I just got my copy in last week and have since been thumbing through it. This question made me go back and reread that spell, and I have a question. What does this spell looks like? I imagine it looks like the artwork on the previous page, but the spell description doesn't elaborate. Because an invisible 10 foot square of damage that lasts for 24 hours seems powerful.
Achives of Nethis has it with a Reflex to reduce durationYes, on a successful reflex save it's still a total of 20d6 necrotic damage, right? The only way to negate the damage is to lose the object (armor takes one minute to remove, IIRC) or to critically succeed.
Yes, it's that.
But it's on 10 rounds, so chances are great that the enemy will get rid of the item by that time (or that the fight will be over for a long time). But it's a good spell if you find the proper situation.
|
I really like the spell in a general sense, but I haven't got the chance to use it yet. It is very appealing.
I'm considering the idea of having a "Doom Coin" where I take a 1gp coin, throw Necrotic Radiation on it, then yeet about using Telekinetic Projectile, then slip it into foes pockets with Mage Hand.
During exploration mode, just sustain Mage Hand so its floating in a little pouch or something, have it ready to go each combat as a "I'm out of spells" backup plan.
Not overly efficient, but a fun idea anyhow.
The spell is horribly broken. The first to go on my "never" list (unless Paizo shifts the save results).
A successful save does 20d6 damage? (w/ armor or something similarly long to separate yourself from) That's insane. Even the damage to a weapon-wielder is high for a Success (assuming that letting go of their weapon is also a fatal option and they're durable to begin with).
Given that enemies generally don't survive that long, this is much to the detriment of PCs. I think they'd like this spell far less. I can imagine a caster trying to get this Uncommon spell approved, to which their armored allies shout disagreement. Imagine minions tagging PCs with this.
And hopefully there are visual effects, otherwise this would be a great assassin's tool. Slip such an item on a person, the less detectable the better, and they struggle to figure out why they're dying.
I don't think this spell needs all that fuss. 2d6 automatic damage per round for a 4th level spell is low. Wall of Fire does twice that on a bigger area and it's when you start your turn and not end it. And fights lasting for 10 rounds are like super rare, so it'll hardly deal more than 8d6 damage.
Also, you can't pickpocket someone in combat without feats, I don't expect putting something in someone's pocket to be any easier.
I don't think that is supposed to target armor, because if used against players they are going to dying 1(and possibly increasing the dying condition with the damage) from full HP by succeeding the save at lvl 7 to 9 unless they use in battle healing, specially the d8 HP classes that use armor like Bard and Druid. It takes a minute to take out any armor so they will take the full 20d6 damage from it.
There are tons of ways to kill characters if you use the good spells. I don't think having one more is causing any issue.
If the DM wants to kill characters to the point of using an uncommon spell on them, he will succeed.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
When they fail or critical fail the save? Sure have a good amount of spells that will kill the players.
When they make the save? Pretty much only Necrotic Radiation right now.
When they make the save? Pretty much only Necrotic Radiation right now.
First, it won't kill anyone all alone. Second, if all you want is to kill players, there are tons of ways to do it with other spells.
And anyway, what is the point for a DM to set up a situation to kill characters?
When they make the save? Pretty much only Necrotic Radiation right now.First, it won't kill anyone all alone. Second, if all you want is to kill players, there are tons of ways to do it with other spells.
And anyway, what is the point for a DM to set up a situation to kill characters?
GMs gotta have some fun too :P
When they make the save? Pretty much only Necrotic Radiation right now.First, it won't kill anyone all alone. Second, if all you want is to kill players, there are tons of ways to do it with other spells.
And anyway, what is the point for a DM to set up a situation to kill characters?
It absolutely could given the right set of circumstances. A Sorcerer or Wizard with minimal Con investment at level 7 (since it's a level 4 spell) might have (6+2)x7+8=64 health.
On a failed save against said character's armor, that'll do 2d6 damage per round, or about 70 damage. That is doing damage more than the character's max health with one spell. Albiet over 10 rounds.
Now, of course this is unlikely to happen for a variety of reasons, the most notable being that the players are almost certainly going to be taking measures to mitigate this damage, most notably healing effects.
But the thing is that they are still essentially guaranteed to take this damage, since it takes 1 minute to take off the armor. Even if you defeat the enemy that cast the spell on you, you are still essentially forced to take this damage since there is no real way to mitigate it outside of specific magic items that could reduce necrotic damage.
On a successful save a guarenteed ~70 points of damage is a huge deal.
Now, honestly I feel that the spell is still more or less fine. The GM should take note that the spell is uncommon and so shouldn't give it to every spellcaster he throws at the party and when he does do so it is the kind of spell that could make an encounter really memorable and interesting.
The party isn't going to get anywhere near as much potency out of the spell either as 1) A huge number of creatures from the Bestiary don't have items to cast it on, and 2) even when you go up against a swordsman or a wizard where you can affect their weapons or armor, they can still absolutely kill you before it does enough to put them down and you're likely to be facing multiple foes anyways.
That said, yeah. This spell is very useful and certainly a top tier spell. But IMO, not overpowered.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fights don't usually last 10 rounds. They last longer than in PF1, but not that much longer. So it's usually less than 20d6 by a fair bit.
It's also got a limited target selection, for some foes it does 2d6 and maybe costs an action (to remove or discard the item...though if held, dropping it is free), and many foes lack items entirely, making that version useless against them. Only foes in armor or who absolutely rely on a specific weapon for their offense really suffer the full effects. That's a pretty big limitation, right there.
Indeed, looking at 10th level for boss monsters to use this on when you first get it, only 3 out of the 30 listed on AoN wear armor. Likewise, of enemies of PC level or above in the adventure it appears in, only 2 out of 23 have armor. For a more 'civilized' humanoid-centric adventure, I checked 'Tomorrow Must Burn', and even there only 9 out of 23 at PC-level or above enemies had armor.
Which is not to say it's not a great spell, especially vs. a boss monster who wears armor, as it certainly is, but I don't think it's as bad as all that, because the 'full damage' is unlike to occur, the fail condition isn't any worse than the save condition, and perhaps most importantly it, in practice, has very restricted target selection for the 'broken' part in most adventures.