Orb-spells

[BWM]

Hey all, I had a question.

My party (3rd edition (3.5), five players, ranging from level 12 to 14) encountered a CR13 Red Dragon (the first that's huge, Old (??)) and combat proceeded like this:

Warmage-level 13, let's call him Slick:
"I win initiative, during the surprise round, I cast Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold. Roll 14 on my d20 and easily hit the dragon. There's no save or Spell Resistance and I deal 130-something damage."
Rest of the party proceeds to do random stuff, nothing really interesting for this thread.

One round later (note: the warmage had a higher initiative than the dragon and thus his turn is before the dragon).
Warmage-level 13, let's call him Slick:
"I cast Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold. Roll 9 on my d20 and easily hit the dragon (touch AC = 8 or 9). There's no save or Spell Resistance and I deal 150-something damage."

The dragon has (on average) 218 hit points (according to my 3.5 Monster Manual). Why can a warmage, using two of his level-4-spells off the dragon easily.

Is Sudden Empower too good?
Is Orb of Cold too good?
Is Warmage too good?
Is Red Dragon too bad?
Or do I just suck as a DM, clearly missing some sort of rule?

[ghost_warlock]

Personally, I think that dragon got what it deserved.

How on earth did the entire party get a surprise round? Second, why didn't it use magic to compensate for its vulnerability?

BTW, I'm pretty sure Sudden Empower is 1/day.

[Dhavaer]

Well, first off you can only use Sudden Empower once per day.

Other than that...
At level 13, your Orb will be doing 13d6 damage, for an average of 45.5 damage. Warmages get a damage bonus to spells, so we'll say he does 50 damage, 75 with sudden empower, so ~110 with the dragon's vulnerability. ~185 damage in two rounds means the dragon is dead if anyone else in the party is dealing damage.

I'd say that the dragon really should have some defence against cold, either from a spell or an item.

[Kaihaku]

Well...

1. Sudden Empower is once a day. So that's off.
2. The orb spells are yeah... They tear apart most things that don't have a decent touch AC. You could homerule that SR applies to orb spells, but I wouldn't recommend doing do it in the middle of a sitting.
3. Warmages are only good at causing damage, he's a great canon but throw something at him that he can't beat through damage. Another approach...last big campaign I was in the warmage could slaughter enemies like no other but he died more than any other character because...it's logical to focus fire on the guy who just took out half your forces in a round.
4. I guess it's in character to deduce that a Red Dragon would be strong to fire and open to cold damage, but if he plays to the in-game strengths of less obvious monsters I'd warn him and mix things up from the MM stats.
5. Sometimes things like this just happen... It doesn't mean that you're a terrible DM, it just means that the system is off-balance. One way to counter it is having intelligent enemies like the Red Dragon buff up beforehand, get its touch AC up a bit higher.

[Elhann]

Is Sudden Empower too good?
Is Orb of Cold too good?
Is Warmage too good?
Is Red Dragon too bad?
Or do I just suck as a DM, clearly missing some sort of rule?

Well, sudden empower is once each day, so used as he used it, it is too good, yes. And since they are spontaneous casters, I'd guess they need to spend a full round action to metamagic a spell.

Orb spells are considered very good as damage dealers. Since the warmage is pretty much about blasting, orbs are a sensible option.
Anyway, a 13d6 empowered orb of cold averages at 68 hps. As red dragons and cold don't mix well, that's makes around 100 points average. He rolled quite well to get 130 and 150 points of damage.

Warmage is not too good. They're archers that shoot spells instead of arrows.

About red dragons... I don't think they're bad at all. I would like to know how they got it flatfooted, as young adults red dragons have decent INT and WIS to protect themselves against ambushes or raiders in their lairs, and a 14 CHA is enough to have some dragon worshipping kobolds as an alarm device.

Speaking about alarm, young adult red dragon cast spells as a 5th level sorc. Alarm and shield are probably good options as 1st level choices.
Since Hide is not a class skill for reds, invisibility is a good choice as a second level.

