OOC Chat

[RobbyPants]

It took me a while to like beer.  After I got sick doing shots twice, I decided I'd learn to like beer to help me slow down.  Of course, I've gotten sick just on beer more than I have not on beer since, so I guess that didn't really help.  Instead, I've learned just to slow the fuck down if I don't want to get sick.

On a related note, I'm going with a group on an organized bar hop this weekend.  There's a shuttle provided and everything.  I'm totally geeked about this!

[RobbyPants]

Do you guys have any ideas for any types of fights you want to try out at level 4?

Are there any concerns with the classes you want to see addressed (like lack of long range stuff)?

[veekie]

The long ranged stuff definitely is a concern, especially for the Pyro and Aero types I think, since their role is much more towards artillery and having not even Medium range(much less Long) attacks is going to hurt when they come up against opposition in artillery duels. I suggest giving Fire and Air some Long ranged stuff and the others at least SOME Medium options.

Water's alright, mainly because between fogs and ice slicks, at early levels they provide something to do even if the enemy can't be hurt. The hazard is the same as everyone's, the spell range at this point can be lower than a charge range.

[RobbyPants]

Do you guys want me to work out some changes before we proceed with anything else?

[Sohala]

I wouldn't mind a larger ranged option at earlier levels, but classes need some weakness, right?

[archangel.arcanis]

Yeah definitely some more range options. I feel like most of my spells aren't worth looking at in combat. For first level it is Lesser sound orb or sonic blast if they have a really high touch AC. All of the cloud type spells feel like they would hinder me more than my enemy, as I really have to rely on ranged attacks and many of them can just charge through it or at best I stalemate them with it (now if we had a cliff nearby then maybe I could make them dangerous). The rest of the spells seem like they are circumstantial or our of combat spells and since we are just testing them out in combat they don't get used. I think the only 2nd level spell I've used has been seeking ray and i picked that up with advanced learning.

edit: also just starting to look at the higher level spells again and Avoid Planar Effects for air is correct for consistency but totally useless as there are no negative effects for a plane with the air trait that it can negate.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, that's why I'm trying to figure out what the sweet spot should be.

Of course, after I created these classes, I read about an Evocation fix that involves swapping a lot of spell levels around so you don't have to blow your top level spells to use Evocations.  This puts things like Fireball and Polor Ray as 1st level spells.  It's actually a pretty good fit, but it also gives some seriously long range options.  Also, at level 4, with Firey Burst, you're doing 5d6 damage, which won't take out a CR 4 monster, but it will nuke about anything CR 2 and lower with little problem.

[RobbyPants]

How would you feel if I modified the existing spell lists with Evocations to follow something closer to this:

Polar Ray is an insult to god and man. It's not a long legacy, it was introduced in 3.5 and before that it was merely one of several options for the much lower level Otiluke's Freezing Sphere. And of course, in Pathfinder, that would have to be called Freezing Sphere for copyright reasons, but that is neither here nor there.

The point however, is that in the conversion from AD&D to 3e D&D, the amount of hit points and energy resistance that creatures have has increased literally exponentially. And damage output from Evocations has not kept up in the slightest. And while we could plausibly attempt to push the envelope and pump up damage output to match, that would only be an arms race that no one would win.

Evocations in 3rd edition rules are primarily spells which serve to devastate low level opposition or to slowly but surely chip away at the defenses of opponents that pose reasonable threats. These are sometimes valid tactics, but they are not valid tactics to use one's highest level spells to accomplish. It takes a lot of magic missiles to bring down a Shadow, meaning that there is frankly no way that any Wizard is going to have enough spell slots to dedicate to doing that to make it a viable way to eventually beat such an opponent.

So here's the solution: reduce the spell level of these underperforming evocation spells. Since they scale in damage to your level, nothing actually bad happens if you get these spells early. Even a dozen or more levels early is perfectly fine because the damage scales to something level appropriate at low level. A polar ray cast by a 1st level character does just 1d6 of damage - half the damage that the same character could achieve by purchasing a vial of alchemist frost and throwing it at a target (same to-hit roll as well at any kind of close range).

