Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Sorxores Aug 17, 2014 12:41:28	Let's compare some elemental spell for the differente dragon bloodline. First let's have a comparaison bench decent damage spell without any bonus on them.   With elemental adept if you roll a 1 on a spell damage it become a 2. so the average damage per dice will become: d6= 3.6666 instead of 3.5 d8=4.625 instead of the 4.5 d10=5.6 instead of 5.5 d12= 6.5833333 instead of 6.5   Disintegrate do 10d6+40 (75) as a spell lvl 6 and get upgraded to 19d6+40 (106.5) at level 9 Scorching ray would do 10 ray ding 2d6(7) each for a total of 20d6 (70) damage as a spell level 9 (quick question, if you twinned scorching ray, does every single ray get twinned and target 2 target each, so as a spell lvl 9 you could do 20d6 on 2 target or 2d6 on 40 targets and any variation in between?)   So now let's compare the spell list and the potential damage that each can do with elementla adept.   Fire: Cantrip: Fire bolt. then he can get burning hand/chromatic orb, scorching ray, fireball, wall of fire, delayed fireball, Firestorm, incendiary cloud, meteor swarm (only half is fire). If you power up scorching ray to lvl 9 it will create 10 rays doing 2d6+5(12.33333) each for a total of 20d6+50 (123.33333), slightly better then disintegrate damage wise. Meteor swarm would deal 20d6+5+20d6 (148.33333). Fireball would deal as a spell lvl 9: 14d6+5 (56.33333333333) (quick question about firestorm, can a creature be affected by more then 1 cude (take more then 7d10 (39.2) damage?)   Acid: Cantrip: Acid splash. then chromatic orb and there is no other acid spell int he player hand book accessible to the sorcerer at my knowledge. and chromatic orb as a spell lvl 9 would deal 11d8+5 (55.875). So even an acid dragon sorcerer should cast scorching ray because it's still more powerfull then a fully upgraded chromatic orb. and no AoE choise other then a cantrip.   Cold: cantrip Ray of Frost. Then chromatic orb, Ice storm (only part of it is ice), cone of cold and that it.chromatic orb is the only single target spell and is weaker then non powered scorching ray. Cone of cold will do 12d8+5(60.5) so slightly better then fireball, but still weaker then meteor swarm   Lightning: cantrip shocking grasp (need to be in melee range or need to use a familiar to deliver the touch). Then Chromatic orb, thunderwave or witch bolt, (shatter is thunder not lightning), lightning bolt, chain lightning. lightning bolt will do the same damage as fireball (56.3333) and chain lightning will do 10d8+5 (51.25) to up to 6 target at lvl 9 Witch bolt with a single cast if you maintain your concentration you can reactivate it for free every round, as a spell lvl 9 it would deal 9d12+5 (64.25)/round   Poison: poison spray (very close range, 10 feet cannot be cast by the familiar) then chromatic orb, stinking cloud, but no damage,  cloudkill cloudkill do 5d8+5 (23.125) damage/turn so 9d8+5 (41.625)/round at lvl 9   So I was woundering is this intentional? that firedragon is the only viable option and the other option are very weak? in the rule is there a way to modify a spell so instead of dealing fire damage it would deal cold or acid damage? so an acid dragon could cast an acidball that would be the EXACT same thing as fireball except it do acid damage instead of fire damage? or maybe in a errata, they coudl give the dragon bloodline an ability that a dragon sorcerer can change for free (no bonus action, no sorcerer point require) the element of a spell to his heritage elements (so an acid dragon could cast fireball as an acid spell if he wanted.
