Threat Mitigation: Why the Batman Wizard Works

[ShneekeyTheLost]

In this treatise, we shall explore a concept which helps explain the overall power of a wizard when compared to melee classes. This concept is 'Threat Mitigation', also known as 'making the bad guys unable to hurt us'.

Combat is, in effect, a trade-off of resources. One of the resources you don't want to trade is HP, because losing them all is a Game Over condition (at least until you can get a Raise Dead). You also don't want to deal with things like stat damage, negative levels... basically anything your opponents are going to try to do to you.

The reason you are concerned about this is... well, let's call it 'adventuring endurance'. Basically, little hits can add up over time.

Having said that, while losing all HP is victory condition for the other side, having even a single hit point left leaves you fully functional and able to do bad stuff to your opponent. In other words, doing damage less than enough to kill your opponent has zero effect on their ability to hurt you.

Now we get to the 'save or lose' type spells, the ones that keep your opponent from doing anything. Action Economy is the only one we're worried about in combat, how many things can you do each round. If you can negate your opponent's action economy, you win.

In effect, negating your opponent's action economy is equivalent to dealing an arbitrary amount of damage, or at least enough to kill the opponent in one shot.

So let's take a look at some of these Threat Mitigation strategies.

First off, we have Glitterdust. It's a Save or Blind spell in an area effect. It's a Will save, but is NOT mind-affecting. Blind gives them a 50% miss chance against everything, and it also makes them flat-footed and generally enabling Sneak Attack and/or Sudden Strike. This is nice because even if your opponent hits, they STILL have a 50% chance of missing anyways. This is not instead of, but in addition to, their percent chance of hitting you based on their attack bonus vs your AC. Depending on how your GM rules blinding effects, they may well be unable to even locate you, making it even better.

Next, we have Stinking Cloud. Save or Nauseated. This one is a Fort save, so you'll need to stack your DC's a bit higher since the majority of opponents you will face will have a high Fort save, however Nauseated means you cannot take any actions, and it persists for 1d4 rounds after leaving the cloud. If they fail their fort save, they cannot act for longer than their life expectancy.

Slow is a deceptively good one, because it focuses on mobility. Basically, they can move, OR they can take a swing. Not both. And no full attacks either. Iterative attacks are about the only action economy multiplier a melee character has, you've just negated it. Oh, and it is a Will save and NOT mind-affecting, so odds are pretty good it's going to work fairly well. It also shuts down Charging. It turns a serious threat into a laughable one.

These are spells of 3rd level or lower, and will completely shut down opponents. Anything that is affected is effectively helpless and can be mopped up at your leisure.

Melee can also do fairly well at Threat Mitigation with Tripping, with a reach weapon, and at least large size. It's the same area effect as a Fireball, does more damage per target, and knocks them prone. It doesn't work on flying opponents, and it is more difficult to land on stable or larger opponents, but that's not to say it won't work if you stack your bonuses properly.

In short: Damage is sub-par unless you deal enough damage to guarantee a kill. In that case, go ahead and do damage, because you've just eliminated them. However, if you can't guarantee a kill through damage, a Save or Lose conditional is going to be a better tactical choice because you can negate the threat your opponents represent until your beatsticks can get around to lopping off their heads.

[Greenish]

I thought you could trip flyers (in 3.5, not in PF).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I thought you could trip flyers (in 3.5, not in PF).

Not that I'm aware of. Besides, do you really think a flying opponent is going to get within reach?

[Greenish]

Not that I'm aware of.It doesn't say anywhere that you couldn't. :smalltongue:


Besides, do you really think a flying opponent is going to get within reach?Probably not, but one can always hope (or fly).

[eggynack]

Not that I'm aware of. Besides, do you really think a flying opponent is going to get within reach?
You might be able to. In particular, there's a method to do so here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20060321a), but I dunno how RAW the "Rules of the Game" articles are.

[pwykersotz]

On the other hand, damage is one of the only condition in the game that you can't gain complete immunity to with ease (barring the whole troll immune to fire and acid which takes a very specific build). Damage may be sub-par when it comes to immediate threat mitigation, but it also has a certain reliability with it. You can damage any creature in the monster manual, but status conditions are hit or miss, and you might only have a couple of any particular option prepared.

In short, no direct disagreements with your treatise, but beatsticks are always nice to have around.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

On the other hand, damage is one of the only condition in the game that you can't gain complete immunity to with ease (barring the whole troll immune to fire and acid which takes a very specific build). Damage may be sub-par when it comes to immediate threat mitigation, but it also has a certain reliability with it. You can damage any creature in the monster manual, but status conditions are hit or miss, and you might only have a couple of any particular option prepared.

In short, no direct disagreements with your treatise, but beatsticks are always nice to have around.

No opponent can be immune to every status effect, so as long as you know what is immune to which effect, you can lock down with the best of them.

Name me how many opponents are likely to be immune to, say, Grappling (Black Tentacles, particularly with boosted CL to be able to successfully grapple the Tarrasque) or Slow. Unless they've got Freedom of Movement active (in which case, a dispel magic is the order of the day, probably quickened through one of several means), the answer is 'not many'.

Also, read your argument again. Being able to reliably do nothing to stop your opponent is not very powerful...

[pwykersotz]

No opponent can be immune to every status effect, so as long as you know what is immune to which effect, you can lock down with the best of them.

Name me how many opponents are likely to be immune to, say, Grappling (Black Tentacles, particularly with boosted CL to be able to successfully grapple the Tarrasque) or Slow. Unless they've got Freedom of Movement active (in which case, a dispel magic is the order of the day, probably quickened through one of several means), the answer is 'not many'.

Also, read your argument again. Being able to reliably do nothing to stop your opponent is not very powerful...

It's cool, like I said I don't disagree with anything you mentioned. On a percentage basis, you're absolutely correct. It's just that a GM who is playing with a Batman Wizard is likely to create actual challenges for that wizard. Thus, Amulets of Undying Fortitude might be a little more commonplace, etc...etc..

Raw damage in that case can be nice to have on hand, even if it doesn't stop them from hurting you as quickly. It's kind of the great equalizer. Pretty much everything is rendered moot when its HP drops low enough.

But yeah, if D&D was not tailored to the players, a Batman Wizard pretty much rocks it. Even if it is, it has the largest chance of having an immediate threat mitigation solution, and hopefully enough of said solution is prepared.

[Psyren]

In short: Damage is sub-par unless you deal enough damage to guarantee a kill. In that case, go ahead and do damage, because you've just eliminated them. However, if you can't guarantee a kill through damage, a Save or Lose conditional is going to be a better tactical choice because you can negate the threat your opponents represent until your beatsticks can get around to lopping off their heads.

This is certainly true, but the one factor these analyses rarely account for is other party members. While one mage dealing enough damage in one turn to drop a monster isn't always possible (or can be undesirable if it causes the DM to ramp up encounter difficulty,) the mage + fighter or mage + rogue going before the monster does and dropping it is another matter, and is functionally the same as the wizard incapacitating that monster with a SoD/SoL.

[eggynack]

This is certainly true, but the one factor these analyses rarely account for is other party members. While one mage dealing enough damage in one turn to drop a monster isn't always possible (or can be undesirable if it causes the DM to ramp up encounter difficulty,) the mage + fighter or mage + rogue going before the monster does and dropping it is another matter, and is functionally the same as the wizard incapacitating that monster with a SoD/SoL.
I'd actually say something like the opposite. When you're on your own, you have to rely on finicky spells that have the sheer power to let a wizard kill a big monster. When you're in a party, you get to cast nifty battlefield control, that applies its effects really consistently, and your teammates provide the inevitability. In other words, getting extra rounds from a solid fog is even better when you have the ability to convert time into damage through a beat stick. Besides, what's the point in being captain damagepants when your party mates are just doing it better? I'd rather just augment them with haste or something. It's generally more effective, and it makes them feel better about how things went down. Such is the way of the God wizard.

[Psyren]

I agree that control is even better in a party than alone, but so is blasting. Which the player chooses can be based on player preference as much as it is based on sheer effectiveness.

[Rosstin]

Such is the way of the God wizard.

Haha, you're channeling that one guy who writes guides about how Godly wizards are.

EDIT: This thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19873034/Treantmonks_guide_to_Wizards%3A_Being_a_God&post_num=5).

[eggynack]

I agree that control is even better in a party than alone, but so is blasting. Which the player chooses can be based on player preference as much as it is based on sheer effectiveness.
See, I'd disagree on that point as well. Yes, you're contributing to the general pool of damage, but you're doing so at a reduced efficiency relative to your other party members. Sure, a fireball might occasionally do more damage than a barbarian, just by the nature of a given combat, but it's a rare enough occasion that I feel it can be disregarded. In any case, the point is that you're better off having one guy handle the damaging, and the other guy controlling the battlefield. If you kill many guys by half, and then your partner in crime deals the other half, that can be a somewhat more efficient way to go about things than you dealing both halves, but the synergistic effect is even greater for non-damaging spells. Thus, on your own, damaging spells are bad. In a group, damaging spells are actually worse, because we must consider them on a relative scale, rather than an absolute one.


Haha, you're channeling that one guy who writes guides about how Godly wizards are.
I am indeed referencing Being a God: Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.0). I've always felt that it's a better wizarding conception than the idea of a Batman wizard.

Edit: I have been swordsage'd on this second count, and in an odd manner at that.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Mmm...yea, I'mma gonna have to agree with Eggynack here, in a party, the LAST thing you want to bother yourself with is damage as a caster. You've got these things called 'beatsticks' to do the damage for you, at no resource expenditure on your part.

The only reason to blastomancy in a group is if you absolutely, positively need something to go down IMMEDIATELY, in which case you Orb it down. This is reserved exclusively for threats like an opponent caster with celerity or other rare instance in which the party is surprised by a threat which can disable or destroy your entire party.

There is NEVER a situation in which a fireball is a thing that should be done. You already have something that will deal far more than 10d6 in a 20' radius. It's called your Fighter. And it does it every round, with no need for any actions on your part, and no resource expenditure.

[Psyren]

There is NEVER a situation in which a fireball is a thing that should be done.

"Never" is one of those fun words that makes me quite contrary indeed. :smallwink:



You already have something that will deal far more than 10d6 in a 20' radius. It's called your Fighter.

It's the rare fighter who can do all that damage to every square within 20' at the same time. Or in a 120ft. line, or a 60 ft. cone etc.



And it does it every round, with no need for any actions on your part, and no resource expenditure.

I thought we were talking about killing in one round though. 2 characters dealing damage has a greater chance of accomplishing this than one.

Again, not saying that blasting is the optimal strategy, but strategies should be based on fun first and effectiveness second. If my fellow party member wants to blast, I'm more likely to make the best of that scenario than force him to do something else that he doesn't want to do.


See, I'd disagree on that point as well. Yes, you're contributing to the general pool of damage, but you're doing so at a reduced efficiency relative to your other party members.

Pure efficiency is certainly a concern in a game, but it's not the only one.

[SiuiS]

Not that I'm aware of. Besides, do you really think a flying opponent is going to get within reach?

You can. Getting within range of an arrogant flyer is easy, too. A melee character can get around fifty feet of vertical movement, and a trip range of 30', if they're willing to use skills.

Clever flying enemies will stay at maximum range and risk missing with abilities. Arrogant ones will fly close enough for a held-action trip to being body surfed.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's the rare fighter who can do all that damage to every square within 20' at the same time. Or in a 120ft. line, or a 60 ft. cone etc.Spiked Chains and Enlarge Person are rare? Wow, that's news to me. That's also a 20' radius. With the kind of damage bonuses melee can stack up, they are one-shot killing anything they hit reliably. Which means you don't NEED to 'soften them up'. All you need is to reliabally do a couple hundred damage to take down any concievable opponent. 350 at the outside, if you end up finding Big T. That's peanuts. Then just Greater Cleave.


You can. Getting within range of an arrogant flyer is easy, too. A melee character can get around fifty feet of vertical movement, and a trip range of 30', if they're willing to use skills.Fifty feet from a standing jump? Not unless you've got ToB and a heavy optimization on Tiger Claw.


Clever flying enemies will stay at maximum range and risk missing with abilities. Arrogant ones will fly close enough for a held-action trip to being body surfed.

Missing? What is this 'missing'? The Attack Bonus vs AC is ludicrously in favor of the attacker. No opponent on either side of the fight should be doing anything as banal as missing after around level 5 barring natural 1's.

[Psyren]

Spiked Chains and Enlarge Person are rare? Wow, that's news to me.

You won't hit adjacent with those, and before you mention armor spikes, there's still AC, miss chance, cover, DR etc. to worry about.

Now, blasting has problems of its own (SR, energy resistance, saves) but the point is that smugly pronouncing blanket absolutes is often a silly practice.

[eggynack]

Pure efficiency is certainly a concern in a game, but it's not the only one.
I meant just in a worse way in general. You're basically using your spells to become a worse version of a fighter, and turning yourself from a wizard into a fighter is typically a step down. In any case, there are plenty of concerns in spell selection, but most of them favor non-blasting. In nearly any case where I'd want to cast a fireball, I'd probably be better off casting a stinking cloud, because stinking cloud is an amazing spell. There are obviously some situations where I'd rather cast a fireball (like against a druid with iron constitution. That ACF is sweet) but I think it's fair to say that there are many more situations where I'd rather cast a stinking cloud.

The only blasting spell I'd really consider worthwhile is something off the orb of x line, and that's just because they're so frigging reliable. Magic missile gets some attention for hitting just about always, but you're not going to see a magic missile hitting a golem in the middle of an AMF. There are other techniques that a wizard has available to harm an enemy in that state, but a searing orb of fire is going to hit just about always, and an orb of force is going to hit the enemies that an orb of fire doesn't.

[eggynack]

You won't hit adjacent with those, and before you mention armor spikes, there's still AC, miss chance, cover, DR etc. to worry about.
Actually, you will hit adjacent. That's what a spiked chain does. I don't think you hit the area between adjacent and your typical range though. I've seen the argument that it should, and I'd agree with that argument under the premise of "Melee deserves nice things," but my stance is stable under pure RAW.

[gorfnab]

A wise man once said: A good wizard is like a good bassist. You don't notice them until they leave.

[Psyren]

I meant just in a worse way in general. You're basically using your spells to become a worse version of a fighter, and turning yourself from a wizard into a fighter is typically a step down.

I know what you meant; to reiterate, I was saying that pure effectiveness is not the only concern to many gaming groups, and even if it is, it's quite possible to have the wrong control spell for a given challenge. Your recommendation of stinking cloud for instance would do very little to hinder an undead spider swarm, but a fireball would be quite handy.


Actually, you will hit adjacent. That's what a spiked chain does. I don't think you hit the area between adjacent and your typical range though. I've seen the argument that it should, and I'd agree with that argument under the premise of "Melee deserves nice things," but my stance is stable under pure RAW.

I appreciate the clarification but it doesn't change my point; melee attacks are strong but still have different obstacles to bypass than blasts do.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You won't hit adjacent with those, and before you mention armor spikes, there's still AC, miss chance, cover, DR etc. to worry about.Yes you will. That's literally the reason Spiked Chain exists is to hit all the things. AC is going to be nothing, Attack Bonus scales FAR faster. You won't be missing except on a natural 1. DR is not going to be more than a drop in the bucket. Even DR/15 against say 400 damage is still dealing 385 damage. Oh, be still my wounded heart...

As far as miss chance, it's called Pierce Magical Concealment. ANY Fighter should have it. This is not an option in a magic-dominated world.

Let's give the devil his due, if you've got a Batman Wizard, your fighters are also going to be fairly optimized. And really, the bar is a LOT lower here. It's not like Fighters don't have feats to blow, after all.


Now, blasting has problems of its own (SR, energy resistance, saves) but the point is that smugly pronouncing blanket absolutes is often a silly practice.I'm not being smug, I'm relating my experience, both as a player and as a DM, for the past decade of playing 3.x. I have never once in all that time seen an instance in which a fireball would have been a tactically sound choice.

[bekeleven]

I'm not being smug, I'm relating my experience, both as a player and as a DM, for the past decade of playing 3.x. I have never once in all that time seen an instance in which a fireball would have been a tactically sound choice.
I posted this yesterday:


Haste does more damage than Fireball at every level, unless your party melees really, really suck.

Assume a level 6 barb (we'll ignore uberchargers right now... and ToB). 2 attacks. BAB +6, STR +5 depending on items, +1 greataxe, and probably one or two +1 bonuses from an aid spell or a misc. magic item. So low-op level 6 barb is swinging at +13/+8 and hitting for 1D12+8. Enraged, his hits go to +15/+10 and damage jumps to 1D12+11. That's an average of 35 damage per round if all of it hits, or half of that (17) if he misses his lower iterative attack. After all, he's not a shock trooper pouncer.

Now Haste him. If we still assume the same stats, his damage goes up to 52 per round (with the attacks now made at +16/+16/+11). That's 17 extra damage per round, for 6 rounds. And that's even assuming you only have one person in your party using attack actions! The more, the merrier. And him missing his lower iterative just means that your extra attack being at full BAB (and the boost to attacks) matters even more. Obviously, I didn't count criticals in these calculations.

Now look at a fireball. It deals 6D6, or an average of 21 damage. You would have to hit 5 enemies with its full damage to deal more damage than the haste did just by adding attacks to one player, and this is before you realize that haste buffed every member of your party and gave them bonuses to hit, AC, Reflex Saves, and movement. And that fireball damage? It's also Reflex half and SR:Yes.

On a side note, I'm surprised that nobody mentioned that the first post says nauseated = no actions (it allows movement, which is nearly, but not quite the same) and that slow = no move and attack (you can still partial charge, but your range is rather low).

[Zombimode]

Spiked Chains and Enlarge Person are rare? Wow, that's news to me.

At actual game tables? Yes. (At least the Spiked Chain)

Also, while your tactical analysis has some good points, your patronizing tone leaves a lot to be desired.
You could also work on your use of absolute statements. You seem to miss that there is a level range (1-6 at least) where balsting is quite a good option in combat.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

On a side note, I'm surprised that nobody mentioned that the first post says nauseated = no actions (it allows movement, which is nearly, but not quite the same) and that slow = no move and attack (you can still partial charge, but your range is rather low).

I will agree with your valuation of Haste as compared to Fireball, except to say that your example assumes zero optimization. Crank in Shock Trooper + Leap Attack with Pounce and you get quite a LOT nastier with Haste.

