I just tried out Vampiric Touch for the first time, and found its performance lackluster. First off, its damage seems sub-par for a level 3 spell. Erupting Earth does twice as much damage, to multiple creatures. Sure, it has DEX save for half... but that still means worst case (i.e. single creature which makes its save) it's still as much damage as Vampiric Touch, but at long (120') range rather than melee. And Vampiric Touch requires an attack roll, so that's a wash anyway. Fireball and Lightning Bolt do 2.5x as much damage, and with a greater area, and, again, at range. Melf's Minute Meteors does 33% more damage, and at range.
Now, granted, Vampiric Touch lasts longer, and can be used on subsequent turns, so it might be more efficient in terms of "damage per spell slot", but Melf's Minute Meteors can also be used multiple times (not as much, just three times for max damage per round, but longer if you don't need max damage). So damage-wise, Vampiric Touch isn't very good. It also requires you to be in melee range, which is obviously not good, unless you're a gish.
So that leaves healing... which is just half of an already lackluster damage. Using it last night, I managed to heal myself for a total of 7 hps across multiple rounds. That included rolling low for damage, flat out missing, and having to re-cast the spell because of lost concentration due to being hit (melee range!). Would have been significantly better to use one of those lvl 3 slots to cast False Life, to gain 15-18 temp HPs, and another slot for Melf's Minute Meteors. Would have been more damage, more mitigation, and better tactical positioning.
It's a jack-of-all-trades spell. Not a specialist one. So to compare it to specialist spells has the same folly in comparing a magic/martial hybrid character to either a purely magic or purely martial one. As in both cases, the comparison is misplaced due to mechanically being unfair from the outset.
The purpose of vampiric touch is to do damage and buff your character. Naturally, it's not going to do damage on par with a damage only spell nor will it's buff be on par with a buff only spell. Because if either the damage or the buff was on par, it would be considered imbalanced or in more common game terms, overpowered. So if you're disappointed with what it gives you, you clearly value more specialist spells over more versatile ones. Which leaves the question of, why did you pick vampiric touch at all if you value more focused spells?
I might not have been clear on the comparison... Using False Life + Melf's Minute Meteors is superior in almost all regards. The only drawback is you spend two slots instead of one. But considering you don't need to get into melee range to use it, and therefore are much less prone to losing concentration, it's arguable that false life + melf's gives more bang for the buck overall.
I wouldn't call vampiric touch a jack-of-all-trades spell. All it does is deal damage and heal. And for the heal component, you're giving up significant damage and opening yourself up to being hit more, and harder, from being in melee range. Being hit more, and harder, translates into more lost hitpoints, and more potential for loss of concentration. Losing more hitpoints kind of makes the healing component useless, and losing concentration means you're wasting both healing and damage dealt.
As to why I picked it, well, first off, my Wizard is a Necromancer, so it was thematic, and ostensibly one of the best ways to make use of Grim Harvest. I didn't do the math before picking the spell, honestly, because it just fits the character too well not to take. But I feel I'm giving up too much while using the spell to make it worth it. I give up damage and position, to arguably gain healing (arguably, because if I'm being hit more, the little healing I'm gaining is offset by the extra damage I'm taking).
I guess it would be best for situations with few or a single enemy, where I'm less likely to be hit anyway... but then, why do I want healing?
To me the good part of Vampire Touch is that it's duration, 1 minute.
That's 10 turns off possible attacks, so as a 3rd lock spell it could do 30d6 damage (3d6*10 turns)
Now we can all agree that probably not realistic! You still have to roll to hit and not lose Concentration if you get attacked back.
That said Find Familiar helps incredibly here, as you should always have Adv from the "Help" action.
If you are planning on using Vampire Touch I think Mobile is a good feat, so you can run in, attack and get out. My Wizard has 1 lvl of Cleric, so he had scale mail and a shield for AC 18.
Yeah, my conclusion was something along those lines... for a "classic" wizard, it's not very good. But for some builds, I'm guessing it can shine: mobile feat, armored wizards, grappler builds...
