Fire Storm: Burn Everything… Except Plants?
Usable By: Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer
Spell Level: 7
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 150 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V, S
A storm made up of sheets of roaring flame appears in a location you choose within range. The area of the storm consists of up to ten 10-‐‑foot cubes, which you can arrange as you wish. Each cube must have at least one face adjacent to the face of another cube. Each creature in the area must make a Dexterity saving throw. It takes 7d10 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
The fire damages objects in the area and ignites flammable objects that aren’t being worn or carried. If you choose, plant life in the area is unaffected by this spell.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Fire Storm is like the weird love child of Fireball and Wall of Fire, and I’m not sold if it's worth taking over either of the other two. For something called Fire Storm it just doesn’t FEEL like a massive Fire Storm, you know?
You always have to default compare a spell to Fireball if we’re talking about area of effect damage, and while 7d10 is a decent amount of damage, 12d6 damage is more on average from an up-cast Fireball. Wall of Fire upcast to 7th level is dealing 8d8 damage, which is barely under 7d10, plus it lasts awhile and has some cool applications with forcing movements. You’re left with Fire Storm’s two main upsides being the flexibility of area and the ability to not affect plants.
The common patterns for Fire Storm will be 3x3 grids with an extra tacked on or weird snaking areas to hit specifically one or two creatures alongside a group. This ends up being crazy close to Fireball’s 20 ft. radius sphere already. Is being able to occasionally hit one or two extra creatures worth your 7th level slot AND having the spell take up room in your prepared or known spells, even with the damage drop?
And then there is the plant clause, which I just have to say, what? What is this text? Why is it here? Do any other fire spells have this text? What is the point, outside of I guess allowing it on the Druid spell list? Which, even then, wildfires and controlled burns historically have had positive environmental effects to my limited understanding, so that doesn’t seem like a particularly compelling reason.
Normally I’m all for extra weird goodies that let higher level spells have niche world building applications, but I can’t fathom a reason why this text is attached to this spell and this spell alone. It isn’t worth the space it takes on the page. Let's say you decide not to ignite the plants in an area; you’re still igniting all of the objects plant adjacent. It's not like there isn’t going to still be a massive area of fire directly on top of the plants.
Rant aside, Fire Storm is kind of just a nothing spell. It's another fire spell in a game bursting with fire spells, and this one is comparatively pretty underwhelming. Sure, you might find a time or two to bust it out and get the exact tetris shape you need, but most of the time a good old fashioned Fireball will do the trick.
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.
