Theoretical all day blasting (RAW check)

[Hirax]

Goal: all day blasting that will kill anything that eventually rolls enough 1s, obviating SR and AC.
Bonus goal for fun: searing spell and piercing cold in the same attack
Obstacle: dragon breath doesn't have an energy descriptor, you can't use mastery of elements, piercing cold, etc. Assume all spells are persisted by an incantatrix. Does this combo work?

Widened dragon breath (Spell Comp 73) spell for 60' lines of 10d8 electricity damage.
Breath weapon substitution (Spell Comp 39) with searing spell applied, changing damage to 10d8 fire damage that beats fire immunity.
Retroactively add empower and other feats as desired with incantatrix, for this example we'll stick to empower for 15d8.
Breath weapon admixture (Spell Comp. 39) with a rod of greater piercing cold to add 15d8 (because it matches the existing breath weapon's damage) cold damage that beats cold immunity.

Do any parts of this not work by RAW? Are there any other spells that I might consider adding to the mix? I'm aware of stunning breath and enervating breath. I'm aware of metabreath feats, of course, though those probably wouldn't be worth it.

[Anthrowhale]

Lightning Ring in Spell Compendium seems a more desirable base. Widening, you get a 240' line, and it's born of three thunders ready. You do somewhat less damage in a single round, but you don't have to wait to use it again, so more damage overall. And it zaps anyone who tries to get close, and the lightning bolts are free actions.

[dextercorvia]

Neither Dragon Breath, nor Lightning Ring are candidates for Widen spell. Both are personal spells not one of the listed Area of Effect spells.


You can alter a burst, emanation, line, or spread shaped spell to increase its area. Any numeric measurements of the spell’s area increase by 100%.A widened spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher than the spell’s actual level.

Spells that do not have an area of one of these four sorts are not affected by this feat.

While Searing Spell can be applied to Breath Weapon Substitution, it will have no effect, since the spell itself modifies the damage you normally do rather than dealing the damage itself.

[Hirax]

Lightning ring has no friend/foe distinction, unfortunately. Lord of the sky (Dragon Magic)+holy star (Spell Comp.) are going to the weapons of choice during recharges, though only lord of the sky can have searing spell/piercing cold on it.

[Flickerdart]

It's not all-day, but the psionic power Energy Current lasts rounds/level, so you can make do with one per combat. It's SR:Yes, unfortunately.

[Hirax]

Added to the OP, the other half of the goal was searing spell and piercing cold in the same attack for flavor. Breath weapon admixture seems to be the easiest way to do this, if I could just somehow get searing spell onto the base breath weapon before adding the piercing cold admixture. I'd settle for other things that can do this though, otherwise I might just return to metamagicing up something with one or the other, and not both.

[dextercorvia]

Added to the OP, the other half of the goal was searing spell and piercing cold in the same attack for flavor. Breath weapon admixture seems to be the easiest way to do this, if I could just somehow get searing spell onto the base breath weapon before adding the piercing cold admixture. I'd settle for other things that can do this though, otherwise I might just return to metamagicing up something with one or the other, and not both.

If you add both, and you end up facing something with Fire and Cold immunity -- I think the spell might do 1/4 damage depending on the way they are worded. But you have a lot of other problems to fix before you get there.

[Hirax]

Yep, though there are other solutions depending on what the enemy is, this combo only uses a few spells. This is the last resort option that could eventually kill anything if all else fails. I enjoy it narratively, I might even end up just having piercing cold only on the admixture and calling it good there. It isn't worth the trouble of getting an element descriptor (archmage's mastery of elements means any would do) put on dragon breath so it can then have searing spell added.

[Jack_Simth]

Added to the OP, the other half of the goal was searing spell and piercing cold in the same attack for flavor. Breath weapon admixture seems to be the easiest way to do this, if I could just somehow get searing spell onto the base breath weapon before adding the piercing cold admixture. I'd settle for other things that can do this though, otherwise I might just return to metamagicing up something with one or the other, and not both.
So... setting aside everything else for a moment, what you want is something that gives you an at-will ranged attack that'll let you hurt anything, preferably one where you can up the damage (which seems the main reason for wanting it to be elemental), while still letting you walk around town without killing commoners who brush up next to you?