With alarm and invisibilty, the odds of a surprise rond against the dragon are much smaller.

If they found the dragon in the open, well, this one has a 150 fly movement. After suffering 130 points of cold damage, a 14 INT dragon will use that 150 fly move to retreat into his lair, and live to fight another day. Or just later, when the warmage has used his spells on his [insert dragon minion race] buddies.

EDIT: Well, I got SO ninja-ed...

[Eldariel]

The Dragon should've had Scintillating Scales, Mirror Image and quite possibly something like Resist Energy cast (or some item of Resist Cold - it's a Dragon, it has a huge horde of magic items and all that, it's smart and it knows cold does bad things to it, so having some cold-protection would make perfect sense). That would mean there'd be very high Touch AC (could also use Mage Armor, Shield and company), very much difficulty hitting the right target and less devastating hits from cold energy. Part of Dragons' CR is that they're combatants with magic to buff themselves with. If the magic is not used, the danger they pose is considerably lower (more precisely, they're far more vulnerable to high damage offense).

Also, didn't the Dragon take flight? Generally, Dragons should always be flying, and Orb-range is close so had it taken it to the air, the Warmage would've never been in a position to Orb it in the first place. Basically, Warmages are very far from broken (as has been said, they're practically archers with magic instead of arrows - lower range, ability to hit weakness), Orbs are very potent but still fair (since they're Conjuration, no SR spells, but they still require a Touch Attack, close range and can be defended against with energy protection).

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Deflect Ray is a 4th level spell that renders the Orbs useless.
Incorporeal enemies ignore the orbs because the orbs are conjurations an thus nonmagical.
Swarms ignore the orbs.
Mirror Image gives you a 7/8 chance to ignore an orb and is a 2nd level spell.
Contingency+any low level translocation spell can help you ignore a single attack, no matter how powerful.
A +3 defending amulet of natural attacks can give a dragon or a demon +15 touch AC for a pretty low cost.
The two mantles (Icy Soul and Fiery Spirit) can give immunity to cold and fire for a total of 35.000 gp. Add a natural immunity and you won't worry about orbs again.

There are counters aplenty, these are just a few. Use them.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, the young adult red dragon's defensive capabilities are slightly diminished because it's unable to use spells higher than 2nd level. Nevertheless, it is intelligent enough to use some of its treasure to that purpose, or use low-level spells to give it energy resistance.

A really nasty trick is to have the dragon employ Change Self to appear like a different color of dragon...

[Tokiko Mima]

Well, something is wrong with the Warmage's math. The Orb spells do 1d6 damage per caster level (max 15d6.) A Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold is going to do 68ish damage on average if cast at CL 13 (which becomes 102ish against a red dragon.) The most it could ever do is 135 damage and that's rolling maximized (all 6's) at CL 15+. However, it's possible to do as much as 202 against something vulnerable to cold.

Was he Sudden Maximizing it too? Because that's what it sounds like. And yeah, touch spells are evil for large monsters. Their touch AC is usually terrible so the warmage was targetting two specific weaknesses. Usually dragons come up with a way to defend against themselves against the element they are vulnerable too, but this one didn't so frankly it deserved to die.

Also, this was a dragon with a CR equal to the party level. It shouldn't have been too difficult to kill anyway. For a tough dragon, you need a CR that's a couple above the party and the dragon should have one or more minions to defend it (Iron Golems work great because the dragon can heal them with it's breath weapon, for example.)

[Starbuck_II]

Hey all, I had a question.

My party (3rd edition (3.5), five players, ranging from level 12 to 14) encountered a CR13 Red Dragon (the first that's huge, Old (??)) and combat proceeded like this:

Warmage-level 13, let's call him Slick:
"I win initiative, during the surprise round, I cast Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold. Roll 14 on my d20 and easily hit the dragon. There's no save or Spell Resistance and I deal 130-something damage."
Rest of the party proceeds to do random stuff, nothing really interesting for this thread.

