vampiric touch shenanigan's

[bad badger]

Hi,


is it possible to use vampiric touch on a summoned phantom steed to gain HP?

here is the basic idea... phantom steed is a mount people can summon as a ritual, the steed has the stats of a riding horse, thing is the spell ends once the riding horse takes damage.

so since its a ritual, could an evil wizard summon a bunch of these and then vampiric touch them to heal?

thanks

here are the spells in question...

Phantom Steed Ritual
LEVEL
3rd
CASTING TIME
1 Minute Ritual
RANGE/AREA
30 ft
COMPONENTS
V, S
DURATION
1 Hour
SCHOOL
Illusion
ATTACK/SAVE
None
DAMAGE/EFFECT
Movement
A Large quasi-real, horselike creature appears on the ground in an unoccupied space of your choice within range. You decide the creature's appearance, but it is equipped with a saddle, bit, and bridle. Any of the equipment created by the spell vanishes in a puff of smoke if it is carried more than 10 feet away from the steed.

For the duration, you or a creature you choose can ride the steed. The creature uses the statistics for a riding horse, except it has a speed of 100 feet and can travel 10 miles in an hour, or 13 miles at a fast pace. When the spell ends, the steed gradually fades, giving the rider 1 minute to dismount. The spell ends if you use an action to dismiss it or if the steed takes any damage.


and


Vampiric Touch Concentration
LEVEL
3rd
CASTING TIME
1 Action
RANGE/AREA
Self
COMPONENTS
V, S
DURATION
Concentration 1 Minute
SCHOOL
Necromancy
ATTACK/SAVE
Melee
DAMAGE/EFFECT
Necrotic
The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, the target takes 3d6 necrotic damage, and you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt. Until the spell ends, you can make the attack again on each of your turns as an action.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 3rd.

[stoutstien]

Phantom steed is a ritual which means concentration so while you could stand around and summon 5 of them and then blow a 3rd lv slot to heal 5 times the net gain would be lower than just spending HD on a SR and that doesn't cost a spell slot/prepared.

For an evil wizard you could just siphon off your undead minions that you don't need around anymore or the local livestock.

Oddly a life cleric dip makes it a lot better.....guess it's making someone more lively...

[bad badger]

Phantom steed is a ritual which means concentration so while you could stand around and summon 5 of them and then blow a 3rd lv slot to heal 5 times the net gain would be lower than just spending HD on a SR and that doesn't cost a spell slot/prepared.

For an evil wizard you could just siphon off your undead minions that you don't need around anymore or the local livestock.

Oddly a life cleric dip makes it a lot better.....guess it's making someone more lively...

ritual does not mean concentration actually. you can summon up to 5 at a time and have 1 concentration going.

[Amnestic]

There's no reason it wouldn't work, but likewise I don't really see a practical application to it. 5 * (3d6/2) on average is..what, about 26-27 hit points restored? If you've got a 3rd level spell slot and an hour of uninterrupted ritual casting there's gotta be easier ways to restore your hit points.

[stoutstien]

ritual does not mean concentration actually. you can summon up to 5 at a time and have 1 concentration going.
Sure then blow a 3rd lv slot to heal less than 30 HP on average. That an hour and some change for the similar effects as about 4 HD with a+3 con unmodified by anytime else.

Maybe if your DM allows you to prone them all before hand so you could at least increase crit chance. On flavor but really pushing the limits of what the spell says it does.

Like I said a life cleric dip can add 2+spell lv HP per hit making it at least a niche tactic.

[PhantomSoul]

Phantom steed is a ritual which means concentration so while you could stand around and summon 5 of them and then blow a 3rd lv slot to heal 5 times the net gain would be lower than just spending HD on a SR and that doesn't cost a spell slot/prepared.


ritual does not mean concentration actually. you can summon up to 5 at a time and have 1 concentration going.

