A suitable nerf for orb spells?

[King of Nowhere]

our party wizard is concerned that he has trouble affecting monsters with high spell resistance or saving throws. he was looking into stuff because we'll have to fight some augmented great wyrms at some point as bosses, and he discovered the orb spells. good damage, no spell resistance, no saving throw, an easy touch attack. with metamagic they get very strong. the dm banned ocular spells, but it still leaves quickened twinned maximized empowered. and the wizard is an incantatar with several metamagic rods, and an archamge for elemental substitution.

Problem is, that's way above the power level we want for our table. this metamagic combo would mean that the wizard could deal a bit over 220 damage to anyone, in one round, from afar, without any kind of defence available. high touch AC (which is very difficult to get) would force him to cast quicken true strike and only deal 110 damage or so, but that's it. sure, it would work as intended against dragons, keep the wizard relevant. but it would also mean that the wizard could insta-gib any humanoid foe. tricks to protect against it (like having a summoned devil with a readied action to cast a wall of ice to block line of effect) are way too high op for what we want, and most especially for what our DM can prepare.
while a balance problem, it's also annoying for me, because my character is a monk whose major goal was to make himself resistant to magic, and i devoted a lot of my build to it - under the premise that the campaign would stay at a power level where it's still possible to do so. and it's not nice that your whole build can be invalidated by a single spell.

We are a tight group of friends, we will not have animosity over it. the wizard does not want to become exceedingly op. I do not want to bring him down. However, we are at an impasse.
the problem with orb spells is that they are so universal. they have no defence, no counterplay, and while direct damage is frowned upon because there are even more broken combos out there, it's still enough damage to wipe out most opponents before the combat even began.

So I was considering if it was possible to nerf them in some way. Some way that
- would make orb spells still a relevant source of damage against a foe with high spell resistance and saving throw, such as a wyrm dragon
- would make them weak enough that they can't destroy a humanoid with impunity

my only passable idea so far is to give them a damage penalty on smaller targets (perhaps "justified" in saying that a person will be pushed back more than hurt, while a dragon will take the full brunt of the impact), so that they deal full damage to a colossal creature but won't one-shot a humanoid.
I'm sure this forum can come up with many more.

Alternatively, it is also possible to suggest alternative ways for the wizard to contribute in the fight against creatures that can pass easily all his saving throws and will manage spell resistance most of the times. One idea we have was to use shapechange to turn into a dragon and use the breath weapon, that should provide a decent-but-not-overpowered source of damage.

what we don't need are spells/combos that are even more powerful. we don't want to go to those power levels. defences against orb are useful only if they can be used by most creatures; if they are too complex to implement (like the aforementioned readied action with a wall) they are not the direction we want to push our campaign.

thanks to everyone who will contribute.

[Psyren]

with metamagic they get very strong. the dm banned ocular spells, but it still leaves quickened twinned maximized empowered. and the wizard is an incantatar with several metamagic rods, and an archamge for elemental substitution.
...
while a balance problem, it's also annoying for me, because my character is a monk whose major goal was to make himself resistant to magic, and i devoted a lot of my build to it - under the premise that the campaign would stay at a power level where it's still possible to do so. and it's not nice that your whole build can be invalidated by a single spell.

The orbs themselves aren't actually your main problem here; the true problem is that the wizard player is using two of the most powerful prestige classes in the game, has items that make them even stronger., and is playing alongside party members that are on the weak end of things so the DM is unable to increase the challenges accordingly without leaving everyone else in the dust.

More importantly, this is not an in-game problem - your player is either unaware of, uncaring about, or unable to deal with the effect his extreme power disparity is having on the group. Your first course of action should be to talk it out as a group, figure out which one of those it is, and then come to a solution based on that. If he's unwilling or unable to tone himself down, then the power of his prestige classes and items are the root cause to be addressed, not of the specific spells he is using.

[Mike Miller]

It sounds like an OOC issue. You did somewhat address that in your original post, but I do think just talking about it is best. As a close group of friends, your wizard friend should understand that his power level is too high.


Failing that, maybe just decrease the damage dice to d4 and/or put a hard cap of how many dice can be used per spell. (Max of 10d4 for example)

[Gauntlet]

I agree with the above, but if you want suggestions on dealing with a Mailman without upping the ante even further:


Mirror Image is a pretty accessible spell effect which hurts ranged-touch-attack effects, and the bigger dragons should easily have enough spellcasting ability to apply it. Other similar options include invisibility, displacement, blink effects and illusions - the Orb doesn't have an exceptional range, and it costs a lot of resources to throw them out at everything, which means a few duplicates would make it such that he can't afford to throw one out until he's certain his target is the real thing.

Energy immunity options would also hurt him - while he has elemental substitution, he needs to pick the right effect for the target anyway, and if he's known to throw high damage energy effects around then Disguise Self is also highly accessible to any opponents of the caliber he's facing.

Globe of Invulnerability also stops Orbs - they're still a 4th level spell effect, regardless of the metamagic applied to them, unless they are Heightened.

Regarding other options for contributing to a fight against an enemy with good saving throws, you could summon creatures which can contribute to combat, or provide battlefield control. If you're worried about spell resistance, then spells like Assay Spell Resistance could let you get through that more easily.

If you have Shapechange access, then turning into something relevant also applies. There's a Shapechange handbook which has good options in it if you want details there, but it does basically everything.

[Biggus]

One simple way is to allow a reflex save for half damage. IMO though, the real problems are the way metamagic stacks and how metamagic reducers work. Allowing metamagic other than Maximise and Empower to stack in the way most beneficial to the caster leads to absurd levels of damage in high-level high-op games; making them all work separately as Empower and Maximise solves this problem.

Likewise allowing metamagic reducers to stack can allow multiple metamagic feats to be added to a spell for little of no cost. In my games I also make Improved Metamagic reduce the total level increase by 1, not each feat applied by 1, it goes a long way towards making the Incantatrix a merely good class rather than a clearly OP one.

That's my 2p worth anyway.

Also, if spell resistance is a problem, Assay Spell Resistance (SpC) and True Casting (CM) can solve it very effectively.

[Trebloc]

What level is the group at? Other characters? I am seeing talk about fighting Augmented Great Wrym dragons and a wizard who is an Incantantrix AND Archmage. However I have to ask, is 220 damage really that big of a deal at this point, especially with the hoops he has to jump through to pull it off and the limited number of times he can pull it off? And if a dragon doesn't have a few (dozen) defenses up that might help with most tactics, then there is something wrong on the dragon's end.

You mention the DM isn't capable of handling something this OP. The better suggestion might be to retire the characters and start over, because things aren't going to be getting easier at this point, but that should have already been obvious several levels ago. At this stage of the game, unless the wizard is not very optimized to be on par with your monk, it's really like an adult and an infant are both part of the group and expected to contribute equally. Not likely to happen.

The orb spells are good because they bypass SR, and that's about it. However unless you really jack them up, they are worse than good old Fireball and barely better than Magic Missile.

As for what else the wizard can do. Buffs? Summons? Area Control? Other spells that don't offer saves? Heck, I have a strong suspicion your group is fairly high level, so the wizard can just Shapechange into a dragon and go toe-to-toe with the other one? Or Gate in his own?

[Xervous]

The problem is incantatrix with how it hands out way too many metamagic enabling goodies. Nerf orbs and incantatrix still breaks ten+ other things.

Scintillating scales is a wonderful option if the base creature has casting and natural armor.

[Troacctid]

Quickened Twinned Maximized Empowered is a +9 adjustment even for a 10th level incantatrix. Are we talking Arcane Thesis here?

[Faily]

Our fix to orbs in one of my groups was to make them Evocation and add in Spell Resistance. Mostly because we felt that the orbs were in the domain of Evocation, and not Conjuration.


Also, the way I look at things, Spell Resistance is like the "Magic AC". It helps as a balancing act for damage-dealing (casters auto-deal damage, fighters have to pray to the dice gods). Another thing is also that no Wizard is made unrelevant simply because an opponent might have Spell Resistance, there's always lots of other things a Wizard can do.

[Zancloufer]

Even Adult Dragons can easily get 25-30 touch AC with a pair of low level spells and a few magic items (that would be assumed to be part of their hoard). If your at the point where the characters are level 15-17+ (which is probably where your at to have Arch-mage on top of Incantrix), 220 damage isn't that much per turn, especially as it sounds the wizard is burning easily +10 slots before subsidizers. That orb trick is probably his one best move that he can only do 1-3 times a day. Remember Rods are expensive and your looking at something like 20-70k PER turn you have to spend on rods if he wants to do that trick.

Or Arcane Thesis. It's probably both. He's essentially put all of his Prc specific resources and probably 20-50% of his WBL to pull off this trick 2-4 times a day. I mean you could nerf orbs but odds are you will just make his entire build invalid. Honestly this will either be unfairly targeting him or he will just rebuild and (accidentally) make something ACTUALLY scary.

[Tvtyrant]

Friends don't let friends play Incantatrix. The only stronger prcs are Beholder Mage and Planar Shepard, and he is playing a wizard to your Monk.

The orbs are abusable, but no more so then Acid Rain (7d6 damage with no save, attack rolls, resistance, etc.) Or Hail of Stones, or Stun Ray. There are lots of "you just lose" spells, the ability to stack metamagic is the problem here.

[Thurbane]

You can put some defenses on enemies you don't want obliterated by Orbs:

- Otiluke's Suppressing Field keyed to Conjuration makes the caster roll a level check.
- Globe of Invulnerability flat out blocks them.

[Mr Adventurer]

Ray Deflection and Friendly Fire are two more spells that hard counter.

[Psyren]

Friends don't let friends play Incantatrix. The only stronger prcs are Beholder Mage and Planar Shepard, and he is playing a wizard to your Monk.

I'd put Dweomerkeeper and Illithid Savant up there too

[Tvtyrant]

I'd put Dweomerkeeper and Illithid Savant up there too
Seems reasonable. Red Wizard+Reserves of Strength is also in there due to circle magic being bonkers.

The specifics aside, it is still one of the most powerful prcs. Just persisting Undermaster makes you a mountain destroying deni-god.

[Kelb_Panthera]

First thing's first. Is eveything he's doing legal and how often can he do it?

You highlighted twinned, maximized orb of X and a quickened version of the same to do 220+ damage in one round.
You can't be under level 14 if he has an archmage level unless he actually wasted the cheese to get in one level early.

So 14d6, maximized, makes 84 damage, twinned to make 168. Then double that for a quickened casting of the same for 336 if all 4 orbs hit. So the damage more than checks out. He'd actually need CL penalties to get it -down- to 220.

Then there's the metas: twin and quicken are both +4s and max is a +3. Neither incantatrix nor archmage gets you around paying that reliably so you're looking at paying for at least one of those. I'm gonna guess twin rod, instant meta quicken, and actually prep'ed with maximize. If I'm right, that's not something he's doing more than once in a day since it costs one of his highest level slots and a 1/day class feature. If I've underestimated your level, do tell.

So now the question is if it's actually a problem. 1/day, he can nuke a single combat encounter, as long as -none- of the defenses against this attack are in place and the target has a weak touch AC. The wizard is rolling, I'm gonna guess, +10ish on that? It's -really- not hard to get a touch AC to 20+. Then, of course, that's assuming he hasn't already used his rod 3 times or instant metamagic feature at all on the same day.

There are plenty of spells that can trivialize an encounter with a single roll of the dice or even none at all with no metamagic applied, as long as none of the available defenses for such are in play. I'm not actually seeing a problem here. I mean, does your GM have an answer to the wizard just locking an enemy in a force cage?

[King of Nowhere]

The orbs themselves aren't actually your main problem here; the true problem is that the wizard player is using two of the most powerful prestige classes in the game, has items that make them even stronger., and is playing alongside party members that are on the weak end of things so the DM is unable to increase the challenges accordingly without leaving everyone else in the dust.

More importantly, this is not an in-game problem - your player is either unaware of, uncaring about, or unable to deal with the effect his extreme power disparity is having on the group. Your first course of action should be to talk it out as a group, figure out which one of those it is, and then come to a solution based on that. If he's unwilling or unable to tone himself down, then the power of his prestige classes and items are the root cause to be addressed, not of the specific spells he is using.

Friends don't let friends play Incantatrix. The only stronger prcs are Beholder Mage and Planar Shepard, and he is playing a wizard to your Monk.

The orbs are abusable, but no more so then Acid Rain (7d6 damage with no save, attack rolls, resistance, etc.) Or Hail of Stones, or Stun Ray. There are lots of "you just lose" spells, the ability to stack metamagic is the problem here.

perhaps i wasn't clear, or perhaps this forum has a tendency to be paranoid towards casters, so i reiterate: no player nor character is being a problem here. and we do not have big issues with power disparity. the wizard is still the most powerful character, but not in a toxic way. he can't deal with every problem himself, and we martials are all useful enough. Yes, even my monk.
we try balance to the table, and it works fine enough. which is why I'm asking here: to keep balancing to the table. to tune the orbs down until they are balanced to the table.

As for incantatrix and archmage being so broken, well, not really. they give nifty boosts, but they are not a problem by themselves. that's the problem when trying to balance a wizard to the table. most of the nifty wizard toys are not broken by themselves. they only become broken as they keep being added. which makes it really difficult to figure out what to allow and what to deny. So far the wizard was applying his metamagic to disintegrate and fireball, so he was dealing some good damage but not outshining the rest of us. He can go nova once per day, he's doing mostly support otherwise, which is where most people want a wizard to be. most "you just lose" spells are not available. So incantatrix and archamge weren't problems.

the problem is that the wizard wanted something to work against opponents with high magic defences, because all his combos so far don't work against someone who can tank a DC 29 disintegrate. and orb spells work, but they work too well. heck, even an alternative to orb spells that does something similar but less powerful is fine.

As for the level of the party, we are now at 16. I'd call the optimization level decently high, in that we all can do our stuff pretty well. nobody has access to the rocket tag stuff, though. the warrior deals easily 70-80 damage on a charge (shock trooper) and more on a full attack, but he won't get pounce. the wizard has a lot of stuff, but he needs to actually beat one's saving throws. the cleric is mostly core and full caster: heal and support with the occasional fire storm and save-or-die thrown in it. the monk is extremely hard to hurt with any kind of attack and has some decent battlefield control from tripping, but does not generally have reach, nor pounce.
basically, we have some pieces of the high-op builds, but we take some limitations on them.


