Alarm: Homeless Security System
Usable By: Artificer, Ranger, Wizard
Spell Level: 1
School: Abjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Duration: 8 hours
Components: V, S, M (a tiny bell and a piece of fine silver wire)
You set an alarm against unwanted intrusion. Choose a door, a window, or an area within range that is no larger than a 20-foot cube. Until the spell ends, an alarm alerts you whenever a Tiny or larger creature touches or enters the warded area. When you cast the spell, you can designate creatures that won’t set off the alarm. You also choose whether the alarm is mental or audible.
A mental alarm alerts you with a ping in your mind if you are within 1 mile of the warded area. This ping awakens you if you are sleeping.
An audible alarm produces the sound of a hand bell for 10 seconds within 60 feet.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
You’re all set up to camp; a calm night breeze rustles through the trees over your campsite, everyone snugly in their bedrolls dreaming of the mountains of gold they’ll dive into Scrooge McDuck style after they complete their quest. Seconds later, a band of murderous gnolls ambush the party, mercilessly murdering the adventurers in their sleep without a second thought. If only there was a way to detect intruders! If only the barbarian on watch didn’t decide to just close their eyes for a second, this could have been avoided!
If this has ever been you, may I recommend Alarm. Sure, you could set watches and sleep in shifts. Sure, you can rest responsibly in defensible positions hidden from unwanted eyes. But if you don’t really want to think about all that, this Alarm is great. A twenty food cube of detection can easily encompass most points of entry you’d be concerned about. When paired with mundane alarms, you can basically guarantee unwanted visitors will be noticed, and you’ll be alerted as needed.
The modality of getting mental pings or audible ones opens the spell up to also just be a form of alert system which can set up situations where you plan around knowing when an area is entered or exited. This flexibility makes this spell something I consider on basically every wizard I make, as with the ritual tag you never have to prepare it. As a ranger those uses go down a bit, but because it's something you’ll often want to cast before you rest anyway, it doesn’t hurt all that much to have at the ready.
Alarm is a low cost, decent utility option. This is a spell classic dungeoneers know and love, but also can be a tool for the creative schemere to set some grand plans in motion. You probably won’t ever NEED Alarm; taking shifts watching over the campsite over a long rest will cover the basics of this. Having it on hand can open up some comfort and peace of mind, and when used to orchestrate a grand heist the moment the guard shift begins, can make you feel like the mastermind you want to be.
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