Having said that, you cannot take any standard actions, you only get a move action, while nauseated. An opponent who cannot attack cannot threaten you. You are technically correct about the quibble, however it doesn't change my point.

However, there is no such thing as a 'partial charge'. A Charge attack is a full-round action, which you are denied.

[Fortuna]

However, there is no such thing as a 'partial charge'. A Charge attack is a full-round action, which you are denied.

That's wrong. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#charge)


If you are able to take only a standard action or a move action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of up to double your speed). You can’t use this option unless you are restricted to taking only a standard action or move action on your turn.

[olentu]

However, there is no such thing as a 'partial charge'. A Charge attack is a full-round action, which you are denied.

I do believe that it is technically true that as of the 3.5 revision there is no such thing named partial charge. However one can charge as a standard action if and only if the character is unable to take a full round’s worth of actions.

Presumably the term partial charge stuck around since "performing a charge as a standard action when under a restriction that keeps the character from taking a full round's worth of actions on its turn" is a bit of a mouthful.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

At actual game tables? Yes. (At least the Spiked Chain)Really? Once my players discovered it, there was never a game without one.


Also, while your tactical analysis has some good points, your patronizing tone leaves a lot to be desired.
You could also work on your use of absolute statements. You seem to miss that there is a level range (1-6 at least) where balsting is quite a good option in combat.

You don't have anything to blast with until at least 5th level, by which time blasting is going to be completely outclassed by Haste and shutting down opponents with Slow, Glitterdust, and Stinking Cloud. Well, maybe if you want to include something like Scorching Ray into your definition of 'blasting'. 4d6 to a single target, at these levels. Comes out to an average of 14 damage. Also happens to be the bonus damage Dungeoncrasher gives.

By contrast:

Human Fighter 1 with 18 Strength has three feats. He picks up EWP: Spiked Chain and Combat Reflexes as two of them. He's dealing 2d4+6 damage every time he swings, has a +5 BAB, and has a number of AoO equal to 1+Dex Mod. Since he has a Spiked Chain with a reach of 10', opponents trying to close within that range are going to get hit with an AoO before they have a chance to do anything else. And at that level, he's not only got a very solid chance of landing that blow, but he's also going to insta-gib any CR1 encounter with a minimum of 8 damage dealt.

Human Fighter 4 is even worse. He picks up Combat Expertise as his other 1st level feat, Improved Trip at level 2, Power Attack at level 3, and Leap Attack at level 4. At this point, he is as much Battlefield Control as he is damage output. He's still out-damaging any spell the wizard or sorcerer has access to, and is probably the most favorable point in the Fighter vs Wizard discussion in terms of relative power.

Human Fighter 6 now has Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper. At this point, there's no way the wizard is going to match the fighter's damage output short of Mailman.

This is, of course, assuming straight Fighter. If I were to include Dungeoncrasher, it gets far, far worse.

I apologize if my exasperation comes off as patronization. I've heard this argument way too many times. The numbers don't lie: blastomancy sucks at any level and in any situation.

[IronFist]

While I mostly agree with Shneekey here, I have to point out that there are several situations fireball can be a good spell to cast. I also disagree completely iwht that damage calculation from the old Batman Wizard thread: it considers that there is always a target within range of the barbarian. The biggest complain about melee we get is that it's not the case - you have to move to get into range. So pray tell me - why is this an issue when it comes to saying melee sucks, but it is not an issue when it comes to saying buff spells rock?

The truth is - if your melee fighter can reach, hit and damage the opposition reliably, Haste may deal more damage than fireball, depending on the fighter. Don't get me wrong - I would always start a battle by casting haste on my allies. I would also keep a direct damage spell prepared, just in case.

Psyren also has it right when it comes to attacking hit points. When everyone does the same thing, results improve. When the wizard uses a SoD and the fighter attacks hit points, hey are not working together as best as they can (of course, the Fighter could be doing lockdown and the wizard could be debuffing to prepare a SoD, but that's another case).

Does the Batman Wizard work? Of course it does. Are direct damage spells worthless? Of course not.

[Yora]

At actual game tables? Yes. (At least the Spiked Chain)
Never seen a spiked chain or an enlarge person spell in play.

[ArcturusV]

I kinda question the assertion that blasting is viable and valuable at levels 1-6. I actually think it's kind of the opposite, and it becomes more viable at high level and you need your more optimized Battlefield Control spells at low level.

With a few exceptions (Most of which are like Shocking Hands, more of a Gish spell than a Wizard Spell), blasting spells at low level do pitiful damage. Really pitiful. Not even enough to take down a Kobold. But your Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, what have you, don't need optimized tricks to knock down an enemy with a single tap typically. It's not until you get some caster levels under your belt that all those Xd4 and Xd6 spells start to do enough damage to really pay off.

I mean at first level, would you rather cast Burning Hands, and have a very slight chance at killing even a lowly Kobold with it (Maxed damage and a failed save being needed)? Or would you rather cast Color Spray, and kill up to two on a failed save? Would you rather cast Magic Missile for 1d4 + 1, or Sleep to KO an encounter?

At higher levels, it's different. When you do get your blasts, cones, lines, etc, you can effectively help clear out a lot of mooks. And that's honestly how a lot of wizards I've had at my tables have gone. Least the ones that were combat focused. They'd end up going and nuking all these peons... while the fighter/barbarian/beatstick goes and rage faces in the boss man/most lethal enemy. Effective enough in it's way. People have fun. There's never really any butt hurt about who's having all the fun... except occasionally when you deal with Alchemist Guy or something who's eggshell grenades/alchemist's fire fun got ruined because the Wizard went first and dropped a Meteor Swarm all over his tightly packed targets.

[Zombimode]

With a few exceptions (Most of which are like Shocking Hands, more of a Gish spell than a Wizard Spell), blasting spells at low level do pitiful damage. Really pitiful.

Hm. The Wizard in my group is level 3 and with Fireburst deals 1d8/level to all creatures within 10 ft. which in his case is 4d8 (thanks to a reserve feat boosting his CL with fire spells). Yeah, 4d8 at level 3 IS good. And 7d8 at level 6 (our end level since we're playing E6) is still good.

[nedz]

There is NEVER a situation in which a fireball is a thing that should be done. You already have something that will deal far more than 10d6 in a 20' radius. It's called your Fighter. And it does it every round, with no need for any actions on your part, and no resource expenditure.

Never is too strong.
It's hard to get a fighter to do damage at a range of 600'+
Not impossible, but they have to be built for it — whilst for the Wizard it's just one spell.
Also: Hordes.

Maybe you never see these situations in your games, but they can happen.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

While I mostly agree with Shneekey here, I have to point out that there are several situations fireball can be a good spell to cast. I also disagree completely iwht that damage calculation from the old Batman Wizard thread: it considers that there is always a target within range of the barbarian. The biggest complain about melee we get is that it's not the case - you have to move to get into range. So pray tell me - why is this an issue when it comes to saying melee sucks, but it is not an issue when it comes to saying buff spells rock?Flight is another 3rd level spell that can be cast on allies...


The truth is - if your melee fighter can reach, hit and damage the opposition reliably, Haste may deal more damage than fireball, depending on the fighter. Don't get me wrong - I would always start a battle by casting haste on my allies. I would also keep a direct damage spell prepared, just in case.Between Pounce and Charge, and your ability to give him the alternate flight modes he needs to stay relevant, I'm sure he'll be able to reach out and smack someone. At least, he'll be able to hit any target you can.


Psyren also has it right when it comes to attacking hit points. When everyone does the same thing, results improve. When the wizard uses a SoD and the fighter attacks hit points, hey are not working together as best as they can (of course, the Fighter could be doing lockdown and the wizard could be debuffing to prepare a SoD, but that's another case).I would absolutely disagree here. Fighter is going to insta-gib just about anything he hits. Doing more damage is a waste of time. Furthermore, locking an opponent down so the Fighter -CAN- close with it is VERY synergistic and working together as best they can. Piling damage on top of damage is merely a redundant duplication of effort.


Does the Batman Wizard work? Of course it does. Are direct damage spells worthless? Of course not.

The only direct damage spells that have any worth are ones like Orb of Fire which can be used to selectively eliminate opponents who would otherwise be immune to everything. However, they are only of use in the highest levels of optimization where you are facing opponents who are immune to literally everything, and you can bypass that immunity.


Never is too strong.
It's hard to get a fighter to do damage at a range of 600'+
Not impossible, but they have to be built for it — whilst for the Wizard it's just one spell.
Also: Hordes.

Maybe you never see these situations in your games, but they can happen.

Sure, they have to be built for it, but it's not like they don't have the resources to do so, and not much else to do. Besides, only another Wizard is likely to be problematic at that range, and you'll need to take care of such a threat in alternate methodologies anyways.

As far as Hordes... that's even more easily dealt with by melee... it's called 30' reach plus Great Cleave. Wasn't there an ability somewhere that let you take 5' steps between cleaves, and a build that literally mowed through armies using it?

[IronFist]

Between Pounce and Charge, and your ability to give him the alternate flight modes he needs to stay relevant, I'm sure he'll be able to reach out and smack someone. At least, he'll be able to hit any target you can.
You are making assumptions LogicNinja did not make. He never considered pounce and his calculations rely on more than one attack hitting.


I would absolutely disagree here. Fighter is going to insta-gib just about anything he hits.
Again, you're making assumptions LogicNinja did not make. His examples did not rely on optimized fighters.


The only direct damage spells that have any worth are ones like Orb of Fire which can be used to selectively eliminate opponents who would otherwise be immune to everything. However, they are only of use in the highest levels of optimization where you are facing opponents who are immune to literally everything, and you can bypass that immunity.
Incorrect - they are also useful in any level of optimization in which a fighter won't be able to reach, hit and defeat every creature in a single round. Which was my point all along.


As far as Hordes... that's even more easily dealt with by melee... it's called 30' reach plus Great Cleave. Wasn't there an ability somewhere that let you take 5' steps between cleaves, and a build that literally mowed through armies using it?
Great Cleave is always mentioned as one of the worst possible feats a melee build can take. Supreme Cleave is a rare ability only two prestige classes get and it was greatly nerfed from the 3.0 version. "build X can do it" is hardly an argument.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You are making assumptions LogicNinja did not make. He never considered pounce and his calculations rely on more than one attack hitting.


Again, you're making assumptions LogicNinja did not make. His examples did not rely on optimized fighters.Right. And his equations still pointed out how much better Haste is than Fireball, even without that. At least I'm giving the Fighter credit for being able to do something other than make coffee.


Incorrect - they are also useful in any level of optimization in which a fighter won't be able to reach, hit and defeat every creature in a single round. Which was my point all along. And I disagree with this opinion. If you have a threat the fighter can't reach, you disable it so he can. Also so it doesn't do unpleasant things to you and your party. Not killing it with damage is only going to let it get free shots off.

Twin Spell Maximized Empowered Spell Matricies Fire Orb is a panic button for extreme opponents, not something to launch on a whim.


Great Cleave is always mentioned as one of the worst possible feats a melee build can take. Supreme Cleave is a rare ability only two prestige classes get and it was greatly nerfed from the 3.0 version. "build X can do it" is hardly an argument.

Yes, Great Cleave is always mentioned as one of the worst possible feats a melee build can take. However, that 'truism' was made with the same misconceptions that Logic Ninja used... that no one ever found a way to Pounce or dish out enough damage to one-shot opponents. Once you can kill opponents in one hit (which isn't all that difficult), it becomes 'kill all the things within reach'.

Really, I'm being quite tame with my melee comparisons. I'm using straight Fighter. I could be using Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade. In which case 'melee range' can be quite a bit larger. In fact, with Dragonwrought cheese, it can be 'line of sight'.

[nedz]

Yes, Great Cleave is always mentioned as one of the worst possible feats a melee build can take. However, that 'truism' was made with the same misconceptions that Logic Ninja used... that no one ever found a way to Pounce or dish out enough damage to one-shot opponents. Once you can kill opponents in one hit (which isn't all that difficult), it becomes 'kill all the things within reach'.

Great Cleave is a counter for Mirror Image, though there are better options.


Really, I'm being quite tame with my melee comparisons. I'm using straight Fighter. I could be using Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade. In which case 'melee range' can be quite a bit larger. In fact, with Dragonwrought cheese, it can be 'line of sight'.

No you are not. You are assuming a high OP Fighter.

Fireball is a low OP spell, in low OP games the BSF is not dropping opponents in one round. Fireball ablates the monsters HP so that he might.

I don't really disagree with your thesis, but your arguments are a little sweeping.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

No you are not. You are assuming a high OP Fighter.Is that worse than assuming a high-op Wizard and a low-op fighter? Let's face it, if you have a Batman Wizard in the party, then the game is not low-op. Or at least it's not going to be.

I'm giving fighters the credit they are actually due, for once. No, they can't fight Wizards on equal level and win, but they can and do serve a valid use as beatstick, which permits the wizard to focus on battlefield control magic rather than wasting time blasting things.


Fireball is a low OP spell, in low OP games the BSF is not dropping opponents in one round. Fireball ablates the monsters HP so that he might.Fireball is not a low optimization spell, it is an outdated and inefficient spell. It is found in Core, so optimization has very little to do with the spell itself.

A first level Fighter with a Greatsword and a Strength of 18 is doing 2d6+6 with zero optimization. This is an average of 15 damage, and exceeds the average damage of any damaging spell until a wizard gets up to around level 5 or so. This works even in a 'low op' build.

For that matter, I disagree, the builds I've shown have been relatively low-op compared to the games I play in. I'm picking boilerplate feats with more levels in Fighter than any sane person ever bothers with.

If I wanted a reasonably optimized melee, I'd be going Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade and have a radius of 50'-100' (assuming no dragonwrought cheese to gain early access to Epic feats and raising the radius to 'line of sight', but that is high-op not reasonable) with which to beat things down in, and have additional options with maneuvers. Which would blow all of my currently displayed builds out of the water.


I don't really disagree with your thesis, but your arguments are a little sweeping.They are more than a little sweeping, yes. However they've also yet to be disproved, despite the absolute stance of the argument. Which is pretty telling.

[Gemini476]

No you are not. You are assuming a high OP Fighter.

Fireball is a low OP spell, in low OP games the BSF is not dropping opponents in one round. Fireball ablates the monsters HP so that he might.

I don't really disagree with your thesis, but your arguments are a little sweeping.

Isn't this entire thread (and the concept of the "batman wizard") based on the assumption that the rest of the party is at least medium-op? Sure, there's no reason not to fireball when Haste doesn't help a Flurry of Misses much, but in a low-op game people do a LOT less damage. As in Weapon+(Rolled) Strength+Weapon Focus damage. One handed with a shield.

[IronFist]

Right. And his equations still pointed out how much better Haste is than Fireball, even without that. At least I'm giving the Fighter credit for being able to do something other than make coffee.
It didn't, because his equations were flawed for all the reasons I already pointed out.


And I disagree with this opinion. If you have a threat the fighter can't reach, you disable it so he can. Also so it doesn't do unpleasant things to you and your party. Not killing it with damage is only going to let it get free shots off.
Reach, hit and defeat at the same time is not the same as 'reach'.



A first level Fighter with a Greatsword and a Strength of 18 is doing 2d6+6 with zero optimization. This is an average of 15 damage, and exceeds the average damage of any damaging spell until a wizard gets up to around level 5 or so. This works even in a 'low op' build.

This is mathematically wrong. Attack bonus is also very important for potential damage and damage spells will either use touch attacks or target saves, increasing accuracy considerably when compared to melee attack rolls. Average damage of 2d6+6, btw, is 13, not 15.


Isn't this entire thread (and the concept of the "batman wizard") based on the assumption that the rest of the party is at least medium-op? Sure, there's no reason not to fireball when Haste doesn't help a Flurry of Misses much, but in a low-op game people do a LOT less damage. As in Weapon+(Rolled) Strength+Weapon Focus damage. One handed with a shield.
No. LogicNinja's example (which was even quoted here) incudes a Barbarian LogicNinja himself says is low op. How that low op Barbarian manages to do multiple attacks per round against any enemy with half a brain goes on answered, though.

EDIT: Unless your point is "in high OP game, Batman Wizard is pretty cool" which is of course cool and something so obvious no one even needs to point out

[Psyren]

AC is going to be nothing, Attack Bonus scales FAR faster. You won't be missing except on a natural 1.

Making AC that irrelevant just sparks arms races with the DM, unless he doesn't actually care about attack rolls at all. I mean, you might as well only roll damage in a game like that.



DR is not going to be more than a drop in the bucket. Even DR/15 against say 400 damage is still dealing 385 damage. Oh, be still my wounded heart...

There's that smugness again.

DR is per attack, so it can indeed add up, particularly when (again) some attacks are missing like they're supposed to.



I'm not being smug, I'm relating my experience, both as a player and as a DM, for the past decade of playing 3.x. I have never once in all that time seen an instance in which a fireball would have been a tactically sound choice.

And I have. You're not the only one who plays this game, you know.

[IronFist]

And I have. You're not the only one who plays this game, you know.
Couldn't agree more.

[bekeleven]

It didn't, because his equations were flawed for all the reasons I already pointed out.

OK, I will help unflaw them:


Haste hits multiple targets. You're also hitting your rogue/ranger and your party's 4th, a divine caster probably.
Haste gives +1 to attack, reflex saves, and AC.
If it's what you're into, Haste benefits enormously from +1 metamagic (extend), whereas fireball is generally paired with a +2 to make it marginally useful.
Haste increases move speed. Either you're pouncing and this gives you incredible range at which to take all of your attacks, or you're not and this guarantees your ability to get one attack. Either way, net increase of 1 attack.
If you're fighting one monster, it's guaranteed that fireball can't deal damage similar to haste (not even the same order of magnitude). If fighting piles of mooks, and your DCs are good enough that they succeed only 40% of the time (and have no SR), you need to hit 7 with a fireball to beat the damage haste gives to 1 low-to-mid op barbarian.


In other words, there are way too many variables for me to calculate and "average case", but nearly every added variable increases haste's utility over fireball.

[Gemini476]

Assuming that blaster spells do CLdy damage, you beat 13 average damage at 6d4, 4d6 and 3d8. I would like to see a build that gets that high caster level at level one, to be honest.

However, a low-Op half-orc barbarian (Iconic!) will have +6 Str during a rage - that's 22 Str if they put a 16 in their primary stat and 2d6+9 damage with a greatsword (also rather iconic.)
That's an average of 16 damage at level one for our proud little barbarian!
When he takes Power Attack (Because raging recklessly is very barbarian) he starts adding 2*BAB on top of that for damage, and at level six he doubles all of that with an additional attack!

