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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 3520576" data-attributes="member: 3146">My take is that failing to account for the impact of metamagic feats and energy resistance are major flaws in the methodology.IME, damage focused arcane spellcasters make extensive use of metamagic feats. The normal 5th level area damage spell for a 9th-11th level wizard is not cone of cold; it's empowered fireball. Similarly, the normal 6th level single target damage spell is not disintegrate; it's an empowered orb spell (quite possibly orb of force since that gets by energy resistance and the 10d6 damage cap only starts to be a minor issue at level 11).Secondly, energy resistance should have a different impact on the expected damage for evocations than for orbs. (Except in the case of a target with evasion). Since energy resistance is taken off of both the succeed and fail results of the evocation but only the succeed result of the orb spell (since the unsuccessful attack dealt no damage anyway) evocations benefit from this methodology. Also, energy resistance benefits orbs in the non-damage/action tactical sense because the most likely result casting an evocation at a creature with energy resistance is typically only a very small amound of damage. (Since my observation is that things tend to make their saves the majority of the time). On the other hand, the most likley result from an orb (in the situation where you would actually cast it instead of something like magic missile) is that it will do full damage-energy resistance. Thus an orb spell offers more reliably significant tactical advantage than evocations against creatures with spell resistance.</blockquote>

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