Nytemare's PHB Rewrites: Spell Failure as a balancing mechanic.

[Nytemare3701]

This may sound REALLY harsh, spell failure chance inherent in all spells would probably make a good fix for spellcasting in general.

"Whenever a spell is cast, there is a chance something can go wrong. You might make a mistake with the incantation, or the spell components could be tainted. In these cases, a spell could fail completely."

The chance of a spell failing is equal to 10% per 2 spell levels. Example: a fireball would have a 15% spell failure chance, while a Maximized fireball would have a 30% chance.
NOTE: spell failure is determined before metamagic is reduced by feats, class features, etc.

"But why would I get worse at casting spells the stronger I get?"

You aren't. The SPELLS are getting harder to cast. You are just as good at casting magic missile as you always were, but now you have a larger reserve of energy and spells to pull from, hence the new spell levels.


This is sloppy but it would do the job and be flavorful at the same time. It also fixes things like DMM:Persist cheese, since it has a good chance of eating all your turn attempts.

[oslecamo]

I've seen this idea around in other places, and it's another way of axing spellcasters.

One sugestion tough, allow spellcasters to spend extra time/drawing pentagrams  for lowering the failure chance (but not completely eliminate it of course). Like doubling the casting time reduces the failure chance by 5%, for a minimum of 5%.

So we have a good reason for wizard towers (they have pentagrams drawn in stone on the top for allowing the wizard to snipe stuff from afar), and we also have reasons for lenghty rituals. A normal gate has 45% failure chance, but if you double the casting time:

2 turns 40%
4 turns 35%
8 turns 30%
16 turns 25%
32 turns 20%
64 turns 15%
128 turns 10%
256 turns 5%

Wich would make almost half hour of casting.

So the DMM cleric has a better chance of not wasting his turn atempts, but when he'll literally take hours geting ready.

[Nytemare3701]

Perfect. With that in place, I might just make it a flat 10% per spell level. That way you don't try to hardcast a 9th level spell unless you are DESPERATE.

I've heard a hundred times that a caster can end a fight with 1 or 2 spells. Every FR book I've read has had the caster trying desperately to get a spell off. This finally fits the two together.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

My advice is to have lower level spells lose spell failure as you level up.  So an archmage is never going to fail his magic missiles.

[Nytemare3701]

[oslecamo]

My advice is to have lower level spells lose spell failure as you level up.  So an archmage is never going to fail his magic missiles.

Even the Tarrasque is missing physical attacks on natural 1s. Why should the archmage get a free pass?

[Nytemare3701]

The tarrasque won't be. That was always a bullshit rule. *adds it to the list of things to omit from the PHB rewrite*

[Bauglir]

Interesting. So you're basically making an unmodified attack roll against an AC that gets higher as you gain levels?

Incidentally, on this topic, I've been considering switching spell failure chance for armor to a CL penalty (-1 per 5% failure chance), with the spell fizzling if you hit CL 0, or maybe CL < Spell Level. Not sure, but I suddenly want to combine these somehow. But while I prefer a lessened effect to a complete failure (because wasted turns suck), a chance for outright failure is much better for balancing with melee, since they always have a chance of failure. I guess a good way to go here would be to look at Optimization By The Numbers and compare that to what you think is a decent attack bonus, and then modify that for spell level?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

My advice is to have lower level spells lose spell failure as you level up.  So an archmage is never going to fail his magic missiles.

Even the Tarrasque is missing physical attacks on natural 1s. Why should the archmage get a free pass?

I prefer to think of it as "even a first level fighter succeeds at dodging 5% of the time"

[veekie]

This may sound REALLY harsh, spell failure chance inherent in all spells would probably make a good fix for spellcasting in general.

"Whenever a spell is cast, there is a chance something can go wrong. You might make a mistake with the incantation, or the spell components could be tainted. In these cases, a spell could fail completely."

The chance of a spell failing is equal to 10% per 2 spell levels. Example: a fireball would have a 15% spell failure chance, while a Maximized fireball would have a 30% chance.
NOTE: spell failure is determined before metamagic is reduced by feats, class features, etc.

