How good is Fireball, really?

[heavyfuel]

As someone who mostly plays 3.PF, I tend to think that blasting is a terrible way to spend your slots. It's better now in 5e, sure, but I can't help but think it's a complete waste of slots, even when we take something that everyone say is "totally broken" like Fireball.

Let's take a look:

It deals 28 average damage. The average CR 5 monster has +1.5 Dex save (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/anxn5e/average_monster_save_bonuses_by_cr_mtof_not/)), so the actual damage (if we assume DC 15) is 23. That's shy of a quarter of the monster's HP (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/6ggaza/average_hpsavesetc_per_cr/diq8jmm/)),. That's next to nothing, and you've just used your highest slot for that.

Now, it hits a 20ft square AoE, so let's say you instead hit 4 enemies, which sounds about right. If we take 4 CR 3 monsters (average Dex save of 1.6, and average HP of 60), you're dealing a third instead of a fourth. These monsters are still perfectly capable of fighting.

And all of this is assuming none of the monsters are Resistant to Fire, which is the most common resistance.

I honestly cannot think Fireball is good or even decent. If it dealt like 50% more damage it might be worth the slot, but as it stands, 99% of the time you're better off holding on to that slot so you can concentrate on something actually useful the next fight (or the current fight in case your Concentration breaks or enemies make their subsequent saves). I might prepare it in case I absolutely have to nova in a particularly difficult fight, but I still don't expect it to make that much of a difference.

Am I missing something?

[nickl_2000]

Let me point on 1 significant error you have in this. Fireball is a 20ft radius Sphere (thus a 40ft diameter). That is a much, much larger AoE than the 20 ft square you mentioned

[Hytheter]

Dealing 1/3 damage to several creatures at once is a huge chunk of damage that will shorten the fight dramatically. What's wrong with that?

[MaxWilson]

As someone who mostly plays 3.PF, I tend to think that blasting is a terrible way to spend your slots.

It's better now in 5e, sure, but I can't help but think it's a complete waste of slots, even when we take something that everyone say is "totally broken" like Fireball.

Let's take a look:

It deals 28 average damage. The average CR 5 monster has +1.5 Dex save (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/anxn5e/average_monster_save_bonuses_by_cr_mtof_not/)), so the actual damage (if we assume DC 15) is 23. That's shy of a quarter of the monster's HP (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/6ggaza/average_hpsavesetc_per_cr/diq8jmm/)),. That's next to nothing, and you've just used your highest slot for that.

Now, it hits a 20ft square AoE, so using it against a single enemy is a terrible use of that spell. I once saw someone say that, used optimally, you're going to be hitting a number of enemies equal to the square root of possible enemies. So let's say you instead hit 4 enemies, which sounds about right.

If we take 4 CR 3 monsters (average Dex save of 1.6, and average HP of 60), you're dealing a third instead of a fourth. These monsters are still perfectly capable of fighting.

And all of this is assuming none of the monsters are Resistant to Fire, which is the most common resistance.

I honestly cannot think Fireball is good or even decent. If it dealt like 50% more damage it might be worth the slot, but as it stands, 99% of the time you're better off holding on to that slot so you can concentrate on something actually useful the next fight (or the current fight in case your Concentration breaks or enemies make their subsequent saves). I might prepare it in case I absolutely have to nova in a particularly difficult fight, but I still don't expect it to make that much of a difference.

Am I missing something?

You've covered the major highlights: concentration spells are generally better, use Fireball in high-value situations where your concentration is already busy. Obviously it's great in fights against low-HP monsters like orcs and grungs and poisonous snakes, and that's potentially important because mobs are actually very deadly in 5E (10,000 XP worth of orcs is deadlier than 10,000 XP worth of Nalfeshnee if you don't have Fireball/similar), but what if your DM never actually uses more than a dozen monsters at a time?

The only thing I have to add here is that if you ever ARE in a situation where your concentration is busy (on e.g. Fear against 4 CR 3 Githyanki Warriors) and you have a chance to Fireball another 4 CR 3 Githyankis, you're in a very deadly fight, and spell slot efficiency ceases to matter as much as just putting down the enemies as quickly as possible (or getting away via Dimension Door/etc.). There's nothing wrong with dealing ~80ish damage spread out among 4 Githyankis instead of Fire Bolting for ~6ish damage to one of them! (I'm guesstimating 6ish because 2d10 (11) Fire Bolt in Tier 2 with around +8 to hit, vs. AC 17.) You're that much closer to ending the still-active Githyankis before they can break your concentration on Fear or regroup and rejoin their fleeing fellows.

So anyway, you're not wrong, but expecting to outright end several CR 3 monsters with one non-concentration spell is perhaps an unrealistic expectation. Blasting in 5E isn't good, but in deadly fights it's better than cantrips.

[Gignere]

As someone who mostly plays 3.PF, I tend to think that blasting is a terrible way to spend your slots.

It's better now in 5e, sure, but I can't help but think it's a complete waste of slots, even when we take something that everyone say is "totally broken" like Fireball.

Let's take a look:

It deals 28 average damage. The average CR 5 monster has +1.5 Dex save (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/anxn5e/average_monster_save_bonuses_by_cr_mtof_not/)), so the actual damage (if we assume DC 15) is 23. That's shy of a quarter of the monster's HP (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/6ggaza/average_hpsavesetc_per_cr/diq8jmm/)),. That's next to nothing, and you've just used your highest slot for that.

Now, it hits a 20ft square AoE, so using it against a single enemy is a terrible use of that spell. I once saw someone say that, used optimally, you're going to be hitting a number of enemies equal to the square root of possible enemies. So let's say you instead hit 4 enemies, which sounds about right.

If we take 4 CR 3 monsters (average Dex save of 1.6, and average HP of 60), you're dealing a third instead of a fourth. These monsters are still perfectly capable of fighting.

And all of this is assuming none of the monsters are Resistant to Fire, which is the most common resistance.

I honestly cannot think Fireball is good or even decent. If it dealt like 50% more damage it might be worth the slot, but as it stands, 99% of the time you're better off holding on to that slot so you can concentrate on something actually useful the next fight (or the current fight in case your Concentration breaks or enemies make their subsequent saves). I might prepare it in case I absolutely have to nova in a particularly difficult fight, but I still don't expect it to make that much of a difference.

Am I missing something?

Yeah because in 5e you can still be dealing with cr 1/4 at level 5. CR 1s are regularly encountered and action economy is king in 5e if your one spell can clear out 1/2 the field you pretty much won the battle.

Even against some high CRed groups if you can toss fireball after fireball you can help end the encounter faster.

Like say you encounter 3 CR 5s 1 fireball can take out just about 75 hps from the full encounter. You’re also expected to have one or more of them fail the save. This can help your other party members to potentially focus fire down one of them before they even go.

You probably will want to throw out a second fireball the next round since 3 CR 5 encounter at 5th level is actually a really tough battle. This can further lower the remaining two creatures down to around 1/2 hps.

Making it even more likely you can mop up in another round or two.

In an actual encounter we ran into 3 mindflayers along with their intellect devourers as a level 6 party I mean pretty sure TPK right if we didn’t run away.

We won initiative and three of us had fireball we cast 3 fireballs immediately basically vaporizing the intellect devourers and the unlucky mindflayer that somehow failed his saving throw 2 times was actually killed outright. The melees went and focus fired on the 1 of the remaining 2 mindflayers and instantly killing it too because it had low hit points.

That left 1 mindflayer left and all it did was stun the barbarian and tried to run away and we just chased it down and killed it.

In this case having access to multiple castings of fireball was key because mindflayers are really hard to stick save or sucks on. However even successfully saving against fireball they are still taking damage.

[Amnestic]

Now, it hits a 20ft square AoE,

It hits a 20' radius *sphere* AoE, so 40' diameter. This is pretty likely to hit most if not all enemies on the battlefield, especially in dungeons or urban settings, but even in the outdoor wilderness also.

If it hits 4 enemies and deals 23 damage like you propose, that's 92 damage with one action and 3rd level spell slot. Yes, none of the enemies are dead (yet), but that HP needed to be depleted eventually either way, and as an opener, how many other 3rd level spells compare to it? Probably not many. How much damage are the other people in your party doing? An absolute insane gloomstalker ranger sharpshooter turn might be able to compete but even then probably not.

Does it scale amazingly to level 20? No, but it's not really expected to. Its power peak is tier 2, and that's where the majority of people seem to play.

Is it the King of All Third Level Spells, Undisputed Among Arcanists? No. Hypnotic Pattern can be just as devastating on some failed saves, and even more fight-ending if the enemy rolls really badly. Conjure Animals can be even more broken - see any number of threads about issues with that spell. But Fireball is top tier for the spell slot it uses and for the tier of play that most people seem to sit in.

[nickl_2000]

Would I call it the king? No, but in one campaign recently (at level 5/6) we have had multiple fights recently where we were up against 10 goblins with shortbows that started grouped somewhat close together. A single fireball would have ruined that entire group of Goblins due to the size of the AoE, but since we didn't have it the fight lasted much longer than it would have otherwise.

[Xervous]

This isn’t 3.5 where by preparing it you’re sacrificing a slot that must be used to cast it. The wizard pens down Fireball and so long as there is a single 3rd level slot left they have the ability to vomit damage onto groups. You might not be inclined to waste it on a single target or something that is obviously evasive, but when it comes to the square hole you’ve got a square peg.

Blasting 92 damage off team monster at level 5/6 will outperform the rest of the non casting party who still have to contend with AC and missing being 0 damage.

It’s not an auto win like forcecage, but when the opportunity for its proper use arises the performance is often devastating. It can turn a fight from a challenge to cleanup time, it limits a GMs ability to throw groups of weak creatures at the party.

8d6 for a 3rd level spell, save for half in a forgiving AoE is a lot when you first get it. It’s so potent it’s the only blasting option you need to prepare in most cases of play. If spending spell slots to blast is efficient in a scenario, fireball will likely be first in line. One spell prep spot to have the ability to nope a broad selection of encounters. It has no competition, it’s a minor tradeoff to prepare it. Thus it shows up frequently, upends adventure path encounters, and has to be accounted for by GMs creating their own content.

[bendking]

There are two main benefits to blast spells:
1. They deal a lot of overall damage. Even if it's not single-target, potentially dealing 100 DPR (and sometimes much more) in a single action at level 5 is amazing.
2. They are incredible at dealing with encounters that have a lot of low CR enemies, which in 5e can still be deadly encounters due to Bounded Accuracy.

It's true that concentration spells are usually better than blast spells, though. But you can generally only cast one concentration spell in a fight, which is the trade-off.

[Ninja Dragon]

Isn't CR the level a party of 4 players should expect to meet? So those four CR 3 monsters are meant for a party of Lv12, according to the system. Of course, I don't expect it to be linear, but it's still way above their average difficulty level. So yeah it makes sense this battle can't be won on Turn 1.

