Help me optimise: Sword Burst

[Kane0]

So, Sword Burst. Its a Conjuration cantrip with range self (5') and a dex save to avoid. Its not the best cantrip, but also not the worst. I'm in the process of making a character that has reason to use this cantrip but having trouble finding things that work with it.

Aasimaar racial ability is a good start, even if it costs an action to start and is only good for 10 mins per long rest.

Sorcerer adds in metamagic, specifically empower, quicken and careful. Heighten too but the cost to benefit ratio sucks.

Artillerist Artificer 5 adds an extra damage die, as does Cleric 8 for about half of the domains.

Fighter 2 can use action surge to cast an extra time.

There are plenty of ways to impose disadvantage or drop saves like portent, mind sliver, poison/paralysis/stun/restrain conditions, etc. Party members should be able to help with that.

War magic wizard and bard using tashas inspiration can also add damage, but only against a single target with each use.

Wildfire druid, elemental adept, draconic sorc, etc could maybe have helped, but theres no way to change the force damage to an element and that probably wouldnt be advisable even if you could.

Storm herald barbarian could have been interesting by doubling up on the area/aura damage thing but raging disqualifies casting. Its a shame there isnt a paladin oath that does a damage aura.

Evoker wizard is unfortunately out since this is a conjuration cantrip. Same with lore wizard requiring a spell slot to change damage type which could enable shenanigans.

All sorts of subclasses have bonus damage that trigger on attack rolls, none of which help us here.

Which leaves magic items, many of which would increase DC but i cant think of any off the top of my head that would increase the damage or only deal half on a successful save.

Was there anything I missed? It just seems so wierd there is so little support for damage cantrips that arent attack based, or maybe sword burst specifically is a perfect combo of unfortunate factors.

Edit: hell thunderclap and word of radiance are both evocation cantrips so evoker wizard works there, plus tempest cleric for the former and distant metamagic for the latter.

[Aett_Thorn]

Arcana Cleric would get to add Wis modifier to it after level 8. Not a huge boost, but it’s something.

[Unoriginal]

So, Sword Burst. Its a Conjuration cantrip with range self (5') and a dex save to avoid. Its not the best cantrip, but also not the worst. I'm in the process of making a character that has reason to use this cantrip but having trouble finding things that work with it.

Aasimaar racial ability is a good start, even if it costs an action to start and is only good for 10 mins per long rest.

Sorcerer adds in metamagic, specifically empower, quicken and careful. Heighten too but the cost to benefit ratio sucks.

Artillerist Artificer 5 adds an extra damage die, as does Cleric 8 for about half of the domains.

Fighter 2 can use action surge to cast an extra time.

There are plenty of ways to impose disadvantage or drop saves like portent, mind sliver, poison/paralysis/stun/restrain conditions, etc. Party members should be able to help with that.

War magic wizard and bard using tashas inspiration can also add damage, but only against a single target with each use.

Wildfire druid, elemental adept, draconic sorc, etc could maybe have helped, but theres no way to change the force damage to an element and that probably wouldnt be advisable even if you could.

Storm herald barbarian could have been interesting by doubling up on the area/aura damage thing but raging disqualifies casting. Its a shame there isnt a paladin oath that does a damage aura.

Evoker wizard is unfortunately out since this is a conjuration cantrip. Same with lore wizard requiring a spell slot to change damage type which could enable shenanigans.

All sorts of subclasses have bonus damage that trigger on attack rolls, none of which help us here.

Which leaves magic items, many of which would increase DC but i cant think of any off the top of my head that would increase the damage or only deal half on a successful save.

Was there anything I missed? It just seems so wierd there is so little support for damage cantrips that arent attack based, or maybe sword burst specifically is a perfect combo of unfortunate factors.

Edit: hell thunderclap and word of radiance are both evocation cantrips so evoker wizard works there, plus tempest cleric for the former and distant metamagic for the latter.


Sword Burst benefits when the character is surrounded, and when the enemies can't easily move away.

This points toward the Conquest Paladin, to me. Especially when the aura starts damaging your foes.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Eldritch Knight 7 for War Magic? It's not really making Sword Burst more powerful but it helps round out your turn when you cast it. Though I think Aett_Thorn is right and Arcana Cleric 8 is your best bet. You can use Spirit Guardian for aura damage and Spiritual Weapon to get a few more ghostly weapons floating around.

