I've recently become kind of fascinated with this spell. I've always liked summon/conjure spells, but after seeing the magma mephit's ability to cast heat metal, and conjure minor elementals being able to summon 4 of them, this seems kind of broken. 8d8 guaranteed fire damage PER ROUND! And Heat Metal lasts 10 rounds! Plus a possible disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks! And the elementals can still attack normally and still trigger their Death Burst. And you can upcast for more damage. With an 8th level slot, you can get a maximum of 240d8 + 18d4 + 9 using only Innate Spellcasting and Claw attacks. They can use Fire Breath for more damage too!
Though the casting time is 1 minute, it lasts a whole hour so you can cast it ahead of combat. Better yet, 14th level+ Conjuration wizards can keep concentrating and give ALL of the elementals 30 temp hit points!
Finally, a question that I've seen people argue about online: Does the DM get to choose what elementals are summoned?
It can be potent in battlefield control, and provide extra muscle with multiple critters or a single more powerful monster summoned but i wouldn't say it's overpowered.
While the spell let you conjure multiple magma mephit, they won't all be able to affect the same target with multiple instance heat metal if it's what you're thinking.
Combining Different Effects: Different game effects can affect a target at the same time. For example, two different benefits can give you a bonus to your Armor Class. But when two or more effects have the same proper name, only one of them (the most powerful one if their benefits aren’t identical) applies while the durations of the effects overlap. For example, if bless is cast on you when you’re still under the effect of an earlier bless, you gain the benefit of only one casting. Similarly, if you’re in the radius of more than one Aura of Protection, you benefit only from the one that grants the highest bonus.
Finally, a question that I've seen people argue about online: Does the DM get to choose what elementals are summoned?
The DM choose what creatures appear as per official ruling from Sage Advice Compendium;
When you cast a spell like conjure woodland beings, does the spellcaster or the DM choose the creatures that e conjured? A number of spells in the game let you summon creatures. Conjure animals, conjure celestial, conjure minor elementals, and conjure woodland beings are just a few examples. Some spells of this sort specify that the spellcaster chooses the creature conjured. For example, find familiar gives the caster a list of animals to choose from. Other spells of this sort let the spellcaster choose from among several broad options. For example, conjure minor elementals offers four options. Here are the first two: • One elemental of challenge rating 2 or lower • Two elementals of challenge rating 1 or lower The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. For example, if you pick the second option, the DM chooses the two elementals that have a challenge rating of 1 or lower. A spellcaster can certainly express a preference for what creatures shows up, but it’s up to the DM to determine if they do. The DM will often choose creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene
It is extremely powerful but a lot depends on the campaign. Heat metal is really power against enemies in metal armor, and can be bad for those wielding a particular weapon. Against monsters that use neither it does very little (often nothing). In some campaigns most of the combat will be against such creatures.
I think the biggest problem with it is how it can slow down combat. If you have 8 mephits (16 or even 24 if you upcast it) each rollingfor their damage on heat metal, then looking to see how to position themselves to maximise their fire breath having the DM have multiple creatures roll for saves and then roll to see if they get the fire breath back your turn could take 15 or even 30 minutes, then the rogue takes 20 seconds to make his sneak attack and bonus action hide. The rest of the group might very quickly lose interest.
It can be potent in battlefield control, and provide extra muscle with multiple critters or a single more powerful monster summoned but i wouldn't say it's overpowered.
While the spell let you conjure multiple magma mephit, they won't all be able to affect the same target with multiple instance heat metal if it's what you're thinking.
Combining Different Effects: Different game effects can affect a target at the same time. For example, two different benefits can give you a bonus to your Armor Class. But when two or more effects have the same proper name, only one of them (the most powerful one if their benefits aren’t identical) applies while the durations of the effects overlap. For example, if bless is cast on you when you’re still under the effect of an earlier bless, you gain the benefit of only one casting. Similarly, if you’re in the radius of more than one Aura of Protection, you benefit only from the one that grants the highest bonus.
Sorry for taking kinda long with my response, but I think each mephit would be able to do the damage separately as the damage is a bonus action on each of their turns rather than, say, at the end of each of the target's turns. Though the disadvantage would not stack.
Sorry for taking kinda long with my response, but I think each mephit would be able to do the damage separately as the damage is a bonus action on each of their turns rather than, say, at the end of each of the target's turns. Though the disadvantage would not stack.
Nope, the damage is applied with a bonus action but to be able to do that the spell has to be active on the target and only one instance of the same spell can be active on a given target at a time.
But as Plaguescarred said, if you could find multiple valid target objects on a single creature then those could all have one instance of the spell each.
