Hailstones spell

[Oryan77]

Is the text in the Spell Compendium book correct for this spell? It does 5d6 cold damage with a ranged touch attack per globe?

If I chose this for my 11th lvl NPC, he'd get 3 globes per casting. And as a sorcerer, he can cast this spell 6 times if he wanted. As a 3rd level spell, that's 15d6. He already has an 11 ranged attack bonus due to a high Dex. My player's 8th lvl PC's have an 11-14 Touch AC.

It looks like this spell could kill a character in 1 blast easily...2 blasts if I roll bad. Is there errata on this or anything?

 

[Graf]

So the problem is that your 11th level npc blaster character (no armor, d4 hit points) can take out a normal 8th level character in one round?

If I were a DM I'd work to make sure the players knew an "extremely powerful arcanist" was around. Reward some high skill character for finding small pools of cold water near a dead body. etc. etc.

The fact remains that an 11th level arcane caster has disintegrate...
If they spend a round pouring hurting on one character… it’s gonna hurt.

 

[Corsair]

So it's basically a cold scorching ray, with slightly more damage, for one spell slot higher?

 

[Oryan77]

Well these are the highest levels we've ever reached before, so I'm new at DM'ing a lot of higher level spells. So it may just be my inexperience talking.

But my players average about 45-50 hitpoints each right now. A touch AC is very easy to hit for an 11th lvl sorcerer with high Dex. I know it's a tough challenge, but it's basically a guarantee that I would instantly kill the sorcerer PC in the first round. The rest of the PC's don't deal enough damage to take down an 11th lvl caster in 1 round. So I could kill another PC in round 2. With only 2 PC's left, the NPC could heal/buff up for a round or two, and then cast the spell again to instantly kill the 3rd PC. Then do the same the next round and it's a TPK.

I may be wrong, but playing it out in my head makes me wonder if I'm overlooking something and worrying about nothing. I know I could choose other spells, but I'm wondering if this kind of damage output is normal. I don't see how PC's can survive an attack like that.

 

[Oryan77]

So it's basically a cold scorching ray, with slightly more damage, for one spell slot higher?

It does 5d6 damage per globe, and you get extra globes every 5 levels. So at 11th level, he'd have 3 globes. That's 15d6 damage if you hit on all 3 touch attacks. I'd have to roll a 1 to miss 2 of the PC's, or roll a 3 or less to hit the other 2 PC's. Seems really easy to deal an average of 50-60 hitpoints worth of damage to PC's that average 45 hitpoints or less.

And doing some mock rolls, I just did 72 damage, 60 damage, and 58 damage in 3 rounds.

Maybe I'm overlooking something.

 

[Corsair]

Sudden Maximized fireball would have a chance to kill multiple party members outright. Evard's tentacles would make most of them useless so multiple normal fireballs could follow up to finish them off.

Fact is at this level, spellcasters are scary. There are a lot of "one roll or you die" spells out there. That one roll might be a save, or a touch attack, or SR, etc.

Additionally, at this level, defense isn't about AC any more, it's about miss chance. Mirror Image, Blur, Displacement, Blink, even Obscuring Mist or Fog Cloud would help.

 

[GilaMonster]

Maybe I'm overlooking something.

Well, for a group of 8th level characters, a CR 11 challenge is supposed to be very dificult to overcome. With that in mind, why are you surprised that your PCs aren't likely to survive?

 

[shilsen]

But my players average about 45-50 hitpoints each right now.

On a bit of a tangent, but that's pretty low for 8th lvl PCs. I can see the mage types having around that, but the fighter-types should be in the 60+ range or more.

 

[Slaved]

It does 5d6 damage per globe, and you get extra globes every 5 levels. So at 11th level, he'd have 3 globes. That's 15d6 damage if you hit on all 3 touch attacks. I'd have to roll a 1 to miss 2 of the PC's, or roll a 3 or less to hit the other 2 PC's. Seems really easy to deal an average of 50-60 hitpoints worth of damage to PC's that average 45 hitpoints or less.

And doing some mock rolls, I just did 72 damage, 60 damage, and 58 damage in 3 rounds.

Maybe I'm overlooking something.

Looks rough for that one pc. Especially if your dice keep rolling high like that. With an average of 3.5 for each 6-sided die the average damage for all three hitting is 52.5. To get 72 damage you have to average 4.8 per die.

Assuming a 20 dexterity for the enemy caster and +5 BAB from his level then he has a +10 to hit. I would assume at this level touch AC's for anyone in the party are going to start at 13 and go up from there, although probably maxing out around 15. If each globe has a 10% chance of missing the party mage who has average hit points and a 14 con for 37.5 hp then the average amount of damage that he will take with a 13 touch AC is 47.25. On average he is still alive, although only barely. A normal fireball plus a quickened magic missile would do about the same damage to the mage while also hurting a couple other party members.

Going up against a caster 3 levels higher than the party while having low hp and low touch attacks at this level is very likely to cause at least one party members death.

But, perhaps the damage dice will roll a little under average for this guy when they fight him. Rolling an average of 2.2 per die instead of 4.8 per die and any of the party members would still be alive after the assault which means that the enemy mage is likely in serious trouble. Unless of course he had time to prepare his defenses of course.

If you concentrate your fire on a single pc chances are very good that you will kill him. Of course it could also mean that the npc will die because he did not take care of the other threats that were present. That might shift his tactics a bit.

If you want to kill the whole party then you can use metamagic rods. An empowered fireball with metamagic rod maximize will be doing 60+5d6 damage. It sounds like that would take out the party mage on a successful save, and take out anyone who fails the save. 20' radius means possibly hitting the whole party.

 

[Victim]

It does 5d6 damage per globe, and you get extra globes every 5 levels. So at 11th level, he'd have 3 globes. That's 15d6 damage if you hit on all 3 touch attacks. I'd have to roll a 1 to miss 2 of the PC's, or roll a 3 or less to hit the other 2 PC's. Seems really easy to deal an average of 50-60 hitpoints worth of damage to PC's that average 45 hitpoints or less.

And doing some mock rolls, I just did 72 damage, 60 damage, and 58 damage in 3 rounds.

Maybe I'm overlooking something.

No, you have 2 globes. You don't get the third globe until caster level 15; it's one globe for every 5 caster levels. Unless your blaster NPC has +4 worth of bonuses to caster level somehow.

Moreover, since the damage is split into several packets, even a small amount of Cold Resistance does a number on it. 8th level characters can use Resist Energy to negate pretty much all the damage on the spell.

Looking at alternatives, your enemy caster's normal scorching rays are almost enough on average to drop a PC. A normal empowered scorcher should do the job. Evard's has a high chance of rendering multiple PCs (assuming they're close to together) useless - most 8th level PCs are going to have a very tough time beating the +19 grapple of the tentacles. An 11th level cleric could do a Harm for 110 on a touch attack (save for half ). I'd expect competent melee types at that level to at least be able to do 45+ damage per full attack (or per hit if they go crazy with Power Attack). A single high level guy can often do nasty things to the characters he attacks, but they're usually a bit fragile especially with their action deficit. It's tough to make a single boss guy a serious threat who can face the party's attacks without also making him able to one shot people.