Is Spirit Shroud damage “owned” by the source of the attack, or the Spirit Shroud spell itself

damagedamage-typesdnd-5espells

Until the spell ends, any attack you make deals 1d8 extra damage when
you hit a creature within 10 feet of you. This damage is radiant,
necrotic, or cold (your choice when you cast the spell). Any creature
that takes this damage can’t regain hit points until the start of your
next turn.

Emphasis mine, if the attack deals extra damage, and the attack is made with a sword, would an effect on weapon damage apply to the extra damage dice granted by Spirit Shroud? Say for example, the tripling effect of a Potion of Giant Size.

What if the potion in question was one of Maximum Power instead, drank after casting Spirit Shroud, and then hitting someone with a Scorching Ray from ten feet away? Is only the Scorching Ray base damage maximized, or are the extra dice from Spirit Shroud also maximized in this case?

Best Answer

"You" refers to the caster, and it's your attack that deals the extra damage

Spirit Shroud is a spell with a range of self. Like with other spells, "you" refers to the spells caster. It does not matter if the caster deals damage with a weapon attack, or a spell attack, a melee attack or a ranged attack. It does not matter if they use their bare hands or a weapon, or how many damage dice the weapon has, or if they enhanced their damage dealing capacity magically with a potion or spell like enlarge or a magic item like gauntlets of ogre power: it is still the caster's attack that deals damage. The only requirement is that the target is within 10 feet of the caster.

Consider for comparison a spell like wrathful smite that says:

The next time you hit with a melee weapon attack during this spell’s duration, your attack deals an extra 1d6 psychic damage.

Here, the attack types that receive extra damage are limited to melee weapon attacks. There is no such limitation to attack types for spirit shroud.

However you always only deal an extra 1d8 damage with spirit shroud (unless you upcast it to deal more). Your attack deals the extra damage, not the instrument of your attack. Spirit shroud does not change the damage of the weapon making the weapon deal an extra 1d8, and if you would have an effect that doubles the weapon‘s damage dice, that effect would not double the spirit shroud's dice.

This also makes sense narratively. Spirit shrouds effect is described in the first sentence as:

You call forth spirits of the dead, which flit around you for the spell’s duration.

Narratively, it‘s those spirits that deal the extra damage to whomever you attack. They do not care how large your sword is, they just also damage whatever you attack in the area they flit around in.

For your extra question: potion of maximum power says:

The first time you cast a damage-dealing spell of 4th level or lower within 1 minute after drinking the potion, instead of rolling dice to determine the damage dealt, you can instead use the highest number possible for each die.

If you cast spirit shroud, drink the potion, then cast scorching ray, I think only scorching ray damage would be maximized, because the maximization applies to the spell, not an attack. Fir example, if you cast flaming sphere instead, the sphere‘s damage would be maximized for its duration. However, the wording here is slightly ambiguous, as it does not say "for the spell". I think that is meant by the context of "the first time you cast a damage dealing spell", but maybe a DM could decide that for attack spells it means "for the attack" — I think it's unlikely, but check with your DM.

If you drink the potion, then cast spirit shroud, then scorching ray, the shroud's d8 would be maximized to 8, but not the ray damage.

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