Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?

[absolon]

Just as the title says, unless you can pull some shenanigans with caster level/metamagic/reserves of strength, using your spell slots for blasting enemies is generally suboptimal. Now, we can point to some spells that are worth it because they come with "riders", but poor Fireball is merely flashy, not effective. So, how do fix this problem?

I know what you're thinking: Wizards don't need MORE ways to rule the world! To be honest, this is about making a play style viable, not about relitigating balance issues between mundane and magic classes or that SoDs and crowd control are inherently better. What I want to do is identify issues with blasting spells and come up with solutions that are at least comparable in power to other spells of the same level.

Issues I've observed:

1. Not a lot of damage done, and could have cast a spell that hampered the foe.
2. Blasting spells are subject to Elemental Resistance, a save, and SR. This is a big one for me, as blasting spells have to overcome three annoying hurdles rather than two like most other spells (SR and a save).
3. Friendly fire is an issue.
4. Enemy HP can be rather high, due to monsters having large ability scores. This is related to #1, in that 17 points of damage means more to a creature that has 50 HP versus 300 HP.

I have some ideas about how to fix these problems, but not a lot of time to post at this time. I'll follow up here soon, but what kinds of things have you guys come up with or even implemented in your games?

[Wiggins]

Surely such "shenanigans" are what you do when you DO want the Blaster to work, (at least up to an acceptable level), and such spells are those that are the preferred choices, so rather than making rules adjustments, we should be referencing handbooks and example builds of all the different preferred methods that it can be achieved?

[StreamOfTheSky]

- Have direct damage spells be SR: No, or give a huge bonus on CL checks to overcome SR.

- Give casters the option each time they cast for direct damage AoE spells (only ones that do damage; otherwise this could get super broken)  to be changed from Reflex Half to Reflex Negates, and in return get +4 bonus to the save DC.  Or maybe +5.  Some fairly big number.

- Take Searing Spell and...the cold version, can't recall the name.  Add versions of those feats for Electricty and Acid, and hell even Sonic (it'd be such a waste of a feat, though...).  Reduce their spell level adjustment from +1 to +0, and make them general feats instead of metamagic.  They're now a constant boon to help with that particular energy type.  The price you pay for that benefit is expending the feat.

- Make Energy Substitution into a single metamagic feat (still +0 adjustment).  Let the caster choose on the fly as he's castng the energy spell what energy type he wishes to substitute it for.


Just some ideas...

[oslecamo]

It's more of a damage scaling badly at medium-high levels, as monster HP starts scaling out of the bat while most damaging spells stick to 1d6 per HD. We can see this to some degree in spell compendium where we have spells starting to deal 1d8 per HD and 1d10 per HD later on.

Bonus on penetrating SR is another nice idea, but not fully ignoring. Otherwise at this rate SR may as well not be there.

Also trivia, despite all the talk of "blasting suckorz", in a big test made on the wotc forums of solo characters, the arcane casters were pretty blasting focused. Because stuff like Web and Grease isn't that hot when you don't have a party to finish of your oponent quickly before your spell wears off, so puting down the enemy instantly with some pimped fire bolts proved a much safer bet.

So you gotta ask yourself, if blasting spells one-shot the enemy whitout even need of the rest of the party needing to finish off the enemy, is it really ok? And what exactly happens when the monsters turn those spells against the party, that have much less inflated HP?

- Make Energy Substitution into a single metamagic feat (still +0 adjustment).  Let the caster choose on the fly as he's castng the energy spell what energy type he wishes to substitute it for.

I greatly disagree with this. on the contrary, a caster should be rewarded for picking an element and sticking to it.  Casters in most media usually speacilize in an element.

[linklord231]

- Make Energy Substitution into a single metamagic feat (still +0 adjustment).  Let the caster choose on the fly as he's castng the energy spell what energy type he wishes to substitute it for.

I greatly disagree with this. on the contrary, a caster should be rewarded for picking an element and sticking to it.  Casters in most media usually speacilize in an element.

Would you prefer a feat that allows damage of a certain elemental type to bypass immunities?

[Wrex]

What I do is this:


Blasting spells as written are a swift action.

Blasting spells inflict double damage if cast as a standard action. This bypasses the damage cap.  OR you may change the element, also as a standard action. Doing both of these together is a full round action.

[Prime32]

One trick I like to use, to add a little more utility.

Whenever you fail a Reflex save against a damage-dealing area spell, you are pushed directly away from the origin of the effect until you strike a solid object (inflicting 1d6 damage) or are outside the area of the effect. You then fall prone. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

[SorO_Lost]

How to fix it? Let SorO near your game. There is also some real black mages running on the boards here too that would gladly tell you how to deal a couple thousand damage per spell slot.

