Can the Circle Of Wildfire druid's Enhanced Bond be applied to attack rolls?

Question

The UA Circle Of Wildfire druid has the feature Enhanced Bond, with this text:

The bond with your wildfire spirit enhances your destructive and restorative spells. Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage or restores hit points while your wildfire spirit is summoned, roll a d8, and you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell equal to the number rolled.

In addition, when you cast a spell with a range other than self, the spell can originate from you or your wildfire spirit.

Now initially I was reading this as only applying to the damage/healing rolls of the spell - but on a closer reading, the text doesn't actually say that. It only says you can apply this to spells which have such rolls, but not that the roll you apply it to must be fire damage or healing - so am I correct in assuming that a Circle Of Wildfire druid could cast, say, Fire Bolt and since it is a spell dealing fire damage apply a d8 to the attack roll of that spell?

Answer 1

Rules As Written, yes. But it seems unintended

Rules As Written yes, the feature states:

The bond with your wildfire spirit enhances your destructive and restorative spells. Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage or restores hit points while your wildfire spirit is summoned, roll a d8, and you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell equal to the number rolled. In addition, when you cast a spell with a range other than self, the spell can originate from you or your wildfire spirit.

Strictly just reading this you can add it to any roll of the spell, which would include the attack roll. But remember that this is from Unearthed Arcana and so is not as heavily edited and playtested as other material/rules/features.

Compare it to the the Draconic Sorcerer's Elemental Affinity feature:

Starting at 6th level, when you cast a spell that deals damage of the type associated with your draconic ancestry, you can add your Charisma modifier to one damage roll of that spell.

And then to the Guided Strike feature of the Cleric:

When you make an attack roll, you can use your Channel Divinity to gain a +10 bonus to the roll.

Note that the feature here could not have used either of these wordings as healing spells have neither attack rolls nor damage rolls. It seems likely (and balanced) that this would add to either the damage roll or the healing roll, especially because things are explicit when they can be used to add to an attack roll, such as Bardic Inspiration:

Once within the next 10 minutes, the creature can roll the die and add the number rolled to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw it makes.

As user @RyanThompson pointed out there is the Alchemical Mastery UA feature of the Revised Artificer which is an example of wording that does apply to only healing and damage rolls:

When you cast a spell using your alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell. That roll must restore hit points or be a damage roll that deals acid or poison damage, and the bonus equals your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).

Answer 2

You can add it to attack rolls

Based on the wording of the ability I believe you are correct and that the d8 can be added to the attack roll of firebolt or any other spell that deals fire damage and requires an attack roll (e.g. produce flame).

This is likely an oversight

*"[...] roll a d8, and you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell equal to the number rolled.

This is the kind of wording that is used to for spells that can roll damage multiple times but the benefit is only for one damage roll. That this version of the ability doesn't limit the bonus to damage only is, in my opinion an oversight.

As Medix2 points out, the reason for this oversight is likely the difficulty of wording an ability that can be added to damage or healing rolls, since healing is not damage. I expect this is fixed to be changed if this was officially released. The Alchemical Mastery feature of UA revised Artificer has wording that does work this way:

When you cast a spell using your alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell. That roll must restore hit points or be a damage roll that deals acid or poison damage, and the bonus equals your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).

Allowing this to be added to the attack roll isn't really that overpowered however, so I wouldn't be too concerned about using it at the table. Other classes have abilities to boost attack rolls (e.g war domain cleric). Though none are quite as readily available as this feature.

Answer 3

RAW: It is unclear, so yes you can add it to attack rolls

Since the description does not specific what roll you can add the bonus to, it is possible that you could add it to the attack roll. However, I don't think this is how the ability is intended to work.

Whats most likely intended: When ever you cast a spell that deals Fire damage, or a spell that restores Hit Points, you gain this benefit for the damage or healing roll, not the attack roll.

Enhanced Bond Stats that:

Whenever you cast a spell that deals fire damage or restores hit points while your wildfire spirit is summoned, roll a d8, and you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell equal to the number rolled.

Emphasis Mine.

This means that if you cast a spell that deals fire damage, roll a d8 and add that damage to one of the rolls.

• So for Fire Bolt you would roll 2d10 (as you are 6th level) and 1d8 for damage.
• If you were to cast Scorching Ray you would roll 2d6 for each hit, and you could choose one hit to add an extra 1d8 to that damage. So if all three hit you would roll 2d6 + 1d8 for the first hit and 2d6 for the second and third hits.

You can also apply this benefit if you were to cast a spell that restored hit points.

• So for Healing Word you would roll 1d4 + Spell casting mod + 1d8 for the healing.
• For Mass Healing Word it is a bit trickied, but since you only roll to heal once, I would assume it would still be 1d4 + Spell Casting mod + 1d8 to up to 6 creatures.

Essentially, if you deal fire damage, or heal someone, you can add a d8 to one of the damage or healing rolls if you roll multiple different attacks or instances of healing.

Answer 4

Probably not

Fire bolt only “deals fire damage” when it hits. If it doesn’t hit you don’t get the bonus die and if it does you don’t need to apply it to the attack roll.