Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?

[Jackinthegreen]

Sounds like we could use a blaster handbook.  A quick look at the section shows we don't, but my skimming skills are crap at the moment.  Stormcaster and Dragonlance War Mage are pretty darn good and should of course make it.

The WotC Warmage has a little help since Edge can deal damage every round on a damage over time spell, but we've noted such spells aren't always worthwhile when combat doesn't last long.  Looking at the class, I notice a Warmage can get into Stormcaster at 7th level no problem, though might want to wait until 8th because of Sudden Empower.

[SorO_Lost]

Recaster is another good one to consider. 4/5 casting, Changling only. But you get 3/day free Quicken, 5/day free Metamagic (limited list, pretty much core only), Eschew Materials, and a knock off of other spell altering Metamagics such as altering it's area type and such. It's actually pretty powerful, just a poor combo with Stormcaster since it also loses a CL.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Hitting 60% of the time, and increasing damage by 5 hp per level,
keeps up with a 4 round kill on the 12 hp per level increase.
iirc - 12 per level is what the math guys found to be "normal".
(something looks somewhat 4e-ish here ... )

But that's rather boring.  And it doesn't deal with the more
geometric hp increase at higher levels, nor the simple fact
that some high level monsters have save-or-die abilities, too.


The gamingden guys dropped the spell level on a bunch
of the direct damage spells.  Seems easy enough.
It's just one number being changed.

But yeah, a blaster handbook would "help" the noobs.

Psi goes Energy Missile the good kind + Wilder recharge.
Done.

[Jackinthegreen]

Energy Admixture might deserve a mention since it effectively doubles the spell's damage for a +4 modifier.  Lower that a bit through other feats, break it wide open through Reserves of Strength, and proceed to make heads explode.  Couple with the Dragonlance War Mage for best effect.

Edit: And of course Soro already made this combo.  Since it is Energy Substitution: Electricity though, Born of the Three Thunders would be a good investment for more CC.

[Wiggins]

I was about to build a blaster;

Focused Specialist Evoker, with the Fire Affinity ACF replacing the familiar and the Spellgifted (Evocation Trait)

Feats for first 6 levels;
Bloodline of Fire, Elemental Spellcasting (Fire), Calishite Elementalist (Tradition of Fire), Empower Spell, Fiery Burst, Energy Substitution: Fire

Since I'm playing in a Gestalt campaign, I plan on making the first 5 levels in the other track either Warblade or Duskblade to get full BAB, and taking a level of Sanctified One of Kord at level 6, taking the Holy Fire class feature.

Am I right that all those feats stack? And where should I go after that?

[SorO_Lost]

Hmm... Did I mention the details of combo here?

Basically feat wise you're looking at Snowcast, Frozen Magic, Cold Spell Specialization, Draconic Aura(energy:cold), Blistering Spell, Energy Substitution(acid), Energy Substitution(electricity), Energy Admixture(electricity), Empower Spell, and really any other useful Metamagic Feat. That's 9 total plus extras, 7 base, 2 flaw, 1 for selling your soul, 1 for metamagic storm, plus any extras from PrCs so plenty of room.

Pick a fire spell and apply Blistering Spell to it.
Apply Energy Substitution(acid) after that. The spell's descriptor changes to [Acid] and the damage it deals is Acid based.
Note, Blistering Spell is a Metamagic feat dealing damage, Energy Sub can't apply to it.
Now apply Energy Admixture(electricity), the spell is now [Acid, Electricity] and deals both Acid and Electricity damage.
Finally, add Snowcasting. That feat adds [Cold] to the descriptor but doesn't alter the damage types and such.

Icemail Armor and Draconic Aura only checks the descriptor. Up to +6 to the Save DC is obtained.
Cold Snap (a spell) & Cold Spell Specialization only checks the descriptor. Up to +3 per die is obtained.
Caustic Mire desires an effect that deals fire damage, through Blistering Spell your spell does. +1 per die.
Acid Sheath like the cold stuff only desires a descriptor, +1 per die.
It actually deals electricity damage so Stormcaster's Thunderbolt applies. +X sonic damage & save vs stun.
In total, you can be looking at up to +8 damage per die, +1 sonic per spell level, +2 fire per spell level, +6 to Save DCs, and has save vs stun. After Empower, thats 17.25 damage per CL with Fireball with an additional 9 damage.

In other words, I hit you with a Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, & Sonic and you are stunned at how awesome it is. Most of it is honestly Feat based really, Stormcaster adds the Sonic and save or suck, but it really is mostly Feat powered.

[Unbeliever]

Where's this Icemail armor you speak of?  The only one I know of is blue ice, which just ignores arcane spell failure.

EDIT:  Thanks SorO, I am going to use that in an upcoming build.  It's a appreciated.

[SorO_Lost]

Where's this Icemail armor you speak of?  The only one I know of is blue ice, which just ignores arcane spell failure.

