D&D General Twin Guiding Bolt vs Ice Knife?

[Paul Farquhar]

At level 11 Fire Bolt does more damage than level 1 Guiding Bolt, and it only costs one sorc point to quicken.

 

[Ancalagon]

In my not immodest experience with blasters, both as a player or GM, my feelings on first level damage spells and ice knife in particular are:

On ice-knife: I've had a player friendly fire the fighter with this, not having read the spell properly. (I am not sure to this day if allowing this to happen was a good or bad call as a GM). More in general, what I've found is that the increased single target damage (2d6+1d10) is not worth the "weakening" of the AOE portion of the spell to only 2d6 with no special effect, unlike burning hand (more damage) or thunderwave (forced movement).

In general: I've found that level 1-2 AOE damage is rarely worth using past the levels you get it at, and this is particularly true of level 1 damage spells at tier 2 and above. Why use a precious level 1 slot for damage, when you could be using a cantrip that does almost as much damage? And if a group of foes are clustered together, are you, a level 7 mage, going to waste this precious opportunity to iceknife them?!? No! You're going to trap them in an Evard's Black Tentacle spells, or blast them with fireball, or at least muck them up with a web spell.

I think that's the issue here - it's not worth the slot (because those level 1 slots have a lot of utility/defensive potential), it's not worth the opportunity to hit a cluster of enemies, and at a certain point, the damage is not worth it - if you ice-knife a pair or trio of ogres... are you really helping? They have so much hp, all you are doing is making them mad.

 

[Zardnaar]

In my not immodest experience with blasters, both as a player or GM, my feelings on first level damage spells and ice knife in particular are:

On ice-knife: I've had a player friendly fire the fighter with this, not having read the spell properly. (I am not sure to this day if allowing this to happen was a good or bad call as a GM). More in general, what I've found is that the increased single target damage (2d6+1d10) is not worth the "weakening" of the AOE portion of the spell to only 2d6 with no special effect, unlike burning hand (more damage) or thunderwave (forced movement).

In general: I've found that level 1-2 AOE damage is rarely worth using past the levels you get it at, and this is particularly true of level 1 damage spells at tier 2 and above. Why use a precious level 1 slot for damage, when you could be using a cantrip that does almost as much damage? And if a group of foes are clustered together, are you, a level 7 mage, going to waste this precious opportunity to iceknife them?!? No! You're going to trap them in an Evard's Black Tentacle spells, or blast them with fireball, or at least muck them up with a web spell.

I think that's the issue here - it's not worth the slot (because those level 1 slots have a lot of utility/defensive potential), it's not worth the opportunity to hit a cluster of enemies, and at a certain point, the damage is not worth it - if you ice-knife a pair or trio of ogres... are you really helping? They have so much hp, all you are doing is making them mad.

Hence why I'm asking about it at low levels.

 

[Horwath]

In my not immodest experience with blasters, both as a player or GM, my feelings on first level damage spells and ice knife in particular are:

On ice-knife: I've had a player friendly fire the fighter with this, not having read the spell properly. (I am not sure to this day if allowing this to happen was a good or bad call as a GM). More in general, what I've found is that the increased single target damage (2d6+1d10) is not worth the "weakening" of the AOE portion of the spell to only 2d6 with no special effect, unlike burning hand (more damage) or thunderwave (forced movement).

In general: I've found that level 1-2 AOE damage is rarely worth using past the levels you get it at, and this is particularly true of level 1 damage spells at tier 2 and above. Why use a precious level 1 slot for damage, when you could be using a cantrip that does almost as much damage? And if a group of foes are clustered together, are you, a level 7 mage, going to waste this precious opportunity to iceknife them?!? No! You're going to trap them in an Evard's Black Tentacle spells, or blast them with fireball, or at least muck them up with a web spell.

I think that's the issue here - it's not worth the slot (because those level 1 slots have a lot of utility/defensive potential), it's not worth the opportunity to hit a cluster of enemies, and at a certain point, the damage is not worth it - if you ice-knife a pair or trio of ogres... are you really helping? They have so much hp, all you are doing is making them mad.

problem is that utility spells usually scale good with upcasting and damaging spells scale horribly with upcasting.

fly from 3rd to 4th level slot is from 1 to 2 targets, that is +100% efficiency

fireball is from 8d6 to 9d6, +12,5% efficiency,

 

[Zardnaar]

problem is that utility spells usually scale good with upcasting and damaging spells scale horribly with upcasting.

fly from 3rd to 4th level slot is from 1 to 2 targets, that is +100% efficiency

fireball is from 8d6 to 9d6, +12,5% efficiency,

Also why I usually don't bother upcasting damage spells except a few/situational.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hence why I'm asking about it at low levels.

As low levels I usually find it's more useful to turn sorc points into spell slots.

 

[Zardnaar]

As low levels I usually find it's more useful to turn sorc points into spell slots.

Depends for me. Twin spell is essentially an extra slot.

 

[Ancalagon]

problem is that utility spells usually scale good with upcasting and damaging spells scale horribly with upcasting.

fly from 3rd to 4th level slot is from 1 to 2 targets, that is +100% efficiency

fireball is from 8d6 to 9d6, +12,5% efficiency,

This is a very good point... and it's even worse than this.

If you don't upscale, for some spells, the utility is "flat", while others are level dependent.

You're level 2 and your using iceknife to hit the goblin chief and his 2 minions? Great! You use shield to deflect a heavy blow from said goblin chief? Great!

You're at level 10 now. A level 1 slot shield use is just as great. The ice knife vs the Cloud giant chief and his 2 minions? Not so much.

 

[Ancalagon]

Hence why I'm asking about it at low levels.

At the low end of tier 1 it's actually quite good. But the main purpose of AOEs is minion cleerance/softening up. And with 2d6 AOE damage, as soon as those minions start having any kind of substance...

Kobolds, goblins, bandits even, sure. But as soon as you hit the CR 1/2 level... it's just not enough.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

At the low end of tier 1 it's actually quite good. But the main purpose of AOEs is minion cleerance/softening up. And with 2d6 AOE damage, as soon as those minions start having any kind of substance...

Kobolds, goblins, bandits even, sure. But as soon as you hit the CR 1/2 level... it's just not enough.

Indeed. The nature of D&D is that a wounded enemy is just as dangerous as a healthy one, so unless the AoE can take out at least one enemy you are better using a single target ability and picking them off one at a time.