If Harm is broken, what's the best house rule for it?

[demiurgeastaroth]

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demiurge: Welcome to the boards!
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Thank you.

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The problem with your solution is that it is, in fact, very weak. Damage equal to CLx5, and only on a touch attack compares very poorly with other spells of similar potency. Since most direct-damage spells that require a touch attack remove the need for a saving throw (as per ELH's guidelines for creating new spells)
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I agree that is supposed to be the case, bu ti don't think it makes sense particularly with regard to ELH level games. A touch spell at this kind of level is really only going to fail on a roll of 1 excepot against unusual opponents (Monks, for instance). A saving throw is much more dicey (pun intended).

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we can compare the damage directly with traditional blast spells.

We see that it compares poorly. At 11th level, Harm does 55 damage. At this level of spell, it is clearly outmatched by, say, Maximised Fireball or Empowered Flame Strike, which, in addition to inflicting a similar amount of damage, inflict this amount of damage over a wider area. Your fix makes Harm from a 'must-have' spell to a 'don't-bother' one.
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No offence, but I think comparisons with fireball are irrelevant, since it is an Arcane spell and they are meant to do more damage.
With Flame Strike, you hit a 10' square - in many encounters, you will probably only be able to catch one enemy with this (some enemies will in fact be large enough to occupy the whole area).
In addition, many, many creatures have fire resistance, reducing the spells damage - and the saving throw is pitiful.
IMC it is very rare for a flame strike to inflict anywhere near its maximum potential.
Also note that an empowered flame strike for a CLERIC is 7th level, at which point the cleric will do 65 points with Harm compared to 63 for Flame strike: if the enemy fails its save and has no energy protection.

I think this means Flame Strike and Harm are reasonably balanced with each other - there are situations where one is better than the other, and neither completely overwhelms the other.

Demiurge

 

[Ferox4]

Wow!

Last night we were fighting numerous Steel Predators (from Lord of the Iron Fortress) and sure enough out came the Harm spell against the big boss. It failed its save (Dm rolled a 1 - ha!) and went from 346 HP to 4. Ouch! I almost felt bad for the DM.....

At first glance it does look overpowering, but if that thing makes its save (and we were VERY lucky that it didn't) it still has 173 HP and the Cleric is about to get shredded even with a 29 AC. I like the save for 1/2 just fine. As I said before, it's an easy mechanic and at least there is a chance to save - I'll take half of my current HPs vs. 1d4 HPs anyday.

 

[Al]

I agree that is supposed to be the case, bu ti don't think it makes sense particularly with regard to ELH level games. A touch spell at this kind of level is really only going to fail on a roll of 1 excepot against unusual opponents (Monks, for instance). A saving throw is much more dicey (pun intended).

Reasonable point, but most direct-damage touch or ranged touch spells tend to have no saving throw: the only major exception being the Inflict family. And with respect to non-ELH games, it makes much more sense. An 11th level cleric with 14 strength only has +10 to hit, so far from guaranteed against enemies with Dex, deflection bonuses, haste etc.

No offence, but I think comparisons with fireball are irrelevant, since it is an Arcane spell and they are meant to do more damage.

Fair enough.

With Flame Strike, you hit a 10' square - in many encounters, you will probably only be able to catch one enemy with this (some enemies will in fact be large enough to occupy the whole area).

Well, no. Flame Strike is a 10' RADIUS, meaning that it has a diameter of 20' and hence you get around 65 square feet. You should be able to catch more than one enemy with that.

I think this means Flame Strike and Harm are reasonably balanced with each other - there are situations where one is better than the other, and neither completely overwhelms the other.

True: but Flame Strike is either a 4th or 5th level spell; Harm is 6th level and has to bear up against the likes of Blade Barrier (whose potential to dish out incredible amounts of damage is being discussed on another thread.)

 

[Dergon]

Regarding HARM

I was the DM referred to in the commont by Ferox4. It was my first experience with the harm spell as a DM (the character had just levelled up at the end of the last session). After a successful touch attack (easy) and a failed will save the creature (Packleader Taverus from Iron Fortress module) took 345 points of damage. This changed what was to be an epic battle with a formidable foe into a quick bloodletting. I applaud the smart play (use what you got!), but it certainly is acutely unbalancing to my campaign and will need to be further modified. I believe the players are generally in agreement as well.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Well, I've suggested this one before, not as a complete solution but as a partial one.

Harm uses negative energy. A LOT of negative energy. Huge, dragonwhomping loads of negative energy.

Channeling negative energy is an evil act (PHB, the section on turning). That's why good Clerics turn undead with positive energy while evil ones command them with negative, and why they swap for cure/inflict spells.
(Yes, I know St. Cuthbert mixes the two, work with me here, that's a campaign-specific exception)

So, give Harm the [Evil] tag for Clerics. Give Heal the [Good] tag for Clerics.

