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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rystil Arden" data-source="post: 3458545" data-attributes="member: 29014">If you adjust it to be more like Acid Arrow (low initial damage, but damage over time--so the high-powered enemy can do something about this, or just kill you), then it would be fine.  The problem is that the niche of high-damage-all-at-once-nuke-that-also-ignores-SR is a bad niche to have in a typical D&D game.  There are even other issues that would be raised by increasing the attack powers of the monsters--that Dragon is a scary beast.  It's attack power is high enough already to be a terrifying opponent for a CR-appropriate party.  It just isn't strong enough to win if the game has escalated to "if you can't kill them on the opener, even 9 levels lower than your CR, you lose Mr. Dragon" that Orbs bring along.  If you make the Dragon even stronger offensively, then it utterly annihilates any party except those with mainly Conjurers who can kill it in the first round before it can--it becomes an escalation (one that I consider unfun):  Who can kill the other in one round with its super nuke before the other team can use their supernuke?The Orbs still would have an excellent niche if they had SR: Yes and remained ranged touch--it is easy to underestimate the advantage the Orbs have over Scorching Ray, so let's take an example.  An opponent with no SR who is weak against Fire but has up Energy Resist Fire for 30 (Frost Giant Shaman say--if they had SR, like a White Dragon, it wouldn't matter for this demonstration).  No crazy Thesis or anything else.  Just a simple Maximised Empowered Orb of Fire + Quickened Orb of Fire vs Twinned Maximised Scorching Ray + Quickened Maximised Scorching Ray:  The Orb does 193.  The Scorching Rays do 54.  If the enemy isn't weak against the element and just resists, the Rays do nothing at all.</blockquote>

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