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Heightened (+1) The initial damage, as well as the additional damage for the 2-round casting time, each increase by 4d4, and the damage to adjacent creatures dealt while in your shining state increases by 1.
So Inner Radiance Torrent starts out with a good critical failure effect, arguably the best damage type, targets Reflex while on two spell lists that don't do that much. As a second level spell 4d4 is around 70% of the normal damage an AoE spell does. You can spend 6 actions to double the damage, but that all seems: good, and cool, and in the bounds of how I expect spells to work.
It heightens however much faster than I think it should. And I think it's a typo.
If it Heightened in jumps of 2d4 each part, or 4d4 total, it'd scale such that it keeps it's proportional power to other AoE spells. So still a great spell.
The above quote reads to me like you add 4d4 to both parts however.
So 3rd level 2/3-actions is 8d4 so 95% as effective as any AoE, it goes to 12d4 and 107%, then 115%, then 119%, and so on.
Tell me how I'm misreading this spell? Or is it actually too powerful when heightened?
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It is very slot efficient but not time efficient. There's the hidden benefit though of it being an AoE blast spell that's not garbage outside of your top two slots. Feels kinda weird though that it so neatly and efficiently patches the hole in the divine and occult lists though.
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The charging is not really an issue though.
It's true for this spell at low levels, and for Horizon Thunder Sphere, which despite being an arcane/primal spell only scales at 2d6(7) per level, not 4d4(10).
It scales up way harder than anything on it's own spell lists, even just spending two actions to cast.
The two turns benefit is getting two spells worth out of the cost of one slot, with the risk that you get interrupted or they otherwise react to you charging up.
Level 5 inner radiance torrent [[2 Actions]] is 16d4(avg. 40) while a lightning bolt is 6d12(avg. 39), and that gets progressively worse for lightning bolt.
It blinds (no incapacitation) on a crit fail, it's force damage rather than electricity. It's a better spell than lightning bolt in every way at this stage. And I'd be willing to bet it starts out-pacing other level appropriate blasting at higher levels than this.
None of that seems to follow any of the normal balancing for spells. Especially when comparing with Horizon Thunder Sphere, it's kind of clear to me that this isn't right.
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Thanks for noting this. As others said, this is what is printed, but also you are correct to suspect that a spell that gets more and more powerful relatively as you heighten it compared to its initial damage might have a mistake, as we intend for the opposite. To that end, damage spells will basically always scale at or less than their initial damage divided by their spell level. In this case, there was a doubling error on our end and as you suspected, it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions. This is on the queue for errata to fix.
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2d4 or 3d4 would probably make more sense.
That said I think you're overstating how big of a deal it is by a bit. It could probably stand to be adjusted but even in a 10th level slot it's only ~19 points ahead of Lightning Bolt with half the range as a two action spell.
And Lightning Bolt isn't exactly a gold standard spell to begin with.
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A quick spot check put it behind eclipse burst but only barely and even then it outpaces it at 10th level. It's also just barely behind meteor swarm.
Seems to me like it's just better at scaling than everything else but never the best at a given level. Totally invalidates flame strike though.
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Gotta love that what is essentially the Final Flash is a divine spell.
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it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions.
I think that might be nudging it a bit too far in the other direction, it nearly halves its damage at higher spell levels which makes it kind of an unattractive heightening option.
It's also the only divine spell with this kind of action economy, so having it depreciate itself out of the system with poor scaling feels like a big shame, because you'll never be able to upgrade it either.
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Thanks for noting this. As others said, this is what is printed, but also you are correct to suspect that a spell that gets more and more powerful relatively as you heighten it compared to its initial damage might have a mistake, as we intend for the opposite. To that end, damage spells will basically always scale at or less than their initial damage divided by their spell level. In this case, there was a doubling error on our end and as you suspected, it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions. This is on the queue for errata to fix.
God, it's getting a bit tiring to have half the fun things in the game pretty much crushed by errata. At least make it 2d6 or 3d4 per level; the two round version is almost impossible to hit more than one person with, and at 2d4/4d4 for 2 rounds it's barely better than casting any random damage spell turn 1 and following up with a cantrip turn 2 (for 2 less total actions as well).
