Control Winds: Yawn With the Wind

Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 5

School: Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 300 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

Components: V, S

You take control of the air in a 100-foot cube that you can see within range. Choose one of the following effects when you cast the spell. The effect lasts for the spell’s duration, unless you use your action on a later turn to switch to a different effect. You can also use your action to temporarily halt the effect or to restart one you’ve halted.

Gusts. A wind picks up within the cube, continually blowing in a horizontal direction that you choose. You choose the intensity of the wind: calm, moderate, or strong. If the wind is moderate or strong, ranged weapon attacks that pass through it or that are made against targets within the cube have disadvantage on their attack rolls. If the wind is strong, any creature moving against the wind must spend 1 extra foot of movement for each foot moved.

Downdraft. You cause a sustained blast of strong wind to blow downward from the top of the cube. Ranged weapon attacks that pass through the cube or that are made against targets within it have disadvantage on their attack rolls. A creature must make a Strength saving throw if it flies into the cube for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there flying. On a failed save, the creature is knocked prone.

Updraft. You cause a sustained updraft within the cube, rising upward from the cube’s bottom edge. Creatures that end a fall within the cube take only half damage from the fall. When a creature in the cube makes a vertical jump, the creature can jump up to 10 feet higher than normal.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

What spell level is worth a massive area of difficult terrain and disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls? Wizards of the Coast thinks 5th; I’m pretty sure they’re wrong, and by more than one spell level. It's a shame, too, as this spell can look fantastical and sell the airbender fantasy really well. Unfortunately, the actual effects you’re getting seem to be way undershot, especially the latter two effects.

Control Winds is basically three modes: difficult terrain and disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks, disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks and flying creatures possibly getting knocked prone, and halving fall damage and adding ten feet to jumps. None of these modes are better than lower level options.

If the goal is to disrupt ranged weapon attacks, Wind Wall negates them entirely, does damage, and is two spell levels lower. If the goal is to create a giant area that is hard to move through, Sleet Storm, while a smaller area, does a much better job crippling movement, heavily obscures the area (which can be way better than just imposing disadvantage on ranged attack rolls), and is a 3rd level spell. Feather Fall negates fall damage entirely and is a 1st level spell, while Jump, another 1st level spell, does a way better job increasing jump distance than this. This basically means the second two modes are near uncastable, and the first one will have rare instances of utility that you could probably get at much lower level.

I’m ultimately then just wondering when you’d want any of these modes over all the prior lower level better versions. The intended trade-off for spell level is flexibility, but with how horrendous all the modes are compared to lower level options, I can’t imagine wanting to spend 5th level slots on any of them. Spell lists are full of area of effect damage spells that likely will bring an end to an encounter faster and safer than this. Sorry to all you wind mages out there, but I’d seek out other options than this.

5e Spells

Control Winds: Yawn With the Wind