ThirdWizard
First Post
Not sure what spells you're looking at, but Chromatic Orb does 3d8 damage, and it can be any energy type. While that may not be much better than fire bolt, it is still better Especially if you're fighting fiends.
D&D 5E Magic Damage Obsolescence and the Void of Uitility Magic
- Thread starter Minigiant
- Start date
Not sure what spells you're looking at, but Chromatic Orb does 3d8 damage, and it can be any energy type. While that may not be much better than fire bolt, it is still better Especially if you're fighting fiends.
Spells with no half damage on saves are allowed a 25% bonus to damage. 2d10 averages to 11. 3d8 averages to 13.5
Its in the DMG.
ThirdWizard
First Post
Okay, but in the non-academic world the best cantrip for damage is fire bold (attack, 2d10 fire damage at 5th level), and chaos bolt (attack 3d8 fire/acid/cold/lightning/??? damage) still comes out slightly ahead.
So, its technically better to cast chaos orb than fire bolt with the caveat that it is still better to use your 1st level spell on shield than chaos bolt.
No. Magic missile averages 10.5 damage. Fire bolt at 5th level averages 7.7 assuming a 70% chance to hit. It isn't till 11th level that fire bolt overtakes magic missile in average damage.
That said, I would rarely use magic missile after reaching 5th, because it's seldom worth burning a spell slot for a paltry 2.8 damage. But it's not "obsolete" in the sense of being useless.
Scorching ray deals 6d6 fire damage, averaging 14.7 damage (again, assuming 70% to hit). No cantrip ever matches this.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
Which, to be fair, can be entirely useful in 5E, given the ability of a dozen goblins to interfere with an otherwise-trivial higher-level encounter. If anything can be expected in 5E, then the situation where you outlevel your foes by quite a bit is more expected in 5E than in other recent edition.
But in general, just to echo everyone else - damage spells scale with your spell slots, and utility spells are always good. It's a quirk of the system, and one which I don't entirely appreciate, but it's no better or worse than the majority of alternative systems they could have chosen.
My game, level 16 now.
Paladin spells are used for smite.
Wizard spells:
1st slots are mostly dedicated to shield, although I have seen high level magic missiles used it hard fights to finish off enemies, or simply do reliable damage.
Most of the other levels have spells that are useful cast at their level even at high levels.
I've seen magic missile boosted, hold person, banishment, fireball (doesnt scale great though so not often), and scorching ray. They're the common ones.
Cleric spells.
A lot of the staples here are designed to be boosted. I quite often use boosted healing spells, boosted spiritual weapon, hold person, banishment, etc.
Other spells:
I see Moonbeam boosted all the time. It scales really well. I've boosted disintegrate against held creatures before as that does some really nice damage, usually up to 8th level, as there aren't a ton of really good 8th level spells.
I also see rituals used a lot still at higher levels. Detect magic, alarm, silence, and so forth.
Oh and also dispel magic and counterspell. Always being boosted especially by my NPC spellcasters.
The bigger issue IMO is known in my game as "Dave's School of Drow Wizardry", I.e. In combat very few spells are actually useful. Combat is over so fast, there is not much in the way of pre-buffing, and concentration mechanics limits what NPC spellcasters can really do in 3 rounds.
The result of this is all casters end up with the same spells, shield, counterspell, greater invisibility, misrt step, balh blah blah.
I've tried building a variety of different casters, necromancers, illusionists, poison based Drow casters, etc, and they basically have all sucked so bad in combat, they weren't worth the time spent creating them.
Paladin spells are used for smite.
Wizard spells:
1st slots are mostly dedicated to shield, although I have seen high level magic missiles used it hard fights to finish off enemies, or simply do reliable damage.
Most of the other levels have spells that are useful cast at their level even at high levels.
I've seen magic missile boosted, hold person, banishment, fireball (doesnt scale great though so not often), and scorching ray. They're the common ones.
Cleric spells.
A lot of the staples here are designed to be boosted. I quite often use boosted healing spells, boosted spiritual weapon, hold person, banishment, etc.
Other spells:
I see Moonbeam boosted all the time. It scales really well. I've boosted disintegrate against held creatures before as that does some really nice damage, usually up to 8th level, as there aren't a ton of really good 8th level spells.
I also see rituals used a lot still at higher levels. Detect magic, alarm, silence, and so forth.
Oh and also dispel magic and counterspell. Always being boosted especially by my NPC spellcasters.
The bigger issue IMO is known in my game as "Dave's School of Drow Wizardry", I.e. In combat very few spells are actually useful. Combat is over so fast, there is not much in the way of pre-buffing, and concentration mechanics limits what NPC spellcasters can really do in 3 rounds.
The result of this is all casters end up with the same spells, shield, counterspell, greater invisibility, misrt step, balh blah blah.
I've tried building a variety of different casters, necromancers, illusionists, poison based Drow casters, etc, and they basically have all sucked so bad in combat, they weren't worth the time spent creating them.
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bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
That'd be neat for swarms. Easy story for such a spell too in that I could see wizards teaching each other how to eliminate vermin from their schools
