Spell Level Damage

[Blackfoot]

Not compatible with release 16 of the ruleset. Features of this extension will be in release 17. Don't use this extension anymore.

It seems like it would be pretty handy in PF2 to have the option of a SPELL LEVEL multiplier for dice in addition to CL, odd CL, and even CL.. maybe HALF Spell Level as well.. although that might be less important.
Spells like Lightning Bolt, Shocking Grasp, and Fireball all have more or less fixed damage for the Spell Level.. but they can often be relatively easily be Heightened to a different Spell Level and do damage based on that Level instead of the CL.
I looked at building an extension for it.. seems like something would need to be done in record_spell_roll.xml, strings_PFRPG2.xml (although this bit could probably be faked in record_spell_roll.xml), and manager_spell.lua.. I'd rather not mess with the last one as it is likely to change fairly often with updates.. but the addition seems fairly straight forward.

Overall this seems like a good suggestion for the ruleset in general as many/most damage dealing spells could make use of this logic.

The EXTENSION
It works very simply, adds another option to the spell damage configuration window for both the DICE and the additional damage. It does this for both DAMAGE and HEALING.

[Dr0W]

Right now you can set up simple Cantrips with damage that increase by the same dice every +1 Spell Level. This works well because cantrip are always automatically heightened to the caster level.

Just setup the damage as Dice x Odd CLs.

For the other cases, I think more options for automation would be great, more tool for us to fiddle with. But I think since most of the spells have a different way of working and might increase different things, I'd want to check it anyway if it's correct when I prepare a spell on a higher slot anyway. Remember that you will probably need to setup a spell anyway because the spell parser doesn't work most of the time (blame Paizo). So unless the parser worked flawlessly, you'd have to check a hightened spell anyway to see if everything is in order. So I'm not sure its worth the developer's time right now, but I always welcome different ways of automate stuff.

[Trenloe]

Giving access to the spell level that the spell is prepared in is something that's on the list to do. But not until the spells/actions are re-worked at some point in the future.

[Blackfoot]

OK.. cool. In the short term I'll whip up an extension to add the feature. It looked pretty straight forward.. I'll post it up sometime this weekend.

[Blackfoot]

Added the Extension to the First Post.
Let me know if anyone finds any issues with it.
It is generally pretty basic.. just adds the feature.

[Praetorian]

Thanks, Blackfoot! I appreciate the work, and look forward to using it!

[MaxAstro]

It looks like the most recent update caused some issues with this very helpful extension. Blackfoot, do you have plans to update for compatibility? If not I don't mind going through the work to switch my spells to not use this extension, I'd just rather not do that work if you are going to update it. :)

[Blackfoot]

It looks like the most recent update caused some issues with this very helpful extension. Blackfoot, do you have plans to update for compatibility? If not I don't mind going through the work to switch my spells to not use this extension, I'd just rather not do that work if you are going to update it. :)I'm afraid we bailed on 2nd edition so I'm not working with it anymore.
Hopefully he'll be including something like this in the Ruleset eventually as it is a necessary part of the system.

[MaxAstro]

Thanks for the quick response. Sorry to see you go, but thanks for the extremely helpful extension while it lasted. :)

[Blackfoot]

The extension was really pretty simple.. it can't take much to make it work again.

[Trenloe]

@Blackfoot - do I have your permission to look at your extension code and incorporate some of it into the main ruleset if appropriate please?

[Blackfoot]

Of course. Please do!

[Trenloe]

Of course. Please do!
Thanks!

[MaxAstro]

Trenloe, you are incredible.

The level of responsiveness to the community that you have has been a huge factor in making me feel confident with my decision to stick with Fantasy Grounds.

I know you aren't promising anything regarding this extension yet, but still. Thank you. :)

[Trenloe]

I know you aren't promising anything regarding this extension yet, but still. Thank you. :)
It'll be in the next ruleset release. There's a lot going on with the next release, so not sure exactly when that will be. Probably around the time that Bestiary 2 is released - so that's not long, right? ;)

EDIT: Oh, and thanks so much for the kind words!

[Hykim]

I just linked this post to my players as an example of how awesome the devs and community is for FG in general and PF2E in specific.