Spell Attacks

[andhaira]

So I have questions regarding spell attacks:

-The attack bonus of a spell attack is proficiency bonus + ability modifier. Now, if a wizard makes a ranged spell attack say using chromatic orb does he also add in his DEX bonus? And what of a touch spell attack, will he add his STR bonus instead?

-Do ranged spell attacks like Chromatic Orb and Fire Bolt have disadvantage in melee, just like normal ranged weapon attacks?

-Is there a touch armor class in 5e, like there was in 3e?

[asorel]

So I have questions regarding spell attacks:

-The attack bonus of a spell attack is proficiency bonus + ability modifier. Now, if a wizard makes a ranged spell attack say using chromatic orb does he also add in his DEX bonus? And what of a touch spell attack, will he add his STR bonus instead?

-Do ranged spell attacks like Chromatic Orb and Fire Bolt have disadvantage in melee, just like normal ranged weapon attacks?

-Is there a touch armor class in 5e, like there was in 3e?


No. You add spellcasting ability only, to both ranged and melee.
Yes, ranged spell attacks are made at disadvantage in melee. Otherwise, there would be no point to having melee range spells.
5e has no touch AC. The only defenses are AC, and the various saving throws. One of 5e's biggest selling points is the streamlining of mechanics, which means removing clutter. Having multiple AC values certainly qualifies.

[odigity]

So I have questions regarding spell attacks:

-The attack bonus of a spell attack is proficiency bonus + ability modifier. Now, if a wizard makes a ranged spell attack say using chromatic orb does he also add in his DEX bonus? And what of a touch spell attack, will he add his STR bonus instead?

-Do ranged spell attacks like Chromatic Orb and Fire Bolt have disadvantage in melee, just like normal ranged weapon attacks?

-Is there a touch armor class in 5e, like there was in 3e?

You'll notice 5e is nearly perfectly balanced across all races and classes. Meaning, all 1st-4th level chars (when properly optimized) will have a +5 on their primary attack (whether melee or ranged, weapon or spell) and DC13 for their primary abilities. This makes spellcasters as effective as fighters in terms of being able to land their attack.

[Snorunt30]

You'll notice 5e is nearly perfectly balanced across all races and classes. Meaning, all 1st-4th level chars (when properly optimized) will have a +5 on their primary attack (whether melee or ranged, weapon or spell) and DC13 for their primary abilities. This makes spellcasters as effective as fighters in terms of being able to land their attack.

I'm going to have to say no, the DC does not make them equal (after several months of play, the DC saves are completely trash, and make me want to switch classes, more often than not the DCs failed and all you get to show for it is a lost spell slot), on ranged or melee attack spells yes, but in regards to DC, just no.

Even in the campaign I'm currently in, where we rolled for stats (and I have a 18 wisdom, as I am a cleric), the DCs feel like trash as the monsters almost always make the save (when I say almost always, I mean they have yet to fail). There is a vast difference in a (terrible) static DC, and rolling like most other classes do. When doing ranged or melee spell attacks, they are equal, and that's about it (in my experience).

Anyway, yes, it is proficiency + spell casting modifier.

[JFahy]

I'm going to have to say no, the DC does not make them equal (after several months of play, the DC saves are completely trash, and make me want to switch classes, more often than not the DCs failed and all you get to show for it is a lost spell slot), on ranged or melee attack spells yes, but in regards to DC, just no.

Even in the campaign I'm currently in, where we rolled for stats (and I have a 18 wisdom, as I am a cleric), the DCs feel like trash as the monsters almost always make the save (when I say almost always, I mean they have yet to fail). There is a vast difference in a (terrible) static DC, and rolling like most other classes do. When doing ranged or melee spell attacks, they are equal, and that's about it (in my experience).


At level 1, you'd have a save DC of 14 which bad guys would make something like 40-50%
of the time, so if they've been shrugging off all your spells you've had some lousy luck.

