Modifying disintegrate

[gooddragon1]

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[Phelix-Mu]

The way I always looked at it was that the disintegrate itself is actually limited scope; if the target resists the save, the limited area disintegrated is non-vital/ignorable (except for anything that 5d6 kills). If the target fails the save, the limited area targeted is vital in some way, and full damage is taken.

Full disintegration to nothing only occurs on things that are already dead (because of the disintegration damage, perhaps), or objects. That a corpse of any size is affected I just chalked up to cool Star Trek-type nonsense involving disruptors, lol. Or just the disintegration of the limited area cascading into the rest of the creature, using the energy released in the creature's death to dissolve it to dust.

The problem with it just being an area is that this opens it up to many more offensive uses. Even on something that you could never kill with a single casting of the spell, you could just disintegrate it's, let's say, legs. Or hands. Or speaking organs. Or lungs. You get the idea. All kinds of highly DM-dependent effects could be created, with little guidance on how to resolve them (especially because the game is quite vague on limb loss and its effects).

I guess it boils down to where you think the problem is: on the simulation side, or on the narrative side? The latter is easily fluffed away, but clearly the spell is rather highly simplified from a simulationist perspective. Partly because, as I noted, there aren't good rules for what happens when X cubic feet of your body disappear; if it's just hp damage for creatures as in the normal spell, I'd instead keep it as-is and just axe the part about the body of a dead creature turning to dust. You either disintegrate the given volume of nonliving stuff, or render one living creature injured/dead (but not reduced to dust). This might also cut back on some of the silliness with disintegration deaths being so markedly more expensive to recover from than others (though a second casting of disintegrate on the body would likely reestablish the high cost for bodies of limited size).

[Chronos]

...So you're bothered by the incongruity, and your response is to make it even more incongruous?

[Andezzar]

The way disintegrate could take out a 64 foot tall colossal creature but not a building bothers me slightly. Yes, 10 feet of iron has 3600 hp, but still. Thus I wonder if it would be imbalanced to have it disintegrate up to 1 cubic foot of material per caster level (or manifester level in the case of a psion) with less if you opt for less and maybe even allowing you to shape the area disintegrated as you choose so long as it is contiguous. At the level you get disintegrate it should hit about 11 cubic feet. Just wondering.Umm disintegrate already destroys:
10-foot cube of nonliving matter
That is 10ft * 10ft * 10ft = 1000 ft3

[sideswipe]

Umm disintegrate already destroys:
That is 10ft * 10ft * 10ft = 1000 ft3

when you say it like that its huge..... or it is 8 D&D characters. as D&D characters are 5ft cubes of flesh with weapons and equipment attached.

[Andezzar]

D&D Characters are not 5 ft cubes of flesh. They require at least a 5ft cube of space, because there are no smaller cubes. Also my main point was that the spell already allows to disintegrate much more matter than the OP suggested as a house rule, unless you go to ridiculous lengths of increasing your CL.

[sideswipe]

D&D Characters are not 5 ft cubes of flesh. They require at least a 5ft cube of space, because there are no smaller cubes. Also my main point was that the spell already allows to disintegrate much more matter than the OP suggested as a house rule, unless you go to ridiculous lengths of increasing your CL.

yeh the problem is that if you are not very good at math then it can seem a very small amount. what i think the op was looking for when he posted was something more along the lines of a 5ft cube / caster lvl.

and the 5ft cube of flesh is a common joke i like to say.

[Mellack]

In the first post the OP asked:


Thus I wonder if it would be imbalanced to have it disintegrate up to 1 cubic foot of material per caster level

Since it already can disintegrate 1000 cubic feet, it would actually be a nerf (for less than a CL 1000 caster).

[sleepyphoenixx]

I don't really see that big of a difference between a 10ft cube and up to a 20-25ft cube in practice. 10ft is enough to blast a hole into a wall or something like that.
If i need something really big destroyed i'm going to use another spell either way.

[gooddragon1]

In the first post the OP asked:



Since it already can disintegrate 1000 cubic feet, it would actually be a nerf (for less than a CL 1000 caster).

I meant a 11 foot cube at 11th level, it'd be a 1000 foot cube at 1000th level.

For a living target it's merely HP damage because they resist it with their HP (which has a loose definition anyways). Non-sentient/dead objects would be subject to the full deal.

[Rubik]

There's always Disintegration Finesse. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/lords-of-madness--72/disintegration-finesse--637/)

[gooddragon1]

There's always Disintegration Finesse. (http://dndtools.eu/feats/lords-of-madness--72/disintegration-finesse--637/)

RAW that works. RAI, it appears that it should have included the 10 foot cube in the description as an upper limit because the description of the feat mentions smaller, more precise areas.

[Rubik]

RAW that works. RAI, it appears that it should have included the 10 foot cube in the description as an upper limit because the description of the feat mentions smaller, more precise areas.I suppose you could always choose to disintegrate a contiguous stretch of 1/4 the mass of whatever you're trying to hit, but in such a way that the rest of it collapses. That way you can affect 4x more.