Blasting Spells generally suck. How do we fix that?

[Wrex]

I'm not saying that a monk can't be good, but it depends on what you call a monk. Monk 20? I doubt it. Monk dips? Monk makes a great dip, same as fighter. It's not something you ever want to carry to twenty. If someone with a fighter dip as part of a gish build counts as a fighter, then sure. But even say, fighter lockdown is still a one trick pony.

[veekie]

Depends on your balance point. I actually tend to think that blasting spells are okay - everything else is overpowered out of the box.

Likewise, though the problem then is fixing All Spells. Theres no single comprehensive rule that matters when trying to nerf it all, whereas its relatively simple to augment one type of spell.

[Captnq]

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

Yeah. The monk has a crazy AoO build going. The Fighter has a Cleave build. The Wizard is mostly party buff guy, but has a few nuke spells with a wide selection of "I got a spell for that problem!" Give him a few minutes, he can fix anything. The thief mostly screws around and isn't that serious. He gets killed the most. The Druid actually holds back most of the time then lets loose with the force of nature to nuke everything within a half mile or so.

[linklord231]

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

Yeah. The monk has a crazy AoO build going. The Fighter has a Cleave build. The Wizard is mostly party buff guy, but has a few nuke spells with a wide selection of "I got a spell for that problem!" Give him a few minutes, he can fix anything. The thief mostly screws around and isn't that serious. He gets killed the most. The Druid actually holds back most of the time then lets loose with the force of nature to nuke everything within a half mile or so.

This sounds awfully similar to my last Epic group.  We had a Rogue who sat in a corner and cried because everything was immune to crits, a bow ranger who could hit things for piddly damage, a monk who could only hurt things if his Ki Strike (Vorpal) triggered, a fighter who consistently dealt 300 damage per round (she finally figured out uberpouncing around level 30), and a Cleric (me) who cast all the Persistent buffs we needed to survive, then watched until things went bad and the universe needed to be 'sploded.

[Dkonen]

Just to throw in my 2 coppers:

Having played a specialized blaster... yes they can melt faces with the best of them, but they *do* have to be built for it. Just like any class needs to have a coherent build to get the most out of it.

And because I have had that epic group. The one where the melees out damaged the Hellfire Warlock. Granted, the player of the HFW isn't big into optimizing, but he wasn't a pushover either. In a party of three 24th level characters (two melees and the warlock-who had eldritch disciple levels to act as a healer as needed), they regularly took things five levels above them, without even breaking a sweat.

Don't knock a well built melee... or a well built blaster.

And +1 to the suggestion for a blasting handbook. I know at least one player in our local group who could vastly benefit from it (he won't listen to us, but he might take the advice from a guide).

[SorO_Lost]

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.

Arcane Fusion(raging flame, caustic mire) is a Standard Action and sets up +2/die in damage. It can be Quickened, nested inside a Greater Fusion, Time Stopped, Spellsurged, and Contingency'ed as needed. Plus the concept is partially a mental exercise. You don't need all the set up spells as you don't need to deal more than 300 damage for one shot kills, so you'd never actually use all of the tricks as once, unless you wanted to score kill points for dropping the Big T.

For Cold Snap, hell Arcane Fusion too if a Wizard, you walk up to a Metallic Dragon and say I will pay you to craft a Runestaff for me. The real concern with Cold Snap isn't access to casting it, it's how well the DM thinks the nearby NPCs react when you attempt to bring about a minor ice age to the near by area...

Edit

Don't knock a well built melee... or a well built blaster.

So we're square here, a "well built" melee isn't an ubercharger.

Ubercharging is the cool whip on top of pie. Takes seconds to add and any pie can use it. And as cool as sitting there eating a bowl of cool whip sounds, the pie is what makes the profits, your mouth drool, and brings about the desire for testing science.

[Captnq]

And +1 to the suggestion for a blasting handbook. I know at least one player in our local group who could vastly benefit from it (he won't listen to us, but he might take the advice from a guide).

I'll echo that. Feel free to steal as much as you wish from my "What can you do with..." thread. I think I have exhausted several spells already. Oh, and check out the rules section of The SpellBook. Section SSI 2.02, for your friend. I have a section in there about blaster optimization. Keyword search: Comparing Spell Damage. It's about 3/4ths down.

[Prime32]

Closest thing I've seen to a Blasting Handbook is the Mailman build.

[Dkonen]

And +1 to the suggestion for a blasting handbook. I know at least one player in our local group who could vastly benefit from it (he won't listen to us, but he might take the advice from a guide).

I'll echo that. Feel free to steal as much as you wish from my "What can you do with..." thread. I think I have exhausted several spells already. Oh, and check out the rules section of The SpellBook. Section SSI 2.02, for your friend. I have a section in there about blaster optimization. Keyword search: Comparing Spell Damage. It's about 3/4ths down.

Now if I could only get past the "won't listen to me" part.

