So okay, you instantly create a hole 5 ft deep under someone and then deposit the earth back within 5 ft gently enough to do no damage. Your turn over. Their turn - they jump out again and move away, shooting you with a spell or ranged weapon as you have broken stealth by casting a spell.
An argument could be made that if you're moving the 5ft cube of earth someone is standing on, that they could go with it.
I personally am not envisioning it like excavating a perfectly cut cube of earth that you move and drop neatly elsewhere with anything resting on it, but more like every grain of earth detaching from under the creature. "Loose earth" is what meakes me think it's not compact.
I think you probably have to make a ruling on whether the cube moves whatever is on top of it or whether that falls or stays suspended depending on other circumstances. I'd tend to rule that the spell moves earth only, and anything on top of that area falls into the hole -- as pointed out, the spell doesn't tell you either way but I would expect the spell to tell me if it did move objects or creatures on top of the earth too.
If I'm on a cart, and someone moves the cart... I go with the cart. The spell doesn't need to say this, it would need to say if it didn't do this. Normally when you move something someone is on top of, they move too.
The DM needs to decide how they move. Do they fall. Do they move with the object they're standing on. Do you leave it up to them? Call for a skill check?
But the person standing on top of the molded earth is going to move. They don't remain suspended in mid air.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
If I'm on a cart, and someone moves the cart... I go with the cart. The spell doesn't need to say this, it would need to say if it didn't do this. Normally when you move something someone is on top of, they move too.
The DM needs to decide how they move. Do they fall. Do they move with the object they're standing on. Do you leave it up to them? Call for a skill check?
But the person standing on top of the molded earth is going to move. They don't remain suspended in mid air.
You're standing on a cart, someone disassembles it into a pile of loose planks and nails and then shifts the pile of junk. It is not at all a certainty that you would go with the pile.
This spell doesn't move a cube of solid dirt. It moves a cube's worth of loose dirt.
This isn't a combat cantrip. If you use it in combat then it should be worse than the cantrips designed with a combat use. The example for comparison would be Gust, which can specifically push 5' with a str save.
If I'm on a cart, and someone moves the cart... I go with the cart. The spell doesn't need to say this, it would need to say if it didn't do this. Normally when you move something someone is on top of, they move too.
The DM needs to decide how they move. Do they fall. Do they move with the object they're standing on. Do you leave it up to them? Call for a skill check?
But the person standing on top of the molded earth is going to move. They don't remain suspended in mid air.
You're standing on a cart, someone disassembles it into a pile of loose planks and nails and then shifts the pile of junk. It is not at all a certainty that you would go with the pile.
This spell doesn't move a cube of solid dirt. It moves a cube's worth of loose dirt.
This isn't a combat cantrip. If you use it in combat then it should be worse than the cantrips designed with a combat use. The example for comparison would be Gust, which can specifically push 5' with a str save.
If you use a tractor to move 5' cube worth of lose dirt I'm standing on...I'm going with it. Even if I never touch the tractor. I'm getting rolled.
I'm not arguing that that for sure happens every time. Nor that you can use it to move unwilling creatures. Or even to easily move willing ones.
My only point is if you're standing of a 5' cube of earth that gets moved... you also move. Either with it, or fall.
Which isn't specified so it could be either.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
So we were in a cave, and the spell says earth or stone. A rat king had burrowed in to the dirt. I cast mold earth and pulled 5 cubic feet of sandstone (725 lb) onto the Rat King. DM allowed it to crush/suffocate them. But earlier in the fight I tried to pull a 5 cubic foot block of sandstone on a monster and they denied it could do damage. I'm not one to argue with a DM ruling during battle but I wanted to get some input for the future.
In a cave, can I loosen a 5 cubic foot block of stone (stone.. RAW) and let gravity do the rest of the work to crush the baddy?
So we were in a cave, and the spell says earth or stone. A rat king had burrowed in to the dirt. I cast mold earth and pulled 5 cubic feet of sandstone (725 lb) onto the Rat King. DM allowed it to crush/suffocate them. But earlier in the fight I tried to pull a 5 cubic foot block of sandstone on a monster and they denied it could do damage. I'm not one to argue with a DM ruling during battle but I wanted to get some input for the future.
