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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
According to Jeremy Crawford, the term "loose dirt" for this spell means anything not solid stone when It comes to excavations and moving said block. You can cut such a block from stone but you cannot move it with this spell.
Very interesting, that certainly makes it much more useful. Thank you so much!
When stopped by thugs, the sorcerer asked about the consistency of the street they stood upon. Perceiving his motives, I only answered that the town had been resettled numerous times; the few streets that were of packed earth and layed with stone was one of the few features that survived from antiquity. He could have made difficult terrain, but he chose a different action, anyway.
Later, beneath a ruined mansion, he more specifically asked if he could use Mold Earth to create stairs to climb out of a crevasse. I thought this was clever, so I allowed that he could shape footholds on two sections of the 10' rock wall, and the party all helped one-another to effectively eliminate strength checks to climb out.
Portable half cover on demand (check with your DM first)
*Minor use*
You now have a portable bean bag sofa (your welcome).
food for thought: If I encase 5 cubic ft of dirt inside a sealed metal case will this spell move the metal case?
Practical application? Meh... Killuo's Minor Door-stopper?
can you mold like stone? cause i'm really hoping i could do a lot with this (this is for like combat strategies like making a hollow box around an annoying orge that kicking your but and filling it with water sealing the top and just letting it drown) also if there a spell or cantrip can do something like this please let me know!
The last two bullet points describe what you can do with stone, which doesn't include moving it or changing its shape. The Stone Shape or Wall of Stone spells are more along the lines of what you're thinking.
It mentions loose earth so no. the closest is maybe gravel
One thing to remember is that "Standard Soil Depth" is about 6 feet 7 inches until you hit bedrock.
Soil can go down deeper in some instances, but if you're sticking to that stipulation of "Loose Earth" you're likely not going to get a deeper hole than 5 feet.
Is it possible to make a barricade to protect from a dragon’s breath weapon?
It seems one can move a 5x5 stone cube along the ground. One could make a stone cube appear out of a castle wall, but not move it since it's connected to the wall thus not loose. One cant rip a 5ft cube out of a solid cave wall. One can summon the shape of a solid stone mini castle grayskull in their square and get full cover for one hour until it dissipates. A stone shield would be heavy but one could use it to skateboard with a movement speed of 5 ft.
Wow that is super cool
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/05/18/whats-loose-earth-for-the-mold-earth-cantrip/
You can never move stone in any way with this spell and the first bullet pint only applies to "loose earth". The only way you can move something is if it is "dirt not stone". The second bullet is purely surface level and visual. The third can be useful in almost any battle situation outside of wood or brick floors. I.e. Underdark you are almost always walking on carved bedrock (stone), or anytime in a forest, unpaved road, path, field, or dirt in general.
Also in the idea that a cantrip cannot do what a slotted spell can exclusively do look at Wall of Stone and Stone Shape. Somewhat powerful/useful in their own right but by no means as game-breaking when Mold Earth is used incorrectly since its use is essentially infinite.
so can i put people in the earth? Because thats whats my buddy is doing and i think it's too op
Loose soil is about 75 pounds per cubic foot. A Bag of Holding can hold up to 500 pounds. So the most soil it could hold is 6.67 cubic feet. You couldn't fit a sphere or cube of that volume through the bag's 2-foot-diameter opening; the sphere's diameter would be 2.33 feet, and the diagonals of the cube faces would be even wider. If you packed the soil into a 2-foot-diameter cylinder, it would be a little over 2.1 feet tall. Your DM may be skeptical that this qualifies as half cover for any playable race.
As for moving soil that's in a sealed metal case, the case would block (with total cover) any imaginary line to the loose soil, and if the soil is blocked from the spell's point of origin, then the soil is not in the spell's area of effect, so it doesn't move.
You might think this is disappointing. But it means you can move up to 9,375 pounds of loose soil with a cantrip that uses only somatic components! (If your DM allows you to move denser earths like clay, you can move even more weight.)
Not an effective one. You cover would need to be more solid than loose earth and you can't move stone with this spell. You'd want stone shape. You could create a hole that you can drop into for potential cover.
Not quite sure what you are saying there. Unless a castle wall is made out of loose dirt, you aren't doing anything to the wall, except graffiti. You could make the stone shield into difficult terrain, but you can't move it as it's not loose dirt.
Can I excavate stone if it is loose because it is technically loose earth
why cant monks the Way of the Four Elements do this?
Because the spell came out after the four elements monk.
use this on a monstermade out of dirt or stone