[stoutstien]

Fireball is a great spell for the slot it starts in with 2 big cons.
-upcasting has little return.
-its fire damage.

Still one of the best uses of an action in the game as long as you don't roast your own side too much.

[MaxWilson]

It hits a 20' radius *sphere* AoE, so 40' diameter. This is pretty likely to hit most if not all enemies on the battlefield, especially in dungeons or urban settings, but even in the outdoor wilderness also.

I think you're overselling this. 40' is not much, especially in outdoor scenarios. It's smaller than some city crosswalks, and in an outdoor scenario it would work fine against melee monsters like e.g. a pack of wolves, but tool-using enemies like gnolls and githyankis have no particular reason to bunch up into Fireball Formation. That doesn't mean you couldn't catch a bunch of them in a Fireball, just that finding some of them temporarily in Fireball Formation is an opportunity to be created and exploited, not a constant to be always assumed.

[Chaos Jackal]

Let me preface this by saying that blasting isn't all that good, in my opinion. As such, fireball is certainly not broken when compared to fear or hypnotic pattern.

That being said, there's a few things you are missing.

One, dealing damage is still a solid way to use a slot. Half the reason 5e blasting is better than 3.PF is that the alternatives aren't as strong or consistent. You don't have save-or-dies, you have less save-or-sucks, those save-or-sucks usually come with extra saves, concentration prevents you from stacking multiple debuffs, buffs or BFCs and there's little you can do to optimize your save DCs and attack rolls other than just pumping your casting stat, because there's no caster level, no slot increase to DC, no metamagic shenanigans, no feats to boost your spellcasting numbers and, unless your DM is nice, no way to craft or poach specific items using your WBL. So you can't specialize easily or heap screwing upon screwing on the enemy or boost upon boost on your ally. You'll cast your one concentration spell, and then many times you'll find out that dealing damage with a cantrip or another spell is optimal, simply because there's not much else to do (or that is worth to do). Taking a decent chunk of HP out of several enemies is a good way to use a slot in many situations.

Two, fireball is broken if you look solely at damage. It's intentionally overtuned, scales OK, targets a save that might be pretty common but is rarely exceptional, has a good area and still deals something even if the enemy doesn't fail the save. If you want to deal damage, it doesn't get better than this. A 5th-level fireball deals almost as much damage as a cone of cold, except with an arguably easier targeting method and targeting a better save too. At 3rd-level, it's basically unmatched by anything of similar or lower level. True, the damage type sucks, but that's pretty much the only thing it loses out on in comparison to other spells. This doesn't just make the spell a good pick, it also means that it frees up space on preparation or learning. If you wanna deal damage, you don't have to prepare several spells, just in case, or worry about your limited spells known and whether or not you'll encounter a situation where a stronger spell might be needed. Casting or upcasting a fireball covers the majority of your potential damage needs.

Three, bounded accuracy. Mobs of enemies are always dangerous in 5e. My PF magus sporting 30 AC and a bunch of defensive spells heaped on him can cleave through swarms of low CR enemies because he's only ever hit on a 19 or 20, half the damage dealt will be resisted, and any special riders or other abilities the low CR enemies might have are basically automatically avoided with save modifiers at around +15. That's not the case in 5e. If a whole bunch of weaklings is thrown at the party, it'll more often than not remain dangerous throughout the game. Fireball cleans them up well.

So yes, fireball is far from broken in a vacuum. But it's still among the best, if not the best, spell of its kind, in a game where even the mage will often encounter situations where the optimal choice is to deal damage. It's not an amazing spell, but it's still a good spell.

[MrStabby]

I think fire damage isn't as bad as people say. The problem is in thinking that you only have one damage spell and it is evaluated in a vacuum. Fire resistance doesn't make fireball half as good. It only makes it half as good if thats what you cast. Fireball being fire damage against resistant enemies lowers the value of the spell slot from the value of a full fireball to the valeu of the next best thing which you would actually cast with the spell slot. If you pretend that you are still going to be fireballinga bunch of fire elementals then complaining it is underperfoming then you miss the point a bit.

I would also add that whilst fire is more resisted than most elements, it is also very well represented as an element to which monsters are vulnerable, either as listed under vulnerabilities, or as the troll does, as a limit to regeneration.

It doesn't matter how good it is on average, it matters how good it is when you use it. Counterspell might be totally useless on most combat turns, but on the turns when an enemy casts a spell it is awesome. Fireball might not be great on most turns but on the turns you face enemies that are not fire immune/resistant it is awesome.

[Hytheter]

I'd like to point out that the issue of resistance is a little overstated. Yeah, fire is commonly resisted, but a ton of those monsters are fiends and a non negligible amount are elementals and dragons. It'll usually be obvious when fireball is a bad idea to prepare or cast, but it will generally be pretty effective otherwise.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are two main benefits to blast spells:
1. They deal a lot of overall damage. Even if it's not single-target, potentially dealing 100 DPR (and sometimes much more) in a single action at level 5 is amazing.
2. They are incredible at dealing with encounters that have a lot of low CR enemies, which in 5e can still be deadly encounters due to Bounded Accuracy.
Yes indeed.
We discovered that wall of fire, particularly when my warlock was shoving enemies back into the wall using her repelling blasts, or the barbarian shoving them, has a unique lethality all its own. Fear spell on three big bads with the wall of fire behind t hem? That was another way to extend the bar b q.
Isn't CR the level a party of 4 players should expect to meet? So those four CR 3 monsters are meant for a party of Lv12, according to the system. Not really.
Here's what a 4 x CR 3 monsters are a medium encounter for: 700 x 4 = 2800. x 2 for the adjustment from the DMG and also in Basic Rules p. 165 (https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf#page=165). 5600 XP.

Party of four 8th level players finds it, allegedly, a hard encounter. (If they use decent teamwork, they'll handle it unless the dice go very cold)
Party of 4 6th level players finds it, allegedly, a deadly encounter. (If it is their only encounter that day, they probably win...outside of a cold dice day)
Party of 10th levels finds it an easy encounter, not quite medium.

But

That depends on who the 4 CR 3 monsters are. If you have 4 doppelgangers, and it's an urban setting, and they take the party by surprise, it gets dicey real fast (or it can)

Four Phase Spiders?
Based on how our party handled three of them, at level 7, I'd say four phase spiders at level 8 could make for a lively fight.

[Amnestic]

I think you're overselling this. 40' is not much, especially in outdoor scenarios. It's smaller than some city crosswalks, and in an outdoor scenario it would work fine against melee monsters like e.g. a pack of wolves, but tool-using enemies like gnolls and githyankis have no particular reason to bunch up into Fireball Formation. That doesn't mean you couldn't catch a bunch of them in a Fireball, just that finding some of them temporarily in Fireball Formation is an opportunity to be created and exploited, not a constant to be always assumed.

If you're being ambushed, sure, they might be spread out, especially if fireball is common knowledge, but that's also not the most common encounter scenario from what I've seen.

The others, mutually stumbling across each other or party ambushing the enemy, are more common in my experience. Mostly the former if only because of how perception gets weighted by players. Just as the party don't often stand 40' apart from each other when travelling, neither do NPCs. I mean, they could, but it'd strain belief a little for me.

Fireball being a sphere that targets a point in space rater than an object or creature also lets you dictate the AoE size affecting 'ground level' by aiming it into the air a little bit, giving it some measure of control even if you're not an evoker. Not always useful, sometimes irrelevant, but it's a thing to bear in mind.

You're not wrong, there'll be encounters where there's a number of enemies spread out over a vast area and fireball loses a lot of potency, but that's fine too.

[Democratus]

Fireball is OP by design, as stated by the authors of 5th edition.

It is capable of massively shortening a fight. Even if everyone saves (or has resistance) the total damage done is nearly always more than a fighter will do each round in a fight.

Fire resistance isn't super common in AL and published modules - as you are fighting other humanoids (and non-resistant creatures) the majority of the time.

Once could create a campaign which is chock full of fire-resistant enemies. But that's not default D&D, as published in their many modules.

[MrStabby]

Once could create a campaign which is chock full of fire-resistant enemies. But that's not default D&D, as published in their many modules.

Yeah, you would need a campaign set in the 9 hells for that.

[Democratus]

Yeah, you would need a campaign set in the 9 hells for that.

You would need about 10 campaigns set in the 9 hells for it to be default D&D, rather than an exception to the normal library of campaigns. :smallsmile:

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I agree that fireball is a weak spell but it have two major benefits.
1: it always do some damage.
2: it is very effective in cleaning mooks.

Because of bounded accuracy mooks are way more dangerous than mooks in 3.5e.

Fireball is good to keep around for the rare situation it is useful.
(For example: you need to do not a lot of damage to take down enemy as you concentrate on a powerful spell like wall of force).

[Unoriginal]

As someone who mostly plays 3.PF, I tend to think that blasting is a terrible way to spend your slots. It's better now in 5e, sure, but I can't help but think it's a complete waste of slots, even when we take something that everyone say is "totally broken" like Fireball.

Let's take a look:

It deals 28 average damage. The average CR 5 monster has +1.5 Dex save (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/anxn5e/average_monster_save_bonuses_by_cr_mtof_not/)), so the actual damage (if we assume DC 15) is 23. That's shy of a quarter of the monster's HP (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/6ggaza/average_hpsavesetc_per_cr/diq8jmm/)),. That's next to nothing, and you've just used your highest slot for that.

Now, it hits a 20ft square AoE, so let's say you instead hit 4 enemies, which sounds about right. If we take 4 CR 3 monsters (average Dex save of 1.6, and average HP of 60), you're dealing a third instead of a fourth. These monsters are still perfectly capable of fighting.

And all of this is assuming none of the monsters are Resistant to Fire, which is the most common resistance.

I honestly cannot think Fireball is good or even decent. If it dealt like 50% more damage it might be worth the slot, but as it stands, 99% of the time you're better off holding on to that slot so you can concentrate on something actually useful the next fight (or the current fight in case your Concentration breaks or enemies make their subsequent saves). I might prepare it in case I absolutely have to nova in a particularly difficult fight, but I still don't expect it to make that much of a difference.

Am I missing something?


You're missing several things:


1) Average stats doesn't represent the actual performance of monsters on the field.

2) While there are many spells that are better overall, Fireball is still basically the best damage spell at the level you can get it, and sometime casters will need to do damage. It's useful to have Fireball in your toolbox.

3) Casters in general aren't able to do a ton of damage to a single target. However doing decent damage to a lot of targets is still *extremely* useful.

4) It's assumed you will encounter CR 1/4, 1/2, 1, etc mooks for most of your adventuring career, and it's good to be able to clear them off the battlefield.



Isn't CR the level a party of 4 players should expect to meet?

No, CR X is "this is a Medium encounter for 4 PCs of lvl X". A Medium encounter being "may cost some ressources but isn't really dangerous". There is no expectation.