In a cave, can I loosen a 5 cubic foot block of stone (stone.. RAW) and let gravity do the rest of the work to crush the baddy?
No. The spell is pretty clear about this: "This movement doesn’t have enough force to cause damage."
So we were in a cave, and the spell says earth or stone. A rat king had burrowed in to the dirt. I cast mold earth and pulled 5 cubic feet of sandstone (725 lb) onto the Rat King. DM allowed it to crush/suffocate them. But earlier in the fight I tried to pull a 5 cubic foot block of sandstone on a monster and they denied it could do damage. I'm not one to argue with a DM ruling during battle but I wanted to get some input for the future.
In a cave, can I loosen a 5 cubic foot block of stone (stone.. RAW) and let gravity do the rest of the work to crush the baddy?
Mold earth isn't able to move stone at all, only loose earth (dirt), so the DM shouldn't have allowed you to crush the rat king with sandstone. You could have sealed or widened the tunnel at most.
Some clarifications how I use it at my table to not be abused as combat spell:
You choose a portion of dirt or stone that you can see within range and that fits within a 5-foot cube. You manipulate it in one of the following ways:
If you target an area of loose earth, you can instantaneously excavate it, move it along the ground, and deposit it up to 5 feet away. This movement doesn’t have enough force to cause damage.
Dirt/loose earth: You can move a cube of 5ft of earth (sure it can have some pebbles and stones in it. Bigger rocks and roots will stay put) as far as 5ft in one sitting of casting Mold Earth. The material does not hover 10ft while moving, it moves like 1.000.000 ants would pick up every little bit of sand and carry it over to the destination, but in a time lapsy manner: in 6 seconds. If you want to excavate deeper you need to take into consideration where to put the earth, because you can move it only 5ft at a time. Get your legos or chips and stack them up and try to dig deep. Here a little example of a 10ft deep hole and how many actions you need to do it while making sure the dirt does not fall back into your hole.
You cause shapes, colors, or both to appear on the dirt or stone, spelling out words, creating images, or shaping patterns. The changes last for 1 hour.
Dirt/loose earth + stone:cosmetics, distractions, silent communication... (this is not an illusion, it is transmutation)
If the dirt or stone you target is on the ground, you cause it to become difficult terrain. Alternatively, you can cause the ground to become normal terrain if it is already difficult terrain. This change lasts for 1 hour.
If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have no more than two of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.
Dirt/loose earth + stone ON THE GROUND:transform 2 x 5ft squares into difficult terrain for 1 hour. I would go as far as allowing solid stone to be transmuted, because it is just difficult terrain of a very small patch (2x 5ft squares) for an hour. You can work together with your fellow Mold Earthers to keep some significant ground difficult, maybe a narrow hallway in a castle or dungeon, to secure passages as it does not use concentration. But you can not transform entire fields into difficult terrain. Best you can do is make it a parkour with holes, trenches and hills with the first bullet of this cantrip.
That's it. Still, it is a powerful cantrip given the right environment. And if your DM allows for some serious shenanigans with it doing big damage, go for it.
I personally am not envisioning it like excavating a perfectly cut cube of earth that you move and drop neatly elsewhere with anything resting on it, but more like every grain of earth detaching from under the creature. "Loose earth" is what meakes me think it's not compact.
No it couldn’t. If the spell did that then it would say it.
I think you probably have to make a ruling on whether the cube moves whatever is on top of it or whether that falls or stays suspended depending on other circumstances. I'd tend to rule that the spell moves earth only, and anything on top of that area falls into the hole -- as pointed out, the spell doesn't tell you either way but I would expect the spell to tell me if it did move objects or creatures on top of the earth too.
If I'm on a cart, and someone moves the cart... I go with the cart. The spell doesn't need to say this, it would need to say if it didn't do this. Normally when you move something someone is on top of, they move too.
