The Tavern

Gell's Gravitas always seemed like an exceptionally useless spell to me. I think it could use a buff, because Warpers are generally so bad, and because Summon Forest might get changed to a god ability. Here's my suggestion for how it could work:

Targeting works the same as fireball (a beam affecting a 3x3 square) except it can also target walls. When cast, every monster in the outer 8 tiles collides with the central square. It also affects the player.

Monsters in the outer tiles are iterated over randomly, and if the central square is empty (maybe because the central monster died) then the current monster moves to the central tile instead of colliding.

Each collision does damage = 3d(size1 * size2 * (1 + power/24)), and ignores EV but is reduced by AC.
Max power = 100.

Size multipliers are:
wall - 3
insubstantial - 0
tiny - 0.25
little - 0.5
small - 0.75
medium - 1
large - 1.25
big - 1.5
giant - 1.75
huge - 2

Here are some examples:

50 power:
stone arrow = 3d11
gravitas on wall / medium monster = 3d12

100 power:
bolt of fire = 6d14
gravitas on wall / big monster = 3d23
gravitas on 3 medium monsters = 2 * 2d5 to the center one

I like the idea, but isn't this a strictly better LRD? (LRD on rock wall is 3d(5+power/5)), or 3d15 at power 50, 3d25 at power 100. But this is level 3, AND also works if you have two monsters instead of a monster and a wall)

Doing the math, it would do 0.6x to 0.62x the damage of LRD against medium monsters. So, against giants or dragons it would be more damage than LRD, but not smite-targeted, probably shorter range, and it can't break walls. Also, there's an enhancer staff for earth but not translocations, and there's a lower power cap.

Does the game really need a "damage, but uses Translocations instead of some other school" spell?

If Gell's Gravitas is useless (I think it is) why not just remove it? If Wr need a balance adjustment, it can be done directly instead of trying to rescue a bad spell.

This. Long ago we got rid of Disrupt and Twist. (Those we level 1 direct damage spells for Transmutation (Transmigration back in the day) and Translocation schools.)

Isn't there a way to make the spell better suited for its original purpose, which I thought was "group things up better for more efficient X"? Where X is Foo Cloud/Ignite/Ball Lightning/Grasping Hands/Scroll of Immolation/etc. With a side benefit, depending on positioning, that things that were closer to you are moved back.

For that purpose it needs a larger AOE than Fireball. Maybe remove the damage component and have it affect everything in LOS? (Change of success per creature rising with spell power, falling with creature size?) Surely there must be a zone in there where the spell would be above useless and below OP.

Gell's Gravitas already does increase in AoE as your spellpower increases. If that's all it needs, it just needs to scale faster with spellpower, which is a one liner change.

Against common wisdom, I've used Gell's Gravitas quite liberally in the few games I've played that got translocations early.

One of the more useful times was standing in a corridor nearly dead with no escape options and a room in front of me. Every time creatures tried to approach I'd pull them backwards and do damage with Gell's. Relatively low MP cost kept them (melee only) at bay for the turns I needed to regenerate a bit.

Odd and circumstantial, but useful enough for moving creatures around with a bit of damage. Particularly moving them backwards. I've done this early game when I've run into Robin and his gang to soften them up. It's not a lategame spell by any means, but for early game and arguably a bit into mid I think it does it's job fairly enough.

A buff, however, would make it more than "I've had bad RNGesus with spells so I'll use what I can get" defensive into "Hey, this is actually useful."

I feel like BVC does Gell's own job better now, though.

This might be a better path to explore; using Gell's not for damage (even from grouping), so much as to either shoo creatures away, or lock them down in one spot for a short time. Or it could be like a single target BVC, whether with or without damage, which is fair with how much easier it is to cast.

Even a single target BVC without damage sounds like a fairly useful spell. Use it to escape, or pelt with ranged attacks. Really good if it also damages.