Sectumsempra's Severing Slash

[RangerWickett]

Named after a spell from Severus Snape that was way under-used. Your opinions, please.

Sectumsempra’s Severing Slash
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sor/Wiz 8
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 swift action
Range: Medium (100 ft.+10 ft./level)
Effect: One blade of force
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial
Spell Resistance: Yes

A crescent-shaped blade of force flies from you to your target. Make a ranged touch attack. A creature or object struck by the blade takes 10d6 points of damage and must make a Fortitude save or suffer a grievous cutting wound.

Objects that fail the save have pieces shaved off, while creatures can lose body parts. If a creature fails by less than 5, this wound could be as simple as severing a finger or ear. Failure by 5 or more results in the loss of a hand or foot. Failure by 10 or more causes the loss of an arm or leg. If a creature is reduced to -10 hit points by this damage, he is decapitated.

 

[Felnar]

should the damage type be force?

 

[calebw]

first off, i disprove of you making a harry potter spell into dnd. second, why? who would use it in a campaign? throw in some W.O.W. spells in there while you are at it. and maybe some Expilliamus or whatever.

 

[Ilium]

should the damage type be force?

I like it, but I wonder if it needs to be such high level. I understand the extra severing effect (or is that a Severus effect? ) but 8th still seems a little steep. Unless you have rules for continuing damage from loss of a hand/arm/whatever. That would certainly make sense, but the core rules have no such thing that I know of.

Calls for lots of GM adjudication (which is fine). Thumbs up (but carefully shielded).

 

[Zurai]

first off, i disprove of you making a harry potter spell into dnd. second, why? who would use it in a campaign? throw in some W.O.W. spells in there while you are at it. and maybe some Expilliamus or whatever.

Please don't threadcrap. If you can't post anything constructive, do not post.

On topic: I agree, it seems too high level. It deals less damage than an 8th level single target damage spell should (1d6 per caster level capped at 25d6, I believe), allows spell resistance, and has a secondary special ability that has no mechanical effects at all in the default rules. I could see it as low as 4th-5th level (compare to Disintegrate).

EDIT: Whoops, I see that it's a Swift Action to cast. That changes things a bit. I still don't think it's an 8th level spell, but it's certainly higher than 4-5. Maybe 6th or 7th.

 

[comrade raoul]

A crescent-shaped blade of force flies from you to your target. Make a ranged touch attack. A creature or object struck by the blade takes 10d6 points of damage and must make a Fortitude save or suffer a grievous cutting wound.

Objects that fail the save have pieces shaved off, while creatures can lose body parts. If a creature fails by less than 5, this wound could be as simple as severing a finger or ear. Failure by 5 or more results in the loss of a hand or foot. Failure by 10 or more causes the loss of an arm or leg. If a creature is reduced to -10 hit points by this damage, he is decapitated.

Cool! So the idea is to have a not-bad direct damage spell (weaker than polar ray, but not subject to energy resistance) with a debilitating extra effect on a saving throw. So the "grevious cutting wound" bit is critical to balancing the spell--if we neglected it, the spell would totally be underpowered. However, while this component is really neat and flavorful, it also seems like it creates more problems than it raises. Here are some questions I had.

-- Who decides what body part gets removed? The caster or the DM? Should it be random? What if the body part in question makes the big difference? (Suppose one hand is holding a weapon, for example.)
-- What effects does it have on creatures with unusual body parts? Should the DM just resolve those issues on the fly?
-- Is there any way creatures can recover lost body parts?

I guess the range of possibilities makes S^3 a potentially dangerous but unpredictable spell. To be honest, though, I'm more comfortable with a switch that compromises much of the flavor of the spell but makes it a bit more managable: suppose you instead captured the grevious wound with Constitution damage? For example, you might say that a successful hit deals 10d6 points of damage, plus 2d6 points of Constitution damage, and allow a successful Fortitude save to halve the Constitution damage (but not the regular damage). (You might still say that creatures killed by the spell are decapitated.)

 

[Zurai]

2d6 Con damage is a little overkill for an automatically Quickened spell. I'd put it at 1d6. That still allows for a really nasty "decapitation" effect on a crit, which this spell is capable of since it requires an attack roll. 2d6 con damage will put a serious hurt on most things short of dragons and undead/golems.

 

[Piratecat]

Please don't threadcrap. If you can't post anything constructive, do not post.

As an admin, let me say -- well spoken.

When a thread doesn't appeal to you, best to just to move on to one which does!

 

[RangerWickett]

First, bear in mind this is for a product I'm publishing, so the usual 'wing it' method I would adopt is not an option.

I really want to keep the de-limbing effect. And I put the spell at high level so it would show up on a villain's repertoire around the same time the party gets access to Regenerate. I wanted it quickened so I could have the villain fire off a lot of them while also doing other more effective spells -- I want to give a villain some flavor, without ruining his combat effectiveness, but I also don't want to make the spell just normally be 4th level and have him Quicken it, because the spell is unbalanced if the party doesn't have access to Regenerate.

I put its damage relatively low. If it were a 4th level spell (quickened to 8th), it would be doing the same amount of damage as a lightning bolt, but with only one target. I figure the severing power isn't too strong.

How about these options?

Option 1. Choose a body part of your target. If he fails the save, that body part is cut off. He gets a bonus to the save based on which body part it is. If cutting off your intended target would be fatal, the attempt fails automatically (unless the creature takes lethal damage).

Option 2. Choose a body part. You effectively sunder your opponent's limb. I'd have a table of how many hit points each type of limb has, and the amount is based on a fraction of the creature's total hit points.

 

[llamatron2000]

I like this spell. The flavor, anyways. Its flashy, but more in the slice-and-dice way, and not the ZOMG KABOOM way that most high level spells are.

Anyways, I don't think its overpowered to choose the limb that's severed. But I do think that a touch attack is a bit much, considering that other force attacks (mage's sword, crushing hand) don't get this benefit. 10d6 damage is fine, considering the level of this spell.

I'd handle decapitation by considering the spell to go vorpal on an attack roll of 20. This is more elegant than having to add/subtract from DC's/saves/AC, or do any more math than necessary.