Good blast spells to make at-will?

[Greywander]

I've been working on a homebrew class whose entire premise is casting their spells at-will, but they can only have a limited number of spells up at a time. Naturally this meant tailoring the spell list to remove most instantaneous duration spells (and many of the remaining spells also require concentration). I'm done with the base class and pretty happy with how it looks so far, but now I'm moving on to subclasses and need subclass spells. Two of the subclasses are going to lean toward blasting, so I want to put some decent blast spells on their list. However, there's a reason a lot of those spells didn't end up on the base class list.

In short, I'm looking for some blast spells that wouldn't be too game breaking to make at-will. I was initially looking at Burning Hands; the damage isn't too high, but it's an AoE as well as save for half. Since it's a 1st level spell, that would mean they could be spamming it as early as 1st level, which seems a bit much to me. Chromatic Orb and Chaos Bolt look more balanced; stronger than a cantrip, but you spent a spell known to get it, and it's only available to that/those specific subclass(es).

I should probably also mention that even instantaneous spells count against how many spells you can have running at a time. So this means you might be choosing between spamming Burning Hands, or spamming Fire Bolt while you have, say, Bane or Tasha's up. "At-will" is a bit misleading because it implies there's no cost, when in this case there's an opportunity cost.

How do you feel about Burning Hands, specifically? What other spells would work well for this?

[BloodBrandy]

Personally, I don't think it's something that can work. Keep in mind, "At will burning hands" is part of an Epic Boon (Boon of the Fire Soul), at will casting of a single low level spell of choice is another Epic Boon (Boon of Spell Mastery), and at will low level spells is a late game class feature for Wizards (Level 18 feature, Spell Mastery).

You'd be better off basing a class around Cantrips, empowering them and giving a larger number, but fewer, if any, higher level spells

[Mork]

oef, thats hard. A spell like burning hands at will might be a little OP, though I don't think it would matter very much, most playgroups would have only 1 or 2 encounters before going from level 1 to 2 anyway. I think the problem is more in how badly it scales. Starting level 5 firebolt does on averay 10.5 damage, while burning hands does the same (off course you can target multiple opponents, but you also have to get close..).
If at level 5 your class feature is as strong as a cantrip.. it's not really that good. The problem only gets worse at higher levels, as most spells (damage) don't scale that well if they can be upcast.
If you want to introduce different spells at different levels, maybe think about giving them a little bit later? Maybe give burnign hands at will at level 2-3 instead of 1? that is when most classes get a big boost. Maybe have their spellcasting porgression be that of a half caster, so you are only spamming level 5 spells at level 20? (which is strong enough IMO).
Otherwise homebrewing some more AOA cantrips? a minifireball for example. Something that scales up as they level? (at lvl 1: d6, 5ft radius, at level 5: 2d6 10ft radius, level 11 3d6 15ft radius, at level 16 4d6 20ft radius)

another point is that, how strong at will casting is, is very much dependend on how long your encounters are and how many rests you have. Which is very dependend on the playgroup as well. I presume you are going to DM with this class? can you give an indication?
Because if you only have a single encounter a day, than the power level of the spell doesn't really matter, as a full caster will also blow all their spells in that same encounter. If you have lots of 2 round encounters with a short rest between all of them, you basically have a warlock. If you have 6 encounters a day each lasting 5 rounds, with only a single short rest, at will spell casting becomes a HUGE boost in power potential.

[MaxWilson]

At-will Burning Hands is basically the third-level Artillerist's shtick so I wouldn't give it away at first level.

What other constraints exist on the.class? It's really hard to give appropriate feedback in a vacuum. Whatc kinds of spells are you looking for?

Without knowing more all I can suggest are cantrips, Witch Bolt, and Cloud of Daggers.

