The D&D/d20 Spell Conversion Thread

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

I'd suggest calling it a Meta-Spell, because it's a bolt of magical energy. I'd also suggest removing the prerequisite, but that may be a matter of personal taste (it's a low-level enough spell in D&D that it seems like the sort of thing that could be cast at Magery 0).

Well, "College of Meta-Spells" and "College of Meta-Magic" are used pretty synonymously on the forums; two names for the same college.

I put the prereq in because of the phrase in Magic that says all spells of that college require it....

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Well, "College of Meta-Spells" and "College of Meta-Magic" are used pretty synonymously on the forums; two names for the same college.

I put the prereq in because of the phrase in Magic that says all spells of that college require it....

Yeah, but you wrote it as Mega-Magic, so I got confused. It did occur to me that you might have meant 'Meta,' but I wasn't sure, as I don't have all the books or issues of Pyramid.

[seycyrus]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

...
Burning Hands
...

How do you guys handle a spell like this in regards to damage to an armored target? Say, a target that is wearing leather everywhere? Or a target that has a breastplate and boots, but everything else is cloth?

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

How do you guys handle a spell like this in regards to damage to an armored target? Say, a target that is wearing leather everywhere? Or a target that has a breastplate and boots, but everything else is cloth?

Area attacks use the average of the subject's best and worst DR - usually 0, barring enchantments and personal Advantages, at low tech levels at least.

[VariousRen]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

Area attacks use the average of the subject's best and worst DR - usually 0, barring enchantments and personal Advantages, at low tech levels at least.

I believe it's the average of torso DR and worst DR. Since the face (the eyes in particular) are difficult to armour it's almost always torso/2.

[Dragondog]

The useful thing about magic missile, is that you don't need a skill roll to hit. It always hits. So I'd think that such a spell would need something more than a normal missile spell.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

The useful thing about magic missile, is that you don't need a skill roll to hit. It always hits. So I'd think that such a spell would need something more than a normal missile spell.

Then how are you supposed to pull off a called shot to the gonads with the missile? :)

[GodBeastX]

Pretty sure I read somewhere that fireball was already the "Magic Missile".

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Pretty sure I read somewhere that fireball was already the "Magic Missile".

I kinda had Fireball pegged as the "Orb of Fire" spell, from Complete Arcane. (Of course, we all know that Explosive Fireball is the D&D "Fireball".)

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

True Strike

[...]

Your thoughts?

That's an interesting way to do it. But the actual D&D spell gives a bonus to hit. So you could do a version that gives a flat bonus instead. The hard part is making it good enough to be better than taking an Aim/Evaluate maneuver instead.

One option would be to add 1/2 your degree of success on the casting roll to an attack made on your next turn. A mage would need a skill level of 12 to reliably get the same benefit as taking an Aim/Evaluate maneuver. Considering the variability, I'd set the cost at 2 FP.

A second option would be to add some flat bonus based on the FP spent. This is most in character with Magic. 1 FP per +1 to hit (up to a maximum of Magery) sounds about right to me. The problem is that Aim maneuvers are likely to outperform this version, even if we remove the Magery cap.

My biggest problem with this spell as designed is that a mage can't use it to help land his spells. Here's how I'd fix this:

True Strike
Regular
You glimpse into the immediate future, showing you the best possible vector of attack. Your insight gives you a bonus to an attack roll. Taking other maneuvers before your attack doesn't eliminate this bonus if you are maintaining this spell. Once you make an attack, this spell ends regardless of the result of your attack roll.

College: Knowledge
Cost: 1 FP per +1 to your attack roll, up to your Magery (half to maintain)
Duration: 1 second (up to when you attack)