects of a spell. (Finally.)
• Details which are the same between many spells should not be repeated in the main body of the spell; that makes it harder to quickly reference or understand a spell's effect.
• Details about how a spell interacts with other spells adds information which is irrelevant 90% of the time, making the spell's effect harder to read.

Solution:
Where feasible, the fluff text is moved to a new location between the name of the spell and the rest of the spell description. It is italicized so that it is visually distinct. The main body of the spell text is denoted with a bold "Effect:" line. A "Note:" section is added below the main spell description, listing additional details about how the spell interacts with other spells, or explanations of frequently used terms (such as condition descriptions).
Explanation:

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It's clearer and looks better. Here are a couple examples of spells where this template is used:
Blur
You distort the subject's outline so it appears blurred, shifting, and wavering.
Illusion (Glamer)
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds)
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes (Will)
Effect: The subject gains concealment. This concealment is not sufficient by itself to make a Hide check.
Note: Attacks against a creature with concealment have a 20% chance to miss. This miss chance is rolled before the attack roll. A see invisibility spell does not counteract the blur effect, but a true seeing spell does. Opponents that cannot see the subject ignore the spell's effect (though fighting an unseen opponent carries penalties of its own).

Web
You create a many-layered mass of strong, stricky strands that entangle creatures caught within them. The strands are similar to spider webs, but larger and tougher.
Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Area: Medium (20 ft. radius) spread
Manifestation: Webs in the area
Duration:
Saving Throw: Reflex negates
Spell Resistance: None
Effect: Each creature in the spell's area becomes entangled unless it makes a successful Reflex save. This save must be repeated each round that the creature moves or fights within the area. An entangled creature can spend a standard action to try to break free of the webs on it. To do so, it must make a grapple attack or Escape Artist attempt against the spell's save DC. A creature entangled by the spell remains entangled until it breaks the webs holding it.
If the strands can be anchored to two or more solid and diametrically opposed structures, such as walls, the strands are much more sturdy. A creature entangled within a sturdy web is unable to move from its square until it breaks the webs on it.
Notes: An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls, Strength and Dexterity-based checks, and armor class. If it attempts to cast a spell must make a Concentration check (DC 15 \add the spell's level) or lose the spell.
The strands are too widely spaced to significantly obscure sight, but are flammable. A magic flaming sword can slash them away as easily as a hand brushes away cobwebs. Any fire can set the webs alight and burn away 5 square feet in 1 round. All creatures within flaming webs take d6 points of fire damage from the flames.
Web can be made permanent with a permanency ritual. A permanent web that is destroyed regrows in 10 minutes.

New Spell Level Acquisition

Observations:

• Not all full casters acquire new spell levels at the same levels.
• This makes it impossible to write spells that assume they will be acquired at a specific level.
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  This extremely important for the damage rewrite. Even aside from that, it makes it easier to write good, balanced spells if we can be sure when exactly spellcasters can first get access to them.
• This causes a variety of inconsistencies and oddities that generally make the system less intuitive.
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  For example, magic items made by a sorcerer have to cost more than magic items made by a wizard, because they have a higher caster level. In general, using inconsistent level acquisition just makes things weirder.
• (Caster level - 1)/2 is just an ugly formula for remembering when new spells are acquired.
• Spontaneous casters have always been second-class compared to full casters.
• Adding arcane invocations increases the power and flexibility of casters at low levels.

Solution:
All casters acquire new spell levels every even level, learning 2nd level spells at 4th level and reaching 9th level spells at 18th level.
Explanation:
I said I wanted to avoid making global system changes to things that aren't spells, and I tried really, really hard to do it. But the inconsistency in spell acquisition rate made it really hard to build a good system for damage spells. And this just... doesn't serve a point. Wizards are [i]already[i] better than sorcerers due to prepared casting! They don't need an additional benefit.

I welcome debate on this change - I know this is one of the bigger ones from a compatibility perspective. However, I really do think it is necessary in order to end up with a working spell system. Bumping back clerics, druids, and wizards by a level on casting is very simple to change; just move every level except 1st level back by one, and keep the 1st level the same. Even better, give 3 1st level spells per day at 3rd level - that maintains a steady progression.[/spoiler]

[eggynack]

I dunno if I'm supposed to add new potential stuff hereabouts, or in the old thread, but I'll just stick it here for now. One issue that exists with wizards is that they naturally have a command of the action economy that fighters can't hope to match. Just on a basic level, let's assume a situation where the party gets a surprise round against some enemies. The wizard casts grease, because he correctly thinks that grease is a super cool spell. The fighter moves close to the enemies, and ends his turn without effecting combat in any way. Maybe he slips on the grease, just to add an element of slapstick to his sadness. These two options just don't have any kind of parity. Even without effects that completely alter the action economy, the wizard's best techniques usually take place within a standard action, while a fighter's best techniques usually require a full round to execute. There isn't a wizard full attack, and they don't have to move into position to do their thing, so they're free to use that action doing whatever they want. It's an issue of some kind.

Also on the topic of the action economy, quicken spell seems a bit too reduced in cost. In the new form, it's basically celerity: the metamagic'ing, and that's a pretty powerful effect. You should consider maybe returning it back to the normal cost, or maybe compromising on a +3. Quickening is a super powerful effect, and it needs a super high cost to get it anywhere close to balanced. Doing a partial celerity thing is a good idea though.

[Cheiromancer]

@eggynack: You just blew my mind. I have never thought about the wizard's action advantage in that way. But you're right; the fighter needs to move and take a full round action. The wizard doesn't have to move, and takes only a standard action.

What I like about the quicken mechanic is that the cost is not phrased in terms of a condition. There are ways to get immunity to the dazed condition, and that is part of why celerity is so powerful. There are fewer loopholes to exploit with the variant quicken.

The fixed ranges make every ranged spell an option for Persistent Spell. I suspect that this feat will see a major revision.

I am a little alarmed by the prospect of every spell being rewritten. There are what, 3000 of them? But if they are mostly global changes to duration and range and what not, that would be at least a little better.

[Xaotiq1]

I will once again throw out looking at Green Ronin's True20 magic system. Many spells have a fixed duration. There's a fatigue system built into the existing rules. Plus, casters have to spend feats to obtain spells. The whole thing could be seamlessly integrated into 3.5 with little to no effort.

[tarkisflux]

@eggynack: You just blew my mind. I have never thought about the wizard's action advantage in that way. But you're right; the fighter needs to move and take a full round action. The wizard doesn't have to move, and takes only a standard action.

It isn't really caster vs. non-caster here, it's ranged vs. melee. The bow ranger can stand back and full-attack away as well. There's still an action differential, but not one that matters quite as much because both the bow guy and the casting guy still get their stuff off for the round. Setting spell casting to full-round action and melee full-attack to standard action does a lot to resolve it though, while also giving you a reason to melee instead of ranged.

Comments on other things when I've digested them, maybe.

[Maladaptive]

Even without effects that completely alter the action economy, the wizard's best techniques usually take place within a standard action, while a fighter's best techniques usually require a full round to execute.

Vadskye has a much broader list of changes compiled into a completely separate system in an older thread. In this system, iterative attacks occur on standard action attacks. Given, you aren't obligated to make those changes yourself, but I'm guessing a lot of the specifics of the Spell Reformation came about as a result of that system. With that in mind, the issue you are describing is dealt with at least to some extent.

[eggynack]

Vadskye has a much broader list of changes compiled into a completely separate system in an older thread. In this system, iterative attacks occur on standard action attacks. Given, you aren't obligated to make those changes yourself, but I'm guessing a lot of the specifics of the Spell Reformation came about as a result of that system. With that in mind, the issue you are describing is dealt with at least to some extent.

That's definitely a helpful change of some kind. Amusingly, it still doesn't solve the weird issue with surprise rounds, but I don't know if the onus is on fighters to gain the ability to act, or on wizards to lose it. I suspect that it's the former, now that you mention it, because an advantage without a purpose is a pretty boring mechanic. Still, that does make a lot of headway.

[Vadskye]

eggynack:

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I dunno if I'm supposed to add new potential stuff hereabouts, or in the old thread, but I'll just stick it here for now.

I'm making up the formatting and organization as I go along, so go with whatever feels right.

One issue that exists with wizards is that they naturally have a command of the action economy that fighters can't hope to match. Just on a basic level, let's assume a situation where the party gets a surprise round against some enemies. The wizard casts grease, because he correctly thinks that grease is a super cool spell. The fighter moves close to the enemies, and ends his turn without effecting combat in any way. Maybe he slips on the grease, just to add an element of slapstick to his sadness. These two options just don't have any kind of parity. Even without effects that completely alter the action economy, the wizard's best techniques usually take place within a standard action, while a fighter's best techniques usually require a full round to execute. There isn't a wizard full attack, and they don't have to move into position to do their thing, so they're free to use that action doing whatever they want. It's an issue of some kind.