[strangebloke]

In similar vein to War Magic, bladesinger lets you cast a cantrip as part of the attack action. Its not good for what you're doing but its there.

IMO your best best is Arcana cleric 8 then go to sorcerer or fighter for double casting. The Arcana ability can proc multiple times a turn so this ends up being pretty okay.

(3d6+5)*2 isn't good even in an AOE at 11th level but its something???

OOOOhhhh! And you can go into rune knight for large size, and use that large size to increase the AOE RADIUS!!!

[Brawnspear]

I love the Rune Knight idea! You could also finagle that with the enlarge/reduce spell I assume.
I wouldn't discount evocation wizard entirely, at level 6 they get to deal half damage with any save cantrip their enemies succeed on.
So Arcana Cleric 8 for the stat boost, wizard 6 for half damage on save. 6 levels left to get sorcery points/action surge etc. You could go 3 for rune knight enlarge and action surge, and 3 sorcerer for metamagic and just turn most of your spell slots into sorcery points as you go, though the cap of 3 may make it a little funky to deal with. I might suggest the telekinetic feat to pull a target into range for sword bursting as well if you want to maximize targets.

[Chronos]

If you're going to be a cleric anyway, why not use Word of Radiance instead, with no friendly fire?

[Dork_Forge]

Scourge Aasimar let's you double up on damage auras, then I'd probably go with an Artillerist 5/Sorcerer X with Distant and Quickened, using action Surge on it seems like a little bit of a waste but sure why not. Warlock 5 gives you a damage aura...

So I'd probably think about stacking:

-Scourge Aasimar, level damage + damage aura

- Artillerist 5 extra 1d8

-Divine Soul 5, Spirit Guardians and the relevant metamagics

- Warlock 5, cloak of Flies damage aura

- Fighter 2, Action Surge

Bit of a mish mash but you end up as a walking blender.

[strangebloke]

If you're going to be a cleric anyway, why not use Word of Radiance instead, with no friendly fire?

also works with distant metamagic.

[CheddarChampion]

Maybe this is obvious, but building entirely around Sword Burst is probably not going to give a big return on investment.

Now if you really wanna do it, I'd suggest going for Thunderclap instead.
Evocation Wizard 6/Storm Sorcerer 14, 14/6, 10/10, or 2/18 could work well. Maybe one level in fighter or cleric for armor.
Evocation Wizard: since Thunderclap is an evocation spell, Sculpt Spells can select one creature to avoid the damage. Potent Cantrip can still do half damage if an enemy saves. Empowered Evocation adds your INT to the damage.
Sorcerer: Quicken spell lets you dodge/disengage/dash and cast, cast twice, or cast Thunderclap and a leveled spell. Ask your DM if they'll let you use Distant Metamagic to double the radius of Thunderclap.
Storm Sorcerer: Tempestuous Magic is good if you're in a bad spot. Heart of the Storm has synergy with spells like Thunderwave and Shatter. Storm's Fury could be used often since you'll be in close range a lot. Wind Soul allow you great freedom to position yourself well and retreat back out of melee.

An Evocation Wizard 10/Storm Sorcerer 10 could, with a permissive DM: get into position, cast a Quickened Shatter at their feet for 3d8+5 damage and take no damage, use Heart of the Storm to deal 5 damage to all enemies within 10' of them, and cast a Distant Thunderclap for another 4d8+5 damage (save for half rather than 0), for a total of 7d8+15 thunder damage (save for half) to enemies in a 20' by 20' area, or only 4d8+10 in a 25' by 25' area. You could also exclude one ally in the area from all of this damage. All at the cost of a 2nd level spell and 3 sorcery points.

You'd also have traditional tricks up your sleeve, like Fireball with +5 damage and Sculpt Spells or Twinned Haste. (Casting Haste on yourself would be fairly useful too, since you get double speed and can disengage or dash with your haste action). Finally, you also have Wizard Ritual spells up to 5th level.

The downsides are AC and HP, especially since you'll be in melee range.

[Kane0]

Oh I missed Cloak of Flies, thanks!

So to avoid MADness it looks like a Scourge Aasimar Divine Sorlock is the way to go, maybe changing over to Artillerist/Evoker if INT is good or Rune Knight if it isn't.

And of course Thunderclap and Word of Radiance are generally better alternatives.

