Talk:Flame Blade

Concentration

Isn't this spell concentration? It doesn't say in the page. 92.29.179.180 10:21, 26 August 23 (CET)

Turns out it isn't a concentration spell in this game. Good buff. 92.29.179.180 08:05, 28 August 23 (CET)

Spellcasting modifier for damage

I believe this to be wrong. I think it SHOULD do that. But both the entry for the weapon created itself says it uses STRENGTH modifier and in-game I tested it on my Druid and it always seems to benefit from Strength (dump stat) rather than his Wisdom. 47.204.239.28 04:34, 7 January 2024 (CET)

• May I ask where you are seeing this? From testing in-game it seems that the Flame Blade works in a way that it changes your attack rolls with the weapon from Melee weapon attacks to Melee spell attacks. This means that the game may display in your inventory that it uses strength, but if you check the combat log after hitting an enemy, it will display your spellcasting ability. Nattern (talk) 15:20, 7 January 2024 (CET)

Extra attack?

According to what I have seen online it appears to work with Extra Attack. Can anyone confirm? Also, you can apparently get a permanent one by having a Druid Hireling cast it and wield it, then dismiss them with Withers, then rehire the same hireling again and it will be in their inventory. Darraider (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2024 (CEST)

I haven't tested for Extra Attack, but

Some test notes

I'm aware that some of the things I've tested are already noted on the wiki but I wanted to do a slightly deeper dive. I have tested two versions of Flame Blade; the regular spell version that lasts for 10 turns, and the permanent version when taking from a hireling (hireling casts flame blade, dismissed while wielding, rehire and take Flame Blade from hireling)

Savage Attacks (half-orc) does not work with Flame Blade, but DOES work on the Permanent Flame Blade . +1d6 on crit

Spell Sniper does not work for regular or permanent - Tested with hireling at level 8 druid, level 2 flame blade, kept swinging at Withers until the combat log showed an attack with an attack roll of 19. 19 doesn't crit

Elemental Adept Fire - Flame Blade and Permanent Flame Blade will ignore fire resistance, but will still critical miss (i'm assuming that's rolling 1 as the combat log doesn't show the calculation on miss)

Great Weapon Master: Bonus Attack does not work on Flame Blade, but DOES work on Permanent Flame Blade

Hex - Does not affect regular or permanent

Hunter's Mark - Does not affect regular, DOES affect permanent

Ability Modifiers (attack roll)

Regular Flame Blade - Wisdom as standard. NOT affected by Monk Dextrous Attacks. Can change to Charisma or Intelligence by choosing a new class that uses that ability for magic (spell on bar says wisdom but combat log changes charisma / intelligence. Modifier will change based on the most recent class change. Adding a level to a class you already know doesn't change the modifier, it MUST be a new class)

Permanent Flame Blade - Strength as standard. IS affected by Monk Dextrous Attacks. If changing the modifier for regular flame blade as described above, the permanent flame blade may randomly lose Dextrous Attacks modifier change. Bind Pact Weapon will change attack roll modifier to charisma but Dextrous Attacks will still override even if charisma is higher

Ability modifiers (damage roll)

Flame Blade - No known way to increase damage roll through Ability Modifiers

Permanent flame blade - Strength as standard, Charisma when using Bind Pact Weapon, Dexterity when using Dextrous Attacks (will override Bind Pact Weapon)

Duelling - Works on both regular and permanent

Unarmed Strike - regular will not trigger, permanent will

--GoingMenthol (talk) 16:15, 10 June 2024 (CEST)

re: Elemental Adept - this feat allows a reroll when you get a 1 on the damage roll, not the attack roll, so you'd still expect to see critical misses sometimes even if it was working. Wagnarok (talk) 19:39, 10 June 2024 (CEST)

Booming Blade Interactions

Responding to @Anything Random 's edit: "I don't think this behaviour can really be considered a bug (and certainly doesn't require such lengthy explanation). Perhaps a grey area, but given how we usually categorise notes vs bugs on the wiki, I believe it should be in notes. And Booming Blade does not require a weapon attack, the only requirement to cast Booming Blade is that the caster is proficient with their equipped weapon."

I disagree with not categorizing the attack roll behavior as a bug and Booming Blade not requiring a weapon attack. Can you explain how you came to your conclusions?

(Removing the example part of the explanation seems fine to me; I wasn't sure whether that should be included in the first place.)

Why I came to believe/still believe it's a bug and is treated as a weapon attack...

Booming Blade does not affect the attack roll of any other weapons (including shadow blade or summoned warlock weapons). Meaning, it doing so for Flame Blade is entirely new and unexpected behavior that isn't mentioned in either spell's description, nor is it consistent with either spell's behavior in other situations. It's kind of like if applying simple toxin to quarterstaffs (but no other weapon types) made quarterstaffs suddenly use dexterity instead of strength for attack rolls, and neither item's description mentioned it; this would seem to me like a clear bug.

The only wiki guidance I can find for categorizing bugs vs. notes is in Help:Style manual#Bugs: "This wiki uses a maximally inclusive definition of the term bug... not just flaws in the game engine or scripts which cause more direct gameplay issues." Which I interpret as, if anything, encouraging us to err on the side of bug instead of note. Though it doesn't really help us determine whether or not the attack roll behavior here should be considered a "...[flaw] in the game engine or scripts which cause[s] more direct gameplay issues".

