Is Scorching Ray Too Good?

[Liquidsabre]

Indeed, the -4 for firing into melee, not to mention the penalty for cover if an ally gets in the way as well. Yea, scorching ray is a nice spell but nothing to be worried about, certainly balanced with Acid Arrow, False Life, Resist Energy, etc. all great spells.

 

[Thanee]

Yes, ranged touch attacks are subject to the -4 penalty, if the target is in melee, and cover as well.

Also, I don't think that the touch attack is that much more advantegous compared to a save for half. Missing negates the attack completely, a spell with a save deals at least half damage. And the save DC is usually pretty low at higher levels, so most targets will make that save easily, while touch AC can go up quite a bit for some targets (deflection bonuses and whatnot), while the wizard's BAB only climbs at a very slow rate. With the requirement to hit every attack to deal full damage, it is more than likely to end up doing only half to two-thirds damage on average, which is totally in line with a similar spell, which has a save for half damage.

All in all, I think Scorching Ray is a strong, but balanced 2nd level spell. In some occasions Magic Missile is even superior and in most situations involving multiple targets Fireball is a clear winner. That sounds about right for the power of a 2nd level spell to me. The close range is its greatest disadvantage, as others have already mentioned.

Bye
Thanee

 

[dcollins]

Personally, I do think that scorching ray is too powerful. But I'm pretty conservative, and generally don't like the radical spell list changes in 3.5 -- I'm used to 2nd level spells being utility slots and not damage-dealers.

The spell came in 2nd place in a poll I ran recently, being preferred more than any spell except invisibility at that level:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=2305

 

[Darklone]

I think Magic Missile is worse

 

[Thanee]

The spell came in 2nd place in a poll I ran recently, ...

With the current votes, See Invisibility is 2nd, also Alter Self and Mirror Image are about the same level.

So, according to the poll, it is right up there with the best 2nd level spells. That makes it a good spell, but not an overpowered spell.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Pax]

Acid arrow does up to 14d4 acid damage, over up to seven rounds. It requires only one ranged touch attack roll, can be used at Long range, and does not allow Spell Resistance.

Average damage 5 per round (10 in the first round), or 35 total. Optimum damage is 56.

Scorching ray does up to 12d6 of fire damage. It does the damage in one round, but requires up to three ranged attack rolls. It works only at Close range, and allows Spell Resistance.

Average damage 14 per bolt, or 42 total ... in a single round. Optimum damage is 72.

Against the appropriate energy resistance at (5) or higher, MAA is generally useless, while SR retains SOME damage (against Resistance(10), MAA can't hope to do a single point; SRay on average still does 4 per bolt.

IMO, potential damage is the only criterion by which scorching ray is better than acid arrow.

Not so. Consider the result of a critical hit - only possible once, for +4d4[acid] damage, with MAA. But, it's possible up to three times with SRay, for +4d6 each. With a few lucky rolls, it's possible (though admittedly unlikely) to double the damage output of a Scorching Ray.

At close range, a target is likely to be in melee, and most wizards don't have ranged feats to minimize the impact on their attack rolls. For a wizard, not even touch attacks are anything close to a sure thing, so it's unlikely that the full damage potential of scorching ray will be reached.

Really? Funny, at ~11th level, "touch attack" against most creatures and foes is likely to be against AC10-ish,which means 75% of all attacks will hit, if the wizard has no bonusses other than his inherent BAB.

 

[Patlin]

The power also varies significantly based on character type. An arcane trickster with point blank shot and precise shot is all about the ranged touch attacks, and can get a lot of use out of Scorching Ray. (Even though the sneak attack damage is only on the first ray.) Such a character needs to be within close range to be most effective anyway.

 

[dcollins]

With the current votes, See Invisibility is 2nd, also Alter Self and Mirror Image are about the same level.

Good point. I'm finally seeing a reason to set a time limit on those polls, so the results don't slide around indefinitely afterwards.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

[ "Damage, damage, damage, critical hit, damage, damage ..." ]

Which part of "scorching ray is better than acid arrow for potential damage" did you miss in my original post?

Really? Funny, at ~11th level, "touch attack" against most creatures and foes is likely to be against AC10-ish,which means 75% of all attacks will hit, if the wizard has no bonusses other than his inherent BAB.

First, I dunno what games you play in, but in my games, a touch AC of 10 at 11th-level is pretty close to minimum.

Second, I dunno what games you play in, but I consider a 25% chance to miss to be fairly significant. At 12th level, accepting these numbers, arguendo, an acid arrow will do its max damage (10d4, or 25 average) 75% of the time. Scorching ray will do its max damage (12d6, or 36 average) only 14% of the time.

 

[Christian]

I didn't see any mention of it above, so I thought I'd throw in the comment that Acid Arrow has cheaper damage-bumping metamagic options. Besides the +2 Empower and +3 Maximize, you can use a +1 Extend to very good effect. (This was better in 3.0, when you could use multiple Extends on one spell. A 9th level sorcerer could use a 4th level slot to toss an arrow doing 2d4 per round for 12 rounds. But it's still effective in 3.5 with only a single Empowerment.)

One of the fun parts of this is messing up DM plans for recurring villians. Often, by the time an enemy realized he was in trouble, it was far too late to escape ...

DM: "OK, initiative count 16-that's Bart. What do you do?"
Me: "Well, first I'll roll damage for the acid arrow still going from last round ... five points."
DM: "Got it. So ..."
Me: "Wait, then there's the one from the round before ... four more points."
DM: "Um ..."
Me: "And the one from the first round of combat ... six points."
DM: "Wait, isn't that one expired?"
Me: "No, that one was extended-it still has another round left. OK, so for this round ... What the heck. I cast acid arrow!"
DM: ")*#@$&"
Another player: "Isn't that thing dead yet?"
Me: "Yes, it is. It just hasn't stopped moving yet."