It's partway through both of these; rituals do require concentration, but only for the casting (PHB202; unless the spell duration specifies concentration, in which case the spell effect period has concentration too), during which environmental factors and the like could interfere with the casting by breaking concentration on the casting (PHB204; a potential barrier to chaining Phantom Steeds for the whole party while travelling, which is the more common proposal I see!). So it could interfere with long-term buffs (e.g. if running Hex), but Vampiric Touch has a short duration so that won't really be a conflict since it won't be active while ritual casting and Phantom Steed won't cause conflicts because the spell's duration doesn't have Concentration.

[bad badger]

Sure then blow a 3rd lv slot to heal less than 30 HP on average. That an hour and some change for the similar effects as about 4 HD with a+3 con unmodified by anytime else.

Maybe if your DM allows you to prone them all before hand so you could at least increase crit chance. On flavor but really pushing the limits of what the spell says it does.

Like I said a life cleric dip can add 2+spell lv HP per hit making it at least a niche tactic.

the shenanigan is that a straight wizard could now do any healing at all after a battle, of course a cleric can heal more efficiently

[stoutstien]

the shenanigan is that a straight wizard could now do any healing at all after a battle, of course a cleric can heal more efficiently

They already could via race, feats, summon/binding chains, or subclass (Necro or transmuter) even before you add in multiclassing.

[bad badger]

They already could via race, feats, summon/binding chains, or subclass (Necro or transmuter) even before you add in multiclassing.
ok please explain a better way a straight(necromancer) wizard can heal that has more HP involved...

let me explain, first of all im playing a wizard with phantom steed, i usually cast the spell 5 times in the morning or on a short rest if the party needs to travel great distance, we come across vampirc touch as a scroll, not a spell i normally would take but why not copy the thing into my book. then i realise there are many many times i have 5 phantom steeds just hanging around, sometimes we get into a battle on the road, and after that battle my wizard gets hurt, the cleric is out of spells, so why not cast it, absorb the 5 phantom steeds as a quick but powerful heal spell.


here is how the math works out... 5 phantom steeds have on average 13 hp, but the spell ends as soon as even 1 damage was given to them, so vampiric touch can only be used 1 time per steed, so basically you get back 4 HP on average per horse... 4 X 5 is 20 HP... this is particularly useful if you are playing a necromancer because of this ability...

Grim Harvest
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to reap life energy from creatures you kill with your spells. Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell’s level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.

so for a necromancer thats an additional 9 X 5 is 45 HP... bringing the grand total on average to 65HP...

so please tell me a better way?

[Witty Username]

There's no reason it wouldn't work, but likewise I don't really see a practical application to it. 5 * (3d6/2) on average is..what, about 26-27 hit points restored? If you've got a 3rd level spell slot and an hour of uninterrupted ritual casting there's gotta be easier ways to restore your hit points.

Like short resting.

[stoutstien]

How often is that happening that you think this is a good use of resources?

[bad badger]

How often is that happening that you think this is a good use of resources?

im not saying to make a build around it... but i am saying in my party it happens that we like to use phantom steed alot to move around, so the opportunity is there

[SociopathFriend]

Just buy a bunch of chickens or something you can load onto a wagon- which can be pulled by the Phantom Steed.

A single chicken costs what, two copper?

[Witty Username]

The trick does work I think.
I would just add that just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[Mellack]

I would argue that you are only dealing a single point of damage, because at that point the steed vanishes. So you get half of that. If your DM is nice you get a point from rounding up.

[Amnestic]

I would argue that you are only dealing a single point of damage, because at that point the steed vanishes. So you get half of that. If your DM is nice you get a point from rounding up.

Strictly speaking phantom steeds have 13 hit points (equal to that of a riding horse), the spell just ends if they take any damage. Rare is the time when that difference will matter, but it could come up if the Sleep spell is being thrown around.

[Keravath]

ritual does not mean concentration actually. you can summon up to 5 at a time and have 1 concentration going.

Ritual does mean concentration.

"Longer Casting Times

Certain spells (including spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so. If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over."

