Hello,

I've been wanting to get back into homebrewing and have made some spells within the theme of ruby crystals (blasting ruby crystal spikes, encasing enemies in ruby crystal, etc).

I've so far made 7 spells and would like some feedback.

Cantrip: Ruby Spikes

1st Level: Ruby Armour , Ruby Bomb , Ruby Shield

2nd Level: Ruby Shards

3rd Level: Ruby Rain

4th Level: Ruby Shell

I think Ruby Rain can do with an increase in damage, maybe 3d10.  It has good range but that isn't so much of a factor that you have to limit the damage so much.

Ruby Bomb looks fun but I would limit the amount of boost it can get to Int bonus or some such. Has too high a siege potential for a lvl 1 spell.

Ruby Shield also looks fun but the backblast is not needed. Or if you want to keep the mechanic, make it a flat amount in an area.

Out of curiosity, why Ruby and not any other precious stones?

Quote from IamSposta >>

Out of curiosity, why Ruby and not any other precious stones?

 Maybe....

He's working on one stone at a time.

It's his birthstone.

He likes red, the color of his enemies' blood!

Red is the color of passion and it requires a certain kind of caster.

He doesn't know any other precious stones (highly doubtful). As a side note, if it weren't for D&D I wouldn't have learned the colors of stones so young (4th grade).

In his campaign jewels contain magic, and certain spells are tied to consuming or socketing or atuning to particular gems by type.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think Ruby Rain can do with an increase in damage, maybe 3d10.  It has good range but that isn't so much of a factor that you have to limit the damage so much.

 
The reason I was limited is because it also creates difficulty terrain that can further damage opponents, especially if combined with effects that move opponents like Repelling Blast / Grasp of Hadar invocations, Gust cantrip, etc. Blow back a person an additional 5 ft and that's 10 more damage. If another 15 ft pushed/pulled, that's 30 more damage. The combo potential can get a lot. The difficult terrain plus a Slow spell can really hamper several enemies. So given the combo potential for crowd control and additional damage - the initial impact damage had to be less.

Or do you think even with this the damage is still too low?

Quote from Wysperra >>

Ruby Bomb looks fun but I would limit the amount of boost it can get to Int bonus or some such. Has too high a siege potential for a lvl 1 spell.

 
I was worried about this spell. I wanted it low level so it can be taken early for some easy fun - even a few rounds of pumping up the damage still isn't too much. I didn't want to use upscaling because the point was to make basic get-through-walls easier without using up higher slots to do so (because otherwise nothing would compare to Disintegrate).  So this is why it takes actions every turn and will take several minutes, up o 10, to get the high numbers. I added siege specifically for the utility of getting through walls.

Ultimately, it's nothing you couldn't do in 10 minutes with a cantrip (even at 1st level, casting Fire Bolt over an over will eventually break through a stone wall - in 10 mins of repeat casting it's an average 550 damage. A medium block of stone has about 18 HP so it's nothing OP). 

It does provide a bit of tactical play to use effectively in a battle.

Given what can be done just using fire bolt - which exceeds the maximum damage output of this 1st level spell in the same amount of time, and given its designed for tactics and siege: what adjustments do you think it requires with this in mind? 

I wasn't sure how to balance this well with what I wanted from it. O.o

Quote from Wysperra >>

 Ruby Shield also looks fun but the backblast is not needed. Or if you want to keep the mechanic, make it a flat amount in an area.

 
I was kinda on the idea of this overwhelming the user as a compensate from the resistances. Or do you think the vulnerabilities was compensating enough? I'm more likely to remove that bit (backblast) then. I wanted something that had real reason to choose this over regular Shield or Absorb Elements, and something you could upscale for better protection (as most early defenses like Shield, Absorb Elements, Mirror Image, etc don't upscale their protection at all). 

Without the backblast, would you consider this spell as a balanced alternative to the basic AC boost of Shield, for instance? 

Quote from IamSposta >>

Out of curiosity, why Ruby and not any other precious stones?

 
It just looks better when I visualise it. Diamond would have a visual aesthetic close to ice, as might sapphire, while topaz and emerald - they're too bright. I wanted something that looked menacing and impaling enemies with blood-red crystal spikes just seemed the way to go. The dark red colour is also symbolic of blood (hence focus on piercing damage to make enemies bleed) and offense (hence the heavier focus on damage over protection). Ruby is also a common feminine name and there's Rubeus - the masculine equivalent, although originally unisex). So have a ruby named character dressed in red with these spells would be super thematic if you wanted to go that way (and was the original inspiration: an idea of a sorceress named Ruby using these spell with a crystal and flower motif).

Of course, nothing stops people reskinning them to different gemstones if they wanted. 

Quote from Wysperra >>

In his campaign jewels contain magic, and certain spells are tied to consuming or socketing or atuning to particular gems by type.

I like to attribute elemental qualities to gemstones and have different types have a focus on a different type of magic - D&D's fondness of using diamonds for everything is boring to me. Back before my brain turned against me and my life crumbled into deep despair I was once working on an RPG of my own that would feature players being able to equip 'Soulcores' - where regular magic was measured in mana and for crafting spells with great versatility - letting you make your own personal spells by crafting them yourself - such magic had the downside of being more easily countered by antimagic techniques. Soulcores were very rare items that allowed an alternative - thematic spell-like abilities that were not considered magic, but you didn't craft the abilities - and progression to unlock them slower and they used their own soul energy that recovered much slower and were more difficult to increase the maximum amount (you had to collect rare soul shards). Each soulcore offered different perks and special abilities / attacks and each had very specific themes (Plant, Gemstone (like Ruby, Sapphire etc, they were all the same just visually different), Sand, Fire, Lightning, Beast, etc). 

The project didn't get very far and my ability to spend such time coding things is significantly reduced for many, many reasons - but I still try to bring them back into homebrewing I do. 

Cool, thanks. Making a design decision because you think it’s the coolest way to do it is always a perfectly valid reason. I only asked because it’s just a cosmetic issue, but those cosmetic issues and when I pictured all of these spells potentially being used during the same combat that would look pretty monotone. It only occurred to me to even care one way or another is because they always use light, pastel blues and greens for stuff like scrubs in surgical wards because early surgeons would stare at all of that deep red every all day with nothing to break it up and over time it literally burned out their vision. So now they always break it up so the surgeons can specifically look at another color periodically to prevent it.

I happened to know a relatively random fact that happened to have a tangential relation to this in a generally unimportant way. Since that association stood out to me I was just curious upon what your decision was based.

Ruby Rain difficult terrain only lasts until your next turn so there aren't lasting effects As it is, you'd need to cast it twice and have somebody push you around in it for the damage to equal fireball. Situational I know but there are other spells that can create difficult/damaging ground that lasts longer. I understand the reasoning but many players would  choose to do the damage faster with few spell slots.

I can see your reasoning comparing Ruby Bomb to cantrips and such over time but the spell is long ranged, large area effect auto-hit, no save. I think the upper end is the part that unnerves me. 100d4 area effect, no save.

I love spells and effects like Ruby Shield. It is the iconic force field, ice shield, web barrier, solid smoke (Star Trek Beyond) thing. It deflects a certain amount of punishment before going away. Some folks wouldn't like the backblast because it has the potential to knock them out if they use this spell in a desperate situation. Making it area effect at least has a chance to damage an attacker. Plus Minus on that bit. 20 hp seems about right.