Clarification needed for Searing Light 3rd cleric spell

[Baronjett]

Does a 5th Cleric do 2 dice or 3 dice to non-undead targets?

Not sure if the 3rd die would start at 5th or 6th level.

Thanks!

Mike

[IejirIsk]

generally rule is round down, so... at 6th CL (not player level) it would do 3 dice (assuming 1d/2level)

[Baronjett]

But magic missle doesn't round down, as an example.

[Makhno]

Baronjett wrote:

But magic missle doesn't round down, as an example.

That is because magic missile doesn't say that it does X dice per Y levels. It explicitly tells you how many missiles (not dice, even; missiles) you get at what specific levels.

[Jacob Saltband]

[

[Jacob Saltband]

Magic Missile
For every two caster levels beyond 1st, you gain an additional missile - two at 3rd level, three at 5th, four at 7th, and the maximum of five missiles at 9th level or higher.

Searing Light
A creature struck by this ray of light takes 1d8 points of damage per two caster levels (maximum 5d8).

Reading Searing Light is says "per two caster level".

I could be wrong but the way I read this you get 1d8 every even level.

[Seranov]

As a 3rd level Cleric, you would have 3 caster levels. Since you do not have 4 caster levels (2 sets of two caster levels) you only do 1d8 points of damage on a successful Searing Light hit.

As a 5th level Cleric, you would have 5 caster levels. Since you do not have 6 caster levels (3 sets of two caster levels) you only do 2d6 points of damage on a successful Searing Light hit.

etc.

I.E.: You get an extra 1d8 damage on your Searing Light at levels 4, 6, 8 and 10 (assuming you are still progressing in the one class that gave you the ability to cast the spell in the first place, or a PrC that gives full spellcasting progression).