Ice Knife: Stone Cold Saber

Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 1

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: S, M

You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of the point where the ice exploded must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the cold damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Taking a cold sliver of ice and launching into the heart of the biggest monster across from you is pretty sweet. Having it explode out into frozen shards to massacre their band of evil absolutely rules. The fantasy of Ice Knife is there. Mechanically, this spell is wacky, but I’m kind of into it.

Ranged spell attacks aren’t my jam, especially when spell slots are involved. This normally is due to it occasionally resulting in a miss and waste of resources. In the case of Ice Knife, you’ll always at least get the explosion. At minimum this is a 15 ft. square of 2d6 cold damage save or half at a 60 ft. range, which while less damaging than Burning Hands, offers a huge amount of versatility in its placement. Hitting the attack roll makes it out damage Burning Hands on the initial target. Situations where you’re dealing with 5 HP minions and a single big bad clumped together can make it so this spell functions strictly better than burning hands would; if 2d6 damage kills the little lads, getting some bonus damage on the largest threat is pretty nice.

Ice Knife serves a noble purpose as an alternative longer ranged AOE option for your full casters, and a much needed AOE damage option for levels one and two druids. Druids in the PHB can struggle in the early tiers with their spells, as many, especially in the hands of newer players, can feel weak or challenging to use. Ice Knife comes to save the day there; you get two chances to deal damage, one of which always results in some damage happening. The only real damage option in the PHB is Thunderwave. Useful, for sure, but not the easy to use damage effect a lot of full casters want to have. Ice Knife sures up the early game for your damage dealing spell casting druids.

If you’re deciding to get some AOE damage early, this is a great option. It scales worse than Burning Hands does, as the later you go the more likely you’ll want higher area damage, but you probably aren’t planning on up-casting either realistically. In the first few sessions of a game, Ice Knife is about as good, and can be even better in many ways. It is up there with the other contenders for your damage spell selection. If you’re in the market for damage, Ice Knife can be that tool for you.

5e Spells

Ice Knife: Stone Cold Saber