[DF] Some ideas to make damage dealing casters more effective in DF games

[Kuroshima]

My players complain that casters don't scale well, damage-wise, in Dungeon Fantasy. While the main strength of the GURPS caster is versatility, and utility (Buffing/Debuffing/Battlefield control), damage mages are certainly in genre.

New Advantages

Spell Potency

5/level

Each level of spell potency increases the damage of Spike spells by 1. You can not have more levels of Spell Potency that you have Magery.
New Modifiers
Concentration only: This enhancement is available to Power Investiture, Magery, Demonic Attunement, Deathliness, Elemental Attunement, and Bardic Talent. The bonus granted by this level of the advantage can only be used to compensate for penalties due to having multiple spells on. -50%.
New Perks
These are Magical perks, and thus their number is limited. Check Dungeon Fantasy 11 for more details.

Potent Spell†
Increases your magical potency for a single spike spell, by 1. Must specialize by spell.

Faster Missile†
After creating or enlarging a missile spell, you can throw it as a free action. If you do so, you suffer a -3 penalty to both your missile spell skill and your innate attack skill. Must specialize by spell.

Cast on the run†
This is a leveled perk. At level 1, you can move at half your movement speed (round down) while concentrating in a single spell. At level two, you can move your full move. All movement must be before the actual casting. If you move more than one step while casting the spell, though, you must make a Will+Magery roll, at a penalty equal to the distance moved, or lose concentration and waste the spell. Must specialize by spell.
New Spells
Force Spike

Regular

Inflicts 1d pi damage, +1 per level of Magery. The cost of this spell is not reduced by high skill.
Cost: 1.
Casting time: 1.
Prerequisites: Magery 1, Apportation.

Stone Spike

Regular

Inflicts 1d+1 cr damage, +1 per level of Magery. The cost of this spell is not reduced by high skill.
Cost: 1.
Casting time: 1.
Prerequisites: Create earth, Earth to Stone, Shape earth, Seek earth, Magery 1

Flame Spike

Regular

Inflicts 1d burn damage, +1 per level of Magery. The cost of this spell is not reduced by high skill.
Cost: 1.
Casting time: 1.
Prerequisites: Create fire, Shape fire, Ignite fire, Magery 1

Spark Spike

Regular

Inflicts 1d-1 burn damage, +1 per level of Magery. This is lightning damage, that treats metallic armor as DR1, and behaves oddly around metals (See the exact effects under the lightning spell). The cost of this spell is not reduced by high skill.
Cost: 1.
Casting time: 1.
Prerequisites: 6 air spells, Magery 1

Ice Spike

Regular

Inflicts 1d-2 imp damage, +1 per level of Magery. The cost of this spell is not reduced by high skill.
Cost: 1.
Casting time: 1.
Prerequisites: Magery 1, and either Ice Sphere or Water Jet

Sun Spike

Regular

Inflicts 1d-1 burn damage, +1 per level of Magery. The cost of this spell is not reduced by high skill.
Cost: 1.
Casting time: 1.
Prerequisites: Magery 1, and at least 6 Light and Darkness spells, including Sunlight

Designer Notes
The spike spells are regular spells, not missile spells, but they're not resisted. They deal low to moderate damage, and always cost energy. Magical Potency is a Striking ST equivalent for them. As they are not missile spells, they're cast on the same turn as they take effect, require no additional roll to hit, and the target gets no active defense. DR, however, protects normally.

[Nymdok]

I like em!

Nymdok

[OldSam]

Nice spells! I like them, too :)

[starslayer]

To build a damage mage just make sure they have hang spell, moderately high skill in both hang spell and the spells they want to hang, and a willingness to sacrifice there versatility to become much more deadly in combat.

For instance lets assume 'fireball pete' wants to be very good at launching fireballs.

He takes fireball and hang spell at skill 21. All other spells are at the 15,16 range.

After every rest he takes 35 minutes to cast fireball, charge to 9 points, hang spell, rest, repeat.

When he enters combat he can freely bring forth 7 fireballs at 9d/fireball- of course all of his spells are at -7 until those hang spells are exhausted, so he won't be doing a lot of utility casting in the meanwhile, but 9d/turn at range he will be doing a LOT of damage, quickly.

It is also possible to do this with suspend spell tied to a trigger word like 'shazam-1', in which case they still keep there utility, but it will be 1 fireball every other turn as they have to shout out 'shazam-1' 'shazam-2' 'shazam-x' to load the next 9d fireball (or other useful spell), and there is still a limit for how much time the wizard has to prepare.

With that said- I really like your spells because they provide a way for a wizard to not have to use a D&D style 'fire and forget' cast system.

[SCAR]

Have you looked at the Magical Bolt Wizard Power-Up in DF11.p37
It's a Power rather than a Spell, and swaps a few things around (target gets a Dodge, but DR doesn't apply), but it seems to fill the basic requirement.

I don't see anything wrong with your ideas, and they're for DF, but I'm not sure they feel right.

Spell Potency seems like a specialist form of Magery since they both add +1 to the damage of the Spike spells.
Magery with the Concentration Only Modifier costs 5 points, plus Spell Potency is [10] points, which equals a level of Magery but does less.
These would allow you to stake bonuses above any Limit on the number of levels of Magery though!

Spell Potency might just be a little too costly?

The Spike Spells look good, I'm not even going to contemplate how they might balance with other spells that's a big can of worms on these forums!

