I have homebrewed some spells. These are cantrips, based off of the Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade, but are for the other 3 elemental damage types that haven't had cantrip "blade" spells that deal those kinds of damage. I also made three other cantrips similar to these spells, but these ones are connected to necrotic, force, and radiant damage.
The first three are on the Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard spell lists.
Here's the first, Static Blade:
(Sorry about the formatting, I can't get D&D Beyond's stupid spell stat format to work for copy and paste, so I'm just going to design it as closely to the books' stats as possible in the spoilers.)
Static Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning. Until the start of your next turn, when a creature moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature, you can cause the lightning to jump to the triggering creature, dealing 1d8 lightning damage to the creature them, ending the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 lightning damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
Now the second one, Corrosive Blade:
Corrosive Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with magical acid. At the end of the hit creature's next turn, they take an amount of acid damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 acid damage to the target, and the damage the target takes at the end of their next turn increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
The third one, Blue-Frost Blade:
Blue-Frost Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with hypothermic frost. Until the end of your next turn, if the hit creature takes both an action and bonus action on their turn, or they take a reaction, you may deal 1d8 cold damage to them and end the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 cold damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
The fourth, Bright Blade. This is on the Cleric spell list, my Occultist class will have a way of getting it, and could be accessible by Celestial Bladelocks if I find a way to give it to them:
Bright Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is enveloped in glowing radiant energy, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius around them and dim light an additional 5 feet until the spell ends. Until the end of your next turn, the next time a melee attack hits the glowing creature, the attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage, and the spell ends.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to the target, and the secondary damage they take when hit by a melee attack increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
The fifth spell, Withering Blade. I am not sure who this should be available to, as I would like for it to be available to Death Clerics, Spores Druids, Necromancer Wizards, Shadow Sorcerers, and Hexblades, but I don't know whose list I should add it to. I might do Clerics, as that seems to be the easiest, and maybe just let other classes take a feat to get it:
Withering Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration:1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the creature gains one exhaustion until the spell ends at the end of your next turn. Additionally, if you hit a creature that already had exhaustion, the attack made with this spell increases by an amount of necrotic damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the damage they take for having exhaustion increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
The sixth and final one, Warding Blade. I'm not sure who to give this too, but I'm leaning towards Clerics and Wizards:
Warding Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and you are surrounded by a shield of arcane protection. Until the end of your next turn, the next time that a creature attacks you or forces you to make a saving throw, you may deal 1d6 force damage to them and end this spell. This damage is dealt after the triggering effect is resolved.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target, and the damage for harming you increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
The first three are practically identical in overall damage to either GFB and BB, so those should not have that large of a problem with them. Static Blade requires a trigger fairly similar to, but also different from Booming Blade, Caustic Blade deals the same damage as Green-Flame Blade, but to one target, with delayed damage to negate some possible balance issues, and Blue-Frost Blade is similar to Booming Blade in the way that the damage is dependent on the choices of the affected target.
The only ones that I think could situationally be a problem are Withering Blade and Bright Blade, but I'm not sure if it's a big enough issue that it needs tweaking, as exhaustion is pretty uncommon and the extra damage is not a huge boost in most cases, just a nice addition. Any thoughts or tips? I would really appreciate feedback and thanks for reading!
NNCHRIS: SOUL THIEF, MASTER OF THE ARCANE, AND KING OF NEW YORKNN Gdl Creator of Ilheia and her Knights of the Fallen Stars ldG Lesser Student of Technomancy [undergrad student in computer science] Supporter of the 2014 rules, and a MASSIVE Homebrewer. Come to me all ye who seek salvation in wording thy brews! Open to homebrew trades at any time!! Or feel free to request HB, and Ill see if I can get it done for ya! Characters (Outdated)
Static Blade: This is an interesting one, with a neat chain mechanic. I do wonder at it a little bit, since it seems to conflict somewhat with Green Flame Blade. Both hit the main target, then jump to a secondary – GFB just does it all at once, while SB delays but gives you a choice. You may want to clarify whether a creature has to be more than five feet away and then move within five feet, or if the bolt can jump to a secondary target any time two critters are within five feet of each other. The latter would make it almost strictly better than Green Flame Blade and may warrant the use of your reaction to trigger the jump; the former is a twitch weird.
Corrosive Blade: This one is a bit worrisome, as it’s almost strictly better than Booming Blade. Booming requires the target to do something for the rider damage to hit it; Corrosive Blade here just spikes them for an extra round of damage pretty much period. The target has no way to avoid the damage, it just takes it. I would consider switching the 1d8 rider damage for 2d4, and then increasing the hit/rider by 1d4 per cantrip level instead. Still means Corrosive Blade is the most reliable source of damage amongst all of these since its damage is guaranteed, and it still slightly edges out the others as a single-target hit on average, but it’s less holyshitamazeballs for hammering something, especially since this one forces concentration checks twice.
Blue Frost Blade: Hmm. Impacting the target’s action economy for free on a cantrip strikes me as potentially troublesome, but on the other hand I do like more controlling options. I’d consider limiting it to perhaps only triggering on reaction, which still cramps a critter’s options but isn’t quite as punishing as losing two out of three of one’s Do-Things for a turn. Not entirely sure that cold is the right spot for this effect, but it works well enough for a start.
Bright Blade: I really like the idea behind this one, that the user is setting up attacks with their fellows. It’s really powerful since the rider is basically guaranteed to happen, but you did step down the damage and by the nature of the spell, most things that use this aren’t going to be able to trigger their own rider in the same turn. Except for users of Spiritual Weapon, for whom this cantrip is super busted as written. I’d maybe change “the next time another creature hits the glowing creature with a melee attack...”, simply to tone down the Super Bangin’ Auto-Combo with Spiritual Weapon, given this spell’s destination on the cleric spell list.
Withering Blade: Hmmm. I’m not sure what to make of this one. My gut instinct is that it’s super cool and Exhaustion really is horribly underutilized, with this being a nice way to start utilizing it, but I’m wary of Quickened Spell shenanery. Three critters with this and Quicken could theoretically Instaded anything they could hit; while any sane DM would step on that sort of shenanery, I can’t help but want to rework the spell to avoid the possibility of shenanery in the first place. Hmm. I wonder if this isn’t a good place to break the formula and rather than having rising damage on the main hit and a rider, figure out a different way to scale Withering Blade. Rising d6 necrotic on the main hit and a nasty debuff of some sort. Lemme ponder that and get back to you.
Warding Blade: I really like the concept behind this one. Holding an enemy hostage on good behavior. Thinking it’s another case of being somewhat overtuned for a cantrip, given that the rider is almost guaranteed to happen. This could be another case where breaking the formula is helpful – instead of dealing double damage, perhaps Warding Blade grants its extra dice as temporary hit points for the user, instead? Means a squishy caster can use Warding Blade to fight in melee whilst generating magical shields for themself, increasing their longevity. Hmm. Does kinda completely obsolete junk like False Life, perhaps would only be able to keep the THP until the start of the next turn. Enough to absorb some damage from the next round of badness, but no whacking trees with Warding Blade out of combat to top up.
The original idea, placing a curse on an enemy that harms them if something harms you, honestly sounds like a great idea for a leveled spell one can upcast regularly. Uptick the damage to account for it consuming resources and it’d be a really excellent spell for a Squish Gish.
