Where is the source material that states that thrown objects stop blinking once they leave your possession? I have a DM trying to say they have a chance of 'stopping' while ethereal, and thus maintain the miss chance.
It's in Skip William's masterpiece on Incorporeality, Ethereality, and Gaseous Form. It's archived Here.
-Frank
Actually, he easily kills two or more Stone Giants in 2 rounds using up 2 3rd (mid-level) spells enhanced by an item. (154 damage in a 20' spread) And this leaves him with all of his higher level daily slots. But by the 2nd fight of the day, it will take him 3-4 rounds, and by the 3rd or 4th fight, he starts to become a liability to the rest of the group.
We just hit a stop codon. You claimed that you could hit 2 Stone Giants with each of your Fireballs (which may or may not be true, but we'll give it to you), and thus that in 2 rounds you could deliver 154 damage total between both of them. But neither Stone Giant has actually taken 154 damage or even 119 damage - one has taken more damage than the other, but both are still standing and fully effective.
You can survive in this situation, but only by casting additional defensive spells like displacement or improved invisibility. That's more spell slots and more rounds that it takes this character to kill anything.
Your own math showed him not killing any Stone Giants in the time it would take any one of them to bash his brains out with a club.
-Frank
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We just hit a stop codon. You claimed that you could hit 2 Stone Giants with each of your Fireballs (which may or may not be true, but we'll give it to you), and thus that in 2 rounds you could deliver 154 damage total between both of them. But neither Stone Giant has actually taken 154 damage or even 119 damage - one has taken more damage than the other, but both are still standing and fully effective.
-Frank
Actually, If he hits two Stone Giants, with a maximized (by rod) fireball, he does 103 damage to each stone Giant that fails its save each fireball. Given that a Stone Giant will fail the save (DC14+stat Mod~+3=17 vs Reflex +6) on a 10 or less, I make the mathmatical assumption that the Stone Giants will save 1/2 the time, for a total of 154 points of damage to each Stone giant over the course of 2 maximized fireballs. If both Giants make both their saves, he has done 102 damage to each, in which case, yes, he is likely fubared.
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Where is the source material that states that thrown objects stop blinking once they leave your possession? I have a DM trying to say they have a chance of 'stopping' while ethereal, and thus maintain the miss chance.It's in Skip William's masterpiece on Incorporeality, Ethereality, and Gaseous Form. It's archived Here.
-Frank
Let's see, unless I completely missed it (after reading it twice) only Invisibility section has anything about dropping items, not the ethereal section.
So, I stand by the original wording of the Blink spell, which gives all attacks and spells by a blinking caster a 20% miss /failure chance.
Actually, If he hits two Stone Giants, with a maximized (by rod) fireball, he does 103 damage to each stone Giant that fails its save each fireball. Given that a Stone Giant will fail the save (DC14+stat Mod~+3=17 vs Reflex +6) on a 10 or less, I make the mathmatical assumption that the Stone Giants will save 1/2 the time, for a total of 154 points of damage to each Stone giant over the course of 2 maximized fireballs. If both Giants make both their saves, he has done 102 damage to each, in which case, yes, he is likely fubared.
We just hit a stop codon. You claimed that you could hit 2 Stone Giants with each of your Fireballs (which may or may not be true, but we'll give it to you), and thus that in 2 rounds you could deliver 154 damage total between both of them. But neither Stone Giant has actually taken 154 damage or even 119 damage - one has taken more damage than the other, but both are still standing and fully effective.
-Frank
You're going to have to use small words. A Maximized Fireball only does 60 damage on a failed save. A maximized, empowered fireball does 77 on a failed save. I don't see how you get to 103 damage. Like, at all.
-Frank
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Actually, If he hits two Stone Giants, with a maximized (by rod) fireball, he does 103 damage to each stone Giant that fails its save each fireball. Given that a Stone Giant will fail the save (DC14+stat Mod~+3=17 vs Reflex +6) on a 10 or less, I make the mathmatical assumption that the Stone Giants will save 1/2 the time, for a total of 154 points of damage to each Stone giant over the course of 2 maximized fireballs. If both Giants make both their saves, he has done 102 damage to each, in which case, yes, he is likely fubared.
