Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8839405" data-attributes="member: 58172">The "standard" damage spell has an instantaneous duration, deals an amount of damage within a specific range per slot, and saves for half damage. These standard spells are well understood, and easy to evaluate.Spells that do damage no-save, or else save for zero damage, are variants of the standard damage spell that are also easy to calculate and evaluate.(By the way. Even spells whose purpose is to purely deal damage should probably include a "ribbon", namely a low-tier or less useful minor feature, for the sake of flavor. For example, even the Fireball spell has a ribbon where it can damage unattended objects along with the intended creatures. Usually, the DM can narratively adjudicate what objects the Fireball destroys, but sometimes the DM will want to roll a save for a specific object. Here the ribbon helps actualize the flavor of extreme heat.)The standard damage spells that are instantaneous, contrast the nonstandard damage spells that are non-instantaneous. The non-instantaneous deal smaller amounts of ongoing damage, whether across multiple turns or multiple hours, whether dealing auto-damage, using bonus actions, or enhancing actions.In the context of the gaming engine, these ongoing damage spells are centrally important. Because. The ongoing at-will damage is where the caster classes like Wizard and the noncaster classes like Fighter, intersect. When a Wizard casts an ongoing damage spell, the damage-dealing per turn behaves more like a Fighter wielding at-will high weapon damage.The standard damage spells are clear to me. These ongoing damage spells are less clear − but so important to get right. How much ongoing damage should a spell deal for each higher slot?Typically, the Wizard avoids these ongoing damage spells, because the instantaneous higher damage is more effective to eliminate any hostiles and prevent the hostiles from continuing to harm the teammates. Even so, when the Wizard does choose an ongoing spell, the Wizard character resembles the gaming engine of the Fighter class. I need to understand this event better. How much ongoing damage is appropriate at each slot.</blockquote>

Verification