Tsunami: Wave Goodbye

Usable By: Druid

Spell Level: 8

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 minute

Range: Sight

Duration: Concentration, up to 6 rounds

Components: V, S

A wall of water springs into existence at a point you choose within range. You can make the wall up to 300 feet long, 300 feet high, and 50 feet thick. The wall lasts for the duration.

When the wall appears, each creature within its area must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 6d10 bludgeoning damage, or half as much damage on a successful save.

At the start of each of your turns after the wall appears, the wall, along with any creatures in it, moves 50 feet away from you. Any Huge or smaller creature inside the wall or whose space the wall enters when it moves must succeed on a Strength saving throw or take 5d10 bludgeoning damage. A creature can take this damage only once per round. At the end of the turn, the wall’s height is reduced by 50 feet, and the damage creatures take from the spell on subsequent rounds is reduced by 1d10. When the wall reaches 0 feet in height, the spell ends.

A creature caught in the wall can move by swimming. Because of the force of the wave, though, the creature must make a successful Strength (Athletics) check against your spell save DC in order to move at all. If it fails the check, it can’t move. A creature that moves out of the area falls to the ground.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Tsunami is the pinnacle of the water bending fantasy; you conjure a massive wave and smash everything in a massive square with it, shoving them away from you and dealing substantial damage. Tsunami is what an incredible upper tier damage spell looks like.

At minimum, this is a huge area up-cast Fireball damage. For just the equivalent of 6d10 damage we’re talking a 5th level Fireball. For the other three levels, you get subsequent damage each round and the potential to cut off creatures speed entirely for the duration. Nearly anything in the middle of this without a fly speed is taking at least two instances of damage regardless of if they pass the Athletics check to swim. 11d10 damage equates to 18d6 damage, nearly doubling the up-cast Fireball at this point, and coming in with respectable damage numbers that affect so many creatures.

Not only is initial damage solid and secondary damage great, this will be a spell that won’t take over the game. Against creatures with decent Athletics and fly speeds, this can be a fine damage option to pull out in a pinch with major potential upside, but isn’t going to necessarily single handedly win the fight. Other encounters against large groups of ground based enemies will be slaughtered by Tsunami on its own. This is an amazing spot for a spell to be.

Restricting enemy movement while moving enemies on its own is powerful as well. If you’re in a group with long-ranged options, firing into the Tsunami while the enemies flounder helpless can result in cooperative fights that make everyone feel like badasses. The rogue, fighter, and wizard all can pepper enemies with bows and Fireballs from afar while you use the Tsunami to keep everything hostile a safe distance from the group.

This is one of few reasons to not rely on summoning magic in druid. If you’re a DM and want to challenge Tsunami, breaking concentration with little annoying flying monsters to harass the druid after casting can be a way to mitigate its power slightly. The fact that 11d10 out of the maximum 21d10 damage happen in the first two rounds of the spell do mean you don’t need to get more than a couple rounds of Tsunami off for it to pay off, but any amount of damage mitigated does slightly weaken the effect.

All in all, if you can take Tsunami, I’d recommend it. This is one of druid’s best and most unique damaging options that makes a major impact on most encounters, and can single handedly win others. As far as epic tier damaging spells go, this is my personal favorite, and you absolutely should try it if given the chance.

5e Spells

Tsunami: Wave Goodbye