The duration, of course, is the trap: it can last 10 turns, sure... but unless you manage to find targets that won't hit back, it almost certainly won't.
I might not have been clear on the comparison... Using False Life + Melf's Minute Meteors is superior in almost all regards. The only drawback is you spend two slots instead of one. But considering you don't need to get into melee range to use it, and therefore are much less prone to losing concentration, it's arguable that false life + melf's gives more bang for the buck overall.
Again, you are comparing the effects of two spells with a single spell. One of which is upscaled to be a third-level spell and the other which is a third-level spell. So to say that comparison is unfair is an understatement.
I wouldn't call vampiric touch a jack-of-all-trades spell. All it does is deal damage and heal. And for the heal component, you're giving up significant damage and opening yourself up to being hit more, and harder, from being in melee range. Being hit more, and harder, translates into more lost hitpoints, and more potential for loss of concentration. Losing more hitpoints kind of makes the healing component useless, and losing concentration means you're wasting both healing and damage dealt.
It is a jack-of-all-trades spell. As it does both damage and healing okay (possibly good) instead of doing them good or great like a damage or healing spell would. Which is the definition of what makes something a jack-of-all-trades instead of a specialist.
As to why I picked it, well, first off, my Wizard is a Necromancer, so it was thematic, and ostensibly one of the best ways to make use of Grim Harvest. I didn't do the math before picking the spell, honestly, because it just fits the character too well not to take. But I feel I'm giving up too much while using the spell to make it worth it. I give up damage and position, to arguably gain healing (arguably, because if I'm being hit more, the little healing I'm gaining is offset by the extra damage I'm taking).
I guess it would be best for situations with few or a single enemy, where I'm less likely to be hit anyway... but then, why do I want healing?
Grim Harvest should make this spell very good for you. If you were to kill a creature with it, you'd get back half the damage done in HP as well as 9 HP by default. Which altogether would be around 14 or so HP (on average) per kill for 10 rounds. How is that not enough healing for you? You are a wizard and therefore have barely any HP, so you really should love the HP benefits of this spell more than any other character would with access to this spell.
The duration, of course, is the trap: it can last 10 turns, sure... but unless you manage to find targets that won't hit back, it almost certainly won't.
It seems your expectations and use of this spell are misplaced. Will you use it all the time in those 10 rounds? Probably not but when you need healing, yes you will. Especially if you know the enemy is on the ropes and you use it to secure a kill and gain even more HP. Should you be in melee a ton? No, you are a wizard after all. But this spell more so is for when you are forced into melee versus voluntarily going into it (unless you're a GISH who wants to be in melee) i.e. when your DM focuses you the "glass cannon" with some brutes. And since you will most like get hit by AoO while getting out of melee anyways, why not get some damage off and healing to mitigate the AoO damage?
Ultimately though, the use of this spell is very character build and strategy dependent. It's not like the other "set it and forget it" spells you listed. You don't just launch a fireball or cast a buffer of hp around you with false life and go about your business. No, instead you have to be more thoughtful. You have to realize which enemies you can and cannot kill with it to make the most out of your Grim Harvest and you have to realize how best to mitigate CON checks by positioning yourself just right in battle and mechanically (feats, good AC...etc).
So with all the above, I'd simply recommend looking around the web and here for ways to make the best use of the spell. And as you have Grim Harvest, you truly can get the most bang for your buck with it in comparison to others. Therefore you are already off to a great start, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to be great with it.
I wouldn't call vampiric touch a jack-of-all-trades spell. All it does is deal damage and heal.
As far as I know, there aren't any other spells in the game that deal damage and heal at the same time. It's also the only spell wizards have for self-healing.
And for the heal component, you're giving up significant damage and opening yourself up to being hit more, and harder, from being in melee range.
In any situation where you want to spend your action on healing yourself, you wouldn't be dealing damage in the first place.
I guess it would be best for situations with few or a single enemy, where I'm less likely to be hit anyway... but then, why do I want healing?
Sure, assuming the enemies don't have any area effects and you never trigger any traps.