Later on your DC won't have a lot of room to improve, but your broader selection of
spells means you can look for things with no save, or go after a target's weaker saves
(which are sometimes obvious, sometimes not so much).

If it's any consolation, your martial buddies aren't autohitting anymore, either. :smallwink:

[odigity]

I'm going to have to say no, the DC does not make them equal (after several months of play, the DC saves are completely trash, and make me want to switch classes, more often than not the DCs failed and all you get to show for it is a lost spell slot), on ranged or melee attack spells yes, but in regards to DC, just no.

You missed my point entirely, which is that all properly-optimized point-buy-based chars start with the same DC (13) for their abilities, whether it's a spellcaster, or a Monk (ki effects), or a Battle Master (maneuver effects), etc. It's always 8 + Proficiency Bonus + relevant ability, which is 8 + 2 + 3 = 13.

[Snorunt30]

You missed my point entirely, which is that all properly-optimized point-buy-based chars start with the same DC (13) for their abilities, whether it's a spellcaster, or a Monk (ki effects), or a Battle Master (maneuver effects), etc. It's always 8 + Proficiency Bonus + relevant ability, which is 8 + 2 + 3 = 13.

It looked like you were comparing DCs to roll for hit, sorry. I must have missed that part, as I only saw you mention the caster DC vs martial to hit. Sorry about that, and hopefully I won't make that mistake again. Still though, I'd personally advise against using things with flat DCs.


At level 1, you'd have a save DC of 14 which bad guys would make something like 40-50%
of the time, so if they've been shrugging off all your spells you've had some lousy luck.

Later on your DC won't have a lot of room to improve, but your broader selection of
spells means you can look for things with no save, or go after a target's weaker saves
(which are sometimes obvious, sometimes not so much).

If it's any consolation, your martial buddies aren't autohitting anymore, either. :smallwink:

Unfortunately, the not auto-hitting part isn't really accurate. The paladin has something like a +14 to hit (I think... point being stupid high, he has like 18 strength and charisma, and is the oath that gives cha to hit). This is probably not being helped at all by the fact that +2 and +3 weapons have been thrown around (though the +2 weapon is a longbow, and doesn't see much use), and the Paladin ended up with the +3. (For the rest of the group, the auto-hitting is more or less accurate.)

I'm knowledge domain, and I've more or less given up on casting anything with a save, and moved on to only using spells with rolls (if I even both attempting a spell at all, since the rest of the group is not quite as conservative with their limited resources). I've spent more time attempting to pretend I'm a martial than I have acting as a caster. (Forgot to mention we are level 5, not that it particularly matters, especially since the DM is having us make point buy characters for a new campaign in a few weeks.)

As I said though, this is just in my experience.

[Giant2005]

You missed my point entirely, which is that all properly-optimized point-buy-based chars start with the same DC (13) for their abilities, whether it's a spellcaster, or a Monk (ki effects), or a Battle Master (maneuver effects), etc. It's always 8 + Proficiency Bonus + relevant ability, which is 8 + 2 + 3 = 13.

He has got a point now that I look at it.
Spell attacks are obviously balanced with martial attacks due to using the exact same mechanic but spell saves are inferior to spell attacks and therefore inferior to martial attacks too.
The formula is basically the same only with certain aspects stacked against the offender in the save vs DC mechanic.
A spell attack is D20+Spellmod+Proficiency vs AC and the spell save is 8+Spellmod+Proficiency vs d20+Savemod.
Effectively, as long as 13 + victim's savemod > victim's AC, you are more likely to hit with the spell attack than the save effect. I haven't compared many monster's saves vs their AC but I'd be willing to bet that a huge majority of them have ACs that is less than their savemod+13.

