Creating Megumin: The Strongest CL 20th (delayed blast) Fireball?

[47948201]

Megumin, for the unaware, is an arch-wizard from the novel/manga/anime Konosuba whose claim to fame is that she can cast an extremely powerful magical explosion (with both huge single-target damage and huge AoE range)... Once per day. Impractical, but awesome.

So I'm trying to think of how best to approximate this in 3.5e. It doesn't have to be exactly once per day, but it's okay even if it is.

Detonate, a 9th level spell, definitely has single-target killing and an added blast, but the minimal effect on a passed Fort save (which the targets you really want to blow up will tend to have high bonuses for) is pretty rough.

So, fireball (or delayed blast fireball) seem like the best choice.

The following are just the ideas I've had to try and make this work:

Spend a turn or two (Metamagic or arcane fusion or something work fine) to cast true casting to help get through SR and eagle's splendor or fox's cunning (unless you have a magic item that serves the same purpose, but I'll worry about those later unless there's a magic item that's a super core part of a way to make a better explosion) to pump the save DC just that tiny bit higher. These are the only buffs I know of that you can cast to improve the fireball, but there are probably more, right?

Then, an empowered, searing, sudden-empowered (honestly I'm unclear on whether or not you can both empower and sudden-empower a spell--metamagic rules say "You can’t apply the same metamagic feat more than once to a single spell.", but Sudden Empower isn't the "same metamagic feat" as Empower Spell?) sudden-maximized, sudden-widened delayed blast fireball. At CL 20th, that's 20d6, empowered to 30d6, sudden-empowered to 45d6, maximized to 270 damage, with a DC of 19 plus your regular spell modifier and (with Arcane Mastery) a check of 40 against SR, which halfway-bypasses fire immunity and affects a 40 ft. radius sphere. Even efreeti that make their saves will get downed by that, if barely. Against things that aren't immune to fire, replace searing with fiery to deal an extra 45 damage, very nice.

One slightly different way of handling it is to use arcane spellsurge into greater arcane fusion (it's described as a "single burst of magic", so I'd say it still only counts as one explosion) to get out a sudden-empowered sudden-maximized sudden-widened delayed blast fireball at 20d6->30d6->180 damage, plus a regular empowered fireball to deal an extra 15d6 (~52.5) damage at the center, but without the +10 to SR, a lower save DC, no ability to get through fire immunity, and of course with less range. Not horrible, but noticeably worse.

Another way is to just use one or more pumped-up fireballs. Even using Incantatrix 10, Arcane Thesis, and Practical Metamagic, we have the 3rd level base spell, +1 empower, +1 practical twinned, +1 searing, +1 fiery, heightened to 5th level, sudden-empowered/maximized/widened, that's 10d6(base)->15d6(empowered)->22d6(sudden empowered)->22d6+22(fiery)->132+22(maximize)->308(twin). I haven't thought about where you're going to get all those feats, but that is a slight improvement over the first delayed blast fireball example, at least against things with immunity. Otherwise, not quite.

Using even more feats, you could get out two of those with greater arcane fusion: cast the above fireball, but without heightening it. As above, that's 308 damage, just with a lower save DC. Then, you can also do an empowered fireball to deal an extra ~52.5 damage with a smaller radius at the center. I guess change that to searing if you know you're against something fire-immune.

Incantatrix+Arcane Thesis+Practical Metamagic can bring +4 down to +1, so the following should be totally possible: delayed blast fireball with base 20d6, sudden-empowered to 30d6, searing or fiery (up to +30), maximized to 180(+30), then practical-twinned to 360(+60), and of course sudden-widened too.

So, that last example gives up to 420 fire damage in a 40-foot radius, and overcomes SR up to 40, and a DC of ideally not too much lower than 30 (though I'd rather not rely on that sort of DC, better to just pump damage and be happy when they fail). Is this the strongest EXPLOSION a single 20th-level caster can pull off once per day in 3.5e, or does anyone have any ideas to improve it?

