bcadren wrote:Arrhythmia wrote:my solution: don't make it work differently who is going to waste a large rock on sandblast when they could just throw it?
Curious. I wouldn't consider it unless I was a TrEE^Oka and Oka was giving me a lot of large rocks; since those are pretty rare; but.
Would the 3d20 [Check AC 3 Times] of Large Rock Sandblast EVER beat the base 20 Throw damage of a Large Rock?
Sandblast is 3d(4+power/3) where "power" maxes at 50 at around 7-12 skill (depending on int)
Throwing is 1d(20+throwingskill)*(1+(fighting/30))
So with comprable skill (maxing sandblast)
it's 3d20 vs roughly 1d40 (assuming around 10 in throwing in and fighting), average 30 ish damage (pre-ac) for sandblast, vs average 20 damage (pre-ac) for thrown rocks.
AC is tripled against sandblast, so to make the 10 difference in damage, you only need an average of 3.33 damage reduction, or about 7 AC.
So:
Sandblast large rocks can be better than throwing large rocks against lower AC critters given that you're in the earlyish part of the game (I'd estimate through at least the end of the lair) and you're trained for earth damage rather than throwing damage, Sandblast also has a much shorter range, which makes it less generally useful.
Sandblast also always mulches ammo, instead of only sometimes.
In general sandblast is the weaker skill, particularly as you get later into the game, but I think that's expected for a level 1 spell. However it takes longer for thrown large rocks to get to their ultimate damage potential.
I would use sandblast and large rocks as ammo against say, hydras, given that I had significantly in earth magic, and didn't have much throwing. If I had the throwing skill I'd probably use it though, just for the longer range and not-100%-mulching, given how rare large rocks are (Even if sandblast would do more damage)