If you are using metamagic appropriately, your blasters can still rock past 10th-level. Get to 15th-level, and pick up Spell Perfection, and you could easily be doing more damage than anyone else in the party.
Blasters don't suck. People just don't know how to use them properly.
Post level 15 the game gets wonky anyway. Spell Perfection like all the metamagic adjustment feats and features is a wonky solution that shows up later than most game play to.
Even then it's not like SoL casters can't benefit from spell perfection either. Enervation would be a particularly powerful spell to abuse spell perfection with. Being able to double boost DCs with spell perfection also makes several SoL spells very nice.
IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
What about an high level feat to increase evocation spells damage by 1 or more steps? It seems more simple and does not take away the fun of rolling dice :)Intensify?I was thinking about something different. NOT a metamagic feat. Something like this.
New Feat
Havoc
Your spell create bigger holes.
Prerequisite: Spell Focus: Evocation, Greater Spell Focus: Evocation, Caster level 12th (4th? 8th?).
Benefit: increase the damage of damaging evocation spells dice by one step (d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10 [2d6?]).
So a fireball of a wizard with havoc would be 10d8. Not that powerful, but does not add "metamagic fatigue" to the blaster repertoire, is not abused by other schools, and somewhat scales (+1 avg level).
[lurch voice]You rang? [/lurch voice]
[lurch voice]You rang? [/lurch voice]
I called you for a specific purpose...
IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
What's wrong with Persistent spell exactly? If I throw down a persistent fireball, it does nothing but create a crappy one round barrier that doesn't even do extra damage unless somebody pushes them back in after they exit.
To prove the point to your friend, simply GM a one-shot where there's a wizard who doesn't blast and just does buffs / debuffs / BC while mooks take out the party.
IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
What's wrong with Persistent spell exactly? If I throw down a persistent fireball, it does nothing but create a crappy one round barrier that doesn't even do extra damage unless somebody pushes them back in after they exit.
What's wrong with Persistent spell exactly? If I throw down a persistent fireball, it does nothing but create a crappy one round barrier that doesn't even do extra damage unless somebody pushes them back in after they exit.IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
That's lingering spell, not persistent. Persistent requires them to make two saves in order to pass.
That's lingering spell, not persistent. Persistent requires them to make two saves in order to pass.What's wrong with Persistent spell exactly? If I throw down a persistent fireball, it does nothing but create a crappy one round barrier that doesn't even do extra damage unless somebody pushes them back in after they exit.IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
How so?
If you've got 50% chance of success, persistance forces them to succeed at both; 0.5*0.5=0.25. 75% chance of success. Heightening increases chance of success by 10%, to 60%.If you've got 70% chance of success, persistance increases it to 91% while heighten only increases it to 80%.
That's lingering spell, not persistent. Persistent requires them to make two saves in order to pass.What's wrong with Persistent spell exactly? If I throw down a persistent fireball, it does nothing but create a crappy one round barrier that doesn't even do extra damage unless somebody pushes them back in after they exit.IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
Assuming that nat 20 auto-passes, first column is roll required with no mods, second is save rate with persist, third is with heighten by 2.
20:.25%:5%19:1%:5%
18:2.25%:5%
17:4%:10%
16:6.25%:15%
15:9%:20%
14:12.25%:25%
13:16%:30%
12:20.25%:35%
11:25%:40%
10:30.25%:45%
9:36%:50%
8:42.25%:55%
7:49%:60%
6:56.25%:65%
5:64%:70%
4:72.25%:75%
3:81%:80%
2:90.25%:85%
1:100%:90%
0:100%:95%
-1:100%:100%
The only time that heighten is better is when you shouldn't be casting save based spells.
lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
How so?
If you've got 50% chance of success, persistance forces them to succeed at both; 0.5*0.5=0.25. 75% chance of success. Heightening increases chance of success by 10%, to 60%.
If you've got 70% chance of success, persistance increases it to 91% while heighten only increases it to 80%.
For starters, I didn't pick some arbitrary number like 50%.
I compared the DCs to saving throws of dozens of CR-appropriate monsters in the Bestiary, to the Good Save guidelines in the Monster Creation chapter of the Bestiary (which all monsters follow VERY closely), and against classed NPCs from the Game Mastery Guide.
Why use arbitrary numbers when you can use the ones that exist in the game?
I think you will find that in most real games, you rarely have a true 50% chance of success.
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lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
Besides getting the feat mixed up with Lingering Spell there are some issues with Persistent Spell.
For the purpose of this argument -
Because Persistent Spell + SOD/SOS > Persistent Spell + Evocation
Making two saves vs. maxed out DCs is far more powerful than increasing the save DC by +2. Sure a +2 DC for a spell prepared at a higher level is harder to save but vs. Persistent spell you get a:
A) Second round of Saves.