So here's what the Evocation list should look like:

Evocation Cantrips

    * Burning Hands
    * Dancing Lights
    * Light
    * Magic Missile
    * Shocking Grasp


Evocation 1st Level Spells

    * Fireball
    * Floating Disk
    * Gust of Wind
    * Lightning Bolt
    * Polar Ray
    * Sending


Evocation 2nd Level Spells

    * Chain Lightning
    * Cone of Cold
    * Continual Flame
    * Darkness
    * Daylight
    * Flaming Sphere (this spell badly needs to be better than it is, but that's another subject)
    * Scorching Ray
    * Shatter


Evocation 3rd Level Spells

    * Delayed Blast Fireball
    * Ice Storm
    * Shout
    * Tiny Hut
    * Wall of Fire
    * Wind Wall


Evocation 4th Level Spells

    * Fire Shield
    * Interposing Hand
    * Resilient Sphere
    * Wall of Ice

Evocation 5th Level Spells

    * Forceful Hand
    * Freezing Sphere
    * Mage Sword
    * Sunburst
    * Wall of Force


Evocation 6th Level Spells

    * Contingency
    * Grasping Hand
    * Shout, Greater


Evocation 7th Level Spells

    * Clenched Fist
    * Force Cage
    * Prismatic Spray



Evocation 8th Level Spells

    * Crushing Hand
    * Meteor Swarm
    * Telekinetic Sphere


Evocation 9th Level Spells

    * 9th level Spells must be written for this discipline. Seriously, timestop? Shapechange? Wail of the Banshee? Astral Projection? Shades? Weird? Most disciplines have two game defining, god-fighting spells to choose from at 9th level. Evocation hasn't been given anything remotely decent for their top tier, so new, mountain leveling spells must be written for Evokers to have.

There. It's pretty much completely backwards compatible, but nonetheless puts Evokers in at being able to do something legitimately valuable - Killing Fools.

And no, having unlimited magic missiles or shocking grasps is not ungamebalanced at 1st level, or any level. Magic Missile tops out in damage at level 9, when it does 17.5 damage against any opponent who doesn't have concealment, cover, or spell resistance. But at level 9, a Rogue is literally inflicting 17.5 points of sneak attack damage with every single attack. And that's not total damage for the round, that's just the extra damage from a sneak attack. He still gets to do his weapon damage, and make his other attacks for that round. Shocking Grasp is very likely to hit, and it does a d8+1 damage. A Longsword in the hands of a Fighter is also very likely to hit and does a d8+4. While the shocking grasp is quite likely to have a better chance of hitting an orc warrior than the longsword is, it is also much more likely to do insufficient damage to drop the orc. Indeed, the Orc Warrior out of the SRD is more likely to drop in one attack from the 1st level Fighter than he from the 1st level Wizard - even factoring in the discrepancy in hit chances.

And no, casting fireballs at 1st level isn't unbalanced either. At 1st level it only does a d6 of fire damage, it's barely worth doing against many opponents. It certainly isn't putting color spray out of a job.

[archangel.arcanis]

I'm good with that style of rewrite. I'm assuming that we will slide many of our other spells down the spell levels as well. It will end up front loading most of our blasting choices but at that point it is just the areas and ranges that we should be concerned with.

edit: So in following with that post's ideas we get to make our own 9th level spells that deal CL x2 or x3 d6 damage, how about d12s. 

[VennDygrem]

I wrote up an army-ended 8th or 9th level fire spell once, but I honestly don't remember where I wrote it up. Was it here? >_> <_<

[RobbyPants]

Well, I'm not sure I'll end up fleshing these guys out past 15th level, at least not for a while.

