I'd like 6d6 and a reduced radius. I'd like to see more 3rd level spells get a look in.
What is the lowest damage Fireball could deal where you would still prep/use it?
- Thread starter Dausuul
- Start date
I might take fireball down to 6d6, but I think I would rarely use it and prefer to use control spells summons instead. I would not be in favour of a nerf.
Horwath
Hero
this, if anything, casters doing damage is the least of problems with casters.
control is far more influential.
All other damage spells need a buff and better scaling with upcasting.
Totally agree, playing through Solasta:Crown of the Magister at the moment and the cleric is dropping hypnotic pattern and the fight becomes much easier or now my ranger can throw in a summons and that takes up the action of most of the enemies. Screwing with the enemies action economy is far more effective than direct damage. Let the people with the sharp wedges that do not get tired do the damage.
The thing that put me in the "Lower fireball damage" camp is being a PC and having it cast by an enemy monster. In Princes of the Apocalypse (I think? it was a book adventure for sure, run as "by the book" as the DM could) there was a fire temple with enemy casters that had fireball. We hit it when the party was made of level 3 and level 4 PCs. It was rough. It was too much. Yes, we were under leveled for that part of the book probably, (that was a common problem with that adventure in my experience), and that played a big part. But even if we'd been level 5, a fireball still would have gutted the party HP in one action, more than any other spell of the same level could have. I've seen hypnotic pattern on a party, I've seen fireball on a party. Fireball was more brutal, less fun at levels of play where 3rd level spells are most relevant. Hypnotic pattern has the advantage of being good/consistent somewhat regardless of level or hp, but the tension of making saves, then shaking people out of it, surviving the hit from the monster while incapacitated and then fighting back, makes for interesting gameplay. Hypnotic pattern is a scary spell but I'd rather play against it than fireballs "Oops you only have 5hp left, and the DM has to make the choice that the other fire druid isn't going to cast its fireball because it is mathematically impossible for the party to survive if he does". I've seen that too many times.
Edit: "It's bad vs PCs" isn't my only reason for wanting Fireball to do less damage, it was simply the catalyst that got me thinking about it.
Edit: "It's bad vs PCs" isn't my only reason for wanting Fireball to do less damage, it was simply the catalyst that got me thinking about it.
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Vaalingrade
Legend
2d6. Screw tradition. I don't want it to be powerful. I don't want it to be ~spehshul~. I want to spam AoE explosions.
And I will never prepare a spell. You can take my spells known out of the cold, blasted wasteland resulting from me spamming AoE explosions.
And I will never prepare a spell. You can take my spells known out of the cold, blasted wasteland resulting from me spamming AoE explosions.
If you prepare a spell the very first time and then never change it... it becomes a Known spell.
I would disagree with this. Fireball is a weak 3rd level spell IMO.
The really good and universally useful offensive 3rd level combat Wizard spells are Fear, Summon Fey, Summon Undead, Summon Shadowspawn and after that there a bunch more like counterspell, dispel magic and fly that I would pick up before Fireball.
For Fireball to compete with these spells it needs to be about 11d6.
Fireball is decent if you are a Light Cleric.
Clint_L
Hero
A) The post specifically states "damage spell," so not sure what Fear, etc. have to do with the discussion.
B) You're welcome to your opinion, but you are the only person I have ever heard describe 5e Fireball as "weak," and given that it is almost universally taken by players who have access to it, consensus indicates that your "hot take" (pun intended) is wrong.
C) That said, folks suggesting 2d6 damage for Fireball aren't serious, either. You may as well just write "Fireball shouldn't be in the game," because it would have the same effect. It would be nice if we could focus on suggestions that might have a snowball's chance in a fireball of actually being implemented in OneD&D.
SakanaSensei
Adventurer
I certainly understand my opinion on balance is different, but I’m in no way not being serious with my 2d6 stance. Spellcasters have so many other things going for them, they don’t need an easily used 4-40 great sword swings in a round on top of it. IMO of course.
Since Fireball is a limited use ability, I actually think it should do more damage (in fact, all damaging spells should). A third level spell that can only be called upon a few times per diem by a 5th level and up caster should be able to destroy CR 1 foes outright, yet it can easily fail to slay a lousy Bugbear!
