Rainbow Ray vs Scorching Ray

[Werebat]

Most powergamers would agree that Scorching Ray is among the most powerful 2nd level spells (perhaps the top), I don't think comparing every new spell to it for game balance is wise, personally. People aren't arguing that it should do 50% less damage because it imposes dazzle, anyways, the argument is towards bypassing energy resistance (Fire is, hands down, the most common elemental resistance found or warded against-the ability to bypass it is *not* negligible). So instead lets compare it to another 2nd level damaging, ranged touch spell that has an uncommon resistance available to it: (Melf's) Acid Arrow.

2d4 Acid damage + 2d4/3 caster levels (over time). At 3rd level it's 4d4 (Average 10 damage) compared to Rainbow's Avg. 6.5, 6th level 15 damage vs. 13 damage, 9th level 20 damage vs. 19.5, 12th level 25 damage vs. 26.

It seem fairly comparable to Rainbow Ray starting CL 6th, with Rainbow ray having the great advantage of the damage occuring instantaneously, and the slight disadvantage of maybe doing fire damage balanced by the slight advantage of dazzle. A sucky to have early on, but it picks up slack pretty quickly. Rainbow Ray also has the advantage of having more class ;-) Scorching Ray is soo dull anyways. If you *really* feel strongly, talk to your DM, maybe see if you can add your int bonus or some such to the damage (ala Warmage).

One problem with your analysis -- Acid Arrow is a Conjuration spell. Rainbow Beam is Evocation. Evocation is the school of direct energy damage, so I think it is much more fair to compare Rainbow Beam to Scorching Ray.

I mean, it wouldn't make much sense to compare Rainbow Beam to the best 2nd level damaging spell from the school of Abjuration or Illusion, would it?

- Ron ^*^

 

[Werebat]

OK, I just thought of two interesting possibilities to pitch to my DM... He's been pretty reasonable so far so I think he's open to suggestions, but I want to keep things pretty fair and balanced as much as I can.

Both of these draw from the mechanics of Rainbow Blast, a 3rd level spell also found in SC and a cousin to Rainbow Beam. Rainbow Blast is a lot like lightning bolt except that instead of 1d6 electrical damage per caster level, the spell deals 1d6 of each of the five energy types (fire, cold, acid, electricity, sonic). Every other level, the die size goes up one step, so that at level 7 it does 5d8, at level 9 it does 5d10, and at level 11 (when it maxes out) it does 5d12. The result is a spell that does slightly less damage than lightning bolt, but draws from all 5 energy types at once, so immunity to one type of energy will only be partly effective (but those well-prepared enemies who get buffed to protect from all 5 types will probably laugh the spell off entirely).

So on to my ideas for Rainbow Beam.

One is the "quick and easy" house rule. Instead of 4d6 fire damage (average 14), it does 5d4 damage (1d4 of each energy type, for an average of 12.5 damage). We drop the wanktastic "dazzle" debuff entirely. Just like Scorching Ray, at levels 7 and 11 you get to shoot one additional beam. This results in slightly less damage than Scorching Ray (25 vs 26 at level 7 and 37.5 vs 39 at level 11).

The other is a little more complex. Here we keep Rainbow Beam mostly as is, random energy type and dazzle debuff intact. It does 4d4 damage (10 damage as compared to 13 damage) at level 3. At levels 7 and 11, the die size goes up by two (so 4d8 at level 7 and 4d12 (max) at level 11). This gives us a damage progression as follows:

1. --
2. --
3. 10 vs 14
4. 10 vs 14
5. 10 vs 14
6. 10 vs 14
7. 18 vs 28
8. 18 vs 28
9. 18 vs 28
10. 18 vs 28
11. 26 vs 42

...at which point both spells are topped off.

This also has Rainbow Beam dealing significantly less damage than Scorching Ray, but it doesn't suck so hard at the lower levels when energy resistance isn't going to be as much of a factor.

What do you think? Which method do you think is more balanced? Would you allow either in your own game?

- Ron ^*^

 

[Rechan]

This is unrelated to the list, but:

Have you seen the spell 'Prismatic Mist'? PhbII, Sor/Wiz 3. Area effect spell, lasts 1 rd/level. Your Dm might let you replace Rainbow Pattern for it. He might let you bump it up somehow in power given that it's a level 3 spell but it's in the level 4 slot.

 

[Werebat]

This is unrelated to the list, but:

Have you seen the spell 'Prismatic Mist'? PhbII, Sor/Wiz 3. Area effect spell, lasts 1 rd/level. Your Dm might let you replace Rainbow Pattern for it. He might let you bump it up somehow in power given that it's a level 3 spell but it's in the level 4 slot.

I have, and yes, we have discussed it (another possibility is using Wall of Light as a template for "Lesser Prismatic Wall", which would essentially be a 4th level Wall of Light that resembles a Prismatic Wall and causes those passing through it to suffer one of the ill effects of Prismatic Mist). I think Prismatic Mist is a great concept with great art that is also a bit of a crappy spell mechanically, but that's another discussion.

Thanks for the info, though.

- Ron ^*^

 

[Werebat]

OK -- brain flash here. I just remembered something that I think is very relevant.

In all of this discussion the main argument for Rainbow Beam's relatively crappy damage (sometimes being LESS than half of the average damage of Scorching Ray) has been that Rainbow Beam deals a random energy damage, which makes it more likely that it will overcome any single energy resistance by virtue of there being only a slim chance of it matching up to that single energy resistance.

