Talk:True Dweomers

Strata versus Circles

Circle vs Strata Comparison

Spell Strata	Min Level	Strata Dice	Equivalent Circle	Circle Dice	Min. Burn, Strata*	Min. Burn, Circle**	Max. Burn, Strata^	Max. Burn, Circle^^
1	19th	1d6+6/CL	Circle 10	1d6+4/CL	0	1 slots	0	9 slots
2	21st	1d6+8/CL	Circle 11	1d6+5/CL	0	2 slots	3	10 slots
3	23rd	1d6+9/CL	Circle 12	1d6+6/CL	0	3 slots	6	11 slots
4	25th	1d6+10/CL	Circle 13	1d6+7/CL	0	4 slots	9	12 slots
5	27th	1d6+11/CL	Circle 14	1d6+8/CL	0	5 slots	12	13 slots
6	29th	1d6+13/CL	Circle 15	1d6+9/CL	3	6 slots	15	14 slots
7	31st	1d6+15/CL	Circle 16	1d6+10/CL	6	7 slots	18	15 slots
8	33rd	1d6+16/CL	Circle 17	1d6+11/CL	9	8 slots	21	16 slots
9	35+	1d6+17/CL	Circle 18	1d6+12/CL	12	9 slots	24	17 slots

• This column is the absolute minimum number of spell slots that must be burned to get this Strata. Assumes the base True Dweomer is of the highest level possible, and chosen for the highest Strata available. At this time, no TD is expected to ever give higher than a Strata 5 damage, typically for a 13th or 14th level TD.

• • This column is the absolute minimum number of spell slots that must be burned to get this Circle (leaves aside the very few Spells that have a native Circle 10 (Power Word Kill)). Assumes the base Spell is of the ninth level, and has a high Circle (9).

^ This column is the absolute maximum number of spell slots that must be burned to get this Strata. Assumes the base True Dweomer only grants Strata 1. At this time, no TD is expected to grant less than Strata 1, although I guess it's possible to use Circles with a TD with extremely strong non-damage effects. Note that all TD's can accept any level of Burn at any level, so Strata 9 is always accessible, no matter the base TD used.

^^ This column is the absolute maximum number of spell slots that can be burned to get this Circle. Assumes the base Spell only grants Circle 1. This is the case for the person who only casts Magic Missile for their entire career...which is crazy, but possible.

Note the difference between Strata Dice and Circle Dice. If you wish to compare 'damage to damage per slot Burned', you can go 'apples to apples' with the Dice columns. For example, the highest Strata Damage possible with 0 Burn is Strata 5 at 27th level, for 1d6+11. For a Spell to do the same damage dice, the caster must be 33rd level and Burn a minimum of 8 slots on top of a level 9 spell.

If we want to change this model, I'd greatly prefer to keep the number of Stratas the same, and also preserve the 'jumps' at Strats 2, 6, and 7. Those jumps are there to make the additional Truemagic Feats more valuable. We could certainly raise or lower the difference between the Strats and Circles if we want, though.

In addition to damage and burn differences, TD's are also longer range (avg range is medium versus close), and will tend to have much larger AOE's. Now, we could increase number of targets with multi-target spells, but the Absolute feat already doubles that number, and I want to encourage people to use Spell Research at the very top end, so I wouldn't want to get too nuts there. :)

The casting difficulty, we can certainly look at. I want to re-look the DC's for all the categories once we have a few more sample characters built, at a minimum.

Thoughts?

This table is very helpful. Thank you.  

You're welcome! It was a useful exercise for me, too, to make sure the two scales overlapped properly. I was pleased that they did.

So, looking at it, maybe it's not the damage I'm concerned about. I just want TDs to really feel worth spending multiple feats on, and to feel good when casting.  Throwing down one of your TDs should feel like an EVENT, IMO.  

Errgh....  Ok, I totally get this urge for storytelling and glorious drama. But....  We have to have a game that makes sense. If we get too crazy with TD's, it rapidly slides into 'lol, melee' and Amber diceless roleplaying.  Is that huge fun? You bet it is! I love to chew the scenery with crazy over-the-top stuff, but that kinda has to be a DM-centric thing, or the game dissolves. (see the early episodes of critical role for an example of this problem) I wish there was a way to do this rather than 'the DM has to do it', but there's really no way I can think of. Boring, crunch-oriented is the way to build a rational game, I fear.  

So, if we agree on that, a couple of things become 'wrong' about the current system. First, you can cast WAY too many TDs per day, even if you only take a single feat (our wizard can cast 52 of them per day at 35th level). Second, the TDs are really just bigger spells. They're perfectly in scale, and make sense within the damage model, but they don't blow it out, or go nuts (and maybe they should).

See note above. I kinda think we have to keep them 'smallish' or the game falls apart. We could certainly put some words in about the GM playing up the drama and crash and blast.

