Thanks, guys, you've ruined Haste for the rest of us.

[Grog]

Re: Benchmark Fighter?

Attack bonus: +24/+19/+14.
Damage: 2d6+18.

How do you get 145 damage per round against AC 16 with no power attack? That's 6d6+54 damage, or about 75 on average. He'd have to crit on all three attacks to hit 145.

 

[Grog]

11th level half-orc barb, raging with a +2 str item, a greatsword +1 and weapon focus does an average of 50.6 damage per round against a fire giant.

I said per hit, not per round.

It's easy for 11th level fighters to do over 35 damage in a round. Doing that much in one hit is a lot tougher (crits excepted).

 

[Pax]

Archer. 11th level character. Ftr6/Rog3/OoBI2[/b]

Nice try. That's not "a fighter of 11th to 12th level"

That's "An 11th level fighter-rogue with a couple levels of a PrC"

Try again with pure fighter / warrior, and only core rules. 'Cause if you want to introduce non-core rules, I can trick out a wizard pretty well too.

[ ... snip ... ]

3 attacks per round, within 30 feet, +21/+21/+16.

Damage at 1d8+11 per arrow (within 30 feet).

Compare to typical CR 11 opponent such as a Cloud Giant with an AC of 21. His first two shots hit on everything but a 1. His third shot hits on a 5 or better (80% chance to hit). Each arrow does 15.5 points of damage on average.

That's still not the 30-per-hit average I objected to above. It's not going to even -touch- the 120-150 per-round average I objected to.

In fact, it's the same about-15-points per hit average I cited wiht a longsword.

Average per round damage vs. Cloud Giant: (.95 * 15.5) + (.95 * 15.5) + (.80 * 15.5) = 41.9. If he catches the Cloud Giant flat footed, this increases to 91.8 on a round of attacks.

Because he's not a fighter, he's a fighter-rogue. *shrug*

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Well, you're forcing me to be munchkin, but....

Half-Dragon/Half-Orc Fighter 4/Barb 4

Str: 18 + 2 (ork) +8 (half-dragon) + 4 (rage) + 4 (items (+2 belt, +2 book)) = 36

Weapon Spec
Weapon Focus

+2 Keen Greatsword

vs AC21 (firegiant) = 36.48 and 34.56 damage

--Stretching Spikey

 

[Grog]

Well, you're forcing me to be munchkin, but....

Sorry

Half-Dragon/Half-Orc Fighter 4/Barb 4

Str: 18 + 2 (ork) +8 (half-dragon) + 4 (rage) + 4 (items (+2 belt, +2 book)) = 36

Weapon Spec
Weapon Focus

+2 Keen Greatsword

vs AC21 (firegiant) = 36.48 and 34.56 damage

--Stretching Spikey

I get 2d6 + 23 damage per hit with that character. So you can just barely hit 35. Or are you figuring in Power Attack?

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Sorry

I get 2d6 + 23 damage per hit with that character. So you can just barely hit 35. Or are you figuring in Power Attack?

2d6+25 + ~20% of the time 4d6+50. Makes a BIG difference when you figure in criticals on a weapon with a critical range of 17-20.

--Raging Spikey

PS Give me one more level and I can make it go up to 39.520 for both attacks.

PPS I was accidentally figuing in 2 points of power attack. Oops.

 

[Pax]

In contrast, a level 14 sorcerer can do 14d6*1.5 with an empowered cone of fire, or 73,5 dmg with a failed save.
The DC for the save would be 10+5+8(Charisma 26)+1(Spellcasting Prodigy)+4(Greater Spell Focus)+2(Bloodline of Fire)=30. Just need 2 targets fail their save and you top the fighter handily.

I know I am no smackdowner, but this is not too bad.

IMHO, if there is not a too big unbalance in the amount of minmaxing the PCs undergo, then things should be fine without haste speeding up spellcasting.

Consider this WRT that cone, though: you don't use AoE spells against a single target, not by preference.

At least, not if you're a smart spellcaster.

Let's see, cones are typically 5-feet-per-level in "range". So that's about a 90-foot cone, 90 feet wide at it's terminus. I figure, applied judiciously, you should manage to catch six to ten enemies in a single cone ... call it eight.

Roughly eight targets each take 14d6*1.5 (save DC 30 for half). That's 21-126 (averag is roughly 89), save for half (thus, save for roughly 44 points of damage).

44 x 8 = 353hp of damage. IF everything makes it's save.

Now, make that character a Sorceror (9) / War Wizard of Cormyr (5), same Charisma 26, and they can "super-Widen" that single spell, increasing it's area by 100% ... and they can do it (IIRC) nine times "per day", or all at once.

Now it's a nine HUNDRED foot cone witha nine HUNDRED foot terminus. We're talking nearly a fifth of a MILE. That's most or all of an ARMY that's getting blasted. Easily two hundred targets could fit in that space (if that many were present). In fact, you could probably manage to wipe an army of a couple thousand troops out with that, if you placed it right.

For the same "average damage of 89, save for 44" ...

And it's all one spell ...

 

[loisel]

Apologies for erroneous chart

I had no idea people posted so much on this board. Thanks for pointing out errors in my program. I invite all to take a second look. The chart in my original post has been revised, the average damage for that character looks like it's 60-85.

 

[Grog]

2d6+25 + ~20% of the time 4d6+50. Makes a BIG difference when you figure in criticals on a weapon with a critical range of 17-20.

Okay, I see. And it's all core, assuming half-dragons are core. Cool. But even your exceptionally powerful 11th level fighter doesn't do anywhere near 150 points of damage a round, unless he manages two or three crits.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Nonsense. A lot of characters are quite properly based off of the use of a few spells or spell combos. If those details change, the character is rendered unviable. Haste was the spell that used to make a lot of class combinations work. It was possible to make a melee focussed fighter/wizard because of Haste, Shield, and Polymorph Self. If the rules changes posted elsewhere are the accurate, that won't be true for long.

Even the Tome and Blood bladesinger (the easiest character of this archetype to make functional) is dramatically effected by this rules change. Before, he could have a good armor class to make up for his suboptimal damage. (Longsword one handed). Not anymore. At best, he'll have a mediocre armor class. With Polymorph self, he can be somewhat viable, but take that away and all you have is a fighter who doesn't deal much damage and can only get a mediocre armor class a limited number of times per day.

If they expand the spell lists to include spells designed for multi-classed wizards, that may change but I wouldn't count on it.

For that matter, the entire sorceror class is based on relying on a very limited number of spells. Relying on a limited number of spells isn't a sign of insufficient gameplay.

If you're THAT upset that they changed 1 spell, you were relying on that spell too much.