As for Booming Blade requiring a weapon attack or not: I agree "the only requirement to cast Booming Blade is that the caster is proficient with their equipped weapon", but this proficiency requirement is impossible to satisfy when Flame Blade is in your main hand unless Booming Blade treats a summoned Flame Blade as a weapon, right? For example, Booming Blade can't be cast while you're unarmed, displaying a red "No melee weapon equipped" message, despite the character (technically) being proficient with unarmed attacks. If Flame Blade wasn't considered a weapon by Booming Blade then I expected a similar "No melee weapon equipped" message to display and for you to be unable to cast Booming Blade, which doesn't happen.

More to the point about weapon attack rolls (not just whether the object equipped in your main hand is considered a melee weapon), Booming Blade's weapon attack requirement is mentioned (or at at least, strongly implied) in its description as "Strike with your weapon..." (not just any attack). Quaris (talk) 18:27, 15 September 2026 (CEST)

As to your first point, I think you're right. I was misremembering that Shadow Blade had the same behaviour. I actually think I can see why the bug occurs as well, because the Flame Blade doesn't actually have a defined ability modifier, it just has a condition that overrides all of its weapon attacks to be treated as spell attacks, which causes it to overwrite the attack type of Booming Blade. I do agree it leans more towards being a bug.

As for the style manual, I recall there was a big argument on discord with someone claiming that most of what the wiki classified as bugs did not meet the dictionary definition, and so that text was added to more or less appease everybody and end the argument. I wouldn't consider it an actual standard. The things that I personally consider are:

1. How likely does it seem that the interaction was intended or reasonably expected by the devs, and

2. How likely is it that an experienced player would be caught off guard by this behaviour

Anyways, as for Booming Blade, the edit you made claimed that Booming Blade was an exception to the statement "Attacks with the Flame Blade do not count as weapon attacks." There are 6 types of attacks in the game: melee weapon attacks, ranged weapon attacks, melee unarmed attacks, ranged unarmed attacks (throwing), melee spell attacks, and ranged spell attacks. The note is clarifying that Flame Blade attacks are always melee spell attacks, except for with regards to the uniquely-coded Extra Attack. This holds true even when using Booming Blade with Flame Blade, and is in fact the reason why Booming Blade's spellcasting ability gets used as the attack modifier. Flame Blade changes it's attack type from melee weapon attack to melee spell attack.

Booming Blade only has two relevant requirements to use, those being IsProficientWithEquippedWeapon() and not HasStatus('BOOMINGBLADE_BLOCK'). The second one is a technical condition that tracks that Booming Blade hasn't already been used as part of the current action. So, effectively the only requirement to use Booming Blade is that you are proficient with your currently equipped melee weapon. Now, as a part of that proficiency check function, it also checks that you are holding a melee weapon, so technically, the requirement to use Booming Blade is that you are holding a melee weapon and are proficient with that weapon. The description of Booming Blade is vague enough that it could just as well refer to holding a weapon. Anything Random (talk) 22:07, 15 September 2026 (CEST)

Thank you so much for such a detailed response!

Re bug vs. note: I think we can count this point resolved, then? (At least until someone else comes along who disagrees...) I like the more concise phrasing you used too, and I don't think this needs any additional edits.

Thanks for the extra background about the general bug vs. note guidance, too. I am kind of disappointed there aren't more detailed official guidelines to help me in the future, but I think that's a separate tangent/discussion that we probably don't need to get into.

Re weapon attack vs. not:

Correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but as I understand your explanation (trying to be as careful as I can with my wording here)...

It's NOT that Booming Blade's requirements for the melee weapon used as part of casting it is satisfied by Flame Blade due to Booming Blade requiring a melee weapon attack and Flame Blade attacks being considered melee weapon attacks for that purpose.

Instead, Booming Blade doesn't require that the melee weapon used as a part of its attack will make a melee weapon attack roll when used, so whether Flame Blade attacks are considered melee weapon attacks or not is irrelevant. Flame Blade meets the requirements for a melee weapon used as a part of casting Booming Blade due to it being a weapon that you have proficiency in.

Am I understanding correctly?

(I'd argue this is splitting hairs for all but the most technical members of the audience, but I can also see how this distinction could be very important to those technical people, such as when people create mods, and so we should still take care to at least not mislead people about technical nuances.)

So assuming this isn't wrong, what do you think about adding something like this? "The Flame Blade counts as a weapon for Booming Blade (because Booming Blade does not require the attack roll to be a weapon attack roll)." At least, I think it would be nice to somehow mention that Flame Blade can be used with Booming Blade in or nearby the other notes about what other features do/don't consider Flame Blade a weapon/spell. Quaris (talk) 19:21, 16 September 2026 (CEST)

Your understanding of Booming Blade is pretty much correct, but to elaborate a bit more, weapons themselves don’t have attack roll types, rather each individual attack action (e.g., Main Hand Attack, Lacerate, Booming Blade, Scorching Ray, etc.) has such a type defined. Flame Blade has a unique condition that overwrites the attack type of attacks that use it. By definition, an attack action itself can’t have a requirement of a weapon having a certain attack type, since it’s the action itself that has the attack type (Flame Blade’s special condition is not specifically addressed anywhere, as far as I can see).

That note is specifically meant to address passive features and conditions which activate when a weapon attack is made. I think for people familiar with the 5e ruleset at least, the distinction should bear some significance.

If you want to add a short note I guess that’s fine, though now that Booming Blade is mentioned on the page, it’s already implied that they work together.

Also, a small correction to my previous assertion, there are technically 8 attack types in the game, as melee off-hand weapon attacks and ranged off-hand weapon attacks are technically separate for the purposes of certain actions that only work with off-hand weapons. Anything Random (talk) 20:04, 16 September 2026 (CEST)