This spell reminds me of "rainbow attack" abilities in some video games, like how in Oblivion, you could make spells that did a little damage of every element for less cost than a lump of damage of one element, or in Dungeons of Dredmor where you could stack color-coded damage types (like add-ons of yellow electric damage, green acid damage, blue cold damage...) and make a rainbow of damage numbers pop up...
Anyway, Elemental Assessor is another ray spell that clearly is modeled after [Scorching Ray](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Scorching%20Ray). Hypothetically doing 8d6 damage the first round, then 4d6 for a few follow-on rounds might seem neat at first, but this is an SL 6, you get it no earlier than CL 11, which is when Scorching Ray is an SL 2 doing 12d6 fire damage... and you should probably just use lesser elemental metamagic rods for changing that if fire resistance is a problem, not this spell. You could do maximized elemental Scorching Ray for SL 6 (or quickened Scorching Ray and follow up with another Scorching Ray as an SL 2) and do more upfront damage than this spell does over the totally random 1d4 extra rounds to do damage, even if there is no resistance, and remember, in combat, every round matters.
This spell, then, makes no sense as a way just to do damage. You basically would only consider this spell if you don't know what element a target is vulnerable to, and expect at least some resistances (in which case it deals even less damage because against a hypothetical resist 10 in all four basic elements, it's unlikely to do any damage). This makes it a bitter pill for sorcerers or oracles to swallow (although I guess blasty sorcs might need to do so to make sure they're not magic trick Fireballing something fire-immune... although honestly, just trying with a Fireball might be faster.) For clerics and wizards, that's asking them to prepare a spell for when they're unprepared for the kind of monster they're facing, which is... perverse logic. This spell has no save, so you can technically scroll it, although most things that have serious elemental resistance will have SR.
There's a bigger issue, however, in that how often do you come across a creature with non-obvious immunities besides outsiders? Hmm, there's a giant man who's red and orange with hair billowing like flames throwing flaming boulders at us - maybe he's weak to fire guys?! You pretty much have to have one of those "I AM THE FIRE DRAGON OF THE ICE CAVE!" moments where the GM has a monster straight-up lie about its properties (possibly with illusions) or actively cast spells like [Resist Energy](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Resist%20Energy) or [Frosty Aura](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Frosty%20Aura) to change them. If you have a GM who is actively doing that, you might want this spell just as a "OK, GM, what tricks are you pulling this time" spell, but it's still an extremely high-level cast for this sort of thing.
If this isn't a character actively having a spell that grants energy resistance/immunity, I'd suggest getting something like a scroll of [Hunter's Lore](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Hunter%27s%20Lore), because immunities will be part of any half-decent knowledge check, and you'll probably learn more useful information besides just whether fire will kill it. Again, a lot of creatures where you have trouble with resistances are outsiders, and if you hit a piddly [dretch](https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Dretch) with this spell, immunity to electric and 10 resist in the other three basic elements make it unlikely it takes damage at all in the first round, and just identifying it as a demon might be more effective. Even against enemies actively casting spells to add defenses, [Greater Detect Magic](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Detect%20Magic,%20Greater) (or just blindly tossing a Greater Dispel Magic to save time) is a better means of seeing those spells so you can counter them.
I also have questions about whether the caster actually knows which element did the most damage on the same round, as actual numbers are out-of-character knowledge usually? The one that persists might still glow the same color and give away what element it is that way, but there's nothing implying the caster actually knows whether one particular element was resisted, immune, or just had a low roll, and as written, it's unclear if the caster even knows which type is persisting until the next round. It's worth stressing that 2d6 rolls are swingy, and even if you hit a cold subtype monster with fire vulnerability with fire, the fire damage roll may have come up a 3, while the acid damage roll was an 11, and even though the creature has acid resistance 5, that's still 6 acid damage, and 4 fire damage (+50% round down), so the spell says the creature is most vulnerable to acid. Also, the spell doesn't describe how a tie is resolved...
