Heat Metal: Now We’re Cookin’

Usable By: Artificer, Bard, Druid

Spell Level: 2

School: Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Components: V, S, M (a piece of iron and a flame)

Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range. You cause the object to glow red-hot. Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage when you cast the spell. Until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your subsequent turns to cause this damage again.

If a creature is holding or wearing the object and takes the damage from it, the creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or drop the object if it can. If it doesn’t drop the object, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until the start of your next turn.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 2nd.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Simple spells work their way into my heart so easily. I don’t ask for much; I want a short spell description with some rich ability that can do something specific, but is applicable in a bunch of situations. Heat Metal may be the poster child for this kind of spell. You get what it says on the tin: you make metal hot. Easy. No nonsense. The circumstances around the spell and the use cases that will pop up here and there make this an incredibly interesting option to have; I’m a big proponent.

Initial inspection highlights its use case against plate armor and other heavy armor that takes a decade to get in or out of. Best case scenario you’re a comfortable fiftyish feet away, light a death knight's armor on fire, and just spend bonus actions from there on scalding away its HP. It definitely isn’t getting out of the armor any time soon; that damage is nearly guaranteed as long as you can maintain concentration. 2d8 damage a round for a bonus action (no saves or attacks in sight) is excellent, on par if not better than spells like Spiritual Weapon. The downside is pretty apparent though: most creatures aren’t decked out in metals.

Where the spell really shines I think is in disarming enemies. Take for example a frost giant; its greataxe can swing twice a round for 3d12 damage per swing. With Heat Metal, you’re either in your best case scenario (creature takes 2d8 fire damage a round for the fight) with the upside of imposing disadvantage on all of its attack rolls (including its Rock attack), or drops the greataxe, losing a 3d12 damage option and forcing your DM to scramble to figure out what damage its unarmed strikes deal and if that’s even worth its actions. Disarming generally can be crazy powerful, especially against things that’s whole identity is making weapon attacks. 5e tends to have a lot of baddies whose entire stchick is “weapon attack + weird damage type”; you’ll want this then too.

With a bit of DM allowance, Heat Metal also can interact with the world in a plethora of useful ways. Melting down iron locks, wearing out heavy chains, or making the iron bars just flexible enough to push through all jumps to mind as tame examples of what could be possible. That’s not rules as written, though, so your mileage may vary.

All in all Heat Metal is great. It's a spell that has some excellent combat potential, flexible situations where it’ll be invaluable, but can’t show up every fight for the most part. If you like tools that will be great a lot of the time, but still want to change things up fight to fight, Heat Metal is the exact kind of spell you should be looking for.

5e Spells

Heat Metal: Now We’re Cookin’