Third, there are a number of mechanics in them that just don't feel good.  One is 'it's a full round action to cast unless I make an impossible skill check'.  I acknowledge we can tweak the DC's, but should this really be a thing?  Maybe we could come at this from the other direction -- they're standard actions to cast, but you CAN cast them as full-round actions to make them better (and as rituals to make them EVEN BETTER!).  We then impose a skill check to successfully cast it SLOWER (which you can get rid of with feats).

Interesting.... hrrm. See thoughts below.

I'm also not convinced they should have mundane things like material components (or even verbal and somatic components). 

I want to keep that structure for verisimilitude. (It works in my head.) If we stick to the 1 gp cost for most of them, the mechanic is not onerous, i think.

I realize this would be a bit of a heavy lift to change, even at this early stage, but maybe you should only be able to cast TDs one time per day per feat you take.  You can KNOW multiple TDs, but casting them is HARD.  

Wow, ouch! :)

Maybe we make exceptions and say you can also spend a remnant to cast more (or maybe spend an action point to cast more, if we're feeling generous).  They still cost spell slots, and can still be mana burned, but you can't cast 52 of them per day. You get ONE, or two, or a max of 5, before you have to start sacrificing really precious things to do it more.  But as a consequence of all this, they could be truly encounter-breakingly epic. Like 'turn an entire enemy regiment into a horde of undead slaves loyal only to you' epic. 

lol, while that's awesome, i fear it sadly breaks the game. that sort of thing in the hands of a min-maxer is gonna explode on you.

The flip-side of this is, since they cost feats to get, we need to decide how 'mandatory' they should be for a caster to take.  If a caster's damage will completely sputter out at the top levels without TDs then maybe they need to be baked into the classes (at least a little), rather than gated behind a feat.  Even under the 'just spells but better' model (the current model), they're pretty mandatory, I suspect.  If the wizard wants any hope of keeping up with the rogue's damage, I suspect they're going to NEED TDs to do it.  I suppose making them even stronger and more powerful might make them even more mandatory, so there's that.

well, a look at the table above shows that a maximum Strata TD does 1d6+17 for Burning 12 slots, versus 1d6+12 for burning 17 slots. A Mythic caster can throw that combo maybe 20 (maxed spell) or 25 (maxed TD) times a day? Yes, impressive, especially since the TD does about 32 percent more damage, on average. But at that level, 32 percent isn't going to be THAT huge, I think, and both of those numbers are close enough to a full days work for a busy caster at the top end that I'd think they'd be content with that much activity.   

Anyway, I'm still pondering, and I think it bears a conversation when you get some time.  I'd like to get these right.  If we want them to be 'just spells but better', we should make sure they're worth 1 to 5 feats to get, and also that, either they are not mandatory to keep up, damage-wise, or we bake them into the caster classes as class features, and make the remaining feats improve on the class feature.

I'm not excited about baking this system into the classes, I'd rather it be completely standalone and optional. honestly, it's WORK to make TD's really dance, and plenty of folks will be happy to not bother.  plus, GM's who are less comfortable with the high-epic insanity can run a toned-down game by leaving them out.

Now, a mechanism for making TD's less common could be that the result of failing to fast cast is not that the TD is weaker, it's that the caster takes a point of Wis destruction or something. So, you can always fast cast for maximum bang, but if you fail the roll, you get mana-drunk and want to KEEP GOING!  Muahhahahah!!

ahem.  just a thought. 

System and Structure

True Dweomer Damage Model

Spell Strata	Burn Cost	Min Level	Base Dice	max dice	range	avg	perfected
1	+3	19th	1d6+6/CL	35d6+210	245-420	332.5	840
2	+3	21st	1d6+8/CL	35d6+280	315-490	402.5	940
3	+3	23rd	1d6+9/CL	35d6+315	350-525	437.5	1050
4	+3	25th	1d6+10/CL	35d6+350	385-560	472.5	1120
5	+3	27th	1d6+11/CL	35d6+385	420-595	507.5	1190
6	+3	29th	1d6+13/CL	35d6+455	490-665	577.5	1330
7	+3	31st	1d6+15/CL	35d6+525	560-735	647.5	1470
8	+3	33rd	1d6+16/CL	35d6+560	595-770	682.5	1540
9	+3	35+	1d6+17/CL	35d6+595	630-805	717.5	1610

True Dweomers are affected by metamagic feats, but note that many of the more potent feats have such a large level adjustment, they cannot be fit onto the higher level true dweomers without use of a magic wand or spell research.

• range

true Dweomers can use any range, but tend to mainly be medium range with some exceptions. ritual makes much larger

• area of effect

true dweomers with AOE's tend to be LARGE. note that metamagic can make even that larger. ritual also makes larger

• saves

true dweomers follow the basic rule 'no auto effects', but may impose no-save or save penalties as 'special gimmicks'. hellball, for example, is a no-save AOE with a long range, but is otherwise lackluster.

Current status

• True Dweomers - data compilation complete
• OGL info updated
• System scope and balance spreadsheet at about 80 percent complete, on-hold for now
• Placeholder pages for all current TD's under development
• Populating live TD's to fill out system begun

TD Template

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