- 1,461
- 764
Specifically, the fact that almost the entirety of everyone from any D&D setting scales from this calc in questio
For a TL;DR, a user stipulates that a 9th level spell which has a casting time of one entire uninterrupted day of casting which drains the caster of 3d6 Constitution (note: an average human has precisely 10 points of Constitution) and 4d6 Wisdon (note: again, average person has 10 points of this) is a spell that 'high tiers' can casually use to unleash hundreds of miles of devastation upon the unsuspecting masses and thereby gain, at the least, high tier-7 Attack Potency.
The only problem is that literally every part of the calc, and how it applies to persons such as Elminster, whose profile features it prominently, is utterly wrong.
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Part 1: Metamagic Feats and You
For starters, the person crafting this calc utilizes a 9th level spell called Apocalypse From The Sky, which deals 10d6 damage in a rather large area. The spell itself and its official stats can be found here The person themselves is quick to point out that lava deals 20d6 damage in one round of exposure (6 seconds exposure total, therefore), so an unimpressive showing for an allegedy Tier 7 attack already. The user then proceeds to presume a 17th level spellcaster can apply three separate metamagic feats to this spell, namely Widen Spell, Empower Spell, and Maximize Spell, all to get it to dealing 90 fire damage in a much larger area than normal.
There's just a tiny, teensy, small problem here: that would place the spell's level at 17th level. Widen Spell increases a spell's level by 3 entire slots, Maximize Spell increases a spell's level by 3 entire slots, and Widen Spell increases a spell's level by 2 entire slots. Starting with a 9th level spell, you're now at 17th level, something that would require having a 40th level epic caster's progression to replicate with any sort of 'casual' ease. The reason why? You would need the Feat 'Increased Spell Capacity', taken 8 times in a row, to access a spell slot of 17th level. No wizard of sane mind would grab these feats immediately since they do not possess the spellcraft skill points required to even create a spell of such proportion, but that's another argument entirely.
Simply put: your 17th level caster is physically and mechanically unable to access such a spell at all, ever. Elminster himself, a 29th level arcane caster, would be unable to produce such a spell since he canonically has only 18 Wisdom; the spell would literally kill him with its feedback thus he'd never utilize it or anything similar. Further, Elminster's canon stat block does not give him access to this. Further, Elminster DOES NOT POSSESS THE METAMAGIC FEATS NECESSARY TO REPLICATE THIS, PER HIS OWN PROFILE.
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Part 2: Dragon's Breath Damage
The second most pressing issue, beyond the now-proven fact that Elminster cannot in any way scale to a spell he possesses no means of replicating or casting, is that of the 90 fire damage the calc presents and tries to quantify. The only thing ever given for the base presumption of the calc, that of a dragon's breath VAPORIZING stone, is the calc's own claim that their breath does so: > 20d6 damage is more in the realm of high-tier dragon's breath weapons, which can straight-up vaporize humans, stone, trees, etc. Cool
Which is wonderful if the author of the calc is any authority on such things. Which he is not. Canonically, a great wyrm red dragon's breath in the Forgotten Realms ended up turning stone to lava after a concentrated blast by the dragon Hephaestus, when he breathed on the crystal relic Crenshinibon in his own lair during the events of Servant of the Shard ("Hephaestus's terrible breath came forth yet again, melting the stone in the alcove"). Of important note is that a great wyrm red is the second most powerful of all dragons in the Forgotten Realms, second only to a great wyrm gold, and their breath weapon deals not 20d6 but 24d10 damage . Turning stone to molten slag after a concentrated and direct blast of extended proportions is literally magnitudes lesser than the calc presented for vaporization, which is a citation-less claim with no backing whatsoever yet rather counter-evidence as I provide, and that is something achieved by a breath attack dealing an average amount of 132 damage....fully 42 points of damage above (nearly 50% more powerful) what the calc originally claims is 'vaporization' yet only manages to melt stone.
In the Forgotten Realms, mortal creatures have survived a dragon's breath, just barely, but they have. This vaporization claim is utterly bunk and entirely useless, and the original calc itself would be entire magnitudes lesser due to something 50% more powerful barely managing to melt stone, let alone vaporize it. This spell and indeed the entire calc referencing a dragon's damage for attack potency scaling is worthless.
