New spell conversion

So I'm trying my hand at creating a new spell using the spell rules in the Player's companion just to see how it works out. I'm converting a spell from the Dragon Age RPG. Because I'm lazy I'm utilizing this sites page for calculation     http://rpg.i-arman.com/spells/  

So here's the spell let me know if I have the concept right

Walking Bomb

Arcane 1

Range: 30'

Duration: special

You infuse the blood of an opponent within 30' with a corrosive poison. The round you cast it, walking bomb inflicts 1d6+1 damage (no save). After the initial effect the target must make a saving throw vs Death each round or suffer 1d6+1 points each round a successful save ends the spell effect. Should the spell's damage reduce the targets HP to 0 they explode in a spray of blood, flesh and bones. Anyone within 10' of the exploding victim takes 2d6 points of damage no save.

Math: (33)*0.3 *1 *0.6 *1.75 *0.5 *1

Total: 5.2

Spell Level 1

Selected: 1d6 damage per level. Maximum 2d damage. 1 creature. 30'. Concentration or until target makes save*. Saving throw avoids spell effect. Arcane.

 

I know the conversion isn't clean, but I don't see it being more than level 1 when balanced against magic missile. Thoughts?

so the maximum of 2d damage doesn't seem relevant here because that's more for effects that scale with level.  Also, the AOE damage doesn't seem to be accounted for at all.  Finally, you have it listed as until save, but the first damage is no save.

This definitely seems more powerful than a 1st level spell, with the exception of sleep which is an anomoly anyway.  if you cast this on a group of tightly packed kobolds, they would definitely all die.  Orcs and Hobgoblins would have a chance of dying in the 1st round and almost definitely die the next round if they didn't spread out.  Only once you get to 2HD creatures is it likely most of them will survive, but it's still not unreasonable for all of them to die.

My recommendation is to break the two effects (damage over time and explosion) as separate spells, and give yourself a small discount for the explosion since it's conditional.

This effect is three spells in one.

Spell 1: Deal 1d6+1 damage to the target, no save.
Spell 2: Deal 1d6+1 damage to the target each round, save negates and ends.
Spell 3: Deal 1d6 damage per level, max 2d6 damage, in an area, no save. (Spell 3 is technically conditional, which I am ignoring, because you’re casting three spells in one action.)

All of them share a range of 30’.

Although this is probably most appropriate as a Death spell, I’ll calculate it as a Blast spell first because it’s cheaper.
Spell 1 would cost (33 * 1 * .6 * .1) = 1.98 points
Spell 2 would cost (33 * .6 * .1 * 2) = 3.96 points
Spell 3 would cost (27 * .6 * 0.25 * 1.25) = 5.0625 points

The raw sum of the three comes out to 11.0025 points, a 2nd level spell. Raw damage-dealing 2nd level spells such as this are often something to be avoided, so my inclination would be to bump up the damage slightly (3d6 on the explosion, probably), require a breakthrough to research it (since it’s three spells in one), and make it a third level spell. (I would also be inclined to make the explosion save for half, just because I don’t generally like no-save AoE damage.) Also, making it a spell of ‘higher than first level’ solves the problem of the max 2d being weird; you don’t want a spell that does 2d damage as a first level caster, which would lead to weird phrasing like ‘1d6 damage per caster level to a maximum of 2d6’. It being a spell above 1st level means you can just say 2d6, because if you can cast it, your caster level is above 2, it hits its cap.

Calculated as a Death spell, which is more thematically appropriate for this spell, it would cost:
Spell 1: (35 * .1 * .6) = 2.1
Spell 2: (35 * .1 * .6 * 1.75) = 3.675
Spell 3: (33 * 0.3 * .6 * 1.5) = 8.91
(Note: For spell 3, since Death does not have a 10’ diameter sphere area, I just used 1.5, because Death AoE costs are more expensive than Blast.)
Total cost as Death: 14.885

[quote="Jard"]

so the maximum of 2d damage doesn't seem relevant here because that's more for effects that scale with level.  Also, the AOE damage doesn't seem to be accounted for at all.  Finally, you have it listed as until save, but the first damage is no save.

This definitely seems more powerful than a 1st level spell, with the exception of sleep which is an anomoly anyway.  if you cast this on a group of tightly packed kobolds, they would definitely all die.  Orcs and Hobgoblins would have a chance of dying in the 1st round and almost definitely die the next round if they didn't spread out.  Only once you get to 2HD creatures is it likely most of them will survive, but it's still not unreasonable for all of them to die.

My recommendation is to break the two effects (damage over time and explosion) as separate spells, and give yourself a small discount for the explosion since it's conditional.

[/quote]

Thanks I'll look it over.