Thanks for the review, Yurei! I really appreciate it and agree with a lot of the problems you bring up. I'll work on tweaking/changing them after I get a bit more feedback. Here's my response:
Static Blade: This is an interesting one, with a neat chain mechanic. I do wonder at it a little bit, since it seems to conflict somewhat with Green Flame Blade. Both hit the main target, then jump to a secondary – GFB just does it all at once, while SB delays but gives you a choice. You may want to clarify whether a creature has to be more than five feet away and then move within five feet, or if the bolt can jump to a secondary target any time two critters are within five feet of each other. The latter would make it almost strictly better than Green Flame Blade and may warrant the use of your reaction to trigger the jump; the former is a twitch weird.
Sorry about that, I will clarify. This one is kind of a mix of Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade. Ideally, the damage jumping would trigger when any creature of your choice moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature, even if they were within this area before. For example; at level 5, if there's two enemies within 5 feet of each other, and you have Green-Flame Blade and Static Blade for options, you can choose to deal immediate damage to both of them with Green-Flame Blade, or you can hit one with Static Blade, essentially dealing the first half of Green-Flame Blade, and hope that the second one chooses to move through a space within 5 feet of the charged creature on their next turn in order to deal a little more damage than you would have done with Green-Flame Blade. Its extra damage from being near the charged creature is not immediate, 99% of the time it will not deal all of its damage on your turn. It only would if on your turn a creature moves within 5 feet of the charged creature using a reaction or were somehow moved their against their will on your turn after making this attack.
Essentially, you can deal damage with no conditions, besides the current positioning of the creatures, with GFB, or you can take your chances with Static Blade to possibly deal a bit more damage, depending on what the enemies choose to do and where they choose to go. Its extra damage is most often up to the DM, just like Booming Blade, but in the right circumstances it can be better than GFB. As intended, this would not be a strictly better option than Green-Flame Blade, and should be a gamble for damage unless you cooperate with your party to take advantage of this.
Corrosive Blade: This one is a bit worrisome, as it’s almost strictly better than Booming Blade. Booming requires the target to do something for the rider damage to hit it; Corrosive Blade here just spikes them for an extra round of damage pretty much period. The target has no way to avoid the damage, it just takes it. I would consider switching the 1d8 rider damage for 2d4, and then increasing the hit/rider by 1d4 per cantrip level instead. Still means Corrosive Blade is the most reliable source of damage amongst all of these since its damage is guaranteed, and it still slightly edges out the others as a single-target hit on average, but it’s less holyshitamazeballs for hammering something, especially since this one forces concentration checks twice.
I see your point. I will mention that Acid damage is more commonly resisted (64 monsters with acid resistance) and immune (50 monsters with acid immunity) than thunder damage is resisted (48 monsters with thunder resistance) and immune (17 monsters with thunder immunity), but the difference in rarity doesn't seem significant enough to warrant them having relatively the same damage. As currently written, (assuming a spellcasting ability score of 16, increasing by 2 at level 4 and 8) Corrosive Blade does an additional average of 3-4 damage from levels 1-4, 14-15 damage at level 5-10, 24 damage from level 11-16, and 33 damage from level 17+. Booming Blade deals an average of 4 extra damage when triggered from levels 1-4, an extra 4 damage (or 13 when triggered) from levels 5-10, an extra 9 damage (or 22 when triggered) at levels 11-16, and 13 (or 31 when triggered) from levels 17+. I should've calculated that earlier, that does end up being an issue.
I will definitely change the damage, but I want to keep the automatic delayed damage. I'm not sure what exactly I need to do for now, I am open to more suggestions, but reducing the damage dice is definitely a good idea. I don't know about d4's, here's the math on d6s:
If I were to reduce it to d6's, that would be an average of 3-4 damage from levels 1-4, 11-12 from levels 5-10, 19 damage from levels 11-16, and 26 damage from levels 17+. This would be a significant nerf, but I don't know if it's enough.
Blue Frost Blade: Hmm. Impacting the target’s action economy for free on a cantrip strikes me as potentially troublesome, but on the other hand I do like more controlling options. I’d consider limiting it to perhaps only triggering on reaction, which still cramps a critter’s options but isn’t quite as punishing as losing two out of three of one’s Do-Things for a turn. Not entirely sure that cold is the right spot for this effect, but it works well enough for a start.
Not many monsters get bonus action options, and not a ton get reactions (except Opportunity Attacks). In scenarios where they would, the damage isn't a huge tax on monsters for using bonus actions or reactions. Most common uses will be to make a monster determine whether or not it is worth some cold damage to make an opportunity attack or disengage action. It's small, situational battlefield control or damage.
Bright Blade: I really like the idea behind this one, that the user is setting up attacks with their fellows. It’s really powerful since the rider is basically guaranteed to happen, but you did step down the damage and by the nature of the spell, most things that use this aren’t going to be able to trigger their own rider in the same turn. Except for users of Spiritual Weapon, for whom this cantrip is super busted as written. I’d maybe change “the next time another creature hits the glowing creature with a melee attack...”, simply to tone down the Super Bangin’ Auto-Combo with Spiritual Weapon, given this spell’s destination on the cleric spell list.
Quick correction, the radiant damage only applies to melee attacks. It would apply if a Divine Soul Sorcerer quickened/twinned this spell, on Shocking Grasp, Inflict Wounds, and other touch spells. I might have to change it to melee attacks that deal damage to make shoving/grappling not get a bonus, but the language makes Spiritual Weapon not a way to exploit this spell.
Withering Blade: Hmmm. I’m not sure what to make of this one. My gut instinct is that it’s super cool and Exhaustion really is horribly underutilized, with this being a nice way to start utilizing it, but I’m wary of Quickened Spell shenanery. Three critters with this and Quicken could theoretically Instaded anything they could hit; while any sane DM would step on that sort of shenanery, I can’t help but want to rework the spell to avoid the possibility of shenanery in the first place. Hmm. I wonder if this isn’t a good place to break the formula and rather than having rising damage on the main hit and a rider, figure out a different way to scale Withering Blade. Rising d6 necrotic on the main hit and a nasty debuff of some sort. Lemme ponder that and get back to you.
Maybe an easier fix would be for me to reword it so a creature can't take multiple exhaustion from this spell at once. Then, with Quickened Spell you would have to choose different targets, still a useful tactic, but not to the point where you would be able to instakill anything with the help of enough others with this spell. Exhaustion is too uncommon, for good reasons, so it's important to make this limited and not combo-able enough to become too useful.
Warding Blade: I really like the concept behind this one. Holding an enemy hostage on good behavior. Thinking it’s another case of being somewhat overtuned for a cantrip, given that the rider is almost guaranteed to happen. This could be another case where breaking the formula is helpful – instead of dealing double damage, perhaps Warding Blade grants its extra dice as temporary hit points for the user, instead? Means a squishy caster can use Warding Blade to fight in melee whilst generating magical shields for themself, increasing their longevity. Hmm. Does kinda completely obsolete junk like False Life, perhaps would only be able to keep the THP until the start of the next turn. Enough to absorb some damage from the next round of badness, but no whacking trees with Warding Blade out of combat to top up.
I could change it to Temporary Hit Points that last one round. . . that would fit the name better than the current spell, too. I'll mull it over. Thanks for the suggestion!
The original idea, placing a curse on an enemy that harms them if something harms you, honestly sounds like a great idea for a leveled spell one can upcast regularly. Uptick the damage to account for it consuming resources and it’d be a really excellent spell for a Squish Gish.