Even Adult Dragons can easily get 25-30 touch AC with a pair of low level spells and a few magic items (that would be assumed to be part of their hoard). If your at the point where the characters are level 15-17+ (which is probably where your at to have Arch-mage on top of Incantrix), 220 damage isn't that much per turn, especially as it sounds the wizard is burning easily +10 slots before subsidizers. That orb trick is probably his one best move that he can only do 1-3 times a day. Remember Rods are expensive and your looking at something like 20-70k PER turn you have to spend on rods if he wants to do that trick.

Or Arcane Thesis. It's probably both. He's essentially put all of his Prc specific resources and probably 20-50% of his WBL to pull off this trick 2-4 times a day. I mean you could nerf orbs but odds are you will just make his entire build invalid. Honestly this will either be unfairly targeting him or he will just rebuild and (accidentally) make something ACTUALLY scary.

no arcane thesis, and orbs are far from his only trick. how could he have centered the build on it, when he only discovered them a few days ago? :smallconfused:
as for dragons having defences, that's too much of a burden for the dm. not only he's less mechanically skilled than me or the wizard, but it's much harder to play at high op for a dm; as a player you know very well all your stuff, as a dm you're either extremely good, or you'll forget half of what your npc can do every time. we don't want to force the dm to give counter strategies to all npcs. we also don't want to go for the magical escalation of attack and defence.
plus, we don't want to make the orbs less effective against the dragon, only against anyone else

anyway 220 damage per turn with almost no chance of failure, at our power level, is huge.

EDIT:

First thing's first. Is eveything he's doing legal and how often can he do it?

You highlighted twinned, maximized orb of X and a quickened version of the same to do 220+ damage in one round.
You can't be under level 14 if he has an archmage level unless he actually wasted the cheese to get in one level early.

So 14d6, maximized, makes 84 damage, twinned to make 168. Then double that for a quickened casting of the same for 336 if all 4 orbs hit. So the damage more than checks out. He'd actually need CL penalties to get it -down- to 220.

Then there's the metas: twin and quicken are both +4s and max is a +3. Neither incantatrix nor archmage gets you around paying that reliably so you're looking at paying for at least one of those. I'm gonna guess twin rod, instant meta quicken, and actually prep'ed with maximize. If I'm right, that's not something he's doing more than once in a day since it costs one of his highest level slots and a 1/day class feature. If I've underestimated your level, do tell.

So now the question is if it's actually a problem. 1/day, he can nuke a single combat encounter, as long as -none- of the defenses against this attack are in place and the target has a weak touch AC. The wizard is rolling, I'm gonna guess, +10ish on that? It's -really- not hard to get a touch AC to 20+. Then, of course, that's assuming he hasn't already used his rod 3 times or instant metamagic feature at all on the same day.

There are plenty of spells that can trivialize an encounter with a single roll of the dice or even none at all with no metamagic applied, as long as none of the available defenses for such are in play. I'm not actually seeing a problem here. I mean, does your GM have an answer to the wizard just locking an enemy in a force cage?
I don't know the wizard mechanics 100%. he probably can't do two twinned in the same round. not sure exactly how much damage it is, but at least 160 if he can reliably hit touch AC. which is more hp than most humanoids of our level have. if you can one-shot an enemy of your level without giving him any kind of defence, then I see a problem. of coure there are some defences, but those bring out the magic escalation. more specific: if it's not a number about yourself that you can passively increase, but it's a spell you need to have on to do some effect, then it's escalating too much - and it's practically guaranteed that we'll forget about it.
As for it not being hard to get touch AC above 20, you have a different concept of what is hard than we do. most of us, especially most npcs, are limited to dex + ring of protection. very few things in the campaign go above 15. powerful rogues have 20. I have 30+, but I devoted my build specifically to be hard to affect with magic.
I think you are assuming a level of optimization higher than we want to havehave.

On forcecage: I don't think the wizard has forcecage, but most humanoid opponents have some trinket for short distance teleportation, or they have casters with disintegrate. so yes, an encounter of our level would have the means to deal with forcecage, even if some individuals probably would not.

[Tvtyrant]

perhaps i wasn't clear, or perhaps this forum has a tendency to be paranoid towards casters, so i reiterate: no player nor character is being a problem here. and we do not have big issues with power disparity. the wizard is still the most powerful character, but not in a toxic way. he can't deal with every problem himself, and we martials are all useful enough. Yes, even my monk.
we try balance to the table, and it works fine enough. which is why I'm asking here: to keep balancing to the table. to tune the orbs down until they are balanced to the table.

As for incantatrix and archmage being so broken, well, not really. they give nifty boosts, but they are not a problem by themselves. that's the problem when trying to balance a wizard to the table. most of the nifty wizard toys are not broken by themselves. they only become broken as they keep being added. which makes it really difficult to figure out what to allow and what to deny. So far the wizard was applying his metamagic to disintegrate and fireball, so he was dealing some good damage but not outshining the rest of us. He can go nova once per day, he's doing mostly support otherwise, which is where most people want a wizard to be. most "you just lose" spells are not available. So incantatrix and archamge weren't problems.

the problem is that the wizard wanted something to work against opponents with high magic defences, because all his combos so far don't work against someone who can tank a DC 29 disintegrate. and orb spells work, but they work too well. heck, even an alternative to orb spells that does something similar but less powerful is fine.

As for the level of the party, we are now at 16. I'd call the optimization level decently high, in that we all can do our stuff pretty well. nobody has access to the rocket tag stuff, though. the warrior deals easily 70-80 damage on a charge (shock trooper) and more on a full attack, but he won't get pounce. the wizard has a lot of stuff, but he needs to actually beat one's saving throws. the cleric is mostly core and full caster: heal and support with the occasional fire storm and save-or-die thrown in it. the monk is extremely hard to hurt with any kind of attack and has some decent battlefield control from tripping, but does not generally have reach, nor pounce.
basically, we have some pieces of the high-op builds, but we take some limitations on them.



no arcane thesis, and orbs are far from his only trick. how could he have centered the build on it, when he only discovered them a few days ago? :smallconfused:
as for dragons having defences, that's too much of a burden for the dm. not only he's less mechanically skilled than me or the wizard, but it's much harder to play at high op for a dm; as a player you know very well all your stuff, as a dm you're either extremely good, or you'll forget half of what your npc can do every time. we don't want to force the dm to give counter strategies to all npcs. we also don't want to go for the magical escalation of attack and defence.

and 220 damage per turn with almost no chance of failure, at our power level, is huge.

Yeah, but like we are all telling you, fixing the orbs only works until the next spell comes up. The orbs are not particularly powerful, fixing them won't fix the issue. I just mentioned several spells that do an equivalent job of the same thing. The issue is in fact power disparity, the orbs themselves are just the first problem to have come up from it.

The best solution in game is to say "you can't add more then the spell's base level in metamagic to it" and nerf the whole prestige class. Incantatrix is still strong under those rules but you can't just heap metamagic on a spell anymore, so nova casting goes away.

The best solution out of game is to ask them to tone it down to the rest of the parties level.

Edit: Put another way, you are insisting that there aren't power disparity problems while asking for a solution to power disparity problems. Those are caused by the use of Incantatrix on a moderately effective blasting spell, and is a symptom of larger problems. If your player is unwilling to control their optimization this is only going to get worse, the genteel agreement to not instantly win encounters is the only real solution to D&D 3.5s problems.

[Malroth]

Defensive spells are the answer, Ray deflection, spell immunity, mirror image, elemental immunity, blink, spell turning.

[Fizban]

Make them evocation, allow spell resistance, remove the bonus save or lose a turn effects. While you're at it ban Incantatrix, metamagic rods, and Assay Spell Resistance, and fix metamagic stacking/reduction (pretty sure the FAQ was quite clear that the intent is total then reduce, not reduce for every individual feat, not that some people care), possibly just ban all reduction. Consider giving metamagic feats a prerequisite that prevents you from taking them before you can actually use them, and consider capping the amount you can boost a spell or not allowing people to enhance a spell beyond the levels they can cast. Naturally this will require the wizard to re-do their entire build to tone it down to the rest of the party, which sucks, but drastic problems require drastic measures. You have discovered that one PC being able to reliably one-round appropriate foes is a problem, and that means characters built to do that need to be re-built.

- would make them weak enough that they can't destroy a humanoid with impunity
Also stop relying on humanoid foes, because the game is balanced for PCs vs monsters, not PCs vs classed humanoids. Monsters have piles of free hp, AC, SR, saves, and so on in order to somewhat compensate for the party being a party (and the party is the party in order to compensate for big magical monsters). Any classed humanoid should have their CR re-evaluated based on monsters (of the same power level the DM is otherwise using) with comparable abilities, and the DM may use fiat effects for special NPCs to make them a proper challenge (automatic Heals/buffs at certain points as the foe hits "phase 2/3/etc" are common).

Alternatively, it is also possible to suggest alternative ways for the wizard to contribute in the fight against creatures that can pass easily all his saving throws and will manage spell resistance most of the times. One idea we have was to use shapechange to turn into a dragon and use the breath weapon, that should provide a decent-but-not-overpowered source of damage.
Switching to Shapechange is not a thing that will really reduce the power level, just change it. I expect once they start using Shapechange they'll find all the broken stuff that can do which you'll have to ban (and hey, if you're using breath weapons in combat have you heard of Maximize Breath?). If you've got foes that can pass all saves and SR all spells, I question how the rest of the party is dealing with them, as they ought to be significantly above your level to do that.



So far the wizard was applying his metamagic to disintegrate and fireball, so he was dealing some good damage but not outshining the rest of us.
If you're really fine with everything else, than your particular problem is just the 1d6/level +no-save nature. The orbs really should allow SR, but if you specifically want no-SR damage spells, then the solution is simple: use the other no-SR damage spells. Acid Breath, Cone of Flame, Arc of Lightning, and Vitriolic Sphere are all in Spell Compendium, all SR-no but with standard reflex saves for half. The cost of having no-SR is that the spell simply must allow a save, and vice versa. If you want single-target spells, then add saves to the orbs (I'd recommend something other than reflex, so fort, especially if you're keeping the other effects in).

As for other effects, you might add Greater Ice Storm and Greater Disintegrate for higher level no-save and fort-save critical damage. I've pegged them at 7th level with 6d6 bludgeoning+ 4d6 cold, and 8th level 10d6 on successful save, respectively. So a souped up Greater Disintegrate which is saved against still has twice the base damage, and you can soup up an area with 10d6 flat damage.

Finally, well they could stop using crazy souped up metamagic. 9th level single target spells should generally have death or 2d6/level on failed save, 1d6 per level on successful save (previous spells like Finger of Death or Destruction had less than 1d6/level), and there are a couple 9th level spells that are close. Burst of Glacial Wrath, Frostfell (actually still OP under this increased expectation), Detonate, and yes even Meteor Swarm when you count the on-target damage.


plus, we don't want to make the orbs less effective against the dragon, only against anyone else. . .
of coure there are some defences, but those bring out the magic escalation. more specific: if it's not a number about yourself that you can passively increase, but it's a spell you need to have on to do some effect, then it's escalating too much
But seriously, that's just not gonna happen. Dragons of CR X and classed humanoids of level X are not and will never be the same. You can't have a character that can blast a hole in a dragon without having them annihilate a classed humanoid, unless that classed humanoid has been laboriously designed to survive it. Either you make the orbs weaker, or the DM makes the humanoids stronger.

my only passable idea so far is to give them a damage penalty on smaller targets (perhaps "justified" in saying that a person will be pushed back more than hurt, while a dragon will take the full brunt of the impact), so that they deal full damage to a colossal creature but won't one-shot a humanoid.
This idea you've had is actually just about the only thing that will work, because if you want a spell that affects monsters and classed humanoids differently, it needs to do so based on whether they're a monster or a humanoid. And if it's supposed to look like a generic damage spell, then Size is the only factor. So the orbs do half damage to Medium, 3/4 to Large, and full to Huge or larger creatures, no SR (maybe they keep the blind/daze/whatever, maybe not) [also don't forget you could always increase the spell level if you need to].

Don't sell yourself short, you've already decided what the specific issue is and come up with the most specific solution.

Come back if they start using Assay Resistance and whatnot to blow through SR and open up all the other 1d6/level no-save spells, but now that you know the issue, you should probably institute a policy of no no-save 1d6/level spells below 6th level to limit how many exist. Which is actually how 3.0 progression worked (Freezing sphere was the first available d6/level no save, at 6th, all the lower level damage was d6/2 or had saves), but someone wrote Scorching Ray (presumably because they removed the direct damage from Flame Arrow* and wanted a replacement) and everything went nuts. Scorching Ray at least caps so it's "only" 12d6 for a 2nd level slot, but Hailstones had its reflex save removed in SpC thanks to Scorching Ray so it goes to 15 or 20d6, and there's other stuff like Melf's Unicorn Arrow, just a lot of 1d6/level no-saves starting at 2nd level. Scorching Ray ought to be nerfed to 3d6 or 3rd level or something, but it's used in so many monsters and prerequisites that's hard to do (I've given it a -2 attack for each ray after the first).

*Freezing Sphere's original ray effect was replaced with a small AoE, and the ray apparently separated into the 8th level laughingstock Polar Ray, at the same time as they wrote Scorching Ray at 2nd. It's baffling.

[Doctor Awkward]

Ray Deflection, Spell Compendium, page 166.


"For the duration of the spell, you are protected against ranged touch attacks, including ray spells and ray attacks made by creatures."

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't know the wizard mechanics 100%. he probably can't do two twinned in the same round. not sure exactly how much damage it is, but at least 160 if he can reliably hit touch AC. which is more hp than most humanoids of our level have. if you can one-shot an enemy of your level without giving him any kind of defence, then I see a problem. of coure there are some defences, but those bring out the magic escalation. more specific: if it's not a number about yourself that you can passively increase, but it's a spell you need to have on to do some effect, then it's escalating too much - and it's practically guaranteed that we'll forget about it.

The most basic defence against the orbs is a decent touch AC; something any character that's of even moderately high level should be concerned about anyway. 160 hp will drop most humanoids of your level, true, but actually landing 2 orbs should be far from guaranteed on AC alone. What are these guys even doing that their touch AC isn't at least 16 by your level? Ring of protection and even a little bit of dex; done. Adjusting for the highe level than I estimated it's more likely a +11 on those orbs vs AC 16 is 80% to-hit. Good but not guaranteed. Dex types should be more like 20+; less than even odds. For two orbs to hit on a single twinned casting is only 2 times in 3 for the former and 1 in 4 for the latter.




As for it not being hard to get touch AC above 20, you have a different concept of what is hard than we do. most of us, especially most npcs, are limited to dex + ring of protection. very few things in the campaign go above 15. powerful rogues have 20. I have 30+, but I devoted my build specifically to be hard to affect with magic.
I think you are assuming a level of optimization higher than we want to havehave.

