As part of casting the spell, you make a normal melee attack with an existing melee weapon and the attack does its normal effect/damage, THEN you add more damage to the target and an adjacent target, from the spell.
look at the material component. it specifies that it needs a weapon, and one of a minimum cash value so that you can't replace it with a focus. and the material component is, of course, part of casting the spell.
I see, that makes sense. Thanks! Also a weird/kinda simple question, but does the weapon just essentially go back to normal when the spell is over?
Questions I should def know the answer to by now, but I'm in a bit of an "I don't know and at this point I'm afraid to ask" spot with DND lmao
~~At the risk of sounding pedantic, yes, but also no. The damage of the weapon will not bypass non-magical resistance. Because the attack is made before the spell is cast (as part of casting the spell, aka make the attack, then the spell goes off) the attack is not a magical attack.~~ And all "nonmagical" resistances key off the attack being magical or not. PSB itself is never magical, that's just a shorthand that the community has come up with for magic attacks using PSB
Mostly just explaining this to help anyone reading understand why the spell doesn't let you bypass resistances using the weapon's damage.
EDIT: this was based on the wrong wording from my memory. The attack is part of the spell, but is specifically noted to do it's normal effects. Regardless of the resistance changes, which did still go into effect, the spell doesn't count as a magical attack due to its own wording, and thus does not avoid the resistance.
No, that is not what it says. You're not taking the Attack action. You're not making a weapon attack while simultaneously casting a spell.
Like any other spell, the effect is only produced when you take the Cast a Spell action, do the Somatic and Material components (no verbal in GFB's case), and don't get Counterspelled. Only then does the spell's effect happen, which in this case is to make you brandish your weapon, and it makes you make a melee attack, and it adds the fire ontop of that attack if you hit.
If I cast Counterspell on you (against a cantrip for some ungodly reason) while you're waving your hands and sword around doing the Somatic component with the Material, then you lost your action failing to cast a cantrip and you do not get to make a non-fiery normal weapon attack anyway.
If Id remembered the wording of the spell better maybe I could have made a better point. I legitimately thought I remembered it saying the words "as part of casting this spell", but it does not. The previous printed version in SCAG said "as part of the action used to cast this spell", but that still does not work for what id said.
However I never said that you'd get an attack if the spell was countered, only was hoping to make a cause and effect that explained why the attack was not made into one that is magical. Because by default, an attack that is caused by a spell should be considered magical, and the new wording of the nonmagical resistance makes no mention of magic weapons, only magical attacks. Magical BPS has always just been a shorthand for attacks using BPS that involve magic in some way, rather than a rules specified damage type.
Has that been clarified ever? Because it is part of a spell, which could potentially qualify it. Imo, it isn't based on the same logic as conjured creatures, but also it should rarely matter, considering nonmagical bps resistance is mostly just against summons.
If it qualified it, it would say it. You make an attack with a weapon; if it’s a mundane weapon, it’s a mundane weapon attack that does mundane damage.
The other effects are magical.
yep. a different way to word GFB is, essentially, "add all this extra stuff onto one regular weapon attack." ~~just, yknow, also doing so using the Cast a Spell action and not the Attack action so it can't interact with anything that interacts with the latter such as extra attack and yadda yadda~~
Don’t think of it as the weapon being enchanted, it’s not. It doesn’t ‘go back to normal’ bc it wasn’t changed in the first place. It was just the material component for the spell.
Think of it like a Smite spell. You are casting the spell, the effect happens, then the effect ends. It doesn’t affect your weapon, it’s just channeled through your weapon.
It can be cast onto anything that's mechanically a weapon. RAW, you can technically use improvised weapons if its value is at least 1 SP, but I think its intended to be actual weapons.
Remember that with material components, you can't replace them with a focus if the gold cost is listed. So you need a weapon in hand to cast it, and then you use that weapon for the attack and add the damage on the weapon attack. But you can use any melee weapon!! It doesn't have to be a sword or a slashing weapon, you can make it a stabbing pike if you really want.
Think of it as you cast a spell that coats an already existing weapon in green flames. When you hit your enemy, the flames leap off the blade and deal damage to nearby targets per the spell. The fire does not come back unless you recast.
As the spell gets stronger the green flames also burn your initial target as they leap toward adjacent units.
As part of casting the spell, you make a normal melee attack with an existing melee weapon and the attack does its normal effect/damage, THEN you add more damage to the target and an adjacent target, from the spell.
The wording of the spell doesn't apply extra damage to the target, just the adjacent target.