Yeah, that would be kind of like Armor of Agathys, but a bit more potent. I will have to think about that a bit. I like the idea of splitting this cantrip into two different spells, I'll probably end up doing that.
Thanks again for your reviews. I'll wait for a bit more feedback and see what else gets mentioned before doing some tweaking.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning. Until the start of your next turn, when a creature moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature, you can cause the lightning to jump to the triggering creature, dealing 1d8 lightning damage to the creature them, ending the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 lightning damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
I like it. I’m not sure about it mechanically, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. But in general I do like it.
Now the second one, Corrosive Blade:
Corrosive Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with magical acid. At the end of the hit creature's next turn, they take an amount of acid damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 acid damage to the target, and the damage the target takes at the end of their next turn increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
I would restrict the secondary damage by letting the targeted creature spend an action to somehow nullify the acid. That way it isn’t guaranteed damage, but it’s at least a guarantee that that it will limit the creature in some way.
I would also consider dropping the damage die to a d6 at the highest.
The third one, Blue-Frost Blade:
Blue-Frost Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with hypothermic frost. Until the end of your next turn, if the hit creature takes both an action and bonus action on their turn, or they take a reaction, you may deal 1d8 cold damage to them and end the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 cold damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It seems to... something.... I don’t know what, but something seems off. I think I agree with Yurei about restricting it to just a Reaction or something. or maybe this could be a better place for the “behave yourself” concept you wrote with Warding Blade?
The fourth, Bright Blade. This is on the Cleric spell list, my Occultist class will have a way of getting it, and could be accessible by Celestial Bladelocks if I find a way to give it to them:
Bright Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is enveloped in glowing radiant energy, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius around them and dim light an additional 5 feet until the spell ends. Until the end of your next turn, the next time a melee attack hits the glowing creature, the attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage, and the spell ends.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to the target, and the secondary damage they take when hit by a melee attack increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
I would go a slightly different direction with this one. I would set it so that the next melee attack against the creature gets the extra damage. And then increase the total number of attacks that could trigger it at levels: 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Then you could even bust out a grownups’ die like a d8.
The fifth spell, Withering Blade. I am not sure who this should be available to, as I would like for it to be available to Death Clerics, Spores Druids, Necromancer Wizards, Shadow Sorcerers, and Hexblades, but I don't know whose list I should add it to. I might do Clerics, as that seems to be the easiest, and maybe just let other classes take a feat to get it:
Withering Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration:1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the creature gains one exhaustion until the spell ends at the end of your next turn. Additionally, if you hit a creature that already had exhaustion, the attack made with this spell increases by an amount of necrotic damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the damage they take for having exhaustion increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
For this one, I would have the exhaustion last until the end of the target’s next turn, and then add additional rounds to the duration so 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Skip the whole additional damage idea and just run it as a nerf. And then, when the exhaustion ends maybe do 1d4 necrotic for every round the exhaustion lasted. But then, this spell would require Concentration, and the damage wouldn’t trigger if Concentration got dropped prematurely. Concentrate would also help with the whole “exhaust them to death” potential abuse.
The sixth and final one, Warding Blade. I'm not sure who to give this too, but I'm leaning towards Clerics and Wizards:
Warding Blade
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and you are surrounded by a shield of arcane protection. Until the end of your next turn, the next time that a creature attacks you or forces you to make a saving throw, you may deal 1d6 force damage to them and end this spell. This damage is dealt after the triggering effect is resolved.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target, and the damage for harming you increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
I like Yurei’s THP for one round only idea, but then again extend the duration by an additional round at 5th, 11th, and 17th. That way the total number of THP and their duration stay reasonable compared to false life.
(Sorry about the formatting, I can't get D&D Beyond's stupid spell stat format to work for copy and paste, so I'm just going to design it as closely to the books' stats as possible in the spoilers.)
You can only Copy part of the spell’s entry, everything below “EDIT SHARE WITH COMUNITYDELETE” and above the “Spell Tags” or the html throws things out of whack.
I would restrict the secondary damage by letting the targeted creature spend an action to somehow nullify the acid. That way it isn’t guaranteed damage, but it’s at least a guarantee that that it will limit the creature in some way.
I would also consider dropping the damage die to a d6 at the highest.
I had thought about that before, but that presents a few problems to the concept of the spell. First, if they spent their action, that would mostly negate the purpose of Blue-Frost Blade. If they were forced to make a roll and take an action, still taking damage on a fail, that also kind of negates a key point I wanted for these spells. As you can notice, none of them require a saving throw, instead the damage is situational and doesn't require anymore actions on your part, but in the right conditions it can do quite a bit of damage. I will reduce the damage die to a d6, and will try to brainstorm ways to make this spell a little bit more balanced, but that may take awhile. The automatic damage is a problem, and I will have to find a way to make it fit the theme of acid while also making sure the spell isn't too powerful.
I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It seems to... something.... I don’t know what, but something seems off. I think I agree with Yurei about restricting it to just a Reaction or something. or maybe this could be a better place for the “behave yourself” concept you wrote with Warding Blade?
I understand your confusion on this one. It is a bit strange, but with this spell I was trying to emulate a temporary bout of hypothermia. It's not really about forcing someone as behaving as much as it is punishing them for doing too much on their turn, putting a tax on using too many of their options during the spell's duration. I'll consider ways to change it a bit to make it a bit more clear on its purpose.
I would go a slightly different direction with this one. I would set it so that the next melee attack against the creature gets the extra damage. And then increase the total number of attacks that could trigger it at levels: 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Then you could even bust out a grownups’ die like a d8.
It currently is the next melee attack. . .
As for the second idea, that could work. I'm not sure about that, but I could see that being an interesting and useful spell. The damage dice could be upgraded, but the main reason I had the necrotic, radiant, and force damaging spells do a lower damage dice was because those damage types are less commonly resisted/immune to than the elemental damage types. I'll think it over, though.
For this one, I would have the exhaustion last until the end of the target’s next turn, and then add additional rounds to the duration so 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Skip the whole additional damage idea and just run it as a nerf. And then, when the exhaustion ends maybe do 1d4 necrotic for every round the exhaustion lasted. But then, this spell would require Concentration, and the damage wouldn’t trigger if Concentration got dropped prematurely. Concentrate would also help with the whole “exhaust them to death” potential abuse.
Thanks for your suggestions. I'm not sure how I feel about them, I'll have to mull them over. I don't really like it taking concentration for a number of reasons, mostly because then this couldn't be combined with any other concentration spells (hex, shadow blade, etc). I will limit the exhaustion granted by this spell to make it so multiple castings of this spell in the same round will not give them multiple exhaustion, only one total. That will stop most of the exhaustion abuse and balance it a bit more.
I like Yurei’s THP for one round only idea, but then again extend the duration by an additional round at 5th, 11th, and 17th. That way the total number of THP and their duration stay reasonable compared to false life.
I like the THP for one round, but I'm leaning towards not increasing the duration at later levels. I'm fine with having it give more THP than false life if it only lasts for one round, and I will add other ways to limit the possible issues with scaling THP.
P.S. I tried doing the copy-paste thing you said, and it didn't end up working. I'm not sure what the problem was, but I did not copy the links in the spells.
I like it. I’m not sure about it mechanically, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. But in general I do like it.
Okay, great. Try to figure out why you don't like the mechanics for me, will you? That'll help a bit. I'm glad you like the spell.
