Is Accursed Glare as good as it looks?

[Third Mind]

Hello again all. When reading through the skinwalker race I came across a new (to me at least) spell that seemed really good. Of course I'm not as experienced as other players, so I'm looking for opinions on said spell before I actively seek it for my wizard.

Here is the spell by the way: Accursed Glare

It does take 1 round to cast and has a save, so it may not be that good, however if you bypass it, its a days on end curse that lowers the chances of your opponents success. While it's called Glare, it doesn't seem to require the target to look at you at all, so blind creatures can still be affected.

So, what do you think? Good or not so much?

[Douglas Muir 406]

Wow, that's a strange one.

I'd agree that it's a pretty powerful debuff. "Roll twice and take the worse result" is about -4 on all attack rolls and saves. The short range, 1 round casting time and Will save all help balance it; your squishy witch or wizard will have to get close, and then stay close for a full round. It's still pretty nasty.

Doug M.

[Globetrotter]

How is this a 3rd level spell?

Seems a tad over the top.

[deuxhero]

Some of the biggest Wizard staples are third level. It's where your exponential scaling goes from "better" to "eclipses"

[Taason the Black]

Personally I find the "fail the save and a debuff happens" spells quite worthless. If I am going to cast a spell that you fail your save on, it better be fight ending or nearly fight ending. Failed saves are in short supply as levels go by.

[Shfish]

It does add something useful to the necromancers bag of tricks, a strongly built one could easily have a DC in the 20s with a likely max of 22-23 at 3rd level spells. Where I see this as possibly useful, is a prepatory spell on some outsiders with your allies adding to get passed SR, then follow it up with some good outsider removal spells that you really want them to fail their saves on.
Is this broken? No, since a witch can do this already with fewer limitations from level 1 and their DC scales as they level. I see this as a solid spell for min max stat Effrit sorcerer who debuffs instead of blasting that also adds in the spell focuses. For everyone else it's an interesting spell that when it works, it rocks, but will be underwhelming most of the time.

[CWheezy]

One round cast time makes it pretty bad, I would say that it isn't better than fly or haste, so it is fine

[Claxon]

The one round cast time is a pretty good balance (so long as the GM/players convey that a spell is being cast for the whole duration) so that there is ample opporunity to disrupt it. Have you ever seen a 6th level wizard try to make that concentration check?

The wizard gets a d20+caster level+ability score modifier to not lose the spell. When being injured the DC is 10+spell level+damage.

Lets take a hypotehtical 6th level wizard. Lets min max him to a decent degree and say he has 18 (point buy) + 2 (racial) + 4(headband) +1 ability score increase = 25, for a +7 modifier. Unlikely, but possible. So he has a 7+6+d20 or 13+d20 to beat the caster level check.

Without knowing anything else about our opponent, we can make some observation about the DC for the check. The dc for the spell will be 13 + damage. So the caster bonuses from caster level and ability modifier are negated by the basics of the spell he wants to cast. The check becomes a d20 versus the damage the opponent can inflict.

Lets take a fighter with a strength of 22 (+6) with a greatsword and power attack. 2d6+9(str)+4(power attack) for an average of 20 damage. On average the wizard has to roll a 20 on the d20 not to lose the spell. This doesn't include the possibility of vital strike or multiple attacks increasing the DC. Good luck.