[PFKM] Do spellcasters need spell penetration?

[Desiderius]

Trashos You didn't misunderstand anything. My wording was improper. I quickly corrected myself without belligerence. Xamenous seized the opportunity to display his rabid impudence. I suspect he was thrown into a rage after failing to grasp the difference between quantitative and qualitative analysis. Such is the internet. Regardless, my position on the value of SP is clearly demonstrated at this point. There is enough information in this thread for people to make their decisions.

Lol, no, you were just wrong and now you’re spewing out academic squid ink to cover your embarrassment, mostly from yourself.

You weren’t even that wrong, it’s mostly semantics, it’s just that the faulty conclusion you drew, and continue to, flows directly from that small and subtle semantic distinction.

If you’re going to be casting in the hardest fights, and a lot of people plan on doing just that, mostly because it’s fun and challenging, you’d better bring your spell pen with you, especially elves, so you can show off your pwnage instead of getting shut down.

 

[Trashos]

panda Xamenos,

With the buffs you mentioned I get 90% to hit for the Touch AC. Maybe I missed something to get it to 95%, but I will run with 90%.
When combining with chance to overcome SR, in the case of Greater Spell Penetration this leads to 55% to miss against the Astradaemon, 30% to miss twice in a row, 17% to miss 3 times in a row, 9% to miss 4 times in a row, and 5% to miss 5 times in a row.

I will argue that the important number here is not your average increase in damage, especially since (but not only because) we are talking about a limited number of fights where SP will play a role. The important thing is how much you can depend on it after all that freaking investment of 2 feats. Can you really?

So unless your plan is:
- if I don't hit, then LOL reload, or
- I did all this investment, because I just need it to land once in several tries,

...then I claim that you still can't depend on it, and you need a backup plan. In any case, that's not a great result for such a heavy investment and a limited amount of times it can shine. You can do that, be my guests, but if I were playing a nuker mage I 'd much rather invest in (Gr) Spell Focus Evocation instead and screw the Astradaemon any other way I see fit (Jubilost, flask bombs from inventory, Physical Attacks). And I believe that this would be good general advice for the newbies too.

But, I hear you say, you cannot expect us to take every single variable into account. It's too much effort

Oh, I plan to get to the full picture, and it is going to involve
party members (why are we wasting a mage's feats to fight the Astradaemon, instead of preparing either Jubilost or a Physical Fighter to fight the Astradaemon?)
rods,
what we have gained and what we have lost,
everything.
I am just not there yet.

And this is the reason Desiderius's (and Pink Eye's) experimental approach, and the conclusions derived from it, is vastly superior to theorycrafting.

Absolutely not. Trying something to see if it can work shows almost nothing, it is merely an indication, and it may never work again in another 100 palythroughs. We are dealing with probabilities here.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Absolutely not. Trying something to see if it can work shows almost nothing, it is merely an indication, and it may never work again in another 100 palythroughs. We are dealing with probabilities here.

So how many runs do you propose so that your theoretical suggestions become more useful than Desiderius practical experience on Unfair?

 

[Trashos]

So how many runs do you propose so that your theoretical suggestions become more useful than Desiderius practical experience on Unfair?

1 to check if everything is working as expected.
If mistake found, repeat.

This is not merely my suggestion, btw, this is how these systems work.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Lol, no, you were just wrong and now you’re spewing out academic squid ink to cover your embarrassment, mostly from yourself.

I think you're underestimating him. "The career" of "saving academics from themselves" reminds me when Dr. James Watson, one of the scientists who discovered the structure of DNA, was muzzled because of his inconvenient thoughts about blacks. And the kerfuffle around the shirt of Dr. Matt Taylor who achieved the first ever landing of a space robot on the comet's nucleus. And other countless cases when professors in American universities suffer from SJW's.

Judging by his words and behaviour he is not that different from those nice black ladies and gentlemen who enjoy free shopping tours in your downtowns.