In case you are wondering, I'm not calculating stuff for the fighter because the core fighter is more complicated to build than a core low-op barbarian. I also like the barbarian and silly math, so that's a plus.

Let's start running some numbers for our Barbarian at levels 1-6, shall we? Let's call him Kronk, because that sounds like an orky barbarian.

At level one, Kronk does 2d6+9 damage at +7 to hit vs. an average AC of 15.28. That's an adjusted average of 9.37 damage, and not enough to kill the average CR 1 enemy (12.24 HP).
At this level, Magic Missile does an average 3.5 damage. Puny wizard should have stuck to crowd control, tbh.

At level two, enemies have improved to AC 15.76 and 20.55 HP. Kronk and Wizard McBlastypants haven't really, however. Kronk does the same damage, but hits more often (9.792 damage).
Shocking Grasp does an average of 7 damage, but requires hitting Touch AC (2.85 damage) and Burning Hands does 5 average but allows a save for half. Blasting isn't really worth it at these levels!

Now we enter the lands of Level Three and the mythic realms of the Second Feat. We already took Endurance for the first feat, so let's make this second feat something similarly fitting for the Loincloth Barbarian archetype: Power Attack. "But wait, Neveron!" you say, "That's not low-op!" But Power Attack is a prereq for Cleave, which is a prereq for Great Cleave. Oh, and it's a prereq for a whole bunch of other feats, but Great Cleave allows infinite attacks.
Kronk now does 2d6+9+6 damage when PAing for full, and has +6 to hit. The average enemy has 16.14 AC and 27.26 HP, so he deals an average of 10.84 damage.
McBlastypants has second level spells now! Your options are Acid Arrow (Conjuration) and Scorching Ray. Acid Arrow deals 2d6/turn for two turns while Scorching Ray does 4d6... As a ranged touch attack. That's 6.643 damage when adjusted for missing. Blasting still isn't that great!

Level four! Barbarian puts +1 into Str and probably has a +1 weapon by now. He does 2d6+18 damage at +7 to hit, and also has an additional rage so he can get in those extra 3 damage more often. Enemies at this level are at 16.00 AC and 48.23 HP. Kronk has an average damage of 13.75 damage, or a healthy 25% of enemy health for those interested in stuff like that. Do note that I'm on a tablet and haven't bothered with counting in critical hits, so all this damage is a bit higher.
The squishy wizard is a bit less squishy and also has more spells. It's more of the same, but I'll figure out what damage Flaming Sphere does when I get home. Scorching Ray does an average of 8.085 damage now, due to Touch AC weirdness and the extra BAB. I have no idea of how you compare to low-op WF Fighter, but Kronk is outclassing you.

Level Five means third-level spells! Kronk does an extra +2 from Power Attack. Enemies are at 17.16 AC, 56.33 HP. He might want to drop some of the Power Attack at this point, but he's doing 27 at +7 as is. Adjusted, that's 13.284 damage. Remember, I'm not calculating crits.
The Wizard is approaching the limits of E6 at this point. Explosive Runes does an average 21 damage point-blank, and Fireball and Lightning Bolt do 5d6 (17.5 before reflex), Haste does 13.284/turn for five turns, or 66.42 damage.

Level six gives more spells, increases Fireball and Lightning Bolt to Explosive Runes damage, and gives Kronk Cleave, +2 damage, an extra attack and an extra round of Haste. Enemies now have 18.88 AC and 69.12 health, so Kronk does an average of 11.74+4.176=15.916 damage. Every fifth turn, he gets an extra attacks or ~every second turn with Haste.

I'll make some better calculations once I get home - I think I've been writing this for some hours now, and tablets aren't really meant for this.
I'd really like it if someone could write up what items the characters should have at every level, as well as feats and (I suppose) a healbot cleric, TWF rogue and feat fighter to compare to. The fighter needs a whole bunch of feats chosen because of sounding cool and/or thematic. I'll go make some builds.

For those who wonder, I've been using the numbers from the "optimisation by the numbers" guide, and the SRD for "core".

[DR27]

I dunno, blasting has it's place, but you can't use it as a damage only thing, and core spells like fireball aren't really worth prepping or having as a spell known.

Example: Frost Breath (SpC) - it's damage numbers aren't great, but the rider effect of Dazed is a great status effect to spread to multiple enemies that fail their save. Or look at Great Thunderclap, it's a blast spell that doesn't do damage at all. Wings of Flurry? I'm pretty sure that it's a worthwhile blast. Spells like fireball are worth it for range, not damage. Unfortunately, long-range is less common than short-range combat.

[Psyren]

In other words, there are way too many variables for me to calculate and "average case", but nearly every added variable increases haste's utility over fireball.

You know, nobody at all is saying "Fireball > Haste." All we're saying is "Fireball isn't (always) useless." Haste is great - it's also on just about every spell list in the game (and Blessing of Fervor, speed weapons etc. cover for it too) so having every caster in the party bring it along is overkill.

A fireball is inefficient in many fights, I totally agree. Against those (undead) swarms of diminutive spiders swiftly moving towards you you might like to have it though. Certainly Kronk won't be much help there, even hasted.

[atomicwaffle]

fireball has a few (somewhat) practical applications
-can hit water to create fog
-can burn down forests/villages/start flashfires
-has very good range
-AOE
-you can shoot a fireball through a hole (like a keyhole or a crack in the wall)
-fun with Grease
-useful to have at least in the spellbook if you think you might be up against something vulnerable to fire

[emeraldstreak]

No opponent can be immune to every status effect, so as long as you know what is immune to which effect, you can lock down with the best of them.

Name me how many opponents are likely to be immune to, say, Grappling (Black Tentacles, particularly with boosted CL to be able to successfully grapple the Tarrasque) or Slow. Unless they've got Freedom of Movement active (in which case, a dispel magic is the order of the day, probably quickened through one of several means), the answer is 'not many'.

Also, read your argument again. Being able to reliably do nothing to stop your opponent is not very powerful...


Which was why a 1-level dip in Cleric for the Travel domain's Freedom of Movement was popular in arenas.


Threat Mitigation is an important concept for arena champions or generally overpowered builds for any RPG system, not d20 only. For instance, in arenas there are three broad power tiers that correspond to three character building ways.

The lowest one is the ordinary one. A typical campaign build ported for an arena. It has no impressive threat potential, nor significant threat mitigation.

The middle one is what I call "daggers". These are builds that have one very optimized trick, and that trick insta-wins fights. Back in the day they were things like Water Orc chargers, or lvl 1 wizards who could cast that one uber magic missile that could take out most lvl 1 characters, or great grapplers, or optimized DC Color Sprays, or the very sneaky snipy ones, etc, the dagger list is almost endless. What they have in common is their impressive threat potential.

Finally, there is the threat mitigation level. Those were exceptionally crafty builds that could defend successfully against multiple and diverse dagger types, while retaining significat threat potential too. Being able to mitigate threats and manage your risk - including bad dice - to an acceptable level is a high art of system mastery.

Coincidentally, a high level character that can mitigate the threat of any possible situation, regardless of whether he is a batman wizard or an infinite perfect loop exalt or whatever in whichever system, employs the very same principle, but not just against his arena competition but against all the challenges his world has to offer.

[Hashiel_Dammit]

Here's what always gets me about the arrogance of the squishies. Yes, your Batman wizard can take out opponents in many more ways than damage. However, most of these have a limited duration and what happens when the mooks shake off the effects? Eventually you run out of a spells and then you go splat.

Haste can only do more damage than a fireball if you have some martial characters to cast it on. Somebody still has to do the killing. Damage is best mitigated by braining whatever is causing it.

[Phaederkiel]

Missing? What is this 'missing'? The Attack Bonus vs AC is ludicrously in favor of the attacker. No opponent on either side of the fight should be doing anything as banal as missing after around level 5 barring natural 1's.

depends upon your DM beeing a fool. Any critter with int over 13 can have combat expertise instead of, say, alertness. Hten there are things like terrain cover, magical misschances, natural misschances, etc.
Taking hitting for granted means that you play with a very submissive DM who has given up trying to challenge you, if you ask me.



And about "casters should not deal damage"...that depends most heavily on party makeup. Imagine 3 Batmans trying to kill anything. I try again to coup de grace it with my pick... woaa, 4d4 -4 dmg!

In fact, I think the caster needs the beatstick more than the beatstick needs the caster. ( Take note, please, that I do NOT say that casters are weaker than Beatsticks.)

And I think a sudden maximized, sudden widened Fireball is something which can easily bring that best of all status conditions: dead.

[Gemini476]

depends upon your DM beeing a fool. Any critter with int over 13 can have combat expertise instead of, say, alertness. Hten there are things like terrain cover, magical misschances, natural misschances, etc.
Taking hitting for granted means that you play with a very submissive DM who has given up trying to challenge you, if you ask me.



And about "casters should not deal damage"...that depends most heavily on party makeup. Imagine 3 Batmans trying to kill anything. I try again to coup de grace it with my pick... woaa, 4d4 -4 dmg!

In fact, I think the caster needs the beatstick more than the beatstick needs the caster. ( Take note, please, that I do NOT say that casters are weaker than Beatsticks.)

And I think a sudden maximized, sudden widened Fireball is something which can easily bring that best of all status conditions: dead.

Here, let me show you something. Assume that you have a fighter with Weapon Focus in his favored weapon, 15 STR (from elite array), and absolutely nothing else.

Here is how likely he is to hit things.
http://i.imgur.com/aM5MeIR.png
Remember, this is assuming that he is completely naked besides the weapon he has Weapon Focus in. It is also not a magical weapon, and the only things going into his to-hit are BAB, 15 STR and Weapon Focus. Even then you can see a slow but steady climb upwards.

For another comparison, let's say we give that same fighter a +5 Tome, +6 Item, and a +5 Weapon. That gives him, at level 20, 31 Str and +36 to hit.
The average CR20 enemy in the SRD has an AC of 36.44, with the highest being 40. That's 95% and 85% chance of hitting already, with a cumulative -25% chance for each iterative. So 95%/70%/45%/20%. Or with Two-Weapon Fighting (why) you have 85%/85%/60%/60%/35%/35%/10%.
Remember, this is not exactly hi-op. A Weapon Focus Fighter gets an additional +2 to hit, and starting with an 18 in Strength gets you another +2 on top of that figure. Let's be a half-orc for another +1 to hit.

That gets us 95%/95%/70%/45%, or 95%/95%/85%/85%/60%/60%/35%.

In fact, here you go. This is the expanded version of the above chart.
http://i.imgur.com/VUvQOoj.png
BAB scales at roughly one per level for the fighty types, right? Except you need to consider things like the to-hit stat increasing by two every eight levels (so To-Hit By Level = 1+1/8) and... let's go with Greater Magic Weapon, so add +1/4 to that. So 1+3/8 BAB/level, for +27.5 at 20.

Now, AC? When I asked Excel to spit out a linear equation for me, it gave y = 1.1366x + 11.878 for the interval 1-20. So from a quick glance it increases with roughly 1+1/7 AC/level. Unfortunately, 3/8 equals 0.375 - so the to-hit increases faster than AC. This is a mathematical fact.
Now, if the full-BAB class in question doesn't have any enhancement boni on his weapon things get a bit trickier. Then AC advances faster than to-hit. Of course, in that case taking Weapon Focus or charging for +2 to hit are enough to bridge the gap - a gap that involves you being 0.232 points lower after 20 levels. It's not that big.

So while the game seems somewhat balanced with having a 50-50 chance of hitting things, that is only really true for when you are almost completely naked. There are many, many ways of boosting to-hit, and fewer to boost AC. Seriously though, the fourth iterative is at -19 to the rest. That's 95% lower than the first. That makes me fairly certain that the developers expected you to hit all the time with your first attack.

Sorry for the rant.

[Keld Denar]

While I agree with nearly everything in this thread, I gotta call BS on Schneekey's fighter damage numbers. Without charging, how is any mid level character doing 100+ damage per hit and only missing on a 1? AC's on most non-ooze non-animals aren't low enough that even a well built fighter/barb blend can PA for the house and still hit. I built my boy a very competent Duskblade with all of the usual tricks. 2 handed reach weapon, power attack, and knowledge devotion. He gets Haste from his Mom and Heroism from his Grandma, and often a prayer our bless from his Grandpa. He's sitting on a +16-18 attack bonus but he finds he misses ok his attacks if he PAs for 7 on any attack other than a Quickened Truestrike hit. His damage is usually close to 40ish per hit when channeling a Shocking Grasp, lower when he is full attacking (but more total damage). I don't anticipate his damage going up too much from there as ACs get higher barring some burst potential that all Duskblade's have. Maybe up to 50-60 top end, but certainly not 100+, not with that kind of accuracy.

For a charger, I'll agree that your numbers don't look unreasonable (part of the reason I ban Shocktrooper), but the other numbers just don't seem likely for single hits outside of permanent Wraithstrike or ToB strikes.

[Phaederkiel]

snip

Now those are fine sheets. Unfortunately, they are quite difficult to read, with the axises without descriptors etc.

I assume that you want to show me how BAB scales fast enough to completely dominate any AC of any Monster in the Books, yes?

Only you did not really understand my post.
My point was not that the Monsters from the manuals have an AC high enough to challenge the fighter, but that a DM can absolutely easily throw you a curveball by making an high-AC opponent. Or can use some of the Monsters with built in ablative defenses like misschances, or can use a combat scenario which hinders attacking in some way.

[Psyren]

It amuses me that folks are acting like AC is a static number that never needs to be adjusted no matter what op-level the party is using. Making your dragons, giants etc. have thicker skin in response to a one-shotting melee class is a perfectly acceptable response; the DM's job is to challenge the players. Both 3.5 and PF advise the DM to do this. This isn't Neverwinter Nights, I don't need to break open the editor or source code every time I want to make something more challenging.

Even DR can be adjusted - if 10 and 15 are too small to matter, increase it.


Now those are fine sheets. Unfortunately, they are quite difficult to read, with the axises without descriptors etc.

X looks like level or possibly CR. Y is probably total AC in some and chance to hit (as a decimal rather than a percentage) in others.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Making AC that irrelevant just sparks arms races with the DM, unless he doesn't actually care about attack rolls at all. I mean, you might as well only roll damage in a game like that.There's very little way to stop it with how easy it is to stack damage and how hard it is to stack AC.


There's that smugness again.

DR is per attack, so it can indeed add up, particularly when (again) some attacks are missing like they're supposed to.You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

15 damage out of 400 is 3.75% damage mitigated. That's a drop in the bucket, and not going to be statistically relevant in any situation. Particularly when the opponent in question won't have 385 hit points.

Melee doesn't have nice things, so to avoid being completely outclassed by things like the Summon Monster line, they have to build competent characters.

Charging is the easiest way to level the playing field and give the fighter-type beatstick meaningful damage output. If you want to ban Shock Trooper, that's a house rule. Personally, I see it as adding insult to injury, but whatever floats your boat on your game. However, house rules are also not relevant to the discussion at hand either.

Without the damage output at least in the 100ish area by level 10ish or so, there's really no point in having him along. And it isn't like it is going to be very hard.

Also, graphs based on characters without magic items? That's a skewed basis if I ever heard of one.


It amuses me that folks are acting like AC is a static number that never needs to be adjusted no matter what op-level the party is using. Making your dragons, giants etc. have thicker skin in response to a one-shotting melee class is a perfectly acceptable response; the DM's job is to challenge the players. Both 3.5 and PF advise the DM to do this. This isn't Neverwinter Nights, I don't need to break open the editor or source code every time I want to make something more challenging.

Even DR can be adjusted - if 10 and 15 are too small to matter, increase it.

Hey, if you want to start changing the stats arbitrarily in your game, that's your ball of wax, and you have every right to do so. However, homebrew doesn't really have a place in a discussion about the game itself. If anything, it is an indication that my point is, indeed, valid, on the basis that it wouldn't need fixing if it isn't broke.

[olentu]

It amuses me that folks are acting like AC is a static number that never needs to be adjusted no matter what op-level the party is using. Making your dragons, giants etc. have thicker skin in response to a one-shotting melee class is a perfectly acceptable response; the DM's job is to challenge the players. Both 3.5 and PF advise the DM to do this. This isn't Neverwinter Nights, I don't need to break open the editor or source code every time I want to make something more challenging.

Even DR can be adjusted - if 10 and 15 are too small to matter, increase it.



X looks like level or possibly CR. Y is probably total AC in some and chance to hit (as a decimal rather than a percentage) in others.

I assume that by comparison the encounters are also given energy resistance/vulnerability or the like to properly tune blasting spells and freedom of movement or the like to avoid battlefield control. It kind of makes any discussion about the effectiveness of tactics rather pointless if all encounters are going to be tuned up or down to make all things equally effective.

[Gemini476]

Now those are fine sheets. Unfortunately, they are quite difficult to read, with the axises without descriptors etc.

I assume that you want to show me how BAB scales fast enough to completely dominate any AC of any Monster in the Books, yes?

Only you did not really understand my post.
My point was not that the Monsters from the manuals have an AC high enough to challenge the fighter, but that a DM can absolutely easily throw you a curveball by making an high-AC opponent. Or can use some of the Monsters with built in ablative defenses like misschances, or can use a combat scenario which hinders attacking in some way.

Well alright then. The horizontal axis is the CR of the monsters/level of the characters. The vertical one is, well, the AC/To-hit.

Once you start to talk about houserules - and making new monsters is a houserule, if a small one - you are no longer talking RAW. While you can say that the DM can make stronger monsters, we cannot assume that that is true in a discussion like this: after all, some DMs might have the Warmage be the only caster. In that case Blasting is obviously the best method of casting. However, what is true in one table might not be true in others. The only thing that they all have in common is the rulebooks themselves, so any discussion must keep to RAW if they want to stay universally applicable.

Sorry if that was repetitive. I'm somewhat tired.

Also, characters being able to hit most of the time is not really a problem. The biggest problem is Touch AC, and how it just keeps getting lower as the levels rise. There is no great need for nerfing martial classes by giving the Tarrasque Combat Expertise instead of Toughness (still only -25% chance.)

Here, have another chart. These are pretty fun to make, but this one also illustrates the real issue with AC: Touch AC actually getting lower as the CR rises.
http://i.imgur.com/JnBJJzB.png
Pretty much the same format as before, with x=CR, y=(AC, BAB etc.). This time with the wizards BAB rather than a Fighters because who is more likely to use touch attacks?