Shapechange. Be a Ghale (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghaele.htm). Light beams! Ex, so SR doesn't apply, ranged, untyped damage, and explicitly overcomes all forms of damage reduction. It's only 2d12, though.

[Hirax]

Come to think, there's no reason a second casting of breath weapon admixture wouldn't do the trick, the first for piercing cold, the second for searing spell, bringing the total up to 45d8 if the original were empowered. Though I'm hesitant to add another 9th level spell to the mix. Still, electrifying icy hot breath is pretty amusing.

[dextercorvia]

Come to think, there's no reason a second casting of breath weapon admixture wouldn't do the trick, the first for piercing cold, the second for searing spell, bringing the total up to 45d8 if the original were empowered. Though I'm hesitant to add another 9th level spell to the mix. Still, electrifying icy hot breath is pretty amusing.

Searing or Piercing Breath Weapon Admixture doesn't work for the same reason that it doesn't work on Breath Weapon Substitution. These spells don't deal damage. They just modify your breath weapon to do more/different damage.

[Heliomance]

Added to the OP, the other half of the goal was searing spell and piercing cold in the same attack for flavor. Breath weapon admixture seems to be the easiest way to do this, if I could just somehow get searing spell onto the base breath weapon before adding the piercing cold admixture. I'd settle for other things that can do this though, otherwise I might just return to metamagicing up something with one or the other, and not both.

Use Snowcasting to give it the [cold] descriptor. At that point you can add Piercing Cold, Energy Admixture (Fire), and Searing Spell.

[dextercorvia]

Use Snowcasting to give it the [cold] descriptor. At that point you can add Piercing Cold, Energy Admixture (Fire), and Searing Spell.

That works.

[Hirax]

Searing or Piercing Breath Weapon Admixture doesn't work for the same reason that it doesn't work on Breath Weapon Substitution. These spells don't deal damage. They just modify your breath weapon to do more/different damage.

That I don't agree with, due to the phrase, "add an equal amount of the energy you choose." It's an addition, not a modification. A strange distinction to be sure, but it's delineable. I guess I'm missing where it says it's a requirement that something needs to be direct damage for searing/piercing to apply to the damage a spell causes/adds.

[dextercorvia]

A searing spell is so hot that it ignores the resistance to fire of creatures affected by the spell, and affected creatures with immunity to fire still take half damage.

The spell is personal range, so the only one affected by the spell is the caster.

[Hirax]

Is there a rule somewhere that makes that distinction? Anyone caught in the way of the breath weapon would probably disagree otherwise.

[dextercorvia]

Is there a rule somewhere that makes that distinction? Anyone caught in the way of the breath weapon would probably disagree otherwise.

The PHB.


A spell’s range indicates how far from you it can reach, as defined in the Range entry of the spell description. A spell’s range is the maximum distance from you that the spell’s effect can occur, as well as the maximum distance at which you can designate the spell’s point of origin. If any portion of the spell’s area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted. Standard ranges include the following.

A spell can not effect anything beyond its range.

[Siosilvar]

Most directly, the spell only affects the caster.

The targets of the breath weapon merely take additional damage of another type, which isn't a direct effect of the spell (adding damage is, dealing it isn't). Likewise, True Strike doesn't affect the target of the attack; it only adds +20 to hit with the attack.

[Hirax]

So the breath weapon isn't a spell effect? Otherwise it couldn't affect anything beyond a range of personal. I'm hideously confused now. Piercing cold doesn't use the word effect or affect, does that matter for anything?

[Flickerdart]

So the breath weapon isn't a spell effect? Otherwise it couldn't affect anything beyond a range of personal. I'm hideously confused now.
The ability to breathe fire is the effect of the spell. The firebreathing can affect things beyond personal range, so if you had some kind of "searing breath" feat, you could use that, but since the spell itself deals no damage, searing spell doesn't help you.

[dextercorvia]

Most directly, the spell only affects the caster.

The targets of the breath weapon merely take additional damage of another type, which isn't a direct effect of the spell (adding damage is, dealing it isn't). Likewise, True Strike doesn't affect the target of the attack; it only adds +20 to hit with the attack.

