Plane Sailing said:
No way!
Scorching ray isn't 12d6, it maxes out at 3 x 4d6 (so is reduced more by fire resistance).
Empowered Combust would average 67.5 damage against one target, instead of 3 x 21 damage. Maximised it would do 80 as against 3 x 24. Minor fire resistance gets quite widespread and shuts down scorching ray, but hardly works against combust.
Touch spells are balanced against ranged touched spells because they are never wasted - if you miss your touch attack, you get to try again later.
Sounds to me like Combust ought to be a 3rd level spell really.
Actually, elemental resistances are applied per round, not per attack.
From the SRD
A creature with resistance to energy has the ability (usually extraordinary) to ignore some damage of a certain type each round, but it does not have total immunity.
EDIT: I agree that it's strong, but I don't think that it't too strong.
Combust is a very good second level spell, and would be just fine moved up a level, but it's not really errata-worthy any more than
Scorching Ray is. The fact that you can split the ray is occasionally handy, albeit normally sub par, and I think that the range is superior to holding the charge. At low levels you are way too fragile to intentionally stay in melee combat, and at high levels a second-level slot isn't very powerful.
Likewise, I haven't got a problem with
Kelp Strand. The grapple modifier is downright pathetic compared to a grappler of the appropriate level, as it should be. Compare the grapple modifier you can get to a decent
Summon Monster at each level. Summoning competently doesn't scale well purely by caster level, but it's a way better use of your actions, and is much more flexible. Oh, and summoned monsters can pin, take damage another actions, and so on and so forth.
Really, Kelpstrand's main strength is that it scales well, and so it's a good spell to quicken. It's not weak and it hoses people unprepared to deal with grappling, but that's not hard to do,
Blinding Spittle, on the other hand, is just sick. Touch attacks are easy the majority of the time, so quickening it is just wicked. It pretty much means "your blinded until you take a standard action (at best), and I only spent a free action. I more or less shut you down for a round with a quickened spell, and there's not a lot you can do about it." Not sure how to fix it, though.
I agree that
Bolt of Glory needs to be fixed. It hoses one creature type way too completely, and outdoes most direct damage of it's level for other types. I don't have my books on me so I can't comment on the rest right now.