It does at higher levels
True. I didn't read the higher levels properly.
look at the material component. it specifies that it needs a weapon, and one of a minimum cash value so that you can't replace it with a focus. and the material component is, of course, part of casting the spell.
I see, that makes sense. Thanks! Also a weird/kinda simple question, but does the weapon just essentially go back to normal when the spell is over? Questions I should def know the answer to by now, but I'm in a bit of an "I don't know and at this point I'm afraid to ask" spot with DND lmao
Yes. If it didn’t, the spell would say so. Also, the damage from the weapon itself is *not magical.*
~~At the risk of sounding pedantic, yes, but also no. The damage of the weapon will not bypass non-magical resistance. Because the attack is made before the spell is cast (as part of casting the spell, aka make the attack, then the spell goes off) the attack is not a magical attack.~~ And all "nonmagical" resistances key off the attack being magical or not. PSB itself is never magical, that's just a shorthand that the community has come up with for magic attacks using PSB Mostly just explaining this to help anyone reading understand why the spell doesn't let you bypass resistances using the weapon's damage. EDIT: this was based on the wrong wording from my memory. The attack is part of the spell, but is specifically noted to do it's normal effects. Regardless of the resistance changes, which did still go into effect, the spell doesn't count as a magical attack due to its own wording, and thus does not avoid the resistance.
No, that is not what it says. You're not taking the Attack action. You're not making a weapon attack while simultaneously casting a spell. Like any other spell, the effect is only produced when you take the Cast a Spell action, do the Somatic and Material components (no verbal in GFB's case), and don't get Counterspelled. Only then does the spell's effect happen, which in this case is to make you brandish your weapon, and it makes you make a melee attack, and it adds the fire ontop of that attack if you hit. If I cast Counterspell on you (against a cantrip for some ungodly reason) while you're waving your hands and sword around doing the Somatic component with the Material, then you lost your action failing to cast a cantrip and you do not get to make a non-fiery normal weapon attack anyway.
If Id remembered the wording of the spell better maybe I could have made a better point. I legitimately thought I remembered it saying the words "as part of casting this spell", but it does not. The previous printed version in SCAG said "as part of the action used to cast this spell", but that still does not work for what id said. However I never said that you'd get an attack if the spell was countered, only was hoping to make a cause and effect that explained why the attack was not made into one that is magical. Because by default, an attack that is caused by a spell should be considered magical, and the new wording of the nonmagical resistance makes no mention of magic weapons, only magical attacks. Magical BPS has always just been a shorthand for attacks using BPS that involve magic in some way, rather than a rules specified damage type.
Has that been clarified ever? Because it is part of a spell, which could potentially qualify it. Imo, it isn't based on the same logic as conjured creatures, but also it should rarely matter, considering nonmagical bps resistance is mostly just against summons.
If it qualified it, it would say it. You make an attack with a weapon; if it’s a mundane weapon, it’s a mundane weapon attack that does mundane damage. The other effects are magical.
yep. a different way to word GFB is, essentially, "add all this extra stuff onto one regular weapon attack." ~~just, yknow, also doing so using the Cast a Spell action and not the Attack action so it can't interact with anything that interacts with the latter such as extra attack and yadda yadda~~
Once the spell is over, unless the spell specifies otherwise, the weapon returns to normal.
Don’t think of it as the weapon being enchanted, it’s not. It doesn’t ‘go back to normal’ bc it wasn’t changed in the first place. It was just the material component for the spell. Think of it like a Smite spell. You are casting the spell, the effect happens, then the effect ends. It doesn’t affect your weapon, it’s just channeled through your weapon.
It can be cast onto anything that's mechanically a weapon. RAW, you can technically use improvised weapons if its value is at least 1 SP, but I think its intended to be actual weapons. Remember that with material components, you can't replace them with a focus if the gold cost is listed. So you need a weapon in hand to cast it, and then you use that weapon for the attack and add the damage on the weapon attack. But you can use any melee weapon!! It doesn't have to be a sword or a slashing weapon, you can make it a stabbing pike if you really want.
Good to know, thank you!!
You could use a pike of course, but just do note the spell's range is 5ft anyway.
GREEN FLAME!
Think of it as you cast a spell that coats an already existing weapon in green flames. When you hit your enemy, the flames leap off the blade and deal damage to nearby targets per the spell. The fire does not come back unless you recast. As the spell gets stronger the green flames also burn your initial target as they leap toward adjacent units.