Heightened ray of enfeeblement

[Trainz]

The magic item staff of power has the spell ray of enfeeblement heightened to 5th level.

Why ? Why did the game designers bothered doing this ? The only visible advantage is that it wouldn't be blocked by a minor globe of invulnerability.

Or maybe because they consider that an heightened spell's output gets bigger ?

Please enlighten me...

 

[jgsugden]

DMG designers and PHB designers were not on the same page. They failed to consider all the changes in the PHB when redesigning the DMG.

Speculation: Thus, they failed to note that there was no longer a save for RoE and that heightening it was close to useless.

 

[Darklone]

Just Maximize it.

 

[James McMurray]

As with Flame Blade, you'll be better off on average empowering it.

 

[jgsugden]

Regarding the empower/maximize issue, many DMs have adopted the following house rule to balance empower and maximize (so that maximize is always better than empower):

When there is a fixed component in a maximized spell, add an additional 50% to the fixed component (ie; 1d8 + 10 becomes 8 + 15) as if that portion of the variable number were under the effect of the empower spell feat.

 

[Korak]

Regarding the empower/maximize issue, many DMs have adopted the following house rule to balance empower and maximize (so that maximize is always better than empower):

When there is a fixed component in a maximized spell, add an additional 50% to the fixed component (ie; 1d8 + 10 becomes 8 + 15) as if that portion of the variable number were under the effect of the empower spell feat.

That is an elegant solution. My friends and I had been tossing around alternatives to make sure Maximize was always better than empower. I'll definitely throw this one into the mix.

 

[Storminator]

The magic item staff of power has the spell ray of enfeeblement heightened to 5th level.

Why ? Why did the game designers bothered doing this ? The only visible advantage is that it wouldn't be blocked by a minor globe of invulnerability.

Or maybe because they consider that an heightened spell's output gets bigger ?

Please enlighten me...

Damage caps.

A RoE as a first level spell does 1d6+1/level (max +5). As a 5th level spell it will have (max +15). Since the staff has a caster level of 15, the RoE from the staff does 1d6+15 Str penalty. Ouch.

PS

 

[James McMurray]

Except that heighten doesn't change the damage cap of a spell. A Fireball heightened to 9th level is still just afireball, and still capped at 10 dice. To increase the damage cap of a spell you need Enhance Spell, a +7 level adjustment, and it only applies to dice spells, not xdy+level spells such as Ray of Enfeeblement.

And please don't take my disagreeing with you as a reason to melt poor John's brain or something. Its not like I said "without incident."

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Um, surely a metamagic feat applied to the spell only changed very specific things about it? In the case of heighten, surely it only changes the DC (if there was one) and whether it goes through globes of invulnerability and so forth, not the damage cap?

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Um, surely a metamagic feat applied to the spell only changed very specific things about it? In the case of heighten, surely it only changes the DC (if there was one) and whether it goes through globes of invulnerability and so forth, not the damage cap?

Okayyy, here we go again.

The damage cap is a guideline about how spells of a given level should be designed. It's clearly labelled as that. It is not a rules statement about how the effects of existing spells vary if you change their spell level. So, no, in fact, changing the spell level via Heighten affects none of the factors determined (designed into the spell in the first place) by reason of the damage cap.