Scorching Ray- Overpowered?

[Ycore Rixle]

Frank, I agree with your comment about empowered (or even maximized) Scorches later on. Not looking at my books right now, but I believe a maximized Scorch tossed by an 11th-level caster does 72 points of damage if all three rays hit on a ranged touch attack. Granted, that's become a fifth-level spell. But if you are, say, a 5thSor/Ftr2/Disciple of Asmodeus 10, and you happen to call your scorching rays the Flames of Nessus (not that I'm thinking of any NPC in particular ), then you can easily get a +14 ranged touch attack and have a really nice chance of toasting the party's mages, rogues (no evasion or improved evasion allowed), and even cleric types real good.

Is it too good? Well in my opinion not really, but it is pushing the top end of balance. I think it joins the ranks of magic missile and fireball as very powerful spells for their level.

Pie, I agree web and glitterdust are powerhouses for their level. Probably more so than scorching ray, because that one doesn't come into its own until higher levels. I don't think ray is in the same league as Melf's, though. Aside from the forced concentration checks, which will probably be made at higher levels anyway, I think scorch owns Melf's because of its ability to do damage now rather than an accumulated damage over time. Also, with regard to your question about level, our campaign is 15th/16th level. Spell resistance isn't a huge concern because most of the enemies are either human or have a pretty low SR that the characters can overcome. Also, most of the casters that have to choose between Scorch or Melf's are NPC villains - and thus they will be firing at the party, which no doubt colors my view of the relative usefulness of the two spells.

 

[Pielorinho]

Agent, that's part of my analysis: I think that the all-at-once damage of Scorch is superior to the slow damage of Melf's, although the latter does have its place. An empowered Melf's cast at a spellcaster can give them real headaches, as they're forced to make a concentration check every time they want to cast a spell. If you hit them with an empowered Melf's for two rounds in a row, they'll be making concentration checks DC 17+spell level; this can make even mid-level casters flub their spells, and can convince them to go with lower-level spells or else spend a round dispelling melf's or protecting themselves from acid.

It also occurs to me that we could compare Scorch to another second-level spell that does more damage: at third level, a flaming sphere is doing 6d6 points of damage over three rounds, and the damage just keeps getting better. With two of these spells up, a caster can do 4d6 points of damage each round, changing the victim every round. It's got better range than Scorching Ray, but does its damage much more slowly and allows a reflex save.

Again, I think it's reasonably balanced: it does the most damage of any second-level spell and is the least reliable of any of them (since victims get both a save and SR). Scorch does medium damage but does it all at once and allows for no save; Acid does the least damage but does it continuously (requiring concentration checks) and allows for neither save nor SR.

True, flaming sphere doesn't require an attack roll, but IME it's pretty rare for a midlevel caster to miss with a Melf's or for a midlevel monster to fail a 2nd-level saving throw: touch attacks are pretty easy to make, and 2nd-level spells are pretty easy to save against.

Daniel

 

[Jeph]

Excellent point, Thornir. Indeed, wasn't the effect ofScorch originally part of a 3rd-level spell called Flame Arrow that nobody ever, ever cast? It's definitely suckalicious for a third-level spell. To make it good at 3rd-level, you'd have to take away the touch attack, or up the damage.

Daniel

Flame Arrow was conjuration. Corlon of these boards, who plays a Conjurer in my campaign without access to Evocation, casts it quite often.

 

[Pielorinho]

Not having access to evocation (and the superior-in-every-way fireball) is the only reason I can imagine casting flame arrow. It was a lame spell in comparison to fireball or lightning bolt.

Daniel

 

[Jeph]

Not having access to evocation (and the superior-in-every-way fireball) is the only reason I can imagine casting flame arrow. It was a lame spell in comparison to fireball or lightning bolt.

Daniel

Indeed. Now that he's a conjurer and calls an extra creature whenever he casts a Summon Monster, he's become rather partial to herds of celestial bison.

1d4+2 bison per round. Quite excellent for flanking opportunities.

 

[Pielorinho]

Herds of celestial bison.

1d4+2 bison per round.

Holy cow!

Daniel

 

[Justinian]

Not having access to evocation (and the superior-in-every-way fireball) is the only reason I can imagine casting flame arrow. It was a lame spell in comparison to fireball or lightning bolt.

Since we are talking about 3.0 here, I'll just say that Flame Arrow had one big advantages then: It had no caster level cap on damage. And it was low level, so you could stack a few empowers on it. With ioun stones, or archmage, and a triple empowered flame arrow, you were handing out a large amount of damage. It's true that evocation was often better, but anyone who banned evocation could really make flame arrow sting someone.

 

[Altalazar]

Seems perfectly well balanced to me. Sure, there is somewhat of an art to balancing spells, but I don't see this bringing the house down - it is similar to acid arrow in damage, but acts differently - and doesn't have cumulative damage where there is no to-hit roll required.

 

[Vanye]

Out of curiosity, what level do y'all play at? One of the main reasons Melf's gets cast so often in the game I'm running is that, at tenth level and beyond, spell resistance becomes very common. The casters have taken to casting a lot of empowered or maximized Melf's as a way of doing some damage to such creatures.

We're at 12th level, going through the City of the Spider Queen module (modified, both for 3.5, and for the DM to help us level up, etc). Mostly, since we've moved to 3.5, we haven't faced a lot of creatures with spell-based energy resistance, so we haven't really had those protections hammered into us (though as a cleric, I'm more familiar with the usefulness of Resist energy-is it just me, or is that spell now much better than Protection from Energy)=?), but I have a feeling that it's going to be pretty instrumental in slowing us down. When the evoker is finding that he's doing no damage because the opponents saved AND had Resist Energy on them, we're going to have some issues....

 

[Pielorinho]

(though as a cleric, I'm more familiar with the usefulness of Resist energy-is it just me, or is that spell now much better than Protection from Energy)=?)

Wahayyyy better. Used to be that at first level, you got minor but worthwhile protection; at second, you got some decent protection; at third, you got great protection. Now, at first, you get no protection, at second, you get incredible protection, and at third, you get great protection.

We've mostly switched to 3.5. This is one of the cases where we switched right back to 3.0.

Daniel