Author Topic: Sanctify Water - Actually an attack  (Read 811 times)

Offline Olive_Branch

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Sanctify Water - Actually an attack
« on: April 23, 2023, 11:22:24 PM »
I was looking at this feat from Stormwrack the other day, and I noticed something funny about it.

SANCTIFY WATER [DIVINE]
You can call upon positive energy to momentarily transform normal water around you into holy water. This feat is often learned by the clerics and paladins of sea gods, as well as aquatic clerics of all stripes.
Prerequisites: Cha 13, ability to channel positive energy.
Benefit: By expending a daily turn undead attempt, you can infuse the water around you with positive energy, which has the same effect as holy water. All creatures in a 20-foot radius around you immediately take damage as though they’d been struck directly by a flask of holy water. The water retains positive energy for a number of rounds equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier, and deals damage each round.
Creatures unaffected by holy water are similarly unaffected by this ability.



It’s about the damaging effect. It doesn’t actually say anything about requiring nearby enemies to be standing in water or touching water, or anything of that nature. So it seems that activating this feat causes two separate effects. First, it turns any nearby water into holy water. Secondly, all creatures within 20ft immediately take damage as if they’d been hit with a flask of holy water, regardless of whether or not they are in contact with the holy water that was just made.

Against the undead, this is… kinda good. Not amazing, but it’s a pretty big aoe that you can use plenty of times per day. And there’s no attack roll or save. Unfortunately it is difficult to increase this damage, and probably no splash damage is applied. Each creature takes damage “as if they’d been struck directly” with the flask. Not as if you struck them with it. So Grenadier and Shaped Splash probably do nothing here.

It might be particularly good against undead swarms - they take extra damage from this effect, they don’t take damage from regular weapons, and they often come in groups.


This was an interesting find, though niche. And I think it makes sense to a degree. Creating the holy water involves a burst of positive energy that deals similar damage to the water it’s meant to create. Nearby undead creatures would feel that effect.

If we accept this interpretation, there is a question about what “ The water retains positive energy for a number of rounds equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier, and deals damage each round,” actually means. If this just refers to the holy water created, maybe it means that targets struck with it will continue to take the usual damage round after round while the duration lasts — like the lingering effects of Alchemists Fire, but considerably longer. This part is certainly a stretch, but it would make the feat even more valuable. Perhaps the short-duration holy water created by this feat is more potent than the usual stuff (due to having just been infused with positive energy.)
« Last Edit: April 23, 2023, 11:33:39 PM by Olive_Branch »

Offline Power

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Re: Sanctify Water - Actually an attack
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2023, 03:36:19 AM »
No, it looks like all nearby water effectively becomes holy water for 1+cha mod rounds and all undead within 20 feet become affected as though struck by holy water the moment you activate the ability. The big tricks seem to be to use it to throw an entire barrel of temporarily holy water at something and disintegrate it in a flash. Probably has some Decanter of Endless Water stunts in it too. Should do crazy things to underwater undead, but a lot of this will lean on GM adjudication.

Offline Olive_Branch

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Re: Sanctify Water - Actually an attack
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2023, 08:25:58 AM »
Yes, that seems to be the logical interpretation. But strictly speaking, it’s difficult to find the reference for holy water dealing damage every round - or what that damage would be. The entry for Holy Water says that it damages undead “almost as if it were acid”. But it doesn’t provide any rules for how much damage holy water does, apart from the case of throwing a flask. The feat seems to conjure images of pools of water made holy continually burning undead caught within- but there aren’t any rules for this that I’m aware of. There is a rule for total submersion in acid - 10d6 a round. And a rule for exposure - 1d6 a round. But holy water does different damage, and it’s entry doesn’t provide us with any information about how to handle such scenarios. Plus, the connection is “almost as if it were acid” - that is such a weak link that I could believe it’s just an evocative description rather than any kind of rules sharing.

Once again, the feat doesn’t mention any particular quantity of water. If the only water around is one or two flasks on your person - the line “The water retains positive energy for a number of rounds equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier, and deals damage each round,” probably still applies to it. The only damage amount we have for holy water is 2d4 on a hit with a flask. This led to the possibility of the (generous) interpretation where the flask does lingering damage each round (2d4) to any undead struck. If a DM allowed that, it still wouldn’t be that powerful in the grand scheme. But it’s clearly not as intended. The feat is poorly worded, but that definitely made it more fun to think about. I feel sure that the intent was that you’d be using this while touching large bodies of water, and that undead in the water with you would take the initial burst damage (and continue to burn each round). But they just didn’t include enough information for us to play it that way by RAW.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2023, 09:40:32 AM by Olive_Branch »

Offline Maelphaxerazz

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Re: Sanctify Water - Actually an attack
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2023, 11:25:35 AM »
Interesting thing about D&D holy water: if you consider it carefully, doesn't quite add up.

Bless Water says that it imbues a one-pint flask of water to create a holy water flask. A holy water flask weighs 1lb in the equipment list. But a US liquid pint of water weighs 472 g at 62 °F, which is slightly more than a pound, and that is not factoring in the weight of a flask. Since the flask breaks on impact, it is probably glass. Glass is pretty dense, its weight is not negligible. A one-pint glass bottle weighs over half a pound: a one-pint glass flask of water, logically speaking, should weigh one-and-a-half pounds minimum, but a holy water flask weighs one pound flat. It isn't a matter of the PHB not bothering with tracking weights that small, either: a one-ounce vial is listed as weighing ⅒lb. So the actual volume of water blessed by Bless Water must be somewhat less than a pint to allow the full flask to weigh a pound rather than a pound and a half. If I were to venture a guess, a "holy pint" is ten fluid ounces, making it slightly smaller than a bottle of Coke.

The price of the bottle used is also in question. Glass is not cheap. A one-ounce vial costs 1gp, and a flask of holy water is more than an ounce of liquid, so no doubt the bottle used for holy water is worth more. But it is never factored into the price: Bless Water's material component of five pounds of silver costs 25gp, and Good-aligned temples sell the holy water "at cost" for... 25gp. The authors never listed the price of the flask, they clearly didn't intend for players to think about it, despite glass clearly being valuable in this world. The reasonable conclusion is that Bless Water consumes somewhat less than five pounds of silver, and some of that silver is simply assumed to be spent already on a bottle.

 Which brings us to this feat. Holy Water in the PhB is clearly not meant to be thought of in terms of a specific volume of liquid, and the temporary holy water created by this feat even less so. The cleric releases a burst of positive energy, which then channels through nearby water. This deals 2d4 damage right away, and another 2d4 damage for 1+ChaMod rounds. It does not deal more than 2d4 damage if there is a lot of water around the target: if that is what the feat were intended to do, then there would be at least some way of calculating how much damage that would be. We don't even know the real volume of a "holy pint" of water, as it clearly isn't a regular pint of water. But it also still deals damage in subsequent rounds in a way that regular holy water wouldn't.

Since it doesn't specify the amount of water necessary to do the damage, I would just treat it as 2d4 damage initial, plus another 2d4 damage per round for the duration. At the DM's discretion, the subject might avoid the damage if it is really dry.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2023, 05:48:47 AM by Maelphaxerazz »

Offline nijineko

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Re: Sanctify Water - Actually an attack
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2023, 08:03:44 PM »
I wonder if the Airy Water spell might allow one to use this anywhere?

Offline Olive_Branch

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Re: Sanctify Water - Actually an attack
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2023, 10:07:55 AM »
You can already use it anywhere. That's part of the unexpected fun of it. :D