I don't think counting every square is really a good assessment of the spell, as nothing close to that ever happens.
It does 6d6 damage over a massive area of effect. That's an average of 21 damage per target, IF the target stays in the AOE the entire time. It has some other okay battle field control properties.
In addition: It does 10d6 damage to 6 targets. That's an average of 35 damage. Assuming they're affected by all the other effects, those six receive an average of 56 damage.
Level 9 spells are like God mode, and in my opinion this spell falls well short. I would only choose this if it's really thematic for some big epic battle, we've raised up a small army vs another army. The damage it does is weak for the level, but it's also not trivial. I would really be choosing it because on a massive force on force battle it creates a really cool scene.
If Level 9 spells are God Mode then this really fits the bill.
I think you are forgetting that round 5 to 10 each do 1d6 damage so the total is 9d6 if they make the save in round 1 and 11d6 if they do not so either 31 or 38 on average
Counting every square might be a poor way top calculate absolute damage but it is good for comparing large AoE spells like SoV and meteor storm when used in crowded areas. Alsobear in mind that for the vast majority of people whether they take 31 or 1031 damage there is no difference thay are dead.
The colosium in Rome was 615ft by 510ft so could easily fit in the 360ft radius of this spell. It held on average 65,000 people. Imagine a city in a D&D with a similar colusium and a druid seeking revenge on the city because it destroyed acres of natural habitat in its construction. The druid casts the spell on the colusium nearly everyone inside would be a commoner (4HP) or maybe a little hardier such as guards (11HP). Peiople who survive the first round might want ot get out but very few would succeed (have you tried getting out of a big sports stadium right after the game in less than a minute?) Such a spell would kill over 60,000 people with a single casting. If that is not God mode what is? For comparison meteor storm worm be ble to cover about 2% of the area of the colosium if it is targetted over the crowds rather than the arena you might be able to get the death toll up to 1500 - 2000.
For another example, consider an invading army at camp, a 6 man tent would be about 12ft by 8ft allowing for space around the tents say it takes up 25ft by 12.5ft. A high level druid from a hill several miles away can cast SoV on about 8,000 troops, the knights (52HP) might survive but be seriously hurt, but the soldiers (17HP would not), that would be a sizeable chuck of most armies and the nation being invaded would be saved, another Godly act.
As others have said for a PC druid it is a niche spell but when used it definately displays God like powers.
You're right that I missed that the final round was multiple rounds combined. Still, the full effect requires a creature to remain in the AOE the entire time. It seems good for the right situation, I'm just looking at it from the perspective of being a level 17-20 wizard.
You can take on a big army of trash mobs ('trash" relative to your demi-god like party), or terrorize a town.
Admittedly I've never played anywhere near these levels, so this is not speaking from experience. It may be a lot better than I'm predicting.
I think everyone agrees it is a niche spell, and it is probably of more use for an NPC or an evil PC game but within that niche it is very powerful and deserving of 9th level
Tried to go through and do a critical analysis of the spell to see if there was any way to really exploit it for an average campaign, and didn't have much luck.
"Vengeance" is not really the bailiwick of "Good" characters. This spell is perfect for the stereotypical conflict between Druids and civilization, but for anyone else, it's just cinematic.
However, if the Druid were to multi-class as a Sorcerer, they could double the duration to 2 minutes with Extend metamagic. It is unclear what would happen though, as the spell is very explicit about the round by round behavior of the spell, rather than having an effect last "for the duration". It may simply fail, but I would lean toward extending the final stage by another 10 round, which would be interesting, but no less cinematic, as that is plenty of time for survivors to flee.
With Wizard (School of Necromancy), you could use this spell to regenerate 18 hitpoints per round.
With Warlock (The Fiend), you would get temporary hitpoints.
Storm of vengance has a range of sight, so a high lvl druid can shape shift into a bird and cast this spell from 20 miles away on a clear day. A single druid will destroy the whole royal armada if he wishes to do so.
Keep in mind as well that there's a subtle spell difference between "support" classes like Cleric, Druid, Bard versus "blaster" classes like Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock.
Support classes tend to do less damage with their spells, but each of those spells that they do have? Tend to have some kind of utility built into them that makes them still useful. Take, for example, Produce Flame and Firebolt. They're both "shoot tiny flames at enemy" spells, but the former deals d8 damage, the latter d10. But! Produce Flame can double as a torch in a pinch while keeping yourself ready to fight, whereas Firebolt is just flinging fire. This is pretty consistent going down the list of spells. Less damage, but secondary effects that make them worthwhile.