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Part 3: Results
As a result of all of the above, it is provably disingenuous to scale someone such as Elminster to the spell Apocalypse From The Sky in the manner given in the calc, and as a direct result since his AP comes from the calc, his AP needs revised, and since almost everyone in D&D on this site scales from it, they ALL need downgrades. Going back to the original calc, and based on some quick math borrowed in part from the original calc's own basic framework, melting the stone would be roughly 4358.9475 J/cm^3, and given the cone of a dragon's breath calculations, we would end up at.... 2.2 Kiltons of TNT for a great wyrm red's breath damage output. The calc's damage itself would therefore reduce down to roughly 1.65 Kilotons of TNT or so.
At the end of it all, you get an end-result calc that is magnitudes less powerful than the calc itself originally presents. Not only is the calc's scaling from a dragon's breath for someone vastly above Elminster's paygrade, it doesn't even scale to something as powerful as claimed. Someone of Elminster's power would end up being able to replicate perhaps half the damage of the spell, which with its new scaling would end up giving us a damage output of maybe, at most, 1% of what is given. And that is, again this is super important, WITH ONE ENTIRE DAY OF PREP TIME AND SEVERE BACKLASH, NOT CASUAL WHATSOEVER.
As a result, the very highest-end of someone such as Elminster's attack potency needs to be downgraded at least an entire tier to be in the lower Tier 8 range, and that at their highest. The rest of Elminster's scaling is equally ridiculous, caling him small planetary cuz he is ALLEGEDLY more magically potent than a spell a goddess directly cast through one of her wizards to darken the sky over a region? A spell that took an entire ******* WEEK to cast???
All D&D persons who scale from the calc in the user blog at the top absolutely need reduced to at the most Tier 8-B, and that based solely on the ability to create fireballs of enough size and power to arguably wipe a city block of human inhabitants. The scaling from Wish, a spell that is written to specifically state it can only replicate 8th level spells and lower, is utter bogus. Elminster's feats do not back up any of his Attack Potency scaling, and everyone scaled from him is equally bunk as a result.
For a TL;DR, a user stipulates that a 9th level spell which has a casting time of one entire uninterrupted day of casting which drains the caster of 3d6 Constitution (note: an average human has precisely 10 points of Constitution) and 4d6 Wisdon (note: again, average person has 10 points of this) is a spell that 'high tiers' can casually use to unleash hundreds of miles of devastation upon the unsuspecting masses and thereby gain, at the least, high tier-7 Attack Potency.
The only problem is that literally every part of the calc, and how it applies to persons such as Elminster, whose profile features it prominently, is utterly wrong.
_________________________________________________________________
Part 1: Metamagic Feats and You
For starters, the person crafting this calc utilizes a 9th level spell called Apocalypse From The Sky, which deals 10d6 damage in a rather large area. The spell itself and its official stats can be found here The person themselves is quick to point out that lava deals 20d6 damage in one round of exposure (6 seconds exposure total, therefore), so an unimpressive showing for an allegedy Tier 7 attack already. The user then proceeds to presume a 17th level spellcaster can apply three separate metamagic feats to this spell, namely Widen Spell, Empower Spell, and Maximize Spell, all to get it to dealing 90 fire damage in a much larger area than normal.
There's just a tiny, teensy, small problem here: that would place the spell's level at 17th level. Widen Spell increases a spell's level by 3 entire slots, Maximize Spell increases a spell's level by 3 entire slots, and Widen Spell increases a spell's level by 2 entire slots. Starting with a 9th level spell, you're now at 17th level, something that would require having a 40th level epic caster's progression to replicate with any sort of 'casual' ease. The reason why? You would need the Feat 'Increased Spell Capacity', taken 8 times in a row, to access a spell slot of 17th level. No wizard of sane mind would grab these feats immediately since they do not possess the spellcraft skill points required to even create a spell of such proportion, but that's another argument entirely.
