drnuncheon said:
To quote you, sir, "Nonsense." Just because you cannot pull off a "kill 'em all" combo in a single round does not mean that you never can or never should use that combo. It means that such a combo is going to have a higher cost, and you are going to have to consider more carefully whether it is the best for the situation or not. Or, you're going to have to work with another spellcaster to pull off a one-round Combo of Death.
I'm not saying that such combos won't be seen but the point is that, without a practical method for PCs to cast two useful spells per round creative combos will be higher cost and more demanding and will thus be seen less often. In other words, you'll see more use of vanilla spells like magic missile, fireball and cone of cold and less creative use of things like Evard's Black Tentacles and Wall of Ice. Which means that instead of adding diversity to spell choices, the changes are reducing them.
You're right - you'll have to use teamwork instead. Hold Person + a CdG from the rogue wielding a blunt instrument should do nicely if you want to remove someone from the fight without hurting them. Or Hold Person plus Trip, Grapple, Bull Rush...any number of things.
You could "use teamwork" before. So instead of having two options: Use Hold Person or use a much riskier combination involving multiple people and strange manuevers, you have one option: use a risky combination involving multiple people and strange manuevers--possibly including Hold Person.
It just means that you'll have to work together with someone else rather than getting to do it all by yourself.
That's simply putting a candy coating around the "now characters X, Y, and Z will be less effective.
In this case, that means that the spellcaster will be less effective. If we made it require a character using the Aid Other action for fighters to make full attack options, we could say "what are you complaining about? It just means that you'll have to work together with someone else rather than getting to do it all by yourself." That would just be obscuring the fact that we'd just made fighters less effective. Similarly, if we increased the DC of all traps by 2, we could say "it just means that your rogue will have to work with someone else (Aid other for +2) rather than getting to do it all by himself." That would obscure the fact that we had just made the rogue's ability to detect and remove traps less effective.
Characters are SUPPOSED to be able to do some things "all by themselves." That's not selfish, non-team player gameplay.
When you can produce a fighter, rogue, or barbarian that can deal 10d6 damage to everyone within a 20' radius circle, in a single round, at a distance of 800 feet - please, let everyone know. I'll be curious to see how you do it.
Hmm. Spiked chain wielding fighter/barbarian/Frenzied Beserker--Empowered Bull's strength, 18 strength (16+2 increases), weapon specialization, GMW on a +1 frost chain, and whirlwind attack.
Str 29 raging and bull's strengthed.
Damage=2d4 (chain)+4 GMW, +1d6 Frost,+2 Wp spec, +13 str, +5 power attack=33.5 average damage to all targets in a 20' area--more to those he cleaves into. If he goes into a beserk frenzy, he can do even more damage.
It's a good deal more damage than the fireball since the fireball averages 35 points of damage but allows a save for 1/2 (or none if Evasion comes into play). Assuming a fairly maximized wizard with Greater Spell Focus Evocation, and a 24 int, the DC is still only 24. The kind of characters that have evasion will usually (more than 50%) make that save. Even characters without evasion will sometimes (maybe 20-30%) that save. Monsters advanced by HD will almost always make that save. (Since a CR bump of 2 (double HD) usually also doubles their saves). Fireball is also vulnerable to SR and elemental resistance (which is quite common among CR 10 creatures).
If I'm limited to 10th level and the FAQ interpretation of Whirlwind Attack with reach weapons, I'll have to settle for a 5 foot radius because I won't have Supreme Cleave. However, the entire 20' radius of a fireball is rarely useful so this character can probably duplicate the area damage effect although at significantly less range.
If you want a fighter capable of annihilating hordes of foes at range, you'll have to take an Arcane Archer using the Hail of Arrows ability. +5 Holy Shock bow and +5 arrows (both from an 11th level GMW with a bead of karma), +4 str modifier, prayer for 1d8+15+3d6=31 points of average damage to each target, no save for 1/2 and SR does not apply.
The ability of a fighter type to duplicate fireball is not really relevant, however. IME, most combats are not against hordes of low level orcs and goblins in tight formation who are vulnerable to fireballs. Many more fights are against an advanced Fiendish Elder Arrowhawk, a pair of Greater Earth Elementals or a trio of Bodaks. In those [much more common] cases, the damage output of a wizard with fireball pales in comparison to the damage output of a fighter. (And, while the fighter I described above is an unusual, highly optimized fighter, there's nothing at all unusual about a raging 18 str fighter/barbarian with an empowered bull's strength and a +3 elemental greatsword--such a character will be dealing an average of fifty or sixty points of damage/round against a single opponent. Without two spells a round, wizards or sorcerors have a lot of trouble competing with that kind of damage).