But yeah, the system pretty much assumes that you are going to hit with your first and second iterative (or just first for medium BAB). Otherwise having a fourth attack at -19 makes no sense whatsoever.

I'll also continue writing up that analysis of the low-op party. I'm going to go for TWF Rogue, Beatstick Fighter, Healbot Cleric and Blaster Wizard, but I just can't figure out what horrible feats should be taken. I ended up going with the sample characters and just levelling them up, although that means the rogue has trouble with Weapon Finesse. Which has a prereq of BAB+1. Argh.

EDIT:

Also, graphs based on characters without magic items? That's a skewed basis if I ever heard of one.
Oh, and the graph was without magic items because I wanted to show that you could still reliably beat the average AC without items. Adding items (or even an 18-20 in STR) adds +11 and more to your to-hit. And you were already hitting somewhat reliably 50% of the time using just a single feat.

Oh, and if you want to challenge your players grab monsters from a higher CR. These graphs assume that CR=PC Level, but in reality it would probably be PC Level +- 5.

[Psyren]

I assume that by comparison the encounters are also given energy resistance/vulnerability or the like to properly tune blasting spells and freedom of movement or the like to avoid battlefield control. It kind of makes any discussion about the effectiveness of tactics rather pointless if all encounters are going to be tuned up or down to make all things equally effective.

The whole point is to challenge the players. I like a mix myself - some monsters are easy to hit but hard to blast, and some monsters are the reverse. Just like some monsters are naturally easy to trip, but hard to mentally control, or some monsters are easy to fight at range but not in melee, or some monsters resist spells while others resist physical attacks. The knobs are there for the DM to fiddle with at will.

In short, the PCs should win overall, but static tactics get punished while adaptability gets rewarded.

It would have been easy for the DMG/CRB to say "you should never, ever change monsters or spells from what we have printed here." They didn't, and it was intentional.



Once you start to talk about houserules - and making new monsters is a houserule, if a small one - you are no longer talking RAW.

RAW is merely a starting point - a useful one, because it lets us know what will happen if nothing is changed (as your graphs show so clearly) but that's ultimately all it is. If the players aren't being challenged and no one is having fun (or perhaps more accurately, only one person* is having fun) then RAW can take a flying leap.

*Note: this applies to the DM too.



Hey, if you want to start changing the stats arbitrarily in your game, that's your ball of wax, and you have every right to do so. However, homebrew doesn't really have a place in a discussion about the game itself. If anything, it is an indication that my point is, indeed, valid, on the basis that it wouldn't need fixing if it isn't broke.

It's not "arbitrary" - it very much has a purpose.

Houserules absolutely have a place when the discussion is "X is broken and here's why." Otherwise, what are you suggesting? We all just shrug and say "yeah, it sucks" and go play M:TG?

[Keld Denar]

{scrubbed}

[bekeleven]

I'll also continue writing up that analysis of the low-op party. I'm going to go for TWF Rogue, Beatstick Fighter, Healbot Cleric and Blaster Wizard, but I just can't figure out what horrible feats should be taken.Enemies and Allies is a 3.0 book that stats out all of the iconics from the PHB. If you want to see where the "Mailee has higher dex than int" meme came from check them out in the back.

[olentu]

The whole point is to challenge the players. I like a mix myself - some monsters are easy to hit but hard to blast, and some monsters are the reverse. Just like some monsters are naturally easy to trip, but hard to mentally control, or some monsters are easy to fight at range but not in melee, or some monsters resist spells while others resist physical attacks. The knobs are there for the DM to fiddle with at will.

In short, the PCs should win overall, but static tactics get punished while adaptability gets rewarded.

That would seem to devalue blasting. Blasting is not really very versatile and also rather inefficient in build resources. Often in spell slots too, depending on the amount of build resources. Then the question becomes, if the PCs are going to win either way is it a good idea to spend all those resources on making a lesser portion of encounters (blasting, buffing, debuffing, battlefield control, summoning, sneaking past, and that is not to mention the numerous non-combat encounters) somewhat easier.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

RAW is merely a starting point - a useful one, because it lets us know what will happen if nothing is changed (as your graphs show so clearly) but that's ultimately all it is. If the players aren't being challenged and no one is having fun (or perhaps more accurately, only one person* is having fun) then RAW can take a flying leap.

*Note: this applies to the DM too.



It's not "arbitrary" - it very much has a purpose.

Houserules absolutely have a place when the discussion is "X is broken and here's why." Otherwise, what are you suggesting? We all just shrug and say "yeah, it sucks" and go play M:TG?

Okay, I think I have figured out where the miscommunication is coming from: I'm pointing out the inherent problem with blasting, and you have already taken it as a given and are present solutions. Unfortunately those solutions end in "Melee does nothing but make coffee", which makes it a very poor solution to my mind.

Melee can at least do damage. Take that away, and there's really no point in playing those classes.
I'm not forcing house rules on your little mental masturbation. What I am, however, is curious as to what you consider mid-op damage without charging. Sure, Shocktrooper takes all of the risk out of Leap Attacking, but even with Shocktrooper, what damage to you expect a mid level melee type to be putting out in a situation where charging isn't an option or possibly too risky. I don't think reality is reflected in your numbers, that is all, house rules or otherwise.

Mental masturbation... cute, I'll have to remember that one.

I'm still curious why you consider 'no charging' to be default. I don't think there is a situation in which shocktrooper is 'too risky'. After all, if all the opponents are either locked down by Battlefield Control or are dead, then there's no real point to having an AC, now is there?

Of course, the fighter and the wizard aren't going to be the only people involved in a fight. If nothing else, the Fighter can reliably trip opponents, forcing them prone. At that point, the rest of the party can dig in. If the Fighter isn't charging, then he's probably going to be providing Flanking for something with Sneak Attack, so the same damage output applies. However, jumping means always being able to charge, so there's really no point in going down that road.

[Psyren]

That would seem to devalue blasting.

I really can't see how you got this conclusion out of a statement like "some monsters are easier to blast." (Swarms/Mobs are very good examples of blasting fodder.)


Okay, I think I have figured out where the miscommunication is coming from: I'm pointing out the inherent problem with blasting, and you have already taken it as a given and are present solutions. Unfortunately those solutions end in "Melee does nothing but make coffee", which makes it a very poor solution to my mind.

Whereas your solution is "triple-digit charges should always work" which is a poor solution to my mind. Again, I think the party should generally win, but should employ variety to do so and if that means there are some encounters that can't be charge to oblivion, so much the good.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Whereas your solution is "triple-digit charges should always work" which is a poor solution to my mind. Again, I think the party should generally win, but should employ variety to do so and if that means there are some encounters that can't be charge to oblivion, so much the good.

It isn't a solution so much as something which exists. And barring homebrew or house rulings, there really isn't much to stop it without severely restricting sources.

Therefore, since it is a fact of gaming life, you might as well build your tactics to accommodate this reality.

[Psyren]

Therefore, since it is a fact of gaming life, you might as well build your tactics to accommodate this reality.

I am, just as any competent DM would, by making attack rolls matter.

[olentu]

I really can't see how you got this conclusion out of a statement like "some monsters are easier to blast." (Swarms/Mobs are very good examples of blasting fodder.)

I have generally found that it takes more blasting spells and/or build resources to deal with encounters then it does other types of spells. Also I find blasting generally less useful outside those encounters then it is when there are monsters that are "easier to blast" then other types of spells. Unless the caster can cover every possible type of encounter with their slots (including the possibility of multiple of the same type of encounter, not to mention non-combat) something will have to be given up. It makes sense to give up the less efficient types of spells before the more efficient.

[Psyren]

I have generally found that it takes more blasting spells and/or build resources to deal with encounters then it does other types of spells. Also I find blasting generally less useful outside those encounters then it is when there are monsters that are "easier to blast" then other types of spells. Unless the caster can cover every possible type of encounter with their slots (including the possibility of multiple of the same type of encounter, not to mention non-combat) something will have to be given up. It makes sense to give up the less efficient types of spells before the more efficient.

But within those types of encounters, blasting does have value. So I, being a DM who wants to encourage my players to use varied tactics, will put a few of those encounters in the rotation.

Does it mean that a given caster may have trouble deciding how much of spell X to prepare or keep in reserve? Sure. Does it mean that they may have to spread their repertoire around a bit, getting in a mix of control, summoning, buffs, debuffs and direct damage? Again, sure. As the saying goes, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

And when they don't have quite enough control to trivialize every encounter on a given day, and have to fall back on a less efficient blast coupled with assistance from the party melee - I say, "mission accomplished."

[olentu]

But within those types of encounters, blasting does have value. So I, being a DM who wants to encourage my players to use varied tactics, will put a few of those encounters in the rotation.

Does it mean that a given caster may have trouble deciding how much of spell X to prepare or keep in reserve? Sure. Does it mean that they may have to spread their repertoire around a bit, getting in a mix of control, summoning, buffs, debuffs and direct damage? Again, sure. As the saying goes, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

It is true that blasting does have value within a fraction of encounters. However that fraction of encounters will presumably be just that, a fraction. Thus it makes sense to cover more fractions of encounters by taking the more efficient spells. Likewise those spells that have greater use outside their favored fractions would be better choices since their type of encounter may not come up on a given day. Perhaps if blasting had such overwhelming necessity in its fraction that taking the spells was necessary just in case said encounter comes up, but that would be at odds with the idea that the PCs are going to win either way.

[Psyren]

It is true that blasting does have value within a fraction of encounters. However that fraction of encounters will presumably be just that, a fraction. Thus it makes sense to cover more fractions of encounters by taking the more efficient spells. Likewise those spells that have greater use outside their favored fractions would be better choices since their type of encounter may not come up on a given day. Perhaps if blasting had such overwhelming necessity in its fraction that taking the spells was necessary just in case said encounter comes up, but that would be at odds with the idea that the PCs are going to win either way.

It's not binary; You can devote some of your repertoire to blasting without suddenly being incapable of control, or buffing, or divination etc. And again, if you focus exclusively on control, then I as the DM am going to come up with ways to make you wish you had a blast or two. All it takes is creative encounter design. I see no reason to actively encourage one-trick ponies.

[ArcturusV]

Or rather why point 4 on my "Spells you want to consider" lists for teaching people how to be a wizard includes "Put the boot in someone" spells.

There have been times... faaaar too many times for me to count. Where despite control, despite debuffs, your party is just getting munched on. Hard. Fighter's down, rogue is dead, cleric is bleeding out. All that's left is the one squishy mage they've been protecting because he has all the cosmic power. The enemy has been whittled down and I know he only has like 30 HP left.

And the wizard dies horribly because he has no means to inflict 30 HP damage, everything is disables, debuffs, etc, resulting in a TPK where it might have resulted in only a Rogue Death otherwise.

Now that may sound like something that almost never happens. The .002% scenario. But if you build your final set of encounters leading to a bad guy right? It seems to happen a lot. At least in the practical "at the table" experiences as I've found.

[olentu]

It's not binary; You can devote some of your repertoire to blasting without suddenly being incapable of control, or buffing, or divination etc. And again, if you focus exclusively on control, then I as the DM am going to come up with ways to make you wish you had a blast or two. All it takes is creative encounter design. I see no reason to actively encourage one-trick ponies.

Well I suppose that if your players are not facing sufficiently difficult encounters so that they can prepare spells for encounters favoring, blasting, buffing, debuffing, battlefield control, stealth, and so forth, plus the various non-combat encounters, not to mention the possibility of doubles then sure they may as well spend the slots on blasting. However I was assuming that with your talk of scaling encounters to the party optimization level they would only have the resources to cover 4-5 of those types with the 5th leaving them completely empty of spell slots for camp protection and the like.

[Psyren]

Well I suppose that if your players are not facing sufficiently difficult encounters so that they can prepare spells for encounters favoring, blasting, buffing, debuffing, battlefield control, stealth, and so forth, plus the various non-combat encounters, not to mention the possibility of doubles then sure they may as well spend the slots on blasting. However I was assuming that with your talk of scaling encounters to the party optimization level they would only have the resources to cover 4-5 of those types with the 5th leaving them completely empty of spell slots for camp protection and the like.

But you just admitted in your previous post that there are encounter types where blasting could be a favorable strategy, even if those encounters might be niche or finely-tuned. So on one hand you're saying those aren't in your rotation, then you turn around and say that challenging players with these sorts of uncommon encounters or corner cases makes things somehow less difficult?

I guess I'm not really understanding where you're coming from. Are one-note, run-of-the-mill encounters more challenging?

[olentu]

But you just admitted in your previous post that there are encounter types where blasting could be a favorable strategy, even if those encounters might be niche or finely-tuned. So on one hand you're saying those aren't in your rotation, then you turn around and say that challenging players with these sorts of uncommon encounters or corner cases makes things somehow less difficult?

I guess I'm not really understanding where you're coming from. Are one-note, run-of-the-mill encounters more challenging?

Look, maybe the disconnect is proportion. What proportion of encounters do you give where blasting is the most favorable tactic.

[Scow2]

It isn't a solution so much as something which exists. And barring homebrew or house rulings, there really isn't much to stop it without severely restricting sources.

Therefore, since it is a fact of gaming life, you might as well build your tactics to accommodate this reality.But, Chargers are also notoriously unreliable. For starters, they can't charge across areas affected by Web or Solid Fog, has a high chance of being shut down by Black tentacles, and can flub a save and be shut down by Stinking Cloud.

A big problem with Save Or Suck spells is that great big OR in the middle of them - nothing has less than a 5% chance of laughing it off and leaving you short an action and spell slot with nothing to show for it. Also: being right next to a monster after flubbing a [i]Color Spray[/i spell tends to not end well for a Wizard.

A big problem with a lot of the BFC spells (All the fog spells, Black Tentacles, and Web, for starters) is that they're absolutely indiscriminate. It takes them out of the fight, but your Beatstick can't do much to finish them off: All ranged attacks have a 50% chance to miss anyone within any of the fog clouds (If you know their exact position. 0% if you don't), and your melee guys are just as bad off as anyone else within the cloud.

[Psyren]

Look, maybe the disconnect is proportion. What proportion of encounters do you give where blasting is the most favorable tactic.

"Enough."

And if it turns out not to be enough, I make more. If it's too many, I make less. That's the beauty of a DM as opposed to an AI or robot.



A big problem with a lot of the BFC spells (All the fog spells, Black Tentacles, and Web, for starters) is that they're absolutely indiscriminate. It takes them out of the fight, but your Beatstick can't do much to finish them off: All ranged attacks have a 50% chance to miss anyone within any of the fog clouds (If you know their exact position. 0% if you don't), and your melee guys are just as bad off as anyone else within the cloud.

And it's not hard to make encounters that specifically go after the caster's favored method of control too. Got a glitterdust-fanatic? Use critters with blindsight or tremorsense, or drop the monsters from the ceiling right into the middle of the party's ranks. Freezing Fog spammer? Nothing a few teleporting devils can't fix. Web-lover? A firebreather can take care of that and leave his buddies free to act.

[olentu]

"Enough."

And if it turns out not to be enough, I make more. If it's too many, I make less. That's the beauty of a DM as opposed to an AI or robot.

So if the players are not blasting enough for your liking you will swamp them with blasting encounters until they conform to your standards. I do hope this is not what you mean.

[ArcturusV]

I'd rather hope that what she means is "If they have a singular plan which is cruise control to every single victory, then I will throw enough different types of encounters at them that it is no longer cruise control to victory."

[Psyren]

I'd rather hope that what she means is "If they have a singular plan which is cruise control to every single victory, then I will throw enough different types of encounters at them that it is no longer cruise control to victory."

"She?"

But yeah, the cruise control thing is what I meant.


So if the players are not blasting enough for your liking you will swamp them with blasting encounters until they conform to your standards. I do hope this is not what you mean.

You really have a thing for extremes, don't you? :smalltongue:

[ArcturusV]

My mistake. Sorry.

[olentu]

You really have a thing for extremes, don't you? :smalltongue:

Eh, one word answers generally mean extremes in my experience. But that is why I asked for confirmation.

But now that that is out of the way, surely you can tell me what proportion of encounters of those various types of encounters do you give where blasting is the most favorable tactic.

[Keld Denar]

I'm still curious why you consider 'no charging' to be default. I don't think there is a situation in which shocktrooper is 'too risky'. After all, if all the opponents are either locked down by Battlefield Control or are dead, then there's no real point to having an AC, now is there?
I can think of LOTs of encounters where it is not safe to charge, most of them not even including flyers. Maybe YOU forget that most of the BC spells affect an area or a certain number of foes in an area. Those areas are small, mostly 20-30' radii. Simply by having two enemies more than 20-30' apart means that no single spell can affect them. Or maybe it's more like 10 foes, and a good BC spell can only hit 2 of them leaving 8 unmolested. There are lots of other things that are important for a beatstick to do, like block charge lanes to his squishies, hold back and wait for foes to close to gain the full attack advantage, wait for a tactically sound teleportation effect, etc. Any time where there are more than 2 foes with Power Attack is a good time not to Shocktrooper away your entire AC, IMO. Sure, AC won't protect you from the hit. I've seen the numbers. We all have, so spare me. But AC will keep your foe from PAing you into the floor in the exact same way you were planning on PAing them into the floor. I'd rather get hit for 2d6+15 against my AC than get hit for 2d6+45 against an AC of -2. When you play the type of rocket tag that comes with Shocktrooper, you'll be rolling a new character more often than not. And concealment is all fine and dandy, but PCs aren't the only ones with PMC and there are other ways to negate or reduce the effects of miss chances. Heck, slapping Blind Fighting on every orc in a village cuts the miss chance in half, for example.

Don't forget that those "Optimization by the Numbers" charts and graphs are only for monsters. NPCs with class levels are valid encounters in many or even most situations, and they are all custom made to order, more or less. Drow war parties, orc war parties, a family of uppity cannibalistic gnomes, or a whole host of other encounters might have vastly different numbers ranging from ACs in the low single digits up to the high 50s in differing shapes and colors.


"She?"

To be fair, your avatar DOES have pink underwear on the outside of his environmental suit thingy.

[Psyren]

But now that that is out of the way, surely you can tell me what proportion of encounters of those various types of encounters do you give where blasting is the most favorable tactic.

