DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Ebiris]

It's a shame mind-affecting is so trivial to get immunity to, but it's a fun spell anyway.

Endless Swamp
Illusion (Pattern, Shadow, Mind-Affecting)
Level: Sor/Wiz 15
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 10 ft./level radius spread
Duration: 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw: Will negates (see text)
Spell Resistance: Yes

This spell creates a gigantic fetid bog filled with deadly biting insects. Any creature that fails its saving throw feels itself immersed up to the waist in a thick choking swamp and surrounded by thick jagged branches and tangling vines. This leaves them both entangled and sickened, and grants total concealment to any creature more than 5 feet away. Regardless of which direction an affected creature intends to move in, their actual movement is always directly towards the centre of the spell's radius.

Every round on the caster's turn, vicious insects made of shadow-stuff attack all creatures within the spell's radius. Because they are only quasi-real a creature which has saved against the spell's effect or is immune to pattern or mind-affecting effects still suffers from their attacks but only receives 50% damage. A melee touch attack of caster level + intelligence or charisma (whichever ability the caster uses for their spellcasting) + 2 is made against all creatures within the radius, which inflicts 10d6 damage and 1d4 constitution damage.

[Anastasia]

Queen's posted.

Note that she does have ranger and bard casting, but neither are included in her block. Both involve custom spells that's going to take some work to go from notes to fully written spells, and I have enough DM work that I can make that a medium term todo rather than spend a few hours on that. I'll do those once things are quieter.

[Anastasia]

If anyone else has comments about that spell analysis and proposed changes, now's the time.

[Ebiris]

As far as spell analysis goes I have trouble figuring out acceptable damage ranges for epic spells so that's a handy resource to have and if something like flux grasp needs to be nerfed I'll cop to it.

[Corwin]

I have to say that metamagic and class features are finite resources we paid for in order to focus on our desired aspects better. Saying that a spell is better for someone who uses it with more metamagic than Cresiel who doesn't ignores that basic fact, such as Cresiel using those same resources to be better at other things.

Is metamagic always better than any other alternative? Maybe, it's hard to say so automatically. But spells do suffer from your NPCs having high saves, not to mention how worthy opponents (being pretty much any midlevel and higher boss) have various additional defenses such as evasion, mettle and not failing saves on a 1. That always turned me off on using spells with interesting effects and drove me to focus more on damaging spells. Nerfing the damaging spells will be fun in light of that, but I suppose the usual default of 'stab it a lot' always exists, in lieu of magic. Just a shame majoring in magic and carrying the day just on that is hard.

[Corwin]

As far as spell analysis goes I have trouble figuring out acceptable damage ranges for epic spells so that's a handy resource to have and if something like flux grasp needs to be nerfed I'll cop to it.

I'm of two minds on this. It does feel like a very useful aspect. But I also remember looking at Lunatic Storm and Radiant Storm. They are exactly the same, you know? Like, I went for the one I liked more via flavor but they're literally the same spell. Normalize things even more, and it'd go in this direction further.

[Ebiris]

Agreement with Cor's post. Like the two spells I just made up and posted in the past couple of days are really cool and fun, but will never ever be useful against a peer level threat, they're just expensive mook-busters. Flux grasp was and will be useful against peers because it's just a ton of dice worth of damage.

[Corwin]

Mmm. And I built off it to replace that melee aspect with one that targetted undead, kept the damage the same and bumped it up a level. It felt like a reasonable spell, given I worked off an existing model. So seeing it used as one of a very few examples of now-bad spells felt... bad.

[Anastasia]

As far as spell analysis goes I have trouble figuring out acceptable damage ranges for epic spells so that's a handy resource to have and if something like flux grasp needs to be nerfed I'll cop to it.

Total honesty, this exercise helped me as well. I had a good grasp of it, but laying it all out in words helps solidify that grasp.

[Iron Dragoon]

As far as spell analysis goes I have trouble figuring out acceptable damage ranges for epic spells so that's a handy resource to have and if something like flux grasp needs to be nerfed I'll cop to it.