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Thanks for noting this. As others said, this is what is printed, but also you are correct to suspect that a spell that gets more and more powerful relatively as you heighten it compared to its initial damage might have a mistake, as we intend for the opposite. To that end, damage spells will basically always scale at or less than their initial damage divided by their spell level. In this case, there was a doubling error on our end and as you suspected, it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions. This is on the queue for errata to fix.God, it's getting a bit tiring to have half the fun things in the game pretty much crushed by errata. At least make it 2d6 or 3d4 per level; the two round version is almost impossible to hit more than one person with, and at 2d4/4d4 for 2 rounds it's barely better than casting any random damage spell turn 1 and following up with a cantrip turn 2 (for 2 less total actions as well).
Let's check at level 3:
two turn charge is 6 actions for 10d4 ref half for an average of 25/12.
3 action Magic missile is going to do 6d4+6 for 21 automatic. Throw in electric arc next turn for 3d4+4 ref half for 12/6. 1 fewer actions and way better damage on the whole. Hell, you can even split those missiles between two targets and still wind up ahead vs a 1 success and 1 fail (25+12=37 vs 10.5+10.5+12+6=39).
If you haven't gotten electric arc somehow then it looks much better as the default cantrips for divine and occult are pretty anemic. But I'm sure you're already playing something human for the level 1 feat and adaptive cantrip.
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Thanks for noting this. As others said, this is what is printed, but also you are correct to suspect that a spell that gets more and more powerful relatively as you heighten it compared to its initial damage might have a mistake, as we intend for the opposite. To that end, damage spells will basically always scale at or less than their initial damage divided by their spell level. In this case, there was a doubling error on our end and as you suspected, it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions. This is on the queue for errata to fix.
That seems a little more extreme than similar spells which heighten less for the lest action version and more for the higher. And it also way downgrades is use as a heightened spell.
Would you consider a smaller increase for the lower action and leaving the damage the same or less lowered for the 6 action version? Otherwise I don't see anyone ever doing the 6 action version past a point.
I mean that's two full turns and the benefit of only taking one spell slot only goes so far really. Unless you are hasted (AND your GM lets you move mid casting) you're almost never lining up a good shot with that.
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Let's check at level 3:
two turn charge is 6 actions for 10d4 ref half for an average of 25/12.
3 action Magic missile is going to do 6d4+6 for 21 automatic. Throw in electric arc next turn for 3d4+4 ref half for 12/6. 1 fewer actions and way better damage on the whole. Hell, you can even split those missiles between two targets and still wind up ahead vs a 1 success and 1 fail (25+12=37 vs 10.5+10.5+12+6=39).
If you haven't gotten electric arc somehow then it looks much better as the default cantrips for divine and occult are pretty anemic. But I'm sure you're already playing something human for the level 1 feat and adaptive cantrip.
You're a little off here on the math. 3rd level with the errata should deal 6d4 as a base, with 6d4 scaling.
3rd level Baseline
6d4 damage is 15/7.5 damage.
12d4 damage is 30/15 damage.
3rd level Comparisons:
3rd level lightning bolt has the same area and puts out 4d12, which is 26/13 damage. Almost twice the power of the base version, and close to the power of the full version for a third of the actions.
3rd level electric arc hits two targets for 3d4+4, which is 11.5/5.75 damage.
Casting lightning bolt and then electric arc puts out 37.5/18.75 damage.
Two electric arcs gives 25/12.5 damage, which apparently is only slightly behind casting a third level spell.
Fireball deals 6d6, or 21/10.5
Fireball + electric arc gets to 32.5/16.25. Slightly better damage, and often easier to hit more foes.
Magic Missile puts out a guaranteed 6d4+6. If for fairness we consider that we're splitting it between two targets, that's 21/10.5 damage, albeit way better against bosses.
4th level baseline
8d4 damage is 20/10 damage.
16d4 is 40/20 damage.
4th level comparison
4th level lightning bolt puts out 5d12, which is 32.5/16.25.
4th level fireball puts out 8d6, which is 28/14.