Icemail Armor: A suit of icemail armor appears to be a suit of transparent breastplate armor carved out of ice. Although it feels cold to the touch, icemail armor keeps the wearer warm and protected from cold, granting cold resistance 30. Icemail armor is much lighter than steel, and although it provides protection equal to that afforded by a suit of +3 breastplate armor, it is considered to be light armor. It has a maximum Dexterity bonus to Armor Class of +5, an armor check penalty of -1, and an arcane spell failure chance of 15%. The arcane spell failure chance for casting spells with the cold descriptor drops to 0%, and the save DCs to resist these spells increases by +2.

Druids can wear icemail armor without violating their druidic vows, as long as they hail from an arctic climate.

Caster Level: 9th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Spell Focus (evocation), chill metal, protection from elements; Market Price: 52,000 gp; Weight: 15 lb.

[Wiggins]

So at level 12 Gestalt, a good SorO inspired Neutral Good Blaster might be

Focused Conjurer 6/ Stormcaster 4/ Focused Conjurer 2
Silver Dragon Shaman 1/ Cloistered Cleric 1/ Warmage 3/ Stormcaster 1/ Warmage 4/ Rainbow Servant 2

(Planning from then on to only advance as a wizard/rainbow servant)

With the Feats you listed above, except Sudden Empower rather than Empower, and with DMM (Energy Admixture),
(plus 2 other draconic auras and 3 devotions or domain powers, at least the knowledge domain might give a decent touch attack bonus)

[Nytemare3701]

Perhaps rider effects on the caster for knowing certain spells? Maybe preparing fireball gives you a fiery aura or something.

We call those reserve feats.

[Bauglir]

Perhaps rider effects on the caster for knowing certain spells? Maybe preparing fireball gives you a fiery aura or something.

We call those reserve feats.

It's a poor execution for this purpose, I think. You'd want more passive buffs (since you only have so many actions), and you'd want to tie them to specific spells since every reserve feat basically has a non-blasty spell that you can use to trigger the same benefit. They also give you an incentive to not cast the spell, which is the opposite behavior we want to encourage. In order to prevent unnecessary caster-buffing, I think they would all have to be weird things that don't stack with bonuses (you can't give straight number bonuses like a deflection bonus to AC, but you could give a fire aura that dealt 3d4 points of damage for a fireball), which only makes it harder.

[Wiggins]

Perhaps rider effects on the caster for knowing certain spells? Maybe preparing fireball gives you a fiery aura or something.

We call those reserve feats.

It's a poor execution for this purpose, I think. You'd want more passive buffs (since you only have so many actions), and you'd want to tie them to specific spells since every reserve feat basically has a non-blasty spell that you can use to trigger the same benefit. They also give you an incentive to not cast the spell, which is the opposite behavior we want to encourage. In order to prevent unnecessary caster-buffing, I think they would all have to be weird things that don't stack with bonuses (you can't give straight number bonuses like a deflection bonus to AC, but you could give a fire aura that dealt 3d4 points of damage for a fireball), which only makes it harder.

So you want reserve feat like abilities, but where preparing aggressive spells to give defensive abilities? And preparing defensive spells give aggressive abilities? But you want these abilities to be sufficiently weaker that the caster would always rather cast than use the reserve ability?

This is to achieve what? It won't fix any disparity between caster types, though it would give casters more flexibility when specialising... which is a bit of an oxymoron. I see the specialisation and single duty optimisation of any class as demanding sacrifice. It's why so many power attack based characters end up as dumb brutes.

Wouldn't this just make it even easier for the wizard to do everything at a specialised level without losing out on anything?

[Bauglir]

Well, no, I'd actually prefer that everything grant passive abilities, or else offensive or other miscellaneous abilities that take only a swift action at most. I don't want their power level to have anything to do with whether or not the caster keeps it prepared or not; I thought I was actually pretty clear that I want them to retain the ability even if they cast it (unlike a Reserve Feat, which is too weak to bother keeping because it's an offensive ability that doesn't keep up with level, and in order to use it as effectively as possible they have to refrain from casting at least one of their highest level spells).

The point is to give you an incentive to fill your spell slots up with blasting spells. You would only be rewriting spells that fall under that category, not entire groups of spells (and you'd have to rewrite every spell individually). That last bit is why it's a pipe dream, but really you are going to have to do that anyway if you want to really fix blasting properly. Otherwise you're going to wind up stuck with "Blasting as it stands", "Blasting, but with all the battlefield control of better strategies, so why bother with anything else", or "Blasting, but with so much damage that you autokill an enemy that fails a save, or drop it to half or less otherwise, which is actually better than a SoD so again, why bother?"

EDIT: The other problem is the old one with sorcerer spell choices. There are just too many blasting spells to really fit the niche. If you can deal 1d6 per level one way, you don't really need another way to do it. Maybe a second, in case of resistance or immunity, but beyond that you get diminishing returns in terms of reliability.

