Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 2472237" data-attributes="member: 726"><p>In practice, the lightning/ironstorm combo is <em>slightly</em> overpowered, but not so much that I want to do anything about it. The combo still has to be used thoughtfully and tactically. Remember, the <em>ironstorm</em> is immobile, and enemies can move out of it, but even if there's no one in the <em>ironstorm</em>, electricity still gets shunted to it. Effectively Grey Wolf has to spend one action to cast it, and sometimes another action to dismiss it. Those are actions where he's not doing any direct damage. For the spell slot, he could cast his own 10d6 <em>fireball</em>, for instance. The flexibility of the combo has to be worth an extra 10d6 of damage to be worth it, and that's not always going to be the case. </p><p></p><p>The combo really shines with <em>chain lightning</em>, but even then, it has to be used carefully in order to deal extra damage. If you can catch a number of enemies clumped in the <em>ironstorm</em>, it's downright deadly -- but I think that's okay for a two-spell combo of a 3rd and 6th level spell. </p><p></p><p>A little off-the-cuff math: assume a favorable scenario, where there are 8 targets in the <em>ironstorm</em>. Say that Aravis and Grey Wolf are both 15th level. (They were lower in the tentacle fight, btw). <em>Ironstorm</em> has a 20' radius, and <em>chain lightning</em> effectively has a 30' radius, so we'll assume all 8 targets are in the area of both spells.</p><p></p><p>Without an <em>ironstorm</em>, Grey Wolf could cast a 10d6 fireball, and Aravis could get them all with a 15d6/7d6 <em>chain lightning</em>. In other words, one target would take 25d6, and the remaining seven targets would take 17d6. That's 144d6 of total damage.</p><p></p><p>With the <em>ironstorm</em> in place, all eight targets take 19d6, which is 152d6 of damage. In other words, the combo does about 6% more damage*. That doesn't seem broken to me.</p><p></p><p>In a more common case, where there's (say) three targets, the damage totals are exactly the same. Now, if you arrange for your enemies not to leave the <em>ironstorm</em>, the combo gets more powerful, but that doesn't bother me so much. It's a powerful combo that encourages good tactical thinking. </p><p></p><p>And if you can find an enemy that can't get out of the way -- say, a huge immobile tentacle -- you can really make hay. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>-Sagiro</p><p></p><p>*not including the extra damage done because more of the damage has a higher reflex save DC -- but that's more math than I want to do right now.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sagiro, post: 2472237, member: 726"] In practice, the lightning/ironstorm combo is [i]slightly[/i] overpowered, but not so much that I want to do anything about it. The combo still has to be used thoughtfully and tactically. Remember, the [I]ironstorm[/I] is immobile, and enemies can move out of it, but even if there's no one in the [I]ironstorm[/I], electricity still gets shunted to it. Effectively Grey Wolf has to spend one action to cast it, and sometimes another action to dismiss it. Those are actions where he's not doing any direct damage. For the spell slot, he could cast his own 10d6 [i]fireball[/i], for instance. The flexibility of the combo has to be worth an extra 10d6 of damage to be worth it, and that's not always going to be the case. The combo really shines with [i]chain lightning[/i], but even then, it has to be used carefully in order to deal extra damage. If you can catch a number of enemies clumped in the [I]ironstorm[/I], it's downright deadly -- but I think that's okay for a two-spell combo of a 3rd and 6th level spell. A little off-the-cuff math: assume a favorable scenario, where there are 8 targets in the [I]ironstorm[/I]. Say that Aravis and Grey Wolf are both 15th level. (They were lower in the tentacle fight, btw). [I]Ironstorm[/I] has a 20' radius, and [I]chain lightning[/I] effectively has a 30' radius, so we'll assume all 8 targets are in the area of both spells. Without an [I]ironstorm[/I], Grey Wolf could cast a 10d6 fireball, and Aravis could get them all with a 15d6/7d6 [I]chain lightning[/I]. In other words, one target would take 25d6, and the remaining seven targets would take 17d6. That's 144d6 of total damage. With the [I]ironstorm[/I] in place, all eight targets take 19d6, which is 152d6 of damage. In other words, the combo does about 6% more damage*. That doesn't seem broken to me. In a more common case, where there's (say) three targets, the damage totals are exactly the same. Now, if you arrange for your enemies not to leave the [I]ironstorm[/I], the combo gets more powerful, but that doesn't bother me so much. It's a powerful combo that encourages good tactical thinking. And if you can find an enemy that can't get out of the way -- say, a huge immobile tentacle -- you can really make hay. :) -Sagiro *not including the extra damage done because more of the damage has a higher reflex save DC -- but that's more math than I want to do right now. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
Top