In general you will meet a lot of creatures with a CR below your level, with a few creatures with much higher CR.




So those four CR 3 monsters are meant for a party of Lv12, according to the system.

That's not how this calculation work.



So yeah it makes sense this battle can't be won on Turn 1.

Any battle that can be won in one turn is either a waste of time or meant to drain nova ressources. Only the latter is relevant to the game.



Yeah, you would need a campaign set in the 9 hells for that.

Like Descent Into Avernus.

TBF there are a lot of non-Devils enemies in it too.


I think you're overselling this. 40' is not much, especially in outdoor scenarios.

AoEs are much better indoor, indeed.



but tool-using enemies like gnolls and githyankis have no particular reason to bunch up into Fireball Formation. That doesn't mean you couldn't catch a bunch of them in a Fireball, just that finding some of them temporarily in Fireball Formation is an opportunity to be created and exploited, not a constant to be always assumed.

That is true. You generally needs to be holding a chokepoint, or having one person surrounded by enemies and not minding getting blasted.

Still, in many small rooms and corridors, the enemies don't have much room to avoid standing in a cluster. So while it's definitively a situational advantage it's not that rare a situation.

[Eldariel]

The big thing about Fireball is that it's a semi-decent spell without Concentration. Sadly most non-Concentration spells of note are damage spells so you're stuck picking the best of the bunch for when you need to do stuff after your first big spell. In the first few levels, you're basically looking at Grease, Pyrotechnics, Blindness, Summon Greater Demon (kinda, though you only get 1d6 turns of it and have to cast it first), Stone Shape, and cantrips [probably most notably Minor Illusion, Mold Earth and Shape Water], and that's about it for combat castable offensive non-damage effects.

And among the level 3- damage effects, Fireball is extremely competitive to the point of being fairly good. If it's an aerial battle, many of the non-Concentration options further get cut down to the point that damage spells may literally be the only higher impact action you can be taking in combat. It's not Synaptic Static/Passwall but it's pretty good (it's not level 5 either). Of course, level 6+ spells provide a lot of non-Concentration power but practically speaking you'll be solving most encounters without those. Those are reserved for actually dangerous enemies.

Of course, your Tier 2+ At Wills can often do things without burning more than one spell but when you run into one of those encounters where it's necessary to burn a lot of resources, Fireball is often a decent option.


Any battle that can be won in one turn is either a waste of time or meant to drain nova ressources. Only the latter is relevant to the game.

Any printed battle can be won or effectively won in a single round if you have good CC and land it. There's no enemy in the game immune to all CC (though sometimes you need to combo some spells), and even numerous enemies can easily fall prey to a single big spell. It's mostly a matter of how well the party is built and what tools they've got available.

[Jamesps]

Fireball is the best 3rd level spell because it consistently shortens fights, and fights that go on too long are boring. Some of the tactically optimal spells actually prolong combat by creating unapproachable zones where your melee damage dealers can't tread, or by causing the enemy to run off forcing more kill happy sorts to run after them.

Bleah, just die already.

Anything that keeps fights from dragging on in a good ability in my book.

[MaxWilson]

The others, mutually stumbling across each other or party ambushing the enemy, are more common in my experience. Mostly the former if only because of how perception gets weighted by players. Just as the party don't often stand 40' apart from each other when travelling, neither do NPCs. I mean, they could, but it'd strain belief a little for me.

Why? Military personnel do this in real life. I think it's closer to 20' spacing than 40' (I forget exactly) but adopting Fireball Formation is just as bad for your health in D&D as in real life, and not just because of Fireball specifically. Why would intelligent dispersal strain your suspension of disbelief?

[samcifer]

Fireball is a great spell for the slot it starts in with 2 big cons.
-upcasting has little return.
-its fire damage.

Still one of the best uses of an action in the game as long as you don't roast your own side too much.

On point no. 2, the sorcerer now has Transmuted metamagic. For a single sorcerery point, you can change the damage type to acid, cold, lightning or Thunder. Poison too, but that's a really poor choice against most monsters. Admittedly this doesn't help other classes, but for sorcerers, Fireball is now more versatile and therefor valuable as a blasting spell because you can tailor it to your targets.

[Eldariel]

Why? Military personnel do this in real life. I think it's closer to 20' spacing than 40' (I forget exactly) but adopting Fireball Formation is just as bad for your health in D&D as in real life, and not just because of Fireball specifically. Why would intelligent dispersal strain your suspension of disbelief?

Yeah, our marching orders (Finnish army) were to maintain 10-15 meters [30-50 feet] to the next personnel. This is to minimise damage from aerial attacks, artillery, ambushes, etc. as much as to make the formation as difficult to notice as possible. And this is standard marching on a road; the formation spreads out and moves in a much more difficult-to-destroy way when going cross-country [basically extremely spread-out lines]. This basically ensures that at worst only one guy dies to any unlucky happenstance [obviously things like bombing, artillery strikes and such are telegraphed so everyone has time to head for cover but ambushes are different], and everyone else has time to head for cover. Further, the commanding officer doesn't take point nor do they wear any insignia [nobody does] to make it impossible for enemy snipers to figure out who to target first. This is of course different in medieval or pseudo-medieval combat, but pseudo-medieval combat involving Fireballs and Dragons has all the same considerations as modern warfare.

[mistajames]

It's a good spell at level 5, a mediocre spell at level 7, and a kind of crappy spell at level 10.

8d6 AOE damage at level 5 is encounter-ending. Can result in lots of dead mobs in the right circumstances. At level 7, it's unlikely to outright kill level-appropriate mobs. At level 10, it's unlikely to take many level-appropriate mobs below half.

A level 5 fighter can fairly reliably pump out 100+ damage in round one of a challenging combat with GWM plus Action Surge, or 60+ without. Casters' damage output doesn't really cut it in comparison.

[ImproperJustice]

High level Eldritch Knight w/ action surge Fireball can end or just about end most encounters before they start at mid-high tier play.

Elemental Adept lessens resistance as an issue.

[MaxWilson]

It's a good spell at level 5, a mediocre spell at level 7, and a kind of crappy spell at level 10.

8d6 AOE damage at level 5 is encounter-ending. Can result in lots of dead mobs in the right circumstances. At level 7, it's unlikely to outright kill level-appropriate mobs. At level 10, it's unlikely to take many level-appropriate mobs below half.

Out of curiosity, what in your mind is a "level-appropriate mob" for levels 5, 7, and 10?

Two dozen drow warriors plus a couple of draegloths are still a quadruple-Deadly threat by DMG standards at level 10, but most of the threat comes from the drow and their poison, and Fireballs can still kill drow in great whacking lots of you hit them. The draegloths aren't much of an issue on their own.

[Sigreid]

Blasting a tough mob is, indeed a waste of a spell slot.

Fireball is fantastic, however; at dealing with masses of weaker mods designed to support the tougher mobs. Properly placed you demoralize or kill the bosses support with 1 third level slot freeing the rest of the party to focus on the harder opponent. With bounded accuracy, that's a lot of damage not coming in at your party. It's the ability to close on the boss. It's less damage that has to be healed.

Used right, it's a fantastic choice. Used when it isn't going to accomplish the goal of thinning the enemies ranks in one action it's a waste.

[Eldariel]

A level 5 fighter can fairly reliably pump out 100+ damage in round one of a challenging combat with GWM plus Action Surge, or 60+ without. Casters' damage output doesn't really cut it in comparison.

A level 5 GWM Fighter is pretty far from that reliable 100 damage... You can get 5 attacks at +1 with GWM + PAM and even against AC 10, you're missing 40% of the time so the realistic damage with a Glaive and PAM is 18,5 * 4 * 0,55 + 24 * 4 * 0,05 + 16,5 * 0,55 + 19 * 0,05 = 56 average damage against AC 10. Or 23 * 4 * 0,55 + 33 * 4 * 0,05 + 21 * 0,55 + 28 * 0,05 = 70 damage if burning a maneuver on every hit. And this is without any real enemy AC. You can get pennies more if you add Great Weapon Style but that's frankly not even worth noting with a 1d10 weapon (which is significantly better than Greatsword due to the extra attack from PAM). Now, if you land Trip Attack to get advantage and use Precision Attack too you can get there. But if the enemy has 15 AC instead, that's still not cutting it.

Now, a Sharpshooter CBE Archery style Archer does a bit better due to Archery style (if you go shoot in melee you can even use Trip Attack the same and with CBE you have no penalties for doing so) but even there we're talking about not only burning your action surge but also being a Battlemaster and burning all your maneuvers too. The realistic average damage a GWMer is doing without resources is like ~30 even against Oozes and Sharpshooter not all that much better.

[Amnestic]

Why? Military personnel do this in real life. I think it's closer to 20' spacing than 40' (I forget exactly) but adopting Fireball Formation is just as bad for your health in D&D as in real life, and not just because of Fireball specifically. Why would intelligent dispersal strain your suspension of disbelief?

Because the majority of your enemies aren't military personnel, mostly, though that is campaign dependent I suppose.

Or put another way, do your adventuring parties often stand 20-40' feet apart each when out and about? 'cos that's potentially 2-4 turns of movement between the far ends, even with dashing.

Maybe your games are different to mine, but that's certainly not my experience.

[Willie the Duck]

As someone who mostly plays 3.PF, I tend to think that blasting is a terrible way to spend your slots. It's better now in 5e, sure, but I can't help but think it's a complete waste of slots, even when we take something that everyone say is "totally broken" like Fireball.
I think some defining/clarifying/level-setting needs to be done. 'Everyone' does not say that Fireball is "totally broken." In fact, I doubt very many people say that at all. And when they do, I think they usually actually mean something more like:

Fireball is OP by design, as stated by the authors of 5th edition.
Which is a decidedly different beast. And it is. Fireball is decidedly overpowered for an Area of Effect spell of 3rd level (extrapolating from similar spells of lower, same, and higher levels). It both is a significant uptick in damage compared to Thunderwave or Shatter, but also of a massive increase in area covered (and significantly more convenient for fitting enemies within said area, compared to something like Lightning Bolt). That was done by design, as people really like playing fireball mages. Fireball is, simply put, really really good at doing what it does. That doesn't change the fact that what it does is an oft-useful but not game-defining strategy. area effect damage is really good at clearing out the speed bumps, or taking the top 10% off all the baddies when they are huddled together for some reason, but it rarely takes a major player enemy out of the fight in the same way that a crowd control, hold/stun/entangle, or crippling debuff effect might. No argument there, but that's not really what people say about it either (in my experience). It is simply really nice, compared to 3e, how not-horrible it is.

[Gignere]

Because the majority of your enemies aren't military personnel, mostly, though that is campaign dependent I suppose.

Or put another way, do your adventuring parties often stand 20-40' feet apart each when out and about? 'cos that's potentially 2-4 turns of movement between the far ends, even with dashing.

