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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asisreo" data-source="post: 8223419" data-attributes="member: 7019027">Some people mentioned Finger of Death versus Disintegrate (7th-level) and there's an incredibly important distinction that goes beyond Saving Throws and Expected Value. That distinction is that while Disintegrate has a higher average, its standard deviation and variance is unusually high. This is because a Disintegrate that is successfully saved does 0 damage while Finger of Death still deals half-damage. The more reliable of the two is Finger of Death but an all-or-nothing attack is best done with Disintegrate. This actually means that Finger of Death is useful in more scenarios than Disintegrate at its highest level, not mentioning that it can create unlimited zombies during downtime. I calculated this with an Adult Black Dragon with a +10 to Con and a +7 to Dex so even when a creature has a high save and they're likelier to save with Con, its still better to use Finger of Death unless its within kill-range.</blockquote>