Heat Metal

2nd level Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 60 Feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Components: V; S; M

Materials Required: A piece of iron and a flame

Class: Bard; Druid; Artificer

Spell Description

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.

	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
Damage Dice	2d8	3d8	4d8	5d8	6d8	7d8	8d8	9d8
Min Damage	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Average Damage	9	13.5	18	22.5	27	31.5	36	40.5
Max Damage	16	24	32	40	48	56	64	72

Lvl	Dice	Min	Avg	Max
1st
2nd	2d8	2	9	16
3rd	3d8	3	13.5	24
4th	4d8	4	18	32
5th	5d8	5	22.5	40
6th	6d8	6	27	48
7th	7d8	7	31.5	56
8th	8d8	8	36	64
9th	9d8	9	40.5	72

Is Heat Metal Good?

Overall Rating: Sky Blue. This means that heat metal is an amazing spell. If you do not take this spell your character would not be optimized.

Overall Notes: A go-to damage spell for enemies wearing metal armor (or have knives stuck in them). No save, great damage, and can cause the creature to attack with disadvantage or lose their weapon.

Class Specific Ratings for Heat Metal

Alchemist artificer: Amazing single target damage (as long as that target is wearing metal). Seeing as there's no save and you get boosted damage through Alchemical Savant, this will be potent turn-after-turn damage.