B) Second round of saves which could also use up expendable (and limited) save resources of the target: once per day +1 on save, re-roll failed save (ex-Improved Iron Will), etc.
C) Mechanically the spell is recast against all those who saved the round before while you cast your second round of spells. So you have two spell effects going off at the same time. Of course this is not 100% pure "casting two spells in one round", but it is close.
The feat made all applicable spells more powerful, and again for the sake of the argument of spell hierarchy it did nothing to improve the ranking of Evocation/Blasting spells. Does wonders for binary casting though.
After a PFS game last night my friend and I had a hour long car drive home and we were just talking about the game.
At one point he raised the issue of "why do people think blasters suck?"
I started to say, "On every forum I've ever read over the last decade they've always said they suck."
He interjects, "Yeah, I've read that guy treantmonk's guide to wizards, but I just didn't buy it. I sat down and did the math and it seemed like fireballs were great."
I then gave him some broad explanations of what theorycraft has said... that it has to do with action economy, that damage progression is outstripped by the system, that min-maxed DCs outstrip saves, etc.
None of it was moving him. I told him to go ask this on the forums and he said, "Oh no! I don't post on forums. If you're on there six hours a day just find me one of these threads that demonstrates all of the math that shows that blaster wizards just can't keep up with the game."
So I've been searching the forums, but honestly, I can't find any grand treatise that breaks this down into elaborate proof-like examples with DPRish analysis, comparisons to melee bruisers, level by level damage progression, etc.
Is there anything like this out there?
While the word sucks is often used the best way to describe it would be saying it is the worst option. Can it work? Sure. Could you be more useful doing other things? Heck yeah.
Paraphrasing:
"Spell Perfection works on SoS spells as well, so the fact that it makes blasting better doesn't matter."
"Persistent Spell powers up SoS effects and does little for blasters, so blasters are weak."
If a SoS caster and a blaster caster are taking enemies out at the same rate, how is the blaster weaker exactly?
I think you will find that in most real games, you rarely have a true 50% chance of success.
It's not JUST at 50% though. You'll always have a chance of success between 5% and 95%, and comparing classed NPC's is kind of worthless since chance of success depends on the amount of optimization involved.
Heighten always gives 10% percent higher chance of success, unless it would still require a nat 20 to save or a nat 1 to not save (in which case persistance is superior). So we can assume Heighten gives 10% even in the 5% success range. Persistance gives, at varying chances of success:
5% - persistance increases by 4.75%
10% - persistance increases by 9%
15% - persistance increases by 12.75%
20% - persistance increases by 16%
30% - persistance increases by 21%
40% - persistance increases by 24%
50% - persistance increases by 25%
60% - persistance increases by 24%
70% - persistance increases by 21%
80% - persistance increases by 16%
85% - persistance increases by 12.75%
90% - persistance increases by 9% - heighten increases by 5%
95% - persistance increases by 4.75 - heighten doesn't increase.
So yeah, if your success rate normally is 10% or lower you're right. Post your math or point out errors I made if there are any; I'll be the first to admit math isn't my strongest skill.
lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
How so?
If you've got 50% chance of success, persistance forces them to succeed at both; 0.5*0.5=0.25. 75% chance of success. Heightening increases chance of success by 10%, to 60%.
If you've got 70% chance of success, persistance increases it to 91% while heighten only increases it to 80%.For starters, I didn't pick some arbitrary number like 50%.
I compared the DCs to saving throws of dozens of CR-appropriate monsters in the Bestiary, to the Good Save guidelines in the Monster Creation chapter of the Bestiary (which all monsters follow VERY closely), and against classed NPCs from the Game Mastery Guide.
Why use arbitrary numbers when you can use the ones that exist in the game?
I think you will find that in most real games, you rarely have a true 50% chance of success.
Behold the power of the mathematics of physicists! (see my earlier post)
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Paraphrasing:
"Spell Perfection works on SoS spells as well, so the fact that it makes blasting better doesn't matter.""Persistent Spell powers up SoS effects and does little for blasters, so blasters are weak."
Binary caster
BlasterWhen you apply Spell Perfection/Persistent Spell to the mix you did nothing to change the order of how I listed the two caster types.
Also I think the issue is to bring blasters on par with other casting types, not raising all casters, thus raising blasters as secondary consideration. It does little to help with problems already in the game to just up power all casters via feat or other nonsense.
Binary casters have enough; don't give them more so that Blasters can get their scraps from the table as an afterthought.
For the sake of this discussion Persistent could have easily been reworded to require a damage criteria - thus being blaster only.
Post your math or point out errors I made if there are any; I'll be the first to admit math isn't my strongest skill.
Take my character, Yiankun Lee, for example. She is built around using the game's best SoS spell, Flesh to Stone.