Maybe your games are different to mine, but that's certainly not my experience.

Right now my current party this is how we march overland we have me the rogue and familiar out front. Usually 40 feet or more away from the Paladin just to get out of his light.

We also have a rearguard that is a drow (under dark) to watch out for things chasing us and she is also 20-40 feet away from the Paladin.

We have the Druid standing next to the Paladin just when we want to get rid of the light the Druid can still hold the paladin’s hand if we need him to hide his light source.

In dungeons we are tighter but overland we typically are not in fireball formation. None of us are more than one movement from helping one another at least with a range attack.

[Unoriginal]

Any printed battle can be won or effectively won in a single round if you have good CC and land it. There's no enemy in the game immune to all CC (though sometimes you need to combo some spells), and even numerous enemies can easily fall prey to a single big spell. It's mostly a matter of how well the party is built and what tools they've got available.

Applying that kind of crowd control means the party spends ressources, so it falls under the second part of what I was talking about.

[MaxWilson]

Right now my current party this is how we march overland we have me the rogue and familiar out front. Usually 40 feet or more away from the Paladin just to get out of his light.

We also have a rearguard that is a drow (under dark) to watch out for things chasing us and she is also 20-40 feet away from the Paladin.

We have the Druid standing next to the Paladin just when we want to get rid of the light the Druid can still hold the paladin’s hand if we need him to hide his light source.

In dungeons we are tighter but overland we typically are not in fireball formation. None of us are more than one movement from helping one another at least with a range attack.

One of the nice things about spreading out this way is that if you trip over some monsters, even if they are just regular melee monsters and not Fireball casters, you can buy extra time with which to shoot them for "free" just by having whoever tripped over them Dodge or Disengage back toward the party. If everyone were all clumped up in Fireball formation this would simply be an invitation to attack someone else, but if the only target in range is Dodging, the monsters have no good options.

5E is D&D: Gunfight Edition.

[Gignere]

One of the nice things about spreading out this way is that if you trip over some monsters, even if they are just regular melee monsters and not Fireball casters, you can buy extra time with which to shoot them for "free" just by having whoever tripped over them Dodge or Disengage back toward the party. If everyone were all clumped up in Fireball formation this would simply be an invitation to attack someone else, but if the only target in range is Dodging, the monsters have no good options.

5E is D&D: Gunfight Edition.

I also find being the rogue I can get back to the core of the party rather quickly since I have a bonus action dash even if I’m 50-60 feet ahead of the Paladin and Druid. The Drow with 120 feet DV can just EB to my position if necessary, so she doesn’t even need to get close to the Paladin and Druid to contribute.

However, I usually get a surprise round against random monsters because I’m stealthing and I have expertise in that, and nowhere near the light source of the party.

[stoutstien]

On point no. 2, the sorcerer now has Transmuted metamagic. For a single sorcerery point, you can change the damage type to acid, cold, lightning or Thunder. Poison too, but that's a really poor choice against most monsters. Admittedly this doesn't help other classes, but for sorcerers, Fireball is now more versatile and therefor valuable as a blasting spell because you can tailor it to your targets.

Very true. It's not a huge con but it comes up time to time to be a something to weigh it against the other big blasty 3rd level options like erupting earth or tidal wave.

[mistajames]

Out of curiosity, what in your mind is a "level-appropriate mob" for levels 5, 7, and 10?

Two dozen drow warriors plus a couple of draegloths are still a quadruple-Deadly threat by DMG standards at level 10, but most of the threat comes from the drow and their poison, and Fireballs can still kill drow in great whacking lots of you hit them. The draegloths aren't much of an issue on their own.

I'd consider an encounter between "Hard" and "Deadly" to be level-appropriate in my typical campaigns, assuming reasonable optimization and magic items (a few +1 items or equivalent) and 4-5 encounters/day. Most "Medium" encounters will get steamrolled with few resources spent unless the monsters have some added advantages.

[da newt]

For the OP:

What would you prefer your PC to cast in place of Fireball that is so much more effective?

What can your other party members accomplish multiple times during a single combat that is so much more effective than a fireball?

Don't get me wrong, your points are fair - it's fire damage and it doesn't kill/incapacitate foes with more than ~28 hp in one round, but for what it does it's about as good as it gets, and you can do it multiple times in one battle and hit multiple foes every time.

[mistajames]

A level 5 GWM Fighter is pretty far from that reliable 100 damage... You can get 5 attacks at +1 with GWM + PAM and even against AC 10, you're missing 40% of the time so the realistic damage with a Glaive and PAM is 18,5 * 4 * 0,55 + 24 * 4 * 0,05 + 16,5 * 0,55 + 19 * 0,05 = 56 average damage against AC 10. Or 23 * 4 * 0,55 + 33 * 4 * 0,05 + 21 * 0,55 + 28 * 0,05 = 70 damage if burning a maneuver on every hit. And this is without any real enemy AC. You can get pennies more if you add Great Weapon Style but that's frankly not even worth noting with a 1d10 weapon (which is significantly better than Greatsword due to the extra attack from PAM). Now, if you land Trip Attack to get advantage and use Precision Attack too you can get there. But if the enemy has 15 AC instead, that's still not cutting it.

Now, a Sharpshooter CBE Archery style Archer does a bit better due to Archery style (if you go shoot in melee you can even use Trip Attack the same and with CBE you have no penalties for doing so) but even there we're talking about not only burning your action surge but also being a Battlemaster and burning all your maneuvers too. The realistic average damage a GWMer is doing without resources is like ~30 even against Oozes and Sharpshooter not all that much better.

Assuming no advantage, no magic items, and no buffs, you are correct. How often do those assumptions hold true?

Also, the Fireballing caster is using resources, we should be comparing like-to-like.

[KorvinStarmast]

For the OP:

What would you prefer your PC to cast in place of Fireball that is so much more effective?

What can your other party members accomplish multiple times during a single combat that is so much more effective than a fireball?

Don't get me wrong, your points are fair - it's fire damage and it doesn't kill/incapacitate foes with more than ~28 hp in one round, but for what it does it's about as good as it gets, and you can do it multiple times in one battle and hit multiple foes every time. If the other party members include a warlock with a wand of web - cough, like my celestial lock - that 28 HP in one round goes up to 33 for anyone caught in the web when it goes off. And, being in the web means Disadvantage on the Dex save.

The web burns us, Precious!

Teamwork for the win. :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

Assuming no advantage, no magic items, and no buffs, you are correct. How often do those assumptions hold true?

Level 5 party pre-combat buffs seem pretty unlikely as do magic items. Advantage, again, pretty unlikely unless you're giving it to yourself. And even with advantage you're looking at the given damage against any enemy with any AC as I pointed out; AC 15 is about the same numbers with Advantage as the numbers I gave you. So even compared to Advantage Fighter, Fireball is still surprisingly decent.


Also, the Fireballing caster is using resources, we should be comparing like-to-like.

Indeed, and Fireball still compares favourably to Action Surging GWM/PAM Fighter if it hits 3+ non-resistant enemies, and comes on a chassis where you aren't actually burning all your feats and character build resources on doing only this (like with Fighter who burns their race, level 1 feat and level 4 ASI on this). Sharpshooter CBE Archer is better, granted, but ultimately still a zero character build resources character matching one using their whole character on that is surprisingly decent.

[MaxWilson]

I'd consider an encounter between "Hard" and "Deadly" to be level-appropriate in my typical campaigns, assuming reasonable optimization and magic items (a few +1 items or equivalent) and 4-5 encounters/day. Most "Medium" encounters will get steamrolled with few resources spent unless the monsters have some added advantages.

Then in that case I guess we'd better remove one of the Draegloths and some of the Drow, since they make it quadruple-Deadly. 1 Draegloth and 10 Drow are merely Hard-but-not-quite Deadly.

The point is, low-HP creatures can still be part of Deadly encounters, and if you don't have Fireball or some equivalent AoE then those encounters become REALLY deadly.

[JonBeowulf]

I've got Fireball on my "it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it" list. It may not hold up in white-room thought exercises, but it performs quite well when used in-game.

[heavyfuel]

I'm not gonna reply to each individual response, but to the points they raise:

@ It's 20ft radius, not square

Fair point. I missed that. Still, I don't think you're likely to get more than 4 opponents anyway.

@ It's 100 damage!!

There's a huge, huuuuge difference between "100 damage, period" and "100 damage divided among 4 enemies". If there was a 3rd level spell called "firelaser" instead of fireball, that targeted a single creature for 28d6 damage, that spell would be insane good. On the same line of thought, a 3rd level spell called "heat wave" that dealt 1d6 damage to every creature in a 100ft radius would probably be considered useless.

Saying "it's 100 damage!!" is misleading at best, and intelectually dishonest at worse.

@ Mobs are dangerous in 5e

Are they? Globins have +4 to hit and deal 5.5 damage on a hit, so with 20 AC, they need a 16 to hit. That's an average of 1.6 damage per goblin per round.

Surely a party of 4 can deal with 15 Goblins (technically a Hard encounter) before they can deal too much damage. If the party takes care of 6 goblins per turn, that's maybe 30 damage spread through the party. ~8 damage per character. That's nothing by level 5.

Plus, Sleep can still be used to deal with creatures like Goblins. Yeah, it's worse than Fireball, but it's also 2 levels lower.

[samcifer]

I'm not gonna reply to each individual response, but to the points they raise:

If there was a 3rd level spell called "firelaser" instead of fireball, that targeted a single creature for 28d6 damage, that spell would be insane good.

It's not the same, but a sorcerer with the Transmuted metamagic and Lightning Bolt can turn it into an 8d6+ flamethrower with 100ft. reach.

[MaxWilson]

@ Mobs are dangerous in 5e

Are they? Globins have +4 to hit and deal 5.5 damage on a hit, so with 20 AC, they need a 16 to hit. That's an average of 1.6 damage per goblin per round.

Surely a party of 4 can deal with 15 Goblins (technically a Hard encounter) before they can deal too much damage. If the party takes care of 6 goblins per turn, that's maybe 30 damage spread through the party. ~8 damage per character. That's nothing by level 5.

Plus, Sleep can still be used to deal with creatures like Goblins. Yeah, it's worse than Fireball, but it's also 2 levels lower.

I'm not so sure you can kill six goblins per round at level 5 without using AoEs, but let's say arguendo that you can.

By level 9, the party single-target offense hasn't increased that much since level 5 (one or two ASIs and a proficiency bonus, but you were already counting on hitting all the time anyway) but now a Hard encounter is about 40 goblins. Now instead of facing down 15 + 9 + 3 = 27 goblin attacks, you're facing 40 + 34 + 28 + 22 + 16 + 10 + 4 = 154 attacks. If a quarter of them hit or force resource expenditure (Shield), that's about 38 hits (8 or so crits) for roughly 46d6+76 (237) damage, if you have no means of crowd control a la Fireball. (Even then it only works if you can bait them into Fireball Formation.) That's ignoring Nimble Escape BTW which can boost their offense even further (advantage from hiding) and slow down your kill rate. Nor am I considering focus fire which can bring down PCs and slow down your kill rate, making you take even more damage or even death spiral into a TPK.