It is extremely powerful but a lot depends on the campaign. Heat metal is really power against enemies in metal armor, and can be bad for those wielding a particular weapon. Against monsters that use neither it does very little (often nothing). In some campaigns most of the combat will be against such creatures.
I think the biggest problem with it is how it can slow down combat. If you have 8 mephits (16 or even 24 if you upcast it) each rollingfor their damage on heat metal, then looking to see how to position themselves to maximise their fire breath having the DM have multiple creatures roll for saves and then roll to see if they get the fire breath back your turn could take 15 or even 30 minutes, then the rogue takes 20 seconds to make his sneak attack and bonus action hide. The rest of the group might very quickly lose interest.
While there are certainly potential headaches running combat with multiple summoned creatures. Many of the worst problems can be mitigated with sufficient communication between the PC using the spell and the DM. This is the kind of situation where having lots of d20s is helpful. Also, if you have more than four mephits all doing burst damage or Heat Metal, etc. use the average damage listed in their stat block. If the # of mephits is about the same # of PCs, have the players run the mephits. This reduces the amount of brain drain on the DM and lets the players have more pawns to move around between their typical turns.
Also, I'd like to mention this possibility for upcasting: if the DM knows that a player likes to use summon spells, the DM can homebrew higher HD, higher damage versions of the summoned creatures to compensate for NOT having 16 of them on the board at the same time.
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I've recently become kind of fascinated with this spell. I've always liked summon/conjure spells, but after seeing the magma mephit's ability to cast heat metal, and conjure minor elementals being able to summon 4 of them, this seems kind of broken. 8d8 guaranteed fire damage PER ROUND! And Heat Metal lasts 10 rounds! Plus a possible disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks! And the elementals can still attack normally and still trigger their Death Burst. And you can upcast for more damage. With an 8th level slot, you can get a maximum of 240d8 + 18d4 + 9 using only Innate Spellcasting and Claw attacks. They can use Fire Breath for more damage too!
Though the casting time is 1 minute, it lasts a whole hour so you can cast it ahead of combat. Better yet, 14th level+ Conjuration wizards can keep concentrating and give ALL of the elementals 30 temp hit points!
Finally, a question that I've seen people argue about online: Does the DM get to choose what elementals are summoned?
It can be potent in battlefield control, and provide extra muscle with multiple critters or a single more powerful monster summoned but i wouldn't say it's overpowered.
While the spell let you conjure multiple magma mephit, they won't all be able to affect the same target with multiple instance heat metal if it's what you're thinking.
The DM choose what creatures appear as per official ruling from Sage Advice Compendium;
It is extremely powerful but a lot depends on the campaign. Heat metal is really power against enemies in metal armor, and can be bad for those wielding a particular weapon. Against monsters that use neither it does very little (often nothing). In some campaigns most of the combat will be against such creatures.
I think the biggest problem with it is how it can slow down combat. If you have 8 mephits (16 or even 24 if you upcast it) each rollingfor their damage on heat metal, then looking to see how to position themselves to maximise their fire breath having the DM have multiple creatures roll for saves and then roll to see if they get the fire breath back your turn could take 15 or even 30 minutes, then the rogue takes 20 seconds to make his sneak attack and bonus action hide. The rest of the group might very quickly lose interest.
Sorry for taking kinda long with my response, but I think each mephit would be able to do the damage separately as the damage is a bonus action on each of their turns rather than, say, at the end of each of the target's turns. Though the disadvantage would not stack.
It would need to be different object for each heat metal spell, you can't stack them on the same target object.
Nope, the damage is applied with a bonus action but to be able to do that the spell has to be active on the target and only one instance of the same spell can be active on a given target at a time.
But as Plaguescarred said, if you could find multiple valid target objects on a single creature then those could all have one instance of the spell each.
Imagine the most picky player targeting each plate on plate mail with a different heat metal.
A plate mail counts as a single object even it it is made up of several parts.
It could be a weapon and a suite of metal armor for exemple
While there are certainly potential headaches running combat with multiple summoned creatures. Many of the worst problems can be mitigated with sufficient communication between the PC using the spell and the DM. This is the kind of situation where having lots of d20s is helpful. Also, if you have more than four mephits all doing burst damage or Heat Metal, etc. use the average damage listed in their stat block. If the # of mephits is about the same # of PCs, have the players run the mephits. This reduces the amount of brain drain on the DM and lets the players have more pawns to move around between their typical turns.
Also, I'd like to mention this possibility for upcasting: if the DM knows that a player likes to use summon spells, the DM can homebrew higher HD, higher damage versions of the summoned creatures to compensate for NOT having 16 of them on the board at the same time.