Prolem with Spell Points? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Prolem with Spell Points? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Naderion
05-02-07, 08:01 AM For a long time I though the spell point system in unearthed arcana is a really nice thing (though never tested in real action), but as I was just designing new summoning spells, I found an extreme (or so I think) flaw in the whole system.

Let's say, we have a 1st level spell, that deals 1d6 points of fire damage/level to a single target with a maximum of 5d6.
Fireball deals 1d6 points of fire damage/level with a maximum of 10d6 and affects an area.

If I cast the first spell and spend 5 spell points, caster level becomes 5 and the spell deals 5d6 points of damage to a single creature.
If I cast Fireball and spend 5 spell points, caster level is 5 again and and the spell deals 5d6 points of damage again, but this time to possibly a lot more than one creature.

The only disadvantage I see here is that I can prepare one or two more 1st level spells than 3rd level spells per day, but I still sped the same ammount of magical energy for drastically different effects. With spell slots, I would have to pay either a 1st level slot or a 3rd level slot. The 3rd level fireball would be much more "expensive".

Is it a mistake on my side, or is this really a substinal fault in the spell point system?

The most simple way would be to just fix the spell point cost for all spells and make the number of damage dice equal to caster level again. But this makes wizard even much more powerful in combat (which could be countered by reducing spell points) and isn't really that fun.
Seldriss
05-02-07, 09:10 AM Just ignore the limitations and extra cost for damage dice.
Just use the spell points costs according to the spell level.
So for your example, the 1st level spell cost 1 SP, whatever the caster level and damage dice.
And the fireball costs 5 SP.
Archtyrant Terevoth
05-02-07, 10:34 AM Yeah, that whole caster level thing is there just to hose direct damage based characters. I'd say just dump it.
Shadowmind64
05-02-07, 10:38 AM yeah, damage casters really arent great anyway, so just drop that little rule.
RobbyPants
05-02-07, 10:53 AM It looks like at its core, the spellpoint varient is designed to be very similar to the psionics power point system. They even have a sort of augmenting with the extra SP per damage die. The problem (as everyone noted) is that there is still a cap on damage dice (whereas there isn't in psionics).

I'm a big fan of the concept of SP, but the implementation isn't all that great. What it is, is simple. Sadly, the sacrifice for that simplicity is balance.

You could, perhaps, offer a "discount" in SP cost to lower level spells when they get to their damage cap. I don't have a good (balanced) system in mind, but the idea would be, once your level exceeds the cap on the spells, you can subtract the exess from the SP cost (down to a minimum of the normal SP cost). For example:

At level 1, Shocking Grasp deals 1d6 damage for 1 SP (normal, so far...)
At level 5, it deals 5d6 for 5 SP (still normal, but obviously lacking, compared to Fireball)
At level 6 (1 level higher than the cap), it deals 5d6 damage for 4 SP (5 - 1 = 4)
At level 9 and beyond, it deals 5d6 for 1 SP (5 - 4 = 1).
Likewise, a Fireball at 13th level would do 10d6 for 7 SP (10 - 3 = 7).

Granted, it's pretty simple, and I haven't put much thought into it, but the idea is there. The idea is to put a little more oomf back into the low-level spells later on, when much better options are available. Obviously, at 15th level, 10d6 Fireballs for 5SP will give you some incentive compared to 15d6 Cones of Cold for 15 SP. At 20th level, the same 15d6 Cone of Cold would be dropped to 10 SP.

Just an idea...
Seldriss
05-02-07, 11:09 AM Or you can just ignore the level/damage cap as we said.

After all, the fact that a spell does some damage (whatever the number of dice) doesn't make it more powerful than another spell of the same level.
That's just a damage spell. It has already been fixed a level, so it shouldn't cost more than a spell of same level.
Sleep doesn't cause any damage but it can neutralize many people without a chance to resist.
Teleport doesn't do any damage but transcends the laws for space.
Disintegrate doesn't cause any damage, it just makes things go ZAP.
You get the point. Damage is not the main point of magic. So it shouldn't be an extra cost.
Seldriss
05-02-07, 11:10 AM Or you can just ignore the level/damage cap as we said.