Alternately, you could fight 3 Hobgoblin Devastators, and 2 Bugbear Chiefs for about the same difficulty XP budget.

I'd rather fight the small group than the big group, even with Fireball. Devastators will get off some Fireballs of their own but not 237 HP worth, and their Fireballs can't focus damage on one PC and send you into a TPK death spiral. Bugbear chiefs are low threat unless Devastators land a Hold Person IV, and even then a 9th level group probably has more than enough tools to Counterspell or Dispel or Lesser Restoration or break the caster's concentration before any serious autocritting happens.

Four 9th level newbies playing Battlemasters could beat the Devastators and Bugbears without much trouble as long as they had decent builds (Sharpshooter, Precision Strike). They would be seriously wounded or even killed by the goblins. That's why you need Fireball, unless your DM just doesn't do hordes.

[fbelanger]

Bare minimum 3 targets.
avoid Upcasting.

[Amnestic]

@ It's 100 damage!!

There's a huge, huuuuge difference between "100 damage, period" and "100 damage divided among 4 enemies". If there was a 3rd level spell called "firelaser" instead of fireball, that targeted a single creature for 28d6 damage, that spell would be insane good. On the same line of thought, a 3rd level spell called "heat wave" that dealt 1d6 damage to every creature in a 100ft radius would probably be considered useless.

Saying "it's 100 damage!!" is misleading at best, and intelectually dishonest at worse.


If you don't think there's a notable difference in how long an encounter lasts (and thus how much damage the party takes, and how many resources they spend on it) when the choices are 4 60 health enemies vs. 4 35 health enemies, at level 5, when all other factors remain the same, then I don't know how to explain it further.

[Gignere]

If you don't think there's a notable difference in how long an encounter lasts (and thus how much damage the party takes, and how many resources they spend on it) when the choices are 4 60 health enemies vs. 4 35 health enemies, at level 5, when all other factors remain the same, then I don't know how to explain it further.

It’s because of his 3.X/PF experience with enough level difference characters can stand there all day and take no damage. Which isn’t the case in 5e, even with his example of +4 to hit most level 10 characters will be hit on a 16 or better roll from goblins. So the longer you take to clear a horde the more it costs the party in resources in 5e. In 3.5/PF you could have gotten to such disparities that your character can take a sleep in the middle of a horde of goblins and take no damage. This is hyperbole but it isn’t too far off from reality.

[Unoriginal]

Saying "it's 100 damage!!" is misleading at best, and intelectually dishonest at worse.

This is true.


If you don't think there's a notable difference in how long an encounter lasts (and thus how much damage the party takes, and how many resources they spend on it) when the choices are 4 60 health enemies vs. 4 35 health enemies, at level 5, when all other factors remain the same, then I don't know how to explain it further.

This is true as well, however, and very relevant to the conversation. Spending one spell slot to half the health or near for 4 big enemies is an amazing tradeoff.



@ Mobs are dangerous in 5e

Are they? Globins have +4 to hit and deal 5.5 damage on a hit, so with 20 AC, they need a 16 to hit. That's an average of 1.6 damage per goblin per round.

Averages =/= reality.



Surely a party of 4 can deal with 15 Goblins (technically a Hard encounter) before they can deal too much damage. If the party takes care of 6 goblins per turn, that's maybe 30 damage spread through the party. ~8 damage per character. That's nothing by level 5.

30 damage spread through the party at lvl 5 sounds like an hard encounter, yes. If the encounter goes well. Thing is:

-You don't know nor get to decide how that damage is spread.

-Going through this encounter costs ressources

-One Hard encounter isn't much, but there is nothing saying you'll only get one Hard encounter.

Try 25 goblins. Try 15 goblins with 3 bugbears and an hobgoblin captain. Try 10 goblins and a CR 9 boss. Try 4 separate groups of 10-to-20 goblins. Try 15 goblins ambushing your party when you're crossing a suspended bridge.

Furthermore:



so with 20 AC,

You can't get 20 AC without trading off something for it. Spell slots, a shield, giving yourself a boost when it could go to a teammate... it's certainly possible to get that, but most 5e characters won't have AC 20.

A +4 to hit is much more of a problem when you have AC 17.



Plus, Sleep can still be used to deal with creatures like Goblins. Yeah, it's worse than Fireball, but it's also 2 levels lower.

But as you said it's worse than Fireball. Ergo, Fireball is still good.

[heavyfuel]

If you don't think there's a notable difference in how long an encounter lasts (and thus how much damage the party takes, and how many resources they spend on it) when the choices are 4 60 health enemies vs. 4 35 health enemies, at level 5, when all other factors remain the same, then I don't know how to explain it further.

If we're going to assume every enemy will fail their save, we might as well cast Hypnotic Pattern and then fight a single 20 HP enemy 4 times (20 HP because everyone will get an entire round of damage against each single enmy before the enemy even gets to do anything)

"Fireball is useless" isn't what I'm arguing. I'm arguing it's a bad way to spend your resources. Sure, I'd take 28 AoE damage any day on a class that didn't have a "take 2 enemies out of the fight" button sharing resources with it.

[Rynjin]

It’s because of his 3.X/PF experience with enough level difference characters can stand there all day and take no damage. Which isn’t the case in 5e, even with his example of +4 to hit most level 10 characters will be hit on a 16 or better roll from goblins. So the longer you take to clear a horde the more it costs the party in resources in 5e. In 3.5/PF you could have gotten to such disparities that your character can take a sleep in the middle of a horde of goblins and take no damage. This is hyperbole but it isn’t too far off from reality.

TBH I kind of doubt his extensive 3.PF experience to begin with, since there's a pretty straight translation. Fireball is ALREADY GOOD in 3.PF, for the same reasons it's good in 5e; softening crowds and killing mooks. Fireball is EVEN BETTER in 5e, because you start with a 3d6 damage leg up.

The main difference is that Fireball doesn't SCALE as well in 5e, since there are almost no ways to boost its damage (Empower, Maximize, Intensify Metamagics) or raw effectiveness (Dazing metamagic turning it into a save or lose with a 40 foot diameter).

Fireball is great because it shortens the interminable, mind rending length of mid-high level combats in 5e, if nothing else. I'll take Rocket Tag over 10 round combats any day.

[Amnestic]

If we're going to assume every enemy will fail their save, we might as well cast Hypnotic Pattern and then fight a single 20 HP enemy 4 times (20 HP because everyone will get an entire round of damage against each single enmy before the enemy even gets to do anything)

I didn't assume every enemy failed their save. I took the numbers from your first post of the thread that said it dealt an averaged 23 per hit across 4 enemies, when accounting for saves. I rounded to 25 because I like round numbers. Sorry. 37 health vs 60 health, my bad? It doesn't really change the situation where you're shaving 1/3rd-1/2 of their health pools away.

This was your example, not mine.



"Fireball is useless" isn't what I'm arguing.

Respectfully, you're not far off asserting that. Again, from your first post:



I honestly cannot think Fireball is good or even decent.

[Dork_Forge]

The main difference is that Fireball doesn't SCALE as well in 5e, since there are almost no ways to boost its damage (Empower, Maximize, Intensify Metamagics) or raw effectiveness (Dazing metamagic turning it into a save or lose with a 40 foot diameter).


This isn't really true:

Straight Damage bumps:

Elemental Affinity (Dragon Sorc, L6): +Cha mod

Radiant Soul (Celestial Warlock L6): +Cha mod

Empowered Evocation (Evoc Wizard L10): +Int mod

Overchannel (Evoc Wizard L14): Max damage

Power Surge (War Wizard L6): +Force damage (Half Wiz level)

Empowered Spell Metamagic (1SP): reroll damage dice up to Cha mod (can be added onto other metas)

Elemental Adept (Feat): Treat 1s on damage dice as 2s

Effectiveness:

Heightened Spell Metamagic (3SP): Disadvantage on saves

Careful Spell (Metamagic) + Sculpt Spell: minimising collateral damage

Elemental Adept (Feat): Ignore resistance to fire

Transmuted Spell (Metamagic): Convert damage type, this opens up other combos like Tempest Cleric

Awakened Spellbook (Scribes Wizard L2): Convert damage type to that of another 3rd level spell

This was off the top of my head, there's probably more.

[MaxWilson]

Power Surge (War Wizard L6): +Force damage (Half Wiz level)

Nitpick: Power Surge doesn't really boost Fireball damage, it just lets you choose one creature your Fireball hits and do a little extra damage to them. It's no more a boost to Fireball than is Fury of the Small.

Good list otherwise.

[heavyfuel]

I didn't assume every enemy failed their save. I took the numbers from your first post of the thread that said it dealt an averaged 23 per hit across 4 enemies, when accounting for saves. I rounded to 25 because I like round numbers. Sorry. 37 health vs 60 health, my bad? It doesn't really change the situation where you're shaving 1/3rd-1/2 of their health pools away.

Respectfully, you're not far off asserting that. Again, from your first post:

Fair enough.

As for me calling it "not decent", I meant to say that in comparisson to other 3rd level spells. Sure, if you just say "Do you want 25 AoE damage for free no strings attached", I'd say it's pretty good. It's just bad compared with other spells

[Gignere]

Fair enough.

As for me calling it "not decent", I meant to say that in comparisson to other 3rd level spells. Sure, if you just say "Do you want 25 AoE damage for free no strings attached", I'd say it's pretty good. It's just bad compared with other spells

What other spells are you comparing that put fireball to shame? I can’t really think of any at level 5 that would put fireball to shame. Some would be better in some situations certainly but putting fireball to shame in most situations I’m just drawing a blank.

[Kireban]

This isn't really true:

Straight Damage bumps:

Elemental Affinity (Dragon Sorc, L6): +Cha mod

Radiant Soul (Celestial Warlock L6): +Cha mod

Empowered Evocation (Evoc Wizard L10): +Int mod

Overchannel (Evoc Wizard L14): Max damage

Power Surge (War Wizard L6): +Force damage (Half Wiz level)

Empowered Spell Metamagic (1SP): reroll damage dice up to Cha mod (can be added onto other metas)

Elemental Adept (Feat): Treat 1s on damage dice as 2s

Effectiveness:

Heightened Spell Metamagic (3SP): Disadvantage on saves

Careful Spell (Metamagic) + Sculpt Spell: minimising collateral damage

Elemental Adept (Feat): Ignore resistance to fire

Transmuted Spell (Metamagic): Convert damage type, this opens up other combos like Tempest Cleric

Awakened Spellbook (Scribes Wizard L2): Convert damage type to that of another 3rd level spell

This was off the top of my head, there's probably more.

