Flame Blade abuse/legality?

[Gwarthkam]

In our game the cleric (14) was granted acces to the 2.nd level Druid spell Flame Blade. It was a perfect match for his character concept and in my view not balance altering.

It has proven extremely effective though and I have a few questions:

1:can you wield two flame blades?

2: does the damage bonus from divine favor factor in?

3: Is it ok that he empowers it?

4: is it unbalanced that he can use flame blade?


From my experience I can tell you that the following combination has proven very deadly:

Divine Power
Divine Favor
Weapon focus [scimitar]
improved critical [scimitar]
two double empowered flame blades
all the two weapon fighting feats needed

he uses quicken spell to cast divine favor and flame blades while fighting if he doesn'e have time to do so in advance. I know it is vulnerable to dispelling but 95% of our fights seem to be against non-casters, so not in this campaign.

Most of the time he does 2d8+13 damage per hit with a +23 attack bonus and a 15-20/x2 crit range. And it only requires a touch attack.

That means that he makes the touch attack for almost all his attacks, which is quite a few using TWF, and gets alot of criticals in.

It is not a problem in our game, actually we all enjoy seeing him finally doing some damage (this character has survived OD&D, 1e and 2e, and didn't so much damage then). But I could imagine that it could be unbalanced in many situations.

I'm sorry if I got any numbers wrong, I'm not the player of this character.

Thank you in advance

 

[Plane Sailing]

I guess like all caster/spell intensive situations it is abusive if there is only one (or two) encounters during the day, so he can unload all his power in one go, but if he is facing 10 or more encounters in a day (e.g. in a dungeon) he will have to be much more careful about when he casts these spells.

Personally I would have made the spell 3rd level for him (since it is 2nd level for Druids), and if you go to 3.5e part of the problem will go away because he won't be able to double empower any more (although he could learn additional TWF feats to counterbalance this).

I don't see anything in the rules that would prevent him casting a second flame blade and dual weilding them, and I'd not really noticed before the benefit of touch attacks with a scimitar meaning potentially easier crits.

Consider this - for each of those double-empowered flame blades he could be casting a blade barrier, an ant-life shell and using archery, harm, planar ally to summon up a *planetar*... that makes it sound less bad, eh?

Cheers

 

[Gwarthkam]

Yes, good points Plane Sailing. I like the cleric buffing himself and playing Luke Skywalker with his lightswords (flame blades), because it makes him different from me (a sorcerer) magic-wise.

Actually it's not really the double or even single empowers that seem to do the trick, it's just the touch attack 15-20/2x TWF that seems awfully effective.

But I can hear subtle moans from the ranger and the two fighters each time the Cleric gets powered up and starts his rampage, so I wanted to be sure that we're not doing anything wrong. It's just a matter of time before the whining from the fighters will be a real issue.

It would be fine to raise it to 3.rd level, that would make the quickened flame blades more restrictive for him. But since the 3.rd level spell Moon Blade (from FR) does the same damage + scrambles magic, 3.rd level might seem a bit harsh for Flame blade?

Anyway, the fighter type players don't care if it's 2.nd or 3.rd level, they can just feel that very fast in every fight the Cleric deals out more damage in melee than they do....and they don't like it

Thanks for the reply

 

[Plane Sailing]

I would guess that the fighters have a lot of extra options they can be using at the same time though? If they are about the same level they should have feats coming out of their ears (figuratively). If the party end up fighting giants then spring attacking with a single 2H weapon is *much* better than attempting to going toe-to-toe, and the cleric will get battered if he attempts to swap full attacks with a giant or dragon of appropriate CR. He'll also be looking pretty silly if the party come up against anything with a fire subtype (not that it should happen on a regular basis, but it's fine to happen every so often), just like he'll be an obvious dispel magic target when you come across a party who can use it.

Cheers

 

[Gwarthkam]

Yes, the Fighter Characters are fine compared to the Cleric.

The Players of the Fighters is a different story, the one with the superbly most powerfull character has chosen Skill Focus [Whining], but it's all just in a friendly atmosphere.

Thanks and take care

 

[clark411]

I'm pretty sure that Double Empowered = "No" in 3.5. Metamagic feats don't stack with themselves.

As for having two of them going, well.. the range is touch, so I suppose he touches his hand to make one appear, and can then touch his other hand to make a second one appear.