As tarkisflux pointed out, this is fundamentally a problem with melee, not solely with caster vs. noncaster - and as maladaptive pointed out, I think that the best solution to this problem is to make full attacking a standard action.

Also on the topic of the action economy, quicken spell seems a bit too reduced in cost. In the new form, it's basically celerity: the metamagic'ing, and that's a pretty powerful effect. You should consider maybe returning it back to the normal cost, or maybe compromising on a +3. Quickening is a super powerful effect, and it needs a super high cost to get it anywhere close to balanced. Doing a partial celerity thing is a good idea though.

You're probably right - and certainly if any metamagic reductions are allowed! I'll change it to +3. I know I'd still use it at that cost.

Comments on other things when I've digested them, maybe.

I look forward to it.

Cheiromancer (You get to be unspoilered because I want people to see the beta Persistent Spell. Lucky you!)

The fixed ranges make every ranged spell an option for Persistent Spell. I suspect that this feat will see a major revision.

That's a misinterpretation of the definition of "fixed range", which is actually fairly well defined in D&D. It's an example of the perils of applying literal dictionary definitions onto game terminology. In any event, Persistent Spell is going to be changed, yes. I've been kicking around the following effect:

Persistent Spell
Prerequisite: Caster level 6th
Benefit: A persisted spell increases its duration category by one level: short becomes medium, medium becomes long, and long becomes extended. A spell with an extended duration becomes a permanent duration spell when persisted. However, the spell slot used to persist the spell becomes unavailable for as long as the spell lasts. When you ready your spells for the day, you can choose to end the spell and regain the spell slot.
This metamagic cannot be applied to spells with a duration other than short, medium, long, or extended.
Special: You can apply this metamagic feat multiple times to the same spell. Each time, it increases the duration by one level, to a maximum of permanent.

However, I haven't thoroughly tested this to see if it is abusable, so it's waiting in the wings for now.

I am a little alarmed by the prospect of every spell being rewritten. There are what, 3000 of them? But if they are mostly global changes to duration and range and what not, that would be at least a little better.

Here's the fun part: I already did that. They're all already rewritten. I'm just laying out my reasoning for the changes in detail so people can understand how and why I changed them. (And so that my mistakes can be corrected!)
Xaotiq:

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I will once again throw out looking at Green Ronin's True20 magic system. Many spells have a fixed duration. There's a fatigue system built into the existing rules. Plus, casters have to spend feats to obtain spells. The whole thing could be seamlessly integrated into 3.5 with little to no effort.

It sounds completely different from the D&D casting system. Which, admittedly, is a good thing in some ways. However, my goal is to fix D&D spells in a way that can be integrated as seamlessly as possible with other homebrew and play styles that originally used the 3.5 spell system. Therefore, I'm trying to stay within the normal spells constraints.

Maladaptive:

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Vadskye has a much broader list of changes compiled into a completely separate system in an older thread. In this system, iterative attacks occur on standard action attacks. Given, you aren't obligated to make those changes yourself, but I'm guessing a lot of the specifics of the Spell Reformation came about as a result of that system. With that in mind, the issue you are describing is dealt with at least to some extent.

Someone read Rise! :3 I'm so happy. Incidentally, Rise's spell system will be replaced by a modified version of the Spell Reformation soon.

[Realms of Chaos]

One thing that I've never quite followed. You seem to liken Spell Resistance to miss chances as a flat chance of failure that you don't interact with. How is that different from plain old attack rolls? or skill checks? or any other d20 roll ever? While a few skills have degrees of success, most rolls are binary. Further, optimization allows you to almost assuredly succeed at whatever you're doing and messes such as uberchargers or diplomancers can cause as much harm to games as spellcasters can (if not in as many ways).

While it's true that spell resistance doesn't possess an equivalent for "flat-footed" or circumstance bonuses, it sounds like your major problems with rolling a dice to see if your action is wasted is something that all of D&D does so why chalk it up to a spellcasting problem in particular?

[Vadskye]

Realms of Chaos:

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One thing that I've never quite followed. You seem to liken Spell Resistance to miss chances as a flat chance of failure that you don't interact with. How is that different from plain old attack rolls? or skill checks? or any other d20 roll ever? While a few skills have degrees of success, most rolls are binary. Further, optimization allows you to almost assuredly succeed at whatever you're doing and messes such as uberchargers or diplomancers can cause as much harm to games as spellcasters can (if not in as many ways).

While it's true that spell resistance doesn't possess an equivalent for "flat-footed" or circumstance bonuses, it sounds like your major problems with rolling a dice to see if your action is wasted is something that all of D&D does so why chalk it up to a spellcasting problem in particular?

I apologize for not being clear. This is something that I seem to have some trouble explaining. The problem is not that Spell Resistance is binary. The problem is that it is essentially non-interactive, with a "fake" scaling. Monster SR isn't based on the strength of the monster, or any particular attributes of the monster; it's just (a number) + CR, and 90% of the time that number is the same (11). Similarly, caster level is the attribute that a caster has the least control over, and scales relatively little with level.

Here's one way to look at it. A difference of 5 CR is a huge difference. That's more than the difference between a Dire Tiger and a brown bear, or between a hill giant and a cloud giant, or what have you. Fighters, monsters, and wizards scale a lot between level 5 and level 10. Spell resistance, however, does not. A 10th level wizard still has a 25% chance to completely botch a spell on a CR 5 monster who is lucky enough to have spell resistance. There's virtually nothing the caster can do about it except to ignore the SR completely - so that's what basically everyone does. It's just not a good system, because it doesn't take into account the different between different wizards, different spells, and different monsters - it's almost totally independent of the specific circumstances under consideration.

With this system, Spell Resistance is an added defense that makes it harder to affect the creature with spells - but it's still possible. And it's more flexible - how you react to a Mind Flayer is likely to be very different from how you react to a drow, because they have different strong and weak saves. Basically, more interactive is better.

Three new changes were added. I'll replicate the most important one here, since it is both very important and likely to cause debate.
New Spell Level Acquisition

Observations:

• Not all full casters acquire new spell levels at the same levels.
• This makes it impossible to write spells that assume they will be acquired at a specific level.
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  This extremely important for the damage rewrite. Even aside from that, it makes it easier to write good, balanced spells if we can be sure when exactly spellcasters can first get access to them.
• This causes a variety of inconsistencies and oddities that generally make the system less intuitive.
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  For example, magic items made by a sorcerer have to cost more than magic items made by a wizard, because they have a higher caster level. In general, using inconsistent level acquisition just makes things weirder.
• (Caster level - 1)/2 is just an ugly formula for remembering when new spells are acquired.
• Spontaneous casters have always been second-class compared to full casters.
• Adding arcane invocations increases the power and flexibility of casters at low levels.

Solution:
All casters acquire new spell levels every even level, learning 2nd level spells at 4th level and reaching 9th level spells at 18th level.
Explanation:
I said I wanted to avoid making global system changes to things that aren't spells, and I tried really, really hard to do it. But the inconsistency in spell acquisition rate made it really hard to build a good system for damage spells. And this just... doesn't serve a point. Wizards are [i]already[i] better than sorcerers due to prepared casting! They don't need an additional benefit.

I welcome debate on this change - I know this is one of the bigger ones from a compatibility perspective. However, I really do think it is necessary in order to end up with a working spell system. Bumping back clerics, druids, and wizards by a level on casting is very simple to change; just move every level except 1st level back by one, and keep the 1st level the same. Even better, give 3 1st level spells per day at 3rd level - that maintains a steady progression.[/spoiler]

[nonsi]

The problem with magic in D&D lies with the spells, and not with the casting system itself.

Yes, and not exactly.
The casting system itself, sterile of all the char-op shenanigans, is fine. Once you allow multi-meta or more than a single spell per round – that’s where the system starts breaking down.

Need to get information on an enemy? Just cast Scrying ad infinitum until they fail a save.

That’s why I've been claiming for a long time now that Scrying should target a known location (or, in case of an unknown location, somewhere that when removing all artificial obstacles could count [within line of sight]), not a creature.

* Short: Concentration + 5 rounds

Brilliant !!!

Close: 30 ft.
Medium: 100 ft.
Long: 500 ft.

I’d change long to 300 – that’s more than enough.
I’d also allow up to 5 miles for special effects, such as sending whispered words across a large battlefield to an enemy warlord or an ally spy.

