Radiant lance and Spiritual hammer

[Nikosandros]

I have a few doubts about those two spells.

1) One is described as a ranged attack, the other as a melee attack, but they both use the spellcasting stat (wisdom in case of the pre-gen cleric), right? What's the difference? The fact that radiant lance takes into account cover between the caster and the target, while spiritual hammer does not?

2) Spiritual hammer is listed as doing a flat 1d8 of damage, but you should actually add the magic ability modifier, correct?

3) Isn't spiritual hammer more or less the same as radiant lance in effect? However, the former is a 1st level spell, while the latter is a minor spell that can be cast at will.

 

[Tazawa]

Spiritual Hammer lasts for a minute. You can move it and get a free attack with it every round. So on your subsequent turns you could cast Radiant Lance and have the hammer attack as well.

 

[variant]

The Spiritual Hammer is also just 1d8, no modifier.

 

[Larrin]

Spiritual hammer lasts a minute and I interpret it as saying for the duration of the spell that you can use its attack as "part of your action" ie not your whole action. So, I think the idea is, once you've cast it, for the duration of the spell you can lance AND hammer with one action. (this is NOT clearly worded and can be argued either way, or missed entirely) That's why the hammer only does 1d8, its a "minor" attack along side your usual action (after the first casting, which does take a whole action).

so if you use my interpretation:
1)the hammer follows melee rule, lance follows ranged, whatever they might be. Obvious ones are cover, and disadvantage for ranged attack with adjacent foes.
2)No, its a minor attack that is in addition to your normal damage, so its supposed to be less.
3) No, the hammer is a damage supplement, you're supposed to be able to use both at the same time.

If i'm wrong and moving and attacking with the hammer is your entire action, then its a pretty poor spell compared to radiant lance, and your complaints are correct.