With Storm of Vengeance versus Meteor Swarm, we see the same thing. Less damage, but there's secondary effects to the spell that do make it worthwhile as another army-killer spell.
This is an area of effect spell not a spell targeted at a single creature.
The range is listed as Sight. Which can be a long way. It is a very fast spell, considering. A single Druid could decimate an army from a mile away. Hundreds of creatures.
The first round if there are 100 creatures in the area of effect you have the potential of doing doing 1200 points worth of total damage. Plus you could deafen them.
Round 2 No saving throw with a potential of 600 more points of damage.
Round 3 you can do up to 60 points of damage to the big guys.
Round 4 another potential 1200 points
Round 5 to 10 will pretty much incapacitate the army
If your a ways away and up high they would probably never figure out where you were located.
The problem is that this spell is extremely niche. I can't think of any published campaign that pits a party against an entire army, and when one is present, it's usually background drama.
Hypothetically, the spell can be devastating, but 99% of the time, it'll be used by a villainous NPC, rather than a party of adventurers. At levels 17-20, the party is probably more worried about a BBEG and should be saving their 9th level spells for Foresight (8hrs of Advantage on everything), or Shapechange (turn into an Adult Red Dragon).
One hour of draconic breath weapons translates to ~12,600 points of fire damage across two hundred 60ft radius cones. That's vastly more damage than what Storm of Vengeance can achieve on a good day, and the dragon form is mobile, so you can cover a much larger area.
The problem is that this spell is extremely niche. I can't think of any published campaign that pits a party against an entire army, and when one is present, it's usually background drama.
Hypothetically, the spell can be devastating, but 99% of the time, it'll be used by a villainous NPC, rather than a party of adventurers. At levels 17-20, the party is probably more worried about a BBEG and should be saving their 9th level spells for Foresight (8hrs of Advantage on everything), or Shapechange (turn into an Adult Red Dragon).
One hour of draconic breath weapons translates to ~12,600 points of fire damage across two hundred 60ft radius cones. That's vastly more damage than what Storm of Vengeance can achieve on a good day, and the dragon form is mobile, so you can cover a much larger area.
My DM's campaigns involve a lot of armies, but they are full of creatures with enough hit points to survive a storm of vengeance. I've found that killing the BBEG ends my DM's campaigns without having to finish the army off, so that's kind of what I made the thread for, although I'm interested in people's opinion on the spell in general.
The problem is that this spell is extremely niche. I can't think of any published campaign that pits a party against an entire army, and when one is present, it's usually background drama.
Hypothetically, the spell can be devastating, but 99% of the time, it'll be used by a villainous NPC, rather than a party of adventurers. At levels 17-20, the party is probably more worried about a BBEG and should be saving their 9th level spells for Foresight (8hrs of Advantage on everything), or Shapechange (turn into an Adult Red Dragon).
One hour of draconic breath weapons translates to ~12,600 points of fire damage across two hundred 60ft radius cones. That's vastly more damage than what Storm of Vengeance can achieve on a good day, and the dragon form is mobile, so you can cover a much larger area.
Mind you, 100 archers with +5 to hit doing 1d8+3 damage per hit, will do 35% x 7.5 x 100 = 262 damage per round. Enough to kill a Red Dragon in one round.
You’re right that it’s a niche spell, but it’s possible to memorize more than one 9th level spell, and besides - if you’re fighting armies worth of enemies it’s not likely that they pop up from around a corner, you will likely have time to pre-prep for those situations.
My DM's campaigns involve a lot of armies, but they are full of creatures with enough hit points to survive a storm of vengeance. I've found that killing the BBEG ends my DM's campaigns without having to finish the army off, so that's kind of what I made the thread for, although I'm interested in people's opinion on the spell in general.
I would suggerst your DM is putting you up against elete members of the army. The majority of an army would be made up of "scouts" and "soldiers" with 11h HP each, THere would be number of knights and veterans who could survive SoV if they were unhurt when it was cast but they would be very much in the minority. We tend to think of level 1and 2 adventurers as puny but even level 1 adventurers are a tough breed (and may have a soldier background) and patrol of soldiers or scouts would be a verty tough match or a party of an equal number of level 2 adventurers.
Putting put a party of Level 17-20 against even 200 CR 1/2 scouts and soldiers is likely to be deadly for the party if played in full unless one ofthe party has this spell (the 200 would be pretty spread out so meteor storm would only kill a proportion of them), but trivial if the party has a druid with SoV prepared. Having said that no DM would run a combat with 200 soldiers in the initiative order along with the 5 members of the party, instead he would put them up against a few champions and knights and probably a high level caster such as an archmage.