I don't understand why everyone gets bent out of shape about it doing 8d6; Fireball had been largely the same (d6 per level) for decades, despite the fact that monsters keep getting more and more hit points compared to how they were when the spell was first created. 2e and 3e even went so far as to cap it's damage for some godawful reason (especially heinous when 3e monsters also became much tougher).
Sure, there's this table in the DMG that says the spell shouldn't do that much damage. Which I think is total hooey, to be honest. Given how tough monsters are, we're really no better off than we were in 3e, when savvy players realized that dealing damage was a sucker's game, barring insane amounts of optimization, when you could more easily nerf enemies into oblivion and let the warriors put them out of their misery afterwards.
There's nothing less fun for a melee character than basically being reduced to mopping up an enemy that's had it's challenge completely removed due to it being stunned, paralyzed, banished to another plane while their allies are murdered, etc..
This sort of tactic doesn't synergize with what weapon users are doing at all, ie, dealing hit point damage. It would be better in my opinion if casters casted more damage dealing spells than less; especially given that most of the truly problematic spells don't care about hit points.
Further, I think debilitating spells should be created like sleep or color spray (or for that matter, the various power words), so that the weapon user's damage helps the spell land, and thus reinforces the fact that everyone is contributing equally to the combat.
A fight where the entire encounter hinges on a failed save, and failure just means everyone else feels like they weren't even necessary seems spectacularly unfun to me.
And Lightning Bolt has always been a joke. For how hard it can be to line up targets, it should do 50% more damage than Fireball, it's significantly more niche for no real reason (I get that there was an argument for when everyone was in narrow dungeon hallways, but that's no longer guaranteed).
Heck, while everyone gripes about it's initial damage, it's funny that Fireball is less useful at higher levels than it used to be! Once you get to level 9 or 10, the only way to get more damage out of it is to use a higher spell slot, ironically making a 3e caster better than a 5e one at this point. This wouldn't be so bad if there was a 4th or 5th level spell that outperformed it, but there really isn't.
I tend to prepare Erupting Earth more often than Fireball at higher levels; it has a slight status condition and gets much better when upcast, plus you don't have to worry about fire resistant enemies!
Anyways, I know that many people disagree with my stance, but the only advantage I can see to making the spell worse really comes down to how it scales against PC's, which really, is a total design fail, IMO. Given that most monsters have their damage calculated in a very different way than PC's to begin with, it's really strange that they cast the same spells as PC's in the first place, which is something of a misstep on the part of WotC. If monsters used the same rules as PC's, ala 3e, this would be one thing, but the fact is, they don't, the amount of damage they deal and hit dice they possess is decided by hazy monster design metrics, and generally only humanoid monsters even pretend to use similar mechanics (and even then, you get bespoke abilities bolted on, like the Gladiator adding a bonus die to his weapon attacks for what amounts to "shut up, that's why!".
I don't understand why everyone gets bent out of shape about it doing 8d6; Fireball had been largely the same (d6 per level) for decades, despite the fact that monsters keep getting more and more hit points compared to how they were when the spell was first created. 2e and 3e even went so far as to cap it's damage for some godawful reason (especially heinous when 3e monsters also became much tougher).
Sure, there's this table in the DMG that says the spell shouldn't do that much damage. Which I think is total hooey, to be honest. Given how tough monsters are, we're really no better off than we were in 3e, when savvy players realized that dealing damage was a sucker's game, barring insane amounts of optimization, when you could more easily nerf enemies into oblivion and let the warriors put them out of their misery afterwards.
There's nothing less fun for a melee character than basically being reduced to mopping up an enemy that's had it's challenge completely removed due to it being stunned, paralyzed, banished to another plane while their allies are murdered, etc..
This sort of tactic doesn't synergize with what weapon users are doing at all, ie, dealing hit point damage. It would be better in my opinion if casters casted more damage dealing spells than less; especially given that most of the truly problematic spells don't care about hit points.
Further, I think debilitating spells should be created like sleep or color spray (or for that matter, the various power words), so that the weapon user's damage helps the spell land, and thus reinforces the fact that everyone is contributing equally to the combat.
