Today, I cast heat metal at 5th level. My next turn, my DM told me it only did 2d8 damage after the first one. This is apparently because the spell says this damage after saying 2d8. And upcasting doesn't say base damage. Is there any info about this that doesn't basically make me waste a 5th lv slot?
Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot. Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage when you cast the spell. Until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your subsequent turns to cause this damage again.
If a creature is holding or wearing the object and takes the damage from it, the creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or drop the object if it can. If it doesn't drop the object, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of your next turn.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 2nd.
Some spells do suffer from poor wording, where upcasting the spell might increase initial damage but not the subsequent damage. For example, Witch Bolt. Heat Metal, however, is clear that there is only one damage description in the spell that is used both on the first round and subsequent rounds, and that "this damage" is either 2d8, or 2d8+1d8 per slot level above 2nd.
Your Heat Metal at fifth level should do 5d8 on casting, and then 5d8 per round as a Bonus Action.
Heat Metal is a ridiculously good spell. I agree that RAW is that all damage benefits from being upcast, but realistically, I don't know if it should.
There is no save. If your target has metal armor on, they're screwed. Upcast to 5th level, then they'll all but guaranteed to take 50d8 damage over the course of 1 minute.
It only takes a bonus action to trigger each round. (Feel free to Dash around the map, Hide, or sling cantrips to add insult to injury.)
There is no way to break the effect, other than ending concentration or using something like Dispel Magic. (Witch Bolt has a 30ft tether)
It automatically grants Disadvantage on attacks and ability checks.
The average of 50d8 is 225 points of damage, which happens to be exactly the amount of HP that a CR 16 Adult Blue Dragon has. Granted, most dragons aren't wearing metal armor, but players are tricksy. I don't want a 9th level PC to be able to cast the spell and walk away from an encounter that is way above their pay grade.
*Since there is no saving throw, Legendary Resistance doesn't apply.
The only defense for the spell is attacking the person who cast it until they lose their concentration. I agree, it’s an excellent spell when you’re able to use it.
Heat metal is a very powerful spell. I thought the characters would eventually advance to the point where it was no longer all that useful, but they are level 10, and it is still a regular go-to for combat against strong enemies.
Some spells do suffer from poor wording, where upcasting the spell might increase initial damage but not the subsequent damage. For example, Witch Bolt.
I don't know what you mean by poor wording here. Witch bolt is rather explicitly worded to deliberately not increase subsequent damage.
It would actually be pretty strong (roughly twice the damage of heat metal) if the subsequent damage got buffed too. Though, it is still a ridiculously easy spell to break, so probably wouldn't be OP even with damage buff.
But other than that, I agree with CC and everyone else: the damage should have scaled and heat metal is a fantastically overpowered spell in the right situations.
Poor wording, intentional wording, call it what you will :)
Heat Metal, Create Bonfire, Cloud of Daggers, Dragon’s Breath, Vampiric Touch, Flaming Sphere, and virtually every other spell with damage in subsequent rounds are all in one camp, where scaling damage for the spell increases round 1 and round 2+ alike. While Witch Bolt is in a different camp, along with.... I can’t even think of another example? Witch Bolt definitely feels like the outlier.
Heat metal is also a concentration spell. When I cast it, seldom because we don't often find opponents that aren't monsters, my DM will immediately focus me so I lose concentration. If you can get many rounds out of a casting of heat metal, you're doing better than me.
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This spell is very powerful in the right moment, but it has it's limitations: the requirement that the metal be a "manufactured object" excludes creatures made of metal or with metal as part of their form (creatures are not objects; jury is out for me on whether armor wearing warforged are subjected to it either since their armor becomes integrated into their body) and natural metal objects.
The damage definitely scales up on upcasting throughout all turns the spell is active though.
This thread is nearly 3 years old but when the OP referred to 50d8 they were referring to the total damage over the spells duration of 1 minute. You can do 5d8 damage each round as there are 10 rounds in a minute that totals 50d8.
This spell came up in our recent game session. The question was, can the caster continuously cause the damage on a target that is neither in range nor visible.
Range doesn't seem to be a problem, as Jeremy et.al. have said multiple times that once a spell is cast, the original range doesn't impact the ability to maintain concentration. But what if you can't see the target (invisible, around a corner, teleported to another location, plane shifted, etc.) - can you continuously cause the damage with your bonus action?
Given the spell a) does not allow a save and b) frequently targets worn armor (which cannot be taken off during the duration of the spell, as medium takes 1 minute and heavy takes 5 minutes to "doff"), my inclination is to rule that if the target cannot be seen it cannot be the target of the bonus access successive damage.
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First D&D set: 1980 red box. Haven't stopped playing since. :)
This spell came up in our recent game session. The question was, can the caster continuously cause the damage on a target that is neither in range nor visible.