 

[Desiderius]

Lol, Trash, that was exactly my original analysis on Ithulliak that you blithely ignored. That is exactly the point. How much does SR reduce miss chance?

If you wanted an answer you should have asked some pro nukers. As it is you’re stuck with someone who actually does their due diligence in testing instead of sitting here masturbating with their heads in the clouds.

To do that you do your best to make an approach to the game work (steel manning) to produce a valid assessment of it, for purposes of say comparing it to another approach or evaluating what feats work best within it. If you do that you’ll find the caster feats which look so poor in fact end up being pretty good since they reduce miss chances so much for each marginal DC increase or Spell Pen increase.

You don’t pendantically and transparently pretend you don’t know how to play the game to justify to yourself playing some boring gish build that needs a couple feat slots for Advanced Sneak Attack or some shit.

 

[bec de corbin]

i barely remember the astradaemon fight so i can't imagine it was particularly hard for octavia to kill with spells.

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

Jub jub just chunked him in 1.5 turns or something. Right tool for the right job

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

Pretty sure my AT got fingered first turn, too, now that I think about it

 

[Desiderius]

Absolutely not. Trying something to see if it can work shows almost nothing, it is merely an indication, and it may never work again in another 100 palythroughs. We are dealing with probabilities here.

So how many runs do you propose so that your theoretical suggestions become more useful than Desiderius practical experience on Unfair?

GIGO

 

[bec de corbin]

writing my 200 page dissertation on the need for empiricism in pathfinder build design; using a supercomputer to calculate five million d20s per second

 

[Desiderius]

Jub jub just chunked him in 1.5 turns or something. Right tool for the right job

Jewb is in fact perfect for those foes. I little too perfect. So are Kins. Casters take more work.

Wrath does a good job with this (casters get more SP options, Arcanists and Witches get more balanced tools that bypass SR and/or Saves), although Fast Bombs still OP.

 

[Desiderius]

writing my 200 page dissertation on the need for empiricism in pathfinder build design; using a supercomputer to calculate five million d20s per second

Your burden of proof is backwards.

 

[Desiderius]

Jub jub just chunked him in 1.5 turns or something. Right tool for the right job

Well-played nuker can one shot.

 

[bec de corbin]

I think I actually tripped it because I thought trip was funny and used it whenever possible

I am sure this was not optimal character building but it was fun so who gives a fuck

 

[Desiderius]

i barely remember the astradaemon fight so i can't imagine it was particularly hard for octavia to kill with spells.

Only spell necessary for that fight is Death Ward. The hidden Devourers are more what you’re talking about.

 

[Xamenos]

panda Xamenos,

With the buffs you mentioned I get 90% to hit for the Touch AC. Maybe I missed something to get it to 95%, but I will run with 90%.

Oh, no. Please, don't. For the love of all that is holy, just use 95%. I left it as an exercise for the reader, but I yield. The answer is Reduce Person. Or Inspire Courage. Or a ton of other things that can get you over the threshold. Please listen to me, don't disregard buffs and items, and stop waiting for people to tell you which ones to use. Fire up the game, load up the save where your party is highest level, read up, and try using in battle whatever seems interesting. There is no meaning to any number you come up with otherwise.

30% to miss twice in a row, 17% to miss 3 times in a row, 9% to miss 4 times in a row, and 5% to miss 5 times in a row.

Why do you care about those numbers? Are you going to also calculate the chance of rolling min and max damage for every ray, or the chance to crit twice in a row and and the fight there and then?

The important thing is how much you can depend on it after all that freaking investment of 2 feats. Can you really?

Oh, for the name of. I have done you a disservice. Desiderius was right, I should have not assumed no extra damage. So, real quick 'n dirty: Rod of Lesser Maximize, Sense Vitals, Amulet of Four Elements, I'm almost certainly forgetting something. Scorching Ray's damage is now 28+10d6-10, or 53. Just 4 Rays leave him at 1HP. With Spell Penetration, that's 3 spells cast (5 without). There. Dependable enough for you? We can certainly do better if you want.