Spells like Fog Cloud no longer say "Fog spreads in 20 ft. radius, 20 ft. high". Instead, Fog Cloud has an Area line of "Medium (20 ft.) radius spread", and the Manifestation line reads "Fog in the area".

And how do I deduce the 20ft height from that description?

Small: 10 ft.
Medium: 20 ft.
Large: 50 ft.
Almost every spell was changed to fit these categories. Some, like Lightning Bolt, have unique areas (affecting a 100 ft. line), but most follow these limitations.
Some, like Lightning Bolt, have unique areas (affecting a 100 ft. line), but most follow these limitations.

Wouldn’t it just be easier and cleaner to add a 4th category? (Extensive?)

Quicken Spell . . .

What does this mean regarding spells that have [Casting Time: swift action] inherently?

If your spell is being resisted by a creature with spell resistance, you must make a spell resistance check (1d20 + half caster level + casting ability modifier) against a DC equal to the creature's spell resistance + the creature's relevant saving throw modifier.

Unless you intend on allowing take-10 and take-20 in some appropriate circumstances, make it [10 + ½ CL + ability-mod], otherwise you’re just forcing dice rolls with zero added value (unless you consider arbitrary results a value in and on itself).

Sorcerers and wizards have . . . !!!

Sorc. & Wiz. are too similar to justify two different classes.
I get it that this project doesn’t involve redesigning classes.
Nevertheless, consider uniting them to a single class that has some sort of repertoire of known spells and some sort of access to magic via written text.
Leave the role of the “illiterate” spellcaster to a Sorc.-Warlock hybrid.

Improving Spell Readability . . .

Suggestion: bold the ‘Note:’

[Vadskye]

Yes, and not exactly.
The casting system itself, sterile of all the char-op shenanigans, is fine. Once you allow multi-meta or more than a single spell per round – that’s where the system starts breaking down.

Why do you think applying multiple metamagic effects is problematic? I don't see a problem with casting a Still Silent spell, or an Enlarged Widened spell. I think there are a number of individual metamagic effects which are highly problematic, but that is the fault of the metamagic feat, not a problem with metamagic as a general concept.

That’s why I've been claiming for a long time now that Scrying should target a known location (or, in case of an unknown location, somewhere that when removing all artificial obstacles could count [within line of sight]), not a creature.

I think a location-based scrying effect should exist and perhaps be lower level than Scrying, though there would have to be some sort of defense against it. (Will save to not appear to the sensor?) However, I don't have a problem with creature-based scrying in particular. I think that's flavorful and accomplishes important narrative goals, particularly for NPCs. The key problem is that it shouldn't be infinitely repeatable.

Brilliant !!!

Thank you! I love this duration.

I’d change long to 300 – that’s more than enough.

300 is probably a better range. I haven't seen many Long range spells cast in my playtesting (not many Long range spells left), but once that happens, I'll see whether it feels longer than it should.

I’d also allow up to 5 miles for special effects, such as sending whispered words across a large battlefield to an enemy warlord or an ally spy.

Absolutely - not everything need be bound the the Close/Medium/Long range limit. The other things are primarily unique effects that are hard to pin down to specific ranges, so I didn't think it was worth creating a category for them.

And how do I deduce the 20ft height from that description?

You don't. Sorry for the ambiguity - Fog Cloud and all similar effects are now spheres. I couldn't figure out a good reason for them to be cylinders.

Wouldn’t it just be easier and cleaner to add a 4th category? (Extensive?)

If there were multiple spells that had a 100 ft. area, then yes. As it is, anything larger than 50 ft. tends to have a unique area, so assigning it to a category doesn't make much sense.

What does this mean regarding spells that have [Casting Time: swift action] inherently?

Within the PHB, virtually nothing has that casting time, so it remains unchanged. Outside of the PHB (such as with the Swift spells), I'd evaluate them individually. Some spells can probably stay unchanged (Swift Expeditious Retreat seems fine to me), but I'd have to develop a system for exactly how much a spell's level should increase by becoming a swift action.

Unless you intend on allowing take-10 and take-20 in some appropriate circumstances, make it [10 + ½ CL + ability-mod], otherwise you’re just forcing dice rolls with zero added value (unless you consider arbitrary results a value in and on itself).

What do you mean, zero added value? Casting a spell against a creature with SR adds a roll to the resolution of the spell that doesn't exist against creatures without SR. This represents the fact that creatures with SR are hard to cast spells against. The resolution of the roll depends strongly on the spell being cast and the attributes of the caster and the target, so it's not a totally arbitrary roll.

Sorc. & Wiz. are too similar to justify two different classes.
I get it that this project doesn’t involve redesigning classes.
Nevertheless, consider uniting them to a single class that has some sort of repertoire of known spells and some sort of access to magic via written text.
Leave the role of the “illiterate” spellcaster to a Sorc.-Warlock hybrid.

Sorc and Wiz deserve to be different classes just as much as the Fighter and Barbarian deserve to be different classes. If you're planning on building a highly flexible system where each class contains multiple thematically and mechanically distinct archetypes, then you can merge those classes together. If you're building a system where each class is fully distinct, Sorc and Wiz should be separate. The key problem in core is that neither sorcerers nor wizards have any proper class features, so they don't feel different. This is solved by giving them both unique class features, not destroying what remains of the distinction between them. See Rise for my ideas on how to do that.

Suggestion: bold the ‘Note:’

Hmm. You're right that that looks better on the forums. I think that the italics looks better in the PDF that I originally wrote the design for. I'll try to use bold for the notes when I post spells here.

[Cheiromancer]

The annoying thing about circles is deciding whether creatures on the edge are in or out. If something has a spherical radius, you also have to worry about whether its head is poking out. Cylinders are a little better in that regard.

[nonsi]

The annoying thing about circles is deciding whether creatures on the edge are in or out. If something has a spherical radius, you also have to worry about whether its head is poking out. Cylinders are a little better in that regard.

I agree.
Only things that go "boom!" and emanations should be spherical.

[Vadskye]

Here begins the second part of my attempt to rewrite every spell in D&D. This section focuses on rewriting nondamaging combat spells. Many of the most iconic and powerful spells in D&D belong to this category: Glitterdust, Grease, Solid Fog, Web, and so on. For ease of reference, these will be referred to as "Condition" spells, though not all such spells literally impose conditions.

If you are more interested in concrete examples than theory, you can see all of the revised spells here.

I have done a great deal of tearing apart the problems with the original spell system already, so I will try to limit the amount of simple criticism in this post. Instead, I will focus on presenting my solutions. The fundamental goal of Part II is to create a rigorous system for assigning spell levels to nondamaging spells. In order to understand how to do this, I first analyze conditions. In addition to a minor rewrite to contitions, I split condition effects into condition tiers that roughly represent an individual condition's power. These condition tiers will be the building blocks of the unified system.

First, I present the Guiding Principles on Conditions and Action Denial:

• Penalties encourage dynamic and tactical combats by encouraging players to vary their actions in response to changing situations.
• Penalties encourage interaction between casters and noncasters by forcing them to work together to defeat opponents.
• Action denial effects used on players prevent them from interacting with the game, limiting their experience and fun.
• Action denial effects used on NPC antagonists/monsters can trivialize combats - particularly on "bosses".
• Action denial effects discourage interaction between casters and noncasters, potentially rendering noncasters no more than the "mop-up crew" that deals hit point damage to already defeated foes.
• Penalties should be the most frequent and prominent effect of debilitating spells.
• Action denial effects should be strictly limited.

With these principles in mind, we must revise penalizing conditions so they are more universally relevant, using the same format as used in Part I.

Condition Mechanics
Observations:

• Conditions (sickened, shaken, fatigued) are too weak.
• Conditions do not penalize casters at all.
• Two opponents suffering the same penalties are not equivalent to each other in combat.
• Conditions which impose ability score penalties have odd effects that take time to calculate.
• The differences between what exactly conditions penalize can be hard to remember.
• Dazzled is a terrible condition.

Solution:
Almost all penalizing conditions now gives a -2 penalty to attack rolls, saving throws, checks, DCs, and AC. "Checks" is essentially all checks. To be precise, that includes all of the following:

• Skill checks
• Ability checks
• Initiative checks
• Concentration checks (for systems where Concentration is not a skill)
• Spell penetration checks

A dazzled creature treats everything he sees as if it has concealment (20\% miss chance), and takes a -4 penalty to Spot checks. Three new conditions were added: bewildered, demoralized, and ignited. Bewildered and demoralized simply use the standard penalties. An ignited creature suffers no penalty to saving throws, but takes d6 fire damage/round.
Explanation:

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Casters now suffer from conditions just like everyone else in the game. In general, two creatures with the same condition fight on equal terms, which strikes me as being a nicely intuitive result.