You must never forget the roll of 33-34 on the wild magic surge!

[5eNeedsDarksun]

This isn't really true:

Straight Damage bumps:

Elemental Affinity (Dragon Sorc, L6): +Cha mod

Radiant Soul (Celestial Warlock L6): +Cha mod

Empowered Evocation (Evoc Wizard L10): +Int mod

Overchannel (Evoc Wizard L14): Max damage

Power Surge (War Wizard L6): +Force damage (Half Wiz level)

Empowered Spell Metamagic (1SP): reroll damage dice up to Cha mod (can be added onto other metas)

Elemental Adept (Feat): Treat 1s on damage dice as 2s

Effectiveness:

Heightened Spell Metamagic (3SP): Disadvantage on saves

Careful Spell (Metamagic) + Sculpt Spell: minimising collateral damage

Elemental Adept (Feat): Ignore resistance to fire

Transmuted Spell (Metamagic): Convert damage type, this opens up other combos like Tempest Cleric

Awakened Spellbook (Scribes Wizard L2): Convert damage type to that of another 3rd level spell

This was off the top of my head, there's probably more.

This was part of my thinking in response to the original post. My Draconic Sorc at 6th level got Elemental Affinity and Empower (1 SP cost) on every Fireball he cast, for total damage of about 40% more than cited here, more like 40 hp per monster that failed a save. That with a larger area than the OP suggests (20' radius) meant I was often doing closer to 200 points of damage per cast. Did it kill every baddie? No, but the martials would routinely wade in and one shot kill the wounded or step over the bodies to get to the big guy(s) after that.

[Rynjin]

This isn't really true:

Straight Damage bumps:

Elemental Affinity (Dragon Sorc, L6): +Cha mod

Radiant Soul (Celestial Warlock L6): +Cha mod

Empowered Evocation (Evoc Wizard L10): +Int mod

Overchannel (Evoc Wizard L14): Max damage

Power Surge (War Wizard L6): +Force damage (Half Wiz level)

Empowered Spell Metamagic (1SP): reroll damage dice up to Cha mod (can be added onto other metas)

Elemental Adept (Feat): Treat 1s on damage dice as 2s

Effectiveness:

Heightened Spell Metamagic (3SP): Disadvantage on saves

Careful Spell (Metamagic) + Sculpt Spell: minimising collateral damage

Elemental Adept (Feat): Ignore resistance to fire

Transmuted Spell (Metamagic): Convert damage type, this opens up other combos like Tempest Cleric

Awakened Spellbook (Scribes Wizard L2): Convert damage type to that of another 3rd level spell

This was off the top of my head, there's probably more.

The main difference is that each of these is class dependent, whereas all of the options I listed are available to ANY spellcaster. This limits the stacking potential considerably, and to boot each of those you list is significantly less impactful; +5 or so to damage is generally not comparable to +50% damage (an average addition of 14 damage to your standard 8d6 Fireball) and are available only at significantly higher levels on average.

[Dork_Forge]

Nitpick: Power Surge doesn't really boost Fireball damage, it just lets you choose one creature your Fireball hits and do a little extra damage to them. It's no more a boost to Fireball than is Fury of the Small.

I get the nitpick and it can matter if you're talking calculating concentration checks or something like that, functionally though I'd consider anything that procs on Fireball to be a boost to it as long as it is confined to the same 'moment' the Fireball hits and the character casting (I wouldn't consider an Order Cleric attack a boost).


Good list otherwise.

Thanks!


You must never forget the roll of 33-34 on the wild magic surge!

See, plenty of things to add! Wasn't bad for a first pass though :p


This was part of my thinking in response to the original post. My Draconic Sorc at 6th level got Elemental Affinity and Empower (1 SP cost) on every Fireball he cast, for total damage of about 40% more than cited here, more like 40 hp per monster that failed a save. That with a larger area than the OP suggests (20' radius) meant I was often doing closer to 200 points of damage per cast. Did it kill every baddie? No, but the martials would routinely wade in and one shot kill the wounded or step over the bodies to get to the big guy(s) after that.

Yeah, if you actually want to be good at something (not just Fireball), you can usually find multiple ways to buff it in different ways in 5e. It's part of a pet peeve I have when people look at 'blasting' as being x spell, when a blaster wouldn't just be casting x spell like any other caster would...



The main difference is that each of these is class dependent, whereas all of the options I listed are available to ANY spellcaster. This limits the stacking potential considerably, and to boot each of those you list is significantly less impactful; +5 or so to damage is generally not comparable to +50% damage (an average addition of 14 damage to your standard 8d6 Fireball) and are available only at significantly higher levels on average.

I've never played Pathfinder or 3.x, so maybe you can help clarify somethings for me:

-Do you get Fireball at 5th level?

-What's the actual damage of the spell? A page I found said 1d6 per caster level up to a max of 10d6, which is vastly different than 5e's Fireball and upcasting it. From a cursory Google it looks like Fireball in PF would be 5d6 when you first get it? Having an easier time upping damage is understandable when the base damage is already starting off 3d6 lower...

-Elemental Affinity is available to everyone, similarly anyone can grab a little metamagic now, otherwise they average around coming online at level 6 for the class specifics... that's one level after you get access to Fireball and everyone that gets class wide access to Fireball gets a subclass that can up its damage

-Are the numbers in PF similar enough to 5e for this to even be a straight comparison? Do spells and attacks do roughly equivalent damage? Do monsters have the same amount of hp/damage mitigation? If the monsters are tuned for bigger numbers than it doens't really matter if the particular number looks big, its effect is relatively the same, for example

[Rynjin]

I've never played Pathfinder or 3.x, so maybe you can help clarify somethings for me:

-Do you get Fireball at 5th level?

-What's the actual damage of the spell? A page I found said 1d6 per caster level up to a max of 10d6, which is vastly different than 5e's Fireball and upcasting it. From a cursory Google it looks like Fireball in PF would be 5d6 when you first get it? Having an easier time upping damage is understandable when the base damage is already starting off 3d6 lower...

Fireball comes online at 5th level still, yes: a 3rd level spell slot. The damage starts at 5d6, but scales with level up to 10d6 with no investment; you don't need to upcast it. In 5e, a 10d6 Fireball would be a 5th level spell, which seems like a horrendous waste.

In Pathfinder that same 5th level spell slot could be an Empowered Fireball (dealing 9d6, average 31, plus 50% for 47 damage) as opposed to a raw 10d6 Fireball averaging 35.

This is the main core of what I mean when I say it STARTS OFF better, but scales worse.

This isn't counting optimization tricks to make that Empowered Fireball still cost only a 3rd level slot, or be even more jacked when you up it to 5th.


-Elemental Affinity is available to everyone, similarly anyone can grab a little metamagic now, otherwise they average around coming online at level 6 for the class specifics... that's one level after you get access to Fireball and everyone that gets class wide access to Fireball gets a subclass that can up its damage

This I didn't know, actually. Last I played 5e metamagic was a Sorcerer only class feature, not a universal option.


-Are the numbers in PF similar enough to 5e for this to even be a straight comparison? Do spells and attacks do roughly equivalent damage? Do monsters have the same amount of hp/damage mitigation? If the monsters are tuned for bigger numbers than it doens't really matter if the particular number looks big, its effect is relatively the same, for example

In terms of damage, yes. This is one of the primary complaints I had about 5e when I played it regularly; HP numbers stayed the same while player and enemy damage was lowered across the board, making combats last significantly longer.

Taking a quick example from the bestiaries, an Adult Black Dragon is comparable in terms of "meatiness" in both systems; the Pathfinder version actually has 34 lower HP (161 vs the 195 HP of the 5e version), though that is because an Adult Black Dragon is CR 11 rather than 14 (though IIRC this is a smaller difference than it would seem since 5e completely overhauled the CR system). A CR 14 dragon instead (Adult Red) has almost the exact same HP; 212 vs the 195 of the 5e Adult Black.

This applies across the board; eg. a CR 1/4 Goblin in 5e has 7 HP, while the equivalent CR 1/3 Goblin in Pathfinder has 6 (though an extra +1 AC).

So comparing Fireball between editions is almost a perfect 1:1 comparison. The main differences in combat between 5e and 3.PF come in with martial combat, since AC and attack rolls scale a hell of a lot faster in 3.PF, as do raw damage numbers on attacks (it's not uncommon for a 10th level Barbarian to be slinging around something like 2d6+25 damage on each of its attacks; sometimes higher). Magical combat (which targets saves and raw HP values instead) remains largely comparable.

[Kane0]

Yeah it’s pretty good

[Dork_Forge]

Fireball comes online at 5th level still, yes: a 3rd level spell slot. The damage starts at 5d6, but scales with level up to 10d6 with no investment; you don't need to upcast it. In 5e, a 10d6 Fireball would be a 5th level spell, which seems like a horrendous waste.

In Pathfinder that same 5th level spell slot could be an Empowered Fireball (dealing 9d6, average 31, plus 50% for 47 damage) as opposed to a raw 10d6 Fireball averaging 35.

This is the main core of what I mean when I say it STARTS OFF better, but scales worse.

This isn't counting optimization tricks to make that Empowered Fireball still cost only a 3rd level slot, or be even more jacked when you up it to 5th.


In terms of damage, yes. This is one of the primary complaints I had about 5e when I played it regularly; HP numbers stayed the same while player and enemy damage was lowered across the board, making combats last significantly longer.

Taking a quick example from the bestiaries, an Adult Black Dragon is comparable in terms of "meatiness" in both systems; the Pathfinder version actually has 34 lower HP (161 vs the 195 HP of the 5e version), though that is because an Adult Black Dragon is CR 11 rather than 14 (though IIRC this is a smaller difference than it would seem since 5e completely overhauled the CR system). A CR 14 dragon instead (Adult Red) has almost the exact same HP; 212 vs the 195 of the 5e Adult Black.

This applies across the board; eg. a CR 1/4 Goblin in 5e has 7 HP, while the equivalent CR 1/3 Goblin in Pathfinder has 6 (though an extra +1 AC).

So comparing Fireball between editions is almost a perfect 1:1 comparison. The main differences in combat between 5e and 3.PF come in with martial combat, since AC and attack rolls scale a hell of a lot faster in 3.PF, as do raw damage numbers on attacks (it's not uncommon for a 10th level Barbarian to be slinging around something like 2d6+25 damage on each of its attacks; sometimes higher). Magical combat (which targets saves and raw HP values instead) remains largely comparable.

So this made me curious and I dug a little at this (using what I think is the PF SRD) and my conclusion is that the base of spellcasting is so vastly different that the comparison really doesn't map across well:

-Spell slots appear to scale very differently, at 5th level not only do you start off at 5d6, but you can only cast it once, instead of twice. This kind of disparity seems common then goes the other way, this has to effect balance.

