Falling Icicle
Adventurer
The Aug. 2nd playtest packet fixed some of the broken spells (such as meteor swarm and stinking cloud), but there are still quite a few spells that need to be changed. These are the spells that I think most need to be fixed, and why.
Cantrips: Considering that deadly strike was removed, these spells should no longer scale with level. They should, however, add the caster's ability modifier to damage (so that they are equivalent to a light crossbow in damage potential). Casters should get the ability to make two cantrip attacks per round, just as most classes get two weapon attacks. This puts cantrips on an even footing with weapons for classes like clerics, and also makes it so casters don't get a greater benefit from haste than weapon users do.
Rituals: All of the following spells had their ritual option removed this packet: Arcane Lock, Banishment, Darkvision, Gate, Greater Restoration, Move Earth, Pass Without Trace, Planar Ally, Raise Dead, Regenerate, Remove Curse, Resurrection, Scrying, Speak With Dead, Teleportation Circle, True Resurrection, True Seeing and Zone of Truth. With the exception of Regenerate, I want all of these spells to be rituals again.
Animate Dead: While it's an improvement from the previous packet, this spell is still broken. A single caster can potentially have seven pets following him at a time from a single casting of this spell. That's alot of minions and attacks to keep track of in combat, slowing the game to a crawl. Worse, there's nothing in the spell that says you can't cast it again to have even more pets. On the other hand, these are regular, 1st level skeletons or zombies, which are practically useless at higher levels and easily wiped out by a single AoE spell. It's also annoying that you have to keep casting it in order to maintain control over your minions. The spell also shouldn't go out of its way to mention how "evil" it is. What is the point of having this morality clause except to encourage overzealous DMs to ban or restrict players from using it? There are many other spells with much more vile applications than this spell. Besides, it should be up to the individual group to decide the morality of spells.
Call Lightning: The 10 minute duration is way too long. 1 minute seems more appropriate. The damage is also quite high for a 3rd level spell that can be used repeatedly, especially when cast outdoors. Outside the spell deals 6d10 damage. That's 33 damage on average. Fireball, which is also a 3rd level spell, deals a maximum of 36 damage at the same level (an average of 21). And call Lightning can be used repeatedly over its duration.
Circle of Death: This spell should have its area of effect reduced, but also drop the stupid 500gp material component.
Cloudkill: This spell needs to have its damage drastically reduced. Right now it's as powerful as cone of cold, which is the same level, but keeps repeating that damage each and every round.
Cure/Inflict Wounds: These spells no longer have the opposite effect on undead, and can't be used on undead at all. So it's impossible to heal an undead creature now. Take that, evil cleric liches! I'd like to see that opposite effect return (cure spells hurting undead and inflict spells healing them).
Destruction: Why, of all the spells in a cleric's arsenal, does this one require a special, 500gp holy symbol?
Dominate Beast/Person/Monster: These spells should require Concentration. The ability to make a creature your sock-puppet slave is incredibly powerful.
Fireball: The range needs to be extended to at least 100 ft. 50 ft. is just too close.
Flame Blade: The scaling of this spell makes it far more powerful than other melee weapons. On the other hand, it doesn't allow you to make multiple attacks, use feats, etc. that you could normally could with a scimitar. I would make the spell conjure a +1 flaming scimitar by default, and let it be wielded just like any other scimitar. With a 4th level or higher spell slot, treat it as a +2 weapon, or +3 with a 6th level or higher slot (similar to the magic weapon spell).
Fly: This spell should be higher level, at least 4th. The ability to fly is a game-changing ability, and this spell is superior to the 4th level spell Air Walk.
Guidance: Since it can be cast at-will, there's really no reason not to use this spell to benefit nearly every check someone makes out of combat. I'd either change it to 1st level, or put some limit on it, such as not letting an individual benefit from the spell more than once per day.
Knock: The loud noise created by this spell and the DC 20 cap are totally unnecessary. I can understand why people want wizards to be overall inferior to rogues and others with the skill to open locks, but they already are.
Melf's Acid Arrow: This spell does the same total damage as scorching ray, but gains half as much benefit from being cast in a higher level spell slot. Of course, it could very well be that scorching ray is too powerful, but it's still worth mentioning. In any case, this spell is really underwhelming. It doesn't even disrupt spellcasters concentration the way it used to. It's just a weak, single target blast that does half (or less) of its damage a round later.