In general, making minor conditions like this more useful means that they can actually serve a role in combat and be effective on their own merits.

One additional note on scaling is relevant here. Penalties do not automatically scale with level because they always remain relevant, for the simple reason that they are not typed. A -2 penalty matters about as much at 20th level as it does at 1st level - it still yields a roughly 10% decrease in effectiveness. (This is a gross oversimplification of how probability works, but I'd rather not get into a debate on that. It's true enough.)

Not all condition are created equal, of course. For reasons which will become clear, conditions can be grouped into roughly six distinct "tiers", divided by power level.
Condition Tier List:

• Tier 6: Minor penalties to a single statistic. Includes "-2 to attack rolls" and similar effects.
• Tier 5: Minor penalties to a broad range of statistics, or major penalties to a single attribute. Includes bewildered, dazzled, demoralized, fatigued, ignited, shaken, and sickened. These are the "standard" penalizing conditions.
• Tier 4: Major penalties to a single ability score.
• Tier 3: Major penalties to a broad range of statistics, or partial action denial. Includes exhausted, slowed, and staggered.
• Tier 2: Total action denial with exceptions, or penalties that effectively prohibit a broad range of actions. Includes blinded, charmed, confused, and frightened.
• Tier 1: Total action denial. Includes dazed, dead, dominated, nauseated, panicked, paralyzed, petrified, and stunned.

A "Minor penalty" means a -2 penalty, and a "major penalty" is typically a -4. We now have a solid basis for what a condition means.

Condition Stacking
Imagine your foe is caught in a Stinking Cloud, and you have a different spell which sickens him. As a new player, or as a character in a fantasy world, I would assume that sickening him further would be useful. Currently, however, casting the second spell would be foolish, since conditions never stack with themselves. This rule exists to prevent "spamming" the same spell over and over again from being a valid combat tactic. I think that is a good goal, but it can be accomplished more elegantly. The new rule is that conditions stack, except from the same source. This is the same rule that is used for penalties of any kind, and there is no good reason for conditions to be different. A creature can be separately sickened by Stinking Cloud, Ghoul Touch, Unholy Blight, and anything else that happens to come up.

The Bloodied System
As described above, action denial effects - Tier 2 and Tier 1 conditions - have a generally negative impact on gameplay when freely available. However, they can also be fun when used selectively, and they are an important part of what makes a spellcaster feel like a spellcaster. Ideally, it would be possible to impose such conditions, but in a way that works with teammates instead of in opposition to them. Additionally, the power of action denial conditions should be decreased. The solution to these problems is the bloodied system.

When affected by some forms of powerful magic, a healthy creature - even one that failed its saving throw - can stave off the worst of the effects for a time. Creatures that have already taken significant damage do not have that resilience, and suffer the full effects of the magic. Mechanically, a creature is "bloodied" if it is at half its hit points or below.

Almost all spells with a bloodied effect also have some effect on healthy creatures. If the creature becomes bloodied at any point during the duration of the spell, it immediately suffers the bloodied effect. To look at how this works in practice, let's consider one of the most basic action denial spells, Hold Person. As originally written, it is essentially a 2nd level save-or-die spell. Here is what it looks like in the new system:

Hold Person
Level: Brd 2, Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2, War 2
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Target: One humanoid creature
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds) (D)
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes (Will)
Healthy Effect: The subject is bewildered.
Bloodied Effect: The subject is paralyzed and unable to act. Each round on its turn, the subject may attempt a new saving throw to end the effect. If it succeeds, it is no longer paralyzed, though it can take no other actions in that round.
Note: A bewildered creature takes a -2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, checks, DCs, and AC.

When Hold Person is cast on a healthy creature, that creature suffers penalties, but can continue to act. If that creature becomes bloodied during the spell, the effect switches to the bloodied effect, which is much more brutal. This means that Hold Person can no longer end fights before they start. However, an enemy affected by Hold Person makes a ripe target for the caster's allies: he is less able to defend himself, and only half of the normal amount of damage is required to effectively put him out of the fight. The bloodied system thus encourages teamwork and tactical play while dramatically limiting casters' ability to end fights before they start.

The VADSKYE Spell Engine

(Very Astutely Designed Spell Kalculator Yielding Enlightenment)

With the bloodied system and the revision to spell conditions, we can now use a unified system for assigning spell levels to spells. This spell engine is the most important idea underlying the entire Spell Reformation. The core idea behind the system is that every aspect of a spell can be represented in terms of an addition or a multiplier to the overall level of the spell. If you want a highly abridged explanation for why the system is designed the way it is, see the spoiler! Otherwise, the explanation of the system itself is below.

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First, we need a "default" spell - the building block that defines the basis for the rest of the system. I decided that the following spell was an appropriate default:

Default Spell
Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Drd 1, Pal 1, Rgr 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Target: One creature
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
Effect: The subject is affected by a Tier 5 condition.

This spell can be readily modified by changing its attributes. If I were to make it a Medium (100 ft.) range spell, I would increase its level by 1. If I were to increase its duration to Medium (5 minutes), I would also increase the level by 1. Some modifiers are more complicated, however. Adding a saving throw should reduce the cost of the spell. The more powerful the spell, the more adding a saving throw should reduce the cost. Thus, it is a multiplier, not a flat addition or subtraction. Intuitively, I'd guess that adding a saving throw to negate the effect should roughly halve the cost of the spell. Additionally, not all aspects of the spell should contribute equally to this. While a more severe effect should be reduced more by a saving throw, a saving throw shouldn't be multiplied onto any costs incurred by increasing the range; that's not about the spell's power, merely its versatility. Therefore, multiplicative modifiers - such as those provided by including a saving throw - do not apply equally to all aspects of a spell. Instead, different areas of the spell can be tracked separately; a saving throw might apply to the costs incurred by the strength of the spell, but not affect other aspects of a spell such as its range.

The interplay between multipliers and simple additions and subtractions is tricky, and I went through many iterations of the system before I settled on this one. It is beyond even my copious patience (not to mention my time!) to go through every single calculation of the system and describe why it is priced the way it is. In general, if the power of one aspect of the spell strongly depends on another aspect, at least one of them is a multiplier. For example, area spells apply a *1.5 modifier on the cost of the spell's strength. The more creatures a spell affects, the more the strength of its effect matters.

A spell's final level is determined by following the following outline:

• Spell Strength
  
  • Condition Strength
  • Duration
  • Spell Strength Multipliers
• Area
• Other

First, we must determine the strength of the spell. To do that, we have to determine the strength of the conditions that make up the spell, the duration of those condition, and then apply any of a variety of modifiers. These modifiers primarily include limitations on the spell's effect, such as whether it allows a saving throw and whether it can only affect certain types of creatures. If a spell applise multiple conditions - particularly if it applies one condition on healthy creatures and a separate condition on bloodied creatures - we repeat this process, adding the spell strength of each condition together. After this is done, we apply additional modifiers for the area of the spell - the larger it is, the more the level increases. Finally, we add a few special modifiers that never have multipliers, such as modifiers for the spell's range. The full system is described below. Be warned; it is complicated. But it is the key that links together everything in the Spell Reformation.

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• Spell Strength
  
  • Condition Strength
    
    • Direct Modifiers:
      
      • +2 per condition tier (+2 for tier 6, +4 for tier 5, etc.)
      • +1: The spell allows a choice of a different condition of equal or lower tier
    • Multipliers:
      
      • *0.4: The condition applies only to a bloodied foe.
  • Duration
  • Duration starts at Short for most spells, and 1 round for tier 2 and tier 1 spells.
    
