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!
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.
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.