Obviously that depends on a lot of factors. Party composition, overall damage potential, damage potential per person, newness or experience of the players themselves, the tone/theme of the campaign, (I would expect far less blasting in a political intrigue or murder mystery campaign for instance, and far more in a zombie horror or war campaign), how the players have played casters in previous campaigns or even previous sessions etc. It's highly subjective and likely would involve no small amount of gut assessment or intuition on my part.

All that really matters to this discussion is that blasting would likely be a viable strategy more than 0% and less than 100% of the time. I'm a fan of all the tools in the toolbox being valuable at some point, or at least as many of them as I can reasonably invoke. And before you ask, "reasonably" is subjective too.



To be fair, your avatar DOES have pink underwear on the outside of his environmental suit thingy.

Well, it's not an environmental suit. I think the cloth is light purple actually:

http://www.fullmetal-alchemist.com/images/content/synopsis/char-alphonse.jpg

EDIT: I seem to be having trouble linking images, but he's a pretty well-known character (if you watch anime.)

[olentu]

Obviously that depends on a lot of factors. Party composition, overall damage potential, damage potential per person, newness or experience of the players themselves, the tone/theme of the campaign, (I would expect far less blasting in a political intrigue or murder mystery campaign for instance, and far more in a zombie horror or war campaign), how the players have played casters in previous campaigns or even previous sessions etc. It's highly subjective and likely would involve no small amount of gut assessment or intuition on my part.

All that really matters to this discussion is that blasting would likely be a viable strategy more than 0% and less than 100% of the time. I'm a fan of all the tools in the toolbox being valuable at some point, or at least as many of them as I can reasonably invoke. And before you ask, "reasonably" is subjective too.

No, I think how often blasting is the most viable strategy (not just that it can be sometimes) is very important to the discussion. If blasting is the most viable strategy 57.3% of the time that will give quite different results then if it is only 12.8% of the time. Likewise the margin by which blasting is the better spell when it is favored is quite important just as is the question of how much poorer blasting is when it is not favored. That information is needed to determine if blasting is a worthwhile thing for a wizard to invest in or not.

From what I have seen blasting is not worth enough to give up something else in favor of it barring foreknowledge or sufficiently high blasting focused optimization as compared to the less powerful monsters.

[Psyren]

If blasting is the most viable strategy 57.3% of the time that will give quite different results then if it is only 12.8% of the time.

Without a baseline of some kind to compare those statistics to, they're meaningless.



Likewise the margin by which blasting is the better spell when it is favored is quite important just as is the question of how much poorer blasting is when it is not favored. That information is needed to determine if blasting is a worthwhile thing for a wizard to invest in or not.

I agree - but the answer to both of those questions is in the DM's purview, and can vary not just from table to table, but from session to session.



From what I have seen blasting is not worth enough to give up something else in favor of it barring foreknowledge or sufficiently high blasting focused optimization as compared to the less powerful monsters.

Right, and that's why I would be compelled to tweak encounters a bit in that scenario. An entire playstyle being worthless 100% of the time is not something I would find appealing, nor would I welcome a different strategy going off without a hitch 100% of the time.

[olentu]

Without a baseline of some kind to compare those statistics to, they're meaningless.



I agree - but the answer to both of those questions is in the DM's purview, and can vary not just from table to table, but from session to session.



Right, and that's why I would be compelled to tweak encounters a bit in that scenario. An entire playstyle being worthless 100% of the time is not something I would find appealing, nor would I welcome a different strategy going off without a hitch 100% of the time.

It turns out that I was talking about a theoretical baseline when I made up those percentages.

Why yes, it is important to realize that it can vary from DM to DM. This would be why thought that "maybe the disconnect is proportion." And then why I asked "What proportion of encounters do you give where blasting is the most favorable tactic." Session to session difference should not really matter since they would presumably average out over time to whatever the DMs base rate is.

Who said anything about an entire playstyle being worthless 100% of the time. I was talking about the situation where it is assumed that no strategy will be the best all the time. Additionally there was the idea that there are too many strategies that may come up (including the possibility of multiples being necessary) leading to characters needing to make choices between what strategies they take and what they don't.

Now in that situation one generally wants to consider how good things are when they are not the best, how much better they are when they are the best, how efficiently they use limited resources, and how often each thing comes up. Blasting would seem to generally fall short on the first few measures (baring the noted cases). So if we assume an approximately even distribution of situations blasting is one of the things to get cut.

[TrollCapAmerica]

"Enough."

And if it turns out not to be enough, I make more. If it's too many, I make less. That's the beauty of a DM as opposed to an AI or robot.



And it's not hard to make encounters that specifically go after the caster's favored method of control too. Got a glitterdust-fanatic? Use critters with blindsight or tremorsense, or drop the monsters from the ceiling right into the middle of the party's ranks. Freezing Fog spammer? Nothing a few teleporting devils can't fix. Web-lover? A firebreather can take care of that and leave his buddies free to act.

Of course this always has to be done within reason.Ive seen too many DMs all too happy to start creating traps that strike 10 feet away to punish PCs for using 10 foot poles to trip traps even though its absolutely insane for any being to build traps that way.

Having counters to a PCs main/favorite trick can actually be kind of a fun challenge since they get to think outside of the box and prove they arent just a one trick pony.Its just that it has to logical and not seem like a "gotcha" monster like Zz'dtri

[eggynack]

Here's another question which I don't know the answer to: when is blasting so much better than everything else that you can't fill that role with another spell? I mean, sure, sometimes you're going to enter into a combat situation, and a fireball would be better than haste. However, is there no commonly prepared batman spell that could work out instead? It feels like a summoning or buffing spell would work out in that position most of the time. Moreover, even if the summoning spell could theoretically be an imperfect replacement, it'd also be of use in a number of other situations. By contrast, blasting spells are usually just blasting spells. Also, this whole issue is why I like druids. They never have to deal with this whole, "Oh man, the enemy is trapped in intersection of a solid fog, a web, and a grease, and I have absolutely no way to kill them," thing. They just kill the trapped enemy with all the various methods they have access to.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Here's another question which I don't know the answer to: when is blasting so much better than everything else that you can't fill that role with another spell? I mean, sure, sometimes you're going to enter into a combat situation, and a fireball would be better than haste. However, is there no commonly prepared batman spell that could work out instead? It feels like a summoning or buffing spell would work out in that position most of the time. Moreover, even if the summoning spell could theoretically be an imperfect replacement, it'd also be of use in a number of other situations. By contrast, blasting spells are usually just blasting spells. Also, this whole issue is why I like druids. They never have to deal with this whole, "Oh man, the enemy is trapped in intersection of a solid fog, a web, and a grease, and I have absolutely no way to kill them," thing. They just kill the trapped enemy with all the various methods they have access to.

Heh.The worst thing with blasting is if your forced to do it and it ends up inadequate then you have a somewhat wounded enemy still able to punch you to death if your out of firepower

I figure if you cant kill an enemy outright at the very least your spells should enable you to avoid or neutralize them while you get out of dodge.You can always win some other time when your BSF is back in working order

[Psyren]

Session to session difference should not really matter since they would presumably average out over time to whatever the DMs base rate is.

This is a simplistic assumption - campaigns can easily change over time. For instance, if the campaign starts out with political negotiations between two nations, I would expect fewer combats and thus fewer occasions where blasting could be made viable. But if the negotiations break down and the campaign switches to open warfare, magical artillery strikes would gain prominence.



So if we assume an approximately even distribution of situations blasting is one of the things to get cut.

Sure, but why does it have to be even? Or it could even work out to be a uniform distribution over the course of the entire campaign, but not necessarily session to session or even encounter to encounter.

[eggynack]

Heh.The worst thing with blasting is if your forced to do it and it ends up inadequate then you have a somewhat wounded enemy still able to punch you to death if your out of firepower

I figure if you cant kill an enemy outright at the very least your spells should enable you to avoid or neutralize them while you get out of dodge.You can always win some other time when your BSF is back in working order
That is very true. It's not like you just have to stand there and wait for your enemy to get out of the middle of your freezing fog if you have no way of killing them while they're stuck. Also, killing an enemy with nothing but freezing fog sounds frigging agonizing. Real cherry tapping type stuff right there. It just seems like we've created this weird situation where we're saying, "In 73% of situations, solid fog is the only solution, while in 27% of situations, fireball is the only solution. Thus, you should prepare about one fireball for every three solid fogs." It's not exactly that, but it's something to that effect. It's nearly impossible for a DM to throw a higher number of "You need a fireball" encounters, because I'm not entirely sure that type of encounter exists.

[Waker]

I'd like to hop in here to put in my two-cents. First off I would like to say that deciding to play a Batman/God Wizard doesn't strictly require you to be high-op or anything like that. I managed just fine playing as a Bard before, not Sublime Chord, just Bard. The reason I bring this up is somewhat related to my next point.
Though somewhat anecdotal, I can say that it isn't safe to assume that a mundane character is going to be a spiked chain wielding pounce charger. Honestly, I've been playing 3/3.5 since it came out and I have never seen any PC ever make a charger or spiked chain user. To clarify, I also have played with multiple groups from several states/countries, so this isn't limited to one group. So while TO and perhaps a few players that you may know do this, not everyone builds characters like this.
As for dealing with charger builds, there are countless ways: rough terrain, readied actions or even feats designed specifically for it, like Elusive Target.

[Psyren]

It's nearly impossible for a DM to throw a higher number of "You need a fireball" encounters, because I'm not entirely sure that type of encounter exists.

You can't imagine a single encounter where having an AoE damage spell would be handy?

[olentu]

This is a simplistic assumption - campaigns can easily change over time. For instance, if the campaign starts out with political negotiations between two nations, I would expect fewer combats and thus fewer occasions where blasting could be made viable. But if the negotiations break down and the campaign switches to open warfare, magical artillery strikes would gain prominence.



Sure, but why does it have to be even? Or it could even work out to be a uniform distribution over the course of the entire campaign, but not necessarily session to session or even encounter to encounter.

True, the campaign could change over time. However, unless the change is often and rapid one can merely reassess the situation when necessary and decide what to remove or not remove.

Even seems like a good starting point. If you have a better one then feel free to suggest it. I was going to try a shot with the distribution you generally use but that did not pan out. Fluctuations session to session are not really important considering that without foreknowledge of the encounter one must prepare as best as is possible for the myriad of situations. Changing from encounter to encounter is, in fact, the whole idea behind different encounters having different things that are the best.

[ArcturusV]

You can't imagine a single encounter where having an AoE damage spell would be handy?

Hivemind Rat Swarm. In fact Fireball (and it's like) is one of the best ways to deal with it.

[eggynack]

You can't imagine a single encounter where having an AoE damage spell would be handy?
I didn't say that. I didn't even say that there's not a single encounter where an AoE is the best spell possible. What I did say, and what I am saying, is that even in those corner cases, the standard batman spell allotment is probably going to be fine. It might even be more than fine. Not to be exact or anything, but the essence of my claim is that preparing blasting spells will put you at 100% against 5% of cases, while batman style spells will put you at, say, 80% against that 5% of cases, and maybe 90-100% against everything else. Meanwhile, the blasting spell is running at 40% in cases where it's suboptimal. I'm seriously not throwing out real percentages and numbers here, because I have no idea what that would even mean, but I'm saying that preparing blasting spells isn't worth it, even if casting a blasting spell may be worth it in some situations.

[Psyren]

Even seems like a good starting point. If you have a better one then feel free to suggest it. I was going to try a shot with the distribution you generally use but that did not pan out.

Not to disappoint you, but I don't have any such convention that I "generally use." I told you it depends on a lot of factors and I meant it - pinning it down beyond that is a pointless exercise. I don't see the purpose behind a "starting point" either.

For me, DMing is an art. You can write a song by starting from musical theory and common chords and mathematical relationships between notes (e.g. octaves) and putting them together to gradually form a composition - or, you can hear a melody in your mind, sit down in front of the keys, and try to recreate it, improving with each iteration and even adding new bits as you go. Neither approach is wrong, nor better or worse than the other.


Hivemind Rat Swarm. In fact Fireball (and it's like) is one of the best ways to deal with it.

Exacta.


I'm seriously not throwing out real percentages and numbers here, because I have no idea what that would even mean, but I'm saying that preparing blasting spells isn't worth it, even if casting a blasting spell may be worth it in some situations.

I get that. What I am saying is that I, as the DM, knowing that you have deigned not to prepare any blasting spells because they "are not worth it," would tailor my encounter design to change that - because my job is to challenge you and get you out of your comfort zone.

[ryu]

And if the player responds to that reaction by just binding something with area of effect damage as an SLA? Why waste spell slots in plural for multiple days for corner cases when I can burn one or two per week?

[Psyren]

And if the player responds to that reaction by just binding something with area of effect damage as an SLA? Why waste spell slots in plural for multiple days for corner cases when I can burn one or two per week?

That's certainly viable, though it can get expensive. And typically "blasts by proxy" from summoned/called assists tend to be on the weak side.

[eggynack]

I get that. What I am saying is that I, as the DM, knowing that you have deigned not to prepare any blasting spells because they "are not worth it," would tailor my encounter design to change that - because my job is to challenge you and get you out of your comfort zone.
And what I'm saying is that I'm not sure how possible that is. I'm saying that wizard spells are often incredibly versatile, and that means that an optimal wizard won't often be caught too off guard by an encounter intended for blasting. I'm sure that you can make encounters where blasting is an answer, but I'm also pretty sure that you can't make encounters where blasting is the only answer, especially when there are friendly buff magnets hanging around. You can probably make blasting spells occasionally worth it, but I don't think you can make no blasting spells not worth it, and that means that not preparing blasting spells may still be the way to go.

[Scow2]

I can think of LOTs of encounters where it is not safe to charge, most of them not even including flyers. Maybe YOU forget that most of the BC spells affect an area or a certain number of foes in an area. Those areas are small, mostly 20-30' radii. Simply by having two enemies more than 20-30' apart means that no single spell can affect them. Or maybe it's more like 10 foes, and a good BC spell can only hit 2 of them leaving 8 unmolested. There are lots of other things that are important for a beatstick to do, like block charge lanes to his squishies, hold back and wait for foes to close to gain the full attack advantage, wait for a tactically sound teleportation effect, etc. Any time where there are more than 2 foes with Power Attack is a good time not to Shocktrooper away your entire AC, IMO. Sure, AC won't protect you from the hit. I've seen the numbers. We all have, so spare me. But AC will keep your foe from PAing you into the floor in the exact same way you were planning on PAing them into the floor. I'd rather get hit for 2d6+15 against my AC than get hit for 2d6+45 against an AC of -2. When you play the type of rocket tag that comes with Shocktrooper, you'll be rolling a new character more often than not. And concealment is all fine and dandy, but PCs aren't the only ones with PMC and there are other ways to negate or reduce the effects of miss chances. Heck, slapping Blind Fighting on every orc in a village cuts the miss chance in half, for example.

Don't forget that those "Optimization by the Numbers" charts and graphs are only for monsters. NPCs with class levels are valid encounters in many or even most situations, and they are all custom made to order, more or less. Drow war parties, orc war parties, a family of uppity cannibalistic gnomes, or a whole host of other encounters might have vastly different numbers ranging from ACs in the low single digits up to the high 50s in differing shapes and colors.Another counter to a Shock Trooper is "Anything with greater reach than me!" Double-nasty if it's a spear-user.

However, 20' Radius is NOT "Small". That's a 40' Diameter, far larger than most battlefields that don't take place in the open. That said, you have a point about Battlefield Control spells having an area - the issue is that the area tends to remain hostile to the "Cleanup Crew" as well - hopefully survivors of a Fog spell don't choose to use those rounds in a Solid Fog as time to prepare something nasty

And yes, the authors acknowledge that the first attack of a Full-BAB class is ALWAYS supposed to hit on the first strike. That's the point of Full BAB. However, the iteratives and Power Attacks are supposed to have a fair chance of missing.

The iconic Fireball has three key traits:
1. Long range - Only other wizards can challenge you from this range, and Fireball ensures nobody else can get close enough to be a threat.
2. Moderate Damage - No, it's nowhere near a one-hit kill for a CR-appropriate enemy. Yes, fighter types do more damage than it. However, it's on par with a rogue's Precision Damage. While it may not be great at destroying monsters, though, the environment tends to have MUCH fewer hitpoints than monsters (For the DMs that bother to keep track)
3. 40' Diameter. You can hit almost any amount of enemies with this, or cause a lot of environmental damage. A shame excess volume that can't spread due to environmental constraints can't double-back on itself like it could in AD&D :smalltongue:

However, Sorcerers prefer Fireball and other blasts more than wizards, because they're better-able to spam it as needed (And in Pathfinder, potentially have a free Energy Substitution applied to it), and don't have the spell versatility to have each of their spells/day have an appropriate lockdown or Buff.

[Psyren]

I don't have to make it the "only answer" - all I need to do is make it viable enough for the caster to want to prepare a handful of them. I'm pretty sure I can manage that.

[ryu]

That's certainly viable, though it can get expensive. And typically "blasts by proxy" from summoned/called assists tend to be on the weak side.

If I'm using them to clear mostly swarm encounters why am I giving a rat's ass about the strength? If something is being used as a can of bug spray with legs or possibly wings it doesn't need to be shooting gallons of sulfuric acid to do its job.

As for expense greater shadow conjuration finally has a use and requires no components. Plus the swarm would have to interact with the shadow creature in order to get a save to make his blasting a little less painful.

[nedz]

It's also a counter to Web, though the little 2d6 fireballs from the necklace of the same name are perfectly adequate.

[Psyren]

If I'm using them to clear mostly swarm encounters why am I giving a rat's ass about the strength? If something is being used as a can of bug spray with legs or possibly wings it doesn't need to be shooting gallons of sulfuric acid to do its job.

Doesn't it? I have full control over the strength of the "bugs" after all, so assuming or thinking you know what you need can be quite dangerous. There is more than enough daylight between the power of a direct blast and that of a minion's that I can make that a less viable option. There's also plenty of drawbacks inherent to binding/summoning themselves that I can exploit to weaken those as well.



As for expense greater shadow conjuration finally has a use and requires no components. Plus the swarm would have to interact with the shadow creature in order to get a save to make his blasting a little less painful.

First off, SC can only do summons or creations, and binding is neither. Summons tend to have very little in the way of useful blasting, even less than called creatures do, and this is compounded by the SC being restricted to lower level summons.

Second, SCs have weaknesses of their own. You can game the disbelief save via Killer Gnome shenanigans, but the conjurations themselves can still be dispelled or even hedged out entirely.