I dunno.
Something about it only working if another creature moves within 5 feet instead of either/or another creature entering the area, or the original target moving and the area moving with them to envelop another creature.
Plus, when static arcs, both creatures should feel it.
Also, getting to pick and chooses if/when it arcs without requiring Concentration.... If it was concentration, I could see the caster being able to determine when it triggers on a case-by-case basis, but without Concentration, it should just trigger when the next person enters the area, (or the area envelopes them).
Maybe something like this:
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning that emanates 5 feet from the target. Until the start of your next turn, the next time a creature other than you or the target enters the area or starts its turn there, the static discharges cause the lightning to jump to that creature, dealing 1d4 lightning damage to that creature and the original target.
The lightning damage dealt to both creatures increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4),
The “or starts its turn there” part represents the original target moving to stand next to someone. Of course, the target could move to stand next to a hostile creature (like one of your allies), so maybe there should be a save? I don’t have anything more concrete than that, sorry.
I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It seems to... something.... I don’t know what, but something seems off. I think I agree with Yurei about restricting it to just a Reaction or something. or maybe this could be a better place for the “behave yourself” concept you wrote with Warding Blade?
I understand your confusion on this one. It is a bit strange, but with this spell I was trying to emulate a temporary bout of hypothermia. It's not really about forcing someone as behaving as much as it is punishing them for doing too much on their turn, putting a tax on using too many of their options during the spell's duration. I'll consider ways to change it a bit to make it a bit more clear on its purpose.
The purpose was clear, I totally got what you were going for. But similar cantrip level spells like Ray of Frost and Frostbite use much simpler mechanics. Of course, as a melee spell that requires a Melee Weapon Attack specifically, the power level could be higher, but the complexity should stay around par I think.
I would go a slightly different direction with this one. I would set it so that the next melee attack against the creature gets the extra damage. And then increase the total number of attacks that could trigger it at levels: 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Then you could even bust out a grownups’ die like a d8.
It currently is the next melee attack. . .
As for the second idea, that could work. I'm not sure about that, but I could see that being an interesting and useful spell. The damage dice could be upgraded, but the main reason I had the necrotic, radiant, and force damaging spells do a lower damage dice was because those damage types are less commonly resisted/immune to than the elemental damage types. I'll think it over, though.
I know it’s currently on the next melee attack. My point was, instead of increasing the damage, increase the number of times it could be triggered.
And since it would require multiple instances of a specific trigger, the damage could be higher to rebalance it.
For this one, I would have the exhaustion last until the end of the target’s next turn, and then add additional rounds to the duration so 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Skip the whole additional damage idea and just run it as a nerf. And then, when the exhaustion ends maybe do 1d4 necrotic for every round the exhaustion lasted. But then, this spell would require Concentration, and the damage wouldn’t trigger if Concentration got dropped prematurely. Concentrate would also help with the whole “exhaust them to death” potential abuse.
Thanks for your suggestions. I'm not sure how I feel about them, I'll have to mull them over. I don't really like it taking concentration for a number of reasons, mostly because then this couldn't be combined with any other concentration spells (hex, shadow blade, etc). I will limit the exhaustion granted by this spell to make it so multiple castings of this spell in the same round will not give them multiple exhaustion, only one total. That will stop most of the exhaustion abuse and balance it a bit more.
Okay, skip the Concentration but give the target a save at the end of every turn and have it be Xd4 Necrotic whenever it ends, where X is however many rounds it lasted, but still have the number of max rounds increase at 5th (2), 11th (3), and 17th (4). How’s that? And can only be under the effect of a single casting at a time?
I’m just trying to think of interesting ways to make these a bit different is all.
I know the static blade only harming the moving creature is kind of weird. It was mostly for balance purposes, and as it is magic, I don't know if it's such a huge problem that it doesn't harm the charged creature. I originally planned on it effecting the charged creature if they moved, but I decided that was too similar to Booming Blade. The picking and choosing the creatures that take the damage without concentration was to keep it from accidentally harming your allies, BB/GFB cannot do that. I still don't like concentration for these spells, as they are cantrips, but I could either change it so that it can effect your allies or make it be a reaction. I'll think it over.
Okay. I'll think about ways to possibly make Blue-Frost Blade a bit simpler. I mainly had it be a bit more complicated so it would be similar to the other Blade cantrips, but I could limit it to if the target takes a reaction or something like that.
I'll consider your changes for Bright Blade. I'm not sure about them, but it could be a cool way to differentiate them.
Thanks for the ideas for Withering Blade. I'll think them over.
I currently kind of want to keep them mostly fairly similar, but I could see how these could be good ways to make them a bit more unique.
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Okay, here are the current revisions to the cantrips. First, Static Blade:
Static Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning. Until the start of your next turn, when a creature moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature or the charged creature moves to a space within 5 feet of a creature, you can cause the lightning to jump to the triggering creature, dealing 1d4 lightning damage to both the triggering and charged creatures, ending the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d4 lightning damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d4. Both damage rolls increase by 1d4 at 11th level and 17th level.
This is a possible change just to make the spell a bit more realistic to how static electricity works in real life, shocking both targets, as well as having another trigger to make up for the small damage die.
Now the second one, Corrosive Blade:
Corrosive Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with magical acid. At the end of the hit creature's next turn, they take an amount of acid damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier, unless they attempt to get rid of the acid. As part of their next turn, if they take the Attack or Multiattack action, they may use an attack to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against your spell save DC. On a success, they do not take the acid damage at the end of their next turn.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 acid damage to the target, and the damage the target takes at the end of their next turn increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
I scaled down the damage a bit and made the damage automatic, but it can be avoided at the expense of the target. It may still need tweaking, but this is my current attempt to balance it a bit.
The third one, Blue-Frost Blade:
Blue-Frost Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with hypothermic frost. Until the end of your next turn, if the hit creature takes a reaction, you deal 1d8 cold damage to them and end the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 cold damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
Simplified it and got rid of some of its usefulness by just allowing it to be triggered if they take a reaction.
The fourth, Bright Blade. This is on the Cleric spell list, my Occultist class will have a way of getting it, and could be accessible by Celestial Bladelocks if I find a way to give it to them:
Bright Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is enveloped in glowing radiant energy, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius around them and dim light an additional 5 feet until the spell ends. Until the end of your next turn, the next time a melee attack that deals damage hits the glowing creature, the attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage, and the spell ends.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to the target, and the secondary damage they take when hit by a melee attack increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
No real changes, just clarifying that the damage can only be dealt if the attack they are hit by deals damage.
The fifth spell, Withering Blade. I am not sure who this should be available to, as I would like for it to be available to Death Clerics, Spores Druids, Necromancer Wizards, Shadow Sorcerers, and Hexblades, but I don't know whose list I should add it to. I might do Clerics, as that seems to be the easiest, and maybe just let other classes take a feat to get it:
Withering Blade
necromancy cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration:1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the creature gains one exhaustion until the spell ends at the end of your next turn. Additionally, if you hit a creature that already had exhaustion, the attack made with this spell increases by an amount of necrotic damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. A creature that has exhaustion from this spell cannot ever have more than two exhaustion at any given moment from this spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the damage they take for having exhaustion increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
Not a ton of changes, just making sure that exhaustion cannot be used from solely this spell to insta-kill anyone.
