Empower Metamagic Feat question

[Vchan]

"All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half"

so, would that mean that, for example, a magic missle would go from being a 1d4+1 / missle to 1d6+1 / missle in damage?

Or would it be 1d4+1 (+2) for the empowered version?

 

[Felonious Monk]

It means you would roll 1d4, then add 50% of that, then add 1. For example, if you roll a 2 then your missle does 2+1+1=4 damage. If you roll a 1 then you do 1+0(round down)+1=2 damage.

 

[Vchan]

Thanks!

 

[Pyrex]

That's not quite right Felonious Monk, you should read the example in the PHB.

It's (d4+1)x1.5. The entire range of "d4+1" is considered variable.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It means you would roll 1d4, then add 50% of that, then add 1. For example, if you roll a 2 then your missle does 2+1+1=4 damage. If you roll a 1 then you do 1+0(round down)+1=2 damage.

WRONG!!!!!

The numerical part of magic missile is 1d4+1, not 1d4. In other words, each missile does a variable amount of damage from 2 to 5 points. This initial result is then multiplied by 1.5, to get a range of 3 to 7 points of damage.

Don't believe me? Check the example in the PHB. It uses Magic Missile as the example spell.

 

[KarinsDad]

Another point on this is that you should discuss with your DM (if you are not the DM) about increasing the total by 50% as opposed to each individual die.

For the psionic Empower Power feat, it states:

"multiply 1-1/2 times the damage total of the augmented power".

I suggest doing this for spells as well as psionics.

Although doing it this way does slightly increase the total result, it is a LOT faster to calculate the answer.

For example:

a 12D6 Empowered Cone of Cold (empowering every die) does 60 points of damage on average.

a 12D6 Empowered Cone of Cold (empowering the total) does 63 points of damage on average.

But, calculating the extra damage per die for 12D6 might take most people an extra 30 seconds of game time to get the result. I don't know about you, but I get bored when people take a lot of time to calculate a damage total.


Empowering the total also removes variability between results. For example, a character doing 4D6 with dice results of 2, 2, 4, 6 does 21 points of damage using empower every die. A character doing the same 14 points on 4D6 with results of 1, 3, 5, 5 does 19 points of damage using empower every die.

 

[frankthedm]

Now what about the Die + 1 per caster level? Produce flame / cure/infict?

3.5 did seem to change how empower was applied

 

[Crothian]

Now what about the Die + 1 per caster level? Produce flame / cure/infict?

3.5 did seem to change how empower was applied

you take the result and times it by 1.5

So, a 5th level cleric casting cure light wounds heals (1d8+5) * 1.5

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Now what about the Die + 1 per caster level? Produce flame / cure/infict?

Treated the same.

Inflict Light Wounds, when cast by a 1st-level Cleric, has a random, variable effect of 2-9 damage.

When cast by a 5th-level Cleric, it has a random, variable effect of 6-13 damage.

This tends to make Empower much more useful on spells where there is a strong level-based fixed component to the random range.

 

[dcollins]

3.5 did seem to change how empower was applied

Actually, it's exactly the same as 3.0.