D&D 1E Fireball throughout the ages

[Garthanos]

Note that in 4e, all spells were attack rolls and therefore could crit. In addition, magic items gave you bonus critical damage dice per plus.

That too though crit being infrequent enough ... there are however way more methods to boost it.

Strange, I've always seen the 4ed Fireball as a way to kill minions. Nothing else.

Then the feat to increase the area effect and reduce damage suits that goal well.

 

[FrogReaver]

I prefer the 2E/3E fireball.

8d6 is a lot on CR3/level 5 stuff.

It's not worth up casting though and with 5E hit point bloat it's semi useless anyway.

Remember the warmage being great? Nope scaling damage spells don't matter to much.

Level 1 and 2 damage dealing ones semi useless in a hurry.

I think the level 3+ damage spells are a bit underrated in 5e. They won't single handedly win a fight anymore - but they still save quite a few turns against the party.

Well - at level 5 they will still singlehandedly win many fights.

 

[FrogReaver]

That too though crit being infrequent enough ... there are however way more methods to boost it.

Then the feat to increase the area effect and reduce damage suits that goal well.

I always was underwhelmed by fireball in 4e. I'm curious how much it could be boosted

 

[Garthanos]

I always was underwhelmed by fireball in 4e. I'm curious how much it could be boosted

I don't do much optimizing but there is flavorfully many buffs fire is pretty supported and I am looking at how much a Tiefling who buffs all fire and area effects gets. Items that add ongoing damage 2x your int mod to a fire attack crit. There is one utility I like at level 22 that adds your attribute again to all fire attacks for the encounter as long as you stay put. How big can your fire ball get could be like an ACDC song.

 

[Yardiff]

Are you thinking of 3E's Fire Storm?

No this was back the late 70's ish.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I prefer the 2E/3E fireball.

8d6 is a lot on CR3/level 5 stuff.

It's not worth up casting though and with 5E hit point bloat it's semi useless anyway.

Remember the warmage being great? Nope scaling damage spells don't matter to much.

Level 1 and 2 damage dealing ones semi useless in a hurry.

I don't think there are really any good 4th-level AoE spells. I see 4th-level Fireballs a lot. Cone of Cold is a good 5th-level AoE, but 10d6 compares favorably with 8d8, and if you need a long-range blast, Fireball is of course the spell to go to.

One of the better L1 damage spells in 5e is Chromatic Orb. If you need a precision attack and need to bypass an elemental resistance, it's quite good, especially if you have Advantage. 5d8 at 3rd level actually isn't bad. It does get eclipsed by Blight when that finally comes online, assuming you take it.

 

[fearsomepirate]

which has absolutely nothing to do with what I told you previously about how effective ranges are different. firebolt+spell sniper=240ft range that ignores cover.

Weren't you just complaining in the other thread that you can't reach the extreme levels of power 3.5 can with feats? Also, recall that over the course of 20 levels, a typical Wizard might take a total of two feats.

 

[tetrasodium]

Weren't you just complaining in the other thread that you can't reach the extreme levels of power 3.5 can with feats? Also, recall that over the course of 20 levels, a typical Wizard might take a total of two feats.

isn't this the second time in less than 24 hours you've massively misrepresented an argument I made elsewhere?

also you get a feat or an asi every 4 levels no matter your class. Let me help you put this in perspective, this is what happens if I load the amber temple & scroll all the way out

 

[fearsomepirate]

Edit: See Helldritch below.

Not worth crapping up the thread.

 

[Helldritch]

May be you should both settle this in private... Anyways, it's always better to argue with a cold brew and bowl of Pretzels...