After all, the fact that a spell does some damage (whatever the number of dice) doesn't make it more powerful than another spell of the same level.
That's just a damage spell. It has already been fixed a level, so it shouldn't cost more than a spell of same level.
Sleep doesn't cause any damage but it can neutralize many people without a chance to resist.
Teleport doesn't do any damage but transcends the laws for space.
Disintegrate doesn't cause any damge, it just makes things go ZAP.
You get the point. Damage is not the main point of magic. So it shouldn't be an extra cost.
Naderion
05-03-07, 01:34 PM I also noticed, that this thing becomes much more less important as you advance in levels. Chain lightning has a minimum of 11 spell points and a maximum of 15 spell points and I think with the exception of delayed blast fireball and polar ray, there aren't any spells above 6th level that would make use of that rule anyway. The only "profit" would be around level 4 to 8 or so, and that isn't really the range of levels, where casters are overpowered.

But I am interested. I conversed all spell slots of all classes into the ammount of spell points needed to cast them, to determine the amount of spell points for each level (slightly different from the UA amounts, because each spell requires twice its level in spell points, allowing to spend 1 spell point for level 0 spells). It certainly IS more powerfull. a.) because you can in theory spend all your points only for the spells of the highest level aviable to you and b.) because you will never exhaust your usefull spells for a given situation, with having a couple of spells for special emergencies left. Depending on how you prepare your spells, you likely will be "out of spells", with actually having only spend 80 or 60% of your overall capacity (exept for spontaneous casters).
I think it would definately make sense to reduce the amount of spell points you get by directly recalculating spell slots into spell points, by a given faction. But how much? I have to say I haven't really ever played a high-level caster and have no real idea how much of your spells will still be unused at the end of the day. Reduce the amount of spell points calculated to 3/4? 3/5? What do you think?