Though she has both Heighten Spell AND Persistent Spell, I've found that in almost every instance, Heighten Spell is strictly better. So much so, in fact, that I've considered swapping out Persistent Spell for something else entirely. EDIT: I overlooked her Bloodline Arcana, which actually makes the reverse true.
Perhaps my math is off (certainly not my strong suit either). Feel free to check her numbers against some common monster/NPC saves for yourself. Say, a bouncing heightened (+2) flesh to stone VS a bouncing persistent flesh to stone. EDIT: Her Bloodline Arcana bonus may skew the numbers in Persistent Spell's favor. Please remember that, that is the bloodline arcana, not Persistent Spell.
Just to expedite things, the DC of her Flesh to Stone spell is 35. I've broken down for you below:
10 base
12 Charisma modifier
07 spell level (heightened)
04 greater spell focus: transmutation
02 school power: transmutation
35 TOTAL DC (which has to be rolled twice with Persistent Spell)
The DC can go up to as much as 37 if she is high off of Elven Absynth.
SoL casters are arguably better than they should be. Especially in comparison to non-casters.
Blaster mages are generally considered inferior to SoL god casters.
Addition of options that improve the power level of all casters benefit the caster type with greater base power. This also increases the power imbalance vs non-casters.
Additional options that seek to balance blasters and SoL casters should focus on options that only help blast magic not SoL magic. Otherwise you really aren't patching anything and arguably making the base problem worse.
Persistent spell is a bad feat because forced rerolls mean 2 chances of failing a save. This lowers the success rate by a significant margin. Because blast spells typically have a half-strength effect even on a save the net benefit for blast vs SoL is also reduced.
I think that increasing the base damage dice presented early helps some but static damage bonuses are the optimal method for creating predictable damage distributions that scale with CR.
Post your math or point out errors I made if there are any; I'll be the first to admit math isn't my strongest skill.Take my character, Yiankun Lee, for example. She is built around using the game's best SoS spell, Flesh to Stone.
Though she has both Heighten Spell AND Persistent Spell, I've found that in almost every instance, Heighten Spell is strictly better. So much so, in fact, that I've considered swapping out Persistent Spell for something else entirely.EDIT: I overlooked her Bloodline Arcana, which actually makes the reverse true.Perhaps my math is off (certainly not my strong suit either). Feel free to check her numbers against some common monster/NPC saves for yourself. Say, a bouncing heightened (+2) flesh to stone VS a bouncing persistent flesh to stone.
Just to expedite things, the DC of her Flesh to Stone spell is 35. I've broken down for you below:
10 base
12 Charisma modifier
07 spell level (heightened)
04 greater spell focus: transmutation
02 school power: transmutation
35 TOTAL DC (which has to be rolled twice with Persistent Spell)The DC can go up to as much as 37 if she is high off of Elven Absynth.
Except you've completely ignored the tables of math that me and one other has put out showing that unless they have like a 80% chance to make the save, persistent is better.
Post your math or point out errors I made if there are any; I'll be the first to admit math isn't my strongest skill.Take my character, Yiankun Lee, for example. She is built around using the game's best SoS spell, Flesh to Stone.
//
Just to expedite things, the DC of her Flesh to Stone spell is 35.
I don't know what kind of CR's you usually go up against; an optimized party should probably count as level +1 or +2 when determining encounters IMO. For examples, I'll use high and low saves of a CR 14 monster (that might be encountered in groups) and a CR 17 monster.
CR 14:
High save +17 = needs to roll an 18 = 15% chance of success. Heighten increases chance of success by 10% to 95%, persistance increases by 12.8% to 97.8%.
Low save +12 = needs to roll an 20 = 5% chance of success. Heighten increases chance of success by 0% to 95%, persistance increases by 4.75% to 99.75%.
CR 17:
High save +20 = needs to roll a 15 = 25% chance of success. Heighten increases chance of success by 10% to 85%, persistance increases by 18.75% to 93.75%.
Low save +15 = needs to roll an 20 = 5% chance of success. Heighten increases chance of success by 0% to 95%, persistance increases by 4.75% to 99.75%.
That's lingering spell, not persistent. Persistent requires them to make two saves in order to pass.What's wrong with Persistent spell exactly? If I throw down a persistent fireball, it does nothing but create a crappy one round barrier that doesn't even do extra damage unless somebody pushes them back in after they exit.IMHO persistent spell and spell perfection were bad feats to include in Pathfinder because they simply up the ante too much compared to the base line. Yes they can help blasters but the real beneficiary are SoL casters.
lol. My mistake.
I did the math. Persistent spell is in every way inferior to simply heightening a spell two levels.
We did the math for you. And we got the opposite conclussion by a LONG shot.
I think another piece of the equation is casters have limited resources.