The sixth and final one, Warding Blade. I'm not sure who to give this too, but I'm leaning towards Clerics and Wizards:
Warding Blade
abjuration cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action Components: V, M (a weapon) Range: 5 feet Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and you are surrounded by a shield of arcane protection. Until the end of your next turn, you gain 1d6 temporary hit points. If you already have temporary hit points from this spell when you hit, instead of rolling for temporary hit points, you continue to keep those temporary hit points until the end of your next turn.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target, and the temporary hit points you gain increases to 2d6. Both rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
This was changed to give temporary hit points so the spell actually does as its spell is named, "warding" them with Temporary Hit Points.
Okay, those are the current changes. I mostly want to keep these spells following the same basic formula, but distinct enough to warrant different spells for them. Thanks for your help, and I'd love more feedback if you have any.
I actually came up with something almost exactly like the original Warding Blade for my Hexblade warlock to use a while ago! It was because I wanted him to get hit so much in order to activate Hellish Rebuke and Armor of Agathys, so it's cool to see it here! I was considering calling it "Warding Blade," but I decided to call it "Counter Blade" because it was more like a counterattack and the former sounds too similar to Blade Ward. Really cool cantrips, I like the revised ones!
For Corrosive Blade, replacing one of your attacks for a chance to not take damage still seems sort of strong and a bit complicated. What if it just make a small splash of acid, dealing acid damage to the target and possibly creatures within 5 feet who fail on a DEX save? Or it created a puddle of acid at the target's feet/covered part of them in acid, forcing them to move at least half their movement to shake it off? The latter might be a bit screwy with opportunity attacks and such, but I'm just spitting ideas.
I actually came up with something almost exactly like the original Warding Blade for my Hexblade warlock to use a while ago! It was because I wanted him to get hit so much in order to activate Hellish Rebuke and Armor of Agathys, so it's cool to see it here! I was considering calling it "Warding Blade," but I decided to call it "Counter Blade" because it was more like a counterattack and the former sounds too similar to Blade Ward. Really cool cantrips, I like the revised ones!
Thanks! That's a cool coincidence. I'm going to take inspiration from my original Warding Bond for a higher level spell sometime, but need more time to think of how to execute it.
For Corrosive Blade, replacing one of your attacks for a chance to not take damage still seems sort of strong and a bit complicated. What if it just make a small splash of acid, dealing acid damage to the target and possibly creatures within 5 feet who fail on a DEX save? Or it created a puddle of acid at the target's feet/covered part of them in acid, forcing them to move at least half their movement to shake it off? The latter might be a bit screwy with opportunity attacks and such, but I'm just spitting ideas.
Too strong for the cantrip or target? I don't know about complicated, it isn't much more complicated than the rest of the blade cantrips. Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not sure about that. Those seem a bit more complex and strange than the current writing. I'll think them over and playtest some of these sometime to see if they need more revisions or are fine in their current form.
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Too strong for the cantrip or target? I don't know about complicated, it isn't much more complicated than the rest of the blade cantrips. Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not sure about that. Those seem a bit more complex and strange than the current writing. I'll think them over and playtest some of these sometime to see if they need more revisions or are fine in their current form.
Fair, I didn't think it through that hard, just spitting ideas. Good luck!
For the bright blade (and any others that deal extra damage as part of an attack), you may want to consider the language as the creature takes extra damage as opposed to the attack deals extra damage. The reasoning is that "the attack.." is eligible for crit upgrades where "the creature takes" is not. Neither GFB nor BB are eligible for crit damage because of the way that they are set up and these should be similar unless they are balanced around the idea.
The Shock Blade could be centered around crits by making an attack by another creature against the target crit on a 19-20 while allowing the attack to deal an extra d4 damage per step.
The withering blade would also be a candidate for the 19-20 crit range (flavored as just dealing more damage due to the necrotic damage), or it could apply the next save made at disadvantage debuff.
Another idea would be that the creature has vulnerability to the weapon damage of the next weapon attack or the spell damage of the next spell that damages it. That idea would have to be fleshed out better and the idea would be that the vulnerability wouldn't include any additional sources of damage like sneak attack or divine smite. It probably wouldn't work well or the mechanics wouldn't work with the thematics, so it's probably a busted idea.
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I have homebrewed some spells. These are cantrips, based off of the Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade, but are for the other 3 elemental damage types that haven't had cantrip "blade" spells that deal those kinds of damage. I also made three other cantrips similar to these spells, but these ones are connected to necrotic, force, and radiant damage.
The first three are on the Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard spell lists.
Here's the first, Static Blade:
(Sorry about the formatting, I can't get D&D Beyond's stupid spell stat format to work for copy and paste, so I'm just going to design it as closely to the books' stats as possible in the spoilers.)
Static Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning. Until the start of your next turn, when a creature moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature, you can cause the lightning to jump to the triggering creature, dealing 1d8 lightning damage to the creature them, ending the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 lightning damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
Now the second one, Corrosive Blade:
Corrosive Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with magical acid. At the end of the hit creature's next turn, they take an amount of acid damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 acid damage to the target, and the damage the target takes at the end of their next turn increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
The third one, Blue-Frost Blade:
Blue-Frost Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with hypothermic frost. Until the end of your next turn, if the hit creature takes both an action and bonus action on their turn, or they take a reaction, you may deal 1d8 cold damage to them and end the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 cold damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
The fourth, Bright Blade. This is on the Cleric spell list, my Occultist class will have a way of getting it, and could be accessible by Celestial Bladelocks if I find a way to give it to them:
Bright Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is enveloped in glowing radiant energy, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius around them and dim light an additional 5 feet until the spell ends. Until the end of your next turn, the next time a melee attack hits the glowing creature, the attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage, and the spell ends.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to the target, and the secondary damage they take when hit by a melee attack increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
The fifth spell, Withering Blade. I am not sure who this should be available to, as I would like for it to be available to Death Clerics, Spores Druids, Necromancer Wizards, Shadow Sorcerers, and Hexblades, but I don't know whose list I should add it to. I might do Clerics, as that seems to be the easiest, and maybe just let other classes take a feat to get it:
Withering Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration:1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the creature gains one exhaustion until the spell ends at the end of your next turn. Additionally, if you hit a creature that already had exhaustion, the attack made with this spell increases by an amount of necrotic damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the damage they take for having exhaustion increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
The sixth and final one, Warding Blade. I'm not sure who to give this too, but I'm leaning towards Clerics and Wizards:
Warding Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and you are surrounded by a shield of arcane protection. Until the end of your next turn, the next time that a creature attacks you or forces you to make a saving throw, you may deal 1d6 force damage to them and end this spell. This damage is dealt after the triggering effect is resolved.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target, and the damage for harming you increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
The first three are practically identical in overall damage to either GFB and BB, so those should not have that large of a problem with them. Static Blade requires a trigger fairly similar to, but also different from Booming Blade, Caustic Blade deals the same damage as Green-Flame Blade, but to one target, with delayed damage to negate some possible balance issues, and Blue-Frost Blade is similar to Booming Blade in the way that the damage is dependent on the choices of the affected target.
The only ones that I think could situationally be a problem are Withering Blade and Bright Blade, but I'm not sure if it's a big enough issue that it needs tweaking, as exhaustion is pretty uncommon and the extra damage is not a huge boost in most cases, just a nice addition. Any thoughts or tips? I would really appreciate feedback and thanks for reading!
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Edit: All the cantrips are now in the Original Post. Thanks for your patience!
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And, done! The spoilers in the OP should work now!
