KamehameHuh?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

3.5 and PF have lots of "blast and forget" spells and effects, but few to none have continuous blasts unless they're stuff like walls of fire and the various fog spells.

What effects are there that are analogous to various continuous energy blasts from, say, Dragon Ball Z/GT/Super?

If my wizard/psion/cerebremancer/mind mage gets into a beam struggle with a Goku or Superman expy, I want to be prepared!

[MisterKaws]

Lingering Breath on a line-type breath weapon?

[AvatarVecna]

Body Of The Sun with Sculpt Spell for a line effect would kick in at lets say lvl 6, and would allow for a six round, 3d6 fire blast along a 120 ft line. Higher levels mean longer duration and more damage. You could throw on Incantatrix and Arcane Thesis to achieve more significant blasts. Also since the area of the base spell "moves with you", it's not unreasonable to say that you could at least change the origin point by moving, and possibly move the other end's point as well.

This should work similarly for basically any "DoT aura" spell.

[noob]

refluff a bit that spell from initate of mystra that constantly autolaunch attacks?

[The Glyphstone]

I seem to remember a set of spells - maybe in Complete Mage? - where the damage increased based on the casting time. You could cast it as a Standard, Full-Round, or 2 Round spell at increasing power. That's extremely DBZ, even if it's not a continuing effect.

EDIT: Channeled Lifetheft and Channeled Sound Burst from CM. Not line/beam spells (a single-target ray and cone respectively), but it's got the Charging Up thing.

PHB2 has Channeled Pyroburst, a Fireball that gets bigger the more you Charge Up.

There's simply no rules for 'dueling beams' or energy clashes in D&D except for some sort of extremely generous Counterspell interpretation, so if you specifically want an Energy Clash of beams you need homebrew.

[Bronk]

What effects are there that are analogous to various continuous energy blasts from, say, Dragon Ball Z/GT/Super?

One of the main hallmarks of a continuous DBZ ki blast is it's pressure. How often do people really get noticeably damaged by one of those continuous blasts in the anime or manga? They usually strain against each other, get tossed aside, then maybe get finished off by a short blast, like Vegeta finishing off members of the Ginyu Force. Short blasts are a dime a dozen in DnD, but for continuous pressure I'm going to go with the 'Gust of Wind' spell.

Two medium creatures each casting the spell at each other would be straining to move, dirt and debris would be flying everywhere, and if they were putting some damage into it with feat shenanigans, one of them would eventually fall over and get blown away. Or, one might be more powerful, and instead 'power up' by casting stormrage or getting bigger, and then they could push through to close in. Very DBZ.

A more powerful version might be a version of 'Control Weather' instead.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I suppose if you applied the locate city bomb feats to something like Widened detect magic or similar, that would work...kinda. All you'd need to do is concentrate, really, though you wouldn't have to put actual effort in aside from that, and what you start with is what you end with, instead of forcing out more effort to put more power in.

I think part of the problem is that spells just don't interfere with each other like beam struggles require. You can't fire a lightning bolt to interfere with a wall of fire and have it do anything but deal more damage to whatever's in the way of both spells. No firing your layzors to block the enemy's frickin' layzher beams, because spells just don't typically do that.

[AvatarVecna]

I suppose if you applied the locate city bomb feats to something like Widened detect magic or similar, that would work...kinda. All you'd need to do is concentrate, really, though you wouldn't have to put actual effort in aside from that, and what you start with is what you end with, instead of forcing out more effort to put more power in.

I think part of the problem is that spells just don't interfere with each other like beam struggles require. You can't fire a lightning bolt to interfere with a wall of fire and have it do anything but deal more damage to whatever's in the way of both spells. No firing your layzors to block the enemy's frickin' layzher beams, because spells just don't typically do that.

I believe this interaction is generally called Counterspelling - that is, identifying the incoming spell, and using a similar spell of similar power to cancel it out midair. Of course, this is more of a deflection than a spell-grapple...

[Mr Adventurer]

Body Of The Sun with Sculpt Spell for a line effect would kick in at lets say lvl 6, and would allow for a six round, 3d6 fire blast along a 120 ft line. Higher levels mean longer duration and more damage. You could throw on Incantatrix and Arcane Thesis to achieve more significant blasts. Also since the area of the base spell "moves with you", it's not unreasonable to say that you could at least change the origin point by moving, and possibly move the other end's point as well.

This should work similarly for basically any "DoT aura" spell.

Spell effects can't extend beyond the spell Range, though.

For Body of the Sun, that's five feet.

