No spell resistance vs. Orb spells? Why?

[James McMurray]

...for example:

"I use a spreadsheet which has all of the monster stats from the MM 3.5e. I'd be happy to share it. If I use this spreadsheet, I find the median touch AC for monsters in the MM 3.5e is Touch AC 12."

Now your turn.

All that says is "here's all my work in this partucular format." Sorry, I calculated them by hand. If you ask me for my work you're admitting I'm right. At least, according to your statements earlier.

If you "don't believe the numbers", then it's your job to prove them wrong. If you don't prove them wrong, then you have conceeded the point.

It's really quite simple.

If you don't believe that the average touch AC for those books is that high, you have to prove me wrong or concede my point. Using your "prove them wrong or admit defeat" methodology, you "prove" the existence of all sorts of ludicrous ideas.

Either that, or you can admit that it's the province of the data provider to give verification for the data.

Edit: Almost forgot, I'd love to see that spreadsheet. It could be insanely useful in games.

 

[Rystil Arden]

As an aside, for those who are paying attention to these things, this whole bit with claiming that the other books average to some absurd number without proof is another good example of reductio ad absurdum. Notice that Nail and James are debating the terms of the reductio and not saying "57 is ridiculous for AC. It weakens the strength of everything you've said this whole time"

 

[James McMurray]

The orbs aren't balanced relative to other damaging spells, they destroy the evocation school's reason for being,

What would you say is the quintessential evocation spell? For decades, most gamers have answered that question with "fireball." An Orb, even maximized, empowered, and rolling straight sixes for a total of 135 damage does not have the damage capacity of a delayed blast fireball hitting six creatures for average damage after their successful saves (26.25 each, total 157.5). Orbs don't even come close to "destroying the evocation school's reason for being."

they are too powerful golem-killers,

Possibly. They're certainly good, but then again I like the idea of arcane casters not having to sit back and ready actions to run away every time a golem pops up.

and they powergame around a common defense by using the most tenuous of game logic ("No, it's not magical lightning, it's a perfectly natural ball of lava/liquid hydrogen/vibrating air/pure electrons that is brought into existence through magic").

"Tenuous" is a subjective term in this case. I personally disagree with the idea that it makes no sense that conjuration can create metal out of thin air but can't create the natural substances available for generating various energy types (except Force, but I don't hate it enough that I'd argue if a GM didn't want to house rule it).

But the conversation seems to have shifted to dragons.

Only because the orb decriers pulled a creature with an incredibly low touch AC, high SR, and a weakness to energy and tried to use the orb's optimal situation as the example of why the spell is broken.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

This is a guy walking into a dragon's lair fighting something 9 CR higher. The example mage is already a moron.

How should a *character* have the slightest clue of what CR a monster is without metagaming?
*Players* shouldn't even know what CR a monster is.

 

[Rystil Arden]

How should a *character* have the slightest clue of what CR a monster is without metagaming?
*Players* shouldn't even know what CR a monster is.

True that--she probably heard "Beware and stay away from Anthralanxus's lair! He is the greatest and most fearsome red dragon in all of the Eastern kingdoms", to which she replies "Well, he can't be much harder than Aranalathanrus, the greatest and most fearsome red dragon in all of the Western kingdoms, and my Sister and I killed him last month." Example aside, the player and the character will lose a sense of perspective of CR because the Orb mage is so good at killing these things. When she fries a CR 21 dragon (for instance) easily, if she is level 15, she might think the dragon was probably CR 15 or lower (unless the player is a metagamer with an excellent memory for numbers and reverse engineers the HP from how many Orbs it took to kill the dragon, though each Orb does enough damage that it leaves a pretty big room for error that way).

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Orbs don't even come close to "destroying the evocation school's reason for being."

Direct-damage energy spells have been evocation's bread and butter, whether single-target or area-effect. Conjuration ALREADY claimed a fair segment of area-effect energy-damage with cloud spells, and now Blast of Flame and Arc of Lightning.

Possibly. They're certainly good, but then again I like the idea of arcane casters not having to sit back and ready actions to run away every time a golem pops up.

As opposed to resorting to summoning, battlefield control, or buffs?

Only because the orb decriers pulled a creature with an incredibly low touch AC, high SR, and a weakness to energy and tried to use the orb's optimal situation as the example of why the spell is broken.

There are a LOT of monsters with high SR that is supposed to be one of their main defenses. The rakshasa is a good example. It has outstanding DR and SR, but fairly low HP. Devils are another example. Dragons are a poor choice because their SR isn't that good and because they have so many HP that you need several metamagic feats to make the orbs deadly.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

This is still after being crushed as the conditions are only met after the attack.

I disagree here, but it would be up to the DM running the game. In my opinion, the caster becomes Huge before the Crush attempt is completed, and so cannot be Crushed. I'd certainly allow a PC to foil my dragon's Crush attempt this way.