Still, yeah, I was having fun thinking about 9th level Evocations, like a growing well of lava that deals 20d6 damage each round, plus 10d6 the round after you leave and entangles you in the area or a mile-diameter rain of acid (both Frank's ideas, really).  Also, maybe some type of force effect that holds the target in place and crushes them, but I have to make it strictly better than the existing spells that do that sort of stuff.  Ooh!  Summon a Force Golom! (which I'd have to stat up)

Anyway, give me a little while to work on the spell lists.  Feel free to give suggestions in the mean time.

[archangel.arcanis]

replace the force golem with an Atomic Golem.  

edit: real suggestion try to make sure we have some variety of areas and ranges by the time we get to 2nd or 3rd level spells. Giving fireball at first level would make fiery burst ability useless so that would need something, though it is unlimited use.

Wind propulsion felt like its usefulness dropped off pretty quick, but that may have just been IC screwing me on rolls. Also we are just now getting into where D&D actually works how it is supposed to so we will see how everything goes from here forward.

[RobbyPants]

Also we are just now getting into where D&D actually works how it is supposed to so we will see how everything goes from here forward.

Yeah, my favorite range for playing and DMing is about 3rd to 12th level, give or take.

[VennDygrem]

Sorry, meant to write army-ending. Basically, Curse of Conflagration would deal a burst of hellfire damage (thus bypassing fire resistance/immunity), and nearby foes have to save or be inflicted by the same curse. On subsequent rounds it continues burning and dealing damage, and continues spreading for the duration of the spell. Since it affects a range, it can inflict significant damage to a lot of enemies. Great for the pyro in all of us.

[veekie]

Well sheer volume has its place
Evocation max areas by spell level, assuming d6/CL and either no or minor rider effects:
1: Anti Personnel, hits 15ft radius equivalent or targets one or two individuals(allowing a down-adjustment for not risking allies)
3: Anti Unit, if you're going for area, at this point you'd be hitting entire dispersed squads. 30ft radius or chaining(large number of targets as long as they're within 15 ft of each other).
5: Anti Army, big enough to blow holes in armies(radius of 100ft and up). Probably see less adventurers using this scale since it's functionally the same as the above. Maybe keep one around in case you need to win a war or something. Cover becomes a common issue as distance increases from blast center.
7: Anti Fortification,  big enough to encompass whole towns. Probably cool to have bad guys using.
9: Anti Country, If you want to destroy the world, spell areas on this scale are a good start.


I don't strongly advocate greatly increasing raw damage though. Damage over time, or additional effects are what could be used to make the spells better, rather than 'kill everything within my line of sight'.
EDIT: Though for killing everything in your line of sight, this should do for a Level 7

[RobbyPants]

Sorry.  I've gotten more busy and lazy than expected.  I have a poker game tonight, but I might have time to rearrange the spell lists this weekend.

One thing I've found I don't like about these classes is that there aren't as many elemental spells out there as I'd hoped there would be (at least not without resorting to tons of splats).  It seems the best two ways to deal with this is to add spells that are similar but not exactly elemental-themed or to add more class features.

[VennDygrem]

Well, I'd say that concept works well. Spells that support each class's role seems appropriate. Furthermore, I've got a file someone compiled for an earlier elementalist class comprising pretty much all the elemental spells. Not sure if it'll be any use, but it can't hurt. *shrug* 

[RobbyPants]

I started moving some spells around in different levels following that as a guildline, but I'm wondering about a few:

With Fireball at 1st level, that makes Lesser Orb of Fire seem a bit underpowered.  Sure, there's no SR and it's a touch attack instead of a save, but it makes it feel rather weak.  What are your suggestions?

Several of the Spell Compendium spells I picked look like they could be dropped a bit.

I'm wondering if Hail of Stone should become a cantrip or if I should make a better 1st-level version.  I may just have to take some time off and redo about the first two to three levels of spells before we move on.

[veekie]

Well, for Fire, I figure the Pyromancer should be able to hurl flames about that good to begin with no?

[RobbyPants]

What do you mean?

BTW, I was toying with making Cantrips unlimited, which is why it's worth noting that a few 1st level spells might become cantrips.