Talk:Gravitational Force (5e Spell)

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	Compare this to Reverse Gravity.

5E translation notes

Some of the elements of this spell still carry some legacy sensibilities from 3.5/3E design: round-based duration, "caster level" scaling, assumptions about planar gravity, and a general degree of complexity and book-keeping uncommon in 5e design. Rather than try to just make up the right answers for things like duration, range, area of effect, let's instead examine some comps.

• Entangle: 1 minute concentration, 20 ft square area of difficult terrain with an initial save vs restrained.
• Warding Wind: 10 min concentration, 10 ft radius of difficult terrain that gives ranged attacks disadvantage.
• Hunger of Hadar: 1 minute concentration, 20 ft radius of difficult terrain and magical darkness that creatures save vs damage for 3/4ths.
• Sleet Storm: 1 minute concentration, 40 ft radius heavily obscured difficult terrain, creatures save vs prone, and make concentration checks.
• Slow: 1 minute concentration, six targets in 120 ft save vs 1/2 speed, -2 AC/Dex saves, no reactions, & action limitations. Retry save each round.
• Spirit Guardians: 10 minutes concentration, 15 ft radius halves speed and save vs damage for half.

This probably isn't everything, but it's a big pool of effects we can mine with an idea of their level appropriateness. From what you've got so far; it's almost certainly a concentration spell with a duration of 1 minute. You want something modular (like Enlarge/Reduce) that creates a stationary zone of debuff (probably a 20 ft cube). It seems to me like you want one mode to "lock down" a space, and the other to facilitate travel through it.

So the High-Gravity zone is something like "A creature moving through the area must spend 2 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves. Ranged weapon attacks through this area have their ranges halved." There's room for more but it's mostly a variant Warding Wind, so keep that comparison in the back of your mind.

The Low-Gravity zone can flip this. Advantage on Strength Checks makes sense (enhance ability is single target but lasts for an hour so it seems like an acceptable trade), likewise increasing your speed by 10 ft for one turn. The goal should be to keep this roughly on par with the benefits of High-Gravity. Vaegrim (talk) 18:15, 20 April 2019 (MDT)

Fixed duration and area to be more standard. However, your above mechanics, while rational, add even more math to a system that tries to avoid it. Of all my spells this is certainly the most complex as is. Additionally, increasing strength does not make sense. Changing gravity does not make a creature stronger or weaker. It only decreases or increases how much they can lift relative to normal. This is mentioned in the current spell and will suffice.--Franken Kesey 18:01, 21 April 2019 (MDT)

The trouble with relying purely on effective weight changes is twofold: the only standard weights are for equipment, and there's no guide for the DC for Athletics Checks to move heavy objects. The consequence of this is that practically speaking, that effect only interacts with equipment and encumbrance (systems many DMs largely ignore). That said, you're already giving out disadvantage on ability checks, why doesn't the same logic apply for your Heavy Gravity zone? "Changing gravity does not make a creature stronger or weaker", unless you're making an athletics check in a High Gravity zone?

I'm not sure what you mean by the suggestions adding "even more math", I'm directly cribbing mechanics from existing 5e Spells. That's specifically the advice I'm giving, try (where possible) to crib effects from existing spells of comparable levels. Vaegrim (talk) 10:01, 22 April 2019 (MDT)

5e really hates math. Well removed much of the math. Check out the current version.--Franken Kesey 10:27, 22 April 2019 (MDT)

Compare the level to reverse gravity. Completely unacceptable for the same effect. --Ghostwheel (talk) 10:38, 22 April 2019 (MDT)