Rounding out Energy Arrow Spells

[Destil]

There arn't a lot of energy arrows in the PH (2), and the revision focuses on rays (Meteror Swarm may now classify as one, though who knows what the deal is with the new transmutation Fire Arrow). So here's my attempt to make a few more:

FIREBOLT
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Medium (100 ft + 10 ft / level)
Effect: One bolt of flame
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex Partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
A smoldering sphere of ash flares forward from your hand to a target, impacting with a violent explosive wave of heat. If you hit with a ranged touch attack (energy missile) it deals 1d6 fire damage / level (maximum 15d6). In addition if the target fails a reflex save they are knocked prone by the force of the impact.
Material Component: A pinch of ash.

VOTEL’S FROST ARROW
Conjuration (Creation) [Cold]
Level: Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. / 2 levels)
Effect: A three foot long arrow of ice
Duration: Intentions
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
Votel’s frost arrow creates a long arrow of ice that shoots from your to a target of your choice. If you hit with a ranged touch attack it deals 1d8 piercing damage + 1 cold damage / level (max +10). The arrow is an energy missile and has a 19-20 critical threat range.
Material component: A silver needle.


BALL LIGHTNING
Evocation [Electricity]
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft. / level)
Effect: Four globes of unnatural lighting
Duration: 1 round / level (D) or until used
Saving Throw: Fortitude Partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell produces four globes of unnatural glowing purple-blue electricity that slowly circle your body, each about two feet in diameter. These remain at a distance from you, occupying your threatened area. If any creature enters a area occupied by the globes arcs of electric energy discharge between the them dealing them 5d6 electrical damage. On your next action if they are still within an area occupied by the gloves take 5d6 electrical damage and must make a fortitude save, on a failure they are stunned for one round. The damage is considered continual damage (for concentration checks).

You can also point at a creature within range and speak a word of command to cause the globes to dance towards it in a whirling storm of electrical arcs (a standard action). This deals 1d6 electrical damage / level (max 15d6) on a successful ranged touch attack (energy missile), and the creature struck must also make a fortitude save or be stunned for 1d4 rounds. If you miss, the globes occupy a space directly behind the creature for the rest of the round, then circle back and return to protect you after your action on the following round. The spell ends when you successfully hit a target.

Edit: Cleaned up ball lightning more, was causing some confusion. Also added ranged touch attack in two places for clarity.

 

[Dr.Dan]

The first two spells are very nice, and I'm going to steel them for use in my campaign.

Ball Lightning sounds very confusing, however. The spell effect is a little complex and, to be honest, the description isn't especially clear. (You may want to edit again.) The concept sounds reasonable, it's just in need of some simplification.

 

[trentonjoe]

Couple of comments:

Firebolt should be a RANGED touch attack, I think. Also, the save should be half damage as well as not being knocked prone.

Frost arrow is essentially a ranged shocking grasp. Not a problem but shocking grasp only crits only a 20. I wouldn't give your arrow a 19-20 crit range.

I was confused by ball lightning as well.


All in all good work!

 

[IndyPendant]

Ball Lightning seems pretty clear to me--though also possibly too powerful.

Unless I'm mistaken, it works like this: think of a battlemap. You cast the spell, and the four balls of lightning spin around you like Ioun Stones, except more slowly and they occupy the 'circle' of 8 squares immediately surrounding your character (your 'threat range': ). Anyone who occupies one of those spaces is struck for 5d6 electrical damage from electric arcs that discharge between two or more of the balls. If they stay within the 'circle', the damage is considered continuous, and they must make a Fort save or be stunned for one round (and incidentally forcing them to stay within the circle, causing more damage and another Fort save..)

The spell lasts for 1 round/level--or the caster can 'shoot' them at a target, making a touch attack. If successful, they deal 1d6/level, Max 15d6. [This is the only point I'm confused about; I'm pretty sure it's total 1d6/level, and not per sphere. If it's per sphere, it's *definitely* too powerful.] The spell is then terminated.

