Personal Blizzard: Errata or simply terrible scaling?

[shroudb]

Personal Blizzard:
The target takes 1d6 cold damage and 1d6 persistent cold damage. (The persistent damage automatically ends when the spell ends.) It is concealed to other creatures, and other creatures are concealed to it.

Heightened (+1) The cold damage and persistent cold damage increase by 1 (2 on a critical failure).

Does it really increase damage by "1" per spell level instead of 1d6? Or is it a typo/errata?

[Dubious Scholar]

That's a buff from the playtest version of it I'm pretty sure.

[Mellored]

Keep in mind, this is a 1 action spell.

If you compare it to force bolt, which gains 1.75 damage per spell level, no save.

Probably still a little weak once you consider that you need to sustain it.

[shroudb]

Mellored wrote:

Keep in mind, this is a 1 action spell.

If you compare it to force bolt, which gains 1.75 damage per spell level, no save.

Probably still a little weak once you consider that you need to sustain it.

force bolt is a level 1 spell, blizzard is a 3rd level spell.

and it's the only spell that comes into mind that has this type of scaling instead of just adding additional dices similar to the un-heighten version.

even the force bolt is adding same dices as the original spell and not flat damage.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

shroudb wrote:

Mellored wrote:

Keep in mind, this is a 1 action spell.

If you compare it to force bolt, which gains 1.75 damage per spell level, no save.

Probably still a little weak once you consider that you need to sustain it.

force bolt is a level 1 spell, blizzard is a 3rd level spell.

and it's the only spell that comes into mind that has this type of scaling instead of just adding additional dices similar to the un-heighten version.

even the force bolt is adding same dices as the original spell and not flat damage.

Force Bolt only scales up every 2 spell levels, not every spell level. It's literally a one action magic missile, meant to be used in conjunction with another spell for a bit more added damage while not burning/memorizing spell slots for it.

This still goes up every level. Force Bolt at 9th level does 5D4+5, average 15, whereas Blizzard does an average of 1D6+6, average 9, with bonus persistent damage of the same each round. Even with just one sustain, it outpaces Force Bolt in raw damage on average, and is more likely to trigger against weaknesses, and with persistent damage, triggers that weakness more often.

When you get feats like Effortless Concentration, you're basically getting that free persistent damage each round while still doing your basic casting capabilities. It's not going to be extremely better than Force Bolt, and in some cases it's worse than Force Bolt, or outright useless, but there are definitely cases where this focus spell will outpace Force Bolt, and on average, it can after 2 rounds against a foe with no resistances or immunities.

[Kendaan]

Personal Blizzard, cost you a level 6 feat and gives a save, while force bolt is automatic success.

It's definitely not the best comparison, personal bliss are should be compare to other lvl 3 focus spell,or spells with similar effects.

[shroudb]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Mellored wrote:

Keep in mind, this is a 1 action spell.

If you compare it to force bolt, which gains 1.75 damage per spell level, no save.

Probably still a little weak once you consider that you need to sustain it.

force bolt is a level 1 spell, blizzard is a 3rd level spell.

and it's the only spell that comes into mind that has this type of scaling instead of just adding additional dices similar to the un-heighten version.

even the force bolt is adding same dices as the original spell and not flat damage.

Force Bolt only scales up every 2 spell levels, not every spell level. It's literally a one action magic missile, meant to be used in conjunction with another spell for a bit more added damage while not burning/memorizing spell slots for it.

This still goes up every level. Force Bolt at 9th level does 5D4+5, average 15, whereas Blizzard does an average of 1D6+6, average 9, with bonus persistent damage of the same each round. Even with just one sustain, it outpaces Force Bolt in raw damage on average, and is more likely to trigger against weaknesses, and with persistent damage, triggers that weakness more often.

When you get feats like Effortless Concentration, you're basically getting that free persistent damage each round while still doing your basic casting capabilities. It's not going to be extremely better than Force Bolt, and in some cases it's worse than Force Bolt, or outright useless, but there are definitely cases where this focus spell will outpace Force Bolt, and on average, it can after 2 rounds against a foe with no resistances or immunities.

force bolt doesnt even has a save and it's force damage. it's also a level 1 spell and not a level 3 spell and higher level spells scale better than lower level spells.

that doesnt answer the fact that it's the only damaging spell in the game that somehow instead of getting duplicate dices gets a flat +1. I'm betting it's a typo rather than a choice.

