How Would You Buff Vampiric Touch?

[JNAProductions]

Spinning off of this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?648740-Vampiric-Touch-and-Grappling). It's a mess, but it made me realize that Vampiric Touch is kinda a bad spell. Like, compare it Melf's Minute Meteors.

Vampiric Touch requires you to be in melee. Requires Concentration. Does 3d6 necrotic (heal for half damage dealt) on a melee spell attack hit, done as an action. Lasts one minute at most.
Melf's has a 120' range. Works as a bonus action on turns after you cast it, for a 5' radius AoE of 2d6 damage (but you can do it twice with one action). Lasts ten minutes, so precasting is reasonable, if not easy. And gives you a total of six meteors.

Melf's does a total of 12d6 over three turns, in an AoE.
Touch does a total of 30d6, over ten turns, single target, if you never lose Concentration and have a valid target each time.

It's just... I feel Wizards of the Coast REALLY overvalued the healing it gives. But considering you have to be in melee to use it, you'd probably be taking more damage than you would be with Melf's!

So how would you buff it?

[Amnestic]

Vampiric Touch
3rd level Necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Target: A creature within your reach
Components: V S
Duration: Concentration (up to 1 minute)
Classes: Warlock, Wizard

Your shadow-wreathed hands can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds. For the duration, whenever you hit with an unarmed strike instead of dealing your normal damage you instead deal 3d6 necrotic damage, and regain hit points equal to half the damage dealt. As part of casting this spell you may also take the Attack action, so long as one of your attacks is an unarmed strike.

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.

Optional changes: Make your unarmed strike use your spell attack modifier instead (makes gishes potentially worse, buffs it for Bladesingers or similar caster-focused characters) or let you finesse your unarmed strikes for the duration (harder to justify mechanically, but makes it a better spell for dex-gishes. Unnecessary for Monks who want it, but they would struggle to get it anyway due to requiring 5 levels of a fullcaster).

As noted in the other thread this would make it comparable to a 3rd level shadowblade in execution. It has some tradeoffs - gives you health, but no advantage, worse damage type (slightly) and lower damage dice (d8 vs d6) but it's still a decent option, especially if you implement one of the optional changes.

[JNAProductions]

Optional changes: Make your unarmed strike use your spell attack modifier instead (makes gishes potentially worse, buffs it for Bladesingers or similar caster-focused characters) or let you finesse your unarmed strikes for the duration (harder to justify mechanically, but makes it a better spell for dex-gishes. Unnecessary for Monks who want it, but they would struggle to get it anyway due to requiring 5 levels of a fullcaster).

As noted in the other thread this would make it comparable to a 3rd level shadowblade in execution. It has some tradeoffs - gives you health, but no advantage, worse damage type (slightly) and lower damage dice (d8 vs d6) but it's still a decent option, especially if you implement one of the optional changes.

If I were to do this, I'd give you the OPTION of using Casting Stat for unarmed strikes, not force it.

But yee, that seems a reasonable buff for gishy types. A 13th level Eldritch Knight would deal 9d6+15 (46.5) damage if all three attacks hit, which isn't that much better than weapons (compare to 6d6+15 (36) for a Greatsword, 3d8+21 (34.5) for Sword and Board Dueling) but you do heal for half. And actually, it'd be 9d6+18 (49.5) since you deal the base 1 damage on Unarmed Attacks. :P

Probably make it a bonus action, like Shadow Blade in that case?

[strangebloke]

IMO you don't want a spell like this to be too good in isolation as its not terribly thematic for a good guy to use in combat.

For a bad guy its something like 50 healing on a third level spell, assuming there are subdued creatures you can kill, which makes it reasonably worth preparing.

If I were to make it combat-viable, it'd be a spell that could be strong if you built around it. IMO shadow blade is a good metric here. Just have it be something like that, but "energy condensed in an open hand forms a weapon with the light property, this weapon deals..." rather than a blade. This would make it pretty good for a bladelock, or for some janky MC build, and it would technically work with TWF which could be interesting.

[clash]

I would base it of shadow blade. It's basically the only spell in that style that got it right. Make it summon a melee finesse weapon or treat your unarmed strikes as melee finesse and every attack deals the damage die/restores hp

[Angelalex242]

Switch it to 'manifesting as a weapon of your choice you are proficient with.'

Then you could make it, say, a polearm if you are proficient with those.

Also add the weapon damage of the weapon you pick to the life drain.

[Kane0]

Vampiric Touch
3rd Level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: Self
Components: S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds. For the duration of the spell, you can replace any unarmed strike you make with a melee spell attack that deals 3d6 Necrotic damage on a hit, and you regain Hit Points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt.
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.

