The damage of fireball

[Guest Ecoris]

Spells that only do half damage if a succesful save is made apply their total damage

in two steps. At least you recieve to damage messages. If you save one of them is a "Save vs Spell" message instead.

Now I wondered how this exactly works. Obviously it does not calculate the total damage and divide it by 2 before applying this damage twice because the damage in the two steps can vary a great deal. Example: If I cast fireball at casting level 10 (the maximum) the total damage is supposed to be 10d6. Will this be applied as 5d6 and then another 5d6, where only the first 5d6 can be saved (totally) against? If so what happens if the casting level is odd?

 

I tried this:

Level 7 sorceror casts fireball at party member (with no fire resistance). a/b means that the target took a points of damage and then b points of damage. a/- means that the target saved and took a points of damage (this will be the order the messages appear in; first damage then a save message)

14/-

14/-

15/-

15/-

16/-

16/-

16/-

17/-

19/-

19/-

19/-

21/-

22/-

23/-

 

18/18

23/13

20/19

 

The fireball is supposed to deal 7d6 points of damage. These damage values seem a little too high. How can half damage be 23 when the maximum is 42?

The average damage when the target saved is 17.6

The average damage when the target didn't save vs 37.

These values fit very well with casting level 10, but the sorceror WAS level 7.

[CamDawg]

On spells with save-for-half damage, Bioware usually divided the damage by number of dice rolled. For an 8d6 fireball, you would always receive 4d6 damage and then would get another 4d6 if you failed your save. This means the 'save for half' moniker isn't quite accurate, as the two damage rolls can vary from one another. Long story short, a failed save could increase the damage anywhere from 17% to 600%, instead of the expected 100%.

 

For odd numbers of dice, Bioware still splits them up by dice and just gives the extra die to one of the two damages. So in a level 7 fireball, the division is 4d6 always and another 3d6 on a failed save. Bioware wasn't always consistent with these from spell to spell, so sometimes you'll see the 'extra' die in odd totals going to the save damage, sometimes to the always applicable damage.

 

Two things about the testing... on anything other than core difficulty, the engine will skew damage totals for or against the party. The other issue is that any time I've seen Bio's RNG put to the test, it's been a bit wonky.

[Guest Ecoris]

Two things about the testing... on anything other than core difficulty, the engine will skew damage totals for or against the party. The other issue is that any time I've seen Bio's RNG put to the test, it's been a bit wonky.

I am aware that the difficulty setting needs to be core rules. At normal level party members will receive 75% damage which is not mentioned in the description.

The damage values in the previous post are still too high. I might try it with a level 5 sorceror the next time.