Moonbeam: Compare this spell to Flaming Sphere, which is also 2nd level. It not only does more damage (3d8 vs 2d6), it's radiant damage (which unlike fire damage, is rarely resisted). It can be moved 50 ft. per round instead of 30 ft., and it's a 40 ft. tall, 5 ft. radius cylinder instead of a 5 ft. diameter sphere.
Mordenkainen's Sword: This spell is way too weak to be 7th level. Evard's Black Tentacles, a 4th level spell, does nearly as much damage, but covers a wide area and grapples foes as well. Also, the 250gp miniature sword focus is a pointless annoyance.
Otto's Irresistible Dance: Contrary to its name, this spell can be resisted (not that I'm against that). The 10 day duration if you speak the target's true name is effectively pointless because the creature will almost certainly make its saving throw after dancing for just a few minutes at most (since it makes a save once per round). Instead of the 10 day duration, I think it would be better if using the creature's true name made it automatically fail its initial saving throw against the spell, and gave it disadvantage on the saves it makes on later turns.
Planar Ally: The suggested payments are absolutely ridiculous, and seem to have been copy-pasted from 3.x by someone who doesn't realize how much money that is in Next. 10,000gp for a 10 day task? That's the suggested price of an artifact!
Polymorph: Aside from Wish's magic item factory, this is by far the most broken spell of them all. It puts a Druid's Wild Shapes to shame. Uunlike Wild Shapes, which have specific stats, this spell lets you go through the monster manual and turn into any beast you want, and you get ALL of its stats and abilities, including attacks, not like those "weak" Wild Shapes which only improve your own physical stats by 1 or 2 and give some minor secondary ability. An 8 Str wizard can turn into a 22 Str ape.
Power Word Kill: This is one of the few spells that still uses the awful hp-threshold mechanic. If the creature has fewer hp, it dies and doesn't even get a saving throw. If it has more hp, it isn't affected at all. Neither extreme is acceptable.
Power Word Stun: Why would anyone ever want to cast this spell, when they could cast Hold Monster instead, a spell that is superior in almost every way and yet is three spell levels lower? Hold Monster paralyzes the target, which is worse than the stun inflicted by PWS. Also, Hold Monster doesn't have a 150 HP limit. Granted, Hold Monster requires concentration, but still.
Ray of Enfeeblement: I think limiting the target to 1 damage is way too much. I'd remove the damage restriction, but I'd make it so the target suffers disadvantage on ALL strength checks, not just attacks. With those changes, the spell could probably even go back to being level 1.
Read Magic: Why is this even a spell? Shouldn't people be able to do this with an Intelligence (Magical Lore) check? At the very least, make it a 1st level ritual so that it isn't a cantrip tax. Plus, it has an incredibly annoying 5gp focus. By listing a cost, it forces players to keep track of that focus rather than just relying on their component pouch. Also, since this spell is required to decipher scrolls, and it isn't on the cleric, paladin or ranger spell lists, that means clerics, paladins and rangers can never use scrolls. Oops!
Scorching Ray: This spell scales much better than most spells do, gaining 2d6 damage per spell level. It is also annoying because you have to make an attack for each ray, and as a 9th level spell, that's 11 rays you have to roll to hit for.
Silence: This spell completely shuts down all spellcasters with no saving throw, effectively making it a 2nd level, double-width anti-magic field (which is an 8th level spell)! Absolutely ridiculous. An older packet allowed those in the area to make a check to try and cast spells through it. That needs to come back, or the spell needs to be MUCH higher level than 2nd!
Spare the Dying: This spell should stabilize the creature instead of healing it 1 hit point.
True Resurrection: The 25,000gp cost of this spell is beyond insane. Raise Dead is 500gp and Resurrection is 1,000. Why should the 9th level version cost 25 times as much as the 7th level version? As with Planar Ally, I suspect somone copy-pasted from 3rd edition without realizing just how much money 25,000gp is in Next.
Water Breathing: This should be a ritual.
Water Walk: This should be a ritual.
Wish: The option to make permanent magic items and other wealth needs to be changed or removed. A wizard can sit in his tower and conjure 25,000 gp of wealth or a rare magic item each and every day, not caring at all about the fatigue drawback of the spell. Creating permanent wealth or magic items should require some kind of sacrifice, like expensive material components or some other great cost. On the other hand, I don't think the other options listed (like giving the party greater restoration) deserve the drawback of the spell. Making the wizard suck for days in the middle of an adventure because he used a get out of jail free card is overly harsh.
