ray of enfeeblement
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Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
One of the best uses of it, IMO, is to put people over their encumbrance limit. Unfortunately, unless the DM is a math genius or a big old fudger, figuring out encumbrance midcombat is a pain in the kiester. I recommend being a big old fudger.
Daniel
Daniel
the Jester
Legend
Heheheheh... I just used a maximized ray of enfeeblement to good effect in my last session. The party's epic level cleric had just totally buffed up, righteous might, etc.- and ZAP! "-11 strength."
hehehehehe....
I thought it was pretty fair for a 4th-level slot.
I think a standard RoE is a good, but not too good, 1st-level spell.
hehehehehe....
I thought it was pretty fair for a 4th-level slot.
I think a standard RoE is a good, but not too good, 1st-level spell.
Otterscrubber
First Post
For a first level debuff I have found it quite effective. We play a campaign where I have a 20th level sorcerer and he still uses it. Taking 3-5 off the to hit and damage of your melee opponents is nothing to sneeze at.
Thanee
First Post
My sorceress has it and uses it to great effect (with Empower Spell it gets pretty nasty).
It's highly useful on any melee combat monster and on weaker opponents, because Str 1 isn't exactly much, especially if you have some equipment, this will make you heavily encumbered and thus unable to flee or move tactically.
Once (at 6th or 7th level) I rolled a critical hit and dealt a grand total of 25 Str penalty to a minotaur (fighter/barbarian whatever, never found out), who would otherwise have caused us immense trouble and grief. With a Str of 1 he wasn't very frightening anymore, he couldn't even raise his axe.
Of course, just recently I found out, that we all 'cheated' there, since Ray of Enfeeblement does not benefit from a critical hit. Oh well. It was a funny situation, nonetheless.
Bye
Thanee
It's highly useful on any melee combat monster and on weaker opponents, because Str 1 isn't exactly much, especially if you have some equipment, this will make you heavily encumbered and thus unable to flee or move tactically.
Once (at 6th or 7th level) I rolled a critical hit and dealt a grand total of 25 Str penalty to a minotaur (fighter/barbarian whatever, never found out), who would otherwise have caused us immense trouble and grief. With a Str of 1 he wasn't very frightening anymore, he couldn't even raise his axe.
Of course, just recently I found out, that we all 'cheated' there, since Ray of Enfeeblement does not benefit from a critical hit. Oh well. It was a funny situation, nonetheless.
Bye
Thanee
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Old Gumphrey
First Post
I think the spell is too good. It scales much too well for a level 1 spell that has no save and instead targets low touch AC targets with a ranged touch attack. Almost every arcane caster (PC & NPC) that's been used in our 3.5 games has had RoE, and it's just brutal every time it gets used.
Kalendraf
Explorer
I've used it against my party a couple times. It's way better than it used to be, but I don't think it's overpowered. In fact, I think it is still underpowered somewhat. Here's my take on it.
1) Requires ranged touch attack to hit. At lower levels, this can still be pretty difficult against certain foes. At higher levels, it becomes a near automatic. As a result, the easiest foes to hit are probably of the big'n'slow variety. However, those same targets likely have the most strength reserve, so 1 ray is far less likely to cripple them.
2) Opponent still has 1 strength, minimum. Characters with virtually no heavy gear (like say a wizard or sorcerer) may seem like tempting targets, but reducing one of them to 1 strength won't cripple them. The better targets are those who are heavily burdened to begin with (i.e. heavy armor, etc) but many of them will have decent strength scores, so it may take 2 or more rays to really cause them grief. Though it would be cool if the spell could drop opponents to 0 strength, that might be too powerful making them easy targets for coup-de-grace.
3) Maximum effect is not reached until 10th level. The 1d6 str + 1 per 2 levels means that this spell doesn't reach it's full potential until double-digit levels are reached. But by then, the wizard will have so many better choices to cast, it's hard to justify casting this. Instead, I'd prefer to see it be +1 / level topping out at 5th level.
4) On average, at lower levels (1 thru 6), the amount of strength damage will be 3 to 6. While that may seem like a lot, it's not enough to incapacitate anyone very often. But it will probably bestow a -1 to -4 on the target's attacks and damage for the duration.
