shmoo2 said:
So what were you thinking of?
1d4 per level?
or 1d6 per 2 levels?
or something else?
While it's not a scientific method, I did a quick
poll on what people felt would be a balanced amount of damage for a spell that did irresistable damage (no save, no SR, no ranged attack roll, no resistance/immunity). As of this posting, there was a fairly even split between the top three options of:
(1) no matter how low the damage goes, the spell will still be broken because it is irresistable (15/49),
(2) 1d4/level, maximum 15d4 (14/49), and
(3) 1d3/level, maximum 15d3 (13/49).
I'm inclined to go with the 1d4/level option, but to further cap the spell at 10d4. Using core-only feats (and no metamagic rods), a 15th-level conjurer's expected damage against a CR 24 red wyrm (ignoring vulnerability) would be 65 points with a one
quickened orb and one
maximized orb. That's about 11% of its hit points.
With Arcane Thesis, Empower, Energy Admixture and Quicken, this works out to about 101.25 damage for two eighth-level spell slots, or about 17% of the wyrm's hit points.
If we add Practical Metamagic into the mix and substitute Maximize for Empower, we get 120 damage for two eighth-level slots, or about 20% of the wyrm's hit points.
The conjurer still does much better than the evoker against the red wyrm, because of spell resistance and saving throws. Using core rules only, an evoker can expect to do 112.5 base points of damage with
quickened lightning bolt and
empowered, maximized lightning bolt. However, a red wyrm's SR of 35 means that the spells have only a 5% chance of working, reducing average damage to less than 6 before it even needs to attempt a saving throw.
The evoker does better against a more CR-appropriate single encounter, although still not as well as the conjurer. Against a CR 15 adult red with SR 24, the evoker's spells work 60% of the time, bringing average damage down to 67.5. Assuming an Intelligence of 24 (15 +3 stat increase + 6 enhancement), the saving throw DC is 20, and the adult red's Reflex save of +13 means it saves 70% of the time. This brings the average damage down to just under 44, or about two-thirds what the conjurer is now doing (with the lower damage dice and cap for the orb spells). Of course, if they were facing two adult reds, the advantage swings back to the evoker.
With Arcane Thesis, Practical Metamagic and Energy Admixture, an evoker can pull off an
empowered, maximized, energy admixed lightning bolt and an
empowered, maximized, quickened lightning bolt for 232.5 points of damage. After SR and saving throws, this drops down to just under 91 points damage on average, or about 75% of the conjurer's maximum output. Again, advantage conjurer against a single target, advantage evoker against two or more.
An evoker actually functions about on par with a conjurer against a CR 13 young adult red with SR 21 and a Reflex save of +11, dealing about 59 points on average with core, and about 122 points with all the extra feats. Against multiple such opponents, the evoker is definitely the superior spellcaster.
