Empower Spell + Scorching Ray + Point Blank Shot?

[Zorgoth]

Imagine that I am a wizard with Point Blank Shot and cast Empowered Scorching Ray, and one of my rays hits a hapless goblin within 30 feet. Suppose I roll an 11 on my 4d6. I would deal 11+1=12 damage without Empower spell. If I didn't have Point Blank Shot with its +1 damage, I would have only dealt 11 damage.

Does the goblin ultimately take 18 damage, or 17? That is, does Empower Spell apply only to the base spell damage (4d6 -> 11, adding 5 damage), or does it apply to the damage after bonuses are applied (4d6+1 -> 12, adding 6 damage)?

[Troacctid]

It only applies to the random portions—the d6s.

(Also note that the damage bonus from Point Blank Shot applies only on the first ray.)

[DeTess]

Imagine that I am a wizard with Point Blank Shot and cast Empowered Scorching Ray, and one of my rays hits a hapless goblin within 30 feet. Suppose I roll an 11 on my 4d6. I would deal 11+1=12 damage without Empower spell. If I didn't have Point Blank Shot with its +1 damage, I would have only dealt 11 damage.

Does the goblin ultimately take 18 damage, or 17? That is, does Empower Spell apply only to the base spell damage (4d6 -> 11, adding 5 damage), or does it apply to the damage after bonuses are applied (4d6+1 -> 12, adding 6 damage)?

empower spell only increases the random part of the damage, so in this case it only adds 50% tot he 4d6. If you cast a spell with a built-in static component in addition to the dice (for example, magic missile doing 1d4+1 per missile) empower spell would still only multiply the dice part of the spell.

[tyckspoon]

empower spell only increases the random part of the damage, so in this case it only adds 50% tot he 4d6. If you cast a spell with a built-in static component in addition to the dice (for example, magic missile doing 1d4+1 per missile) empower spell would still only multiply the dice part of the spell.

Incorrect - Magic Missile is actually the example the printed book uses for how Empower works, and it explicitly includes the +1 in that. Now, it is not explicitly stated that any other damage bonuses would be included in the damage roll, but the example chosen at least implies they would, which makes Empower very efficient when used alongside per-die damage increases. Less useful when you're just adding a few points to the total at the end.

[DeTess]

Incorrect - Magic Missile is actually the example the printed book uses for how Empower works, and it explicitly includes the +1 in that. Now, it is not explicitly stated that any other damage bonuses would be included in the damage roll, but the example chosen at least implies they would, which makes Empower very efficient when used alongside per-die damage increases. Less useful when you're just adding a few points to the total at the end.

Huh, you're right. That's what working off my memory instead of taking 5 seconds to look up the feat in the srd gets me.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It applies to the variable portion of the spell, which in this case is the damage dealt. That means all the damage dealt.

A Warmage with Int 18 adds +4 damage to his Scorching Ray, which is added before Empower Spell. Same goes for Point Blank Shot.

[Biggus]

The text for Empower Spell says "All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half.". The Magic Missile example in the PHB makes it clear that static damage from the spell itself is multiplied, but it doesn't make clear whether damage from any other source is multiplied. In fact, a strict reading of "of an empowered spell" suggests that they are not.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It's a question of whether Empower Spell applies before Point Blank Shot.

General order-of-application rules suggest you'd be able to apply PBS first, for 1.5(4d6+1) damage, but you may rule that Point Blank Shot is adding damage to an Empowered scorching ray, of which the damage has already been set at 1.5(4d6).

I think the first is the better option. Trying to order effects that have no RAW order is a losing game, and one that potentially opens up weird edge cases, as well. Better to be a bit generous and allow the player to choose their order of application.

[Khedrac]

I would rule that Point Blank Shot has to be added last because it is a distance-based component of the damage. If there is a distance warping effect (or somethign illusuory) in play so that while the ray still hits the range is not necessarily within 30' the +1 is dependent on the distance while +50% always applies.

[Menzath]

So the problem lies in what a variable numeric is. And sadly is described in only a handful of locations in a fraction of all printed books.

After glancing over the descriptions and rules compendium I would have this fall under the multiplying damage rules(RC pg.17), and say that only extra dice of damage are not modified.
Because really what makes 4-24 any less of a variable than 5-25(point blank) or 8-28(+4 int bonus warmage).
Not much that I see.

I think this 'variable' is more a non specific number of damage done after modifications, unlike say harm/heal. That is to say almost every dang spell.

[zergling.exe]

I would rule that Point Blank Shot has to be added last because it is a distance-based component of the damage. If there is a distance warping effect (or somethign illusuory) in play so that while the ray still hits the range is not necessarily within 30' the +1 is dependent on the distance while +50% always applies.

I would agree with this. Warmage Int bonus would be affected, Point Blank Shot would not.

[ericgrau]

I can see it both ways, with point blank shot applied last sounding a little more nice conceptually. After all you're empowering the spell not your precision with it.

But with no 100% clear rules answer the rule is to apply bonuses in whatever order is most favorable to you, so PBS is applied first.

[Segev]

Even if PBS applied to every single ray of scorching ray (which it doesn't), Empowering it would only add 2 damage based on PBS's bonus damage. With PBS applying only to one, the most it's going to do is make a difference between the damage being odd before Empowering and being even before Empowering, and thus a single hp of difference.

I'd point this out to the DM as a "can't you just give me this little thing?" request, and accept it if he says "no," and not really care what the RAW say in a practical sense, because it's 1 point of damage on a spell. It probably isn't going to be that critical last hp very often.