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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EarthSeraphEdna" data-source="post: 3889196" data-attributes="member: 49309">Hmmm... Withering Beam does 1/8 HD ability drain, Greater Withering Beam does 1/6 HD ability drain, Superior Withering Beam does 1/4 HD ability drain, and Perfect Withering Beam does 1/2 HD ability drain. I got those values from the Challenge Rating PDF and the Epic Bestiary's section on dragon breath weapons, which seems to be partly based on Ascension's [Effect] abilities. Are those the correct formulas, or have they been toned down?If those are indeed the right values, then I can definitely say that Withering [Effect] is objectively better than every other divine [Effect] and most cosmic [Effects], most especially Withering (Constitution) [Effect].Consider two 80 HD Greater Deities fighting each other, one with Perfect Sonic Beam which deals 80d6 sonic damage and the other with a regular Withering (Constitution) Beam which deals 10 Constitution drain. The Perfect Sonic Beam deals 280 damage on average, which is most likely already pathetic since most Greater Deities have ~4000 hp or ~8000 hp in their home plane. The Withering (Constitution) beam reduces the target's Constitution by 10, thus reducing his Constitution modifier by 5, thus reducing his maximum hp by [5 × 80] or 400 hit points. An attack that costs but 1 divine ability slot already does more damage than an attack that costs 4 ability slots!You'll see that Withering [Effect] is even more powerful than a Perfect Cosmic [Effect]. Let's take two 240 HD Old Ones, one with Perfect Cosmic Beam which deals 240d20 divine damage and the other with Withering (Constitution) Beam which deals 30 Constitution drain. The Perfect Cosmic Beam does 2520 divine damage on average. The Withering (Constitution Beam) reduces the target's Constitution by 30, thus reducing his Constitution modifier by 15, thus reducing his maximum hp by [15 × 240] or 3600 hit points. But wait, Old Ones multiply their total hit points by ×2, so that's effectively 7200 hit points lost! An attack that costs 1 divine ability slot does much more damage than an attack that costs 4 cosmic ability slots (24 divine ability slots)! That's not right.The big problem is that Withering (Constitution) [Effect] scales in power as your enemy has more HD, whereas other [Effects] do the same damage no matter how much HD your enemy has (Certain exceptions like Gravitic [Effect] exist, of course). So in effect you're scaling the damage by two factors: your own HD and the target's HD.What makes it even more weird is that if your enemy has no Constitution score, all of a sudden your super-powerful Withering (Constitution) [Effect] is totally worthless.</blockquote>

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