[Greywander]

Personally, I don't think it's something that can work. Keep in mind, "At will burning hands" is part of an Epic Boon (Boon of the Fire Soul), at will casting of a single low level spell of choice is another Epic Boon (Boon of Spell Mastery), and at will low level spells is a late game class feature for Wizards (Level 18 feature, Spell Mastery).

You'd be better off basing a class around Cantrips, empowering them and giving a larger number, but fewer, if any, higher level spells
The main benefit of the Boon of the Fire Soul is the fire immunity. I'm having trouble seeing anyone at 20th level choosing to cast Burning Hands at 1st level, even if it's free. My point is, I don't think that boon is an accurate assessment of when it would be balanced to give at-will Burning Hands.

A class built around cantrips is an interesting idea, but it would be a completely different class. I don't really want to make this thread about the class, as that's a different and much more complex topic. I've left out a lot of the details of the class, so for now just trust that I've done a decent job at balancing the spell list. Once I have some subclasses done, I'll post a thread in the homebrew section to discuss the class itself.


If you want to introduce different spells at different levels, maybe think about giving them a little bit later? Maybe give burnign hands at will at level 2-3 instead of 1? that is when most classes get a big boost. Maybe have their spellcasting porgression be that of a half caster, so you are only spamming level 5 spells at level 20? (which is strong enough IMO).
Otherwise homebrewing some more AOA cantrips? a minifireball for example. Something that scales up as they level? (at lvl 1: d6, 5ft radius, at level 5: 2d6 10ft radius, level 11 3d6 15ft radius, at level 16 4d6 20ft radius)
Flipping through the spells, Aganazzar's Scorcher seems to fit the bill nicely. Does comparable damage to Burning Hands, but it's 2nd level rather than 1st, so it wouldn't be available until 3rd level. Not only that, but being 2nd level means a higher resource cost. Yes, the resources come back when the spell ends, but this still means fewer or weaker long duration spells up while blasting.

Combing more through the spell list, I'm finding some other spells that might work well.


another point is that, how strong at will casting is, is very much dependend on how long your encounters are and how many rests you have. Which is very dependend on the playgroup as well. I presume you are going to DM with this class? can you give an indication?
Because if you only have a single encounter a day, than the power level of the spell doesn't really matter, as a full caster will also blow all their spells in that same encounter. If you have lots of 2 round encounters with a short rest between all of them, you basically have a warlock. If you have 6 encounters a day each lasting 5 rounds, with only a single short rest, at will spell casting becomes a HUGE boost in power potential.
I actually based a lot of this class on the warlock, and expect them to play similarly to one. One big difference, however, is that the warlock gets different spells, spells that I may have deemed too strong for the at-will style casting of this class. Hold Person, for example. Their spell list is mostly control or buff spells, with some of the weaker debuffs that require concentration. The spell list was probably one of the hardest parts of designing this class.


At-will Burning Hands is basically the third-level Artillerist's shtick so I wouldn't give it away at first level.
Aganazzar's should do the trick.


What other constraints exist on the.class? It's really hard to give appropriate feedback in a vacuum. Whatc kinds of spells are you looking for?
Each spell uses a number of "resources" equal to the spell's level, which you get back when the spell ends, or if you choose to end it early. Up until 11th level, casting the highest level spell available to you would require using all your resources, meaning you can't have any of your other spells active, or other abilities that use those resources. Speaking of, you do have other abilities that also run off those resources, but some carry a risk of destroying the resource until you take a long rest. For example, you know the lightning redirect thing from Avatar? You can do that, but with spells. Just don't fail the CON check, or you'll take some damage and lose one of your resources. (You also might need to end some or all of the spells you have up in order to free up enough resources to redirect a spell.)

For subclasses, I'm going to start with four: a draconic one, a fiendish one, a fey one, and a celestial one. The draconic and fiendish ones are the blasty ones. Fiend will also mix in some debuffs, while draconic mixes in tankiness. Fey will be more control, while celestial leans more heavily into the support role. Can't do healing spells for the celestial for obvious reasons, but they'll still probably get a healing ability of some kind.

