(D&D 3e) 9th level evocations.

[Kaelik]

So, Kaelik, is kiting someone with only 20 or 50 fireballs not unlimited enough for you?

I'd have to actually do the math to see if it would be worth it at that point, and I don't want to. For a 9th level spell that casts Fireball 20 or so times from one slot, that is probably fine, provided there is some hard duration.

IE, that 99 fireballs up above is just terrible, because it just means that every level 17 Wizard casts 99 Fireballs on their off days, and then has infinite Fireballs on their on days, so it is actually worse than infinite flames, because it doesn't even cost a single spell slot.

[TarkisFlux]

I thought you were breaking out more obscure kiting plans, like pointing out that the same +4 logic gives you infinite teleports in a 9 slot. If you only want someone to have a high movement rate to be able to kite, then the Fire Mage can do similar, if less speedy, kiting from whatever level over 7 it gets an intelligent mount or a carpet of flying or whatever. And they have better fireballs than the ones that this spell is throwing around, as they do more damage and gain the Fire Mage's other benefits. So yes, kiting.

As for the rest, it's starting to sound like a technical argument that wouldn't much matter or alter either of our opinions in the end, and it's getting away from other more useful things. So I'll table it and change direction, try to unpack the objections here a bit.

I'm not clear on whether you hate the infinite use part, the range part (which I have already said I dislike), the combination, or both separately for different reasons. So, to use an example from the other end of the usefulness spectrum, how do you feel about reserve feats? Specifically, is the Fiery Burst reserve feat a problem when you have a 9th level [Fire] spell and get to throw down 5' radius bursts of 9d6 damage within 30' all day long? If you think that's problematic, we can just stop here because we disagree about its fundamental existence and further conversation is pointless. If you don't, then there's some point where infinite use effects that lock up a spell slot aren't a big fucking deal and we can scale the spell down to that point, or at least get close enough to hate it slightly less.

[Kaelik]

I'm not clear on whether you hate the infinite use part, the range part (which I have already said I dislike), the combination, or both separately for different reasons. So, to use an example from the other end of the usefulness spectrum, how do you feel about reserve feats? Specifically, is the Fiery Burst reserve feat a problem when you have a 9th level [Fire] spell and get to throw down 5' radius bursts of 9d6 damage within 30' all day long? If you think that's problematic, we can just stop here because we disagree about its fundamental existence and further conversation is pointless. If you don't, then there's some point where infinite use effects that lock up a spell slot aren't a big fucking deal and we can scale the spell down to that point, or at least get close enough to hate it slightly less.

I'm sorry, what? Can you read? I ask because literally nothing I have said would involve anything with a range of 30ft being a problem. You can't kite anything from 30ft away, because they can move and attack, or at worst, use a charge action.

[TarkisFlux]

I'm sorry, what? Can you read? I ask because literally nothing I have said would involve anything with a range of 30ft being a problem.

Bullshit. You've also said that "Things that "circumvent" Vancian magic are shit and bad for the game" because it breaks down wizard vs. X mage balance or whatever. Fucking trivial range or no, this is circumventing that limit. And before you said that, you basically ignored my "If you're instead arguing for a shorter range, I could see that" comment to continue on with who could kite and what kiting meant. It didn't seem unreasonable to assume that you could read and would point that out as a change that dealt with your primary objection instead of just continuing the technical argument.

So yes, I can read. But when you ignore comments that resolve or mitigate your kiting issue and say things that amount to "any unlimited use things on a wizard are shit and bad for the game", it's not clear that your actual fucking objection is the range and not the unlimited bits. And then I have to ask for you to clear shit up with really bullshit counter examples or just stop talking to you about it all together. But now that we've established that unlimited is fine in some contexts and LM wants unlimited for this spell, why don't you grace us with the framework of an unlimited fire damage spell that doesn't make you rage.

[Kaelik]

Bullshit. You've also said that "Things that "circumvent" Vancian magic are shit and bad for the game" because it breaks down wizard vs. X mage balance or whatever.

Yes, because if you give the Wizard at will spells that are better than the Fire Mage's abilities, that breaks the game.

Circumventing Vancian magic for Vancian abilities is bad. Circumventing Vancian limits for abilities that are not Vancian obviously is not a problem, because those abilities were not balanced on those limits.

It does not follow that the person who wrote the Storm Lord, Force Potentate, Elemental Siphon and literally every other class that I have ever written with at will effects objects to at will effects in principle. Only at will effects that are more powerful than other things, hence the example of a Wizard that uses Planeshift to instantly regain all spells in a single standard action.

And before you said that, you basically ignored my "If you're instead arguing for a shorter range, I could see that" comment to continue on with who could kite and what kiting meant.

I'm sorry I didn't realize how stupid you are sooner, but in the context of the discussion I just assumed you were not literally the most retarded person in the thread, and could figure out that of course when someone says:

That out of the way, I'm happy to treat "infinite spell" as a +4 spell level metamagic boost, because at that point I just don't care if you want to put a vastly inferior spell up there and cast it all day instead of a good one once.

Well I'm fucking not. And you shouldn't be either. At will Fireball is fundamentally different from other effects because it encourages kiting everything from 1200ft away.

That someone is not objecting to attacks with a range of 30ft, because they are not fundamentally different from other effects, being the effects themselves that are different from fireball, because the key difference is the one explicitly stated, the range of 1200ft.

[TarkisFlux]

Are you fucking high Kaelik, or just ridiculously fucking dense? Your argument is that the Fiery Burst effect isn't a spell and isn't better than spells so it's ok to give it infinity times?

