Frost Fingers: From My Cold, Dead Hands
Usable By: Wizard
Spell Level: 1
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (15-foot cone)
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V, S
Freezing cold blasts from your fingertips in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 2d8 cold damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
The cold freezes nonmagical liquids in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 1st.
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden introduced three little spells to the game that could be cast by a few characters, one of which is Frost Fingers. This spell in no way shape or form needs to exist; at its best, it’s a downgrade Burning Hands for DMs to stick on monsters. Turns out you don’t need that to be a spell, you can just have your Burning Hands called something else and deal slightly less damage. Instead of going the simpler route, they upgraded the dice to d8s, chopped a die off from three to two, and instead of igniting things, it freezes liquids. This spell definitely does not justify its existence when it literally just follows the bare minimum requirements the DMG outlines for players and DMs to use in designing HOMEBREW spells.
The only meaningful contribution Frost Fingers adds is the tiny line of text telling you it freezes liquids within the 15 ft. cone. This mirrors Burning Hand’s ignition clause, with some insignificant upsides that will rarely come into practical use, and for some reason doesn’t include liquids being worn or carried, which I’m not positive has ever mattered in the history of Dungeons and Dragons.
3d6 is minimum 3 damage, max 18, average 10.5. 2d8 is minimum 2 damage, max of 16, and average of 9. There are nearly no meaningful reasons to take this spell versus Burning Hands, and that’s a real bummer for the ice mages out there. If you’re one of them, just ask to reflavor Burning Hands instead of taking this. Frost Fingers is just a lazy, damage swapped design that has no business existing and adding more bloat to an already dense game full of hundreds of options to read through.
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.