4th level electric arc deals 4d4+4, or 14/7.
Lightning bolt + electric arc puts out 46.5/23.25 damage. Still well ahead.
Fireball + electric arc puts out 42/21. Close, but still better than IRT.
Two electric arcs puts out 28/14. It's a bit further behind now, but is notably now better than casting 3rd level IRT.
4th level Enervation puts out 2d8 or 4d8 persistent negative (and drains on a fail). You have a base 70% chance of two turns of effect, 49% for three, and 34% for four (and after that the fight is probably over). That averages out to a (100+70+49+34)/4 or 63.25% increase from turning base damage into persistent. Factor in the possibility of them finding a way to reduce the checks and we'll simplify it to about 60%. Thus, enervation puts out (18*1.6)+7/9*1.6, or 36/14.5 damage. Better than bolt on a fail, worse on a success, but otherwise compatible.
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In short, nerfing to 2d4/2d4 scaling leaves it as a decidedly bad spell considering how cool it is.
Nerfing the scaling to 3d4/3d4 looks much healthier.
2nd level is still 4d4/8d4, which is fine. 2nd level blasts don't have to be good.
3rd level is 7d4/14d4, which puts out damage averages of 18/9 and 35/17. That's on par with Bolt+arc, and feels like a very fair middle ground between the 26/13 single bolt and the 52/26 double bolt.
4th level is 10d4/20d4, which puts out 25/12 and 50/25. Slightly better than Bolt+arc, but still notably clunkier to use. Again sits as a nice midpoint between the 32/16 single bolt and the 65/32 double bolt.
Okay, this feels spot on. What about the top end?
10th level is 28d4/56d4, which puts out 70/35 and 140/70, still in a 120 foot line.
Implosion 10 deals 85/42 but can slap everything on the field and is a little smoother with spreading out the actions.
Meteor Swarm 10 deals 16d6 to pretty much everything, and another 7d10 to everything you actually care about. That's 56/28 and 95/47; well ahead in terms of damage and area than IRT, but still leaving the niche of it being castable for the 6-action version.
I think this is a fair nerf.
Mark Seifter, please don't outright kill the most fun spells the divine list has ever gotten. A nerf is definitely warranted, but nerfing back to 3d4 instead of 2d4 keeps the spell fair and fun.
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Thanks for noting this. As others said, this is what is printed, but also you are correct to suspect that a spell that gets more and more powerful relatively as you heighten it compared to its initial damage might have a mistake, as we intend for the opposite. To that end, damage spells will basically always scale at or less than their initial damage divided by their spell level. In this case, there was a doubling error on our end and as you suspected, it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions. This is on the queue for errata to fix.
Divine just can't have nice things...kidding of course (kinda). Glad this was caught and is on the docket. That said, I agree with everything TheGentlemanDM said above this post. Really hope it doesn't get nerfed down to obscurity.
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Oh, it's a mistake, I was really hoping we'd just finally got a blasting spell with actually good damage.
I knew it was too good to be true, but I really hope the errata makes it 4d4 base +3d4 (+1) or 4d6 base +2d6 (+1). force damage is valued higher than other energy types, but with a 30ft line, the damage should be comparable to the 120 ft lightning bolt.
60ft
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I don't think they want it comparable to Lightning Bolt or most other big AoE spells. It's Divine/Occult, neither of which seem to be intended to be particularly good at general blasting.
I don't think the solution to "we don't want Divine to have good blasting" is to print bad blast spells though. I think that either the spell should do good damage, or that it should have a nice rider. Dazzled on failed saving throw would also give the spell a niche imo.
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Thanks for noting this. As others said, this is what is printed, but also you are correct to suspect that a spell that gets more and more powerful relatively as you heighten it compared to its initial damage might have a mistake, as we intend for the opposite. To that end, damage spells will basically always scale at or less than their initial damage divided by their spell level. In this case, there was a doubling error on our end and as you suspected, it should scale at 2d4 for initial, 2d4 for the extra actions. This is on the queue for errata to fix.
So, now we are expectantly waiting for the better higher level Divine damage spell ;-)
Maybe in Book of the Dead...
