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I'm contemplating allowing damage dealing Conjuration spells into my home game. But I'm unsure if the are balanced/suited for pathfinder.
Conjuration spells that deal damage's main selling point is that spell resistance don't work on them. Allowing them to harm normally spell immune targets like Golems.
Their drawback is that they are usually 1 spell level higher, are single target only, require a ranged touch attack to hit or have slower/lower damage progression.
Examples:
Arc of Lightning
Spell level : Druid: 4, Sorcerer/Wizard: 5
School : Conjuration
Descriptor(s) : Electricity
Components : Verbal and Somatic
Range : Short
Target/Area : Special
Duration : Instantaneous
Save : Reflex 1/2
Spell resistance : No
Description
This bolt targets two creatures and deals 1d6 points of electricity damage per caster level (maximum 15d6) to both creatures and to anything in the line between them.
Or like the orb series:
Orb of Fire, Lesser
Spell Information
Spell level : Innate level: ?, Sorcerer/Wizard: 1
School : Conjuration
Descriptor(s) : Fire
Components : Verbal and Somatic
Range : Close
Target/Area : Single
Duration : Instantaneous
Save : None
Spell resistance : No
Description
An orb of fire about 2 inches across shoots from your palm at its target dealing 1d8 points of fire damage. You must succeed on ranged touch attack to hit your target. For every two caster levels beyond 1st, your orb deals an additional 1d8 points of damage: 2d8 at 3rd level, 3d8 at 5th level, 4d8 at 7th level, and the maximum of 5d8 at 9th level or higher.
And its bigger brother:
Orb of Fire
Spell Information
Spell level : Innate level: 4, Sorcerer/Wizard: 4
School : Conjuration
Descriptor(s) : fire
Components : Verbal and Somatic
Range : close
Target/Area : single
Duration : Instantaneous
Save : Fortitude partial
Spell resistance : no
Description
An orb of fire about 3 inches across shoots from your palm at its target dealing 1D6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 15D6). You must succeed on ranged touch attack to hit your target. A creature struck by the orb take damage and becomes dazed for 1 round. A successful fortitude save negates the dazed effect, but does not reduce damage.
And finally Snowball, the pathfinder edition conjuration damage spell:
Snowball
Source People of the North pg. 26
School conjuration (creation) [cold, water]; Level arcanist 1, druid 1, hunter 1, magus 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, summoner 1, summoner (unchained) 1, witch 1
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range: close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: one ball of ice and snow
Duration: instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial (see text); Spell Resistance: no
Description
You conjure a ball of packed ice and snow that you can throw at a single target as a ranged touch attack. On a successful hit, the snowball deals 1d6 points of cold damage per caster level (maximum 5d6), and the target must make a successful Fortitude saving throw or be staggered for 1 round.
Damage dealing conjuration spells have been adapted to pathfinder in the paizo sources before like Snowball from People of the North, but there were complaints of snowball being OP and its other elemental counterparts have yet to be seen.
So would the above spells be considered balanced for a lv 7 party using Pathfinder rules?
Or does the lack of SR makes them too imba?
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They are fine. Some of the higher level conjuration damage spells tend to have have spell resistance, for instance acidic spray, but ultimately conjuration has so much going on that deal damage is usually going to be inefficient. I think these spells are fine.
But won't it make evocation spells kinda pointless at higher levels?
Asking this specifically as I have an evocation school wizard in my game and I realize that he might end up pulling all these feats into beating SR and have conjuration damage spells just trivialize his efforts.
It's pretty simple;
Will adding this stuff piss off your player?
If so, don't do it.
Will he like it? Or at least not care?
Then go ahead.
If you don't know? Go ask him.
I would be reluctant to unless you have a very specific reason too include them that can't be done otherwise.
From a balance point of view, I considered them to me on the strong side of spells for their level, but that's not the real concern. The real concern to me would be players who will then go back and start asking about including other 3.0/3.5 spells, or classes, or feats...
But won't it make evocation spells kinda pointless at higher levels?
Asking this specifically as I have an evocation school wizard in my game and I realize that he might end up pulling all these feats into beating SR and have conjuration damage spells just trivialize his efforts.
Yes. this will happen.
Had several campaigns in 3.5 to the 17-18 range. It started at level 8ish that Evocation became the "why bother"-school. All they have, someone else has, often even better. Evocation was THE banned school for Wizards.
Independend of stealing Evocation's schtick, the No-SR damage-dealer also trivialised many combats in which the enemys were relying on their SR to be a true challenge.
It's iffy. If you have an evocation focused mage, it might irk them a bit. If not, barbarian/fighter/paladin/zen archer etc can make 15d6 damage once a round look silly later on, so it's more an issue of party composition. Just make sure magi aren't spellstriking snowball with the close range arcana, since it isn't a ray. Not that that is related.