Spare the Dying is pretty useless. Unless diseases or a coma count as being at 0 hit points, there wouldn't be much chance to use it
I think the late stages of a disease, particularly with unconsciousness and coma count as 0 hp. But this would also dramatically change emergency response. Nobody who's still alive when an ambulance gets on the scene would die, unless the cause of death was massive damage (as opposed to blood loss).
Witch Bolt is total crap in game and IRL. It's even worse than a lot of attack spells here because of the distance limitation and it's super obvious that you're the one casting a spell no matter the environment. It really should have been named, "__itch, no!" As in how drunk were you when you decided to learn this spell in the first place?
You seem to be confusing 'less useful than other spells (or even less useful than everything else) with 'totally useless.' Land that on someone in a relatively small room or similar enclosed space where they cannot so easily run away and you are doing 1d12 per round for a minute. Less on average on the first round than Magic Missile but if you manage a second round it does more. For forensic purposes, that is electrical damage that is harder to explain than blunt force (magic missile). Shocking grasp is electrical only 1d8 (and only once, not over multiple rounds) and range touch... which is not only worse for range, but also potentially leaves a fingerprint.
Edit: If you land the entire spell, you will have done 10d12. With a level ONE spell! Useless?
In game terms, there's baically no situation where it's practical to maintain Witch Bolt for its full duration.
In the real world, if you wanted to be a spell-slinging assassin it would be better to choose something like psychic damage, that will leave no forensic evidence at all.
If the assassin could choose any spell they wished yes. Old school D&D, spells known were randomly determined. IRL, a Sorcerer would not be choosing their birthrights and a Warlock would not be dictating to their patron as to what to teach them.
IRL, sorcerers and warlocks aren't real, so that's not much of an argument.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
No, I'm taking the position that simply being a contrarian who wants to say things like "a sorcerer can't choose their spells they just have to take what they're given" is not actually contributing to the thought exercise.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
We also don't know what 1d12 lightning damage translates into as far as voltage and amps goes. The irregularity, as represented by the highly variable damage, is probably not going to play well with most electronics.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Except that Witch Bolt clearly states that the target needs to be a creature. A car or cell phone or toaster oven does not count as a creature.
Theoretically one could get around that by claiming that bacteria or other microscopic lifeforms count as creatures. Witch Bolt doesn't specify that you need to see the target only that they be in range. Thus if a microscopic lifeform counts as a creature then you could theoretically make the necessary ranged spell attack with disadvantage. I have no idea what the AC of bacteria would be. If you were aiming at a specific one It'd probably be ungodly high. If you didn't care which bacterium in particular was struck (particularly since the energies involved would likely kill them all) then it might be considered extremely low.
But even then Witch Bolt would be a pretty lousy way to power a toaster. I'm not certain on any of this (obviously) but I doubt Witchbolt counts as steady AC at 120 volts or (insert your country's home outlet electrical standard voltage here). An electrical arc of up to 30 feet requires a much, much higher voltage. Like we're getting into the minor lightning bolt range of voltages here
The breakdown voltage (bdv) of dry air is 3kV/mm. That's 3000 volts per milimeter. So the necessary voltage for a range of 30 feet is 27432 kV. Over 27 million volts. BDV of AC current is a little bit lower 2kV/mm, so merely 18288 kV.
Sure you could argue that magic somewhat reduces the need for such high voltages but seeing as the intended point of the witch bolt spell is to kill things with lightning I sincerely doubt it'd be gentle enough to not destroy said toaster in the process.
We also don't know what 1d12 lightning damage translates into as far as voltage and amps goes. The irregularity, as represented by the highly variable damage, is probably not going to play well with most electronics.
Oh god, I think I need to investigate this. A commoner has 4 hp on average, let's double that to 8 to capture the most healthy commoner. Because humanity is awful, we know pretty well how much of a shock a person can take before dying. An electrical current of about .2 amperes is enough to cause death in most people, via cardiac arrest.
