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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8147694" data-attributes="member: 907"><p>Scorching Ray can have a bit of a boost on account of being attack roll-based, so instead of save for half you miss for no damage. Then again, that's spread across multiple attacks, so there's still a fairly low chance of doing nothing at all.</p><p></p><p>Hmm. Let's do some mathing. Let's go with AC 15 and save +1. A 3rd level wizard would have save DC 13 and an attack bonus of +5 or so.</p><p></p><p>If using attack rolls, scorching ray hits on a 10, crits on a 20, and deals 6d6 = 21 points (the average damage is the same if we treat the attack as a single attack, multiple attacks just smooth out the damage). So that's 0.5*21 + 0.05*42 = 12.6 on average.</p><p></p><p>If we instead make it a Dexterity save, the target fails on a roll of 11 or less, and succeeds on 12 or more. That's 0.55 * 21 + 0.45*10.5 = 16.3 points on average. If it's a save spell dealing 4d6 instead, it becomes 0.55 * 14 + 0.45*7 = 10.9.</p><p></p><p>In other words, the damage is slightly higher than the guidelines for single-target damage, but not as much higher as you'd think.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8147694, member: 907"] Scorching Ray can have a bit of a boost on account of being attack roll-based, so instead of save for half you miss for no damage. Then again, that's spread across multiple attacks, so there's still a fairly low chance of doing nothing at all. Hmm. Let's do some mathing. Let's go with AC 15 and save +1. A 3rd level wizard would have save DC 13 and an attack bonus of +5 or so. If using attack rolls, scorching ray hits on a 10, crits on a 20, and deals 6d6 = 21 points (the average damage is the same if we treat the attack as a single attack, multiple attacks just smooth out the damage). So that's 0.5*21 + 0.05*42 = 12.6 on average. If we instead make it a Dexterity save, the target fails on a roll of 11 or less, and succeeds on 12 or more. That's 0.55 * 21 + 0.45*10.5 = 16.3 points on average. If it's a save spell dealing 4d6 instead, it becomes 0.55 * 14 + 0.45*7 = 10.9. In other words, the damage is slightly higher than the guidelines for single-target damage, but not as much higher as you'd think. [/QUOTE]
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