If you miss your attack roll, the spheres halt just behind the target spinning and sparking (and probably freaking him out: ) until the *end* of your *next* action, at which point they return to you and resume spinning slowly around your threat circle until the spell ends or you try to attack with them again.

Little bit longer, more wordy--but pretty much exactly what the spell itself says...

 

[Destil]

Got it exactly Indy. And it is total damage, I'll edit it a bit, the "per globe" must be a leftover artifact from working on the spell. Also to mabye help clear up the confusion...

 

[Dr.Dan]

Perhaps I’m being picky. I often find myself mulling over details that no one else seems to care much about, or finding fault with things others find unimportant. That having been said, I do find the description for Ball Lightning lacking. Here is what I was speaking of specifically:

“These [four globes] remain at a distance from you . . .” What distance would that be? The 2nd part of that sentence, “. . .occupying your threatened area.” seems to give us the answer, but as I’ll point out in a second, that answer is not necessarily complete.

For a typical, humanoid caster the spheres will maintain a distance of about 5’ from the caster and a close proximity to one another. Thus they are able to threaten all eight squares (those they occupy and those between them) around said caster.

But what if the caster is, say, of Huge size or larger? Do the four spheres still threaten all 12 (or more) squares around the caster? Could a clever opponent with Spring Attack dart in between the spheres on a large caster and deliver his attack without being damaged by them? And what if the creature has reach, thus threatening a greater area? The spell description says that the spheres “[occupy] your threatened area.” The reader is left to wonder what exactly what the writers’ intent is and where these spheres are.

“The creature is again damaged just before their action . . .” Don’t spells normally damage opponents on their casters turn?

“. . . within the area, this is continual damage” Replace the comma with a period, please.

“. . . in two concurrent rounds . . .” Change “concurrent” to consecutive. Concurrent rounds would take place at the same time and, of course, rounds always happen one after another, i.e. consecutively.

“You can also point at a creature within range . . .” Should start another paragraph. Destil probably put a return at the end of the previous sentence, but it doesn’t show up that way in the post.

“The globes deals [sic] 1d6 electrical damage . . .” Deals should be singular.

“If you miss the globes . . .” Miss the globes with what? A comma after miss, please.

Lastly, the notes about Spell Resistance, while perfectly accurate and properly written, are quite unnecessary. Spell resistance works this way with regard to all spells.

So there you have it, my very picky critique of Destil’s Ball Lightning spell. But as picky as I may be, I am so for a reason. If your gaming group is anything like mine, you know how often rules arguments occur, and arguments about spells occur more often than any other kind. A clear, well-written spell description goes a long way toward stemming those arguments, or at least toward ending them quickly.

 

[Dr.Dan]

Firebolt should be a RANGED touch attack, I think. Also, the save should be half damage as well as not being knocked prone.

You’re right about the RANGED touch attack, trentonjoe. But ranged touch attack spells don’t normally allow saves for ½ damage if I recall correctly.

 

[Destil]

I edited the spell before this was posted, and I'll adress it point by point. If any ambugity remains I'll go back and re-edit. I like very clear wording on spells, too

“These [four globes] remain at a distance from you . . .” What distance would that be? The 2nd part of that sentence, “. . .occupying your threatened area.” seems to give us the answer, but as I’ll point out in a second, that answer is not necessarily complete.

For a typical, humanoid caster the spheres will maintain a distance of about 5’ from the caster and a close proximity to one another. Thus they are able to threaten all eight squares (those they occupy and those between them) around said caster.

But what if the caster is, say, of Huge size or larger? Do the four spheres still threaten all 12 (or more) squares around the caster? Could a clever opponent with Spring Attack dart in between the spheres on a large caster and deliver his attack without being damaged by them? And what if the creature has reach, thus threatening a greater area? The spell description says that the spheres “[occupy] your threatened area.” The reader is left to wonder what exactly what the writers’ intent is and where these spheres are.