No, it looks like we're in the same ballpark. All you need for the other few points is for your armor to have the ghost ward property; making its enhancement count toward your touch ac. Ring +armor enchance +dex should get you in the low 20s by anything approaching high level. There're a dozen other ways that pop to the top of my head but that's the really obvious one that's nothing approaching high-op.


On forcecage: I don't think the wizard has forcecage, but most humanoid opponents have some trinket for short distance teleportation, or they have casters with disintegrate. so yes, an encounter of our level would have the means to deal with forcecage, even if some individuals probably would not.

Forcecage was just one of the more egregious examples. It's hardly the only spell that can just straight-up shut down an encounter. Which was my point, btw, there are -so- many ways to just end an encounter with a single spell if you presume that none of the appropriate defenses are going to be in place. Touch AC is a thing and two items; one core, on MIC; gets it to relevant for high level play long before you even consider active defenses; like ray deflection, orb of invulnerability, or even just scintillating scales for the dragons.

You overcome a high-level caster using high level spells to crush encounters by forced attrition. He can pull this stunt -once- in a given day. Point out to the DM that he can have -two- big bad monsters in a given encounter. One gets nuked and then you fight the other without the nuke. Bait the nuke with illusions or at least dummy targets. Have a hard encounter come to the party at the end of the day when the nuke's already been dropped. Actually use the defenses available against this particular trick.

I mean, you can nerf the orbs but another spell will simply take their place. You can nerf incantatrix but it's barely even a factor for this problem.

If this is -really- the problem you think it is then kill the sacred cow: advize your GM to target the rods. If any of your enemies are remotely intelligent (and I heard dragon) then targetting a known source of strength for their enemy is an obvious strategy.

I get your concern about the escalation problem but there's only two -good- solid answer to that and they're both gonna make somebody unhappy: the GM asks the wizard to change his character and stop doing the problem thing or he leans into the curve and becomes a high-op monster that -can- deal with anything that any player throws at him. The former is a whole hell of a lot easier.

[denthor]

Orbs do not turn corners. If there are objects in the way they can impact early correct(like fireball).. Yyou need line of sight?

A fog cloud, darkness if he can not see in the dark, invisibility pick a square (do not hit anything in between).

The dragon can shrink in size up the dex with cats grace.

[Psyren]

...I don't see how it's "paranoid" to point out that the root cause of your problems is combining a Tier 1 metamagic-stacking Mailman build with a monk focusing on defense rather than blaming a single category of damage spell, but you do you.

[tiercel]

As others have pointed out, a starting point is to at least retcon the Orb spells (and pretty much all one-shot direct damage) as Evocation and SR:Yes. That won’t take them off the table as “I cast, enemy dies” spells but (1) philosophically it makes little sense for spells to magically create bursts of nonmagical damage that can blast even magic “immune” foes inside antimagic areas and (2j if SR-beating tricks are a little too easy, nerf them too.

Personally, I’d like to think that SR as a mechanic is supposed to represent some level of actual defense (not insuperable, yet significant) — rather than a mere inconvenience or even annoyance. In any case, if you’re looking for a nerf that will make orbs usable but not end-all, making SR a viable possible defense is arguably a broader remedy than requiring all potential foes to have spellcasting access to orb-defying defenses or die.

[Trebloc]

I am confused why changing the orbs to be Evocation and SR Yes is a good fix. Doesn't that just make them significantly worse than regular old fireball or lightning bolt?

I am seeing a DM running a level 16 group that appears to not be able to run higher levels encounters and just wants to slap down a few monsters straight from the monster manual and call it a day, or is not willing to put in the time to create challenging encounters. You are well past that point and the DM needs to step up. That dragon will have feats, it will have buffs, it will almost certainly know the party is coming, it will have traps and minions helping defend it and it will be wearing magical gear.

The weakest Great Wyrm dragon in the MM is a white, which unbuffed already has 522 HP. A cheap CON +6 item adds another 108 to that. So 630 HP is already defense #1 against 220 damage worth of orbs, so they are not 1-shotting the dragon at all. It does have a crappy touch AC of 6, but slap on a Ring of Protection +5 and a DEX +6 item and a WIS +6 and a Monk's Belt and now it's up to 22, not amazing but at least the orbs are not an auto-hit. So without busting out a single spell (the dragon better have a few on them) or obscure magic item, the wizard's once-a-day nuke is already easily disarmed.

Regardless as others have said, there is power disparity, whether you want to admit it or not. A wizard throwing out DC29 disintegrates and a defensive monk trying to trip? I'm sorry, that's like comparing apples and bulldozers. As a group of friends you might be having fun and that is awesome because fun is the name of the game, but mechanically in the world of D&D the characters aren't close to equal at all, and it is just going to get worse from here on out.

I am interested, what trinket lets you cheaply teleport through a Forcecage? An Anklet of Translocation won't do it due to no line of effect.

[Lord of Shadows]

Hmmm...

How much knowledge are the dragons going to have about the party? Are these going to be one at a time or in multiples? (Yikes!) If the dragons have some idea of what is coming, they can better prepare. And very likely after the first or second one is one-shotted they will know what's coming and plan a defense.

Spells/Items: Globe of Invulnerability spell, Rod of Absorption, or perhaps the spell Absorption (Spell Compendium), Fortunate Fate (Spell Compendium, insta-Heal), Staff of the Magi (requires the user to have the spell available to them, but not required to be able to cast it), a Ring of Spell Turning (or the spell of same name) would be a nasty surprise, and from Pathfinder there is the Ring of Energy Shroud. And maybe Antimagic Field, although size would be an issue for a dragon. Perhaps the dragon could be in an extra-dimensional space with only a 10 ft. opening, big enough for its breath weapon.

Or you could give the dragon some artifact or relic that provides some kind of protection, might have to be home brewed.

These are all in-game responses that don't require any tweaking of the rules. If I can think of any more I will add them.

Hope this helps.

[Efrate]

For defenses wings of cover spell and wall of blades maneuver both negate or make it super hard to land a metamagiced orb.

Wall of blades sets a.c. vs. all attacks, touch etc equal to attack roll, which a dragon will make very high even on a low roll.

Wings of cover just nopes any one attack/spell/effect with pretty much little recourse to get around.

[King of Nowhere]

Yeah, but like we are all telling you, fixing the orbs only works until the next spell comes up.

yes, that's what "balance to the table" entails.
you decide on a power level, then whenever someone wants to take up a new spell or feat or stuff, you decide whether it's consistent with that power level, and if not, you ban or nerf it.




If you've got foes that can pass all saves and SR all spells, I question how the rest of the party is dealing with them, as they ought to be significantly above your level to do that.


we can still hit them most of the times. and most foes fail saving throws regularly; it's just the final bosses that are significantly above our levels



If you're really fine with everything else, than your particular problem is just the 1d6/level +no-save nature. The orbs really should allow SR, but if you specifically want no-SR damage spells, then the solution is simple: use the other no-SR damage spells. Acid Breath, Cone of Flame, Arc of Lightning, and Vitriolic Sphere are all in Spell Compendium, all SR-no but with standard reflex saves for half. The cost of having no-SR is that the spell simply must allow a save, and vice versa. If you want single-target spells, then add saves to the orbs (I'd recommend something other than reflex, so fort, especially if you're keeping the other effects in).

As for other effects, you might add Greater Ice Storm and Greater Disintegrate for higher level no-save and fort-save critical damage. I've pegged them at 7th level with 6d6 bludgeoning+ 4d6 cold, and 8th level 10d6 on successful save, respectively. So a souped up Greater Disintegrate which is saved against still has twice the base damage, and you can soup up an area with 10d6 flat damage.

hey, thanks. this is perhaps the first useful thing I found in this thread. spells alternate to orbs that would let the wizard consistently damage great dragons while not being an insta-win on anyone else who's not crazy prepared are perfectly good.



Finally, well they could stop using crazy souped up metamagic.

Don't sell yourself short, you've already decided what the specific issue is and come up with the most specific solution.



yes, we (as in, my group) have already decided what the issue is, because we've been playing together with those characters for over two years, and we've had lots of fun. And we knew of the potential issues when we started, but we decided that we would deal with them and keep them in check, and we've always done so.
when I was DMing a high level campaign, I did put some hard caps on metamagic reduction. but here we didn't, and retconning stuff that we've been doing for the last year breaks immersion a lot. And retiring a character that's been used for over two years sucks even more. Much, much better to nerf or ban spells as they come by.
And disregarding all we've done in those two years and telling us to change everything is quite rude. It's like someone has been in a happy relationship for a couple years, and now they have some mild disagreement, and you suggest them that they should break up, and that in fact all they did previously has been wrong all the time.

I hope all those people who are saying "retcon/rebuild/change the character" can see that.

Now, we probably will change some things when we eventually wrap this up and start something new. but for the rest of this campaing, the characters and their builds are not going to be changed in any meaningful way.


...I don't see how it's "paranoid" to point out that the root cause of your problems is combining a Tier 1 metamagic-stacking Mailman build with a monk focusing on defense rather than blaming a single category of damage spell, but you do you.
It's paranoid to assume that we have a problem with the party or that we have to change our whole styles. We are perfectly aware of the tier implications. We know that we have to adjust stuff to keep everyone relevant. we accepted that when we started our campaign with our characters. I accepted that, the wizard accepted that, the dm accepted that, everyone else accepted that. and we've dealt with it all the time, we all got told at some point by the dm "no, that stuff is too strong, you can't take it because it would break the balance of the table". Including my monk, when I was asking if I could stack karmik strike and defensive throw with robilar's gambit.

So, we've been keeping balance to the table by evaluating whether to accept any new power anyone wanted to take, and we wish to keep doing so, and it would be very easy to keep doing this kind of balance by telling the wizard "no, you can't take oerb spells", and i was asking a specific help on a specific topic that came up. I don't want to be told that there are problems running two tier 1 with three tier 4-5, because we know that already. though "paranoid" is the wrong word here. Can't think of a proper one. but certainly a lot of people are accusing our party of badwrongfun because we want to play with tier differences and face them by tweaking stuff along the way. A lot of people are mistrusting me, thinking that I tell lies when when I say what is a problem and what is not.

And do note that the problem is not that a spell combo does 200+ damage in a round with no defence. We know well enough how allow the fighter to deal the same amount of damage. Or how to make a battlefield control build that does not rely on a medium-sized monk with no reach. we merely decided that we do not want to play with those premises.



I am seeing a DM running a level 16 group that appears to not be able to run higher levels encounters and just wants to slap down a few monsters straight from the monster manual and call it a day, or is not willing to put in the time to create challenging encounters. You are well past that point and the DM needs to step up. That dragon will have feats, it will have buffs, it will almost certainly know the party is coming, it will have traps and minions helping defend it and it will be wearing magical gear.
Please don't insult our DM. he's never played above level 3 before our campaign, so he's inexperienced in dealing with high levels. And he's got a job and a busy life, like the rest of us, and can't be expected to spend days preparing this game.
That said, he DOES put in the time to create encounters. unique monsters, unique situations, unique npcs. he still lacks the skill to use them to their full potential. it's easier when you are a player, you have to know well your character. when you have to know a dozen npcs that you will use once or twice, it's different. I've been there. I've DMed a party of 20th level casters as main opponents, and never managed it well.
Speaking of stepping up, I did specifically say that I wasn't looking for defences for the dragons, and wasn't looking for spells to neutralize orbs. So if you want to throw dismissive comments on my friends, you should at least make sure to have read and understood the issue.

[Trebloc]

Please don't insult our DM. he's never played above level 3 before our campaign, so he's inexperienced in dealing with high levels. And he's got a job and a busy life, like the rest of us, and can't be expected to spend days preparing this game.
That said, he DOES put in the time to create encounters. unique monsters, unique situations, unique npcs. he still lacks the skill to use them to their full potential. it's easier when you are a player, you have to know well your character. when you have to know a dozen npcs that you will use once or twice, it's different. I've been there. I've DMed a party of 20th level casters as main opponents, and never managed it well.
Speaking of stepping up, I did specifically say that I wasn't looking for defences for the dragons, and wasn't looking for spells to neutralize orbs. So if you want to throw dismissive comments on my friends, you should at least make sure to have read and understood the issue.

There is no insult intended. If he is unable to handle the situation well due to whatever reasons (and several reasons are listed by you), then isn't it fair to him to play a game in territory he is more familiar with and has the time to handle? Because 220 damage at level 16 shouldn't be giving the DM issues, nor should the rest of the party be overshadowed by it.

I've DMed well past epic and it can be challenging to run appropriate encounters, but everyone at my table understands I am able to do it well. We have another DM who was having trouble once we entered the mid-teens, so we retired and rerolled, no biggie.

All you want is to nerf a single spell as being the only issue? Will you be back next week too when the next spell is found? Then the next, and the next, and the next...etc. I see alot of good suggestions, which does include playing legendary monsters as being the super-intelligent magic wielding power houses that have lived for centuries without being slain. I also see a number of other spells that are mentioned here that are just as troublesome, if not significantly more game breaking than super metamagiked orbs. There is one common cause for these problems -- the Incantatrix. In your games, how many times has it come up that a tripping monk was too powerful for the boss encounter (like say, a Great Wyrm Dragon...)

[Psyren]

It's paranoid to assume that we have a problem with the party or that we have to change our whole styles.

I didn't say you had a problem with the party. I said you had a balance problem:



while a balance problem, it's also annoying for me, because my character is a monk whose major goal was to make himself resistant to magic, and i devoted a lot of my build to it - under the premise that the campaign would stay at a power level where it's still possible to do so. and it's not nice that your whole build can be invalidated by a single spell.

I then pointed out that the best way to deal with it is by having a conversation out of game, not by nerfing one type of spell. As TvTyrant mentioned, nerfing orbs is likely to either have no effect due to all the metamagic he's piling on, or convince him to switch to some other rider and continue to invalidate your monk.

[Doctor Awkward]

I will again second Ray Deflection.

There is nothing wrong with smart enemies preparing specific countermeasures against the PC's. Especially if the party is famous and it's a tactic they use repeatedly.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hey, can we stop blaming incantatrix here? A 1/day feature that could be replaced in part by a feat that any wizard could take is the only part of that class that's playing a role here. You can't use the metamagic effect feature, the feature that makes incantatrix such a powerhouse, on instantaneous spells. Seriously, if he had sudden maximize and -no- incantatrix levels, he could still do the orb thing. Archmage's energy substitution is a bigger part of the problem here than anything incantatrix is doing.

