Arcane Sword: A Dull Blade
Spell Level: 7
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Components: V, S, M (a miniature platinum sword with a grip and pommel of copper and zinc, worth 250 gp)
You create a sword-shaped plane of force that hovers within range. It lasts for the duration.
When the sword appears, you make a melee spell attack against a target of your choice within 5 feet of the sword. On a hit, the target takes 3d10 force damage. Until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your turns to move the sword up to 20 feet to a spot you can see and repeat this attack against the same target or a different one.
Review by Sam West, Twitter @CrierKobold
Have you ever found yourself in an adventuring party with a cleric, and you get really jealous of their Spriritual Weapon? You might think to yourself, “ I wish I could have a floating weapon to hit stuff with! If only there was a way I could do the same thing!” Well, you’re in luck; let me introduce you to a spell worse in every conceivable way: Arcane Sword!
Arcane Sword is exclusive to Bards and Wizards. It creates a sword-like force you can fly around and stab things with as a bonus action. One small hiccup though; it’s a 7TH LEVEL SPELL.
For that spell level this sword best be vorpal, invulnerable, cook you dinner, and pay off your mortgage.
What else could be in store beyond the reach of the simple 2nd level cleric spell, spiritual weapon? There would have to be something nuts to make it 7th level, right?
Nope. It is nearly strictly worse than its 2nd level cleric counterpart. You can cast Spiritual Weapon as a bonus action; Arcane Sword costs an action. Both make an attack on summon. Arcane Sword requires concentration, where Spiritual Weapon does not. They both move up to 20 feet, and are summoned within 60 feet of the caster. Spiritual Weapon flexibly costs a 2nd, 4th, 6th, or 8th level slot, all with up-casting benefits; Arcane Sword can only ever be cast at 7th level or higher with no upsides for up-casting it.
The only slight benefit over its cleric counterpart is the round you cast Arcane Sword you can use your bonus action to make a second attack with it, but this “extra attack” is competing with the action spiritual weapon users are getting to cast a cantrip, make a weapon attack, or just take a useful action like dashing or dodging.
Spiritual Weapon, when cast with just a 6th level spell, does 3d8 **+ spellcasting modifier** damage whereas Arcane sword is doing 3d10; if the spellcasting ability modifier is just a +3 they both do an average of 16.5 damage per hit. Any higher mods causes Spiritual Weapon to have a higher average damage per hit at a lower spell level than Arcane Sword.
Spiritual Weapon doesn’t just make Arcane Sword look bad; it embarasses Arcane Sword in front of the entire school to the point where Arcane Sword can’t look its peers in the eyes ever again.
If you want to take Arcane Sword for the thematics of a spectral blade at your command may I instead recommend Animate Objects. At two spell levels lower in the same classes you can be attacking with a fleet of small or medium blades every round for the same duration, nearly always dealing substantially more damage.
If half the attacks hit with the smallest weapons you’ll be dealing 5d4+20 damage, or an average of 32.5 damage per round with just your bonus action. If you up-cast it to 7th level add in another four attacks for 14 weapons attacking for potentially 14d4+20 (55) damage. Just carry a couple sets of chef’s knives with you and you’re good to go.
If the sword part doesn’t matter much to you, and you don’t want the hassle of managing a fleet of objects, consider instead Arcane Hand. It’s only a 5th level spell that deals 4d8 (18 average) damage that can be up-cast to deal 8d8 (36 average) damage as a 7th level spell each round that can move further, has additional modes of use, and even makes spiritual weapon look bad!
Where I think you could find the most success with Arcane Sword would be with a high level College of Swords bard or a Bladesinger Wizard purely for thematic reasons, but in both cases by 13th level I imagine your bonus action already being solidly in use making off-hand attacks.
An Abjurer wizard might want something like this for the flavor, but I really can’t recommend it over most of the other competing options for your concentration.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
