Both Heal and Harm are 6th-level spells, and Mass Heal is a 9th-level spell... so why not have a Mass Harm spell as a 9th-level spell, that deals up to 250 points of damage to 1 target per level ?
I believe you just answered your own question.
I believe you just answered your own question.
Seconded BUT you have a point. I can't think of a good "in universe" explanation, anybody?
I believe you just answered your own question.
No, I didn't... because if it's okay to heal your team by up to 250 points and deal that same amount to undead creatures, I can't find a reason why the opposite wouldn't be acceptable as an opposite spell.
Note that there's already a somewhat similar spell (Wail of the Banshee) that's more limited.
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I believe you just answered your own question.No, I didn't... because if it's okay to heal your team by up to 250 points and deal that same amount to undead creatures, I can't find a reason why the opposite wouldn't be acceptable as an opposite spell.
Mechanically there is a HUGE difference between healing 250 points to 17-20 targets and dealing 250 DAMAGE to 17-20 (total damage 3250-5000 damage in ONE ROUND) targets, will negates. Yeah, I realize it's INSANELY overpowered against undead. But that is one relatively small group of enemies. Now imagine that reversed, extreme damage vs. all EXCEPT an relatively small group of group. Suddenly clerics prepare no other 9th lv spells.
Storm of Vengeance dealing 1d6 acid (no save), 10d6 lightning to 10 targets (save 1/2), and 5d6 Bludgeoning. Capping at 96, just above a THIRD of what mass harm would deal to about HALF as many targets.Implosion deals 200 damage around to one target per round maxing at 10, fortitude negates. That's less than 1/10th the damage off the bat, and less then half after the full duration, IF you can keep the concentration all 10 rounds.
NOW A WIZARD SPELL! Divine spells, by the rules, deal less damage than Arcane.
Meteor Swarm, 4 touch attacks dealing 2d6 bludgeoning, no save(assume all targeting one)and -4 to all saves against 4 6d6 fire damage, save for half. A Max of 216 to one target, and i can't imagine how many enemies you could catch in a 40' radius. I doubt it would be too many more than what your harm could catch.
Now the highest damage combo I know. One 9th level spell AND five 7th.
Time Stop and 5 delayed fireball. 100d6 fire. Twice the damage (About the same damage on average), with 6 times as many spells.
To answer why there is no mass harm,Balance Reasons.
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It's seen 3rd-party PDF release in the Genius Guide to the Death Mage, but as a Death Mage-only 9th level spell.
Don't forget that at 9th level spells, basically anything you force to roll a Will save will most likely make it unless it rolls a 1.
Also, if you want to dig back into 3.5, there was a Harm, Greater and Harm, Mass spell. They were from Heroes of Horror, and did d12s for damage instead of 10 per caster level. :P
Don't forget that at 9th level spells, basically anything you force to roll a Will save will most likely make it unless it rolls a 1.
Also, if you want to dig back into 3.5, there was a Harm, Greater and Harm, Mass spell. They were from Heroes of Horror, and did d12s for damage instead of 10 per caster level. :P
yeah, but greater harm is worse then harm standard.
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How about this, create the spell then use it on the party and see what the players think about it.
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Last I checked, harm cannot actually kill anyone. So you could mass harm on a ton of goblins and only deal like 5 damage to each of them on a failed save. Or you could carpet bomb a group of high level enemies and deal up to 250 damage. Of course, that's also assuming they failed their save.
Honestly, that sounds like mild sauce to me; but then I grew up with spells that actually killed people. If you failed vs Wail of the Banshee in my day (old fart voice), you died. And getting resurrected was like walking to school, up hill, both ways, in the snow, with a...
Well you get the idea. :P
But you could follow it with a quickened anything....Still very effective.
The biggest reason (alluded to above) is that Mass Heal very very rarely heals 250 hp to all your allies in the area, because very rarely are they all hurt that much (or possibly even have that many hp).
2nd biggest reason: Harm is save 1/2, not save negate.
Last I checked, harm cannot actually kill anyone. So you could mass harm on a ton of goblins and only deal like 5 damage to each of them on a failed save. Or you could carpet bomb a group of high level enemies and deal up to 250 damage. Of course, that's also assuming they failed their save.
