fixing Wraithstrike

[Shard O'Glase]

I hadn't hought of the abuse with power attack, but I'd just change it so it fit the flavor text of the spell and make it avoid the amor and shield bonus like the weapon ability, blazing or whatever. That way a lot of other bonuses still apply like natural armor.

 

[Cabral]

I could also change it so that while under the effects of this spell, you don't add your strength modifier to damage nor can you apply any feat that has Strength as a prerequisite.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I like that, it allows you to hit with impunity, just not to devastating effect.

 

[Crothian]

I could also change it so that while under the effects of this spell, you don't add your strength modifier to damage nor can you apply any feat that has Strength as a prerequisite.

If you do that then it is not a big leap to also disallow Power Attack with it.

 

[Blue]

This spell came up in the epic game I'm in. Two people had it, the eldritch-knight type PC who was polymorphed, casting Wraithstrike, power attacking for 16 (his BAB) with a two handed weapon, and blowing 4th level spells into arcane strike against big opponents w/ low touch ACs to land 5 attacks (4 iterative+haste) in the 60-70 range every hit. The second was a juvinile gold dragon NPC (CR 10!) with a single sorcerer level, who had it as his only 2nd level spell, able to cast five times a day.

The epic character was doing epic damage. It was high damage, but it burned through resources quickly, and while nasty wasn't out of line for alpha strikes from other Epic characters. On the other hand, a CR ~11 dragon with it would probably clean the clock of an 11th level party if it could do a power attacking full strike with it. (Note: In this campaign Power Attack had been house-ruled down some, to mimic Str, so it was only *1.5 on two handed weapons.)

Basically, the spell doesn't seem to be a problem at all except in conjunction with big damage adds from elsewhere. Power attack is the most obvious - making it easier to hit directly adds to how much BAB you can switch over for damage. But I can see an two-weapon arcane rogue (daggerspell mage?) dropping one of these to make sure all of his sneak attacks hit, which means just removing STR and STR feats isn't the solution.

Cheers,
Blue

 

[Staffan]

If you do that then it is not a big leap to also disallow Power Attack with it.

That would fall under the "any feat that has Strength as a prerequisite" thing.

 

[Cabral]

Another option is:

while under the effects of the spell, the character has Str - for the purposes of melee ... but then you have to figure out a way for those attacks to actually do something... so it either doesn't work or is as complicated as Polymorph.