Earth Savant, Heighten, and Saves

[Qezuzu]

So I just took Flesh to Stone on my Earth Savant, lvl15, who gets +4 to CL on Earth Spells. I noticed it has +2 to DC than disintegration, which is identical in school and level to FtS. I have heighten.

Will this hold true at cap? Do ES's get +3 to FtS DC's?

[Ridag]

So I just took Flesh to Stone on my Earth Savant, lvl15, who gets +4 to CL on Earth Spells. I noticed it has +2 to saves against Transmutation, which is identical in school and level to FtS. I have heighten.

Will this hold true at cap? Do ES's get +3 to FtS DC's?

+ Caster Level does not effect the DC of a spell. DC is determined by 10 + the level of the spell +your Charisma bonus.

+ Caster Level does effect Spell Penetration, duration and (in most cases) damage. Spell Pen is determined by 1d20 + caster level + spell penetration bonuses (Includes Feats, Enhancements, and Items.)

[Qezuzu]

+ Caster Level does not effect the DC of a spell. DC is determined by 10 + the level of the spell +your Charisma bonus.

+ Caster Level does effect Spell Penetration, duration and (in most cases) damage. Spell Pen is determined by 1d20 + caster level + spell penetration bonuses (Includes Feats, Enhancements, and Items.)

I know this. But it seems it is, currently.

The mouse-over tooltip shows that Disinegration is DC 27, and FtS is 29, as if FtS were being heightened to a 9th level spell. Disintegration and FtS are the same level and the same spell school.

I cast Disintegration at CL 15, where lvl7 is the highest.

I cast FtS at CL 19, where lvl9 is the highest, but if it's cast at CL26, would it consider I'm using it as a lvl12 spell? I assume no.. since CL20, with the current progression, would give lvl10 spells to Sorcs (CL19 for Wizards).

If lvl16, with 8th level spells and +1 to DC's with heighten, still has FtS at 29 but everything else at 28, then I guess this isn't the case. +6 to Spell pen and longer durations are pretty good, anyway, but if they can fail a fort save against FtS then why not just use FoD if the opponent doesn't have SR...

+1 to DC's for every 2 caster levels above CL 20 isn't too bad an idea, if that truly isn't the case. Would give Earth Savants a boost from their poor spell selection (7 acid damage spells, 1 of which doesn't work on bosses, 3 of which come in SLA style (of those, one is short range, one is a low-damage DoT which is bad against opponents with Resistance), 1 of which doesn't scale with level, and 1 that has a fort save and SR check. Acid Rain is the only Acid spell I currently have, but it's really awesome). Air and Ice are too dominant IMO.

[Shade]

Won't have any positive effects at cap, only negative.

Heighten casts the spell as if you were able to cast spells = your caster lvl.. Since it's boosted, your DC gets boosted.

Conversely, any air spells you cast will have a major penalty to DCs.

Really lame how they set it up, but thats how it is.

Makes flesh to stone pretty well useless for air savants.. At least ones that use heighten.

[Gkar]

Heighten casts the spell as if you were able to cast spells = your caster lvl.. Since it's boosted, your DC gets boosted..

Wait...that's wrong...its supposed to heighten it to the highest level you can cast, not your caster level

[Shade]

Wait...that's wrong...its supposed to heighten it to the highest level you can cast, not your caster level

Wrong?
No.
Accurate?
Yes.
Should it work like this?
Up to the devs.

[Mangloid]

Your forgetting one thing:

He's talking about Fts on a EARTH savant & Fts is an EARTH spell.
So, his earth spells are cast at a higher level.

Disintegrate is not an earth spell. It's a force spell. Hence the difference.

[kernal42]

Your forgetting one thing:

He's talking about Fts on a EARTH savant & Fts is an EARTH spell.
So, his earth spells are cast at a higher level.

Disintegrate is not an earth spell. It's a force spell. Hence the difference.

And caster level is not supposed to affect DCs, so your argument is moot.

Shade has it right.
Probably heighten is confused by the higher caster level and thinks you have higher level slots available, and is therefore more effective than it should be. Presumably, even with this bug, heighten caps out at 9th level so it's a moot point at cap.

Cheers,
Kernal

Edit: Does this also work at low levels? Like does Robe of Duality boost my lowbie wizard's hypnotism DC? I guess people probably don't take heighten at level 1....

[voodoogroves]

Wrong?
No.
Accurate?
Yes.
Should it work like this?
Up to the devs.

He's talking about the actual metamagic feat from the PNP source.

It is definitely not implemented in line with PNP - thus, as he says, "wrong".

Completely up to the devs if they want DDO to function this way - this isn't PNP.

[rabrams99]

I am pretty sure I have this wrong but it says:
.

"You gain an additional +2 caster levels when casting cold and water spells, increase the maximum caster level of these spells by an additional 1"


So with all three you gain +6 caster levels (cold) and max caster level +3


What on earth does this translate to?

How would it affect a

1. freezing sphere: causing 1d3+3 cold damage per caster level (Maximum damage of 80 to 120 at caster level 20)

2. Cone cold: It drains heat, dealing 1d3+3 points of cold damage per caster level. (Maximum damage 15d3+45.)

3. Polar ray Strikes a creature for 1d3+3 cold damage per caster level. (Maximum caster level 25.)

[Ridag]

I am pretty sure I have this wrong but it says:
.

"You gain an additional +2 caster levels when casting cold and water spells, increase the maximum caster level of these spells by an additional 1"


So with all three you gain +6 caster levels (cold) and max caster level +3


What on earth does this translate to?

How would it affect a

1. freezing sphere: causing 1d3+3 cold damage per caster level (Maximum damage of 80 to 120 at caster level 20)

2. Cone cold: It drains heat, dealing 1d3+3 points of cold damage per caster level. (Maximum damage 15d3+45.)

3. Polar ray Strikes a creature for 1d3+3 cold damage per caster level. (Maximum caster level 25.)

At level 20 with Water Savant III -

1. Otiluke's would be 23d3 + 69 (25d3 + 75 with ToD Water Savant set)

2. Cone of Cold would be 18d3 + 54 (20d3 + 60 with ToD Water Savant set)

3. Polar Ray would be 26d3 + 78 (unchanged with ToD set, though it would bring the max caster level up to 30 so you could get 30d3 + 90 if you had an additional bonus to caster level such as 3 piece Greater Abashai)

[Arctigis]

At level 20 with Water Savant III -
2. Cone of Cold would be 18d3 + 54 (20d3 + 60 with ToD Water Savant set)

This is still bust, even on 9.1 on Lammania. It's hard capped at 15d3+45.

[Ridag]

This is still bust, even on 9.1 on Lammania. It's hard capped at 15d3+45.

Doh! They really need to fix these spells. It is really ridiculous that there are spells not working properly even after the so-called "spell pass".

I didn't carry it as a Water Savant, but I'm sure there are many that do.

What other spells have you found that are still capped? I'm mostly interested in electric and cold spells, but compiling a list in it's own thread would be great.

[Arctigis]

What other spells have you found that are still capped? I'm mostly interested in electric and cold spells, but compiling a list in it's own thread would be great.

Off the top of my head, shocking grasp. Interestingly, in the early builds of U9 on Lammania this was
working. Something borked it - probably when I bugged ball lightning which they very kindly fixed