If he was persisting a bunch of buffs on the least restrictive reading of persistent spell then incantatrix would be the culprit but it's just not here. Not unless he's jumped straight back to incantatrix after just a level or two of archmage for improved metamagic. Even then, it just makes this stunt cheaper. It'd still be possible without incantatrix.

Now I do have one question though: how is max disintegrate not a problem will twinned max orbs are? The damage value is the same. Most foes won't have SR anymore than they'll have a high touch ac. The save? That's just another roll against a set target number; it's ac in reverse and the modified orb spell has to roll twice too.

I think your real problem is that wizard accidentally picked a spell that made it impossible to remain willfully blind to a problem you've actually had for a while now. Nerfing the orbs is just putting your blinders back on. If you want to fix the real problem instead of just putting a bandaid on it, then either he needs to voluntarily give up some of that power by losing the rods or your table needs a houserule against metamagic stacking altogether. The orbs are -not- the problem. The fact he can drop 4 of 'em on a target in 6 seconds for maximum damage is. There are a hundred more rays he could do the same thing with.

[Aotrs Commander]

Yes, I think the problem here is metamagic reducers, and especially when they are allowed to stack. I'm fairly permissive, within reason (like, DMM is permitted, though very closesly watched and nightstaicks and similar items are VERY much not), but metamagic reducer are one thing I consider not within reason, just because it is so easily abusable.

[tiercel]

I am confused why changing the orbs to be Evocation and SR Yes is a good fix. Doesn't that just make them significantly worse than regular old fireball or lightning bolt?


Fireball hits an area, it’s true, while Orb of Fire hits a single target. (Mostly, but not always, advantage: Fireball.)
Fireball also has much longer range than Orb of Fire. (For the scales often used for tactical map combats, especially in dungeons, this often doesn’t matter much, but it is worth noting.)

However, even as an Evocation SR: Yes spell,

Orb of Fire caps at 15d6 rather than Fireball’s 10d6
Orb of Fire is a ranged touch attack and offers no Reflex save against damage, unlike Fireball.
Orb of Fire forces a secondary Fort save or dazed for a round.
Orb of Fire natively comes in different energy flavors, so you can simply use a different flavor by knowing another spell without having to metamagic or similar; this includes lower-damage but rarely-resisted sonic and even force damage.

Also there’s the little philosophical side matter of the Orb spells arguably not making any sense as direct-damage magic that can hammer magic “immune” foes even within antimagic zones.

This is not to say that making them Evocation is a perfect fix or would solve the OP’s issues without any other consideration, but....

[Fizban]

hey, thanks. this is perhaps the first useful thing I found in this thread. spells alternate to orbs that would let the wizard consistently damage great dragons while not being an insta-win on anyone else who's not crazy prepared are perfectly good.
You're welcome :smallbiggrin: So are you gonna just have them use the area spells, or go ahead and suggest your size-based orb change as well (or fort-half orbs)?

[Aotrs Commander]

Also there’s the little philosophical side matter of the Orb spells arguably not making any sense as direct-damage magic that can hammer magic “immune” foes even within antimagic zones.

Well, that's easy to explain - an orb spell is basically just an sci-fi energy gun (or, like, a flamethrower in the specific case of Orb of Fire). The "gun" is made of magic, not metal and technology, but the thing it fires isn't.

I mean heck, if you think about it, it ought be easier to create energy than matter through conjuration; and at the first level you get the Orbs and Minor Creation, you can create enough quarterstaffs to equip the whole party (plus) for seven hours which are also no save, no SR when you beat monsters to death with them, creating a blast of fire for less than six seconds at the same level doesn't sound unreasonable, really.

[ShurikVch]

To the OP: how about to go back to the Tome and Blood edition of those spells?
Back then, they were Evocation with "SR: Yes", but missed attack roll resulted with 10' splashes (deals 2 damage per die, but no "special effect"), and it was possible to shoot more than one orb at once (with total damage divided among the all orbs).
"Speciall effects" (Fortitude save):
Acid Orb: nauseated
Cold Orb: blinded
Electric Orb: target in metallic armor is entangled (or unable to move, if surrounded by metal)
Fire Orb: dazed
Force Orb*: - (Fortitude save for half-damage)

*Force Orb is not in the Tome and Blood, but in Unapproachable East

[Crake]

Now I do have one question though: how is max disintegrate not a problem will twinned max orbs are? The damage value is the same. Most foes won't have SR anymore than they'll have a high touch ac. The save? That's just another roll against a set target number; it's ac in reverse and the modified orb spell has to roll twice too.

The save is pretty significant though, an extra chance at "failure", and generally quite a decent chance at that. Even if both rolls are a 50/50, disintegrate has a 25% chance overall, vs a 50% for the orb.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your premise, that the spell isn't really the issue, but disintegrate is a pretty rough pick for the example. I would have gone with a spell that is purely a save, like chain lightning or fireball.

[Mr Adventurer]

The save is pretty significant though, an extra chance at "failure", and generally quite a decent chance at that. Even if both rolls are a 50/50, disintegrate has a 25% chance overall, vs a 50% for the orb.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your premise, that the spell isn't really the issue, but disintegrate is a pretty rough pick for the example. I would have gone with a spell that is purely a save, like chain lightning or fireball.

I think he meant because it's twinned

[Vaern]

The whole point of spell resistance as a mechanic is to give creatures a defense against being nuked by casters. The availability of the orb spells, which both ignore spell resistance and offer no saving throw against their damage, not only undermines the mechanic completely but also makes otherwise decent spells look like terrible decisions by comparison simply by being subjected to a layer of defense.
Direct damage spells that ignore spell resistance, outside of the orb spells, are few and far between. None of them are especially powerful and all of them that I'm aware of are acid, which is not a form of energy being manipulated by magic (despite being considered an energy type) but rather a physical object that can be summoned and used as a weapon. As a point c comparison, there are a number of cantrips which all do essentially the same thing with different damage types - electric jolt, acid splash, and ray of frost all deal 1d3 damage with a close-range touch attack - but only the acid variety is conjuration and ignores SR.
Thematically, there's nothing about the orb spells that indicates that they have a reason be conjuration. An orb of energy is launched from your hands at your target. It doesn't say that you are, for example, conjuring the physical essence of one of the elemental planes. There's nothing indicating that the energy is being conjured rather than being brought into existence by magic.
One might argue that orb of acid, at least, might at least be appropriate as a conjuration, but even then the scaling of the damage is consistent with evocation spells. Damaging conjugations tend to have static damage, with higher caster levels increasing the duration of lingering effects. The orb spells are the opposite of that, with a lingering effect lasting a set amount of time and damage scaling fully with caster level.
So not only does the fact that the orbs are conjuration undermine the whole point of spell resistance, but I can see no reason within the spells' effects of descriptions - thematically, functionally, or otherwise - for them to be conjuration spells to begin with except to undermine spell resistance.

tl;dr Orbs are dumb and I see no problem with changing them to evocation and SR: Yes.

[Doctor Awkward]

The whole point of spell resistance as a mechanic is to give creatures a defense against being nuked by casters. The availability of the orb spells, which both ignore spell resistance and offer no saving throw against their damage, not only undermines the mechanic completely but also makes otherwise decent spells look like terrible decisions by comparison simply by being subjected to a layer of defense.

The whole point of spell resistance is to create a category of monsters that have a preternatural resistance to magical effects. In this context "magical effects" are a collection of abilities that seem to grant supernatural power over natural forces. This is why spell resistance is typically found on "unnatural" creatures which are inherently attuned with the otherwise supernatural force.

There is no overriding mechanical balancing act at work here. It's entirely a story decision.

The flaw in your argument here is that it's not the fact that evocation blasting spells look terrible in comparison to conjuration blasting spells-- they are just tactically worse options than non-blasting spells of the same level. Evocation blasting is inherently terrible because of the many effects present in the system that are working against it. Spell resistance can negate the effect entirely. Reflex saves cut the damage done in half, and the Evasion ability again negates the damage entirely. It is very common to encounter at least one of these at all levels of play.

Blasting has always been considered to be a substandard role for spellcasters. And these spells were often considered bad choices even before we had orb spells to compare them to.

It's really not fair to compare a Twinned-Empowered Orb of Acid followed by a Quickened Orb of Acid to a vanilla Fireball and call the former broken. What you should be doing is comparing it to an Energy Substituted Explosive Cold Lord of Uttercold Fireball (a double-threat half cold/half negative energy damage with an additional 1d6 damage per 10 feet a creature is moved on a failed save plus knocking it prone) or an Energy Substituted Electric Born of Three Thunders Ice Storm (a triple threat spell with a 20 ft. radius that damages and halves movement rate with no save, stuns for 1 round on a failed Fortitude save and then knocks prone of a failed Reflex save, all with zero metamagic spell level adjustment).



Direct damage spells that ignore spell resistance, outside of the orb spells, are few and far between. None of them are especially powerful and all of them that I'm aware of are acid, which is not a form of energy being manipulated by magic (despite being considered an energy type) but rather a physical object that can be summoned and used as a weapon.

You are exactly describing the function of the orb line of spells.

As part of the [Creation] subschool of magic, the spellcaster uses magical power to manipulate matter in order to assemble an object in the location the caster designates. As the duration is instantaneous the magic holds the creation together long enough to produce the desired effect and then the object dissipates.

This is a distinctly different process from evocation magic, which manipulates energy in order to spontaneously create a magical effect from quite literally nothing.

So far as they don't "feel" like conjuration spells to you because of damage reasons? Well, the only real "blasting" conjuration spell in core, Melf's Acid Arrow, does deal damage that scales with your caster level in the form of additional damage over time per three caster levels. It does so in a manner functionally identical to the evocation spell Flaming Sphere at the same level. In that same vein, Scorching Ray (also the same level) and Magic Missile are some more evocations that also do static damage. They simply produce additional projectiles at higher caster levels. Your damage component accusation strikes me as a largely subjective opinion than anything grounded in fact. The orb spells are conjurations. Most of them have fluff descriptions to that effect. You are, rather arbitrarily, declaring that fluff insufficient for no logical reason other than you you don't like that the spells are written as conjurations.


Your arguments seem entirely premised on the notion that you don't think it should be a function of spellcasters to deal large amounts of difficult-to-avoid damage. You also seem unaware that the orb spells are functionally identical in every respect to the Scorching Ray spell, except that they do not allow for Spell Resistance.

In this particular instance-- which includes a high level wizard with the Mastery of Elements high arcana and a pile of metamagic rods-- the Scorching Ray spell would produce relatively similar results for a much smaller metamagic adjustment than the orb spells. And he could do it with relatively the same effectiveness by merely casting Assay Spell Resistance as his swift action in the first round.

So in conclusion; the spells aren't the main source of the problem. It's the character.

And the solution to overwhelmingly powerful magic (beyond banning that magic from play) is always going to be other magic.

[Calthropstu]

PF removed the orb spells and I think I agree with the decision. However, there are a lot of good alternatives.

Summons. Summon offers no SR, and the summons can act as damage buffers against most things preventing access to the party back line. They also have the highest damage potential in the game with a bear from summon 5 getting into the hundreds assuming its attacks can hit. Summon base char + specialized buff bard is serious win.

Black tentacles will get in the way even if it fails to grapple.

Force cage is an easy "Nope." to most creatures.

Undead creation and control.

[Crake]

PF removed the orb spells and I think I agree with the decision.

I mean, they didn't really remove them, since they weren't part of the SRD to be removed in the first place, they just never added them. But then, the spells pathfinder added beyond core were mostly rather mediocre or incredibly situational, and the one spell that was quite functionally close to an orb spell (snowball) was nerfed by having it be moved to evocation, and giving it SR.

[ShurikVch]

Direct damage spells that ignore spell resistance, outside of the orb spells, are few and far between. None of them are especially powerful and all of them that I'm aware of are acidReally?
Arc of Lightning
Blast of Flame
Blast of Sand
Bombardment
Cometfall
Deadfall
Fire and Brimstone
Lava Splash
Storm of Needles
Tunnel SwallowAll of them are instant direct damage spells
None of them are Acid
And none of them allow SR
Also, most of them caps at 15 dice - just as Orbs (couple of 10s "compensated" with couple of 20s)

[Vaern]

The flaw in your argument here is that it's not the fact that evocation blasting spells look terrible in comparison to conjuration blasting spells-- they are just tactically worse options than non-blasting spells of the same level.

The thread's creator has a problem with a wizard using blasting spells to wipe out encounters unreasonably quickly. Whether or not non-blasting spells are a tactically better option is not relevant to the discussion. The fact that the orb spells are breaking his game by ignoring spell resistance is, so discussing what makes conjuration blasting spells more powerful than evocation blasting spells is not a flaw in an argument - it is the argument of the thread.


Blasting has always been considered to be a substandard role for spellcasters. And these spells were often considered bad choices even before we had orb spells to compare them to.

And in this case, the fact that the OP is having such issues with a blaster wizard playing whose use of these spells puts him at a level of play so far above the rest of his group should say something about how powerful the spells are.


It's really not fair to compare a Twinned-Empowered Orb of Acid followed by a Quickened Orb of Acid to a vanilla Fireball and call the former broken. What you should be doing is comparing it to an Energy Substituted Explosive Cold Lord of Uttercold Fireball (a double-threat half cold/half negative energy damage with an additional 1d6 damage per 10 feet a creature is moved on a failed save plus knocking it prone) or an Energy Substituted Electric Born of Three Thunders Ice Storm (a triple threat spell with a 20 ft. radius that damages and halves movement rate with no save, stuns for 1 round on a failed Fortitude save and then knocks prone of a failed Reflex save, all with zero metamagic spell level adjustment).
You're putting words in my mouth here. I'm not comparing a twinned-empowered orb of acid and a quickened orb of acid to a vanilla fireball. I didn't make reference to any metamagic feats or spells in particular. The number of damage types a spell utilizes isn't the issue. The additional effects that are riding along with the spell aren't the issue. Unreasonably high damage output on its own isn't even the issue. The issue is that they attack the weakest defense that most creatures are likely to have and offer no forms of mitigation, with unreasonably high damage output being the result of that issue.
If I was to make a direct comparison between one of the orb spells and an evocation spell, it would be between Orb of Cold and Polar Ray: Both deal 1d6 cold damage per level on a successful close-range touch attack, with the only major differences being that Orb of Cold also has a chance to blind the target, ignores spell resistance, has no focus component, and is 4 spell levels lower. Even if you were to take spell level out of the equation and compare them side-by-side in a vacuum, Orb of Cold is still just a strictly better version of the same spell.


As part of the [Creation] subschool of magic, the spellcaster uses magical power to manipulate matter in order to assemble an object in the location the caster designates. As the duration is instantaneous the magic holds the creation together long enough to produce the desired effect and then the object dissipates.