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Static Blade:
This is an interesting one, with a neat chain mechanic. I do wonder at it a little bit, since it seems to conflict somewhat with Green Flame Blade. Both hit the main target, then jump to a secondary – GFB just does it all at once, while SB delays but gives you a choice. You may want to clarify whether a creature has to be more than five feet away and then move within five feet, or if the bolt can jump to a secondary target any time two critters are within five feet of each other. The latter would make it almost strictly better than Green Flame Blade and may warrant the use of your reaction to trigger the jump; the former is a twitch weird.
Corrosive Blade:
This one is a bit worrisome, as it’s almost strictly better than Booming Blade. Booming requires the target to do something for the rider damage to hit it; Corrosive Blade here just spikes them for an extra round of damage pretty much period. The target has no way to avoid the damage, it just takes it. I would consider switching the 1d8 rider damage for 2d4, and then increasing the hit/rider by 1d4 per cantrip level instead. Still means Corrosive Blade is the most reliable source of damage amongst all of these since its damage is guaranteed, and it still slightly edges out the others as a single-target hit on average, but it’s less holyshitamazeballs for hammering something, especially since this one forces concentration checks twice.
Blue Frost Blade:
Hmm. Impacting the target’s action economy for free on a cantrip strikes me as potentially troublesome, but on the other hand I do like more controlling options. I’d consider limiting it to perhaps only triggering on reaction, which still cramps a critter’s options but isn’t quite as punishing as losing two out of three of one’s Do-Things for a turn. Not entirely sure that cold is the right spot for this effect, but it works well enough for a start.
Bright Blade:
I really like the idea behind this one, that the user is setting up attacks with their fellows. It’s really powerful since the rider is basically guaranteed to happen, but you did step down the damage and by the nature of the spell, most things that use this aren’t going to be able to trigger their own rider in the same turn. Except for users of Spiritual Weapon, for whom this cantrip is super busted as written. I’d maybe change “the next time another creature hits the glowing creature with a melee attack...”, simply to tone down the Super Bangin’ Auto-Combo with Spiritual Weapon, given this spell’s destination on the cleric spell list.
Withering Blade:
Hmmm. I’m not sure what to make of this one. My gut instinct is that it’s super cool and Exhaustion really is horribly underutilized, with this being a nice way to start utilizing it, but I’m wary of Quickened Spell shenanery. Three critters with this and Quicken could theoretically Instaded anything they could hit; while any sane DM would step on that sort of shenanery, I can’t help but want to rework the spell to avoid the possibility of shenanery in the first place. Hmm. I wonder if this isn’t a good place to break the formula and rather than having rising damage on the main hit and a rider, figure out a different way to scale Withering Blade. Rising d6 necrotic on the main hit and a nasty debuff of some sort. Lemme ponder that and get back to you.
Warding Blade:
I really like the concept behind this one. Holding an enemy hostage on good behavior. Thinking it’s another case of being somewhat overtuned for a cantrip, given that the rider is almost guaranteed to happen. This could be another case where breaking the formula is helpful – instead of dealing double damage, perhaps Warding Blade grants its extra dice as temporary hit points for the user, instead? Means a squishy caster can use Warding Blade to fight in melee whilst generating magical shields for themself, increasing their longevity. Hmm. Does kinda completely obsolete junk like False Life, perhaps would only be able to keep the THP until the start of the next turn. Enough to absorb some damage from the next round of badness, but no whacking trees with Warding Blade out of combat to top up.
The original idea, placing a curse on an enemy that harms them if something harms you, honestly sounds like a great idea for a leveled spell one can upcast regularly. Uptick the damage to account for it consuming resources and it’d be a really excellent spell for a Squish Gish.
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Thanks for the review, Yurei! I really appreciate it and agree with a lot of the problems you bring up. I'll work on tweaking/changing them after I get a bit more feedback. Here's my response:
Sorry about that, I will clarify. This one is kind of a mix of Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade. Ideally, the damage jumping would trigger when any creature of your choice moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature, even if they were within this area before. For example; at level 5, if there's two enemies within 5 feet of each other, and you have Green-Flame Blade and Static Blade for options, you can choose to deal immediate damage to both of them with Green-Flame Blade, or you can hit one with Static Blade, essentially dealing the first half of Green-Flame Blade, and hope that the second one chooses to move through a space within 5 feet of the charged creature on their next turn in order to deal a little more damage than you would have done with Green-Flame Blade. Its extra damage from being near the charged creature is not immediate, 99% of the time it will not deal all of its damage on your turn. It only would if on your turn a creature moves within 5 feet of the charged creature using a reaction or were somehow moved their against their will on your turn after making this attack.
Essentially, you can deal damage with no conditions, besides the current positioning of the creatures, with GFB, or you can take your chances with Static Blade to possibly deal a bit more damage, depending on what the enemies choose to do and where they choose to go. Its extra damage is most often up to the DM, just like Booming Blade, but in the right circumstances it can be better than GFB. As intended, this would not be a strictly better option than Green-Flame Blade, and should be a gamble for damage unless you cooperate with your party to take advantage of this.
I see your point. I will mention that Acid damage is more commonly resisted (64 monsters with acid resistance) and immune (50 monsters with acid immunity) than thunder damage is resisted (48 monsters with thunder resistance) and immune (17 monsters with thunder immunity), but the difference in rarity doesn't seem significant enough to warrant them having relatively the same damage. As currently written, (assuming a spellcasting ability score of 16, increasing by 2 at level 4 and 8) Corrosive Blade does an additional average of 3-4 damage from levels 1-4, 14-15 damage at level 5-10, 24 damage from level 11-16, and 33 damage from level 17+. Booming Blade deals an average of 4 extra damage when triggered from levels 1-4, an extra 4 damage (or 13 when triggered) from levels 5-10, an extra 9 damage (or 22 when triggered) at levels 11-16, and 13 (or 31 when triggered) from levels 17+. I should've calculated that earlier, that does end up being an issue.
I will definitely change the damage, but I want to keep the automatic delayed damage. I'm not sure what exactly I need to do for now, I am open to more suggestions, but reducing the damage dice is definitely a good idea. I don't know about d4's, here's the math on d6s:
If I were to reduce it to d6's, that would be an average of 3-4 damage from levels 1-4, 11-12 from levels 5-10, 19 damage from levels 11-16, and 26 damage from levels 17+. This would be a significant nerf, but I don't know if it's enough.
Not many monsters get bonus action options, and not a ton get reactions (except Opportunity Attacks). In scenarios where they would, the damage isn't a huge tax on monsters for using bonus actions or reactions. Most common uses will be to make a monster determine whether or not it is worth some cold damage to make an opportunity attack or disengage action. It's small, situational battlefield control or damage.
Quick correction, the radiant damage only applies to melee attacks. It would apply if a Divine Soul Sorcerer quickened/twinned this spell, on Shocking Grasp, Inflict Wounds, and other touch spells. I might have to change it to melee attacks that deal damage to make shoving/grappling not get a bonus, but the language makes Spiritual Weapon not a way to exploit this spell.
Maybe an easier fix would be for me to reword it so a creature can't take multiple exhaustion from this spell at once. Then, with Quickened Spell you would have to choose different targets, still a useful tactic, but not to the point where you would be able to instakill anything with the help of enough others with this spell. Exhaustion is too uncommon, for good reasons, so it's important to make this limited and not combo-able enough to become too useful.
