moes1980 wrote:The minium radius is 20 feet, which means its a circle with a 40 foot diameter or, a 40 foot by 40 foot box, if using tiles. Thats 8x8 5foot squares on a map, for a total of 64 potential targets. Of course, this is very rough as the game is not made for minitures and dose not use any of this 1 inch squar equals 5 feet nonsense. But still, assuming you have one person in a five foot square, thats 64 people you could potentially roast. Though, more likely, you will just be able to all the bad guys if they are somewhat clumped together.
But that will never happen. The occurrence of a person using fireball and hitting more than, say, 12 targets is extremely, extremely, extremely low. RPGs like DCC aren't feasible in that kind of mass combat mode.
And fireball doesn't affect just enemies either. I think that's being overlooked. In an enclosed space, like a dungeon or cavern, the area of effect is actually a hindrance to using fireball. That's always been the case -- though rarely adjudicated in that way -- so I can't pin that on DCC's fireball.
moes1980 wrote:The fireball also dosn't "miss," there is no roll to hit, its just a save for half damage. so the 16-17 casting dose 3d6 to every one in that area where as the 14-17 for magic missle is only a single target, doing 1d4+caster level. And in fact, all the way up to level 19, the magic missle can only target one enemy. 20-23 you can split them up but you only get 3-6 missles at 1d6 per missle, compared to 5d6+ how ever many times you can skip the fireball, doing an extra d6 to each additional guy hit.
You're illustrating the low level anomaly. Where magic missile is actually worse than its D&D counterpart. I don't know why magic missile at 12-13 is worse than a D&D 0-level spell. Or worse than just throwing a dart at an opponent. But I pointed that out in an earlier post. Once you get up in the 20s, magic missile starts to become comparable and, IMO, outclasses the 3rd level fireball spell.
That should never happen, IMO. And, also IMO, Magic Missile is far too weak at its lowest levels of casting.
It's like Joseph has his own "scale" for results based on the die roll. That's fine, if that's the case. But it makes distinguishing the spells by level superfluous. If all spells on a roll of 27 are meant to be comparable in their effect, why bother with distinguishing them by level? It's just a penalty for those dumb or desperate enough to attempt casting a higher level spell.
moes1980 wrote:The only place I really see it break down is with that 27-31 with a spry of single fireballs. But like I said, if each ball was the minimum explosion radius of 20 feet, that would be 40x 40 or, 64 5 foot squares per fierball, giving a total area of afect of 192 squares or 960 square feet. Thats alot of people you can hit for 1d6. But the question is, is that how it is really supposed to work? (and as an added note, the level 22-23 skipping fireball explicitly states that only the single targets are hit, where as the 27-31 spry of three fireballs dose not explicitly state that only the individual target is hit, and thus it sounds like each ball might be a 20 foot radius.
Again, multiple fireballs at 40x40 isn't that great. Not on the scale of tactical "dungeoneering" we're talking about. In
most cases, the radiuses will overlap or even merge completely -- meaning those 4 Fireballs are no better or different than casting one. Unless we're into the damage from each one stacking with the others. Imagine being the sole party member stuck in
that.
At 27, Magic Missile becomes a targeted long-range missile capable of killing most monsters (with no save) that aren't above 6HD. It's effectively a low level "Finger of Death". Only better. Because there's no save.
At 29, that long-range missile gets nerfed but multiplied. It starts to get it's mojo back in the 30s. But it's always pretty comparable to the fireball's effect -- assuming that adventuring is happening in dungeons and on a tactical level. Fireball would be more useful on a battlefield. But DCC doesn't cover mass combat.
moes1980 wrote:With this interpretation I think the fireball spell is OK. Some of the results are pretty awsome, others, only cool in the right circumstances. Also remember that objects can be damaged and flamible objects catch fire, neither of which the magic missle can do. So, IMO, I think this spell is probably ok. Are their any other spells that seem out of whack?
We can agree to disagree, sort of.
My problem is that this conversation happens at all.
You've presented a well-reasoned argument for why Fireball is as good or better than
Magic Missile. Before hitting the "Reply With Quote" button, please read that last sentence again. Because that's the sticking point IMO.
It shouldn't even be an issue. Could anyone posit that Magic Missile is as good as Fireball in any other version of D&D -- outside of a highly situational tactical context? Yet here, we're applying a highly situational tactical context (that is also less than likely under the current DCC rules) to justify that
Fireball is as good as Magic Missile.
It shouldn't even be a debate, IMO. If DCC spells are going to be distinguished by "level", then the higher level spells should be better than the lower level spells at ALL ranges of results. Sure, if I'm in a 10x10 room with three opponents and two allies, I don't want to drop Fireball. I'd rather use Magic Missile. But that's not my issue with it.
If DCC acknowledges spell level, then it should be a no-brainer that higher level spells are better than lower level spells. If you're cool with that not being the case, I'm not going to dock you XP. But long term, I think it will handicap DCC.