This is a distinctly different process from evocation magic, which manipulates energy in order to spontaneously create a magical effect from quite literally nothing.
Conjuration (creation) is defined as manipulating matter to create an object or creature.
Evocation is defined as manipulating energy or tapping into an unseen source of power.
One might argue that orb of acid would reasonably remain a conjuration spell because acid is a physical thing that deals a special kind of damage.
Fire, cold, sonic, force, and electricity, however, are all energy. If you're comparing their effects to the description of the schools of magic, these fall squarely into Evocation.


So far as they don't "feel" like conjuration spells to you because of damage reasons? Well, the only real "blasting" conjuration spell in core, Melf's Acid Arrow, does deal damage that scales with your caster level in the form of additional damage over time per three caster levels. It does so in a manner functionally identical to the evocation spell Flaming Sphere at the same level.
Acid Arrow doesn't scale by damage, but by duration, like I said. And I wasn't just referring to blasting spells. Summon Monster and similar spells don't become more powerful based on caster level - they only increase in duration. Acid Fog doesn't become stronger based on caster level - it only increases in duration.
Its scaling is not functionally identical to Flaming Sphere. Acid Arrow's duration increases 1 round per 3 levels, to a maximum of 7 rounds at 18th level. Flaming Sphere has a duration of 1 round/level with no cap. Flaming Sphere also creates a mobile source of damage that can attack a different target each round or create an obstruction on the battlefield, in contrast to Acid Arrow which is strictly a single-target attack. If you're looking at just the functional aspects of the spell description, Flaming Sphere is a strictly better spell with higher raw damage output, more versatility and a bit of potential utility. But despite having a weaker effect, Acid Arrow may still be a more appealing choice to a number of power-gaming theorycrafters just because it ignores spell resistance and functions in the AMFs that they aren't likely to see for another 4 spell levels.


In that same vein, Scorching Ray (also the same level) and Magic Missile are some more evocations that also do static damage. They simply produce additional projectiles at higher caster levels. Your damage component accusation strikes me as a largely subjective opinion than anything grounded in fact.

Producing more projectiles is effectively an increase in damage based on caster level. I don't see how you can argue that an increase in duration at the same damage per round equates to direct damage scaling with caster level, but an increase in projectiles which deal increased instantaneous effect somehow does not equate to direct damage scaling with caster level.


Your arguments seem entirely premised on the notion that you don't think it should be a function of spellcasters to deal large amounts of difficult-to-avoid damage. You also seem unaware that the orb spells are functionally identical in every respect to the Scorching Ray spell, except that they do not allow for Spell Resistance.

In this particular instance-- which includes a high level wizard with the Mastery of Elements high arcana and a pile of metamagic rods-- the Scorching Ray spell would produce relatively similar results for a much smaller metamagic adjustment than the orb spells. And he could do it with relatively the same effectiveness by merely casting Assay Spell Resistance as his swift action in the first round.
I don't think that spellcasters shouldn't be able to deal large amounts of damage. I do believe, though, that the DM should have options to avoid that damage if it becomes problematic. As far as Assay Spell Resistance goes, it's still not the same as simply ignoring spell resistance. Creatures with spell immunity are treated as having infinite spell resistance, so while your Scorching Ray with ASR still wouldn't do anything to a golem an unmodified orb spell will still hit it. Scorching Ray is still an evocation that gets blocked by an AMF, while Orbs are instantaneous conjuration spells and would simply pass through.
Besides, casting Assay Spell Resistance to pierce the SR of, say, a dragon with Scorching Ray would be fine in my book. You're at least forced to take an action and expend resources (even if it's just a swift action and a single spell slot) to overcome the additional challenge, which you may still have a chance to fail (even if it does become a rather slim chance). The orb spells are a complete copout against any sort of defense that the wizard is likely to encounter.


Really?
Arc of Lightning
Blast of Flame
Blast of Sand
Bombardment
Cometfall
Deadfall
Fire and Brimstone
Lava Splash
Storm of Needles
Tunnel SwallowAll of them are instant direct damage spells
None of them are Acid
And none of them allow SR
Also, most of them caps at 15 dice - just as Orbs (couple of 10s "compensated" with couple of 20s)
To be fair, I wasn't aware of any of these before you mentioned them. And all of them that I can actually find at least offer a saving throw against the damage, so they aren't completely unavoidable.

[tiercel]

Well, that's easy to explain - an orb spell is basically just an sci-fi energy gun (or, like, a flamethrower in the specific case of Orb of Fire). The "gun" is made of magic, not metal and technology, but the thing it fires isn't.

I mean heck, if you think about it, it ought be easier to create energy than matter through conjuration; and at the first level you get the Orbs and Minor Creation, you can create enough quarterstaffs to equip the whole party (plus) for seven hours which are also no save, no SR when you beat monsters to death with them, creating a blast of fire for less than six seconds at the same level doesn't sound unreasonable, really.

A flamethrower throws burning fuel, and in a stream generally designed to spread across a significant area; Orb of Fire throws pure fire and in a compact projectile that persists and holds together long enough to reach an individual target with, apparently, no need for magic after the instant of its formation and launch. (Also flamethrowers have the downside of being a really vulnerable target, what with pressurized tanks plus tanks of sticky hideously flammable gel-fuel.)

But a ball of pure fire? Pure cold? Pure sound? Pure force? Sounds... magical... and in particular, like “Evocation spells manipulate energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end. In effect, they create something out of nothing.”

Orbs could be refluffed to create material which is hot/cold/vibrating/whatever (and presumably should be if Conjuration(Creation) means “A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates”), but... why? Orbs already match Evocation in fluff and crunch, why take them over to Conjuration (Creation)? Do we just hate Evocation? Or SR?

(And making quarterstaffs isn’t at all comparable, which should go without saying — it requires multiple wielders with significant BAB and Strength or other bonus damage, over multiple rounds to enter melee range, overcome full AC—not touch AC—as well as potential damage resistance, versus one-shot dial-the-right-energy-type touch-AC metamagic-able bursts of nigh-irresistible damage outside of % miss chances or direct-counter spells, both of which work against quarterstaves, too.)


The whole point of spell resistance as a mechanic is to give creatures a defense against being nuked by casters.

tl;dr Orbs are dumb and I see no problem with changing them to evocation and SR: Yes.

Much the point I was trying/hoping to make - and while, yes, Orbs are not unique as Conjuration (Creation) instant-damage-nuke spells, I would be happy dropping the same hammer on all such spells, making them Evocation SR Yes spells. It’s not like Conjuration wouldn’t still be a very strong, possibly still the strongest, school. (Don’t even get me started on Abrupt-freaking-Jaunt.) (And yes, a fair number of battlefield control spells have SR No, and if they have a direct effect against foes, I’m not so sold on the idea that they should ignore SR, either.)


The whole point of spell resistance is to create a category of monsters that have a preternatural resistance to magical effects. In this context "magical effects" are a collection of abilities that seem to grant supernatural power over natural forces. This is why spell resistance is typically found on "unnatural" creatures which are inherently attuned with the otherwise supernatural force.

There is no overriding mechanical balancing act at work here. It's entirely a story decision.

I’d argue that while the category-of-monsters argument has merit, the mechanical argument does as well — it’s a defense against casters that doesn’t directly affect noncasters, which seems like a mechanic you might kinda want in a system that long has acknowledged “quadratic wizards, linear fighters” — heck, Spell Resistance was arguably meaner in 2e, when casters were arguably squishier (at least for longer).





You are exactly describing the function of the orb line of spells.

As part of the [Creation] subschool of magic, the spellcaster uses magical power to manipulate matter in order to assemble an object in the location the caster designates. As the duration is instantaneous the magic holds the creation together long enough to produce the desired effect and then the object dissipates.

This is a distinctly different process from evocation magic, which manipulates energy in order to spontaneously create a magical effect from quite literally nothing.

At which point I realize that what I was typing about Evocation vs Conjuration above was totally swordsaged... and yet we come to totally different conclusions?

Why do Orbs need to be Conjuration (Creation)? They seemingly create “pure energy” out of nothing, not assemble material which is really hot or really cold or really... sonic... or forceful.... er, that is, they seem to do exactly what Evocation says it does.

Mechanically, why do Orbs need to be SR: No? Was direct damage so “suboptimal” that the game was all “oh no, there might be a reason for noncasters to actually exist—to do single-target DPS—while casters do everything else better, so let’s take that away from noncasters too?”

Is SR so fearsome a defense against God-wizards and CoDzilla that we actually need “haha, what SR?” spells and feats even outside Orbs and other alleged Conjuration (Creation) spells? Should creatures with significant SR have their CR lowered if that CR treats their SR as being a significant defense rather than a mild annoyance?

[Fizban]

Warning: Incoming Wall of Text (complete with rants/analysis that will likely displease RAW and char-op enthusiasts).


The whole point of spell resistance is to create a category of monsters that have a preternatural resistance to magical effects. In this context "magical effects" are a collection of abilities that seem to grant supernatural power over natural forces. This is why spell resistance is typically found on "unnatural" creatures which are inherently attuned with the otherwise supernatural force.
There is no overriding mechanical balancing act at work here. It's entirely a story decision.
False dichotomy: these are not mutually exclusive. Just because SR is "used" to make monsters seem unnatural or magically tuned, does not mean it is not also as significant part of their defense. Furthermore, assuming not just any game mechanic, but a major one from the core monster manual, is nothing but "story," suggests you haven't seriously considered the effects of the mechanic. As has been noted, the fact that the SR chance multiplies with save chance means that against normal spells which allow saves, monsters with SR are a lot more than "story."

Core-only casters have a significantly harder time hurting SR monsters, and the fact that splatbooks (read: pressure from forumites) decided SR shouldn't matter, doesn't change the foundation. Shockingly enough, weapon combat is a lot more important in a game where spells don't always work, and yet people complain about martials being useless when they allow all these splats that guarantee spells will always work. In the usual orobouros of circular logic, SR-no spells are often used to justify making it easy to beat SR for all the remaining spells (Assay Resistance isn't broken, the Orbs already do it at the same level!), despite the fact that the orbs don't mind control or insta kill generally being used to justify why its okay to allow SR-no blasting (it's just damage, it can't be broken, who cares!).

he Evasion ability again negates the damage entirely. It is very common to encounter at least one of these at all levels of play.
Spell resistance, sure, but Evasion is an extremely rare monster ability. And also a significantly rare class ability. So if you encounter it frequently, that's not a rules trend, that's a DM choice.

It's really not fair to compare a Twinned-Empowered Orb of Acid followed by a Quickened Orb of Acid to a vanilla Fireball and call the former broken. What you should be doing is comparing it to an Energy Substituted Explosive Cold Lord of Uttercold Fireball (a double-threat half cold/half negative energy damage with an additional 1d6 damage per 10 feet a creature is moved on a failed save plus knocking it prone) or an Energy Substituted Electric Born of Three Thunders Ice Storm (a triple threat spell with a 20 ft. radius that damages and halves movement rate with no save, stuns for 1 round on a failed Fortitude save and then knocks prone of a failed Reflex save, all with zero metamagic spell level adjustment).
I mean, it doesn't really matter how one uber meta-spell compares to the other, the important part is if they fit the rest of the game (the table, DM+players, etc).

You are exactly describing the function of the orb line of spells.
Is it a function, or a function ascribed to an arbitrary change? I would actually agree that they were changed to SR-no specifically to give the Warmage a set of options for SR foes (and were changed to Conjuration to justify it). But one must remember-

The orb spells are conjurations. Most of them have fluff descriptions to that effect. You are, rather arbitrarily, declaring that fluff insufficient for no logical reason other than you you don't like that the spells are written as conjurations.
That the orb spells are not conjurations. Not the orignal orbs printed on Tome and Blood, which were evocation, and vastly different. The "reprints" in Miniatures Handbook alongside the Warmage became simplified single shot SR-no spells, for what seems most likely a simple reason: it's Mini's Handbook, a book meant for use with the DnD Miniatures line, where you'd control large groups instead of a single PC. This means spells and casters need to be simplified, and lo, the Warmage. The Warmage only has a fixed set of fighty spells, so those need to include something useful against high SR creatures, and lo, the orbs are now SR-no and a bunch of other SR no spells are printed in the same book (Blast of Flame and Arc of Lightning, then Vitriolic Sphere appears in Complete Arcane as well).

So far as they don't "feel" like conjuration spells to you because of damage reasons? Well, the only real "blasting" conjuration spell in core, Melf's Acid Arrow, does deal damage that scales with your caster level in the form of additional damage over time per three caster levels. It does so in a manner functionally identical to the evocation spell Flaming Sphere at the same level. In that same vein, Scorching Ray (also the same level) and Magic Missile are some more evocations that also do static damage.
Now, the fact that there aren't any real blasting spells in core already admits that the original feel of conjuration was not in fact blasting, and not even the 3.5 update changed that. Serious instantaneous conjuration blasting is from splatbooks, and originates mainly from one particular splatbook (Mini's Handbook, as mentioned). Acid Arrow and Flaming Sphere are not in the same category as d6/level instantaneous area/target spells.


the Scorching Ray spell would produce relatively similar results for a much smaller metamagic adjustment than the orb spells. And he could do it with relatively the same effectiveness by merely casting Assay Spell Resistance as his swift action in the first round.
Special mention for any argument taking Scorching Ray as a justification with its effective d6/level single target no-save at 2nd? Yeah not such a great idea. Because the entire rest of the edition that existed before that, didn't have that. In 3.0 there was no d6/level single no-save until 6th level spells, with the freezing ray option of Freezing Sphere. Otherwise you got either d6/2 levels, or it had a save, or both. Flame Arrow at 3rd, a conjuration which allowed SR because it wasn't until Mini's that every conjuration was suddenly excused from SR, did have a 4d6/4 levels ranged touch attack option, but it also allowed the save. The version of Hailstones found in Savage Species also has this save. The original orbs had the touch (and SR), and the save.

It's not until 3.5 that d6/level no-save is a thing anywhere in the first half of the game, and it's funny too. Scorching Ray is suspiciously similar to the Flame Arrow blasts, while Flame Arrow lost that option. You'd think it's because someone decided splitting them should result in a level drop, but Flame Arrow stayed at 3rd and still got nerfed, while Scorching Ray lost the save. And then Freezing Sphere lost its no-save damage (replaced with a small area instead), and Polar Ray suddenly appears, at 8th freaking level. In short, whoever made these changes either did not pay attention to or deliberately ignored the trends of the entire original spell canon.