-Preparing spells for the day ahead means you can't spontaneously upcast if you need the damage (and maybe don't have an AOE damage spell of that level), this makes auto scaling make more sense

-Scaling seems placed entirely on spells slots and built into the spells themselves? In 5e you can cast cantrips at will and they scale along with tiers to remain relevant, another different landscape that puts less emphasis on limited/leveled spells. I took a look at Ray of Frost and the difference appeared to be stark (again I could be seeing this incorrectly), but 1d3 with no secondary effect or scaling (I didn't even know a d3 was an officially used die before this), vs 1d8+secondary effect that scales an additional die per tier. This can only make a big push into abiltiies that enhance things.

On the dragon comparison (Black vs Red):

-The hp difference is 17 in the PF Red's favour, the difference between our specific example at max and it's base 5e version is 7 points of damage. I don't think you can really hand wave any hp gap when referring to differences in damage or damage mutliplying options, this case highlights that imo

-idk what damage reduction really is, I gave it a cursory read and it seems (besides more complex) more impactful than 5e's resistance system

-The breath weapons of the same CR dragon differ by two die sizes: 12d8 vs 12d10, this plus the DR, vulnerability etc. make me think that monsters aren't exactly going to map across cleanly either.

-I just noticed a dragon has a butt load of feats, which also seem kinda nuts and reaffirm my previous thought that monster design just doesn't map across cleanly


This I didn't know, actually. Last I played 5e metamagic was a Sorcerer only class feature, not a universal option.

Tasha's allowed everyone limited access to both metamagic, invocations and fighting styles via feats (whilst also giving a new race/lineage to get a feat at 1st level).

The editions just seem two different to actually compare, the comparison seems to really boil down to 3.PF has a lot of options that you need to understand and utilise, where as 5e... doesn't? It's certainly a lot more simplified and at the loss of options, the base power of things seems to be stronger.

This was probably a bit rambly, I'm a bit tired to dive into something like PF for the first time, but I think my thoughts and gut feelings hold true? *shrugs*

[Eldariel]

So this made me curious and I dug a little at this (using what I think is the PF SRD) and my conclusion is that the base of spellcasting is so vastly different that the comparison really doesn't map across well:

To help you make sense of it...


-Spell slots appear to scale very differently, at 5th level not only do you start off at 5d6, but you can only cast it once, instead of twice. This kind of disparity seems common then goes the other way, this has to effect balance.

In 3e/variants, every caster also gets bonus spell slots based on their casting stat. 18-20 is generally about what you start with (in point buy there's little reason not to buy 18 and it's rarely great to play a race without +2 to your casting stat, especially in Pathfinder where Humans get a floating +2 too - Humans are kinda nuts in 3e variants due to how in demand feats are) so +4/+5, which means one bonus spell of every level up to level 5 slots. Of course, you only get these slots when you can cast spells of that level but yeah.

Further, once you level-up you get +1 every 4 levels (kinda like 5e ASIs except they don't compete with feats) and magic items are expected, which means at around level 8 you can easily be looking at 24 Int which gives you a second bonus 3rd level slot. If you play a middle-aged character (+1 to all mentals, -1 to all physicals), it's actually pretty easy to get a Headband of Intellect +2 on level 5 giving you 2 bonus slots. In 3e, magic items are an expected part of your character budget and every character has expected wealth to use on basic boosts and every stat has a booster item (going from +2 to +6), which you always get for your main stat.

Further, on top of that 3e/PF specialisation gives you bonus slots that can only be used to cast spells of your specialisation school (of course, specialisation requires you bar two schools so you can never cast spells from them too). This means that a level 5 Wizard can actually be looking at 4 slots for third level spells; 24 Int [+2] and specialisation [+1]. Both have variants of specialisation that grant even more slots (Focused Specialist in 3e, Sin Magic in 5e) upping it to potential 5. Of course, specialisation requires barring schools and the consensus weakest schools are Evocation and Enchantment so most optimised casters couldn't cast Fireball even if they wanted to (not that they'd want to - it's too situational).


-Preparing spells for the day ahead means you can't spontaneously upcast if you need the damage (and maybe don't have an AOE damage spell of that level), this makes auto scaling make more sense

Yeah, and because there's no bounded accuracy, hordes of low level enemies basically do nothing after a couple of levels since they're crit fishing (and a 20 isn't an autocrit so enemies needing 20 to hit do way less damage) and they have no damage bonuses. Goblins for example just hit for 1d6 in melee or 1d4 at range; they have +0 Strength and ranged weapons need effort to get any damage bonuses whatsoever. This means "kill a bunch of dorks" isn't an effect in demand, which means you'll never waste a preparation slot on it.


-Scaling seems placed entirely on spells slots and built into the spells themselves? In 5e you can cast cantrips at will and they scale along with tiers to remain relevant, another different landscape that puts less emphasis on limited/leveled spells. I took a look at Ray of Frost and the difference appeared to be stark (again I could be seeing this incorrectly), but 1d3 with no secondary effect or scaling (I didn't even know a d3 was an officially used die before this), vs 1d8+secondary effect that scales an additional die per tier. This can only make a big push into abiltiies that enhance things.

Cantrips aren't damage effects. In 3e, they're actually those minor spells that aren't really worth noting. They aren't as good as weapons; you basically almost never cast attack damage cantrips (except maybe as a Rogue Mage since rays and such allow Sneak Attack). The big advantage Ray of Frost for example does have though is that it's a touch attack, which means it ignores enemy armor, shield and natural armor. I.e. it's enough to touch the enemy, things in the way don't matter. This makes it occasionally interesting but largely, in both editions, your cantrips are going to be:
- Detect Magic
- Read Magic
- Prestidigitation

Maybe Mage Hand-like stuff too. The only combat cantrip worth casting is Daze, which steals a single turn on a failed save. In this edition, spell level further influences how hard the saving throw is (it's DC 10 + Casting Attribute + Spell Level) which further weakens offensive cantrips comparatively. Daze too is limited to Humanoids of 4 HD or less so it's basically just a day extender for level 1-2 casters who still don't have enough spell slots to go all day (generally on level 3 you'll have enough slots for all the encounters you might face if you ratio your resources well).


On the dragon comparison (Black vs Red):

-The hp difference is 17 in the PF Red's favour, the difference between our specific example at max and it's base 5e version is 7 points of damage. I don't think you can really hand wave any hp gap when referring to differences in damage or damage mutliplying options, this case highlights that imo

-idk what damage reduction really is, I gave it a cursory read and it seems (besides more complex) more impactful than 5e's resistance system

It means low damage things just can't damage it, period. But since Dragon DR is /Magic, it basically doesn't matter since magic weapons are more or less expected of level 3+ PCs.


-The breath weapons of the same CR dragon differ by two die sizes: 12d8 vs 12d10, this plus the DR, vulnerability etc. make me think that monsters aren't exactly going to map across cleanly either.

-I just noticed a dragon has a butt load of feats, which also seem kinda nuts and reaffirm my previous thought that monster design just doesn't map across cleanly

3e/PF Dragons also cast as Sorcerers so their spellcasting is way stronger and more varied than 5e's.

It's also worth noting that warrior damage in 3e/PF is so high when built well that it's really just a waste of time to use spells for it.


In short:
- 3e/PF favours big strong enemies and thus huge single target damage is what you want (and both versions have ways to do a lot of damage, as a warrior or a caster but generally through attacks anyways).
- 5e favours hordes of small enemies and thus AOE spells are more in vogue.

[Rynjin]

So this made me curious and I dug a little at this (using what I think is the PF SRD) and my conclusion is that the base of spellcasting is so vastly different that the comparison really doesn't map across well:

-Spell slots appear to scale very differently, at 5th level not only do you start off at 5d6, but you can only cast it once, instead of twice. This kind of disparity seems common then goes the other way, this has to effect balance.

-Preparing spells for the day ahead means you can't spontaneously upcast if you need the damage (and maybe don't have an AOE damage spell of that level), this makes auto scaling make more sense

Spell slots scale partially off of your casting stat as well. While it's true a 5th level Wizard only has a single 3rd level spell per day, they get an extra if they have an Int of 18 or higher; plus 1 more if they're a School Specialist instead of a Universalist.

There are also essentially three different types of casting. Wizards and Clerics (among others) are Prepared Casters, who need to prepare each spell individually. If you have three 3rd level spell slots and prepare Fireball, you have prepared 1 Fireball, and may prepare two others if you wish, or different spells.

Spontaneous casters (eg. Sorcerer, Oracle) have fewer spells known but may cast any spell of a given spell level they know using that slot; if a Sorcerer knows Fireball, Haste, and Tongues, and has four 3rd level spell slots, they may cast those spells in any combination up to 4 uses.

Then there's the Arcanist, alone. The Arcanist is a Prepared caster that functions exactly like a 5e Prepared caster; you prepare Fireball, Tongues, and Haste in your three 3rd level spell slots and may cast them in any combination you choose up to your hard limit of 3.



-Scaling seems placed entirely on spells slots and built into the spells themselves? In 5e you can cast cantrips at will and they scale along with tiers to remain relevant, another different landscape that puts less emphasis on limited/leveled spells. I took a look at Ray of Frost and the difference appeared to be stark (again I could be seeing this incorrectly), but 1d3 with no secondary effect or scaling (I didn't even know a d3 was an officially used die before this), vs 1d8+secondary effect that scales an additional die per tier. This can only make a big push into abiltiies that enhance things.

Yes, cantrips are there to be your fallback at 1st and 2nd level if you don't want to use a crossbow. It's not a viable long term option. Still, it's better than 3.5, where Cantrips were limited in use like every other spell slot.

Other spells in most editions just scale with Caster Level, yes.


On the dragon comparison (Black vs Red):

-The hp difference is 17 in the PF Red's favour, the difference between our specific example at max and it's base 5e version is 7 points of damage. I don't think you can really hand wave any hp gap when referring to differences in damage or damage mutliplying options, this case highlights that imo

It's close enough to work. In both cases, Fireball is a very poor choice against a single big creature, which is the point; however, the Pathfinder Fireball is a significantly better choice against groups of mid-tier enemies, but that's where the 5e Fireball begins to fall behind comparatively, even though HP numbers are roughly the same, or in most cases higher at similar CRs for 5e for...some reason. I keep trying to find good examples of common foes like Stone Giants but every single time the 5e version has significantly MORE HP, despite damage numbers being lower.

Regardless, you can draw enough comparisons to make the point clear that, again, the 5e Fireball is better at low levels than other editions, but worse at higher levels, since HP scales faster than damage in 5e.



-idk what damage reduction really is, I gave it a cursory read and it seems (besides more complex) more impactful than 5e's resistance system

It can be both more and less impactful, but it's not really complicated. The number is how much flat damage is reduced from the attack, instead of damage being halved across the board.

