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Message: <blockquote data-quote="der_kluge" data-source="post: 1041690" data-attributes="member: 945">Whoa, Kodam.  The spell just sucks.  From the 3.0 SRD:Differences: lowered the Druid caster level by 1; clarified the non-cold damage as "bludgeoning".  In addition, the spell incurs a -4 penalty to listen checks, and all movement is cut by 1/2.The last little bit is a throwback to the 2nd edition version, which had ended up getting split into two spells - sleet storm, and ice storm, but they kept sleet storm in 3.5, but just added the effect back into ice storm.  That still doesn't make it a very good spell for 4th level.Now, let's compare Ice Storm to Fireball, as cast by a 7th level caster.  Fireball will do 7d6 points of damage, and will ignite combustibles in the area.  Both spells grant a spell resistance check, but ice storm has no save.  Now, let's compare damage: 5d6 cold/bludgeoning versus 7d6.  Fair?  Perhaps, if you're attacking a group of rogues who are going to evade the fireball.  Otherwise, no.  Everyone is quick to point out that rogues will evade fireball damage, but when was the last time you fought more than 1 rogue at a time?  Alternatively, when was the last time you fought a pile of skeletons, or a pile or orcs?  Probably more likely.  Skeletons, as undead, are going to completely ignore the cold damage of ice storm, anyway.As for the height of ice storm, fireball has height too, if you play in 3-dimensions.  It's a 20-ft radius sphere, not a circle.  So, that's a 40-ft. diameter sphere.  That's as high as ice storm is.Now, it seems to me that I'm confused - in my house rules, I have listed the following:"Ice storm – this spell effect has changed.  In addition, druids now get this spell.Hail falls for one full round, dealing 4d6 points of bludgeoning damage and 4d6 points of cold damage to creatures in their path. Listen checks made within the ice storm’s effect take a –4 penalty, and all ground movement within its area is at half speed.  At the end of the duration, the hail disappears, leaving no after effects (other than the damage inflicted)."Now, it seems to me that there must be some reason why I included the comment about it being a Druid spell, and as you can see, I added the "sleet storm" effect to my House rule, but this is for 3.0, and I can remove that now, since WoTC was thinking like me, and added it into 3.5.  I also seem to recall that it had a smaller radius, but the 3.0 SRD seems to have been updated to have the same radius as fireball.  That didn't use to be the case, I'm sure of it, but I don't have my book with me so I can't verify that.My suggestion would be to increase the damage as I have done (4d6/4d6) or to increase the duration, and leave the damage as is.  Something like 1 round every 4 levels or something like that, might be a little better.  So, at 20th level it's actually a semi-decent spell.As it is, though, it's quite worthless, and will quickly become abandoned once higher level spells are gained.  In my opinion, spells should continue to be useful even at 20th level.  This one is not.  Sleep has the same problem, but I haven't fixed that one yet.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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