Sure at level 10, I can fly and take out a group of ground bound foes with blasting spells, but how many times per day can I pull that off?
A fighter can deal X damage per round, every round until collapses from exhaustion or gets taken out of the fight. Most martial classes can put out decent damage without expending any resources.
Casters get unlimited 0-level spells, so if they don't want to expend any resources they do a whopping 1d3 damage. Most casters can do more damage than that with a crossbow.
If the caster wants to do any significant amount of damage, they have to burn precious spells. If you only have 1 encounter a day, blasters can be awesome. If you have 4-6 encounters, most blasters will be out of spells by encounter 3.
With a God caster, I can wreck the enemy's offense with a 1 or 2 SoS or battlefield control spells. 4 encounters later I have used only 4 to 8 spells, and I still have a lot of spells left.
Blasting is a great use for your lower level slots. A level one wizard who memorizes magic missle over color spray or sleep is making a big mistake. A level 10 wizard who memorizes color spray or sleep over magic missle is also making a mistake.
Without reading this whole thread, here's my 2cp:
Blasting isn't bad...it's just worse than almost any other option.
1)You only have so many spell slots, and only one per round that you can use, so you want to have the maximum amount of impact.
2)Monsters fight the same with 100hp as they do with 1hp, so doing damage doesn't debilitate them whatsoever.
3)As you level blasts get worse and worse against level appropriate monsters because damage does not scale as quickly as enemy HP.
4)Most blasts are AoE meaning you are likely to get some flak for friendly fire.
5)Energy damage and the amount of checks involved to actually do a MINIMAL amount of damage. First check vs. sr, then he saves for half, then applies any energy resistance. Even a maximized fireball (6th level spell) does 60 points of fire damage. After these checks, assuming they succeed, a level 2 spell cuts it in half (energy resistance).
So because of these points, blasts are relegated to:
1)Scrolls. If you absolutely positively just have to do SOME damage to kill a thing before it goes again, then a magic missile from a scroll or wand might do wonders.
2)mopping up mooks. if you're being swarmed by hundreds of APL -5 or worse critters a couple fireballs can save you a lot of trouble. So make sure to bring a scroll.
Blaster mages are generally considered inferior to SoL god casters.
This statement doesn't really mean much of anything. A SoL God caster "might" be able to take out a blaster caster in a duel, but what does that matter in a team-based game such as D&D? If they can both stop the enemy and beat encounters with equal skill, who do any other balance issues really matter?
Same is true for non-casters VS blaster casters. A well built fighter can do 150-250 damage each round. A well built blaster can do same to multiple targets, but is somewhat mitigated by defenses (which keeps him balanced I think, as he can hit far more targets at once than the fighter can).
We did the math for you. And we got the opposite conclussion by a LONG shot.
I'll take your word for it then. You guys are likely much better mathematicians than I. Wouldn't surprise me at all if I screwed up somewhere.
In any case, I still don't like it when people pick an arbitrary number, do a bunch of calculations, and then tell people how it is. More often then not, it ends up not being how it is in actual games.
In any case, I still don't like it when people pick an arbitrary number, do a bunch of calculations, and then tell people how it is. More often then not, it ends up not being how it is in actual games.
I completely agree with this, but when the only thing discussed is chance is an isolated scenario where outside input doesn't matter, it's not an issue. If discussing which is best - reach spell two steps (touch to medium) or persistance, you're right, since these have different strengths and weaknesses that are hard to discuss in a vacuum. When simply discussing which gives the most boon - a +2 bonus or a reroll - it's much easier since that is regardless of most other circumstances. Yes, there might be some corner cases (such as improved iron will working better against heighten than persistance) but these are rare exceptions.
I'm going to move the discussion back to addressing the original post. I think persistent spell vs. heighten spell is totally worth it's own thread, and definitely one that I'll read.
Here are the four problems I see with blaster mages (in increasing order of importance):
- Not enough raw damage- The above mentioned problems with scaling, saves, SR, etc. are all significant. However, they're all things that can be mitigated by the (also mentioned) feats, rods, bloodline, etc. So, while it's entirely possible to make a well-built blaster, it's more common to see poorly built blasters. Ravingdork has great examples of well-built blasters, but Ravingdork is an expert player with extensive rules knowledge.
I'm going to tentatively label the "not enough raw damage" problem as solved.
- Opportunity cost - Every time you spend an action doing one thing, you spend that action not doing some other thing. In the case of a fighter, every time you hit your enemy with your primary weapon, you've given up the chance to spend your action . . . hitting them with your backup weapon? Using a combat maneuver? A typical melee or ranged fighting character is built to deal damage using one particular technique, so the choice to use that technique vs. doing something else is usually quite easy. All the other options you're not choosing are either less effective, or fairly obvious.