I could easily see a campaign against a group of druid terrorists wanting to destroy civilisation to allow the world to return to nature with the leader getting this spell towards the end of the campaign and the party having to stop him wiping out the cities.
Mind you, 100 archers with +5 to hit doing 1d8+3 damage per hit, will do 35% x 7.5 x 100 = 262 damage per round. Enough to kill a Red Dragon in one round.
For a party of 17th+ level adventurers, that's easy enough to mitigate. With an 80ft fly speed and 60ft blindsight, the dragon could carry an object affected by Darkness to give all of those attacks disadvantage (Drops the damage down to 92 per 100 archers).
Perhaps even better would be an Ancient White Dragon, which has a 90ft cone, and substantially more hitpoints.
But wait, there's more! An Androsphinx has a 500ft radius Roar ability that scales over 3 rounds: Frighten, Deafen/Paralyze, Kill. It's also Immune to non-magical attacks. Now that is brutal.
My DM's campaigns involve a lot of armies, but they are full of creatures with enough hit points to survive a storm of vengeance. I've found that killing the BBEG ends my DM's campaigns without having to finish the army off, so that's kind of what I made the thread for, although I'm interested in people's opinion on the spell in general.
Well, that might be part of the problem - in general, if you have an entire army of high tier 2, tier 3 creatures... then that's not something the game takes into account.
As I said in my post, Storm of Vengence actually comes with more to it than just raw damage. Specifically, it creates a massive obfuscation for the last five rounds, and causes some rather nasty Concentration checks, effectively dispelling most of the Concentration-based buffs going on. Once the storm ends, it effectively dispels all cover, leaving the target army exposed to retaliation from your allies.
Storm of Vengence isn't just about damage. Its about setting up support for your allied army. Druids are support, not blasters, and the spells reflect this mindset.
Mind you, 100 archers with +5 to hit doing 1d8+3 damage per hit, will do 35% x 7.5 x 100 = 262 damage per round. Enough to kill a Red Dragon in one round.
For a party of 17th+ level adventurers, that's easy enough to mitigate. With an 80ft fly speed and 60ft blindsight, the dragon could carry an object affected by Darkness to give all of those attacks disadvantage (Drops the damage down to 92 per 100 archers).
Perhaps even better would be an Ancient White Dragon, which has a 90ft cone, and substantially more hitpoints.
But wait, there's more! An Androsphinx has a 500ft radius Roar ability that scales over 3 rounds: Frighten, Deafen/Paralyze, Kill. It's also Immune to non-magical attacks. Now that is brutal.
This over-simplified example is why I don’t like getting into the weeds of this debate when trying to justify comparing True Poly with a spell like Storm of Vengeance.
How about 1000 archers? Reminder that a 1 is a fail, so your concentration will eventually fail regardless of the amount of damage done.
What about 200 Goblin Booyahgs spamming fire bolts or magic missile? Again, I give it 20 concentration rolls before you revert.
This isn’t a white room spell that you just come up with a “hey it’s cheaper to do this!”. It’s a niche spell for a specific purpose and it does it very well. You don’t have to like every single 9th level spell. And frankly, the amount I hear on these forums about “X beats Y because it’s got more DPS” the more I get the impression people want to play video games and not DnD.
How about 1000 archers? Reminder that a 1 is a fail, so your concentration will eventually fail regardless of the amount of damage done.
RAW That is not true, auto fail on a 1 only applies to attack rolls and death saves. With +10 to con saves you can not fail a concentration check unless you take more than 21 damage. Though I admit many house rule otherwise I am not sure how many realise it is a house rule.
It's been said time and time again that usually normal adventuring can't keep up with tier 4 play. This spell is a perfect example of a tool the players get that make their characters feel awesome.
Fight off an ancient dragon and you are a badass adventurer.
Fight off an entire armada across the Vilhon Reach and cast the spell alongside the Elder Circle of Emerald Enclave to protect the land and you are a freaking legend.
It's been said time and time again that usually normal adventuring can't keep up with tier 4 play. This spell is a perfect example of a tool the players get that make their characters feel awesome.
Fight off an ancient dragon and you are a badass adventurer.
Fight off an entire armada across the Vilhon Reach and cast the spell alongside the Elder Circle of Emerald Enclave to protect the land and you are a freaking legend.
