A Cantrip That Does Fireball Damage?!?!?

[jaelis]

To be pedantic, depending on how your particular group counts diagonals, a single fireball could hit around 44 creatures which could mean as much 352d6 damage total if there is a creature in every square of the area of effect and they all fail their save. Obviously an unlikely situation, but possible.

Your results may vary depending how you determine circles on a grid.

Certainly, but Syntallab's argument seems to be that it is reasonable to compare the single-target damage of fireball to the multiple-target damage of other spells. I'm simply trying to point out that if you use that approach, sword burst is hardly the only problem.

 

[jaelis]

Now, I've never played an Eldritch Knight or had a player play one when I DM, but aren't they limited to Abjuration & Evocation spells only? Isn't Sword Burst a conjuration spell?

EK can take their cantrips from the full wizard spell list.

 

[Rossbert]

Certainly, but Syntallab's argument seems to be that it is reasonable to compare the single-target damage of fireball to the multiple-target damage of other spells. I'm simply trying to point out that if you use that approach, sword burst is hardly the only problem.

Initially, yes but he added that footnote in acknowledgement that his original post was not taking in those factors after it was pointed out several posts in.

I personally think the remaining flaw in the reasoning is just not understanding the full scale of escalation with higher level slots that makes 8d6 in the absolute ideal situation for a rarely picked cantrip not unreasonable.

 

[jaelis]

Initially, yes but he added that footnote in acknowledgement that his original post was not taking in those factors after it was pointed out several posts in.

I was responding to his subsequent claim

I guess I wasn't aware I was being irrational. I was comparing 8d6 damage from a cantrip to 8d6 damage from a 3rd level spell. And since that is the crux of my beef (at-will cantrip doing damage equal to a 3rd level spell slot), I thought is was fitting.

I don't see how that is any different than comparing 18d8 for a first level spell to 8d6 from a third level spell.

 

[Dausuul]

While that is nice, and a helpful tool for many, I try to limit my knowledge of things I don't NEED as a player, mostly to limit meta gaming and reduce the amount of obnoxious number crunching my brain would do. I like to think I wouldn't bring in too much DMG or MM research in as a character but realistically I don't think I can cordon off that well, so I only ever look up what I NEED for monster, class or item design.

Do not think I am in any way disparaging your excellent work and the time and effort you put in to your accumulated data.

Oh, no offense taken. I'm mostly doing the work because I like playing with numbers and analyzing stuff. I don't expect everyone to want or need what I'm producing.

Besides, this kind of analysis has very limited application to specific campaigns. If your DM loves kobolds and likes to send swarms of them at the party, you'll do much better with thunderclap than sword burst. Necrotic damage is a strong option generally, but if you're playing "Curse of Strahd," that's going to change things*. Et cetera.

[size=-2]*Edited to add: I have not done any analysis on the monsters in the adventure paths, and don't plan to. Nor have I read or played "Curse of Strahd." I'm basing this statement on the logic that "I assume Curse of Strahd is full of undead, and undead have a fair bit of necrotic resistance going on, so maybe necrotic isn't the best damage type for that adventure."[/size]

 

[Bardbarian]

What we are really missing here is how broken a rock is. A rock deals 1d4 damage when thrown and the world is full of rocks meaning infinite damage! How can you justify a rock dealing infinite damage!!1!!1one!1!?

 

[Hayden Steele]

You could take this to an extreme and compare a 17th level caster casting sword burst with 8 targets doing 32d6 compared to a meteor swarm against one for 40d6 and say theres barely any point in blowing your spell slot... you would of course be very wrong.

 

[Mistwell]

It's kinda meh. Most of the time you won't be able to catch more than 2-3 creatures in the range. In those rare times where you could catch a lot more, there are spells which do better damage that you'd want to use anyway for a spell slot. So on-balance I suspect your player will find he or she is disappointed in the cantrip or at best merely as satisfied as they'd be with most of the other attack cantrips.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Swordburst - For when a 5+ level Bladesinger with no remaining spell slots needs a less than 50% chance of killing a ring of kobolds, and has a few rounds to maneuver into position first.

 

[Rossbert]

Swordburst - For when a 5+ level Bladesinger with no remaining spell slots needs a less than 50% chance of killing a ring of kobolds, and has a few rounds to maneuver into position first.

Pretty much, though I traded it on mine for Booming Blade + Misty Step for either a bonus hit or locking down an enemy.