The DM needs to decide how they move. Do they fall. Do they move with the object they're standing on. Do you leave it up to them? Call for a skill check?
But the person standing on top of the molded earth is going to move. They don't remain suspended in mid air.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
You're standing on a cart, someone disassembles it into a pile of loose planks and nails and then shifts the pile of junk. It is not at all a certainty that you would go with the pile.
This spell doesn't move a cube of solid dirt. It moves a cube's worth of loose dirt.
This isn't a combat cantrip. If you use it in combat then it should be worse than the cantrips designed with a combat use. The example for comparison would be Gust, which can specifically push 5' with a str save.
If you use a tractor to move 5' cube worth of lose dirt I'm standing on...I'm going with it. Even if I never touch the tractor. I'm getting rolled.
I'm not arguing that that for sure happens every time. Nor that you can use it to move unwilling creatures. Or even to easily move willing ones.
My only point is if you're standing of a 5' cube of earth that gets moved... you also move. Either with it, or fall.
Which isn't specified so it could be either.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
On the other hand, a vehicle has a carrying capacity, while Mold Earth doesn't specifically say it does.
So we were in a cave, and the spell says earth or stone. A rat king had burrowed in to the dirt. I cast mold earth and pulled 5 cubic feet of sandstone (725 lb) onto the Rat King. DM allowed it to crush/suffocate them. But earlier in the fight I tried to pull a 5 cubic foot block of sandstone on a monster and they denied it could do damage. I'm not one to argue with a DM ruling during battle but I wanted to get some input for the future.
In a cave, can I loosen a 5 cubic foot block of stone (stone.. RAW) and let gravity do the rest of the work to crush the baddy?
No. The spell is pretty clear about this: "This movement doesn’t have enough force to cause damage."
Mold earth isn't able to move stone at all, only loose earth (dirt), so the DM shouldn't have allowed you to crush the rat king with sandstone. You could have sealed or widened the tunnel at most.
Some clarifications how I use it at my table to not be abused as combat spell:
You choose a portion of dirt or stone that you can see within range and that fits within a 5-foot cube. You manipulate it in one of the following ways:
If you target an area of loose earth, you can instantaneously excavate it, move it along the ground, and deposit it up to 5 feet away. This movement doesn’t have enough force to cause damage.
Dirt/loose earth: You can move a cube of 5ft of earth (sure it can have some pebbles and stones in it. Bigger rocks and roots will stay put) as far as 5ft in one sitting of casting Mold Earth. The material does not hover 10ft while moving, it moves like 1.000.000 ants would pick up every little bit of sand and carry it over to the destination, but in a time lapsy manner: in 6 seconds. If you want to excavate deeper you need to take into consideration where to put the earth, because you can move it only 5ft at a time. Get your legos or chips and stack them up and try to dig deep. Here a little example of a 10ft deep hole and how many actions you need to do it while making sure the dirt does not fall back into your hole.
You cause shapes, colors, or both to appear on the dirt or stone, spelling out words, creating images, or shaping patterns. The changes last for 1 hour.
Dirt/loose earth + stone: cosmetics, distractions, silent communication... (this is not an illusion, it is transmutation)
If the dirt or stone you target is on the ground, you cause it to become difficult terrain. Alternatively, you can cause the ground to become normal terrain if it is already difficult terrain. This change lasts for 1 hour.
If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have no more than two of its non-instantaneous effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.
Dirt/loose earth + stone ON THE GROUND: transform 2 x 5ft squares into difficult terrain for 1 hour. I would go as far as allowing solid stone to be transmuted, because it is just difficult terrain of a very small patch (2x 5ft squares) for an hour. You can work together with your fellow Mold Earthers to keep some significant ground difficult, maybe a narrow hallway in a castle or dungeon, to secure passages as it does not use concentration. But you can not transform entire fields into difficult terrain. Best you can do is make it a parkour with holes, trenches and hills with the first bullet of this cantrip.
That's it. Still, it is a powerful cantrip given the right environment. And if your DM allows for some serious shenanigans with it doing big damage, go for it.