Oh, I plan to get to the full picture, and it is going to involve
party members (why are we wasting a mage's feats to fight the Astradaemon, instead of preparing either Jubilost or a Physical Fighter to fight the Astradaemon?)
rods,
what we have gained and what we have lost,
everything.
I am just not there yet.

Oh god, I am watching Don Quixote, ready to charge. There is nothing I can do to stop what's coming. Well, by all means, senor, tilt at your windmills.

We are dealing with probabilities here.

I'd better see some good Gaussians out of you mister, or I will be irate.

Xamenos I corrected myself simply enough. That's called poise. You're obviously unfamiliar. Gnash your teeth and spit bile unprovoked. It amounts to nothing other than displaying your failure of character. Even with all of your grandstanding, you're still too cowardly to make a value judgement on the usefulness of a feat, leaving your contributions to this thread insignificant. My career requires me to save academics from themselves routinely, so let me explain things in a way even an insolent coward can understand.

The rate of improvement is a distraction to the point of irrelevance. The difference in result is still only 20%. This is marginal given the alternatives to overcoming or bypassing SR, and the infrequency of enemies with substantial SR that pose a threat to the party. If the character is a full caster, or sole caster of the party, spell penetration feats are worth it by virtue of action economy and poor feat alternatives. Otherwise, the opportunity cost is excessive.

You have the reading comprehension of a preschooler and the wits to match. You should try reading the thread from the first page, my position on Spell Penetration's usefulness has been clear since the beginning. To everyone but you, apparently. Actually, you should try reading more in general, it is obvious you didn't get it done when you were in school and you are still not in the habit. If you'd only swallowed your pride, read and tried to understand what Trashos so patiently explained, you could have learned something new today. Instead you came swinging your small dick around and are now all offended that we are not impressed by your size. You have dug your heels in, and refuse to look beyond your nose, even with kind strangers (to be clear, I am not including myself) pointing you in the right direction. You are beyond hope.

Gnash your teeth and spit bile unprovoked.

insolent coward

rabid impudence

Heh. Even your choice of curses. Did you get them from a Saturday morning cartoon villain rant?

 

[Cleric of Asmodeus]

Jewb is in fact perfect for those foes. I little too perfect. So are Kins. Casters take more work.

Wrath does a good job with this (casters get more SP options, Arcanists and Witches get more balanced tools that bypass SR and/or Saves), although Fast Bombs still OP.

Yeah, I’ve been starting to feel like the lad is a little overcooked. He is an almost unconditionally potent boss killer. I screwed up something in kingdom management and had to do over VTomb and each time he burned down vordekai a little too quick on Hard.

Nevertheless, a large portion of the game’s encounters feature a mob of 5+ spread out targets and that’s where the fireballs, firestorms, chain lightings etc clear screens and the rays are just as potent as the bombs for single target in many circumstances, too. My AT and Eccles have a field day on something like Bald Hill, speed running those assholes. They are also useful in wiping out annoying shit like ghosts and mandragora ASAP.

 

[Trashos]

Lol, Trash, that was exactly my original analysis on Ithulliak that you blithely ignored. That is exactly the point. How much does SR reduce miss chance?

I have asked you twice to see your analysis, where the fuck is it? Where is this post I am repeatedly missing?

 

[Trashos]

Oh, no. Please, don't. For the love of all that is holy, just use 95%. I left it as an exercise for the reader, but I yield. The answer is Reduce Person. Or Inspire Courage. Or a ton of other things that can get you over the threshold. Please listen to me, don't disregard buffs and items, and stop waiting for people to tell you which ones to use.

Eh, no, that was your responsibility. Anyway, the results will slightly change.

Why do you care about those numbers?

Worst case scenario (not exactly, but the closest thing to it).