What also kind of surprised me is the ammount of spell points the classes get. Clerics get about 450 points at level 20, while Druids get only 350, but this is okay for me, because I wan't to use more of a healer-priest than the usual tank-cleric class (you can always multiclass as fighter or warpriest). But the sorcerer gets about 550 points and the wizard just slightly more than 300. This looks really not like the weak sorcerer I knew.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Naderion 05-02-07, 08:01 AM	For a long time I though the spell point system in unearthed arcana is a really nice thing (though never tested in real action), but as I was just designing new summoning spells, I found an extreme (or so I think) flaw in the whole system. Let's say, we have a 1st level spell, that deals 1d6 points of fire damage/level to a single target with a maximum of 5d6. Fireball deals 1d6 points of fire damage/level with a maximum of 10d6 and affects an area. If I cast the first spell and spend 5 spell points, caster level becomes 5 and the spell deals 5d6 points of damage to a single creature. If I cast Fireball and spend 5 spell points, caster level is 5 again and and the spell deals 5d6 points of damage again, but this time to possibly a lot more than one creature. The only disadvantage I see here is that I can prepare one or two more 1st level spells than 3rd level spells per day, but I still sped the same ammount of magical energy for drastically different effects. With spell slots, I would have to pay either a 1st level slot or a 3rd level slot. The 3rd level fireball would be much more "expensive". Is it a mistake on my side, or is this really a substinal fault in the spell point system? The most simple way would be to just fix the spell point cost for all spells and make the number of damage dice equal to caster level again. But this makes wizard even much more powerful in combat (which could be countered by reducing spell points) and isn't really that fun.
Seldriss 05-02-07, 09:10 AM	Just ignore the limitations and extra cost for damage dice. Just use the spell points costs according to the spell level. So for your example, the 1st level spell cost 1 SP, whatever the caster level and damage dice. And the fireball costs 5 SP.
Archtyrant Terevoth 05-02-07, 10:34 AM	Yeah, that whole caster level thing is there just to hose direct damage based characters. I'd say just dump it.
Shadowmind64 05-02-07, 10:38 AM	yeah, damage casters really arent great anyway, so just drop that little rule.
RobbyPants 05-02-07, 10:53 AM	It looks like at its core, the spellpoint varient is designed to be very similar to the psionics power point system. They even have a sort of augmenting with the extra SP per damage die. The problem (as everyone noted) is that there is still a cap on damage dice (whereas there isn't in psionics). I'm a big fan of the concept of SP, but the implementation isn't all that great. What it is, is simple. Sadly, the sacrifice for that simplicity is balance. You could, perhaps, offer a "discount" in SP cost to lower level spells when they get to their damage cap. I don't have a good (balanced) system in mind, but the idea would be, once your level exceeds the cap on the spells, you can subtract the exess from the SP cost (down to a minimum of the normal SP cost). For example: At level 1, Shocking Grasp deals 1d6 damage for 1 SP (normal, so far...) At level 5, it deals 5d6 for 5 SP (still normal, but obviously lacking, compared to Fireball) At level 6 (1 level higher than the cap), it deals 5d6 damage for 4 SP (5 - 1 = 4) At level 9 and beyond, it deals 5d6 for 1 SP (5 - 4 = 1). Likewise, a Fireball at 13th level would do 10d6 for 7 SP (10 - 3 = 7). Granted, it's pretty simple, and I haven't put much thought into it, but the idea is there. The idea is to put a little more oomf back into the low-level spells later on, when much better options are available. Obviously, at 15th level, 10d6 Fireballs for 5SP will give you some incentive compared to 15d6 Cones of Cold for 15 SP. At 20th level, the same 15d6 Cone of Cold would be dropped to 10 SP. Just an idea...
Seldriss 05-02-07, 11:09 AM	Or you can just ignore the level/damage cap as we said. After all, the fact that a spell does some damage (whatever the number of dice) doesn't make it more powerful than another spell of the same level. That's just a damage spell. It has already been fixed a level, so it shouldn't cost more than a spell of same level. Sleep doesn't cause any damage but it can neutralize many people without a chance to resist. Teleport doesn't do any damage but transcends the laws for space. Disintegrate doesn't cause any damage, it just makes things go ZAP. You get the point. Damage is not the main point of magic. So it shouldn't be an extra cost.
Seldriss 05-02-07, 11:10 AM	Or you can just ignore the level/damage cap as we said. After all, the fact that a spell does some damage (whatever the number of dice) doesn't make it more powerful than another spell of the same level. That's just a damage spell. It has already been fixed a level, so it shouldn't cost more than a spell of same level. Sleep doesn't cause any damage but it can neutralize many people without a chance to resist. Teleport doesn't do any damage but transcends the laws for space. Disintegrate doesn't cause any damge, it just makes things go ZAP. You get the point. Damage is not the main point of magic. So it shouldn't be an extra cost.
Naderion 05-03-07, 01:34 PM	I also noticed, that this thing becomes much more less important as you advance in levels. Chain lightning has a minimum of 11 spell points and a maximum of 15 spell points and I think with the exception of delayed blast fireball and polar ray, there aren't any spells above 6th level that would make use of that rule anyway. The only "profit" would be around level 4 to 8 or so, and that isn't really the range of levels, where casters are overpowered. But I am interested. I conversed all spell slots of all classes into the ammount of spell points needed to cast them, to determine the amount of spell points for each level (slightly different from the UA amounts, because each spell requires twice its level in spell points, allowing to spend 1 spell point for level 0 spells). It certainly IS more powerfull. a.) because you can in theory spend all your points only for the spells of the highest level aviable to you and b.) because you will never exhaust your usefull spells for a given situation, with having a couple of spells for special emergencies left. Depending on how you prepare your spells, you likely will be "out of spells", with actually having only spend 80 or 60% of your overall capacity (exept for spontaneous casters). I think it would definately make sense to reduce the amount of spell points you get by directly recalculating spell slots into spell points, by a given faction. But how much? I have to say I haven't really ever played a high-level caster and have no real idea how much of your spells will still be unused at the end of the day. Reduce the amount of spell points calculated to 3/4? 3/5? What do you think? What also kind of surprised me is the ammount of spell points the classes get. Clerics get about 450 points at level 20, while Druids get only 350, but this is okay for me, because I wan't to use more of a healer-priest than the usual tank-cleric class (you can always multiclass as fighter or warpriest). But the sorcerer gets about 550 points and the wizard just slightly more than 300. This looks really not like the weak sorcerer I knew.