One round later (note: the warmage had a higher initiative than the dragon and thus his turn is before the dragon).
Warmage-level 13, let's call him Slick:
"I cast Sudden Empowered Orb of Cold. Roll 9 on my d20 and easily hit the dragon (touch AC = 8 or 9). There's no save or Spell Resistance and I deal 150-something damage."

The dragon has (on average) 218 hit points (according to my 3.5 Monster Manual). Why can a warmage, using two of his level-4-spells off the dragon easily.

Is Sudden Empower too good?
Is Orb of Cold too good?
Is Warmage too good?
Is Red Dragon too bad?
Or do I just suck as a DM, clearly missing some sort of rule?

Is that damage figure before vulnerability or after?

[DigoDragon]

While you can only use the Sudden Empower feat once a day, it is possible to take the feat multiple times for additional daily uses. Check to see how many times the player has taken the feat.

I'm also thinking the math might be a little off, but I'd need to know what the dice actually rolled. It's possible to roll nearly all "boxcars"... not likely, but possible.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Also, this was a dragon with a CR equal to the party level. It shouldn't have been too difficult to kill anyway. For a tough dragon, you need a CR that's a couple above the party and the dragon should have one or more minions to defend it (Iron Golems work great because the dragon can heal them with it's breath weapon, for example.)

People always forget this. A "proper" ( = tough) dragon encounter for 4 PCs has a CR 3-4 higher than the average party level.


As for the OP;

Orbs are the most powerful single-target damage spells in existence. They're the method for defeating enemies with high SR or saves.

How was Sudden Empower used twice in a row? As DM, you do need to know all the rules in use (this is why DMs have to be familiar with all sourcebooks and supplements used in their game). You should also be aware of exactly how the damage is composed. As Tokiko Mima points out, the math is a bit odd here. Remember, the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to stay near averages.

Note, also, that the Warmage was effectively using a 6th-level spell. The Sudden Metamagic feats aren't overpowered as such, but they are powerful, especially if you, for instance, toss one-a-day random encounters at PCs, allowing them to burn all their limited-use abilities in each combat. However, the fact that they effectively allow PCs to use spells well above their maximum level could be considered unbalancing.

Also, resist energy is a 2nd-level spell. Every spellcasting dragon is smart enough to cover their elemental vulnerabilities. (Or use disguise self or similar illusions to take on the appearance of a dragon of another type; red becomes white, etc.)

[Tokiko Mima]

Right. I would also look at how the PC's got a surprise round too. Dragons have Spot and Listen checks up the wahzoo, along with Darkvision 120', lowlight vision x4, and blindsense. Red dragons are especially paranoid, and certain to have alarms (magical and non-magical) set up to give it an early warning. If the dragons have minions, you can be sure they will warn the dragon before you get to it.

It usually takes someone with the Darkstalker feat, an awesome Hide check and invisibility/hide from dragons to actually catch a dragon completely unaware for a surprise round. Being flatfooted also really hurt the dragons chances of surviving an Orb attack, so there you go.

CR13 Red Dragon was (a) surprised, (b) flatfooted, (c) targeted by two (d) touch AC spells that do huge single target (e) cold damage. That's five things the dragon did wrong right there, so it's no wonder it got shanked.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Right. I would also look at how the PC's got a surprise round too. Dragons have Spot and Listen checks up the wahzoo, along with Darkvision 120', lowlight vision x4, and blindsense. Red dragons are especially paranoid, and certain to have alarms (magical and non-magical) set up to give it an early warning. If the dragons have minions, you can be sure they will warn the dragon before you get to it.

This can not be over-emphasized.

The reason dragons are so iconic to D&D is because you build adventures around them, just like you build adventures around dungeons.

A dragon will subjugate or employ evil humanoids and intelligent monsters where ever it lives, and may even breed half-dragon monsters and animals for protection, spying, and the like.

It will have extensive alarm systems - way more complex and effective than a mere alarm spell. It will have spies, perches to watch from, traps and alarms, and multiple layers of defense. They're greedy and paranoid creatures, sure to spend a great deal of their time and energy just waiting for someone to try to steal their hoard or territory. They also do not fight on their opponent's terms - even stupid white dragons are intelligent enough to understand that.

