Spell: Toxic Corruption

[Goober4473]

A capstone spell for green dragon sorcerers, I thought I'd emulate the Toxic move from Pokemon. The damage varies wildly, but seems to be about right given Meteor Swarm if we assume a 50% pass rate on saves. The range is also much shorter, but you can choose your targets without worrying about allies.

Toxic Corruption
Classes: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
9th-level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You conjure toxic death and unleash it on your enemies. Each creature you choose within range becomes infected. Each infected creature must make a Constitution saving throw at the start of each of its turns, taking 1d6 necrotic and 1d6 poison damage on a failed save, and half as much on a successful one. On a failed save, the damage also increases by a cumulative 1d6 necrotic and 1d6 poison damage on subsequent rounds for that creature. If an infected creature saves 3 times, the effect ends for it.

[Final Hyena]

If you work from a 50% pass rate they average around 3 fails so 42 damage. However on an enemy who has poor con saves and only passes 25% of the time they fail at a rate of 9 against 3 successes given the spell only lasts for 10 rounds lets make that 8 fails or 252 damage (however spread across 10 rounds).

It's pretty meh against reasonable opponents, but pretty good against vulnerable opponents. The base damage needs a boost, but I found that doing that pushes the damage against lower saves to ludicrous levels. I then tried looking at a cap on the maximum damage and found you pretty much have to cap it almost immediately.

Might I suggest a base damage of 4d6 poison and necrotic without scaling damage.
This changes the damage to 84 against those with a 50% pass rate, and the damage against the 25% pass guy to 224 (a big number but across 10 rounds).

[Gastronomie]

I think it wouldn't work as it is right now. Since it's a 9th-level spell, just damage is far from good (also, Meteor Swarm incinerates all the opponents in a single turn, which reduces the number of times the enemies can attack you during that fight. This doesn't do that, since it's too slow). As a Green Dragon Sorcerer I'd use Polymorph over this at any time.

At least you need to get rid of "Concentration". It really does kill it.

Adding a lot of effects should also be necessary if it's to be used, like for instance, one of the following (randomly chosen) for each time they fail a save:
-Bestowing disadvantage on their attack rolls and skill checks
-Bestowing disadvantage on their STR, DEX, and CON saving throws
-Reducing movement speed to 0
-Allowing only either action or bonus action on each of their turns

...Stuff like that.

[Goober4473]

Might I suggest a base damage of 4d6 poison and necrotic without scaling damage.

I'd like to keep the scaling damage, if possible. From your analysis, it sounds about what I was envisioning.


I think it wouldn't work as it is right now. Since it's a 9th-level spell, just damage is far from good (also, Meteor Swarm incinerates all the opponents in a single turn, which reduces the number of times the enemies can attack you during that fight. This doesn't do that, since it's too slow). As a Green Dragon Sorcerer I'd use Polymorph over this at any time.

At least you need to get rid of "Concentration". It really does kill it.

Adding a lot of effects should also be necessary if it's to be used, like for instance, one of the following (randomly chosen) for each time they fail a save:
-Bestowing disadvantage on their attack rolls and skill checks
-Bestowing disadvantage on their STR, DEX, and CON saving throws
-Reducing movement speed to 0
-Allowing only either action or bonus action on each of their turns

...Stuff like that.

How about a target is poisoned until the start of their next turn each time they fail a save? I'm not sure about concentration though.

[Gastronomie]

If you wanna make the targets poisoned, since this is a level 9 spell, I think "no save for the Poisoned condition", "ignores resistance/immunity to poison damage", and "ignores immunity to the poisoned condition" are all absolute MUSTs for this to work.

At least, I think. I mean, how many monsters you meet at high levels can actually even get poisoned?