Between you and also the creature, a beam of the crackling and blue energy lances out toward the creature within a spread and also forming a sustained arc of the lightning between you and also the target. Here you would like to form a ranged spell attack that’s against that creature.

On a hit, the target will take 1d12 lightning damage and also on each of your turns for the duration, for your target you’ve got an opportunity to use your action for dealing 1d12 lightning damage automatically.

Witch Bolt 5E

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 30 feet
• Components: V, S, M
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
• Scales: Yes
• Casters: Eldritch Knight, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

But the spell will end whenever you utilize your action for doing anything. Also, the spell will end, if the target is either ever outside of the spell’s range or if it’s the total cover from you.

Whenever you cast this witch bolt spell by using the spell slot of 2nd level or mote than the 2nd level, the initial damage is going to be increased by 1d12 for every and each slot above the 1 level.

The casting time is standard, of course. The range is noticeably short for a single-target spell; burning hands is deliberately high-risk, while thunder wave is specifically about getting people off you. Chromatic orb has a powerful 90-ft range, by comparison. The V/S/M components are pretty standard; the fabric component isn’t expensive, unlike chromatic orb. That duration is that the spell’s defining element – it grants a replacement at-will action for the duration. It’s important to stay in mind that degree duration also means the target could also be ready to end the spell by punching you within the face.

The spell also ends if the target is ever out of the spell’s range or if it’s the total cover from you. This provides the target creature two more ways to finish the spell early. It can get 30 feet faraway from you, or it can move around a corner or duck behind cover. This might induce the creature to impress attacks of opportunity, and/or spend its action doing something aside from beating up your party for the round.

That’s quite a best-case scenario for you. Wizards, especially, aren’t getting to lead in damage output most of the time, in order that they got to specialize in disrupting the enemy’s plan. The matter is that the enemy has 3 ways to reply effectively: breaking your Concentration, getting out of range, and getting behind cover. You can’t control which one they choose, and fixing a situation in order that all three are good for you is actually hard. If nothing else, getting punched within the face is absolutely not what you are doing best.

Obviously, a further d12 per spell slot would be an excessive amount of, but I think a special base die value could have created room for a few quite scaling after the primary round. With no thanks to scale the damage after the primary round, most cantrips surpass its damage output once you reach the 5th level. They still need to hit with a spell attack or get an enemy to fail a saving throw, but it is often tons more damage.