[Edit]: Added Call Lightning, Cure/Inflict Wounds, Flame Blade, Moonbeam, Otto's Irresistible Dance and Spare the Dying to the list.
Cantrips: Considering that deadly strike was removed, these spells should no longer scale with level. They should, however, add the caster's ability modifier to damage (so that they are equivalent to a light crossbow in damage potential). Casters should get the ability to make two cantrip attacks per round, just as most classes get two weapon attacks. This puts cantrips on an even footing with weapons for classes like clerics, and also makes it so casters don't get a greater benefit from haste than weapon users do.
Rituals: All of the following spells had their ritual option removed this packet: Arcane Lock, Banishment, Darkvision, Gate, Greater Restoration, Move Earth, Pass Without Trace, Planar Ally, Raise Dead, Regenerate, Remove Curse, Resurrection, Scrying, Speak With Dead, Teleportation Circle, True Resurrection, True Seeing and Zone of Truth. With the exception of Regenerate, I want all of these spells to be rituals again.
Animate Dead: While it's an improvement from the previous packet, this spell is still broken. A single caster can potentially have seven pets following him at a time from a single casting of this spell. That's alot of minions and attacks to keep track of in combat, slowing the game to a crawl. Worse, there's nothing in the spell that says you can't cast it again to have even more pets. On the other hand, these are regular, 1st level skeletons or zombies, which are practically useless at higher levels and easily wiped out by a single AoE spell. It's also annoying that you have to keep casting it in order to maintain control over your minions. The spell also shouldn't go out of its way to mention how "evil" it is. What is the point of having this morality clause except to encourage overzealous DMs to ban or restrict players from using it? There are many other spells with much more vile applications than this spell. Besides, it should be up to the individual group to decide the morality of spells.
Call Lightning: The 10 minute duration is way too long. 1 minute seems more appropriate. The damage is also quite high for a 3rd level spell that can be used repeatedly, especially when cast outdoors. Outside the spell deals 6d10 damage. That's 33 damage on average. Fireball, which is also a 3rd level spell, deals a maximum of 36 damage at the same level (an average of 21). And call Lightning can be used repeatedly over its duration.
Circle of Death: This spell should have its area of effect reduced, but also drop the stupid 500gp material component.
Cloudkill: This spell needs to have its damage drastically reduced. Right now it's as powerful as cone of cold, which is the same level, but keeps repeating that damage each and every round.
Cure/Inflict Wounds: These spells no longer have the opposite effect on undead, and can't be used on undead at all. So it's impossible to heal an undead creature now. Take that, evil cleric liches! I'd like to see that opposite effect return (cure spells hurting undead and inflict spells healing them).
Destruction: Why, of all the spells in a cleric's arsenal, does this one require a special, 500gp holy symbol?
Dominate Beast/Person/Monster: These spells should require Concentration. The ability to make a creature your sock-puppet slave is incredibly powerful.
Fireball: The range needs to be extended to at least 100 ft. 50 ft. is just too close.
Flame Blade: The scaling of this spell makes it far more powerful than other melee weapons. On the other hand, it doesn't allow you to make multiple attacks, use feats, etc. that you could normally could with a scimitar. I would make the spell conjure a +1 flaming scimitar by default, and let it be wielded just like any other scimitar. With a 4th level or higher spell slot, treat it as a +2 weapon, or +3 with a 6th level or higher slot (similar to the magic weapon spell).
Fly: This spell should be higher level, at least 4th. The ability to fly is a game-changing ability, and this spell is superior to the 4th level spell Air Walk.
Guidance: Since it can be cast at-will, there's really no reason not to use this spell to benefit nearly every check someone makes out of combat. I'd either change it to 1st level, or put some limit on it, such as not letting an individual benefit from the spell more than once per day.
Knock: The loud noise created by this spell and the DC 20 cap are totally unnecessary. I can understand why people want wizards to be overall inferior to rogues and others with the skill to open locks, but they already are.
Melf's Acid Arrow: This spell does the same total damage as scorching ray, but gains half as much benefit from being cast in a higher level spell slot. Of course, it could very well be that scorching ray is too powerful, but it's still worth mentioning. In any case, this spell is really underwhelming. It doesn't even disrupt spellcasters concentration the way it used to. It's just a weak, single target blast that does half (or less) of its damage a round later.
Moonbeam: Compare this spell to Flaming Sphere, which is also 2nd level. It not only does more damage (3d8 vs 2d6), it's radiant damage (which unlike fire damage, is rarely resisted). It can be moved 50 ft. per round instead of 30 ft., and it's a 40 ft. tall, 5 ft. radius cylinder instead of a 5 ft. diameter sphere.
