How to deal with elephants

[Endoperez]

anticipatient said:
how about mind burn?

<edit> oops, i think this has been covered.

a higher level astral mage may be able to kill an elephant a turn with it, though. armor negating, 12+ damage. I don't know how the "+" is handled.

+ indicates that the spell's damage, area of effect, number of effects or similar scales.

The amount of scaling is already included in the initial value. Most spells with a plus have a bonus of 2-4 per level. I think Mind Burn is S2 spell listed as 12 points of damage. It could be e.g. [8 + 2*level] or [10 + level] points of damage, so S8 caster would deal 18 to 24 points of average. At most it could be 6*level damage, but I don't think any spell scales that well.

Scaling area of effect is much more useful, most times, as is penetration bonus from extra levels of magic (+1 penetration per two levels above minimum, manual explains it very well). Water 9 pretender and Falling Frost (both damage and AoE scale) is very powerful.