New cantrip for 5e: Vampiric Blade

[Specter]

Vampiric Blade
Necromancy cantrip
Casting Time: One action
Range: 5 ft.
Components: S, M (a weapon)
Duration: Instantaneous

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and if the target is not an undead or a construct, it takes an extra 1d4 necrotic damage. You regain hit points equal to half of this damage (rounded down to a minimum of 1).

At 5th level, the melee attack deals 2d4 damage to the target. This damage increases to 3d4 at 11th level and 4d4 at level 17.

Whaddyathink?

[Sicarius Victis]

Don't let them regain hit points, that allows too much abuse when it's an at-will. Instead, let them gain temporary hit points.

[Gr7mm Bobb]

I'm with victus on this one. Cantrips don't heal, they mechanically unsettle the game when they do. The weapon delivery is neat and all, but this spell doesn't really bring much to the table. It offers some minor damage with a temp HP bump. But nothing else. GFB is all about the damage, being fire and all, so it does a bunch of it AND shares it. Booming Blade threatens nice damage and with it provides a form of soft movement control.

[Lalliman]

I like this idea as a way to give melee casters more round-to-round decisions to make, i.e. do I use GFB for offence or Vampiric Blade for defence? To fulfil that purpose I would put more focus on the healing part, something like:

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and if the target is not an undead or a construct, you gain 1d6 temporary hit points. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the amount of temporary hit points is increased to 2d6. Both rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.

I'm not sure if this is balanced, but you get the point. This version encourages you to switch between Vampiric Blade and a higher-damage cantrip depending on your current needs, whereas yours is a "use it all the time" sorta thing. I personally find this version more interesting.

[Gr7mm Bobb]

I like this idea as a way to give melee casters more round-to-round decisions to make, i.e. do I use GFB for offence or Vampiric Blade for defence? To fulfil that purpose I would put more focus on the healing part, something like:

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack’s normal effects, and if the target is not an undead or a construct, you gain 1d6 temporary hit points. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target, and the amount of temporary hit points is increased to 2d6. Both rolls increase by 1d6 at 11th level and 17th level.

I like the direction this is going. One of the other mechanics to consider is gaining double temp HP when you drop something or maybe just being able to add your casting ability modifier to the temp HP gained.

Another thing to tack on so it has a nice secondary perk, give it the undead debuff of Chill Touch. So now the spell is really only meh against constructs, but also not blowing up the rest of the game.

[King539]

Yeah, turn it down to temp HP. Otherwise, I'd be expecting abuse with stabbing donkeys or mules. They only cost 8 gp.

[Nifft]

Agree with basically everyone else.

Temp HP would make this viable.

However, I think this might be better as a melee weapon cantrip instead of a spell-damage cantrip.

Something like...
- If your melee weapon attack hits a living creature, you deal normal damage, and you gain 5 temporary HP.
- At level 5, you instead deal +1d8 necrotic damage, and you instead gain 10 temporary HP.
- At level 11, you instead deal +2d8 necrotic damage, and you instead gain 15 temporary HP.
- At level 17, you instead deal +3d8 necrotic damage, and you instead gain 20 temporary HP.

[Sicarius Victis]

Agree with basically everyone else.

Temp HP would make this viable.

However, I think this might be better as a melee weapon cantrip instead of a spell-damage cantrip.

I think this was intended as a melee weapon cantrip, they just forgot to specify this in the OP?

[Nifft]

I think this was intended as a melee weapon cantrip, they just forgot to specify this in the OP?

I think you're right.

I checked the SCAG and I see the same misleading notation:
- "Components: M (a weapon)" apparently does not mean that there is a weapon which is used as a material component.
- "Range: 5 ft." apparently does not mean that the spell has a range of 5 ft., it means the spell has a range of melee attack.

[Specter]

With temporary hp they could still kill a chicken before a dungeon just to get it. But fair point.

[JeenLeen]

With temporary hp they could still kill a chicken before a dungeon just to get it. But fair point.

If a timer was set like "These temporary hit points fade after 1 minute", or whatever the language is that is used similarly in other spells, that would help. Well, more likely than not, it would increase the number of chickens an abuser of said rules would carry. Eh, I guess a minor abuse like that isn't a big deal, and it's no 'worse' than the Warlock invocation that lets you cast the temp-HP level 1 spell infinite times per day.