This week we once again take a deep dive at an aspect of the game that has seen significant improvement during the playtest process: spell improvements. There has already been some tangential discussion on this topic in other entries, so this one will function more of an exploration of the design process itself than other entries. It is a worthwhile exercise to to explore the issues that were identified and the thought process and experimentation that went into overcoming them.
For those who cast spells using the system, getting the most out of your spells is extremely important. Going into the playtest process, this was chiefly accomplished solely by the use of spell levels. Higher level spells are simply more powerful, and most spells can upgrade their effects by casting them at a higher spell level than their base level. This seemed fine in principle, but ended up having a few unintended side effects that caused spellcasters to never actually seem to broaden their capabilities with more power in practice.
Everything stacking up vertically put too much pressure on the higher level spell slots. For most damaging spells, this was working as intended. If you want to deal more damage in one big burst, it's intuitive to need to expend a higher-level spell to do so. Where the system ended up breaking down was for more utility-oriented spells or those that offer an effect other than damage. Many of these spells improved vertically as well, offering more targets at once or more intense effects the more power you dedicated to them. But since these spells were forced to compete with high burst damage spells, and the quantity of a caster's highest-level slots are always the most limited, it put most magic users in an awkward position. Aside from Sorcerers, who only ever have one level of spells at a time, all high-level primary casters have large numbers of spell slots, but only the top two levels ever seemed to be relevant.
Personal defense spells, in particular, turned out to be the worst offenders. A spell that provides a bonus to AC similar to light armor, or one that provides a chunk of bonus Hit Points, can be a useful tool in any caster's kit. Staying alive is important. The way the combat system is set up, however, offense tends to be a little more valuable than defense. You can prevent a lot more damage to yourself and your allies by scoring a KO on a foe than you can be improving your AC, so these spells simply could not effectively compete with burst damage spells for higher-level spellcasters. For mage armor, in particular, it turned out to be less resource intensive to simply wear armor. At least with a chain shirt, the investment is made one time, not every day.
The solution that presented itself was to add in another, separate axis of improvement for spells. The tools to do so were already embedded in the fundamental structure of the system: proficiency. While magical traditions, like all other esoteric proficiencies, have had and continue to have special benefits for reaching a new tier, the reason most casters coveted the next tier was simply for the slight improvement to spell rolls and save DCs. By using spell proficiency as an additional knob with which to adjust the effectiveness of magic, it both relieved the squeeze pressure of vertical stacking and provided new reasons to care about improving it for characters that prefer to avoid spells with the inherent failure chance of spell rolls and DCs. One playtest character never once bothered to improve beyond trained in any magic, because there wasn't enough incentive to do so since that character actively avoided any spell with a roll or a saving throw.
This new axis can be thought of as the "versatility" axis, as compared to the "power" axis of spell level. When a spell improves by proficiency the effect tends to be less direct and flashy. Some of the more common ways that a spell improves this way include more targets per spell or an increase in the duration category of the spell, which help a caster get more from their spell slot. For mage armor in particular, the bonus it provides to your armor class improves with proficiency instead of spell level. In this way it can keep pace with armor without ever costing more than one of your first-level spell slots. Similarly, false life increases the size of the Temporary Hit Point pool it gives you this way, helping more experienced casters leverage their training without having to reduce their overall offensive power to do so.
These two axes of improvement are useful enough on their own, but things become especially interesting when the two are used together on the same spell. One of my favorite spells, conjure creature, uses both schemes together. If you cast the spell at higher level than its base, the creature you create is stronger and more durable, making it a more capable combatant on your behalf. Each time your proficiency with the spell reaches a new tier, however, the creature gains access to more choices of useful abilities, regardless of what level at which the spell manifests. In this way you don't need to blow a high-level spell slot if what you need from the spell is something other than raw power. You can, of course, benefit from both improvements at once and doing so gives a feeling of character accomplishment that is much stronger than simply making the numbers get bigger.
Another area of gameplay that this change dramatically affected is the Wizard class. Unlike other casters, Wizards engage with magic on a school level rather than for a tradition as a whole. In return for this somewhat narrowed focus, they are rewarded with the ability to improve their magic proficiency without it necessarily requiring their limited esoteric proficiency boosts from gaining new character levels. With so many spells that have expanded and improved effects from proficiency, it makes the choice of which schools to focus on more interesting. Few Divination spells require a good spell roll or a steep DC, and so there was once very little reason to improve one's focus on the school. Now most Divination spells are dramatically more useful in the hands of an expert, master or legend. This pairs well with the class perks that also offer special tricks for Wizards that focus on a school, and ensures that wizards with a different focus are much more varied in practice than just a different aesthetic or slightly varied difficulty levels.
Spell improvements have been one of those areas which grew from merely acceptable to actively one of the more robust game systems. It can be difficult to recognize when a system is not broken but can still be better, and so the perspectives of those that have participated in this playtest process has been absolutely invaluable. Next week we will once again introduce another Class Exemplar, for the Druid.
Comments