Unless you consider Storm of Vengeance's environmental impact. It doesn't work too well for protecting the land. And shapechanging into a dragon works also works for that.
It's been said time and time again that usually normal adventuring can't keep up with tier 4 play. This spell is a perfect example of a tool the players get that make their characters feel awesome.
Fight off an ancient dragon and you are a badass adventurer.
Fight off an entire armada across the Vilhon Reach and cast the spell alongside the Elder Circle of Emerald Enclave to protect the land and you are a freaking legend.
Unless you consider Storm of Vengeance's environmental impact. It doesn't work too well for protecting the land. And shapechanging into a dragon works also works for that.
I mean the Druid could just use this on the town or city, not on a wooded area. A druid might see the town constantly killing more animals and increasing their deforestation to build their homes and furniture. So that druid might protect the land by destroying the town with this spell. Don't forget that Druids do have other spells that can replenish and heal the land afterwards.
And the environmental impact isn't that bad. Sometimes you need to destroy a bit of the forest to help it regrow stronger - this fact of nature was even the inspiration behind the Circle of Wildfire Druid Subclass. It happens in real life. In fact some natural disasters in real life have been vastly stronger in damage than any spell in D&D 5th E. Yet the land regrew, more vibrant. This is also why people still go back to areas with active volcanoes - after the eruption, the land regrows more fertile and nourished making it much easier to farm.
As for Shapechange: sure you can go be a dragon or whatever. But you also make yourself a target.
With Storm of Vengeance you're miles away. Nobody would know it was you. Especially true if an Archdruid who could literally cast this while being an innocent little bird miles away in the sky. There's nothing to say you need to keep looking at the storm, so if you're a Moon Druid you could cast this as an Earth Elemental then just go underground and stay there, completely undetectable.
You get to destroy a town, with absolutely zero consequences.
Yeah, it's worth the 9th-level slot.
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How about this version of storm of vengeance. There are some small differences (reading wise) here and there so be sure to read carefully.
Compare it to the actual Storm of Vengeance.
Storm of Vengeance
9th-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Sight
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 3 minute
A churning storm cloud forms, centered on a point you can see and spreading to a radius of 360 feet. Lightning flashes in the area, thunder booms, and strong winds roar. Each creature under the cloud (no more than 5,000 feet beneath the cloud) when it appears must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d6 thunder damage and becomes deafened for 5 minutes.
Each round you maintain concentration on this spell, the storm produces different effects on your turn.
You can move the cloud 100 feet in one direction as an action.
Storm of Vengeance After Round 1
Round #
Effect
2
Acidic rain and ashfall rains down from the cloud. Each creature and object under the cloud takes 1d6 acid damage and 2d4 fire damage.
3
You call six bolts of lightning from the cloud to strike six creatures or objects of your choice beneath the cloud. A given creature or object can’t be struck by more than one bolt. A struck creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. The creature takes 10d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Creatures within 5 feet of a struck creature or object must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 4d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
4
Hailstones rain down from the cloud. A creature takes 2d6 bludgeoning damage and 4d4 cold damage.
Hailstones turn the storm’s area of effect into difficult terrain.
5-26
Gusts and freezing rain assail the area under the cloud. The area becomes difficult terrain and is heavily obscured. Each creature there takes 1d6 cold damage. Ranged weapon attacks in the area are impossible. The wind and rain count as a severe distraction for the purposes of maintaining concentration on spells. Finally, gusts of strong wind (ranging from 20 to 50 miles per hour) automatically disperse fog, mists, and similar phenomena in the area whether mundane or magical.
My thoughts and reasons:
First I would like to explain the ashfall effect of second round: From what I understand, storm of vengeance is supposed to be as if you were conjuring up a small hurricane. So after some research on how to add a type of fire damage effect to it (for the reason that it already has every other elemental type, acid, cold, lightning, and thunder, but not fire). I came across volcanic eruptions and how they work. From the research I gathered, volcanic eruptions can cause a kind of acid rain affect as well as ashfall (of course). So I figured since you are the one casting the spell, you could ideally cast the effects of volcanic eruption (in the cloud/storm aspects).
Now you might think to yourself that this is a little far fetched. Until you look at the incendiary cloud spell. Which is pretty much the same concept on a smaller scale. Not to mention you are a druid with the ability to make natural phenomena happen (Tsunami, Earthquake, Control Weather, etc.) so it kind of makes it feel like you're combining volcanic eruption effects (cloud/storm wise) with a hurricane. Which I personally think that makes storm a vengeance sound like an even cooler and more powerful spell.