A full caster works with completely different set of options! Every time you cast fireball, you could have cast haste, dispel magic, or summon monster instead, using the exact same amount of resources. (And that's only counting level 3 spells.)Add to this the fact that, while 50-80% of a typical party can hit things, only 20-50% can take any of those other actions. So, the thing Master Blaster is choosing not to do, it's just not going to get done.
Now, you might just want to make party member #5 a blaster, and leave all the non-blasty casting to someone else, so I'm going to label this problem ignorable in some cases. (But are you really sure the fight wouldn't have been way easier if you'd just cast improved invisibility on the rogue?)
- I can do this all day long! - Hitters (melee, archers, etc.) can swing at an enemy all day every day without expending any resource other than their action. Casters, on the other hand, are limited by spells per day. While there are ways to raise this limit, it never goes away. You mileage will vary based on the number of fights you have in a typical adventuring day, but if you're averaging the standard 3+ the caster is going to have only 1-2 highest level spells per encounter.
This isn't a problem if you're only having 2 fights/day, and I've seen plenty of groups play that way, so I'm going to label this problem ignorable in some cases.
- Impressive, but I totally had that under control, bro. - It's been stated above that blasters are more efficient at dealing damage to groups of enemies than to individuals, and I agree. Also, individual enemies are going to be tougher than each enemy in a group encounter. (At level 5 you might fight 5 bugbears or 1 ettin, not 5 bugbears or 5 ettins.) So, what we're really saying blasters are good at is taking out large numbers of lower level enemies.
We don't need them to do that! Take my example of two CR6 encounters: 1 ettin or 5 bugbears. My 5th level wizard could kill them all with a fireball. On the other hand, our fighter one-shots them on anything but a roll of 1, our cleric and rogue hit reliably and take one out in 1-2 hits, and even my wizard can take one man-to-man with his longsword. The math on this changes with levels, but the principle remains the same.
I completely agree with this, but when the only thing discussed is chance is an isolated scenario where outside input doesn't matter, it's not an issue. If discussing which is best - reach spell two steps (touch to medium) or persistance, you're right, since these have different strengths and weaknesses that are hard to discuss in a vacuum. When simply discussing which gives the most boon - a +2 bonus or a reroll - it's much easier since that is regardless of most other circumstances. Yes, there might be some corner cases (such as improved iron will working better against heighten than persistance) but these are rare exceptions.
In any case, I still don't like it when people pick an arbitrary number, do a bunch of calculations, and then tell people how it is. More often then not, it ends up not being how it is in actual games.
Well said.
We did the math for you. And we got the opposite conclussion by a LONG shot.I'll take your word for it then. You guys are likely much better mathematicians than I. Wouldn't surprise me at all if I screwed up somewhere.
Someone else and i Did this when you asked a while ago. (do i have no life or what?)
In any case, I still don't like it when people pick an arbitrary number, do a bunch of calculations, and then tell people how it is. More often then not, it ends up not being how it is in actual games.
That happens in a lot of cases, but i don't see how that could be happening here. Heighten spell (for the purposes of adding DC) doesn't function in game any differently than persistent spell. The spell is cast, and then there is a mathematical chance that the spell will or will not take effect. Blasting depends a lot on the make up of your group and your groups enemies, sneak attack depends on how the dm handles stealth, lighting, terrain, party make up, willingness/ability to flank etc.
Theorycraft DOES have its limits, but i don't think that this is one of them.
In any case, I still don't like it when people pick an arbitrary number, do a bunch of calculations, and then tell people how it is.
Except he proved Persistent is better for ALL possible DCs (unless the enemy only fails on a non-natural 1 or 2, basically).
Your "actual game" DCs are necessarily a subset of all possible DCs.
ANother problem is that the SOD/SOS caster can kill something in one round. A blaster mage cannot. An orc with an axe and 1 hp hits just as hard as an orc with an axe axe and 12 hp. Color spray will probably stop them from attacking, magic missile will not.
We don't need them to do that! Take my example of two CR6 encounters: 1 ettin or 5 bugbears. My 5th level wizard could kill them all with a fireball. On the other hand, our fighter one-shots them on anything but a roll of 1, our cleric and rogue hit reliably and take one out in 1-2 hits, and even my wizard can take one man-to-man with his longsword. The math on this changes with levels, but the principle remains the same.
Not if they're 200 feet away and armed with ballistas or heavy crossbows. Yeah, your fighter types could probably take them down with ranged attacks, but probably slower than the blaster wizard (unless your fighter types are focused on ranged combat) That said, I find bugbears kind of underpowered for their CR compared to NPC classed goblinoids or orcs of other types. Instead of a bugbear you could have an orc fighter 3 or something else that would kick much more butt than a bugbear.
