Divine Word: Spread the Good Word
Usable By: Cleric
Spell Level: 7
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 30 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V
You utter a divine word, imbued with the power that shaped the world at the dawn of creation. Choose any number of creatures you can see within range. Each creature that can hear you must make a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, a creature suffers an effect based on its current hit points:
50 hit points or fewer: deafened for 1 minute
40 hit points or fewer: deafened and blinded for 10 minutes
30 hit points or fewer: blinded, deafened, and stunned for 1 hour
20 hit points or fewer: killed instantly
Regardless of its current hit points, a celestial, an elemental, a fey, or a fiend that fails its save is forced back to its plane of origin (if it isn’t there already) and can’t return to your current plane for 24 hours by any means short of a wish spell.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
There are days I wake up and think maybe Clerics aren’t the best class in the game. Maybe they don’t get all the cool toys of all the other classes with extra goodies. Then I take a second to read over a handful of their best spells and it smacks me in the face; of course they’re the best. These spells are nuts. This spell is a BONUS ACTION to cast.
Divine Word stands out to me in the 7th level spell list as one of the best tools for upper tier play. It has two main use cases, both of which are common by this point in a lot of campaigns: thin out masses of minions, and banish massive extraplanar threats. Both effects can be used simultaneously, and just as a bonus action. You can spend your action dashing into position, dodging to defend yourself, or just smacking something with your mace like all good clerics do.
By average HP, the hit point tier is the weaker of the two modes, but can half some solid applications. Most creatures CR ½ and above ignore all the modes, and the defined condition at fifty HP often is more upside than downside. Where it gets solidly powerful is the hour long stun, which will feel similar to Banishment. In essence, it can stun every minion within 30 ft. of you, functionally removing them from the fight.
Where it shines brightest is when you’re dealing with high CR extraplanar baddies. Shunting balors back to hell is insanely powerful, and it affects every extra planar threat you can get in range of. Abilities that remove combatants are so powerful because of the nature of RPGs action economies; the more actions one side has, the better their odds of success. Killing enemies is a way to deny them actions, but equally as effective is shunting them elsewhere. Going from fighting six bone devils to three will take any semblance of balance planning your DM has worked up and flip it on its head. As a DM, if I know a player has divine word, if I want to build extraplanar monster encounters, I have to account for it and assume it’ll get hits on melee combatants in bulk.
The 30 ft. range keeps the spell in line nicely as well. 30 ft. is within spitting distance of high CR baddies you want to kick off the plane, meaning the spell requires the caster take a risk to use it. Moving towards the CR 15 celestial radiantly purging the life out of the barbarian could result in a climactic save; alternatively, it could pass the save and use its turn cutting you in half. You have to be in the thick of it to squeeze every ounce of power out of the spell, rewarding tactical positioning and thinking ahead. It takes advantage of clerics' armor proficiencies and defensive features as a means of mitigating this risk.
Divine Word is the natural progression of Banishment, and what makes it amazing in my mind is how it expands it to be more than just banishing multiple things. It grows in its utility, and while it remains simple, has complex use cases and great game play implications that have clear highs and lows. Some encounters will be decimated by it, but a lot of encounters will leave it just being okay. Divine Word is the best kind of powerful spell.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
