Mar. 17: Silvania's Nova of Life

This spell will now allow the undead a Fortitude save for 1/3 damage (instead of no save), and the caster is stunned for 3 rounds after casting (instead of 1 round).

The spell is intended to seriously harm (or kill) most undead, but leave the caster vulnerable after it takes effect. As it was, the spell was way overpowered, slaughtering even the most powerful undead and the short stun meant just a one-round delay before popping an asis potion of full heal and suffering no real ill effects.

I could have sworn the spell allowed a save for no damage before, I
know I've cast it before on dracoliches, demiliches, and liches and had
them take no damamge whatsoever. I had asked
about the saves on this before when the first incarnation of
Rayvensclaw was about willy-nilly casting this spell at every undead
critter in the world, and at times it wouldn't touch them. Now they
seem to have a save for no damage as though the spell misses them
completely, or if the do take damage it is an average of 350 of points
worth, which is quickly healed if it's not a skeleton or zombie of some
sort.I'm all for a 3 round daze as I thought that was what it was before. I all for a save for 1/3 damage, but now it seems that you damage them for that 1/3 or not at all. Just doesn't seem right.

I made it a fortitude save, since a reflex save would allow evasion to completely avoid it. If it didn't hurt them before, it may not have made it past their spell resistance. Critters with spell resistance are supposed to be harder to affect with spells. All the other undead are now allowed the save for 1/3 (rather than half, since the numbers get huge), just because it's a raw damage spell.

*weeps that such an awesome spell has been nerfed to near uselessness*

I think the 90% health sacrifice needs to be nerfed if its allowing a save for *less* than half damage.
If the intent is to force multiple castings, the spell becomes useless after the first, cuz the dmg is based on your current hps, so you cant get benefit of multiple casting unless you heal first.... and if you have to go through all that, you may as well just spam sunburst and keep *all* your hps.

The save for 1/3 dmg changes the balance so that the spell may *wound* powerful undead, but it basiaclly all but ensures they will smoke the caster. I had always thought the idea of the spell was that "I am going to almost kill myself in order to kill you". Now its basically "I am going to almost kill myself to hurt you some."

The numbers only get huge if the caster has LOTS of hps, and most casters dont. And a caster who has lots of max hps, but happens to be wounded also cannot get big numbers.

With a save for 1/3... which basically means you do dmg equal to the hps you lose, the trade off is not worth it. In order for the spell to have value, it either needs to drain less health while doing the same dmg (with the save for 1/3), or remove the save lower, the health drain, and lower the dmg. Or perhaps have it do 4dmg per 1hp drained while allowing the save.

It allows spell resistance already, so powerful undead are going to resist anything but a focused caster on a regular basis, and focused casters will not have lots of hps to dump into it in most cases. And god forbid they *don't* kill what they are fighting with it, they now have 10% health for their trouble..... *SPLAT*.

Why bother sacrificing 90% health for a chance to hurt an undead, when you can kill it outright with other spells and sacrifice nothing... or hurt it with other spells and sacrifice nothing.

I've tried Nova of Life on multiple occasions today, and I'm gonna have to agree with Dave on this one, every time, not just some or even most, every time I use it, which happens to be against demiliches and dracoliches because it's just kind of a waste to use such a powerful spell against skeleton warriors most times, they take 1/3 damage if they take any damage at all from it, it's really not worth having the spell in ones arsenal if half the time you use it you end up in the Great Hall. It was one of a Paladins most effective spells that set them apart from other meleers. Now not so much, your better off to just pummle them to death. This spell is sevearly nerfed now, almost to the point that like I said it isn't worth having. Keeping in mind I used it against dracoliches mostly, if you do manage to get lucky enough to do that 1/3 damage, they heal it right up, then try to stomp ya before you can down a potion of heal to save yourself from the hall. I just feel this is a really bad change, and I am usually all for the changes that are made to Aenea, but not so much this one. It really just "declaws" Paladins and other divine casters who have this spell available to them.

Thanks for the feedback. I may end of switching this one back.

Edit: Instead of a straight change back, I'm instead making it a Fort save for 1/2 (since it's still a potential-massive damage spell), with no spell resistance (since it's basically using just re-using life energy rather than magic). Still keeps the potential there, while helping those casters that invest in their main casting ability (with a higher save DC).

Oh how fantastic that would be.

*crosses fingers and toes, even braids hair if it'll help*

So now, if the enemy makes the save... they take 1.5dmg per point of health sacrificed by the caster?

So for instance, the wizard with 200 hps, sacrifices 90%, dropping him down 180 hps.... to 20....

the enemy makes the save, and takes 270 damage?

It might be an improvement.... but not much of one... the lack of spell resistance really just means multi-classed casters can use the spell effectively... doesnt really do a thing for focused casters.... and the powerful enemies on the server have fort saves so darn high it doesnt matter how good your casting stat modifier is... they need to roll a one to fail against a 6th level spell....

Why not just remove the save and spell resistance, and make it do 2 dmg per 1 hit point sacrificed?