Fun with a very suboptimal concept: optimizing damage over time

[Zaq]

I am VERY aware of how suboptimal this is. This is absolutely not what D&D 3.5 rewards, at all. That's not the point and you don't need to tell me that.
This isn't for a real game. No GM to convince of anything, no actual party composition, etc.
As usual for my threads like this, no fixed level but earlier is more interesting than later, ideally 3.5 only, and ideally no Dragon Mag, just because that's the corpus I'm most familiar with.
No, really, I GET that this is a bad idea. I promise that I'm aware of that.

Anyway! I've been somewhat hooked on Dead Cells recently (if you're into 2D platformer roguelites with hard combat and neat progression mechanics, I recommend it!), and my most recent strategy there is to basically set up a whole bunch of damage over time (DOT) mechanics and scarper off until my targets are no longer my problem. (It ain't exactly a speedrunner strategy but it just earned me my third boss cell last night, so I'll take it.)

Now, Dead Cells makes that relatively easy. Very few monsters are immune to the plentiful sources of ongoing damage you can apply (burning AND oil burning AND poison AND bleeding AND shock AND biters AND throwing your head at them AND frostbite AND...), all the ongoing damage stacks with itself if reapplied, it's cheap and easy to use deployable traps to keep up the hurt even if you're getting out of Dodge, and it's possible to manipulate most monster AI so that they usually won't come after you and will just patiently let their HP tick down to zero if you get set up properly.

Totally different universe from D&D, especially 3.5. But like most of us hardcore addicts still talking about this game in the year Two Thousand and Twenty of the Common Era, I see a concept in one game and I naturally start thinking about optimizing a similar/equivalent concept in D&D.

Oh, don't give me that look. You do this too.

So that leads to the question! If one were interested in capturing that energy in a D&D 3.5 milieu, what tools would enable such a thing? Some general guidelines, but they are indeed general.

Mostly interested in HP damage that continues to apply in subsequent rounds after being set up. (Poison, disease, etc. that don't deal HP damage, even if it occurs repeatedly, is less interesting for this specific concept, I think. Though feel free to sell me on another concept if you've got it.)
It's best if the character is good at getting the hell away and letting the DOT do its thing. Half of the DOT formula is kiting, after all. Doesn't do any good if the enemy can get rid of your HP before the DOT kills them.
Novas are less interesting than stuff that, well, keeps working throughout the day.
It's cool if we can stack different sources of DOT, maybe?

So let's pick some low-hanging fruit! Obviously most of this won't work on the same character.

The gold standard is obviously the infamous power word: pain in Races of the Dragon, which is an absolute death sentence to damn near anything up to, like, CR 3 or 4. Considering that it's a readily available level 1 sor/wiz spell, it's hard to be simpler.
I've mentioned in the past that the truenamer (ToM) has some DOT stuff. Agitate metal, energy vortex, and (technically, though they aren't very long-lasting or very action-efficient) the reversed word of nurturing line all do repeated HP damage spread across multiple rounds. Of course, the truenamer being the truenamer, most of this stuff comes online relatively late and isn't especially efficient, but it's absolutely there.
Complete Warrior has the Arterial Strike feat, sacrificing sneak attack to deal cumulative bleeding wounds (that, well, need to bleed for 4 rounds on average to be a winning trade for you, but hey, see my very first comment about knowing just how suboptimal this is). I'm pretty sure there are some similar abilities in other books that work in about the same way.
For the low, low cost of two feats and increasing your spell by +2 levels, the feat Wounding Spell in Lost Empires of Faerun can let you, um, apply 1 point of bleeding per round after damaging someone. (Really? +2 spell levels? Really? Maybe if you argue that multiple pings of damage from a single spell trigger it multiple times, but even then, whoof.)
Naturally, any spell that creates a zone of "don't stand here or you'll take damage" is a candidate. Just off the top of my head, flaming sphere, wall of fire, acid fog, and dinosaur stampede (SpC) are classic examples; there are many others. Melf's acid arrow is an example of single-target DOT without any additional work put in.
Shout-out to celestial brilliance (BoED) for lasting days per level and being fully portable. Damning darkness (BoVD) is also portable but is a much less silly 10 min/level.
Entangling Exhalation (RotD) works nicely with most breath weapons to apply damage for 1d4 rounds.
Getting back to the nonmagical stuff, good old alchemist's fire does a second round of damage following a direct hit. (Dishonorable mention to the epic feat that makes alchemical items twice as effective for only five times the cost, because doing 2d6 fire damage for two rounds is definitely a privilege one needed to wait until level 21 before accessing.)
Building on alchemist's fire, anything that actually sets someone on fire will do 1d6 fire damage a round. This can be increased by +1 with the forgotten-for-good-reason Pyro feat in Song and Silence, which makes me sad because it's just so tantalizing and so frustrating to actually use. To be honest, I forget what methods exist to easily set an opponent on fire (by ironclad RAW) other than literally using alchemist's fire.


I am aware that this list is not even close to complete! But this is what I've got off the top of my head.

