Talk:Acid Rain (3.5e Spell)

Ratings

Mecheye dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

This is far too powerful for a 3rd level Spell “Acid Fog” also deals 2d6 Acid damage per round over a 20’ area and lasts for 1 Round/Level. It also reduces the speed of any target that passes though it and has a range of Medium – This is a 6th level Spell from the PHB. Similarly, “Holy Storm” deals 2d6 damage to Evil-type creatures as well as imposes a penalty to Spot and Listen. All other variables are the same aside from the 20’ range. This is a 3rd level Spell from the SPC. Finally, the baseline for most damage-dealing Spells is “Fireball” – a 3rd level Spell that deals 1d6 damage per Caster Level over a 20’ radius, at long range. Taking this into account, “Acid Rain” would therefore be equivalent to a 7th level Spell when factoring in the increased range and ability to reduce the combat effectiveness of those affected. For this to function as a 3rd level Spell, the range should be reduced to Medium and the weapon degradation should be removed; The damage should be reduced to 1d8 if it can be cast anywhere, or it can remain at 2d6 providing it cannot be cast indoors or with a low ceiling. If you want to keep the weapon degradation as-is, then the damage should be reduced to 1d6 Acid damage and the Spell Level increased to 4th if you allow a Save or 5th with no save.

	Tarkisflux favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	While it doesn't do great damage in a fight, it is a reasonably good gear debuffer. And it's a solid choke point spell. But its real strength is probably in its ability to chew through walls and supports, which it can do more efficiently than other direct damage spells as soon as it is cast. Terrain modification ftw.

	Aarnott likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Seems like a decent spell to cause some AoE damage and debuffs against weapon-using enemies. It certainly could have creative uses as well, such as burning a hole in a thatched roof cottage.

Comments

There seems to be a lot of information missing with this spell:

• When does the damage happen?
• -4 to damage rolls is fine, but it is unclear when a weapon would melt. It's not really obvious when damage reaches a value of 0.
• Spell Resistance says "See text", but there is no mention of it.

The damage is pretty low, which is probably ok since it has no save.

All in all, this spell just needs some lovin'.

Made some edits to address the concerns suggested. I think the damage is a bit low, but yeah, given the lack of a save I thought it was OK for a level 3. - TG Cid 23:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Damage still isn't really addressed. What is 0 base damage? Like, if I have a greatsword (2d6 damage), is it done after 2 rounds (7 average damage - 8 < 0) or 3 rounds (12 max damage - 12 = 0)? --Aarnott 15:02, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The intent was when your base damage cannot be positive (so the penalty to base weapon damage would essentially reduce any base damage roll to 0, but not other additions that don't actually come from the weapon itself), the weapon is effectively destroyed. Therefore, the second option that you presented above. - TG Cid 03:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

More comments! The weapon damage reduction threw me at first, but after digging into it a bit more it seems a reasonable approximation of acid damage effects. Weapons normally take full damage from acid and tend to have surprisingly low hp, so making them die out after a few rounds is basically fine (though I'd argue it's close to -2 per round, not -4). The armor one works similarly, since armor has 5hp per point of AC. Which is about 2 points of AC damage per 3 dice on average, and close enough to the 1 point per round listed. But they don't scale with the damage dice, which is a bit weird.

But rather than talk about fix the damage scaling, which I have ideas on, I want to point out that scaling the damage and the duration is weird. It starts off not doing a lot other than melting weapons and armor and chewing through thatch, and winds up melting 20 inches of stone over 2 minutes. I'd scale one or the other, but not both (with my preference being 2d6 acid for 1 rnd / 2 levels, which is close to what it starts as anyway). The long range already does a lot to make it VH on its own.

Side note - it makes me sad that the spell can't be repaired by make whole and similar magic. Nevermind. There aren't spells that fix melted or corroded :-(. This oversight makes me sad instead, not acid rain itself, so perhaps I shall go and write some. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 22:14, 6 September 2012 (UTC)