an army of spiritual weapons?

[fl8m]

In a recent game the favored soul cast Spiritual weapon 4 times and used it to slaughter some giants. combined with divine power he was dealing out (13th lvl) 12 attacks a round from spiritual weapons and 3 from himself. Can this be done? for some reason i always assumed you could only summon one. but given enough time a caster could create an army of these things and slaughter anything with unstoppable unattackable weapons.

am i missing anything in the description that prevents this?

 

[Len]

Yes, you can create several spiritual weapons, as far as I can tell. You can't create an army of them (unless it's a very small army) because they only last for 1 round/level. They're not unstoppable - they can be dispelled.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Don't forget that it takes actions to change targets, even when the opponent is slain.

Geoff.

 

[Jack Simth]

No.... nothing prevents it - at least, not directly; Spell Resistance can dispel them:

If an attacked creature has spell resistance, you make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against that spell resistance the first time the spiritual weapon strikes it. If the weapon is successfully resisted, the spell is dispelled. If not, the weapon has its normal full effect on that creature for the duration of the spell.

and Dispel Magic can kill them

A spiritual weapon cannot be attacked or harmed by physical attacks, but dispel magic, disintegrate, a sphere of annihilation, or a rod of cancellation affects it. A spiritual weapon’s AC against touch attacks is 12 (10 + size bonus for Tiny object)

, but nothing (other than casting time, spell duration (1 round/level) and available spell slots) prevents you from making quite a few of them. Of course, "nothing" prevents you from making a small army of Fiendish Wolves with Summon Monster II, either. Summons aren't subject to spell resistence, Spiritual Weapons aren't subject to direct damage. At lower levels, they have similar effects; at higher levels, Spiritual Weapon will be more damaging than SMII (due to better scaling and iterative attacks), but doesn't have higher level versions available. So at Clr 3, a Spiritual Weapon deals 1d8+1/round and rolls to hit at your BAB + Your Wis mod; at Clr 15, it deals 1d8+5 three times a round (but only once on the first round) at your BAB + Wis mod with iterative attacks (+11/+6/+1) rolling to hit each time. Armor stops it (rolls vs. AC) and they can't flank; a Sor/Wiz Scorching Ray, on the other hand, deals 4d6 (as soon as you can cast it) immediately, is a touch attack, and scales with level (12d6 at 11th, with three touch attack rolls). It's a slightly weaker offensive power for a class that doesn't have too many offensive powers to begin with.

 

[Hodgie]

All that aside, Spiritual Weapon is pretty powerful in my opinion. With medium range it is the cleric's missile weapon. While everyone else opens with the first round of arrows, you open with Spiritual Weapon and reap the benefits for 1 round/level.

 

[sukael]

Spritual weapon plus persistent metamagic feat plus improved spell capacity epic feat plus heighten spell feat. Fill all your slots from 8th-level spells up to get a small army of them.

EDIT: Though I'm not sure if spritual weapon would count for persistent metamagic restrictions.

 

[Crothian]

Spritual weapon plus persistent metamagic feat plus improved spell capacity epic feat plus heighten spell feat. Fill all your slots from 8th-level spells up to get a small army of them.

EDIT: Though I'm not sure if spritual weapon would count for persistent metamagic restrictions.

it doesn't, the range is not fixed

 

[sukael]

Ah. Nevermind, then.

If you really want such a thing, you're better off getting everdancing weapons (or whatever the weapon property name is from the ELH).

 

[Crothian]

an army of spirtual weapons though would make an interesting encounter to use against PCs.

 

[Jack Simth]

Well ... it's hard to deal with; sure, they can be dispelled (all of them, at once, potentially), disingtigrated (singly) or hit with rods of cancellation or the like ... but the only one able to DO anything about them (if encountered alone; if encountered as caused by a bunch of low-level clerics, you can end the spell by killing the cleric - cleric dead, it's no longer "in sight" of the cleric, so returns to the cleric and hovers ... hmm... does the cleric count as being where it's dead body is, or where it's soul now resides? Either way, the weapon is out of the fight; can also be neutralized with anything that blocks sight if encountered with the clerics - Tiny Hut would be fun). Makes for something funny to put into a Spell Glyph, though (would that work as an infinite range alarm [you are the caster, and it isn't in your sight anymore ... so it returns to you and hovers when triggered] or like a special case of a Summon Monster [treats the Glyph of Warding as the caster for returning and hovering, sight lines, et cetera])