5) Duration is only 1 minute/level. Lasts long enough for 1 battle, perhaps more. Not useful if you're trying to steadily widdle down the oppositiion over a period of time. I'd like to see this changed to be 10min/level or even 1 hour/level. Another option would be to have the drained points come back 1 per 10 minutes or 1 per hour. As it is now, the target just has to wait a few minutes and he's back to being all shiny and new. Thus, it doesn't force enemies to spend resources so long as they survive the battle. A longer duration would give affected targets a stronger reason to spend resources to overcome its effects.
One of the better targets for this spell is enemy clerics. Typically they wear heavy armor, but don't have strength scores as high as warrior types, and their touch armor classes are often fairly low. With a single ray or perhaps two, you can sometimes take a cleric completely out of action, toppling them over in their heavy gear. The spell can be useful in combating certain monsters.
So it's an interesting spell, but it is still outclassed by a spell like Magic Missile though nearly every 1st level spell is, so that may not be a fair comarison.
1) Requires ranged touch attack to hit. At lower levels, this can still be pretty difficult against certain foes. At higher levels, it becomes a near automatic. As a result, the easiest foes to hit are probably of the big'n'slow variety. However, those same targets likely have the most strength reserve, so 1 ray is far less likely to cripple them.
2) Opponent still has 1 strength, minimum. Characters with virtually no heavy gear (like say a wizard or sorcerer) may seem like tempting targets, but reducing one of them to 1 strength won't cripple them. The better targets are those who are heavily burdened to begin with (i.e. heavy armor, etc) but many of them will have decent strength scores, so it may take 2 or more rays to really cause them grief. Though it would be cool if the spell could drop opponents to 0 strength, that might be too powerful making them easy targets for coup-de-grace.
3) Maximum effect is not reached until 10th level. The 1d6 str + 1 per 2 levels means that this spell doesn't reach it's full potential until double-digit levels are reached. But by then, the wizard will have so many better choices to cast, it's hard to justify casting this. Instead, I'd prefer to see it be +1 / level topping out at 5th level.
4) On average, at lower levels (1 thru 6), the amount of strength damage will be 3 to 6. While that may seem like a lot, it's not enough to incapacitate anyone very often. But it will probably bestow a -1 to -4 on the target's attacks and damage for the duration.
5) Duration is only 1 minute/level. Lasts long enough for 1 battle, perhaps more. Not useful if you're trying to steadily widdle down the oppositiion over a period of time. I'd like to see this changed to be 10min/level or even 1 hour/level. Another option would be to have the drained points come back 1 per 10 minutes or 1 per hour. As it is now, the target just has to wait a few minutes and he's back to being all shiny and new. Thus, it doesn't force enemies to spend resources so long as they survive the battle. A longer duration would give affected targets a stronger reason to spend resources to overcome its effects.
One of the better targets for this spell is enemy clerics. Typically they wear heavy armor, but don't have strength scores as high as warrior types, and their touch armor classes are often fairly low. With a single ray or perhaps two, you can sometimes take a cleric completely out of action, toppling them over in their heavy gear. The spell can be useful in combating certain monsters.
So it's an interesting spell, but it is still outclassed by a spell like Magic Missile though nearly every 1st level spell is, so that may not be a fair comarison.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
It doesn't stack with itself: when you're hit with it, you're under the effect of the spell, and being under the effect of a spell twice doesn't add any additional modifiers. From the SRD:
Daniel
Daniel
RoE is a great spell because of it's versatility: you can put it to good use against both high str and low str foes. Against high str foes, you cripple their major strength (pun intended 
). You reduce their to hit tremendously - and their damage often times even more so (against all those 2-H fighting types). Against low str opponents the tactic is even more devastating because you have the opportunity to reduce their mobility tremendously. Even if you don't knock str down to 1, a str of 6 or 7 is often times crippling for the adventurer given all of his/her equipment. Reducing mobility down to 5' per round is devastating when you can follow it up with spread-effect spells.
The spell is not overpowered but it is definitely useful.
). You reduce their to hit tremendously - and their damage often times even more so (against all those 2-H fighting types). Against low str opponents the tactic is even more devastating because you have the opportunity to reduce their mobility tremendously. Even if you don't knock str down to 1, a str of 6 or 7 is often times crippling for the adventurer given all of his/her equipment. Reducing mobility down to 5' per round is devastating when you can follow it up with spread-effect spells.The spell is not overpowered but it is definitely useful.
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