After a few weeks of canceled games, we finally got to play my Wildemount game two days ago. (We were still missing one player, but with the other four we felt we could continue.) After we had teleported into what was apparently some kind of weird illegal trap set by a greedy man, we engaged in combat with him and our Fighter/Rogue was subjected to Befuddlement. While the only character in the party who didn't have spell slots, the spell still does prevent him from using the Magic action, which included preventing him from using certain magic items and some of his High Elf innate spells.
Without a Cleric or Druid in the party, even at level 11 we don't have someone with Greater Restoration (we determined that Dispel Magic wouldn't work because Befuddlement's actual spell is instantaneous) so we went to the Temple of the Knowing Mentor (we're in Vasselheim currently) and sought out help from the local priest, but the fee for a 5th level spell (with component) was too pricey (I'm hoping we'll have a well-paying adventure soon, because Wizard Needs Gold Badly - I truly don't think we've gotten any significant amount of loot in, like, a couple levels).
Anyway, the priest came up with a side quest for us - a dinosaur that was menacing a nearby village (we wanted to go out of the city given that a bunch of us are arcane casters, and Vasselheim doesn't allow such magic) that the Slayer's Take had been unable to deal with.
So, we went out to a farm, where we saw signs of the beast, only for it to show up and attack us. The thing was a Regisaur (from Bigby's Glory of the Giants) - by far the largest creature we'd encountered in the campaign so far (I think it was like 40x40 on the map, one of those "gargantuan is 20x20 and up" monsters).
We got some good attacks in, though our Paladin/Warlock got swallowed.
And then I annihilated it with a combination of Conjure Minor Elementals and Scorching Ray.
I used my Scribes Wizard ability, Manifest Mind, to send the ancient Age of Arcanum Wizard spirit living in the book I carry around over to the Regisaur, then cast Conjure Minor Elementals as if I were in its space, upcasting to 6th level. Then, from way back and safe, I cast a 5th level Scorching Ray, doing 6 beams, but could still hit the target while it was inside the spell's emanation.
Only half of them actually hit, because I rolled pretty poorly, except one of them crit, so it was as if I had hit with 4. The damage rolls went better, and I think I wound up doing something like 125 damage (quite good, as each beam, doing 4d8+2d6, should have been doing an average of 25, so with two hits and a crit that should have been about 100) and killed the dinosaur before it could get a second turn and before the swallowed party member took any acid damage from being in its guts (which... I think you could argue that a dead creature's stomach juices don't immediately neutralize on death, but given the damage I dealt, it was also reasonable to say that I had made a giant hole in this thing's abdomen).
Here's the thing:
I love doing good damage as a D&D player. I love having that feeling of system mastery, especially if I can do it without compromising on the vision for the character that I've got. This wasn't some insane multiclass build that would stretch the narrative. This is a Wizard doing pure Wizard stuff. And I'd even argue that using clever spell combinations like this is in-keeping with a Wizard's modus operandi.
The danger, I think, is that you can fall into patterns. I'm not sure that there is a better single-target damage strategy that even exists in D&D that outdoes this spell combination. And it just keeps getting better the higher the spell slots you use. If you were to do a 9th level CME and an 8th level Scorching Ray, you're talking about 9 beams that each deal 2d6+7d8 damage, so 38.5 apiece, meaning that that's potentially 346.5 damage, which will kill all but the very toughest high-CR legendary monsters.
There are a lot of things that can be useful in combat. But few things are as directly linked to victory as blowing away your foes as quickly as possible.
My best friend, our DM, seemed to be in shock, and lamented that his big scary monster only got a single turn. And like, I've DM'd longer than I've ever been a player. This is a feeling I totally get.
It also means that he's likely to feel we need tougher encounters, but that will put added pressure on me to continue doing this maximal damage output strategy.
And part of the real joy of playing a Wizard is that you have so many different things you can do.
So: the solution?
I'm resolved to only bust out this spell combination occasionally. The DM had perhaps oversold how deadly and dangerous this particular foe was (though it had hit the Paladin for 40 damage with one attack, so maybe not?) But I'm eager to approach each fight differently.
Certainly a fight with widespread enemies, and lots of enemies, will see me adjust what I do. We've actually had a Wand of Fireballs lying around in party loot for a long time that I finally claimed, and I think we'll start using that once we have some multi-target fights.
But I also want to play around with more spells. I love Summon Undead (actually, as you can probably tell from this blog, I'm kind of itching to play a Necromancer now that the subclass is updated) and all these other things I can get my hands on.
The way I see it, this is maybe something to reserve for climactic moments. Or... maybe reserve for side quests where getting it over and done as quickly as possible isn't going to negatively impact any of the other players' desire for high stakes and drama.
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