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

New Advantages

Spell Potency

5/level

Each level of spell potency increases the damage of Spike spells by 1. You can not have more levels of Spell Potency that you have Magery.

As you are basing this on Striking ST +1 [5], may I suggest instead basing it on Striking ST +1 (One College Only, -40%) [3]? +1 [5] feels too expensive.

Everything else looks excellent.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by starslayer

To build a damage mage just make sure they have hang spell, moderately high skill in both hang spell and the spells they want to hang, and a willingness to sacrifice there versatility to become much more deadly in combat.

For instance lets assume 'fireball pete' wants to be very good at launching fireballs.

He takes fireball and hang spell at skill 21. All other spells are at the 15,16 range.

After every rest he takes 35 minutes to cast fireball, charge to 9 points, hang spell, rest, repeat.

When he enters combat he can freely bring forth 7 fireballs at 9d/fireball- of course all of his spells are at -7 until those hang spells are exhausted, so he won't be doing a lot of utility casting in the meanwhile, but 9d/turn at range he will be doing a LOT of damage, quickly.

It is also possible to do this with suspend spell tied to a trigger word like 'shazam-1', in which case they still keep there utility, but it will be 1 fireball every other turn as they have to shout out 'shazam-1' 'shazam-2' 'shazam-x' to load the next 9d fireball (or other useful spell), and there is still a limit for how much time the wizard has to prepare.

With that said- I really like your spells because they provide a way for a wizard to not have to use a D&D style 'fire and forget' cast system.

True, metamagic offers new options, but in DF, only wizards get it, and so Elementalists, that should have access to blasting spells too, are SOL. Also, well, recreating the prepare-fire-forget of D&D includes one of the things I hate the most from that system, the need to have spellcasters with precognitive players

Originally Posted by SCAR

Have you looked at the Magical Bolt Wizard Power-Up in DF11.p37
It's a Power rather than a Spell, and swaps a few things around (target gets a Dodge, but DR doesn't apply), but it seems to fill the basic requirement.

I don't see anything wrong with your ideas, and they're for DF, but I'm not sure they feel right.

Spell Potency seems like a specialist form of Magery since they both add +1 to the damage of the Spike spells.
Magery with the Concentration Only Modifier costs 5 points, plus Spell Potency is [10] points, which equals a level of Magery but does less.
These would allow you to stake bonuses above any Limit on the number of levels of Magery though!

Spell Potency might just be a little too costly?

The Spike Spells look good, I'm not even going to contemplate how they might balance with other spells that's a big can of worms on these forums!

I like Magical bolt, but I wanted something that worked from the spell angle, and that wasn't exclusive to the wizard. As for being too costly, well, limitations usually give you back less points than what you usually think they should, since they're priced conservatively, as players will try to minimize the bad effects.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

As you are basing this on Striking ST +1 [5], may I suggest instead basing it on Striking ST +1 (One College Only, -40%) [3]? +1 [5] feels too expensive.

Everything else looks excellent.

Well, technically, since I have only created a single spike spell per college, adding one college only would be equivalent to adding one spell only. Now, that's available as a magic perk. If I had 3-4 spike spells per college, then yeah, since college would be available for Magical Potency.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I like Magical bolt, but I wanted something that worked from the spell angle, and that wasn't exclusive to the wizard. As for being too costly, well, limitations usually give you back less points than what you usually think they should, since they're priced conservatively, as players will try to minimize the bad effects.

Fair enough, Powers and Spells do give different styles; it would probably be reasonable to allow Elementalists to buy 'Elemental Bolts' as a Power-Up.

As can be witnessed by the many discussions on these forums about the costs of DX!/IQ! etc, breaking down an ability (particularly a levelled ability) into its component parts and buying them separately is never a simple discussion, and I'm not sure that it's always a good idea to look at abilities and point costs in that way, so pricing Spell Potency based on its own utility is probably better.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Well, technically, since I have only created a single spike spell per college, adding one college only would be equivalent to adding one spell only. Now, that's available as a magic perk. If I had 3-4 spike spells per college, then yeah, since college would be available for Magical Potency.

Since the Spike Spells are relatively simple, basic Damage spells, are you likely to create multiple Spike spells for any given college.
Fire=Flame; Earth=Stone; etc ?

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by SCAR

Fair enough, Powers and Spells do give different styles; it would probably be reasonable to allow Elementalists to buy 'Elemental Bolts' as a Power-Up.

As can be witnessed by the many discussions on these forums about the costs of DX!/IQ! etc, breaking down an ability (particularly a levelled ability) into its component parts and buying them separately is never a simple discussion, and I'm not sure that it's always a good idea to look at abilities and point costs in that way, so pricing Spell Potency based on its own utility is probably better.



Since the Spike Spells are relatively simple, basic Damage spells, are you likely to create multiple Spike spells for any given college.
Fire=Flame; Earth=Stone; etc ?

Wel, I plan, if it works alright at the table, to create greater versions of these spells, that. Deal more damage but are less eficient

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

As you are basing this on Striking ST +1 [5], may I suggest instead basing it on Striking ST +1 (One College Only, -40%) [3]? +1 [5] feels too expensive.

Everything else looks excellent.

But Striking ST doesn't equate directly to one damage per level. For Thrust damage, it goes every two levels. I think it's a fair trade off.