Effortless concentration is also a moot point, since you can effortless concenctration whatever and get another benefit (like using it on a flmaing shere as an example) That's the damage of the effortless concenctration NOT of the blizzard.

[Unicore]

There really is no way the persistent damage is going to heighten by 1d6 every level. Not even acid arrow gives that, and that is a spell slot spell. Especially not since the persistent damage doubles on a critical failure. There is no way this spell, at 9th level, on a critical failure is supposed to do 14d6 persistent damage, especially since they only get to make 1 save against the damage. That is waaaay too good to be true, and is not true according to the rules as written.

[shroudb]

Unicore wrote:

There really is no way the persistent damage is going to heighten by 1d6 every level. Not even acid arrow gives that, and that is a spell slot spell. Especially not since the persistent damage doubles on a critical failure. There is no way this spell, at 9th level, on a critical failure is supposed to do 14d6 persistent damage, especially since they only get to make 1 save against the damage. That is waaaay too good to be true, and is not true according to the rules as written.

that's true, but the exact opposite is also true about the non-persistent amount of damage.

"there's no way a level 9 spell deals 1d6+6"

so, i think the answer is somewhere in the middle, maybe someone thought it would save space if they reduced the text from "1d6 damage and increase th epersistent damage by 1" to "increase damae by 1"

[Themetricsystem]

shroudb wrote:

"there's no way a level 9 spell deals 1d6+6"

so, i think the answer is somewhere in the middle, maybe someone thought it would save space if they reduced the text from "1d6 damage and increase the persistent damage by 1" to "increase damage by 1"

I'm wondering if this save was intended to be made every round rather than just once. Balance wise it would make more sense to for a 9th level spell to take 1d6+6 Cold Damage and 1d6+6 persistent Cold damage (or 2d6+6 Cold Damage + 2d6+6 Persistent Cold Damage on a crit fail) applied each turn the Witch sustains it (up to 10 rounds), plus it has the baked-in "this spell ends" if they make a save.

[shroudb]

Themetricsystem wrote:

shroudb wrote:

"there's no way a level 9 spell deals 1d6+6"

so, i think the answer is somewhere in the middle, maybe someone thought it would save space if they reduced the text from "1d6 damage and increase the persistent damage by 1" to "increase damage by 1"

I think people are seriously undervaluing how good persistent damage is, even a year later.

That said, I'm wondering if this save was intended to be made every round rather than just once. Balance wise it would make more sense to for a 9th level spell to take 1d6+6 Cold Damage and 1d6+6 persistent Cold damage (or 2d6+6 Cold Damage + 2d6+6 Persistent Cold Damage on a crit fail) applied each turn the Witch sustains it (up to 10 rounds), plus it has the baked-in "this spell ends" if they make a save.

it's not really persistent damage when you have to keep concentrating though.

but the static damage isnt repeating each round. it'll be just 1d6+6 even if you hold it for the full minute.

the very fact that you need to spend an action each round to apply it is already limiting it, that's completely different than something like acid arrow that's fire and forget.

as an appropriate comparrison, sustaining an 9th level damaging spell like flaming sphere gives 9d6 damage how does that compare to 1d6+6?

In fact, having the persistent actually scale by 1d6 will directly bring it inline with other Sustain based damage spells like Animated assault, flaming sphere, malicious shadow, spiritual weapon and etc

[Themetricsystem]

Well, it's 1d6+6 immediately when you cast it (should this be intended to apply every time it's sustained) which they can save against, and another 1d6+6 persistent on their own turn which they can choose to make a flat check against.

Something seems off for sure though because as written it's not great at all.

[shroudb]

Themetricsystem wrote:

Well, it's 1d6+6 immediately when you cast it (should this be intended to apply every time it's sustained) which they can save against, and another 1d6+6 persistent on their own turn which they can choose to make a flat check against.