To reiterate again, I know how bad this all is. This is bad! It's really bad. Totally incompatible with the way 3.5 is actually played. It's the polar opposite of rocket tag. But that's why optimizing around it is a fun thought experiment!

How would you go about optimizing this, assuming that the answer is something other than "don't"? How many different sources of DOT can you meaningfully stack on one character? How do you juggle the action economy? How do you keep yourself alive long enough for your bleed damage to work?

A couple ideas:

Anything that expresses the bleed damage in dice rather than in flat numbers could arguably be affected by bonuses to damage that don't specify what kind of damage. There aren't a ton of these bonuses, but they do exist: Knowledge Devotion (CChamp), a binder's pact augmentations (ToM), and the Duel of Wills use of Intimidate (ToB) all come to mind.
Alternatively, if you're using spells, you could argue that the arcane focus soulmeld (MoI) might work multiple times as long as you're only targeting a single enemy, though it's arguable that the clause about additional damage applying once to each enemy when you affect multiple enemies breaks this if you aren't going single-target.
If you're using SLAs, Mortalbane (BoVD) should add 2d6 damage per ping because nothing says it doesn't. Assuming, of course, that you're targeting "mortals."
Warmage edge (CArc) explicitly works over multiple rounds.

I was hoping for more ideas that weren't explicitly focused on spells, but that's the nature of the beast, I suppose.

Anyway! I'll step back for now. Thoughts on how we'd have fun by optimizing around this excruciatingly suboptimal concept?

[AvatarVecna]

In 3.0 my dad made a build for a real game that was based around abusing two things: how broken Haste was in 3.0, and that you could stack metamagic. He stopped playing that build because every fight went the same way:

R1: Haste, Extended Acid Arrow
R2: Double Extended Acid Arrow, Acid Arrow
R3: Extended Acid Arrow, Acid Arrow

Usually at this point, the monster would retreat from a fight cuz it had been three rounds in 3.X combat so it's basically already dead anyway. but because it's got another 20+ rounds of acid damage incoming, if it didn't have resistance, really it was already dead anyway and they just needed to follow the trail.

You can't do it that way anymore, cuz both those tricks were shut down, but I'm sure you could get close to a single-spell-specialist like that with Incantatrix and Arcane Thesis stacking. Alternatively...hmm...

...if you ascribe to the line of thought that Ocular Spell can make any spell a legal target for Persistent Spell, some DMM shenanigans could get you a spell like Acid Arrow for 24 hours. Acid Arrow requires an attack roll to hit, but doesn't check SR or offer a save to resist, so you could even use things like True Strike to absolutely make sure it lands. Mmmm yeah I bet some Incantatrix cheese could really make this spell a nightmare...

[Kalkra]

I'll admit that I didn't read the entirety of the OP. This is a low-effort post right here. That being said, Flame Sands (here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20021120a)) is good DoT, especially because it can set things (or people) on fire, something which most people forget about, but hey, more DoT.

[Unavenger]

I should point out that DoTs aren't as bad as you might think, because "Taking continuous damage" "Such as from acid arrow", ie DoTs, makes it difficult to cast spells even if you don't ready any actions, take any AoOs, or anything else to make an actual attack that hits while someone's trying to cast. Since you're the truenamer guy and all, you can use the standard-issue empowered mortalbane reversed energy negation that does 21 damage per round for long enough to see the end of combat, but will also force a DC 20 skill check on every spell that someone's trying to cast - most enemies will have a nontrivial chance of failure - which I have to say is almost poetic since you're a truenamer and all.

So you might want to think of it not just as a way of killing people, but - and the obvious way of doing this is indeed just increasing the damage - making people take concentration checks they'll have problems passing.

If you're going the normal-spells route, one of my favourites is haboob, because it's minute/level DoT and if you have a way of sticking people in a box, with a sandstorm, in a box, sandstorm-in-a-box, then you can just... leave and let the haboob kill them, and this is particularly true because you don't even have to find a separate way of blocking their line of sight to you because haboob does that anyway.

[Particle_Man]

Not quite what you said but might fit what you intend: Nightmare. You do have to cast it every night but you don’t have to be near the victim so you can fight, kite, nightmare, nightmare, nightmare, etc. and they slowly lose hp and don’t rest to regain hp. Now obviously there are ways around this (magical healing) and it might be too slow a process for you, but it is an option that is, I think, intended to do what you describe.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Lesser Rod of Extended Creeping Cold deals 21d6 cold damage over six rounds from a 2nd level spell slot, regardless of caster level. It deals 1d6 the first round, 2d6 the second round, 3d6 the third round, etc. up to 6d6 on the sixth round. The target gets one Fort save when it's cast, if successful they take half damage from the whole spell.

The deadliest damage over time that I've come up with is a Spellsword 4+ who uses Channel Spell to turn Cloudkill into a single-target effect. That deals 1d4 Con damage (Fort half, minimum 1) per round for one minute per caster level, or ten times your caster level in rounds and at least as much Con damage.

