How is Touch of Death so bad?

[Jayd]

Both Death Ring (Wizard PL6) and Boil Their Flesh (Chanter PL7) can destroy a bunch of near death enemies at once from across the map. Touch of Death (Druid PL9!) can destroy one near death (i.e. mostly dead anyway) enemy in melee range only? How did this garbage spell get put next to Great Maelstrom? Surely I'm missing something.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Jayd

[hilfazer]

Obsidian loves Wizards and Druids are closest competition.

 

Also, not all abilities need to be equally strong. If a class has some 5/5 abilities it's fine if it has some 1/5 too.

[AndreaColombo]

Druid’s 1/5 PL9 spell is Aspect of Galawain already; don’t need a second one

[Manveru123]

Because touching without consent is bad.

[Boeroer]

I can't remember: does it roll against a defense?

 

If not it would be a perfect boss finisher.

[MaxQuest]

^ Iirc it rolls vs will. Which is some kind of diversity compared to fortitude check (of Death Ring and Detonate). Also we can inflict a greater will malus than a fortitude one. But iirc Thelee was saying that it's the Marux Amanth sacrifice (from last unlock) is the one not rolling vs defense.

 

Tbh I find this spell quite situational.

Would expect something: "You cast a touch spell on an enemy. If it's near death and fails a will check it is downright destroyed. It takes great damage otherwise.". In order to make it useful outside of boss fights; and more reliable overall. That's why I liked Vampiric Feast in NWN2 so much.

Edited April 23, 2019 by MaxQuest

[thelee]

I believe it's intentionally weak, because it's not really the druid's core focus (more like a college minor instead of a major). Note: druids also get the latest resurrection/revive effects in the game (priests, chanters, and paladins all get them way earlier and arguably better). It's class differentiation for classes to be better at some things and worse at other things compared to others (this is why I don't tend to like direct cross-class comparisons, because they tend to miss the context of what they are suppossed to be good/bad at).

 

Personally I find the chanter insteadeath to be the worst, because to really get much out of hte chanter you should be spending phrases as you can, and just sitting around with a bunch of phrases until an enemy falls into near death--even if the effect can be powerful--really weakens the chanter to pull this off.

 

Like MaxQuest says, there is virtue that Touch of Death targets will. In practice, I find will much easier to debuff than fort, and tough enemies tend to have more fort than will (because tough enemies seem not to want to be mage-types). It doesn't make it's amazing, but it's another differentiation.

 

edit - Marux Amanth rolls against deflection, but not anything else. But it's a full attack, and you can equip any other weapon in your other slot (*cough* rapier with +20) and if either weapon hits, it instakills near death enemy/boss. So not only can you game the attack roll a bit, you also get two attempts at it. In practice this means I ever rarely miss with Marux Amanth and I always carry it around. (In all my runs where someone has a dual-wielded Marux Amanth I believe I've whiffed only once. My current run I have a paladin with it and a shield, and they've whiffed a couple times.)

Edited April 23, 2019 by thelee

[Jayd]

I can't remember: does it roll against a defense?

 

If not it would be a perfect boss finisher.

If it didn't have a check it would be fine and a pretty cool idea for a tier-9 spell. But as others have said, it rolls against Will (uniquely for death spells).

 

@thelee I'm with you in principle about not comparing across classes, but you can just stay in the Druid tree if you like and look at the other PL9 spells. It would be acceptable as a very weak death spell if it appeared at a lower power level. To put such a weak spell at the peak of the Druid tree is just bad design. It's like giving a Wizard Nature's Vigor at PL9 and saying "well, party buffs aren't really Wizard's forte". That doesn't matter - the spell is out of place there.