Fixing the Evocation School

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TG Cid
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Fixing the Evocation School

Post by TG Cid »

OK, so evocation as a school kind of sucks. A guide to Wizards: Playing a GOD recommends it as the first school to consider dropping as a specialist wizard. It's important to bring that up because I'm only really talking about the wizard's options here, since the cleric has access to miracle and the holy word/blasphemy array of spells. But as far as the wizard and sorcerer go, Evocation tends to leave much to be desired. Sure, it's got some useful spells (forcecage, scorching ray, the various wall spells, and implosion come to mind, just to name a few), but even these are definitely not irreplaceable.

After that, it epically fails in most situations where it could plausibly be used. It's damage-dealing spells are basically pretty terrible considering the other spells a wizard has at his disposal; the fact that the terribly underwhelming fireball, lightning bolt, and meteor swarm are among the most well-known evocation spells is demonstrative of its weakness. And let's not even get into the particular abysmal polar ray, which is so underperforming as an 8th level spell that I am forced to mention it here despite every fiber of my being wanting to deny its very existence.

To be fair, these spells do serve a useful purpose: they allow the wizard to play down to the level of other characters that he could normally wreck without a thought with strong spells like grease and glitterdust or, at higher levels, finger of death and wail of the banshee. This allows the wizard to be so flexible in how its played that it doesn't really justify any nerfing as a class from my point of view.

So I know that not everyone will need to use what's posted here, and that's fine. If fireball works for you as written, go ahead and play your evoker however it pleases you.

But for the people who don't want to play the wizard who shoots fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his rear, evocation should be redone. It needs to be brought up to the level where its damage is actually suitably powerful and its spells not grossly underpowered and, as a result, underused.

That's what this thread is for. Whether it's posting your thoughts about Evocation or anything else that I've said, or maybe even posting a revised evocation spell that is more up to the wizard's standard, feel free to add it here.[/b]
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Post by TG Cid »

First up is the line of spells formerly known as Bigby's spells. These basically all stack upon one another, which makes for a majorly kickass 9th level spell. It does need to compete with wish and wail of the banshee, after all.

Interposing Hand
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sorc/Wiz 1
Components: V, S. F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You create a translucent hand made of pure force that appears in the same space as the creature it is designated to protect. The hand automatically expands to take up the same amount of space as the target creature, moves with the creature to stay in its space, and grants all the benefits of cover to the creature whose space it occupies. The hand cannot be destroyed by damage and is immune to most magical effects, but can de dispelled or instantly destroyed by a disintegrate effect.

Each turn, you may command the hand to move to protect another individual (within range) of your choice as a swift action. If the creature the hand is protecting leaves the effective range, the hand immediately and automatically returns to protecting you.

Focus: A soft glove.

Forceful Hand
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sorc/Wiz 3
Components: V, S. F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell functions as interposing hand, except it gains the ability to also batter enemies. As an swift action, you may direct this hand to move to a single target within Close range and make a single melee attack. Each turn thereafter, the hand continues to automatically follow the opponent (hovering in their space) and attacking them automatically at the beginning of your turn until it has been commanded otherwise or the target is dead. If the latter case occurs, the hand automatically returns either to the you or to the person it was last protecting depending on your whim.

The protective effects of the spell so long as the hand continues to attack in this manner. The hand has a Strength score of 24, and rolls for a melee attack with a total attack bonus equal the your caster level + your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier (for a wizard, cleric, or sorcerer, respectively) + its Strength modifier (in this case, +6). On a successful attack, the creature struck takes 3d6+9 points of damage. The hand threatens a critical hit on a natural 20 and deals double damage on a confirmed critical. Because the hand is made of force, it can attack incorporeal and ethereal creatures normally without a miss chance. So long as it has located the target before any such conditions applied, it also attacks regardless of concealment or invisibility.

In addition, the hand may also attack while protecting a creature. As an immediate action, you make take an immediate action to command the hand to attack anyone within the reach or space of the creature that it is protecting. Attacking in this way does not inhibit the hand’s ability to protect its target.

Focus: A sturdy glove made of leather or heavy cloth.

Grasping Hand
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sorc/Wiz 5
Components: V, S. F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell functions as forceful hand, except the hand now has a Strength score of 30 and deals 4d6+15 points of damage on a successful attack. In addition, the hand may now initiate a grapple as a free action whenever it successfully hits with its attack. When grappling, the hand automatically expands to a size appropriate for the creature it is grappling, negating all size bonuses to grapple checks. The hand may even grapple immaterial or incorporeal creatures, who use their Charisma modifier instead of their Strength modifier to determine their grapple bonus.

Once it has established the grapple, the hand squeezes on its target, treating it as if pinned and automatically dealing its normal melee attack damage for every round it maintains the hold. Once it has grappled an opponent, the hand can also move at a rate of 30 feet per round while still maintaining its grip. Commanding the hand to move is a swift action.

Focus: A leather glove.

Clenched Fist
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sorc/Wiz 7, Strength 7
Components: V, S. F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None; see text
Spell Resistance: No

This spell functions as grasping hand, except the hand now has a Strength score of 36 and deals 5d6+19 points of damage. This hand also has a devastating new ability: as a swift action, you can command it to clench into a fist and barrel into a single target within range making an attack roll as if it makes a charge attack (using its normal attack bonus +2) and dealing an additional 1d6 damage per caster level. The hand cannot initiate a grapple when attacking in this manner, but an opponent struck by this attack is automatically knocked a back a number of squares equal to the hand’s Strength modifier and must make a Fortitude save or be stunned for 1 round.

If the target of the hand’s attack is knocked into another creature, that creature must make a Strength check equal to the hand’s attack roll or be knocked prone. If the second creature succeeds on the Strength check or the target of the hand’s attack hits a solid surface, it takes 1d6 points of damage for each 5 feet it had left to fly. For each consecutive creature that attempts to slow the momentum of the other(s), reduce the DC of the Strength check by 5. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Arcane Focus: A leather glove.

Crushing Hand
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sorc/Wiz 9, Strength 9
Components: V, S. F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None; see text
Spell Resistance: No

This spell functions as clenched fist, except the hand now has a Strength score of 42 and deals 6d6+24 points of damage on a successful attack. Once this hand has established a grapple, the grappled creature must make a Fortitude save or be pulverized by the hand’s vice-like grip, killing it instantly. This is not a death effect and affects even creatures immune to critical hits. Even if the creature succeeds on its saving throw, it still takes damage from the hand normally.

Arcane Material Component: An egg, which you crush in your hands when casting the spell.

Arcane Focus: A snakeskin glove.
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Post by Username17 »

First of all: material components are stupid and no one uses them. Writing up the inane jokes and shallow literary references of the material component lines is a waste of everyone's time. If the components aren't important, they shouldn't even exist. No one wants to have discussions about where you are getting eggshells to crush in order to cast spells, so don't do it.

Secondly, there is relatively little in here to show that you understand why Fireball and Lightning Bolt are iconic, or why they are shitty. They are iconic because in previous editions they were really fucking awesome. That is: things had a lot less hit points and the encounter guidelines involved a lot more enemies. Consider the AD&D Darkmantle:
Image
Hit dice were d8s, which just goes to show that even the largest darkmantles came in with a whopping 18 hit points. And they showed up in groups of about 11. A 6 die fireball was epic because it would kill like 8 enemies.

Moving into 2nd and then 3rd edition, monsters got more hit points. The Darkmantle has d10s for hit dice instead of d8s, and they got a Con bonus. But they also show up in smaller numbers at lower level. In 3rd edition you are supposed to fight a "pair" of them at 2nd level instead of fighting 4d6 of them at 6th. And fireball didn't keep up with that. That doesn't mean that the idea of doing damage in an area isn't worth considering, it means that the amount of damage you have to do has to be bigger or cheaper to keep up with the 3rd edition encounter paradigm. If Fireball was a 1st level spell, then dumping it on some Darkmantles at 2nd level would actually make sense - if they failed their save they'd take 7 points of damage and that might drop one. With some poor rolls on their part you could solve the encounter with one spell - just like you might do with a Color Spray or other decent low level spell.

Your spells seem to have the same problem as the current spells. Interposing Hand is just medium cover apparently - a +4 bonus to AC for 1 round/level. Sure, there are some fringe benefits (like a bonus to reflex saves), but the reality is that such a spell is not worth casting in a low level combat because those things are already so deadly. You need a Sleep spell or something. Something that will actually put an enemy down before the Orc Warrior gets a lucky hit in with a sword and ends your shit with eight points of damage.

