I just reached level 9 for my Kineticist (Telekinesis), and got the Maximize option for Metakinesis. I usually don't play characters that need to worry about Metamagic feats, so forgive me if I'm overlooking something fairly obvious, but I ran the numbers, and Empower seems to be by and large the better option for less Burn.
Right now, I'm dealing 5d6+10 on my Telekinetic Blast (+5 Con). With 3 Burn, I'm adding another 6 damage from Elemental Overload and another 1 from my Size bonus to Con, so that makes it 5d6+17. Maximized, this is 47. An AVERAGE Empowered roll, though, is 51.75. Isn't Maximized supposed to be the better option? I understand that the higher my static bonus gets, the more effective Empower becomes, but I just want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong or misinterpreting how the feat works. I suppose Maximize is intended to be used for my Energy Blasts, which have a much smaller static damage bonus?
How does that work?
Usually maximize is better because you don't have a big pool of static damage to enhance with empower when casting most spells.
For example, Fireball doesn't have a static damage modifier (normally, an exception being certain Sorcerer bloodlines). So maximize is better.
But in your case, because your ability works differently and allows for a fairly sizeable static damage modifier empower works better.
As for how a maximized empowered thing works...
You maximize the base dice rolled. 5d6 in your example to give you 30 damage.
Empowered then gives you an extra 2d6 which you do roll, and increases your static damage by 8 (floor(0.5*17). So a maximized empowered blast would do 30 (max of 5d6) + 2d6 + 17 + 8. But when your base damage goes up 6d6 it would become 36 + 3d6 + 17 + 8, because you always round down to a whole number having an odd number of dice doesn't work out as well.
Also, for what it's worth unless I'm missing something if your base damage is 5d6+17 an empowered version of your attack does 7d6+17+8, which averages to 49.5, not 51.75. I'm not sure how you could ever arrive at a value ending in .75 since the average of a d6 is 3.5.
Usually maximize is better because you don't have a big pool of static damage to enhance with empower when casting most spells.
For example, Fireball doesn't have a static damage modifier (normally, an exception being Sorcerer bloodlines). So maximize is better.
But in your case, because your ability works differently and allows for a fairly sizeable static damage modifier empower works better.
As for how a maximized empowered thing works...
You maximize the base dice rolled. 5d6 in your example to give you 30 damage.
Empowered then gives you an extra 2d6 which you do roll, and increases your static damage by 8 (floor(0.5*17).Also, for what it's worth unless I'm missing something if your base damage is 5d6+17 an empowered version of your attack does 7d6+17+8, which averages to 49.5, not 51.75. I'm not sure how you could ever arrive at a value ending in .75 since the average of a d6 is 3.5.
Thanks for the breakdown. To answer your question, I took Empower to mean that I multiply my damage BY 1.5, not the number of dice I roll, mostly because the description says my static damage is also multiplied, so it made sense to me to multiply the full value, instead of the static value, and then the number of dice.
So my calculation was
(5d6+17)*1.5
([5*3.5]+17)*1.5
(17.5+17)*1.5
34.5*1.5
51.75.
Is this not the correct way to use Empower?
Seems kind of strange to calculate it as
([5*1.5]d6+(17*1.5)
7d6+25.5
(7*3.5)+25
24.5+25
49.5
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not because of Pathfinder's round rules and because dice and static numbers are treated separately. I agree that it can seem strange, but after reading through enough threads where the question of how to apply Maximized Empowered Fireballs I learned that this is how it's supposed to work.
Let's look at the wording:
All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by half including bonuses to those dice rolls.
It never mentions damage. All variable numeric effects are increased by half, including [static] bonuses.
Since static values and dice aren't the same kind of thing, you can't just add them together.
So you have to increase 5d6 by 50% and increase your static 17 by 50%, and because you always round down to the nearest whole number that means you get 7d6+25. As you observe, it's actually better to multiply that average damage done by 1.5 because static damage scales better when multiplied, but it's not like you just assume you get average damage in the game. You actually have to roll the dice, but for calculating damage purposes we assume average rolls so we can make comparisons. And we make the multiplication to the number of dice, not to the value rolled for the dice (which would be after we've already rolled for damage).
You maximize the base dice rolled. 5d6 in your example to give you 30 damage.
Empowered then gives you an extra 2d6 which you do roll, and increases your static damage by 8 (floor(0.5*17).
