No spell resistance vs. Orb spells? Why?

[Hypersmurf]

Intent? Deduction?

OMG, Hyp just stepped out of the world of rules and into the world of intent.

You started it, by saying that the orb spells are in the wrong school. The orb spells are in the Conjuration school and the Creation subschool; either your argument is that someone made a typo, or that the spells are counter to the intent of the subschool, right?

I did not state that they were not creation. I stated that we have no such explicit rule for instantaneous conjuration creation energy spells.

You miss my point.

You're saying "The instantaneous creation rule doesn't apply, because the orb is not a creature or an object."

I'm saying "The entire creation subschool, by that logic, is limited to creatures and objects, because the subschool description says so."

A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates...

If we accept that the Creation subschool description is accurate in its use of the phrase 'object or creature', then any spell which does not manipulate matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates is not a Creation spell. And that's over half of the spells labelled 'Creation' in the PHB.

So my proposal is that where the Creation subschool says 'object or creature', they meant 'object or effect', just like the school description says.

Which means that
If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured creature or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or creature is merely assembled through magic.
would instead be read as
If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured effect or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or effect is merely assembled through magic.

If we don't change the subschool description, and instead enforce the 'object or creature' wording as it appears, it invalidates over half the spells in the subschool in the PHB, because those spells do not manipulate matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates.

-Hyp.

 

[James McMurray]

I'm not sure anyone said that every energy needed an element matched to it, did they?

Nail implied it was a problem with the "nervous lauigh" smiley about sonic not matching an element, followed by a seeming problem with matching up force to elements. Nobody actually declared they should match up.

 

[James McMurray]

Just in case anyone is interested:

Using the spreadsheet provided by http://www.nzcomputers.net/heroforge/, I've calculated the average touch AC of all monsters in MM I - IV, Fiend Folio, Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack. (Some may disparage the fact that I did not "do it by hand", as apparently someone did. )

The Average Touch AC is ~12. Interestingly, this is about the same as the average of the monsters in just the MM 3.5e.

FWIW, given the discussion in this thread about how effective ranged Touch Spells are.

Cool, thanks! I'm sure you're unsurprised when I say it doesn't change my mind, because which creatures are used (and how many they are) is a campaign specific decision.

I thought he didn't use Stormwrack or the other terrain books. In that case, clearly those books had an average Touch AC of around -500 (since they each have far fewer monsters than the others), which throws the average back down from 50 to 12

Dude, it wasn't 50. It was 49.something.

(By the way, you know his claim was meant as a reductio ad absurdum and he expected everyone to know it was false, right?)

Given that I've already stated it was meant as an example, I think it would be very odd if anyone didn't know that by now. I think Nail's work was done more for the thread and curiosity than to disprove my obviously false claim.

 

[Nail]

For your next trick, let's see it just for creatures CR 12 and up and also a list of what percentage of those creatures have SLAs, spells, or other abilities not reflected in their raw stat blocks that add deflection or other touch AC-affecting AC bonuses, like unholy aura or protection from good.

Sure thing!......sometime soon, I'm sure.....

An average is just that: "an average value (for about 800 monsters, in this sample)". It doesn't mean a particular creature couldn't put up additional spells, etc. Averages say nothing about a particular monster's tactics (nor does it claim that DMs can't change it).

That said, the average also says nothing about how a mage which uses ranged touch attacks could increase his own chances to hit. Etc. As the long, drawn out "dragon debate" in this thread amply demonstrates, trotting out this or that exception just obscures the fundmental point.

"Orbs are much more likely to damage an opponent than some other spell with a save, SR, etc. A significant part of this is that they are ranged touch attacks, and touch ACs for most monsters are rather low."

 

[Nail]

I thought he didn't use Stormwrack or the other terrain books.

Ah! My mistake.

Pardon me while I hunt down all those (now Defunct!!!! ) Dragon and Dungeon magazines that were supposedly used.

 

[IanB]

Sure thing!......sometime soon, I'm sure.....

An average is just that: "an average value (for about 800 monsters, in this sample)". It doesn't mean a particular creature couldn't put up additional spells, etc. Averages say nothing about a particular monster's tactics (nor does it claim that DMs can't change it).

That said, the average also says nothing about how a mage which uses ranged touch attacks could increase his own chances to hit. Etc. As the long, drawn out "dragon debate" in this thread amply demonstrates, trotting out this or that exception just obscures the fundmental point.

"Orbs are much more likely to damage an opponent than some other spell with a save, SR, etc. A significant part of this is that they are ranged touch attacks, and touch ACs for most monsters are rather low."

Well, I don't really think monsters using SLAs that are right there in their stat blocks really constitutes an exception in this case.

Another reason the average is essentially useless is that it is combines CRs 1/3 to 25 or whatever all in one number, so we look at "ah, average touch AC of 11! this is terrible vs. a 15th level caster!" - but we don't really know for sure how much all those CR 1/2 orc warriors and such are affecting it.

It actually *might* be useful to have it broken down by average touch AC for each CR. That would give us a better idea about how touch ACs look against the attack bonus progression of the wizard.

