Freezing Sphere: Exploding Blue Balls

Usable By: Wizard

Spell Level: 6

School: Evocation

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 300 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S, M (A small crystal sphere)

A frigid globe of cold energy streaks from your fingertips to a point of your choice within range, where it explodes in a 60-foot-radius sphere. Each creature within the area must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 10d6 cold damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage.

If the globe strikes a body of water or a liquid that is principally water (not including water-based creatures), it freezes the liquid to a depth of 6 inches over an area 30 feet square. This ice lasts for 1 minute. Creatures that were swimming on the surface of frozen water are trapped in the ice. A trapped creature can use an action to make a Strength check against your spell save DC to break free.

You can refrain from firing the globe after completing the spell, if you wish. A small globe about the size of a sling stone, cool to the touch, appears in your hand. At any time, you or a creature you give the globe to can throw the globe (to a range of 40 feet) or hurl it with a sling (to the sling’s normal range). It shatters on impact, with the same effect as the normal casting of the spell. You can also set the globe down without shattering it. After 1 minute, if the globe hasn’t already shattered, it explodes.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 6th.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

It takes an arsonist five levels to get their grenade; poor cold wizards have to wait until level eleven for their Mr. Freeze ice bombs. That being said, when you do get 6th level spells, Freezing Sphere is kind of a big deal, although I’m pretty sure it’s missing some text to clarify exactly how the spell functions.

On the surface it's a Delayed Blast Fireball, but cold! The damage is slightly lower than an up-cast Fireball, but it does come with a bonus 40 ft. area. Beyond just damage, though, Freezing Sphere has two genuinely useful additional effects that take it to the next level of utility and make you forget about the damage tradeoff.

The simpler element to talk about is the grenade text. Delayed Blast Fireball is the easy comparison here, but the bead it makes can be tossed around with successful saves like an extremely volatile hot potato. Freezing Sphere can be gifted to one person, and afterwards it’ll explode on impact, no fuss. You can set it as a trap that will always explode after 1 minute or on contact, and while it won’t increase in damage, it still provides a form of extra actions if you have time to set up. This can come up more often than you’d think, and can offer a way to “double cast” spells in the beginning of a fight.

Where the spell stands out from these generic “magic go boom” spells is its control element with water. Freezing a 30 ft. surface area of water can create a platform to stand on in aquatic environments, eat hostile creatures below the surface's actions to get around it, and “trap” creatures on the water’s surface, plus whatever else you find a need for a sheet of ice for. Having a spell that both does a solid chunk of damage while simultaneously afflicting action eating conditions is crazy. Should you meet the conditions of targeting swimming creatures, they don’t even get to save against being trapped. It won’t have this level of power in every encounter, but when it does, you’ll feel like a badass.

I’m bewildered by how the text doesn’t specify what conditions a “trapped” creature is affected by, as it would take very little rewording and little to no more text to refer to the trapped creature as restrained or grappled by the ice instead. Can a trapped creature take actions? It's implied they can’t move, but to what extent? Can they ONLY use their action to break free? This is another one of those spells where I just can’t understand how it got to print after playtesting without even denoting what condition a “trapped” creature suffers from. If I were you, I’d just read the word “trapped” as “restrained”, and as always I encourage you to discuss with your DM how they’d rule it before taking the spell.

Beyond this little hiccup, I’m always happy to learn Freezing Sphere if I don’t already heavily lean on Fireball, nor do I plan on taking Delayed Blast Fireball. Truthfully, it ends up being another damage spell in a wide list of damage spells, but the flexibility and situationally utility it brings with it makes it feel cooler to use when those modes turn up. If you’re the ice mage or just in the market for cool ass damage spells, channel your inner Frozone and shoot off some Freezing Spheres.

5e Spells

Freezing Sphere: Exploding Blue Balls