schools of magic

[emanresu]

When I was searching for spells for a Prc Bard / Beguiler build I kept seeing responses in threads knocking evocation specialist aka blasters. The Blasters were inferior somehow? either by mechanic or influence I dunno just kept seeing the blanket statement that evokers/blasters were weak, evokers sucked etc.

why? why do they suck? If thats the case then warmage must really really suck. Anyways when I was looking at my Bard & Beguiler spell list I was missing the "big boom" spells. So this got me looking at them. Then I saw the Psion Keneticist as a viable blaster, is this common knowledge?

Eman

 

[delericho]

It turns out that the "smart" investment with spell selection is actually on "save or suck" spells - after all, why be content with reducing the enemy's hit points by 25% if you can instead take him out of the fight, either completely or for N rounds? And that's something that a lot of spells do (interfere with the action economy), but it's something that very few 'blaster' spells do.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Basically that. As fun and archetypal as it is, doing HP damage is one of the slowest ways to defeat foes in D&D.

Not that I let that stop me.

 

[emanresu]

I get that vs the BBeG or the "boss" but vs multiple targets those area spells can cause some major damage. As an example fireball, a 3rd level spell, 5d6 damage to 20' radius. Lets say I avg roll 17 pts of damage. Thats a lot of half dead worgs n Ogres. Not to mention the fear of the BOOM spell. No metamagc feats to increase effectiveness, just the plain ole 5d6 save or damage. Its not likely half dead creatures are going to be anything less than startled by the BOOM.

Im not saying Im a huge fan or not Im just trying to figure out why the all the negative press?

Also 2nd part of my post was about the Psion as a Blaster? OR better worded Psion vs a Sorcerer vs the War Mage to fill the blaster roll. They can pick n chose energy type, if the warmage could do this, his spell list would be gimped majorly, prolly cut n half, and he would be more efficient.

 

[Ahnehnois]

This is largely a consequence of 3e boosting the various defensive options while keeping the existing damaging spells from earlier editions. Energy resistance is so useful and common, SR is common, saves scale so easily and so cheaply, evasion is so easy to acquire, and so on and so forth, that it's very difficult for the blaster to actually deal his full damage. In addition, constitution-based hit points bonuses and inflated monster hit dice have created a very durable set of opponents.

Magic Missile remains the most useful first level spell precisely because of its reliability, but there aren't really a lot of higher level versions of it that work well. A few of the later books have some reasonably effective blasting type spells, but nothing really game-changing..

This creates an incentive to try to disable or kill the target through saves while bypassing hit points; it's a high-variance approach that can lay waste to opponents but also frequently does nothing at all; again partially as a consequence of proliferating defenses and counters.

The most mechanically effective spellcasting options under the 3.5 rules have thus proven to be the ones you cast on your allies or yourself. No worries about saves and resistances, and they often have long durations and powerful benefits that keep on giving. It's a bit of an odd phenomenon that the unassuming "support mage" became the king of the heap.

Of course, it's true that people are playing all of them.

 

[delericho]

I get that vs the BBeG or the "boss" but vs multiple targets those area spells can cause some major damage. As an example fireball, a 3rd level spell, 5d6 damage to 20' radius. Lets say I avg roll 17 pts of damage. Thats a lot of half dead worgs n Ogres.

Not as many as you might think. Bear in mind that they need to actually be in the area to be effected, so unless they're tightly packed, that's going to be a limiting factor. And generally creatures should be more spread out than that.

And a lot of those "save or suck" spells also affect areas, or multiple targets, or whatever.

Also 2nd part of my post was about the Psion as a Blaster?

Sorry, I can't help there. My experience of the Psion is sorely limited. My gut feeling is that it's a decent choice (as far as blasters go) - similar to a Sorcerer but with a bit more flexibility.

 

[Larrin]

The way I've seen it demonstrated was this:

Imagine a 240 hp creature, but nothing else special.
killing it with blasting: 240 hp is 40d6 maximized, or around 80d6 rolled. I've seen people post how to do this in one round, and it takes a page of explaining, 5 different source books and big chunk of their resources/feats/levels focusing on it.


Killing it with finger of death is _one_ 7th level spell. No further investment needed. [or insert any other similar spell, maybe you don't even have to kill it]


For the record, I too would rather blast.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Part of the lack of love given toward "Blasting" spells is that anyone, any class can deal damage. The Fighter, the Barbarian, they can deal the damage, but not a whole lot else.

The Caster has the ability to alter reality. When you can Bind/Entangle/Stun/Drown/Polymorph/Battlefield Control/Sleep/Debuff/Summon/Insta-kill... etc, suddenly it seems silly to "just deal damage", as if such crude methods are beneath The Caster.

 

[emanresu]

I suppose part of me pictures a powerful wizard, even ranks the power of a wizard by the size of his BOOM! spell. Have any here created a evoker, specializing in mass destruction? Ide be interested in seeing what build BOOMS! the best? Psion-Kineticist, Sorcerer, Wizard-Evoker, Druid, Cleric, Warmage, Archivist, other? What prestige best support/promote mass destruction BOOM spells?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A evocation-dedicated sorcerer probably out-BOOMs most wizards, except for a Focused Specialist Evoker, just based on spell slots. But a FSE could have more metamagical punch to his spells.

Some of the Psionic damage powers are better than their arcane or divine counterparts because they have more inherent flexibility.