The question is what sort of voltage induces that sort of current in the average human. Voltage and current are related by V = IR, or Ohm's law where I is current and R is resistance, so we need to account for the resistance a body presents. Supposing the average lightning effect in game targets somewhere around the middle of your body, and that your skin is usually dry, human skin can provide anywhere around 50,000 and 100,000 ohms of resistance. So supposing 1/5 amps is enough to cause 8 hp of damage, then a contact spell dealing 1 hp of damage will require a potential difference of anywhere between 1/40*50,000 = 1,250 or 1/40*100,000 = 2,500 volts.
There is variation, of course. If the skin is wet, resistance can drop to about 1,000 ohms, dramatically increasing the current induced by the same spell. Further, a ranged spell is going to contend with ambient atmospheric resistance. Also, this is assuming that the spell induces a current lasting 1 second. A longer duration causes the total current to increase proportionally.
Notes: I'm not an electrical engineer, and I am a native-born American, so my algebra should be treated as dubious at best.
By the standard things that must exist for a spell to exist, does wish even work?
The question stated that planes a demons exist if a spell needs them, but other spells wouldn't. Wish would be sort of useless, because there isn't another spell that could be cast with it, and you have a chance to loose it the moment you cast it for anything else useful, and have it not work
1) Using animals as targets, develop an insinuative suit.
2) Hedge bets further by using a highly conductive layer over said suit.
3) Develop a cable, transformer and battery system capable of handling the current.
Profit. Could even fire it at a cow or other larger animal wearing such a conductive 'collector' if an insulator cannot be developed
Humans are tool using. Technology and magic coexisting would be adapted to work with each other.
3) If we're going that far just plug your things into an electrical grid. It's simpler, the infrastructure is already there, it's already well regulated, and it's much more reliable then attempting to power appliances via magical lightning strikes.
Yes. It's theoretically possible (in a world in which witch bolt exists) to put together. That doesn't mean it's practical or worth the effort to do so.
1) Using animals as targets, develop an insinuative suit.
2) Hedge bets further by using a highly conductive layer over said suit.
3) Develop a cable, transformer and battery system capable of handling the current.
Profit. Could even fire it at a cow or other larger animal wearing such a conductive 'collector' if an insulator cannot be developed
Humans are tool using. Technology and magic coexisting would be adapted to work with each other.
3) If we're going that far just plug your things into an electrical grid. It's simpler, the infrastructure is already there, it's already well regulated, and it's much more reliable then attempting to power appliances via magical lightning strikes.
Yes. It's theoretically possible (in a world in which witch bolt exists) to put together. That doesn't mean it's practical or worth the effort to do so.
This is on demand. Lightning isn't. It uses no material resources other than those to build the harness, etc (and that is reusable).
No material resources? You're targeting animals in the process of casting the spell! Whatever harness you use might. MIGHT reduce the damage to said animal but if the harness reduces the damage the harness itself will take some damage itself. Because it will be subjected to repeated lightning strikes, several times a day, that harness is going to be subjected to a lot of damage over time.
You seem to be assuming that the animal in question gets hit each time and then somehow has lightning damage immunity. I'm thinking it has resistance at best and then you'll need to keep cycling through animals as each one dies in the process as every 6 seconds it takes 1d12 damage.
Coal and oil have obvious environmental problems, and people are still suspicious of nuclear power. And you're expecting people to be okay with a power source that literally sacrifices goats?
1) Using animals as targets, develop an insinuative suit.
2) Hedge bets further by using a highly conductive layer over said suit.
3) Develop a cable, transformer and battery system capable of handling the current.
Profit. Could even fire it at a cow or other larger animal wearing such a conductive 'collector' if an insulator cannot be developed
Humans are tool using. Technology and magic coexisting would be adapted to work with each other.
3) If we're going that far just plug your things into an electrical grid. It's simpler, the infrastructure is already there, it's already well regulated, and it's much more reliable then attempting to power appliances via magical lightning strikes.