[daremetoidareyo]

Longtooth elite shifter druid w/close quarters combat and jaws of the moray. Ping constution every round, which drops hp.

Get that handfang or sperpents bite spell in there to turn your hands into bite attacks too, and if the opponent tries to grapple to get your biteyness off, use close quarters combat aoo to bite them again. Dire weasel animal companion because yes we'll have some more please.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

The Bloodstar spell seems promising here. It pings Constitution whenever the target takes damage, and meshes very well with DoT effects.

[AvatarVecna]

Human

Wizard (Conjurer) 5/Incantatrix 10/Wizard +5

Wizard ACFs:
Focused Specialist (Conjuration)
Immediate Magic (Conjuration)

Attributes
Lvl 1 (32 pb): 10/14/14/18/10/6
Lvl 4/8/12/16/20: Int +1 each time

Flaws
Pathetic (Charisma)
Vulnerable

Feats:
Human 1: Iron Will
HD 1: Energy Substitution (Fire)
Wizard 1: Scribe Scroll
Flaw 1: Invisible Spell
Flaw 1: Extend Spell
HD 3: Searing Spell
Wizard 5: Empower Spell
HD 6: Arcane Thesis (Melf's Acid Arrow)
Incantatrix 1: Guided Spell
HD 9: Easy Metamagic (Guided Spell)
Incantatrix 4: Echoing Spell
Incantatrix 7: Energy Admixture (Fire)
HD 12: Easy Metamagic (Energy Admixture)
Incantatrix 10: Maximize Spell
HD 15: Easy Metamagic (Maximize Spell)
HD 18: Quicken Spell
Wizard 20: Fiery Spell


This build starts out as a conjuration focused specialist with the teleportation immediate magic. You're still a wizard, so you've got plenty you can do at this level, potentially including summoning. Wizard 5/Incantatrix 1 is when the build really gets going, though.

Melf's Acid Arrow:
2: Base spell level
-1: Energy Substitution (Fire)
-1: Invisible Spell
+0: Searing Spell
+0: Extend Spell
+1: Empower Spell
+2: Guided Spell



Conjuration (Creation) [Fire]
Level: Wizard 3
Components: V, S, M, AF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long 720 ft
Effect: One arrow of acid
Duration: 6 rounds
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to hit your target, ignoring anything less than total cover or concealment; if you miss it repeats the attack once per round for two rounds until it hits. On a hit, the arrow deals 3d4 points of fire damage, ignoring fire resistance, and dealing half damage to targets that are normally immune. The fire, unless somehow neutralized, lasts for another 5 rounds, dealing another 3d4 points of damage in that round.

Material Component: Powdered rhubarb leaf and an adder's stomach.
Focus: A dart.

This is dependable fire damage. You're almost certainly going to hit, it's SR No and Save No, the range is enormous, and resistance and immunity don't help very much. 18d4 to a single target isn't great damage, but other than that...

Lvl 15 is the next real spike in capability for the build:

Melf's Acid Arrow:
2: Base spell level
-1: Energy Substitution (Fire)
-1: Invisible Spell
+0: Searing Spell
+0: Extend Spell
+0: Empower Spell
+0: Guided Spell
+1: Echoing Spell
+1: Energy Admixture (fire)
+0: Maximize Spell




Conjuration (Creation) [Fire]
Level: Wizard 2
Components: V, S, M, AF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long 1080 ft
Effect: One arrow of acid
Duration: 12 rounds
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to hit your target, ignoring anything less than total cover or concealment; if you miss it repeats the attack once per round for five rounds until it hits. On a hit, the arrow deals 20 points of fire damage, ignoring fire resistance, and dealing half damage to targets that are normally immune. The fire, unless somehow neutralized, lasts for another 11 rounds, dealing another 20 points of damage in that round.

The range is much further, and you're all but guaranteed to hit eventually. You'll end up dealing 240 damage to a single target with this spell, and an hour later, you get the slot back at CL 13 (and then CL 9, and then CL 5). All of this out of a 2nd lvl slot. You're still a full-blown wizard, capable of doing all kinds of wacky wizard shenanigans, but you've also spent most of your build on sniping people with super-reliable damage.

Final snapshot is lvl 20, of course:

Melf's Acid Arrow:
2: Base spell level
-1: Energy Substitution (Fire)
-1: Invisible Spell
+0: Searing Spell
+0: Extend Spell
+0: Empower Spell
+0: Guided Spell
+1: Echoing Spell
+1: Energy Admixture (fire)
+0: Maximize Spell
+2: Quicken Spell (optional)
+0: Fiery Spell




Conjuration (Creation) [Fire]
Level: Wizard 2
Components: V, S, M, AF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long 1280 ft
Effect: One arrow of acid
Duration: 16 rounds
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to hit your target, ignoring anything less than total cover or concealment; if you miss it repeats the attack once per round for seven rounds until it hits. On a hit, the arrow deals 30 points of fire damage, ignoring fire resistance, and dealing half damage to targets that are normally immune. The fire, unless somehow neutralized, lasts for another 11 rounds, dealing another 30 points of damage in that round.