Mordenkainen's Sword: This spell is way too weak to be 7th level. Evard's Black Tentacles, a 4th level spell, does nearly as much damage, but covers a wide area and grapples foes as well. Also, the 250gp miniature sword focus is a pointless annoyance.
Otto's Irresistible Dance: Contrary to its name, this spell can be resisted (not that I'm against that). The 10 day duration if you speak the target's true name is effectively pointless because the creature will almost certainly make its saving throw after dancing for just a few minutes at most (since it makes a save once per round). Instead of the 10 day duration, I think it would be better if using the creature's true name made it automatically fail its initial saving throw against the spell, and gave it disadvantage on the saves it makes on later turns.
Planar Ally: The suggested payments are absolutely ridiculous, and seem to have been copy-pasted from 3.x by someone who doesn't realize how much money that is in Next. 10,000gp for a 10 day task? That's the suggested price of an artifact!
Polymorph: Aside from Wish's magic item factory, this is by far the most broken spell of them all. It puts a Druid's Wild Shapes to shame. Uunlike Wild Shapes, which have specific stats, this spell lets you go through the monster manual and turn into any beast you want, and you get ALL of its stats and abilities, including attacks, not like those "weak" Wild Shapes which only improve your own physical stats by 1 or 2 and give some minor secondary ability. An 8 Str wizard can turn into a 22 Str ape.
Power Word Kill: This is one of the few spells that still uses the awful hp-threshold mechanic. If the creature has fewer hp, it dies and doesn't even get a saving throw. If it has more hp, it isn't affected at all. Neither extreme is acceptable.
Power Word Stun: Why would anyone ever want to cast this spell, when they could cast Hold Monster instead, a spell that is superior in almost every way and yet is three spell levels lower? Hold Monster paralyzes the target, which is worse than the stun inflicted by PWS. Also, Hold Monster doesn't have a 150 HP limit. Granted, Hold Monster requires concentration, but still.
Ray of Enfeeblement: I think limiting the target to 1 damage is way too much. I'd remove the damage restriction, but I'd make it so the target suffers disadvantage on ALL strength checks, not just attacks. With those changes, the spell could probably even go back to being level 1.
Read Magic: Why is this even a spell? Shouldn't people be able to do this with an Intelligence (Magical Lore) check? At the very least, make it a 1st level ritual so that it isn't a cantrip tax. Plus, it has an incredibly annoying 5gp focus. By listing a cost, it forces players to keep track of that focus rather than just relying on their component pouch. Also, since this spell is required to decipher scrolls, and it isn't on the cleric, paladin or ranger spell lists, that means clerics, paladins and rangers can never use scrolls. Oops!
Scorching Ray: This spell scales much better than most spells do, gaining 2d6 damage per spell level. It is also annoying because you have to make an attack for each ray, and as a 9th level spell, that's 11 rays you have to roll to hit for.
Silence: This spell completely shuts down all spellcasters with no saving throw, effectively making it a 2nd level, double-width anti-magic field (which is an 8th level spell)! Absolutely ridiculous. An older packet allowed those in the area to make a check to try and cast spells through it. That needs to come back, or the spell needs to be MUCH higher level than 2nd!
Spare the Dying: This spell should stabilize the creature instead of healing it 1 hit point.
True Resurrection: The 25,000gp cost of this spell is beyond insane. Raise Dead is 500gp and Resurrection is 1,000. Why should the 9th level version cost 25 times as much as the 7th level version? As with Planar Ally, I suspect somone copy-pasted from 3rd edition without realizing just how much money 25,000gp is in Next.
Water Breathing: This should be a ritual.
Water Walk: This should be a ritual.
Wish: The option to make permanent magic items and other wealth needs to be changed or removed. A wizard can sit in his tower and conjure 25,000 gp of wealth or a rare magic item each and every day, not caring at all about the fatigue drawback of the spell. Creating permanent wealth or magic items should require some kind of sacrifice, like expensive material components or some other great cost. On the other hand, I don't think the other options listed (like giving the party greater restoration) deserve the drawback of the spell. Making the wizard suck for days in the middle of an adventure because he used a get out of jail free card is overly harsh.
[Edit]: Added Call Lightning, Cure/Inflict Wounds, Flame Blade, Moonbeam, Otto's Irresistible Dance and Spare the Dying to the list.
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