Next the Lightning and Hailstones revision: I actually got the ideas for these revisions from two spells that are actually in the druid spell list. Call Lighting (3rd level spell), and Ice Storm (4th level spell). After looking at call lightning, I simply thought to myself that "if a creature could take damage from being next to the lightning strike, shouldn't that same rule apply to the lightning of storm of vengeance especially since it's a ninth level spell?" so I added it with some small changes (which may need some fixing, so let me know). And "if ice storm could cause both bludgeoning and cold damage it only makes sense that the hailstones of storm of vengeance should be able to do the same." so I added it with some changes. I get that some people might think that adding difficult terrain from the hailstones might be a bit weird, but ideally the hailstorms would fall to the ground and stay there I would think which is one reason why I added it. I also added it for the purpose that you can move the cloud 100 feet in any direction as an action (which I will talk about below soon).
I did try to tone down the damage of these effects for the reason that people are always saying that storm of vengeance is supposed to be an "army killing" spell not a "deal a lot of high damage" spell. Though I admit this was a little difficult to do with the lightning effects.
And now the Duration and Moving the Cloud: I've heard a lot of people talk about how the duration should be longer, especially for a 9th level spell and I agree. I thought for a while of either making it 10 minutes or one hour long. But after realizing how much damage just 10 minutes could do, this would be an absolutely overkill spell even against bosses, (it would just take longer to kill them as well), and I think with all the other effects I added to the spell, 3 minutes seemed reasonable (but tell me what you think). I got the idea of being able to move the cloud from the Reddit user (Linxbolt18) who previously talked about the other users storm of vengeance revision. In fact they were the inspiration behind me putting forth an effort to revision this spell once and for all, as I had been floating around some ideas but never put anything out there about it. So credit goes to them for this revision as well.
Please tell me your guys's thoughts on this revision.
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I don't think counting every square is really a good assessment of the spell, as nothing close to that ever happens.
It does 6d6 damage over a massive area of effect. That's an average of 21 damage per target, IF the target stays in the AOE the entire time. It has some other okay battle field control properties.
In addition: It does 10d6 damage to 6 targets. That's an average of 35 damage. Assuming they're affected by all the other effects, those six receive an average of 56 damage.
Level 9 spells are like God mode, and in my opinion this spell falls well short. I would only choose this if it's really thematic for some big epic battle, we've raised up a small army vs another army. The damage it does is weak for the level, but it's also not trivial. I would really be choosing it because on a massive force on force battle it creates a really cool scene.
If Level 9 spells are God Mode then this really fits the bill.
I think you are forgetting that round 5 to 10 each do 1d6 damage so the total is 9d6 if they make the save in round 1 and 11d6 if they do not so either 31 or 38 on average
Counting every square might be a poor way top calculate absolute damage but it is good for comparing large AoE spells like SoV and meteor storm when used in crowded areas. Alsobear in mind that for the vast majority of people whether they take 31 or 1031 damage there is no difference thay are dead.
The colosium in Rome was 615ft by 510ft so could easily fit in the 360ft radius of this spell. It held on average 65,000 people. Imagine a city in a D&D with a similar colusium and a druid seeking revenge on the city because it destroyed acres of natural habitat in its construction. The druid casts the spell on the colusium nearly everyone inside would be a commoner (4HP) or maybe a little hardier such as guards (11HP). Peiople who survive the first round might want ot get out but very few would succeed (have you tried getting out of a big sports stadium right after the game in less than a minute?) Such a spell would kill over 60,000 people with a single casting. If that is not God mode what is? For comparison meteor storm worm be ble to cover about 2% of the area of the colosium if it is targetted over the crowds rather than the arena you might be able to get the death toll up to 1500 - 2000.
For another example, consider an invading army at camp, a 6 man tent would be about 12ft by 8ft allowing for space around the tents say it takes up 25ft by 12.5ft. A high level druid from a hill several miles away can cast SoV on about 8,000 troops, the knights (52HP) might survive but be seriously hurt, but the soldiers (17HP would not), that would be a sizeable chuck of most armies and the nation being invaded would be saved, another Godly act.
As others have said for a PC druid it is a niche spell but when used it definately displays God like powers.
You're right that I missed that the final round was multiple rounds combined. Still, the full effect requires a creature to remain in the AOE the entire time. It seems good for the right situation, I'm just looking at it from the perspective of being a level 17-20 wizard.