I could change it to Temporary Hit Points that last one round. . . that would fit the name better than the current spell, too. I'll mull it over. Thanks for the suggestion!
Yeah, that would be kind of like Armor of Agathys, but a bit more potent. I will have to think about that a bit. I like the idea of splitting this cantrip into two different spells, I'll probably end up doing that.
Thanks again for your reviews. I'll wait for a bit more feedback and see what else gets mentioned before doing some tweaking.
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Here's the first, Static Blade:
Static Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning. Until the start of your next turn, when a creature moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature, you can cause the lightning to jump to the triggering creature, dealing 1d8 lightning damage to the creature them, ending the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 lightning damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
I like it. I’m not sure about it mechanically, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. But in general I do like it.
Now the second one, Corrosive Blade:
Corrosive Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with magical acid. At the end of the hit creature's next turn, they take an amount of acid damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 acid damage to the target, and the damage the target takes at the end of their next turn increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
I would restrict the secondary damage by letting the targeted creature spend an action to somehow nullify the acid. That way it isn’t guaranteed damage, but it’s at least a guarantee that that it will limit the creature in some way.
I would also consider dropping the damage die to a d6 at the highest.
The third one, Blue-Frost Blade:
Blue-Frost Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with hypothermic frost. Until the end of your next turn, if the hit creature takes both an action and bonus action on their turn, or they take a reaction, you may deal 1d8 cold damage to them and end the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 cold damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It seems to... something.... I don’t know what, but something seems off. I think I agree with Yurei about restricting it to just a Reaction or something. or maybe this could be a better place for the “behave yourself” concept you wrote with Warding Blade?
The fourth, Bright Blade. This is on the Cleric spell list, my Occultist class will have a way of getting it, and could be accessible by Celestial Bladelocks if I find a way to give it to them:
Bright Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is enveloped in glowing radiant energy, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius around them and dim light an additional 5 feet until the spell ends. Until the end of your next turn, the next time a melee attack hits the glowing creature, the attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage, and the spell ends.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to the target, and the secondary damage they take when hit by a melee attack increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
I would go a slightly different direction with this one. I would set it so that the next melee attack against the creature gets the extra damage. And then increase the total number of attacks that could trigger it at levels: 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Then you could even bust out a grownups’ die like a d8.
The fifth spell, Withering Blade. I am not sure who this should be available to, as I would like for it to be available to Death Clerics, Spores Druids, Necromancer Wizards, Shadow Sorcerers, and Hexblades, but I don't know whose list I should add it to. I might do Clerics, as that seems to be the easiest, and maybe just let other classes take a feat to get it:
Withering Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration:1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the creature gains one exhaustion until the spell ends at the end of your next turn. Additionally, if you hit a creature that already had exhaustion, the attack made with this spell increases by an amount of necrotic damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the damage they take for having exhaustion increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
For this one, I would have the exhaustion last until the end of the target’s next turn, and then add additional rounds to the duration so 2@5th, 3@11th, and 4@17th. Skip the whole additional damage idea and just run it as a nerf. And then, when the exhaustion ends maybe do 1d4 necrotic for every round the exhaustion lasted. But then, this spell would require Concentration, and the damage wouldn’t trigger if Concentration got dropped prematurely. Concentrate would also help with the whole “exhaust them to death” potential abuse.
The sixth and final one, Warding Blade. I'm not sure who to give this too, but I'm leaning towards Clerics and Wizards:
Warding Blade
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and you are surrounded by a shield of arcane protection. Until the end of your next turn, the next time that a creature attacks you or forces you to make a saving throw, you may deal 1d6 force damage to them and end this spell. This damage is dealt after the triggering effect is resolved.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target, and the damage for harming you increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
I like Yurei’s THP for one round only idea, but then again extend the duration by an additional round at 5th, 11th, and 17th. That way the total number of THP and their duration stay reasonable compared to false life.
(Sorry about the formatting, I can't get D&D Beyond's stupid spell stat format to work for copy and paste, so I'm just going to design it as closely to the books' stats as possible in the spoilers.)
You can only Copy part of the spell’s entry, everything below “EDIT SHARE WITH COMUNITY DELETE” and above the “Spell Tags” or the html throws things out of whack.
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Static blade: very cool, very original, and very useful.
corrosive blade: not as cool, not as original, but still pretty cool. possibly a bit over powered
blue frost blade: although pretty cool,i would say that its not really original at all, sorry.
Withering blade: maybe a bit over powered, but SO COOL!!!!!!
warding blade: very cool, very original, and very useful.
these are great, please add more, and maybe some non cantrip ones or ones that are arrow instead of blade.
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Okay, great. Try to figure out why you don't like the mechanics for me, will you? That'll help a bit. I'm glad you like the spell.
I had thought about that before, but that presents a few problems to the concept of the spell. First, if they spent their action, that would mostly negate the purpose of Blue-Frost Blade. If they were forced to make a roll and take an action, still taking damage on a fail, that also kind of negates a key point I wanted for these spells. As you can notice, none of them require a saving throw, instead the damage is situational and doesn't require anymore actions on your part, but in the right conditions it can do quite a bit of damage. I will reduce the damage die to a d6, and will try to brainstorm ways to make this spell a little bit more balanced, but that may take awhile. The automatic damage is a problem, and I will have to find a way to make it fit the theme of acid while also making sure the spell isn't too powerful.
I understand your confusion on this one. It is a bit strange, but with this spell I was trying to emulate a temporary bout of hypothermia. It's not really about forcing someone as behaving as much as it is punishing them for doing too much on their turn, putting a tax on using too many of their options during the spell's duration. I'll consider ways to change it a bit to make it a bit more clear on its purpose.
It currently is the next melee attack. . .
As for the second idea, that could work. I'm not sure about that, but I could see that being an interesting and useful spell. The damage dice could be upgraded, but the main reason I had the necrotic, radiant, and force damaging spells do a lower damage dice was because those damage types are less commonly resisted/immune to than the elemental damage types. I'll think it over, though.
Thanks for your suggestions. I'm not sure how I feel about them, I'll have to mull them over. I don't really like it taking concentration for a number of reasons, mostly because then this couldn't be combined with any other concentration spells (hex, shadow blade, etc). I will limit the exhaustion granted by this spell to make it so multiple castings of this spell in the same round will not give them multiple exhaustion, only one total. That will stop most of the exhaustion abuse and balance it a bit more.
I like the THP for one round, but I'm leaning towards not increasing the duration at later levels. I'm fine with having it give more THP than false life if it only lasts for one round, and I will add other ways to limit the possible issues with scaling THP.
P.S. I tried doing the copy-paste thing you said, and it didn't end up working. I'm not sure what the problem was, but I did not copy the links in the spells.
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I dunno.
Maybe something like this:
The “or starts its turn there” part represents the original target moving to stand next to someone. Of course, the target could move to stand next to a hostile creature (like one of your allies), so maybe there should be a save? I don’t have anything more concrete than that, sorry.
The purpose was clear, I totally got what you were going for. But similar cantrip level spells like Ray of Frost and Frostbite use much simpler mechanics. Of course, as a melee spell that requires a Melee Weapon Attack specifically, the power level could be higher, but the complexity should stay around par I think.
I know it’s currently on the next melee attack. My point was, instead of increasing the damage, increase the number of times it could be triggered.
And since it would require multiple instances of a specific trigger, the damage could be higher to rebalance it.
