What makes scorching ray so special

[Sheezgame]

I was just wondering why scorching ray doesn't have any saves, whereas spells like lighting bolt you can save for half etc.

I assume this is how it is in PnP, but I'm just wondering why? Fireball has a reflex save, why not scorching ray? It almost seems like they just forgot to put it in as part of the spell.


Anyhow this is not a complaint or anything, I'm just genuinely curious as to why it is treated differently.

[Ghoste]

Scorching ray does not in fact work just like PnP. In PnP, every creature has it's normal armor class, and a touch armor class. Scorching ray, being a "ranged touch attack", must overcome the target's touch armor class to successfully hit.

[The_Cataclysm]

In PnP rays are considered ranged touch attacks. This was ignored in DDO since a user can move out of the way (essentially accomplishing the same thing in their eyes, I do believe).

[Sheezgame]

Okay thats fair enough, but even in DDO scorching ray seems singled out compared to lightning bolt which has a reflex save, niacs cold ray which is a ray but has a save as well.

Just seems strange to me that even though their system is different it is treated without a save.

[The_Cataclysm]

Well Lightning Bolt isn't a ray spell.

Niac's is the exception, but this is due to the fact that it is a spell unique to DDO.

[DemonMage]

Actually it's due to the fact that it has a very high damage cap for a level 1 spell and needed a downside to balance out the level.

But Lightning Bolt and Fireball, etc, are not rays as said before. Lightning Bolt is... a bolt. It's a wide path of lightning designed to catch multiple targets in a straight line. A ray spell is a thin beam of energy that delivers it's payload onto the first thing it hits, whether that is your intended target or not.

[wrinyn]

Actually it's due to the fact that it has a very high damage cap for a level 1 spell and needed a downside to balance out the level.

But Lightning Bolt and Fireball, etc, are not rays as said before. Lightning Bolt is... a bolt. It's a wide path of lightning designed to catch multiple targets in a straight line. A ray spell is a thin beam of energy that delivers it's payload onto the first thing it hits, whether that is your intended target or not.

Many a melee has felt my wrath unexpectedly when they stepped into the path of an empowered SR with full fire spec meant for the caster. Of course that didn't stop the FoD from laying him low....MUHAHAHA! Of course, as my other esteemed colleagues have said, SR has no saving throw due to the ability to move out of the way and Niac's, being unique, would be over powered with the same parameters. It appears that some rays (ray of enfeeblement, and ray of exhaustion) work the same way as SR but others like disintegrate would be vastly over powered if they operated under the same parameters of SR (wouldn't that be nice though). It is this uniqueness that makes SR the highest damaging spell for single targets per spell point in our arsenal.

In addition the nightmare that would result for the dev's if they coded a touch AC (which does not include armor or shield) for each Mob at each level of difficulty in the game for a handful of spells.....