For instance, a red dragon would probably live in a mountain cave, preferrably one connecting to a live or dormant volcano crater, or in another area of geothermal heat (like hot springs). Ideally, its hide-out will be sweltering, enough to discomfort or even damage intruders. It will have multiple exits at different heights and sides of the mountain (probably several high in the volcano shaft), and likely an entrance or a false entrance (into a cave that does not connect to the main caverns, for instance) at ground level to lure in adventurers, with traps and secret perches to attack from, and collapsible passages to retreat into (just slapping the pillar or support with its tail when passing through a portal will work). Preferrably, the area will be inhabited by native monsters, intelligent humanoids, or dangerous animals - there's plenty of each that are resistant to fire. The pickiest, eldest, and most powerful red dragons would live near portals into the Elemental Plane of Fire (especially in, say, Faerûn), and employ evil fire creatures like efreeti and salamanders. Any intelligent humanoids - humans, orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, fire giants - in the area will be either terrorized, subjugated, commanded, or allied with.

Dragons take a lot of DMing to do properly, but they can be incredibly fun challenges.

None of that helps with your specific issue, though. It's obvious there was something funky with the Warmage, and (less importantly) something wrong with the dragon's tactics. (Why was it surprised, caught at orb-firing range, and unprotected?)

[Tokiko Mima]

Of course, I say this with a touch of hypocrisy, as someone that recently slew a party level + 8 CR Dragon in a single round with Empowered Maximized Quickened hellfire glaive attacks. But the dragon foolishly allowed the rest of the party to distract it as my warlock circled around to close the gap to the 10' range needed to make that attack.

So large damage does not always indicate a problem with a spell or ability: sometimes it's a problem with tactics and allowing enemies to go undetected or ignored.Smart foes will not let a warmage hit them where they are weak.

[Epinephrine]

I'll just agree with everyone who points out that the dragon was not played optimally - though it's possible that the characters did a superb job of getting by the dragon's defenses.

Magic items can fill a hole in a younger dragon's arsenal pretty nicely - and there's no reason why a smart dragon wouldn't have managed to get some items it likes in the treasure - they are intelligent, often employ humanoid minions as go betweens, and are certainly clever enough to realise that some protection items are worth having, particularly defending against cold since that's a huge weakness. They generally would know that foes seeking them out will be buffed against their breath weapon, so they certainly won't rely on it and then look surprised when it's shrugged off, and if they employ minions, the minons will have attacks that don't use the same energy type when possible.

[Gorbash]

Not to mention that during surprise round you only have a standard action, so he couldn't have cast any metamagicked spells.

[Frosty]

Do Sudden metamagics actualy increase casting time?

[Gorbash]

It says it doesn't increase level of the spell and that you don't have to prepare it ahead of time. Nothing in description indicates that they don't increase cast time. This is of course, my interpretation, I could be wrong...

[valadil]

PCs usually tear apart unbuffed enemies. At the very least the dragon should have had resist cold or protection from cold up so that the party would have to spend another round dispelling it. Mirror image is also a good idea - even if the fighters can't hit the dragon as hard as the Warmage they can tear down mirrors so the Orbs hit the right target.

[Starbuck_II]

Do Sudden metamagics actualy increase casting time?

They specifically said it didn't increase time in Minatures' Handbook when they were originally published, but when imported to Complete Arcane: they don't mention it.
It is assumed but never stated.

[Frosty]

They specifically said it didn't increase time in Minatures' Handbook when they were originally published, but when imported to Complete Arcane: they don't mention it.
It is assumed but never stated.

I've always played that it doesn't increase casting time. I think that's the RAI.

[Chronos]

OK, I'll assume that your warmage has a caster level of 14 (maybe he has a reserve feat or something to up his caster level), so his orbs do a base of 14d6 damage. I'll further assume that for Empower, he was rolling 14d6 and multiplying by 1.5, rather than rolling 21d6 (yes, there is a difference). That means his first roll, before empowering and vulnerability, was about 59, and his second roll, likewise, was about 67.

