Quote:
Originally Posted by Merrick
Spell #1 uses 8 energy for damage (external and blatant) does 9d. If you add in 8 more energy for AoE, you can do 9d to everyone in a 10 yard radius.
Spell #2 uses 8 energy for explosive damage (external and blatant) does only 6d which tapers off to nothing after 3 yards.
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This is accurate. Note that Spell #1 has twice as much energy invested in "killing people" as Spell #2; to compare like to like, you need to invest 16 points into damage for Spell #2, upping it to 10d.
As for contact explosions, I think I may have been a bit off there - maximum damage may be more appropriate for
contained explosions* than simply in cases where you directly hit the target. This implies AoE is a much more efficient method of dealing damage to an area than Explosive, making Explosive a rather poor modifier (unless you're able to make it go off inside the target somehow). The only real advantage it has is that you can create the missile, then throw it at the most important target (benefiting from high Innate Attack skill) to do a bit more damage to him/her at the cost of doing far less damage to any nearby foe.
*IIRC, HT has a properly contained explosion (that is, one that reaches the walls of a container and fails to breach them) doing double damage, which is a bit different from the maximum of contact explosives (and I think is actually due to overpressure, rather than the explosion somehow truly being stronger). Smothering a grenade probably doesn't really do any more damage than if you simply had it glued to your chest - even if you somehow formed a perfect seal with your body, that seal's going to be broken about as soon as the grenade goes off. So, it could probably go either way - note Explosive is a
much better option if it's "60 damage against target, minor damage (3d at 1 yard away, 1d+2 at 2 yards away, 1d at 1 yard, etc) to surroundings," competing with area of effect's "9d damage (average 31.5) against everything within 10 yards."