Investiture of Flame: Hot Enough for Ya?

Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 6

School: Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Duration: Concentraion, up to 10 minutes

Components: V, S

Flames race across your body, shedding bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet for the spell’s duration. The flames don’t harm you. Until the spell ends, you gain the following benefits:

You are immune to fire damage and have resistance to cold damage.

Any creature that moves within 5 feet of you for the first time on a turn or ends its turn there takes 1d10 fire damage.

You can use your action to create a line of fire 15 feet long and 5 feet wide extending from you in a direction you choose. Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 4d8 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Review by Sam West, @CrierKobold

Conceptually, Investiture of Flame is the top end arsonist fantasy. This is the pyromancer dream; you’re Johnny Blaze, shooting flames from your fingertips while engulfed in roaring flickering fire. Mechanically this translates to a ten minute duration character swap where you intended to spend your actions firing off lines of fire. It's a neat effect, it looks cool, and mechanically, if this was all you had to work with, it’d be pretty nifty. In play, I just have a hard time seeing this being a spell you’re eager to cast and play with when you have so many other resources to fire off at this point.

Witch Bolt is the lowest level version of this kind of effect. You’re basically committing to future actions when you cast it, and get damage in exchange. Witch Bolt is terrible because the reward is tiny, and the cost is your action. You’re likely better off just spamming Fire Bolt or Eldritch Blast. Vampiric Touch is the next big point of comparison to me; you’re changing your play pattern, but are getting a 3d6 damage attack that heals you in place of the 1d10 free ranged damage. In practice, Vampiric Touch feels clunky and hard to use. The damage is just kind of meh, the healing is hard to get and is quite small, and it can be hard to justify a 3rd level slot on an action your average martial character outdoes every turn.

With these two cases in mind, looking at the action Investiture of Flames offers up leaves me concerned. It undoubtedly is better: a 4d8 damaging fifteen-foot line each turn is basically getting unlimited Aganazzar’s Scorchers for the duration. You’re giving up a resource that dwarves the other two in comparison, though. Immunity to fire damage and resistance to cold damage are a bit clunky too, as if you’re going against creatures dealing lots of either, they likely are coming in with resistance or immunity to fire damage, making your action and damaging aura moot. These effects end up giving you a spell that is mediocre in a variety of situations, and exceptional in very few.

I think Investiture of Flame can be a great time at the right table. If you’re dungeon crawling and want to spend one resource on a pair of fights that sell the elementalist archetype, while conjuring elementals is likely way better than this, Investiture of Flame can still sell the appearance and make you appear like the pyromancer you want to be. If you can get a couple of turns of firing out lines of flames that consistently hit more than one creature, you’ll be happy enough with the damage, and if you’re ever going against creatures that deal massive fire damage, having a silver bullet for their damage type can be a life saver. This puts the spell in a nice to have, but probably not that strong category.

You don’t ever NEED the Investiture spells, but Investiture of Flame at least can have a home some places. If you’re at a lower powered table not all that worried about doing busted things, this will be perfectly serviceable. Otherwise, I don’t think Investiture of Flame is doing enough in enough fights at the tier you get it to make it worth the actions and slot you need to invest.

5e Spells

Investiture of Flame: Hot Enough for Ya?