Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Drachasor 12-07-06, 03:48 AM	I've been messing around with this a lot lately, and thought I'd post on here for some help. Basically, I've been thinking about changing the magic system in D&D to be more like a Maneuver system from Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords. Here's my basic idea: Magic using classes have Spell Maneuvers, which function just like martial maneuvers. A Spell Maneuver is weaker than a spell of the same level. Wizards and similar classes would use a Swordsage method of regaining maneuvers. Sorcerers would have a more warblade-like method for regaining maneuvers. Spell Maneuvers are split into schools instead of disciplines, or some other system (perhaps having healing effects be seperate from other effects). I still think it is important, and useful, to allow normal spells into the game however. Maneuvers would be for common actions, but spells add some needed utility here and there (imho). So, there needs to be same way to learn and cast normal spells. For Wizards at least, this seems pretty easy. They can learn spells as normal, and prepare some spells each day (perhaps one spell per spell level, I am not sure). Casting a prepared spell requires a Readied Spell Maneuver of thesame level or greater and of the same school. To cast a spell, you expend this maneuver, and cast the spell normally. The expended maneuver is sacrificed to cast the spell. Until you rest for 8 hours, the total number of spell maneuvers you can ready is decreased by 1 and you cannot ready the spell maneuver you sacrificed. As a basic idea, what does everyone think? -Drachasor PS. I am also a bit of the opinion that more of the maneuvers in the Tome of Battle should have some sort of scaling with level.
Keterys 12-07-06, 01:06 PM	I went a completely different direction with how I did my version, in that I made it really work like ToB, with being able to recover spells. In order to do this, I toned down the spell level progression and took out the few spells that couldn't be cast infinitely each day safely. Sorcerer I made work like the Crusader, as it fit better for the lack of control. Wizard I did have work like a Swordsage, but they can re-ready and rearrange all of their spells with 15 minutes of study. I split spells into two types - techniques and disciplines, roughly equivalent to maneuvers and stances. So, fireball and confusion - techniques arcane sight and mage armor - disciplines You can have multiple disciplines up at once (to some limit) and know a certain # (wizard can change which they have available) Ends up pretty interesting, but I still need to playtest it. Basically, it deals with a lot of imbalance points (specific broken 8th and 9th spells and how they interact with the world), pacing (obliterating that first/second battle by overloading spells for them, but go rest right now cause don't have enough for the final battle), and how positively stupid buffing gets (ie, a few buffs up at a time, not say 23) - and it matches the setup of everything else in the system more closely.
Xeviat-DM 12-08-06, 01:52 AM	Unless you do silly Devoted Spirit stuff, healing spells will be impossible to balance. But I disagree that maneuvers are weaker than spells. For the most part, maneuvers deal 1d6 damage per spell level if they have a special ability, or 2d6 damage per spell level if they just deal raw damage. That's pretty much the same as spells, except that spells scale.
Keterys 12-08-06, 09:21 AM	And that requires a melee attack roll, not even a touch attack, nevermind a ranged touch, or autohitting force. Also, d6/level is what you get for area effect spells... and maneuvers aren't looking so hot for AoE spells. Heal as a 9th level maneuver, for one of the best maneuvers. Save or dies for 9th level, etc. The prevailing opinion that I've seen on boards is that they're around 2/3 as powerful, with some fudge room (for example, they go ahead and admit that mass cure serious isn't worth a 7th level spell slot) Look at the other uses of spells, not the thing maneuver are specialized at doing, at melee, alongside a melee attack.
Drachasor 12-08-06, 12:59 PM	I agree that maneuvers are generally less powerful than spells. It can be hard to measure how powerful some of them are, of course, but the damage is usually much worse than a spell. Desert Wind in particular, has really poor damage on most of its effects (especially area effect spells). While I think some maneuvers need a power boost, I think the better maneuvers are a good baseline for how powerful a spell maneuver should be, more or less. Now, I agree some baseline for spell maneuvers needs to be worked out. Particularly the amount of damage a spell maneuver should do or amount of healing. As for the latter type, here's my thought on the basics of how healing maneuvers could work: Healing Maneuvers: (A) The first type of healing maneuver can heal someone to up to half of their total hitpoints. This is similar to a Dragon Shaman's fast healing aura. (B) The second type of healing maneuver can heal someone beyond this amount. However, it can only affect a particular person once per day. (C) The Devoted Spirit discipline's way of healing with an attack can also work well. The attacked target has to be a enemy, so this is balanced, imho. There is probably room for other healing mechanics too, but I can't think of any at the moment. Of course abilities like Lay on Hands seem to work pretty well (perhaps a maneuver version of it?). There is some concern for methods A and B in terms of the entire world overall. If armies have just a few people with such maneuvers, then the battlefield dramatically changes. This is perhaps not a horrible thing however, and it perhaps doesn't change a lot of aspects of the world overmuch. As for attacking maneuvers, perhaps some of the basics of spell mechanics should be adjusted. Perhaps magic users should have some sort of item (like a wand or staff) that is used as a baseline on damage for combat. Basically a replacement for weapons. Spell Maneuver damage could then be magic staff damage + casting stat modifier + maneuver damage. Perhaps different items would have different critical ranges too. Then, to some extent, martial and magical abilities could be pretty similar. -Drachasor
Keterys 12-08-06, 03:26 PM	On the healing front, there's a few ways I've thought of to do it: - Healing is free but only within X rounds; so you get hurt, and the cleric can cast his healing spells, but he doesn't refresh them until after you can no longer heal people. It also makes healing during combat a bit more relevant. - Healing primarily turns damage into nonlethal… makes healing during combat less relevant for keeping people going, but makes it much much harder to die, and every hour means you heal level hp (double that if you're resting) - Healing is free, but the body can only support so much healing - past that there is strain. So, perhaps someone can be healed for their max hp each day, but once they heal for>= max, they're fatigued, >=2*max exhausted, >=3*max unconscious… or base it on some other value. - Hit Point healing is unlimited. End of the day, it's really just endurance and star wars vitality… the 20th level fighter doesn't really take 120 arrow hits to take down. It's just that he can only dodge so long, or his luck hold out so long. Ability damage, negative levels, etc are where it's at for really slowing people down. Maybe make some things so that you occasionally take real penalties from hits… like critical hits and massive damage hits do some ability damage, or give a hp penalty that doesn't go away until you rest, etc. - Each healer can heal someone for a certain amount of damage / ability damage / etc per day. Some spells might be allowed to bypass that, if they have a costly component (ex: restoration and greater restoration)
Xeviat-DM 12-09-06, 03:27 AM	And that requires a melee attack roll, not even a touch attack, nevermind a ranged touch, or autohitting force. While they require a melee attack roll, they generally also come along with standard melee damage. I'm not going to argue too much, but Desert Wind's 9th level ability is more powerful than Meteor Swarm (dealing 24d6 damage in a 40 ft. radius, +8d6 damage to one creature w/4 touch attacks but no save). 100 damage is equivalent to 28 to 29d6 damage; Meteor Swarm deals 32d6 damage to one creature (with four separate ranged touch attacks) but only 24d6 to the others. That, and the unlimited-ness of them really boost them in my mind. I think Manuevers may be a bit better than Invocations.
