Bolster spell feat is brokenly OP / unfair, right?

[Hathur]

Maximized + Empowered magic missile at level 9 does 35 damage total to a target. Bolstered magic missile at level 9 does around 100+ damage to a target... this can't possibly be how it's supposed to work. It makes magic missile one of the deadliest spells in the game.

[Frostfeather]

Bolster was just recently fixed (it was doing 2x caster level per die, or missile in this case).

So it shouldn't be doing that for you anymore if you have the latest version of the game. It doesn't for me.

[Hathur]

Originally posted by night4:

Bolster was just recently fixed (it was doing 2x caster level per die, or missile in this case).

So it shouldn't be doing that for you anymore if you have the latest version of the game. It doesn't for me.

Just checked it, you are correct it is indeed fixed. I needed to patch (playing gog version and need to manually check for patches since I don't like leaving its launcher app running)

[T.W. Hamill]

It wasnt doing 2x caster level, it was just applying the full bonus (5 dice, so +10) to EACH missile instead of spread over the entire spell. This got fixed. Still worth using if youre a Trickster (Totally Normal Spell lets you use Bolster for no cost) and have the +2/die Force Damage dagger. If you then get Empowered on top of that (which you can reduce to being only +1 with Favored Metamagic, and if you Favored Bolstered as well, it actually works out as Bolstered + Empowered + Totally Normal = no actual level gain) itll still do 50-60 damage per cast in a level 1 or 2 slot. And that feat stack also lets you do that (Empower + Bolster + Totally Normal) any spell for “free”, so its worth it anyway. Even without Totally Normal, if you Favored Meta both, its only a +1.

[Morgian]

It was a glorious few days, while MM did close to 200 damage per shot (...and still did not kill the target...), but now you are relegated to 1d4+6 per missile (gloves, dagger, bolster), unless you boost it with empower and maximize further along (would be a 7th level spell).

[T.W. Hamill]

Originally posted by Morgian:

It was a glorious few days, while MM did close to 200 damage per shot (...and still did not kill the target...), but now you are relegated to 1d4+6 per missile (gloves, dagger, bolster), unless you boost it with empower and maximize further along (would be a 7th level spell).

If you can get two of the dagger, they stack. Im not sure if there is a second one though. And i wouldnt waste Maximise just to kax the D4 rolls.

However, if you took Favored Metamagic for all three (Thanks, Loremaster!), youre actually looking at:

Bolster +0
Empowered +1
Maximized +2
(Potentially) Totally Normal Spell -1

So its be 3rd level for a topped out MM that does 13 damage per missile, or 16 if you could get a second dagger. No save or soak, thats not bad for a 3rd level spell slot. This also works great with Bolstering Blast. 5th level slot for each projectile doing 75. Or 90 with a second dagger.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by T.W. Hamill:

It wasnt doing 2x caster level

From the patch notes: "Bolstered Metamagic added 2 damage per Caster Level, instead of 2 damage per damage die - fixed;"

It did scale with caster level, I can confirm that.

[T.W. Hamill]

Originally posted by night4:

Originally posted by T.W. Hamill:

It wasnt doing 2x caster level

From the patch notes: "Bolstered Metamagic added 2 damage per Caster Level, instead of 2 damage per damage die - fixed;"

It did scale with caster level, I can confirm that.

Even if that were true (i also tested it extensively at every level through 20, and it was not doing that), that wouldnt have made a massive difference to most spells, which have more than 5 dice. What made it busted was it was apllying the full bonus for the entire spell to every missile or ray. So MM wasnt just getting 10 (or whatever) damage.. it was getting 10+ Per missile. Rays were worse.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by T.W. Hamill:

Even if that were true (i also tested it extensively at every level through 20, and it was not doing that), that wouldnt have made a massive difference to most spells, which have more than 5 dice. What made it busted was it was apllying the full bonus for the entire spell to every missile or ray. So MM wasnt just getting 10 (or whatever) damage.. it was getting 10+ Per missile. Rays were worse.

I tested it extensively and it was doing that. And I already mentioned the per missile thing in my original post.