Dragonlance Does Black Robe Life Channel work with Wratful Smite and Searing Smite?

[ECMO3]

I am trying to put together a Kender Conquest Paladin High Sorcery background build and looking at spells.

Life Channel. You can channel your life force into the power of your magic. When a creature you can see within 60 feet of you fails a saving throw against a spell that deals damage that you cast, you can expend a number of Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell. Roll the expended Hit Dice and add them together. The damage that the creature takes increases by an amount equal to that total.

Wrathful Smite: The next time you hit with a melee weapon attack during this spell’s duration, your attack deals an extra 1d6 psychic damage. Additionally, if the target is a creature, it must make a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the spell ends. As an action, the creature can make a Wisdom check against your spell save DC to steel its resolve and end this spell.

I think these two work together. The save is not made when you cast the spell, but when you make your hit and it is a spell that deals damage.

Searing Smite: The next time you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack during the spell’s duration, your weapon flares with white-hot intensity, and the attack deals an extra 1d6 fire damage to the target and causes the target to ignite in flames.

At the start of each of its turns until the spell ends, the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 1d6 fire damage. On a successful save, the spells ends. If the target or a creature within 5 feet of it uses an action to put out the flames, or if some other effect douses the flames (such as the target being submerged in water), the spell ends.

On Searing Smite I think you could add a hit dice every turn until he makes a save.

How would you rule?

Also as an aside this is really powerful with spells which force multiple saves but do not end the spell like Dragon's Breath, Moon Beam, Spirit Guardians etc. You could apply hit dice damage every round and to multiple enemies per round if you damage more than one (until you run out of hit dice).

 

[bedir than]

The RAW reading seems that these do work together. That's some powerful nova action

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Kender Conquest Paladin High Sorcery background

just so you know, you scare me a bit with these words... but

Life Channel. You can channel your life force into the power of your magic. When a creature you can see within 60 feet of you fails a saving throw against a spell that deals damage that you cast, you can expend a number of Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell. Roll the expended Hit Dice and add them together. The damage that the creature takes increases by an amount equal to that total.

must make a Wisdom saving throw

the target must make a Constitution saving throw.

I mean I think that if they fail the save AND you deal damage it could work... dropping this on a crit sounds like it will make your DM cry though.

 

[Redwizard007]

It sounds like the intent was for this to apply to (probably, single target) spells whose primary effect was dealing damage. The actual effect of such poorly worded rules just turns this into a complete mess.

I'd probably rule that the save must be against initial actual damage, rather than the debuff or ongoing effect, but the waters are murky at best.

 

[ECMO3]

I'd probably rule that the save must be against initial actual damage, rather than the debuff or ongoing effect, but the waters are murky at best.

Why? It is very underpowered as a feat if that is the case. Uses are limited by your hit dice and I think it is a nice boost to lingering damage effects.

 

[Redwizard007]

Why? It is very underpowered as a feat if that is the case. Uses are limited by your hit dice and I think it is a nice boost to lingering damage effects.

Because doing it otherwise would open up a can of worms at my table.

Does using the feat on round 1 of a spell mean you add that damage every round at no further cost? What about activating it post casting on a lingering effect? How bout AoEs? Does it boost damage on every target, or just one? Is that different on rays that can target multiple individuals?

Actually, rereading the ability, it seems to target the the individual who had the spell cast on them and failed the saving throw. So the answer to all my hypotheticals is "no." It also means it doesn't apply to either Smite spell, since "you" are the target of the spells, (range of "self") not the recipient of the damage.

 

[pukunui]

I second what @Redwizard007 says. I think the intent here is for it to work against spells like fireball that involve a save vs damage, not spells that involve you dealing extra damage on a hit with a weapon attack plus a save vs an additional effect. I also don't think the intent is for you to be able to continue to deal the extra damage on subsequent rounds. It's a one and done sort of thing.

Ultimately, though, it's up to your DM.