There is a huge break point with blasting spells. It's called deal enough damage to kill someone, and it's seriously easy. For one, Metamagic is binary, either you deal with the entire penalty or ignore it. If ignored, there is a couple hundred damage to several thousand and the job is done. Secondly there is spell support, even Delay Blast Fireball rapid cast in a Time Stop is Core and you would seriously have to try to not make that useful (I use it against a fire elemental!). Spells like Raging Flame, Caustic Mire, Acid Sheath, & Cold Snap set your area up to deal +1 damage per die, and it's not even hard to stack them (raging flame is a swift action, cold snap can last all day). Even PrCs jump in with free Metamagics, free effective Metamagics, to ahh who cares have a direct buff all the time. In any case the type of blasting spell can change things as well, like everyone considers the Orb of line pretty effective, Fire Shuriken is awesome, Wings of Flurry deal the damage and provide god-style CC, and even Fell Drain anything lets you build a Wight army of doom at level 1.

So what does it need? Nothing, you have to build for it a little if you want fries them all to death in boiling lava snow in a single round. Whereas someone who doesn't care to make good choices and/or built 180 degrees in the opposite direction will probably have some problems with one round murder sprees. It's kind of how things are meant to be. So need? Nope, try wants.

[absolon]

Surely such "shenanigans" are what you do when you DO want the Blaster to work, (at least up to an acceptable level), and such spells are those that are the preferred choices, so rather than making rules adjustments, we should be referencing handbooks and example builds of all the different preferred methods that it can be achieved?

Yes indeed! When our objective is to work within the bounds of what we have in the books (and what we can get past a GM) and make a concept work, that is precisely what we do! That's what MinMax is all about!

What doesn't sit well with me is that if you want to kill something with Orb of Frost, you need to a lot of metamagic or other magic feats (feat cost), items (gold), spell combos (Time Stop for example), or some combination of those. Glitterdust, Slow, Feeblemind, Flesh to Ice, Enervate, etc, don't require even a modicum of gold or feats to use and they get the job done (you winning). I guess I don't like the disparity of effort that it takes. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the fruits the labor of getting a blast to work. I once used this sequence: cast Time Stop, Summon Monster III a bunch of little minions, ready an action before Time Stop ends such that when it is finished, you tell your minions to not resist your spells and cast Chained Detonate on them and your enemy. Should it really require that much more effort?

[SneeR]

Should it really require that much more effort?

No, not when you can make all melee enemies useless with a single casting of Glitterdust.
Making blasting viable causes you to nova and consumes an inordinate amount of character creation resources.

[Thurbane]

Switching the damage type to Sonic, or better yet, force or untyped, can help. Although you can't do Sonic with Energy Substitution (3.5 - the 3.0 version allowed Sonic), Eleven Spell Lore (PHB2) can do so...

[absolon]

How to fix it? Let SorO near your game. There is also some real black mages running on the boards here too that would gladly tell you how to deal a couple thousand damage per spell slot.

There is a huge break point with blasting spells. It's called deal enough damage to kill someone, and it's seriously easy. For one, Metamagic is binary, either you deal with the entire penalty or ignore it. If ignored, there is a couple hundred damage to several thousand and the job is done. Secondly there is spell support, even Delay Blast Fireball rapid cast in a Time Stop is Core and you would seriously have to try to not make that useful (I use it against a fire elemental!). Spells like Raging Flame, Caustic Mire, Acid Sheath, & Cold Snap set your area up to deal +1 damage per die, and it's not even hard to stack them (raging flame is a swift action, cold snap can last all day). Even PrCs jump in with free Metamagics, free effective Metamagics, to ahh who cares have a direct buff all the time. In any case the type of blasting spell can change things as well, like everyone considers the Orb of line pretty effective, Fire Shuriken is awesome, Wings of Flurry deal the damage and provide god-style CC, and even Fell Drain anything lets you build a Wight army of doom at level 1.

So what does it need? Nothing, you have to build for it a little if you want fries them all to death in boiling lava snow in a single round. Whereas someone who doesn't care to make good choices and/or built 180 degrees in the opposite direction will probably have some problems with one round murder sprees. It's kind of how things are meant to be. So need? Nope, try wants.

I remember seeing a build that managed a huge caster level (I think it was a sorcerer of some sort, I can't remember where it is) and could blow up planets. It was pretty wild. I just fail at using Search to find things apparently.