[quote="Aryxymaraki"] This effect is three spells in one. Spell 1: Deal 1d6+1 damage to the target, no save. Spell 2: Deal 1d6+1 damage to the target each round, save negates and ends. Spell 3: Deal 1d6 damage per level, max 2d6 damage, in an area, no save. (Spell 3 is technically conditional, which I am ignoring, because you're casting three spells in one action.) All of them share a range of 30'. Although this is probably most appropriate as a Death spell, I'll calculate it as a Blast spell first because it's cheaper. Spell 1 would cost (33 * 1 * .6 * .1) = 1.98 points Spell 2 would cost (33 * .6 * .1 * 2) = 3.96 points Spell 3 would cost (27 * .6 * 0.25 * 1.25) = 5.0625 points The raw sum of the three comes out to 11.0025 points, a 2nd level spell. Raw damage-dealing 2nd level spells such as this are often something to be avoided, so my inclination would be to bump up the damage slightly (3d6 on the explosion, probably), require a breakthrough to research it (since it's three spells in one), and make it a third level spell. (I would also be inclined to make the explosion save for half, just because I don't generally like no-save AoE damage.) Also, making it a spell of 'higher than first level' solves the problem of the max 2d being weird; you don't want a spell that does 2d damage as a first level caster, which would lead to weird phrasing like '1d6 damage per caster level to a maximum of 2d6'. It being a spell above 1st level means you can just say 2d6, because if you can cast it, your caster level is above 2, it hits its cap. Calculated as a Death spell, which is more thematically appropriate for this spell, it would cost: Spell 1: (35 * .1 * .6) = 2.1 Spell 2: (35 * .1 * .6 * 1.75) = 3.675 Spell 3: (33 * 0.3 * .6 * 1.5) = 8.91 (Note: For spell 3, since Death does not have a 10' diameter sphere area, I just used 1.5, because Death AoE costs are more expensive than Blast.) Total cost as Death: 14.885 [/quote]

Great this really helps. With bumping up to 3d6 for the explosion I can see adding a save plus making it a 3rd level spell at that point. I had originally calculated it as a death spell.

So the final version then going with Aryx's suggestion of 3 spells in one:

Walking Bomb

Arcane 3

Range: 30'

Duration: special

You infuse the blood of an opponent within 30' with a corrosive poison. The round you cast it, walking bomb inflicts 1d6+1 damage (no save). After the initial effect the target must make a saving throw vs Death each round or suffer 1d6+1 points each round a successful save ends the spell effect. Should the spell's damage reduce the targets HP to 0 they explode in a spray of blood, flesh and bones. Anyone within 10' of the exploding victim takes 3d6 points of damagesave vs Blast for half.

 

I had actually designed a really similar Eldritch spell for Heroic Fantasy Handbook. Just as Ary suggested, it was built as a mult-effect spell.

Boil Blood                          Range: 150’

Eldritch 5 (Grey)                   Duration: instantaneous

This spell can boil the blood of a living creature, thereby inflicting terrible wounds and great suffering, and possibly causing it to explode like an overheated furnace. The target must make a saving throw versus Blast. If the save fails, the creature suffers 8d10 points of damage and is stunned during its next initiative. If the save succeeds the creature suffers half damage and is not stunned.

In either case, if the target is reduced to 0 hp or less by the spell, it detonates in an explosion of boiling blood, scalding puss, and melted organs. The explosion kills the target instantly. Each creature or object within 5’ of the exploding target suffers 1d6 points of damage, or half that on a successful saving throw versus Blast. 

I built it as:

Boil Blood (5): Blast, 1d8 damage per level (35), maximum 8d damage (x0.95), elemental – fire (x1), target 1 creature (x1), range 150’ (x1), duration instantaneous (x1), saving throw reduces spell effect by half (x0.75), eldritch (x1.5), cost 37.4;

---- this is the base effect, dealing 8d8 damage to the target with a save for half

and nausea-inducing (10), elemental – fire (x1), target 1 creature (x1), range 150’ (x1), duration instantaneous (x1), saving throw avoids spell effect (x0.5), eldritch (x1.5), cost 7.5;

--- this is the nausea component, which causes a round of nausea if the save is failed

and 1d6 damage per level (27), maximum 1d damage (x0.1), elemental – fire (x1), target 10’ diameter sphere (x1.25), range 150’ (x1), duration instantaneous (x1), saving throw avoids spell effect (x0.5) [original creature], saving throw reduces spell effect by half (x0.75) [secondary blast], eldritch (x1.5), cost 1.89;

--- this is the secondary explosion. I assumed that the conditional explosion would occur if the original target failed its save, but would not occur if the original target failed its save. therefore, the secondary explosion has two saving throw modifiers - x0.5 for the original creature to avoid it entirely, then x0.75 for the creatures hit by the secondary blast to reduce damage by half. 

total cost 46.79

--- note that eldritch spells have a 1.5 source modifier for blast spells; as an arcane spell this would be 31.2 points, or 4th level.

Very cool. It does a lot more damage.