Yes. It's theoretically possible (in a world in which witch bolt exists) to put together. That doesn't mean it's practical or worth the effort to do so.
This is on demand. Lightning isn't. It uses no material resources other than those to build the harness, etc (and that is reusable).
No material resources? You're targeting animals in the process of casting the spell! Whatever harness you use might. MIGHT reduce the damage to said animal but if the harness reduces the damage the harness itself will take some damage itself. Because it will be subjected to repeated lightning strikes, several times a day, that harness is going to be subjected to a lot of damage over time.
You seem to be assuming that the animal in question gets hit each time and then somehow has lightning damage immunity. I'm thinking it has resistance at best and then you'll need to keep cycling through animals as each one dies in the process as every 6 seconds it takes 1d12 damage.
Coal and oil have obvious environmental problems, and people are still suspicious of nuclear power. And you're expecting people to be okay with a power source that literally sacrifices goats?
If you really wanted to generate electricity using a D&D spell, the best option would probably be a Planar Binding upcast to 9th level and used to summon an air elemental, then have it push a dynamo. Or use Animate Dead and skeletons running on treadmills for the same effect.
Interesting. So this discussion has turn to asking which spell would provide the best form of renewable energy? Dawn is natural sunlight. Control weather could help create the conditions for tidal power, lightning strikes, wind power, etc. Even just using control water over and over can help spin turbines, but I don't you'd get much out of it. I think sickening radiance was designed to be an analogue of radioactivity, but not as controlled as you'd like. I think a decanter of endless water would be good for this. Set it on geyser forever, and place a turbine between the bottle and a one-way portal to the elemental plane of water, the latter part to ensure the planet doesn't end up flooded.
For that matter two teleportation circle spells stacked vertically (okay, maybe on sloped ground due to that requirement) and made permanent could provide 100% free energy. Run water between the portals, flowing downhill down a chute, with a turbine in between. Upon reaching the lower portal, the water shoots back out the top ad infinitum. The amount of energy generated per cycle depends only on the slope and friction of the chute. If you're really concerned that the spell only works on creatures, fill the space with bound water elementals or use arcane gate instead.
I think we should make a sub-thread about which spell would be the most useful.
Simplest in my mind is solar panels + continual flame. During the day full natural sunlight based solar, during the night light from the continual flame keeps a no cost trickle charge going. Small, simple, can be deployed basically anywhere in the world and doesn't require a spellcaster to keep going.
No material resources? You're targeting animals in the process of casting the spell! Whatever harness you use might. MIGHT reduce the damage to said animal but if the harness reduces the damage the harness itself will take some damage itself. Because it will be subjected to repeated lightning strikes, several times a day, that harness is going to be subjected to a lot of damage over time.
You seem to be assuming that the animal in question gets hit each time and then somehow has lightning damage immunity. I'm thinking it has resistance at best and then you'll need to keep cycling through animals as each one dies in the process as every 6 seconds it takes 1d12 damage.
Coal and oil have obvious environmental problems, and people are still suspicious of nuclear power. And you're expecting people to be okay with a power source that literally sacrifices goats?
Simplest in my mind is solar panels + continual flame. During the day full natural sunlight based solar, during the night light from the continual flame keeps a no cost trickle charge going. Small, simple, can be deployed basically anywhere in the world and doesn't require a spellcaster to keep going.
That is flame though... you would use it for conventional heat exchange energy. You would want something that does radiant damage for solar power.
A continual flame creates no heat. About all it's good for is light.
Another idea. Each casting of guards and wards can create a corridor with a gust of wind effect. Since guards and wards can be made permanent, you get a permanent source of wind energy.
Simplest in my mind is solar panels + continual flame. During the day full natural sunlight based solar, during the night light from the continual flame keeps a no cost trickle charge going. Small, simple, can be deployed basically anywhere in the world and doesn't require a spellcaster to keep going.
That is flame though... you would use it for conventional heat exchange energy. You would want something that does radiant damage for solar power.
