Piercing Strike (Spiritual Weapon)

This article is about the version of the action used by Spiritual Weapons. For the normal weapon action, see Piercing Strike.

Piercing Strike is a weapon action available to tridents and spears summoned by  Spiritual Weapon.

Description

Deal regular damage and possibly inflict  Gaping Wounds, which cause extra damage on attacks.

Undead and Constructs can't receive Gaping Wounds.

Properties

Cost

 Bonus Action

Damage: 2~9 + modifiers

1d8 + 1 + Spellcasting modifier⁠Force

Details

⁠Melee spell attack roll

 CON Save (Weapon action DC)

 Melee: 1.5 m / 5 ft

Recharge: Short rest

At higher levels

Upcast: The damage of this attack increases by 1d8⁠⁠Force damage for every 2 spell slot levels above 2 used to cast  Spiritual Weapon.

Condition: Gaping Wounds

 Gaping Wounds

Duration: 2 turns

Weapon action DC + 2  Constitution saving throw

• Attacks against this creature deal an additional 2Piercing damage.
• Removed by healing.

How to learn

Used by creatures: Spiritual Weapon (spear), and Spiritual Weapon (trident)

Notes

• The attack roll and damage for this attack uses the summoner's spellcasting modifier, but the DC to inflict the condition is based on the summoned weapon's weapon action DC (with an inherent +2 bonus). Since the weapon has ability scores of 10, this results in a DC of just 12 (at proficiency bonus of 2) to 14 (at proficiency bonus of 4).
• The once per short rest cooldown of this attack is reset when resummoning a spiritual weapon, so it is effectively once per summon instead.

Bugs

• The in-game tooltip is incorrect - all the damage dealt is ⁠Force damage.