Why does Ice Storm suck?

[hammymchamham]

Yup, do that too. The first time a fighter hit a kobold for 16 points of damage that was described as the kobold blocking most of the blow except for a little gash on its arm was worth it just for the looks on the players' faces

IceBear

Yes, it was fun when in yesterdays game my group of 6's said "That Orc is getting 2 attacks a round!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[hammymchamham]

Ice burst would affect the caster.

fireball = long range
ice burst = medium range

fireball = 20 ft radius spread
ice burst = 30ft radius burst

fireball at 10th casterlevel = 10d6 fire damage
ice burst at 10th casterlevel = 10d4 cold damage +10 blunt damage

I will have to re read Ice Burst. I was thinking it was a spell that threw ice out from the casters body. Ignore my above posts.. yeah

 

[Wee Jas]

I don't believe the 3d6 physical damage it does affects incorporeal beings at all, unlike Force effects.

Does the impact damage effect creatures with DR?

Fire Subtype (Ex): A demonic guardian hound has fire immunity, and it takes double damage from cold except on a successful save.

So would Ice Storm deal it 5d6 damage, 10d6, or 7d6?

 

[Caliban]

Another big plus to ice storm is that since there is no save, it's one of the few offensive spells that can be put in a scroll or wand without losing it's effectiveness.

Spells with saving throws will have their DC drop significantly when cast from a scroll or wand, as they always have the minimum DC for their level.

 

[RyanL]

My wizard PC took Ice Storm because there didn't seem to be many damage spells at 4th level. It's been useful.

-Ryan

 

[Zad]

Ice storm doesn't have a save, but that doesn't quite compensate for the fact that it doesn't scale at all. Given that, I tend to agree - it's underpowered.

 

[Nail]

Does the impact damage effect creatures with DR?

This is a good question. Anyone?

When I asked a similar question over in Wulf's Collected Story Hour, the repsonse I got was that physcial damage from spells does not bypass damage reduction.

But then again, Wulf's not an official source.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Yes it sucks. No save, split damage types in no way comes close to compensating for its weak damage. Yeah, yeah look out there are people with evasion. But frankly if 'm facing anything with evasion, and I have to count on a pathetic 5d6 damage to bail me out, just give me a sword to throw my self on cause I'm dead anyway.

Anyways with the increased HP in 3d edition most big bang spells suck anyways. You have to really work your character towrds that line for it to be moderatley effective. It's depressing because i'm not fond of them but the save or else spells just really rule the roost. Giving a group a papercut is useful now and then, but as a geneal rule you want to focus your energies and take out a target in the group quickly so the number of things flying back at you is diminished. Now in the DD category AoE spells usually do the same damage or clsoe to it as single target spells, so you minds as well throw the fireballs, but the holds, charms, dominates, polymorphs of the world are just much better. (and yeah if you face a group of ordinary orcs a fireball can be fun for the quick cleanup, but if there playing smart they wont be bunched up, and if ther pllaying dumb the fighter will mow them down in a couple rounds anyways)

 

[Kraedin]

Magical attacks ... ignore damage reduction.

The impact damage goes through damage reduction just fine.

 

[Wee Jas]

The impact damage goes through damage reduction just fine.

Isn't it impact damage? So DR would effect it? Like dropping a wall of stone on something with DR. DR would absorb some of the damage right?

Creeping Doom is another example. It specifically says DR reduces the damage from the bugs.