A fight where the entire encounter hinges on a failed save, and failure just means everyone else feels like they weren't even necessary seems spectacularly unfun to me.
And Lightning Bolt has always been a joke. For how hard it can be to line up targets, it should do 50% more damage than Fireball, it's significantly more niche for no real reason (I get that there was an argument for when everyone was in narrow dungeon hallways, but that's no longer guaranteed).
Heck, while everyone gripes about it's initial damage, it's funny that Fireball is less useful at higher levels than it used to be! Once you get to level 9 or 10, the only way to get more damage out of it is to use a higher spell slot, ironically making a 3e caster better than a 5e one at this point. This wouldn't be so bad if there was a 4th or 5th level spell that outperformed it, but there really isn't.
I tend to prepare Erupting Earth more often than Fireball at higher levels; it has a slight status condition and gets much better when upcast, plus you don't have to worry about fire resistant enemies!
Anyways, I know that many people disagree with my stance, but the only advantage I can see to making the spell worse really comes down to how it scales against PC's, which really, is a total design fail, IMO. Given that most monsters have their damage calculated in a very different way than PC's to begin with, it's really strange that they cast the same spells as PC's in the first place, which is something of a misstep on the part of WotC. If monsters used the same rules as PC's, ala 3e, this would be one thing, but the fact is, they don't, the amount of damage they deal and hit dice they possess is decided by hazy monster design metrics, and generally only humanoid monsters even pretend to use similar mechanics (and even then, you get bespoke abilities bolted on, like the Gladiator adding a bonus die to his weapon attacks for what amounts to "shut up, that's why!".
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I don't think it is universally taken any more. I think most experienced players do not cast it very often and optimizers certainly don't cast it often, especially after 6th level.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
6d6. The damage it does in Level Up.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
I would reduce fireball to 6d6, but only if enemies will get less hp overall. That's it. Lower damage for everyone. Try to bring monster HP and Party HP more in line.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Katching
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I don't get it. A joke at my expense, or something else?
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Yes. It was the sound of my cash machine for you mentioning that LevelUP does it right.
Ka-tsching
Edit: but have some xp!
It really was meant funny. But the text format didn't carry my message correctly.
Edit2: I hope Morrus is paying you for promoting his game
But note: the rare version of fireball still does 8d6 damage. I like the Idea of rare spells!
Clint_L
Hero
So in other words, it should be removed from the game. That's my point: if you are going to nerf it to be useless so no one takes it, then just come out and state that Fireball shouldn't be in the game. Which isn't going to happen.
Kinematics
Hero
I'd be perfectly fine with Fireball at 6d6. I'm just trying to figure out whether I'd take/use it if it was 5d6 or so.
Tidal Wave, for example, is 4d8 (average 18, roughly the same as 5d6's 17.5). I've never really been happy with Tidal Wave, but mostly in comparison to Fireball. The equivalent of 5d6 while knocking prone vs 6d6 without knocking prone could be a reasonable choice, whereas 8d6 just completely overshadows a knock prone effect.
Anyway, that bit of consideration puts me at 6d6 for Fireball.
Tidal Wave, for example, is 4d8 (average 18, roughly the same as 5d6's 17.5). I've never really been happy with Tidal Wave, but mostly in comparison to Fireball. The equivalent of 5d6 while knocking prone vs 6d6 without knocking prone could be a reasonable choice, whereas 8d6 just completely overshadows a knock prone effect.
Anyway, that bit of consideration puts me at 6d6 for Fireball.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
That would be WAY better than Fireball is now, let's not pretend that'd be a nerf. And that's assuming you didn't get Prone'd if you saved.
Prone'ing an entire room/large area full of monsters is definitely worth more than doing a 2d6 damage to them in most cases, because of the action economy, and the fact that 90% of monsters are melee.
The reality is if it did 4d6 damage but otherwise was the same as now (i.e. no prone), some people would still take it, because it has a really good AOE pattern. 6d6, and I don't think there'd be any noticeable decrease in popularity. 6d6+prone? It would be even more popular than it is at 8d6 lol.
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