Damage Spell without Dice Limite

[Dlabuga]

Hey there.

If we dont have dice limite for spell, exemple:

Caster level 15:
Fireball = 15d6

What would be the best spells for this adaptation?

No saves, no SR, no touch...something like that.

[Jervis]

Hey there.

If we dont have dice limite for spell, exemple:

Caster level 15:
Fireball = 15d6

What would be the best spells for this adaptation?

No saves, no SR, no touch...something like that.

I mean Wings of Flurry already doesn’t have a limit. The orb of line are no SR touch attacks that scale directly with CL, normally capped though so removing that is really good.

[Biggus]

There are already a few attack spells which don't have dice limits, such as Maw of Chaos (SpC) and the notoriously broken Venomfire (SK).

To answer your actual question, Orb of Force (SpC) and Magic Missile seem like good candidates as they're very hard to resist. Also spells which do a lot of damage per caster level, such as Harm and Disintegrate, if you can pump your caster level and save DCs high enough.

[Eurus]

I'll vote for my favorite unfair spell, Hail of Stone. Add Sculpt Spell for a good area, Rapid Spell to fix the casting time, stack other metamagics to taste, and you've got an almost unavoidable damage source.

[Biggus]

I'll vote for my favorite unfair spell, Hail of Stone. Add Sculpt Spell for a good area, Rapid Spell to fix the casting time, stack other metamagics to taste, and you've got an almost unavoidable damage source.

No save, no attack roll, no SR? Yeah, I'd call that unfair lol. Nice one, wasn't aware of this.

[Venger]

Are you asking for spells that already exist and are uncapped, like maw of chaos?

Are saying that in your game you will remove damage caps from all spells and are asking which spells will gain utility?

As mentioned, any spell with as few of the following (save, attack roll, sr) is good for this.

Are you asking how to break caps? Reserves of strength allows you to do this.

[tyckspoon]

No save, no attack roll, no SR? Yeah, I'd call that unfair lol. Nice one, wasn't aware of this.

..and for all that it's still normally a pretty terrible spell unless you are building your entire optimization stack on it. It just has that one niche application for being capable of damaging just about anything that is at all subject to suffering HP damage.

Plus side, tho, if you do trick it all the way out? You get to cast Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.

[Wildstag]

There are already a few attack spells which don't have dice limits, such as Maw of Chaos (SpC) and the notoriously broken Venomfire (SK).

To answer your actual question, Orb of Force (SpC) and Magic Missile seem like good candidates as they're very hard to resist. Also spells which do a lot of damage per caster level, such as Harm and Disintegrate, if you can pump your caster level and save DCs high enough.

Magic Missile does have dice limits though. Also, it's an SR spell.


For every two caster levels beyond 1st, you gain an additional missile—two at 3rd level, three at 5th, four at 7th, and the maximum of five missiles at 9th level or higher.

[Biggus]

Magic Missile does have dice limits though. Also, it's an SR spell.

I think you may have misunderstood the OP's question? They said:


If we dont have dice limite for spell, exemple:

Caster level 15:
Fireball = 15d6

Fireball normally tops out at 10d6, so as far as I can see this means "what if there were no dice limits for spells which normally have them?".

Also, yes Magic Missile allows SR, but it requires no attack roll, doesn't allow a save, and is a force spell so very few things can resist it if they don't have SR. Spells which don't involve SR, attack rolls or saves are almost nonexistent as far as I know (even Orb of Force requires a RTA); if you know of any other than Hail of Stone, please enlighten me.

[Khedrac]

So, to address the original question - I don't think it makes huge amounts of difference, with one small exception - spells which are basically a higher level version of the same spell with a higher damage cap become redundant.

In 3.5 the ability to push saving throws through the roof makes damage-dealing spells far less relevant than they used to be - why do a monster more damage when you can still take them out of the fight altogether with one spell. Even without caps few damage spells do enough damage to end an opponent in one cast, something not true of control spells.
Spells that do damage keep their relative usefulness to each other based on element, SR, and number of targets.

Possibly some buffs and simple crowd-control spells drop in relevance - why boost the party damage over 5 rounds when you can inflict the same amount in 1? - but that's about it.

[Gemini476]

I think you may have misunderstood the OP's question? They said:



Fireball normally tops out at 10d6, so as far as I can see this means "what if there were no dice limits for spells which normally have them?".

Also, yes Magic Missile allows SR, but it requires no attack roll, doesn't allow a save, and is a force spell so very few things can resist it if they don't have SR. Spells which don't involve SR, attack rolls or SR are almost nonexistent as far as I know (even Orb of Force requires a RTA); if you know of any other than Hail of Stone, please enlighten me.

Death Throes (planar handbook, spell compendium) deals 1d8/CL damage (untyped, with no cap!) to everyone in a 30-foot-radius, no saving throw, no spell resistance, no nothing.

The downside is that it triggers when you die, but this is relatively easy to get around if "you" are, say, an Astral Projection. (Killing yourself via Coup de Grace and a voluntarily failed saving throw is a full round action, but there's probably faster methods.)

Also, the Planar Handbook version has a 1 hour/CL duration but the Spell Compendium one only lasts for 1 round/CL. So that's a bit tricky.

[Anthrowhale]

Aside from Hail of Stone, Hellfire (Close, L4, d8/2 levels) and Hellfire Storm (medium, L7, d8/level) share the SR:No, Save:No, untyped damage property.

[Troacctid]

Off the top of my head, shocking grasp is probably an underrated choice. Uncapping it would be a big boost to duskblades specifically.

My actual answer though is Dalamar's lightning lance. Not only are you getting more bolts, you're also doing more damage on each one.


So, to address the original question - I don't think it makes huge amounts of difference, with one small exception - spells which are basically a higher level version of the same spell with a higher damage cap become redundant.

In 3.5 the ability to push saving throws through the roof makes damage-dealing spells far less relevant than they used to be - why do a monster more damage when you can still take them out of the fight altogether with one spell. Even without caps few damage spells do enough damage to end an opponent in one cast, something not true of control spells.
Spells that do damage keep their relative usefulness to each other based on element, SR, and number of targets.

Possibly some buffs and simple crowd-control spells drop in relevance - why boost the party damage over 5 rounds when you can inflict the same amount in 1? - but that's about it.
Boosting save DCs above par requires more investment than boosting caster level. You're just going to find yourself in the position of having a 40–60% chance of wasting your action and resources because your spell didn't work. Blasting spells, as a category, are more reliable than save-or-lose spells. They can do the thing all the time instead of only some of the time, they're better against large groups, and they stack with themselves and with the damage the rest of the party is dealing.

[Khedrac]

Boosting save DCs above par requires more investment than boosting caster level. You're just going to find yourself in the position of having a 40–60% chance of wasting your action and resources because your spell didn't work. Blasting spells, as a category, are more reliable than save-or-lose spells. They can do the thing all the time instead of only some of the time, they're better against large groups, and they stack with themselves and with the damage the rest of the party is dealing.

For an old-scholl AD&D veteran it's still the reversed metric from AD&D. Back then the damage spells were uncapped and after a few levels saves were usually made (the higher level the opponent, the more they needed to roll a natural 1 to fail). Save or lose spells were for the novel writers, blasting and physically blocking spells were the way to go. With 3.X's ability to boost save DCs far faster than poor saves (I agree faster than good saves is hard) save or lose when targetted on a weak save usually ends the fight, but may take 2 catss, blasting is still likely to take 4 or 5.