You can take on a big army of trash mobs ('trash" relative to your demi-god like party), or terrorize a town.
Admittedly I've never played anywhere near these levels, so this is not speaking from experience. It may be a lot better than I'm predicting.
I think everyone agrees it is a niche spell, and it is probably of more use for an NPC or an evil PC game but within that niche it is very powerful and deserving of 9th level
Tried to go through and do a critical analysis of the spell to see if there was any way to really exploit it for an average campaign, and didn't have much luck.
"Vengeance" is not really the bailiwick of "Good" characters. This spell is perfect for the stereotypical conflict between Druids and civilization, but for anyone else, it's just cinematic.
However, if the Druid were to multi-class as a Sorcerer, they could double the duration to 2 minutes with Extend metamagic. It is unclear what would happen though, as the spell is very explicit about the round by round behavior of the spell, rather than having an effect last "for the duration". It may simply fail, but I would lean toward extending the final stage by another 10 round, which would be interesting, but no less cinematic, as that is plenty of time for survivors to flee.
With Wizard (School of Necromancy), you could use this spell to regenerate 18 hitpoints per round.
With Warlock (The Fiend), you would get temporary hitpoints.
Storm of vengance has a range of sight, so a high lvl druid can shape shift into a bird and cast this spell from 20 miles away on a clear day. A single druid will destroy the whole royal armada if he wishes to do so.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]Keep in mind as well that there's a subtle spell difference between "support" classes like Cleric, Druid, Bard versus "blaster" classes like Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock.
Support classes tend to do less damage with their spells, but each of those spells that they do have? Tend to have some kind of utility built into them that makes them still useful. Take, for example, Produce Flame and Firebolt. They're both "shoot tiny flames at enemy" spells, but the former deals d8 damage, the latter d10. But! Produce Flame can double as a torch in a pinch while keeping yourself ready to fight, whereas Firebolt is just flinging fire. This is pretty consistent going down the list of spells. Less damage, but secondary effects that make them worthwhile.
With Storm of Vengeance versus Meteor Swarm, we see the same thing. Less damage, but there's secondary effects to the spell that do make it worthwhile as another army-killer spell.
The OP is joking right?
This is an area of effect spell not a spell targeted at a single creature.
The range is listed as Sight. Which can be a long way. It is a very fast spell, considering. A single Druid could decimate an army from a mile away. Hundreds of creatures.
The first round if there are 100 creatures in the area of effect you have the potential of doing doing 1200 points worth of total damage. Plus you could deafen them.
Round 2 No saving throw with a potential of 600 more points of damage.
Round 3 you can do up to 60 points of damage to the big guys.
Round 4 another potential 1200 points
Round 5 to 10 will pretty much incapacitate the army
If your a ways away and up high they would probably never figure out where you were located.
The problem is that this spell is extremely niche. I can't think of any published campaign that pits a party against an entire army, and when one is present, it's usually background drama.
Hypothetically, the spell can be devastating, but 99% of the time, it'll be used by a villainous NPC, rather than a party of adventurers. At levels 17-20, the party is probably more worried about a BBEG and should be saving their 9th level spells for Foresight (8hrs of Advantage on everything), or Shapechange (turn into an Adult Red Dragon).
One hour of draconic breath weapons translates to ~12,600 points of fire damage across two hundred 60ft radius cones. That's vastly more damage than what Storm of Vengeance can achieve on a good day, and the dragon form is mobile, so you can cover a much larger area.
My DM's campaigns involve a lot of armies, but they are full of creatures with enough hit points to survive a storm of vengeance. I've found that killing the BBEG ends my DM's campaigns without having to finish the army off, so that's kind of what I made the thread for, although I'm interested in people's opinion on the spell in general.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Mind you, 100 archers with +5 to hit doing 1d8+3 damage per hit, will do 35% x 7.5 x 100 = 262 damage per round. Enough to kill a Red Dragon in one round.
You’re right that it’s a niche spell, but it’s possible to memorize more than one 9th level spell, and besides - if you’re fighting armies worth of enemies it’s not likely that they pop up from around a corner, you will likely have time to pre-prep for those situations.
I would suggerst your DM is putting you up against elete members of the army. The majority of an army would be made up of "scouts" and "soldiers" with 11h HP each, THere would be number of knights and veterans who could survive SoV if they were unhurt when it was cast but they would be very much in the minority. We tend to think of level 1and 2 adventurers as puny but even level 1 adventurers are a tough breed (and may have a soldier background) and patrol of soldiers or scouts would be a verty tough match or a party of an equal number of level 2 adventurers.