    • Direct Modifiers:
      
      • -3: Decrease duration from Short to 1 round
      • +1: Increase duration by a tier (Short -> Medium -> Long -> Extended)
      • +2: Increase duration from Extended to Permanent
      • +3: Increase duration from 1 round to Short
      • +1: The spell cannot be dispelled
    • Multipliers:
      
      • *0.6: The spell requires concentration each round to be maintained.
      • *0.6: The subject can save each round to end the effect.
      • *0.8: Condition only applies to a bloodied foe, and cannot be applied "retroactively" if the target is damaged while the spell is in effect.
      • *1.5: The condition is Tier 2.
      • *2: The condition is Tier 1
  • Spell Strength Multipliers:
    
    • *1.5: Spell affects an area
    • *0.8: Irrelevant or negated in combat (Charm, fascinate, etc.)
    • *0.8: Requires touch attack to hit
    • *0.6: Saving throw negates
    • *0.7: Saving throw mitigates (almost negates; short duration to 1 round, etc.)
    • *0.8: Saving throw partial (roughly half effect)
    • *0.9: Broad limitation on affected creatures (Less than 75% of targets, such as mind-affecting or with HV not exceeding caster level)
    • *0.75: Limitation on affected creatures (Less than 25% of targets, such as good, evil, or humanoid)
    • *0.6: Narrow limitation on affected creatures (Less than 10% of targets, such as law, chaos, or specific creature type)
    • *0.6: Effect can be escaped (as with Stinking Cloud, Fog Cloud, etc.)
    • *0.8: Effect can be escaped, but with limitations or difficulties (as with Entangle, Solid Fog, etc.)
    • *0.6: Only affects healthy (non-bloodied) creatures. (Only applied to additional conditions when the primary condition only affects bloodied creatures)
    • *0.8: Secondary condition. (Only applied to conditions beyond the primary condition on a spell)
• Area
  
  • Direct Modifiers:
    
    • 0: Does not affect an area
    • 0: Affects a Small radius, Medium cone, or Medium line (~10 squares)
    • 1: Affects a Large line (20 squares)
    • 2: Affects a Medium radius (~50 squares)
    • 3: Affects a Large cone (~75 squares)
    • 5: Affects a Large radius (~300 squares)
    • +2: Choose targets freely within the area
  • Multipliers:
    
    • *0.6: Affects a maximum of 5 creatures in the area
• Other
  
  • Direct Modifiers:
    
    • +2: Does not allow SR
    • -1: Does not have a range (must be touch attack or AOE, not applied to divine spells)
    • +1: Increase range by 1 tier (Close -> Medium -> Long)

After all this is done, the spell's actual level is the resulting value minus 3.

Whether or not you actually dove into the mechanics of the system itself, you will want to know what exactly the effects of all of these changes are. Unfortunately, when I tried to make a post showing all of the changes I made to condition-based spells, it exceeded the text limit for the forums. Therefore, I strongly encourage you to read this PDF to see what all of the new spells look like. Some highlights are below.

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Cause Fear

You fill your enemy with fear.
Enchantment (Emotion) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 1, Clr 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Target: One creature
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds) /1 round (D)
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes (Will)
Healthy Effect: The subject is shaken.
Bloodied Effect: As the healthy effect, plus the subject is frightened for 1 round.

Confusion

You compel a creature to act randomly, sowing confusion in your foes' ranks.
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 3, Chaos 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Trickery 3
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Target: One creature
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds)
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes (Will)
Healthy Effect: The subject is bewildered.
Bloodied Effect: The subject is confused. Each turn, it has a random chance to take one of four actions: babble incoherently, flee from the caster as if panicked, attack the nearest creature, or act normally. A confused character who can't carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes.
Note: A bewildered creature takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls, saving throws, checks, DCs, and AC.
Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused character. A confused character will not make attacks of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).

Confusion, Mass

You compel a group of creatures to act randomly, sowing confusion in your foes' ranks.
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 6, Sor/Wiz 8, Trickery 8
Range: Medium (100 ft.)
Area: Medium (20 ft.) radius limit
Targets: All creatures within the area, to a maximum of five creatures
Effect: This spell functions like confusion, except that it affects multiple creatures. If there are more creatures in the area than you can affect, randomly determine which creatures are affected.

Entangle

Transmutation (Animation)
Level: Drd 1, Nature 1
Range: Medium (100 ft.)
Area: Small (10 ft.) radius spread
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds) (D)
Saving Throw: Reflex partial
Spell Resistance: No
Effect: Grasses, weeds, bushes, and even trees wrap, twist, and entwine about creatures in the area or those that enter the area, holding them fast and causing them to become entangled. The creature can break free and move half its normal speed by using a standard action to make a combat maneuver check or an Escape Artist check against this spell's save DC. A creature that succeeds on a Reflex save is not entangled but can still move at only half speed through the area. Each round on your turn, the plants once again attempt to entangle all creatures that have avoided or escaped entanglement.
Note: The effects of the spell may be altered somewhat based on the nature of the entangling plants. If no plants exist in the area, the spell has no effect.

Entangling Growth

Transmutation (Alteration, Animation)
Level: Drd 4, Nature 4
Area: Medium (20 ft.) radius spread
Effect: This spell functions like entangle, except that it affects a wider area and also grows new plants in the area. These plants grow from any terrain, even if it would not normally support plant life, and entangle creatures in the area for the duration of the spell. When the magic fades, the plants with and recede into the ground, leaving no trace that they were ever there.

Glitterdust

Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 2
Range: Medium (100 ft.)
Area: Small (10 ft.) radius spread
Manifestation: Glittering particles in the area
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds)
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Effect: A cloud of golden particles covers everyone and everything in the area, visibly outlining invisible things for the duration of the spell. It likewise negates the effects of blur and displacement, and reveals figments, mirror images, and projected images for what they are. All within the area are covered by the dust, which cannot be removed and continues to sparkle until it fades.
Any creature covered by the dust takes a -40 penalty on Hide checks.

Glitterdust, Greater

Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Area: Medium (20 ft.) radius spread
Saving Throw: None/Will negates
Effect: This spell functions like glitterdust, except that creatures in the area must also make Will saves or be dazzled for the duration of the spell.

Grease

You conjure a layer of slippery grease on the ground, tripping up your foes.
Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Target or Area: One object or a 10 ft. square
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds) (D)
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: No
Effect: Any creature in the area when the spell is cast must make a successful Reflex save or fall. A creature can walk within or through the area of grease at half normal speed with a DC 10 Balance check. Failure means it can't move that round, while failure by 5 or more means it falls (see the Balance skill for details). A creature standing in a greased area loses its Dexterity and dodge modifiers to AC due to the slippery surface.
The spell can also be used to create a greasy coating on an item. Material objects not in use are always affected by this spell, while an object wielded or employed by a creature receives a Reflex saving throw to avoid the effect entirely. If the initial saving throw fails, the creature immediately drops the item. If the item is successfully greased, a saving throw must be made in each round that the creature attempts to pick up or use the greased item. A creature wearing greased armor or clothing gains a +10 bonus on Escape Artist checks and on grapple attacks made to resist or escape a grapple or to escape a pin.

Web

You create a many-layered mass of strong, sticky strands that entangle creatures caught within them. The strands are similar to spider webs, but larger and tougher.
Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Range: Close (30 ft.)
Area: Medium (20 ft.) radius spread
Manifestation: Webs in the area
Duration: Short (Concentration + 5 rounds) (D)
Saving Throw: Reflex negates; see text
Spell Resistance: No
Effect: Each creature in the spell's area are entangled unless it makes a successful Reflex save. This save must be repeated each round that the creature moves or fights within the area. An entangled creature can spend a standard action to make a grapple attack or Escape Artist attempt against the spell's save DC to break the webs holding it, preventing it from being entangled. A creature entangled by the spell remains entangled until it breaks the webs holding it or escapes the spell's area.
If the strands can be anchored to two or more solid and diametrically opposed structures, such as walls, the strands are much more sturdy. A creature entangled within a sturdy web is unable to move from its square until it stops being entangled.
Note: An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls, Strength and Dexterity-based checks, and armor class. If it attempts to cast a spell must make a Concentration check (DC 10 + double the spell's level) or lose the spell.
The strands are too widely spaced to significantly obscure sight, but are flammable. A magic flaming sword can slash them away as easily as a hand brushes away cobwebs. Any fire can set the webs alight and burn away 5 square feet in 1 round. All creatures within flaming webs take 2d4 points of fire damage from the flames.
Web can be made permanent with a permanency ritual. A permanent web that is destroyed regrows in 10 minutes.

This should conclude Part II of the Spell Reformation. Hopefully this clarifies what my goals are for the revised spell system. There are far too many changes for me to go over each one individually, but I will - as always - make an effort to respond to questions or confusion on how exactly this works.

[tarkisflux]

In the other thread you stated that you wanted to avoid spell obsolescence, can you spend a bit discussing how you avoid that with the condition progression that you have? It does not seem to be the case that you could prepare a level 1 condition spell instead of a level 5 condition spell and avoid feeling gimped (or a 3 and 8, since that's the spread on confusion and mass confusion) without there being a substantial difference in spell power.

And in case you were still wrestling with damage numbers, here's a thought for you. If you broke damage up into categories (minor, light, moderate, serious, critical, lethal), you could scale each value with level and then assign each of those to a tier like your conditions. So a moderate damage spell would deal damage based on caster level regardless of spell level, but a higher level spell that dealt moderate damage might deal it in a larger area or at a further range or with some other rider ability.