[olentu]

Not to disappoint you, but I don't have any such convention that I "generally use." I told you it depends on a lot of factors and I meant it - pinning it down beyond that is a pointless exercise. I don't see the purpose behind a "starting point" either.

For me, DMing is an art. You can write a song by starting from musical theory and common chords and mathematical relationships between notes (e.g. octaves) and putting them together to gradually form a composition - or, you can hear a melody in your mind, sit down in front of the keys, and try to recreate it, improving with each iteration and even adding new bits as you go. Neither approach is wrong, nor better or worse than the other.

Oh it would not necessarily have to be a predetermined requirement. It could just as easily be information drawn from counting up types of encounters after the fact.

If you are going to contend that blasting is sufficiently valuable to justify expending resources towards that over other things you must be basing that claim on something.

[ryu]

Doesn't it? I have full control over the strength of the "bugs" after all, so assuming or thinking you know what you need can be quite dangerous. There is more than enough daylight between the power of a direct blast and that of a minion's that I can make that a less viable option. There's also plenty of drawbacks inherent to binding/summoning themselves that I can exploit to weaken those as well.



First off, SC can only do summons or creations, and binding is neither. Summons tend to have very little in the way of useful blasting, even less than called creatures do, and this is compounded by the SC being restricted to lower level summons.

Second, SCs have weaknesses of their own. You can game the disbelief save via Killer Gnome shenanigans, but the conjurations themselves can still be dispelled or even hedged out entirely.

If the individual swarm critters are badass enough to not die to two or three d6 we've reached high level and I suddenly get way more room to play with. If they still can at low level so help me I will start using permanency shenanigans.

[eggynack]

I don't have to make it the "only answer" - all I need to do is make it viable enough for the caster to want to prepare a handful of them. I'm pretty sure I can manage that.
I'm don't know the extent to which that's true. I mean, assuming the number of blast loving encounters and non-blast loving encounters are equal, I'd still prepare nothing but non-blasts, simply because the non-blasts will still be reasonable in the blast encounters. You'd need to heavily weight encounters towards being favorable to blasting spells, and even then the individual blast heavy encounters would need to be very blast heavy, before I'd prepare more than a tiny number of blasting spells. The question is whether you can weight the campaign towards wizards preparing fireball, without sending the entire campaign into the swarmy swamp of the swarmiest swarms: swarm edition.

Edit: Also, by the infinite swarm swamp point, I'm picking up fiery burst, and going back to a life free of most blasting spells.

[nedz]

The question is whether you can weight the campaign towards wizards preparing fireball, without sending the entire campaign into the swarmy swamp of the swarmiest swarms: swarm edition.

Edit: Also, by the infinite swarm swamp point, I'm picking up fiery burst, and going back to a life free of most blasting spells.

Naval campaign.
You see a hostile ship in the distance and want to destroy it's sails at long range. You want to do this to either overtake it, or escape.

[Psyren]

If you are going to contend that blasting is sufficiently valuable to justify expending resources towards that over other things you must be basing that claim on something.

You mean besides the fact that I can tailor every encounter in the game down to the minutest detail? Do I honestly need more than that?

Hell, I could stick a mage or two at the back who prepares nothing but grease, solid fog, glitterdust, wind wall etc. etc. and uses every last one to counterspell if I was really being blatant about it.


If the individual swarm critters are badass enough to not die to two or three d6 we've reached high level and I suddenly get way more room to play with.

Not necessarily - the CR could be way over yours if calculated conventionally, with the enemy having a brutal achilles heel making up for that and preventing a TPK.


The question is whether you can weight the campaign towards wizards preparing fireball, without sending the entire campaign into the swarmy swamp of the swarmiest swarms: swarm edition.

There are other blasts besides fireball, and in any event, nedz is exercising some wonderful imagination as well. It's not that hard.



Edit: Also, by the infinite swarm swamp point, I'm picking up fiery burst, and going back to a life free of most blasting spells.

That's still blasting in my book. Mission accomplished!

[ryu]

Even simpler solution: Just get a pile of alchemist fire flasks. That way feats don't have to be expended and not even spell slots get wasted.

[eggynack]

There are other blasts besides fireball, and in any event, nedz is exercising some wonderful imagination as well. It's not that hard.
I generally just use fireball as a catchall term for blasts, when I've decided that I'm tired of using whatever term I'm using in a given sentence. Still, I actually kinda like orbs, just in general, because they can sometimes hit targets that nothing else can.



That's still blasting in my book. Mission accomplished!
Perhaps so. I generally like fiery burst because you can use it repeatedly. That means that you're not completely out of gas once you've tossed out your fireball, because those spells are very all or nothing. Fiery burst is a neat way to convert time into damage, and being a wizard is a good way to create time.

[olentu]

You mean besides the fact that I can tailor every encounter in the game down to the minutest detail? Do I honestly need more than that?

Hell, I could stick a mage or two at the back who prepares nothing but grease, solid fog, glitterdust, wind wall etc. etc. and uses every last one to counterspell if I was really being blatant about it.

So we are back at the old if the players are not blasting enough for your liking you will swamp them with blasting encounters until they conform to your standards. This really is what it sounds like you are saying.

[Psyren]

So we are back at the old if the players are not blasting enough for your liking you will swamp them with blasting encounters until they conform to your standards. This really is what it sounds like you are saying.

There's that word "swamp" again :smalltongue:

Well, you're free to read it that way if you wish. All I can do is reiterate that my job is to challenge the players. Whether that means I counter your preferred tactics 1 encounter in 50 or 1 encounter in 5 depends on how much challenge is expected.

[chaos_redefined]

Isn't gust of wind usually a better option against swarms than fireball?

My DM's don't use that many swarms, so maybe I'm missing something.

Edit: Or Wind Wall

[Story]

Naval campaign.
You see a hostile ship in the distance and want to destroy it's sails at long range. You want to do this to either overtake it, or escape.

Launch Item a Feather Token: Anchor.

[Psyren]

Launch Item a Feather Token: Anchor.

Why would they use it on their own ship?

[olentu]

There's that word "swamp" again :smalltongue:

Well, you're free to read it that way if you wish. All I can do is reiterate that my job is to challenge the players. Whether that means I counter your preferred tactics 1 encounter in 50 or 1 encounter in 5 depends on how much challenge is expected.

If for some reason the word "swamp" makes what I am saying difficult to understand would you prefer I say something like increase the number and/or severity of blasting encounters.

Huh, preferred tactics. I was talking about someone that chooses general tactics because they are seemingly more efficient given the general spread of encounters. All of the 50/5 encounters are included in the analysis, including the one that "counter[s] your preferred tactics."

[ArcturusV]

Isn't gust of wind usually a better option against swarms than fireball?

My DM's don't use that many swarms, so maybe I'm missing something.

Edit: Or Wind Wall

Dunno. That's why I picked a hivemind, rats, crabs, whatever. If you tried to Windwall, or Solid Fog, or Gust of Wind, etc, against a Hivemind it would have... very little if any effect on them at all. Plus you'd have to worry about the fact that the Hivemind itself counts as a sorcerer and might hit you back pretty danged hard. Thus why Blasting is optimal for it, as the blasts will immediately kill a lot of the individual creatures of the Hivemind. Which then makes the hivemind weaker, losing stats, feats, skills, and even spellcasting. It's one of those scenarios where having something like a Fireball is actually strictly better than tentacles, or fog, or webs, or wind walls, etc. In fact it may be the optimal solution because every batch of 2-5 HP lost is a crippling step on the hivemind. Whereas standard battlefield control has little to no effect. "Oh? You blinded 500 rats? Well the other 1000 rats that are in the hivemind gives them sight anyway so they can still spot you and smack your party with a chain lightning." Yes, that has happened.

Bog standard swarms, Battlefield Control may be better than against the Hivemind. But still blasting is still going to be an optimal go to against them.

[Psyren]

If for some reason the word "swamp" makes what I am saying difficult to understand would you prefer I say something like increase the number and/or severity of blasting encounters.

You can increase the number of X without "swamping" the players with X, though. They are different things.



Huh, preferred tactics. I was talking about someone that chooses general tactics because they are seemingly more efficient given the general spread of encounters.

There is nothing wrong with general tactics, but they do leave you exposed in the event that things turn out not to be general. That't part of challenge.

[chaos_redefined]

Dunno. That's why I picked a hivemind, rats, crabs, whatever. If you tried to Windwall, or Solid Fog, or Gust of Wind, etc, against a Hivemind it would have... very little if any effect on them at all. Plus you'd have to worry about the fact that the Hivemind itself counts as a sorcerer and might hit you back pretty danged hard. Thus why Blasting is optimal for it, as the blasts will immediately kill a lot of the individual creatures of the Hivemind. Which then makes the hivemind weaker, losing stats, feats, skills, and even spellcasting. It's one of those scenarios where having something like a Fireball is actually strictly better than tentacles, or fog, or webs, or wind walls, etc. In fact it may be the optimal solution because every batch of 2-5 HP lost is a crippling step on the hivemind. Whereas standard battlefield control has little to no effect. "Oh? You blinded 500 rats? Well the other 1000 rats that are in the hivemind gives them sight anyway so they can still spot you and smack your party with a chain lightning." Yes, that has happened.

Bog standard swarms, Battlefield Control may be better than against the Hivemind. But still blasting is still going to be an optimal go to against them.

How does a hivemind work? If it's essentially just a ridiculously large number of tiny creatures than Gust of Wind is amazing against it, especially since its a level 2 spell. Similarly, Evard's Black Tentacles deals 1d6+4 damage, with a radius equal to that of fireball.

[Story]

Why would they use it on their own ship?

Sorry I can't look up the exact activation rules. I thought it would activate when it hits the ground but I may be misrembering.

[olentu]

You can increase the number of X without "swamping" the players with X, though. They are different things.



There is nothing wrong with general tactics, but they do leave you exposed in the event that things turn out not to be general. That't part of challenge.

That does not answer the question that I asked. But anyway if you are increasing the frequency and/or severity of encounters to try and overwhelm your players until they do the amount of blasting you want that seems like swamping them to me.

And yet that does not really matter since one presumably does not know when things are going to break away from the general distribution of 50/5/whatever encounters. Spending a bunch of resources on all those things that happen so infrequently just means you get killed by the regular encounters.

Of course if one did know, then that would fall under the foreknowledge situation I mentioned earlier, but I already covered that so I assume you are not talking about that situation.

[ArcturusV]

It is a ridiculous amount of creatures that need to be in relatively close proximity. For every number of creatures that exists within the hivemind it gets extra stats, skill points, feats, insight bonuses, and eventually spellcasting as a sorcerer. Now the reason why Black Tentacles wouldn't do much against them is that, well, Grappling won't matter too much against all those bodies, and the way a hivemind works is that it shares a single HP pool. So your black tentacles aren't doing 1d6+1 damage to every creature in it's area, killing off hundreds of rats at once. It did 1d6+1 damage to the hivemind... and killed of a single creature, or two or three perhaps. So your black tentacles kills off 1d6+1 rats, you'd have been more effective using a Burning Hands, not even metamagic'd, at your level to weaken the Hivemind. The black tentacles has almost no impact on the status of the hivemind. And with their godawful number of skill points (Really they get a metric ton of skill points), probably going to pass an Escape Artist check. If you hit them with a blast instead, got 50 damage done, you killed off 50 rats, which will markedly weaken a hivemind, they'll lose spells, stats, skill points, feats, etc. So it effectively turns blasting spells into negative levels you're dishing out. And since a hivemind shares all it's senses and experiences, something like a blind or a cripple isn't really effective unless you can tag every one of them with.

[chaos_redefined]

In that case...

GUST OF WIND

"A Tiny or smaller creature on the ground is knocked down and rolled 1d4×10 feet, taking 1d4 points of nonlethal damage per 10 feet. If flying, a Tiny or smaller creature is blown back 2d6×10 feet and takes 2d6 points of nonlethal damage due to battering and buffeting."

My initial answer was right. Knocking all of those creatures out of the square effectively kills off the hivemind, and the nonlethal damage is enough to knock them unconscious.

Edit: And wind wall might not stop the casting, but it does stop them coming at you.

[ArcturusV]

Actually I think the shared HP pool means the nonlethal would still be less than effective. It'd knock them back, but since they're still in proximity if you hit them all at once, they're still in the hivemind. The net effect as near as I can figure is "You moved them back 10-40 feet, prone. And you knocked out 1-16 rats." Not ideal. And since they're knocked out, and not dead however, they'd still be buffing up the Hivemind. So you haven't weakened the hivemind at all.

Once they're in a hivemind they stop being counted as individual creatures. Thus if your Fighter smacks the hivemind for 50 damage in a single swing, it will kill 50 rats.

Note that now that I thought about it, it could cause some weird hilarious RAW Great Cleave interaction I suppose. I hit for... whatever, 20. I kill 20 rats. Which gives me 20 extra attacks.

[georgie_leech]

That does not answer the question that I asked. But anyway if you are increasing the frequency and/or severity of encounters to try and overwhelm your players until they do the amount of blasting you want that seems like swamping them to me.

And yet that does not really matter since one presumably does not know when things are going to break away from the general distribution of 50/5/whatever encounters. Spending a bunch of resources on all those things that happen so infrequently just means you get killed by the regular encounters.

Of course if one did know, then that would fall under the foreknowledge situation I mentioned earlier, but I already covered that so I assume you are not talking about that situation.

Maybe the disconnect is coming from assuming that Psyren is trying to promote blasting and nothing else. It seems to me he's saying that he tries to design some challenges for the PC's that aren't easily defeated by their standard tactics. Perhaps it's a naval combat scenario where a Batman Wizard's BFC is less useful and blasting more so; maybe he includes a few social encounters that, while able to be solved in the short term by a sufficiently large explosion, would have long-term consequences if the blasting-happy Wizard didn't try a Charm Person or two instead. Given the discussion at hand of course the former scenario will come up more.

I tend to disagree with him on matters of game balance, but in this case it's more about pointing out some of the weaknesses of the kind of PC being advocated for in this thread. In that context, it doesn't matter how many encounters are specifically designed to challenge a Batman Wizard's usual skill set (If he doesn't prepare Blasting and a situation comes up where it would be useful, hey, maybe it's a time for the Barbarian with Great Cleave to shine), so long as it can be agreed that such encounters can exist.

[olentu]

Maybe the disconnect is coming from assuming that Psyren is trying to promote blasting and nothing else. It seems to me he's saying that he tries to design some challenges for the PC's that aren't easily defeated by their standard tactics. Perhaps it's a naval combat scenario where a Batman Wizard's BFC is less useful and blasting more so; maybe he includes a few social encounters that, while able to be solved in the short term by a sufficiently large explosion, would have long-term consequences if the blasting-happy Wizard didn't try a Charm Person or two instead. Given the discussion at hand of course the former scenario will come up more.

I tend to disagree with him on matters of game balance, but in this case it's more about pointing out some of the weaknesses of the kind of PC being advocated for in this thread. In that context, it doesn't matter how many encounters are specifically designed to challenge a Batman Wizard's usual skill set (If he doesn't prepare Blasting and a situation comes up where it would be useful, hey, maybe it's a time for the Barbarian with Great Cleave to shine), so long as it can be agreed that such encounters can exist.

Perhaps that is the case, and perhaps the disconnect is that that does not really have much to do with the idea that a varied set of challenges does not really favor the more narrowly applicable spells such as blasting. Thus when you have to cut something, and with properly challenging encounters you probably will, those more narrow spells are the ones that are generally going to be cut first (foreknowledge and other special circumstances notwithstanding). I mean I have said several times that I am considering those situations where blasting would be the best option.

[nedz]

Launch Item a Feather Token: Anchor.

Well it has Long range, but even if it works it will only stop them briefly.
Feather Token: Anchor is probably more use in saving your own ship in a storm.

There are a number of options you could use for this, I was just pointing out a non swamp campaign where Fireball might be useful.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There are a number of options you could use for this, I was just pointing out a non swamp campaign where Fireball might be useful.

If you have to reach this far to make Fireball useful, or if you have to change the game rules, as Psyren suggests, in order to make it viable, then it pretty much confirms my point that it is the worst possible thing you can do in a typical game.

[chaos_redefined]

Actually I think the shared HP pool means the nonlethal would still be less than effective. It'd knock them back, but since they're still in proximity if you hit them all at once, they're still in the hivemind. The net effect as near as I can figure is "You moved them back 10-40 feet, prone. And you knocked out 1-16 rats." Not ideal. And since they're knocked out, and not dead however, they'd still be buffing up the Hivemind. So you haven't weakened the hivemind at all.

Once they're in a hivemind they stop being counted as individual creatures. Thus if your Fighter smacks the hivemind for 50 damage in a single swing, it will kill 50 rats.

Note that now that I thought about it, it could cause some weird hilarious RAW Great Cleave interaction I suppose. I hit for... whatever, 20. I kill 20 rats. Which gives me 20 extra attacks.

Oh. So, fighter damage is just as effective as normal? Then Haste is better than fireball in that case, isn't it?

[IronFist]

I'd like to hop in here to put in my two-cents. First off I would like to say that deciding to play a Batman/God Wizard doesn't strictly require you to be high-op or anything like that. I managed just fine playing as a Bard before, not Sublime Chord, just Bard. The reason I bring this up is somewhat related to my next point.
Though somewhat anecdotal, I can say that it isn't safe to assume that a mundane character is going to be a spiked chain wielding pounce charger. Honestly, I've been playing 3/3.5 since it came out and I have never seen any PC ever make a charger or spiked chain user. To clarify, I also have played with multiple groups from several states/countries, so this isn't limited to one group. So while TO and perhaps a few players that you may know do this, not everyone builds characters like this.
As for dealing with charger builds, there are countless ways: rough terrain, readied actions or even feats designed specifically for it, like Elusive Target.
I agree completely.

[nedz]

If you have to reach this far to make Fireball useful, or if you have to change the game rules, as Psyren suggests, in order to make it viable, then it pretty much confirms my point that it is the worst possible thing you can do in a typical game.

Well there's no such thing as a typical game, and I'm not reaching far at all — the situation I described was very common in one game I ran.

I am playing the devil's advocate here but you do seem to have pre-judged the debate. Whilst I agree that Fireball is a poor spell we have identified a number of potential uses for it. It isn't the complete wash out you evidently believe.

