I was curious about when and why you might use Storm of Vengeance. Yes, the AOE is Massive but as far as goes actual destructive power evenly spread throughout the area, it seems insignificant, especially for the level at which you receive it. It might wear down a sizeable area, but it wouldn’t destroy it. I’m not seeing any reason to take this spell as is. In fact, for a high level spellcaster, I’d say it needs a thorough rewrite.
Storm of Vengeance, to me... is more of a DM spell than a player spell. It's a great way to show that someone they're facing off against is a very powerful spellcaster, and it creates a dangerous environment that completely envelops any but the largest battle maps, but isn't so deadly that it just kills the players the instant they wander into the spell's area of effect.
For a player, it's really only useful if you're facing off against a literal army... it clears out mooks, has a few precision strikes to destroy major targets, and eventually just creates a ton of difficult terrain that slows them down. It's very rare to ever use it, but thankfully as a Druid spell it, theoretically, would be a spell that the player deliberately prepares only on a day when they know they're going to be facing off against an army. It's a terrible spell if it's ever the only 9th level spell you had access to, but as a Prepared Spell option it's at least possible to use it in a huge, showstopping moment without having to handicap yourself with a nigh-unuseable 9th level spell except for one really cool moment somewhere in the late game.
As transmorpher said, against an army. Or a subset of that, a castle or other fixed emplacement. It has the somewhat rare property of damaging both creatures and objects, so not only does it take out the mooks, it can potentially take out the wall they were hiding behind, or the boat they were on, etc. And with a range of sight, you can cast it from miles and miles away — the targets may not even be able to tell where you are.
Great spell for an evil druid. disturbed at how people destroy natural habitat in order to build cities they devout their life earning how to extract revenge, final they are able to harness immense qunties of the power of nature to return those places to their natural state and punish those who commit the sin of living their.
It's a bit niche, but the range of AoE on this spell is not to be underestimated either. You can slap the storm on anywhere you can see, and it has a 360 ft radius. Slap that over a dragon and even dashing it's in for 3 turns running from the center to the boundary. If the dragon doesn't have the meta knowledge to realize what it's in for, it'll be having an even harder time once the area becomes difficult terrain.
This is a narrative spell as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't be tracking HP or any of that, I'd just say the storm wrecked the town, scattered/weakened/disorganized the army, etc. As far as I'm concerned the mechanical details are there 1) just in case you want to use it in combat, and 2) to give you a frame of reference when you narrate the consequences when used out of combat.
Also significant is that druids are preparers. This is a spell they only prepare when they want to send a message. It's not like sorcerer or bard where they have to be stuck with it.
Not every spell needs to be on-par combat-wise with Meteor Storm. That would just make them boring and samey. I like the RP value of this spell and I'd rather have more like this than just another way to deal uber damagez.
I was curious about when and why you might use Storm of Vengeance. Yes, the AOE is Massive but as far as goes actual destructive power evenly spread throughout the area, it seems insignificant, especially for the level at which you receive it. It might wear down a sizeable area, but it wouldn’t destroy it. I’m not seeing any reason to take this spell as is. In fact, for a high level spellcaster, I’d say it needs a thorough rewrite.
Storm of Vengeance, to me... is more of a DM spell than a player spell. It's a great way to show that someone they're facing off against is a very powerful spellcaster, and it creates a dangerous environment that completely envelops any but the largest battle maps, but isn't so deadly that it just kills the players the instant they wander into the spell's area of effect.
For a player, it's really only useful if you're facing off against a literal army... it clears out mooks, has a few precision strikes to destroy major targets, and eventually just creates a ton of difficult terrain that slows them down. It's very rare to ever use it, but thankfully as a Druid spell it, theoretically, would be a spell that the player deliberately prepares only on a day when they know they're going to be facing off against an army. It's a terrible spell if it's ever the only 9th level spell you had access to, but as a Prepared Spell option it's at least possible to use it in a huge, showstopping moment without having to handicap yourself with a nigh-unuseable 9th level spell except for one really cool moment somewhere in the late game.
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As transmorpher said, against an army. Or a subset of that, a castle or other fixed emplacement. It has the somewhat rare property of damaging both creatures and objects, so not only does it take out the mooks, it can potentially take out the wall they were hiding behind, or the boat they were on, etc.
And with a range of sight, you can cast it from miles and miles away — the targets may not even be able to tell where you are.
Great spell for an evil druid. disturbed at how people destroy natural habitat in order to build cities they devout their life earning how to extract revenge, final they are able to harness immense qunties of the power of nature to return those places to their natural state and punish those who commit the sin of living their.
It's a bit niche, but the range of AoE on this spell is not to be underestimated either. You can slap the storm on anywhere you can see, and it has a 360 ft radius. Slap that over a dragon and even dashing it's in for 3 turns running from the center to the boundary. If the dragon doesn't have the meta knowledge to realize what it's in for, it'll be having an even harder time once the area becomes difficult terrain.
This is a narrative spell as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't be tracking HP or any of that, I'd just say the storm wrecked the town, scattered/weakened/disorganized the army, etc. As far as I'm concerned the mechanical details are there 1) just in case you want to use it in combat, and 2) to give you a frame of reference when you narrate the consequences when used out of combat.
Also significant is that druids are preparers. This is a spell they only prepare when they want to send a message. It's not like sorcerer or bard where they have to be stuck with it.
Not every spell needs to be on-par combat-wise with Meteor Storm. That would just make them boring and samey. I like the RP value of this spell and I'd rather have more like this than just another way to deal uber damagez.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm