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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 3449909" data-attributes="member: 2011">Thanks for trotting out the overwhelming one sided math Rystil. I usually try to go to the math to prove points, but did not have time to do so at work this week.Course, charlesatan totally ignored the math, but whatever. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I'd like to point out another issue that pro-Orb people will blow off as well, but to me it is another worthwhile advantage of Orbs.Energy damaging spells which have SR and/or saves (specifically Reflex saves) have non-detectable defenses which can negate them completely. For example, a high SR or Improved Evasion (or even such a high Reflex save that half damage is often ensured). The caster often does not know until he casts the spell (and maybe even not necessarily then) that the spell has a high chance of failure. This is even true for spells like Scorching Ray which have both a ranged touch attack and SR.However, energy damaging spells like the Orbs which only have a ranged touch attack tend to have detectable defenses which can negate them completely. In other words, a miss chance. Invisibility or Blur or concealment or cover or even Displacement are often noticable. The caster tends to know ahead of time that his opponent is invisible and the spell has a high chance of failure, so he can intelligently choose to cast a different spell instead.So in addition to the Orbs averaging more single target energy damage than most single target energy damaging Evocation spells as illustrated, they also have a selection advantage. The caster incorrectly chooses a single target energy damage spell less often with the Orbs. If the caster can clearly see the target (shy of some more unusual magic), he can typically damage the target.And of course as someone else pointed out, with a ranged touch attack, that is mostly under the control of the caster. He can bump up his to hit and damage with spells and feats and PrC special abilities in order to become a ranged touch attack specialist. It is mostly under his control. Most opponents are not anti-ranged touch attack specialist such that they can defend against this and most opponents do not have extremely high touch ACs. For most opponents, even ones with high hit points, Orb spells are deadly.As both of these points illustrate, controlling your odds is a major advantage of ranged touch spells. As single target energy damage spells, Orbs have the best of all worlds.</blockquote>

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