People went to a non-linear hit point standard in the later editions, and shit like Fireball needs to be bigger or lower level. For Evocation to survive as a discipline, it needs both. Fireball as-is can be first level and the higher level slots can be filled up with spells that actually do as much damage as a Rogue going blender-face for an entire round.

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Post by TG Cid »

I feel that high-level games usually operate under the premise that the best defense is a good offense, so even this may not solve everything, but a replacement to interposing hand could be "you may cast this spell as an immediate action to grant someone total cover from a single attack or effect" This allows it to negate those lucky rolls and also work as a form of action denial since you can wait until the attack is declared to effectively render it useless. Assuming that you're not in a 2-on-1 or worse encounter, you could use that to end the orc's turn.

Alternatively the current effect could remain and then granting immediate action cover could be an add-on in order to prevent the spell from being a one-and-done effect.

As for material components, I agree that most people don't give a shit about them. But including them acts as a proviso for the strange people who do care, so it's basically optional fluff text in the same fashion as writing the background information for a class is largely irrelevant to its mechanics.
Last edited by TG Cid on Sun Oct 17, 2010 3:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Maxus »

I was thinking about this a while back. The thread is still around here somewhere.

For evocation to do something, the damage must be increased. At the same time, rolling a pile of dice and figuring them up slows the game down. Ideally, evocation would do more damage and be figured up in a halfway reliable that doesn't require rolling 10d6.

My answer was to give evocation spells a base damage which multiplies by caster level. Maybe with a variation roll in there. So Fireball, being level a level 3 spell, has a base damage of 5. So Fireball damage could be (5 + 1d4) * Caster level
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

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Post by Leress »

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Post by Maxus »

Leress wrote:Do you mean this thread

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=19220
No, there was one more recent...I'll look for it sometime.


Edit: Evocation should probably also affect the world. Fireball sets shit on fire. Acid melts holes in things. Cold makes ice, freezing things down and adding some terrain effects.
Last edited by Maxus on Sun Oct 17, 2010 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by Orca »

Maxus wrote:Edit: Evocation should probably also affect the world. Fireball sets shit on fire. Acid melts holes in things. Cold makes ice, freezing things down and adding some terrain effects.
This. The Bigby's Hand spells always seemed a bit silly to me.
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Post by Maxus »

Orca wrote:
Maxus wrote:Edit: Evocation should probably also affect the world. Fireball sets shit on fire. Acid melts holes in things. Cold makes ice, freezing things down and adding some terrain effects.
This. The Bigby's Hand spells always seemed a bit silly to me.
They have to fit in somewhere, and they're better than most evocation spells....

But really. Fireball's spell description should explicitly say it sets people and things on fire. If you had some area-of-effect acid spell, it should say it can eat through six inches of solid material per caster level so you can use it to make a door or put a hole in the floor of some place. Sonic spells should blast people back. [Cold] should put a grease-style effect on the floor or make an ice bridge over water.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by For Valor »

Wasn't there a link where all the PHB evocations were reorganized so that there were no 9th-level spells, and fireball and polar ray and shit were put at their proper spell levels?
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

For Valor wrote:Wasn't there a link where all the PHB evocations were reorganized so that there were no 9th-level spells, and fireball and polar ray and shit were put at their proper spell levels?
1W4/Caedrus might have.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

For Valor wrote:Wasn't there a link where all the PHB evocations were reorganized so that there were no 9th-level spells, and fireball and polar ray and shit were put at their proper spell levels?
Are you thinking about the list in this thread?

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=162377
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Post by For Valor »

THAT ONE!!
Mask wrote:And for the love of all that is good and unholy, just get a fucking hippogrif mount and pretend its a flying worg.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Stuff that we were looking for.
Cookie for the new guy. Props on remembering our shit for us :thumb:

In other news, FantasyCraft actually wrote shit into the game that made evocations do the things you want Maxus. And while I agree in principle that they would help a lot, they did it badly (unsurprisingly) because it turned into a massive save check bloat. But it should be said that being an evoker in that game isn't a waste of time because of the rider effects, and similar things could be built from it that made the school decent without just being MOAR DAMMAGES!
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

TarkisFlux wrote:
Darth Rabbitt wrote:Stuff that we were looking for.
Cookie for the new guy. Props on remembering our shit for us :thumb:
Fuck yeah. :cool:
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