Actually, now that I look at it, bugbears are REALLY sub-par for their CR. Some vital statistics:
Bugbear Average for CR
AC 17 14 <---- okay, a fair bit above.
HP 16 20 <- below
Attack 5 4 <- slightly above
Damage 7 10 <- BIG TIME below!
Save 4/1 5/1 <- below
It's really lacking in the offensive department. Really, big time lacking.
ANother problem is that the SOD/SOS caster can kill something in one round. A blaster mage cannot. An orc with an axe and 1 hp hits just as hard as an orc with an axe axe and 12 hp. Color spray will probably stop them from attacking, magic missile will not.
Yes. Blasting is dependent on a lot of weak enemies and isn't useful at all before level 5, basically. At 5th level, if you're up against say 12 orcs at medium to long range (as an APL +1 encounter), fireball is the best choice, probably.
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... Actually, now that I look at it, bugbears are REALLY sub-par for their CR...
At CR 2 a +10 Stealth bonus is kinda nice...
Yes. Blasting is dependent on a lot of weak enemies and isn't useful at all before level 5, basically. At 5th level, if you're up against say 12 orcs at medium to long range (as an APL +1 encounter), fireball is the best choice, probably.
Hmmm...
Level 1 pyromaniac gnome draconic (red, brass, or gold) bloodline sorcerer with Gifted Adept trait (Burning Hands)... 3d4+3 damage to a 15ft cone (plus setting stuff alight), 4x per day..? Seems pretty helpful to have around... but maybe that's just me... :)
Actually, now that I look at it, bugbears are REALLY sub-par for their CR. Some vital statistics:
Bugbear Average for CR
AC 17 14 <---- okay, a fair bit above.
HP 16 20 <- below
Attack 5 4 <- slightly above
Damage 7 10 <- BIG TIME below!
Save 4/1 5/1 <- belowIt's really lacking in the offensive department. Really, big time lacking.
Bugbear definitely needs a redesign. As it stands they aren't that much better than the CR 1 gnoll and are significantly inferior to a CR 3 Ogre.
I wonder if a shift to large size and the consequential increase in strength and con would resolve the issues.
Further I like the symmetry of goblins = small, hobgoblins = medium, and bugbear = large.
/end digression
... Actually, now that I look at it, bugbears are REALLY sub-par for their CR...At CR 2 a +10 Stealth bonus is kinda nice...
Yes. Blasting is dependent on a lot of weak enemies and isn't useful at all before level 5, basically. At 5th level, if you're up against say 12 orcs at medium to long range (as an APL +1 encounter), fireball is the best choice, probably.Hmmm...
Level 1 pyromaniac gnome draconic (red, brass, or gold) bloodline sorcerer with Gifted Adept trait (Burning Hands)... 3d4+3 damage to a 15ft cone (plus setting stuff alight), 4x per day..? Seems pretty helpful to have around... but maybe that's just me... :)
Yeah, +10 stealth is really nice, but with the low damage output they're not well-suited for ambushes anyway. Now, a 1st level bugbear ranger or rogue is probably right for a CR 3 encounter, it's just that without anything else they seem lacking.
And yes, that's pretty useful and can kill some stuff - but it's still only 10.5 damage with a reflex save for half, so yeah, if you're up against a bunch of enemies in a small area it works - but that's exactly the time you can have color spray work nearly as well without any investment at all. And I REALLY wouldn't waste a trait on something that isn't viable at all after, say, level 3.
/end digression
I just want to point out that comparing a AD&D Fireball to a 3.5/Pathfinder fireball isn't very relevant. First of all, it was tough to keep a Magic-user alive to even get 3rd level spells. (Magic-users might have also had slower progression?) If you cast the spell in a room with a low ceiling, you could damage your party. As a MU, you had far fewer spells then a modern Wizard - It was you ONLY 3rd level spell at 5th level. No school bonus, no Intelligence bonus, no nuthin. Scribe a scroll or make some magic items? Not until 11th level! Don't even get me started on how tough it is to get to 11th level with d4 hp, (15 Con gets you +1, 16 or better, +2). And there was spell resistance back then, and no feats, [smaller]and, and, and...[/smaller]
I would agree that in many cases SoL is the best option. It is the nature of the genre that many fights will be against a single opponent, and few options are as effective as just turning that one thing to stone, blinding it, or whatever. However, this game involves two things that make SoL a fairly lame option in my book - Drama and Teamwork. The drama is fairly straight forward. You generally don't read a trilogy of books to reach the final battle that decides the fate of the world... and that battle ends in 6 seconds, by the actions of 1 character. Teamwork is the other thing that makes blasting appealing to me. By working with the rogue, fighter, and other characters, you all chip away at the big monster, and everyone contributes to a sense of victory when it is defeated.