Honestly, that sounds like mild sauce to me; but then I grew up with spells that actually killed people. If you failed vs Wail of the Banshee in my day (old fart voice), you died. And getting resurrected was like walking to school, up hill, both ways, in the snow, with a...
Well you get the idea. :P
Mass harm followed up by a quickened flame strike is almost a guaranteed wipe. This would be a valid tactic against the players. The average barbarian would have 136 hit points + Con modifier. Even at a 30 Con that would be 336 hit points. He would have 86 hit points. Even making the save results in half damage. 336-125 is still 211 hit points. Two level 20 clerics (CR 20) could wipe out a party in a single round. 336-250-53 is 33 hit points remaining. That is assuming that the entire party is raging barbarians with 30 Constitution. Most of the high level barbarians I've seen don't worry much about Dexterity and that would make it much harder to succeed on the saves. I'm assuming that they make the save. Failing even one of those saves means death [(336-250-125-53 = -96) or (336-250-53-26 = 7)] Most parties won't be 4 raging barbarians. d10 hit dice at 30 Con is 315 hit points. Certain death if they fail any one save (they can't hang on at 7 hit points). d8 hit dice is 294 hit points at Con 30. That's death even if they make all 4 saves. So to sum up, anything with less than d12 hit points and 30 Con is pretty much screwed.
This is why the spell isn't available. It is way too nasty. I know I would be pissed as a player if we had a total party wipe in a single round of combat.
Last I checked, harm cannot actually kill anyone. So you could mass harm on a ton of goblins and only deal like 5 damage to each of them on a failed save. Or you could carpet bomb a group of high level enemies and deal up to 250 damage. Of course, that's also assuming they failed their save.
Honestly, that sounds like mild sauce to me; but then I grew up with spells that actually killed people. If you failed vs Wail of the Banshee in my day (old fart voice), you died. And getting resurrected was like walking to school, up hill, both ways, in the snow, with a...
Well you get the idea. :P
Mass harm followed up by a quickened flame strike is almost a guaranteed wipe. This would be a valid tactic against the players. The average barbarian would have 136 hit points + Con modifier. Even at a 30 Con that would be 336 hit points. He would have 86 hit points. Even making the save results in half damage. 336-125 is still 211 hit points. Two level 20 clerics (CR 20) could wipe out a party in a single round. 336-250-53 is 33 hit points remaining. That is assuming that the entire party is raging barbarians with 30 Constitution. Most of the high level barbarians I've seen don't worry much about Dexterity and that would make it much harder to succeed on the saves. I'm assuming that they make the save. Failing even one of those saves means death [(336-250-125-53 = -96) or (336-250-53-26 = 7)] Most parties won't be 4 raging barbarians. d10 hit dice at 30 Con is 315 hit points. Certain death if they fail any one save (they can't hang on at 7 hit points). d8 hit dice is 294 hit points at Con 30. That's death even if they make all 4 saves. So to sum up, anything with less than d12 hit points and 30 Con is pretty much screwed.
This is why the spell isn't available. It is way too nasty. I know I would be pissed as a player if we had a total party wipe in a single round of combat.
Like I said. I'm used to save or die effects. Such a spell holds no more fear over me than classic wail of the banshee or similar. It would also be really funny and dangerous to cast such a spell because it requires targets. If any of your foes are guarded with a spell turning (or worse multiple foes) then you are boned. Haha.
Because that damage is op man.
If you are fighting 2 level 20 spellcasters and you are not having difficulties, your GM is probably doing it wrong.
Also, not fundamentally different from, say, an encounter with a dozen hezrou spamming unholy blight.
Yeah. It's really not that scary. Plus, you have to be a 25th level caster to get it up to 250 damage (it's 10/level). Which means it's not really anything except a save or die effect that can't actually kill you but deals about 1/2 full-attack damage on a successful save.
Which again, can be bounced back in your face. :P
Because casters don't need more nice things.
Because casters don't need more nice things.
It's true. They already have the option to deal damage to that many people and end the fight without killing them on a failed save. Who needs damage when you can just force your opponents into submission?