Putting put a party of Level 17-20 against even 200 CR 1/2 scouts and soldiers is likely to be deadly for the party if played in full unless one ofthe party has this spell (the 200 would be pretty spread out so meteor storm would only kill a proportion of them), but trivial if the party has a druid with SoV prepared. Having said that no DM would run a combat with 200 soldiers in the initiative order along with the 5 members of the party, instead he would put them up against a few champions and knights and probably a high level caster such as an archmage.
I could easily see a campaign against a group of druid terrorists wanting to destroy civilisation to allow the world to return to nature with the leader getting this spell towards the end of the campaign and the party having to stop him wiping out the cities.
For a party of 17th+ level adventurers, that's easy enough to mitigate. With an 80ft fly speed and 60ft blindsight, the dragon could carry an object affected by Darkness to give all of those attacks disadvantage (Drops the damage down to 92 per 100 archers).
Alt: Eversmoking Bottle
Perhaps even better would be an Ancient White Dragon, which has a 90ft cone, and substantially more hitpoints.
But wait, there's more! An Androsphinx has a 500ft radius Roar ability that scales over 3 rounds: Frighten, Deafen/Paralyze, Kill. It's also Immune to non-magical attacks. Now that is brutal.
Well, that might be part of the problem - in general, if you have an entire army of high tier 2, tier 3 creatures... then that's not something the game takes into account.
As I said in my post, Storm of Vengence actually comes with more to it than just raw damage. Specifically, it creates a massive obfuscation for the last five rounds, and causes some rather nasty Concentration checks, effectively dispelling most of the Concentration-based buffs going on. Once the storm ends, it effectively dispels all cover, leaving the target army exposed to retaliation from your allies.
Storm of Vengence isn't just about damage. Its about setting up support for your allied army. Druids are support, not blasters, and the spells reflect this mindset.
This over-simplified example is why I don’t like getting into the weeds of this debate when trying to justify comparing True Poly with a spell like Storm of Vengeance.
How about 1000 archers? Reminder that a 1 is a fail, so your concentration will eventually fail regardless of the amount of damage done.
What about 200 Goblin Booyahgs spamming fire bolts or magic missile? Again, I give it 20 concentration rolls before you revert.
This isn’t a white room spell that you just come up with a “hey it’s cheaper to do this!”. It’s a niche spell for a specific purpose and it does it very well. You don’t have to like every single 9th level spell. And frankly, the amount I hear on these forums about “X beats Y because it’s got more DPS” the more I get the impression people want to play video games and not DnD.
RAW That is not true, auto fail on a 1 only applies to attack rolls and death saves. With +10 to con saves you can not fail a concentration check unless you take more than 21 damage. Though I admit many house rule otherwise I am not sure how many realise it is a house rule.
It's been said time and time again that usually normal adventuring can't keep up with tier 4 play. This spell is a perfect example of a tool the players get that make their characters feel awesome.
Fight off an ancient dragon and you are a badass adventurer.
Fight off an entire armada across the Vilhon Reach and cast the spell alongside the Elder Circle of Emerald Enclave to protect the land and you are a freaking legend.
Unless you consider Storm of Vengeance's environmental impact. It doesn't work too well for protecting the land. And shapechanging into a dragon works also works for that.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
I mean the Druid could just use this on the town or city, not on a wooded area. A druid might see the town constantly killing more animals and increasing their deforestation to build their homes and furniture. So that druid might protect the land by destroying the town with this spell. Don't forget that Druids do have other spells that can replenish and heal the land afterwards.
And the environmental impact isn't that bad. Sometimes you need to destroy a bit of the forest to help it regrow stronger - this fact of nature was even the inspiration behind the Circle of Wildfire Druid Subclass. It happens in real life. In fact some natural disasters in real life have been vastly stronger in damage than any spell in D&D 5th E. Yet the land regrew, more vibrant. This is also why people still go back to areas with active volcanoes - after the eruption, the land regrows more fertile and nourished making it much easier to farm.
As for Shapechange: sure you can go be a dragon or whatever. But you also make yourself a target.
With Storm of Vengeance you're miles away. Nobody would know it was you. Especially true if an Archdruid who could literally cast this while being an innocent little bird miles away in the sky. There's nothing to say you need to keep looking at the storm, so if you're a Moon Druid you could cast this as an Earth Elemental then just go underground and stay there, completely undetectable.
You get to destroy a town, with absolutely zero consequences.
