Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Scott Atwood 11-24-03, 07:43 PM	Does anyone else think the dragon breath spell is too powerful? The benchmark spell for a 3rd level area effect damage spell is fireball. Fireball does 1d6 damage per caster level to a maximum of 10d6 at 10th level. It is a long range spell. It only permits a single fireball for a single spell slot. Dragon breath damage per breath scales more slowly than fireball, but with each casting of the spell, the caster gets three or more breath attacks, making the total damage dealt with a single 3rd level spell slot from 9d6 at 5th caster level to 100d6 by 19th caster level. That is 10 breaths at 10d6 each with a single spell casting. The duration of the spell is such that you can cast it once and expect to use the breath weapon in many of the encounters during a given day. You also get much more flexibility, being able to choose both the shape (line or cone) and damage type (acid, cold, fire, or electricity) at casting time. As counterbalances, you must wait 1d4+1 rounds between breaths, which means, you will typically only get to use the breath weapon 2-3 times in a given encounter. And because the breath weapon effect begins at the caster, you have to be careful not to affect your allies. This becomes easier at higher levels, when you can simply employ items of flight or a fly spell so you can breathe on your enemies from above. While I love this spell for flavor, as written it seems overpowered at any level. The only spell I can think of that is close to the power of this spell is Mordenkainen's Sword, which gives the caster multiple attacks with a single spell. But the duration is 1 round per caster level, it has a costly spell focus, and it is a 7th level spell. I think dragon breath needs some changes to make it balanced. First of all, either the number of breaths should not scale, or the duration should be 1 round per caster level. Second of all, it should have an expensive material component or perhaps an XP component. How about something like 500gp of diamond dust disolved in a pint of the blood of the dragon whose breath is being emulated? That would make a character think twice when selecting between a fireball and dragon breath. Second, it would make the character work a little harder to use the flexibility of the spell by having to aquire a supply of the appropriate types of dragon blood. That could be an adventure or two in and of itself!
Sancus 11-25-03, 04:39 AM	It's not really unbalanced. 1) Spells are balanced primarily on how much effect you get out of them in a standard action. Spell slots ARE NOT a very valuable resource, especially at mid to high level. Standard actions are a hundred times more valuable. 2) Being able to only use the breath every 1d4+1 rounds means you will only use it once in the average combat, not 2 or 3 times. Very few combats past the extreme low levels last more than 3 or 4 rounds. Since you are supposed to have 3 encounters per rest period, this means you're going to get use it 3-4 times per rest period at most. Hardly game breaking, especially as once you're high enough level to use it that many times, it's a bad choice for you to use it since you have access to much more damaging spells. 3) By the time you are 19th level, 10d6 damage is a joke to waste a standard action on. Heck, you can get UNLIMITED breaths once every round with Shapechange by just changing into whatever dragon type you want, and breathing, and not only do you get twice as much damage as this spell or more plus an astronomical save DC, but you can just turn into a different type of dragon the next round and breathe again. And this is still a ridiculous waste of a standard action at level 19 when you could cast a Meteor Swarm for 32d6 damage, no save, plus 32d6 in a 40 radius fireball at up to long range, or cast a death spell.. or do any number of useful things. Even if, for some reason, you are so out of spell slots that you only have 3rd level slots left, this is precisely why you should have at least two staves at level 19(if not more), with minimum level 6+ spells in them, so you have something to use when you just need to pound something many times in a row. Really, I don't see how the spell is especially powerful. It's efficient, yes, and pretty useful for a low level caster, but hardly game breaking. If you consider this spell 'game breaking uber' at level 19, chances are your character is a gimpy joke :p
Naga_Slayer 11-25-03, 11:16 PM	Does anyone else think the dragon breath spell is too powerful? no
Greyman 11-26-03, 04:05 AM	It does not seem too overpowered at all, though it is definitely on the higher end of the third level. However, what I would like to know is, does having the ability to cast this spell :- ... qualify as a virtual prerequisite for the Metabreath feats? ... enable you to cast metabreath spells?
Naga_Slayer 11-26-03, 10:29 AM	I'm thinking no and no, respectively. I think metabreath feats are only allowed if one has a natural (or at least permanent) breath weapon.
JoAT 11-26-03, 12:29 PM	Ah, but what if the character in question happens to be a half-dragon, or a dragon disicple? Would this spell then be alterable by the metabreath feats?
Naga_Slayer 11-26-03, 12:40 PM	I'm still leaning on no. Simply because it isn't a true breath weapon. I could very well be wrong on this, but since it's a spell it can only be modified by metamagic feats.
Selebius 11-26-03, 02:03 PM	Well, a character using an elixier of fire breath can use metabreath spells (page 75), so a character with an active Dragon Breath spell should also be able to use them. To use a metabreath feat a creature has to have a breath weapon which delay between uses is expressed in rounds(page66). IMHO a 1/2 dragon may use metabreath spells but not metabreath feats. Sel
Quintessence 02-09-04, 10:19 AM	Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I believe the fact that a caster could have this spell effect his familiar (since it's a personal range spell) as well as himself with a single casting of this spell essentially doubles the effectiveness of the Dragon Breath spell. Is this simply a clever tactic or major oversight? It would seem so to me. Thoughts?
EvilDuck 02-09-04, 05:02 PM	Can someone tell me what dragonbreath does. Someone is borrowing my Draconomicon(we need to abbreviate that name).