Frostburn Spells II: Freeze Armour

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Spell #2 that I think may be broken is freeze armour (FB, p. 94).

It's a 4th-lvl druid spell that targets the metal equipment of one creature/level and has a duration of 1 round/level. A creature in metal armour who fails its save is frozen in place: -6 attacks, -8 Dex, can't move, Concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell. In addition, the target takes 1d6 dam on round 1, 2d6 on round 2, 3d6 on rounds 3-5, and 4d6 for every round after 6th. Creatures not wearing metal armour but carrying metal equipment that weighs 20% or more of their weight take lesser damage. Heat damage offsets the cold damage on a point-for-point basis.

So this one looks really broken to me. Hold person allows a new save everyone round whereas this spell hoses you if you're wearing metal armour and fail your save. If it had a target of one creature, okay. But this can be cast on multiple creatures. Not to mention that a 10th-lvl caster, for example, would be dealing 32d6 damage!!! (1d6+2d6+3d6*3+4d6*5).

Thoughts?

 

[javcs]

Allow a strength check to get out if it's too much of a problem. What kind of save is it?
32d6 damage ... over 10 rounds, or a little over 3d6 damage a round in 10 rounds.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Fort save. Damage is incremental.

 

[javcs]

Fort save ... that makes it sorta like trying to fireball a rogue - most of the classes that will be wearing metal armor have good fort saves (barring mithral of course), which is probably how they tried to balance it.

I was speaking of averages ... point being that per round it's unimpressive, although, yes, the druid can be casting other spells, it's only impressive when he gets the full duration of the spell, or at least most of it.

 

[Diirk]

I actually think this one is fine; its only really useful against the creatures that have fort as their strongest save anyway, and while it looks like alot of damage at a glance, most fights will typically be over in 2-4 rounds anyway.