Flamebrand vs. Chain Lightning

[Shard O'Glase]

The Empowered Fireball for comparison is a little off. Sure Firebrand is better, but the Empowered Fireball takes a feat to use. By all rights the Empowered Fireball should do MORE damage since it requires a feat and has a lower DC for an equal level spell slot.

If the feat was empower fireball I'd agree with you. But since it is just empower and I can then empower any spell with a variable in it I don't think the empowered fireball should be better. And though it does more damage at level 10 I don't think it is better since the dc for the save is different, I think it about evens out.

Empower allows you to have a much more limited spell seleciton and still get by in the raw power of your spells,(saves lots of money for the wizard, and known spell slots for Sor) And so empower does enough without it making the spells better than spells of the new empowered level.

 

[Gromm]

Finally, I tend to prefer more damage to one target instead of less to more. Kill one guy, then move to the next so that the enemy loses firepower faster than you.

Personally I'd rather kill everyone at once. 2 firebrands at level 11 = 22d6 damage to 11 potential targets. 2 chain lightnings 22d6 to one target and maybe, just maybe 10d6 to 2 other targets.
Why would I ever pick chain lightning?

I also prefer to beat down one foe at a time, but if I can beat down ALL my foes at the same time, then they will fall like dominoes since they've all taken massive damage.

In our situation, there was a Hill Giant leader with some fighter levels and his 4 hill giant cronies.
Firebrand hit all of them each round. The leader dropped first, but the rest of them had about 10 hit points remaining and were dead within the round. If our wizard had all his spells he could have easily killed all save the leader in 2 rounds. If he was a sorceror he could have done it more times in a day.

Chain lightning wasn't that great of a spell before fire brand. Now it just seems a foolish (albiet cool) choice. It only gets better at level 16, and then its better by 1d6 damage against one target.

Look at the total damage in a best case scenario for chain lightning. 3 foes all standing in a line at level 20.

Fire brand- 15d6 each = 45d6 damage total
Chain lightning -20d6 to one,10d6 to 2= 40d6 damage total.
We can add more enemies, but thats just going to make firebrand even better so I wont bother.
Against 1 or 2 enemies at level 20 chain lightning might be better, but even then the total damage is the same. The chain just does MORE to one target than the other.


And firebrand is a level lower (which is the big point if it was level 6 it would be less of an issue, though its still better).

 

[bleedthefreak]

Thanks Gromm, you hit the nail on the head.

Now, my question, is Chain Lightning to weak, or Firebrand to powerful? I personally as a DM think Friebrand is too powerful, since a hasted mage can, in one round, decimate all foes within several hundred feet. That seems pretty nasty. However, as a Player, I would probably think differently. Maybe I will throw firebrand on an enemy mage and see how I like it..