He could easily have been on a 10' high pile of treasure. Unless you want to get 3D (and find a new die for random direction since the d8 no longer works), which could just as easily shunt you to a lower level.

Sure, 3-D movement is onerous, but it seems the most straightforward and logical interpretation of the spell.

 

[James McMurray]

Direct-damage energy spells have been evocation's bread and butter, whether single-target or area-effect. Conjuration ALREADY claimed a fair segment of area-effect energy-damage with cloud spells, and now Blast of Flame and Arc of Lightning.

Really? How many single target evocation spells are there out there compared to area spells?

As opposed to resorting to summoning, battlefield control, or buffs?

Summon what? The SR and and the DR of x/adamantine make saving most Summon Monster x spells better as saved resources for later encounters.

There are a LOT of monsters with high SR that is supposed to be one of their main defenses. The rakshasa is a good example. It has outstanding DR and SR, but fairly low HP. Devils are another example. Dragons are a poor choice because their SR isn't that good and because they have so many HP that you need several metamagic feats to make the orbs deadly.

Right. The orbs work great in the area they were designed to work great in. Toss them against a creature with the same subtype as the energy, a high touch AC, or a group of monsters and they fare extremely poorly. Therefor, their balance comes down partly to a matter of campaign style. In Age of Worms they're decent. In SCAP (which I assume means Shattered City?) they're da bomb.

 

[Fieari]

All that says is "here's all my work in this partucular format." Sorry, I calculated them by hand. If you ask me for my work you're admitting I'm right. At least, according to your statements earlier.



If you don't believe that the average touch AC for those books is that high, you have to prove me wrong or concede my point. Using your "prove them wrong or admit defeat" methodology, you "prove" the existence of all sorts of ludicrous ideas.

Either that, or you can admit that it's the province of the data provider to give verification for the data.

Edit: Almost forgot, I'd love to see that spreadsheet. It could be insanely useful in games.

If you did it by hand, does that mean you have it on paper? Can you scan it?

If not, can you name the outlying numbers? That is to say, which monsters skewed the results so high? I mean, if you were adding in some epic level monsters, and/or gods, I could understand 57.

Which books provided the highest touch AC?

Let me say, I don't believe your numbers, or rather, I don't believe THAT number. Not 57. Not by a LONGSHOT. I'm willing to be convinced, if you back them up. I'll even give you a head start... Here's a survey of touch ACs from one of the books you mentioned, that I also possess: Fiend Folio. I found the average touch AC to be 11.81, with the lowest being 4 and the highest being 23 (Thunder Worm), 164 records counted. Here's the numbers, I may have missed one or two, but that shouldn't skew things much:

13
13
11
14
12
11
10
15
11
19
4
14
12
12
12
11
13
16
16
13
4
14
12
8
13
14
13
18
12
11
11
15
17
11
10
12
15
12
12
13
14
16
9
9
14
4
14
12
13
10
7
11
9
14
14
11
10
12
14
12
8
9
11
8
9
11
12
10
11
9
7
11
14
12
8
11
12
14
7
12
13
13
12
13
11
10
11
9
16
5
9
10
15
9
10
13
13
12
12
4
11
12
12
11
14
9
9
11
13
11
10
17
11
7
13
9
6
11
13
13
17
9
12
11
12
11
20
14
15
15
12
14
14
11
13
13
13
13
14
12
12
12
13
11
12
12
23 - Thunder Worm
12
10
8
13
13
12
10
13
20
7
11
10
9
10
14
10
18

Not a full spreadsheet like Rystil has for the MM, but I was working with time constraints here.

But you'll note, the highest touch AC in the entire book is less than half the AVERAGE touch AC you claim. If there was an additional monster added to this list with a touch AC of 100, not found anywhere outside of Upper Krust's epic bestiary, it would raise this average to 12.35. In fact, in order to get an average of 57 out of this list, you need another monster with a touch AC of 7500. You're not going to find that number in CR's lower than a thousand. You're just not.

The highest touch ACs there were exclusively held by the incorporeal, and I think one or two fae.

EDIT: As a lark, I calculated the touch AC's in Upper Krust's Epic Bestiary, with a CR range of 6 to 9721 (yes, nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty one), most of which lay in the 20-100 range, before and after which they get sparse. Anyway, the lowest touch AC in this book is -7 (negative seven), and the highest was 303 (Great Wyrm Nexus Dragon, which has a divine rank of 240). The average touch AC for the book? 41.56, still lower than your claim of 57.

 

[James McMurray]

"It is my opinion that the nation of Germany, last week, turned into a clump of seaweed."

That's not an opinion it's a fiction caused by an attempt to state something that isn't true as a fact.

If it can be proven true or false it falls outside the realm of opinion.