In my current campaign I'm playing a kobold EK and I was thinking of taking the mold earth cantrip and I just wanna ask some questions and see what uses other people have come up with. So far what I've come up with is to use mold earth either to make quick cover in the form of digging a hole with it then maybe jumping in or just hiding behind the mound for whatever amount of cover, another thought I had was can you use mold earth to forcibly shift enemies 5ft in a direction you want? This one I want to hear your thoughts on how to rule that and if you'd allow it. Also would you allow someone using mold earth to suction an item laying on the ground 5ft down by forcing the bottom and top of the 5ft cube to switch places or something like that?
I'd appreciate any cool ideas or thoughts on how best to use mold earth since I think its a super cool cantrip.
Edit: I actually just saw that shape water is also an option for a cantrip, are there any cool interactions with mold earth at all or maybe cool things about shape water alone?
This may be up to DM discretion but I think it should be possible if an enemy is on the edge of a cliff or steep hill to mold the earth out from under them at an angle so they fall down the hill, or at least need to make a dex save.
Also note that the size of mold earth and shape water is what can fit in a 5' cube, not just limited to the shape of a 5' cube, so you could freeze a 50' long 2.5' wide and 1' thick ice bridge across a body of water. Or a long, shallow trench for water or something to flow through.
I concur with Amunsol, though I’d throw them a dex save or acrobatics to prevent falling. Largely it’s going to be dm specific but I’d allow it. Same with them suction an item bit, though I see less reason to deny that so long as it’s reasonably sized. I’d imagine it would look like when someone blows are thru sand.
All those uses seem reasonable to me as well. Fair warning though, as a spell that requires creativity to use, some DMs will disallow certain functions because they do not like them and/or it may mess up a carefully planned encounter. Be sure your DM is ok with creativity and outside the box thinking before you lock it down as your cantrip of choice.
anyway, all of your ideas seem fun and balanced (especially the cover idea, that is really awesome!) good luck and have fun!
also consider using mold earth to dig trenches around the party’s camp before a long rest to discourage ambushes. This may not prevent attacks, but it certainly will slow monsters down.
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Anything is edible if you try hard enough!
I am a swimmer. If you see me running, you should run too, because it means something horrible is chasing me.
also consider using mold earth to dig trenches around the party’s camp before a long rest to discourage ambushes. This may not prevent attacks, but it certainly will slow monsters down.
Now I’m imagining kobolds with mold earth beings masters of trench warfare with the spiked WWI helmets and trench coats running around and surprise attacking people by using mold earth to burrow their way under no-mans land.
As a DM i have following rule for creative use of spells:
its use must be within the limits of the spell
it mustn‘t be stronger then an existing spell of the same or higher lvl
it must make sense from a rp point
i keep the right to add a saving throw or skill check
For the mentioned ideas above, i would let you burry an item on the ground, i would let you dig tranches and i would let you push medium creatures 5 ft. But, the edge of a cliff is most likely rock, not loose earth, so that would be a no from me. The bank of a river on the other hand…
Ouch, brush up on the rules for suffocation for that, nasty, especially for someone in heavy armor. I could also see someone with mold earth doing something like this with thick mud, say in like a swamp. More than one set of footwear has been lost to the muck, as well as Artax (see Neverending Story, prep for tears).
For control water, one thing my wizard did in our campaign when the rogue was distracted and we needed to get thru a locked door NOW was to shape the water into the space between the door and the wall near the latch and then freeze it to bust it and pop the door open. We called it poor mans rogue (as opposed to angry mans rogue, the barbarian with an axe or maul). In that same vein, I used the same trick inside a lock itself to break it and prevent it from being opened until the ice melted.
For control water, one thing my wizard did in our campaign when the rogue was distracted and we needed to get thru a locked door NOW was to shape the water into the space between the door and the wall near the latch and then freeze it to bust it and pop the door open. We called it poor mans rogue (as opposed to angry mans rogue, the barbarian with an axe or maul). In that same vein, I used the same trick inside a lock itself to break it and prevent it from being opened until the ice melted.
This sort of thing is a powerful use of control water since when water freezes it expands. It's 100% legit physics but I could see how certain creative uses could become OP for a cantrip, being able to break a DC20 lock. Also a 5' cube of water weighs like 1,500 pounds so a frozen block in a hallway or in front of a door is a pretty big obstacle.