Yeah, after posting here and reading your responses, at tonight's session I was much more successful with it. I guess in part bad luck with the dice skewed my perception of it first time. The trick is to manage to keep concentration, I guess. Btw, the total max possible dmg output is more than 30d6, it's like 60d6, considering you can make OAs with it, even without War Caster!
Btw, the total max possible dmg output is more than 30d6, it's like 60d6, considering you can make OAs with it, even without War Caster!
Technically you can't, since the only way to use it is by using an action. See this related ruling on Flame Blade. It's a very common misunderstanding though so I wouldn't be surprised if your DM allows it. It's not game-breaking or anything.
Btw, the total max possible dmg output is more than 30d6, it's like 60d6, considering you can make OAs with it, even without War Caster!
Technically you can't, since the only way to use it is by using an action. See this related ruling on Flame Blade. It's a very common misunderstanding though so I wouldn't be surprised if your DM allows it. It's not game-breaking or anything.
Yeah, my conclusion was something along those lines... for a "classic" wizard, it's not very good. But for some builds, I'm guessing it can shine: mobile feat, armored wizards, grappler builds...
The duration, of course, is the trap: it can last 10 turns, sure... but unless you manage to find targets that won't hit back, it almost certainly won't.
This is why this spell is on my short list when my Wizard gets 3rd lvl spells. I took 1st lvl Knowledge Cleric and Abjuration Wizard the rest of the way. We just hit 5th lvl, so next level I'll have 3rd lvl spells. My top spell will be Tiny Hut so we never have to worry about resting in Chult again, my shortlist after that is Animate Dead, Fireball, and Vampiric Touch.
My character has +2 dex and scale mail with a shield and open hand for spells. He's normally rocking AC:18 and AC:23 with Shield (which is almost the only 1st lvl spell I've cast all game!). My GM has the devil's luck so even when I Dodge as an action to hold off monsters I'm still regularly casting Shield! We don't have many front line fighters in our party, so my Wizard is often body blocking for the the Ranger. I don't anticipate ever using the healing ability of Vampire Touch as I'll have Arcane Ward on top of my AC. On the other-hand I'll almost always be attacking with Adv due to my Owl familiar giving Help so my participation in combat should be much higher then fireball or lightning bolt.
I've been seeing the same thing with Shield. Last encounter, I used all my 1st level slots for Shield, and almost started dipping into my 2nd level slots. It's definitely too good to pass up. There's a Sorcerer in my group, and he takes care of the blasting, so I'm trying to shy away from direct damage spells and more into buff/debuff. Had great success using Haste on our Barbarian. Still struggling with juggling Concentration spells; I think I took too many Concentration spells, so I feel my options are limited most of the time. But that's neither here nor there. =)
I would venture a guess that if you had multiattack, you could make several attacks with it, but I just put a tweet in to Jeremy Crawford for clarification. But I'd say with haste you could definitely be able to make several attacks with it. You just wouldn't be able to haste yourself.
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
Extra Attack requires the Attack action, and the action granted by Haste has to be one of the options given by the spell. The action used for Vampiric Touch isn't the Attack action.
You'd need Action Surge to use it twice in one turn.
The total possible damage output technically is still 60d6 though, since the spell requires an attack roll and attack rolls can score critical hits - it's just wildly unlikely to approach the maximum potential damage output.
vampiric touch isn't a spell every wizard will want, nor even every necromancer, but in the hands of a character set up to be played in just such a way (like my wife's sword-wielding necromancer that wears elven chain) it can prove quite potent - and is of particularly good use in the rounds following events such as a dragon knocking out your druid friend (and also damaging you and the rest of your party) with a breath weapon, or when you have managed to get a particularly tough enemy to fail the save against your wand of paralysis and sneak in a few crits before they finally pass the save and start moving again.
I don't think anyone has mentioned Spell Sniper yet. Wouldn't this allow a wizard to cast Vampiric Touch at 10' range, outside of melee? As others have said, it's all about the build
I don't think anyone has mentioned Spell Sniper yet. Wouldn't this allow a wizard to cast Vampiric Touch at 10' range, outside of melee?