[Safety Sword]

He has got a point now that I look at it.
Spell attacks are obviously balanced with martial attacks due to using the exact same mechanic but spell saves are inferior to spell attacks and therefore inferior to martial attacks too.
The formula is basically the same only with certain aspects stacked against the offender in the save vs DC mechanic.
A spell attack is D20+Spellmod+Proficiency vs AC and the spell save is 8+Spellmod+Proficiency vs d20+Savemod.
Effectively, as long as 13 + victim's savemod > victim's AC, you are more likely to hit with the spell attack than the save effect. I haven't compared many monster's saves vs their AC but I'd be willing to bet that a huge majority of them have ACs that is less than their savemod+13.


Casters are overpowered. Martial characters need a buff.

[SharkForce]

first off, your paladin is way more powerful than he should be. 18 in two stats is presumably an artifact of rolling, so everyone else probably feels less impressive due to not rolling quite as well. a +2 or +3 sword at level 5 is absurdly generous. the charisma bonus to hit is a channel divinity; 1/short rest, that's it. it can't be used every fight unless you're taking an hour between rests.

so a more realistic number is (3 proficiency +4 strength) +7, maybe +8 if they've got a magic weapon (by that time i'd say it's fairly likely someone in the party does, but not necessarily the paladin), with 1/short rest going up to +11. still very nice, but not quite as absurd.

secondly, if you could get those kinds of bonuses on spells, it would be horrendously broken.

the thing to remember is that failing a save is frequently the kind of thing that can change an encounter. something like hold person in a level 3 slot will probably work most of the time on at least one of your two targets. it is basically a death sentence to the target if it does so and your party plays it right. if you drop a web or entangle on a group of enemies (which will obviously require a class change for you), some or even many of them will fail their saves and basically allow you to fight first against half the group, then against the other half. these are the kinds of results that are not easily achieved with an attack roll.

if you let these kinds of effects reach a 95% chance to work, the game breaks, and the only way to make things challenging is to start handing out immunities to everything, which frankly sucks.

so yes, spell DCs aren't quite in line with attack rolls in many ways. there are not many ways to increase them outside of gaining levels. and it is important that it remain that way, because many monsters have no bonus whatsoever to their saving throw (so if you target the right one it's very easy to land a spell effect), and because a creature failing a saving throw quite frequently can make a massive change in an encounter. for example, suppose a level 11 wizard faces a group of fire giants. he throws a mass suggestion at them (the specific suggestion is not as important as the roll in this case). int 20 is a reasonable assumption, proficiency is +4, so the DC is 17.

the fire giants have something like a 25% chance to make their save or less, iirc. so up to 12 of them are going to go off and do whatever the wizard just suggested they do.

that changes the entire encounter in a *huge* way. what probably started off as a challenging fight just became a group of fire giants performing some task you find desirable. the fight pretty much ended before it even started. and that's with a "bad" save DC. imagine what kinds of fights could be turned around if you could get a DC of 22 at level 5.

[asorel]

first off, your paladin is way more powerful than he should be. 18 in two stats is presumably an artifact of rolling, so everyone else probably feels less impressive due to not rolling quite as well. a +2 or +3 sword at level 5 is absurdly generous. the charisma bonus to hit is a channel divinity; 1/short rest, that's it. it can't be used every fight unless you're taking an hour between rests.

so a more realistic number is (3 proficiency +4 strength) +7, maybe +8 if they've got a magic weapon (by that time i'd say it's fairly likely someone in the party does, but not necessarily the paladin), with 1/short rest going up to +11. still very nice, but not quite as absurd.

secondly, if you could get those kinds of bonuses on spells, it would be horrendously broken.

the thing to remember is that failing a save is frequently the kind of thing that can change an encounter. something like hold person in a level 3 slot will probably work most of the time on at least one of your two targets. it is basically a death sentence to the target if it does so and your party plays it right. if you drop a web or entangle on a group of enemies (which will obviously require a class change for you), some or even many of them will fail their saves and basically allow you to fight first against half the group, then against the other half. these are the kinds of results that are not easily achieved with an attack roll.

