Is Wraithstrike the wrong level?

[shilsen]

True strike negates concealment, not cover or total concealment.

True Strike does negate total concealment, but you need to pick the right square to attack into.

 

[Rystil Arden]

If the question is about the combination of spells and feats coupled for max impact to create almost insurmountable damage then consider, off the the top of my head,... a rogue/sorcerer w/ hold person. He can deliver a coupe de grace. Sure the spell has a save but vs. the martial types he would use this against (fighter/barbarian/paladin/ranger/psy warrior) there is a 75% (+/-) of failure, the sneak attack is then done vs. no dex, no shield w/ a +4 to hit and all damage is critical. Then the victim must fort save 10+damage dealt or die, this again would be on average troll impossible to save against.


this just showing equality of overpowering tactics

Bye bye fighter

Blightersbane

This requires them to fail two Will saves (they get another the next round), takes two rounds to set up, and then gives a Fort save (all the classes you picked as targets have good Fort). I also find it highly unlikely that a Paladin will fail a save vs Hold Person "75%" of the time with +Cha to saves and Wisdom as their casting stat. This is a fair tactic--you take a big chance and it may pay off well. With Wraithstrike against many sorts of opponents, you don't take a chance (well, you take a 95% chance because 1 is an auto-fail)--you just succeed.

 

[Nail]

If the question is about the combination of spells and feats coupled for max impact to create almost insurmountable damage then consider, off the the top of my head,... a rogue/sorcerer w/ hold person.

Oooo....bad example. Hold Person + Coup de Grace has been shown time and again to be only a moderately good tactic at best. It was one of the early topics in the roll out of the 3.5e edition.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Oooo....bad example. Hold Person + Coup de Grace has been shown time and again to be only a moderately good tactic at best. It was one of the early topics in the roll out of the 3.5e edition.

That's just because of Hold Person's multiple saves, right?. The save against CdG is nearly impossible to make if the attacker is anywhere near the victim's level. Basic 1st-level dwarven fighter: 3d10+12 or so, for a Fort DC near 40.

 

[Mort]

If the question is about the combination of spells and feats coupled for max impact to create almost insurmountable damage then consider, off the the top of my head,... a rogue/sorcerer w/ hold person. He can deliver a coupe de grace. Sure the spell has a save but vs. the martial types he would use this against (fighter/barbarian/paladin/ranger/psy warrior) there is a 75% (+/-) of failure, the sneak attack is then done vs. no dex, no shield w/ a +4 to hit and all damage is critical. Then the victim must fort save 10+damage dealt or die, this again would be on average troll impossible to save against.


this just showing equality of overpowering tactics

Bye bye fighter

Blightersbane

As stated, this is not nearly as powerfull as it sounds, too many saves involved. But yes there are certainly combos out there that can get as nasty as wraithstrike.
For example a fighter/barbarian with power attack, combat brute and the ability to pounce (you can get it from the Bo9 swords but it'll cost around 3 feats, don't have the book with me for exact count) can get pretty close to the same amount of damage. Then again, I don't think I would allow combat brute in my game, just as I would probably not allow an unmodified wraithstrike.

 

[Blightersbane]

Retort #
1. A held target can be hit by others as where wraithstrike only benefits 1.
2. As far as those classes having good fort saves, yes but not here! As per CDG all damage is crit this coupled with the sneak damage even the mighty save king Paladin will drop more often than not.

There exists many “over powering” alternatives, typically involving the combination of spells and/or tactics.

1) A rogue/sorcerer with rope or chain of entanglement ray of enfeeblement = this is just unfair!
2) Party grappler (fighter type specializing w/ grapple chain of feats) + party rogue = a quick kill albeit pretty messy for the grappler





Blightersbane

Oooo....bad example. Hold Person + Coup de Grace has been shown time and again to be only a moderately good tactic at best. It was one of the early topics in the roll out of the 3.5e edition.