A nice way of getting blasting spells to go the extra mile is the War Mage PrC from Dragonlance: Age of Mortals. Add Cold Spell Specialization on top of that and you've got something that's fairly low maintenance and potentially +5 damage per die on cold spells. I must admit that I'm not as informed as to how one ignores metamagic costs without Incantatrix's Instant Metamagic and Anima Mage.

[SorO_Lost]

East Metamagic and Practical Metamagic, one is RotD the other is Dragon Mag. Both reduce Metamagic costs by 1 globally. Metamagic School or w/e it's name in CM reduces by one for spells of a certain school. So anything that gives bonus Feats works as at this point Energy Admixture is only a +1 cost.

Arcene Thesis reduces by the final -1 to a Min of Zero so it's always applied last and it is per spell. The Mailman uses it with Magic Missile and I think the ruling of -X per feat, thus free Admixture (+4-4=0), Repeat, Twinned, Empower, Maximize, all nested instead Twinned/Repeated Arcane Fusions. So while it takes like 14 rounds to resolve, it's several thousand damage off one spell slot.

I'm more practical, ok tried to be more original, and suggest the Stormcaster route. 4/5s advancement but you get Thunderbolt. Any spell that deals electricity damage also deals +1 sonic damage per spell level and has a Fort Save or be Stunned, it turns any blaster spell into a CC effect. So combined with Warmage and some cleaver uses of Energy Sub & buffs I hit up to +8 per die, which is pretty lengthy in set up but still pretty amazing, and then force to save against being Stunned, with an abnormally high Save DC.

Of course, Save-or-Die effects get the job done cleaner, but points for style. 

[veekie]

Simple issue is just the formulas involved, you can generate the problem mathematically after all.

Health formula is HD d X +(HD*Con). However, some creatures have significant HD above CR, and Con increases with level for all creatures except Con -.

Damage formula is CL d Y. CL is without shenanigans, generally equal to or less than CR. Additionally, Y is generally 6 or 8, while X varies from 6 to 12.

Area blasting spells do not differentiate significantly in damage formulas from point damage spells. They tend to have slightly larger dice, but thats about it.

So, for balance points:
-Single target blasting spells should have damage formulas comparable to creature health formulas, inclusive of rising hit dice values. Alternatively, have damage formulas comparable to archery damage at least.
-Blasting spells need a reduced random component. A large stack of d6s is visually impressive, but ineffective.
-Ability score to damage. Pretty much everyone but the rogue is dependent on this for a big chunk of damage already.
-Area damage spells should instead be geared after the health formulas of a CR-2 creature.
-Keep in mind that any changes would massively push the damage outputs of extant effective builds into orbit.

Single target, single shot - What you want here is to have your base CLd6+Stat, and then multiply it on higher level blasts, with more favorable multiplier:CL ratios on touch/close spells. More easily resisted/immune damage forms give you bigger dice, easier attack(touch attacks for example) or save half give you smaller.
A 3rd level single target spell could for example, hit for 2*CLd6 + 2*Stat. A 6th might hit for 3*CLd6+3*Stat. A Ray would go down to d4s, but a Fire Ray would go back to d6.
This hits hard, and punches through common resistances and health. It probably won't be oneshotting brute types, but anything else should go down quickly.

Multi targeting, multiple hits - Basically archery equivalent, so you base the formula off effective archery. Static base dice, stat to damage, CL gives more shots, higher level gives larger base.

AoE narrow(Line) - Approximately 3/4 of output of the point targeting spell. It'd hit likely 2 creatures at best. Width and length increases with level.

AoE wide(Cone, Burst) - Approximately 1/2 the output of the point targeting spell, but add a static amount to account for rising resistances(+10/20/30) for higher levels. Up the dimensions with level.

Damage over time - Difficult to balance, due to how fast combat can go. 2/3 of the appropriate category of damage(see above) per round is appropriate though, with fixed emplacement damage(like wall of fire) going to 3/4 instead.

[Unbeliever]

tl;dr:  blasting can work, but you have to build your character around making it work.  God wizardry works find "out of the box" so to speak.  There are a handful of prestige classes that synergize well with blasting.  And, on top of that, metamagic reducers would be good b/c they can make that tactic viable. 

My $.02: 

First off, we're often comparing blasting to optimized god wizardry, which is among the if not the most powerful approach to the game.  And, has a lot of brokenness.  What I mean to say is that if we're comparing blasting to things like Evard's Black Tentacles, Glitterdust, and Solid Fog, it will naturally feel inadequate.  Especially b/c WotC's love for Conjuration spells is so damn strong.  Also, a lot of the god wizardry stuff assumes you've got a handy shocktrooper lying around to finish them off once you've blinded/immobilized/totally fucked over the targets. 

