Please Fix Dismissal and Banishment

[Stravkos]

With the power word spells having an increased hitpoint range to make them somewhat useful in DDO, I think it's also time for the Devs to take a look at Dismissal and Banishment. Compared to other instant death spells, they're severely underpowered. Let's compare Dismissal to PK and FoD against a high level elemental.

Let's assume a casting stat of 30.

Dismissal has a save of:

10(base)+7(Heighten)+10(casting stat)+14(character level)=41

In comparison, PK and FoD have a save of 27. If all three spells are cast at a 25 HD elder air elemental with a will save of +10(which would most likely be typical in endgame content) here's the results:

Dismissal has a 41 save, minus 25 for the elementals hit dice for a save DC of...16. With a +10 will save, the elemental succeeds on a 6 or better(70% of the time).

Finger of Death has a save DC of 27. An elder air elemental(according to the SRD) has a fort save of +12. To save against a FoD, the air elemental has to roll 15 or higher. For a 25% chance of succeeding.

PK without heighten has a save of 24 will/24 fort. Against our elemental(with saves of +10 will/+12 fort), we get the following success rates:

First save 14 or higher(30% chance to save).
Second save 12 or higher(40% chance to save).

Which, if I've done the math right(big if), works out to a 58% chance to fail both saves(or a 42% chance to succeed). Still much better than a dismissal's meagre 30%.

In summary, even a unheightened PK has a better chance of taking out an elder elemental than a heightened dismissal. Which is the problem. Dismissal is a spell that's designed to kill a very specific type of enemy. It's completely useless on anything other than outsiders. PK and FoD will kill anything living, including almost all outsiders. And they do it significantly better than dismissal.

So a proposed fix. Instead of using caster level, have both dismissal and banishment use caster level*2. This would leave to the following:

CL DC 25HD

10 47 22
12 51 26
14 55 30
16 59 34

The first column is caster level, the second is the DC(if heightened) and the third is the modified DC for a 25HD enemy. That would leave us with a DC 30 dismissal from a level 14 caster against a 25HD enemy. Which seems about right. After all, Finger of Death with the same stats is DC27 and is much more useful. Dismissal and Banishment should be better than any other instant death spell against their specific targets. As it stands now, you're much better using FoD or PK than Dismissal or Banishment(Banishment would only equal FoD if there were 3 or more targets!).

Please change these spells to make them usefull.

[tihocan]

Dismissal is a spell that's designed to kill a very specific type of enemy.

But not the most powerful ones.

[MysticTheurge]

Banishment and Dismissal are spells you don't cast at High HD enemies.

Monsters don't have outrageously adjusted HD in DDO.

Unless you're fighting above your level in Elite Quests. Then, you know, deal with it.

Also, elementals are a bad example. They have a lot of HD, even in D&D.

The spell is working properly.

[bigj1608]

i throw banishments in crowds on dancing ellys in the reaver raid on elite all the time and quite often, see 3-4 just disappear when i do.. i'd say its fine, elite shouldn't be easy, eh?

[Stravkos]

The problem with the spell is that it's better to throw a finger of death or even a PK than a Dismissal. Banishment at least hits multiple targets(and can be useful with say a Mind Fog).

If a spell is working properly, but isn't very useful, I think it should be changed. After all, Circle of Death is working properly too. I'd like to see all spells made useful, even if they have to deviate from PnP somewhat.

[Dworkin_of_Amber]

MT - I don't want to start an argument here, but I thought I remembered Quarion (or one of the other Devs) stating that the Mobs HD are actually in-line with the MM & PnP, but they have inflated the HP Bonus (ie HD + Bonus HP) for the Mobs... so if the MM states that a CR14 Beholder should have, say 20HD + 50 HP in PnP (I don't know what the correct number is, I'm taking a guess), then DDO would go 20HD + 600 HP, or something along those lines.

In that respect, HD-limited spells & Effects should have the same overall "usefulness" in DDO as in PnP... maybe a little more, as we can freely Heighten, and find +2 Spell Focus Items, and have 34 Cha @ L14... but HP-limited effects are severely weakend.

[MysticTheurge]

MT - I don't want to start an argument here, but I thought I remembered Quarion (or one of the other Devs) stating that the Mobs HD are actually in-line with the MM & PnP, but they have inflated the HP Bonus

Yep. And that's why the Power Word spells have their HP limits increased, but HD spells remain the same.

HD on Elite can be pretty high though, because they like to advance monsters by HD, which adds a lot of HD per CR.

[MrCow]

Just to throw it out there, outsiders and elementals usually get +4 HD on hard and +10 HD on elite compared to their normal version. This brings the power of dismissal and banishment down a lot on higher difficulties.