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I'm going to leave it at 4d4. Lines are hard to hit many targets and spells should do some nice damage. A 2 round spell would be extremely hard to pull off that often.
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I think the high 2-round damage is warranted. It's super risky. If I'm a villain on the wrong end if this thing, the first thing I'm going to do is move so there are one or more PCs directly between me and the caster.
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72d4 force is really not much.
At 19th level, when you're casting this thing, a mook (level 15) has 275 hp on average (moderate for a creature 15 is 271-279). You barely take out more than half of one on a failed save. Area debuffs at that level will take out multiple of them on a failed save and don't require 2 rounds to charge.
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I think the high 2-round damage is warranted. It's super risky. If I'm a villain on the wrong end if this thing, the first thing I'm going to do is move so there are one or more PCs directly between me and the caster.
That round can also be spent moving behind total cover, or putting up a wall effect or some other obstacle that totally negates the spell.
As for metagaming, I think the fact that you're charging up something big would be pretty obvious, even if the specifics are unknown. It wouldn't be any different than people scattering in expectation of fireball spells.
I think 3d4 would be a good errata. 2d4 is much too low.
Also, just so everyone is aware, the 180 average damage mentioned above is ONLY if you cast as a 10th-level spell AND get the two-round charge time off properly.
What I'm curious to know is how it scales at those lower levels when compared to other area spells (especially lines, which seem to average on the high end of the damage curve). That will have a lot more relevance than the last level or two of the game will.
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We are talking about a spell that does up to 120ft line, does force damage, and blinds on a critical failure. It is way over turned heightening at 4d4. I trust Mark to know what the math on a divine spell like this is supposed to be and think it is very kind to let’s us know what is in store for this spell
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I think the high 2-round damage is warranted. It's super risky. If I'm a villain on the wrong end if this thing, the first thing I'm going to do is move so there are one or more PCs directly between me and the caster.
I note there's nothing in the spell that prevents a quickened Stride before finishing the spell, or delaying such that allies can reposition.
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I think the high 2-round damage is warranted. It's super risky. If I'm a villain on the wrong end if this thing, the first thing I'm going to do is move so there are one or more PCs directly between me and the caster.Hey, that's metagaming. Got to identify the spell first.
Is it? The cleric is spending two rounds charging up a kamehameha, Even if you don't know what exactly is happening anyone who has ever seen magic done before is gonna assume they need to get out of the way.
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Is it? The cleric is spending two rounds charging up a kamehameha, Even if you don't know what exactly is happening anyone who has ever seen magic done before is gonna assume they need to get out of the way.
Why though? I mean with no identification it's not even clear right away if the Cleric is preparing an attack or not in the first place. All you see is a cleric gathering some sort of magical energy.
Deciding that you should hide behind the cleric's allies given only that information seems a little suspect. Even if you're familiar with magic in general, line spells aren't exactly particularly ubiquitous... so even if you suspect the cleric is going to attack, taking specific measures to counter line spells seems even more suspect.
Though the general point stands that it's six whole actions that gives opponents a full turn to react... and lines are a pretty lame AoE shape that probably require maneuvering for friendly fire as much as they serve as real AoEs. So the spell should feel really good to land.
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I'll admit I glossed over the last portion of Ravingdork's post, I do agree that is way too specific of a response for someone with limited knowledge. Was more thinking in terms of spreading out because something big is going to happen since that's just standard strategy in a setting with magic.
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We are talking about a spell that does up to 120ft line, does force damage, and blinds on a critical failure. It is way over turned heightening at 4d4. I trust Mark to know what the math on a divine spell like this is supposed to be and think it is very kind to let’s us know what is in store for this spell
I think most people agree the designers know where they think Divine blasts should be. A lot of us just think they're wrong. This spell was a sliver of hope, and once again, that hope is shattered.
It was good to let Divine have nice things for once while it lasted, I guess.
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Whole scale changes to the math of the game should only come through full errata of all spells, not singular over powered spells in later expansion material. This is a spell with a serious debuff on a critical failure as well as decent AoE damage with a rarely resisted energy type. Spells that prioritize maximum damage potential almost always do so through die size increases, not more smaller dice, to keep randomness a part of the mechanic.