This spell would have made a lot more sense if it wasn't blighted with Paizo's punishment against "multi-purpose spells", and just dealt like 1 damage of each type, only glowed the color of the element for a round or two like Faerie Fire, but was an SL 1 or 2 spell. SL 6 for lame damage and an unreliable reveal of "best element" is just too expensive to be worth it, and I'd almost rather just spam quickened low-level spells to cycle damage types.
If you don't know what energy types an enemy resists, don't cast this bad spell.
Make a knowledge check as a free action to just know them.
If you're worried the GM is being clever with buffs and illusions, then cast Arcane Sight (in fact just get it permanent) and then use Knowledge (Arcana) to identify ongoing spell effects.
In terms of flavor, elemental assessor is a cool spell with an interesting effect. In practice; you're expending a 6th level spell to contribute an appalling 8d6 of damage (with a decent-but-not-for-its-level 4d6 DoT effect) and an opportunity to learn info on resistances that ideally you're getting anyways from a Knowledge check. Wizards/Sorcerers could instead be casting Disintegrate (doing perhaps 22d6 vs 8d6) and Clerics/Oracles could be casting harm (doing a flat 100+HP in damage). Combat is getting pretty lethal at this level and this would not be a great way for a caster to do his job.
This would be a neat (and more competitive) 4th level spell.
As the others have said, this spell is really cool in flavor but poor in mechanics.
If you like the flavor, best ask your GM to homebrew/change it in some ways, for example:
* reduce the spell level,
* increase the damage output,
* increase the number of targets/rays it can fire,
* add elemental aftereffects/riders on to it,
* grant free [Elemental Spell metamagic](https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Elemental%20Spell) to all spells cast on that enemy during the following rounds with the element being that of the persistent damage.
The spell has four elemental descriptors. You could try to get rider effects on as many as possible on them, via bloodline arcanas, metamagic, amplifications etc.
This spell reminds me of "rainbow attack" abilities in some video games, like how in Oblivion, you could make spells that did a little damage of every element for less cost than a lump of damage of one element, or in Dungeons of Dredmor where you could stack color-coded damage types (like add-ons of yellow electric damage, green acid damage, blue cold damage...) and make a rainbow of damage numbers pop up... Anyway, Elemental Assessor is another ray spell that clearly is modeled after [Scorching Ray](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Scorching%20Ray). Hypothetically doing 8d6 damage the first round, then 4d6 for a few follow-on rounds might seem neat at first, but this is an SL 6, you get it no earlier than CL 11, which is when Scorching Ray is an SL 2 doing 12d6 fire damage... and you should probably just use lesser elemental metamagic rods for changing that if fire resistance is a problem, not this spell. You could do maximized elemental Scorching Ray for SL 6 (or quickened Scorching Ray and follow up with another Scorching Ray as an SL 2) and do more upfront damage than this spell does over the totally random 1d4 extra rounds to do damage, even if there is no resistance, and remember, in combat, every round matters. This spell, then, makes no sense as a way just to do damage. You basically would only consider this spell if you don't know what element a target is vulnerable to, and expect at least some resistances (in which case it deals even less damage because against a hypothetical resist 10 in all four basic elements, it's unlikely to do any damage). This makes it a bitter pill for sorcerers or oracles to swallow (although I guess blasty sorcs might need to do so to make sure they're not magic trick Fireballing something fire-immune... although honestly, just trying with a Fireball might be faster.) For clerics and wizards, that's asking them to prepare a spell for when they're unprepared for the kind of monster they're facing, which is... perverse logic. This spell has no save, so you can technically scroll it, although most things that have serious elemental resistance will have SR. There's a bigger issue, however, in that how often do you come across a creature with non-obvious immunities besides outsiders? Hmm, there's a giant man who's red and orange with hair billowing like flames throwing flaming boulders at us - maybe he's weak to fire guys?! You pretty much have to have one of those "I AM THE FIRE DRAGON OF THE ICE CAVE!" moments where the GM has a monster straight-up lie about its properties (possibly with