Yeah, it's worth the 9th-level slot.
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How about this version of storm of vengeance. There are some small differences (reading wise) here and there so be sure to read carefully.
Compare it to the actual Storm of Vengeance.
9th-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Sight
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 3 minute
A churning storm cloud forms, centered on a point you can see and spreading to a radius of 360 feet. Lightning flashes in the area, thunder booms, and strong winds roar. Each creature under the cloud (no more than 5,000 feet beneath the cloud) when it appears must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d6 thunder damage and becomes deafened for 5 minutes.
Each round you maintain concentration on this spell, the storm produces different effects on your turn.
You can move the cloud 100 feet in one direction as an action.
Storm of Vengeance After Round 1
Round #
Effect
2
Acidic rain and ashfall rains down from the cloud. Each creature and object under the cloud takes 1d6 acid damage and 2d4 fire damage.
3
You call six bolts of lightning from the cloud to strike six creatures or objects of your choice beneath the cloud. A given creature or object can’t be struck by more than one bolt. A struck creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. The creature takes 10d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Creatures within 5 feet of a struck creature or object must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 4d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
4
Hailstones rain down from the cloud. A creature takes 2d6 bludgeoning damage and 4d4 cold damage.
Hailstones turn the storm’s area of effect into difficult terrain.
5-26
Gusts and freezing rain assail the area under the cloud. The area becomes difficult terrain and is heavily obscured. Each creature there takes 1d6 cold damage. Ranged weapon attacks in the area are impossible. The wind and rain count as a severe distraction for the purposes of maintaining concentration on spells. Finally, gusts of strong wind (ranging from 20 to 50 miles per hour) automatically disperse fog, mists, and similar phenomena in the area whether mundane or magical.
First I would like to explain the ashfall effect of second round: From what I understand, storm of vengeance is supposed to be as if you were conjuring up a small hurricane. So after some research on how to add a type of fire damage effect to it (for the reason that it already has every other elemental type, acid, cold, lightning, and thunder, but not fire). I came across volcanic eruptions and how they work. From the research I gathered, volcanic eruptions can cause a kind of acid rain affect as well as ashfall (of course). So I figured since you are the one casting the spell, you could ideally cast the effects of volcanic eruption (in the cloud/storm aspects).
Now you might think to yourself that this is a little far fetched. Until you look at the incendiary cloud spell. Which is pretty much the same concept on a smaller scale. Not to mention you are a druid with the ability to make natural phenomena happen (Tsunami, Earthquake, Control Weather, etc.) so it kind of makes it feel like you're combining volcanic eruption effects (cloud/storm wise) with a hurricane. Which I personally think that makes storm a vengeance sound like an even cooler and more powerful spell.
Next the Lightning and Hailstones revision: I actually got the ideas for these revisions from two spells that are actually in the druid spell list. Call Lighting (3rd level spell), and Ice Storm (4th level spell). After looking at call lightning, I simply thought to myself that "if a creature could take damage from being next to the lightning strike, shouldn't that same rule apply to the lightning of storm of vengeance especially since it's a ninth level spell?" so I added it with some small changes (which may need some fixing, so let me know). And "if ice storm could cause both bludgeoning and cold damage it only makes sense that the hailstones of storm of vengeance should be able to do the same." so I added it with some changes. I get that some people might think that adding difficult terrain from the hailstones might be a bit weird, but ideally the hailstorms would fall to the ground and stay there I would think which is one reason why I added it. I also added it for the purpose that you can move the cloud 100 feet in any direction as an action (which I will talk about below soon).
I did try to tone down the damage of these effects for the reason that people are always saying that storm of vengeance is supposed to be an "army killing" spell not a "deal a lot of high damage" spell. Though I admit this was a little difficult to do with the lightning effects.
And now the Duration and Moving the Cloud: I've heard a lot of people talk about how the duration should be longer, especially for a 9th level spell and I agree. I thought for a while of either making it 10 minutes or one hour long. But after realizing how much damage just 10 minutes could do, this would be an absolutely overkill spell even against bosses, (it would just take longer to kill them as well), and I think with all the other effects I added to the spell, 3 minutes seemed reasonable (but tell me what you think). I got the idea of being able to move the cloud from the Reddit user (Linxbolt18) who previously talked about the other users storm of vengeance revision. In fact they were the inspiration behind me putting forth an effort to revision this spell once and for all, as I had been floating around some ideas but never put anything out there about it. So credit goes to them for this revision as well.
Please tell me your guys's thoughts on this revision.