Quote from _Amunsol_ This sort of thing is a powerful use of control water since when water freezes it expands. It's 100% legit physics but I could see how certain creative uses could become OP for a cantrip, being able to break a DC20 lock. Also a 5' cube of water weighs like 1,500 pounds so a frozen block in a hallway or in front of a door is a pretty big obstacle>>>>
For control water, one thing my wizard did in our campaign when the rogue was distracted and we needed to get thru a locked door NOW was to shape the water into the space between the door and the wall near the latch and then freeze it to bust it and pop the door open. We called it poor mans rogue (as opposed to angry mans rogue, the barbarian with an axe or maul). In that same vein, I used the same trick inside a lock itself to break it and prevent it from being opened until the ice melted. This sort of thing is a powerful use of control water since when water freezes it expands. It's 100% legit physics but I could see how certain creative uses could become OP for a cantrip, being able to break a DC20 lock. Also a 5' cube of water weighs like 1,500 pounds so a frozen block in a hallway or in front of a door is a pretty big obstacle.
This is true but you don’t always have a 5ft cube water handy, this we did with a couple waterskins worth of water and required an int check to do properly. Yay physics!!!
You could also use this to freeze over the edge of a door or shape an ice wedge under the door to prevent opening as well, freeze a winch to prevent lowering or raising, freeze an ice floe as a flotation device, make a boat out of ice, especially if you have a frame already, heck make that sawdust and ice mixture for a boat, make an icy battering ram your guys could pick up (don’t know how viable that one would be), make improvised weapon, catch someone in the privy and make the “contents” shoot up at them, plug a hole in a boat, bail out boat, expand a hole in a wall, dunk some head in a bucket then freeze it in order to “send a message”, make ice cubes for your celebratory drinks, filter water out of other stuff due to different freezing points (freeze the water, chisel out stuff that didn’t freeze or that froze sooner than the water did, unfreeze).
For mold earth, trenches, dig a cellar or well, barricades, pit traps, quick excavation of non solid rock soil and composites, don’t know if you can move gravel with it directly or not, till a field in record time, irrigate a field, redirect a river, collapse trees, sift for buried goods, possibility of burying someone especially with aforementioned pit trap or two casters working in tandem, pack loose earth for a road or construction of buildings.
This may be up to DM discretion but I think it should be possible if an enemy is on the edge of a cliff or steep hill to mold the earth out from under them at an angle so they fall down the hill, or at least need to make a dex save.
Also note that the size of mold earth and shape water is what can fit in a 5' cube, not just limited to the shape of a 5' cube, so you could freeze a 50' long 2.5' wide and 1' thick ice bridge across a body of water. Or a long, shallow trench for water or something to flow through.
The spell says "If you target an area of loose earth", I'm not sure that the ground at the top of a cliff would count as loose earth.
also consider using mold earth to dig trenches around the party’s camp before a long rest to discourage ambushes. This may not prevent attacks, but it certainly will slow monsters down.
Now I’m imagining kobolds with mold earth beings masters of trench warfare with the spiked WWI helmets and trench coats running around and surprise attacking people by using mold earth to burrow their way under no-mans land.
Sounds awesome! New faction for a homebrew world that I may eventually create if I can get motivated.
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Anything is edible if you try hard enough!
I am a swimmer. If you see me running, you should run too, because it means something horrible is chasing me.
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.
If it doesn't have enough force to cause damage, it doesn't have enough force to push a creature out of the way either. Using it to shunt creatures around would clearly be an abuse of the spell's intention and cannot work RAW. You can tell this because if there was a creature with their back to the wall, pushing with enough force to move them would crush them against the wall, causing damage. What will happen is that that dirt/stone either stops when it contacts a creature that doesn't want to move, or might split apart and fall loosely around their feet
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.
If it doesn't have enough force to cause damage, it doesn't have enough force to push a creature out of the way either. Using it to shunt creatures around would clearly be an abuse of the spell's intention and cannot work RAW. You can tell this because if there was a creature with their back to the wall, pushing with enough force to move them would crush them against the wall, causing damage. What will happen is that that dirt/stone either stops when it contacts a creature that doesn't want to move, or might split apart and fall loosely around their feet
Moving the dirt they’re standing on however should be viable since it’s not causing damage directly to them, as well as moving the dirt back on top of them (think 2 casters working in tandem on the same initiative via hold/delayed action). Could you pack it onto them in the same action you move it on top of them with?
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.