#2 Mephi1234 Aug 17, 2014 15:41:58	Okay.   A few issues.   The game is designed with a few tiers in mind.    Level 1-4 are the apprentice levels.    5 through 10 are the heroic / adventure levels.    11-16 are the paragon, or whatever its called.   17+ are epic levels.    What does this mean?   Practically speaking, it means that at the levels 5, 11, and 17 there are significant bumps in power.    For spell casters, that's access to 3rd, 6th, and 9th level spells.    Level 1-2 spells are flat out inferior to level 3+ spells.   You shouldn't be comparing the level 2 scorching ray spell to anything but another level 1-2 spell cast at any level.   Level 6 slots are really wasted if you cast a level 5 spell with it.  If you tried casting virtually anything but a level 9 spell with a level 9 slot, that'd be an insanely huge waste.      You should be comparing, say, fireball boosted to level 5 to a different level 5 spell.     Secondly, you cannot twin cast Scorching Ray.   Twin cast can only be used with spells that are single-target only, while Scorching Ray has multiple potential targets; cannot be used.   Also, you cannot overlap cubes.   Well, you can overlap them, but damage does not overlap.       Third - when I ran the math using fireball ./ lightning bolt, I discovered that the average damage increase of those spells, via d6s, is aproximately equal to the average damage increase from raising your attribtue by 1.    Its something like this:   On a fireball, average damage is 8*3.5*.75 (50%chance of save for half) for a total of 21 damage.   With raising your save DC by 1, that's 8*3.5* .5(1+.55) = 8*3.5*(.5+.275)= 8*3.5*.775 =  21.7 average damage.   With Elemental Adapt, its 8* (2+2+3+4+5+6)/6*.75 = 8 * 3.67 * .75 =  22 average damage.   So, its actually a bit higher increase, but not by much.     So, we come to the point where the average damage increase is pretty much equal in power to boost in the Save DC.    That makes it an equal trade with just the damage boost alone.   Ignoring resistance, then, is what makes the feat really worthwhile.     And in that case, I would argue that its really only good with fire simply because fire resistance is the most common, and others really rare.   As well, fire spells are really common, and other elements tend to be rarer.   Though, looking at the imp and quasit, it seems that fire and cold resistance are common, and lightning on the demon.
#3 Mephi1234 Aug 17, 2014 15:49:27	Sorxores wrote:
#4 Setzer_G Aug 17, 2014 16:39:09	What really needed to be in the PHB, was Elemental Substitution as a Feat, changing the damage a spell does to one of your choice when you chose the Feat. Elemental Substitution: Cold, changes the damage on Fireball or Scorching ray. With so much emphasis on player option, I was a tad dissapointed at the options for casters in Feat choice. That was one I really hoped would be in there.
#5 Sorxores Aug 17, 2014 19:58:37	and such a feat would do not increase the power of the spell or anything, it simply give more choice, so rolling that feat into elemental adept or rolling it into the dragon sorcerer heritage bonus would be great to see more variety of dragon sorcerer (instead of only fire ones)   The one thing they must NOT do with it is add it as a metamgic, because then if you want a viable dragon other then fire you have to use that metamagic? so fire dragon can have 4 metamagic, but the other dragon only get 3? and if they do give it as a metamagic, it must be free of charge and be able to be added to other metamagic, since all the spell ont he spell list need to be converted to this element of magic in order to be usefull.
#6 Psikerlord Aug 18, 2014 0:41:01	Setzer_G wrote:
#7 Mephi1234 Aug 18, 2014 4:11:21	Sorxores wrote:
#8 daspian Aug 21, 2014 1:06:09	Does there really need to be a rule for element swapping though? At the end of the day isn't the biggest rule of D&D is that it's YOUR game, and can make up stuff as you wish? I mean me as a DM or when I swap and let one of my friends DM we always just say screw it and if you wanna be a ice wizard who does all ice spells, then yea sure change fireball to frostball or fire bolt to frost bolt and meteor swarm to hail storm etc, just changing the elemental type and giving a brief description of the spell and what it looks like.
#9 Setzer_G Aug 21, 2014 5:45:33	That would be cool if the spell were encountered like that in an ancient spellbook. My initial thought would be that the character would think it's awefully convenient to find all lightning spells when he is a lightning wizard. What I was thinking was something along the lines of   "Found this Fireball spell on a scroll in a tomb somewhere. Fire is too uncontrollable, and being a Storm Mage, I could change the spell formula around a little, and presto....Ball Lightning"   If that is something that you and your DM are cool with, more power to you! That's fantastic. We would need a Feat, metamagic, something, to do that in more rigid circumstances.