So I was looking through Wizard spells when I came across the spell Cold Ice Strike. It allows you to do 1d6/level (max 15d6) in a 60ft cone. The casing time for the spell is a swift action. So in other words you can cast a quickened Cone of Cold as a 6th level spell instead of a 9th... I'm confused and hoping that I'm missing something, otherwise this is a pretty bad oversight...
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I think this happened because Cold Ice Strike was originally, IIRC, supposed to be just a Qinggong power available to monks. The new Qinggong powers in Ultimate Magic got reformatted and merged with the spell section, making them available to other casters and possibly accounting for the missing components section for a number of them.
It was also errata'd to be a 30 ft line instead of a 60 ft cone.
It was also errata'd to be a 30 ft line instead of a 60 ft cone.
This. Cold Ice Strike has a MUCH smaller area than cone of cold, capable of hitting only 6 medium creatures, at best.
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Yes, because even with the area being far less it is still better than a 2nd level spell being quickened... it just seems rather unbalanced to me; however that is for a different thread... I just wanted to know what I'd missed, thanks everyone for your answers...
It's a bandage spell.
It's a bandage spell.
What?
it just seems rather unbalanced to me
That's because it is horribly unbalanced. I don't understand how can Paizo devs make some rather horrible/overpowered spells, like there's no guidelines at all for creating spells...
It's meant as a bandage for blasting. To help fix it.
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Yes, because even with the area being far less it is still better than a 2nd level spell being quickened... it just seems rather unbalanced to me; however that is for a different thread... I just wanted to know what I'd missed, thanks everyone for your answers...
I will confess to not understanding why people think that just because the spell is a swift action, it should be compared to a 2nd level spell with Quicken Spell applied. Why is it that people only make this comparison with Quicken Spell? Would you be okay with a 3rd level dominate person that had half the range and duration (removing Extend and Enlarge Spell from it)? I fail to see how that comparison is any differnet. Spells at a certain level are often more powerful than lower-level spells metamagiced up.
Basically, cold ice strike is a damage spell at a level where damage spells start to become subpar. It's not a 2nd level spell with quickened tacked on, it's its own thing. In a sense, you get a discount on the "Quickening" because it only works for this one specific effect.
Completely silly argument: Wish is way too powerful compared to a first level spell Heightened 8 levels!
Yeah, as a 60ft cone I could see it being slightly unbalanced and I'm not sure why clerics get it, but after the errata, it falls in line with other 6th level spells. Something's only broken if it's much more powerful than anything else at that level. For 6th level spells? True seeing, planar binding, Heroism, Permanent image, disintegrate, FotD 1. Not broken in the least bit.
Frankly I think it's a rather overrated spell for a wizard/sorcerer. I know it's a swift action and all but averaging 38-52 (on a failed save) damage just isn't worth a 6th level spell slot IMO. With only a 30ft line of effect hitting more than one enemy requires me to get much closer to melee than I want to.
I hate that they "fixed" it by making it a crappy 30 ft line. The components line was missing, i was hoping it'd just have a moderately expensive component to limit its use.
Why?
Because Qingong Monk got it as a high level ki power option that cost THREE ki points to use as an SLA. So instead of making it less good for the wizard, they made it irredeemably expensive for the QM.
*sigh* Houserules are a wonderful thing, but I never get to play characters with my own houserules...