Orbs vs. Evocations II- with level by level data

[DragonBelow]

I'd rather do 90 damage to one enemy than 30 damage to three enemies.

even if you're facing 3 enemies with 30hps each? hehe

 

[DragonBelow]

Just an idea, If you believe the orbs are not balanced, rather than trying to come up ways to limit it, why not bump them up in spell level, make them 5th level spells.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Yes, exactly what was meant by the comment that orbs are used to fight the important battles, evocations are for the mook hordes.

And this is unfortunate because doing direct damage to single opponents used to be Evocation's job also. Just looking at the PHB wizard spells, you have the following:
Area-effect energy-damage spells (13): Burning Hands, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Ice Storm, Shout, Wall of Fire, Cone of Cold, Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, Delayed Blast Fireball, Prismatic Spray, Sunburst, Greater Shout, Meteor Swarm
More or less single-target energy-damage spells (9): Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Flaming Sphere, Mordenkainen's Sword, Bigby's Clenched Fist, Polar Ray, Bigby's Crushing Hand. These are either single-target, single-target-at-a-time, or can-be-divided-among-multiple-targets.
Other energy-damage spells (3): Chain Lightning (kind of single-target, kind of area-effect), plus Wall of Ice and Fire Shield (defensive damage-dealing Evocations)
Spells that are not energy-damage (20). 6 light/darkness, 9 miscellaneous Force effects, plus Gust of Wind, Shatter, Wind Wall, Sending, and Contingency.

Single-target spells are a VERY significant part of the Evocation school, and a major component of the energy-damage-spell subset. To say this shouldn't be Evocation's job anymore... why? Did the designers of the orb spells feel that Conjuration was UNDERPOWERED? Or that evocation was OVERPOWERED?

In the PHB, there are 12 direct-damage spells that are not Evocation: of these, 4 are Abjurations (Explosive Runes, Fire Trap, Prismatic Wall, Prismatic Sphere), which are not directly used offensively. Another 4 are necromancy: Chill Touch and Vampiric Touch, both doing well below 1d6/level damage, Finger of Death (death or damage similar to 1d6*level/2), and Horrid Wilting (8th level, doing 1d6/level). Another 4 are conjuration: Acid Splash, Acid Arrow, Acid Fog, and Incendiary Cloud, the first one a cantrip and the latter 3 doing low but ongoing damage.

Evocation has twice as many direct-damage spells as the other schools combined. Evocation has nearly all the spells that do large amounts of hp damage quickly. Why take that role away from the school?

 

[Nail]

Evocation has twice as many direct-damage spells as the other schools combined. Evocation has nearly all the spells that do large amounts of hp damage quickly. Why take that role away from the school?

Exactly.

House rule the orbs: put them into the Evocation school!

 

[Slaved]

at higher levels, a wizard will want to metamagic a 4th level spell instead of cast his shiny and newly acquired 7th or 8th level spell.

This may seem like an odd question, but isn't that the way it should be?

I would hope that the character who picked up the metamagic would have a reason to use it rather than it being obviously better to not use it.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Exactly.

House rule the orbs: put them into the Evocation school!

And would you add SR: Yes?

 

[Slaved]

House rule the orbs: put them into the Evocation school!

I do not know if this has been covered yet but if the orbs were changed to spell resistance: yes how would that change their average damage and would they be worth taking?

Looking at the original post it looks like many of the ratios would drop very low.

What ratio would be best to aim for?

For the level 16 example the ratio would drop to 1.49 I believe. But that is assuming that the creature is not in melee that you cannot get around somehow and that the creature is within close range. The evocation spells in the comparison tend to have medium or long range I believe and can hit a decently wide area.

It probably is not all that important but this level range is also where people can start getting into archmage which allows for shaping or extra spell power. It does not look like much in that class would help the orb thrower.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

what if they stayed were still touch spells but after a successful touch, they got a save for half damage? How would that effect the damage at later levels?

 

[Brother MacLaren]

I do not know if this has been covered yet but if the orbs were changed to spell resistance: yes how would that change their average damage and would they be worth taking?

Their no-save ability would still make them quite potent against a BBEG.

You really can't have a single-target spell that does much more than 1d6/level damage with no save; look to, say, Disintegrate for a good point of comparison. Disintegrate is the same level as Empowered Orb of X, and both need hit rolls, but Disintegrate does only about 33% more damage on a FAILED save and much less on a made save. Given how often BBEGs or even equal-CR foes seem to make saves, I'd say the Empowered Orb would be VERY competitive with Disintegrate.

 

[Slaved]

Their no-save ability would still make them quite potent against a BBEG.

I think that this is very BBEG dependent. His grunts may be pushovers but the boss could have some sort of response, especially if he knows that they are used.

You really can't have a single-target spell that does much more than 1d6/level damage with no save; look to, say, Disintegrate for a good point of comparison. Disintegrate is the same level as Empowered Orb of X, and both need hit rolls, but Disintegrate does only about 33% more damage on a FAILED save and much less on a made save. Given how often BBEGs or even equal-CR foes seem to make saves, I'd say the Empowered Orb would be VERY competitive with Disintegrate.

On a failed save disintegrate does 2d6 per caster level with a maximum of 40d6.
The orb is doing 1d6 per level with a maximum of 15d6.

I am going to ignore the empower unless the disintegrate guy also gets to use a feat on his spell.

Disintegrate also goes 4 times as far and has special effects on certain game effects but I think those do not matter for this thread.

But it does make an interesting comparison with disintegrate. Does anyone feel that disintegrate is a good spell to take and use against big bad guys?

According to the chart the orb at level 16 is at 98.7 damage.
Using the chart if the orb was subject to spell resistance it would be 53.30.
Disintegrate would be at 0.94x0.54x(32d6x0.39+5d6x0.61) = 27.59

So someone might pick and use the orb but who would ever choose disintegrate? If no one would pick it then should it be something to aspire to?

Editing in..
I should really just make up my own chart, the first one is too confusing.
The comparison I just did is apparently an energy admixtured orb against disintegrate so not only is the orb now two levels higher but the guy who has it also used two feats plus all of the other factors.

Halving the damage of the orb listed gives 49.35 damage, subject to spell resistance makes it 26.65 damage.

Either way though I doubt I would pick disintegrate as my primary attack spell at level 16. Doing an average of 28 points of damage to a single foe is close to the equivalent of not doing anything that round.