I'm of two minds on this. It does feel like a very useful aspect. But I also remember looking at Lunatic Storm and Radiant Storm. They are exactly the same, you know? Like, I went for the one I liked more via flavor but they're literally the same spell. Normalize things even more, and it'd go in this direction further.

My inclination is that there's some justification for it performing better in that there's a greater risk to the spell. Instead of standing at some hilariously far away range as safe as you can reasonably be, you gotta be in their face.

To a point, it's a matter of right tool -> right job, but it seems reasonable to me that increased risk of melee bashing to the face of the squishy mage would make said squishy mage engineer whatever spell they're using to perform the best it can in return for that danger.

Whether that shakes out to d12 or not, I'm not sure, but it's something I think should be kept in mind.

[Anastasia]

Okay, the issue about save DCs and non damaging spells is one thing, but I also view it as someone tangential to this discussion. It's interesting and worth discussing in its own rights, but I'm going to focus on damage spells since that's what this is about. I don't want to get lost in the weeds around a tangential subject, that can wait until this aspect of the conversation is done.

As far as spell analysis goes I have trouble figuring out acceptable damage ranges for epic spells so that's a handy resource to have and if something like flux grasp needs to be nerfed I'll cop to it.

I'm of two minds on this. It does feel like a very useful aspect. But I also remember looking at Lunatic Storm and Radiant Storm. They are exactly the same, you know? Like, I went for the one I liked more via flavor but they're literally the same spell. Normalize things even more, and it'd go in this direction further.

Lunatic Storm exists purely because Selunites made a variant of Radiant Assault in the first place. I don't normally make spells that hew that closely together, it's just a nod to the fact that this particular case exists in setting.

Mmm. And I built off it to replace that melee aspect with one that targetted undead, kept the damage the same and bumped it up a level. It felt like a reasonable spell, given I worked off an existing model. So seeing it used as one of a very few examples of now-bad spells felt... bad.

Things happen and spells don't work out sometimes. I feel you on that, I really do since I have a lot of spells that go nowhere or get torn apart in development because it turns out they won't work out. I go through that a lot on DM side prep as I polish and prepare content. Sometimes I've taken something reasonable and worked off previous content, and it turns out that particular instance doesn't work out despite that.

It sucks but I've also learned you can't let that feeling of irritation get to you. It's simply part of the process. You have to stiff upper lip it, accept it for what it is and adjust as needed. If that means something gets toned down, then so be it. If it means the trash can gets a new occupant, you do what you need to do. It's not a personal failing or anything but the vagaries of content creation. For all the pretty content I put out on the rules board, there's a lot more that never sees the light of day because it doesn't work for whatever reason.

I don't want to trash the spell, but it does look like it needs some adjusting like most of the noted d12 spells.

[Anastasia]

Jarem gets DvR1.

Okay, first of all now that he's his own deity, he can retrain his deific foes to his own choices. These won't change yet, but more of a heads up once he develops his own rivalries.

Domains: Army, Knowledge, Law, Planning, War
Salient Divine Abilities: Battlesense, Divine Armor Mastery, Divine Knight, Extra Domain(Planning), Know Secrets

Pretty straightforward here mechanically. Nothing you wouldn't expect.

[Nephrite]

Not speaking to any specific spell or damage number of them, but I do think spells that are more narrowly focused (only do damage to good creatures, etc) should have some sort of bonus or boost to them for being that narrow.

[Anastasia]

Emily hits DvR1.

Domains: Glory, Good, Law, Liberation, Magic
Salient Divine Abilities: Alter Size, Automatic Metamagic(Maximize), Divine Radiance, Eldritch Knowledge, See Magic

Emily saw Aunt Alicia use this one a few too many times to ignore it. Otherwise it's all very straightforward.

[Anastasia]

Finally, Bastian has reached DvR1.

Domains: Celerity, Strength, Travel
Salient Divine Abilities: Alter Size, Divine Blast, Divine Monk, Indomitable Strength, Stride

He kept it pretty basic. He's in a weird spot, since he wants all the travel domain goodies, but a high dex is required. Even with the divine bonuses to ability scores, his dex is only 22. He'll have to work on it in the coming levels.