Fireball Damage Increase?

[AkmenosMorowae]

I'm currently running a witch in my group, in a homebrew campaign, and I found the Heiten feat. Now, I'm new to Pathfinder, having only played for two months, and I was wondering if it's possible to increase fireball's damage using higher level spell slots, or if the damage stays the same, and I just use higher spell slots. How does heiten work? How does fireball work? Will Goku find the strength to defeat Frieza? Find out next time on Pathfinder 3.5e!

[wraithstrike]

The number of d6 for the fireball is based on your caster level, not the level of the spell. Heighten will make the spell harder to save against, but it won't give more damage.

[Lady-J]

heighten just increases the dc of the spell for extra spell levels empower, intensify and maximise will boost damage fireball also gets more damage for each caster level you have up to 10d6 at caster level 10 or 15d6 at caster level 15 with intensify, empower times the damage of the fire ball by 1.5 and maximise makes it as though you rolled all 6s on the die so a maximised, intensifyed and empowered fireball will be doing 135 damage on a failed save.

[Klorox]

No, Heighten spell only raises the save DC. If you want to increase the damage, you have to go Empower Spell and/or Maximize spell.

[AkmenosMorowae]

Alright. I was just making sure. Thanks for the info!

[avr]

Once you hit the 10d6 damage cap at caster level 10, Intensify Spell can raise the maximum to 15d6 (at caster level 15, of course.)

[Lady-J]

all in all fireball is great for aoe dmg however its not so great if its 1 or 2 targets as my level 5 fighter can do armost as much damage assuming a crit or about 60% damage at level 6 full attack assuming no crits than the supposed 9th level fireball that's maximised, empowered and intenceafied

[Cory Stafford 29]

To improve fireball damage, you need to be an evoker, have certain sorcerer bloodlines or use the metamagic feats (possible with metamagic rods) intensify, empower, or maximize.

[Metux]

sorcerers have bloodline mutation and one of them works like intensify but instead of +5 Max Die number, its +cha mod die number. You can do it only few times per day.

[NoTongue]

There's actually a very good Witch Archetype that let's you gain access to abilities a number of minutes per day as a swift action. Minutes do not need to be consecutive.

One of the abilities is +1 damage to each damage dice.

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

NoTongue wrote:

There's actually a very good Witch Archetype that let's you gain access to abilities a number of minutes per day as a swift action. Minutes do not need to be consecutive.

One of the abilities is +1 damage to each damage dice.

Yes Invoker Witch

Invoker + Winter witch 5/Crossblooded Orc/Dragon (Cold) Sorcerer 1/Winter Witch PRC X

Basically you get +3 damage per dice rolled on cold spells as well as ignore some resistance to Cold.

If you add in Liquid Ice you can get +4 per dice rolled on the Cone of Cold Spell. So an intensified, Rime, Empowered Cone of Cold could hit for 20d6 (70 average) * 1.5= 105+80= 185 damage that also Entangles everything hit in the 60ft cone.

You snowballs will be vicious as Intensified, Rimed Snowball for 10d6+30.

Kind of a fun new Blaster build focused on Cold damage. Defiantly a viable option now.

[Vatras]

Anyway, fireball can end up with:
4th level slot, 15d6 (52) with Intensify, assuming you are a 15th level caster
5th level slot, 15d6 (52) with Empower, assuming you are at least 10th level
6th level slot: 60 damage with Maximize, or 22d6 (77) with Intensify and Empower
7th level slot: 90 damage with Maximize and Intensify
8th level slot: 60+5d6 (77) with Maximize and Empower
9th level slot: 90+7d6 (114)with Maximize, Intensify and Empower

All of those above are still 3rd level spells with the same DC and all of them can be defended against with a Minor Globe.
All the numbers are vanilla, without any trimmings. An evoker would add half his caster level to the total for example.

You have always to decide, if an enhanced spell is worth it when weighed against the other spells of that level which you can use. A Delayed Blast Fireball would require a 7th level slot, but has also the DC coming with it...at 15th level it would do 15d6 (52). So an enhanced spell would cause more damage in this case, but has a weaker DC (by 4 points). It often comes down to the side-effects of a spell. Chain Lightning is almost always the better option over enhanced spells in a 6th level slot due to it's large area, friend-or-foe capability and less often resisted energy type.

