D&D 5E On Orcish Grandmothers (=poor spells)

[miniaturehoarder]

For Mordenkainen's Sword, when I'm running, I'll probably let the attack apply to all foes the sword is in reach of. But when I run, I believe in a target rich environment so for other DMs' games, that might not be so useful.

 

[brehobit]

Flame strike. Yes, it's not horrible for a cleric spell, but it's mostly worse than fireball, and two subclasses have access to both.

I'm leaning toward making it 8d6 fire and radiant damage and giving the target a -5 save. The "and" means the target takes it as whichever damage type is worse.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

... Call Lightning are still pretty worthless, however.

Call lightning is worthless? It looks pretty powerful to me.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Call lightning is worthless? It looks pretty powerful to me.

The damage isn't terrible or anything. The spell is just basically made irrelevant by a lower level spell, Moonbeam. Call Lightning requires a large open space (e.g. not usable in the overwhelming majority of dungeons), applies damage only immediately on an action, requires repeated actions to use, deals damage of a generally less favorable type. It has the exact same damage scaling as Moonbeam.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The damage isn't terrible or anything. The spell is just basically made irrelevant by a lower level spell, Moonbeam. Call Lightning requires a large open space (e.g. not usable in the overwhelming majority of dungeons), applies damage only immediately on an action, requires repeated actions to use, deals damage of a generally less favorable type. It has the exact same damage scaling as Moonbeam.

Ah yes, moonbeam is extremely good. I didn't realize they used the same damage scaling. Good to know!

Looking them over again, it seems like call lightning does have situational usefulness (better damage if there is a storm, longer duration), but the main choice point if you are casting a spell at 3rd level or higher is whether you want a Con save or a Dex save.