Magic, with a few exceptions, is almost completely binary. Either you save, hard counter, or you most likely die.
We all acknowledge the power of magic by predicating almost every balance discussion on the automatic assumption that the magic victim has every hard counter readily at hand, 5%ed their entire inventory, and/or divine dipped to minimize the brutal effects of magic (and for good reason!) but this has the curious effect of simultaneously making magic both incredibly strong, and also useless in theory. One could even say it's binary, and that's just PvP.
Let's not pretend that PvE spellbooks aren't just this:
https://imgur.com/wId78eu
I'm not sure this is even possible to do, and it would probably take months if not longer to implement, but maybe it's something that might provoke thought towards something actually doable. Anyway, here goes:
Change Magic From Binary to Degrees of Success/Failure
First Step: Increase the DC of all magic by 2 or 5 or 10 or maybe even 15, and maybe make 1 and 20 not auto pass/fail. The numbers aren't as important as the concept right now.
Second Step: Change spell effects to have several tiers of application such as pitiful, weak, nominal, strong, and overwhelming based on the save roll.
Tiers of Success/Failure could be as follows:
Pitiful: The roll succeeds by 10 or more, and the spell barely takes hold - if at all.
Weak: The roll succeeds by 5 to 9, and the spell has a minor effect but ultimately isn't likely to end/cripple the victim.
Nominal: The roll succeeds or fails by -4 to 4, and the spell has an effect that is unlikely to change the outcome of the battle but could in some situations.
Strong: The roll fails by -5 to -9, and the spell has a costly effect on the victim that could decide the battle.
Overwhelming: The roll fails by -10 or more, and the spell has its most ideal and devastating effect.
So let's apply this to some spells (especially scary ones) for fun, and bear in mind that not every spell will absolutely need all five tiers:
Finger of Death
---
Pitiful: No effect.
Weak: 6d6 negative energy damage.
Nominal: 12d6 negative energy damage.
Strong: 20d6 negative & magical damage split.
Overwhelming: Instant Death.
Wail of the Banshee
---
Pitiful: 3d6 sonic damage.
Weak: 6d6 sonic damage.
Nominal: 20d6 sonic damage, 1 round deafness.
Strong: 20d6 sonic/magic damage split, 3 rounds deaf, 3 round stun.
Overwhelming: Instant Death.
Hold Person
---
Pitiful: No effect, and enchantment saves increase by X for 2 rounds (stacks).
Weak: No effect.
Nominal: 1 round slow, freedom counters.
Strong: 2 round slow, penetrating freedom.
Overwhelming: Paralysis for 5 rounds.
Storm of Vengeance
---
Pitiful: 3d6 acid.
Weak: 6d6 acid/lightning damage.
Nominal: 6d6 acid/lightning damage.
Strong: 6d6 acid/lightning damage, and blindness (until out of the rain like acid cloud).
Overwhelming: 6d6 acid/lightning damage, blindness, and 2 round stun.
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Conclusion & Final Thoughts
- The idea here is to peel magic away from the binary pain of 'its save or die so I must take into account that every build must have minimum 40 saves and prepare for every hard counter possible' and into a realm of 'okay, my saves may not be perfect but I can eat a few 20d6's from finger of death because my fortitude is close enough and I have a lot of health'.
- I put this together over the course of two hours, and the numbers are rough. 20d6 looks like a scary number, but only really averages to 69 damage. While that's nice (nice), I could see a lot of these spells going way up in that number - maybe even instant death being removed entirely in favor of just REALLY BIG NUMBERS.
- This also makes mages feel like their spells are actually working to some degree, even if they aren't having their ideal effect, while the victims might also feel that even on a strong failure that they aren't being savagely punished and may still have a fighting chance.
- The feelsbadman of rolling a 1 even though your save modifier is triple the dc from a level 3 mob casting hold person can go away because even on a 1 it's a pitiful application and has no effect.
- Magic might even add a bit of chaos to both PvE and PvP as magic isn't as predictable, leading to wider counterplay as some spells might have more than one possible effect and thus require dynamic counters.
- Some hard counters such as clarity, death ward, and freedom could be adjusted away from purely hard counter into a mix of soft/hard counters - providing bonuses to saves versus certain effects, and be removed from the breach list since they're no longer binary immunities either. This allows for death ward, for example, to provide a +15 to death saves which in the majority of cases is going to prevent the Overwhelming effect of instant death but still allow for mild to nominal damage effects (or maybe death ward can give an immunity to only the overwhelming effects).
Freedom, for example, could give saves to slow and paralysis while not preventing them entirely in a binary manner. For example you can still be slowed if you spectacularly fail even with freedom up, however casting it again (or wanding it again) on yourself could free you from the slow effect and keep you in the fight if you're quick enough while also keeping your saves higher until they're dispelled.
- Hopefully something like this could turn magic and counterplay into more of a game of chess instead of simply 'yes win, no lose' or 'missile storm is actually the only relevant spell in the game.'
- Balance needs and changes could be made more surgically because not everything is 1 or 0.
I could go on and on with ideas and concepts in relation to a system like this - but I'm not even sure something like this is even possible in the engine so I'll leave it here.