if you let these kinds of effects reach a 95% chance to work, the game breaks, and the only way to make things challenging is to start handing out immunities to everything, which frankly sucks.

so yes, spell DCs aren't quite in line with attack rolls in many ways. there are not many ways to increase them outside of gaining levels. and it is important that it remain that way, because many monsters have no bonus whatsoever to their saving throw (so if you target the right one it's very easy to land a spell effect), and because a creature failing a saving throw quite frequently can make a massive change in an encounter. for example, suppose a level 11 wizard faces a group of fire giants. he throws a mass suggestion at them (the specific suggestion is not as important as the roll in this case). int 20 is a reasonable assumption, proficiency is +4, so the DC is 17.

the fire giants have something like a 25% chance to make their save or less, iirc. so up to 12 of them are going to go off and do whatever the wizard just suggested they do.

that changes the entire encounter in a *huge* way. what probably started off as a challenging fight just became a group of fire giants performing some task you find desirable. the fight pretty much ended before it even started. and that's with a "bad" save DC. imagine what kinds of fights could be turned around if you could get a DC of 22 at level 5.

Not only that, but quite a few save spells still give an effect on a failed save, such as half damage.

[Snorunt30]

Not only that, but quite a few save spells still give an effect on a failed save, such as half damage.

Perhaps it is simply the spells I am looking at then, because most of the ones I've looked at are either A) You get them and ok to excellent stuff happens, or B) You wasted a spell slot.


first off, your paladin is way more powerful than he should be. 18 in two stats is presumably an artifact of rolling, so everyone else probably feels less impressive due to not rolling quite as well. a +2 or +3 sword at level 5 is absurdly generous. the charisma bonus to hit is a channel divinity; 1/short rest, that's it. it can't be used every fight unless you're taking an hour between rests.

so a more realistic number is (3 proficiency +4 strength) +7, maybe +8 if they've got a magic weapon (by that time i'd say it's fairly likely someone in the party does, but not necessarily the paladin), with 1/short rest going up to +11. still very nice, but not quite as absurd.

secondly, if you could get those kinds of bonuses on spells, it would be horrendously broken.

the thing to remember is that failing a save is frequently the kind of thing that can change an encounter. something like hold person in a level 3 slot will probably work most of the time on at least one of your two targets. it is basically a death sentence to the target if it does so and your party plays it right. if you drop a web or entangle on a group of enemies (which will obviously require a class change for you), some or even many of them will fail their saves and basically allow you to fight first against half the group, then against the other half. these are the kinds of results that are not easily achieved with an attack roll.

if you let these kinds of effects reach a 95% chance to work, the game breaks, and the only way to make things challenging is to start handing out immunities to everything, which frankly sucks.

so yes, spell DCs aren't quite in line with attack rolls in many ways. there are not many ways to increase them outside of gaining levels. and it is important that it remain that way, because many monsters have no bonus whatsoever to their saving throw (so if you target the right one it's very easy to land a spell effect), and because a creature failing a saving throw quite frequently can make a massive change in an encounter. for example, suppose a level 11 wizard faces a group of fire giants. he throws a mass suggestion at them (the specific suggestion is not as important as the roll in this case). int 20 is a reasonable assumption, proficiency is +4, so the DC is 17.

the fire giants have something like a 25% chance to make their save or less, iirc. so up to 12 of them are going to go off and do whatever the wizard just suggested they do.

that changes the entire encounter in a *huge* way. what probably started off as a challenging fight just became a group of fire giants performing some task you find desirable. the fight pretty much ended before it even started. and that's with a "bad" save DC. imagine what kinds of fights could be turned around if you could get a DC of 22 at level 5.

Unfortunately, for most of this campaign everyone believed the Paladin when he stated his channel divinity thing worked for 8 hours (which nobody looked into until I was looking at a character for our next campaign, and nobody did because the DM kept throwing monsters with Resistance to non-magical weapons at us), the DM has been made aware of this now, so that will be fixed for the future. I also realize that the +3 is not something you will typically see (and is something we only ended up getting because we killed a Red Dragon in the Plane of Fire after failing to stealthily destroy an artifact in the dragon's volcano).