[absolon]

The point is to give you an incentive to fill your spell slots up with blasting spells. You would only be rewriting spells that fall under that category, not entire groups of spells (and you'd have to rewrite every spell individually). That last bit is why it's a pipe dream, but really you are going to have to do that anyway if you want to really fix blasting properly. Otherwise you're going to wind up stuck with "Blasting as it stands", "Blasting, but with all the battlefield control of better strategies, so why bother with anything else", or "Blasting, but with so much damage that you autokill an enemy that fails a save, or drop it to half or less otherwise, which is actually better than a SoD so again, why bother?"

The emphasis is mine here. I think that if one is going to go through and add effects to bland blaster spells to make them double threats, you can't add effects that replace the normal uber powerful spells with new ones that can do all the same stuff as the old, but now you do damage too. I think that if you attached effects that are 1. shortlived or 2. minor but stackable debuffs (like a -1 or 2 to hits, or damage, or saves in some cases) or 3. Battlefield control that follows the guideline of #1. That way, you not only have damage type variety, but you also have varied effects that you can choose from for the customization of your repertoire.

[Jackinthegreen]

Another feat that might be worthwhile for a blaster, especially if you can get the spell to have multiple descriptors: Energy Gestalt.  Complete Mage, pg 42.  Among the options, using Brittle Blast increases the damage of the sonic spell by 50%. Free Empower, or even better damage if one uses an Empowered spell.  Shame it requires casting damaging spells for two rounds in a row, but the effects are probably worthwhile.

[Wiggins]

That only effects objects and constructs, not most creatures

[WarlockLord]

Well, you could try quickening energy vulnerability, PHBII

Also, Raging Flame is cast as a standard action.  I think that reduces it's usefulness a bit.  Cold Snap is cleric & druid only, making it a bit difficult for most of the wizards...I dunno.

I really hate that you can't just write "Lightning Bolt" and have that be a viable option compared to everything else.

[Captnq]

I take a 1st level fighter and give him a sword. It does 1d8.
I take a 20th level fighter and give him a sword. It does 1d8.

OH MY GOD, FIGHTERS ARE BROKEN... Oh, wait. I forgot all the things I can stack, feats I can take, warblade manuvers, PrC classes, blah blah blah.

I guess you just have to work at it.

Blasters don't suck. I've seen some blaster combos that make walking death machines out or sorcerers at 6th level. It's about focus. A generalist mage will never be as effective as someone who decided to be the most deadly fireball tosser in the world. A generalist fighter will never be as good as a fighter who specializes in (fill in chosen weapon here). Yes, the system is quirky. There are sweet spots where any given combo outshines everyone else. I've taken multiple campaigns from level 1 to level 20. My latest has reached 32. Trust me. Gets tough to keep coming up with things at this level. I've recently come up with a desert adventure involving Evil Half-Blue Dragon Camels that spit lightning. They laughed right up until the colossal Spellwarped Fiendish Half-Blue Dragon Barbarian Camel rose up out of the sands and began to rage.

But what I can say with certainty is that the Spellcasters have a good mix of spells and often fall back to blasters spells just as much as time stop combos and other crap. The party fighters are really the damage dealers. The monk is just plain scary. I suspect that if you actually played the PC up to any given level, rather then tried to work it out on paper at the same given level, you'd find that blaster spells weren't as much of a loser as you think.

When I make an NPC at a given level, he is NEVER as good as a player of the same level. Building a PC through play is different then working out the stats. I can't explain it, but by testing and retesting him and building his defenses against the attacks that worked against you, instead of just dumping Energy Defense All 30 onto the sheet, the PC has a much better grasp of what he can do, no matter what the NPC's character sheet may say.

The player's actual experience at PLAYING is just as important as what the math says. Mathmatically, I've put these guys in CR ratings WAY above what the book says they should fight. And they CLEANED THE FLOOR with the monsters. Doesn't mater what TO says should have happened. The dice say the NPCs lost.

So before you decide that on paper, blasters suck, I have to ask, how many blasters have you played? How long did you play them? Did you start at 1st and work your way up, or did you start at like 10th level and quit after two sessions? Because in my experience, Theoretical Optimization often get's flattened by ACTUAL Optimization.

[Wrex]

Did you just claim the monk is scary, and that the fighter is the party damage dealer?

[Bauglir]

Depends on your balance point. I actually tend to think that blasting spells are okay - everything else is overpowered out of the box. You don't have to work to make Stinking Cloud awesome. You can certainly make it even better (sculpt spell to clear out its major drawback, for instance), but by default it's an option that keeps up with a heavily optimized fireball. That's problematic. Earlier posts operated under the assumption that blasting should be boosted rather than everything else debuffed.

I will say that, despite what people say about hit point damage not mattering, blasting is the superior option if your opponents are likely to make their saves, until you get to a high enough level where even success applies penalties. Before that, a successful save usually just reduces damage, but this only applies if you're reasonably certain that a save is going to get made (say, a gestalt game).

Much as we like to joke around, Fighters can be effective (see: lockdown), and Monks can too (see: unarmed damage records). Still less powerful than an optimized non-blaster Wizard but I get the distinct feeling we're not talking about the sort of player who prepares a binary-labeled list of questions for divinations and opens them by asking for the sum of the most useful set of questions on the list.