mith wrote:
Hat wrote:
Damage per target is d6 + 2d10 in this example, so an average of 14.5 per target. 3 Targets is probably fair within a 10' radius if you're going to bother doing AoE as opposed to 2nd target, so 43.5 points of damage & healing on average in 8 ticks or 87 points of effect. There's certainly the possibility of additional targets increasing the impact and that bypasses AR. With an AR of 3 the effective impact is 96 points in 8 ticks.
1) You're just randomly adding 9 points of "effect". Targets having AR or not does not change the dice roll or the sum produced. If anything, it doesn't get *reduced* by 9 points.
If you want to compare effect to other spells the fact that this one ignores AR must be accounted for. If you'd prefer limiting it to 87 now and then adjusting against another spell later that's fine. I was comparing against a melee attack which certainly didn't get to ignore AR.
mith wrote:
2) You're assuming all targets are non-minions and not injured enough that the attack will vanquish them. If one of them is a minion the "points of effect" drops to 60. If two of them are minions, that's 33. If all three are minions, a massive 6 points of effect.
I also limited my example to 3 targets as opposed to the 16 someone else mentioned. If it's late enough in the combat that an opponent is down enough you're not getting 14.5 points worth of effect then either the minions have been identified or they're already down. If they're minions then the martial equivalent just did 3 points to your 6 and you're still double.
mith wrote:
3) The total damage done to a single target is, on average, 14.5 (as you said). That's not even into "impressive" waters. That the same damage also heals an ally is what makes that impressive.
Agreed. 29 points of impact is impressive. Multiplied by multiple targets is what's brought it into question. Realize that 3 is the *minimum* you're ever going to cast that spell on. You can cast the base or adapt for a second target. The likely bang is bigger. As you go up in tiers and can adapt for additional damage, larger range etc, the impact also grows.
mith wrote:
4) I agree that said spell can swing the momentum by doing quite a bit of healing to a single target, but you've still only done 14.5 damage to each individual target. The healing aspect is great, the damage factor is pretty 'meh'.
It's still not 'meh' compared to equivalent attacks. The sweeping mighty swing attack averaged 17 points of damage. Against AR 3 it's a half point behind your 'meh' attack. If that's meh then so is the closest martial equivalent. If it's AR 5 or higher it's more of a significant swing.
In my original example I forgot to add the 1 extra attack while strain burned off taking the total martial damage to 63 over 8 ticks. I've edited my original post to show this. Again, you have to take AR into account. Plus all of the movement etc. It's also far easier for the spell to hit multiple targets than it is likely that a bunch of opponents are going to stand in such a way for a mighty swing to hit 3 targets.
If this spell is one of many of equivalent power that should be considered to put this in context, then I respectfully ask for you to provide additional examples to support your claim that this is in line.
With a sweep of his hat,
Paul