(Edit: And actually, most people ended up with two 18s, post racials, since everyone but the paladin and fighter ended up using the stat array I rolled, which was 13/16/16/14/16/15, and the fighter ended up with 20 dex with racial, think his next highest is a 16. The only time anyone probably felt like they were doing less than him was when he started smiting to kingdom come, since he often one-shot things when he did. Personally, I almost always felt behind because of my pretending to be a martial, and the DM's unwillingness to let me swap classes or dip warlock 2 levels to get a second weapon attack didn't help any (he wanted the full 5 levels). The only time I didn't, was when I used something like inflict wounds or guiding bolt on the/a BBEG since I often critted when I opted to do so on them.)

I wasn't asking for spell DCs to be vastly increased, only sharing my experience in that they are not the most ideal of things when compared to rolling, nor am I looking for it to be a 95% chance like you can have in older editions. When it is assumed your long term damage in a prolonged fight is going to be cantrips, it'd be nice if the DC was actually decent enough where you could hit with roughly the same accuracy as a martial swinging his weapon, rather than hoping the monster fails while the martial continues hitting multiple times per round more or less consistently. (I'm looking at you, Sacred Flame.)

For full blown spells, yes, I know those shouldn't be a "you save on a 20 only", since there are a number of them that can do as you said and end an encounter, but that doesn't mean there aren't potentially better solutions using spells that roll to hit instead. Potentially better because you have a much better chance of actually hitting (pending really high AC on the monster, which isn't all too frequent), and even a chance at critting on the spells and taking them out or hurting them enough to toss sleep on them instead (assuming there is an arcane with it in the party), especially if you are coordinating with the martials to get everything damaged before attempting to sleep them. Even without sleep, you can still do a large amount of damage and have someone else finish them off, or use something that hits multiple enemies to draw them towards you (if nobody else hit them), allowing for potential Attacks of Opportunity.

My experience could also be a result of my being a knowledge domain cleric, and not that of a wizard with a much larger spell selection outside of healing/buffing spells. In fact, it probably is.

[asorel]

Perhaps it is simply the spells I am looking at then, because most of the ones I've looked at are either A) You get them and ok to excellent stuff happens, or B) You wasted a spell slot.

I suppose that's true for the spells that are more 'effect' than they are damage (Mass Suggestion, Hold Monster, etc.,), But for spells whose primary concern is damage, such as Disintegrate or Thunderwave, half damage is usually done on a failed save.

On an unrelated note, one thing that I think 4E got right was making attribute saves a static defensive stat in the way that AC was. That way, the answer to the question of who rolls when is consistently 'the attacker, on his turn.'

[SharkForce]

i'm gonna have to say that i would have sided with your DM on the extra attack warlock invocation thing... every other way of getting multiple attacks either costs your bonus action or 5 levels of investment. it seems very unlikely that a 2 level warlock splash is intended to give a bonus attack (that said, a 2 warlock splash would have given you probably more than enough DPR to last you through to level 20, if you don't mind using eldritch blast constantly).

as to likelihood of spell success, i personally am much happier with spells that have a substantial impact when they work at the cost of not being super-likely to work. 4e tried making spells likely to hit with lesser impact when they do, and in my personal opinion that sucked massively. it was balanced, but it didn't feel at all like D&D to me.

but yes, it is likely that your experience is coloured somewhat by your class. clerics have probably the least impactful spell list at low levels. once you get up there and you can throw a command spell at a few people instead of one, it gets slightly better, but the cleric spell list does not (yet) have anything to compare with, say, a web or entangle spell at low levels.

i suspect a large part of your experience is due to most of your spells being single target; when you throw an entangle at 12 enemies and 3 of them save, you've still hit 9 targets and likely seriously reduced their contribution to the fight. when you throw a command spell at one target, your best case result looks an awful lot like the worst case result for the above entangle spell... with clerics, the strength of your spell list is mostly in buffs (bless is very good for example, and a spiritual weapon spell can provide the DPS you're looking for at those early levels). not so much in the crowd control.