Something seems off for sure though because as written it's not great at all.

the problem is that apart from the check to remove it, you also need to sustain for it to continue it the next round.

it has only the negative aspects of it being persistent damage without any of the positive ones.

again, as a direct comparrison, from the same feat you can be dealing 4d10+6 with a sustain, so it doesn't fit if it's just 1d6+6, while 7d6 is closer to the 4d10+6

[Mellored]

shroudb wrote:

the problem is that apart from the check to remove it, you also need to sustain for it to continue it the next round.

it has only the negative aspects of it being persistent damage without any of the positive ones.

again, as a direct comparrison, from the same feat you can be dealing 4d10+6 with a sustain, so it doesn't fit if it's just 1d6+6, while 7d6 is closer to the 4d10+6

What spell is that?

[Squiggit]

My reaction was initially the same as the OP's but after doing some math its average damage per cast is comparable (slightly higher) than Elemental Toss, which is the other one action damage based focus spell that comes to mind right now.

You'd expect Blizzard to be a bit stronger than Toss because it costs more actions over time, but it also has battlefield control capabilities and a marginal amount of damage on a miss, neither of which Toss has.

It wouldn't be problematic to buff it a little bit, but dramatic changes might not be as necessary as that initial assessment suggests.

[shroudb]

Squiggit wrote:

My reaction was initially the same as the OP's but after doing some math its average damage per cast is comparable (slightly higher) than Elemental Toss, which is the other one action damage based focus spell that comes to mind right now.

You'd expect Blizzard to be a bit stronger than Toss because it costs more actions over time, but it also has battlefield control capabilities and a marginal amount of damage on a miss, neither of which Toss has.

It wouldn't be problematic to buff it a little bit, but dramatic changes might not be as necessary as that initial assessment suggests.

again i compare it to the other damaging hex of the same level. that is 4d10+6 at that level per sustain

you can't really compare the damage of elemental toos, which is 1 action, to 10 actiuons of sustain, that's absurd imo.

Mellored wrote:

shroudb wrote:

the problem is that apart from the check to remove it, you also need to sustain for it to continue it the next round.

it has only the negative aspects of it being persistent damage without any of the positive ones.

again, as a direct comparrison, from the same feat you can be dealing 4d10+6 with a sustain, so it doesn't fit if it's just 1d6+6, while 7d6 is closer to the 4d10+6

What spell is that?

Malicious Shadow. At 9th it's 4d10+Int attack per sustain.

it being attack roll is pretty comparable to it being a base save, maybe even slightly better since you dont lose the whole focus if you miss, while you do lose the whole focus if they save vs blizzard.

[Squiggit]

shroudb wrote:

you can't really compare the damage of elemental toos, which is 1 action, to 10 actiuons of sustain, that's absurd imo.

10 action Personal Blizzard is closer to Triple toss' damage. So you're right, not comparable at all.

[Kyrone]

Fun fact, you can cast that on an ally or yourself for the concealed and if you have resistance to ice you can make the damage be very low or none.

[Mellored]

shroudb wrote:

Malicious Shadow. At 9th it's 4d10+Int attack per sustain.

it being attack roll is pretty comparable to it being a base save, maybe even slightly better since you dont lose the whole focus if you miss, while you do lose the whole focus if they save vs blizzard.

It's also a 2 action spell vs a 1 action spell.

And doesn't conceal your allies.

You can personal blizzard + hide + sneak.

Edit: It's also non-verbal. Which is a nice bonus.

[KrispyXIV]

Its a one action spell that can provide concealment to all of your allies from a secondary target until you are ready to attack that target (at which point you stop sustaining) that also does damage.

I don't think that the damage is in any way the primary benefit of this spell - its a solid bonus, but the concealment thing (even with the limitation of providing concealment to the target as well) for one action is definitely the draw.

[Kendaan]

Squiggit wrote:

shroudb wrote:

you can't really compare the damage of elemental toos, which is 1 action, to 10 actiuons of sustain, that's absurd imo.

10 action Personal Blizzard is closer to Triple toss' damage. So you're right, not comparable at all.

How many round of Personal Blizzard do you take into account for your calculation then?

And really, the sustain cost can't be just hand waved, it is a third of your action each turn, there is also a limitation on casting, as you can't cast any other Hex the same turn.

Also, it cost you a level 6 class feat, versus nothing for Elemental Toss.

[Xenocrat]

Is Silencing Strike (barbarian feat pg 110) missing a trait that would prevent it from being endlessly spammed in place of a regular trait? The incapacitation trait isn't enough, you can always fish for a crit fail that results in stunned 1.