No. The Range of the spell is Self and the attack it allows you to make relies on your reach. Spell Sniper only works on spells with numeric Range entries and doesn't make your limbs any longer.
Ive been considering making a build that focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of Vampiric Touch. Its Life Cleric 1/Death Domain Theurgy Wizard X. Life Domain provides heavy armor and +5 healing on a 3rd level Vampiric Touch; Death Domain Theurgy gives you Touch of Death for burst damage and healing as well as short rest spell recovery. You go Fallen Aasimar for Necrotic Shroud and take War Caster instead of your first ASI. With all Cds popped you can heal for (3d6 + 15)/2 + 8 (avg 21) on a hit at level 6. Spiritual Weapon provides a use for your bonus action and can apply Necrotic Shroud and/or Touch of Death if Vampiric Touch misses. Can take Warding Bond and to "share" one of your allies damage then heal it back on your turn (even better if the damage is necrotic/radiant). Later on you can take Soul Cage for either increased chance to hit or bonus action healing (boosted by +8 with Disciple of Life). This build is very MAD (starts 14+1/9/14/14/13/8+2) but seems like a fun way to play as a lifestealing tank.
Ive been considering making a build that focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of Vampiric Touch. Its Life Cleric 1/Death Domain Theurgy Wizard X. Life Domain provides heavy armor and +5 healing on a 3rd level Vampiric Touch; Death Domain Theurgy gives you Touch of Death for burst damage and healing as well as short rest spell recovery. You go Fallen Aasimar for Necrotic Shroud and take War Caster instead of your first ASI. With all Cds popped you can heal for (3d6 + 15)/2 + 8 (avg 21) on a hit at level 6. Spiritual Weapon provides a use for your bonus action and can apply Necrotic Shroud and/or Touch of Death if Vampiric Touch misses. Can take Warding Bond and to "share" one of your allies damage then heal it back on your turn (even better if the damage is necrotic/radiant). Later on you can take Soul Cage for either increased chance to hit or bonus action healing (boosted by +8 with Disciple of Life). This build is very MAD (starts 14+1/9/14/14/13/8+2) but seems like a fun way to play as a lifestealing tank.
I don't think Fallen Aasimar is a good choice. The Necrotic Shroud is only once per day. You're not benefiting from the +2 charisma at all. If you're doing a campaign with a lot of necrotic and radiant damage, or your DM only likes throwing one tough battle per day at you (and he or she always makes it clear when this battle will occur), then Fallen Aasimar becomes a much better choice.
There are plenty of races that would be a better option that would give you stats that would benefit you. Rock Gnome would be great. You would have +2 Intelligence, +1 Constitution, and advantage on all Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma saving throws against magic (this is a huge bonus for a tank). Forest Gnome (or High Elf) is good if you decide to go the Dexterity Armor route instead of the Heavy Armor route. Scale Mail with 14 Dex is equal to Chain Mail. Studded Leather with 18 Dex is equal to Chain Mail. So your AC doesn't really suffer.
Having a race with +1 or +2 to Intelligence would be a huge boost for your chance to hit on spells. You do get +1 strength from Fallen Aasimar, so you do get a minor bonus on your chance to hit with melee attacks, so I suppose you'll want to take Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade and focus on being a melee attacker.
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I just tried out Vampiric Touch for the first time, and found its performance lackluster. First off, its damage seems sub-par for a level 3 spell. Erupting Earth does twice as much damage, to multiple creatures. Sure, it has DEX save for half... but that still means worst case (i.e. single creature which makes its save) it's still as much damage as Vampiric Touch, but at long (120') range rather than melee. And Vampiric Touch requires an attack roll, so that's a wash anyway. Fireball and Lightning Bolt do 2.5x as much damage, and with a greater area, and, again, at range. Melf's Minute Meteors does 33% more damage, and at range.
Now, granted, Vampiric Touch lasts longer, and can be used on subsequent turns, so it might be more efficient in terms of "damage per spell slot", but Melf's Minute Meteors can also be used multiple times (not as much, just three times for max damage per round, but longer if you don't need max damage). So damage-wise, Vampiric Touch isn't very good. It also requires you to be in melee range, which is obviously not good, unless you're a gish.
