Orbs of actually making sense (3.5 spell fixes, WIP, PEACH)

[TuggyNE]

It's conjuration because the magic creates the rock in such a way that it melts. It's actually pretty cool, in my opinion; I like the idea of chucking a blob of magma at someone, rather than throwing some kind of "ball" of "fire".

All of these spells also have measurably different effects from their closest Evocation counterparts (except Orb of Force, obviously), while being extremely similar thematically. I like that; these are unique, flavorful spells that accomplish the goal of "give a blaster a new option" without just being Fireball, Touch Spell Edition.

Much obliged for the kind words! Yeah, I'm trying first to get a sensible effect that makes sense for Conjuration, then one that's practical to use, and then finally figuring out what level to assign.

On that note, I suddenly realized none of the spells actually say they need a ranged touch attack. Let me fix that.

Regardless of the target of the temperature change (a rock or your foe's face), the original version still magically performs a change in temperature on a mundane target, which is 100% Evocation. As far as changing it to (Summoning) or (Calling)... that could work, and there are Elemental Planes that would make that pretty trivial to do. But is that really a step you want to take? If you say that Conjuration can create any effect as long as something exists in the multiverse that performs that effect, you're basically setting up Conjuration as the "I can do everything" school. There are startlingly few limits on its power if you allow that, so I'd advise against it.

Conjuration can only produce effects that already exist in some natural form, and only to the extent that they can scale. And, as noted, there's… really no logical justification for e.g. a ball of mundane electrical damage (ball lightning appears to either do no damage or blow up a fair-sized area, from the limited research I know of, neither of which fit a single-target spell) or mundane sound damage.

Checking [cold] spells in Core real quick, it seems that all are Evocation. However, there's an Abjuration, a Transmutation, and yes a Conjuration [fire] spell that each cause fire damage in some fashion. Still, varying the subschools a little seems like a good plan. Keep acid uniquely suited to Conjuration, and so forth. (Dimensional lock around a caster, or a similar effect on the plane in general, will prevent them from casting orb of fire/cold.)

With that said, that's a systematic concern that you may not be worried about for a small tweak like this. As long as you don't start writing a bunch of other spells that are consistent with this logic, it shouldn't cause much of a problem.

I am trying to limit systematic problems (actually, improve on them), but I consider there to be a meaningful barrier to further spells of different types. Well, meaningful in principle, at least; the school of summoning and calling will never really lack for good things to use.

Why does Acid Arrow scale directly, then? I don't actually have a conceptual problem with saying that more powerful casters can create/summon more of whatever powerful stuff they're working with. It makes sense to me.

It scales directly in duration only, not damage per round, precisely the same way I'm considering.

(Come to think of it, what is the difference between Acid Arrow and Orb of Acid, except for the fact that the latter is numerically much more powerful?)

Pretty much just that the latter is numerically much more powerful (and has subtly different interactions with various effects; for example, the acid it creates doesn't just drop into nothingness in an AMF, nor immediately poof away when the spell ends).

SO.. I have always found the best fix for the Orb of X spells was to make them Evocation.

You could make Evocation versions of all of these, but I find "1d6 [fire/cold/acid/electric/sonic/force] damage/level, ranged touch attack, save against rider, SR Yes" to be fundamentally boring.

WHy did you get rid of orb of electricity and sound?

Because a) they only make sense (if at all) as Evocation, not Conjuration and b) they're non-trivial to explain (Force was just a convenient "yeah OK this will only take a second" spell).

I never really thought the Orb spells needed Fixing,a nd im not really understanding your reasonings here.

I just thought the was that WOTC did the old Conjuration need to do everything.

I'm trying to improve both logical consistency and game balance: the former by fixing spell scaling and effects, the latter by fixing spell scaling and only including a subset of energy types and making it impossible to swap them.