Calculated retribution?
Level Up (A5E) Fireball
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
You’ve already had one!
BookTenTiger
He / Him
Mordenkainen's Sword
Looks to be unchanged from vanilla, a pity, would have been nice to see one of the worst spells in the game get a revamp.
dave2008
Legend
I'm don't know much about spell balance, but being able to do 3d10 force damage as a bonus action on top of whatever you are doing for your action seems pretty good to me. Where do you see the issues?
Faolyn
(she/her)
In looking up people's complaints about it, the consensus seems to be that it's too low-damaged for a concentration spell. I saw one comparison to an upcast Bigby's hand, which at 7th level does an average of 10 damage more per hit.
BlivetWidget
Explorer
For a 7th level slot that eats your concentration? This is the same level as Forcecage, Simulacrum, Teleport, etc. No thanks.
Faolyn notes it. Analysis has shown that there are alternate spells that are flat out superior to the sword spell in basically every way.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
Any chance that it's because those spells are too good? (I doubt it, but I've never done any spell analysis).
Faolyn
(she/her)
Unfortunately, the DMG doesn't give guidelines for creating spells that inflict damage over multiple turns.
If every one of the sword's attacks hits, it inflicts 17 (3d10) damage ten times, for an average of 170 damage.
If a prismatic spray affects ten creatures (and since it's a 60-foot cone, it could probably fit a lot more) and they all failed their saves, that spell inflicts 35 (10d6) damage ten times (average 350 damage). And since prismatic spray is an Instant spell, there's no concentration to be dealt with. Sure, you might not actually have ten or more creatures in that cone, but if you do, it does a heck of a lot of damage.
Crown of stars doesn't require concentration, lasts an hour, and inflicts 26 (4d12) damage per hit, for a maximum of seven attacks, and if each one hits, that's an average of 182 damage.
So a lot of spell analysis has been done over the years (both on Enworld, other forums, and secondary reviewers like Treantmonk). M's Sword has come up very regularly as a "garbage spell", while the comparison spells like Bigby's don't generally even make the cut as strongest spells for their level. That suggests to me the issue is with M Sword not the lower level equivalents.
Concentration is such a tight restriction for casters, every spell that has it is competing with every other spell in the game that uses concentration for the right to exist. If your chucking around 7th level spells that have concentration, they have got to be amazing. I think this is especially true when looking at 6th level spells or higher....as you will only ever get 1 of those per day, so it needs to truly do the job.
As a counter-example, look at Crown of Stars from Xanathars. A nice 7th level spell, has a 1 hour duration (so you can have it ready before hand), no concentration!, does 4d12 damage on a hit, can use a bonus action each round to activate it, and can do it up to 7 times (which for all practical combat purposes is the same duration as M Sword). A much better 7th level spell for fire and forget damage.
Not a chance, mordenkaenin's swrd doen't need to be compared to those "intentionally overtuned" spells becaus it fails so hard without any help there even when you stack the odds in favor of the spell for the math. Hope this clears it up
It's actually a lot worse than just being a short concentration 7th level spell. The concentration is a big problem with it but there is so much more that is easy to quantify because it's since it's a damage spell]
- From level 13 onward a full caster will have one level 7 spell slot per long rest so any level 7 spell needs to pack a big bang & without some kind of (de)buff there's no subjectivity on if the (de)buff saves it
- Ignore for the moment that there are very good reasons why the d12 cantrips are rarely used. At level 13 a generic d12 cantrip will be doing an average of 3x6.5 (19.5) as an action with mordenkainen's sword doing a n average of 3x3.5 (10) on the bonus action. . We can be generous & round those up to a total of 30/round for one minute by using concentration.
- at level 13 a fighter will have 3 attacks given 20 strength & armed with a shield & dagger alongside no feats no class features that fighter will be doing (2.5+5)x3(22.5) giving a good indicator of what mordenkainen's sword beats out & by how much when compared to a hypothetical "of whatever you are doing for your action". Remember at this point the caster is using an a spell prep slot for mord's sword, using their one level 7 spell slot, and maintaining concentration in an effort to somehow really bring the pain while there is a nearly infinitely long list why dagger & shield is not even common enough to be called "an unusual choice".
- If that fighter switches from dagger & shield to greataxe & gwm they will be doing (6.5+5+10) x3 for an average per round no limited resource burn at will of 64.5, we can be harsh & round it down to 64 & i's still a full 45 points higher than the up rounded generic d12 cantrip with mord'ssword burning the level 7 spell slot concentration & bonus action without needing concentration a consumable resource or a bonus action Going all out and still being over 30 points behind the all day at will does not make a good case for mordenkainen's sword.
- That 20 strength dagger fighter gave up his shield to use the greatsword though, longsword & shield will be doing (4.5+5)x3(28.5) per round with no resource or even feat consumption. If we round that sword &board fighter's damage down to 28 the up rounded generic d12 cantrip with mord's sword is beating it by an eyepopping 2 points of damage but without the roundings it drops to just a single point. Given the fighter isn't using a fighting style or anything like action surge yet something is definitely fishy.
- If you take that 7th level mordenkainen's sword & replace it with the 1hour concentration spell elemental weaponon that dagger fighter using the lowest 3rd level slot it adds 1+1d4(2.5) to each of those three attacks totaling (3.5+1)x3(10.5) at no action cost for a total identical to mordenkainen's sword 1 minute per round bonus action average damage with no bonus action cost.
- Elemental weapon is not generally considered a "good" spell but if we upcast it to a 5th or 7th level slot you get (+2+2d4)x3(13.5) & (+3+3d4)x3(16.5) for an average of on top of that dagger & shield fighter's 22.5/round
- Yes the caster might be able do better by swapping the generic d12 cantrip for leveled spells, but the first 19.5 points of each of those spells is just breaking even with at will cantrip use. Replacing that generic d12 cantrip with a more common d10/d8 cantrip like firebolt or ray of frost drops that to 16.5 & 13.5 because leveled damage spells almost always need an action to cast
- If you bring in aoe spells for those you can use th dmg249 formula for adjudicating targets in area of effect based on area & shape of the spell, but keep in mind that a theoretical expectation that a spell could hit y targets assumes that those targets are present in the fight as well as politely clustered in a way that is convenient to being within the blast cone line or cube each round.
- I didn't mention resistant to nonmagic bludgeoning piercing & slashing at any point & haave strong doubts that we know enough about how it will work in levelup to discussit in any meaningful fashion based on katrina's hellish firebolt here & the level 10 herald aura of overcoming. For o5e based on the bottom of page21 in this (errata) & this collection of wotc guidance from 3 different sources we aren't talking about what wotc considers or suggests being an especially cumbersome bar there
Last edited:
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I am convinced that Mordenkainen's/Arcane Sword are not good enough for the cost of a Level 7 slot.
dave2008
Legend
FitzTheRuke
Legend
That's what I was thinking. Maybe the injury one should be the regular one. Either that, or up the damage on the regular and make the rare one deal d10's
