Penality to saves according to spell level

[Jarno Mikkola]

Fireball for example becomes pretty much obsolete in BG2 imo if saving against it is so easy that even grunts almost always suffer only 5d6 dmg from it. There could be other ways to improve it like making the save start with no penalty and then increase with caster lvl, but I do felt vanilla's Fireball never made into my spellbook.

Well, as the damage is capped at level 10, why not increase the saves at levels 1 where it's still zero, to -1 at level 13, to -2 at level 16, and to -3 at level 19, it's a 3rd level spell so the -3 is a good maximum. As level 5 caster cannot really have a area of effect spell that has -3 at save from half of 5d6. But a level 19th caster can easily have the same spell with -3 save from half of 10d6...

[DarkWon]

I indeed agree many low lvl spells don't necessarily need save penalties (e.g. Web) but others really do, at least in the form of a scaling save penalty (e.g. Command, Spook). Fireball for example becomes pretty much obsolete in BG2 imo if saving against it is so easy that even grunts almost always suffer only 5d6 dmg from it. There could be other ways to improve it like making the save start with no penalty and then increase with caster lvl, but I do felt vanilla's Fireball never made into my spellbook.

 

Nice! I must say, before using Spell Revisions, I always used the "Spells Cast by High Level Casters have save penalties" option of BG Tweak Pack and loved it.

 

I never noticed any issues with it in Vanilla, but I figured that: 1) it would fail to affect many SR spells due to the way they are implemented, 2) those which it did affect would be grossly overpowered as they already have save penalties in SR and adding more would just be crazy. 3) it actually seems to run counter to what SR tries to do. It gives spells higher penalties the lower level they are...

 

EDIT: Just read what Jarno said, I agree and I think all spells should work that way instead of saves by spell level (but i think we are probably a minority...)

[Ardanis]

Do note that many spells have a level progression (damage or duration) even without save penalties. Penalty-per-level feature is also absent in both ADnD and DnD 3.

It is logical that Fireball stops progressing while ADHW keeps going on - like there's a limit to how much damage you can inflict with a wooden stick and how a heavy metal mace can still benefit from greater force applied.

 

I'd prefer to keep it semi-unique, only seen it several spells as it is now.

 

Fireball wise, I'm into -2 penalty. Fire resistance is the most common one anyway. Skull Trap otoh can live fine without penalty, since it's a trap with greater damage.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Penalty-per-level feature is also absent in both ADnD and DnD 3.

I know that the applied(in Icewind Dale 2) Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition ruleset had spell specializations(feat) where when taken the character gained a +2 to all saves against specific spell type, and -2 to all enemy save throws when casted by the character. And a first level mage couldn't take that feat. Beside it's not necessary for games that stay under certain constraints(character levels), while the expansions to the rule set etc come later where such rules have been tested, and they actually give benefits. As you cannot say that we would need to determine anything about the Wish spell, if we make a D&D game for characters whose levels are between one and eight... as there was no Wish Spell in BG1. Same goes for rulesets that constraint for levels 1 to 20 that the AdnD and DnD 3 are... while the rule sets we should constraint is the whole scale of 1 to 50/50/50.

Now, I am not saying that everything must improve the last ten(41-50) character levels, but take it to consideration that the caster might be a level 50th mage, and if the spell description say only "Damage = 1d4+1/caster level", then the damage will be 51-54.

Now, we can cap it, but the spell description needs to mention that.

 

Fireball wise, I'm into -2 penalty. Fire resistance is the most common one anyway. Skull Trap otoh can live fine without penalty, since it's a trap with greater damage.

So, you are OK a level 5 caster having an area of effect spell that has -2 at save from half of 5d6 ?

Yeah, we need to consider the implications in BG1 characters... too.

[Demivrgvs]

Penalty-per-level feature is also absent in both ADnD and DnD 3.

I know that the applied(in Icewind Dale 2) Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition ruleset had spell specializations(feat) where when taken the character gained a +2 to all saves against specific spell type, and -2 to all enemy save throws when casted by the character. And a first level mage couldn't take that feat. Beside it's not necessary for games that stay under certain constraints(character levels), while the expansions to the rule set etc come later where such rules have been tested, and they actually give benefits.

Ardanis was saying that a "penalty-per-level feature" has never been a implemented within D&D, and that is not 100% true, but what you are talking about is a completely different thing, and if adding bonus/malus to specialist mage's chose school was doable we would have done it ages ago, but it's not.

 

Same goes for rulesets that constraint for levels 1 to 20 that the AdnD and DnD 3 are... while the rule sets we should constraint is the whole scale of 1 to 50/50/50.

Now, I am not saying that everything must improve the last ten(41-50) character levels, but take it to consideration that the caster might be a level 50th mage, and if the spell description say only "Damage = 1d4+1/caster level", then the damage will be 51-54.