You'll also find, if you check the credits on the various books, that almost none of the splat books with these (many) spells that stomp all over the clearly visible original bounds, share authors with the original books. You can play with all published material as written, but any amount of investigation reminds one that the dozens of books were written by dozens of authors, all with different ideas of what was appropriate, even when they were "updating" someone else's work.

One may also check the DMG and bring up the table on maximum dice for arcane/divine spells based on level as justification, but note that this section says nothing about how fast those dice are accrued, or whether they allow a save. The clear standard on PHB spells (and even most splats before the many cooks started "revising") of 1st-2nd level is one die per two levels, the only exception being Burning Hands, which uses d4s, and caps at 5d4. Acid Arrow requires multiple rounds, and Flaming Sphere requires multiple rounds+actions+failed saves+SR (gasp, a conjuration with SR!), and the clear standard on no-save spells is no more than one die per two levels until 6th level. That section does however say that if a spell is so good everyone wants it all the time, it's probably too powerful, and hey look what spell every single "blaster" caster has, often even when they don't have an orb. Because as you note, Scorching Ray is nearly as much damage for two levels lower- because not only does it blatantly break the die progression, and saving throw convention, but it also breaks the die cap, with not 10 but 12d6, and actually gets them a level early.

Just how this spell got approved, and how it became the new standard justifying an entire class of similarly borked spells, should be a mystery. . .

Really?
Arc of Lightning
Blast of Flame
Blast of Sand
Bombardment
Cometfall
Deadfall
Fire and Brimstone
Lava Splash
Storm of Needles
Tunnel SwallowAll of them are instant direct damage spells
None of them are Acid
And none of them allow SR
Also, most of them caps at 15 dice - just as Orbs (couple of 10s "compensated" with couple of 20s)
I mean, those spells are also all at varying levels. Of those, Blast of Flame and Sand are both 4th level but with small areas and 10 dice, compared to the "standard" 15 dice for a 4th level spell, an actual tradeoff (though there are actually few 4th level blasting spells, and only Druidic Flame Strike in core has 15 dice, breaking the DMG's 10 die cap for both divine and arcane at 4th)-(Acid Breath also having a tiny cone area at 3rd with 10 dice). Arc of Lightning has 15d6, which is standard for 5th level, but also has an extremely finicky area and can't be used against single targets without targeting an ally to make it work. Tunnel Swallow is a super specific spell that squishes people using the terrain, and is also so painfully obviously a transmutation that it's a farce- and it's also a 6th level spell, so again 15d6 is low-standard damage.

Lava Splash is a Clr/Drd only spell that once again deals d4s, not d6's (and 15d4 ~37.5, compared to 10d6 ~35, so yeah). Cometfall is also Clr/Drd only, at 6th level, with 15d6. And Deadfall is Druid 8. For whatever reason, "attack with the environment/conjuring environment" is often made divine-only.

Storm of Needles and Fire and Brimstone are both from Complete Mage, the book with Abjurant Champion and a whole host of other stuff that screams "we're bending to internet pressure." Printed long after the normalization of SR-no blasting, and indeed after Spell Compendium stripped all the limits out of a bunch of other spells. You can see radical differences in power level from item to item in the book. Storm of Needles deals d4s again and is a Wu Jen only Metal spell, and Fire and Brimstone is a single target save for half spell, at 5th level, something I don't think I've ever seen anyone recommend casting- and this is what you want to justify the uber orbs?

So it turns out all those SR-no conjuration blasting spells that "justify" the orbs (despite many of them being printed long after), are higher level, divine (when divine casters barely care about school), or both. And those that aren't, are actually weaker than the orbs.



Make no mistake, if you're looking for someone to back up a nerf to the sacred Orbs of Cheese, I'm the guy you're looking for. A huge, seriously, ridiculously massive amount of "DPS" expectation comes from exactly one spell: Scorching Ray. That, and the Orbs (whose changes may have been conceived around the same time, otherwise they're a direct descendant), influence a dozen other spells down the line, forming the entire foundation of the "mailman" and standards for lol easy damage (for telling the Fighter that sword+str is bad). You'd have a heck of a lot harder time putting out piles of meta damage without those those spells, and they all come back to One. Single. Point. In 3.0 PHB you don't get that effect until 6th level, with SR, and you can't cheese your way out of SR. Seriously, think of how nerfed those damage expectations are when they're pushed back from 2nd level spells to 6th level spells, when "Scorching Ray" is a 3rd level spell that requires touch, and SR, and allows a save for half, when "Orb of X" is a 6th level spell that still allows SR and no rider effects.

Seriously think about it. How the entire first half of the game, levels 1-10, had a very clear and intentional cap of one die per two levels on the no-save effects (still allowing single target die/level, just with saves), and the glorious 3.5 update added spell that said "actually that's just for 1st level spells now, let's pull that damage rate from ECL 11 to ECL 3." A spell which blatantly broke every guideline in the DMG for new spells, and yet is used as the basis and justification for an entire archetype, which it itself used as a justification for worse on the grounds of it being "just damage." Take a look at the ridiculously wide margin between CR 3-10 creatures in say, MM1, and the same in MM3- when MM1 is barely altered from its 3.0 state, and MM3 is full of optimized monsters with new abilities to ignore their fundamental weaknesses (and yes, probably SR just for "story" reasons).

Some people play such that Scorching Ray et al are indeed appropriate, or even underpowered, but this does not change the fact that this one spell uprooted and trampled over the base mechanics of the entire edition. The power trio of Glitterdust, Web, and Stinking Cloud are worse, sure, even more grossly overpowered and were so even in 3.0, justifying the whole viewpoint that damage is weak, but no change there. Instead additions only, break damage too, and then add some underpowered status effect spells later.

Metamagic reduction stacking is for pretty much one thing: damage. And that damage, the damage that really goes past the limit and causes unavoidable problems, is based on a handful of "revised" spells that were already broken. Pretty much every metamagic feat is just fine if used normally, even in combination with other feats, and even if you can reduce some of that cost, and non-damage spells don't even need multiple metamagic feats. Metamagic reduction stacking is broken, but it's broken because of Scorching Ray and the "orbs."


Mechanically, why do Orbs need to be SR: No? Was direct damage so “suboptimal” that the game was all “oh no, there might be a reason for noncasters to actually exist—to do single-target DPS—while casters do everything else better, so let’s take that away from noncasters too?”

Is SR so fearsome a defense against God-wizards and CoDzilla that we actually need “haha, what SR?” spells and feats even outside Orbs and other alleged Conjuration (Creation) spells? Should creatures with significant SR have their CR lowered if that CR treats their SR as being a significant defense rather than a mild annoyance?
As above but repeated: because Warmages/Mini's Handbook needed more SR-no effects, so they butchered the original Orbs (one of my favorite things in my old Tome and Blood). SR is actually a very effective defense (in combination with the saving throw) against of touted god-solutions like Dominate Monster, as long as Assay Resistance doesn't exist. Just Dominate the Tarrasque they say, but even at 20th you've got maybe a 66% chance, and at 17th it's a lot worse, gonna take multiple top-level spells to beat this boss/level appropriate foe (which is not in fact permanently neutralized yet).

[ShurikVch]

To be fair, I wasn't aware of any of these before you mentioned them. And all of them that I can actually find at least offer a saving throw against the damage, so they aren't completely unavoidable.Orbs, on the other hand, required to hit with a ranged touch attack
While touch attacks are easier than common attacks, Sorcerer and Wizard are classes with the second worst BAB in the game, and likely have little to no of Dex bonus (because of being extremely SAD)



Why do Orbs need to be Conjuration (Creation)? They seemingly create “pure energy” out of nothing, not assemble material which is really hot or really cold or really... sonic... or forceful.... er, that is, they seem to do exactly what Evocation says it does.They're creating planar stuff: Elemental Plane of Fire is well known, Elemental Plane of Cold exists in some cosmologies, Acid may be on the border of Elemental Planes of Earth and Water (or The Slime Pits of Juiblex), Electricity - Demiplane of Electromagnetism, and while no Plane of Sonic was mentioned, Sonic Elementals are still exist...



That the orb spells are not conjurations. Not the orignal orbs printed on Tome and Blood, which were evocation, and vastly different. The "reprints" in Miniatures Handbook alongside the Warmage became simplified single shot SR-no spells, for what seems most likely a simple reason: it's Mini's Handbook, a book meant for use with the DnD Miniatures line, where you'd control large groups instead of a single PC. This means spells and casters need to be simplified, and lo, the Warmage. The Warmage only has a fixed set of fighty spells, so those need to include something useful against high SR creatures, and lo, the orbs are now SR-no and a bunch of other SR no spells are printed in the same book (Blast of Flame and Arc of Lightning, then Vitriolic Sphere appears in Complete Arcane as well).Actually, Miniatures Handbook redesigned only Lesser Orbs - "regular" Orbs stayed Evocation
And spells in Complete Arcane/Spell Compendium are, technically, different: while Tome and Blood/Miniatures Handbook have spell names in "... Orb (, Lesser)" format, CArc/SC have them in "Orb of ... (, Lesser)"
(Besides that, Acid Orb is, probably, stronger than Orb of Acid, since it inflicts nauseated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#nauseated) condition)
Also, Vitriolic Sphere was nerfed in Spell Compendium to 6d6 damage


I mean, those spells are also all at varying levels. Of those, Blast of Flame and Sand are both 4th level but with small areas and 10 dice, compared to the "standard" 15 dice for a 4th level spell, an actual tradeoff (though there are actually few 4th level blasting spells, and only Druidic Flame Strike in core has 15 dice, breaking the DMG's 10 die cap for both divine and arcane at 4th)-(Acid Breath also having a tiny cone area at 3rd with 10 dice). Arc of Lightning has 15d6, which is standard for 5th level, but also has an extremely finicky area and can't be used against single targets without targeting an ally to make it work. Tunnel Swallow is a super specific spell that squishes people using the terrain, and is also so painfully obviously a transmutation that it's a farce- and it's also a 6th level spell, so again 15d6 is low-standard damage.

Lava Splash is a Clr/Drd only spell that once again deals d4s, not d6's (and 15d4 ~37.5, compared to 10d6 ~35, so yeah). Cometfall is also Clr/Drd only, at 6th level, with 15d6. And Deadfall is Druid 8. For whatever reason, "attack with the environment/conjuring environment" is often made divine-only.

Storm of Needles and Fire and Brimstone are both from Complete Mage, the book with Abjurant Champion and a whole host of other stuff that screams "we're bending to internet pressure." Printed long after the normalization of SR-no blasting, and indeed after Spell Compendium stripped all the limits out of a bunch of other spells. You can see radical differences in power level from item to item in the book. Storm of Needles deals d4s again and is a Wu Jen only Metal spell, and Fire and Brimstone is a single target save for half spell, at 5th level, something I don't think I've ever seen anyone recommend casting- and this is what you want to justify the uber orbs?

So it turns out all those SR-no conjuration blasting spells that "justify" the orbs (despite many of them being printed long after), are higher level, divine (when divine casters barely care about school), or both. And those that aren't, are actually weaker than the orbs.I don't see why those spells being a higher level is an argument there: by the time Orbs reach their caps, you will be able to cast spells of any level (at the very least, below 9th)
"Divine" argument is even weirder - we all know how much ways to add new spells to their repertoire Wizards have (and Sorcerers aren't completely helpless there too!)
And "Blast of Flame and Sand" being 10 dice - so what? Orb of Force have 10 dice cap too!

[Aotrs Commander]

But a ball of pure fire? Pure cold? Pure sound? Pure force? Sounds... magical... and in particular, like “Evocation spells manipulate energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end. In effect, they create something out of nothing.”

Sci-fi gun, like I said, if you want to disagard the flamethrower anaolgy.. See also phasers, blasters, PPGs, heat rays, freeze rays, lasers, sonic cannons... Sufficiently Advanced Technology might be indetinguishable from magic, but that doesn't mean it IS magic.




(And making quarterstaffs isn’t at all comparable, which should go without saying — it requires multiple wielders with significant BAB and Strength or other bonus damage, over multiple rounds to enter melee range, overcome full AC—not touch AC—as well as potential damage resistance, versus one-shot dial-the-right-energy-type touch-AC metamagic-able bursts of nigh-irresistible damage outside of % miss chances or direct-counter spells, both of which work against quarterstaves, too.)

Effectiveness was entirely irrelevant to my point - the point being you can make a load of quarterstaffs with magic at the same level as the Orb spells and things you hit with them don't get SR.



Worth mentioning, Splinterbolt - particulary relevant to the Scorching Ray debate, given its the same level; no SR, no save - sure, it gets affected by DR (because it doesn't deal energy damage - conversely, though it's also not affected by energy resistance like the Orcs are), but it is also a high crit weapon. (And by the time you've pulled at the metamagic on it, DR is likely to only marginally reduce the damage. It's also doing more damage than the Orbs at the first level you get them (2 x 4D6 verses 7D6).

I mean, Splinterbolt might actually be cheesier in one respect - Splinterbolt will cheerfully hit dragons, for example, because they only have DR/Magic, which Spinterbolt penetrates (despite being no save, no SR...)

Okay, it's not going to help you kill golems (otherwise known as "go away Wizard player, you're not allowed to participate in this combat, sit and twiddle your thumbs" if Orbs and the like don't exist), but it's also only level 2 and is only going to be outstripped permenantly by the Orb spells at level 12.

Yes, it's a druid spell, so you can't use any of the metamagic reducers available to arcane spellusers (as easily, anyway, I'm sure you could actually do it whith a moderate application of playground char-op-fu if you really wanted...), but as mentioned those are the problem, not the Orb spells themselves.

[NNescio]

(...) Worth mentioning, Splinterbolt - particulary relevant to the Scorching Ray debate, given its the same level; no SR, no save - sure, it gets affected by DR (because it doesn't deal energy damage - conversely, though it's also not affected by energy resistance like the Orcs are), but it is also a high crit weapon.
(...)

New spell: Orc of Fire.

[Fizban]

Actually, Miniatures Handbook redesigned only Lesser Orbs - "regular" Orbs stayed Evocation
Stayed in the sense that weren't mentioned in Mini's, but good catch, I had indeed assumed the CA versions had already appeared there when they hadn't yet. In which case the changes to the Lesser orbs could even be passed off as relatively minor, before CA decided to change the major orbs.

And spells in Complete Arcane/Spell Compendium are, technically, different: while Tome and Blood/Miniatures Handbook have spell names in "... Orb (, Lesser)" format, CArc/SC have them in "Orb of ... (, Lesser)"
(Besides that, Acid Orb is, probably, stronger than Orb of Acid, since it inflicts nauseated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#nauseated) condition)
First time I've ever heard someone draw the distinction.