Okay, skip the Concentration but give the target a save at the end of every turn and have it be Xd4 Necrotic whenever it ends, where X is however many rounds it lasted, but still have the number of max rounds increase at 5th (2), 11th (3), and 17th (4). How’s that? And can only be under the effect of a single casting at a time?
I’m just trying to think of interesting ways to make these a bit different is all.
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Thanks again. I'll think over your suggestions.
I know the static blade only harming the moving creature is kind of weird. It was mostly for balance purposes, and as it is magic, I don't know if it's such a huge problem that it doesn't harm the charged creature. I originally planned on it effecting the charged creature if they moved, but I decided that was too similar to Booming Blade. The picking and choosing the creatures that take the damage without concentration was to keep it from accidentally harming your allies, BB/GFB cannot do that. I still don't like concentration for these spells, as they are cantrips, but I could either change it so that it can effect your allies or make it be a reaction. I'll think it over.
Okay. I'll think about ways to possibly make Blue-Frost Blade a bit simpler. I mainly had it be a bit more complicated so it would be similar to the other Blade cantrips, but I could limit it to if the target takes a reaction or something like that.
I'll consider your changes for Bright Blade. I'm not sure about them, but it could be a cool way to differentiate them.
Thanks for the ideas for Withering Blade. I'll think them over.
I currently kind of want to keep them mostly fairly similar, but I could see how these could be good ways to make them a bit more unique.
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Okay, here are the current revisions to the cantrips. First, Static Blade:
Static Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with shocking lightning. Until the start of your next turn, when a creature moves to a space within 5 feet of the charged creature or the charged creature moves to a space within 5 feet of a creature, you can cause the lightning to jump to the triggering creature, dealing 1d4 lightning damage to both the triggering and charged creatures, ending the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d4 lightning damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d4. Both damage rolls increase by 1d4 at 11th level and 17th level.
This is a possible change just to make the spell a bit more realistic to how static electricity works in real life, shocking both targets, as well as having another trigger to make up for the small damage die.
Now the second one, Corrosive Blade:
Corrosive Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with magical acid. At the end of the hit creature's next turn, they take an amount of acid damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier, unless they attempt to get rid of the acid. As part of their next turn, if they take the Attack or Multiattack action, they may use an attack to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against your spell save DC. On a success, they do not take the acid damage at the end of their next turn.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 acid damage to the target, and the damage the target takes at the end of their next turn increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
I scaled down the damage a bit and made the damage automatic, but it can be avoided at the expense of the target. It may still need tweaking, but this is my current attempt to balance it a bit.
The third one, Blue-Frost Blade:
Blue-Frost Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is temporarily charged with hypothermic frost. Until the end of your next turn, if the hit creature takes a reaction, you deal 1d8 cold damage to them and end the spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 cold damage to the target, and the damage the secondary target takes increases to 2d8. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.
Simplified it and got rid of some of its usefulness by just allowing it to be triggered if they take a reaction.
The fourth, Bright Blade. This is on the Cleric spell list, my Occultist class will have a way of getting it, and could be accessible by Celestial Bladelocks if I find a way to give it to them:
Bright Blade
evocation cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: 1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and is enveloped in glowing radiant energy, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius around them and dim light an additional 5 feet until the spell ends. Until the end of your next turn, the next time a melee attack that deals damage hits the glowing creature, the attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage, and the spell ends.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to the target, and the secondary damage they take when hit by a melee attack increases to 2d6. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
No real changes, just clarifying that the damage can only be dealt if the attack they are hit by deals damage.
The fifth spell, Withering Blade. I am not sure who this should be available to, as I would like for it to be available to Death Clerics, Spores Druids, Necromancer Wizards, Shadow Sorcerers, and Hexblades, but I don't know whose list I should add it to. I might do Clerics, as that seems to be the easiest, and maybe just let other classes take a feat to get it:
Withering Blade
necromancy cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration:1 round
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and the creature gains one exhaustion until the spell ends at the end of your next turn. Additionally, if you hit a creature that already had exhaustion, the attack made with this spell increases by an amount of necrotic damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. A creature that has exhaustion from this spell cannot ever have more than two exhaustion at any given moment from this spell.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the damage they take for having exhaustion increases to 1d6 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
Not a ton of changes, just making sure that exhaustion cannot be used from solely this spell to insta-kill anyone.
The sixth and final one, Warding Blade. I'm not sure who to give this too, but I'm leaning towards Clerics and Wizards:
Warding Blade
abjuration cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, M (a weapon)
Range: 5 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and you are surrounded by a shield of arcane protection. Until the end of your next turn, you gain 1d6 temporary hit points. If you already have temporary hit points from this spell when you hit, instead of rolling for temporary hit points, you continue to keep those temporary hit points until the end of your next turn.
This spell’s damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 force damage to the target, and the temporary hit points you gain increases to 2d6. Both rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.
This was changed to give temporary hit points so the spell actually does as its spell is named, "warding" them with Temporary Hit Points.
Okay, those are the current changes. I mostly want to keep these spells following the same basic formula, but distinct enough to warrant different spells for them. Thanks for your help, and I'd love more feedback if you have any.
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I actually came up with something almost exactly like the original Warding Blade for my Hexblade warlock to use a while ago! It was because I wanted him to get hit so much in order to activate Hellish Rebuke and Armor of Agathys, so it's cool to see it here! I was considering calling it "Warding Blade," but I decided to call it "Counter Blade" because it was more like a counterattack and the former sounds too similar to Blade Ward. Really cool cantrips, I like the revised ones!
For Corrosive Blade, replacing one of your attacks for a chance to not take damage still seems sort of strong and a bit complicated. What if it just make a small splash of acid, dealing acid damage to the target and possibly creatures within 5 feet who fail on a DEX save? Or it created a puddle of acid at the target's feet/covered part of them in acid, forcing them to move at least half their movement to shake it off? The latter might be a bit screwy with opportunity attacks and such, but I'm just spitting ideas.
Thanks! That's a cool coincidence. I'm going to take inspiration from my original Warding Bond for a higher level spell sometime, but need more time to think of how to execute it.
Too strong for the cantrip or target? I don't know about complicated, it isn't much more complicated than the rest of the blade cantrips. Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not sure about that. Those seem a bit more complex and strange than the current writing. I'll think them over and playtest some of these sometime to see if they need more revisions or are fine in their current form.
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Fair, I didn't think it through that hard, just spitting ideas. Good luck!
For the bright blade (and any others that deal extra damage as part of an attack), you may want to consider the language as the creature takes extra damage as opposed to the attack deals extra damage. The reasoning is that "the attack.." is eligible for crit upgrades where "the creature takes" is not. Neither GFB nor BB are eligible for crit damage because of the way that they are set up and these should be similar unless they are balanced around the idea.
The Shock Blade could be centered around crits by making an attack by another creature against the target crit on a 19-20 while allowing the attack to deal an extra d4 damage per step.
The withering blade would also be a candidate for the 19-20 crit range (flavored as just dealing more damage due to the necrotic damage), or it could apply the next save made at disadvantage debuff.
Another idea would be that the creature has vulnerability to the weapon damage of the next weapon attack or the spell damage of the next spell that damages it. That idea would have to be fleshed out better and the idea would be that the vulnerability wouldn't include any additional sources of damage like sneak attack or divine smite. It probably wouldn't work well or the mechanics wouldn't work with the thematics, so it's probably a busted idea.