One of my close friends has challenged me to find out how he managed to deal 43,236 average damage with a spell in 5.5e. All I know right now is that it is rules as written, not 9th level, doesn't use wish at all, uses d6s for damage, and that there is 14,412 d6s (for the average he just uses half the damage die times the amount of die).
Well, the average of 14412d6 is actually significantly higher than that at 50,442. (Your friend may have forgotten that you can't roll a zero on a d6.)
One point I'd want to clarify is whether this number is the damage done to a single target, or the sum of the damage dealt to several targets at the same time. If it's the latter, Earthquake cast in a very crowded area near a very tall building could potentially do that much damage to everyone combined.
Another thing to consider is that the "Circle Magic" thing from Heroes of Faerun can be used to expand the area of effect of many damaging spells to pretty much any arbitrary size as long as you have enough people contributing, so something as simple as Fireball could deal damage over an immense area full of many creatures.
If you assumed a crowd of medium sized creatures, all massed around a 5'x5' pillar-like structure (1 creature per 5'x5' space), every creature within a distance of half the height of the tower would be hit for 12d6 bludgeoning damage each. In order for this to do the stated 14412d6, the pillar would have to be roughly 200' high (depending on how you measure distance using a grid) in order to hit the required 1201 creatures at once. 1201 creatures x 12d6 damage/creature = 14412d6 damage.
Alternatively, if you had an army of tiny creatures, and cast Sunburst right in the middle of them, you would likely be able to hit about the the same number of creatures (again, depending on how you measure your areas on a map), and the spell also does 12d6 per enemy, so that is an alternative answer that would be more likely to make happen than a crowd around a collapsing structure.
One of my close friends has challenged me to find out how he managed to deal 43,236 average damage with a spell in 5.5e. All I know right now is that it is rules as written, not 9th level, doesn't use wish at all, uses d6s for damage, and that there is 14,412 d6s (for the average he just uses half the damage die times the amount of die).
Help me out here please
Kind regards - A Silly Nerd
Well, the average of 14412d6 is actually significantly higher than that at 50,442. (Your friend may have forgotten that you can't roll a zero on a d6.)
One point I'd want to clarify is whether this number is the damage done to a single target, or the sum of the damage dealt to several targets at the same time. If it's the latter, Earthquake cast in a very crowded area near a very tall building could potentially do that much damage to everyone combined.
Another thing to consider is that the "Circle Magic" thing from Heroes of Faerun can be used to expand the area of effect of many damaging spells to pretty much any arbitrary size as long as you have enough people contributing, so something as simple as Fireball could deal damage over an immense area full of many creatures.
pronouns: he/she/they
Tsunami, same effect as Earthquake
Tsunami’s damage is in d10s, though.
pronouns: he/she/they
If you assumed a crowd of medium sized creatures, all massed around a 5'x5' pillar-like structure (1 creature per 5'x5' space), every creature within a distance of half the height of the tower would be hit for 12d6 bludgeoning damage each. In order for this to do the stated 14412d6, the pillar would have to be roughly 200' high (depending on how you measure distance using a grid) in order to hit the required 1201 creatures at once. 1201 creatures x 12d6 damage/creature = 14412d6 damage.
Alternatively, if you had an army of tiny creatures, and cast Sunburst right in the middle of them, you would likely be able to hit about the the same number of creatures (again, depending on how you measure your areas on a map), and the spell also does 12d6 per enemy, so that is an alternative answer that would be more likely to make happen than a crowd around a collapsing structure.