If it doesn't have enough force to cause damage, it doesn't have enough force to push a creature out of the way either. Using it to shunt creatures around would clearly be an abuse of the spell's intention and cannot work RAW. You can tell this because if there was a creature with their back to the wall, pushing with enough force to move them would crush them against the wall, causing damage. What will happen is that that dirt/stone either stops when it contacts a creature that doesn't want to move, or might split apart and fall loosely around their feet
Moving the dirt they’re standing on however should be viable since it’s not causing damage directly to them, as well as moving the dirt back on top of them (think 2 casters working in tandem on the same initiative via hold/delayed action). Could you pack it onto them in the same action you move it on top of them with?
If it's solid enough to stand on, I wouldn't class it as being 'loose earth.' It would have to be 'packed earth.' You cannot use it to dig a pit beneath a creature standing on it, as if the earth was loose enough to be affected this way then it wouldn't hold them. It clearly does not simply mean 'mud' because if it did, you could bring buildings down by undermining them, and that's evidently not the intention.
I would say that it would probably work with sand, though, and could be a rather nasty way to do someone in on a beach or or in the desert. I might also allow it on the rare occasion that a monster was standing within 5 feet of a crumbling river bank.
It takes 1 casting of the spell to move the dirt up to 5 feet. You cannot move the dirt backwards and forwards - you can just move it in one direction up to 5 feet (the spell does not let you whirl in in ten thousand slightly enlarging circles before you deposit it, for instance). Using 2 casters in conjunction, you could indeed move something, then have a held action ready under "I hold Mold Earth. If dirt from there is moved to here, I'll move it back again."
I would also suggest that, in any case, since the earth is moved without sufficient force to cause damage and must therefore happen quite slowly, any creature standing on earth that began moving would automatically be allowed a free move to any unoccupied space within 5 feet. It seems daft if you get a Dex save against a lightning bolt but somehow the ground all starts slowly moving out from under you and you're forced to stand still.
Also note that the size of mold earth and shape water is what can fit in a 5' cube, not just limited to the shape of a 5' cube, so you could freeze a 50' long 2.5' wide and 1' thick ice bridge across a body of water.
As long as we're raining on parades, this is a very liberal take on shape water that will not fly at all tables. You could rule that once the water no longer fits in that 5-foot cube, the spell no longer has an effect on it. It's pretty clear that the design intent is to keep the scope of these spells within one square on a grid.
I would think the level of effort to undermine a building could be theoretically possible with this spell. If you could potentially do it with pick and shovel you could do it with mold earth, it just makes it faster (fear the sappers!!!). Would give you motivation to build structures on bedrock, not shifting sand :D or other less solid materials.
Heck get 3 lines of casters with readied action vs charge. First line waits till the enemy is just at the edge of the effect, create 5 ft deep trench with 5ft dirt barricade at the top (give an appropriate check to jump or stop but watch step 3), 2nd line pushes the dirt barricade on top of the pit and buries them, 3rd line repeats the first step 10ft ahead to catch anyone who jumped the 1st barricade. Ranged support from behind, shield wall with spears in front.
Beware the dwarves lines, there are no casualties, just burials.
Note from Mold Earth:
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 involve enough force to cause damage.
Y'all trying to turn a cantrip into a 6th level spell are hilarious
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Active characters:
Askatu, hyperfocused vedalken freedom fighter in Wildspace (Zealot barb/Swashbuckler rogue/Battle Master fighter) Green Hill Sunrise, jaded tabaxi mercenary trapped in the Dark Domains (Battle Master fighter) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I would think the level of effort to undermine a building could be theoretically possible with this spell.
If the building is on loose earth - the only kind targetable with the spell if you're excavating - it's already been undermined and you can knock it down by waiting for it to rain.
I would think the level of effort to undermine a building could be theoretically possible with this spell.
If the building is on loose earth - the only kind targetable with the spell if you're excavating - it's already been undermined and you can knock it down by waiting for it to rain.
That's fair. Would still be a creative way to get up to the foundation, then some picks or higher level spells could ruin there day assuming the environment allowed it.
Since we're really biting down into the wording, there is a specific reason why you can't actually excavate a 5 x 5 cube from the ground:
You choose a portion of dirt or stone that you can see
You cannot see the dirt beneath the ground. You can only move the dirt that is visible to you at the time the spell was cast, and there is no possible way to interpret that that includes dirt which is 4-5 foot below the ground, well out of your sight. So actually, RAW you can only move the dirt lying on top of the ground.
Technically if you could see an ant farm type setup, you could move more dirt than just the topsoil.