 

[James Gasik]

I do agree the probable intent was against spells that deal damage based on the saving throw, but it's astonishing how badly written this ability is. Like whoever wrote it never saw a spell that deals damage and has a rider effect with a save before.

 

[ECMO3]

Does using the feat on round 1 of a spell mean you add that damage every round at no further cost? What about activating it post casting on a lingering effect? How bout AoEs? Does it boost damage on every target, or just one? Is that different on rays that can target multiple individuals?

Ok you don't use it when you cast a spell, you use it when an enemy fails a save so what happens when it is cast is irrelevant. There is a cost in hit dice.

It only damages one individual every time you use Life Channel because you use Life Channel on "a creature" and "that creature" is the only one affected by Life Channel, but there is nothing to prevent you from targeting a creature multiple times if he fails multiple saves or targeting several creatures if several creatures fail a save at once, but you need to spend hit dice for every creature you target.

For example your 10th level cleric casts spirit guardians while surrounded by 4 bad guys with another bad guy far away. Nothing happens on your turn because no one saved or was damaged. Bad guy number one fails a save at the begining of his turn, he takes 3d8 damage from SG. You add 3d8 from Life Channel, you have 7 hit dice left. Bad guy #2 goes and makes his save, he takes 3d8 half damage from SG, you can't life Channel becaus he made his save. Bad guy number 3 goes and fails his save. You use Life channel again to add another 3d8 on top of the SG 3d8, you have 4 hit dice left. Bad guy number 4 fails his save and takes 3d8 from SG. Now you are getting low on hit dice so you only add another 2d8 from Life Channel. Next round you only have 2 hit dice left- if someone fails next round you can hit him for 2d8 extra or you can hit 2 different people that fail for 1d8 each.


Also keep in mind you only get half your hit dice back on a long rest, so the next day this hypothetical 10th level cleric only has 5 hit dice to use on Life Channel.

Actually, rereading the ability, it seems to target the the individual who had the spell cast on them and failed the saving throw. So the answer to all my hypotheticals is "no." It also means it doesn't apply to either Smite spell, since "you" are the target of the spells, (range of "self") not the recipient of the damage.

Life Channel targets an individual that fails a save, but nothing says that creature needs to be the target of the spell. It only says the spell must be cast by you, it must deal damage and a creature must fail a save against it. If you ruled that a creature had to be the target it would not work against any AOEs.

As another example, your 10th level Light Cleric Fireballs some badguys you can use it to damage mutliple creatures but the way I read that is you would need to expend hit dice for each one. So you fireball 6 baddies and 4 of them fail the save. Lets say you roll 24 fireball damage. So 4 guys take 24 damage and 2 guys take 12 damage. You can Life Channel on the 4 that failed. You want to Nova, so you use 9 hit dice to add 3d8 additional damage to 3 of the guys that failed (rolling 3d8 additional damage on each of them individually) and you use your last hit dice to do 1d8 on the last guy that failed and add 1d8 damage to him. You are out of hit dice using them all on that one casting of fireball..

 

[ECMO3]

I second what @Redwizard007 says. I think the intent here is for it to work against spells like fireball that involve a save vs damage, not spells that involve you dealing extra damage on a hit with a weapon attack plus a save vs an additional effect. I also don't think the intent is for you to be able to continue to deal the extra damage on subsequent rounds. It's a one and done sort of thing.

Ultimately, though, it's up to your DM.

I am not saying you can damage someone for free every round but I think you can use it every time someone fails a save and spend the hit dice to get damage. I think you can use it more than once on a single creature if it fails a save more than once. I also think if you use it with fireball you need to spend hit dice for everyone you want to target with Life Channel, since it targets "a creature". So if you fireball a bunch you can Life Channel multiple creatures that did not save but you spend hit dice on each one of them individually. It does not add damage to the fireball itself, it adds damage to a single creature based on the hit dice you spend against that creature.

I think that is RAI.

I am not as sure that Wrathful Smite or Searing Smite are RAI uses.