As the others already pointed out, Heighten does nothing except turn up the actual spell level. A heightened fireball in a 6th level slot would have a DC +3 and can pass through Globes of Invulnerability.
Almost nobody ever uses Heighten. Take Command as an example - there is practically always a better option for that spell slot than to cast a heightened command...Soundburst, Chain of Perdition, Greater Command, Euphoria, etc. .

The cost of metamagic feats is a tax you have to be aware of. Take Focused Spell: since it costs +1 level, the DC increase is only +1, and not +2, compared to regular spells in that slot. Some feats sound a lot better than they are, so check first your regular spells before starting to modify.

[Azothath]

Heighten has specific uses; bypassing certain defenses, messing with counterspelling/dispelling, spell interactions.

Other metamagic feats work better to add damage, add 'whammies' or riders to your spells. Empower and Intensify are classics.
Reach, Rime, Persistent, Bouncing, Dazing, Maximize, Quicken are others.

[Chess Pwn]

The empower example Vatras gave is incorrect. It's 1.5*(10d6)
Intesified empower is 1.5(15d6)
Maximized empower is 60+.5(10d6)
maximized intensified empower is 90+.5(15d6)

If you're using empower you're never rolling more dice because of empower, if you're using empower you never roll less dice.

[My Self]

Vatras wrote:

Anyway, fireball can end up with:

4th level slot, 15d6 (52) with Intensify, assuming you are a 15th level caster
5th level slot, 15d6 (52) with Empower, assuming you are at least 10th level
6th level slot: 60 damage with Maximize, or 22d6 (77) with Intensify and Empower
7th level slot: 90 damage with Maximize and Intensify
8th level slot: 60+5d6 (77) with Maximize and Empower
9th level slot: 90+7d6 (114)with Maximize, Intensify and Empower

All of those above are still 3rd level spells with the same DC and all of them can be defended against with a Minor Globe.
All the numbers are vanilla, without any trimmings. An evoker would add half his caster level to the total for example.

You have always to decide, if an enhanced spell is worth it when weighed against the other spells of that level which you can use. A Delayed Blast Fireball would require a 7th level slot, but has also the DC coming with it...at 15th level it would do 15d6 (52). So an enhanced spell would cause more damage in this case, but has a weaker DC (by 4 points). It often comes down to the side-effects of a spell. Chain Lightning is almost always the better option over enhanced spells in a 6th level slot due to it's large area, friend-or-foe capability and less often resisted energy type.

As the others already pointed out, Heighten does nothing except turn up the actual spell level. A heightened fireball in a 6th level slot would have a DC +3 and can pass through Globes of Invulnerability.
Almost nobody ever uses Heighten. Take Command as an example - there is practically always a better option for that spell slot than to cast a heightened command...Soundburst, Chain of Perdition, Greater Command, Euphoria, etc. .

The cost of metamagic feats is a tax you have to be aware of. Take Focused Spell: since it costs +1 level, the DC increase is only +1, and not +2, compared to regular spells in that slot. Some feats sound a lot better than they are, so check first your regular spells before starting to modify.

Basically this, with Chess Pwn's numbers for Empower.

At 9th level spells, you'd almost certainly be better-served by casting Meteor Swarm than some sort of hyper-metamagiced Fireball.

[Chess Pwn]

Meteor Swarm does 4 x (6d6 + 2d6) = 32d6 average damage = 112 damage.
9th level fireball did average 114.

with sorcerer dip for +1 per damage die
Meteor Swarm does 4 x (6d6 + 6 + 2d6) = 32d6+24 average damage = 136 damage.
9th level fireball: 105+.5(15d6+15) 135

with the dualblooded dip for +2 per die
Meteor Swarm does 4 x (6d6 + 12 + 2d6) = 32d6+48 average damage = 160 damage.
9th level fireball: 130+.5(15d6+30) 168

so they are definitely close. meteor swarm needs some ranged touch attacks and has a better save DC.
Fireball is going to hit but lower DC.