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In my current campaign I'm playing a kobold EK and I was thinking of taking the mold earth cantrip and I just wanna ask some questions and see what uses other people have come up with. So far what I've come up with is to use mold earth either to make quick cover in the form of digging a hole with it then maybe jumping in or just hiding behind the mound for whatever amount of cover, another thought I had was can you use mold earth to forcibly shift enemies 5ft in a direction you want? This one I want to hear your thoughts on how to rule that and if you'd allow it. Also would you allow someone using mold earth to suction an item laying on the ground 5ft down by forcing the bottom and top of the 5ft cube to switch places or something like that?
I'd appreciate any cool ideas or thoughts on how best to use mold earth since I think its a super cool cantrip.
Edit: I actually just saw that shape water is also an option for a cantrip, are there any cool interactions with mold earth at all or maybe cool things about shape water alone?
This may be up to DM discretion but I think it should be possible if an enemy is on the edge of a cliff or steep hill to mold the earth out from under them at an angle so they fall down the hill, or at least need to make a dex save.
Also note that the size of mold earth and shape water is what can fit in a 5' cube, not just limited to the shape of a 5' cube, so you could freeze a 50' long 2.5' wide and 1' thick ice bridge across a body of water. Or a long, shallow trench for water or something to flow through.
I concur with Amunsol, though I’d throw them a dex save or acrobatics to prevent falling. Largely it’s going to be dm specific but I’d allow it. Same with them suction an item bit, though I see less reason to deny that so long as it’s reasonably sized. I’d imagine it would look like when someone blows are thru sand.
All those uses seem reasonable to me as well. Fair warning though, as a spell that requires creativity to use, some DMs will disallow certain functions because they do not like them and/or it may mess up a carefully planned encounter. Be sure your DM is ok with creativity and outside the box thinking before you lock it down as your cantrip of choice.
anyway, all of your ideas seem fun and balanced (especially the cover idea, that is really awesome!) good luck and have fun!
also consider using mold earth to dig trenches around the party’s camp before a long rest to discourage ambushes. This may not prevent attacks, but it certainly will slow monsters down.
Anything is edible if you try hard enough!
I am a swimmer. If you see me running, you should run too, because it means something horrible is chasing me.
Now I’m imagining kobolds with mold earth beings masters of trench warfare with the spiked WWI helmets and trench coats running around and surprise attacking people by using mold earth to burrow their way under no-mans land.
As a DM i have following rule for creative use of spells:
For the mentioned ideas above, i would let you burry an item on the ground, i would let you dig tranches and i would let you push medium creatures 5 ft. But, the edge of a cliff is most likely rock, not loose earth, so that would be a no from me. The bank of a river on the other hand…
Ouch, brush up on the rules for suffocation for that, nasty, especially for someone in heavy armor. I could also see someone with mold earth doing something like this with thick mud, say in like a swamp. More than one set of footwear has been lost to the muck, as well as Artax (see Neverending Story, prep for tears).
For control water, one thing my wizard did in our campaign when the rogue was distracted and we needed to get thru a locked door NOW was to shape the water into the space between the door and the wall near the latch and then freeze it to bust it and pop the door open. We called it poor mans rogue (as opposed to angry mans rogue, the barbarian with an axe or maul). In that same vein, I used the same trick inside a lock itself to break it and prevent it from being opened until the ice melted.
This sort of thing is a powerful use of control water since when water freezes it expands. It's 100% legit physics but I could see how certain creative uses could become OP for a cantrip, being able to break a DC20 lock. Also a 5' cube of water weighs like 1,500 pounds so a frozen block in a hallway or in front of a door is a pretty big obstacle.
This is true but you don’t always have a 5ft cube water handy, this we did with a couple waterskins worth of water and required an int check to do properly. Yay physics!!!
You could also use this to freeze over the edge of a door or shape an ice wedge under the door to prevent opening as well, freeze a winch to prevent lowering or raising, freeze an ice floe as a flotation device, make a boat out of ice, especially if you have a frame already, heck make that sawdust and ice mixture for a boat, make an icy battering ram your guys could pick up (don’t know how viable that one would be), make improvised weapon, catch someone in the privy and make the “contents” shoot up at them, plug a hole in a boat, bail out boat, expand a hole in a wall, dunk some head in a bucket then freeze it in order to “send a message”, make ice cubes for your celebratory drinks, filter water out of other stuff due to different freezing points (freeze the water, chisel out stuff that didn’t freeze or that froze sooner than the water did, unfreeze).
For mold earth, trenches, dig a cellar or well, barricades, pit traps, quick excavation of non solid rock soil and composites, don’t know if you can move gravel with it directly or not, till a field in record time, irrigate a field, redirect a river, collapse trees, sift for buried goods, possibility of burying someone especially with aforementioned pit trap or two casters working in tandem, pack loose earth for a road or construction of buildings.
