Thanks for the thing to mull over guys.
I think cjoepar makes some good points; Fireball clearly seems the better spell against multiple targets. And that's good. I still struggle with magic missile outshining lightning bolt. Our 5th level caster is doing between 18 and 66 damage to one target (average 38 1/4 damage) with magic missile (oh his 20 result); our lightningh bolt is doing between 4 and 24 damage to a single target (with no multiple target potions), average 14... assuming the saves were failed (if we assume monster pass there save 1/2 the time we have 10.5 average damage). <and the comparisum is unfavorable at low and higher rolls)... And even our multi target fireball still has to be hitting 4 targets to be beating (on average) the damage from magic missile (and then by 2 points).
Thus the fix; it dosn't nerf magic missile much but it does stop it overshadowing spells that should thematically be atleast as powerfull (baring DK's "magic" in the name amkes it super charged... I dread to think what a Quantum bolt would do
)... Anyway that was the mathsy bit. I dont want to go to much into the maths cause it's a bit dull to read about eh? (ooh this number is bigger). But I do want to continue my thoughts (I'm enjoying having them) and I loved Dougs post also
I like your descriptions of magic, very evocotave. And I really do like magic being mysterous in games. It is a real challange to do that in a roleplaying game with "crunch" and I am very impressed hoiw DCC has brought that mystery back to magic. It makes runing and playing with magic fun again. A conversation I had with my friend Jacob about playing mysterous characters revolved around how if you want a character to be mysterious he needs something that is a mystery to him. It's cool to play the mysterous mage, but in pathfinder you have to come up with a reason why you are mysterous. In DCC you magic is mysterous, you will gain corruptions that you must hide, your magic is unpradictable and crapricious, you deal with otherworldly beings, your spell vairies in effect and look from his spell; you cant help but be evocotive and mysterous. It is awesome!
As for the hierachy of spells: I like your descriptions of magic; far etter than i could produce without some serous thought. But mechanically I have a deep issue with a level 1 spell flat out trumping a level 3 spell: I dont mind niche spells... but when there are two spells that deal damage to things having MM>Lightning bolt is an issue for me. Because I want LB to be cool and it to be awesome for a mage to weild it. I want a mage who's survived to 5th level, is intelegent enough and who has seen LB's called from the eather to harness that power and use it! But mechanically if MM is better, less likly to fail, has significanly less harsh corruption - well MM is gonna be used more than LB - great new depths of untold power have not really been uncovered. OK they might for thematic reasons; just as the fighter who has found the fabled scythe of jal-nar the crippled may use it for thematic reasons sometimes - but if it is a +1 weapon that does d4 damage they will normally use their +1 magic longsword.
If you have an untamable math mind , that is fine. I hope you can play and have fun with the game. I'm curious how your games could contrast with my looser, "art" based games and still be fun. As a player I don't particularly want to spend my time comparing my character to what it could be or what other peoples characters are or have , unless it is part of the story. I could role play a wizard that is overly concerned whether his fireball is as good at as his magic missile…. but I couldn't really care much about that myself. I want to play the game. "What do I see? " "Cool, this is what I do" . As a DM , most of the time when I observe , 'this is "better than that' or 'this is different than that' I also just think 'that is interesting' and move along. Imbalance is everywhere and what makes a game fun. It doesn't bother me much at all. I'd rather prepare for a lush experience, than fix existing rules.
This is a really good question
I do have an untamable maths mind! I brought it up to indicate why this jumped out at me - I'm not pro-activly compariring the spells, but having read magic missile more than the other spells (in the designers journal threads recently) and then looking up LB & fireball to see what cool things do they did now I have the book the liniarity vs square nature of the spells jumped out at me. I think it will only happen with the damage spells anyway - which are few and far. The 'do things' spells are cool and awesome, and need no such thought.