I have a game to run tomorrow, so my time tonight will be going to prep, but if I get a chance I might be able to run that against the SRD at least.

 

[Nail]

It actually *might* be useful to have it broken down by average touch AC for each CR. That would give us a better idea about how touch ACs look against the attack bonus progression of the wizard.

Data as before. These are average touch ACs.

CR 9 Touch AC 11
CR 10 Touch AC 11
CR 11 Touch AC 12
CR 12 Touch AC 10
CR 13 Touch AC 11
CR 14 Touch AC 13
CR 15 Touch AC 12
CR 16 Touch AC 12
CR 17 Touch AC 12

Notice any trends with "how touch ACs look against the attack bonus progression of the wizard"?

 

[KarinsDad]

The Average Touch AC is ~12. Interestingly, this is about the same as the average of the monsters in just the MM 3.5e.

I question the veracity of this for the 3.5 MM (and hence, question it for the other books as well).

If one does a search of the online SRD (including animals and vermin), there are ~108 creatures (20.4%) with touch AC 13 or higher out of ~529 creatures, ~62 with a touch AC of 12 (11.7%), and ~359 creatures (67.9%) with touch AC 12 or less. Over 3 times as many creatures with a touch AC below 12 than above 12. Even without actually figuring it out like I did before, that shouts that AC 12 is too high.

Are you sure you are not reporting the most common touch AC in the MM as opposed to the average touch AC? AC 12 is not even the median.

Considering that most of the touch AC 13+ (~72 out of ~108 or 67%) are only AC 13 or 14 (and not higher), I find it extremely hard to believe (i.e impossible) that average touch AC 12 is anywhere near an accurate number. There are just too few numbers above 12 to average it out and nearly all of those are AC 15 or less (80.5% of numbers 13+, 96% of all touch ACs are 15 or less).

I also spent over an hour calculating this by hand from the SRD, so although I could have made some mistakes, I am extremely confident that I am not off by 1.5 AC.

Can you redo your calculations for the 3.5 MM?

Note: I do not have HeroForge and do not know how to access the data.

 

[KarinsDad]

You miss my point.

Not really. I just decided to focus on the instantaneous creation portion of it (i.e. 2 spells) because that is what is most applicable to the Orb discussion.

The rest of your point, although interesting, is not pertinent to Orbs.

So my proposal is that where the Creation subschool says 'object or creature', they meant 'object or effect', just like the school description says.

Funny. I have seen hundreds of posts by you where you purposely do not want to change the wording of what WotC wrote and go with a more literal RAW interpretation.

If we don't change the subschool description, and instead enforce the 'object or creature' wording as it appears, it invalidates over half the spells in the subschool in the PHB, because those spells do not manipulate matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates.

Yup. It does.

So, WotC screwed up a lot (logical fallacy: appeal to probability, we should change the text because so many spells have an error).

On the other hand, if we do change the words, we have another logical conundrum: Orb spells are magical (they affect incorporeal creatures), but they can blow through AMF without the text stating that they can.

Personally, I prefer to accept the fact that WotC screwed up and go with the literal RAW interpretation that does not have this conundrum and accept the fact that there are no Conjuration Creation general rules for non-creatures and non-objects (which is still reasonable). A lack of rules does not present a conundrum or inconsistency. It just means that the actual non-object / non-creature Conjuration Creation rules do not exist and hence we should default to the more general magic rules in those cases.

Changing the rules creates the inconsistency. Hence, I reject your change RAW proposal as not reasonable.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Not really. I just decided to focus on the instantaneous creation portion of it (i.e. 2 spells) because that is what is most applicable to the Orb discussion.

The rest of your point, although interesting, is not pertinent to Orbs.

Certainly it is.

You can't focus on the instantaneous creation portion of it (that is, orbs aren't creatures or objects) when the same issue applies to their membership in the school (that is, orbs aren't creatures or objects).

Funny. I have seen hundreds of posts by you where you purposely do not want to change the wording of what WotC wrote and go with a more literal RAW interpretation.

Not when there is an unresolvable contradiction.

We have spells in the Creation subschool that do not manipulate matter to create a creature or object. The Creation subschool description states that spells in the Creation subschool manipulate matter to create a creature or object.

There is a contradiction that cannot be resolved without changing something.

So, WotC screwed up a lot (logical fallacy: appeal to probability, we should change the text because so many spells have an error).

I don't consider that a logical fallacy.

Personally, I prefer to accept the fact that WotC screwed up and go with the literal RAW interpretation that does not have this conundrum and accept the fact that there are no Conjuration Creation general rules for non-creatures and non-objects (which is still reasonable). A lack of rules does not present a conundrum or inconsistency.

There is a rule.

"A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates."

That's not a lack of rules for creation spells that create non-creatures and non-objects; that's a rule for a lack of creation spells that create non-creatures and non-objects. The fact that creation spells that create non-creatures and non-objects exist, in contravention of this definition, is the inconsistency.

If we make the wording in the subschool description consistent with the wording in the school description - that is, replace 'objects and creatures' with 'objects and effects' - the inconsistency goes away.

-Hyp.