Current setup: Incantatrix, Practical Metamagic (Twin Spell and Energy Admixture, +1 each), and Arcane Thesis, plus Empower, Searing, and Fiery (all +0), plus optionally Nonlethal Substitution (+0), for delayed blast fireball out of a 9th level slot. Sudden Maximize (and Sudden Widen) means it's dealing 20d6 -> 120, empowered to 120+10d6, fieried to 120+10d6+30, admixed to 240+20d6+60, twinned to 480+40d6+120 of pure fire damage in a 40-foot radius. That's a lotta damage! Still, any ways to get it even better? (Maybe a way to make a 2nd level monk not have a 5% chance of taking zero damage lol)

EDIT: I should probably specify, when I say CL 20th, I also mean non-epic. Like, you know. ECL 20th. Wizard 10/Incantatrix 10. That kinda thing. Arcane Thesis means you can totally drop two levels from your spellcasting class for something else (without losing 20d6 base damage with delayed blast fireball) while staying within ECL 20th, but I have other plans for those two levels.

[Falontani]

The question is, is she level 20? She is clearly gathering exp still (watch the movie) and working hard to continue to master the Explosion. When the party first meets her she has obtained explosion magic, but has stated that she has a far ways to go to completely master it.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?597793-Can-I-fill-all-level-all-my-level-3-and-higher-spellslots-with-fireballs

and

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?250125-ramping-up-the-fireball

both may have some help

[47948201]

I mean, I'm not literally trying to make 3.5e Megumin. Being a dragonblood race, human, or stoutheart halfling is probably ideal for this build, which doesn't exactly line up with being a crimson demon. Human comes close, but yeah.

This is more about a Megumin-inspired build, that just tries to make a big explosion at 20th level. Along the way, it can drop less-powerful fireballs, but I'm mostly interested in what happens when the character has all their tools.

All that said, nice threads! I saw mention of Blistering Spell, which is indeed more damage, but Fiery seems to do a bit better for a one-and-done blast like this. The other thread also had some nice ideas, but it seemed mostly about improving CL, which by the time a caster is 20th level, isn't such a huge deal, I don't think? 40 to penetrate SR easily beats every non-epic/non-deity I'm aware of (not that it hurts to have more, but I don't think I'd take a feat for it unless there were a way to bypass the spell's regular cap of 20 die)

[Doctor Despair]

Well, first of all, she refuses to use any other magic and seems to exhaust herself after just one use of it. How can we represent that? If she is a wizard, we could throw all the hyper-specializations on her to reduce her to just Evocation

Reserves of Power comes to mind (stuns for 3 rounds if you max it out), although exhaustion or unconsciousness would be a better fit

Versatile Spellcaster would let her trade her spellslots up for bigger fireballs, although that means she's probably not a wizard

Arcane Thesis: Fireball seems like an obvious pick

[daremetoidareyo]

Energy admixture

Double your damage dice. Go with sonic so they're loud fireballs

[InvisibleBison]

delayed blast fireball with base 20d6, sudden-empowered to 30d6, searing or fiery (up to +30), maximized to 180(+30), then practical-twinned to 360(+60), and of course sudden-widened too.

That's not how empower and maximize interact. They don't stack; you get the normal damage maximized plus half the normal damage rolled normally, which in this case would be 10d6+120.

[47948201]

Practical energy admixture sounds great to me, better than searing! That's a lot of feats, but there's probably a way to make that work, or get close.

I... Totally didn't realize that about empower+maximize, but it sure does say that, doesn't it? Maybe that warrants giving another look at some of the other methods that I passed over, hmm...

[Doctor Despair]

As a +0 metamagic, you could apply Nonlethal Substitution to your fireballs; that way, you can use them at close range. That could also replicate how Megumin ends up so exhausted after using one of her spells, as she is often blown away by the shockwave of her own explosion. Solves the problem of using fireball while dungeon-diving, and synergizes with Arcane Thesis/Practical Metamagic, too.

[47948201]

When nonlethal substitution replaces energy damage with nonlethal damage, does that mean it also bypasses resistance/immunity? Because that--in addition to getting the flavor of being knocked out, like you said, would be excellent.

