Wall of Water: It Ain’t Better Where It’s Wetter

Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 3

School: Evocation

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes

Components: V, S, M (a drop of water)

You conjure up a wall of water on the ground at a point you can see within range. You can make the wall up to 30 feet long, 10 feet high, and 1 foot thick, or you can make a ringed wall up to 20 feet in diameter, 20 feet high, and 1 foot thick. The wall vanishes when the spell ends. The wall’s space is difficult terrain.

Any ranged weapon attack that enters the wall’s space has disadvantage on the attack roll, and fire damage is halved if the fire effect passes through the wall to reach its target. Spells that deal cold damage that pass through the wall cause the area of the wall they pass through to freeze solid (at least a 5-foot square section is frozen). Each 5-foot-square frozen section has AC 5 and 15 hit points. Reducing a frozen section to 0 hit points destroys it. When a section is destroyed, the wall’s water doesn’t fill it.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Have you ever been to one of those water parks with the fun little fountains that shoot up from the ground kids run around and play in? Imagine a few dozen of those in a line, then ask yourself if your D&D wizard controlling the elements and summoning elementals would spend a 3rd level spell on that. Because that’s basically what you’re doing if you cast Wall of Water.

Out of all the wall spells, I’m pretty confident this is the worst option for its level. You’re getting a one foot wide wall that doesn’t even provide full cover from ranged weapon attacks. Then, if you’re willing to spend more resources, you can freeze it into a 5 AC 15 hit point SECTION of the wall! In the best case scenario, you’re spending extra spell slots to make a bad budget Wall of Stone. Oof!

One foot of difficult terrain is a non-factor in the majority of cases. A thirty foot long wall imposing disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks isn’t all that useful in most fights, nor is the ring of water. The reduction to fire damage then is all that’s really left, and if something intends to deal area of effect damage with some fire, it is not all that difficult to move around or through the wall. To top it all off, this is concentration, meaning even if you’re imposing disadvantage on a handful of ranged weapon attacks, chances are they’re all pointed at you to disable this as soon as possible.

The words here sell the spell like it's good. Halving damage seems powerful, as does imposing disadvantage on attack rolls! When used in practice, so few encounters will actually benefit from the wall that it ends up being a non-factor you waste spell slots on. To make it worse, people will commit resources for their 5 AC 15 HP walls that go down to a single attack, or more realistically, are walked around, leading to wasted resources and attempted builds to get some extra mileage out of this trash.

Don’t cast Wall of Water; it's not worth it. You will regularly find this spell just isn’t castable. You’re better off with nearly any other 3rd level spell.

5e Spells

Wall of Water: It Ain’t Better Where It’s Wetter