I couldn’t find a dedicated c/unearthedarcana so I’m posting here. I’ve been creating a handful of homebrew spells to fit characters I’m playing. For this one I wanted to make a spell for my lighting storm-themed gish character that would also be a nice capstone spell for an Eldritch Knight in general. While there are some similar-ish spells I’m basing it off of, I wanted some feedback if it’s balanced based on the damage numbers and amount of benefits for its spell level.
Personal Lightning
4th-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
You channel the energy of a fierce lightning storm within your body. You gain the following benefits until the spell ends:
- Attacks you make deal an extra 1d6 lightning damage on a hit.
- Your speed increases by 20 feet.
- Your movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
- Your jump distance is tripled.
As an action on your turn, you can dismiss this spell and cause a blast of electricity to erupt from you. Each creature within 20 feet of you must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes 3d6 lighting damage and 2d6 thunder damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the thunder damage dealt by the blast increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 5th. Using a spell slot of 6th level or higher also causes you to gain a fly speed of 50 feet until the spell ends.
So to explain some of my choices: I modeled it similar to holy weapon with the damage buff per hit and the ability to end the spell with a blast. Since it’s a lower-level spell, works on all kinds of attacks, and also has the movement abilities, I had to make the damage significantly lower; I’m not sure if I could bump it any higher still. I mainly want it to be worth casting over haste which is currently my character’s go-to combat spell. I mostly like the abilities of it but I’m wondering if I should make the damage amounts higher or lower to balance it, or if I can make the speed buff higher.
The spell would of course be on the Wizard spell list so Eldritch Knights can get it, but I’d like it to be fair for any class so I could allow it for Rangers or Druids or Tempest Clerics in my games too. I think if you’re getting it at a high level like an EK or Ranger would it shouldn’t break anything. The damage can certainly be improved upon with other spells but I’m hoping the movement buffs make up for that without being overpowered.
Any feedback is appreciated!
The first mode of your spell is very good already because of the mobility : 4 squares of movement is insane, no opportunity attack is a class feature, and jump distance on top is bonkers. Put this on an archer and it’s unstoppable!
The second mode (drop mode if you will^^) does way too much damage. You have 6d6 iirc. You do kind of the same thing than thunderstep that does 3d10 in an aoe 10. In fact the move then explode thing could be it’s own spell and still be a very good 4th level spell IMO. You can do some broken shenanigans with it, like cast, and next turn aoe + move + drop for a kind of action surge casting. In fact, this is the action surge nature of the spell that warrants it to be severly nerfed in this mode.
I wouldn’t give it more than something like 3d6. I would need to check the spell damage table but would give something like level 1 aoe spell damage for this large aoe. And thinking about it the damage for a 10 aoe is probably still a bit high.
I’m not sure I’m seeing how it amounts to action surge-y? The thing about the blast is that it costs your action on that turn, so if I make it too weak then it won’t be worthwhile ever using it vs just keeping the spell up and continuing to attack with it or dropping the spell normally and doing something else with your action.
Holy weapon’s blast, which was the inspiration, is substantially more impactful: more damage (slightly), bigger area, and it can even inflict blinded, plus it’s triggered as a bonus action rather than an action. Of course my spell can’t be as good since it’s a level lower, but I do think the comparison is more than fair even given that, between the blast effects at least.
I guess, do you think I’m underrating how good the movement effect is? I’m trying to make it comparable to guardian of nature which is also 4th level and can add 1d6 damage per hit, plus it gives advantage on your attacks. Since advantage is really strong I don’t wanna just add that to my spell instead but I do want the other effects to end up being comparable. I did originally consider just giving disadvantage on opportunity attacks rather than ignoring them completely, but I figured if zephyr strike and Ashardalon’s stride could ignore them with lower level slots it should be ok.
Thanks for your feedback, I do appreciate it!