Divine Favor is an interesting one... the damage is coming from a spell, so I'd say it doesn't apply. I'd bolster that with the argument that the spell is an Evocation spell.. if it were transmutation and actually forming a scimitar rather than a remarkably similar looking "swordlike beam", then perhaps it'd work, but I'm interpretting it as spell damage, so no stacking.

Keeping up with 1d8+7 / 1d8+7 dealt as touch attacks each round is pretty rough for the fighters to try to do, but it's more feasible than them trying to keep up with 2d8+13 / 2d8 +13 touch attacks. With them being touch attacks it's almost useless to mention, but is he taking into account wielding a non-light weapon in his off hand? Is he even proficient with scimitars (they're martial, and I don't see mention of a war domain)?

As for it being unbalancing that he has them as they're a druid spell.. meh. he's better equipped to use them with the heavy armor capabilities of a cleric, but it's also only one spell and not a very high level one at that (with limited duration). As long as there are no druids in the party, there's not much to be concerned about.

 

[Staffan]

I wouldn't let someone wield two flame blades. Two copies of the same spell on the same target generally don't stack, and I don't see why flame blade would be any different. Also, I would only give it a 20/x2 crit, not the 18-20 of a scimitar - it is wielded with scimitar proficiency, but that doesn't mean it gets the scimitar's sharpness. It's an energy attack, after all. Though Improved Crit (Scimitar) would enhance it to 19-20.

Divine Favor wouldn't help either, since it's a spell that does damage. Divine Power would give a rather small bonus for a 4th level spell - Strength bonus doesn't help with the flame blade damage, after all.

 

[Gwarthkam]

Clark411:

Thanks for replying. I think I can buy your argument that it's an evocation spell, otherwise divine favor would add to the damage of a flame strike etc. as well.

Oops just found a description of "weaponlike spells in T&B p. 79" it says that spells that gives a bonus to weapon damage does not give a bonus to weponlike spells.

Btw, it's not keeping up with only 1d8+7 / 1d8+7,

it's keeping up with 1d8+7 / 1d8+7 / 1d8+7 / 1d8+7 / 1d8+7

when he casts Divine power (BAB of fighter + improved TWF) he has 5 attacks with the two flame blades.

And yes, he has the War domain with scimitar as favored weapon.

And yes, he is taking into account that it is non-light. But it seems effecient anyways.

Staffan:

Thanks for replying. If the purpose of:

"you wield this bladelike beam as if it were a scimitar"

didn't apply to weapon focus [scimitar], improved critical [scimitar] etc. and the only point of comparing it with a scimitar was a proficiency issue then why not just treat it as a simple touch attack, given that it's a Druid spell and Druids are proficient with Scimitars per default?

I can understand why you wouldn't allow two flame blades, but I can't see it as cut in stone by the rules. If it should be so, he could make a Moon Blade [FR] in his off hand, which would be an excelent choice since he could choose to wield it as a short sword for the light-weapon bonus or as a scimitar for the extra crits. Granted, he doesn't have acces to Moon Blade either, but I'm sure it wouldn't be an unreasonable spell for him to research, he could drop the magic scrambling from it.

I think you may underestimate how good Divine Power is in this context. The Cleric in question has 10 str. With Divine Power he gets a +4 boost to attack roll from enhanced str. and an additional +4 from increased BAB. In addition to that Divine Power raises his BAB to allow 3 attacks (5 with TWF) per round.

I think +8 to hit, an extra attack, and some HP is rather effective for a 4.th level spell. Divine Favor + Divine Power + Weapon Focus [Scimitar] = + 23 attack roll for this cleric, very handy for those touch attacks. I know that it'll be less with 3.5, but still ok.

Hmm I can see that I have to break the sad news to him that his Divine Favor damage bonus has passed away.

 

[James McMurray]

Divine Power in 3.5 is +6 enhancement bonus now, meaning he'll at least drop by 2 points to his strength.

 

[Gwarthkam]

Yes, so thats only +7 instead of +8 from Divine Power.

But how about Divine Favor? I could suspect that it is +1/4 levels instead of +1/3 levels now, to be in line with the change for Greater Magic Weapon. Does anyone have information on this?

Sorry if it has been answered before, I don't remember seeing it.