weapon focus ray
weapon focus ray
aside from Ray of Frost, what does this help with?
"War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left"
Use Point Blank Shot & Precise Shot instead
If you want to improve your chances of hitting with ray spells, I recommend having your wizard or sorcerer take Point Blank Shot, then Precise Shot. Here's a few reasons why:
1) Most ray spells tend to have short range, so the +1 attack bonus granted by Point Blank Shot is usually active on Ray spells. As a result, Weapon Focus (Ray) and Point Blank Shot are nearly identical as far as Ray spells are concerned.
2) Point Blank Shot helps all your ranged attacks including crossbow, bow or even a handy spell like Melf's Acid Arrow. In addition to the +1 attack bonus at short range, it grants +1 to damage on the missile weapons you fire.
3) A back-row wizard often winds up firing missiles/rays into combat. The Precise Shot feat overcomes the -4 shooting-into-combat penalty.
4) As with Point Blank Shot, Precise shot helps all your ranged attacks fired into combat (which tends to be most of them I find)
This info goes for both the Pen&Paper version of the game and ToEE. Instead of having your spellcaster try to be a ray-specialist, it's far better to try to become a ranged-specialist.
With a decent setup, your wizard or sorcerer (or bard) can be an effective archer and not need to use spells every combat. If they do run out of spells, they can fall back on their other ranged attacks and still be effective.
The only downside of opting for these 2 feats is just that - you wind up having to spend 2 feats. Wizards get extra bonus feats every 5 levels that they can use for their metamagic feats (craft, spell-enhancing, etc). But a sorcerer will only get the standard number of feats. If you decide to go for a ranged-specialist, you won't have a lot of feats left over for other things.
So far in my experience with ToEE, I've found that Point Blank/Precise route is worth it if you use a lot of ranged attacks. I have a bard with those two feats plus a high dex and he makes a great archer. On the other hand, my elf wizard is going for a lot of other feats (crafting, metamagic, etc) and didn't have enough of them to take PBS/PS. As a result, she misses with a lot of ranged attacks which is very frustrating. Melf's Acid Arrow is probably one of the better 2nd level attack spells, but it's nearly worthless for her with how often she misses. If I were to start over, I'd probably go with a Human Wizard for the extra 1st level feat and take PBS/PS right away at level 1.
If you want to improve your chances of hitting with ray spells, I recommend having your wizard or sorcerer take Point Blank Shot, then Precise Shot. Here's a few reasons why:
1) Most ray spells tend to have short range, so the +1 attack bonus granted by Point Blank Shot is usually active on Ray spells. As a result, Weapon Focus (Ray) and Point Blank Shot are nearly identical as far as Ray spells are concerned.
2) Point Blank Shot helps all your ranged attacks including crossbow, bow or even a handy spell like Melf's Acid Arrow. In addition to the +1 attack bonus at short range, it grants +1 to damage on the missile weapons you fire.
3) A back-row wizard often winds up firing missiles/rays into combat. The Precise Shot feat overcomes the -4 shooting-into-combat penalty.
4) As with Point Blank Shot, Precise shot helps all your ranged attacks fired into combat (which tends to be most of them I find)
This info goes for both the Pen&Paper version of the game and ToEE. Instead of having your spellcaster try to be a ray-specialist, it's far better to try to become a ranged-specialist.
With a decent setup, your wizard or sorcerer (or bard) can be an effective archer and not need to use spells every combat. If they do run out of spells, they can fall back on their other ranged attacks and still be effective.
The only downside of opting for these 2 feats is just that - you wind up having to spend 2 feats. Wizards get extra bonus feats every 5 levels that they can use for their metamagic feats (craft, spell-enhancing, etc). But a sorcerer will only get the standard number of feats. If you decide to go for a ranged-specialist, you won't have a lot of feats left over for other things.
So far in my experience with ToEE, I've found that Point Blank/Precise route is worth it if you use a lot of ranged attacks. I have a bard with those two feats plus a high dex and he makes a great archer. On the other hand, my elf wizard is going for a lot of other feats (crafting, metamagic, etc) and didn't have enough of them to take PBS/PS. As a result, she misses with a lot of ranged attacks which is very frustrating. Melf's Acid Arrow is probably one of the better 2nd level attack spells, but it's nearly worthless for her with how often she misses. If I were to start over, I'd probably go with a Human Wizard for the extra 1st level feat and take PBS/PS right away at level 1.