The spell says "If you target an area of loose earth", I'm not sure that the ground at the top of a cliff would count as loose earth.
Sounds awesome! New faction for a homebrew world that I may eventually create if I can get motivated.
Anything is edible if you try hard enough!
I am a swimmer. If you see me running, you should run too, because it means something horrible is chasing me.
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.
If it doesn't have enough force to cause damage, it doesn't have enough force to push a creature out of the way either. Using it to shunt creatures around would clearly be an abuse of the spell's intention and cannot work RAW. You can tell this because if there was a creature with their back to the wall, pushing with enough force to move them would crush them against the wall, causing damage. What will happen is that that dirt/stone either stops when it contacts a creature that doesn't want to move, or might split apart and fall loosely around their feet
Moving the dirt they’re standing on however should be viable since it’s not causing damage directly to them, as well as moving the dirt back on top of them (think 2 casters working in tandem on the same initiative via hold/delayed action). Could you pack it onto them in the same action you move it on top of them with?
If it's solid enough to stand on, I wouldn't class it as being 'loose earth.' It would have to be 'packed earth.' You cannot use it to dig a pit beneath a creature standing on it, as if the earth was loose enough to be affected this way then it wouldn't hold them. It clearly does not simply mean 'mud' because if it did, you could bring buildings down by undermining them, and that's evidently not the intention.
I would say that it would probably work with sand, though, and could be a rather nasty way to do someone in on a beach or or in the desert. I might also allow it on the rare occasion that a monster was standing within 5 feet of a crumbling river bank.
It takes 1 casting of the spell to move the dirt up to 5 feet. You cannot move the dirt backwards and forwards - you can just move it in one direction up to 5 feet (the spell does not let you whirl in in ten thousand slightly enlarging circles before you deposit it, for instance). Using 2 casters in conjunction, you could indeed move something, then have a held action ready under "I hold Mold Earth. If dirt from there is moved to here, I'll move it back again."
I would also suggest that, in any case, since the earth is moved without sufficient force to cause damage and must therefore happen quite slowly, any creature standing on earth that began moving would automatically be allowed a free move to any unoccupied space within 5 feet. It seems daft if you get a Dex save against a lightning bolt but somehow the ground all starts slowly moving out from under you and you're forced to stand still.
As long as we're raining on parades, this is a very liberal take on shape water that will not fly at all tables. You could rule that once the water no longer fits in that 5-foot cube, the spell no longer has an effect on it. It's pretty clear that the design intent is to keep the scope of these spells within one square on a grid.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I would think the level of effort to undermine a building could be theoretically possible with this spell. If you could potentially do it with pick and shovel you could do it with mold earth, it just makes it faster (fear the sappers!!!). Would give you motivation to build structures on bedrock, not shifting sand :D or other less solid materials.
Heck get 3 lines of casters with readied action vs charge. First line waits till the enemy is just at the edge of the effect, create 5 ft deep trench with 5ft dirt barricade at the top (give an appropriate check to jump or stop but watch step 3), 2nd line pushes the dirt barricade on top of the pit and buries them, 3rd line repeats the first step 10ft ahead to catch anyone who jumped the 1st barricade. Ranged support from behind, shield wall with spears in front.
Beware the dwarves lines, there are no casualties, just burials.
Note from Mold Earth:
So I’d give a save but not a pass.
Y'all trying to turn a cantrip into a 6th level spell are hilarious
Active characters:
Askatu, hyperfocused vedalken freedom fighter in Wildspace (Zealot barb/Swashbuckler rogue/Battle Master fighter)
Green Hill Sunrise, jaded tabaxi mercenary trapped in the Dark Domains (Battle Master fighter)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If the building is on loose earth - the only kind targetable with the spell if you're excavating - it's already been undermined and you can knock it down by waiting for it to rain.
That's fair. Would still be a creative way to get up to the foundation, then some picks or higher level spells could ruin there day assuming the environment allowed it.
Since we're really biting down into the wording, there is a specific reason why you can't actually excavate a 5 x 5 cube from the ground:
You choose a portion of dirt or stone that you can see
You cannot see the dirt beneath the ground. You can only move the dirt that is visible to you at the time the spell was cast, and there is no possible way to interpret that that includes dirt which is 4-5 foot below the ground, well out of your sight. So actually, RAW you can only move the dirt lying on top of the ground.
Technically if you could see an ant farm type setup, you could move more dirt than just the topsoil.