We just hit a stop codon. You claimed that you could hit 2 Stone Giants with each of your Fireballs (which may or may not be true, but we'll give it to you), and thus that in 2 rounds you could deliver 154 damage total between both of them. But neither Stone Giant has actually taken 154 damage or even 119 damage - one has taken more damage than the other, but both are still standing and fully effective.
-FrankYou're going to have to use small words. A Maximized Fireball only does 60 damage on a failed save. A maximized, empowered fireball does 77 on a failed save. I don't see how you get to 103 damage. Like, at all.
-Frank
Completely bad math on my part. Very sorry. Somehow, 10d6 maximized became 100, plus the 3 for the Evoker specialist ability. Should have been 63. I apologize for the error and my conclusions from that error. I made the error in the original math posting above, and then carried it through here. God, this makes me feel very foolish. Basic math. How could I have possibly even done that? ((/me hangs head in shame.))
So, at that damage, you would have to get very lucky to take out even one of the giants. And, as a wizard, you are more likely dead. Thanks for the correction.
On the positive side, this makes me even more accepting of your proposal to lower the spell levels, or develop an alternate system like the one I presented in th e spoiler. Your proposal would certainly be the easiest fix. Especially is suplemented with more efficient damage spells substituted in at the newly created dead spell levels.
Edit- Might it also be a possible solution to reduce the number of extra levels Empower and Maximize add to a spell instead of changing the spell levels? Would this be easier to implement/more backwards compatable? Would it have the desired effect?
It depends-- making Empower and Maximize more attractive would make *some* damage spells viable, but only the best ones. If you set it to the level that makes fireball good, that's cool, but polar ray still sucks.
One advantage to changing the spell levels is that we can salvage some of the terrible spells no one uses.
This is why I support reducing the spell levels on Evocations rather than changing the damage.
To put a finer, more design-y point on why I don't like the proposal to lower spell levels, it's because it just scrambles up the spell damage caps. Basically, at each spell level, d6/level spells are only allowed to scale up a certain amount.
Shamelessly copy+pasted from someone's ENWorld thread (about Polar Ray, no less) here's the basic breakdown of the spell damage caps by level:
Spell damage caps were a deliberate design decision in 3rd edition, and they exist for a few reasons.Spell Level: Single Target Cap(s) / AoE Cap(a)
0: 5(s)/0(a)
1: 5(s)/5(a)
2: 10(s)/5(a)
3: 10(s)/10(a)
4: 15(s)/10(a)
5: 15(s)/15(a)
6: 20(s)/15(a)
7: 20(s)/20(a)
8: 25(s)/20(a)
9: 25(s)/25(a)
- To limit the number of maximally effective spells a caster has at any given level to somewhere around 8-12
- To limit the power of metamagic feats--by the time you can apply most metamagic feats to a spell, that spell is hitting its damage cap and will stop being useful in a few more levels.
Now I understand that you're trying to address the first point because you see it as a problem. I disagree, of course. I think that first of all, the wizard doesn't need an essentially unlimited amount of blasting spells. Resource management is a key feature of the class. The current system already gives him 2-3 efficient spells in each encounter of a 4-encounter day. Sorcerers get more. Second, I don't think the wizard needs to do as much damage as narrowly focused damage classes. The wizard already has numerous advantages in range, variety and area of effect. Additionally, even a specialist wizard is still more of a generalist class than a frenzied berzerker, charge build, or even a halfling hurler. Focus your damage increases on classes like the warmage instead of on all casting classes.
But all that notwithstanding, messing around with spell levels also ends up messing around with the other feature that damage caps attempt to balance--metamagic feats. Basically, by setting something like Polar Ray at level 1, you're eliminating the cap for single-target entirely. That means that using metamagic feats each few spell levels gives a somewhat exponential increase in power, instead of the normal arithmetic increase. For example, at 13th level, a Wizard could cast a Split Ray Energy Admixture Polar Ray for 52d6, averaging 182 damage. Of the 12 CR 13 monsters in the Monster Manual, only one (the Storm Giant) has that many HP, though a few others, like the Iron Golem, will obviously survive via spell or energy resistance. Obviously, the system doesn't really support this kind of uncapped, exponential damage.
A third, personal reason I don't like it is because I think a legacy system like Pathfinder should actually support that legacy. Fireball as a 3rd level spell is an important part of the feel of Dungeons and Dragons to me.
So, I think that rather than messing around with the damage caps indirectly via changing spell levels in an apparently arbitrary fashion, if changing the damage caps is really your goal, you should go about it directly.
