Level
3rd
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
120 ft.
Components
V, S, M *
Duration
Instantaneous
School
Conjuration
Attack/Save
DEX Save
Damage/Effect
Bludgeoning
You conjure up a wave of water that crashes down on an area within range. The area can be up to 30 feet long, up to 10 feet wide, and up to 10 feet tall. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 4d8 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn’t knocked prone. The water then spreads out across the ground in all directions, extinguishing unprotected flames in its area and within 30 feet of it, and then it vanishes.
* - (a drop of water)
The question of being knocked back by this spell came up at my table.
When you read it, the wording is strange. Despite calling it a wave and the area being in a line, it doesn't state that it originates from the caster or from one end of the line to the other - it just says "crashes down" which we in the end decided it means it just drops down from above.
I think it would be better if it did originate from the caster and actually push with some force. It would limit its usefulness significantly in one way by not being able to be placed as easily but the ability to push creatures for some distance could be really good in its own way.
Why do you need depth? If it's cuboid then you have all the needed dimensions no? Depth is the width. Unless I'm not understanding.
If something has 676 max HP and and is at 100 current HP and is killed by PWK... it effectively dealt 100 damage, not 100 plus their max hp.
Yeah I get what he's saying but he's applying insta-kill rules on player characters to monsters, and monsters don't get death saves by RAW so it's not applicable. Plus, sure going negative max hp from big damage kills a player instantly, but so does two stabs with a stick when they're at zero so it's not really equivalent in a meaningful way.
Anyone know why this spell, unlike most of the similar 3rd level AoE spells, can't be upcast for additional d8s per spell level?
I have a quick question that I did not find answer for. The material component requires a drop of water. What if the caster used drop of Holy water? Would the tidal wave deal additional damage to undeads and fiends as specified in holy water, or would it be just a normal water?
In my recent game, I ruled it as a normal water, as the holiness did not take an effect in the spell but, I just wanna be sure I did not forget about something. It was certainly good idea from a player and the enemies got obliterated anyway by the spell, but if the enemies were more tough, this could be a dealbreaker.
I'd say that RAW, you ruled it right and realistically, it's probably the right thing to do. Allowing this could lead to an endless series of What if's from players. That's not to say a Tidal wave of Holy Water wouldn't be incredibly cool against a large wave of low level undead. It's very much a homebrew rule, but I might allow it on my tables, but say that the holy water used must have a component cost of xxxGP, or possibly some other additional requirement, so that the PCs aren't getting a huge buff to a 3rd Level spell for free.
I have a question, if a mounted creature is targeted by the tidal wave, does the mount make a test to see if it doesn't get prone, and the rider must also make a test to see if it doesn't fall prone off the mount?
Both mount and rider would be subject to Saving Throw if they are in the AOE.. a failed save is equal to being knocked Prone.
if the mount fails the saving throw it is knocked prone and the rider succeeds the saving throw, then the DM would have to make a ruling as to whether the rider can make a free or reaction for a save or skill check to land on his feet as the mount falls… this would probably be an atheletics or acrobatic skill check, but I could see it being a saving throw as well…
bonus points to the DM that rules a failed saving throw results in the mount crushing the riders legs :-D
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That's based on an assumption that the wave is 10' thick. RAW doesn't actually say how thick the wave is. It just says it's 10' tall and 10' wide. If you assume the tidal wave takes the form of a 10'x10'x30' prism of water that extrudes from the origin of the spell, then dissipates after traveling 30', you get a swept volume of the elemental's frontal area * 30' = 300 cubic feet = 2250 points of damage. You could just as easily assume the wave is 5' thick and get 375 points of damage or maybe it's 1' thick and does 75 points. All we know is it's 10' wide, 10' high, and travels 30'.
Also, all of those hit point calculations are lower bounds because they're based on the dimensions of the average man, while a fire elemental is a large creature which means it should have roughly 4x the frontal surface area the average man.
EDIT: If you want to get super pedantic. The relevant area is the cross sectional area of the body which depends on how the creature is facing, but that can be estimated as about 1/2 the frontal area. If you imagine the creature as a sphere, we want to know how much water passed through the sphere, we want the cross sectional area (the circle = pi*r^2) swept over the thickness of the water. The frontal area would be the front half of the sphere = (4*pi*r^2)/2 = 2*pi*r^2 which is a factor of 2 greater than the cross sectional area: pi*r^2.
Why can't you upcast this spell? Is there some factor about it that would make it broken if you could that I'm missing?
sooooo does this work on flying characters? say a fairy warlock flying 120 ft above the ground and pulverizing enemies with agonizing blast, and this is used to just knock him out of the sky?
Used this spell one time and took out an entire encounter of skeletons. 10/10.
Actually, a lot of what has been written in the comments above are simply wrong, IMO. The designers of D&D 5E like Jeremy Crawford, have specifically stated that spells do exactly what they say. No more. No less. So a Fire Elemental hit by a Tidal Wave would take 4d8 of bludgeoning damage, and half that on a Dexterity save. No more. No less. The type of the creature, the size of the creature, whether it is flying or not, do not matter - all take the same damage and are all knocked prone if they fail their save.
Whether or not the flames of the Fire Elemental are extinguished has sort of been answered by Jeremey Crawford. In a tweet (https://www.sageadvice.eu/would-a-fire-elemental-that-failed-its-save-vs-tidal-wave-die/) he states that the Fire Elemental would be hurt by the water but not destroyed so that would mean that the fire would continue.
As to the question of why it can't be upcast, the answer is simple: the designers didn't want it to be because they thought it was powerful enough as is.
Why does the water vanish? Its Conjuration... Question from a farmer
If this is cast from a spell scroll, how do you calculate the save DC?
Spell scrolls have a fixed dc based on the level of spell stored within them. This is shown on the Spell scroll magic item table.
Except the spell does bludgeoning damage not cold damage WOOOPS
soggy toast