Range doesn't seem to be a problem, as Jeremy et.al. have said multiple times that once a spell is cast, the original range doesn't impact the ability to maintain concentration. But what if you can't see the target (invisible, around a corner, teleported to another location, plane shifted, etc.) - can you continuously cause the damage with your bonus action?
Given the spell a) does not allow a save and b) frequently targets worn armor (which cannot be taken off during the duration of the spell, as medium takes 1 minute and heavy takes 5 minutes to "doff"), my inclination is to rule that if the target cannot be seen it cannot be the target of the bonus access successive damage.
You can apply damage on subsequent turns at any range whether you can see the creature or not. Seeing the target within range is required to initially cast the spell. After that, all the caster needs to do is maintain concentration and expend a bonus action to keep the armor hot and doing damage each round (IF it is still in contact with a creature).
This spell came up in our recent game session. The question was, can the caster continuously cause the damage on a target that is neither in range nor visible.
Range doesn't seem to be a problem, as Jeremy et.al. have said multiple times that once a spell is cast, the original range doesn't impact the ability to maintain concentration. But what if you can't see the target (invisible, around a corner, teleported to another location, plane shifted, etc.) - can you continuously cause the damage with your bonus action?
Given the spell a) does not allow a save and b) frequently targets worn armor (which cannot be taken off during the duration of the spell, as medium takes 1 minute and heavy takes 5 minutes to "doff"), my inclination is to rule that if the target cannot be seen it cannot be the target of the bonus access successive damage.
You can apply damage on subsequent turns at any range whether you can see the creature or not. Seeing the target within range is required to initially cast the spell. After that, all the caster needs to do is maintain concentration and expend a bonus action to keep the armor hot and doing damage each round (IF it is still in contact with a creature).
I get that is the intended mechanic, but I think it conflicts with the intended mechanic of removing armor.
I don't believe the designers intended for Heat Metal to be able to deal 2d8 without save and without possibility of avoidance, not to mention the upcasting potential.
It's a situation where RAW and intended effect do not coincide correctly, so it will be a house rule at my table.
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First D&D set: 1980 red box. Haven't stopped playing since. :)
This spell came up in our recent game session. The question was, can the caster continuously cause the damage on a target that is neither in range nor visible.
Range doesn't seem to be a problem, as Jeremy et.al. have said multiple times that once a spell is cast, the original range doesn't impact the ability to maintain concentration. But what if you can't see the target (invisible, around a corner, teleported to another location, plane shifted, etc.) - can you continuously cause the damage with your bonus action?
Given the spell a) does not allow a save and b) frequently targets worn armor (which cannot be taken off during the duration of the spell, as medium takes 1 minute and heavy takes 5 minutes to "doff"), my inclination is to rule that if the target cannot be seen it cannot be the target of the bonus access successive damage.
You can apply damage on subsequent turns at any range whether you can see the creature or not. Seeing the target within range is required to initially cast the spell. After that, all the caster needs to do is maintain concentration and expend a bonus action to keep the armor hot and doing damage each round (IF it is still in contact with a creature).
I get that is the intended mechanic, but I think it conflicts with the intended mechanic of removing armor.
I don't believe the designers intended for Heat Metal to be able to deal 2d8 without save and without possibility of avoidance, not to mention the upcasting potential.
It's a situation where RAW and intended effect do not coincide correctly, so it will be a house rule at my table.
There is nothing to indicate that there is an unintended consequence for this spell in relation to upcasting or armor. The spell does not do a lot of damage even with upcasting (8 damage on average for the base level and 4 additional damage per upcasting). We are not talking about huge numbers. There is a diminishing return on upcasting, which is costly enough but it also costs bonus actions and concentration. It is quite enough.
Crawford as been noted to answer questions about rules, by being as broad as he possibly can be.
he says unless the spell says otherwise range on concentration spells are not impacted, yet he also said the range of a spells effect start from the caster.
so if an object or the caster is somehow teleported beyond the caster’s effect range, and the fact the first sentence of the description of the spell is : “Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range.”, does a concentrating caster still hold heat metal on the original object, or has to bonus action retarget another metal object to maintain concentration and the spells effect running till they can retarget the original target?
Crawford as been noted to answer questions about rules, by being as broad as he possibly can be.
he says unless the spell says otherwise range on concentration spells are not impacted, yet he also said the range of a spells effect start from the caster.
so if an object or the caster is somehow teleported beyond the caster’s effect range, and the fact the first sentence of the description of the spell is : “Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range.”, does a concentrating caster still hold heat metal on the original object, or has to bonus action retarget another metal object to maintain concentration and the spells effect running till they can retarget the original target?
That isn't how spells or heat metal for that matter works.
1) Range and target only apply when the spell is cast unless the spell says otherwise.
"Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot. Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage when you cast the spell. Until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your subsequent turns to cause this damage again."
The spell explicitly allows you to cause the damage again as a bonus action, it doesn't allow you to choose a new target for the spell. There is only one object affected by the spell.
2) The rules on concentration describe the limited set of circumstances that break concentration:
"Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:
Casting another spell that requires concentration. You lose concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires concentration. You can’t concentrate on two spells at once.
Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon’s breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.
Being incapacitated or killed. You lose concentration on a spell if you are incapacitated or if you die."
In addition: "Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise."
Distance, any distance including being on another plane, does not break concentration on a spell (unless the spell description contains a specific exception) and does not have any impact on a spell's effects unless the spell description says otherwise - Heat Metal makes no special changes for range.
So - ONE object is selected in casting Heat Metal - that object glows red hot causing damage to a creature in contact with it - that damage can be reapplied every turn as a bonus action.
The rules are pretty clear.
3) Finally, as far as I can tell the way Heat Metal works is both RAW and RAI - rules as intended. It isn't some sort of unexpected side effect. ALL spells work this way. Heat Metal can be a particularly effective spell against a creature wearing metal armor. That is clearly the intent. The easiest counter measure is to force the caster to make concentration saving throws - Magic Missile is a particularly effective spell for this task. The second counter measure is to kill or incapacitate the spell caster since that will also stop the spell.
The advantage of heat metal is that it doesn't involve a saving throw. However, it only does an average of 9 damage each round at the cost of a 2nd level spell slot. Consider a CR3 knight which wears plate armor and could be the likely target for such a spell. They have 52 hit points and it would take 6 rounds of heat metal on average to kill the target. Most combats are over in 3-4 rounds. At the most, Heat Metal will slightly hasten the demise of ONE target in the encounter. So, although cool, Heat Metal is far from overpowered and the ongoing effect even if the target is out of sight or a long distance away because they can't remove their heavy armor is absolutely intended.
If a PC is hit by this spell, their best course of action is to attack the spell caster, not run away in such a case.
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Today, I cast heat metal at 5th level. My next turn, my DM told me it only did 2d8 damage after the first one. This is apparently because the spell says this damage after saying 2d8. And upcasting doesn't say base damage. Is there any info about this that doesn't basically make me waste a 5th lv slot?
Your DM is mistaken.
Some spells do suffer from poor wording, where upcasting the spell might increase initial damage but not the subsequent damage. For example, Witch Bolt. Heat Metal, however, is clear that there is only one damage description in the spell that is used both on the first round and subsequent rounds, and that "this damage" is either 2d8, or 2d8+1d8 per slot level above 2nd.
Your Heat Metal at fifth level should do 5d8 on casting, and then 5d8 per round as a Bonus Action.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Heat Metal is a ridiculously good spell. I agree that RAW is that all damage benefits from being upcast, but realistically, I don't know if it should.
The average of 50d8 is 225 points of damage, which happens to be exactly the amount of HP that a CR 16 Adult Blue Dragon has. Granted, most dragons aren't wearing metal armor, but players are tricksy. I don't want a 9th level PC to be able to cast the spell and walk away from an encounter that is way above their pay grade.
*Since there is no saving throw, Legendary Resistance doesn't apply.
The only defense for the spell is attacking the person who cast it until they lose their concentration. I agree, it’s an excellent spell when you’re able to use it.
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Heat metal is a very powerful spell. I thought the characters would eventually advance to the point where it was no longer all that useful, but they are level 10, and it is still a regular go-to for combat against strong enemies.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I don't know what you mean by poor wording here. Witch bolt is rather explicitly worded to deliberately not increase subsequent damage.
It would actually be pretty strong (roughly twice the damage of heat metal) if the subsequent damage got buffed too. Though, it is still a ridiculously easy spell to break, so probably wouldn't be OP even with damage buff.
But other than that, I agree with CC and everyone else: the damage should have scaled and heat metal is a fantastically overpowered spell in the right situations.
Poor wording, intentional wording, call it what you will :)
Heat Metal, Create Bonfire, Cloud of Daggers, Dragon’s Breath, Vampiric Touch, Flaming Sphere, and virtually every other spell with damage in subsequent rounds are all in one camp, where scaling damage for the spell increases round 1 and round 2+ alike. While Witch Bolt is in a different camp, along with.... I can’t even think of another example? Witch Bolt definitely feels like the outlier.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Heat metal is also a concentration spell. When I cast it, seldom because we don't often find opponents that aren't monsters, my DM will immediately focus me so I lose concentration. If you can get many rounds out of a casting of heat metal, you're doing better than me.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
This spell is very powerful in the right moment, but it has it's limitations: the requirement that the metal be a "manufactured object" excludes creatures made of metal or with metal as part of their form (creatures are not objects; jury is out for me on whether armor wearing warforged are subjected to it either since their armor becomes integrated into their body) and natural metal objects.