[SociopathFriend]

Personally, I do love my drain-tank character types. I've made several threads about them over the years.

But the thing about the drain-tank ideal is you need to have a synergy with the playstyle. You don't want just anyone to be able to heal up mid-fight too well because that means the drain-tank will heal up even better.

Subclasses like Life Cleric, Necromancy Wizard, or Undead Warlock all get buffs to help them heal via Vampiric Touch: life heals more period, necromancy gets more hp on a kill, undead boosts the necromancy damage and ensuing heal.

That's good!

But you want a drain-tank to be whittling down- not outhealing the damage entirely. That's the thrill of it! Rolling the dice and gambling on whether you'll heal enough to stay in the fight while damaging or whether you need to cut the line and get out and restrat.



A relatively small but worthwhile buff would just be adding the casting mod to the damage and/or heal.

So 3d6 + mod for damage, heal for half damage dealt.

Alternatively keep the damage the same (3d6 for damage) and the heal (half of damage dealt) but your modifier can be added to the heal amount.

A minor buff but it's a buff that pays off every single round the spell is up. The spell doesn't benefit martials more than casters (imo- a must) and it keeps it mostly the same while allowing someone who pushes to max out their stat to really get their money's worth.



Alternatively, and I only just thought of this, perhaps the healing could involve your HD instead of the damage dealt?

[Mastikator]

Make it a ranged spell attack with 15 feet range. The caster doesn't have to get right up in their face, but does have to risk getting the enemy up in theirs.

Give advantage on attack rolls when below half HP.

IMO it should not be a gish spell, it's a very necromancer spell.

[Angelalex242]

My version, with a melee weapon instead of an unarmed strike, was designed with Vengeance/Oathbreaker/Conquest Paladins in mind.

In Final Fantasy, they have 'Blood Swords' frequently used by Dark Knights that drain life with every hit. (But if you hit an undead creature, it backfires.)

[SpanielBear]

It made so much sense to me that it should be a melee spell attack using the casting stat, I never noticed it wasn’t! That and remove concentration would be my buffs. It’s a thematic spell that I want to encourage wizards to take rather than fireball spam.

[loki_ragnarock]

I came here to say "Remove Concentration."

It removes the most punishing part of trying to use it in melee; immediately losing it after getting hit.

I'd also say "Increase the upcasting potential."

Extra 3d6 per level on upcast still ain't getting to base fireball status - against one target - for quite a while, but considering it's competing against *shocking grasp* for damage - a cantrip, no concentration, possible advantage, and a great rider - giving VP the extra juice seems downright necessary. And since healing is half of damage dealt, that also scales better with the expected monster damage for a given level.


But yeah, as it is now you're expending a spell slot to get an optional action that's competitive with a cantrip for a minute. It's pretty blegh.

EDIT:
It dawns on me that removing concentration might impact the ability to willingly end the effect early.
As this could have some hilarious consequences, I now double endorse it.

[Yakk]

Vampiric Touch
3rd Level necromancy
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds. Your unarmed attacks deal 3d6 Necrotic damage and heal you for half of the damage dealt, and you have resistance against damage from that creature and advantage on attacks on the creature until the end of your next turn.

As part of casting the spell, or as an action, you can make a melee spell attack that acts as an unarmed strike.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the damage increases by 2d6 for each slot level above 3rd.

The grant of resistance against the hit target makes it great for sucking the life out of a single foe. You can use your normal unarmed strike (but not the first round), or do a special melee spell attack that works 1/round. The granting of advantage on attacks is a bit of a bonus that fits the "I am sucking your life out" bit.

[stoutstien]

I personally added a rider for VT that gives the target the dazed condition (movement cost more and disadvantage on certain saves).

[Corran]

If you restore hp using this spell (ie vampiric tough), you gain a bonus to concentration checks for maintaining it equal to the amount the hp restored. This bonus lasts until the start of your next turn.

This would increase the incentive to use it when cornered instad of resorting to misty stepping away and using a cantrip, at least if your concentration is already dropped or not being used.
Edit: Actually, I think what this spell really needs (apart from a bit of help with the concentration requirement), is some upfront defensive value. So, I'd add the following too: When (/the first time) you cast this spell, you gain an amount of temporary hit points equal to [something].

Although it wouldn't be good for the players (at least directly), if I were to change it I might as well give it a small chance at dealing some CON damage. Necromancy should be scary (or at the very least a little annoying) when you go up against it. Necromances and death clerics should emit a bit of fear instead of just being viewed as juicy targets to take out. They should be juicy targets with the caveat that you are risking soemthing by getting close to them.

So something like, whenever someone takes damage from this spell, they need to succeed at a CON save or suffer a -1 penalty to their consitution. A creature cannot suffer this penalty more than once per round.