Scorching Ray: A Burning Discharge

Usable By: Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 2

School: Evocation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 120 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S

You create three rays of fire and hurl them at targets within range. You can hurl them at one target or several.

Make a ranged spell attack for each ray. On a hit, the target takes 2d6 fire damage.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you create one additional ray for each slot level above 2nd.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

“Fire spell that deals damage” is an apt descriptor for most of the fire based evocation spells in the game. Scorching Ray isn’t a MAJOR exception, as it's still basically just a fire spell that is here to deal damage, but it does offer some interesting applications that make it play like a hybrid Eldritch Blast and Magic Missile.

As far as damage goes, 6d6 where you want it for a 2nd level slot with a large range is fine on rate. You don’t need any feats or other spells to supplement this. With Fireball coming with 3rd level spells, you’re probably never realistically going to want to up-cast this for just its base rate. That’s not a bad thing; in the worst case scenario you’re getting a decent damage spell for a few levels that you’ll switch out after using or fall back on when the Fireball slots dry up.

Where the spell gets marginally more interesting is when considering building around it. Because Scorching Ray consists of three spell attack rolls, other spells and features that care about attack rolls empower it. Hex, for example, would apply bonus damage on each subsequent hit, and while you can’t cast it during the same turn as your Scorching Ray, setting it up the round prior before firing off three blasts can churn out excellent damage numbers early. There aren’t a ton of applicable builds here, but its a neat feature of the spell that will scale as more and more things get printed that can interact with it. In 5th edition, spell attack rolls can crit too, meaning getting advantage on these attacks can bump the damage up by 2d6 more consistently with more consistent crits.

By all accounts Scorching Ray is a damaging fire spell. The three separate attack rolls give you a decent amount of control and choice with it, but like most low level damaging spells, this is something you’ll never up-cast because higher level spells do way more damage for the slot. Still, I have a soft spot for the evoker fantasy. If you’re in the market for a damage spell at 3rd level, why not Scorching Ray?

5e Spells

Scorching Ray: A Burning Discharge