RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Excoriate
School necromancy; Level sorcerer/wizard 6, magus 6, witch 6
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (an onion peel)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one creature or see text
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Fortitude partial; Spell Resistance yes
This spell disrupts the membranes beneath the skin of a creature, causing its flesh to slough off. If used on a living creature, this spell deals 1d6 points of Constitution damage plus 1 point for every three caster levels (maximum +5) and reduces the creature's natural armor (if any) by the same amount. A successful Fortitude save halves the ability damage and negates the natural armor reduction. Creatures who do not possess a Constitution score but still have flesh suffer only the natural armor reduction. Any creature slain by this spell has its flesh completely removed from its body. Corpses are also valid targets for this spell, in which case the spell completely strips the flesh from the target with no save (often useful for harvesting dragon scales and the like).
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Thoughts? Too powerful to have CON damage on demand? Should the save negate the CON damage and halve the armor reduction instead? Should it be higher level? Is it not powerful enough?
To me, the possibility of a 15th-level caster dishing out 11 CON damage and a -11 AC penalty on a big nasty creature with one spell seems pretty potent, but it is also a 6th-level spell, so maybe that's not so bad. Perhaps I should eliminate the scaling with caster level, though, and just make it 1d8 or 1d10 instead? Makes it more of a feast or famine spell (though you could maximize it with a 9th-level slot or a rod). I'm interested to hear other opinions, particularly since this spell has a nice thematic to it for me.
Thoughts? Too powerful to have CON damage on demand? Should the save negate the CON damage and halve the armor reduction instead? Should it be higher level? Is it not powerful enough?
To me, the possibility of a 15th-level caster dishing out 11 CON damage and a -11 AC penalty on a big nasty creature with one spell seems pretty potent, but it is also a 6th-level spell, so maybe that's not so bad. Perhaps I should eliminate the scaling with caster level, though, and just make it 1d8 or 1d10 instead? Makes it more of a feast or famine spell (though you could maximize it with a 9th-level slot or a rod). I'm interested to hear other opinions, particularly since this spell has a nice thematic to it for me.
I would suggest making it function similar to something like ray of enfeeblement. Ranged touch attack that cannot reduce CON below 1. Otherwise consecutive castings of this spell might just flat out kill things too easily. However, if you make those changes, you may want to reduce the spell level to maybe 4th or 5th level.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I would suggest making it function similar to something like ray of enfeeblement. Ranged touch attack that cannot reduce CON below 1. Otherwise consecutive castings of this spell might just flat out kill things too easily. However, if you make those changes, you may want to reduce the spell level to maybe 4th or 5th level.
I have a couple of intrinsic problems with that solution. First of all, the spell makes a creature's skin fall off. The penalty for ray of enfeeblement is 1 rd/level. Even if I made this last for 1 hr./level, you have the strangeness of a creature's skin "regrowing" over the course of a day without the assistance of magical healing. Secondly, I want this spell to be potentially fatal. A temporary CON penalty might as well just be hit point damage since reducing CON reduces maximum/current HP accordingly.
This does, however, remind me that I forgot to add this clause to the spell description:
"Any spell or effect which alleviates the Constitution damage also returns the same amount of lost natural armor to the creature. Creatures without Constitution scores can benefit from spells or abilities that would otherwise restore ability damage to recover the missing armor accordingly."
I have a couple of intrinsic problems with that solution. First of all, the spell makes a creature's skin fall off. The penalty for ray of enfeeblement is 1 rd/level. Even if I made this last for 1 hr./level, you have the strangeness of a creature's skin "regrowing" over the course of a day without the assistance of magical healing. Secondly, I want this spell to be potentially fatal. A temporary CON penalty might as well just be hit point damage since reducing CON reduces maximum/current HP accordingly.
This does, however, remind me that I forgot to add this clause to the spell description:
"Any spell or effect which alleviates the Constitution damage also returns the same amount of lost natural armor to the creature. Creatures without Constitution scores can benefit from spells or abilities that would otherwise restore ability damage to recover the missing armor accordingly."
In that case you may want to have a successful save either deal no CON damage or deal 1 point of CON damage. Compare the spell with something like finger of death. Finger of death is quite capable of outright killing most enemies at equal level to the caster if they fail their saving throw, but if they pass their save they take a fairly modest amount of damage.
You'll probably kill something faster with successful saves with finger of death if excoriate did 1 point of con on a successful save, but fod a higher level spell and it deals straight out HP damage and not CON damage (con damage is much worse imo).
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I would call it an 8th level spell as written.
I think the CON damage is fine, but the -4 to -11 AC is big and what is "over the top" potentially. I think toning that down a smidge would bring the overall spell back to 6th level.
Thank you for the detailed analysis, Rory.
Bear in mind that the spell can only reduce existing natural armor, which does limit the range of targets somewhat and may affect your interpretation. If something has 0 natural armor, excoriate cannot reduce it to -11, it simply remains 0. So while this spell is a huge boon against dragons and many other large "monstrous" creatures, it is of markedly less value against leveled humanoids, many undead (particularly incorporeal ones), and most aberrations.
Does that argument alter your opinion in any way? If I were to bump it up to 8th level, I would likely make it deal CON drain rather than merely damage.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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You'll probably kill something faster with successful saves with finger of death if excoriate did 1 point of con on a successful save, but fod a higher level spell and it deals straight out HP damage and not CON damage (con damage is much worse imo).
I can agree with that assessment. Perhaps a successful save will negate the CON damage entirely and halve the AC reduction instead of the other way around. Thematically the idea would be that the spell softens the tissues, but nothing actually "falls off" and thus the creature's CON remains intact while the AC is still somewhat mitigated.
I'm reluctant to make this an all-or-nothing spell because, well, quite frankly I hate those and especially since this spell is designed to soften up high-natural-armor beasties like dragons and other massive monsters, having no effect on a successful save would make this not even worth casting (most of those creatures have high Fort saves to begin with).