[Edit] And since there's no responses just yet, I can toss in an example!

Let's say that Burning Hands and Fireball are both moderate damage spells, and Fireball is higher level by virtue of being a larger area and farther out. I'm not sure that actually works with your spell setup, but I don't feel like math at the moment and this is for illustrative purposes and so I'm going to skip it. Anyway, at level 6 you get Fireball, and also at level 6 you look up that "moderate" damage means 4d6 (or whatever you determine it to be). Your choices for wizard spell choice would then be a level 1 Burning Hands that deals 4d6 at close range or a level 3 Fireball that dealt 4d6 at a longer range in a larger area. Still a power difference, but you don't feel the damage pinch if you select the lower level spell. And when you level up to 7 the damage of all of your moderate damage spells goes up as well, according to whatever scaling you decide appropriate (likely some "average damage of spell is equal to X% of average target hp metric).

[ArkenBrony]

the link to your list of spells isn't working for me

[nonsi]

Tier 1: Total action denial. Includes dazed, dead, dominated, nauseated, panicked, paralyzed, petrified, and stunned.

I think there’s some inaccuracy here.
Dazed / nauseated / panicked targets are not helpless.

Dead / dominated / Paralyzed should be of a higher tier.


Also, I think it would help if you presented 2 complete tier-lists of harmful and beneficial conditions.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I don't really have any specific feedback at this time, but I just wanted to say I really like this and can't wait to see it continued.

[Vadskye]

Tarkisflux:

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In the other thread you stated that you wanted to avoid spell obsolescence, can you spend a bit discussing how you avoid that with the condition progression that you have? It does not seem to be the case that you could prepare a level 1 condition spell instead of a level 5 condition spell and avoid feeling gimped (or a 3 and 8, since that's the spread on confusion and mass confusion) without there being a substantial difference in spell power.

There will be an increase in power level as you increase in spell level; that's totally appropriate. Avoiding spell obsolesence doesn't mean that spells can never improve. It means that the effect you get when you cast Confusion at 6th level is the same as the effect you get when you cast Confusion at 18th level. It still has (roughly) the same chance to succeed, because DC scales automatically with caster level rather than with spell level. There are no HD limits or other things which force the original Confusion spell to be obsolete. It is less effective than the 8th level Mass Confusion, but that's completely different. If an 18th level caster casts Confusion, they are still contributing to the battle in a significant way; if that effect was worth an action at 6th level, it can also be worth an action at 18th level.

Note that external forces, such as the improved special/magical defenses that many opponents have at high levels, can make casting a regular Confusion not very effective by the time you hit 18th level. That's perfectly fine; there is already a degree of obsolesence built into the system as a whole. That doesn't need to be artificially reinforced by forcing spells to become obsolete over time.

And in case you were still wrestling with damage numbers, here's a thought for you. If you broke damage up into categories (minor, light, moderate, serious, critical, lethal), you could scale each value with level and then assign each of those to a tier like your conditions. So a moderate damage spell would deal damage based on caster level regardless of spell level, but a higher level spell that dealt moderate damage might deal it in a larger area or at a further range or with some other rider ability.

[Edit] And since there's no responses just yet, I can toss in an example!

Let's say that Burning Hands and Fireball are both moderate damage spells, and Fireball is higher level by virtue of being a larger area and farther out. I'm not sure that actually works with your spell setup, but I don't feel like math at the moment and this is for illustrative purposes and so I'm going to skip it. Anyway, at level 6 you get Fireball, and also at level 6 you look up that "moderate" damage means 4d6 (or whatever you determine it to be). Your choices for wizard spell choice would then be a level 1 Burning Hands that deals 4d6 at close range or a level 3 Fireball that dealt 4d6 at a longer range in a larger area. Still a power difference, but you don't feel the damage pinch if you select the lower level spell. And when you level up to 7 the damage of all of your moderate damage spells goes up as well, according to whatever scaling you decide appropriate (likely some "average damage of spell is equal to X% of average target hp metric).

My plan is to an approach similar to what I did with condition spells; low-level damage spells scale much better over time than they did before (because they are uncapped), though they won't deal quite the same damage as highest-level spells. The key differentiator will be all of the "extra" effects; increased range, area of effect, or additional conditions. For example, Cone of Cold is a 5th level spell that deals 5d8 damage at 10th level. At the same level, Burning Hands would deal 3d8 damage. Both affect a Medium (20 ft.) cone, but Cone of Cold also fatigues creatures that fail their Reflex saves for 5 rounds. In other words, both could be useful - particularly if the caster doesn't mind getting close to his enemies - but Cone of Cold is more effective. I'll give a full explanation of the damage scaling mechanics when I get a chance. (There is so much interest in that aspect specifically!)

ArkenBrony:

the link to your list of spells isn't working for me

Sorry! I should know better than to use free web hosting. Does this link work for you?
Nonsi:

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I think there’s some inaccuracy here.
Dazed / nauseated / panicked targets are not helpless.

Dead / dominated / Paralyzed should be of a higher tier.

There is some fudging with the tier lists; there will always be conditions that are better or worse than each other in the same tier. For example, slowed and stunned are strictly better than staggered and dazed, but they are in the same tier. I'm not sure whether I need a seventh separate tier for dominated and paralyzed. Six is already a great number of tiers! So far, I've just used the knowledge of the relative strength within a tier to affect how I round the resulting spell levels. There is still a great deal of art in assigning spell levels, even with such an intricate system.[/quote]

Also, I think it would help if you presented 2 complete tier-lists of harmful and beneficial conditions.

Not sure what you mean here. I think I have a complete list of harmful conditions. What beneficial conditions do you mean?

Craft (Cheese):

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I don't really have any specific feedback at this time, but I just wanted to say I really like this and can't wait to see it continued.

I appreciate that! Encouragement is welcomed in addition to criticism.

[nonsi]

What beneficial conditions do you mean?

I don't know, efects such as: levitate / fly / enlarge / haste / ability-boost / polymorph . . . basically, any and all buffs.

[Vadskye]

I don't know, efects such as: levitate / fly / enlarge / haste / ability-boost / polymorph . . . basically, any and all buffs.

Oh, my approach to buffs is worth a whole post in itself. It's also the aspect of the system that I have the most trouble with at this point. Currently that's scheduled to be Part 4, since there seems to be a lot of interest in damage spells.

In a very short summary, buffs will still be useful, but 90% of buffs will be Short duration. This means that casters can still bestow benefits on party members, but the whole "let's all sit around and plan out our buffs before the combat" aspect of the game is significantly diminished. The "Concentration" aspect of the Short duration is extremely relevant here; a caster can put a buff up before combat and be sure it will be active without having to track exact rounds between the casting and the start of combat.

[tarkisflux]

There will be an increase in power level as you increase in spell level; that's totally appropriate. Avoiding spell obsolesence doesn't mean that spells can never improve. It means that the effect you get when you cast Confusion at 6th level is the same as the effect you get when you cast Confusion at 18th level. It still has (roughly) the same chance to succeed, because DC scales automatically with caster level rather than with spell level. There are no HD limits or other things which force the original Confusion spell to be obsolete. It is less effective than the 8th level Mass Confusion, but that's completely different. If an 18th level caster casts Confusion, they are still contributing to the battle in a significant way; if that effect was worth an action at 6th level, it can also be worth an action at 18th level.

Note that external forces, such as the improved special/magical defenses that many opponents have at high levels, can make casting a regular Confusion not very effective by the time you hit 18th level. That's perfectly fine; there is already a degree of obsolesence built into the system as a whole. That doesn't need to be artificially reinforced by forcing spells to become obsolete over time.

Having read that, I think we mean very different things by 'obsolete'. Boo term confusion. Obsolete just means out of date, and that's pretty much what you're allowing for. That does not prevent them from being niche or backup effects, however, in the same way that an 'old and way behind the power curve' (aka 'obsolete') computer or laptop may be a useful backup if you ever broke your current one.

I was not advocating for spells to become actually useless or to add artificial reinforcement to their falling out of use (and my preferred method of dealing with lower power spells is to decrease the cost of their use so that they see potentially more use despite being vastly less powerful, similar to nonsi's method), because as you note those things already exist in the form of new defenses and general spell power progression. I was arguing that eventual differences in effectiveness will cause them to fall out of use and be obsolete in general, and that fighting that means a very different take on spells than you've been pursuing.

So I'm not really sure where the disagreement is, except perhaps that you don't want that phenomenon to be called obsolescence. You want the spell levels closer together in general, but that just changes the obsolescence point rather than removing it.

