The new Horrid Wilting

[Apok]

I was just looking at the peek at Horrid Wilting.

Why would anyone memorise it unless they were wizard hunting? 20d6 and a Fort save... not to usefull against about 4/5ths of the creatures in the Game and it doesn't affect undead or constructs.

What do you think they are doing to make it useful?

They dropped it from d8 to d6? And capped it at 20 instead of 25?

Okay, consider this the second thing I'll be house ruling in 3.5e.

 

[Al]

It's obvious to me that you haven't used this spell too much. In my high level game, it came up a lot, and it was a pretty nasty and feared spell.

First, you can indivually target the spell. No friendly fire. No missed opportunities because the melee maven charged too soon. No dead fighters because the annoyed mage got fed up with the melee maven.

Second, the party rogue and monk rues this spell because it's not a reflex save, ergo no evasion.

Finally, it's non-elemental, so creatures with elemental resitances don't get off easy.

Firstly, targeted spells work both ways. Illusions, hidden rogues, spell turning, rods of absorption and others can get in the way of targeted spells in the way that they don't with area spells. On balance, targeted is probably marginally better than area, but not without its drawbacks.

Second, Mettle aside, bear in mind that whilst only four classes get good Reflex saves (assuming 3.5 ranger gets good Ref), six classes get good Fort saves. So Fort saves are not necessarily better than Reflex saves. Amongst monster types, again, more get good Fort saves than Reflex saves.

Thirdly, it's non-elemental, but is useless against undead, incorporeals, constructs and other creatures without bodily fluids.

The peripheral benefits of HW were that- peripheral. The real reason why people liked it was because of the damage. For all intends and purposes, HW's effectiveness has been reduced by 1/4, making it too weak at 8th level.