Fireballs are attacks rolls now?

[mearlus]

Per Rich Baker's blog "A brief playtest note from last night's game, DM'd by Dave Noonan: I rolled not one, but *two* critical hits with fireball attack rolls last night. The second actually one-shotted a tough troglodyte skirmisher; just smoked him outright, full hp to dead in one go. Oh, and I had a great initiative roll, so it was the very first thing that happened in the fight. Hee hee hee! Scoring criticals with attack spells is *fun.* My warlord/wizard sure feels like he kicks some butt!"

Does this mean no save for half?!

 

[Mercule]

I'm not sure, but I think I really dislike fireballs having a chance to crit.

 

[Gadget]

It has been pretty much commonly suspected (if not officially confirmed) that saves will go to static defense scores that the attacker has to roll to overcome (ala Star Wars Saga & AC in the current edition). For example: a character could have a Will Defense of 12, Reflex Defense of 15, and a Fortitude defense of 13. An attacking spell caster would have to roll to overcome one of these defenses for his/her spell to take (full?) effect. Thus the hints we have received from various sources about +6 wands or some-such make more sense.

 

[Darkwolf71]

AOE crits... that could be bad, indeed.

 

[Li Shenron]

AOE crits... that could be bad, indeed.

At this point, I think that most probably it's not an AOE anymore, but a single-target spell.

 

[Cadfan]

I disagree. Fireball as an area of effect is too iconic to change. It might get moved to a higher level, might have its area of effect changed, but as long as there's a spell in the game that makes an explosion of flame, that's the spell that will be called fireball.

My guess is that criticals are only possible against a directly targetted foe. Shoot a fireball at the dragon's head, and you might get a critical. It only affects the dragon, not the hatchlings next to it. They take normal damage, but not the critical. Shoot a fireball at a point in the air next to the dragon, no chance for critical, but you can customize where you hit more effectively.

That's just speculation, but it sounds like a good idea to me. Much better than changing Fireball to a single target, then inevitably releasing the Ball of Fire spell that does what the old fireball did.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I can see this already:

MAB based on caster's level. Roll your MAB (modified by Intelligence bonus, if any plus miscellaneous modifiers) versus their Reflex Defense.

Poof! That's your "attack roll".

 

[Intrope]

I disagree. Fireball as an area of effect is too iconic to change. It might get moved to a higher level, might have its area of effect changed, but as long as there's a spell in the game that makes an explosion of flame, that's the spell that will be called fireball.

My guess is that criticals are only possible against a directly targetted foe. Shoot a fireball at the dragon's head, and you might get a critical. It only affects the dragon, not the hatchlings next to it. They take normal damage, but not the critical. Shoot a fireball at a point in the air next to the dragon, no chance for critical, but you can customize where you hit more effectively.

That's just speculation, but it sounds like a good idea to me. Much better than changing Fireball to a single target, then inevitably releasing the Ball of Fire spell that does what the old fireball did.

I suspect it's more that as you gain in power your Fireball spell expands outward; that way even low level wizards get to chuck a fireball, but high level wizards chuck a *monster* fireball!

Consider also that Rich's Warlock/Wizard may only have 1 or 2 Wiz levels; and the Tomb under the Tor Wizard (who appeared to be able to lob a Fireball) did so at level 1.

I don't think we've seen a report from a wizard who was clearly of 3rd or higher level as yet!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Critical hits make Gary Gygax cry.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't think you need a MAB. Just use BAB!

Probably BAB is changed anyway so that it is "level + class bonus" for everyone, so Wizards aren't lagging behind Fighters, but they just have a smaller bonus, which is effectively compensated by the fact that spells may often require just a touch attack, thus bypassing armor bonus.

Fighters may look like they can target spells better than Wizards... so what? Fighters don't have wizards' spells to cast anyway And if they multiclass and get some, they'll get the lower level ones only. Hence a Ftr/Wiz will be better than a straight Wiz in targetting his spells, but will be able to cast only weaker spells.

Isn't that what we wanted? A reason to play a Gish?