Anyway, it is nice to have this discussion without some Jarjar jumping in and saying how you need to end a combat in the surprise round or you're doing it wrong.
EDIT: Humanoids - Is their CR appropriate? Thread coming up...
Please save the discussion for the other thread.
ANother problem is that the SOD/SOS caster can kill something in one round. A blaster mage cannot. An orc with an axe and 1 hp hits just as hard as an orc with an axe axe and 12 hp. Color spray will probably stop them from attacking, magic missile will not.
You assume that
1) the orc reduced to 1 HP is anyway willing to fight
2) more importantly, none continues the focus on the already damaged orc
3) the orc is at a distance allowing him to attack the caster
I just want to point out that comparing a AD&D Fireball to a 3.5/Pathfinder fireball isn't very relevant. First of all, it was tough to keep a Magic-user alive to even get 3rd level spells. (Magic-users might have also had slower progression?) If you cast the spell in a room with a low ceiling, you could damage your party. As a MU, you had far fewer spells then a modern Wizard - It was you ONLY 3rd level spell at 5th level. No school bonus, no Intelligence bonus, no nuthin. Scribe a scroll or make some magic items? Not until 11th level! Don't even get me started on how tough it is to get to 11th level with d4 hp, (15 Con gets you +1, 16 or better, +2). And there was spell resistance back then, and no feats, and, and, and...
I would agree that in many cases SoL is the best option. It is the nature of the genre that many fights will be against a single opponent, and few options are as effective as just turning that one thing to stone, blinding it, or whatever. However, this game involves two things that make SoL a fairly lame option in my book - Drama and Teamwork. The drama is fairly straight forward. You generally don't read a trilogy of books to reach the final battle that decides the fate of the world... and that battle ends in 6 seconds, by the actions of 1 character. Teamwork is the other thing that makes blasting appealing to me. By working with the rogue, fighter, and other characters, you all chip away at the big monster, and everyone contributes to a sense of victory when it is defeated.
Anyway, it is nice to have this discussion without some Jarjar jumping in and saying how you need to end a combat in the surprise round or you're doing it wrong.
My only point of contention would be that I find casting improved invisibility on the rogue, or haste on the party to be more fufilling and teamwork oriented.
At level 6, I can with a single spell.
1. Do 6d6 damage
2. I can give 3 martial types +1 to hit and an extra attack per round.
3. I can reduce multiple opponents to only being able to take partial actions.
I personally think that buffing my teammates or reducing the damage they take is more team friendly, than just tossing out damage.
We don't need them to do that! Take my example of two CR6 encounters: 1 ettin or 5 bugbears. My 5th level wizard could kill them all with a fireball. On the other hand, our fighter one-shots them on anything but a roll of 1, our cleric and rogue hit reliably and take one out in 1-2 hits, and even my wizard can take one man-to-man with his longsword. The math on this changes with levels, but the principle remains the same.Not if they're 200 feet away and armed with ballistas or heavy crossbows. Yeah, your fighter types could probably take them down with ranged attacks, but probably slower than the blaster wizard (unless your fighter types are focused on ranged combat) That said, I find bugbears kind of underpowered for their CR compared to NPC classed goblinoids or orcs of other types. Instead of a bugbear you could have an orc fighter 3 or something else that would kick much more butt than a bugbear.
Actually, now that I look at it, bugbears are REALLY sub-par for their CR. . .
You're right about bugbear being a fairly weak CR 3 (Ettin aren't really tough as CR 6 goes either) but I didn't use any actual stats from either the bugbear or the ettin. I just picked two classic D&D monsters with easy names. Feel free to replace any same-CR single enemy with 6 of something else, and the 6 is usually handleable just fine without using up limited resources. My argument is that, by the time a blaster can take out a whole group of enemies with a spell or two, those enemies are easily dealt with using other means.
In your scenario (200 foot range, ballistas or heavy crossbows) a fireball is a very good tactical choice, and a flexible all-around caster with 20% of his spells devoted to damage, will probably have one or two handy. In play, however, I find "They're all too far away!" to be vastly less common than, "Halp! They in ma base killin ma doodz!"
Maybe you are mixing things up a bit...
Dedicated Blaster-builds can add valuable firepower to the group. HOWEVER, the wizard is definately not a class to build a blaster with. The wizard is more an archetypical problem solver, whose spells serve to fill any gaps that may be present in the groups capabilities of solving problems.
On the other hand, the (3.5) Warlock, the the pure and perfect blaster. Endless blasting resources, decent damage and piercing of spell-resistance.
Sorcerer and Psion is probably something in between.
3.5 Warlock and Dragonfire Adept are a blast (pun intended) to play, but at high level you must pay more attention to do your job and damage goes down anyway. Barring Epic and one feat, you have 1 Blast/Round. It's hard.
I found Sorcerers and Psion far better blasters (my experience).