This reminds me of the old 3.0 Energy Substitution feat, where everyone would take Sonic simply because vanishingly few things have sonic resistance. 3.5 wised up to this and the tendency was to either disallow sonic conversion when enhancing spells or to grant sonic versions of spells 1 die size less damage than other energy types. I don't have the books in front of me but I can remember seeing several examples of this, where spells very similar to more classic energy damage spells that deal (say) 1d6/level damage have related spells that do sonic damage, but less of it (1d4/level).

The average of 1d4 damage is a little over 70% of the average of 1d6 damage. If we keep this as our standard, then Rainbow Beam should do on average about 70% of the damage that Scorching Ray does.

Thus we could argue that Rainbow Beam should do 4d4 damage (as opposed to Scorching Ray's 4d6), and ramp up in a similar fashion (8d4 at 7th level and 12d4 at 11th). This has it doing about 70% of Scorching Ray's average damage.

Of course Rainbow Beam also has a dazzle effect, so it should be kept as one beam as opposed to Scorching Ray's multiple beams so as not to spread this debuff around too much. In fact, the existence of the minor debuff is enough reason to lower the average damage a little bit more, perhaps to a 2d8/4d8/6d8 progression.

When I stat this out on paper, I actually get similar overall results for Rainbow Beam as written, if you look at the spell over time. Observe the average percentage of damage done by Rainbow Beam (as written in SC) compared to Scorching Ray from levels 3-20:

3. 46%
4. 46%
5. 46%
6. 92%
7. 46%
8. 46%
9. 70%
10. 70%
11. 46%
12. 62%
13. 62%
14. 62%
15. 77%
16. 77%
17. 77%
18. 77%
19. 77%
20. 77%

As written, over the course of levels 3-20, Rainbow Beam does an average of 64% of the damage that Scorching Ray does -- just a bit shy if the 70% I think it should be. If we go with 2d8 (average 9 damage) for every 4d6 (average 14 damage), you get -- 64% of the damage that Scorching Ray does, but it is even for all levels from 3-20.

So pushing for Rainbow Beam to do 2d8 damage plus 2d8 more damage per 4 caster levels after 3rd (max 6d8 damage) keeps the average damage at almost exactly the level of the spell as written -- it just keeps it from being tragically underpowered at some levels (3-5, 7, and 8) and a bit overpowered at some other levels (15-20).

I actually like this solution a lot and I think it is the one I will pitch to my DM. Yeah, I really do. What do you all think about it before I give him my final request?

Thanks for the input,

- Ron ^*^

 

[Slife]

I *can* think of a (convoluted) way to make it useful over Scorching Ray. You'd need Arcane Thesis (Rainbow Beam), Split Ray, and Ocular Spell. Arcane Thesis puts you at +2 caster level for purposes of casting Rainbow Beam, so that narrows the gaping chasm between damage a little bit. Let's say you're 7th level (doing 8d6 fire damage with a Scorching Ray and 2d12 with Rainbow Beam). Now because you have AT Rainbow Beam, you are actually casting it at 9th caster level so it does 3d12 damage. Woo.

OK, now you have to memorize two Twin Ocular Rainbow Beams. Cast one in each eye. Now you can spend a full-round action to shoot two twinned rainbow beams out of your eyes -- that's four beams for a total of 12d12 damage.

Toss in a Lens of Ray Widening from Lords of Madness, which turns it into a cone of the same range (removing the single-target problem). Mind you, there's a few drawbacks
1.) Add a Dc 15 Reflex save for any effect
2.) +2 bonus versus the actual effect (not the reflex)
3.) Spells that affected both creatures and objects now only affect creature
4.) Spells that dealt energy damage to objects now suffer from auto success from objects.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Going back to your original premise, might I suggest you check out the CompChamp version of the Domain Wizard (p52)? You give up a single Wizard Bonus feat to gain the Domain powers, and if you have Cleric levels, you get the spells as well. That also means your clerical side has 3 Domains to choose from.

In addition, you don't have to give up the option of being a Specialist Wizard! That would open up the various specialist mage feats and alternative class features (like the aforementioned Focused Specialist).

On a less serious note, if I were playing just such a PC with the custom designed Rainbow domain, I'd be sorely tempted to have the Domain Power be the Feat Spell Thematics (see Magic of Faerun) and make all of your Summoned creatures rainbow colored...

 

[Werebat]

Going back to your original premise, might I suggest you check out the CompChamp version of the Domain Wizard (p52)? You give up a single Wizard Bonus feat to gain the Domain powers, and if you have Cleric levels, you get the spells as well. That also means your clerical side has 3 Domains to choose from.

In addition, you don't have to give up the option of being a Specialist Wizard! That would open up the various specialist mage feats and alternative class features (like the aforementioned Focused Specialist).

On a less serious note, if I were playing just such a PC with the custom designed Rainbow domain, I'd be sorely tempted to have the Domain Power be the Feat Spell Thematics (see Magic of Faerun) and make all of your Summoned creatures rainbow colored...

LOL!

Seriously, though, the domain wizard as presented in UA has nothing to do with clerical domains.

- Ron ^*^

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know- that's why I pointed out the one in Complete Champion. While it shares the same name as the UA version, its slightly different in its mechanics.

The function of the UA version just adds spells, and you can't be a Specialist Wizard.

In contrast, the CompChamp one gives a domain power, and if you have even just a single level of cleric, it adds spells (albeit clerical) as well, but still lets you be a Specialist, allowing you to take Specialist Feats and Alt. Class features...which potentially translates into more spells & flexibility.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Ask your gm if he will give you a 0 level domain spell....the Color cantrip.