Yes, yes, the damage spell caps are listed in the DMG under the suggested rules for creating new spells section. I kind of like Frank's suggestion because it makes empower/maximize less craptacular.
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Let's see, what can I do at this level with just your higher level slots using an Alpha Evoker 10. All cases assume that you hit or succeed.
Cone of Cold: 60 ft cone of 10d6+2 damage with DC 15+Mod 8-62 Damage Avg. 37
(Not as good an option as this next one.)
Empowered Fireball: 20 Foot radius burst Long Range spell for 10d6+2x1.5 DC 13+Mod 12-93 points of damage Avg. 55.5
(This is a considerable boost in the damage. With one spell slot two levels higher, I just increased my damage by 18.5 on average. That's a great amount of gain but still not going to bring down the Giants by itself.)
Maximized Scorching Ray: Close Range Ray spell for 2 of them Damage 4d6+4d6+2 for 50 points of damage. Avg. 50 at one or 24/26 to both
(This is not as good as the empowered Fireball of the same level of spell slot. Plus I need to make two attack rolls and have two opponents. Not really going to do much overall.)
Quickened Burning Hands: Extremely close range 5d4+2 Damage spell for 7-22 points of damage with save DC 11+Mod. Avg. 14.5
(Not really much to say about this. It's just easier to use a weapon.)
So from all this, Empower Spell is the most effect metamagic feat for a Evoker. But is this the most effective method of taking out both monsters? I mean, you use 2-9 spell slots to kill these monsters with empowered fireballs or you could use 2 Slots to use Hold Monster on both of them. Oh wait, that spell has a save each round so that in 10 rounds it has 10 chances to make the DC 15+Mod with their +7 will save. SO a total of 3-? rounds are expended just coup de graceing the creatures whom are making saves every round. If any of them break free from the enchantment, then you would have to expend more resources.
IF you just did average damage with the empowered fireball, you just took out those same giants in three rounds. That's kind of comparable.
Lets do another example. Cloudkill. The damage that the Giants are taking is 1-4 Con a round or avg. 2.5 Con while they are in the cloud so a well placed cloud could effectively take the Giants two rounds to get through. That's only 2-8 Con damage or 1-4 Hp/HD(In this case, 14-56 points of damage) Avg. 5 Con damage or 3 HP/HD or a total of 42 points of damage to these monsters. That's less effective than the empowered fireball. Now I'm not saying that it's not possible to keep the monsters in the cloud but the spell by itself is less effective. Lets look and see if you could get the spell to function to it's maximium effect. I would have to do 5-19 rounds of con damage to take out the monsters. That's powerful but I would still prefer 3 spell slots than deal with the monsters for 5-19 rounds.
Ok so the Fireball is looking like it should. Hold Monster is the champ here but it's drawbacks make it as difficult to guarantee success as any of these other spells.
In my examples above, I just picked out some of the more powerful spells from the SRD, and what did I learn, an empowered Fireball is deadlier than a higher level Evocation spell at 10th level but everything is still in balance because in two more levels, that spell begins to balance out against it's counterparts like cone of cold.
Now my test is not complete and would like some imput without flaming. Did I pick the right spells to compare the damage to? Are these the spells that are supposed to be better than the damage spells of their level? Please let me know so I could put them to the test.
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Let's see, what can I do at this level with just your higher level slots using an Alpha Evoker 10. All cases assume that you hit or succeed.
Cone of Cold: 60 ft cone of 10d6+2 damage with DC 15+Mod 8-62 Damage Avg. 37
(Not as good an option as this next one.)Empowered Fireball: 20 Foot radius burst Long Range spell for 10d6+2x1.5 DC 13+Mod 12-93 points of damage Avg. 55.5
(This is a considerable boost in the damage. With one spell slot two levels higher, I just increased my damage by 18.5 on average. That's a great amount of gain but still not going to bring down the Giants by itself.)
For sake of using your numbers, I will use your evoker bonus of 2, but I believe it would be a bonus of 3 (1+1/5 levelsxlvl10)
The 2 isn't multiplied by 1.5, the 10 and 60 are (empower only multiplies random numbers, not add-ons), so it's 17-92, still the same average. However, it is save for half, and the giants will make this save half the time. This spell is only better than the next if you can catch more than one giant in it.
