I've been hard at work developing a number of classes and sublclasses for 5e drawn from inspiration from 3rd party sources and player options going all the way back to OD&D. I've been working to complete a class I call the "Specialist" (based on the name for skilled laborers from OD&D who could be used as followers or hirelings), one such sublcass is the Jeweler who focuses on buying, selling, and crafting magical gems and jewelry. That aside, in combat they are third casters with a penchant for using "gem" magic, an old form of thaumaturgy from 2e. (I've done a lot of research)
I've been focusing on creating a new series of fun spells to work with this subclass, and I need a bit of help fleshing one of them out.
Info dump over: The spell I'm attempting to craft will be called "Bernd's Broken Table". It will function as a powered down version of earthquake but only works on a square of currently indetermined size (but one that can be increased by upscaling the spell) centered on the caster. Thematically, the spell transforms the surrounding ground (but only solid ground) into a slab of marble before breaking it, causing the cleaved pieces to rise and fall at irregular intervals making a "broken ground" scenario. The spell shouldn't dolarge amounts of damage or create large fissures, it could be dangerous to structures but it's focus is to unbalance foes by causing the relative elevation of the surrounding ground to shift, creating difficult terrain. The effects of the spell wear off returnin the ground to normal after a time.
Question 1: What level of spell would this logically fit to start with? How large woudl the square be?
Question 2: What would the the ramifications of creating this spell, how could it be used to break the game if at all?
I've been hard at work developing a number of classes and sublclasses for 5e drawn from inspiration from 3rd party sources and player options going all the way back to OD&D. I've been working to complete a class I call the "Specialist" (based on the name for skilled laborers from OD&D who could be used as followers or hirelings), one such sublcass is the Jeweler who focuses on buying, selling, and crafting magical gems and jewelry. That aside, in combat they are third casters with a penchant for using "gem" magic, an old form of thaumaturgy from 2e. (I've done a lot of research)
I've been focusing on creating a new series of fun spells to work with this subclass, and I need a bit of help fleshing one of them out.
Info dump over: The spell I'm attempting to craft will be called "Bernd's Broken Table". It will function as a powered down version of earthquake but only works on a square of currently indetermined size (but one that can be increased by upscaling the spell) centered on the caster. Thematically, the spell transforms the surrounding ground (but only solid ground) into a slab of marble before breaking it, causing the cleaved pieces to rise and fall at irregular intervals making a "broken ground" scenario. The spell shouldn't dolarge amounts of damage or create large fissures, it could be dangerous to structures but it's focus is to unbalance foes by causing the relative elevation of the surrounding ground to shift, creating difficult terrain. The effects of the spell wear off returnin the ground to normal after a time.
Question 1: What level of spell would this logically fit to start with? How large woudl the square be?
Question 2: What would the the ramifications of creating this spell, how could it be used to break the game if at all?
How is what you describe different from the "Erupting Earth" spell that already exists?