This is a pretty good parallel. You have a breath weapon, and cast BWA. Your breath weapon now changes -- when you use it, your subjects are affected by the Breath Weapon, but not the spell that modified the breath weapon.

[Hirax]

So even if I could get an elemental descriptor on dragon breath, I couldn't use piercing/searing on it, or even empower, maximize, etc? And that you also can't do any of these things to fire shield, stormrage, lord of the sky, etc?

[supermonkeyjoe]

The dragon breath spell doesn't do any damage and it has a range of personal so you can't widen, maximise, empower energy substitute or energy admixture it at all.

What it does do is grant you a breath weapon that then qualifies you for metabreath feats and any spell that modifies a breath weapon

[Hirax]

Right, what about the other spells I named?

[Heliomance]

With any spell that does do damage, if it has an energy descriptor, you can apply Energy Substitution (cold), Piercing Cold, Energy Admixture (fire), and Searing Spell. If it doesn't have an energy descriptor, use Snowcasting from Frostburn to give it the [cold] tag, then proceed as above.

[Hirax]

I'm aware of that possibility, that's the schtick that Cindy uses, I was just hoping for something less feat intensive. Though if that combination would work with fire shield, lord of the sky, stormrage, and similar, I'm still unclear why it would work for them and not for dragon breath. And still in disbelief that dragon breath can't be metamagiced, it feels just like when I found out that by RAW disintegrate doesn't work on trees.

[dextercorvia]

I'm aware of that possibility, that's the schtick that Cindy uses, I was just hoping for something less feat intensive. Though if that combination would work with fire shield, lord of the sky, stormrage, and similar, I'm still unclear why it would work for them and not for dragon breath. And still in disbelief that dragon breath can't be metamagiced, it feels just like when I found out that by RAW disintegrate doesn't work on trees.

I think that it works for Stormrage, Fire Shield, etc because specific trumps general. Fire Shield particularly allows SR against the retributive damage. That rule that I quoted is too often broken by spell designers.

Empower and Maximize should probably work with Dragon Breath, because the breath weapon is listed as an effect of the spell in the description. If you put Snowcasting on it, and can apply Piercing Cold afterword, that likewise should work (only really well if you use one of the Cold breath weapons, since Snowcasting doesn't change the damage type).

It doesn't work for DBA, or DBS, since they don't effect anything but your breath weapon directly.

[Hirax]

Hm. So if I got snowcasting, I could at least get piercing cold on there, or searing spell via mastery of elements (and picking a cone of cold or fire appropriately, of course). The wheels in my head are turning and I'm now thinking about throwing in transdimensional spell somehow, so I can fire into rope tricks, mage's mansions, etc.

Supposing I make the base breath weapon searing/piercing hot/cold, could I cast admixture as an acid spell, then change it via mastery of elements to the same element as the base? Well, let me just lay out another outline and see how it holds up:

Cast dragon breath with searing spell and transdimensional spell applied, and also using an empower rod, after giving it the cold descriptor via snowcasting, and changing it to fire with mastery of elements.
Retroactively add maximize via incantatrix, giving the spell 80+5d8 searing fire damage
Cast BW admixture as an acid spell, change it to fire with mastery of elements, changing the breath weapon damage to 160+10d8 searing fire damage.
Cast BW admixture twice more with the cold and electricity descriptors for 320+20d8 searing fire?

Also, dragon breath is an evocation spell. Because the breath weapon is coming from a class ability and it isn't a transmutation spell, it is seemingly not tied to a particular form, therefore would it persist through different forms during a shapechange spell?

[dextercorvia]

You can do the BWA +Mastery of Elements trick once. After that you are casting the same spell with the same effect (since you are using MoE to make it Fire each time), and therefore it would overlap rather than stack).

You would keep your breath weapon regardless of form. The new form doesn't even need breathing apparatus, since the spell provides the ability to breathe a gout of energy, regardless of the original form.

[Hirax]

Tasty. I might throw other elements in there just for a laugh.

Now this tempts me into somehow fitting in frozen magic, for +2 CL to all my buffs when I cast them, or +3 if they're already cold (the perfect increment for algid enhancement).