 

[Blightersbane]

I agree combat brute is a bit much for 1 feat it should be at least 2 feats.

As stated, this is not nearly as powerfull as it sounds, too many saves involved. But yes there are certainly combos out there that can get as nasty as wraithstrike.
For example a fighter/barbarian with power attack, combat brute and the ability to pounce (you can get it from the Bo9 swords but it'll cost around 3 feats, don't have the book with me for exact count) can get pretty close to the same amount of damage. Then again, I don't think I would allow combat brute in my game, just as I would probably not allow an unmodified wraithstrike.

 

[Nail]

There exists many “over powering” alternatives, typically involving the combination of spells and/or tactics.

I'm not disputing that. I am disagreeing that Hold Person + Coup de Grace is one of them.

"Over powering" typically means "much better than other tactics" or "not balanced with respect to the rest of the game". Wraithstrike fits that definition. Hold Person + Coup de Grace (that requires one PC to cast and another to be adjacent and full round action)? Not so much.

 

[Mistwell]

Who he has played with Wraithsrtike as written, for a reasonable period of time, and found it unbalanced your game?

Raise your hand, and then explain how it unbalanced your game.

I'm just not buying it. I see a lot of comparisons to other spells, usually other metamagiced spells (which is a bad example because metamagic is a general application to a specific spell which can be tweaked in it's own right in MANY ways, while this is a specific spell without that general application). I see a lot of theoretical maybes. I don't see anyone actually coming with experience with this spell over a decent period of time and reporting it had the negative impact on games that so many people seem to be predicting.

In fact, I think not coincidentally, I see some of the same names in this thread claiming a spell is overpowered that I see in virtually every thread in this forum when there is a claim that something is overpowered. Some people just think a large portion of the rules, and rules intepretations, are overpowered, and will default to that position on virtually any topic. I don't fault them for consistently making this claim about various rules, but I do think it's worth pointing out so that a false impression is not made that a majority of people think this rule, or all those other rules, are so overpowered. Sometimes a minority can be very loud.

 

[two]

I'm not disputing that. I am disagreeing that Hold Person + Coup de Grace is one of them.

"Over powering" typically means "much better than other tactics" or "not balanced with respect to the rest of the game". Wraithstrike fits that definition. Hold Person + Coup de Grace (that requires one PC to cast and another to be adjacent and full round action)? Not so much.

It's more like, this combo requires:

2 pc's, good timing, 1 adjacent to enemy being targeted... AND
Enemy fails 2 saves, enemy is valid target for spell, enemy SR if any overcome, enemy not immune to holding, etc.

I'd say over 90% of the "monsters" in the MM are not a valid target for Hold Person. Many others have SR or immunities. Others simply have great saves and won't likely fail the saves.

I'd say even if you had the PC's in the required (optimal) positions, you won't have the enemy fail 2 saves more than one time in 5, at best. And maybe 1 in 3 enemies are a valid target for the spell (and/or you get by the SR or whatever). So it works about 1 time in 15 vs. 15 average monsters. I'll be really generous, and say 1 time in 10.

As power combo's go, that is incredibly weak (particularly since you are using up a lot of actions, from 2 PCs).

Wraithstrike, on the other hand... has no saves. Nothing is immune to melee damage (pretty much). It takes no action to enable (cast and full attack same round). You don't need pals around, and don't need the enemy in a particular position. Hold Person scales up horribly; Wraithstrike actually gets more powerful at higher levels as full round attacks increase and average damage gets crazy.

A non-munchkinized non min/maxxed fighter/mage type could very easily cast his 3rd level spells as Wraithstrikes too...and do 50+ damage a round from level 6 or so up. That is PLENTY of Wraithstrikes in a day. If you need more, you would have been dead long ago (Wraithstrike allowed you to survive as long as you have).

Any slightly maximized build would be able to do hundreds of points of damage 10+ times a day.

Is Extended Wraithstrike valid at 3rd level (? 2 rounds of ouch)?