If you hit someone with DR 10/Magic (the word after the slash is what bypasses the damage reduction) for 30 damage in Pathfinder without a magical weapon, they take 20 damage. In 5e they would take 15 with a similar Resistance: nonmagical weapons. Same goes for energy resistance; Resist Fire 10 would shave a flat 10 HP off the damage, so a 30 damage Fireball would again deal 20 vs the 15 in 5e.

The main difference is Damage Reduction and Energy Resistance in 3.PF can reduce damage all the way to 0; you hit someone with DR 10/Magic for 10 damage with a nonmagical weapon, and they take NOTHING, as opposed to the 5 they'd take in 5e.


-The breath weapons of the same CR dragon differ by two die sizes: 12d8 vs 12d10, this plus the DR, vulnerability etc. make me think that monsters aren't exactly going to map across cleanly either.

-I just noticed a dragon has a butt load of feats, which also seem kinda nuts and reaffirm my previous thought that monster design just doesn't map across cleanly

The monsters don't need to map cleanly, since we're just talking about HP as it maps to a single spell which functions almost identically in a vacuum, not overall threat level. But for a quick reference, 3.PF monsters are built using largely the same rules as PCs. That's why they have so many Feats; you get 1 Feat per 2 Hit Dice, whether PC or monster.





The editions just seem two different to actually compare, the comparison seems to really boil down to 3.PF has a lot of options that you need to understand and utilise, where as 5e... doesn't? It's certainly a lot more simplified and at the loss of options, the base power of things seems to be stronger.

This was probably a bit rambly, I'm a bit tired to dive into something like PF for the first time, but I think my thoughts and gut feelings hold true? *shrugs*

That's the difference in a nutshell, yes. IMO 5e is a joy to play at low levels; it makes for a wonderfully simple and fun system at levels 1-7 or so. This is about the point where both games start to show their flaws, actually.

It's that breakpoint in 5e though that I think the game starts to become UNFUN, whereas the issue in PF is things start becoming more complex. My experience with both is that high level combats tend to last quite a long time in both editions.

However the primary difference is that 5e combats last forever because the enemy just. won't. DIE, and PF combats last forever because each turn has more moving parts and decision points. I've found the former frustrates me a lot more than the latter.

[kingcheesepants]

30 damage spread through the party at lvl 5 sounds like an hard encounter, yes. If the encounter goes well. Thing is:

-You don't know nor get to decide how that damage is spread.

-Going through this encounter costs ressources

-One Hard encounter isn't much, but there is nothing saying you'll only get one Hard encounter.

Try 25 goblins. Try 15 goblins with 3 bugbears and an hobgoblin captain. Try 10 goblins and a CR 9 boss. Try 4 separate groups of 10-to-20 goblins. Try 15 goblins ambushing your party when you're crossing a suspended bridge.

Furthermore:



You can't get 20 AC without trading off something for it. Spell slots, a shield, giving yourself a boost when it could go to a teammate... it's certainly possible to get that, but most 5e characters won't have AC 20.

A +4 to hit is much more of a problem when you have AC 17.



Yes, exactly. Hordes of monsters are bad news and can force resource expenditure if not outright character death even if it's just a hard encounter and 20AC isn't something you'd expect to have unless you're in tier 3+ unless you're a dedicated tank.

Hordes can be scary especially when they're using tactics, terrain, and abilities to give themselves advantage (both the roll twice kind and the normal use of the word kind) and if they've got a little support from one or two harder monsters it can quickly become a slaughter. My level 6 PCs experienced their first PC permadeath to a goblin ambush. Just a bunch of straight from the Monster Manual goblins and a goblin shaman. They were hiding in some trees and shooting at the PCs as they (PCs) were crossing a treacherous river. The rouge uses his abilities to get across quickly, gets hold person cast on him and then dies as a dozen goblins stab him repeatedly and hide. The group didn't have anyone with fireball prepared but if they did it might have gone pretty differently.

[casb1965]

I think the thing Fireball has to it's advantage is range, if you know you're heading in to combat you are causing damage BEFORE the enemy is in your face. It's highly doubtful you'll ever be able to use it's full 150' range but if you get say 40' of it you could possibly get 2 Fireballs off or at least 1 plus another damage spell if the group you've fireballed scatters.

Then you leave it to the fighter doing his "100 damage" a round.

It's not a great spell but it certainly has its uses.

[Gignere]

I think the thing Fireball has to it's advantage is range, if you know you're heading in to combat you are causing damage BEFORE the enemy is in your face. It's highly doubtful you'll ever be able to use it's full 150' range but if you get say 40' of it you could possibly get 2 Fireballs off or at least 1 plus another damage spell if the group you've fireballed scatters.

Then you leave it to the fighter doing his "100 damage" a round.

It's not a great spell but it certainly has its uses.

If fireball is not a great level 3 spell, what spell is better? Note it’s also one of the blast spells that doesn’t even require LoS. So you can use it even in darkness or in a fog cloud.

[Sigreid]

I think the thing Fireball has to it's advantage is range, if you know you're heading in to combat you are causing damage BEFORE the enemy is in your face. It's highly doubtful you'll ever be able to use it's full 150' range but if you get say 40' of it you could possibly get 2 Fireballs off or at least 1 plus another damage spell if the group you've fireballed scatters.

Then you leave it to the fighter doing his "100 damage" a round.

It's not a great spell but it certainly has its uses.

Siege situations can use the full range. If they ever come up in your campaign.

[MoiMagnus]

If fireball is not a great level 3 spell, what spell is better? Note it’s also one of the blast spells that doesn’t even require LoS. So you can use it even in darkness or in a fog cloud.

Taking a brief look at the list, at level 3, you get:

(1) Good defensive spells like Blink. And counterspell which might or might not be good depending on how your GM rules it.
(2) Some very good control spell : Hypnotic patterns, Fear
(3) Some damage spells usually less interesting than Fireball
(4) Some setup options : Animate dead, Summon spells, Haste
(5) A lot of very good circumstantial spells : Dispel magic, Gaseous form, Fly, Tongues, Nondetection, etc.

There is no lack of good 3rd level spells. The nearest to compare to is Hypnotic patterns in term of uses. Both are long distance attacks that target a reasonably large area. Which one is the best will heavily depends on what kind of enemies you are typically encountering, and against what kind of enemies your allies suffer the most from.

[Xervous]

If fireball is not a great level 3 spell, what spell is better? Note it’s also one of the blast spells that doesn’t even require LoS. So you can use it even in darkness or in a fog cloud.

Fireball doesn’t even need to be the best spell ever. It just needs to cover enough use cases to warrant inclusion on a caster’s preparation list. If deleting umptydozen 1HD goblins or handling multiple non-beefcake enemies is a combat concern you might encounter in the L5-11 range Fireball is one prep slot that dominates its niche and is frequently good in various other cases.

Other spells may beat it in other niches, but what does our preparation list look like? Are there that many must haves that fireball isn’t allowed to show up?

[Gignere]

Fireball doesn’t even need to be the best spell ever. It just needs to cover enough use cases to warrant inclusion on a caster’s preparation list. If deleting umptydozen 1HD goblins or handling multiple non-beefcake enemies is a combat concern you might encounter in the L5-11 range Fireball is one prep slot that dominates its niche and is frequently good in various other cases.

Other spells may beat it in other niches, but what does our preparation list look like? Are there that many must haves that fireball isn’t allowed to show up?

At those levels you can expect at minimum 10+ spells you can prepare, assuming you aren’t playing the dumped int wizard, I would be hard pressed not to at least include one or two blast spells for when I need it. Amongst blast spells in that level range and even beyond it fireball is near the top of the list.

[mistajames]

Level 5 party pre-combat buffs seem pretty unlikely as do magic items. Advantage, again, pretty unlikely unless you're giving it to yourself. And even with advantage you're looking at the given damage against any enemy with any AC as I pointed out; AC 15 is about the same numbers with Advantage as the numbers I gave you. So even compared to Advantage Fighter, Fireball is still surprisingly decent.

Indeed, and Fireball still compares favorably to Action Surging GWM/PAM Fighter if it hits 3+ non-resistant enemies, and comes on a chassis where you aren't actually burning all your feats and character build resources on doing only this (like with Fighter who burns their race, level 1 feat and level 4 ASI on this). Sharpshooter CBE Archer is better, granted, but ultimately still a zero character build resources character matching one using their whole character on that is surprisingly decent.

I don't find pre-combat buffing by level 5 to be "unlikely", even if that buff is just a casting of Bless, Hunter's Mark/Hex, or a use of Bardic Inspiration. Advantage is very common if your party actually tries to work together by throwing down crowd control, or if your DM plays with flanking. If it's every-man-for-himself this is obviously not going to work, but going into every combat without a plan might lead to a TPK if your DM isn't going easy on you.

I've personally never played in a campaign where we've gotten no magic weapons at all by level 5. I've never read a 5e published campaign that gives no magic items by level 5.

And I did say that Fireball was pretty great at level 5 anyways? I'll stand by that... but also by my follow-up comment that it's kind of mediocre by level 7 and completely outclassed by level 10.

[Frogreaver]

There are no level 1-5 spells that are guaranteed to win a wide variety of encounters.

Which ultimately brings us to the question? What spell or spells might be better in combat than fireball?

Well, hypnotic pattern got mentioned but there are so many failure states for that spell. All enemies might pass saves. Enemies may just chain wake up their peers. You may lose concentration. You may want/need to cast a different concentration spell. On the flip side when it works well it’s certainly better than fireball.

Once you get past enemies fireball can 1 hit kill, the spell doesn’t have the chance to trivialize encounters the ways some other spells can. However, it’s floor is quite a bit higher than most of those other spells and it doesn’t require investment into concentration/defensive boosts to remain effective.

[casb1965]

If fireball is not a great level 3 spell, what spell is better? Note it’s also one of the blast spells that doesn’t even require LoS. So you can use it even in darkness or in a fog cloud.

True but...

If you can't see the point where you are pointing the spell i.e. there's a blockage (magical or not) in the way the spell will explode on impact with that blockage. i.e. no standing inside by a closed window and casting it at a point outside.

Also if the enemy is in cover they will have it against fireball if the cover is between them and where fireball explodes.

I don't doubt the effectiveness of Fireball but it isn't the tool to beat all other tools.

[Sigreid]

True but...

If you can't see the point where you are pointing the spell i.e. there's a blockage (magical or not) in the way the spell will explode on impact with that blockage. i.e. no standing inside by a closed window and casting it at a point outside.

Also if the enemy is in cover they will have it against fireball if the cover is between them and where fireball explodes.

I don't doubt the effectiveness of Fireball but it isn't the tool to beat all other tools.

It can be great for shooting around corners. Or above the wall/rock they're hiding behind, etc.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've personally never played in a campaign where we've gotten no magic weapons at all by level 5. I've never read a 5e published campaign that gives no magic items by level 5. Likewise...