D&D 5E Lightning Bolt should be better.

[Voadam]

Yeah, I always felt like removing this was a significant nerf to the spell. If a player asked, I'd probably allow it.

Playing a wizard who used it as his signature spell in 2e (usually starting it right in front of the fighters in front of me) I was quite disappointed in transitioning to 3e where it became the range 0 start and then 3.5 when it became a line with no fork option.

In 4e when you got a primary and two secondary targets at range the first time I used it the map position lined up so I described it as using the forked lightning bolt to catch the three targets.

 

[akr71]

I miss the old bounce off stone walls lightning bolt. A stun to effected creatures would be cool though.

 

[jgsugden]

Think about what it would mean to add a stun to lightning bolt from a balance perspective - you'd be negating at least 1 action from each target that failed a save and giving advantage to attacks on them. That would be ridiculously stronger than fireball - and both of these spells start off overpowered. Fireball, lightning bolt and hypnotic pattern were all intentionally designed to be signature spells stronger than other spells of their level.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Because bouncing damage around a battlefield randomly is really good for your characters who are on that battlefield!

Um... no.

You never played Baldur's Gate? Killing your own party is half the fun!

 

[aco175]

it is lightning, not thunder, so it is much quieter

I never thought about this before, I just assumed it worked like a regular lightning bolt from a storm cloud. I think I may rule it as making less noise than fireball, but not no noise.

A small change to make it better may be to allow the caster to exclude one target, but that is now stepping the the wizard sculpt spell. Does the fact that lightning is less resisted than fire make up for the favor of having fireball over lightning bolt? Or is it the area of effect that people want in damaging more targets that makes it more favored? I get the total damage of hitting 20 monsters for 25 points of damage over hitting only 2-3 monsters for the same damage.

Maybe there is a way to increase damage on the first target and take away a die for each target after the first. May be more hassle with the dice and figuring than it is worth in the end though.

 

[werecorpse]

Just because something doesn’t do thunder damage doesn’t mean it’s silent, or even quiet. A maul does bludgeoning damage but makes a noise when it hits. Electricity makes quite a noise when it damages stuff as well.

I allow lighting bolt to be forked and thus 10 wide by 50’ long.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Generally speaking, if the rules do not say it exists, it doesn't exist. This approach only goes so far ... but it is a pretty significant coincidental oversight to leave it out of all these lightning spells and make it so common elsewhere.

Hardly. Easily 3/4 of the spells in the game don't mention an audio component, even if we're just talking evocation. The idea that they "don't make a noise" as a result is beyond laughable and well into the ridiculous. And the number which have mechanical implementation of that is even smaller - what Knock and Thunderwave?

I get that your image of a lightning bolt spell is a literal lightning bolt from the sky. The spell behaves differently than real lightning bolts (which are much longer than 100 feet, and arc in different directions rather than being a line).

Uh what? That's not my picture, please don't attribute it to me.

I'm picturing it as a line of electricity, as described. If it's got enough energy to do what it says, and to befit the words "lightning bolt" (at a minimum it means some kind of distinctly visible arc), it's going to make a lot of noise.

 

[TwoSix]

The division between fireball and lightning bolt made sense when the primary focus of play was dungeon crawling; then you could use fireballs in rooms (ideally big ones you weren't in) and lightning bolts for long corridors.

 

[jgsugden]

Hardly. Easily 3/4 of the spells in the game don't mention an audio component, even if we're just talking evocation. The idea that they "don't make a noise" as a result is beyond laughable and well into the ridiculous. And the number which have mechanical implementation of that is even smaller - what Knock and Thunderwave?

FFS. Listen. I've said over and over that I consider this DM discretion on how the spell operates. Do whatever you want. Stop telling me how to have fun. I acknowledge you can do what you want - stop telling me I am wrong if what I say is not opposed by the friggin rules.

And if you'd like to go through and list all the evocations by type of damage and note what percentage of each damage type list an auditory element in the description... feel free.

4 big lightning spells - no auditory element identified.

Fireball, aganazzar's scorcher, delayed blast fireball, fire storm, flame strike - all have auditory descriptions. Not all fire spells do, but a lot of them do.

FEEL FREE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT. OTHERS ARE FREE TO DO WHAT THEY WANT.

 

[jmartkdr2]

They're both a bit situational (lightning bolt is better when targets and allies are bunched up, fireball is a better 1st-round spell). Hence the debate in this thread.

People can't agree which is better = it's balanced enough.