Anyway, it is nice to have this discussion without some Jarjar jumping in and saying how you need to end a combat in the surprise round or you're doing it wrong.
HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!
BTW, YOU"RE DOING IT WRONG, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT - UHHHHHHHHHH...... ANY CHARACTER WHO PREPARES FIREBALL DESERVES WHATEVER THEY GET.
SOD/SOLs = ENCOUNTER OVER BEFORE THE 1ST ROUND EVEN STARTS !!!!!1!!!!1!!!!!!
BYEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In your scenario (200 foot range, ballistas or heavy crossbows) a fireball is a very good tactical choice, and a flexible all-around caster with 20% of his spells devoted to damage, will probably have one or two handy. In play, however, I find "They're all too far away!" to be vastly less common than, "Halp! They in ma base killin ma doodz!"
I have kind of the same experience, though I often run high-distance encounters too, especially when it comes to groups of weaker enemies. It makes a lot of sense to me - if you're a goblin and ordered to attack a group of heroes mostly known to you through all the friends of the goblin they've killed, you're not going to run into their midst; ambushes and long-distance attacks seems more logical. And are often far more deadly. I'd say it's probably 40/30/30 of close, medium and long distance in fights in games I run.
But it varies greatly with playing style. I mostly play at the lower levels, and use more humanoid opponents than most people I think - we play pretty low-fantasy overall. Also, we tend to use high numbers of opponents more than the average group I think, and more encounters per day. We often have 5 or 6 encounters between resting time, at APL -1 to APL +1; we prefer more easier battles rather than one really dangerous one. It makes the game less swingy, gives a boost to fighter-types and blasters, and forces casters to rely on lower-level spells a lot of the time.
So yeah, the usefulness of blasting varies greatly with playing style. One of their main benefits is high range, so in a game with lots of confined spaces, blasting will have limited use.
Post your math or point out errors I made if there are any; I'll be the first to admit math isn't my strongest skill.Take my character, Yiankun Lee, for example. She is built around using the game's best SoS spell, Flesh to Stone.
Though she has both Heighten Spell AND Persistent Spell, I've found that in almost every instance, Heighten Spell is strictly better. So much so, in fact, that I've considered swapping out Persistent Spell for something else entirely.EDIT: I overlooked her Bloodline Arcana, which actually makes the reverse true.Perhaps my math is off (certainly not my strong suit either). Feel free to check her numbers against some common monster/NPC saves for yourself. Say, a bouncing heightened (+2) flesh to stone VS a bouncing persistent flesh to stone. EDIT: Her Bloodline Arcana bonus may skew the numbers in Persistent Spell's favor. Please remember that, that is the bloodline arcana, not Persistent Spell.
Just to expedite things, the DC of her Flesh to Stone spell is 35. I've broken down for you below:
10 base
12 Charisma modifier
07 spell level (heightened)
04 greater spell focus: transmutation
02 school power: transmutation
35 TOTAL DC (which has to be rolled twice with Persistent Spell)The DC can go up to as much as 37 if she is high off of Elven Absynth.
Her bloodline arcana bonus has no effect on a Heightened spell, so no worries about your DC being off.
Assuming you are plying one of the MM feats free, it's going to be a 35 DC with Persistent or a 35 DC with Heighten. Note that even if it was a 34, 5% greater chance with Heighten vs sv twice on Persistent says Persistent gets the nod.
How in the world did she get a +5 Cha book at level 15? heh.
===Aelryinth
I found Sorcerers and Psion farbetter blasters (my experience)Depends also surely on campaign style and group strategy (in particular: encounters per day).
I was playing a warlock in "City of the Spider Queen" (3.5 rules), where he really made the backbone of the groups longterm-firepower (and through the unlimited use of SR-ignoring area nukes, we really grinded through the many drow-encounters and other Underdark-encounters about thrice the speed that was "thought of" in the module ;-)
Thanks to an amulet from MIC, and Meta-SLA feats, the nova damage was actually even comparable to our Sorcerer's
Interesting.. which amulet? I could have missed it. I could adapt it for my other campaign (is 3.5 and there is a Dragonfire Adept).
He might be thinking of the Chasuble of Fell Power, which is actually a clothing item. +2d6 to his Eldritch blasts.
Combine with the AoE Blast effect and the Acid no SR blast effect, and he's got a fairly reliable and reusable blaster cannon. Not a lot of damage, but usable repeatedly.
==+Aelryinth
He might be thinking of the Chasuble of Fell Power, which is actually a clothing item. +2d6 to his Eldritch blasts.
Combine with the AoE Blast effect and the Acid no SR blast effect, and he's got a fairly reliable and reusable blaster cannon. Not a lot of damage, but usable repeatedly.
==+Aelryinth
Thank you I will take a look :)