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View Full Version : 4 Ray Spells [3.5] PEACH



JackTheTripper
2009-05-31, 11:25 PM
Ray of Unmaking
Evocation [Force]
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: No
Spell Resistance: Yes

With the flick of a wrist, you fire a disruptive beam of energy at a target. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack for this spell to function. The target of this spell takes 1d10/caster level (max 35d10) points of force damage. If the target is reduced to 0 hitpoints or lower by this spell, they are reduced to a fine powder, and their soul is partially destroyed as well. Most methods of resurrection only has a 10% chance of success, True Resurrection, Reality Revision and Wish have a 50% chance of success, and Miracle is the lone spell by which a being destroyed by Ray of Unmaking can be brought back to life with a 100% chance of success.

Creatures such as golems that are immune to spells allowing spell resistance are treated as if they have spell resistance 10+1/2 their hit dice + their Charisma modifier.

The caster of this spell takes slight recoil damage from casting this spell equal to their caster level (force damage). If this reduces them to 0 hitpoints or fewer, they suffer the same ill effects as being destroyed by a Disintegrate Spell (though not as if they were destroyed by Ray of Unmaking).

Compare: Meteor Swarm, Disintegrate, Horrid Wilting, and/or Wish.

[hr]

Needling Rays
Evocation
Level: Sor/Wiz 0
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: 2 Rays
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

You call forth two tiny needles of force to pierce your foes. You may fire 2 rays. Each ray requires a ranged touch attack to hit and deals 1 point of piercing damage.

The rays may be fired at the same or different targets, but all bolts must fired simultaneously.

Material component: A grain of crushed glass or crystal.

Just an alternative to Ray of Frost.

[hr]

Jack's Vengeful Stab
Evocation [Force, Electricity]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

A piercing ray of magic comprised of both electrical and magical energy springs forth from your hand, cutting down foes corporeal and otherwise. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to deal damage to a target. The ray deals 1d6 points of force damage for every even level the caster has reached (max 5d6), and 1d6 points of electrical damage for every odd level the caster has reached (max 5d6). For example, a fifth-level caster would deal 2d6 points of force damage for having reached second and fourth levels, and 3d6 points of electrical damage for having reached first, third, and fifth level.

Material Component: A topaz crystal worth at least 50 gp engraved with the caster's name.

Compare: Fireball, Scorching Ray.

[hr]

Ray of Overload
Conjuration [Death]
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M, DF
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Fort partial; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

Your foe is struck by a brilliant ray of bright white energy. A sense of rest and power comes over them for a moment, quickly replaced by a nauseous feeling as every cell in their body is flooded with energy, sending them into overdrive and burning them out.
If the caster succeeds on a ranged touch attack against a targeted foe, that foe becomes overloaded with positive energy, giving it 2d6/caster level temporary hitpoints (these hitpoints are lost at the rate of 14 hitpoints/round). If after casting this spell, the foe has enough temporary hitpoints (including from other spells) to equal or exceed its normal maximum number of hitpoints, it must make a Fortitude save or die. Regardless of whether they succeed on the save, or whether they are even forced to make the save, a foe struck by this ray becomes fatigued.

Material component: A few drops of holy water and a paper mobius strip.

My attempt at emulating the Positive Energy Plane in ray form. Somehow it went horridly wrong. :frown:

DracoDei
2009-06-01, 06:16 AM
Overall I like these very much.


Most methods of resurrection only has a 10% chance of success, True Resurrection and Wish have a 50% chance of success, and Miracle is the lone spell by which a being destroyed by Ray of Unmaking can be brought back to life with a 100% chance of success.
Change "has" to "have".

For bonus points, specify that Reality Revision (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/realityRevision.htm) (the psionic equivalent of Wish) has a 50% chance of bringing them back.



Creatures such as golems that are immune to spells allowing spell resistance are affected by this spell, but only take half damage.
Perhaps also treat them as also having SR of 10+CR? As it stands, total immunity is arguably WORSE than really high SR against this spell.



The caster of this spell takes slight recoil damage from casting this spell equal to their caster level (force damage). If this reduces them to 0 hitpoints or fewer, they suffer the same ill effects as being destroyed by a Disintegrate Spell (though not as if they were destroyed by Ray of Unmaking).
Flavorful.



Compare: Meteor Swarm, Disintegrate, Horrid Wilting, and/or Wish.
Actually... I think there MAY be a snag here... because unless Power Word: Kill is underpowered, this is overpowered, because I can see very few disadvantages to PWK compared to this. The backlash is minor, and usually you are only going to have about a 5% miss chance against most opponents at that level...



Needling Rays
Waving your hand at a small mouse chewing its way into your backpack, you evoke a few minor rays of energy to jab it and deter it from its course.
Giving a situation specific example of the spell in use is unusual, but there is no real reason not to. Wiser heads than mine can tell you if you should move it above the title of the spell to prevent some hapless GM or player (substituting "I" for "your" etc) from getting 6 words into reading it aloud, before they realize that it is specifying a mouse as the target explicitly.


You must succeed on on a touch attack with each of 2 rays created to strike up to two targeted foes. Each ray does 1 point of piercing damage.

This is nonstandard formatting and a bit confusing. Hcking up Scorching Ray (in case you didn't know "cut, paste, and edit" is a good tool for any homebrewer) we get the following:
You call forth two tiny needles of force to pierce your foes. You may fire 2 rays. Each ray requires a ranged touch attack to hit and deals 1 point of piercing damage.

The rays may be fired at the same or different targets, but all bolts must fired simultaneously.


