Snake Sneak
Posts: 107
Joined: Saturday, 25th February 2012, 10:49
Spell suggestion: Burrowing Fire (level 7 Conj/Fire)
Burrowing Fire (level 7 Conj/Fire)
Description: This spell conjures mystical fire, which is guided directly into the wounds of the target by a primitive but malevolent elemental spirit. This can be extremely lethal if it can burrow into already deep wounds, but if the target is healthier, the spell deals much less damage. As the burrowing fire actively seeks its target, it is impossible to deflect, block or dodge it, but fire resistance or armour reduces its effect normally.
Mechanics: Dealt damage could be something like (0.2+(missing hp of target/maxhp of target)) * 13d(2.5+spellpower/10). (Note that the damage of Bolt of Fire is 6d(3+spellpower/9) and the damage of LCS is 10d(2.3+spellpower/10).) This means that against monsters at 40% HP this spell deals approximately the same damage as LCS (and always hits, but can be resisted by rF); and against monsters at 70% HP this spell is deals approximately the same damage as Bolt of Fire (and always hits, but has shorter range and doesn't hit multiple targets). Note that the extremely high damage to almost dead monsters isn't problematic because most of it is wasted (bringing a monster to -100 hp isn't better than bringing it to 0 hp).
I suggest short range and single target for this spell to differentiate it from other high-level fire spells and high accuracy (auto-hit) to differentiate it from LCS. (Short range could either mean 4 (LCS range) or 2..5 depending on spellpower (Flame tongue range, but when this level 7 spell becomes castable, it will probably start with more than 2 range).)
Alternative variant: If it makes this spell more interesting, it could be moved to Fire/Hexes (still level 7) with an Inner Flame aftereffect (if it kills the target, the target explodes as if it was inner flamed) and maybe a bit reduced damage. This would also explain why is it impossible to dodge this spell, but make not checking MR a bit strange. (Although several Conjurations are impossible to dodge and Fulminant Prism is a Hex which doesn't check MR.) In this case maybe the range of the spell should be increased to 5 to make self-damage from the exploding victim less likely.
Spellbook: The original (Conj) version could be added to the book of Fire or the book of Annihilations (but probably not both); the Hex version could be added to the book of Fire or the book of Enchantments.
I can probably implement this spell if it would be added to the game.