A roll of 14d6 can be very well approximated by a Gaussian with a mean of 49, and a variance of 40.83, for a standard deviation of about 6.39 . That means his first roll was 1.56 standard deviations above the mean, and his second roll was 2.82 standard deviations above the mean. That means that for his first roll, he had about a 0.059 chance (about 1 in 17) of rolling that well or better, and for his second, he had about a 0.0024 chance (about 1 in 417) of rolling that well or better.

And this isn't even considering the chance of them successfully surprising the dragon. A Young Adult (Huge, CR 13) red dragon will have Listen and Spot checks of at least +24 or so, as well as blindsense, keen senses, and darkvision. Unless your warmage spent all of his skill points on Hide and Move Silently cross-class, and also took the Darkstalker feat, and all of the party did likewise, that gives him a 0% chance of sneaking up on the dragon. Even if he did do all of that, he'd have at most +10 or so to Hide and Move Silently, compared to the dragon's +24, giving him a 3/80 chance on each skill, or 9/6400 for both of them.

Putting it all together, either your characters are built extremely oddly in a way that would be helpful only for this particular encounter and got insanely lucky, or there's something going on that you don't know about. And when there's something going on that the DM doesn't know about, there's a real problem.

[Emperor Tippy]

Warmages get Int to damage with spells IIRC. That could easily be an extra 10 points of damage on each use (pre empower or vulnerability).

As for using Sudden Empower twice, the DM might have been mistaken and one of them might have been Sudden Maximize. If one was SM then that would deal 168+Int damage after vulnerability (assuming CL 14).

[Sstoopidtallkid]

It looks like the math is off. If the Warmage was rolling 17d6 those numbers would work, but the Orb spells only scale to 15d6. Spellgifted and a Reserve feat would get him 15d6, but I can't think of any way to boost the damage further.

Isn't there a feat that adds 1 to the damage per spell level? That would just mean he's obscenely lucky, which is worse for a DM than blatantly cheating.

Edit: Sudden Maximize would make that second attack reasonable, especially with 15d6. Then you're only looking at lucky on that first roll, assuming he found a way to boost the damage a bit.

[Tokiko Mima]

I've always played that it doesn't increase casting time. I think that's the RAI.

I agree. If it allows prepared casters to use the spell without preparation then it should allow sorcerers to cast without extra metamagic casting time. Otherwise I think the feat would have noted that Wizards would be required to take the casting time penalty because they are spontaneously applying metamagic in the same manner Sorcerers usually do.

In any case, this warmage is high enough level to have taken the Rapid Metamagic feat that frees spontaneous casters from having to deal with that casting time drawback.

Warmages get Int to damage with spells IIRC. That could easily be an extra 10 points of damage on each use (pre empower or vulnerability).

Not that I doubt ya Tippy, but warmages are an entirely Charisma based class (just like Sorcerers: Save DC, max spell level, bonus spells) What's a Warmage doing with an Int mod of +10?

[Stupendous_Man]

Deflect Ray is a 4th level spell that renders the Orbs useless.

??????????

[Person_Man]

How is it any different then anyone using Leap Attack on a touch attack (Wraithstrike, Pyrokineticist, Flame Blade, Fire Dagger, Master Thrower/Bloodstorm Blade, etc) against an enemy denied their Dex bonus (Greater Invisibility, Ring of Blinking w/ Pierce Magical Concealment, a million other ways)? It's pretty easy to deal high amounts of damage with a high amount of reliability in 3.5 D&D. But if your PCs choose to abuse it, its also quite easy to increase the number and/or power level of your enemies.

[hamishspence]

What book is Deflect Ray in? Checked PHB, PHB2, Spell Compendium, Complete Arcane, Complete Mage. Is it in another book?

[Burley]

??????????

I think Deflect Ray helps with all Ranged Touch Attacks.