Talk:Bamf (3.5e Spell)

Ratings

Tarkisflux is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.

I quite like the idea and theme of the spell, but it scales a lot higher than I'm happy with for a level 2. Scaling both distance and duration winds up outpacing even higher level options, and I'm not cool with it after all. With the scaling adjusted I think it's a pretty solid spell option. I still have reservations about the standard action "use all of your remaining rounds of distance at once" though, and would be hesitant to bring it into a game.

I respect your opinion, though I would like to offer a small argument in the defense of this article. Yes, this spell will allow you to jump further than higher level spells, but I personally feel that at mid to high level, distance in D&D slowly becomes arbitrary. The difference between 1,200 feet and 4,000 feet is generally of little importance as both will generally move you far enough to put you in or out of battle. Adding to that, even at level 20 a dimension door is still a faster and easier way to retreat - a single standard action. This spell aims to balance its practical use with economy of actions; going further or through things requires more time precisely because of this. I do not consider the distance this spell can achieve to be an issue

On the other hand, I do kind of see your point when looking at the regular bamf - the move action jump. At higher levels, a move or swift action jump of up to 200 feet may allow for some... shenanigans. I will ponder this. For the time being, I will change the balance to VH to take the edge off a little bit. --Sulacu (talk) 16:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not just that the spell offers more total distance than a spell 2 levels higher than it under certain circumstances, it's that it offers more distance than 3 castings of a spell two levels higher than it under those circumstances. And if cast as a combat buff, you can run around with multiple rounds of long range move action teleports and then dump them all to gain the distance of a DD on top of that without having to spend an additional spell slot. If you're instead indoors / underground where LoS is more of a limiting factor, you can just not do anything during your turn and blip through a few walls (and you wouldn't be doing anything if you'd cast DD on your turn anyway). And that distance is going to be sufficient to clear yourself from combat under most situations as well, and you can just repeat until it is sufficient if it's a problem or use a different option. So yeah, you had to spend a prep round on it, but also benefited from all the inbetween rounds and then got the escape benefit on top. That distance slowly becomes arbitrary is not an excuse to outperform higher level spells in that fashion IMO.

I think my problem comes in two places - the scaling distance and the standard action dump. If the scaling distance was capped or just plain fixed at the start, you avoid high level distance shenanigans. For a level 2 spell, I like a fixed 30' at H, 60' at VH. And if the standard action dump was removed or sharply limited like the other options, you eliminate the escape benefit of the spell for the most part, and have to either spend the time to get the total distance (which is still comparable but carries a greater time cost at that point) or just use it as the buff / utility spell it seems like it wants to be. You could maybe do the ignore LoS thing as a standard at VH even. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Note: Dimension door is probably not a VH level 4 IMO, and it can carry multiple targets which this can not. So I wouldn't mind creeping up on it with a single target level 2 H or VH spell. Exceeding it in the way that this seems overblown though. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

	Aarnott favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Flavor: Awesome fun. Definitely have no complaints or suggestions. Mechanics: I like that the duration spending abilities scale the capabilities of this spell in-line with character level (assuming caster level is approximately close to character level). The spell still doesn't warrant a higher spell slot even with the new unlocked options because those options severely reduce the duration.

	Luigifan18 favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Oooh, Teleport Spam! This sounds like an entertaining spell to vex adversaries with, especially when their wizard forgets to prepare dimensional anchor or dimension lock.

Activation Change?

Thanks for the ratings guys. I was wondering though, whether or not I should change the casting time from standard to swift. That way, the spellcaster can actually use any of the spell's options in the turn he casts the spell (except for the swift/immediate variants, since you used your swift for the round). Any thoughts on this? --Sulacu (talk) 08:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I like it as-is. The last two options can make it close enough to a dimension door that I think it is fair to need to wait 1 round before using them. You can still use immediate/swift/move action jumps the first round, after all. --Aarnott (talk) 14:13, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with Aarnott. --Luigifan18 (talk) 19:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I third this opinion. Messing with the activation would be weird, mostly because of how it scales at the high end.

Your total distance is 10' * CL, * CL rounds, and you can dump that all after the first round into a single skip as a standard action. At level 9, you have a total distance of 90' * 9 rounds = 810', though you have to use it over at least 2 rounds to get the largest benefit. This is in excess of the total distance of DDoor at the same level (400+360 = 760), but it takes you two rounds and you can't go through things. By level 11 you have a total distance of 110' * 11 rounds = 1210', 10' more than ddoor at level 20. By level 16 you have a total distance of 170' * 17 rounds = 2890', which you can drop in half to 170' * 8 rounds = 1360' to go through things like you could with ddoor (even though it takes you a lot of rounds to do it, because full-round action).

Changing to a move action cast time lets you standard action burn everything up on the same round, and makes this better than ddoor in straight distance at CL9 (in terms of straight distance, and so long as you don't have a 50' base speed to use before casting ddoor). It's not a nice comparison.

I'm not suggesting that anything needs to be changed with respect to the higher levels (though you could cap teleport distance at something like 60' if you were worried about the scaling), I'm just saying it's already better than ddoor in a lot of cases and shouldn't get an activation discount that makes it almost always better. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 20:16, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Alrighty, I'm convinced. I'll keep the spell as is. Thanks guys. --Sulacu (talk) 23:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Clarification

For ignoring LoS, you indicate that it's a full-round action and then later reference a preparatory round. You would only have the preparatory round if it was a 1-round action (like a summoning spell), since a full-round action just uses both your standard and move actions for the round. Should that reference be removed, or did you intend it to be a 1-round action that was completed right before the start of your next turn to ignore LoS? - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:08, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I was about to bring this up, but it looks like I was ninja'd. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 21:40, 20 November 2014 (UTC)