Not a boss *killer* exactly, but slap it on them alongside slow and a trip and they'll have to think long and hard whether they'll just eat some pretty good damage or not act aggresively at all for the next turn or two. A critical fail is unlikely on a boss target, but 8d8 damage per spell level isn't something most creatures will want to just tank.
If this forced them to burn an action moving it would be amazing.
As is it's a pretty nice 1st level spell, but requires heightening to stay useful, and probably isn't worth heightening.
Enemies are almost always going to just accept the damage, which is at least above average, it's a lot better than any other spell if the succeed (2d8 vs half of 2d6) and still slightly better on a fail (2d8 vs 2d6), it's only crit fails (which are pretty much never worth considering when judging spells) that lose out to normal blasts, and that's only considering the first turn.
The issue with treating this as simply the best single target damage in the game, is that as soon as the damage becomes important (say because it'd be enough to kill something) they can just choose to move instead.
Not a boss *killer* exactly, but slap it on them alongside slow and a trip and they'll have to think long and hard whether they'll just eat some pretty good damage or not act aggresively at all for the next turn or two. A critical fail is unlikely on a boss target, but 8d8 damage per spell level isn't something most creatures will want to just tank.
Scaling is good. Duration is not great. Pretty good synergy with a grapple specialist in the party or some other means of immobilizing opponents.
If this forced them to burn an action moving it would be amazing. As is it's a pretty nice 1st level spell, but requires heightening to stay useful, and probably isn't worth heightening. Enemies are almost always going to just accept the damage, which is at least above average, it's a lot better than any other spell if the succeed (2d8 vs half of 2d6) and still slightly better on a fail (2d8 vs 2d6), it's only crit fails (which are pretty much never worth considering when judging spells) that lose out to normal blasts, and that's only considering the first turn. The issue with treating this as simply the best single target damage in the game, is that as soon as the damage becomes important (say because it'd be enough to kill something) they can just choose to move instead.