Also, Vitriolic Sphere was nerfed in Spell Compendium to 6d6 damage
I am aware of the change- note that I don't actually have a problem with the AoE SR-no spells: I think they do their job perfectly well, aside from helping set a poor trend in motion. And SpC's Vitriolic Sphere is notable for actually dealing 18d6 on a failed save at 5th level, not so much a nerf as it is a shift to focus on the bonus failed save damage. The lack of a level based scaling tends to make people check out and miss that part.

I don't see why those spells being a higher level is an argument there: by the time Orbs reach their caps, you will be able to cast spells of any level (at the very least, below 9th)
"Divine" argument is even weirder - we all know how much ways to add new spells to their repertoire Wizards have (and Sorcerers aren't completely helpless there too!)
And "Blast of Flame and Sand" being 10 dice - so what? Orb of Force have 10 dice cap too!
Because the whole nature of "caps" is what makes spells more powerful than psionics. Lower level spells with higher die caps give you free power on every spell. A 4th level spell that goes to 15 dice is more powerful than one that goes to 10 dice, and is even more powerful than a 5th level spell that goes to 15 dice*, because you can cast it in all those 4th level slots. The existence of a 10 die 4th level spell does not justify a 15 die 4th level spell. You're trying to use the existence of higher level spells that equal the orbs in damage, to justify them. That doesn't work. No amount of spells above X level will justify the existence of a spell at X level. The fact that several of them are weaker, or not even Sor/Wiz spells (and don't you try to tell me with a straight face that the existence of off-list spells justifies putting whatever you want on a different list), is just extra at that point.

The only spell that justifies the CA orbs' existence is. . . Scorching Ray.

*It should be noted that the difference in the 4th level spell dice is coming down exactly along the DMG's 15 single/10 area split for arcane spells, it's just that at 4th level there also happen to be zero phb arcane attack spells, and barely any in splats (and because everyone looks at the uber orbs first, the 10 die found in 4th level AoEs looks weak, made worse by them mostly being limited area SR-no spells, and also Schrodenger's many/single foe). The true price the SR-no AoEs are paying is in their smaller and more restricted areas. Acid Breath in particular is near-unusable, Blast of Flame/Sand have a 30' cone which is smaller than you'd think, Vitriolic Sphere is a 10' burst, and Arc of Lightning again has the two target with line in-between thing. Compared to Fireball, Ice Storm**, Lightning Bolt, and Cone of Cold they might as well be melee attacks. The uber orbs have short range, same as many other single target spells- single target spells that allow SR. So why aren't these single target SR-no spells using Touch range, especially when they're flouting the previously established limits on no-save spells, and adding rider effects?

**I had forgotten Ice Storm in my summary of no-save spells below 6th- on most spells the trend is most easily read as 1 die/2 levels, but more accurately it's a cap of 5 dice, as Ice Storm lets you jump ahead a bit.


Sci-fi gun, like I said, if you want to disagard the flamethrower anaolgy.. See also phasers, blasters, PPGs, heat rays, freeze rays, lasers, sonic cannons... Sufficiently Advanced Technology might be indetinguishable from magic, but that doesn't mean it IS magic.
You can say that, but you know what those would all be classified as? Energy weapons, e-n-e-r-g-y (well maybe not a "PPG," never heard of it). You've got light waves and sound waves, which are energy, not matter. And "rays," which in DnD are nearly, possibly entirely, all evocations. No amount of twisting will change how obvious it that the spells were written to bypass SR first, and justify the fluff change to what were originally evocations later. When your "sufficiently advanced technology" is in fact literally magic, trying to argue it's not magic just doesn't work for anyone who doesn't have the same end-goal.


Worth mentioning, Splinterbolt - particulary relevant to the Scorching Ray debate,
Uh, Splinterbolt requires a normal ranged attack, not a touch. Kinda relevant for comparing to other spells. Though being such an obvious variant on Scorching Ray makes it about the least relevant it could be. It actually has the proper fluff for an SR-no conjuration instantaneous damage spell, but that's about it. The normal attack requirement is actually a penalty though, and the sort of thing an SR-no spell should be considering.

[Aotrs Commander]

New spell: Orc of Fire.

FRAGDAMMIT! Would you believe I spotted that went "oh, whoops," and changed it and must have hit "c" AGAIN...!

[ShurikVch]

Much the point I was trying/hoping to make - and while, yes, Orbs are not unique as Conjuration (Creation) instant-damage-nuke spells, I would be happy dropping the same hammer on all such spells, making them Evocation SR Yes spells. It’s not like Conjuration wouldn’t still be a very strong, possibly still the strongest, school. (Don’t even get me started on Abrupt-freaking-Jaunt.) (And yes, a fair number of battlefield control spells have SR No, and if they have a direct effect against foes, I’m not so sold on the idea that they should ignore SR, either.)
Would you also move to Evocation SR Yes Wall of Gears, which does SR No to those who try to walk through it?
Or, for that matter, Wall of Iron, which does SR No damage when fall on somebody?

If you so tired of omnipotent invulnerable spellcasters, then try to run a Midnight game.
It have the weakest casters in the all 3.X
(Seriously, they're weaker than in E6 - despite being occasionally able to cast 8th-level spells)



Lava Splash is a Clr/Drd only spell that once again deals d4s, not d6's (and 15d4 ~37.5, compared to 10d6 ~35, so yeah).Correction: it does 15d6 at 15 CL


First time I've ever heard someone draw the distinction.I mean - in the name, every letter and comma does matter: XYZ spell isn't the same as XZY, YXZ, or ZYX.
Sure, Orbs from Complete Arcane were stated to be replacement of Orbs from Tome and Blood in the Feats, Prestige Classes, and Spells (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20050110x), but some people don't use online sources on sheer principle, some other (which do) are completely unaware of this page, and some more (who're using online stuff and aware of this page) think it's full of %&$# and pretend it don't exist


I am aware of the change- note that I don't actually have a problem with the AoE SR-no spells: I think they do their job perfectly well, aside from helping set a poor trend in motion. And SpC's Vitriolic Sphere is notable for actually dealing 18d6 on a failed save at 5th level, not so much a nerf as it is a shift to focus on the bonus failed save damage. The lack of a level based scaling tends to make people check out and miss that part.Where you getting 18d6? :smallconfused:
It's flat 6d6 - regardless of level


Lower level spells with higher die caps give you free power on every spell. A 4th level spell that goes to 15 dice is more powerful than one that goes to 10 dice, and is even more powerful than a 5th level spell that goes to 15 dice*, because you can cast it in all those 4th level slots. The existence of a 10 die 4th level spell does not justify a 15 die 4th level spell. You're trying to use the existence of higher level spells that equal the orbs in damage, to justify them. That doesn't work. No amount of spells above X level will justify the existence of a spell at X level. The fact that several of them are weaker, or not even Sor/Wiz spells (and don't you try to tell me with a straight face that the existence of off-list spells justifies putting whatever you want on a different list), is just extra at that point.

The only spell that justifies the CA orbs' existence is. . . Scorching Ray.But there are just so much time in combat
Who care if you cast spell of X level, or X+N?
15 minute adventuring day ensure you will never run out of spells since about level 5 (unless either you're playing extremely recklessly, or you DM wants your PC dead)
Thus, from the moment you can cast X+1-level spells, you will never come back to X-level spells (in combat)
And CL will ensure your low-level spells don't do more damage than their higher-level analogues (at least, without metamagic)


And "rays," which in DnD are nearly, possibly entirely, all evocations.Not entirely: despite Evocation, indeed, have the biggest set of "rays", other schools have them too, so their combined number outweighs Evocation.
For example, Necromancy have many ray spells, Abjuration and Enchantment got some too, and even Conjuration and Divination got one.
Apparently, the only school which truly lacks in rays is Illusion.

[Remuko]

Where you getting 18d6? :smallconfused:
It's flat 6d6 - regardless of level

It deals 6d6, save for half. But if you fail the save you take the full 6d6, then 6d6 again for 2 more rounds. 6d6 x 3 = 18d6 on a failed save.

[Droid Tony]

The simple solution, as often to any 'high' magic problem, is to simply add more magic. When you have a high level spellcaster going up agianst mundane foes, then sure they will dominate. A 16th level wizard can take out a mundane foe like a hill giant with ease. But such a wizard should be fighting things more like a greater storm elemental or a Chaoswyrd.

The easy way is to use feinds and elementals, though they have the metgame problem that the player will just switch damage types. So the better way is templates. Templates can make a weak, easy to blast monster live a couple more rounds. And best of all, the player can't metagame and know the template.

For example:

Radiant: No radiant creature can be dazed, dazzled or stunned. Or Half-Golem for the magic immunity. Ones like half dragon are the real gem. While sure the player can do the metagame and switch damage types when they encounter a half red dragon creature....well, it gets lots more fun with all the draon types beyond Core.

Also, any humanoid foe over 10th level or so can afford at least a couple magic items of protection.

Really this is not too much work for a DM. And if it is, well, you could just make every monster in the game world a half golem.




So in conclusion; the spells aren't the main source of the problem. It's the character.

The spells are the big problem. The flaw is the game re writing it's own rules.

Rule-When you shoot fire or lightning or such at a monster it IS magic fire or lightning and can be resisted with spell resistance.

Re writing the rule--Oh some magic is, um normal mundane stuff..that looks and works exactly like magic but, um, it's all mundane so so spell resistance.

And the creation magic bypassing SR has an obvious question....well, ok, so Why is not ALL magic Conjuration Creation magic? Why not re create every single spell as a ''created mundane effect'' so they all by pass spell resistance?

[Fizban]

Correction: it does 15d6 at 15 CL
Lava Splash deals d4s with a cap of 15, at 4th level. Blast of Flame and Blast of Sand, and every other 4th level instantaneous AoE that's not Druidic Flame Strike, deals d6s with a cap of 10. The comparison is between 15d4 and 10d6, and 15d4 is only 2.5 more average damage (with a lower Maximize value). Lava Splash does not prove anything. The rules quote you want to justify the uber orbs is the one from the DMG, which moves to the next phase I've already addressed.

Where you getting 18d6? :smallconfused:
It's flat 6d6 - regardless of level
The text of the spell, where a failed save causes 6d6 damage on two additional turns.

But there are just so much time in combat
Who care if you cast spell of X level, or X+N?
15 minute adventuring day ensure you will never run out of spells since about level 5 (unless either you're playing extremely recklessly, or you DM wants your PC dead)
Thus, from the moment you can cast X+1-level spells, you will never come back to X-level spells (in combat)
And CL will ensure your low-level spells don't do more damage than their higher-level analogues (at least, without metamagic)
No, it really doesn't. The gap in spells per day between the expected default (non-specialists with a starting 15) and char-op ("focused specialists" with a starting 20), is huge. The fact that spells do not always work and you do not always have perfect information means that the "one" spell which supposedly ends the fight, can very much end up not ending the fight. The fact that all those lower level spells are lower level spells means that they have less impact on the fight*. Any test of actual substance will immediately reveal these things to be true. This argument is essentially "I have 'enough' high level spells that all my low level spells should be just as powerful." No, if you have "enough" high level spells that the game is trivial, it means you shouldn't be keeping those low level spells. But by the game's normal baseline, you don't.

It is not until after 10th level, more like 13th, that claims "spellcasters never run out of spells" start to be true, when you have piles of 3rd, 4th, and 5th, rather than just a couple 3rds. And if the adventure they're in actually requires them to Teleport, Plane Shift, or use other "zomg wizard (actually Cleric)" spells without a rest? Those add up incredibly fast.

*At least when they're damage spells- as I noted, the save-or-lose power trio are indeed pretty borked, and one could use this to justify the idea that 2nd+ level evocations should all be drastically more powerful to match them and thus Scorching Ray. Except they didn't do that, they just added Scorching Ray and actually removed/nerfed the other single target damage in the PHB (Flame Arrow blast and Freezing Sphere ray, from 3.0). So claiming Scorching Ray was a self-aware fix rings mighty hollow to me, the same way "Two-handed Power Attack returns were a fix for low melee damage" does, because changing one tiny thing and expecting all characters to use it goes directly against the goal of allowing varied characters, and against the the definition of an overpowered spell.

Not entirely: despite Evocation, indeed, have the biggest set of "rays", other schools have them too, so their combined number outweighs Evocation.
For example, Necromancy have many ray spells, Abjuration and Enchantment got some too, and even Conjuration and Divination got one.
Apparently, the only school which truly lacks in rays is Illusion.
Fair enough, though you haven't listed them I recall upon prompting. Nevermind that the conjuration ray, if it's the one I'm thinking, still has no business being a "conjuration"- so how many of those deal damage? Not that the contended point is whether you can have non-evocation rays, that was my looking for extra "rules" examples. The point is that a spell that produces an energy weapon effect is pretty obviously magical energy. I should know better than to underestimate the dozen cooks who cant read the recipe.

I don't see much point in actually arguing this one mind you, I just wanted to point out how a list of energy weapons was being used to justify classifying energy spells as matter.

[mouser13]

Well or the dragon just needs to change tactics most dragons are sorc so wings of cover are a options negating is attack plus minons if he has any around him. .

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well or the dragon just needs to change tactics most dragons are sorc so wings of cover are a options negating is attack plus minons if he has any around him. .

Scintillating scales. Suddenly its AC and its touch AC are the same.

It was mentioned up thread and it's probably the best option short of ray deflection just saying "nope" to the orbs and anything else that demands a ranged touch.

[tiercel]

Core-only casters have a significantly harder time hurting SR monsters, and the fact that splatbooks (read: pressure from forumites) decided SR shouldn't matter, doesn't change the foundation. Shockingly enough, weapon combat is a lot more important in a game where spells don't always work, and yet people complain about martials being useless when they allow all these splats that guarantee spells will always work. In the usual orobouros of circular logic, SR-no spells are often used to justify making it easy to beat SR for all the remaining spells (Assay Resistance isn't broken, the Orbs already do it at the same level!), despite the fact that the orbs don't mind control or insta kill generally being used to justify why its okay to allow SR-no blasting (it's just damage, it can't be broken, who cares!).

Hence my comment about “shouldn’t every monster with significant SR have its CR lowered?” In a game with Assay Resistance and the like, and Orbs and the like, SR is more of a speed bump than a defense, and thus the foe is less challenging than its CR would purport.


Sci-fi gun, like I said, if you want to disagard the flamethrower anaolgy.. See also phasers, blasters, PPGs, heat rays, freeze rays, lasers, sonic cannons... Sufficiently Advanced Technology might be indetinguishable from magic, but that doesn't mean it IS magic.

Effectiveness was entirely irrelevant to my point - the point being you can make a load of quarterstaffs with magic at the same level as the Orb spells and things you hit with them don't get SR.


