Sleet Storm: Word on the Sleet

Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 3

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 150 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Components: V, S, M (a pinch of dust and a few drops of water)

Until the spell ends, freezing rain and sleet fall in a 20-foot-tall cylinder with a 40-foot radius centered on a point you choose within range. The area is heavily obscured, and exposed flames in the area are doused.

The ground in the area is covered with slick ice, making it difficult terrain. When a creature enters the spell’s area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it falls prone.

If a creature is concentrating in the spell’s area, the creature must make a successful Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC or lose concentration.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

The white, scarred dragonborn sorcerer clad in the ceremonial garb of her long deceased clan looks down towards red scaled kobolds massing their way towards her company through the ravine. Time is of the essence; should they reach the eggs, all will be lost to the wrathful ancient red’s grasp. She pulls inward, filling her lungs with the cold morning air, whispers out into the world an arcane message, dropping water from her flask to the ground. A spontaneous deafening roar erupts around the kobolds as a storm of ice surrounds them, blinding them as her barbarian ally slings the eggs over his shoulder and darts down one of the tunnels. She’s bought them time.

Sleet Storm does look pretty dope. It's a giant cylinder of freezing rain and hail that locks down an 80 ft. wide area. That’s a MASSIVE amount of space. What it does in that area is… fine? Compared to Fear and other 3rd level condition spells, this will act as an area of effect lockdown. My only issue with it is when do you want this specific lockdown?

An 80 ft. diameter of difficult terrain is going to require creatures to spend more than one action dashing to get from one side to the other should they have to go through it. With it being 80 ft. wide, this is going to likely be the case in any enclosed environments. Creatures then also needing to waste movement messing around with falling prone or not means you’re not only guaranteed to each creature's dashes, you have the potential to get four or more turns out of creatures fumbling their way across it. That’s a lot of turns.

But what does your team do with those turns? The area the creatures are in is heavily obscured; you’re not going to know the exact location of basically anything inside the sleet storm as they fumble their way through it. This makes attacking into and out of it very difficult. Even area of effect spells like Fireball aren’t going to be as effective as you fire them into the storm, and you have to ask yourself is that inefficiency and chance at nothing happening worth the risk?

This leaves Sleet Storm as a great spell for buying four or five rounds of time. Uncoordinated creatures that trickle out of it one at a time will become part of a shooting gallery, which is pretty sweet. You’ll get to stagger some encounters so you're facing fewer enemies at a time with it, and that’s a solid use case. Smarter, more tactical creatures are likely just going to opt to wait out the storm, though. It's only a minute long. Retreating through it is way safer than charging out to the other side without communication. Tactical enemies aren’t going to really suffer from this that much, unless, again, your goal is to lose them and escape. If that’s your goal, Sleet Storm is superb at its job. You can’t really ask for much more out of a 3rd level slot than this; it not being that great at contributing to fights you intend to actually win makes it mediocre to me. If you want a spell for when you think you’re losing and need to bail, Sleet Storm can help. Otherwise, I’d recommend most other 3rd level options over this.

5e Spells

Sleet Storm: Word on the Sleet