Second, I've found blasting can work fine, but you have to go through some efforts.  The somewhat obscure Age of Mortals Warmage is a huge boon.  The Anarchic Initiate and Stormcaster are pretty good, too. 

For blasting to work, I think it's necessary to (a) have a way of keeping the numbers up high enough to matter, and (b) to give it some other, additional effect that makes it feel worthwhile.  The (b) thing can be something like Wings of Flurry or the various Orb's daze or slow, or it can be affecting a ton of targets -- just something.  Blasting also benefits a lot from various metamagic feats, though you need to build your character with MM reducers to make them worth using. 

[RobbyPants]

4. Enemy HP can be rather high, due to monsters having large ability scores. This is related to #1, in that 17 points of damage means more to a creature that has 50 HP versus 300 HP.

I think this is one of the biggest culprits.

Increasing spell damage is a quick and obvious fix, but as Oslecamo already mentioned, this has some problems. The biggest, IMO is, what happens when these new-fangled blasting spells are used on the PCs. If the entire party gets wiped by a Fireball or Cone of Cold, it's probably too much, even if that same spell doesn't kill a level-appropriate monster.

Of course, lowering monster HP isn't simple either, seeing as there are hundreds of them already published. I suppose you could come up with an arbitrary rule like "Con mod only applies once rather than per HD", but you're still left with annoying problems like:

• Applying this rule to every monster with more than 1 HD and a Con score every time.
• This does nothing to monsters with no Con score that have HP bloat form d12 HD and/or lots of HD to compensate.

Sadly, there's no quick fix for blasting and 3E. There are lots of spot fixes that make things a bit nicer, but each will create their own exploits, too.

I'm trying an approach that adds some extra damage dice to the spell based on the spell's level and adds some extra effects based on the energy type, but just to Evocation spells (since Conjuration enjoys SR:no as well as the rest of the awesome spells in that school).

So what does it need? Nothing, you have to build for it a little if you want fries them all to death in boiling lava snow in a single round. Whereas someone who doesn't care to make good choices and/or built 180 degrees in the opposite direction will probably have some problems with one round murder sprees. It's kind of how things are meant to be. So need? Nope, try wants.

It kind of sucks that you can't really pull this off until double-digit levels and not without a heavy investment in character resources. You don't have to invest as much to make crowd control viable, and back in 2E, you could just prep Fireball and call it a day.

[Unbeliever]

In one campaign where the DM didn't like to use DR and so just jacked up the enemy's hp, we gave PC spellcasters +5 damage per spell level, but that was more of a hotfix.

@RobbyPants
I think the answer isn't to raise the damage of blasting spells across the board.  That leads to all the issues that you describe.  I think the answer is to make it easier for players to invest in damage-dealing spells.  Something equivalent to a melee attacker's power attack + shocktrooper. 

That's why I mentioned metamagic reducers:  if you can maximize a damage dealing spell (which is, in effect, nearly doubling its damage) for free or nearly so, you're starting to bring their damage in line with what it needs to be. 

[RobbyPants]

I guess it makes sense when compared to Shock Trooper.

[Bauglir]

Perhaps rider effects on the caster for knowing certain spells? Maybe preparing fireball gives you a fiery aura or something. These would probably have to stick around even once the spell is cast. It would also require rewriting most of the problem spells from scratch - the problems here are too fundamental to the system to be fixed by anything quick, which I think is something we've all realized, so if we do set out to do this for the umpteenth time, it's really a matter of figuring out how we want to change our paradigm.

Basically we've got a several-thousand line Java program (all the spell text) and a C# compiler that is a good deal shorter (general rules for understanding how all those specific commands interact to produce useful results, but all those rules really only work for non-blasting spells). You're not going to get the compiler to work with the Java code while retaining its applicability to C#.

[absolon]

Something I find attractive but labor intensive is to add rider effects to blaster spells to make them either double threats (to use the Treantmok parlance) or give you a short buff of some kind. An example might be that when you cast Fireball, the area that it hits gets engulfed in smoke that produces a Fog Cloud effect for 2 rounds or something like that. For something like Cone of Cold, you could have it reduce movement speed unless they made the reflex save. Lightning Bolt (since it is a line and thus, harder to hit multiple targets) may stagger them. I think solutions like that make blasting spells more worth it, and they don't take the place of the other God Spells because they're still not as powerful but are better out-of-the-box.