Orbs vs. Evocations II- with level by level data
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Brother MacLaren said:
Polar ray was originally part of Otilukes freezing sphere, and was part of the sorcerer-nerf-fest that 3.5 undertook by splitting most multi-use spells into single use spells (ice storm -> ice storm + sleet storm, eyebite -> single effect, symbol -> symbols, emotion -> rage/despair/etc)
In 1e OFS had a ray form that was ranged touch for 4 damage per caster level (as well as water freezer and grenade)
In 3e OFS had water freezer form, grenade form (6d6 10ft radius) or close range ray doing 1d6 per level, max 20d6.
Why did it get stripped out of the 6th level spell and made into an 8th level spell? Nobody I've talked to knows.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
gnfnrf said:
I'd be interested to know what the probability of the orb hitting was, compared to the probability of a reflex save being successful. I'd also be interested to know whether these foes had SR or not.
That information would make for more usable 'in game' results.
Plane Sailing said:
My goal with the numbers was not to try to resolve that question, but simply to address the number of targets question.
Also, as a player, I don't know precisely what the creature's ACs, Reflex saves, and SR were.
But, I will do the best I can.
[SBLOCK]
The first encounter was against a half-fiend behir and a ... young adult blue dragon? Just a guess.
The dragon, if I identified it correctly, has a Reflex save of +11, against the warmage's 4th level DC of 19 or 20. It has SR 19, and the warmage does not have spell penetration.
The dragon's base touch AC is 9, vs the warmage's ranged touch of +8. The dragon was buffed early in the fight which may have affected that, but it was dispelled and tanglefooted, bringing it's AC down even further.
The half fiend behir has a reflex save of +9, a touch AC of 11, and SR 19
[/SBLOCK]
The short version is that orbs were obviously totally better in the first fight. I'm OK with that, though, since the fireball and lightning bolt were better choices in the second fight.
As a philosophical aside, I don't see why conjuration can't be good at hurting people. Saying that evocation is the only school that should hurt people goes directly against the idea that in 3.5 schools are balanced against each other. It's back to the old 2nd edition idea that illusionists suck.
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gnfnrf
EDIT: Apparently, the SPOILER tag creates text you have to highlight, not the neat popopen window. Oh well. Go highlight to see RHoD spoilers.
SECOND EDIT: Nail is my hero.
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[/sblock]Brother MacLaren
Explorer
Well, the point is that the conjuration school has many other ways to hurt people. Indirect damage through summoned creatures, damage and battlefield control through cloud spells, and of course the school has MANY utility spells. Evocation's primary role has always been massive HP damage, both single-target and area-effect, through energy and force effects.gnfnrf said:
I don't think anybody objects to conjuration spells having damage potential in a general sense, and having played a druid for 19 levels I can say that summoning spells can be amazingly powerful. Not to mention what a real conjurer could accomplish with Planar Binding (among other things, you can call outsiders who can in turn throw energy-damage spells). But to take the conjuration school, and then add the main function of the evocation school -- direct energy damage, both single-target and area, only the conjurer does it better because SR doesn't apply -- is creating an overpowered school, and one that has a less clear focus.
The Divination school can deal damage indirectly through True Strike. The Illusion school through Shadow Conjuration or Shadow Evocation, or indirectly through Improved Invisibility on the party rogue. The Transmutation school indirectly through buffs (Polymorph, Haste, many others) or directly through Disintegrate. The Abjuration school indirectly through Dispel Magic (stripping away the enemy's protections) or Prismatic Wall. The Necromancy school through Vampiric Touch or Enervation. The Enchantment school through Dominating one of the enemy. But it doesn't make sense to me to give Evocation-like spells to any of these schools, nor to Conjuration.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
gnfnrf said:
Thanks, that is useful information. It seems that even if you had three or four of the high CR opponents clustered together, the orb would be causing much more damage than an equivalent evocation (just eyeballing SR and relative reflex save probability vs touch hit probability).
Cheers
Sabathius42 said:
Back to reality...
Just because the metamagic rods exist do not mean that they are balanced.
Just because the sudden metamagic feats exist do not mean that they are balanced.
And just because one exists does not make the other balanced.
IMO, they are both broken. There should be hard and fast magic rules and feats, items, or spells that break those rules are extremely suspect. As an example, a feat that increases the damage caps of spells without changing their spell level is automatically suspect: Sudden Empower effectively does that.
Brother MacLaren
Explorer
Some of the metamagic rods, in actual play, won't have the same effect that Sudden feats do. They usually won't allow a caster to Empower a spell that he otherwise couldn't Empower -- except for the Greater rods.KarinsDad said:
Assume that the DMG wealth guidelines are being followed and assume that a caster has a rod worth no more than 1/4 of his total item value. (I'm trying to reflect what a real character might look like.)
The Lesser Rod is then available at level 9 -- so the caster can empower spells of levels 1-3, just as he could with Empower Spell.
The Rod of Empower is available at level 14. The caster gets the ability to empower 6th-level spells one level before he would otherwise.
The Greater rods really throw things out of whack, because they all let you Empower, Maximize, or Quicken spells that you couldn't otherwise. I imagine that a Rod of Greater Quicken is pretty much a must-have item for any archmage.
