Flame Tongue with radiant damage

[Ryuu Hayato]

I was thinking about chance the flame tongue damage type to radiant. Will it be unbalanced or op? I realy like the concept, but fire damage sucks so much.

[Coidzor]

It would be more powerful, but I don't think it would be powerful enough to bump it to the next category of rarity.

[Sigreid]

Should be fine. Won't really make a difference unless you're planning on a quest chain with tonnes of opponents who are resistant/immune to fire or vulnerable to radiant.

[djreynolds]

Is it powerful, yes. But who cares. Its not any different than grabbing a level of war cleric for divine favor.

[furby076]

No biggy. If your DM finds it to be a problem, he can solve it by throwing some radiant resistant monsters at you

[MrStabby]

By itself? not a huge problem. Maybe just a bit. As a precedent it is a bit more of an issue.

Different damage types are balanced by the amount of damage they do and the frequency with which they are resisted, as well as some types being a perk of certain classes.

Radiant damage is not exclusive to the likes of Paladins and Clerics, but it is more frequent there. I might consider a variant of flametongue that does radiant damage if the wielder is a Paladin or Cleric for example. Giving another player access to Their Thing takes something that is special about those classes and gives it to everyone.

Allowing people to change damage types will always mean that fire damage sources are the go-to sources for damage. Fireball does more damage than any other comparable level spell (closest is lightning bolt - but good luck trying to get as many creatures caught in its area of effect) - if the frequency of resistance doesn't matter any more then the whole spell list may as well be reduced to a small handful of options. It is pretty bad as it is, but why make it worse?

On the other hand you could grant it as a one off - in which case you may need to be explicit as to why one lucky PC is playing by a special set of rules for them and you might be expected to shower other players with similarly powerful gifts. Yes fire damage sucks in terms of resistances/immunities; it is why it is so easy to get and why the base damage is so abundant.


If fire resistance is going to be a small thing, then it doesn't matter and it isn't really worth changing. If, on the other hand, fire resistance is going to be a substantial thing in your campaign then you are obviously making the item much much more powerful and how you treat it should reflect that.

[Ryuu Hayato]

Thank you guys!

I'm trying new options. The idea is make a item of rare or very rare category:

- This from Flame Tongue:

Lightining Tongue
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Also, you can use a bonus action to speak this magic sword’s command word, causing bolts of lightning to erupt from the blade. These bolts of lightning shed bright light in a 40-foot radius and dim light for an additional 40 feet. While the sword is flashing, it deals an extra 2d6 lightning damage to any target it hits. The bolts of lightning last until you use a bonus action to speak the command word again or until you drop or sheathe the sword.


- These from Frost Brand:

Steel Tempest
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Also, when you hit with an attack using this magic sword, the target takes an extra 1d6 lightning damage. In addition, while you hold the sword, you have resistance to lightning damage.
You can use a bonus action to cause the item to shed bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet, or to extinguish the light.
When you draw this weapon, you can ignite flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried within 30 feet of you. This property can be used no more than once per hour.


Wrath of God
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Also, when you hit with an attack using this magic sword, the target takes an extra 1d6 radiant damage. In addition, while you hold the sword, you have resistance to necrotic damage.
You can use a bonus action to cause the item to shed bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet, or to extinguish the light.
When you draw this weapon, you can ignite flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried within 30 feet of you. This property can be used no more than once per hour.

What do you think?

[Vorok]

Lightining Tongue
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Also, you can use a bonus action to speak this magic sword’s command word, causing bolts of lightning to erupt from the blade. These bolts of lightning shed bright light in a 40-foot radius and dim light for an additional 40 feet. While the sword is flashing, it deals an extra 2d6 lightning damage to any target it hits. The bolts of lightning last until you use a bonus action to speak the command word again or until you drop or sheathe the sword.

I'd say change the name a bit more. Flametongue kind of makes sense, since fire is sometimes described as 'licking' things. For lightning, I'd use something like 'burst' or 'spark'. Or 'Stormlash' (Look at shaman totems from WoW, some of them have similar naming conventions.)

Furthermore, when I think of lightning, I either think of one bright flash, or more dim lightning sparks, so I'd change the light to dim 20' radius. Or maybe something like that plasma globe effect. Dim effect until you hold it near someone/something that conduct, which would draw more focused/bright light on it.


Steel Tempest

Wrath of God

I'd prefer some difference beyond just damage type. For lightning to reach 30' it'd have to be quite powerful iirc, so I'd shorten the radius on the Steel Tempest. And the bright/dim light, same as with 'Lightning Tongue'.

If you'll have just one in a game then I'd say you can keep the stats, but side to side, it'd bother me a bit.

[Spore]

I love weapons that have useful secondary effects other than damage/killing potential. A Flame Tongue should be able to be used as a torch, it should burn things and shed a small bright light.

A weapon based on radiant damage should have a bigger light radius (20' and 40' respectively) and probably abuse light sensitivity or create a fear effect on shadows and similar creatures. I am not very confident in my 5e rules knowledge but how about something like this.

Ray of Dawn
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon. Also, you can use a bonus action to speak this magic sword’s command word, causing rays of sunlight to erupt from the blade. This sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. While the sword is flashing, it deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to any target it hits. These effects last until you use a bonus action to speak the command word again or until you drop or sheathe the sword.

Creatures of the dark fear the Ray of Dawn. It hurts their eyes and burns their very essence. Creatures originating from the shadowfell as well as intelligent undead avoid the wielder of the sunblade as best as possible, and they will retreat if they don't heavily outnumber the wielder and her comrades.

The last snippet should be a given for any creature with a weakness to a damage type you wield but hey. It doesn't hurt to remind the PLAYERS of that too.

[Sir cryosin]

I'm AFB but why not just use a sunblade.