Blood Shards - 3rd-level Necromancy, a brutal, bloody damaging spell that encourages coordination and setup (Patreon)

Looking for a badass damaging spell for your necromancer or some other occult caster? Look no further!

Balance Discussion

This might look overpowered on first glance, but let's break down some of the details.

If the primary target succeeds the initial save, there's no AOE. There are also two cases where the spell takes no effect at all (no blood, necrotic immunity)

The AOE is delayed. Delayed damage is always less powerful because it gives potential targets another chance to act, and in this case it also gives them a chance to simply move out of range

To bump up the secondary damage also requires setup and coordination, and there is plenty of potential counterplay

The total damage to the primary target is potentially anywhere between 5d6 to 10d6 or 13d6. No doubt that is good damage, but the higher end requires that *everything* goes right. And if it all does, that's still about on par with Blight, which is a level higher but doesn't delay any of the damage. Blight is also considered underwhelming for its level.

The secondary AOE would be anywhere between 5d6 and 8d6, save for half. At best that's the same damage as fireball, but it requires a lot of set up, has half the radius (only 10 feet), and most enemies will have a chance to run away before it explodes depending on turn order

In short, this is a LOT less consistent than fireball, and only in the absolute best scenarios could it equal or marginally outshine a fireball. It's much more interesting and thematic though, so I think it's pretty much in a sweet spot

Art

As always the art used is not part of paid content and is freely available to the public, included here only for reference. Art by Grzegorz Rutkowski