Edit: All this just reminds me how odd it is that Paladins don't have an Oath that provides a damage aura, being the class known for Auras plus the Channel and Capstone features to provide with an attached resource if an always-on one would be too strong.
Maybe a nice DM would allow one to transplant some elements of the Storm Herald Barbarian onto a new or existing oath...

[Dork_Forge]

Oh I missed Cloak of Flies, thanks!

So to avoid MADness it looks like a Scourge Aasimar Divine Sorlock is the way to go, maybe changing over to Artillerist/Evoker if INT is good or Rune Knight if it isn't.

And of course Thunderclap and Word of Radiance are generally better alternatives.

Edit: All this just reminds me how odd it is that Paladins don't have an Oath that provides a damage aura, being the class known for Auras plus the Channel and Capstone features to provide with an attached resource if an always-on one would be too strong.
Maybe a nice DM would allow one to transplant some elements of the Storm Herald Barbarian onto a new or existing oath...

You'd want to go Artillerist first, as their ability applies specifically to Artificer spells.

The Crown Paladin gets Spirit Guardians if that helps?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Edit: All this just reminds me how odd it is that Paladins don't have an Oath that provides a damage aura, being the class known for Auras plus the Channel and Capstone features to provide with an attached resource if an always-on one would be too strong.
Oathbreaker gets a nasty aura as their capstone power, but yeah. I could have sworn that one of the really old UAs had a poison aura, but if so I can't find it again. Perhaps there's design space for a holy fire subclass...

[BerzerkerUnit]

Evoker wizard is unfortunately out since this is a conjuration cantrip. Same with lore wizard requiring a spell slot to change damage type which could enable shenanigans.

Evoker 6 does not specify Cantrip school or source. I’d go Scourge Aasimar Artificer 5, Evoker 6, Hexblade 5, then maybe fighter 2, Paladin 2.

[Thunderous Mojo]

If you're going to be a cleric anyway, why not use Word of Radiance instead, with no friendly fire?

This is a very strong option especially when conjoined with Invoke Duplcity.

[Greywander]

I've only skimmed the thread, so apologies if some of these have been brought up already.

Evoker 10 is the way to go. Potent Cantrip at 6th level lets you do half damage even when they pass their save. If you can stack on enough damage, you can turn yourself into a meat grinder against weak CR hordes. Empowered Evocation at 10th level only works with wizard evocation spells. So it would need to be Thunderclap, and as a wizard spell. Sadly, Arcana cleric doesn't work, since it does need to be a wizard spell. You can also grab Elemental Adept for Thunderclap; since the damage dice are pretty small, you'll get more mileage out of this feat.

You can also dip out of evoker at 6th level and go for something else, like an Arcana cleric. Potent Spellcasting is similar to Empowered Evocation, but for cleric spells. Cleric can make you a bit more resilient when you're charging into hordes. If you go Evoker 10/cleric 8, you can get Blessed Strikes (which applies to all spells, not just cleric spells), which adds 1d8 radiant damage to only one target, but it's not nothing.

You can also increase the affected area. Distant Spell will extend the range to 10 feet, tripling the affected area (from 8 squares to 24 squares). Enlarging yourself can also increase the area of effect; there's Enlarge/Reduce of course, but whoever suggested Rune Knight is on to something.

Sadly, there's not a thunder dragon that a Draconic sorcerer could take for their bloodline. There's lightning, but that doesn't help. If there was a thunder option, you could put 6 levels in sorcerer (which you'd probably want for metamagic anyway) to add your CHA mod to the damage. A permissive DM might let you take thunder as your element, though.

I know there are some subclasses, like Tempest cleric and Storm sorcerer, that interact with lightning/thunder spells. I think those mostly apply to leveled spells, though, and not to cantrips, so I don't know how much synergy there is there.

[BerzerkerUnit]

I had inferred from the OP Swordburst was desired perhaps for narrative reasons. A lot of the chatter about taking something else may not be helpful.

[Kane0]

Eh, just a character concept. I knew it would be tough at the start, but thankfully it wont have to rely primarily on damage cantrips.

[Unoriginal]

Scourge Aasimar Conquest Paladin with Sword Burst via Magic Initiate could deal 2d6 force + 4 radiant + 4 psychic damages by lvl 7, for 10 turns, if the people around are Frightened by the PC.

It's not much but it's something to start with.