Here, let me write up a new level 1 or 2 spell. It deals 1d6 fire damage / 2 levels in a 5' radius within 30' as a standard action. It imposes a -1 save penalty for every die of fire damage over whatever it deals when you get it. There's a vancian equivalent of the unimpressive Fiery Burst. Any fucking ability in the game can be mapped to a vancian style spell slot, it's not even hard. So I am now giving a vancian style spell infinity times for the cost of a level 9 slot, with a cost of 7 or 8 slot levels for said infinity. Which makes it unacceptable I guess.

I'm sorry I didn't realize how stupid you are sooner, but in the context of the discussion I just assumed you were not literally the most retarded person in the thread, and could figure out that of course when someone says:

That out of the way, I'm happy to treat "infinite spell" as a +4 spell level metamagic boost, because at that point I just don't care if you want to put a vastly inferior spell up there and cast it all day instead of a good one once.

Well I'm fucking not. And you shouldn't be either. At will Fireball is fundamentally different from other effects because it encourages kiting everything from 1200ft away.

That someone is not objecting to attacks with a range of 30ft, because they are not fundamentally different from other effects, being the effects themselves that are different from fireball, because the key difference is the one explicitly stated, the range of 1200ft.

I'm sorry I didn't figure out that you were an emo teenager who expected everyone to read your mind sooner. 1200 ft is the level 20 range, and it's not obvious whether you would have the same objections to someone kiting at 1000 ft with infinity fireballs or at 600 ft with infinity fireballs from a stack of wished up wands. Since you also wrote at-will in there, and you can do kiting with limited ammo to soften shit up but not kill it, maybe you really just care about the infinity thing and 20 fireballs at 1200 ft is insufficiently kitey to trigger your hate. And it's particularly unclear which part of your own sentence you think is a problem when you fail to remove your head from your rage hole long enough to acknowledge when someone suggests something that addresses your primary complaint. Are you even trying to be productive here, or just around for the bitching / arguing now?

[Kaelik]

Are you fucking high Kaelik, or just ridiculously fucking dense? Your argument is that the Fiery Burst effect isn't a spell and isn't better than spells so it's ok to give it infinity times?

Clearly not as dense as you. Seriously, every part of your post is best addressed at your own stupid ass, right down to being deliberately dense to be a dick.

"Circumventing Vancian magic for Vancian abilities is bad. Circumventing Vancian limits for abilities that are not Vancian obviously is not a problem, because those abilities were not balanced on those limits."

Saying that you can make up something week and make it vancian has nothing to with what the fact that it wasn't balanced for those limits. You fucking idiot.

Well I'm fucking not. And you shouldn't be either. At will Fireball is fundamentally different from other effects because it encourages kiting everything from 1200ft away.

I'm sorry I didn't figure out that you were an emo teenager who expected everyone to read your mind sooner. 1200 ft is the level 20 range, and it's not obvious whether you would have the same objections to someone kiting at 1000 ft with infinity fireballs or at 600 ft with infinity fireballs from a stack of wished up wands. Since you also wrote at-will in there, and you can do kiting with limited ammo to soften shit up but not kill it, maybe you really just care about the infinity thing and 20 fireballs at 1200 ft is insufficiently kitey to trigger your hate. And it's particularly unclear which part of your own sentence you think is a problem when you fail to remove your head from your rage hole long enough to acknowledge when someone suggests something that addresses your primary complaint. Are you even trying to be productive here, or just around for the bitching / arguing now?

Well let's try remembering what words mean:

Now, tell me why is infinite fireball fundamentally different from other effects? Is it because of something? Nah. But thanks for pretending that kiting from beyond medium range is somwhow different from kiting from beyond medium range. That was a laugh.

[TarkisFlux]

Nice job on the bolding there. And the continuing failure to recognize that there are multiple ways to resolve that particular complaint, all of which you seem to ignore or complain about later on. Really well done, top form and whatnot. I'd go on, but if we can't even posit hypothetical equivalencies balanced for the appropriate subsystem, we've reached the point where conversing with you isn't worth the effort. So you can win the thread. Congrats or whatever. I'm moving on now.

---

Anyway LM, if there's a take away from that clusterfuck it's that long range spells are bullshit at high levels because the range scales too high. Kaelik's not particularly wrong about that, and it's not worth the hoops you jump through to fix it. If you still want unlimited I stand by my previous suggestions though, with the update that you should drop the range on the fireballs to medium range or a fixed value between 300' and 600', depending on how worried you are about kiting and Kaelik frothing impotently at you. If you don't want that, then a 20 pack with a 15 minute - 1 hour timer is probably fine at full range.

[Kaelik]

Nice job on the bolding there. And the continuing failure to recognize that there are multiple ways to resolve that particular complaint, all of which you seem to ignore or complain about later on.

So... I was right, that it is clear what I meant, but I should have "recognized" that there are ways to fix it.

Well goody, because I did recognize that, but I have no idea why you think that is relevant to your continued whining that at will fireball on a Wizard is totally fine, and that I am absolutely wrong for saying that it is a problem, except that you agree it is a problem now.

[Mistborn]

You guys do realized I've already edited the range of infinite flames down to medium. That was a thing I totally did.

[Kaelik]

You guys do realized I've already edited the range of infinite flames down to medium. That was a thing I totally did.

No, because when you edit the original post without telling anyone, we don't reread that post every time we want to continue a discussion.

Also, it probably wasn't relevant to most of the discussion.

[fbmf]

You guys do realized I've already edited the range of infinite flames down to medium. That was a thing I totally did.

No, because when you edit the original post without telling anyone, we don't reread that post every time we want to continue a discussion.

Also, it probably wasn't relevant to most of the discussion.

He did tell you.

The fact that you can cast Infinite Flames an unlimited number of times what makes them "infinite". I lowered the range though.

Emphasis mine.

I get that it was of little to no relevance, though.

Game On,
fbmf