Augmenting Chaos Bolt

[FilthyLucre]

So, in another thread I discussed the Wild Magic sorcerer, (that my wife will be playing in an upcoming game), and I wanted to take a look at the spell Chaos Bolt since it is so thematic AND there is an uncommon magic item in GMGR that functions like a 3 charge wand. Chaos Bolt is similar to Chromatic Orb, but they have their differences. There's one thing I don't like about Chaos Bolt: Because the element choice is tied to the damage dice certain elements are fundamentally weaker than others if you roll doubles. I.e.: Because Acid is linked to 1 if you roll doubles your acid damage is always 2 + 1d6. Furthermore, because a die roll determines the element type some elements are just statistically better than others. For example, 7/8 times Sonic/Thunder damage will be higher than acid - and even then it's actually a push. So, while number wise everything comes out perfectly even, when you factor in tying that to your choice of an element disparities appear.

I am house ruling some changes to the spell so that use a d10 to determine the damage type, (expanding the list from 8 to 10 by including radiant and necrotic), and otherwise leave the spell unchanged. This seems to be a very inoffensive change but I was curious about what other people thought.

[Dungeon-noob]

It's a very very small boost to a spell that isn't too strong, i don't see a problem there. It does make it more fiddely and rolling more dice, which might slow things down, but you know if your table can handle it. Honestly, i don't think this change is big enough that you need to worry about asking the Playground hive mind for help, you got this. :smallwink:

[Man_Over_Game]

So, in another thread I discussed the Wild Magic sorcerer, (that my wife will be playing in an upcoming game), and I wanted to take a look at the spell Chaos Bolt since it is so thematic AND there is an uncommon magic item in GMGR that functions like a 3 charge wand. Chaos Bolt is similar to Chromatic Orb, but they have their differences. There's one thing I don't like about Chaos Bolt: Because the element choice is tied to the damage dice certain elements are fundamentally weaker than others if you roll doubles. I.e.: Because Acid is linked to 1 if you roll doubles your acid damage is always 2 + 1d6. Furthermore, because a die roll determines the element type some elements are just statistically better than others. For example, 7/8 times Sonic/Thunder damage will be higher than acid - and even then it's actually a push. So, while number wise everything comes out perfectly even, when you factor in tying that to your choice of an element disparities appear.

I am house ruling some changes to the spell so that use a d10 to determine the damage type, (expanding the list from 8 to 10 by including radiant and necrotic), and otherwise leave the spell unchanged. This seems to be a very inoffensive change but I was curious about what other people thought.

It's not a bad fix.

I'd rather just rearrange the list so that it takes into account damage rarity/value.

So it's go in this order:

Radiant
Force
Psychic
Acid
Necrotic
Lightning
Thunder
Cold
Fire
Poison


So you deal maximum damage with Poison (which is often resisted) and the minimal damage with Radiant (which often only needs to deal 1 damage to interfere with certain undead abilities). This ends up being more consistent than your suggestion, as it's still valuable with low damage and often mitigated with high damage.

[Vogie]

I wouldn't expand it, but I would rearrange it.

In fact, I'd rearrange it multiple times - have a set of 6 versions of it, where the damage types were on different locations each time. That way, the first d6 you roll indicates which set of 8 you use, and then your pair of 8s is chosen from that list.

EDIT:

My gf is playing a WMS, so I just made this for her - I figured I'd share. I can't load a picture, but here are 6 tables
Table 1
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder

Table 2
1 Thunder
2 Psychic
3 Poison
4 Lightning
5 Force
6 Fire
7 Cold
8 Acid

Table 3
1 Lightning
2 Poison
3 Cold
4 Acid
5 Fire
6 Psychic
7 Thunder
8 Force

Table 4
1 Cold
2 Lightning
3 Acid
4 Fire
5 Poison
6 Thunder
7 Force
8 Psychic

Table 5
1 Poison
2 Thunder
3 Lightning
4 Cold
5 Acid
6 Force
7 Fire
8 Poison

Table 6
1 Force
2 Fire
3 Psychic
4 Poison
5 Thunder
6 Lightning
7 Acid
8 Cold

[Tanngrisnr]

For the sake of simplicity, at my table we use it like this:

CHAOS BOLT
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number rolled on that die determines the attack's damage type, as shown below.

D8 Damage type

1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Fire
4 Force
5 Lightning
6 Poison
7 Psychic
8 Thunder

When you make the attack roll and hit the target, check the d20. If you rolled and odd number on the attack roll, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again.
A creature can be targeted only once by each casting of this spell.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes 1d8 extra damage of the type rolled for each slot level above 1st.

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I think you can add radiant and necrotic as possible damage types for the spell and increase the damage to 2d10, but then I'd suggest you make the spell scale only at every other level (to a max of 6d10 with a 9th level slot).

If the player attacks with advantage or elven accuracy or whatever and hits with more than one of the dice rolls, I'll let them choose the die they want in order to make the spell jump to a different target.

And yes. It is a lot stronger like this, as the chance to jump to a different target is way higher.