[Doctor Despair]

When nonlethal substitution replaces energy damage with nonlethal damage, does that mean it also bypasses resistance/immunity? Because that--in addition to getting the flavor of being knocked out, like you said, would be excellent.

It should bypass fire immunity; nonlethal immunity would still be an issue (undead, constructs, etc). If you are a spontaneous caster, that shouldn't be an issue though, as you could just use the fire damage instead.

On the note of applying nonlethal damage, Searing Spell might work interestingly here. Will edit with my thoughts in a moment

Edit:


A searing spell is so hot that it ignores the resistance to fire of creatures affected by the spell, and affected creatures with immunity to fire still take half damage. This feat can be applied only to spells with the fire descriptor. Creatures with the cold subtype take double damage from a searing spell. Creatures affected by a searing spell are still entitled to whatever saving throw the spell normally allows. A searing spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level.

Interestingly, it seems like a spell with the fire subtype that deals a different type of damage is still eligible to be a searing spell. With that said, if it were dealing nonlethal damage to a creature immune to both nonlethal and fire damage, it seems that a nonlethal fireball would still deal half of the nonlethal damage to the creature, bypassing both immunities. It should also deal double nonlethal damage to a creature with the cold descriptor.

[Anthrowhale]

You might be interested in Mycontil's Last Resort (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?619390-Mycontil-Last-Resort-Eldritch-Spellblast) or Erupt (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?621105-The-best-nuke).

[47948201]

Nonlethal substitution sounds like an interesting option to have, and with that I'm definitely starting to run out of space for feats, I think, but that's fine because I think the result is something pretty good!

I just realized that I think I'd had the wrong idea about Arcane Thesis. Unlike Improved Metamagic, it doesn't say that the metamagic modifier can't go below +1--only that the spell level can't be reduced as a result of having metamagics.

SO, that seems to mean that searing and fiery can be added at no cost, and empowered (if you count Improved Metamagic before counting Arcane Thesis) is also +0 to cost. That gives a big damage boost, too, especially when combined with both Twin and Energy Admixture.

EDIT: Wow, last resort totally seems to fit the spirit of EXPLOSION, I'll definitely look into that! I really like the erupt spell, too, but I'm looking more at arcane spells right now, for no reason other than that I like arcane casters.

[Doctor Despair]

Notably, Last Resort is not an energy-based spell, so cannot be converted to nonlethal damage. It will probably kill you upon casting it.

Edit:
Technically, you could use Snowcasting to give it the cold descriptor. It still doesn't deal cold damage though. You could Energy Admixture it to ADD cold damage, and convert just the cold damage to nonlethal damage, but that doesn't reduce the regular damage you would take

[Anthrowhale]

I really like the erupt spell, too, but I'm looking more at arcane spells right now, for no reason other than that I like arcane casters.
Note that it's a Sorcerer casting it as an arcane spell in that post. Also, Erupt has no Reflex save. Perhaps a more important issue is that the area of effect is to large, making it nigh-useless in tactical combat situations.

[Doctor Despair]

Note that it's a Sorcerer casting it as an arcane spell in that post. Also, Erupt has no Reflex save. Perhaps a more important issue is that the area of effect is to large, making it nigh-useless in tactical combat situations.

Nonlethal Substitution would work with it though, although being lit on fire while you're unconscious could be problematic. By that time you'll hopefully have fire resistance though

[Melcar]

You could Enhance, Maximize, Empower, Twin, 4x energy admixture for {[(20d6x5)x1,5]x2} for something around 1800 damage

[Anthrowhale]

You could Enhance, Maximize, Empower, Twin, 4x energy admixture for {[(20d6x5)x1,5]x2} for something around 1800 damage

Energy Admixture is a feat with a special rule allowing it to be selected twice, but I don't see anything allowing it to be applied twice to the same spell.

[Doctor Despair]

Let's take a different tactic here... Maybe Megumin should best be built using Troll Blooded to get regeneration? Then you can replace your fire damage with nonlethal damage, and use Mycontil's Last Resort without dying?