You imbue a weapon you touch with holy power. Until the spell ends, the weapon emits bright light during a 30—foot radius and dim light for a further 30 feet. Additionally, weapon attacks made with it deal an additional 2d8 radiant damage on successful. If the weapon isn’t already a magic weapon, it becomes one for the duration. As a bonus action on your turn, you’ll dismiss this spell and cause the weapon to emit a burst of radiance.
Each creature of your choice that you simply can see within 30 feet of you wants to make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d8 radiant damage, and it’s blinded for 1 minute. On a successful save, a creature takes half the maximum amount of damage and isn’t blinded. At the top of every Ofits turn, a blinded creature can make a Constitution saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a hit.
Holy 5e
- Casting Time: 1 bonus action
- Range: Touch
- Components: V, S
- Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
- Scales: No
- Casters: Cleric, Paladin
If you simply have 1 combat therein hour, Holy weapon looks pretty bad, if your cleric doesn’t just hide every round it creates a sub-objective for the monsters which may be fun and also reduce the facility, if your ranger misses attacks (Though admittedly at level 9 I assume players always hit) then it starts to seem worse. Alternately if your combats tend to possess fewer stronger monsters then Holy Weapon looks tons better. In either case, there are actual tradeoffs here, and an excessive amount of in one direction is often mitigated.
And at the top of the day, players dealing more damage or hitting more often are the smallest amount of my concerns once I attempt to make compelling and difficult combat for my players.
My overall suggestion, is don’t nerf it, your best case scenario is about nearly as good as other best-case spells at that level (Other things at that level that worry me more: 2x Banishment, 4x Hold Person, Animate Objects, Synaptic Static, Scrying, Wall of Force).
If a spell encouraged my players to develop tactics just like the cleric enchanting the ranger then that specialize in keeping concentration I might be ecstatic, combats, where the players have sub-objectives (Keep this spell going), are far more fun than simple melees. Your worries sound more like theorycrafting than actual in-play problems, and that I would almost never nerf something without seeing it live first.
As for the main points of the holy weapon spell, it appears to be within the rules for creating new spells found within the DMG – as a multi-target 5th level spell shows a worth of 8d6, which comes out on the brink of an equivalent as 6d8, and therefore the spell is merely donged 4d8 when used as a multi-target attack.
The hypothetical use of a 2d8 bonus for an entire bunch of rounds, because the spell could last an hour, would be making up for it dealing less than normal damage otherwise – and features away too many variables that would stop it from happening to be considered the “normal” circumstances of casting the spell (sort of like how basing damage expectation off the idea that the target is going to be susceptible to the damage dealt doesn’t make sense).