But I will play and have fun with tha game. What has really drawn me to DCC is that it aims to simulates Sword and sorcery, which I love. So when running it I will be wanting to emulate Ffhard and the Grey mouse style adventures. I want evocotive and awesome. I do not want a wargame or a number crunching game - and I enjoy the imbalance in the game. I agree that compairing character or thinking what I could be is not what I want to do. I have done that before - it's not fun. I've learnt It's not about the numbers, it's about the awesome (as it was orrigionally when I started as a kid). I love the randomness in the characters and the Character gen - it's how I want ot be running and playing. I dont mind if he has 18 int and i have 12... he's destined to be an archmage I'm not (unless I swindle and bargine my what there)... I dont want to discuss if a dwarf is better than a warrior
But I would like it that when i choose the spell that is thematically appropriate for the job at hand my choice is mechanically backed up.
Hum, I would like to be as chilled as you. I am really looking forward to playing, and as I read more of the book I will discover what I think about the imbalances. My thoughts are I wont mind them. I think your lush experince is right; I want that from my game. (PS right now I've just come accorss your pic at the start of judges rules, it's awesome! I love the cosmoss starry wizard).
I think if you sat at a table when I ran you have a blast, and If I played a game next to you it would be awesome - My mathsyness is outside the game table itself. I'll try and illustrate this a bit: the last campaign I was in (lasting 1.5 years, before I upped for 6 months in Uganda) was called Sea of worms. The setting was fantastic; my friend jacob's world where the surface of the world is covered in small green photosynthasising everything-eating maggots called the Grack. Civilisation existed on platforms ala waterworld, or in the great tops of the great forests, deep underground or a gret twin floating island of the 'elves of the second shame'. The gods were born of the deams of men and sorcerss, and rose as giant unmoving heads and torsos out of the grack. Proximity to them meant madness, priests going madder much swifter and further away than most, and the great "paddle steamers" (with poles like gondalsa on the padals) that pulled there way from platform to platform had to set corses to avoid the gods...
Anyway as you can see the setting was awesome. We used Pathfinder for the game; and boy is that a crunchy game - but the sessions and the dangers and combats our actions were dictated by who our character was and what we wanted to do. I had a hal-elf paladin, an outcast from elves and men; he almost started a war, stole a ship to delve into undground evils, held in his mind the name of a nacent god of destruction, discovered the evil inherent in his elven ancestory. Mechanically I made him to excell at one thing (self healing with lay on hands) - here was my mathsyness - but in combats I didn't look for optimal solutions but charged through ranks of iron (so very rare!) wielding, devil worshiping dwarves to site there evil priest (and thus being pathfinder, took an inordinate number of AoO), or jumped of the top of an undergound staiway to reach the cultist leader swifter, or charging headling into the pirates that were crashing into the platform we had liberated, slaying the wormtoung who had betrayed a platform to death and destruction once he had surrended so that he could not do it again... It was fun and epic. And of course my actions were somewhat directed by my mechanical choices (self healing therefore I can take a lot of damage, this probably wont kill me) but chosen for coolness, backed up by mechanics (much like a DCC warrior may do all those things, but a fragile elf may be more cautious...or might not be in the right circumstance).
I really love the randomness of DCC characters, and like that your character is so greatly defined by the personality you give him and his actions, not the numbers. I want to live the sword and sorcery dream, survive the dungeon and escape with the loot! I don't mind being clever about it but I'm not hung up on a tatical board game... and I'm behind the theme all the way; I just dont mind tweeking bits to back it up.
Ok so this was a mamoth post! The fire has burnt out and it is cold here, so I'm off to bed! I hope it was enlighting somehow
God bless,
james
PS I am dyspraxic... err have terriable spelling; and using my mother-in-law's laptop... it dos not seem to have an auto spellchecker underlinging my words in red - so I apologise for the deadfullness that must be in this post for the literately unchallanged amoung you! I normally try and correct all the squiggly red bits! Also forgive any random bits that do not follow, it is to late (1am) for me to proofread such a thing.