480 damage out of a lvl 2 spell slot (or a lvl 4, if you decided to Quicken the spell). And you can cast it again an hour later at CL 18 (and then CL 14, and then CL 10, and then CL 6 if it wasn't quickened). You'll be pumping out damage like this all day, and you've still got tons of other slots to play with.

[Endarire]

What about also using crowd control so that the DoT works?

+1 to haboob from Sandstorm and arctic haze from Frostburn.

[One Step Two]

Manyjaws from Spell compendium, upto 10 sets of teeth that deal 1d6 damage over 3 rounds with concentration. You can even pick the number of targets that get nommed on.

[MinimanMidget]

I'm shocked no-one's mentioned vortex of teeth yet. Also, this might make a fun non-standard concept for an IC round.

[Thurbane]

Couple of random spells to start with:

Bloodbriars (Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4): 1d8 damage in any round where the target moves, up to 1 minute/level.
Cursed Blade (Asn 4, Hex 4): not exactly DoT, but prevents healing of weapon damage until target gets a Remove Curse. Useful against fast healers.
Emerald Flame Fist (Sor/Wiz 7): 3d6+1 point/level fire damage, up to 1 round/level (saves to negate).
Shroud of Flame (Sor/Wiz 5): 2d6 fire damage/round to one target, no save.
Streamers (Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 5): famously OP spell, streamers make attacks against enemies when they take any action, with 5d10 damage on a hit.


Feats:

Bane Magic: adds 2d6 extra damage to spells against a particular opponent type, and specifically adds this bonus to ongoing damage.
Fire Devotion: wreath yourself in flames, and set foes on fire with melee attacks.
Rattlesnake Strike: unarmed strike can inflict a poison like attack, dealing 1d3 Con/1d3 Con.
Wind and Fire: similar to Arterial Strike, but only when using the cutting wheel weapon. Should stack with Arterial strike or similar.

[Vorpal_Bunny]

Scrubbed as I posted in the wrong thread...

[The Viscount]

Entangling exhalation was mentioned upthread, but we can get wild with it. Stack it with exhaled barrier and the enduring breath effect on a dragonfire adept. All of these extend the duration. You have to something other than enduring breath every other round. Possibly toss in cloud breath if you want to kite in close to enemies or ping enemies that will charge after you.

Sudden swarm is a fun invocation that creates a swarm of spiders when you kill a creature with an invocation (including eldritch blast). Diminutive so immune to weapon damage, means they're untouchable as far as some enemies are concerned. It's a free action to control them with no range, so you can take off. Only one at a time, so can't get too crazy with it. You might be able to slot it in with the DFA with infernal adept, but they don't have many damaging invocations, and the spiders are at risk from the fire. You can probably control them with the instruction of "go nuts" and leave it at that.

Just as you like to bring up truenamer, I like to bring up binder to solve problems. Dahlver-Nar has the shield self ability, which is basically forced share pain. You can then do a twist on the old Buddhist saying of drinking poison and expecting the other to die. Subject yourself to the damage of your choice, and share it with the enemy. Presumably this divides the damage you take, not the damage that is dealt to you, so you can't dodge around it by say standing in fire when you have fire resistance (I mean if your DM allows it that's an option). You can double up with Buer and a slow source of damage you can heal over, and it's like store brand Jovoc!

[Thurbane]

A few more spells I've come across:

Blistering Radiance (Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 4): kind of like a 50-ft radius fireball, dazzles automatically, and does 2d6 fire damage per round, 1 round/level.
Crushing Sphere (Sor/Wiz 6): like Resilient Sphere, but does 3d6 nonlethal damage/round (becomes lethal damage once target is unconscious).
Fire Spiders (Sor/Wiz 6): area of summoned elemental-type creatures that does 4d6 fire damage/round.
Ice Web (Sor/Wiz 4): like Web, but also does 1d6 frostburn damage/round.
Thunderhead (Drd 1, Sor/Wiz 1): does 1d6 electrical damage per round to a single target - Ref save negates damage for the round. Good low-level candidate for rider effects (Bane Magic turns it into 3d6 per round, for instance).
Vitriolic Sphere (Sor/Wiz 5): 6d6 acid damage in a 10 ft burst; targets that fail initial save take another 6d6 damage each round for the following two rounds.
Whirl of Fangs (Clr 6, Sor/Wiz 7): 12d4 force samage to creatures passing through, and ongoing 2d4 force damage for each round they are in the area - Ref for half.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Astral Fire applied to a Maximized orb of fire cast by a 10th-level Mind Mage with 30 Intelligence.

Astral Fire is a psi-spell feat. It adds a DoT equal to 20% of the original hit for a number of rounds equal to your casting stat. Mind Mage 10 allows you to add your casting stat twice for psi-spell feats, so the duration of the DoT is 20 rounds, for 400% of the original hit in damage (significant losses from rounding are expected).

