Wall of Thorns: You Raise Some Good Points

Usable By: Druid

Spell Level: 6

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 120 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

Components: V, S, M (A handful of thorns)

You create a wall of tough, pliable, tangled brush bristling with needle-sharp thorns. The wall appears within range on a solid surface and lasts for the duration. You choose to make the wall up to 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick or a circle that has a 20-foot diameter and is up to 20 feet high and 5 feet thick. The wall blocks line of sight.

When the wall appears, each creature within its area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 7d8 piercing damage, or half as much damage on a successful save.

A creature can move through the wall, albeit slowly and painfully. For every 1 foot a creature moves through the wall, it must spend 4 feet of movement. Furthermore, the first time a creature enters the wall on a turn or ends its turn there, the creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. It takes 7d8 slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th level or higher, both types of damage increase by 1d8 for each slot level above 6th.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Druids, outside of summoning magic, get the short stick when it comes to their spell list. While wizards are flying around blowing things up and clerics have created giant areas of instant, unsavable death, druids tend to just grow some stuff enemies can easily hop over or walk around. Wall of Thorns doesn’t really solve any of those problems, but does at least compete with the other classes’ wall options.

7d8 is laughable damage for a 6th level spell, but 14d8 is reasonable. If you can get 21d8 damage out of it, we’re looking at a spell well worth the slot! Like other consistent area of effect damage spells, you’ll want to try to abuse this, as you’ll be hard pressed to find monsters dumb enough to throw themselves through it for the bonus damage, instead opting to either wait you out or find a way around or over it. This typically looks like allied grappling, of which you can partake in with some creative wild shapes like the Giant Octopus.

While I’d like to rule projectiles and objects can’t easily pass through it, you might be able to figure out some ways to use Thorn Whip or other magic to pull enemies in range. If you can get this to happen at least once, alongside getting damage on cast, you’re getting your money’s worth out of Wall of Thorns.

The super-difficult terrain feature reads and functions pretty poorly, as it only takes 20 feet of movement to get through it if a creature is willing to take the damage. Something thick enough to pass through it willingly isn’t necessarily going to have to spend more than a turn doing so, as a dash action will nearly always get all the way through. In a lot of cases, it won’t even force it to dash, as you’re probably going to want to cast this at a creature to damage it, and should its speed surpass 20, it can get through and attempt to leave the spell’s damage area before taking subsequent damage which really sucks.

With a little effort, Wall of Thorns is solid. If you can keep shoving things back into the brambles, you’ll have a good time with it. As a wall, it does its job of barring a path, and can be a great tool to encircle weaker foes to keep them in place for a bit. It isn’t the best of the walls, it isn’t the worst of them, but if you don’t work for it, it can feel pretty bad to use. If you don’t want to deal with figuring out how to get multiple damage instances from here, you might want to look for something different, but if you’re playing a PHB druid who doesn’t want the headache of managing summons, this might still be your best damage option available.

5e Spells

Wall of Thorns: You Raise Some Good Points