Maximized Scorching Ray: Close Range Ray spell for 2 of them Damage 4d6+4d6+2 for 50 points of damage. Avg. 50 at one or 24/26 to both
(This is not as good as the empowered Fireball of the same level of spell slot. Plus I need to make two attack rolls and have two opponents. Not really going to do much overall.)
This is the better spell to use if you can't catch two giants with the fireball/cone, because you have a significantly higher chance of hitting their touch AC (9) than their chance of failing their reflex save (+6).
Quickened Burning Hands: Extremely close range 5d4+2 Damage spell for 7-22 points of damage with save DC 11+Mod. Avg. 14.5
(Not really much to say about this. It's just easier to use a weapon.)
And it is much better to use quickened magic missile.
So from all this, Empower Spell is the most effect metamagic feat for a Evoker. But is this the most effective method of taking out both monsters? I mean, you use 2-9 spell slots to kill these monsters with empowered fireballs or you could use 2 Slots to use Hold Monster on both of them. Oh wait, that spell has a save each round so that in 10 rounds it has 10 chances to make the DC 15+Mod with their +7 will save. SO a total of 3-? rounds are expended just coup de graceing the creatures whom are making saves every round. If any of them break free from the enchantment, then you would have to expend more resources.
IF you just did average damage with the empowered fireball, you just took out those same giants in three rounds. That's kind of comparable.
It's much better to use a Rod of Maximize (14000 gp, usable 3/day) on a Fireball Spell if you can get them both in the blast radius. At 62 damage/31 on a save, you will take them out on an average of 3 Spells.
These are pretty much similar to the numbers/spells I put above (except I went crazy with the fireball and somehow got 100 out of 10d6. Bleah!)
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Where is the source material that states that thrown objects stop blinking once they leave your possession? I have a DM trying to say they have a chance of 'stopping' while ethereal, and thus maintain the miss chance.It's in Skip William's masterpiece on Incorporeality, Ethereality, and Gaseous Form. It's archived Here.
-Frank
Let's see, unless I completely missed it (after reading it twice) only Invisibility section has anything about dropping items, not the ethereal section.
So, I stand by the original wording of the Blink spell, which gives all attacks and spells by a blinking caster a 20% miss /failure chance.
Seriously though, I was correct here, right? Skip's piece has nothing to offer about unattended items on the ethereal plane. Now I'm starting to feel paranoid.
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Thanks for going over my little test Reckless. You are correct about the Magic Missle but the idea of it being useful is the same. I don't know if I mentioned it but you are right that it's just easier to use a rod as an evoker. Save your feats for the splatbook stuff if that's the route you are going. I do not see anything about the evokers bonus damage not being multiplied by the empowered spell, just that it can only apply to one ray/missle of the spell. I also forgot to mention the chance for a crit with the Maximized Scorching Ray. If you score a crit with one of those, you get 50 damage from just one of the rays. If both Crit, you just got 100 damage. not enought to take out a single one but still a nice chuck.
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I do not see anything about the evokers bonus damage not being multiplied by the empowered spell, just that it can only apply to one ray/missle of the spell.
Empower Spell [Metamagic]
BenefitAll variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half.
Saving throws and opposed rolls are not affected, nor are spells without random variables. An empowered spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s actual level.
It's in the definition of empowered.
I don't know if I mentioned it but you are right that it's just easier to use a rod as an evoker. Save your feats for the splatbook stuff if that's the route you are going.
It's still useful to have the feats, I think, since the rod gives you (only) 3 uses per day. I just think the rod is essential to an Evoker who can afford it. Instant max or empowering is too useful to ignore, i.m.o.
And good reminder about the crit possibility.
It's in the definition of empowered.
It's still useful to have the feats, I think, since the rod gives you (only) 3 uses per day. I just think the rod is essential to an Evoker who can afford it. Instant max or empowering is too useful to ignore, i.m.o.And good reminder about the crit possibility.
The feats? It depends. If you're using the rod to empower your highest-level spells, then you've used up your high-end slots already. you could, I supposed, fill your higher slots with empower fireballs or whatever, and then your mid-level slots with fireballs empowered by rod.
And no, it's not a good reminder about the crits. There's seriously no reason at all to be tossing around the number 100 when this is something that occurs in less than one in four hunred cases. It seriously doesn't matter at all.
You guys win. With Frank gone, I don't have the strength to fight a losing battle.