Harm is kinda busted

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Imperatrix
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Harm is kinda busted

Post by Imperatrix » Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:43 am

There are a few ways to turn Harm into what is effectively a saveless death spell.

How it should work: When Harm damage would exceed a victims current hit points it will leave them with 1hp.

In actuality a lot of people are (intentionally or unintentionally) taking advantage of the way Harm damage is applied to fit in extra damage that then makes the spell lethal.

If you take damage from another source in a brief window before Harm damage is applied it is not calculated properly and you end up taking more damage than your total hitpoint pool. This makes having death domain Harm + Mummy Dust one of the more powerful combinations on the server, but also means that if you have even one friend attacking the same target they are basically already dead.

Additionally, if the victim is given a vulnerability to negative energy damage (e.g. through PDK abilities) they are simply taken beyond 1hp due to the vulnerability, which should also be unintended behaviour.

A 27/3 cleric with Death Domain can deal 405 damage on a successful touch attack. This is already huge without also having the potential to kill with it.

In conclusion: please fix Harm so it can never deal lethal damage.



also nerf death domain or give harm a will save for half damage because it's currently pretty dumb

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by cowboy » Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:51 am

Hard agree.

It's a gimmick and the spell is OP.

Heal and Mass Heal have both the will save and the touch attack (and can even be applied against PCs). Heal has been grounded in reason.

Harm has not.

(and harm if it was ever to have any sort of buff should be something like a small bonus to touch attack - and probably only for a druid because druids have almost 0 reason to be outside of animal shape)
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Zaphiel
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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Zaphiel » Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:15 pm

Doesn't Negative Energy Protection protects against harm?
Edited for grammar to make it worse, probably.

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Good Character » Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:19 pm

Yes, but I'm assuming the argument here is that you can get KO'd without even realizing what's about to happen. Most people don't instinctively pop a negative energy potion.

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Imperatrix
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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Imperatrix » Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:57 pm

NEP is easily breachable, neither does NEP change the fact that the spell is buggy.

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Aren » Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:25 pm

Don't make harm require a will save. (Spoken as someone who doesn't even play a cleric or even play with one.)

Both NEP and Shadow shield protects against Harm.

As a matter of fact, it is the only counter to the barbarian/WM meta I can think of.
Last edited by Aren on Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Aren » Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:26 pm

Good Character wrote:
Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:19 pm
Yes, but I'm assuming the argument here is that you can get KO'd without even realizing what's about to happen. Most people don't instinctively pop a negative energy potion.
If you don't use NEP against a cleric, it's a valuable lesson.

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Sockss » Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:43 pm

The 1 second delay on applying the damage causes that. Should be easily fixed.

It is strong - but tricky to pull off. That said I think the lowest HP you should be able to put someone to should be increased a little. Something like a minimum of 2 hp / CL would leave a 30 at 60HP at worse - which leaves something there to bounce back from. (If they're under that threshold leave them at the d4).
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Aren
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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Aren » Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:42 pm

If it's the case that harm can reduce someone below 1 hp, then that should be fixed.

But just to put it into perspective: A 50+ AB falchion BarbWM master can deal 160+ crits on a 10-20 roll against any target with sub 60 AC. If they pop a true strike potion, they'll hit with their entire flurry. That's 50% chance for each hit to deal 160 damage at 6-7 attacks per round. And they can keep doing this. They don't run out of spells.

To say that a spell that is entirely negated by a protection spell that is readily available both as potion and wands is "busted" is hyperbole in my humble opinion.

To get the 405 harms, you'd have to forgo either travel, trickery, war, healing or plant as your other domain - making substantial sacrifices to be "gimmicky". Death domain gives you nothing good besides the empowered harms.

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Shadowy Reality » Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:08 pm

Aren wrote:
Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:42 pm
If it's the case that harm can reduce someone below 1 hp, then that should be fixed.

But just to put it into perspective: A 50+ AB falchion BarbWM master can deal 160+ crits on a 10-20 roll against any target with sub 60 AC. If they pop a true strike potion, they'll hit with their entire flurry. That's 50% chance for each hit to deal 160 damage at 6-7 attacks per round. And they can keep doing this. They don't run out of spells.

To say that a spell that is entirely negated by a protection spell that is readily available both as potion and wands is "busted" is hyperbole in my humble opinion.

To get the 405 harms, you'd have to forgo either travel, trickery, war, healing or plant as your other domain - making substantial sacrifices to be "gimmicky". Death domain gives you nothing good besides the empowered harms.
Entirely agree with this. The spell if very situational, now more than every with dispels and breaches being harder to attain.

And also entirely agreed on Barbarian/WM. But it is no secret that I personally detest the bursty nature of WM, it just gets amplified a ton with barbarian bonuses. Not fully prepared? Dead. Misplayed? Dead. It is just not too interesting. But that is another topic.

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Re: Harm is kinda busted

Post by Sockss » Mon Apr 06, 2020 6:23 pm

Try not to derail with false equivalencies.

Make a new thread if you want to discuss WM's (but please for the love of God do the maths properly first and look at counterplay scenarios).
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