Is this enough info, or do you need more details? Again, I don't want to turn this into a thread about the class, but I understand needing more context to answer my question.


Without knowing more all I can suggest are cantrips, Witch Bolt, and Cloud of Daggers.
Cloud of Daggers looks like it has potential, the concentration restriction helps reign in its power. No save or attack roll, though, which is concerning. Witch Bolt is already on the base list. It's such a crap spell that I didn't see any issue with giving it to them as a possible blasting option. It actually scales better than a lot of other spells, so at higher levels it could actually be decent.

Some other blast spells I'm looking at are Catapult, Earth Tremor, Ray of Sickness, Dragon's Breath (thematic for draconic subclass), and Melf's Acid Arrow. Haven't looked much at higher level spells yet, but I can already tell you that Fireball and Lightning Bolt are out. Edit: Some spells, like Flaming Sphere and Wall of Fire, are already on the base class list, but might got moved to a subclass or removed entirely, depending on feedback or playtesting.

[Kane0]

Assuming you can balance them, here are some favourites i'd be looking for:
1st: ice knife, catapult, guiding bolt, ray of sickness
2nd: ag's scorcher, snowball swarm
3rd: erupting earth, thunder step

Plus the classics magic missile, scorching ray, lightning bolt, etc.

[Joe the Rat]

For a semblance of balance, I'd suggest looking at 1/2 caster progression for availability. So you can start spamming burning hands or witch bolt at 2nd level, scorching ray at 5th or 6th, etc. You'll have shootiness, but the straight slot casters will have higher peak boomers. it also keeps you out of the weeds on 6+ level spells, which really shouldn't be freecast. At all, really.

This frees up quite a bit of options. Anything "shooty" - requires an attack roll, or is a single target save, is going to be fair game. The catch here is that you can get outstripped by cantrips at some point - and you are giving them a cantrip block as well I presume. For normal casters this is offset by upcasting, which at this point I am not figuring in.
Chromatic Orb is a good one to grab - unless the lists are elementally themed, this one spell gives you a lot of damage type options. On a similar vein, I'd toss in Chaos Bolt, but I'm a sucker for randomness.

AoE gets trickier. Line, Cone, and Cube spells appeal, since they are emanating from the caster (I consider "puts the caster close to the action" a reasonable balance factor), so burning hands, Thunderwave, Aggie's Scorcher, Lightning Bolt, etc. Grenade spells (Shatter, Fireball) I am more hesitant about, even with that delayed access. You could try it at 1/3 caster - Free Fireballs at 13th level - to see how it goes.

[MaxWilson]

Flipping through the spells, Aganazzar's Scorcher seems to fit the bill nicely. Does comparable damage to Burning Hands, but it's 2nd level rather than 1st, so it wouldn't be available until 3rd level. Not only that, but being 2nd level means a higher resource cost. Yes, the resources come back when the spell ends, but this still means fewer or weaker long duration spells up while blasting.

I hate to say it because Aganazzar's Scorcher is a weak 2nd level spell, but at-will Aganazzar's Scorcher is probably still too strong for a 3rd level PC. 3d8 (save for half) at will at up to 30' outclasses the Artillerist's 2d8, until the Artillerist hits 9th level and gets 3d8. Even if they just got Burning Hands at 3rd level it would decently strong, and Burning Hands requires them to get practically into melee range.

Maybe by that logic I shouldn't have suggested Cloud of Daggers either, but at least that eats concentration.

For comparison: an Agonizing Blast warlock at 3rd level would be doing d10+d6+3ish (12) at will using Hex, to a single target. If we assume that you normally miss about half the time, then getting save-for-half is sort of like a 50% damage boost, and if we guesstimate that Aganazzar's Scorcher being an AoE adds an additional target about half the time too, that means the at-will spellcaster is doing the equivalent of a 3d8 (13.5) * 150% * 150% = 30 damage attack, about three times better than the warlock. You can quibble with the details (is AoE really worth 150% or only 130%?) but it should be easy to see that they're not on par with each other. The warlock won't catch up to that at-will damage until 11th level, unless they find ways to get additional damage by leveraging e.g. Repelling Blast + falling damage.


