Flame Blade

This article is about the normal spell. For the Mephistopheles tiefling variant, see Legacy of Cania: Flame Blade. For the summoned weapon, see Flame Blade (weapon).

Flame Blade is a level 2 evocation spell. It allows spellcasters to summon a fiery scimitar in their free hand that sheds bright light. Casters can make a melee weapon attack with the blade to deal Fire damage to enemies.

Description

Conjure a flaming  Scimitar in your hand for 10 turns that deals 3d6⁠⁠Fire damage. It sheds a bright light in a 3 m (10 ft) radius and a dim light in a 6 m (20 ft) radius.

The blade can be unequipped and equipped again, but must stay on the spellcaster's person.

Properties

Cost

 Bonus Action +  Level 2 Spell Slot

Details

 Range: Self

At higher levels

Upcasting: Damage increases by 1d6⁠⁠Fire for every two spell slot levels above 2nd (e.g., a total of 4d6 at levels 4 and 5, and 5d6 at level 6).

Technical details

UID

Shout_FlameBlade

Spell flags

HasSomaticComponent, HasVerbalComponent, IsSpell

Item: Flame Blade (weapon)

Flame Blade  – Duration: 10 turns

Damage: 3~18

3d6⁠Fire

Properties

•  Scimitars
•  Melee
•  Martial
•  One-handed

•  Price: 30 gp
•  Weight: 0.5 kg (1 lb)

How to learn

Classes:

• Class level 3: Druid

Granted by items:

• Elixir of Tiefling Vice ( Recharge: Single use)

Other ways to learn:

• Wizards cannot transcribe a  Scroll of Flame Blade to their spellbooks.

Notes

• Mephistopheles tieflings gain a racial variant of this spell, but the summoned weapon behaves differently from the one conjured by the normal spell. Refer to  Legacy of Cania: Flame Blade for details. On the other hand, the single-use variant from the  Elixir of Tiefling Vice behaves the same as the normal spell.
• A Flame Blade has no weapon actions tied to it.
• Attacks with a Flame Blade use a melee spell attack roll rather than a melee weapon attack roll. As a result, many features that apply to normal weapon attacks do not apply when attacking with a Flame Blade, while some spell-related features apply instead.
  • The attack roll uses the wielder's spellcasting ability.^{[See: Bugs]} This is normally Wisdom, but when multiclassing, it uses the spellcasting ability of the class the caster most recently took a first level in.
  • The attack roll benefits from items and features that improve spell attack rolls, like the  Hood of the Weave or  Arcane Acuity, but not weapon attacks, like the  Swordmaster Gloves.
  • Attacks with a Flame Blade do not count as weapon attacks for most features (specifically, anything that checks IsWeaponAttack()). This includes  Arcane Synergy,  Band of the Mystic Scoundrel,  Colossus Slayer, and many others. The one exception is  Extra Attack and its variants, which check for weapon attacks in a different way.
• A Flame Blade counts as a valid weapon for use with  Booming Blade. Its attacks are still considered spell attacks, not weapon attacks.
• As with most spell attacks, no modifier is added to the damage roll.
• Attacks with a Flame Blade do not count as spells for most interactions, but there are two specially handled interactions:
  •  Pyroquickness Hat: Hits with a Flame Blade trigger the effect and grant a  Bonus Action.
  •  Gloves of Battlemage's Power: Hits with a Flame Blade trigger the effect and grant  Arcane Acuity. This item has very unintuitive and buggy behaviour, so refer to its page for more details.
• A Flame Blade can be equipped in either the main hand or the off-hand, and can be unequipped, but must stay in the spellcaster's inventory. This also means it cannot be thrown.
• When the spell ends, the caster automatically re-equips the weapon they had equipped immediately prior to casting the spell, without costing an  Action.
  • If the caster is wielding a  Light weapon in their main hand (or has the  Dual Wielder feat and is wielding a weapon which is not Two-Handed in their main hand), Flame Blade is equipped in their off-hand along with that weapon. The position of these weapons would be as follows:
    1. If the caster is already wielding a weapon in their off-hand when the spell is cast, Flame Blade replaces the off-hand weapon. When the spell ends like this (with flame blade in the off-hand), the weapon that was previously in the off-hand is not re-equipped, and the off-hand is left empty.
    2. If instead, the off-hand is empty when the spell was cast, the Flame Blade is summoned in the main hand, and the weapon previously equipped in the main hand is moved to the off-hand. When the spell ends like this, the original weapon is moved back to the main hand, with the off-hand now empty.
• While equipped, Flame Blade prevents the wielder from sheathing their weapon(s).
• Flame Blade has the same two incantations as  Shillelagh: Canto Te, Latin for "I enchant you", and Para Bellum, Latin for "Prepare for war".

Bugs

• When used with  Booming Blade, the attack roll uses the spellcasting ability of Booming Blade instead, if it differs.
• A permanent Flame Blade can be obtained by having a druid hireling such as  Danton cast this spell, immediately recalling their soul, and hiring them again. A Flame Blade created this way loses its technical FLAME_BLADE status, which causes it to function as a traditional melee weapon. As a result:
  • Its attacks count as melee weapon attacks rather than melee spell attacks. Therefore, it uses a character's normal melee weapon ability modifier for attack rolls and damage. Typically, this is Strength, but features like  Pact of the Blade and  Martial Arts: Dextrous Attacks can change this.
  • It is no longer bound to the summoner and can be holstered, thrown, and transferred to other party members.
  • It no longer interacts with the  Gloves of Battlemage's Power or  Pyroquickness Hat.
  • It no longer emits light and loses the flaming visual effect.

External links

•  Flame blade on the Forgotten Realms Wiki