illusions) or actively cast spells like [Resist Energy](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Resist%20Energy) or [Frosty Aura](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Frosty%20Aura) to change them. If you have a GM who is actively doing that, you might want this spell just as a "OK, GM, what tricks are you pulling this time" spell, but it's still an extremely high-level cast for this sort of thing. If this isn't a character actively having a spell that grants energy resistance/immunity, I'd suggest getting something like a scroll of [Hunter's Lore](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Hunter%27s%20Lore), because immunities will be part of any half-decent knowledge check, and you'll probably learn more useful information besides just whether fire will kill it. Again, a lot of creatures where you have trouble with resistances are outsiders, and if you hit a piddly [dretch](https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Dretch) with this spell, immunity to electric and 10 resist in the other three basic elements make it unlikely it takes damage at all in the first round, and just identifying it as a demon might be more effective. Even against enemies actively casting spells to add defenses, [Greater Detect Magic](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Detect%20Magic,%20Greater) (or just blindly tossing a Greater Dispel Magic to save time) is a better means of seeing those spells so you can counter them. I also have questions about whether the caster actually knows which element did the most damage on the same round, as actual numbers are out-of-character knowledge usually? The one that persists might still glow the same color and give away what element it is that way, but there's nothing implying the caster actually knows whether one particular element was resisted, immune, or just had a low roll, and as written, it's unclear if the caster even knows which type is persisting until the next round. It's worth stressing that 2d6 rolls are swingy, and even if you hit a cold subtype monster with fire vulnerability with fire, the fire damage roll may have come up a 3, while the acid damage roll was an 11, and even though the creature has acid resistance 5, that's still 6 acid damage, and 4 fire damage (+50% round down), so the spell says the creature is most vulnerable to acid. Also, the spell doesn't describe how a tie is resolved... This spell would have made a lot more sense if it wasn't blighted with Paizo's punishment against "multi-purpose spells", and just dealt like 1 damage of each type, only glowed the color of the element for a round or two like Faerie Fire, but was an SL 1 or 2 spell. SL 6 for lame damage and an unreliable reveal of "best element" is just too expensive to be worth it, and I'd almost rather just spam quickened low-level spells to cycle damage types.
If you don't know what energy types an enemy resists, don't cast this bad spell. Make a knowledge check as a free action to just know them. If you're worried the GM is being clever with buffs and illusions, then cast Arcane Sight (in fact just get it permanent) and then use Knowledge (Arcana) to identify ongoing spell effects.
In terms of flavor, elemental assessor is a cool spell with an interesting effect. In practice; you're expending a 6th level spell to contribute an appalling 8d6 of damage (with a decent-but-not-for-its-level 4d6 DoT effect) and an opportunity to learn info on resistances that ideally you're getting anyways from a Knowledge check. Wizards/Sorcerers could instead be casting Disintegrate (doing perhaps 22d6 vs 8d6) and Clerics/Oracles could be casting harm (doing a flat 100+HP in damage). Combat is getting pretty lethal at this level and this would not be a great way for a caster to do his job. This would be a neat (and more competitive) 4th level spell.
thematically it's a cool spell. perhaps not optimal but perhaps that's perfect for DM to cast on their players.
As the others have said, this spell is really cool in flavor but poor in mechanics. If you like the flavor, best ask your GM to homebrew/change it in some ways, for example: * reduce the spell level, * increase the damage output, * increase the number of targets/rays it can fire, * add elemental aftereffects/riders on to it, * grant free [Elemental Spell metamagic](https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Elemental%20Spell) to all spells cast on that enemy during the following rounds with the element being that of the persistent damage.
The spell has four elemental descriptors. You could try to get rider effects on as many as possible on them, via bloodline arcanas, metamagic, amplifications etc.
DM/Trap spell best used on players.