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.
In a campaign where me and my party members could only make a long rest in a trusted/thought to be safe space, I used this to make a stone house with a mote around it, and later on in the campaign did things like:
Make a stone arena for the other PCs having their own little battle-arc, create a fortress I called "my dirt empire," which was made entirely of dirt reinforced with stone I put in it to make it stronger, create a punji pit using just this spell and some wooden spikes made from trees around the area, which not only caught people but food as well, make a 30 foot tall pillar of stone and then drop it on a person, crushing them to death, making cover for everyone in my party of 4 in just two turns, with holes for arrows to be shot through, create a temporary wizard tower, and wall off the BBEG from instakilling the sorcerer in my party, who took a really bad beating already and who also coincidentally got the finishing blow, ending the campaign for the most part at that point. This spell is utility supreme, and only gets better with your imagination.
Your conclusion on second bullet is wrong:
*"You cause shape, colors or both to appear on the dirt or stone, spelling out words, creating images or shaping patterns. The changes last for 1 hour." (RAW)
1. You can manipulate dirt or stone in a 5ft cube, not just the surface and you can not ignore the Spells Cubic Effect with Length, Width and Height. PHB pg. 204
2. It does not state in the spell: that a Shape, Words, Images or Shaping Patterns is limited to being just 2 Dimensional. Please show evidence or proof that it states it is just purely surface level or visual.
In fact when reading, you are allowed to make Shapes, Words, Images or Shaping Patterns with in a 3 Dimensional space because you can in a 5ft x 5ft x 5ft cube to "Manipulate" the stone. Which gives you the Length, Width and Height by following the rules of the Spell's Description.
If your climbing / scaling a Mountain, Mold earth to make Hand Holds, or a small platform to rest. If you need an anchor point to tie a rope, then release the anchor to get your rope back. If your in a Dungeon and need quick cover and there is plenty of stone, you Manipulate the stone by reshaping to create a 4ft x 4ft x 4ft indenting or extending shape of a stone block to hide in or behind.
If you can manipulate stone to cause difficult terrain in a 5ft cube, then you can manipulate stone into shapes in a 5ft cube as well.
The problem I have is the semantics. Something that fits within a 5-foot cube doesn't have to be contained inside a 5-foot cube. For example, a 5-foot cube is made up of 125 cubic feet. So 125 1 foot cubes do fit inside a 5 ft cube. I'm sure they mean you can only manipulate the dirt contained within a 5ft cube at a time, but it also says you can move it 5ft away, but it doesn't say all the dirt has to be moved in the same direction. Meaning you could make a hole and build a wall that's 1ft thick 5 ft tall and covers you on all 4 sides and you are now in total cover and they have to break a wall to get to you, sure it's only dirt but they still can't see you until they break it down. But then if it's sand or loose pebbles, it won't stay where you put it.
There are a few things wrong with your suppositions here. Let's take a look at them.
#1.
Yes, You choose a portion of dirt or stone that you can see within range and that fits within a 5-foot cube., does mean that you affect all loose stone or earth as you choose and not just the surface. Saying, "you can not ignore the Spells Cubic Effect with Length, Width and Height." is a bit confusing because that isn't a quotation from the PHB on the page you cited. Let's clear this up for anyone who comes after us. What we do have on page 204 are the rules for targeting, areas of effect, and a description of a cube's area of effect which are all relevant here.
So on page 204 under the heading A Clear Path To The Target it says, To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.
In laymen's terms it's explaining being unable to properly place a spell that has an area of effect. A spell that has an area of effect that you attempt to place beyond your sight, and also has an obstruction to the point of total cover prevents you from placing the area of effect where you intend. For example, If you try to cast Fireball behind a door on an NPC, the fireball will instead explode on the door where your vision ends.
Let's look at the heading Areas Of Effect. The third paragraph states, A spell's effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn't included in the spell's area. To block one of these imaginary lines an obstruction must provide total cover..."
Looking at the heading Cubes it states, You select a cube's point of origin, which lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect. However, ...a cube's point of origin is not included in the area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.