My plan is to an approach similar to what I did with condition spells; low-level damage spells scale much better over time than they did before (because they are uncapped), though they won't deal quite the same damage as highest-level spells. The key differentiator will be all of the "extra" effects; increased range, area of effect, or additional conditions. For example, Cone of Cold is a 5th level spell that deals 5d8 damage at 10th level. At the same level, Burning Hands would deal 3d8 damage. Both affect a Medium (20 ft.) cone, but Cone of Cold also fatigues creatures that fail their Reflex saves for 5 rounds. In other words, both could be useful - particularly if the caster doesn't mind getting close to his enemies - but Cone of Cold is more effective.

I would actually call burning hands obsolete in that scenario (since it is less than half as effective against any individual and I still have to use the same action to trigger it). It could still be useful in combat, but the difference there is large enough that I don't see myself using it except against much lower level foes or after I had exhausted all of my other options. I'm not sure if they're intended for different things (burning hands is a large AoE effect for its level, while cone of cold is a small AoE effect for its level so it does more) or what, but the scaling there seems much worse than in the Confusion and Mass Confusion example.

Also, why do you want lower level spells to necessarily do less damage than the higher level ones? Your confusion example deals the same effect to more targets at higher level, what would be wrong with dealing the same damage to more targets at higher level? It seems like there would be room for an area boosted burning hands that did the same damage, and an area reduced (maybe touch even) cone of cold that did the same damage and fatigue, and those compare in more obvious ways with your condition effect spell growth.

[Vadskye]

Having read that, I think we mean very different things by 'obsolete'. Boo term confusion. Obsolete just means out of date, and that's pretty much what you're allowing for. That does not prevent them from being niche or backup effects, however, in the same way that an 'old and way behind the power curve' (aka 'obsolete') computer or laptop may be a useful backup if you ever broke your current one.

I was not advocating for spells to become actually useless or to add artificial reinforcement to their falling out of use (and my preferred method of dealing with lower power spells is to decrease the cost of their use so that they see potentially more use despite being vastly less powerful, similar to nonsi's method), because as you note those things already exist in the form of new defenses and general spell power progression. I was arguing that eventual differences in effectiveness will cause them to fall out of use and be obsolete in general, and that fighting that means a very different take on spells than you've been pursuing.

In retrospect, it does seem odd that we agreed on so much and yet came to completely different conclusions. Yes, I like spell obsolescence in this sense - I think it's critical. I just don't like forced obsolescence, such as nonscaling damage spells.
So I'm not really sure where the disagreement is, except perhaps that you don't want that phenomenon to be called obsolescence. You want the spell levels closer together in general, but that just changes the obsolescence point rather than removing it. I would merely add that I don't think spell points are key to the problem of spell scaling; even if a spell is cheap, after a certain level (say, 6th or 7th) the primary cost of a low-level spell is the action used to cast it, not the spell slot. That's true in both a more traditional Vancian system and in a spell point system for all but the longest adventuring day. Actually, depending on how you cast your spells, it's even more true in a Vancian system. It's also more true with the "arcane invocation" system I proposed here.

I would actually call burning hands obsolete in that scenario (since it is less than half as effective against any individual and I still have to use the same action to trigger it). It could still be useful in combat, but the difference there is large enough that I don't see myself using it except against much lower level foes or after I had exhausted all of my other options. I'm not sure if they're intended for different things (burning hands is a large AoE effect for its level, while cone of cold is a small AoE effect for its level so it does more) or what, but the scaling there seems much worse than in the Confusion and Mass Confusion example.

I think that saying that a 1st level spell is substantially worse than a 5th level spell is perfectly reasonable. If that weren't the case, it would cause problems in the system. Yes, I see burning hands as being primarily useful only against lower level foes if you use just a 1st level slot for it. Of course, that's all that a 1st level slot should be good for in combat - useful when you aren't in a life or death situation, but still want to do something useful and magical. Of course, the real trick is the use of metamagic. I intend to substantially expand the metamagic options. Imagine an "Igniting Spell" metamagic (+2 on a single-target spell, or +3 on an AOE spell): the subject(s) are ignited for 5 rounds unless they make a successful Reflex save. You could apply that to Burning Hands, and it would be a 5th level spell like Cone of Cold; both would impose a Tier 6 condition (Ignited being a particularly potent tier 6 condition), with the primary difference being simply that Cone of Cold deals more damage. Sounds like a reasonable tradeoff to me.
(Also, something seemed off about Cone of Cold, so I reran the numbers on it. It's overpriced as I described it here; it should fatigue for 1 round on a successful save, and for 5 rounds on a failed save.)

Also, why do you want lower level spells to necessarily do less damage than the higher level ones? Your confusion example deals the same effect to more targets at higher level, what would be wrong with dealing the same damage to more targets at higher level? It seems like there would be room for an area boosted burning hands that did the same damage, and an area reduced (maybe touch even) cone of cold that did the same damage and fatigue, and those compare in more obvious ways with your condition effect spell growth.

First, that makes lower level damage spells scale too well. Even with this scaling system, my 12th level players typically use their 2nd and 3rd level damage spells as their "go-to" spells for combat. If they scaled perfectly with level relative to higher level spells, the whole system would get out of whack pretty quickly. Second, this allows a lot of room for interesting metamagic. the math of spell damage is bloody difficult to work out properly. I can get a bit more into that in Part III. Basically, scaling this way ties together spell level, DC, the requirement to increase damage with level, and other factors much more elegantly than any other scaling system I have tried.
I want to be clear, though - I do see your point about the problem. There is a scaling inconsistency between damage spells and nondamaging spells. However, I think this works itself out reasonably well insofar as penalties and conditions can be overriden or ignored in a variety of ways at higher levels, while damage remains consistently useful/necessary at every level.

[tarkisflux]

In retrospect, it does seem odd that we agreed on so much and yet came to completely different conclusions. Yes, I like spell obsolescence in this sense - I think it's critical. I just don't like forced obsolescence, such as nonscaling damage spells.

I wouldn't call that forced, as they remain quite useful against much lower level foes and allow you to retain your bigger spells for more appropriate foes. Forced would probably be something like Deepbluediver's spell progression tweak where your low level slots go away and you actually can't bring them along just in case.

But this is getting pretty semantic and irrelevant, and I think I've said too much on it already.

I would merely add that I don't think spell points are key to the problem of spell scaling; even if a spell is cheap, after a certain level (say, 6th or 7th) the primary cost of a low-level spell is the action used to cast it, not the spell slot. That's true in both a more traditional Vancian system and in a spell point system for all but the longest adventuring day. Actually, depending on how you cast your spells, it's even more true in a Vancian system. It's also more true with the "arcane invocation" system I proposed here.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. If you think it's relevant, would you mind phrasing it in a different way?

I think that saying that a 1st level spell is substantially worse than a 5th level spell is perfectly reasonable. If that weren't the case, it would cause problems in the system. Yes, I see burning hands as being primarily useful only against lower level foes if you use just a 1st level slot for it. Of course, that's all that a 1st level slot should be good for in combat - useful when you aren't in a life or death situation, but still want to do something useful and magical. Of course, the real trick is the use of metamagic. I intend to substantially expand the metamagic options. Imagine an "Igniting Spell" metamagic (+2 on a single-target spell, or +3 on an AOE spell): the subject(s) are ignited for 5 rounds unless they make a successful Reflex save. You could apply that to Burning Hands, and it would be a 5th level spell like Cone of Cold; both would impose a Tier 6 condition (Ignited being a particularly potent tier 6 condition), with the primary difference being simply that Cone of Cold deals more damage. Sounds like a reasonable tradeoff to me.

I think you mean a 4th level spell, and I would hope so since it's a spell with the same area, same cast time, and effect of the same tier (with hopefully the same or less duration) that deals less damage than a 5th level. If you meant 5 though... then your metamagic allows you to build up lower level spells into options that are worse than non-metamagic spells that could use the same spell slots. I probably wouldn't use such a system, because there are better options without.

As for interesting... that's a matter of taste I suppose. It's interesting from the design side though, since it reduces the number of spells you have to write to provide lots of options. But as a player it sounds like an expected metamagic to be honest, not one that really opens up interesting options, and a bit boring if functional as a result.

First, that makes lower level damage spells scale too well. Even with this scaling system, my 12th level players typically use their 2nd and 3rd level damage spells as their "go-to" spells for combat. If they scaled perfectly with level relative to higher level spells, the whole system would get out of whack pretty quickly. Second, this allows a lot of room for interesting metamagic. the math of spell damage is bloody difficult to work out properly. I can get a bit more into that in Part III. Basically, scaling this way ties together spell level, DC, the requirement to increase damage with level, and other factors much more elegantly than any other scaling system I have tried.