Some other blast spells I'm looking at are Catapult, Earth Tremor, Ray of Sickness, Dragon's Breath (thematic for draconic subclass), and Melf's Acid Arrow. Haven't looked much at higher level spells yet, but I can already tell you that Fireball and Lightning Bolt are out. Edit: Some spells, like Flaming Sphere and Wall of Fire, are already on the base class list, but might got moved to a subclass or removed entirely, depending on feedback or playtesting.

Catapult is too strong: 3d8 at will at first level. Earth Tremor is okay. Dragon Breath is probably too strong since you could do something like Magic Initiate (wizard for Find Familiar + Fire Bolt) and then do 3d6+d10 (16) at-will at level 3, part of that in an AoE.

Melf's Acid Arrow is definitely too strong as an at-will since it doesn't require concentration, would lead to 6d4 (15) at-will at 3rd level without even requiring any feat investment.

If you're going to give out at-will spells they have to be crummy spells that don't synergize well, and most of the spells you're picking are still too strong for that. If you take Joe the Rat's suggestion and switch to a half-caster progression though, more options open up. Melf's Acid Arrow at-will is not overpowered at 6th level.

[BloodBrandy]

The main benefit of the Boon of the Fire Soul is the fire immunity. I'm having trouble seeing anyone at 20th level choosing to cast Burning Hands at 1st level, even if it's free. My point is, I don't think that boon is an accurate assessment of when it would be balanced to give at-will Burning Hands.

A class built around cantrips is an interesting idea, but it would be a completely different class. I don't really want to make this thread about the class, as that's a different and much more complex topic. I've left out a lot of the details of the class, so for now just trust that I've done a decent job at balancing the spell list. Once I have some subclasses done, I'll post a thread in the homebrew section to discuss the class itself.

Problem is, you are still skipping over the other points I made. the Spell Mastery feature and Boon of Spell Mastery still apply towards the point that you are basing a whole class off of having a late game, high level ability from the start and expanding from there.

If it's a saving throw spell it's basically, usually, guaranteed damage unless immunity comes into play, and if it's attack roll spells then it's a lot of higher than usual damage than a martial class hopes to compare to, usually.

Keep in mind, the only class that gets At Will leveled spells early on is Warlock, and absolutely none of those do any direct damage, and the only one that could be considered to do indirect damage from the spell itself, Master of Myriad Forms/Alter Self At Will, is both a level 15 invocation and moderate damage, at best.

Honestly, without knowing how you plan to balance it out, it's hard to make much of any suggestions

[Matticusrex]

Burning hands is a fair one considering its range, you could even give it cantrip-esc damage scailing so it doesent become useless later. It will be a bit of an all-star for 3 levels but those levels are already imbalanced anyways and dont last very long. Witch bolt would be another safe at-will but that spell is kind of awful in its own right. Thunderwave can work since it has similar range and damage as burning hands.

Some to avoid are inflict wounds (way better damage than the average melee attack), Ray of sickness (at-will poison inflicting is incredibly good.), Earth Tremor (at-will aoe prone is fantastic, if your class has a d6 health then I would consider this spell fair game.), Guiding Bolt (this spell is pushed to help out clerics limited spell list, could easily be a 2nd level spell otherwise).

At-will spells can work with enough effort and creativity, dont be nay-sayed out of it by others. Homebrewing is a great way to explore and evolve the systems we have instead of being restricted by them, as long as the execution is balanced, the method can be anything.

It may be a good idea to create a few spells unique to your homebrew, like the spells warlocks have. It can be a lot easier to balance when they are tailor made especialy if you are looking for somthing like an empowerd cantrip.