Skip to content

Agannazar's Scorcher

semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
I just did some random testing and found that Aganazzar's Scorcher has more damage potential than any other spell in the game.

No, seriously. Aganazzar's Scorcher, the level 2 spell.

The idea came to me when thinking about the Reflection Shield. I've had a confused clone attack my Charname with a dart while both were using the shield, and the darts bounced back and forth between them until the clone vanished. After confirming that the shield did not, actually, reflect Arrows of Detonation (which would have been awesome), I thought a bit about the other means of reflection in the game.

People may be familiar with the Cloak of Reflection trick, in which two Cloaks of Reflection (via a clone or importing a character), or the Cloak of Reflection and the original Cloak of Mirroring, could be used to bounce Lightning Bolts off against each other indefinitely. I found the trick was wonky and could be broken for a save game, unable to ever restart, and lost interest in it for a while.

The reason these were useful is because the projectile doesn't just damage the target; it has a slight area effect. Bouncing it multiplies the area of effect.

I thought about what else could be bounced, and what other projectiles had this sort of area of effect. I remembered the scorcher projectile, and thought it would be amazing if you could bounce it, but, alas, there is no spell or item that bounces that projectile.

But since it's a spell, it can be bounced via (Minor) Spell Turning. And because it's a level 2 spell, a spell turning effect can bounce it between two characters multiple times. Plus, it can be packed into a Minor Sequencer.

So, I did some tests. I tried using Aganazzar's Scorcher, which deals 3d6 (10.5) damage and hits twice, in a Minor Sequencer and against Minor Spell Turning and Spell Turning. I placed a fighter with high HP and 50% fire resistance in between two characters bouncing the scorcher projectile and took note of how much damage they took.

The most dramatic results came from casting a double Aganazzar's Scorcher Minor Sequencer from two mages against one another. Both had Protection from Fire and Spell Turning active. What happened to the fighter in the middle?

This fighter had 123 HP, and 50% fire resistance. The reaction began, and soon the fighter dropped down to 7 HP. I took note of the number and used CTRL-R to keep the fighter alive.

She then dropped down to 17, 30, and 22 HP. Finally, she died before the auto-pause could kick in, so I raised her with CTRL-R. She died twice more, instantly, without her fire resistance to help her.

I doubled the first four HP losses, plus the first death, since they occurred with 50% fire resistance, and counted the two other instant deaths as equal to only 123 HP, since the fighter had no fire resistance at the time. I put the numbers together. How much damage did this setup do?

It did more than 1,324 damage. It seems like Spell Turning bounces the spell more times than it's technically supposed to, and so the damage multiplies by some ridiculous number.

Testing found that using Minor Spell Turning had a similar but smaller effect. It could deal a couple hundred damage with two level 10 mages.

Unfortunately, it won't bypass magic resistances or spell level immunities, and fire resistance is the most common resistance in the game. But for anything not immune to the normal Aganazzar's Scorcher spell, it's a near-guaranteed kill for everything in between the two spellcasters.
Post edited by semiticgoddess on
GrumSmilingSwordwoowoovoodooJuliusBorisovDexterNoonSkatanYannirSethDavisMoradinEmpyrialAethernautgorgonzolaCrevsDaakMantis37CARV3RWise_Grimwald

Comments

  • Abi_DalzimAbi_Dalzim Member Posts: 1,428
    I always assume that tricks like this are too complicated to pull off for it to be worth my time. That said, Scorcher is a damn powerful spell in general, I think. Especially in BG:EE, where combining Wands of Fire with Boots of Speed allows you to walk over so much of the opposition it's not even funny.
    JuliusBorisovCrevsDaak
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,977
    That sounds like too much work honestly...
    JuliusBorisovCrevsDaak
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    edited August 2015
    Sorry for the necro, but I just found out. The scorcher trick works in IWD:EE. And not just with Agannazar's Scorcher and Lightning Bolt, but also Lance of Disruption. Even enemies immune to fire and electricity can be hit.

    Also, spells cast via a sequencer only count as a single spell when bouncing. That is, a triple scorcher sequencer only strikes as a level 2 spell, rather than 6 spell levels, and therefore bounces off a Minor Spell Turning spell twice instead of once.

    Minor Spell Turning on both spellcasters makes the spell bounce 5 times. Spell Turning makes it bounce 9 times, and MST won't increase the bounce count beyond 9, unless perhaps you can MST right before Spell Turning runs out (testing and calculations found that a scorcher spell in BG2 bounced extra times if both MST and Spell Turning were active. Against an enemy that saves 75% of the time, the damage would be 860. The max possible damage, if damage rolls were maximum--say, you charmed an enemy with the same alignment and cast both haste and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful to add luck penalties via fatigue--you could deal 1,350 damage.
    Post edited by semiticgoddess on
    DexterJuliusBorisovgorgonzolaCrevsDaak
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    Wow, that's crazy! That's more than the max total damage from the Incendiary Cloud of a level 30 mage in IWD:EE over 10 rounds (1200 fire damage). Although if the mage has Kossuth's Blood equipped, the cloud can deal up to 1440 damage, that's the max damage; it's not actually going to deal nearly that much damage.
    semiticgoddessJuliusBorisovCrevsDaak
Sign In or Register to comment.