Spell penetration

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01-23-2019, 08:13 AM
hirium

Spell penetration
I decided to improve the spell pen on my toon (20 fvs aasimar in ea) and test it out. After some adjustments I ended up with this list:
- 20 caster level
- 02 spell pen feat (requirement for magister and draconic piercing spellcraft)
- 09 epic destiny: piercing spellcraft (ea, magister, draconic)
- 05 epic destiny: caster level from celestial destiny, ea
- 03 enhancements: aasimar tree
- 01 enhancements: aov tree (no tier5 stuff because i'm using tier5 from beacon of hope)
- 12 gear: nightmother (8equip+4ins)
- 01 gear: sentient (3 piece eye of beholder)
- 09 past lifes
- 01 guild (arcane sanctum)
- ===
- total 63 (+5 on reaper)
then i went in into the mists (non reaper) and tested some spells agains the wisps
- destruction and implosion: show 67 on the dice
- slay living: shows 64 on the dice
- frog: shows 35 on the dice
frog is known to have spell pen issues, but why the difference between destruction and slay living? and what am i missing on the list to justify the 4 difference between 63 (my total) and 67 (in game dice display for destruction and implosion)?
01-23-2019, 08:51 AM
psykopeta
Quote:
Originally Posted by hirium

I decided to improve the spell pen on my toon (20 fvs aasimar in ea) and test it out. After some adjustments I ended up with this list:

20 caster level
02 spell pen feat (requirement for magister and draconic piercing spellcraft)
09 epic destiny: piercing spellcraft (ea, magister, draconic)
05 epic destiny: caster level from celestial destiny, ea
03 enhancements: aasimar tree
01 enhancements: aov tree (no tier5 stuff because i'm using tier5 from beacon of hope)
12 gear: nightmother (8equip+4ins)
01 gear: sentient (3 piece eye of beholder)
09 past lifes
01 guild (arcane sanctum)
===
total 63 (+5 on reaper)

then i went in into the mists (non reaper) and tested some spells agains the wisps

destruction and implosion: show 67 on the dice
slay living: shows 64 on the dice
frog: shows 35 on the dice

frog is known to have spell pen issues, but why the difference between destruction and slay living? and what am i missing on the list to justify the 4 difference between 63 (my total) and 67 (in game dice display for destruction and implosion)?
If you wanna see something funny... Create a pk spammer deep gnome, most times the dice shows different spell pen checks xD that happened to me lots of times with my cler mule, the conclusion i reached is... I don't care the dice if i make the save, which in frog case (due to bad spell codification) use to fail a lot sadly
01-23-2019, 09:03 AM
Rusty_Can

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirium

but why the difference between destruction and slay living? and what am i missing on the list to justify the 4 difference between 63 (my total) and 67 (in game dice display for destruction and implosion)?

Did you train AoV Intense Faith? That might account for the 67-64 gap.

As to the 64-63 gap, are you equipping any augmentation gear?
01-23-2019, 09:31 AM
hirium
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty_Can

Did you train AoV Intense Faith? That might account for the 67-64 gap.

As to the 64-63 gap, are you equipping any augmentation gear?

Intense Faith: "Your Fire, Force, Light, and Physical damage spells are cast at +1/+2/+3 caster level.". Didn't think that would be it, but tested it anyway. Turns out it does add to the caster level of implosion and destruction, but not to slay living/greater command/soundburst/energy drain.... weird, but seems to be the case. Thanks XD

As for the gear, here is my complete gearset, none of which seems to have anything related to caster level (or spell pen, except nightmother and spinneret, already included on the list):
- legendary garstone's lenses
- legendary pansophic circlet
- fleetfoot necklace
- legendary five rings (dex+dex+resistance14, slave lords sorcery)
- legendary mantle of fury
- legendary chains (false life+qua false life, slave lords sorcery)
- legendary skulled ring
- legendary gaulets of innate arcanum
- legendary shackles (sheltering+qua const, slave lords sorcery)
- legendary spinneret (slave lords sorcery)
- legendary shackles (qua wis, slave lords sorcery)
- legendary scales of the exile
- nightmother sceptre (4 part otto, 4 part beholder)
- legendary mirrorplate tower
just to be sure i got naked and did the same, slay living shows 51/destruction 54.
51 + 8equi + 4ins + 1sentient = 64 (same value i was getting) so it´s not gear related. I'm still missing 1 spell pen somewhere XD
01-23-2019, 12:42 PM
Rusty_Can

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirium

Intense Faith but "Your Fire, Force, Light, and Physical damage spells are cast at +1/+2/+3 caster level.". Didn't think that would be it, but tested it anyway. Turns out it does add to the caster level of implosion and destruction, but not to slay living/greater command/soundburst/energy drain.... weird, but seems to be the case. Thanks XD

I believe this is happening because Implosion and Destruction are typed as "force spells" behind the scenes: on a successful fortitude save, Destruction still deals some damage to its target; Implosion is an oddball and, when it comes to it, all bets are off.
01-23-2019, 03:00 PM
slarden

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty_Can

I believe this is happening because Implosion and Destruction are typed as "force spells" behind the scenes: on a successful fortitude save, Destruction still deals some damage to its target; Implosion is an oddball and, when it comes to it, all bets are off.

The damage for implosion is untyped so it's working as expected in this case.