So that leaves healing... which is just half of an already lackluster damage. Using it last night, I managed to heal myself for a total of 7 hps across multiple rounds. That included rolling low for damage, flat out missing, and having to re-cast the spell because of lost concentration due to being hit (melee range!). Would have been significantly better to use one of those lvl 3 slots to cast False Life, to gain 15-18 temp HPs, and another slot for Melf's Minute Meteors. Would have been more damage, more mitigation, and better tactical positioning.
Am I missing something?
It's a jack-of-all-trades spell. Not a specialist one. So to compare it to specialist spells has the same folly in comparing a magic/martial hybrid character to either a purely magic or purely martial one. As in both cases, the comparison is misplaced due to mechanically being unfair from the outset.
The purpose of vampiric touch is to do damage and buff your character. Naturally, it's not going to do damage on par with a damage only spell nor will it's buff be on par with a buff only spell. Because if either the damage or the buff was on par, it would be considered imbalanced or in more common game terms, overpowered. So if you're disappointed with what it gives you, you clearly value more specialist spells over more versatile ones. Which leaves the question of, why did you pick vampiric touch at all if you value more focused spells?
I might not have been clear on the comparison... Using False Life + Melf's Minute Meteors is superior in almost all regards. The only drawback is you spend two slots instead of one. But considering you don't need to get into melee range to use it, and therefore are much less prone to losing concentration, it's arguable that false life + melf's gives more bang for the buck overall.
I wouldn't call vampiric touch a jack-of-all-trades spell. All it does is deal damage and heal. And for the heal component, you're giving up significant damage and opening yourself up to being hit more, and harder, from being in melee range. Being hit more, and harder, translates into more lost hitpoints, and more potential for loss of concentration. Losing more hitpoints kind of makes the healing component useless, and losing concentration means you're wasting both healing and damage dealt.
As to why I picked it, well, first off, my Wizard is a Necromancer, so it was thematic, and ostensibly one of the best ways to make use of Grim Harvest. I didn't do the math before picking the spell, honestly, because it just fits the character too well not to take. But I feel I'm giving up too much while using the spell to make it worth it. I give up damage and position, to arguably gain healing (arguably, because if I'm being hit more, the little healing I'm gaining is offset by the extra damage I'm taking).
I guess it would be best for situations with few or a single enemy, where I'm less likely to be hit anyway... but then, why do I want healing?
To me the good part of Vampire Touch is that it's duration, 1 minute.
That's 10 turns off possible attacks, so as a 3rd lock spell it could do 30d6 damage (3d6*10 turns)
Now we can all agree that probably not realistic! You still have to roll to hit and not lose Concentration if you get attacked back.
That said Find Familiar helps incredibly here, as you should always have Adv from the "Help" action.
If you are planning on using Vampire Touch I think Mobile is a good feat, so you can run in, attack and get out. My Wizard has 1 lvl of Cleric, so he had scale mail and a shield for AC 18.
Yeah, my conclusion was something along those lines... for a "classic" wizard, it's not very good. But for some builds, I'm guessing it can shine: mobile feat, armored wizards, grappler builds...
The duration, of course, is the trap: it can last 10 turns, sure... but unless you manage to find targets that won't hit back, it almost certainly won't.
As far as I know, there aren't any other spells in the game that deal damage and heal at the same time. It's also the only spell wizards have for self-healing.
In any situation where you want to spend your action on healing yourself, you wouldn't be dealing damage in the first place.
Yeah, after posting here and reading your responses, at tonight's session I was much more successful with it. I guess in part bad luck with the dice skewed my perception of it first time. The trick is to manage to keep concentration, I guess. Btw, the total max possible dmg output is more than 30d6, it's like 60d6, considering you can make OAs with it, even without War Caster!
We don't have many front line fighters in our party, so my Wizard is often body blocking for the the Ranger.
I don't anticipate ever using the healing ability of Vampire Touch as I'll have Arcane Ward on top of my AC. On the other-hand I'll almost always be attacking with Adv due to my Owl familiar giving Help so my participation in combat should be much higher then fireball or lightning bolt.