Against high AC creatures with lots of resistances, like ghosts, even a +2d4 hieghtened version of this spell can have its moments to shine, especially as a not top slot spell, since losing out of 5 points of damage is not THAT big of a deal. I think this spell pairs pretty well with harm on a divine sorcerer.
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Whole scale changes to the math of the game should only come through full errata of all spells, not singular over powered spells in later expansion material. This is a spell with a serious debuff on a critical failure as well as decent AoE damage with a rarely resisted energy type. Spells that prioritize maximum damage potential almost always do so through die size increases, not more smaller dice, to keep randomness a part of the mechanic.
Against high AC creatures with lots of resistances, like ghosts, even a +2d4 hieghtened version of this spell can have its moments to shine, especially as a not top slot spell, since losing out of 5 points of damage is not THAT big of a deal. I think this spell pairs pretty well with harm on a divine sorcerer.
I agree that the current scaling of getting more dice is weird. I just think like many other people that making it 2d4/level instead of 2d6 is basically killing one of the the coolest spells the game has ever had. Surely it has some decent extras, but many other spells also do (such as Lightning Bolt having double the default line size and doing an additional damage die at-level). With 2d4 you're just making it a bad blast with a decent control effect that only applies on a crit fail. At that point you're better off using an actual control spell.
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Whole scale changes to the math of the game should only come through full errata of all spells, not singular over powered spells in later expansion material.
Sure, but nerfing a spell that's a little too strong and making a spell terrible don't have to go hand in hand at all.
When I fist read the spell, I went back and went through it again because the heightened damage was just too good. Another thing that isn't showing up in the analysis is that you get this massively high damage out of one spell slot, instead of two. That let you 1) do this more often, and 2) do this and still have other options for later. I don't think we should underestimate the value of that extra spell slot.
Also maybe we can hold off on complaining on how much the spell is nurfed until they actually do so.
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I don't think it should be nerfed until we get more observations from actual play of how well two-round casting works.
I still think monsters that see a caster charging up will have a fight or flight reflex; and this being PF2, mostly fight reflex. Try to drop the caster before they can finish the spell.
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When I fist read the spell, I went back and went through it again because the heightened damage was just too good. Another thing that isn't showing up in the analysis is that you get this massively high damage out of one spell slot, instead of two. That let you 1) do this more often, and 2) do this and still have other options for later. I don't think we should underestimate the value of that extra spell slot.
Also maybe we can hold off on complaining on how much the spell is nurfed until they actually do so.
Well, I think the whole idea behind complaining now is in a vague hope that they don't kill the spell with nerfs. If we wait to complain until after the fact it won't serve for much.
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Another thing that isn't showing up in the analysis is that you get this massively high damage out of one spell slot, instead of two. That let you 1) do this more often, and 2) do this and still have other options for later. I don't think we should underestimate the value of that extra spell slot.
I don't think anyone's missing that, the math comparison people have been making is to one spell + one cantrip, which is the same number of spell slots (and two fewer actions).
Also maybe we can hold off on complaining on how much the spell is nurfed until they actually do so.
Really hard disagree here. The time to talk about how a spell might be changed and in what way is before that process is complete, not after.
And it's not like people are just speculating, we know what the intended change is going to be.
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Reducing the heightening to 2d4 makes the spell worst than Sound Burst which is also a lvl 2 Divine/Occult Spell.
Both have damage type that are rarely resisted.
Inner Radiance has a theoretical better area of effect but that in ractice will be really hard to use, especially other 2rounds, while sound burst should be easy to drop on at least a couple of enemies.
Sounds Burst would have better damage, and an effect on save fail / double effect on crit fail.
I'd even argue that Concordant Choir would be better (similar damage but better action flexibility) for a Spontaneous Caster or a Flexible Spellcaster.
Slot efficiency is good, but there is a lot that can be done with 6 actions and the spell should take tha into account (if reducing the damage, it should at least increase side effects for the 2 turns version).
