Question Concerning Streamers

[Glarx]

Hello, Playgroundites, I come to you, a humble lurker, with a question -- a quandary, if you will -- about a commonly cited spell that does not work as intended. Or perhaps it works as intended, but what it was intended for was rubbish.

Regardless, I've opened Shining South for the first time in a long while and peered at the spell in question. I believe I understand the horrific nature of the beast, but I'd like confirmation, if it isn't too much of a bother.

The spell lasts 1 round / caster level, creates four streamers at 18th caster level, and each streamer deals 5d10 as a touch attack that doesn't require any concentration from the caster.

So the argument for being broken is 'because it lasts so long, makes a touch attack as a readied action and isn't used up when the streamers deal damage makes it an absolute horror of a spell,' correct?

I just wanted to make absolutely sure I understood the issue at hand. When I first read the spell description and decided I had a question about it, I thought a streamer disappeared once it had dealt damage. As I began writing, I reread and thought, "Wait a tick, it doesn't say that it disperses after it deals damage, does it? That'd certainly be a different story."

Anyhow, just wanted confirmation. Thank y'all kindly!

[tyckspoon]

The vagueness about whether or not it discharges is part of it, because it leads to the actual big problem: it just says it goes off on any action. Your target moves? Streamers. Attacks? Streamers. Full attacks? 1 Streamers/attack, because a full attack is made up of multiple individual attack actions. Speaks? Oh you best believe that's a Streamering. Your basic options when subjected to Streamers are A: Stand still, don't do anything at all, because anything that has ever been listed as even a free action will get you hit or B: Die.

[Nich_Critic]

I think it would be a lovely spell if the damage was 2 per streamer per action, or similar. That way, it provides a nice, reasonable penalty. Do I want to do my full attack for 5 attacks, taking 40 damage, or do I not? It would make it a nice blasty control spell. The duration would make the damage add up over time, and it would still work really well against enemies who are already weakened

5d10 damage per streamer is insane, and rationally, it should discharge after the first action (this is still powerful, 20d10 is quite a bit of damage to take once, let alone for every action).

[ILM]

I'm going to ask a stupid question here, but what's a streamer, in our mundane world? Or did they just make up a word?

[Cog]

The vagueness about whether or not it discharges is part of it, because it leads to the actual big problem: it just says it goes off on any action.
The problem with that is that the spell references the Readied Action rules. You get only one readied action per turn. IIRC, there's three readings of the spell:

1) Each streamer gets a readied action. There's no information given about readying a new action, so as soon as a streamer attacks it becomes useless.

2) Each streamer attacks as if it had readied an action. Since actions can be readied once per turn, each round of the spell's duration, the readied action resets.

3) Each streamer attacks as if it had readied an action, period - whether it's already made such an attack is irrelevant.

The first seems the most accurate to me, with the second close. I think the third is right out.

ILM: This (http://www.achildsdream.com/images/silk_streamer_250.jpg) is a streamer.

[Divide by Zero]

ILM: This (http://www.achildsdream.com/images/silk_streamer_250.jpg) is a streamer.

Except presumably sharper.