[Keravath]

ok please explain a better way a straight(necromancer) wizard can heal that has more HP involved...

let me explain, first of all im playing a wizard with phantom steed, i usually cast the spell 5 times in the morning or on a short rest if the party needs to travel great distance, we come across vampirc touch as a scroll, not a spell i normally would take but why not copy the thing into my book. then i realise there are many many times i have 5 phantom steeds just hanging around, sometimes we get into a battle on the road, and after that battle my wizard gets hurt, the cleric is out of spells, so why not cast it, absorb the 5 phantom steeds as a quick but powerful heal spell.


here is how the math works out... 5 phantom steeds have on average 13 hp, but the spell ends as soon as even 1 damage was given to them, so vampiric touch can only be used 1 time per steed, so basically you get back 4 HP on average per horse... 4 X 5 is 20 HP... this is particularly useful if you are playing a necromancer because of this ability...

Grim Harvest
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to reap life energy from creatures you kill with your spells. Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell’s level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy. You don’t gain this benefit for killing constructs or undead.

so for a necromancer thats an additional 9 X 5 is 45 HP... bringing the grand total on average to 65HP...

so please tell me a better way?

1) Phantom Steed is a 3rd level spell. To cast 5 of them, you then either use 5 spell slots at 3rd level or above, or cast them as rituals.

2) Each ritual casting takes 10 minutes + 1 action to cast and requires concentration while being cast. Each only lasts 1 hour. By the time you finish casting the 5th one, the first one only has 9.5 minutes left before it ends. As a result, I have trouble seeing how you cast the spell to get your party to move quickly unless you are using 5 high level spell slots.

3) Vampiric touch does 3d6 hit points on average. This is 10.5 average - which would result in a 5hp gain by the Necromancer (assuming the DM doesn't decide the creature goes away after just 1 hit point of damage).

4) Grim Harvest triggers when you kill a creature. However, the wording of Phantom Steed is "The spell ends if you use an action to dismiss it or if the steed takes any damage." The creature is not killed by the damage - all that happens is that the spell ends. The DM could easily rule this is an important difference and Grim Harvest would not trigger since you didn't kill anything, you only caused the spell to end by inflicting damage on the Phantom Steed.

So, with a couple of generous rulings from a DM it could work. However, it requires the DM to decide that (1) a single point of damage doesn't immediately end the spell allowing Vampiric Touch to do its full damage and (2) "killing" the creature is the same as causing the spell to end.

Personally, I would likely allow (1) but not (2) since the character is not "killing" anything - they are forcing the spell to end - but that will vary depending on DM.

If the DM allowed your interpretation then you are still spending a 3rd level spell slot to regain about 70 hit points ( (9+5) x 5) which would likely be a decent trade off - but I wouldn't count on the DM allowing it.

[meandean]

There are a couple of favorable DM rulings you need here:


When you attack a Phantom Steed, are you "damaging" it for the full amount of damage you deal; are you damaging it for 1 point; or are you not damaging it at all, more like shooting an arrow through an illusion to make it "become faint"?
Are you "killing" a Phantom Steed with your Vampiric Touch? If you're not, then Grim Harvest doesn't apply.
Can you, while riding a horse, cast a spell with somatic components and 11 minutes casting time? If not, then attempting to do this while traveling becomes farcically slow.

So, we're entirely in the realm of YDMMV. The Phantom Steed is described as a "quasi-real creature", which I'm guessing isn't a phrase that appears anywhere else in the game. Personally, as DM, I would give you #1, but not #2 or 3. (You are dealing damage, to something that can take damage. But unless "kill" has an in-game definition that clarifies this point, it doesn't sound to me like the Phantom Steed is something you're "killing".)

So, yeah, I'd let you take 55 minutes of standing still, and a 3rd-level spell slot, to heal about 26 HP. Do you have no hit dice left? No healing potions? No other healers in the party? Hell, even if you don't have any of those, are you even more likely to survive doing this than you would be by using a 3rd-level spell in the next fight? You definitely need favorable rulings on both points 1 and 2 above, at least, in order for this to be something that will have a realistic chance to benefit your character.

(I won't even get into the intangibles of spending nearly an hour draining the life out of "horselike creatures". Make them look like creepy spiders or something, for all our sakes.)