Round 1: 90 searing fire damage.
Round 2-21: 18 searing fire damage per round, adding up to 360 damage.

Astral fire cannot be smothered and burns underwater.

[Kalkra]

It occurs to me that at low levels you could probably cast a DoT spell and then cast Invisibility and wait for your target or your spell to expire, whichever comes first. Of course, you could also just carry a tower shield, so I guess you'd just do that.

[DeAnno]

My Anti the Kinslayer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=17753290&postcount=313) build actually had a DOT as one of its big tricks, using Spellsword's Channel Spell ability to tag someone with a personal (Extended) Vortex of Teeth. The main downside is limited uses of it per day, but it's a pretty strong effect compared to most DOT spells intended to stick to people. Arcane casting also gives you Resilient Sphere to combo with DOT, which is convenient.

[Oberron]

Big fan of the blacksand spell. If it kills something it makes real black sand. Mix with some tar or sovereign glue and as long as the enemy isn't undead it's a matter of time before its literally dust.

It damages every round and last forever while the target is in it. Get a portable hole and you have a portable death pit. Better than Caltrops if you fill a bag of holding and turn it inside out over an enemy encampment.

[Falontani]

Wounding Sneak Attack (Su): At 5th level, any time a life eater delivers a sneak attack, the wound bleeds for 1 point of damage per round thereafter in addition to the normal damage from the attack. Multiple wounding sneak attacks result in cumulative bleeding loss (two wounds for 2 points of damage per round, and so on). The bleeding can be stopped only by a successful Heal check (DC 15) or the application of any cure spell or other healing spell.

plus

Cursed Blade (Sp): A weapon affected by this spell deals wounds that can't be healed in the usual fashion. Any damage dealt by the weapon (not including damage from special weapon properties such as flaming, holy, wounding, and so on) cannot be cured by any means until the damaged individual has received a remove curse spell (or some other effect that neutralizes a curse).

plus

Arterial Strike (Ex): If you hit with a sneak attack, you may choose to forgo +1d6 of extra sneak attack damage to deliver a wound that won't stop bleeding. Each wound caused in this manner saps an extra 1 point of damage per round from the victim, until the victim receives the benefit of a DC 15 Heal check or any cure spell or other magical healing. Wounds from multiple arterial strikes result in cumulative bleeding loss (two successful arterial strikes cause an extra 2 points of damage per round until healed). You may deliver only one bleeding wound per successful sneak attack.

add

Sorcerer's Hand (Item): The stock of this +2 light crossbow has been carved to resemble a humanoid forearm ending in a closed hand with two outstretched fingers. Despite its unusual appearance, this crossbow is a potent tool for casting ray spells. If held and used as an additional arcane focus when casting a ray spell, the spell's effective caster level is increased by 1. This increase affects all aspects of the spell, including damage, range, and duration. Furthermore, the sorcerer's hand grants a +2 enhancement bonus on attack rolls for rays.

finally

Echoing Ocular Spell Creeping Cold (Sp):
You can cast a spell with a casting time of 1 full round or less as an ocular spell. An ocular spell does not take effect immediately, but is instead held in one of your eyes for up to 8 hours. You can store only two ocular spells in this fashion, even if you have more than two eyes. Only ray spells and spells with a target other than personal can be cast as ocular spells. When you choose, you can then cast both of the ocular spells as a full-round action; the spells become brilliant blasts that shoot out from your eyes. You can choose different targets for the two ocular spells. When you release an ocular spell, its effect changes to a ray with a range of up to 60 feet. If the spell previously would have affected multiple creatures, it now affects only the creature struck by the ray. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to strike your target with an ocular spell, and the target is still permitted any saving throw allowed by the spell.

An echoing spell is first cast as normal. After 1 hour, the spell then returns to you as if it had been prepared an additional time, and can be cast again at any time. However, the second time the echoing spell is cast, you treat your caster level as four lower for the purpose of effect, area, range, duration, and overcoming spell resistance. This process repeats itself every time the spell is cast, reducing your effective caster level by four until your effective raster level is no longer high enough to cast the original spell (at which point the spell is not regained).

The subject takes 1d6 cumulative points of cold damage per round (that is, 1d6 on the 1st round, 2d6 on the second, and 3d6 on the third). Only one save is allowed against the spell; if successful, it halves the the damage each round.

All in all
Round 1: Fire ray using Sorcerer's Hand as an additional arcane focus, deal 1d6+SA cold damage (minus 1 die).
Round 2: Target takes 2d6 cold damage +2 points of bleed damage
Round 3: Target takes 3d6 cold damage +4 points of bleed damage
Round 4+: Target takes 6 points of bleed damage. Cold damage and bleed damage can't be healed until Remove Curse is applied.

Might deal less bleed damage, but you get your spell back quickly enough.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Surprised nobodies mentioned Kelgore's grave mist yet, which would be my gold standard for DOT because it's low level, AOE, and offers no save for the damage. The damage is piddling (1d6 cold to living creatures), but since it's unavoidable and low level it's great for rider effects. Fell Frighten is my favorite, since it only takes 3 turns to reach panicked... and since they're surrounded, they automatically start cowering and just sit there in the DOT effect until it ends or they die.

