Fire School Buff: Dry

[jejorda2]

Right now, it seems like the fire school is weaker than the other schools (Lack of utility spells, comparable ice spells have better range or other clear advantadges over fire) and there have been proposals to address this by adding utility, damage, or easier casting to fire school spells.

I'd like to see a new status effect caused by fire attacks, called dry:

• When a target is dry, it takes the same extra damage from fire attacks as if it had one level of fire weakness (rF-).
• Any fire attack that does damage equal to 15% of the target's max hp will cause dry status on the target.
• A target that has any level of fire resistance or fire weakness can not ever become dry.
• Dry wears off somewhat quickly and is undone by ice damage or standing in water.

I like that this would maintain the fire school's focus on damage, but further differentiate it from other schools.

The mechanic would apply to a large enough subset of the menagerie to be worth using, but enough would be exempt that fire conjurations wouldn't suddenly just beat everything.

[mumra]

I think it would make so little difference as to be not worth it. Fire is extremely effective already against anything that doesn't have fire resistance, and this status applies to things that have no fire resistance anyway? Fire is certainly not weak; it's an all-out destruction-based school with some powerful spells, and utility just isn't the flavour there. Although actually, both Conjure Flame and Ring of Flame are good spells that combine utility and destruction. And doesn't adding utility to fire actually make it more like other schools rather than differentiating it?

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

How about a fire spell: Dry (lvl 4 fire). Dries up water, converting deep water to shallow water and shallow water to dry land. If there is adjacent deep water the spell may not work (due to being refilled by adjacent spaces).

Like sunshine, but weaker (smaller area) and chance to fail.

[jejorda2]

I think it would make so little difference as to be not worth it. Fire is extremely effective already against anything that doesn't have fire resistance, and this status applies to things that have no fire resistance anyway?

I think that at the high end, where bolt of fire is balanced well against bolt of cold, lightning bolt, and iron bolt. Fire storm is better than ice storm, and maybe better than tornado and shatter. And in that part of the game, where fire is on good footing, the dry effect wouldn't give it much of a boost because the fire spells are already taking everything out in one or two hits.

But at the low end, where throw flames has shorter range than throw frost, and flame tongue is outclassed by freeze, sandblast, and shock, getting the extra damage against Gnolls and Ogres could really help out.

And in between, freezing/poison cloud and LRD smoke fireball, but the added damage could fix that.

Fire is certainly not weak; it's an all-out destruction-based school with some powerful spells, and utility just isn't the flavour there. Although actually, both Conjure Flame and Ring of Flame are good spells that combine utility and destruction. And doesn't adding utility to fire actually make it more like other schools rather than differentiating it?

I think that this mechanic would add damage, not utilty, thus strengthening the focus of fire instead of making it more like the other schools. But it's not a straight "let's add damage to all the spells" proposal, so maybe it can be more interesting.

[mumra]

But at the low end, where throw flames has shorter range than throw frost, and flame tongue is outclassed by freeze, sandblast, and shock, getting the extra damage against Gnolls and Ogres could really help out.

The thing is, I can happily take out Gnolls and Ogres with Magic Dart. But my favourite way is a conjure flame / mephtic cloud combo. Throw Flame can take out a Gnoll or Ogre in 1-3 hits so I don't think having slightly extra damage on the last hit or two makes any significant difference. And I can guarantee that changing the balance of an early-game spell, even slightly, will be roundly rejected by the devs The spell is at the power it's at for a reason.

[XuaXua]

How about a fire spell: Dry (lvl 4 fire). Dries up water, converting deep water to shallow water and shallow water to dry land. If there is adjacent deep water the spell may not work (due to being refilled by adjacent spaces).

Like sunshine, but weaker (smaller area) and chance to fail.

This plus Robe of Clouds = yay.