My PFS Dragon Disciple will reach level 12 with 1 more xp and while I am aware that his career is coming to an end, I still feel that applying the levelup is important.
His highest level of spell he can cast is 4th and he learns a new 2nd 3rd and 4th upon leveling. My choices are pretty much made:
2nd - Spontaneous Immolation
3rd - Draconic Reservoir OR Shifting Sand
4th - Dragon's Breath
Dragon's Breath will give me an 11d6 acid/cold/electric breath or an 11d6+11 fire breath with a DC18 Reflex save for half. I could potentially cast this 4/day.
I also have a breath weapon useable 2/day at 15d6 fire with a DC21 Reflex save for half.
The fire version of the spell has an average damage of 49.5 (22-77)
The sneeze has an average damage of 52.5 (15-90)
They're fairly close so the main difference is the DC. How much of a difference do the DCs make?
Depends on the character, a buffer Cleric couldn't give a toss about his DCs a blaster sorc is probably quite concerned about them, an enchantment Witch is completely obsessed.
does your character engage in melee much or is its main DPS from breaths?
The average CR 12 monster reflex save bonus is +10, so it's the difference between their saving on an 8 or making the save on an 11.
Also breath weapons don't get AoOs or spell resistance, spells do.
The difference is 5% less chance of your enemy succeeding for every 1 you add to the DC as long as they don't roll a 1 or a 20 and assuming their saves aren't greater than your DC already.
Yeah, once I started thinking of Spell Focus as "there's only a (.05*.9) 4.5% chance of this feat making a difference every time I cast a spell of the appropriate school" I started favoring other options a lot more.
Yeah, once I started thinking of Spell Focus as "there's only a (.05*.9) 4.5% chance of this feat making a difference every time I cast a spell of the appropriate school" I started favoring other options a lot more.The difference is 5% less chance of your enemy succeeding for every 1 you add to the DC as long as they don't roll a 1 or a 20 and assuming their saves aren't greater than your DC already.
it generally depends on where your DC is sitting, bumping a 20% fail chance to a 25% not worth it to my mind
bumping a 50% to a 55% seems much better although mathematically its technically the samebasically its only worth it to boost a good DC. The other thing is stacking it with its greater brother and perfect spell
much more powerful, not to mention there mythic equivalent.
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My PFS Dragon Disciple will reach level 12 with 1 more xp and while I am aware that his career is coming to an end, I still feel that applying the levelup is important.
His highest level of spell he can cast is 4th and he learns a new 2nd 3rd and 4th upon leveling. My choices are pretty much made:
2nd - Spontaneous Immolation
3rd - Draconic Reservoir OR Shifting Sand
4th - Dragon's BreathDragon's Breath will give me an 11d6 acid/cold/electric breath or an 11d6+11 fire breath with a DC18 Reflex save for half. I could potentially cast this 4/day.
I also have a breath weapon useable 2/day at 15d6 fire with a DC21 Reflex save for half.
The fire version of the spell has an average damage of 49.5 (22-77)
The sneeze has an average damage of 52.5 (15-90)They're fairly close so the main difference is the DC. How much of a difference do the DCs make?
YMMV
I tend either to optimize characters to have ridiculously high DCs -or- don't bother with them at all and just cast spells without saves.
At level 12 if I am playing a DC oriented character, they will tend to be 10+9+6=25 for class abilities and 10+9+2+6=27 for spells. Sometimes more, sometimes less...
If I don't care about DCs with a character, it doesn't matter what they are because I won't rely on them. I will either buff with spells or use ones with no saving throw.
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Dragon Disciple infoYMMV
I tend either to optimize characters to have ridiculously high DCs -or- don't bother with them at all and just cast spells without saves.
At level 12 if I am playing a DC oriented character, they will tend to be 10+9+6=25 for class abilities and 10+9+2+6=27 for spells. Sometimes more, sometimes less...
If I don't care about DCs with a character, it doesn't matter what they are because I won't rely on them. I will either buff with spells or use ones with no saving throw.
Sounds about right for a penetrating specialist.
Optimised Level 12 Sorcerer, his spells have save DCs of 27. His caster level for SR penetration will be 13? 14?
