Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Werebat" data-source="post: 3970727" data-attributes="member: 40158">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   ^*^</blockquote>

Verification