Now, we can cap it, but the spell description needs to mention that.

I do get your point and it has some merit, but tjst to clarify, the whole "spell's progression cap at 20th caster lvl" thing remains true even under epic rule set. What you get by further improving above the cap is handled in a different way.

 

That being said, I cannot care less spellcasters with 40th+ lvls, and I'll NEVER break the 20th lvl cap for spell, because by doing so I would be giving spellcasters an unfair advantage to all other classes (e.g. thieves don't get better backstab). Anything above 20th lvl should be handled via HLAs imo, similarly to how PnP epic rules work, and I'm already set to follow this way.

 

Fireball wise, I'm into -2 penalty. Fire resistance is the most common one anyway. Skull Trap otoh can live fine without penalty, since it's a trap with greater damage.

So, you are OK a level 5 caster having an area of effect spell that has -2 at save from half of 5d6 ?

Yeah, we need to consider the implications in BG1 characters... too.

I don't know, BG1 players should know better than me if 5-30 (aka17.5 dmg on average) is too much deadly for a 5th lvl party, and remember we're not increasing it, we're only granting "+10% chance" of successfully inflict full dmg.

 

Anyway, I agree with Ardanis, a "penalty-per-level feature" isn't necessary as a general rule, but that doesn't mean I'm excluding any spell from using it if appropriate/necessary.

[Daulmakan]

Penalty-per-level feature is also absent in both ADnD and DnD 3.

I take it you've never read High Level Campaigns?

[DarkWon]

Anyway, I agree with Ardanis, a "penalty-per-level feature" isn't necessary as a general rule, but that doesn't mean I'm excluding any spell from using it if appropriate/necessary.

 

Hmm, I think I'll give the "High Level mages = save penalties mod" a try with SR and see what happens. I guess increasing save penalties is definitely not for everyone but to me it just makes too much sense.

 

Your saves start at around 16-17, and progress to around -4/-5 by the time you are in ToB. I'm not saying save penalties should match this progression, but I feel at least they should moderately keep pace. Especially all the cool lower level spells (Color spray, Charm spells etc) so they don't become redundant and u just memorise 10 x Magic missile ><

 

I do agree that damage should be capped at 20th level though.

 

Anyway, I will check out whether the 2 mods conflict to badly Hopefully SRv4 comes out with a slightly toned down Disintegrate/Flesh to Stone before I reach BG2 (lol or else i will be running around Disintegrating with -6/-7 save penalties)!!

[DrAzTiK]

What will be the new penality for saves with SRv4 ?

 

Do you still thinking about maybe not stacking some area spell (like grease, web, stinking cloud, Ice storm,cloud kill, acid fog, sphere of chaos, inciendary cloud, fire storm etc..)

==> SCS AI rarely abuse of these spell and stacking some of them is really deadly. (especially grease,web and sphere of chaos).

Forbid stacking could also allow more variety in spellbook and sequencers.

[Ardanis]

With no stacking we'd have to assume that spell is already at it's possible maximum effectiveness. Still, taking Stinking Cloud for example, it would mean that the most intoxicating vapor can be saved against at no penalty. Same goes for other AoE duration spells, there can be fiery stones falling from the sky here and there, and there can be an a hailstorm of them annihilating everything.

 

Furthermore, we do have multiple Fireballs loaded in sequencers (and AI really does rely on it), and power wise a Fireball is the same Cloudkill, though one delivers damage instantly, and the other spreads it in time.

 

PS From another angle - if I can cast ten clouds, then I also can cast ten Fireballs, and in both cases the damage output will be close to each other.

[Demivrgvs]

What will be the new penality for saves with SRv4 ?

Well, I more less answered your question a few posts ago, here.

 

Listing each and every save penalty change would take too long, but I can say low and mid-low lvl spells will have save penalties very similar to V2 with a few exceptions. Otoh mid-high and high lvl spells will have easier save as the save penalty is capped at -4, and some of them may not even use such heavy penalty, depending on the factors described on the above link.

 

Do you still thinking about maybe not stacking some area spell (like grease, web, stinking cloud, Ice storm,cloud kill, acid fog, sphere of chaos, inciendary cloud, fire storm etc..)

==> SCS AI rarely abuse of these spell and stacking some of them is really deadly. (especially grease,web and sphere of chaos).

Forbid stacking could also allow more variety in spellbook and sequencers.

We were just discussing this with Ardanis the other day (as I planned to make Web not stack). I think the problem is:

a) conceptually those spells should be allowed to stack (as Ardanis says)

b) for balance and gameplay reasons making them not stack would be better (as you says)

In the end a possible solution is to keep them stacking but finding a way to make sure that doing so won't make the spell broken (as vanilla's Web does).