Swordmage stacking fire damage.

[castro3nw]

A buddy of mine is starting a Swordmage and wants to take both Greenflame Blade and Burning Blade. Then he asks me how the interact, since Greenflame Blade does Str. mod in fire damage to adjacent enemies.

I'm sure the 1W+INT turns into 1W+INT+STR.
I assume the STR to adjacent turns into 2xSTR to adjacent, but I'm not 100% sure. So what do you all think?

Greenflame Blade
At-Will ✦ Arcane, Fire, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Intelligence vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Intelligence modifier fire damage, and you
deal fire damage equal to your Strength modifier to all
enemies adjacent to the target.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Intelligence modifier at 21st
level.

Burning Blade
Daily ✦ Arcane, Fire, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Attack: Intelligence vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Intelligence modifier fire damage.
Effect: Until the end of the encounter, your melee attacks
deal extra fire damage equal to your Strength modifier.

 

[Lojaan]

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't affect the damage Greenflame Blade does to enemies adjacent to the target.

Technically, the bonus to damage that Burning Blade gives is just the actual attack, not the secondary effect.

The same way that it would give bonus to the damage of a Booming Blade attack, but it wouldn't give a bonus to the damage of the secondary effect (target takes d6 + con dmg if it moves away from you).

BUT it's not 100% clear and you could always houserule it.

 

[castro3nw]

Technically, the bonus to damage that Burning Blade gives is just the actual attack, not the secondary effect.

I'd agree with you completely if it was a secondary Effect. But it's part of the Hit entry. Hence the confusion.

 

[Engilbrand]

It says extra damage, so I would think that they would stack. If it worked with other sorts of elemental damage, why not work with fire? If it had just said that you do fire damage, I would've needed to think about it more. As it is, though, it says EXTRA fire damage. It seems pretty clear to me.

 

[Herschel]

The interesting word is "extra". Is the Greenflame Blades fire damage to adjacent enemies part of teh primary attack or a secondary effect? Looking at the Swormage attack descriptions, it generally appears energy bursts from the sword as a result of an attack that can hit other targets in the vicinity. Since the fire damage is applied to all attacks and is an energy burst, I think it would be part of that "burst" that also hits near enemies.

This is contrary to what I had originally thought.

 

[Mahali]

Hmm, is the damage to enemies adjacent to your target the result of a melee attack.

I'd say yes, but attack against those adjacent? I'd say no and not add another +str fire damage to them. Just the primary.

 

[Herschel]

Hmm, is the damage to enemies adjacent to your target the result of a melee attack.

I'd say yes, but attack against those adjacent? I'd say no and not add another +str fire damage to them. Just the primary.

This had been my feeling too. In re-examining it, I am back to that feeling. That said, I may change my mind again a bit and allow the "extra" damage to be applied to whichever foe the player wants. While it's still, say, 4 extra damage I don't think I'd have a problem with applying it to the foe adjacent the original target. I'm not sure anyone would want to do that often, but there are a few cases where they might.