[Snorunt30]

i'm gonna have to say that i would have sided with your DM on the extra attack warlock invocation thing... every other way of getting multiple attacks either costs your bonus action or 5 levels of investment. it seems very unlikely that a 2 level warlock splash is intended to give a bonus attack (that said, a 2 warlock splash would have given you probably more than enough DPR to last you through to level 20, if you don't mind using eldritch blast constantly).

as to likelihood of spell success, i personally am much happier with spells that have a substantial impact when they work at the cost of not being super-likely to work. 4e tried making spells likely to hit with lesser impact when they do, and in my personal opinion that sucked massively. it was balanced, but it didn't feel at all like D&D to me.

but yes, it is likely that your experience is coloured somewhat by your class. clerics have probably the least impactful spell list at low levels. once you get up there and you can throw a command spell at a few people instead of one, it gets slightly better, but the cleric spell list does not (yet) have anything to compare with, say, a web or entangle spell at low levels.

i suspect a large part of your experience is due to most of your spells being single target; when you throw an entangle at 12 enemies and 3 of them save, you've still hit 9 targets and likely seriously reduced their contribution to the fight. when you throw a command spell at one target, your best case result looks an awful lot like the worst case result for the above entangle spell... with clerics, the strength of your spell list is mostly in buffs (bless is very good for example, and a spiritual weapon spell can provide the DPS you're looking for at those early levels). not so much in the crowd control.

With regards to the extra attack, the "official ruling" is that it is DM's discretion (from Mike Mearls... I think that's his name?), personally I think having the pre-req levels (ie, 5 total levels for the second attack invocation) would be enough to cover the level requirements (since it isn't explicit, and invocations are only tied to warlock level 2, which makes it more ambiguous than others that are strictly you get this at X level, and that's that). I was only looking for it because he was unwilling to allow me to swap classes (or domains), and it'd let me cover what I was attempting to do a bit better (which was essentially try to keep up with martials with melee attacks, since I have the dex to do decently with finesse weapons (18 dex)), though I suppose I could take it still for eldritch blast, I wasn't thinking of that when I looked at it. (I'd want cleric 6 first though, for wisdom to cantrip damage, so I wouldn't see that till 7... and since the campaign is being put on hold in a week or two, effectively never)

Anyway, I'll have to look at the higher level cleric spells (and domain spells), since I've really only looked at the ones I currently have access to (and they mostly leave a lot to be desired).

[Ashrym]

With regards to the extra attack, the "official ruling" is that it is DM's discretion (from Mike Mearls... I think that's his name?), personally I think having the pre-req levels (ie, 5 total levels for the second attack invocation) would be enough to cover the level requirements (since it isn't explicit, and invocations are only tied to warlock level 2, which makes it more ambiguous than others that are strictly you get this at X level, and that's that). I was only looking for it because he was unwilling to allow me to swap classes (or domains), and it'd let me cover what I was attempting to do a bit better (which was essentially try to keep up with martials with melee attacks, since I have the dex to do decently with finesse weapons (18 dex)), though I suppose I could take it still for eldritch blast, I wasn't thinking of that when I looked at it. (I'd want cleric 6 first though, for wisdom to cantrip damage, so I wouldn't see that till 7... and since the campaign is being put on hold in a week or two, effectively never)

Anyway, I'll have to look at the higher level cleric spells (and domain spells), since I've really only looked at the ones I currently have access to (and they mostly leave a lot to be desired).

Jeremy Crawford gave the official ruling as warlock levels for invocation requirements. Check out the sage advice site.