[Psyren]

Well it has Long range, but even if it works it will only stop them briefly.
Feather Token: Anchor is probably more use in saving your own ship in a storm.

Launching a Feather Token is silly as they would still need to activate it, targeting their own ship. So the launcher would basically be giving them a free magic item unless someone over there didn't know what it was and used it blindly.


If you have to reach this far to make Fireball useful, or if you have to change the game rules, as Psyren suggests, in order to make it viable, then it pretty much confirms my point that it is the worst possible thing you can do in a typical game.

Fluid encounter design isn't "changing the game rules," it is part of them. Counterspells, swarms, undead, sieges, destroying objects, time limits, etc. - all of these things can be done in RAW and all can be used to necessitate a shift in the tried-and-true bfc/buff/summon strategy common to primary casters.

As nedz pointed out, the notion of a "typical game" is an artificial construct. In point of fact, were my own games to become "typical," that would perhaps be the biggest incentive to shake things up someone could possibly present me with.

Terms like "NEVER" and "worst possible" do nothing but spark my imagination.

[Aliek]

I gotta be brief in my words right now, so I'll just mention something I thought I'd see mentioned here already:

Mailman.

In fact, if you build up to be a great blaster, you have to give up build resources, while a BFC-focused caster don't. I don't see how that's a problem, given you can mailman and still BFC effectivelly, especially if you get some action economy going. One-shotting in AoE is always fun(Unless you're in a low-op game. Then it would be fun for the first couple times and then boring as hell.)

[nedz]

Mailman is a thing, but we were discussing whether it is ever worth Batman taking Fireball. We have identified a few cases where it could be useful, and Batman is all about covering all the bases all of the time.

[pwykersotz]

Having just watched Batman/Superman Public Enemies last night, I would like to point out that Batman does indeed have explosives on his person. I count three high yield explosives and dozens of low yield ones just from that one movie. Maybe the Batman Wizard should consider that damage can alter the environment just as favorably as Stone Shape sometimes. :smalltongue:

[Story]

Well Explosive Runes are easy to make and can be stored indefinitely, but that may not be what you were thinking of.

[eggynack]

Having just watched Batman/Superman Public Enemies last night, I would like to point out that Batman does indeed have explosives on his person. I count three high yield explosives and dozens of low yield ones just from that one movie. Maybe the Batman Wizard should consider that damage can alter the environment just as favorably as Stone Shape sometimes. :smalltongue:
Y'know, that's actually part of the problem, come to think of it. Unless you're in one of several very specific situations, fireballs don't really alter the environment at all. You don't gain much tactical benefit from shooting one, unless the enemy dies. In this way, I'd say that fireball is less high yield explosive, and more gun. Sure, one day you may be out on the high seas, and you'd like to burn down the enemy's sail, and the difference in tactical value between a fireball and a lightning bolt is very relevant, but outside of that situation and ones like it, you're mostly just hurting folks. Either way, I've gotta figure that a sleet storm covering the area of the ship would be rather effective at helping out in combat. However, I've gotta say, if there's one thing that fireball has going for it, it's that its range is frigging ridiculous. Finding a BFC with the same range isn't the easiest thing in the world.

[georgie_leech]

Y'know, that's actually part of the problem, come to think of it. Unless you're in one of several very specific situations, fireballs don't really alter the environment at all. You don't gain much tactical benefit from shooting one, unless the enemy dies. In this way, I'd say that fireball is less high yield explosive, and more gun. Sure, one day you may be out on the high seas, and you'd like to burn down the enemy's sail, and the difference in tactical value between a fireball and a lightning bolt is very relevant, but outside of that situation and ones like it, you're mostly just hurting folks. Either way, I've gotta figure that a sleet storm covering the area of the ship would be rather effective at helping out in combat. However, I've gotta say, if there's one thing that fireball has going for it, it's that its range is frigging ridiculous. Finding a BFC with the same range isn't the easiest thing in the world.

Ships tend to move, and rather quickly at that, so would be out of range of all but the largest BFC spells almost immediately. In that sense, spells that immediately resolve like a fireball doing damage to the mast or sails would actually be more effective at hindering any large vessel.

[Gemini476]

For Fireball specifically, here's what the average damage would be:

The chance to hit a specific DC is [N-(Z-X)+1]/N, where N is the size of the die(20), Z is the DC, and X is the modifier.

So the chance of your enemy failing the save is 1-(21-DC+Mod)/20.

The DC is equal to 10+Int+Spell Level+Modifiers, or minimum 14 for fireball. If you haven't taken Spell Focus(Evocation), that's probably closer to DC 18 when you first get it, although you could maybe squeeze out enough cash to get DC 19. Let's go with 18.

So the damage you do is (CL*3.5)*[1-(3+Mod)/20]+(CL*1.75)*(3+Mod)/20. Simplifying that a bit I got (CL*3.5)*{[1-(3+Mod)/20]+0.5(3+Mod)/20}.

And since I was already working in Excel, I made a calculator! Yay! Don't worry, I won't bore you with charts this time.

However, could I please get a sample character? Nothing big, really, just a level, Caster Level and Intelligence score. I'll show the average damage as well as the percentage of average HP, which might be more useful.

Oh, and just for reference? The average CR 2 monster in the SRD has 20.55 HP. If you give it diehard, it will not be stopped by a CL 5 Fireball unless you hit it from outside charging range.
A CR 5 monster has 56.33 HP, and will shrug off the fireball and keep eating your face.
A level 5 wizard with 14 con has 22.5 HP, and will probably survive the 15.31 damage your fireball will do to him. A PC wizard has 1.5 extra HP, which doesn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. They can both react to your fireball with something else, like something that stops you from blasting again. Even Protection from Energy is likely to stop your Fireball.

Fireball is a rather unoptimal blasting spell. Does anyone have any suggestion for good low-level blasting spells?

[pwykersotz]

Y'know, that's actually part of the problem, come to think of it. Unless you're in one of several very specific situations, fireballs don't really alter the environment at all. You don't gain much tactical benefit from shooting one, unless the enemy dies. In this way, I'd say that fireball is less high yield explosive, and more gun. Sure, one day you may be out on the high seas, and you'd like to burn down the enemy's sail, and the difference in tactical value between a fireball and a lightning bolt is very relevant, but outside of that situation and ones like it, you're mostly just hurting folks. Either way, I've gotta figure that a sleet storm covering the area of the ship would be rather effective at helping out in combat. However, I've gotta say, if there's one thing that fireball has going for it, it's that its range is frigging ridiculous. Finding a BFC with the same range isn't the easiest thing in the world.

I think that's more of a DM discretion issue than anything else. Apocalypse from the Sky only does 10d6, it just does it over a huge area. Yet the description says: "This damage typically levels forests, sends mountains tumbling, and wipes out entire populations of living creatures." So really, these spells have a right to cause far more environmental alteration/destruction than what they are sometimes given credit for.

[olentu]

You know, the whole naval argument is actually a bit humorous. It really just goes to show how powerful battlefield control is if an otherwise not so great spell becomes reasonably competitive when it is changed from a blasting spell into a battlefield control spell.

[Psyren]

"Control" is a broad term. Boiled down, all it really means is "forcing the enemy away from an optimal action." D&D's turn-based system, the nature of hitpoints, and the way direct damage spells themselves were designed simply make it harder to achieve this objective with them, but in many circumstances it's still possible.

[georgie_leech]

You know, the whole naval argument is actually a bit humorous. It really just goes to show how powerful battlefield control is if an otherwise not so great spell becomes reasonably competitive when it is changed from a blasting spell into a battlefield control spell.

A BFC that achieves its end via blasting, yes. You can't dispel a broken mast or collapsed bridge like you can a fog cloud.

[ryu]

However you also can't dispel instantaneous conjuration spell effects and they into or from inside antimagic fields. Point conjuration.

[olentu]

"Control" is a broad term. Boiled down, all it really means is "forcing the enemy away from an optimal action." D&D's turn-based system, the nature of hitpoints, and the way direct damage spells themselves were designed simply make it harder to achieve this objective with them, but in many circumstances it's still possible.

Why yes, like I said, battlefield control is so powerful that it can take a not so good spell and make it competitive by changing it from a blasting spell into a battlefield control spell. Or are you saying that fireball would again be worthless if you were unable to damage any of the crew of the enemy ship.


A BFC that achieves its end via blasting, yes. You can't dispel a broken mast or collapsed bridge like you can a fog cloud.

Eh, I generally take blasting to mean direct damage to the opposing creatures as the primary purpose of the spell. Black tentacles, for example, does deal damage but that is generally an incidental side effect and not the point of using the spell.

[nedz]

...
Er, we are not interesting in using Fireball to do damage — we all know that it's rubbish. What are are looking at are alternate uses for the spell most of which seem to involve setting things on fire at long range, or taking out swarms, etc.

I think our work was pretty much done with this earlier post, unless someone can come up with further ideas.

fireball has a few (somewhat) practical applications
-can hit water to create fog
-can burn down forests/villages/start flashfires
-has very good range
-AOE
-you can shoot a fireball through a hole (like a keyhole or a crack in the wall)
-fun with Grease
-useful to have at least in the spellbook if you think you might be up against something vulnerable to fire
Plus
-Swarms
-Ships

[georgie_leech]

Eh, I generally take blasting to mean direct damage to the opposing creatures as the primary purpose of the spell. Black tentacles, for example, does deal damage but that is generally an incidental side effect and not the point of using the spell.

It depends. The only spell I can think of that can do damage to a creature and nothing else off the top of my head is Magic Missile (and even that might be useful if you're facing incorporeal creatures before access to magic weapons, and is thus your only source of damage). Most other "blasting" spells can be used to hinder opponents without caring about the damage they do, like using Fireball to burn a bridge, or Disintegrate in place of Thog to collapse load bearing pillars...

[ryu]

Any spell that involves setting something on fire as utility is better off as a torch at immediate range, and teleporting lit fire starting demons at high range.

[Psyren]

Why yes, like I said, battlefield control is so powerful that it can take a not so good spell and make it competitive by changing it from a blasting spell into a battlefield control spell.

I believe it's the circumstance of the encounter doing that. Which is the point I've been making this whole time, encounters can be tailored.



Or are you saying that fireball would again be worthless if you were unable to damage any of the crew of the enemy ship.

I have no idea what this even means :smallconfused:

[olentu]

It depends. The only spell I can think of that can do damage to a creature and nothing else off the top of my head is Magic Missile (and even that might be useful if you're facing incorporeal creatures before access to magic weapons, and is thus your only source of damage). Most other "blasting" spells can be used to hinder opponents without caring about the damage they do, like using Fireball to burn a bridge, or Disintegrate in place of Thog to collapse load bearing pillars...

In which case you are not doing what I would call blasting. But perhaps I was being a bit confusing, so allow me to clarify. When I was talking about spells I was referring to the intended use for which they were being prepared. When people talk about monsters that are "easy to hit but hard to blast" I assume they mean casting the spells on the monsters with the intent to do damage.


I believe it's the circumstance of the encounter doing that. Which is the point I've been making this whole time, encounters can be tailored.



I have no idea what this even means :smallconfused:

And yet that once again demonstrates that battlefield control is more useful them blasting. If by the circumstances of the encounter you merely meant allowing for inventive forms of battlefield control and not using spells to deal damage to monsters, then I have misunderstood you the whole time and thought you were advocating blasting when you were really agreeing that blasting sucks and battlefield control is good.

It is the difference between blasting and battlefield control. That is, would the fireball still be useful if it only damaged the ship and not the enemies.

[Gwendol]

Sometimes you really just need to deal damage. Now.

Is Power Word: Pain considered a blast spell?

That said, I've actually never seen a fireball in action come to think of it. Plenty of glitterdusts and webs (and entangle) though. Scorching ray seems to be the go-to damage dealer in the games I play, together with shocking grasp.
The notion that a wizard never should memorize a damage dealing spell seems alien though, why wouldn't he? There are plenty of reasons why a damage-dealing spell will solve the problem elegantly: range, vulnerability, AC or environment related issues, time constraints, etc.

[ryu]

Sometimes you really just need to deal damage. Now.

Is Power Word: Pain considered a blast spell?

That said, I've actually never seen a fireball in action come to think of it. Plenty of glitterdusts and webs (and entangle) though. Scorching ray seems to be the go-to damage dealer in the games I play, together with shocking grasp.
The notion that a wizard never should memorize a damage dealing spell seems alien though, why wouldn't he? There are plenty of reasons why a damage-dealing spell will solve the problem elegantly: range, vulnerability, AC or environment related issues, time constraints, etc.

Not that no damage spell should ever be memorized. It's just why bother when there are like three or four any given caster will care about with the rest being simply worse or less versatile versions of them. Namely the orbs are useful when heavy SR, antimagic fields, or a whole pile of nasty anti control effects and energy resistances are being used by an actually threatening enemy. Tell me what does fireball do against any of those better than an orb of force?

[Psyren]

And yet that once again demonstrates that battlefield control is more useful them blasting.

If you're preparing and using a blasting spell to achieve that control, there's no real difference in my mind. The point really is to get those spells in the rotation, I couldn't care less what the player calls or considers it.



It is the difference between blasting and battlefield control. That is, would the fireball still be useful if it only damaged the ship and not the enemies.

The thing about D&D ships is that it can be just as damaging whether you take out the sails, take out the crew, or both.

[olentu]

If you're preparing and using a blasting spell to achieve that control, there's no real difference in my mind. The point really is to get those spells in the rotation, I couldn't care less what the player calls or considers it.



The thing about D&D ships is that it can be just as damaging whether you take out the sails, take out the crew, or both.

Well then we are in agreement that blasting sucks.

Now the next step is to consider the spells from a battlefield control standpoint since they are not blasting spells any more, they will not be prepared to deal damage directly to foes and so should not be wasted to deal direct damage to foes. If it becomes necessary to use the spells to deal direct damage to foes instead of their intended usage that would mean you prepared too many of them and should probably cut back in favor of something else.

First fireball has really been the only spell that has been sufficiently useful to give consideration and that is purely because of its range and ability to start fires. So that rules out most of the other types of direct damage spells. So already we can see that the former blasting spells are, as a whole, generally of little use as battlefield control.

Now we should consider how useful fireball is. Generally I have found that there is not really so much use for setting things on fire at range. Ship rigging, arson, and very occasionally weak wood or rope bridges are the only situations that come to mind. And honestly, the last is generally better off with just someone using a sword on the bridge.

As for ships fireball could be useful since you can generally destroy rigging in 4 to 8 shots, or damage to 50% in about half that. Sometimes less depending on how fire works out. This is really a lot of spells but there is not too much better in core until one hits 4th level spells. At that point one may as well just dimension door some of the party onto the other ship and have them clean things up. Then you don't have to fix the ship afterwards.

So the last situation is arson. As useful as this might seem I have found it to be much easier to have a rogue or otherwise sneaky class just use a torch. Plus, this is generally a preplanned operation and thus would not cause the spells to be added to the usual spell preparation.

So sure, one direct damage spell could be of use as battlefield control in a naval campaign before you get dimension door. Other then that the various spells are seemingly not really very good battlefield control spells either and probably should be passed over for more effective battlefield control.

Eh, it seems about the same as before in terms of spell choice, but at least we were able to agree that blasting is not so great.


As for that last bit I am going to take that as a yes.

[Psyren]

You're reading things I'm not saying into my posts, and it seems to me you're doing it intentionally. It's not much of a discussion when you effectively talk to yourself and impersonate the other party's position while doing so.

[olentu]

You're reading things I'm not saying into my posts, and it seems to me you're doing it intentionally. It's not much of a discussion when you effectively talk to yourself and impersonate the other party's position while doing so.

Perhaps I am. But I certainly do not notice where I am doing that so if you would not mind pointing out where I am that would be helpful.

[Psyren]

I disagree that blasting stops being blasting simply because it is capable of accomplishing something other than hitpoint damage; I disagree that it outright "sucks" as this is situational ("not so great" however is a fair assessment.) And finally, I disagree that dealing damage is a "waste."

In addition, fireball is not the only blast that can start fires. Lightning Bolt can not only do this too, it can also penetrate into the ship's hold where volatile materials (gunpowder, alchemist's fire) may be stored.

[eggynack]

I disagree that blasting stops being blasting simply because it is capable of accomplishing something other than hitpoint damage; I disagree that it outright "sucks" as this is situational ("not so great" however is a fair assessment.) And finally, I disagree that dealing damage is a "waste."

In addition, fireball is not the only blast that can start fires. Lightning Bolt can not only do this too, it can also penetrate into the ship's hold where volatile materials (gunpowder, alchemist's fire) may be stored.
Well, how do you define "blasting" then? I think that defining "blasting" as "a spell that does HP damage" would be a fair assessment, but possibly an inaccurate one. Is freezing fog a blasting spell, just because it deals a little damage? Probably not. In the end, I'd say that it depends on the core engagement of the spell. If you're casting a spell primarily to deal damage, then it's a blasting spell. If you're casting it primarily to shut down a ship, and the damage to the crew mates is secondary at best, then it's really not a blasting spell. This also takes stuff like orb of fire into account, because despite it having a secondary debuffing role, its primary goal is the damage. So, you just ask why you're casting a given spell, and that should get you somewhere that's generally accurate.

Edit: Note that this goes the other way too. If you know you're not going to kill an enemy with the damage from an orb of fire (maybe they have high fire resistance), but you're casting it anyway because you want to give your teammates the free round to act, orb of fire is a debuff in that instance. If you are facing an enemy who you know has vision modes that can see through a fog, and freedom of movement to walk through it ordinarily, and you cast freezing fog to poke away at the enemy's HP, then freezing fog is a blasting spell in that instance.

[Psyren]

Well, how do you define "blasting" then? I think that defining "blasting" as "a spell that does HP damage" would be a fair assessment, but possibly an inaccurate one. Is freezing fog a blasting spell, just because it deals a little damage? Probably not. In the end, I'd say that it depends on the core engagement of the spell. If you're casting a spell primarily to deal damage, then it's a blasting spell. If you're casting it primarily to shut down a ship, and the damage to the crew mates is secondary at best, then it's really not a blasting spell. This also takes stuff like orb of fire into account, because despite it having a secondary debuffing role, its primary goal is the damage.

The original claim was that such a spell would not be worth preparing. under any circumstance whatsoever. What I'm saying is it doesn't matter to me whether you prepare such spells to burn through a swarm, puncture a fleeing ship, smoke hidden archers out of cover at long range or whatever else; what does matter is that there can be situations where that original claim can be disproven, and that in the interest of challenge, those situations can and should be occasionally introduced to the game.