Why is damage necessary? Is there some implied rule now that damage is the only measure of power we can accept in energy creation?
It would help if we weren't creating implied rules in this discussion.
And continual flame doesn't produce heat.
A flame, equivalent in brightness to a torch, springs forth from an object that you touch. The effect looks like a regular flame, but it creates no heat and doesn't use oxygen. A continual flame can be covered or hidden but not smothered or quenched.
It produces light, it's not a lot of light, but it's persistent, eternal, and doesn't have to be recast every day. It's simple, reliable to the point of negligence, and there are no major hoops to crawl through to keep it going. Plus once established it can be distributed to anybody. It's not a flashy solution, it's not a high energy solution, nor very exciting. But it's practical.
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I think the late stages of a disease, particularly with unconsciousness and coma count as 0 hp. But this would also dramatically change emergency response. Nobody who's still alive when an ambulance gets on the scene would die, unless the cause of death was massive damage (as opposed to blood loss).
IRL, sorcerers and warlocks aren't real, so that's not much of an argument.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The OP question states the presumption that the spells work.
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No, I'm taking the position that simply being a contrarian who wants to say things like "a sorcerer can't choose their spells they just have to take what they're given" is not actually contributing to the thought exercise.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Except that Witch Bolt clearly states that the target needs to be a creature. A car or cell phone or toaster oven does not count as a creature.
We also don't know what 1d12 lightning damage translates into as far as voltage and amps goes. The irregularity, as represented by the highly variable damage, is probably not going to play well with most electronics.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Theoretically one could get around that by claiming that bacteria or other microscopic lifeforms count as creatures. Witch Bolt doesn't specify that you need to see the target only that they be in range. Thus if a microscopic lifeform counts as a creature then you could theoretically make the necessary ranged spell attack with disadvantage. I have no idea what the AC of bacteria would be. If you were aiming at a specific one It'd probably be ungodly high. If you didn't care which bacterium in particular was struck (particularly since the energies involved would likely kill them all) then it might be considered extremely low.
But even then Witch Bolt would be a pretty lousy way to power a toaster. I'm not certain on any of this (obviously) but I doubt Witchbolt counts as steady AC at 120 volts or (insert your country's home outlet electrical standard voltage here). An electrical arc of up to 30 feet requires a much, much higher voltage. Like we're getting into the minor lightning bolt range of voltages here
The breakdown voltage (bdv) of dry air is 3kV/mm. That's 3000 volts per milimeter. So the necessary voltage for a range of 30 feet is 27432 kV. Over 27 million volts. BDV of AC current is a little bit lower 2kV/mm, so merely 18288 kV.
Sure you could argue that magic somewhat reduces the need for such high voltages but seeing as the intended point of the witch bolt spell is to kill things with lightning I sincerely doubt it'd be gentle enough to not destroy said toaster in the process.
Oh god, I think I need to investigate this. A commoner has 4 hp on average, let's double that to 8 to capture the most healthy commoner. Because humanity is awful, we know pretty well how much of a shock a person can take before dying. An electrical current of about .2 amperes is enough to cause death in most people, via cardiac arrest.
The question is what sort of voltage induces that sort of current in the average human. Voltage and current are related by V = IR, or Ohm's law where I is current and R is resistance, so we need to account for the resistance a body presents. Supposing the average lightning effect in game targets somewhere around the middle of your body, and that your skin is usually dry, human skin can provide anywhere around 50,000 and 100,000 ohms of resistance. So supposing 1/5 amps is enough to cause 8 hp of damage, then a contact spell dealing 1 hp of damage will require a potential difference of anywhere between 1/40*50,000 = 1,250 or 1/40*100,000 = 2,500 volts.
There is variation, of course. If the skin is wet, resistance can drop to about 1,000 ohms, dramatically increasing the current induced by the same spell. Further, a ranged spell is going to contend with ambient atmospheric resistance. Also, this is assuming that the spell induces a current lasting 1 second. A longer duration causes the total current to increase proportionally.