[Rynjin]

Pathfinder has Torrent of Elemental Rage (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/torrent-of-elemental-rage/), which is neat, as well as Firestream (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/firestream/) which is less neat.

Implosion (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/implosion/) also SORT of counts, though it's less a beam and more a Concentration duration version of Frieza's "telekinetically explode you from the inside" attack.

Honorable mention goes to Geyser (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/geyser/), which would be rad if you could emit it from a vertical surface.

[Psyren]

Lingering Spell (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/lingering-spell-metamagic/) + blast of your choice. Works on lines and cylinders too.

[KillianHawkeye]

The thing about the ki blasts in DBZ, though, is that they're normally NOT continuous except when they're blocked by the other person's blast. Unopposed, they almost always simply go off, cause a big explosion, and end immediately.

So what you're really after is some kind of beam struggle mechanic that would work any time two characters cast a ray/orb/line spell at one another. Kind of like what happens when you and your target both have spell turning on them. Problem is, this isn't easy to do in a turn-based system where effects generally get resolved immediately. It would probably have to involve readied actions, and that doesn't really feel accurate to the source material.

But there are so many other aspects of anime-style fighting, and of DBZ in particular, that are hard to properly emulate using D&D that it's probably better to use a different game system altogether.

[Mordaedil]

Channeled Sound Blast is the most DBZ-esque arcane spell I've seen, which I planned on putting on my sonic sorcerer.

It allows you to cast it as a swift action, move action, standard action, full-round action or 2 rounds and continually increase damage dealt and dice type.

Standing around for 2 rounds charging a spell feels extremely in take, but it isn't the greatest spell ever made, but good enough for the damage type to be worth taking.

[Mato]

What effects are there that are analogous to various continuous energy blasts from, say, Dragon Ball Z/GT/Super?ReachCD scalding touchMOE.

It gives you [CL] beams with a range of 30ft that deal 13d6 fire damage then on a failed fort save it can daze the target allowing you to continue to blast them next round.

[Psyren]

The class on a whole is pretty lame, but the Kineticist's Gather Power ability is also pretty DBZ-esque. Not a continuous blast, but the "charge up a blast for a while to make it stronger and then fire it" aspect. You could fluff Sorcerer metamagic (that extends the casting time) this way too.

While we're on the subject of anime casting mechanics, I like Bleach's system for kido whereby if you take the time to chant the convoluted-but-awesome-verbal-component-that-leaves-you-more-vulnerable, the spell hits harder or has bonus effects.

I believe Spheres of Power has ways to express both of the above in D&D pretty well.

[Starbuck_II]

Channeled Sound Blast is the most DBZ-esque arcane spell I've seen, which I planned on putting on my sonic sorcerer.

It allows you to cast it as a swift action, move action, standard action, full-round action or 2 rounds and continually increase damage dealt and dice type.

Standing around for 2 rounds charging a spell feels extremely in take, but it isn't the greatest spell ever made, but good enough for the damage type to be worth taking.

Only issue was they should be 1 level lower since tey assume full rd action for appropriate damage. Instead should use standard action, thus 1 level lower.

[Rynjin]

While we're on the subject of anime casting mechanics, I like Bleach's system for kido whereby if you take the time to chant the convoluted-but-awesome-verbal-component-that-leaves-you-more-vulnerable, the spell hits harder or has bonus effects.


Thanks for reminding me Bleach used to have interesting potential mechanics and creative powersets before tit went off the rails. =(

[MisterKaws]

Only issue was they should be 1 level lower since tey assume full rd action for appropriate damage. Instead should use standard action, thus 1 level lower.

Those spells are better used as a preemptive attack for a mailman, and they do a damn good job at it. If you fully channel a Twinned Empowered Maximized Admixtured Channeled Pyroburst, you're dealing 600 fire damage, which can be a ray with Spellwarp. Of course, you're gonna spend probably a 9th-level spell and likely a Metamagic Rod and a sudden metamagic, but the results are damn impressive for sure.

[Psyren]

Thanks for reminding me Bleach used to have interesting potential mechanics and creative powersets before tit went off the rails. =(

One of my favorites was Rukia charging and casting two spells at once by weaving their verbal components together (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a33AmpiCDG0) line by line. Notably, she had to entangle the bad guy with a faster incantation first so that she'd have the time needed to stand still and pull that off, which I think would be very cool to represent in a game.

[Dimers]

What effects are there that are analogous to various continuous energy blasts ...

Energy current (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/energyCurrent.htm)?