(Don't do this for Druids, since they're all about balance anyway, and they don't have to decide between positive and negative energy; in fact, IMC we removed their spell-alignment restriction altogether)

Thanks to the alignment rules, the good guys won't be able to use Harm on the insane-HP solitary bad guys. You'd probably have to say that neutral clerics are treated as good/evil depending on their spell swapping. On the other hand, the evil Clerics won't be using Heal.

You could rule that cure/inflict spells are minor enough in energy that it doesn't cause alignment problems.

Note that Dragons cast arcane spells, even though they can select from the Cleric list and certain domains, so they're not alignment-limited.

 

[Ferox4]

You could rule that cure/inflict spells are minor enough in energy that it doesn't cause alignment problems.

If you're going to make this work then be consistent. If a Cleric can't cast Harm then he/she should not be able to cast even Inflict Minor Wounds.

 

[Ferox4]

modifications

.....but it certainly is acutely unbalancing to my campaign and will need to be further modified. I believe the players are generally in agreement as well.

Agreed. So we can: 1) cap it to save for 1/2 current HPs or 100 Hps, whichever is lesser (as Anubis has pointed out time & again) OR 2) we cap the spell by level -- 10hp dam/level to a max of 200. A failed save does the full 10 HP/lvl damage, successful half damage.

In our scenario this would have meant that the steel predator took 345 in example 1 (failed save) or 110 HPs in example 2.

I like #2 better because it allows for improvement as the PC becomes more powerful and still prevents the ultra drain of HPs.


Welcome aboard, Dergon.

edited for content

 

[demiurgeastaroth]

Well, no. Flame Strike is a 10' RADIUS, meaning that it has a diameter of 20' and hence you get around 65 square feet. You should be able to catch more than one enemy with that.

Note this is my third attempt to reply here, thanks to the current enworld funny business.

Yes, my bad - Flame Strike does affect 12 5' squares. It's just that I rarely see it get more than one or two villains, due to the difficulty of using area effect attacks once players and villains are engaged. The main point, though, is that flame strike is easy to defend against - the damage an entire enemy side takes from a single flamestrike (even empowered) might not compare to the damage a single unmodified Harm does. (Once you take into account saves, fire resistance against half the damage, and so forth.)
In a recent battle my players fought three advanced giants each with around 210 hit points - a firestorm caught all three, doing 78 points to each. A Harm spell would have had a greater effect, doing roughly the same damage but all concentrated on a single target - making it easy to remove that foe from the battlefield whereas all 3 giants were still able to soak up a fair bit of damage after the Firestorm.

True: but Flame Strike is either a 4th or 5th level spell; Harm is 6th level and has to bear up against the likes of Blade Barrier (whose potential to dish out incredible amounts of damage is being discussed on another thread.)

Except that Blade Barrier has a Reflex save in the first round. After that, it's a matter of choice whether you suffer the damage - either you choose top pass through it or you don't. There may be compelling reasons to do so, but even then it's only going to be done by those who can comfortably soak it (and that assumes a spellcaster doesn't just dispel it).
Harm doesn't have that drawback - it's a surgical precision killing tool, and far more lethal than a spell with the name "Harm" suggest.
My version (CLx5, no save) is close enough to the suggested damage cap for spells of that level (if they are to be ignored, why are they there?), and removes it from the save-or-die camp - it is simply a damaging spell. It gaves the players tactical options - should I use Blade Barrier, Harm, Empowered Falme Strike, or Finger of Death? There's no clear choice of which is better. If you want to hurt someone, doing a very reliable amount of damage, you'll use, this Harm is very handy spell. It's not the be all and end all, and for Clerics who aren't supposed to be the firepower machines that Wizards are, it seems to emphasise their support role. They can weaken opponents (but not so much that the rest of the fight is a foregone conclusion).

 

[Spatzimaus]

If you're going to make this work then be consistent. If a Cleric can't cast Harm then he/she should not be able to cast even Inflict Minor Wounds.

Actually, there's a reason I said you COULD rule it that way, instead of SHOULD. I did apply the same rule to the Cure/Inflict spells IMC. This means evil Clerics can't cure, good clerics can't inflict. But, every time I mention that on these boards people have fits since to too many people Cleric = Healer.

I also removed healing spells from Bards in exchange for more weapon proficiencies, lower Arcane Failure rate, and the Resist Elements line of spells. So, for evil groups you're either stuck with Druids, or evil Clerics of deities who have the Healing domain (since I also added the rule that Domain spells are allowed to violate the alignment thing, which helps the St. Cuthbert-style gods, and even a god of an evil race wants to keep his followers alive)

But, some people don't like such radical rearrangement of classes, so for them I suggested leaving the Cure/Inflict spells alone.

 

[Ferox4]

I understand, Spatzimaus. Yes, you COULD do that. It's a vaild recommendation, but would really make evil Clerics badasses - they can cure themselves AND cast Harm while almost all PCs would be prohibited from casting Harm.

That's the beauty of this game. These are all guidelines to approximate reality and no one will ever agree as to what does and what does not best approach the simulation. Cheers and good gaming!
F4