It's still better direct damage than what clerics otherwise have as options.
Is direct damage the best type of spell? No. Does that justify just giving them extra boons? Hell no.
"Well, they can already win a combat with one failed save, so what's it matter if we give them spells to do X? They already have stronger options, so what's the harm in giving them more options?"
It's still better direct damage than what clerics otherwise have as options.
Is direct damage the best type of spell? No. Does that justify just giving them extra boons? Hell no.
"Well, they can already win a combat with one failed save, so what's it matter if we give them spells to do X? They already have stronger options, so what's the harm in giving them more options?"
Given that you cannot make use of all those options at once, yeah.
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Well this has been researched and tried to no end, particularly in Geb where they would be more interested in the "healing" benefits than the destructive aspects to the living....it turns out, however, that this much concentrated negative energy going through one conduit causes a feedback loop and shuts the whole inter planar transmission process. At least using the dynamics of a spell to accomplish this will cause the loop-reportedly some evil gnomes were recruited by Arazni to work on a mechanism that would open a micro gate to the negative plane and cause a similar effect, but the most they ever accomplished creating was a rather vile tempered animated washtub with the tendency to randomly spew forth clouds of poisonous purple smoke and snap at ankles...
Oh look! A spell that deals hundreds of points of negative energy damage!
It's a good thing we don't have a Cleric that prepares lots of Death Wards, or we don't commonly have access to items like a Darkskull with a death ward attached, or a Scarab of Protection...
Unless the party is being jumped by the +17th level Cleric (at which point, they've probably lost anyway as the Cleric has tailored his spells to defeat them), then they probably know who the Cleric is, and, more than likely, what he is capable of.
Though, I most say, a quickened mass harm (via rod) + Quick Channel + Channel for 200 + 20d6 points of negative energy would be an absolutely brutal little combo if they weren't prepared. Hell, quickened harm plus the two channels would be brutal, that's an average of 230 HP gone right there which would wipe most everyone but the front liner.
wail of the banshee is about as close as you get and it is indescriminate
Last I checked, harm cannot actually kill anyone. So you could mass harm on a ton of goblins and only deal like 5 damage to each of them on a failed save. Or you could carpet bomb a group of high level enemies and deal up to 250 damage. Of course, that's also assuming they failed their save.
Honestly, that sounds like mild sauce to me; but then I grew up with spells that actually killed people. If you failed vs Wail of the Banshee in my day (old fart voice), you died. And getting resurrected was like walking to school, up hill, both ways, in the snow, with a...
Well you get the idea. :P
Mass harm followed up by a quickened flame strike is almost a guaranteed wipe. This would be a valid tactic against the players. The average barbarian would have 136 hit points + Con modifier. Even at a 30 Con that would be 336 hit points. He would have 86 hit points. Even making the save results in half damage. 336-125 is still 211 hit points. Two level 20 clerics (CR 20) could wipe out a party in a single round. 336-250-53 is 33 hit points remaining. That is assuming that the entire party is raging barbarians with 30 Constitution. Most of the high level barbarians I've seen don't worry much about Dexterity and that would make it much harder to succeed on the saves. I'm assuming that they make the save. Failing even one of those saves means death [(336-250-125-53 = -96) or (336-250-53-26 = 7)] Most parties won't be 4 raging barbarians. d10 hit dice at 30 Con is 315 hit points. Certain death if they fail any one save (they can't hang on at 7 hit points). d8 hit dice is 294 hit points at Con 30. That's death even if they make all 4 saves. So to sum up, anything with less than d12 hit points and 30 Con is pretty much screwed.
This is why the spell isn't available. It is way too nasty. I know I would be pissed as a player if we had a total party wipe in a single round of combat.
Suffocate, mass. Weird.
Now imagine if an NPC used mass harm on the party, that is a TPK waiting to happen. Always remember, whats good for the goose is good for the gander. If your ok with your party getting hit with mass harm and then flamestrike, then alright go ahead and use it. As for story, maybe the gods are aware and don't want to end life as we know it.
OOOOO! that would be an awesome adventure idea, Stop the mad cleric from creating a mass harm that spans the globe.