Consider particularly nasty enemies in CR range:
Ice Devil (CR 13): Fort +15, Ref +14, Will +12, SR 24
Old Black Dragon (CR 14): Fort +17, Ref +11, Will +15, SR 25
That's at worst a 50% chance to beat the save, slightly less than 50% to beat SR.
Thus 25% chance to hit them with a save or suck.
Seems pretty reasonable, but only if you are built for it, and take into account the downsides of specialisation. Our example caster hasn't been an absolute munchkin though. We can all imagine (or have even played) crazy people who reduce their failure chance significantly.
For casters who are not built for it, it's very doubtful. Summoning and buffing looks like a better option.
Building to beat DC becomes a horrible arms race unfortunately. Let's one-shot great Cthulhu!
Cthulhu (CR 30): Fort +29, Ref +29, Will +33, SR 41
Our Save DC needs to be about 40 and spell pen above 30 to have a reasonable shot. But y'know, you are fighting Cthulhu and trying to take him down in one round. It probably should be quite tricky.
To be honest, since this was my very first Pathfinder character (first played way back on May 2nd 2013) he is very far from optimized. He was built with a 10 CON and I went melee more than I should have. The Dragon Disciple levels may also have made me overconfident...He has died 5 times so far.
As a Sorcerer/4 Fighter/1 Dragon Disciple/7 @ lvl 12 his ability scores will be:
STR/16 (12 base, +4 Dragon Disciple)
DEX/20 (16 base, +2 Human, +2 Snakeskin Tunic)
CON/16 (10 base, +2 Dragon Disciple, +4 Belt of Mighty Constitution)
INT/16 (13 base, +1 @ 4th, +2 Scarlet & Blue Sphere Ioun Stone)
WIS/10 (10 base)
CHA/18 (14 base, +1 @ 8th, +1 @ 12th, +2 Headband of Alluring Charisma)
I guess my main question would be this:
If I were to keep one blast back as a last resort, which would it be? The Breath Weapon has the higher DC and max damage, while the spell has higher min damage.
Considering when to use it is the most important way to get value out of your breath weapon.
I would compare your full attack to your breath weapon damage. Assuming a reflex save of +10. Figure out how many people you will need to hit to exceed the damage of your attack.
Next compare a round where you move and attack vs move and breath weapon. How many people do you need to hit for the average damage to exceed a single attack.
The final situation to consider is if you have a knowledge person in you group did they identify ref as a week save. In this case it can be much lower than ten so it will sway the above situations in flavor of the breath weapon.
I have a +1 Planar Falcata, 2 Mithral Kukri, and 2 MW Cold-Iron Kukri. I also have 2 Claws and a Bite
Full Attacks would be about like this:
2H Falcata +13/+8(1d8 +5 /19-20 x3)
DW Falcata & Kukri +11/+6 (1d8 +4 /19-20 x3), +12 (1d4 +1 /18-20 x2)
DW Kukri +12/+7 (1d4 +3 /18-20 x2), +12 (1d4 +1 /18-20 x2)
Claw/Claw/Bite +13/+13 (1d6 +3 +1d6fire /20 x2), +13 (1d6 +4 +1d6fire /20 x2)
The difference is 5% less chance of your enemy succeeding for every 1 you add to the DC as long as they don't roll a 1 or a 20 and assuming their saves aren't greater than your DC already.Yeah, once I started thinking of Spell Focus as "there's only a (.05*.9) 4.5% chance of this feat making a difference every time I cast a spell of the appropriate school" I started favoring other options a lot more.First, percentage differences are by definition relative to the initial value, so a +1 can be anywhere from just above 5% (initial probability 0.95) to 100% (initial probability 0.05).
What I mean is that if you take Spell Focus only one 1/20 enemy saves will they roll exactly the number that is your marginal DC and the difference between success or failure can be attributed to taking that feat. Yes, if they would otherwise fail 90% of the time you can make it so that they now fail 95% of the time. That might look to you like you decreased their chance of succeeding by 50%. To me it's still the case that there's only one value (19) that they can roll where having the feat actually mattered to the outcome. Over the course of a career, I might strongly prefer other feat benefits at the cost of 1/20 of my spells (of a particular school) failing.