Wall of Force: The Force is Strong With This One
Usable By: Wizard
Spell Level: 5
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Components: V, S, M (A pinch of powder made by crushing a clear gemstone)
An invisible wall of force springs into existence at a point you choose within range. The wall appears in any orientation you choose, as a horizontal or vertical barrier or at an angle. It can be free floating or resting on a solid surface. You can form it into a hemispherical dome or a sphere with a radius of up to 10 feet, or you can shape a flat surface made up of ten 10-foot-by-10-foot panels. Each panel must be contiguous with another panel. In any form, the wall is 1/4 inch thick. It lasts for the duration. If the wall cuts through a creature’s space when it appears, the creature is pushed to one side of the wall (your choice which side).
Nothing can physically pass through the wall. It is immune to all damage and can’t be dispelled by Dispel Magic. A Disintegrate spell destroys the wall instantly, however. The wall also extends into the Ethereal Plane, blocking ethereal travel through the wall.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
I know I’m not the only one who’s pissed off a dragon. Sometimes you’re just in the mood to go out and steal something. Some days you just have the urge to kill a giant scaly lizard. When this inevitably turns towards you dying a fiery death, it can be helpful to have a little break from the action. You can then turn to Wall of Force.
Wall of Force may seem innocuous, but has some surprising utility and genuine power attached to it. In the right player’s hands, this spell can warp the table, and make some serious scenes breakdown in hilarious hijinks centered around an unbreakable hamster ball.
Like Tiny Hut, Wall of Force gives you a space where damage can’t reach you. Instead of needing the minute cast time, though, Wall of Force can be done with a snap of the fingers. In exchange, you can’t rest there, and only get ten minutes to figure something out or face your imminent death. Still, having the ability to create a safety dome or indestructible bubble can sometimes be all you need to talk somebody out of mercilessly killing you.
Wall of Force isn’t just a great way to protect yourself from conflict, but a great way to contain something small. If it's Large or smaller, you can probably fit it inside an indestructible Wall of Force, no questions asked, for a full minute. You probably don’t want to put a spellcaster in there, as often they can cast spells that occur outside the wall, but other creatures can be contained for up to ten minutes, no save. Like the Polymorph and Banishment save or dies, this can end encounters before it begins by splitting the difficulty into chunks and gutting one side’s action economy.
Using the spell defensively on just yourself or your allies can also break some encounters. Things can’t physically pass through the barrier, but effects that don’t require things to directionally move can still affect the outside world. Sleet Storm, for example, just occurs at a point you wish. If somebody else is concentrating on the wall, a Sleet Storm can be conjured within it, or from inside of it outside of it. Fireball requires a stream from your finger, so I'd argue it’s interrupted, but if you can find some spells like Sacred Flame to use, you can chill safely on one side while firing out barrages of magic on the other. You want to check with your DM with what they constitute as “passing through” the wall, as I think light can pass through it as “invisible” implies, meaning you could make arguments for casting things like Delayed Blast Fireball from inside. It gets quite messy, but if you can do anything to foes outside the sanctuary of a Wall of Force, it's just gravy on an already amazing dish of a spell.
Wall of Force is at its best when doing things that feel unintended, but still holds up with its normal functionality as well. For a 5th level spell, getting an indestructible object can warp all future encounters, and has to be something your DM shapes environments to handle. Its a goodie. You should try it out.
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.
