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*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Heavy Artillery: Psion vs. Wizard
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<blockquote data-quote="Spatula" data-source="post: 1749210" data-attributes="member: 2198"><p>Sorren, your numbers are unfortunately incorrect. You're using less-than-average damage numbers (3 instead of 3.5 for a d6 roll) which skews the results. For example:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But a 10-pt Empowered <em>energy ball</em> does 8d6+8 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 36 * 1.5 = 54 pts of cold or fire damage.</p><p>And a 10th lvl caster Empowered <em>fireball</em> does 10d6 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 35 * 1.5 = 52.5 pts of fire damage.</p><p>You'll note that the psion is doing <strong>more</strong> damage in this case, not less, although it's not a significant amount.</p><p></p><p>Also, there's the matter of saving throws. Average damage doesn't mean much on its own, the real benchmark is what's the average damage against a specific target? The psion's DCs will be the same or higher, which means a slightly greater amount of expected damage to his/her targets.</p><p></p><p>And you're putting area effect powers (<em>energy ball, fireball</em>) on the same damage footing as single-target powers (like <em>scorching ray</em>).</p><p></p><p>For the psion's "leftover" pts in your example, he's better off using <em>energy missile</em> instead of <em>energy ray</em> (and will probably have it if he knows <em>energy ball</em>, as both are kineticist-only powers). For 3 pts, <em>energy ray</em> requires a touch attack and does 3d6+3 to one target. For the same pts, <em>energy missile</em> does 3d6+3 damage to five targets, no miss chance although there is a save for half.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Spatula, post: 1749210, member: 2198"] Sorren, your numbers are unfortunately incorrect. You're using less-than-average damage numbers (3 instead of 3.5 for a d6 roll) which skews the results. For example: But a 10-pt Empowered [i]energy ball[/i] does 8d6+8 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 36 * 1.5 = 54 pts of cold or fire damage. And a 10th lvl caster Empowered [i]fireball[/i] does 10d6 * 1.5 damage, the average of which is 35 * 1.5 = 52.5 pts of fire damage. You'll note that the psion is doing [b]more[/b] damage in this case, not less, although it's not a significant amount. Also, there's the matter of saving throws. Average damage doesn't mean much on its own, the real benchmark is what's the average damage against a specific target? The psion's DCs will be the same or higher, which means a slightly greater amount of expected damage to his/her targets. And you're putting area effect powers ([i]energy ball, fireball[/i]) on the same damage footing as single-target powers (like [i]scorching ray[/i]). For the psion's "leftover" pts in your example, he's better off using [i]energy missile[/i] instead of [i]energy ray[/i] (and will probably have it if he knows [i]energy ball[/i], as both are kineticist-only powers). For 3 pts, [i]energy ray[/i] requires a touch attack and does 3d6+3 to one target. For the same pts, [i]energy missile[/i] does 3d6+3 damage to five targets, no miss chance although there is a save for half. [/QUOTE]
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