Yes, I have handed him guides, and website addresses, and even books, and pointed out certain things. It's the best way to guarantee it doesn't get used. I'm starting to contemplate a loony tunes-like reverse psychology just out of pure curiousity.

Edit: oh, and thankyou for said thread, it's been....enlightening 

[Southern Cross]

How old is your player?
He's acting more like a teenager than an adult.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

'nother Psi combo is the Dr#349 Cerebremetamgic feat.
Throw in some recharge to make it sillier.
I made a short thread about it at BG TO.

So basically it needs:
Early Entry Arcane or Divine
Ardent 2 or Psion 3
the Cerebremetagaic feat
as many Metamagic feats as you can find
Dual -Fester PrC as much as you can stand
... solely to get Ppoints up the wazoo to power
all those metamagic slots.
Ardent gets better power access for those spell levels.
Mix in some Psiotheurgist(s) to make it silliest.

Thing is, it isn't a blaster at all while trying to set it up.
Actually is sucks the same way dual casters suck early.
And it's completely OP after it gets going.
 

[Dkonen]

How old is your player?
He's acting more like a teenager than an adult.

To be fair, he is only slightly out of his teens....and our youngest...though I think the fact he's trying to be both "bro" and "geek" may be causing him RL issues that spill over into our games on an OCly basis.

Which is why he's usually tolerated. Poor guy's so confused, he's not sure what's trendy anymore. 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Ardent 7 / UrP 2 / various dual caster possibilities
Cerebremetamagic works great in this set-up.
It's kinda weird thinking of cleric spells for blasting, tho.


Evoc could be the only school that can use 9/10 or 10/10 prcs.
Divination + (teleport) can use the 5/10s and 6/10s.
Reserve the 7/10 or 8/10s for the others.
Not "cool" but workable.

[Psyren]

Don't know if this was already stated, but the big problem with D&D/PF blasting/glass cannon/BSF in general, is that a monster with 1 HP left is just as dangerous as one at full health.

So for the blaster it becomes a Hobson's Choice; either you pour resources into making your blasts one-shot everything (potentially decreasing fun for the other players/DM in the process) - or you don't, and you + the other party members have to spend resources patching up when you inevitably end up nommed on/debuffed etc.

A system whereby dropping a monster to X% of total health also made them proportionately slower/weaker/etc. would not only be more realistic, it would also make blasting for less than 100% of a monster's HP useful again.

[Bauglir]

That is a strategy worth pursuing to an extent, although it introduces problems of granularity, particularly at higher levels with bigger HP pools. You tend to wind up with really big chunks of HP space over which you have exactly the same problem (for instance, the bloodied condition), or else you have too many categories to make tracking it feasible outside of a computerized environment.

[zugschef]

Closest thing I've seen to a Blasting Handbook is the Mailman build.

this. what else is there to say?

[oslecamo]

Don't know if this was already stated, but the big problem with D&D/PF blasting/glass cannon/BSF in general, is that a monster with 1 HP left is just as dangerous as one at full health.

On the contrary, a monster at 1 HP means he's much closer to death. Any aoo will drop him, so he can't afford to provoke. A simple magic missile will drop him, so he has to take out the wizard or die.

A system whereby dropping a monster to X% of total health also made them proportionately slower/weaker/etc. would not only be more realistic, it would also make blasting for less than 100% of a monster's HP useful again.

The problem with that (and you can witness it in systems that use that kind of rule) is that whoever gets damaged first loses. They don't lose right away yes, but when you're suddenly taking penalties on everything whitout saves allowed, you're already dead for all pratical purposes because you can't fight back.

In addition, it means nobody wants to be heroic because nobody wants to risk taking damage. Even a simple Aoo will cripple you, so no running past the minions to directly engage their boss.

Geting weaker when you lose hp may be "realistic", but what people see in legends is heroes suffering grievous wounds and still pressing forward at full power until their last breaths.

[Unbeliever]

^ this is a good point.  In literature, heroic characters don't seem all that impaired even though they are "injured."  Conan shrugs off numerous wounds and scrapes, even fairly serious ones, and is able to surge forward and do what needs be done.  Action heroes do it all the time, too.  It's a little bit of a genre conceit.

The only time that this really worked out ok was in the White Wolf's earlier live action role-playing system.  There, they had a fairly natural attrition system where you could get "worn down" and it would benefit people who had greater investments in the skills or traits that were part of the contest. 

It still had some of the problems that Oscelamo references, but not many.  White Wolf's table-top system with its wound penalties, on the other hand, is a perfect example of the stuff he refers to.  It further exacerbates rocket tag.

[SneeR]

Actually, having a wound tier system which inflicts penalties is in line with literature, but it would require fast healing for everyone to line up right. Really, once a hero has forgotten about his wound, it is fine.

[Jackinthegreen]

Sounds more like there needs to be ways of getting a second wind or other ways of ignoring some damage until later.  I think that's one of the concepts behind the Mad Foam Rager feat.

Something at 1 hp doesn't tend to have much options if it's outnumbered.