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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 918538" data-attributes="member: 3146">A FR only race, feat and prestige class make this example somewhat less applicable to the standard D&D campaignAnd now adding in a Tome and blood item. Not that FRCS or T&B (or even the races, classes and items you chose from them) are necessarily broken in and of themselves or even when combined but they do mean that this is not exactly an example of an ordinary D&D wizard. In fact, it's an example of a wizard doing things that can ONLY be done using builder book items and campaign book races, feats, and classes. To present it as if it were an example of an ordinary wizard is misleading to say the least.Plus, even with the rod of Greater Empowerment, 96 points of damage is far more than an average roll on the dice unless it was an empowered Chain lightning--in which case, it's average but you should have mentioned that fact.Against that DC, failure is to be expected (although there's still only about a 2/3 chance of universal failure) but since the secondary arcs only do half the damage of the primary arc, all of the non-primary targets should still be alive unless it really was a maximum damage double empowered chain lightning. (Which is much different than the way you initially described the scenario).That's an awfully poor use of contingencies (if that's what they used) and energy buffer (if that's what they used). Either one should be set up to protect against any energy type not just a particular one.Mea Culpa, I probably should have said "I don't want to judge your game because as long as you're having fun, that's the point but it's irrelevant to discussing the core rules balance of wizards and other classes." The wizard in question probably can't get much more optimized but there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. The thing that's wrong is presenting it as an example of what an ordinary wizard can do. A 16th level core rules wizard cannot do what that wizard did--even with the most amazing confluence of luck that makes all his foes fail their saves and him roll max damage.That's awfully rude for when you're called on your example. You present it as if it's an example of an ordinary D&D wizard doing really well. Then we discover that it's a maxed out FRCS sun elf with the archmage prestige class and a very powerful builder book item and we still can't account for how he managed to kill any of the secondary targets (unless it was an empowered Chain Lightning cast with the rod for a double empowered chain lightning and then the wizard rolled max damage, but I think those things are significant enough that they should have been included in the original example if it's to be understood as an honest example).</blockquote>

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