Simply put: your 17th level caster is physically and mechanically unable to access such a spell at all, ever. Elminster himself, a 29th level arcane caster, would be unable to produce such a spell since he canonically has only 18 Wisdom; the spell would literally kill him with its feedback thus he'd never utilize it or anything similar. Further, Elminster's canon stat block does not give him access to this. Further, Elminster DOES NOT POSSESS THE METAMAGIC FEATS NECESSARY TO REPLICATE THIS, PER HIS OWN PROFILE.
________________________________________________________________
Part 2: Dragon's Breath Damage
The second most pressing issue, beyond the now-proven fact that Elminster cannot in any way scale to a spell he possesses no means of replicating or casting, is that of the 90 fire damage the calc presents and tries to quantify. The only thing ever given for the base presumption of the calc, that of a dragon's breath VAPORIZING stone, is the calc's own claim that their breath does so: > 20d6 damage is more in the realm of high-tier dragon's breath weapons, which can straight-up vaporize humans, stone, trees, etc. Cool
Which is wonderful if the author of the calc is any authority on such things. Which he is not. Canonically, a great wyrm red dragon's breath in the Forgotten Realms ended up turning stone to lava after a concentrated blast by the dragon Hephaestus, when he breathed on the crystal relic Crenshinibon in his own lair during the events of Servant of the Shard ("Hephaestus's terrible breath came forth yet again, melting the stone in the alcove"). Of important note is that a great wyrm red is the second most powerful of all dragons in the Forgotten Realms, second only to a great wyrm gold, and their breath weapon deals not 20d6 but 24d10 damage . Turning stone to molten slag after a concentrated and direct blast of extended proportions is literally magnitudes lesser than the calc presented for vaporization, which is a citation-less claim with no backing whatsoever yet rather counter-evidence as I provide, and that is something achieved by a breath attack dealing an average amount of 132 damage....fully 42 points of damage above (nearly 50% more powerful) what the calc originally claims is 'vaporization' yet only manages to melt stone.
In the Forgotten Realms, mortal creatures have survived a dragon's breath, just barely, but they have. This vaporization claim is utterly bunk and entirely useless, and the original calc itself would be entire magnitudes lesser due to something 50% more powerful barely managing to melt stone, let alone vaporize it. This spell and indeed the entire calc referencing a dragon's damage for attack potency scaling is worthless.
_____________________________________________________________________
Part 3: Results
As a result of all of the above, it is provably disingenuous to scale someone such as Elminster to the spell Apocalypse From The Sky in the manner given in the calc, and as a direct result since his AP comes from the calc, his AP needs revised, and since almost everyone in D&D on this site scales from it, they ALL need downgrades. Going back to the original calc, and based on some quick math borrowed in part from the original calc's own basic framework, melting the stone would be roughly 4358.9475 J/cm^3, and given the cone of a dragon's breath calculations, we would end up at.... 2.2 Kiltons of TNT for a great wyrm red's breath damage output. The calc's damage itself would therefore reduce down to roughly 1.65 Kilotons of TNT or so.
At the end of it all, you get an end-result calc that is magnitudes less powerful than the calc itself originally presents. Not only is the calc's scaling from a dragon's breath for someone vastly above Elminster's paygrade, it doesn't even scale to something as powerful as claimed. Someone of Elminster's power would end up being able to replicate perhaps half the damage of the spell, which with its new scaling would end up giving us a damage output of maybe, at most, 1% of what is given. And that is, again this is super important, WITH ONE ENTIRE DAY OF PREP TIME AND SEVERE BACKLASH, NOT CASUAL WHATSOEVER.
As a result, the very highest-end of someone such as Elminster's attack potency needs to be downgraded at least an entire tier to be in the lower Tier 8 range, and that at their highest. The rest of Elminster's scaling is equally ridiculous, caling him small planetary cuz he is ALLEGEDLY more magically potent than a spell a goddess directly cast through one of her wizards to darken the sky over a region? A spell that took an entire ******* WEEK to cast???
All D&D persons who scale from the calc in the user blog at the top absolutely need reduced to at the most Tier 8-B, and that based solely on the ability to create fireballs of enough size and power to arguably wipe a city block of human inhabitants. The scaling from Wish, a spell that is written to specifically state it can only replicate 8th level spells and lower, is utter bogus. Elminster's feats do not back up any of his Attack Potency scaling, and everyone scaled from him is equally bunk as a result.