In the realm of 'not actual damage', Touch of Golden Ice is a handy debuff if you've already got oodles of natural attacks. The save is only DC 14, but everyone rolls a nat 1 eventually. The initial 1d6 Dex damage is already no joke, but if you wait a minute they automatically take another 2d6.

Back to damage, the Lingering Breath metabreath feat makes your breath weapon do half damage but hover as a cloud in the area for an additional turn. Clinging Breath is essentially the same thing but better, dealing half the damage again on the next turn to anything caught in the initial blast. Lingering Breath, however, can be applied multiple times to the same breath, creating a no-go zone for as long as you want... as long as you're willing to spend twice that long waiting for your breath weapon to recover.

[Harrow]

I can only imagine that Black Tentacles hasn't been mentioned yet because it deals so little damage that the DoT effect has been overshadowed in everyone's minds by the spell's other uses. 1d6+4 per round on a successful opposed check, for rounds per level, out of a 4th level slot? If all you want is damage, you've got better options, even in core. But, as I'm sure anyone reading this is aware, the spell is not bad. If the spell succeeds on its check, the target is grappled, which, assuming they haven't spent resources to be immune to, is a devastating condition. The best part of the grapple, for a DoT build anyway, is that it stops the target from leaving the area, forcing them to make checks against more damage in later rounds and holding them in place while you pile on other effects. The spell even slows movement when the opponent wins the opposed check, so slap on some other DoT effects, especially AoE ones, then finish off with some Solid Fog (Acid Fog if you've got the spell slots for it).

Warlocks get access to the Chilling Tentacles invocation, which adds cold damage to the already-pretty-good Black Tentacles formula. They also can pick up Caustic Mire which works basically like the spell from Complete Mage. It's got the same range, area, and duration as Black Tentacles (and spell level, but it doesn't allow a save so Warlocks don't really care about that). Any affected square deals 1d6 acid damage to anything that moves through it and halves movement, also dealing 1d6 to anything standing in a square without moving. Layer the Caustic Mire on top of the Chilling Tentacles and anything without flight or Freedom of Movement (which, at the level you can pull this off, is going to throw a wrench in your plans more frequently that you'd likely like) is looking at a handful of d6 every round until they make their way at 1/4 speed out of the two 20 ft radius circles, at which point a Warlock can just use their abilities again.

At earlier levels, Warlocks get access to Brimstone Blast, which can set opponents on fire. Not much damage, but you weren't asking for instant death,you wanted damage over time. This happens to pair well Caustic Mire's tertiary effect of increasing the damage of any fire effect within its area. You should also have picked up flight, allowing you to layer your damage over time effects on anything without flight or a ranged attack with impunity.

[Piggy Knowles]

I think I'd go with some kind of psion. They get a lot of good DoT powers, many of which come online pretty much immediately, and it has built-in ways of maintaining concentration on multiple powers at once to stack on effects. For this particular concept, I’d do a psion with a first level dip into a skillful class for hiding purposes. Oddly enough, I think I’d actually go with a telepath here. It opens up access to the schism power without needing Expanded Knowledge, and you can trade your 5th-level feat for telepathy via the Mind’s Eye ACF in order to nab Mindsight, allowing you to track your targets even when they’re out of sight.

I’d probably start off with something like this:

1 Psychic Rogue1- Able Learner, Darkstalker
2 Psion1- Psicrystal Affinity
Matter agitation, control flames, entangling ectoplasm
3 Psion2- Transdimensional Power
Vigor, psionic grease
4 Psion3-
Share pain, psychoportive shelter
5 Psion4-
Detect hostile intent, concealing amorpha
6 Psion5- Mindsight
Solicit psicrystal, energy wall

Basic notes:

Matter agitation, control flames and energy wall all online quickly as damage-over-time effects.
Can manifest one concentration-based DoT effect such as matter agitation, then use solicit psicrystal as a swift action to pass concentration off to your little buddy, and use another.
Energy wall is fantastic here: it’s flexible damage of multiple types, and it is concentration + one round per level, meaning you can maintain it for several rounds alongside other concentration-based effects even before you get access to ways to concentrate on three powers simultaneously (schism, etc).
Multiple ways to keep foes in place so they can’t approach you (entangling ectoplasm, grease, energy wall) and multiple ways to kite (Darkstalker + maxed out hide/move silently + concealing amorpha for concealment as needed, levitate against foes with no way to hit fliers, psychoportive shelter + Transdimensional Power).
Mindsight and detect hostile intent to avoid surprise and to continue to track foes even when they are out of your line of sight.


At work, so I think I’ll stop there, but you basically get the idea. Keep taking powers that help keep you alive and hard to target, that lock your enemies into place or that deal damage over time. Get more ways to maintain concentration (Swift Concentration skill trick, Extraordinary Concentration, etc.). Sneak around and (slowly) kill things while they run around like crazy trying to figure out what’s gradually bleeding them all dry.

