I think I created a monster with those class dice. You guys really seem to like them.
I'm not a huge fan of class dice for all classes, but i admit they could work wonderfully for retaining spell loss. Something similar could be added to the cleric spellcasting mechanic: we've already seen there's something wrong with that -1 cumulative penalty. Maybe you should just get rid of it and make clerics use the same spell loss mechanic of wizards.
Designing a game, i don't like it when you think "mmmh i have to put this feature in all classes, so what could i use it for in the cleric!?" ... it should always be so that "features serve a purpose", so that if there's something to fix in that class you use the class die to try and fix it. If a class is ok without it, then don't use it.
Let me pose the question a slightly different way. Here's the challenge I'm trying to solve: the fact that a level 3 spell has a minimum success threshold of 16+ on the die, while a level 1 spell has a minimum threshold of 12+.
Should a level 3 spell be harder to cast than level 1?
Should a level 3 spell have proportionately more powerful results; i.e. a 19 on a level 1 spell is less powerful than a 19 on a level 3 spell?
What do you guys think?
There are many ways you can scale the power of spells. What's important is that
- for higher powers there are greater costs/risks/chances of failure
- lower level spells shouldn't replace higher level spells. Unless under certain environmental conditions, a wizard who can unleash a fireball should do so over any 1st level offensive spell.
You could implement the first point increasing corruption chances & effects for higher level spells, forcing some min spellburn to cast that spell (equal to SL -1 ?), or, as for BETA, having a different min threshold
As for the second point, you could make higher level spells stronger than lower level spells at an equal result, or you could make it easier to reach the higher results with higher level spells.
Thus: If you keep a 19 result for magic missile equal in power to the 19 result of fireball, then people would just cast magic missile, especially with the BETA rules as they are, since they're more likely to be able to retain that spell and succeed and "still do something" with a 15... when a Fireball would be failed and lost, at 15.
Or you could just get rid of spell levels, or use them only as a rough indication of power, so every spell would have its own min result, effects and stuff. So maybe it'd be ok for magic missile to be the awesomest spell ever, seeked by any wizard & elf: it's easier and does tons of damage. DMs should then be careful about which spells to give his players access to, but that could work as a nice rp element, the search for unknown powers etc etc