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My opinion as a DM:
1. Lines are severely limited in most combats. They are probably one of the worst AoE effects given how hard they are set up.
2. 2 round spells are also hard to set up. 6 actions of combat in PF2 is a long time.
3. Most martials can easily output that much damage or more in 2 rounds of actions, especially if hasted or the like.
4. Force damage is really nice.
I would like to see this in action a few times to see if it can be used effectively in battle. I rarely use line spells myself because they are hard to set up. I rarely see them used because they are hard to set up.
This could be a nice single target spell for a boss monster that still does good damage even on a save. I want to see how well it can be used in actual play before I nerf it or reduce based on ideal possibilities.
My opinion as a DM:
1. Lines are severely limited in most combats. They are probably one of the worst AoE effects given how hard they are set up.
2. 2 round spells are also hard to set up. 6 actions of combat in PF2 is a long time.
3. Most martials can easily output that much damage or more in 2 rounds of actions, especially if hasted or the like.
4. Force damage is really nice.
I would like to see this in action a few times to see if it can be used effectively in battle. I rarely use line spells myself because they are hard to set up. I rarely see them used because they are hard to set up.
This could be a nice single target spell for a boss monster that still does good damage even on a save. I want to see how well it can be used in actual play before I nerf it or reduce based on ideal possibilities.
I think some separation is needed when discussing this spell - that the 2 round version takes 2 rounds to set up shouldn't be a criticism of the entire spell - it can be used like a normal spell, just for less overall damage. The 2 round version is just an extra bit of added functionality on top of what the spell normally does.
As for the 2 round version, I could see it being useful if you know the enemy is going to be locked down until your next turn, if the enemy has some kind of 1-round effect that protects them from your magic, or if the enemy aren't in your line of sight on your turn but are moving into the room before your next turn.
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I don't think it should be nerfed until we get more observations from actual play of how well two-round casting works.
I still think monsters that see a caster charging up will have a fight or flight reflex; and this being PF2, mostly fight reflex. Try to drop the caster before they can finish the spell.
This being PF2, they'll figure they can safely ignore the caster and focus on the real threats. And this being PF2, the heightening is going to be adjusted to keep that true.
My opinion as a DM:
1. Lines are severely limited in most combats. They are probably one of the worst AoE effects given how hard they are set up.
2. 2 round spells are also hard to set up. 6 actions of combat in PF2 is a long time.
3. Most martials can easily output that much damage or more in 2 rounds of actions, especially if hasted or the like.
4. Force damage is really nice.
I would like to see this in action a few times to see if it can be used effectively in battle. I rarely use line spells myself because they are hard to set up. I rarely see them used because they are hard to set up.
This could be a nice single target spell for a boss monster that still does good damage even on a save. I want to see how well it can be used in actual play before I nerf it or reduce based on ideal possibilities.
I think some separation is needed when discussing this spell - that the 2 round version takes 2 rounds to set up shouldn't be a criticism of the entire spell - it can be used like a normal spell, just for less overall damage. The 2 round version is just an extra bit of added functionality on top of what the spell normally does.
As for the 2 round version, I could see it being useful if you know the enemy is going to be locked down until your next turn, if the enemy has some kind of 1-round effect that protects them from your magic, or if the enemy aren't in your line of sight on your turn but are moving into the room before your next turn.
The 2 action version does half the damage. Still good with the current scaling, but not crazy.
Please remember that force is also functionally completely unresisted, including by incorporeal enemies. I think there's literally one enemy in the entire game that is capable of resisting force damage.
Let's assume it stays at 4d4, or even 3d4. For a level 6 slot, that's 24d4 initial, and 24d4 extra, averaging 60/60. At 3d4 per level, that averages 45/45. Now, what's another 6th level spell that deals force damage? Spirit Blast, at 56 damage. So you'll notice that even at 3d4 per level, it only loses 11 average damage for being multitarget (which is better than average, as I recall - standard AoE is approximately 66% ST), but also has double the range. Not to mention that it also has a second turn bonus if you're trying to save slots, or that it has a good critical failure effect, or that it also counteracts darkness effects as a bonus.