Sphyre 12-09-06, 08:51 AM	I have interesting ideas on getting the heals to work. -Put the silly "must present a real and immediate threat" on the heals that heal actual hitpoints. -have temporary hitpoints that last 1 minute (should work long enough for a battle, but short enough that you can't just prebuff before every battle, you have to know the battle is coming) granted by the "cures" These temporary hitpoints, unlike others, actually stack with themselves and others, and cap out at the amount of lethal damage + nonlethal damage you've taken. -Much like the temp hitpoints from the last one, but every 3 damage you take, the first 2 go off the temp hp, and the next 1 comes off your real Hp. The temp hp last an hour or more. No other healing this way, other than natural. This means, the more you heal, the lower your real HP total will go, making this form of healing only good for so long. It may be infinite, but it still won't stop you from dying. Note while I like this one the best, it also is the most bookkeeping intensive. -For the healer class, grant a "lay on hands" type of ability for out of combat limited heals, since there are limitations on in combat heals. -Make the healer class have a good amount of readied maneuvers, but ones designated [heal] "maneuvers" can only be refreshed through a successful [insert class ability] used only on something of a real and immediate threat. -To replenish [heal] "maneuvers," you must spend 1 hour praying. If the idea is to make them not infinite, but not also finite, then making them limited by time seems to be another route. -Add the "psionic Focus" idea from psionics to this, they are "healing focuses" and you can forus multiple upto a maximum amount. You automatically regain 1 "healing focus" every 15 minutes out of combat (basically unthreatened) It really all depends on how much you want to limit healing. If you don't want it to be infinite, then it has to be finite, and if you want it to be finite it has to have some mechanism to do that. So really, the point is that
Keterys 12-09-06, 10:08 AM	but Desert Wind's 9th level ability is more powerful than Meteor Swarm No, it isn't at all. Meteor Swarm is 32d6 as a ranged touch with no save, and 24d6 to an area _far away_. A 40 ft radius around you is one of the least useful area effect types - let's make sure I hit any possible allies and have to be in the thick of things. Great. In fact, the 9th level ability is much closer to on par with Greater Fireburst, a 5th level spell that does 15d10 to an area 15 ft around you. A 7th level version of it would probably look a lot like desert wind's ability. Similarly, the ability to add 100 damage to your melee strike? How about Harm. Add a save or die to your melee attack if you make both a jump attack and a melee attack? Destruction. This isn't exactly rocket science. How about shapechange, gate, disjunction, polymorph any object, forcecage, maze, otto's irresistable dance, etc. Looks like tome of battle is 1st-7th level equivalents, with some minor variations, and that's probably a reasonable place to look for balancing casters. All told, a mage who tosses out 'disentigrate' once a combat every combat is (formidable but) less scary than the one tossing out wails of the banshee and energy drains, and eventually having to fall back on maze and horrid wilting, then just resting for the day. And that's even one who avoids using the actually high powered spells. Similarly, a cleric who can't Miracle a few times a day will throw a wrench into more games than one who can just toss a Destruction every combat.
fatal error 12-09-06, 01:16 PM	The best thing about the Crusader's healing mechanic is that it allows you to actually do something in combat other than being a band-aid while also healing your party. Really, how many groups have the majority of the players not wanting to play a cleric simply because they don't want to just heal everything? If you're already revising the entire casting mechanic you may as well figure out a way to make healing fun, rather than boringly balanced. HEALING: Healing is achieved two ways, the first is channeling your own or another being's life force into another being. Generally this is performed upon oneself or one's enemies, but some have been known to rip the life force of their friends and allies without their permission. Basic Idea: SOUL CHANNEL [FEAT, GENERAL] (better name needed) Your melee attack deals X extra damage to target and heals X damage to one target within Y distance, but you take 1/2X as a penalty on attack rolls. This maneuver may also be performed upon a willing target (including the initiator) in which case it can be performed as a standard action and deals X+1 damage, but not normal weapon damage, and automatically hits. Then whatever class we want to be a 'healer' gets this feat for free (it might have hefty prereqs?). Reserve points are also quite good.
Keterys 12-09-06, 02:43 PM	That is a pretty good point, about being able to do _something_ while healing.