Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Evocation Spell level changes


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.


I agree with this assessment, although I am not sure this is completely balanced, what are your thoughts?

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 needs a rewrite as well)
* 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


?



(Originally posted by Frank Trollman on the Paizo Forums)

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