With Spell Penetration, that's 3 spells cast (5 without)

Averages do not matter in limited pools, worst case scenarios do.
But yes, you will eventually hit, if not by the 1st or 2nd triplette, then almost certainly by the 3rd. Was it worth it, Xamenos? Was it worth it?

Well, by all means, senor, tilt at your windmills.

And I repeat, was it worth it sacrificing 2 spell focuses or who knows what else for that?

 

[LannTheStupid]

was it worth it sacrificing 2 spell focuses or who knows what else for that?

So what "worth" is that?

Could you please list the set of pairs of feats that are more beneficial than 2 spell penetrations for the companion Octavia starting from level 12?

Because this is the only information relevant for me. If your piece of advice is for general audience (meaning: to whom?), then I don't care.

 

[panda]

Trashos, You seem to missinterpret my slightly mischiveous post as some sort of defense for early SP.
Mind you, i ended with

Whether this worth 2 feats or not is up to you to decide

E.g. when i played with this girl

Spoiler

View attachment 15818

i took SP pretty late, but for the sake of fairness...
...as Desiderius noticed early on in this thread, SP is a such a feature that every next point brings more benefits, so observing only those 2 feats alone is pointless.
And your questions

The important thing is how much you can depend on it after all that freaking investment of 2 feats. Can you really?
...
was it worth it sacrificing 2 spell focuses or who knows what else for that?

are also pointless. If character for some strange reason really really wants to kill with rays he'll be an elf with couple of allied spellcasters and won't depend on random ass rng at all.

And, no offense, but it seems you haven't played damage oriented caster as you approach the problem from the wrong end. Those feats are not about direct damage investments and should not be measured as such, they(with other tools) completely remove character's dependence on rng - they are bricks in your gradual safeguard against worst case scenario.
In the very end you don't need Greater Spell Focus Necromancy(or Illusion, or whatever) in addition Evo and/or Conj to kill trash mobs even harder, you need to eliminate slightest freaking chance that all your other feats, all your companions' offensive buffs, all your 500k gold gear, and your marvelous 250-600 dmg spells will be wasted even for a single round in a fight against strongest enemies, the only enemies against which it all truly counts and it all truly matters.

 

[Trashos]

LannTheStupid, you will be the judge for that. I have suggested that for a nuker I would take spell focus and greater spell focus evocation instead, to better deal with the mobs with evocation nukes.

And I do consider that for an attacking mage it will be much more beneficial to be able to deal with mobs instead of single targets, because generally the rest of the companions deal better with single targets. AoE is the natural field of the wizard. Or spell focuses for another school, depending on what spells you want to use.

But then again, I myself play builds that I wouldn't suggest to anyone else (Thassilonian Illusionist), so it is not like it is illegal to play a wizard as a single-target attacker or even to design a build to beat the Astradaemon.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Trashos I mentioned Octavia for a reason. She is not an abstract mage, she is one precisely defined companion. So "attacking mages" are irrelevant for me.

My question is: what should Octavia with the minimal set of feats (that you know quite well) should get after Level 12 instead of Spell Penetration.

You need to provide clear alternative of 2 spell penetration relevant feats, or your mumblings about "oportunity cost" are trash.

 

[panda]

On the other hand

was it worth it sacrificing 2 spell focuses or who knows what else for that?

So what "worth" is that?

Could you please list the set of pairs of feats that are more beneficial than 2 spell penetrations for the companion Octavia starting from level 12?

Because this is the only information relevant for me. If your piece of advice is for general audience (meaning: to whom?), then I don't care.

Empowered Spell
Quicken Spell

With Levi's robe and few rods she'll be able to cast 2x empowered maximised snowballs per round when it is needed.
If you got blessed with either amulet of 4 elements of Frozen Shout this translates to

2 x (49 + 10d6 + 10) or roughly 188 pure ice dmg per round (if i didn't mess up somewhere).

Which is apparently enough to kill our poor spherical astradaemon in 1.5 turns, just like our spherical Jubilost.