"But why would I get worse at casting spells the stronger I get?"

You aren't. The SPELLS are getting harder to cast. You are just as good at casting magic missile as you always were, but now you have a larger reserve of energy and spells to pull from, hence the new spell levels.


This is sloppy but it would do the job and be flavorful at the same time. It also fixes things like DMM:Persist cheese, since it has a good chance of eating all your turn attempts.

Way to do it better
Spell gives 15% failure per spell level. Spellcasters reduce spell failure by 5% per level?

Not that the combat casted spells are the big problem with spell abuses. It's the planar binds and polymorphs that are used long before a fight anyway.

[Nytemare3701]

Not that the combat casted spells are the big problem with spell abuses. It's the planar binds and polymorphs that are used long before a fight anyway.

Hence the wasted spell slots from failure, as opposed to lower CL.

[bearsarebrown]

I understand why you want to use SF to balance but you should just get rid of it completely. Drop it from existence. Actions not working because 'fuck you' is not fun. Attacks are different because you get multiple per round.

[Nytemare3701]

This is the first edition where SF stopped being common, and it was removed entirely from 4E. What does that tell you?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

This is the first edition where SF stopped being common, and it was removed entirely from 4E. What does that tell you?

Absolutely nothing.

This is also the first edition where AC counts up.

And in no previous edition did your spellcaster have a chance of just randomly failing

[Nytemare3701]

Fair enough. I was implying that the game is on a path of failure, and SF is one of the balancing mechanics that the deemed "unfun".

[Littha]

This is the first edition where SF stopped being common, and it was removed entirely from 4E. What does that tell you?

That it has no relation to balance at all?


Seriously 4E while a steaming pile of crap is magnitudes more balanced than 3.5

[Nytemare3701]

Also a good point. I retract my foolish statement.

[veekie]

Not that the combat casted spells are the big problem with spell abuses. It's the planar binds and polymorphs that are used long before a fight anyway.

Hence the wasted spell slots from failure, as opposed to lower CL.

It still doesn't matter. Planar Binding and stuff like it you tend to take your own sweet time casting and setting up for a long term benefit. You just buggered combat magic without making them weaker in the broken sense, while they do become weaker in the playable everyday sense.

[RobbyPants]

This seems like Lisa Simpson Fishstick Averaging to me, and I've never really liked that.  The idea is that, if the fish sticks are burnt on the outside and raw on the inside, that it somehow "averages out".

Yes, you could make a caster behave like a non-caster on average, but it basically still has its same base power, but it just doesn't work as often.  This isn't as much fun at the table, unless maybe you're playing with a bunch of gambling addicts.  Personally, I'd just rather see magic do less and/or have casters do more.

Edit:
...and have non-casters do more.
 

[oslecamo]

Not that the combat casted spells are the big problem with spell abuses. It's the planar binds and polymorphs that are used long before a fight anyway.

Hence the wasted spell slots from failure, as opposed to lower CL.

It still doesn't matter. Planar Binding and stuff like it you tend to take your own sweet time casting and setting up for a long term benefit. You just buggered combat magic without making them weaker in the broken sense, while they do become weaker in the playable everyday sense.

To be honest, if the DM is leting the players afford weeks/months of free time (how much it would take to get "safe" bindings summons with this system), then the campaign is going to break anyway.

Tough enemy ahead? I'll shoot an arrow, then run and hide untill it de-aggros, repeat untill it drops!
Dungeon crawling? I'll just take my time digging around trough the walls to evade all the nasty traps!
Short on money? Well, I'll just use profession for the next years!

Time itself is a resource. Planar binding would stop being abusive if the time it takes to properly set up is long enough for it to be only used as a last-resort effort. The rest of the campaign world doesn't stop just because the players decided to shut themselves in some hideout preparing some master plan.

Plus, you never hear in fiction "And the mage finished the binding in 10 minutes". You hear "And the mage spent months preparing the right circumstances, collecting the right ingredients, in order to do the biding". But well, during those months other mages will be considerably higher level, and the orc army will have raided the country, and the BBEG will have pulled his master plan. And then you still have 5% chance of all your efforts having been for naught.