[eggynack]

The original claim was that such a spell would not be worth preparing. under any circumstance whatsoever. What I'm saying is it doesn't matter to me whether you prepare such spells to burn through a swarm, puncture a fleeing ship, smoke hidden archers out of cover at long range or whatever else; what does matter is that there can be situations where that original claim can be disproven, and that in the interest of challenge, those situations can and should be occasionally introduced to the game.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that the original claim is that direct damage isn't worthwhile, because it just turns an enemy into a half dead enemy, and a half dead enemy can kill you just as well as a dead enemy. If we're using a fireball for a non-direct damage purpose, that's a point in favor of the original argument, rather than one against it. The other points, like being able to hit swarms effectively, may be of more merit, but the OP wasn't arguing specifically against fireball. It just kinda became about that later, and then the spell's side effects came into the equation, and it really became batman spell versus batman spell at that point, rather than batman versus punchy mcgee.

[olentu]

I disagree that blasting stops being blasting simply because it is capable of accomplishing something other than hitpoint damage; I disagree that it outright "sucks" as this is situational ("not so great" however is a fair assessment.) And finally, I disagree that dealing damage is a "waste."

In addition, fireball is not the only blast that can start fires. Lightning Bolt can not only do this too, it can also penetrate into the ship's hold where volatile materials (gunpowder, alchemist's fire) may be stored.

Ah, so it is merely a matter of definition then. How would you define blasting if not to be casting spells that deal damage on creatures.

Eh, sucks is a term that varies in strength from person to person as is not so great.

Would you prefer and expenditure of resources that gives a lesser benefit instead of a waste.

Eh, lightning bolt has only a range of 120 feet. Not to mention we are talking hull sections with HP 30-150 (hardness 5-10), not counting stuff like the coracle. Dealing ((3.5*6)/2)-5 damage (since you presumably do not have access to dimension door, or since we are this close solid fog) will take about 5 and a half shots to break through the 30 pointer. Not to mention that fireball can also break through barriers.

[Psyren]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the original claim is that direct damage isn't worthwhile, because it just turns an enemy into a half dead enemy, and a half dead enemy can kill you just as well as a dead enemy.

That was certainly part of it, but no, the original claim was broader than that. Here is Shneekey's version (that got me invested in this discussion in the first place):



There is NEVER a situation in which a fireball is a thing that should be done.

He didn't say "never for damage" nor even "never for damage if there is no party member standing by to deal the killing blow to your damaged targets." Just plain "never."



Ah, so it is merely a matter of definition then. How would you define blasting if not to be casting spells that deal damage on creatures.

Damage in general really. As the ship example shows, sometimes damaging objects is just as important. There can also be the necessity of destroying cover or obstacles or items etc.



Eh, lightning bolt has only a range of 120 feet.
...
Not to mention that fireball can also break through barriers.

I chose it as an example because, unlike Fireball, LB can smash through an obstacle and keep going. This can be important in situations where you want to destroy something behind cover without getting too close yourself (e.g. the aforementioned powder kegs.) You can easily engineer a situation where Dooring onto the enemy vessel is unwise or impossible too. LB's range is unfortunate but this can be Enlarged for little cost..

As far as the damage, I didn't specify a level this was taking place, and ship stats aren't set in stone either.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you are going to be firing at ships at sea, wouldn't a Disintegrate aimed at sea level be a better choice? "Here, let me rip out a ten foot by ten foot chunk of your hull. Have fun sinking!".

Other options:

Otluke's Freezing Sphere to create icebergs for the ship to crash into (the 'Titanic' option)

Wall of Fire (much better for burning ships than a fireball because it sticks around for the ship to pass through, burning the entire length)

For that matter, Water Breathing would be a *MUCH* better use of a 3rd level spell, because then you can send the marines under their boat to start drilling holes in the hull

Flame Arrows is another third level spell. +1d6 fire damage on fifty arrows means you can do all of your igniting of your opponent's ship at an even longer range (with compound longbows). Ironically, this is exceedingly synergistic with Haste.

All of these are better options than Fireball.

[Scow2]

A Fireball can turn a half-dead enemy into a full-dead enemy, or let someone else in the party who also turns enemies into half-dead enemies turn your half-dead enemies from fireball into full-dead enemies. A monster that beats its save against a Save Or Suck cannot be turned from Half-Dead to Full-Dead by the guy who turns other monsters into Half-dead monsters. Wizards who flub a Color Spray are known as "Smears". A Fireball is also (though rarely) capable of destroying enemy's items, reducing their effectiveness in combat if they have such (But also ruining loot).

The damage of Fireball is multiplied by the number of creatures caught in the blast radius - you don't use it against a single target.

A Necklace of Fireballs is an amazing nuke, but too expensive to be worthwhile in that regard.

I miss 3.0. The most horrifically broken mid/low-level spells from 3.5 weren't as bad there (No Planetouched using Alter Self to turn into Solars or what-have-yous, Polymorph spells applying a significant debuff in combat, and Black Tentacles capable of being countered by liberal application of sword, just off the top of my head)

[olentu]

Damage in general really. As the ship example shows, sometimes damaging objects is just as important. There can also be the necessity of destroying cover or obstacles or items etc.



I chose it as an example because, unlike Fireball, LB can smash through an obstacle and keep going. This can be important in situations where you want to destroy something behind cover without getting too close yourself (e.g. the aforementioned powder kegs.) You can easily engineer a situation where Dooring onto the enemy vessel is unwise or impossible too. LB's range is unfortunate but this can be Enlarged for little cost..

As far as the damage, I didn't specify a level this was taking place, and ship stats aren't set in stone either.

Right, I would generally file terrain manipulation under battlefield control when used to control a battlefield or utility when not. If we don't do that then all sorts of spells suddenly become blasting spells, like black tentacles or dispel magic used on a +con item.

But I suppose that if that is your definition of blasting then under that definition I can not say that blasting spells are generally not a good idea to prepare, since some of the spells I was saying would probably be preferable may deal damage.


Eh, fireball also can break through barriers, plus being a spread it can often just spread all over the stuff you want to hit without powering through the barrier. I recall that enlarge spell only works on those spells with a range of close, medium, or long which does not cover lightning bolt.

Eh I suppose one could engineer a situation where dimension door is not a good idea, but one can just as easily engineer a situation where lightning bolt is also worthless. That kind of makes the whole thing a wash.

Eh, I chose the level because, you know, teleporting some guys onto the enemy ship is probably a better idea. Or something like solid fog. Or polymorphing you fighting man into something that can fly over and just chop up the crew or the hull or whatever since you are so very close. Perhaps a control water if you have a cleric or druid.

And eh, if you have to start making things easier on lightning bolt to make it a useful alternate to fireball that rather demonstrates the point.

[Scow2]

If you are going to be firing at ships at sea, wouldn't a Disintegrate aimed at sea level be a better choice? "Here, let me rip out a ten foot by ten foot chunk of your hull. Have fun sinking!".

Other options:

Otluke's Freezing Sphere to create icebergs for the ship to crash into (the 'Titanic' option)

Wall of Fire (much better for burning ships than a fireball because it sticks around for the ship to pass through, burning the entire length)

For that matter, Water Breathing would be a *MUCH* better use of a 3rd level spell, because then you can send the marines under their boat to start drilling holes in the hull

Flame Arrows is another third level spell. +1d6 fire damage on fifty arrows means you can do all of your igniting of your opponent's ship at an even longer range (with compound longbows). Ironically, this is exceedingly synergistic with Haste.

All of these are better options than Fireball.
Actually... no, no they aren't.
Freezing sphere is a 6th-level spell slot. There are better uses for a spell slot of that level than hoping to deal Collision Damage to the boat.

Wall of Fire can't even reach the enemy ship at the same range Fireball can, and it can just sail around if you try to lead, or through if you cast it on it - leaving your own ship to crash through the wall itself if it's approaching.

Water Breathing - how is a <20' swim speed going to ever catch the hostile ship?

Flame Arrows don't have the immediate destructive effect on the ship that Fireball does.

Fireball, however, can blast from 4 times further than Wall of Fire, guarantees ignition, and not only deals full damage to the ship (Wood is vulnerable to Fire, and doesn't take half damage or apply hardness), but you're also dealing that damage to each member of the crew - probably blasting out the decks from the damage of the fireball (Any section of the deck that matters only has 20-30 HP), burn the crew beneath for full damage, and blast through any decks beneath THAT.

Oh, sure, you can use Stormwrack's secondary rules for damage to ships hulls... but those are secondary to the PHB's rules for damaging an object (Treating decks as horizontal wooden walls), and according to those - that ship is toast.

[Psyren]

All of these are better options than Fireball.

Potentially - sure. Or potentially not. It's all situational. I can come up with scenarios for all of your examples where fireball or lightning bolt could be more viable choices. There are variables like range of the engagement, level of the participants, the weather and the condition of the ocean itself that are all totally up to the DM.

Blanket statements are for video games.

[eggynack]

I'd generally prefer heart of water to water breathing. You get a better swim speed, and freedom of movement if you want. It's a pretty great spell. Also, boreal wind is rather sweet for random wind requiring things. It blasts a little too, if you're in the market for that. At this point, I'm mostly just naming spells I like.

[Gwendol]

Not that no damage spell should ever be memorized. It's just why bother when there are like three or four any given caster will care about with the rest being simply worse or less versatile versions of them. Namely the orbs are useful when heavy SR, antimagic fields, or a whole pile of nasty anti control effects and energy resistances are being used by an actually threatening enemy. Tell me what does fireball do against any of those better than an orb of force?

Range, area of effect, secondary/environment damage, no attack roll. Need I go on?

[eggynack]

Range, area of effect, secondary/environment damage, no attack roll. Need I go on?
You missed possibly the most important one, which is that orb of X is of a higher spell level. I'd still prefer the orb pretty much all the time, just because it's so frigging consistent. There aren't many spells that can hit targets of that diverse a range, and the rider effects are sometimes pretty sweet.

[Spuddles]

Blasting is less useful in a party full of damage dealers- TWF rogue, THF fighter, and a cleric silly enough to use divine power, solid fog and black tentacles are amazing.

Otherwise, high damage blasting is needed. Some control is always good, but it's better to have immediate action/pre-battle buffs to just ignore or mitigate enemy attacks. I would rather take two rounds to kill enemies with blasting spells than throw down solid fogs and run away.


You missed possibly the most important one, which is that orb of X is of a higher spell level. I'd still prefer the orb pretty much all the time, just because it's so frigging consistent. There aren't many spells that can hit targets of that diverse a range, and the rider effects are sometimes pretty sweet.

Single target all or nothing touch attacks are kind of a drawback.

[Gwendol]

Sure, I thought of that after posting. The orbs still need a successful attack roll to hit which means a minimum 5% chance of missing, and subject to the usual effects of cover, concealment, etc. Concistency depends on the circumstances I guess.

[eggynack]

Single target all or nothing touch attacks are kind of a drawback.
They are, but the post I was responding to already effectively contained that factor. In any case, I'd just usually tend towards to orbs, even though they have several disadvantages. At the very least, they're at exact opposite ends of the banning spectrum, and that can often be the line between a spell being good and a spell being bad.

Sure, I thought of that after posting. The orbs still need a successful attack roll to hit which means a minimum 5% chance of missing, and subject to the usual effects of cover, concealment, etc. Concistency depends on the circumstances I guess.
Well, the situations which orbs are consistent against are the very situations against which wizards are often inconsistent. Even if they're far from perfect, golems, AMF's, and SR in general tend to be reasonably good against wizards, and orbs turn the tables on all of those things. A fireball has its own kind of consistency, but it's a kind of consistency that a wizard can acquire with more ease.

[Gwendol]

Looks like we're in agreement then that the wizard is well served to consider memorizing damage dealing spells in addition to the "batman wizard" spells?

The choice of damage dealing has to be chosen based on an assessment of likely risks, as usual.

[eggynack]

Looks like we're in agreement then that the wizard is well served to consider memorizing damage dealing spells in addition to the "batman wizard" spells?

The choice of damage dealing has to be chosen based on an assessment of likely risks, as usual.
Well, maybe somewhere between zero and very few, and it's probably going to be an orb of some kind, rather than a fireball. Killing a golem at the center of an AMF with a spell is a bit too cool to pass up. On the other hand, there's still the fiery burst method, which I've always thought seemed pretty cool. As I've mentioned, fiery burst turns time into damage, while a fireball turns time and spells into damage. The former seems like it may be a good deal, while the latter seems like it may not be. I have a similar justification for liking something like call lightning. In any case, I've pretty much been in favor of tossing an orb of fire onto the list since the beginning, so I don't know if anything's changed in terms of the mechanics of this discussion. The spell is actually in the handbook we're all effectively talking about, so saying that orb of fire is a cool spell may actually get us closer to being batman, rather than further from it.

[Gwendol]

I don't know; it seems like a risk not to have the possibilty of dealing damage over a larger area. Fireball or not, other spells should also fit the bill. But relying only on single-target ranged attack spells for damage is not what I would recommend.

[Norin]

Sometimes it just feels good to blast people with fireballs.

That's all. :smallbiggrin:

[Lactantius]

Interesting thread.
Well here my 2 cents to this topic:

1.) I think we all play different games although we use the same system.
This starts with the question what books are allowed, comes to the point how much optimizing is around in each concrete gaming group and finally leads to the point how each campaing/adventure is styled and works out.

- For example, if we play an intrigue/political campaign, all the standard spell selections and party powers (typically, adventuring, dungeoning, killing stuff 4times-per-day) vanish or, at least, get less important.
As I stated in the other thread, enchantment and divination spells get much more value, BFC rapidly diminshes.

- Another example: the environmental setting. naval warfare, uttercold most-nothern icy adventures, plane-related stuff, warfare (including being sieged, taking out tactical things like in RHoD) and many more different campaign situations lead to completely different demands of party setup, feats, spells and so on.

- Third, the general assumption that we have a combat situation versus a fully loaded, prepared, 4-men-adventuring-party (mostly known as Dungeon Crawl) depends, again, on the group gaming style and again, the campaign type.
As I have already stated, it can happen that the party if now at their full performance.
Their are too many sources that could lead to this dilemma: fighter down, combat went bad, ambush situation, party split, wizard-all-alone, solo-run for a sidequest, etc etc etc.
In ny humble opinion, such situations occur more often than you think. Therefore, spell preparing players must take this into their consideration if we talk about BFC vs. damage spells.

- Fourth, the op-level depends on the concrete style of the gaming table. I saw way more gaming groups playing low-op or mid-op, playing campaigns around level 1-15 (max), playing with core-only or with core + SC + complete and so on.
Thus, it is hard to compare classes, spells and so on since we have no common base (and therefore, just btw, I think that handbooks can only give some vague advice, nothing more).

Thus, as one writer said, a pouncing/leaping/enlarged/shock-troopered/charging spiked-chain-wiedler can be very common (in the writer's gaming style and groups) or totally seldom (in many other groups).

All in all, my conclusion is that we have a sterile, non-representative little gaming community here with "all books open," "all options available."
The major base of gaming groups doesn't play that way.
Most people play with Core only (or at least, core and a few supplements).
Most people stick to archetypical fighting styles (sword & board, 2hander, TWF) and don't waste thoughts about tripping, spiked chains and all the other powerful and exotic stuff.

Therefore, in my opinion, the OPs thesis about thread migitation fails.
If you assume all and everything, you can state this thesis. If you try to make a transfer between academic and theoretical stuff and real, concrete gaming (with all its hindrances and possibilites I wrote), this thesis fails.
Sure, the batman concept is still cool and valid. But it is not an "all-or-nothing-concept." It must allow and accept the uncounted possibilites for which a batman is NOT made for (again, for example, party split, fighter down, wizard fights alone etc).
If we see all that as a boardgame, we could say:
Each time, we can have a new setup and play a new kind of boardgame (with the same peons, your characters onto).
If you have so many different boardgames, you must anticipate. And yes, some anticipated situations require damage dealing. Or weakens the BFC-position.

[ryu]

I don't know; it seems like a risk not to have the possibilty of dealing damage over a larger area. Fireball or not, other spells should also fit the bill. But relying only on single-target ranged attack spells for damage is not what I would recommend.

Except literally the only encounters that care about damage that's area based are swarms and good old fashioned hordes. In both cases screw fireball and its pile of instant no sell conditions. Boreal Wind forever in those cases with its massive area coverage, battlefield control, and minor free damage.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Wait wait wait I skipped to the end and holy crap 7 pages of Fireball discussion!?

Seriously?!

(On Topic: I think blasting is boring but I'd rather blast than stand around doing nothing while I wait for the rest of the party to mop up the monsters after they've been debuffed into uselessness. If you have the spell slots to spare then sometimes using a blast spell is the most productive thing you can do with your actions.)

[ArcturusV]

And don't forget the other one. "Despite my spells, my team is all dying/dead, and the enemy is still alive and I'm the only one on my feet".

Which happens plenty of times in my games. You load out on nothing but those optimal save or suck, battlefield controls, etc, usually your only recourse ends up being Teleport away and leave a near total TPK because you have no means to deal the last 30-50 damage you need.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Which happens plenty of times in my games. You load out on nothing but those optimal save or suck, battlefield controls, etc, usually your only recourse ends up being Teleport away and leave a near total TPK because you have no means to deal the last 30-50 damage you need.

It takes a hell of alot to get PCs in that sort of situation though especially by the time you could cast something like teleport.Its a step away from falling rocks usually

[ArcturusV]

Usually boss fights. Because if anything is going to do it, the boss fight is (And SHOULD in my book). Particularly since I"m an evil DM and I don't broke any Rope Trick Nova Resting shenanigans or the like. By the time they hit the boss they're usually running on fumes.

... one group in particular as they learned the BBEG had scryed on them, witnessed their resting tactic. Next time they tried to do that after only clearing out one room, he gave some of his minions a Bag of Holding and told them to throw it up into the hole, with catastrophic but not "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies" type results.

[Psyren]

... one group in particular as they learned the BBEG had scryed on them, witnessed their resting tactic. Next time they tried to do that after only clearing out one room, he gave some of his minions a Bag of Holding and told them to throw it up into the hole, with catastrophic but not "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies" type results.

You can also send a Babau squadron; at-will See Invisibility, at-will Dispel Magic. They'll find the party's sleep-pocket eventually and give them a pretty rude awakening.