No spell resistance vs. Orb spells? Why?

[Rystil Arden]

Well, I'm assuming a twinned orb and a quickened orb, which will do an average of 45 x 3.5 = 157.5 damage in the first round. That's about 25.8% of an average wyrm red dragon's hit points of 610.

And, assuming a starting Intelligence of 15, 3 level increases and a +6 Intelligence-boosting item, that's an Intelligence of 24, which isn't enough to get a bonus 8th-level spell. This leaves Connie with just one 8th-level spell slot for being a 15th-level wizard, and the bonus 8th-level slot for being a specialist, both of which will be used up in the first round.

With 7th-level slots, she can manage a maximized orb, for 90 damage, and a quickened, empowered, lesser orb for an average of 33.5 damage. That's 123.5 damage in the second round by my calculations.

What did you have Connie do to achieve those results?

Oh, I'm willing to backtrack to the first example if you like, but since you quoted my "over 1/3" number, that means you were definitely looking at the second example, the one I kept saying I didn't want to do, where Evan picked up the two Spell Penetrations and I gave Connie two feats in exchange.

As to Int, this might be an interesting poll, but I've never seen a PC Wizard with lower than 16 Int unless the player rolled no 16s on 4d6 drop without being hopeless (which is unlikely). Even in 25 PB, there are more than enough points to buy the 16. That still isn't enough to have an 8th-level slot without at least a +1 from a Tome unless she has 17 to start. It does mean she gets 2 more slots at level 16 instead of just one, but we're looking at 15. That's fine though--Evan is harmed even more by using lower-level slots than Connie because his DCs will also be lower (unless he's been using metamagic, in which case they'll all be lower).

 

[James McMurray]

Oh right--I forgot about the force orb against incorporeals.

It's probably not much of a factor. At 15th level the drastically lower damage and lack of a secondary effect for an orb of force means you're not likely to have memorized a lot of them unless you know in advance you'll be fighting incorporeals or ethereals. Of course, if you're a War Mage, all bets are off.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It's probably not much of a factor. At 15th level the drastically lower damage and lack of a secondary effect for an orb of force means you're not likely to have memorized a lot of them unless you know in advance you'll be fighting incorporeals or ethereals. Of course, if you're a War Mage, all bets are off.

That's true, or if you expect to fight enemies with fairly universal energy resistance. You know, I forgot the secondary effects in all my analyses! That makes the Orbs even better.

 

[James McMurray]

It would have to be energy resistance higher than 15 to make the difference in averages worth swapping out.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It would have to be energy resistance higher than 15 to make the difference in averages worth swapping out.

This is true, and even higher than that with metamagic. I just realised looking back on the numbers that the Orb-user is probably okay using a Cold Orb on that dragon unless the dragon somehow cooked up total immunity because the x1.5 is a whole lot more than the -30 for Resistance. This (and switching Easy Metamagic from Quicken to Energy Admixture so that we get the discount on the big one instead of the small one) increases Connie's Orb damage to the Dragon to 407 Damage at level 15. Yikes, that dragon is toast!

 

[PallidPatience]

Orbs can take metamagic better because of the aforementioned DC problems with lower-level evocation spell. Every metamagic applied to boost damage for those evocation spells reduces the chances of affecting the opponent by a decent percentage. Metamagicked evocation spells are rarely actually equal to the higher level spells they replace, but the orbs very well may be.

 

[Notmousse]

This is true, and even higher than that with metamagic. I just realised looking back on the numbers that the Orb-user is probably okay using a Cold Orb on that dragon unless the dragon somehow cooked up total immunity because the x1.5 is a whole lot more than the -30 for Resistance. This (and switching Easy Metamagic from Quicken to Energy Admixture so that we get the discount on the big one instead of the small one) increases Connie's Orb damage to the Dragon to 407 Damage at level 15. Yikes, that dragon is toast!

Ok, I've asked about your 'easy metamagic' feat you keep talking about, but you've yet to actually produce even a vague description of it.

Furthermore you're not giving 'Connie' two feats, but three as you need a metamagic feat to use it.

 

[FireLance]

Oh, I'm willing to backtrack to the first example if you like, but since you quoted my "over 1/3" number, that means you were definitely looking at the second example, the one I kept saying I didn't want to do, where Evan picked up the two Spell Penetrations and I gave Connie two feats in exchange.

I read your "over 1/3" comment, and found your first post, but not the second. I've found the second now, so I'm good.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Ok, I've asked about your 'easy metamagic' feat you keep talking about, but you've yet to actually produce even a vague description of it.

Furthermore you're not giving 'Connie' two feats, but three as you need a metamagic feat to use it.

Check Crystalkeep. I've checked and the name is right. It reduces metamagic cost by 1, minimum 1 for a particular feat. As to your assertion of 3, nope. Connie and Evan each have only the same metamagic feats as each other--I gave them to both and used them in both analyses. Otherwise Evan does much less also. The only differences between them are two Spell Penetrations for Connie's feats, as proposed by James McMurray.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Check Crystalkeep.

Dragon 325.

You're assuming a DM allows feats from Dragon magazine.

-Hyp.