The damage definitely scales up on upcasting throughout all turns the spell is active though.
5th level is 5d8 not 50d8.
Base spell damage is 2d8. Every spell slot above 2nd level adds 1d8. 2d8 plus 3d8 equals 5d8.
This thread is nearly 3 years old but when the OP referred to 50d8 they were referring to the total damage over the spells duration of 1 minute. You can do 5d8 damage each round as there are 10 rounds in a minute that totals 50d8.
This spell came up in our recent game session. The question was, can the caster continuously cause the damage on a target that is neither in range nor visible.
Range doesn't seem to be a problem, as Jeremy et.al. have said multiple times that once a spell is cast, the original range doesn't impact the ability to maintain concentration. But what if you can't see the target (invisible, around a corner, teleported to another location, plane shifted, etc.) - can you continuously cause the damage with your bonus action?
Given the spell a) does not allow a save and b) frequently targets worn armor (which cannot be taken off during the duration of the spell, as medium takes 1 minute and heavy takes 5 minutes to "doff"), my inclination is to rule that if the target cannot be seen it cannot be the target of the bonus access successive damage.
First D&D set: 1980 red box. Haven't stopped playing since. :)
You can apply damage on subsequent turns at any range whether you can see the creature or not. Seeing the target within range is required to initially cast the spell. After that, all the caster needs to do is maintain concentration and expend a bonus action to keep the armor hot and doing damage each round (IF it is still in contact with a creature).
I get that is the intended mechanic, but I think it conflicts with the intended mechanic of removing armor.
I don't believe the designers intended for Heat Metal to be able to deal 2d8 without save and without possibility of avoidance, not to mention the upcasting potential.
It's a situation where RAW and intended effect do not coincide correctly, so it will be a house rule at my table.
First D&D set: 1980 red box. Haven't stopped playing since. :)
There is nothing to indicate that there is an unintended consequence for this spell in relation to upcasting or armor. The spell does not do a lot of damage even with upcasting (8 damage on average for the base level and 4 additional damage per upcasting). We are not talking about huge numbers. There is a diminishing return on upcasting, which is costly enough but it also costs bonus actions and concentration. It is quite enough.
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Crawford as been noted to answer questions about rules, by being as broad as he possibly can be.
he says unless the spell says otherwise range on concentration spells are not impacted, yet he also said the range of a spells effect start from the caster.
so if an object or the caster is somehow teleported beyond the caster’s effect range, and the fact the first sentence of the description of the spell is : “Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range.”, does a concentrating caster still hold heat metal on the original object, or has to bonus action retarget another metal object to maintain concentration and the spells effect running till they can retarget the original target?
That isn't how spells or heat metal for that matter works.
1) Range and target only apply when the spell is cast unless the spell says otherwise.
"Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot. Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage when you cast the spell. Until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your subsequent turns to cause this damage again."
The spell explicitly allows you to cause the damage again as a bonus action, it doesn't allow you to choose a new target for the spell. There is only one object affected by the spell.
2) The rules on concentration describe the limited set of circumstances that break concentration:
"Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with concentration. The following factors can break concentration:
In addition: "Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise."
Distance, any distance including being on another plane, does not break concentration on a spell (unless the spell description contains a specific exception) and does not have any impact on a spell's effects unless the spell description says otherwise - Heat Metal makes no special changes for range.
So - ONE object is selected in casting Heat Metal - that object glows red hot causing damage to a creature in contact with it - that damage can be reapplied every turn as a bonus action.
The rules are pretty clear.
3) Finally, as far as I can tell the way Heat Metal works is both RAW and RAI - rules as intended. It isn't some sort of unexpected side effect. ALL spells work this way. Heat Metal can be a particularly effective spell against a creature wearing metal armor. That is clearly the intent. The easiest counter measure is to force the caster to make concentration saving throws - Magic Missile is a particularly effective spell for this task. The second counter measure is to kill or incapacitate the spell caster since that will also stop the spell.
The advantage of heat metal is that it doesn't involve a saving throw. However, it only does an average of 9 damage each round at the cost of a 2nd level spell slot. Consider a CR3 knight which wears plate armor and could be the likely target for such a spell. They have 52 hit points and it would take 6 rounds of heat metal on average to kill the target. Most combats are over in 3-4 rounds. At the most, Heat Metal will slightly hasten the demise of ONE target in the encounter. So, although cool, Heat Metal is far from overpowered and the ongoing effect even if the target is out of sight or a long distance away because they can't remove their heavy armor is absolutely intended.
If a PC is hit by this spell, their best course of action is to attack the spell caster, not run away in such a case.