[Thurbane]

As the OP noted, it's a litter frustrating that DoT is so much easier for a caster-type than a mundane.

I guess as a Rogue-type you could UMD wands and such, but that would get expensive.

[One Step Two]

I wonder if the over-abundance of of damage over time spells exist because they are intended purely for for use against the players? Something that if you have a decently setup caster opponent, saves their action economy by dropping some prepared DoT effects for players to be harassed with.

Oh, and I found the Flensing Spell, in FRCS id deals 2d6 damage, 1d6 Cha, and 1d6 Con damage over 4 turns, making your save negates the ability damage, and halves the HP damage. It was nerfed in the spell compendium removing the Con damage.

[Zaq]

I'll admit that I didn't read the entirety of the OP. This is a low-effort post right here. That being said, Flame Sands (here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20021120a)) is good DoT, especially because it can set things (or people) on fire, something which most people forget about, but hey, more DoT.

I don't think I agree with that interpretation, even going by full RAW. I read it as similar to call lightning: the duration is how long the caster has the ability to repeatedly invoke the effect, not how many rounds the target takes damage for. (You can keep spending actions to keep firing at the same target, but I don't think it's "fire once and then it keeps hurting them automatically," which is the theme of the topic.)

Hmm. Rereading it, though, I suppose it might not take a new action every round? So you've still gotta continuously hit (meaning you can't kite away and break LoE), but it might not take actions. Okay. That's cool.


I should point out that DoTs aren't as bad as you might think, because "Taking continuous damage" "Such as from acid arrow", ie DoTs, makes it difficult to cast spells even if you don't ready any actions, take any AoOs, or anything else to make an actual attack that hits while someone's trying to cast. Since you're the truenamer guy and all, you can use the standard-issue empowered mortalbane reversed energy negation that does 21 damage per round for long enough to see the end of combat, but will also force a DC 20 skill check on every spell that someone's trying to cast - most enemies will have a nontrivial chance of failure - which I have to say is almost poetic since you're a truenamer and all.

So you might want to think of it not just as a way of killing people, but - and the obvious way of doing this is indeed just increasing the damage - making people take concentration checks they'll have problems passing.

If you're going the normal-spells route, one of my favourites is haboob, because it's minute/level DoT and if you have a way of sticking people in a box, with a sandstorm, in a box, sandstorm-in-a-box, then you can just... leave and let the haboob kill them, and this is particularly true because you don't even have to find a separate way of blocking their line of sight to you because haboob does that anyway.

Speaking as someone who lives in a desert anyway, yeah, haboob is honestly about as nasty as I'd expect from a magically conjured and magically aggressive haboob. They're not nice storms.


Lesser Rod of Extended Creeping Cold deals 21d6 cold damage over six rounds from a 2nd level spell slot, regardless of caster level. It deals 1d6 the first round, 2d6 the second round, 3d6 the third round, etc. up to 6d6 on the sixth round. The target gets one Fort save when it's cast, if successful they take half damage from the whole spell.

The deadliest damage over time that I've come up with is a Spellsword 4+ who uses Channel Spell to turn Cloudkill into a single-target effect. That deals 1d4 Con damage (Fort half, minimum 1) per round for one minute per caster level, or ten times your caster level in rounds and at least as much Con damage.

Very mean. I like it.


The Bloodstar spell seems promising here. It pings Constitution whenever the target takes damage, and meshes very well with DoT effects.

Now that's a delightful effect right there. One of my favorite words to optimize around is the word "whenever" (or equivalent). Find something cool that happens on a trigger, then find a way to make it trigger over and over. That spell would also be quite nice with damaging gaze attacks, like on my old Opsablepsia (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=21320003&postcount=96) build. Could also work with the concept I scrapped away from Opsablepsia, namely that of a warforged with Shocking Fist (PGtE) and Conductivity (UA) who gets to channel minor but nonzero pings of self-inflicted electricity damage to other targets (in addition to getting the benefits of Shocking Fist itself).


Wounding Sneak Attack (Su): At 5th level, any time a life eater delivers a sneak attack, the wound bleeds for 1 point of damage per round thereafter in addition to the normal damage from the attack. Multiple wounding sneak attacks result in cumulative bleeding loss (two wounds for 2 points of damage per round, and so on). The bleeding can be stopped only by a successful Heal check (DC 15) or the application of any cure spell or other healing spell.

plus

Cursed Blade (Sp): A weapon affected by this spell deals wounds that can't be healed in the usual fashion. Any damage dealt by the weapon (not including damage from special weapon properties such as flaming, holy, wounding, and so on) cannot be cured by any means until the damaged individual has received a remove curse spell (or some other effect that neutralizes a curse).

