Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 24th episode of our 3rd level spell series. Today we’re looking at in all honesty one of the most disappointing third level spells in my humble opinion. We’re looking at flame arrows spell 5e which sounds so cool!
It is usable by the druid, ranger, sorcerer, wizard and the artificer. And it’s found on the elemental evil player’s companion. So at a glance it looks pretty great, i mean it’s usable by a lot of classes sounds kind of cool the visuals really nice. It’s found in the elemental evil player’s companion for crying out loud which is natorious for having some of the coolest spells we’ve covered. But you know what i’ll get into the mechanics here and we’ll just go from there, if it’s all the same.
Mechanics
- Level: 3rd
- Casting Time: 1 Action
- Range/Area: Touch
- Components: V, S
- Duration: 1 Hour (Concentration)
- School: Transmutation
- Attack/Save: None
- Damage/Effect: Fire
The effect at a glance is as followed: Touch a quiver and the next 12 pieces of ammunition deal an extra 1d6 fire damage.
The cast time is one action, the range is touch, the duration is 1 hour and it is a concentration spell. At higher levels a number of pieces of ammunition you can affect increase by two for each slot level above 3rd. The components are verbal and somatic and the school is transmutation. Which is pretty cool! So taking a look at this add an extra d6 of fire damage and that’s really it it’s only for the next 12 shots you make basically.
The range is touch so if you want to give it to someone else you have to literally be right there touching them and the duration is an hour and it is a concentration. I don’t know, i got a couple ideas on how to fix it a little bit and i’ll get into those later on but by raw this leaves a lot to be desired. So yeah…in any case let’s take a look at the full description here, so we can really get all the nitty-gritty stuff.
Description
You touch a quiver containing arrows or bolts. When a target is hit by a ranged weapon attack using a piece of ammunition drawn from the quiver, the target takes an extra 1d6 fire damage. The spell’s magic ends on the piece of ammunition when it hits or misses, and the spell ends when twelve pieces of ammunition have been drawn from the quiver.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the number of pieces of ammunition you can affect with this spell increases by two for each slot level above 3rd.
So a couple things worth pointing out firstly this only affects arrows or bolts, so if you have some kind of crazy flintlock postol…no dice. Sorry about that but just by raw sucks to suck that’s the way it is. Another thing is whether or not you hit or miss still counts.
And the third thing is this spell ends when 12 pieces of ammunition have been drawn from the quiver. Oh it hurts, it hurts me a little bit thus. So who really benefits from this spell.
There’s a strong argument to be made for hunter’s mark being better in virtually all regards. So who really benefits from this. I mean maybe the arcane archer maybe, but outside of that i don’t know an even name for third level spell slot i don’t buy it. So a couple ways i would probably go around it firstly just don’t make it concentration. I think that’s fair did that i’d be a little bit less harsh on it.
Decent bumper to damage, 1d6 isn’t terrible and doesn’t really take a bonus action to implement at least for every round was the initial investment of an action that’s about it and you can only aways use action surge to get around that if you’re a fighter so arcane archer in my opinion is probably the biggest benefactor here but you know i could be wrong. Let me know down beneath in the who you think could really benefit from this i just find it very underwhelmed. That being said, let’s take a look at some alternative uses here.
Alternative Uses
So are flaming arrows useful? The best alternative use is just give it away. Odds are if you’re a full caster you’re not gonna really be able to take advantage of this. You might as well just give it to the fighter.
Secondly you know there’s an argument to be made that this will help balance out an encounter. It’s a little bit of a bummer that this doesn’t affect or doesn’t ignite other objects but whatever you know and you might be able to homebrew that in there.
And a third use for this as if you’re in a arena type setting and your magical equipments gone and you still want to be able to deal some non normal damage so some fire damage in this case.
But outside of that i really can’t think of anything to too much. I guess you could try and sell the arrows but i don’t really know if that would work. Also check out lightning arrow 5e.
Conclusion
But that being said, let me know what you think down beneath in the comment section. If you have any thoughts, questions, comments or concerns put them down there as well. If you like this flame arrows 5e spell let me know why, if you don’t like it let me know how you change it.
I think removing the concentration is a pretty good argument but that’s just me. Yeah, that being said, i hope you all guys have a great day and as always happy casting. Here are some of our arrow spells 5e such as cordon of arrows, acid arrow.