Notes: I'm not an electrical engineer, and I am a native-born American, so my algebra should be treated as dubious at best.
cool
By the standard things that must exist for a spell to exist, does wish even work?
The question stated that planes a demons exist if a spell needs them, but other spells wouldn't. Wish would be sort of useless, because there isn't another spell that could be cast with it, and you have a chance to loose it the moment you cast it for anything else useful, and have it not work
3) If we're going that far just plug your things into an electrical grid. It's simpler, the infrastructure is already there, it's already well regulated, and it's much more reliable then attempting to power appliances via magical lightning strikes.
https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-a-way-to-harness-electricity-from-lightning/
Yes. It's theoretically possible (in a world in which witch bolt exists) to put together. That doesn't mean it's practical or worth the effort to do so.
No material resources? You're targeting animals in the process of casting the spell!
Whatever harness you use might. MIGHT reduce the damage to said animal but if the harness reduces the damage the harness itself will take some damage itself.
Because it will be subjected to repeated lightning strikes, several times a day, that harness is going to be subjected to a lot of damage over time.
You seem to be assuming that the animal in question gets hit each time and then somehow has lightning damage immunity. I'm thinking it has resistance at best and then you'll need to keep cycling through animals as each one dies in the process as every 6 seconds it takes 1d12 damage.
Coal and oil have obvious environmental problems, and people are still suspicious of nuclear power.
And you're expecting people to be okay with a power source that literally sacrifices goats?
Just get solar panels, man.
So what about sunburst, then?
There is no dawn after eternal night.
Homebrew: Magic items, Subclasses
If you really wanted to generate electricity using a D&D spell, the best option would probably be a Planar Binding upcast to 9th level and used to summon an air elemental, then have it push a dynamo. Or use Animate Dead and skeletons running on treadmills for the same effect.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Interesting. So this discussion has turn to asking which spell would provide the best form of renewable energy? Dawn is natural sunlight. Control weather could help create the conditions for tidal power, lightning strikes, wind power, etc. Even just using control water over and over can help spin turbines, but I don't you'd get much out of it. I think sickening radiance was designed to be an analogue of radioactivity, but not as controlled as you'd like. I think a decanter of endless water would be good for this. Set it on geyser forever, and place a turbine between the bottle and a one-way portal to the elemental plane of water, the latter part to ensure the planet doesn't end up flooded.
For that matter two teleportation circle spells stacked vertically (okay, maybe on sloped ground due to that requirement) and made permanent could provide 100% free energy. Run water between the portals, flowing downhill down a chute, with a turbine in between. Upon reaching the lower portal, the water shoots back out the top ad infinitum. The amount of energy generated per cycle depends only on the slope and friction of the chute. If you're really concerned that the spell only works on creatures, fill the space with bound water elementals or use arcane gate instead.
I think we should make a sub-thread about which spell would be the most useful.
Simplest in my mind is solar panels + continual flame.
During the day full natural sunlight based solar, during the night light from the continual flame keeps a no cost trickle charge going.
Small, simple, can be deployed basically anywhere in the world and doesn't require a spellcaster to keep going.
Certainly powerful, but it's also instantaneous. Longer duration, lower power spells would be better I think.
A continual flame creates no heat. About all it's good for is light.
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Another idea. Each casting of guards and wards can create a corridor with a gust of wind effect. Since guards and wards can be made permanent, you get a permanent source of wind energy.
Why is damage necessary? Is there some implied rule now that damage is the only measure of power we can accept in energy creation?
It would help if we weren't creating implied rules in this discussion.
And continual flame doesn't produce heat.
It produces light, it's not a lot of light, but it's persistent, eternal, and doesn't have to be recast every day. It's simple, reliable to the point of negligence, and there are no major hoops to crawl through to keep it going. Plus once established it can be distributed to anybody. It's not a flashy solution, it's not a high energy solution, nor very exciting. But it's practical.