No more double empowered fireballs!!

[Apok]

The real problem is the horrible scaling of damage spells in D&D.

Don't suppose you could elaborate on this one for us?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Agreed-I have never understood why people think Heighten spell is used at +1 level at a time. You use it once, the cost is variable, depending how much you Heiten the spell.

It even specifically says in the FAQ that there's no point Heightening a spell twice, since Heightening it once lets you set the level.

-Hyp.

 

[apsuman]

help me out here...

What's the problem with double empowered fireballs?

It would be a level 7 spell cast by no less than a 14th level caster that does 10d6 *2 damage.

A cone of cold could be cast by a level 14 caster empowered one time for a total of 14d6 *1.5 and have a higher save.

Now I admit that the multi empowered buffs were over the top, so I understand them.

And, the incantrix class really made empowering cheap but it was not empower's fault.

g!

 

[ShadowX]

Re: help me out here...

What's the problem with double empowered fireballs?

It would be a level 7 spell cast by no less than a 14th level caster that does 10d6 *2 damage.

A cone of cold could be cast by a level 14 caster empowered one time for a total of 14d6 *1.5 and have a higher save.

Now I admit that the multi empowered buffs were over the top, so I understand them.

And, the incantrix class really made empowering cheap but it was not empower's fault.

g!

EDIT: Forgot about errata.

 

[coyote6]

Re: Re: help me out here...

Actually a double empowered fireball would do 22.5d6 at 13th level, compared to 13d8 of a delayed fireball blast of the same level. This is even after fireball has its damage capped.

Multipliers aren't applied successively in D&D; the easiest way to explain it is to think of any multiplier as a percentage increase (e.g., x1.5 = +50%), and you add the percentage increases together before applying them.

So (x1.5 x 1.5) = (+50% + 50%) = +100% = x2.

 

[ShadowX]

Re: Re: Re: help me out here...

Multipliers aren't applied successively in D&D; the easiest way to explain it is to think of any multiplier as a percentage increase (e.g., x1.5 = +50%), and you add the percentage increases together before applying them.

So (x1.5 x 1.5) = (+50% + 50%) = +100% = x2.

Yeah I forgot, just realized that after I posted.

 

[ShadowX]

As for heighten magic metamagic feat, could you not use it to alter an already affected by metamagic feats spell so that it actually casts a double empowered fireball as a 7th level spell? Seeing as you set the level of the spell and if you don't believe that heighten spell adds +1 to the spell level everytime, one could just alter it in this way, unless this has been answered in some FAQ and I missed it.

Anyways as was pointed out above your paying a feat and double empowers are rarely better than higher level spells. Without the incantrix or the rare spell with a variable component thats not a damage spell, such as animal buffs or enervation, multiple empowers are not extremely useful.

 

[Jens]

Re: help me out here...

Now I admit that the multi empowered buffs were over the top, so I understand them.

But haven't the animal buffs been fixed at +4 instead of +(d4+1)? That means they cannot be empowered at all, unless empower spell has been broadened to fixed values.

 

[S'mon]

Nowhere in the 3.0 PHB did it ever say or imply that you could doubly Empower anything (as opposed to stacking Empower + Maximise, say) - it was a bit of Sage Advice that got accepted as gospel because of the source. Any good DM could see that allowing it made Maximise worthless.

 

[S'mon]

Anyways as was pointed out above your paying a feat and double empowers are rarely better than higher level spells.

Unless you're a Sorcerer with a limited spell selection. People tend to ignore Sorcerers for some reason (maybe thinking they're weak).