You can say that, but you know what those would all be classified as? Energy weapons, e-n-e-r-g-y (well maybe not a "PPG," never heard of it). You've got light waves and sound waves, which are energy, not matter. And "rays," which in DnD are nearly, possibly entirely, all evocations. No amount of twisting will change how obvious it that the spells were written to bypass SR first, and justify the fluff change to what were originally evocations later. When your "sufficiently advanced technology" is in fact literally magic, trying to argue it's not magic just doesn't work for anyone who doesn't have the same end-goal.

Agree w/Fizban here: I see a difference in kind between “magic results in sticks of actual nonmagical wood” and “magic results in orbs of pure yet somehow nonmagical ;) energy”. Heck, Minor Creation quarterstaves still have a duration and thus wink out in an antimagic area, but Orbs are so “nonmagical” they can pummel a creature right through antimagic.



Okay, it's not going to help you kill golems (otherwise known as "go away Wizard player, you're not allowed to participate in this combat, sit and twiddle your thumbs" if Orbs and the like don't exist)

Wait, what? I hear that Wizards have these things called “buff spells”, much less spells that don’t need to have to target the golem directly to have an effect (e.g. illusions to fool a mindless creature, physical barriers to block or stop it), much less any Wizard worth her ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) will know what spells DO actually affect, e.g., a Jelly Doughnut Golem.

Wizards don’t need to have “LOL, nope, I just ignore your so-called ‘magic immunity’ and pummel you to death with magic” spells to contribute to golem fights, and honestly I’m OK with there being fights where Wizards genuinely aren’t necessarily 100%+ Better Than You In Every Way

[Mr Adventurer]

Ones like half dragon are the real gem. While sure the player can do the metagame and switch damage types when they encounter a half red dragon creature....well, it gets lots more fun with all the draon types beyond Core.

This isn't necessarily metagaming at all. Knowledge ranks or even decent guesswork based on previous experience would tell a party about half dragon immunities.

[ShurikVch]

The spells are the big problem. The flaw is the game re writing it's own rules.

Rule-When you shoot fire or lightning or such at a monster it IS magic fire or lightning and can be resisted with spell resistance.

Re writing the rule--Oh some magic is, um normal mundane stuff..that looks and works exactly like magic but, um, it's all mundane so so spell resistance.

And the creation magic bypassing SR has an obvious question....well, ok, so Why is not ALL magic Conjuration Creation magic? Why not re create every single spell as a ''created mundane effect'' so they all by pass spell resistance?Note: Force Missile is a no-save, no-SR, auto-hit spell. (It's Evocation, but still no-SR.)
Heck, the Orb of Force was Evocation for about 2 months (since the release of Dragon Compendium and until the Spell Compendium was published) while still being no-SR
What's you will say about it?



Lava Splash deals d4s with a cap of 15, at 4th level.Correction - RAW says: "Each creature in the area takes 1d4 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 15d6)."



The text of the spell, where a failed save causes 6d6 damage on two additional turns.Since that damage isn't instant, it may be mitigated or negated (or wounded enemy may just kill your PC first)



No, it really doesn't. The gap in spells per day between the expected default (non-specialists with a starting 15) and char-op ("focused specialists" with a starting 20), is huge.Oh, come on!
One spell per round, three rounds per encounter, three encounters per day. What kind of full caster is unable to cast 9 spells per day at level 6+?


The fact that spells do not always work and you do not always have perfect information means that the "one" spell which supposedly ends the fight, can very much end up not ending the fight.Well...
Tree spells per encounter. Three! Even if one or two spells wouldn't work, at least one solid hit is a given.
"Golden staples." Color Spray, Glitterdust, Grease, Fog Cloud, Web... Pretty much infallible choices
Rest of the party. Even if Wizard failed sometimes, it doesn't mean the fight is lost. It's not a sole adventure. (And even sole Wizard may have pets, cohorts, or hirelings)

The fact that all those lower level spells are lower level spells means that they have less impact on the fight*. Any test of actual substance will immediately reveal these things to be true.Death Ward is 4th-level spell;
Silence - 2nd-level;
Protection from Evil - 1st-level.
"Less impact", ne?


This argument is essentially "I have 'enough' high level spells that all my low level spells should be just as powerful." No, if you have "enough" high level spells that the game is trivial, it means you shouldn't be keeping those low level spells. But by the game's normal baseline, you don't.My English is, apparently, insufficient to understand what's you're trying to say there


It is not until after 10th level, more like 13th, that claims "spellcasters never run out of spells" start to be true, when you have piles of 3rd, 4th, and 5th, rather than just a couple 3rds.As I already pointed, in the average adventuring day, spellcaster wouldn't run out of spells since level 5 or 6


And if the adventure they're in actually requires them to Teleport, Plane ShiftWhich wouldn't even come online until - what, 9th level?

or use other "zomg wizard (actually Cleric)" spells without a rest?I presuming "actually Cleric" spells would be cast by the actual Cleric... :smallwink:



Fair enough, though you haven't listed them I recall upon prompting. Nevermind that the conjuration ray, if it's the one I'm thinking, still has no business being a "conjuration"- so how many of those deal damage? Negative Energy Ray (Necromancy)
Ray of Deanimation (Abjuration)
Ray of Stupidity (Enchantment)
Ray of Retaliation (Abjuration)
Rust Ray (Transmutation)Those all do certain damage

[JNAProductions]

Correction - RAW says: "Each creature in the area takes 1d4 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 15d6)."

So, if we're to parse the RAW here, that means you roll 1d4 per Caster Level, but you ALSO roll 15d6. If the d4s total higher than the d6s, then you reduce damage to the lower number.

[Psyren]

I mean, they didn't really remove them, since they weren't part of the SRD to be removed in the first place, they just never added them. But then, the spells pathfinder added beyond core were mostly rather mediocre or incredibly situational, and the one spell that was quite functionally close to an orb spell (snowball) was nerfed by having it be moved to evocation, and giving it SR.

There are still SR:No instantaneous conjurations in PF, and they actually make more sense than the orbs do. For example, Iron Stake from Ultimate Wilderness flings a cold iron spike at an enemy and the damage scales, while Clashing Rocks conjures up two giant boulders and slams them together with a creature caught in the middle.

This is what I think should be a model for replacing the orbs, if that's the goal - something that deals physical damage so that their ability to bypass SR and persist in an AMF makes sense, and also the high/scaling damage makes sense because the magic at the moment of creation is effectively sharpening/bulking and propelling the projectile(s). I would even be comfortable adding acid in here since you could theoretically conjure extremely corrosive non-magical acid and fling that.

[Randomocity132]

it still leaves quickened twinned maximized empowered. and the wizard is an incantatar with several metamagic rods, and an archamge for elemental substitution.

Problem is, that's way above the power level we want for our table. this metamagic combo would mean that the wizard could deal a bit over 220 damage to anyone, in one round, from afar, without any kind of defence available.

We are a tight group of friends, we will not have animosity over it. the wizard does not want to become exceedingly op.

Then just... don't do that? If you guys are chill like you say, then just tell him not to combine everything and the kitchen sink when using the orb spells. You can change the rules however you like, but ultimately it's only a problem if he stacks all that stuff with the orb spells. Just tell him not to do that for the sake of keeping things simple, and none of the individual parts of his build will need to be nerfed. Any time our groups have a high-level caster, we use an unspoken "Rule of Reasonable Restraint." Just don't do the ridiculous thing, and you won't have any problem. There really isn't any simpler or cleaner solution that that.

[Fizban]

Note: Force Missile is a no-save, no-SR, auto-hit spell. (It's Evocation, but still no-SR.)
Heck, the Orb of Force was Evocation for about 2 months (since the release of Dragon Compendium and until the Spell Compendium was published) while still being no-SR
What's you will say about it?
Force Orb was printed in Unapproachable East in May 2003, Spell Compendium is December 2005. Complete Arcane is November 2004. Tome and Blood is July 2001. So the original X Orbs existed for nearly two years before a Forgotten Realms (a source of many spells, initially problematic or made so through many "revisions" by other people) book put out a Force version, which was the same but with lower max dice and no extra status effects. Then Complete Arcane creates the uber orbs a year after that, and then, finally, another year after that, Spell Compendium make the uber force version. That's three different "revisions" by three different groups of people over four years.

Force Missile, uh, allows SR, at least in the Spell Compendium version. I couldn't tell you about the original Dragon Mag version but I'd bet it does there too. It also deals guess how much damage? 1d6/2 levels (same average as Magic Missile but with a higher cap), or more specifically, 2d6/4 levels. Not a spell that is going to justify the uber orbs.

Correction - RAW says: "Each creature in the area takes 1d4 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 15d6)."
A spell that poorly written continues to fail to support much of anything, though as I already pointed out, the cap on the dice already has a "RAW" response you could use that doesn't require a justification.

To be clear, it was you who brought up the number of dice in the spell, in response to Vaern:

Direct damage spells that ignore spell resistance, outside of the orb spells, are few and far between. None of them are especially powerful and all of them that I'm aware of are acid

Also, most of them caps at 15 dice - just as Orbs (couple of 10s "compensated" with couple of 20s)
I have responded by pointing out that all the spells you listed which cap at 15d6 worth of damage, which was your own reading of the meaning of "power," were in fact higher level spells. This is not disputable.

Since that damage isn't instant, it may be mitigated or negated (or wounded enemy may just kill your PC first)
And the number of foes with that ability is quite small, and you yourself would consider turns wasted preventing such "little" damage a win anyway, and you just gave all combats (hah) a 3 turn duration. Which is enough to get all the damage out of it.

Oh, come on!
One spell per round, three rounds per encounter, three encounters per day. What kind of full caster is unable to cast 9 spells per day at level 6+?
3.5 DMG p49. It's four to five encounters per day. On average, which means any day you only fight three should eventually be balanced by a day you definitely fight five, or even six. (Or more specifically, each level-appropriate encounter should consume about 20% of the party's resources).

And let's actually check that: Wizard 6 has 4/3/3/2, with normal int progression improves to 4/4/4/3. That's 7 spells above 1st level, and no, I don't consider Sleep/Grease/Color Spray to be encounter crushing at that level, because actual monsters of that level will break the HD limit, hop over it, or are something that I'd love you to be within 15' of. And they have 4+ encounters to be ready for, not 3.

At 5th, since you did say 5-6, they lose two spells, so only 5.

And remember this thread is about uber orbs, not save-or-lose.

Tree spells per encounter. Three! Even if one or two spells wouldn't work, at least one solid hit is a given.
"Golden staples." Color Spray, Glitterdust, Grease, Fog Cloud, Web... Pretty much infallible choices
Rest of the party. Even if Wizard failed sometimes, it doesn't mean the fight is lost. It's not a sole adventure. (And even sole Wizard may have pets, cohorts, or hirelings)
If you have to admit that the rest of the party matters, I already consider that a win. The fact that spells don't always work and spell slots are limited is the only thing which "balances" those borked 2nd-3rd level spells.

Death Ward is 4th-level spell;
Silence - 2nd-level;
Protection from Evil - 1st-level.
"Less impact", ne?
You do realize that the first two of those are Cleric spells, and Silence is only the counter for a couple monsters, right? And the orbs are Sor/Wiz spells? You keep trotting out spells from other characters' lists as if they make a difference when considering the addition of a spell to the Sor/Wiz list.

My English is, apparently, insufficient to understand what's you're trying to say there
Can't say it much more simply, though apparently part of it is the 1st level spells which you view as so powerful that they are on par with 3rd level spells in a level 5-6 fight. So it's not that you're saying you have "enough" high level spells, but rather that you don't view lower level spells as weaker at all. Under that interpretation then sure, all spells should deal 1d6/level max 10, starting at 1st level (and should give more dice per level at higher levels). I have already addressed the possible argument where Scorching Ray would signify this as a shift in design for 3.5, and found it insufficient.

Which wouldn't even come online until - what, 9th level?
Yes, this particular disagreement is that you think spell slot limits stop mattering at 5th, while I read them as remaining significant until a minimum of 10th, at which point adventure design may or may not present an extra drain which keeps them limited anyway. And I'll also note that I take the spell progression of 5e, which has no bonus slots and massively truncates slots above 5th, as a sign that someone was paying attention (I'd compare the spell tables of 2e, but I don't have access to those- I expect the available slots were similarly lower).

I presuming "actually Cleric" spells would be cast by the actual Cleric... :smallwink:
Indeed, one would think so, but that's the whole point of my sticking that comment in there all the time: many of the "wizard" spells can be covered by the cleric, and yet people expect the wizard to cast them. And the wizard who is covering themselves with personal protection buffs and spamming Fly or Overland Flight everywhere has fewer attack spells to spread over the day. Of course a Cleric casting those spells has less room to cover healing and status effects, so the wizard will need to make sure threat go down fast enough they don't need the healing. . .

Negative Energy Ray (Necromancy)
Ray of Deanimation (Abjuration)
Ray of Stupidity (Enchantment)
Ray of Retaliation (Abjuration)
Rust Ray (Transmutation)Those all do certain damage
Only one of which is actually normal damage, let alone specifically "elemental" energy damage. Deanimation is a specific construct-only effect, Stupidity is barely even "damage", Retaliation is a fancy immediate counterspell, and Rust only works on metal.

You have defeated my apparently ill-considered suggestion that rays are all evocations (by bringing up a bunch of splatbook spells printed long after the PHB and uber orbs, but still). Unfortunately none of those spells actually work for proving the idea that magical energy damage can be non-magical, as none of them deal energy damage (except for negative energy, which does not exist in real life and thus has a hard time saying it can be produced by non-magical means).


Hence my comment about “shouldn’t every monster with significant SR have its CR lowered?” In a game with Assay Resistance and the like, and Orbs and the like, SR is more of a speed bump than a defense, and thus the foe is less challenging than its CR would purport.
Indeed. I haven't gone over them looking for SR/no-SR, but my go-to example is always MM3, "the book of overpowered monsters," in which I expect plenty of monsters do have SR thrown on as an afterthought. Many of the monsters considered "par" by more powerful characters, the likes of which would employ Assay Resistance, are found in that book, or came out at a similar time I'd wager. I also wouldn't be surprised if some of the sentiment comes from extremely high level/epic play, where pretty much everything does have SR, because it's all greater demons and demigods- and the monsters need two layers of defense because PCs have 9th level spells and winning with one spell is lame.

Adjusting the CR of other monsters to match those you consider to be the true baseline should be obvious and common, if one understands that the MMs vary in power level. Of course since I take a baseline approach, I advocate PHB and MM1, not Assay Resistance and MM3.