This post was going to be a reference sheet for spell effects in DCC. It was intended for use with Freeform Magic to make rulings about power on the fly without entirely making things up as you go, but it would also have made a useful reference when creating new spells. It would also provide the player some reasonable expectations if they wish to research and create their own spell as a Wizard.
That didn't happen, and now this post is about why I stopped instead.
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Let's start with showing, rather than telling. Here is a chart I began to develop. It's a simple chart, all it shows is the average damage of damaging spells by level and spell check result. I started here because damage is something that is straightforward to quantify and therefore easy to theoretically balance.
| Result | 1st level | 2nd level |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 1, 2, 3.5-35 | 11.5-20.5 |
| 2nd | 3.5, 3.5-12.5 | 12.5-21.5 |
| 3rd | 4.5-13.5, 3.5-12.5(x2.5) | 13.5-22.5(x2) |
| 4th | 4.5-13.5(x3), 4.5-13.5(x4.5) | 14.5-23.5(x3) |
| 5th | 8-17(x3), 27-36 | 14.5-23.5(1,600ft²) |
| 6th | 11.5-20.5(300ft²), 5.5-14.5(x6.5) | 18.5-27.5(x12)+6.5(1,257ft²) |
| 7th | 11.5-20.5(600ft²), 5.5-14.5(x8) | 20.5-29.5(x12)+10.5(2,827ft²) |
| 8th | 23-32(5,027ft²), 6.5-15.5(x7) | 71-80, 50-59(x5), 27.5-36.5(x10), 18.5-27.5(x30), 14.5-23.5(x50), 11.5(x100), 10.5(314,159ft²) |
What the hell is all that?
You might notice I only made it to second-level spells, and there aren't even many damaging spells to get through. Despite that, I ended up with a chart that looks like an excerpt from a math textbook and needed five bullet points of explanation to interpret. Even if you look at just the first result of first-level spells you find a wildly unhelpful range of numbers: 1 damage at range, 1d3 damage melee, or 1d6 damage per Caster Level with a range that also increases per CL (Force Manipulation is a bloody good spell).
If you want to interpret the chart, here are those bullet points (feel free to skip):
- Results from different spells (or different options for the same spell) are separated by commas.
- Results showing a range are spells that scale with Caster Level. The range shows level 1 to level 10. These are NOT random variation; randomness is all averaged.
- Number of targets is shown in brackets rather than simply multiplied into one damage value because the difference between dealing 500 damage to one target and 5 damage to two targets is significant.
- Number of targets is also represented as an average, since some of these also use dice.
- Fire is assumed to deal its damage twice (usually equal to 7). Real numbers vary based on enemy Ref saves, among practical considerations such as length of battle and enemies putting themselves out.
With the help of those notes you might be able to make sense of the results of the chart. Don't bother. The chart's only there because otherwise I wasted all that time making it. Don't get me wrong, this was still an exercise that was worth doing; the lesson was just something other than "here's how to balance spells".
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After having tackled the most straightforwardly quantifiable type of spell and failing, I then had to face the reality that most spells are not quantifiable and not directly comparable with other spells. This was something I already knew, of course, but I thought I could categorize these things and use them to provide rough reference points. Buffs and debuffs are somewhat measurable, and incapacitating spells like Sleep and Paralysis can be compared.
First-level spells at the lowest successful spell check allow you to, among other things, create a simple visual effect, become 10% larger, read a language for 10 minutes, or temporarily fix something. The differences only get starker as spell effects become more complex and varied, through both level and check result. When the reference table for damaging spells - the ones that are literally just numbers - totally fell apart, I decided it wasn't worth it to go further. It honestly should have been clear before I started, but balancing spells in DCC is genuinely not that important. It actually does not matter. Writing the numbers down helped me to see that. The core game's spells are far from balanced and I have not seen one person complain about it.
Instead of those charts I wanted to make, I'm going to leave you with something else right out of a math textbook: Balancing spells is trivial and left as an exercise to the reader.
