Thunderwave: Personal Space

Usable By: Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 1

School: Evocation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self (15-foot cube)

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S

A wave of thunderous force sweeps out from you. Each creature in a 15-‐‑foot cube originating from you must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d8 thunder damage and is pushed 10 feet away from you. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and isn’t pushed.

In addition, unsecured objects that are completely within the area of effect are automatically pushed 10 feet away from you by the spell’s effect, and the spell emits a thunderous boom audible out to 300 feet.

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

Listen: Thunderwave is fine. If you want a decent area effect damaging spell, this counts. But you probably shouldn’t put that much more faith into it. Unless you’re deliberately planning out managing area damage effects like Wall of Fire mixed with it, most of the rest of the spell will be at its best when all you need to care about is its damage. For some, you can do better, while others (cough cough bards) this is kind of the best option you got for area of effect damage.

The immediate comparisons to Tunderwave are Burning Hands and Entangle, with one being one of the best area effect damage 1st level spells, the other an area control tool to affect creatures movement. Burning Hands is going to more reliably deal more damage, with slightly higher average and max damage. Entangle more reliably will be a tool to lock creatures down for navigating away or around a fight. Thunderwave gives you a bit of potential to get somebody off of you, but not in a way that’s really more meaningful than just disengaging in a lot of cases, especially given the uncertainty of the save. Entangle can eat enemy actions more efficiently than just a disengage action can, and can affect way more creatures at a greater distance than Thunderwave. If you’re trying to not die, even something like Expeditious Retreat is going to be leagues better at keeping you alive.

It may seem unintuitive, but the knockback works against it being a damage area of effect spell. The knockback tends to push players towards using it in case of emergency, but that will be most effective against small quantities of engaged creatures. The damage will be most effective with as many creatures as possible in the area, leaving it in this nebulous space where its always feeling just fine on both halves. Sometimes you’ll get three creatures engaged with you to all fail their saves, they’ll be slower than you, and you’ll get a great deal for the cast! Other times two will succeed, none will die, and you’ll be in about as bad of shape as you started.

If you need area of effect damage and don’t have better options, Thunderwave will be fine. If you want a tool to empower a spell you already want to use a lot that involves creatures entering or starting their turn within an area, Thunderwave can be a great supplement to those builds. I just wouldn’t expect the knockback to matter all that much outside of these niche cases.

5e Spells

Thunderwave: Personal Space