Actually, Empowered increases your damage by 50% of the dice result, not 50% of the individual dice.
So you actually get (5d6)*50%, not 2d6. An average difference of 1.75 damage.
It's not because of Pathfinder's round rules and because dice and static numbers are treated separately. I agree that it can seem strange, but after reading through enough threads where the question of how to apply Maximized Empowered Fireballs I learned that this is how it's supposed to work.
Let's look at the wording:
All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by half including bonuses to those dice rolls.It never mentions damage. All variable numeric effects are increased by half, including [static] bonuses.
Since static values and dice aren't the same kind of thing, you can't just add them together.
So you have to increase 5d6 by 50% and increase your static 17 by 50%, and because you always round down to the nearest whole number that means you get 7d6+25. As you observe, it's actually better to multiply that average damage done by 1.5 because static damage scales better when multiplied, but it's not like you just assume you get average damage in the game. You actually have to roll the dice, but for calculating damage purposes we assume average rolls so we can make comparisons. And we make the multiplication to the number of dice, not to the value rolled for the dice (which would be after we've already rolled for damage).
I see, I see. So a [variable, numeric effect] in the context of Telekinetic Blast is a d6. Empower Spell multiplies all [variable, numeric effects] by 1.5, increasing the number of d6's by 1.5x. Still super strange to me, but you're absolutely right - thanks!
You maximize the base dice rolled. 5d6 in your example to give you 30 damage.
Empowered then gives you an extra 2d6 which you do roll, and increases your static damage by 8 (floor(0.5*17).Actually, Empowered increases your damage by 50% of the dice result, not 50% of the individual dice.
So you actually get (5d6)*50%, not 2d6. An average difference of 1.75 damage.
It actually doesn't though, it never mentions damage in the feat. I posted the text just before you post.
It says all variable numerical effects are increased by half. The damage dice are a variable numeric effect (and by FAQ the static damage is too).
While the effects of rolling average damage with 1.5*the number of d6s and the result of rolling the normal number of d6*1.5 is fairly similar, the results at extremes can be more exemplary.
If you roll 5d6 and roll all 1, then empowered by your way would only give you 7 damage (floor of 5*1*1.5). But my way you get an extra 2d6 to roll that might not be ones, but if you did would still result in 7 damage. At the other end, 5d6 with all 6s is 30 damage*1.5 for a total of 45. While if you do 7d6 you have to roll the extra dice, and even if you do it's a maximum of 12 instead of 15.
I could be wrong, but the feat doesn't state anything about damage. It states numeric variables. Damage isn't the numeric variable of the spell, damage is the result of having rolled the numeric variables of the spell.
Another reason this is important Saethori is Empowered Maximized spells, Fireball for example.
Under your way, you would have to (incorrectly) conclude that you have 60 damage from maximize which then gets multiplied by empowered to deal 90 damage. But that isn't what happens.
You get 60 damage from maximized, and then another 5d6 of fire damage to also roll. (All assuming at least a 10th level caster).
yes claxon is incorrect and saethori is right.
maximized empowered for a 5d6+17
30 + 17 + (5d6+17)*.5
just Empowered is
(5d6+17)*1.5
you never roll more dice.
The variable numeric effect is how much damage you do for fireball
If you got 50 damage you multiply that effect by 1.5 for 75 damage.
If you're summoning then the amount summoned is the effect. If you got 2 summons then you multiply that by 1.5
Because how else could you empower summons if you're rolling extra dice? there's not enough dice to gain 1 after cutting 1 in half. And it's because the amount of dice isn't the variable effect. The variable effect is the result of the dice roll.
The Damage is indeed the 'variable numeric effect' but Claxon is close to correct in how Maximize and Empower interact, although his reason is wrong. The Maximize and Empower effects are applied independent of each other. This is how it works:
Fireball: 10d6 damage > roll: 35 > Apply 10d6 Damage
Maximize Fireball: 10d6 Damage > roll: 35 > Maximize to 60 > Apply 60 Damage
Empower Fireball: 10d6 Damage > roll: 35 > Empower for + 17 > Apply 52 Damage
Maximize Empower Fireball: 10d6 Damage > roll: 35 > Maximize For 60 > Empower for + 17 > Apply 67 Damage
Of course with just a maximize we typically skip the 'roll' step, since we know what the outcome will be, but technically it still exists, and can't be skipped if we are going to be empowering the spell as well.