Talk:Frost Breath (5e Spell)

Recent Changes

Howdy! My changes on the spell are mainly due to 2 reasons. First, the spell is needlessly wordy and have extra steps for damage calculation: "...or half of 2d6 cold damage on a successful one" instead of "...1d6 cold damage on a success one". Also, the damage should be halved o a failed save, instead of being half of half.

Second, the expression "Critical damage" doesn't mean anything. What does exist is a "Critical Hit", which adds damage on a certain roll, and should be applied just to attacks, not to saving throws. Maybe make this frost breath an attack instead? Anastacio (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2021 (MDT)

Well, half of 2d6 isn’t half of half in this situation. Failing deals double damage, succeeding deals half of normal damage. Regardless this could probably just be an attack. Makes more sense. Something like “on a hit, this deals 2d6 cold damage, and any hit is considered to be critical”. Could bump the damage because it’s single target, though. --SwankyPants (talk) 10:26, 9 April 2021 (MDT)

I see where you're both coming from. What Swanky said about the damage is correct, though; the idea is that on a failed save, the damage dealt is "doubled" akin to a critical hit. As for Swanky's own suggestion, however, the intent with how this is designed is to be built off of burning hands as a base. Also, the wordiness of it all is because the damage on a failed save is intended to essentially be a critical hit; I also know there can be homebrew material (and I think some Unearthed Arcana material) that can allow saving throw spells to critical hit, so I was meaning to cover some bases there by making it clear within the spell that since it's already a critical hit, it can't be turned into a further critical hit. - Alice-chan (talk) 12:28, 9 April 2021 (MDT)

If the damage is meant to be doubled "like a critical hit" then why not simply double the damage (or double the damage dice)?

The "critical damage" bit seems to make this more confusing without adding anything to the spell itself. Any features meant to specifically affect the damage of critical hits probably wouldn't work as intended on something which causes critical hits more often than not. (Not to mention it's even not a "hit" since this spell doesn't call for an attack roll.)

... Plus any spells which have attack rolls, like scorching ray, can already cause critical hits anyway. That's not homebrew, it's in the Player's Handbook.

Considering what Anastacio said a year ago, the Pokémon move this is based on can't affect multiple foes, so it doesn't need to be AoE to be true to the source material. - Guy 17:21, 7 May 2022 (MDT)