No more double empowered fireballs!!

[S'mon]

Offhand, I got to thinking about Empower Spell and Fireball.


Fireball states the maximum damage caused is 10d6. This part of the spell does not appear to be variable. Thus, why would the ES feat work at all? Sure it'd give you Xd6*1.5 more damage but why would the maximum part change?

I know I've used Empowered Fireballs before, but this just occured to me and I can't figure out why it never came up before.

'10d6' is a variable figure.

Therefore it is, of course, subject to Empowering etc.
If it had said 'maximum damage is 60hp', you'd have a good argument.

 

[Stalker0]

Just for the record, I am not Andy Collins

I really don't like this change. While I agree maximise is a little weak in comparison to empower, this change really does nerf empower especially for sorcs.

One of the whole points of empower was that sorcs can get a fireball, and empower it, instead of wasting spell slots on higher level damage dealers. Your getting more damage, but with a lower save, seems balanced to me.

 

[Hypersmurf]

'10d6' is a variable figure.

Therefore it is, of course, subject to Empowering etc.

Yeah. At 9th level, you roll 9d6, for a maximum of 54 damage with a fireball, and a maximum of 81 damage with an empowered fireball.

At 10th level, you roll 10d6, for a maximum of 60 damage with a fireball, and a maximum of 90 damage with an empowered fireball.

Above 10th level, you've hit the limit of the number of dice you can roll. But there's nothing that states you can't roll a 9 on an empowered d6...

Mirror image is where the debate really rages, because it explicitly caps at 8 images, not at 1d4+4, for example.

An CL20 mirror image gives you 1d4+6 images... with a maximum of 8.

A CL20 empowered mirror image gives you (1d4+6) x 1.5 images... with a maximum of 8.

-Hyp.

 

[Will]

I'm a little puzzled by some reactions...

First, double empower vs. maximize _is_ a no-brainer. +4 spell levels vs. +3 spell levels, each for 2x effect. Sure, empower is variable, but in the long run, it's the same. And with maximize you know what you're getting, and it's a lower level effect.

As for 3.5e... this is the first change that really throws me. I don't see using up very high level spells to do some more damage as all that problematic. I mean, you don't get many of those high level spells! And the guy casting double empowered magic missile isn't casting Power Word, Stun, or Finger of Death, or Spell Turning.

Likewise, double empowered fireball, compared to Power Word, Kill, Time Stop, and Wish.

 

[S'mon]

I'm a little puzzled by some reactions...

First, double empower vs. maximize _is_ a no-brainer. +4 spell levels vs. +3 spell levels, each for 2x effect. Sure, empower is variable, but in the long run, it's the same. And with maximize you know what you're getting, and it's a lower level effect.

As for 3.5e... this is the first change that really throws me. I don't see using up very high level spells to do some more damage as all that problematic. I mean, you don't get many of those high level spells! And the guy casting double empowered magic missile isn't casting Power Word, Stun, or Finger of Death, or Spell Turning.

Likewise, double empowered fireball, compared to Power Word, Kill, Time Stop, and Wish.

Uh, the Maximized effect doesn't stack with the regular effect, it replaces it! Whereas Empower stacks with it.

Eg 10d6 dmg averages 35.

Maximised it's 60 dmg.

Empowered it's average 35 + 17.5 = 52.5 dmg.

Doubly Empowered it's average 35+17.5+17.5 = 69 dmg (not 70, due to D&D round-down conventions).

 

[Marshall]

It is? I think it's the higher-level blast spells that are underpowered, actually. I'd like to see higher-level blast spells do more than having a bigger damage cap - maybe 1d8/level for 5th level spells, 1d10/level for 7th level and 1d12/level for 9th level spells. Either that, or blast spells should have an additional damage of 1d6/spell level (so fireball would do a total of 3+level d6, and cone of cold would do 5+level d6).

I've ranted about this before, but I think blast spells got inherently nerfed in 3e with the general increase in the number of hp (due to bigger HD and more Con bonuses).

Ditto. I like the add spell lvl/d6 idea.

The problem with allowing Double+ Empower on the damage spells is that they are always better than the damage spells of the new spell level because of the accelerated scaling rate.
A Double Empowered Fireball is getting 2d6/level max 20 vs a DBF getting 1d6/level. Now if they'd just left DBF at d8s, we wouldn't have this problem and it might actually be a level 7 spell effect.

 

[comrade raoul]

I'm surprised the most abusive Empower combination I've heard of hasn't been mentioned -- consider a thrice-empowered flame arrow, cast by a twentieth-level caster. It creates five fiery bolts, each of which requires a ranged touch attack to hit and deals 10d6 points of damage, with a Reflex save for half. 50d6 to a single creature on all failed saves beats the heck out of meteor swarm, I think.

 

[Grog]

This change doesn't really bother me, simply because neither I nor anyone I gamed with ever stacked metamagics before. IME a wizard could always find something better to do with a 7th level slot than a double-empowered fireball. I can't remember a double extend ever being used, either. The point about empowered buffs being abused is valid, I suppose, but since the buffs have been changed to a fixed duration, that's not an issue anymore. So I suppose I don't really see the need for this change, but like I said, it doesn't really bother me either.

 

[Limper]

Other than Quicken the changes to Meta magics have made the feats overall not very usefull. I used the heck out tof them in 3.0 but with the new edition's version of the spells and changes to the feats... they went from something I used regualrly and were thus enjoyable to more things I might use every session or two... mostly uninteresting and bland.

The fighter get to use his schtick all the time but it appears the wizard no longer gets to enjoy his.

Oh well I won't be using 3.5 as a DM and won't play it as a player so I guess it doesn't matter.


Thnak God for Monte! AU is the last hope for d20!