I've been seeing the same thing with Shield. Last encounter, I used all my 1st level slots for Shield, and almost started dipping into my 2nd level slots. It's definitely too good to pass up. There's a Sorcerer in my group, and he takes care of the blasting, so I'm trying to shy away from direct damage spells and more into buff/debuff. Had great success using Haste on our Barbarian. Still struggling with juggling Concentration spells; I think I took too many Concentration spells, so I feel my options are limited most of the time. But that's neither here nor there. =)
I would venture a guess that if you had multiattack, you could make several attacks with it, but I just put a tweet in to Jeremy Crawford for clarification. But I'd say with haste you could definitely be able to make several attacks with it. You just wouldn't be able to haste yourself.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
Extra Attack requires the Attack action, and the action granted by Haste has to be one of the options given by the spell. The action used for Vampiric Touch isn't the Attack action.
You'd need Action Surge to use it twice in one turn.
The total possible damage output technically is still 60d6 though, since the spell requires an attack roll and attack rolls can score critical hits - it's just wildly unlikely to approach the maximum potential damage output.
vampiric touch isn't a spell every wizard will want, nor even every necromancer, but in the hands of a character set up to be played in just such a way (like my wife's sword-wielding necromancer that wears elven chain) it can prove quite potent - and is of particularly good use in the rounds following events such as a dragon knocking out your druid friend (and also damaging you and the rest of your party) with a breath weapon, or when you have managed to get a particularly tough enemy to fail the save against your wand of paralysis and sneak in a few crits before they finally pass the save and start moving again.
I don't think anyone has mentioned Spell Sniper yet. Wouldn't this allow a wizard to cast Vampiric Touch at 10' range, outside of melee? As others have said, it's all about the build
No. The Range of the spell is Self and the attack it allows you to make relies on your reach. Spell Sniper only works on spells with numeric Range entries and doesn't make your limbs any longer.
Ive been considering making a build that focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of Vampiric Touch. Its Life Cleric 1/Death Domain Theurgy Wizard X. Life Domain provides heavy armor and +5 healing on a 3rd level Vampiric Touch; Death Domain Theurgy gives you Touch of Death for burst damage and healing as well as short rest spell recovery. You go Fallen Aasimar for Necrotic Shroud and take War Caster instead of your first ASI. With all Cds popped you can heal for (3d6 + 15)/2 + 8 (avg 21) on a hit at level 6. Spiritual Weapon provides a use for your bonus action and can apply Necrotic Shroud and/or Touch of Death if Vampiric Touch misses. Can take Warding Bond and to "share" one of your allies damage then heal it back on your turn (even better if the damage is necrotic/radiant). Later on you can take Soul Cage for either increased chance to hit or bonus action healing (boosted by +8 with Disciple of Life). This build is very MAD (starts 14+1/9/14/14/13/8+2) but seems like a fun way to play as a lifestealing tank.
I don't think Fallen Aasimar is a good choice. The Necrotic Shroud is only once per day. You're not benefiting from the +2 charisma at all. If you're doing a campaign with a lot of necrotic and radiant damage, or your DM only likes throwing one tough battle per day at you (and he or she always makes it clear when this battle will occur), then Fallen Aasimar becomes a much better choice.
There are plenty of races that would be a better option that would give you stats that would benefit you. Rock Gnome would be great. You would have +2 Intelligence, +1 Constitution, and advantage on all Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma saving throws against magic (this is a huge bonus for a tank). Forest Gnome (or High Elf) is good if you decide to go the Dexterity Armor route instead of the Heavy Armor route. Scale Mail with 14 Dex is equal to Chain Mail. Studded Leather with 18 Dex is equal to Chain Mail. So your AC doesn't really suffer.
Having a race with +1 or +2 to Intelligence would be a huge boost for your chance to hit on spells. You do get +1 strength from Fallen Aasimar, so you do get a minor bonus on your chance to hit with melee attacks, so I suppose you'll want to take Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade and focus on being a melee attacker.