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!
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.
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.