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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
High HP feel a little too high?
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<blockquote data-quote="Falling Icicle" data-source="post: 4373458" data-attributes="member: 17077"><p>The 1d6 + Int is for an at-will spell. Meteor Swarm is a spell a Wizard can only use once per day and the other few daily attack powers a Wizard gets each day are going to be even weaker than that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes and no. I did run my group through the adventure against the 4th level dragon, and that battle alone literally took 4 hours. After blowing their one daily and one encounter spell, the rest of the fight was just flinging at-wills, and it got really boring. And this was a very low level fight. I haven't played a high level game yet, but the math speaks for itself.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, let's take a look at the at-will spells first. Assuming a character puts every ability point he can into his primary ability score, he's gaining 8 points in it over the course of his career. That translates to a +4 hit/dmg modifier. Then, add in the +6 you can get from a weapon or implement, and you have +10 from where you started at level 1. Also, the [W] doubles, which can be anywhere from 2.5 (d4) to 6.5 (d12) average damage. Magic Missile, for example, would go from 2d4 + 5 (avg 10) to 4d4 + 15 (avg. 25) damage. This is at level 30, mind you. So youre doing about 2.5 times as much damage with MM at level 30 as you were at level 1. Now, you can't tell me that creatures only have 2.5 times as many HP as they did at level 1! It's more like 8 or 9 times, or even more. Using your own example, the 1st level Wizard's MM is about 33% of a 30 HP creature's health. By contrast, the 30th level Wizard's MM is only about 9% of a 278 HP creature's health. Something is clearly very wrong.</p><p></p><p>Of course, the Wizard does have some additional daily and encounter powers over the 1/1 he had at level 1, so that's going to make a difference. But let's compare just how much more one of these does over a plain, old Magic Missile. Meteor Swarm, the hardest hitting Wizard spell in the game (at least immediate damage, some damage over time effects can do better over time) does 8d6 + Int. This same level 30 Wizard will be doing 8d6 + 15, for an average of 43 damage. That's less than 2 times the average damage of magic missile! And this is the hardest hitting spell Wizards get. Their other, lower level daily and encounter spells are going to be doing less, often MUCH less, than Meteor Swarm. And characters can't afford to unload all of their daily attacks in every fight, either.</p><p></p><p>Keep in mind, I'm not factoring crits into this, but since they are only 5% likely to occur, a character can easily go through an entire adventuring day without seeing a single crit. They're too rare to be statistically significant.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure, I never said I wanted the battle to be over in 2 or 3 rounds. I expect that the actual time for high level combat will be quite the other extreme. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Falling Icicle, post: 4373458, member: 17077"] The 1d6 + Int is for an at-will spell. Meteor Swarm is a spell a Wizard can only use once per day and the other few daily attack powers a Wizard gets each day are going to be even weaker than that. Yes and no. I did run my group through the adventure against the 4th level dragon, and that battle alone literally took 4 hours. After blowing their one daily and one encounter spell, the rest of the fight was just flinging at-wills, and it got really boring. And this was a very low level fight. I haven't played a high level game yet, but the math speaks for itself. Well, let's take a look at the at-will spells first. Assuming a character puts every ability point he can into his primary ability score, he's gaining 8 points in it over the course of his career. That translates to a +4 hit/dmg modifier. Then, add in the +6 you can get from a weapon or implement, and you have +10 from where you started at level 1. Also, the [W] doubles, which can be anywhere from 2.5 (d4) to 6.5 (d12) average damage. Magic Missile, for example, would go from 2d4 + 5 (avg 10) to 4d4 + 15 (avg. 25) damage. This is at level 30, mind you. So youre doing about 2.5 times as much damage with MM at level 30 as you were at level 1. Now, you can't tell me that creatures only have 2.5 times as many HP as they did at level 1! It's more like 8 or 9 times, or even more. Using your own example, the 1st level Wizard's MM is about 33% of a 30 HP creature's health. By contrast, the 30th level Wizard's MM is only about 9% of a 278 HP creature's health. Something is clearly very wrong. Of course, the Wizard does have some additional daily and encounter powers over the 1/1 he had at level 1, so that's going to make a difference. But let's compare just how much more one of these does over a plain, old Magic Missile. Meteor Swarm, the hardest hitting Wizard spell in the game (at least immediate damage, some damage over time effects can do better over time) does 8d6 + Int. This same level 30 Wizard will be doing 8d6 + 15, for an average of 43 damage. That's less than 2 times the average damage of magic missile! And this is the hardest hitting spell Wizards get. Their other, lower level daily and encounter spells are going to be doing less, often MUCH less, than Meteor Swarm. And characters can't afford to unload all of their daily attacks in every fight, either. Keep in mind, I'm not factoring crits into this, but since they are only 5% likely to occur, a character can easily go through an entire adventuring day without seeing a single crit. They're too rare to be statistically significant. Sure, I never said I wanted the battle to be over in 2 or 3 rounds. I expect that the actual time for high level combat will be quite the other extreme. ;) [/QUOTE]
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High HP feel a little too high?
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