The idea of someone using a 2nd or 3rd level spell as their go-to spell in combat at level 12 is completely alien to me ([Edit]: unless they're at-will and better than their invocation equivalent I guess, or maybe you don't mean 'first to be cast' when you say go-to). Given the reduced effectiveness of the 5th level cone of cold (already not a great spell) and a few other things you've dropped along the way, I suspect it's a playstyle difference I don't know how to wrap my head around. Which probably means that I should stop taking up your time and let you get on with finishing things rather than responding to me. So I think I'll stop after this next bit, unless I see something that I suspect is relevant to what I imagine your playstyle goals to be.

I want to be clear, though - I do see your point about the problem. There is a scaling inconsistency between damage spells and nondamaging spells. However, I think this works itself out reasonably well insofar as penalties and conditions can be overriden or ignored in a variety of ways at higher levels, while damage remains consistently useful/necessary at every level.

It sounds like you're discounting damage resistance and reduction. Smaller damage values can be overriden or ignored potentially much more easily than conditions, but I guess we'll see when you do damage and buffs.

[necroon]

Solution:
Spell saving throw DC is calculated by 10 + 1/2 caster level + casting ability modifier. Effects which used to improve DC instead improve caster level, granting +2 caster level instead of +1 DC. Effects which used to improve caster level continue to do so. I recommend that there be magic items that can also affect caster level, such as wizard's robes (a classic fantasy trope which has never had proper representation in D&D), but it is outside the scope of this fix to actually create those items.

Damage spell formulas and other spells which depend on caster level will be rewritten such that increasing caster level in this way does not make them overly strong or overly weak. This will be discussed in Part 3 of the Spell Reformation.

Just to make sure I understand: Caster Level should, still, by no means ever exceed the total number of levels a character has? This is aimed at multi-classed characters and characters with levels in PrCs that don't offer full spellcasting progression?

[unbeliever536]

I worry about requiring concentration for buffs, because it means that every caster in the group is only going to be able to keep one buff going for a long period in core. Additionally, concentrating on a spell takes a standard action, which is going to slow down an adventuring party that is not in a combat situation, and possibly prevent a caster maintaining a buff from doing somethign else useful outside of combat. Is part of this fix the ability to resume concentration if the spell is still going? Core is unclear but implies that this cannot be done. Can a caster concentrate on multiple spells with a single concentrate action?

Otherwise very nice work, thanks for doing this.

[SamBurke]

I am both subscribed and interested.

[Vadskye]

I'm back! Working on Part III now...
Tarkisflux:

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I wouldn't call that forced, as they remain quite useful against much lower level foes and allow you to retain your bigger spells for more appropriate foes. Forced would probably be something like Deepbluediver's spell progression tweak where your low level slots go away and you actually can't bring them along just in case.

But this is getting pretty semantic and irrelevant, and I think I've said too much on it already.

Makes sense.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. If you think it's relevant, would you mind phrasing it in a different way?

Ah, that was a bit hard to understand, sorry! After reflection, I think we agree enough on spell costs that it's not worth worrying about.

I think you mean a 4th level spell, and I would hope so since it's a spell with the same area, same cast time, and effect of the same tier (with hopefully the same or less duration) that deals less damage than a 5th level. If you meant 5 though... then your metamagic allows you to build up lower level spells into options that are worse than non-metamagic spells that could use the same spell slots. I probably wouldn't use such a system, because there are better options without.

I do mean 4th, oops. And I do think that spells created with metamagic should be worse than an equivalent spell of the same level. Metamagic spells are more flexible. That's why the spell system treats increasing range from 30 ft. to 100 ft. as costing +1 level, but the Enlarge metamagic would only increase range from 30 ft. to 60 ft. for +1 level. That's fair because with the metamagic version, you get a choice of which one to use - you can decide to cast it with or without the metamagic attached. Having a full spell just for that purpose is less flexible, so it should be more powerful.

As for interesting... that's a matter of taste I suppose. It's interesting from the design side though, since it reduces the number of spells you have to write to provide lots of options. But as a player it sounds like an expected metamagic to be honest, not one that really opens up interesting options, and a bit boring if functional as a result.

I'll grant that it's not the most inspiring metamagic. But I'm looking for ways to give casters a little more control over their spells. I think that makes being a caster more fun - particularly if you can apply them spontaneously. Do you have better ideas for metamagic? I'm looking for new metamagic feats.

The idea of someone using a 2nd or 3rd level spell as their go-to spell in combat at level 12 is completely alien to me ([Edit]: unless they're at-will and better than their invocation equivalent I guess, or maybe you don't mean 'first to be cast' when you say go-to). Given the reduced effectiveness of the 5th level cone of cold (already not a great spell) and a few other things you've dropped along the way, I suspect it's a playstyle difference I don't know how to wrap my head around. Which probably means that I should stop taking up your time and let you get on with finishing things rather than responding to me. So I think I'll stop after this next bit, unless I see something that I suspect is relevant to what I imagine your playstyle goals to be.

Not first to cast, unless they think the encounter isn't a serious threat. Higher level spells are still bigger and better. I suspect that the playstyle difference isn't as big as you imagine; I'll work on getting the rest of the damage rewrite up so you can judge it in its entirety before you decide to write it off. I've definitely appreciated your feedback so far!

It sounds like you're discounting damage resistance and reduction. Smaller damage values can be overriden or ignored potentially much more easily than conditions, but I guess we'll see when you do damage and buffs.

This is true. DR against magic isn't terribly common, though, except elemental DR.

Necroon:

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Just to make sure I understand: Caster Level should, still, by no means ever exceed the total number of levels a character has? This is aimed at multi-classed characters and characters with levels in PrCs that don't offer full spellcasting progression?

As with core D&D, caster level can exceed a character's total level. You have to change the way you think about it; caster level isn't a virtually static value that only increases as a character gains levels, like base attack bonus is. Instead, it's a somewhat more variable measure of a caster's power, like total attack bonus (after including modifiers like Weapon Focus and magic weapons). Does that make sense? Caster level and and will be more variable with this system, and spells that are strongly dependent on caster level like Holy Word are rewritten to account for that change.

Unbeliever:

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I worry about requiring concentration for buffs, because it means that every caster in the group is only going to be able to keep one buff going for a long period in core. Additionally, concentrating on a spell takes a standard action, which is going to slow down an adventuring party that is not in a combat situation, and possibly prevent a caster maintaining a buff from doing somethign else useful outside of combat. Is part of this fix the ability to resume concentration if the spell is still going? Core is unclear but implies that this cannot be done. Can a caster concentrate on multiple spells with a single concentrate action?

Otherwise very nice work, thanks for doing this.

Every caster is going to only keep one (short duration) buff active going into a combat, yes. That is intentional; part of the objective is to limit the degree to which players stop and spend time working out buff strategies before entering combat. As far as movement goes, it is true that a caster concentrating on a buff is less mobile. Typically, parties travel at walking speed unless they are doing something important, so it shouldn't be a significant hindrance. You shouldn't be concentrating on a spell all of the time anyway; it's mentally exhausting! If the party is rushing, or if the caster wants to cast a different spell, the caster will have to break off concentration. I'm not convinced that's a problem, though. It's an incentive not to be constantly concentrating. You should only be concentrating on a short-term buff if you expect a fight in the near future. You can't resume concentration on a spell while it is still active in order to get it to last longer, though I might consider a feat or class feature that granted that ability. Likewise, you can't concentrate on multiple spells at once; that would undo the nerf to precombat buffing. If you want to buff multiple people, you should use a Mass spell. I think there is room to allow some mechanic to concentrate on multiple spells at once with some limitations; perhaps as a metamagic feat. However, that's not a core mechanic. The goal is to limit the necessity of buffs without reducing their power level more than is necessary.

And I appreciate that!

SamBurke:

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I am both subscribed and interested.

Glad to hear it!
and I lost the game. Darn you.

[necroon]

I'm back! Working on Part III now...
Necroon:

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As with core D&D, caster level can exceed a character's total level. You have to change the way you think about it; caster level isn't a virtually static value that only increases as a character gains levels, like base attack bonus is. Instead, it's a somewhat more variable measure of a caster's power, like total attack bonus (after including modifiers like Weapon Focus and magic weapons). Does that make sense? Caster level and and will be more variable with this system, and spells that are strongly dependent on caster level like Holy Word are rewritten to account for that change.

Unbeliever:
[spoiler]

Ah okay - Now I follow.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain that for me.