It's abstract. Occupy is defined because the globes can either occupy your thretened area, or a 5'x5' square behind a target after a miss. No sphere should ever be placed on a specific location on the grid, it's intended as simply "occupy your [enitre] threatened area". Part of the spell's function is that it is more usefull if you have reach, since I like spells that scale with the size of the user (far too many spells don't make sense for creatures that arn't meidum sized humonids, IMHO. I like things a little more generic). Likewise this keeps away from any issues with three-dimmential combat that could arise if you start specifying where each globe is.
One issue, though, is a failing I've seen in d20 a few times before working on spells: there's no real term for your normal threated area. The issue of natural reach vs. a reach weapon is a bit of a problem... one that's hard to clear up in words. The intention is your standard thretened area with a non-reach weapon, but that's clunky and aquard....

“The creature is again damaged just before their action . . .” Don’t spells normally damage opponents on their casters turn?

Humm... good catch. Would be a good idea for consistancey to make it that, and could clear up some of my worries of balance (The idea of a Mage/Fighter using this to 'stun-lock' someone is one of my bigger concerns with the spell). I'll change it.

[/b]“. . . in two concurrent rounds . . .” Change “concurrent” to consecutive. Concurrent rounds would take place at the same time and, of course, rounds always happen one after another, i.e. consecutively.[/b]

Done.

“You can also point at a creature within range . . .” Should start another paragraph. Destil probably put a return at the end of the previous sentence, but it doesn’t show up that way in the post.

Yep. Forgot the extra return the boards need.

“If you miss the globes . . .” Miss the globes with what? A comma after miss, please.

Done.

Lastly, the notes about Spell Resistance, while perfectly accurate and properly written, are quite unnecessary. Spell resistance works this way with regard to all spells.

Yep. Part of the spell template I use has <Special SR paragraph here> and it's a bad habbit of mine to fill it out too often with duration spells.

EDIT: Damn reach.

 

[Destil]

Frost arrow is essentially a ranged shocking grasp. Not a problem but shocking grasp only crits only a 20. I wouldn't give your arrow a 19-20 crit range.

Shocking Grasp also has the nice little boost of a small bonus (+3, +4?) to hit vs. someone in metal armor or carrying a lot of metal. Which I think the threat range evens out nicely.

On a side note, I always like to think about the more weapon like spells as weapons. Frost Arrow functions in my mind like a crossbow bolt, thus the crossbow threat range. If I made a spell that functioned very much like a longbow or a spear I'd give it a x3 crit. Spells that just throw balls of energy around are your standard x2, as are rays. Just something I think adds a little more flavor to the game rules (I've house rulled Melf's to 19-20 and the old flame arrow to x3, too).

 

[Dr.Dan]

Good changes so far, but you’ve still got a little cleaning up to do.

On the one hand: “Effect: Six globes of unnatural lighting” but on the other hand: “This spell produces four globes of unnatural glowing purple-blue electricity.”

Also, change ‘gloves’ to ‘globes’ and tell your fingers to behave themselves when playing with the keyboard. (If they’re like my fingers, they won’t listen but at least you can vent a little steam.) Also, tell your fingers to throw in a few extra commas at strategic locations.

“No sphere should ever be placed on a specific location on the grid, it's intended as simply "occupy your [enitre] threatened area".” you say. Well, placing the spheres on the grid would be silly, of course; they’re constantly moving. But the spell states that the spheres, “slowly circle your body . . .” I can easily foresee one of my players trying to Spring Attack between these slowly circling spheres if he figured out that they were 15+ feet apart, and he’d have a fit if they zapped him from that far away, given that they only get you when you, “[enter an] area occupied by the globes . . .” At 15+ feet apart, he’s argue, there’s plenty of space they don’t occupy. Yah, it’s meant to be abstract, but try explaining that to him.

Now, “Part of the spell's function is that it is more usefull if you have reach, since I like spells that scale with the size of the user (far too many spells don't make sense for creatures that arn't meidum sized humonids, IMHO. I like things a little more generic).” Given your stated preference, you and I may have to agree to disagree on this point, but I don’t see why the AoE of a spell should grow exponentially just because its caster is bigger than Tim the Mighty is.