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Balancing my homebrew spell (self.dndnext)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by jake_eric to c/[email protected]

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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.

Edit based on feedback: I'm getting a variety of responses, so I'm figuring out what exactly needs to be targeted for adjustment here. The blast option seems to be considered a bit strong since it's an additional mode to the other benefits. I can shrink the range and drop the damage a little. I don't want to nerf it too much though because it's still costing an action. Maybe drop it down to 15 foot radius and, what, 3 or 4 damage dice?

In terms of the main mode of the spell, I want the spell to compare fairly overall with guardian of nature which is the same level. Guardian has two different modes that both give advantage on (pretty much) all of your attacks; with that in mind I'm considering if it's fair to up the damage dice from my spell to 1d8 per hit. Would that be fair, or am I underrating the other benefits of my spell here?

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[–] bouh 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a druid spell, lvl4, from Xanathar, that is similar to yours : guardian of nature (or something like that, translation). This spell has two mode, and the first one gives 10ft movement, 1d6 bludgeoning damage, advantage on strength, and darkvision.

Compared to it your spell seems all right. Except for the second mode, the eruption, seems a bit overtuned. Because it's similar to hail storm, but hail storm doesn't have the caster immune, and it doesn't have the flexibility of the other mode.

The easier fix imo would be to make the aoe similar to thunderstep, 10ft. That would feel more in line IMO.

[–] jake_eric 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aha, thank you! I missed guardian of nature when I was looking for spells to compare it to. That's a good comparison because it's the same level.

Guardian does also have the very nice benefit of adding advantage to what would probably be all of your attacks. Do you think the other benefits of my spell are good enough to be comparable? Definitely not thinking of just slapping advantage onto my spell too as I think that would be too much, but I'm wondering if this justifies a bit more oomph in there somewhere.

The other reply thought the blast was overturned too. I don't want the blast to be too much of the focus; it's like 50% there for flavor. Maybe dropping it down a damage die and shrinking the range as you suggested? I just don't want it to feel like a waste of your action compared to dropping the spell normally and casting something else.

[–] bouh 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] jake_eric 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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!

[–] bouh 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh I missed the action to drop it. The maybe it's not that bad. I think it might be still slightly overtuned because of the first mode and the comparison with hail storm. But I guess it can work.

I value the movement quite high indeed. It is an extremely versatile ability. You can blitz through a room and no one can catch you. You are 70% faster than most humanoids and you can jump crazy heights.

But the spell also have a crazy versatility. Unrivaled movement goes with bonus damage, and the drop is a full lvl4 spell aoe. The versatility makes it crazy useful for any class that feels limited with it's known or prepared spells. And it's a full tool box for a gish.

Maybe it's me, but this spells seems to me very much worth it even against haste or fly, and if you're not afraid of melee, it also makes for an aoe spell that's not fireball (and you can extract with shadow step if you need anyway).

[–] jake_eric 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't want the AoE to take away too much from the rest of the spell, it's like 50% there for the flavor/coolness effect anyway. My experience with taking holy weapon on my Cleric is that you'll often end up dropping the spell from taking damage or you'll hold off using the blast because you wanna keep swinging, so you end up not using the blast anyway. So I don't want the blast to drag down the power of the rest of the spell. Seems like there's a fine line between making it overpowered and making it unusable here.

You have a good point comparing it to ice storm, which only does a little more damage than the blast. Though on the other hand ice storm kinda sucks, doesn't it?

I guess speed buff + op-attack immunity does make you pretty untouchable to melee from most humanoids, that is pretty good. I do want it to be better than haste since it's a level higher. If I nerf the AoE a bit do you think the rest is balanced overall?

[–] bouh 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

After the discussions, I guess 6d6 is not too much if you need your action to drop it.

It's not just ice storm though, and ice storm is not that bad for two reasons : it makes difficult terrain, so the enemies affected will then take longer to come, and it's not fire damage. Dual damage types is usually rated higher, it's almost 7d6 still, the scaling is with d8, and the cylinder makes it a bit better against flying enemies.

For the comparison with haste, your spell has definite advantages. You're not stunned when it stops first and foremost. You avoid aoo second. And the jump distance is a very good perk. The jump distance will not always come up, but mostly because the scene complexity is usually lost in the abstraction. This simplification tends to make many balance problems. But in a castle or outside jumping is always something extremely useful for mobility.

[–] jake_eric 2 points 1 year ago

I'm probably gonna end up nerfing the blast at least a little so it feels a bit more fair overall, since a number of responses thought it was overturned. Probably take a damage die off and drop the range a little.

The dual damage types is mostly flavor, I think thunder is a little better than lightning technically? but they're pretty close, and I don't think you'd cast this if you're fighting something resistant to lightning anyway.

With the main mode it seems like it's in a fair spot, then? Better than haste, seems fair compared to guardian of nature? Part of the balancing is also that it's self-buff only, so unlike haste and holy weapon you can't have the 7th level Wizard give it to the Fighter.

[–] AperiOperimentum 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Feels a little bit overtuned IMO?

Consider that the UA version of the storm sorc has a levelled spell list that you could substitute for the character.

[–] jake_eric 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, and I was worried it might be undertuned. What do you think should be changed?

There are other spells I could ask for, but I wanted to make some of my own, makes 'em feel more personalized and it makes sense for the character.

[–] AperiOperimentum 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think just sticking to 3d6 lightning on a failed save and half as much on a failed save is fine rather than a combo of 3d6 lightning and 2d6 thunder.

The spell seems pretty powerful before the dismissal effect - especially if used at the beginning of combat, which would be optimal.

[–] jake_eric 1 points 1 year ago

I actually bumped the blast damage up a bit right before posting, it started out at 2d6 of each. I can tone it back down if it seems unfair.

My thinking was that if you're spending your whole action on an AoE blast it should be at least decent, and there are much better AoEs for a 4th-level slot. Flavorfully it's sort of a letdown if the blast does less damage to an enemy that turn than just keeping the spell up and hitting them a couple more times. Holy weapon has a higher damage blast that you can trigger as a bonus action, plus it even blinds, but since that's a level higher I couldn't have it be that good.

There isn't a similar enough 4th-level spell to compare it to, but on the lower-bound end there's haste and spirit shroud which both add damage per turn with concentration plus some other benefits. This spell adds less damage per turn than spirit shroud and possibly less than haste depending on how strong your individual attacks are, which is why I felt it might be undertuned even with the movement buffs. Immunity to opportunity attacks is pretty good especially if you're taking it on a squishy caster, but I need it to be worthwhile somehow.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In addition to what others say, it is a bit over the top to tripple the jump distance, when other effects in the game (jump, monks) can only double the distance.

[–] jake_eric 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, there's a 1st level spell that triples jump distance, so I figured it'd be fair. I could just make it double I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@jake_eric @Thyrian changing the stat jumps distance is based on seems as important.. for many, tripling the distance only effectively triples the static portion.

That said, this doesn't bother me: a few things will give fly.

But:
* mobility
* damage
* alternate attack

Kinda feels like 5th level to me. I'm not sure what i'd want from a 4th level version...