| LoopHoles |
Does anyone even use it any more?
Monster hit points have crept steadily upwards over the editions, but fireball has stayed fixed at 1d6/level. Back in 1e, when your average ogre had 19 hp (and Demogorgon himself only had 400), a fireball was bad news. A 6th level wizard had a better than even chance of killing that ogre (and any of his friends standing nearby) with one shot. Today the average ogre has 30 hp, and 6d6 of damage is just not that big a deal. Relative to the monsters, fireball is barely half the spell it used to be.
In 3.x, fireball has been overshadowed by ever more powerful buffs and utility spells and save-or-sucks. Even if you want to go blaster, you're probably better off with ranged touch attacks; the go-to damaging spell for the modern midlevel caster is not Fireball, but Scorching Ray.
Thinking about it, I can't remember a single fireball-slinging NPC arcanist in an AP or module. I'm sure there must be some, but I can't recall one offhand. Certainly not one who makes it the center of his tactics. Meanwhile, not a single PC of mine has voluntarily taken fireball since (thinks for a minute) maybe 2004? At third level, they're all grabbing for Fly and Haste and Dispel Magic. Nobody wants fireball.
Really. Nobody wants fireball.
Are we missing something?
Doug M.
It’s way too late but I have a build where you can cast a 10d6+30 fireball at 4th lvl.