Just an alternative to Ray of Frost.
The fact that it is Force, and thus can effect ethereal creatures (although there is perhaps some contradiction since you specify piercing, I would have to double check the rules), makes this a bit betterthan Ray of Frost since on all hits the damage is the same, and splitting it up into two to-hit rolls just makes things average out more, rather than affecting the average damage when misses are taken into account. Also you can do two different targets. It is still a level 0 spell, just a really good one for attack purposes.



Jack's Vengeful Stab
<Snip>
A piercing ray of magic comprised of both electrical magical energy springs forth from your hand, cutting down foes corpeal and otherwise.[/color]
The grammer here is garbled, and it is spelled "corporeal". Still a nice spell.



Ray of Overload
Conjuration [Death]
<Snip>
If the caster succeeds on a ranged touch attack against a targeted foe, that foe becomes overloaded with positive energy, giving it 2d6/caster level temporary hitpoints (these hitpoints are lost at the rate of 14 hitpoints/round). If after casting this spell, the foe has enough temporary hitpoints (including from other spells) to equal or exceed its normal maximum number of hitpoints, it must make a Fortitude save or die. Regardless of whether they succeed on the save, or whether they are even forced to make the save, a foe struck by this ray becomes fatigued.

Material component: A few drops of holy water and a paper mobius strip.

My attempt at emulating the Positive Energy Plane in ray form. Somehow it went horridly wrong. :frown:
Not THAT horribly, I think I can see how to make this work...

First, remove the [Death] descriptor so that undead aren't immune to it. But instead of the extra hit-points, save or be destroyed, and fatigue (which they are immune to anyway, but whatever)., just have it deal 2d6/level positive energy damage, in the same fashion that Disrupt Undead does... actually that might be a bit much, so maybe stage it bad to 1d8/lvl or maybe even 1d6/lvl. In any case, give a Fortitude save for half. Don't forget to change the save line to "Fortitude; See Text" or "Fortitude Partial or Half; See text" (not sure which it should be).

Secondly, replace "foe" with "target"... just so that when the players figure out that they CAN use it as an emergency measure to keep the fighter who is being constricted by the big monster that the cleric can't get close to this round a poor GM won't be tempted to punish them by having the spell fail.

Third, is there any particular reason you have the extra HP wearing off at 14 points per round? Not a bad number, just a strange one.

EDIT: Ah, average of 4d6 so it takes 1 round per 2 caster levels to wear off on average.

JackTheTripper
2009-06-01, 12:02 PM
Fixed Ray of Unmaking. Personally, I'd side with the 'PWK is underpowered*' train of thought. Once again, my ray is peanuts compared to Meteor Swarm- at 17th level, Swarm deals 32d6 points of damage to a target, while my ray deals 17d6. Even at level 20, my ray deals an average of 110 points of damage as opposed to the 112 points of damage Swam does. While my ray is force, which is an advantage that allows it to harm ethereal creatures, Swarm still deals AoE damage-24d6 points of it.

*Although a Quickened/Delayed Avasculate spell definitely helps for PWK abuse even as is.

Fixed Needling Rays, they weren't meant to be Force rays.

Cleared up Jack's Vengeful Stab.

Not gonna try to fix Ray of Overload... Today. Note that I was going for a death effect, albeit a nonstandard one, so if I ever DO fix it, I'm not going to have it just deal damage.

DracoDei
2009-06-01, 12:15 PM
Huh? The only thing I said the last one should deal damage to was undead, since it IS positive energy after all...

JackTheTripper
2009-06-01, 12:17 PM
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you.

Cieyrin
2009-06-01, 02:09 PM
Ray of Unmaking feels like a Disintegrate with no save and can affect magic immune critters (cue argument of the Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object =D). Oh and the "screw you, you're not getting raised from this one" bit, too =p. It does slightly less damage than similarly leveled Disintigrate (6.5 as opposed to 7, average), I think the lack of save maybe puts this at 8th level. The Rezzing issue and SR bit are kinda chump change in comparison, given most magic immune things are golem-types with near non-existent Charisma scores, a 17th level caster would tear up their SR like a sledge hammer through wet tissue paper.

I'm not sure if Jack's Vengeful Stab is at the right level, either, as a Scorching Ray does 12d6 fire damage at the top end across three attack rolls, meaning you're more likely to not totally blow your shot and have more chances to crit, to boot. It's also divisible among targets in 4d6 increments, so another plus for the 2nd level spell. Fireball will do 10d6 fire more than one target, as well, at a longer range, too. I think that puts the Stab at 2nd.

Other than that, with DracoDei's and my suggestions, they should be all good, I'd say. Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

DracoDei
2009-06-01, 03:05 PM
Make sure you take all of this into account:
Stab is also doing half its damage as Force, and none as Fire. Fire is very frequently resisted or immune to, electricity less so, and I don't think I have heard of anything with energy resistance to force (or even a spell that can provide it per se). Force is also very useful for ethereal/incorporeal critters. OTOH Fire is good for stopping regeneration. All in all, I think stab might be the right level.

JackTheTripper
2009-06-01, 03:08 PM
Are you saying that Ray of Unmaking is too powerful for its level, or too weak for its level? Because I can always just tweak it some more- I want a 9th level ray, particularly because I'm considering making a Ray Domain for the gods of magic in my campaign.
Yeah, the similarity to Disintegrate is intentional. I was thinking 'Disintegrate that affects the physical, magical, and spiritual worlds.' Hence why I gave it the ability to affect pretty much EVERYTHING and impede being brought back to life- it rips your soul up, your golem's magic and animating spirit, your body... Everything. I was also considering that anyone brought back to life after being slain by the ray loses an additional level beyond what they would normally lose from being brought back from the grave, but seeing as I saw THAT effect in epic level spells, I thought it was too much.

Okay, maybe I'll lower the level of Stab... Although now I'm tempted to change it even more beyond what it is now. :P