plus

Arterial Strike (Ex): If you hit with a sneak attack, you may choose to forgo +1d6 of extra sneak attack damage to deliver a wound that won't stop bleeding. Each wound caused in this manner saps an extra 1 point of damage per round from the victim, until the victim receives the benefit of a DC 15 Heal check or any cure spell or other magical healing. Wounds from multiple arterial strikes result in cumulative bleeding loss (two successful arterial strikes cause an extra 2 points of damage per round until healed). You may deliver only one bleeding wound per successful sneak attack.

add

Sorcerer's Hand (Item): The stock of this +2 light crossbow has been carved to resemble a humanoid forearm ending in a closed hand with two outstretched fingers. Despite its unusual appearance, this crossbow is a potent tool for casting ray spells. If held and used as an additional arcane focus when casting a ray spell, the spell's effective caster level is increased by 1. This increase affects all aspects of the spell, including damage, range, and duration. Furthermore, the sorcerer's hand grants a +2 enhancement bonus on attack rolls for rays.

finally

Echoing Ocular Spell Creeping Cold (Sp):
You can cast a spell with a casting time of 1 full round or less as an ocular spell. An ocular spell does not take effect immediately, but is instead held in one of your eyes for up to 8 hours. You can store only two ocular spells in this fashion, even if you have more than two eyes. Only ray spells and spells with a target other than personal can be cast as ocular spells. When you choose, you can then cast both of the ocular spells as a full-round action; the spells become brilliant blasts that shoot out from your eyes. You can choose different targets for the two ocular spells. When you release an ocular spell, its effect changes to a ray with a range of up to 60 feet. If the spell previously would have affected multiple creatures, it now affects only the creature struck by the ray. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to strike your target with an ocular spell, and the target is still permitted any saving throw allowed by the spell.

An echoing spell is first cast as normal. After 1 hour, the spell then returns to you as if it had been prepared an additional time, and can be cast again at any time. However, the second time the echoing spell is cast, you treat your caster level as four lower for the purpose of effect, area, range, duration, and overcoming spell resistance. This process repeats itself every time the spell is cast, reducing your effective caster level by four until your effective raster level is no longer high enough to cast the original spell (at which point the spell is not regained).

The subject takes 1d6 cumulative points of cold damage per round (that is, 1d6 on the 1st round, 2d6 on the second, and 3d6 on the third). Only one save is allowed against the spell; if successful, it halves the the damage each round.

All in all
Round 1: Fire ray using Sorcerer's Hand as an additional arcane focus, deal 1d6+SA cold damage (minus 1 die).
Round 2: Target takes 2d6 cold damage +2 points of bleed damage
Round 3: Target takes 3d6 cold damage +4 points of bleed damage
Round 4+: Target takes 6 points of bleed damage. Cold damage and bleed damage can't be healed until Remove Curse is applied.

Might deal less bleed damage, but you get your spell back quickly enough.

Very clever. What's the source on the sorcerer's hand?


I wonder if the over-abundance of of damage over time spells exist because they are intended purely for for use against the players? Something that if you have a decently setup caster opponent, saves their action economy by dropping some prepared DoT effects for players to be harassed with.

Oh, and I found the Flensing Spell, in FRCS id deals 2d6 damage, 1d6 Cha, and 1d6 Con damage over 4 turns, making your save negates the ability damage, and halves the HP damage. It was nerfed in the spell compendium removing the Con damage.

I just checked SpC, and it still includes HP damage, CHA damage, and CON damage. Save still negates 1 round worth of ability damage, but the ability damage is definitely still part of the spell. Only major change I notice between the FRCS version and the SpC version is that the FRCS version is Evocation and unaligned while the SpC version is Transmutation and has the [Evil] tag.

[Venger]

Very clever. What's the source on the sorcerer's hand?

AEG page 117

[RaiKirah]

Falontani's post (specifically the Cursed Blade spell) got me thinking a little. I'm too rushed with ICOC to flesh it out at the moment, but something like:

Warblade 5/Master Thrower 1-5/Assassin 1/Unseen Seer X (Could also get Bloodstorm Blade in there if needed)

With Arterial Strike and Wind and Fire (using Weapon Aptitude to use daggers and Palm Throw to get two per attack) you can apply three instances of bleed with each attack assuming they are sneak attacks. Throw in some TWF/MWF, etc. and that can add up pretty fast. This kind of build is probably actually decent for VoP (need to use the Avenger version of Assassin, or UMD Cursed Blade), since enchanting that many daggers is cost prohibitive, which lets you also add on Touch of Golden Ice. Or use some of the other tricks mentioned with Fire Shurikens to add some magical DoT as well.

With Cursed Blade, you only have to worry about Heal checks (which is a bummer but still eats actions) or SA immune foes, which is really sad, but Wind and Fire still applies to those, so not all is lost.


Another thought: Does Merciful Sneak Attack turn bleed damage into nonlethal damage? If not, you could theoretically knock someone out and leave them to bleed to death with the Arterial Strike and Wind and Fire DoTs.

[PraxisVetli]

I'm surprised no one brought up Violate Spell. While not adding any DoT, it does make the damage slower to heal which... sorta counts?