How is this relevant for Mold Earth? Say you were at the base of a large hill and found an old wooden door sunken into its side. At the front of the door was a large mound of dirt, and after examining the frame it was clear there was a cave in that partially buried the door. You could cast Mold Earth and remove the pile of dirt in the front as it would be within your view and fit into a 5 foot cube. When you move the dirt and try to push on the door you find that it doesn't budge. After all, there must be dirt on the other side. Can you remove the dirt on the other side of the door with Mold Earth? No. But couldn't you imagine a cube that has a face with a point of origin that starts just behind the door? You could. However you cannot place a point of origin at a point that you can't see if there is an obstruction between them. If you attempted to do so anyway, the point of origin would appear on the near side of the obstruction, in this example the front of the door.
#2.
To keep things at their most simple a spell does what it says it does, nothing more nothing less. This may not make sense to you or other new players but trust me with more experience you will come to understand that spells are not cheat codes into the real world physics engine. They do what they say the do and that's it. Attempting to glean more information from what the spell doesn't say is what we call interpretation. There's an obvious problem with this as spells don't say quite a bit. However, we can try and use the terms and phrasing to make logical conclusions. To put this another way, why would TheReaperGrim think that the second bullet point was referring only to 2-D images? It doesn't say that does it? Ok, so what does it actually say.
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. From this we can gather that shapes and colors aren't the same thing as they can appear individually or at the same time. These shapes and colors "appear on" the dirt or stone. These shapes and colors can spell out words, create images, or shape patterns. These changes are temporary. This begs several relevant questions.
Appear on what? The surface of the dirt? The inner portion of the stone? How does the dirt of stone revert to normal? Even if you could change the color, or make a shape appear on the center of a pile of dirt or a solid stone, which doesn't make grammatical sense, what would be the point? You would have to break the rock, or dig the surrounding dirt apart to be able to see it. If this shape or color took up 3-D space, what would it's substance be of? The stone you cast it on? Is this spell growing stone from nowhere?
Is it melding the existing material into a new shape? If this spell was meant to mold the material, why shouldn't you be able to mold it apart or direct it where you want it to go? Why can't I shape the stone into manacles around someone's wrists? Why can't I shape the dirt into someone's nose and mouth into their lungs and suffocating them? When the spell ends does the shape ooze back into it's original position? If so, does it reform into it's original position no matter the distance the materials are apart? If the second bullet point allows you to manipulate the shape of dirt and stone, why does the spell differentiate between shaping dirt and stone and excavating/moving specifically dirt. Why isn't stone included in the first bullet point? This is why we don't interpret spells this way. This way lies madness.
On the other hand, that it's simply referring to 2-D images somehow resolves all of those nagging problems. Which one is more likely to be true? If you feel strongly about it you can always ask JC.
"In fact when reading, you are allowed to make Shapes, Words, Images or Shaping Patterns with in a 3 Dimensional space because you can in a 5ft x 5ft x 5ft cube to "Manipulate" the stone. Which gives you the Length, Width and Height by following the rules of the Spell's Description." We've already gone over how targeting actually works, but just to be clear the spell doesn't say you can manipulate dirt and stone. It says you can manipulate dirt and stone in "one of the following ways". Emphasis mine. A reasonable example of an interpretation would be, since the spell says I can only do X in 1 of 3 ways, I cannot do x in any other way except 1 of these 3 ways.
Can it affect man made things? Like a stone road or brick wall?? Since it says stone i assume so
You can affect man-made surfaces in these two ways:
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.
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.
It's amazing how many ways people come up with to abuse this spell. Think of it as basically a Shovel (loose earth) or Chisel (stone) spell, and it will simplify things.
Even then, the chisel could only be used to create images and designs on the stone, and not used to excavate it.
yeah, but any creature taking up a single square should potentially fall into the 5 foot hole then have the dirt fall on top of them.
I think one of the most obvious uses for this is a spellcaster is to create a 5-ft square hole and jump into it. (Or stand behind the 5 ft. Berm)
As it's 5 ft you could benefit half to full cover. As a caster with light armor, that's a nice +2 to 5 AC 😁
I am not in the mood to do math, how many casting would it take to plow an acre of soil? I am thinking you could churn 5 one foot deep 5'x5' areas instead of a cube, no?
The druid could only have a 5 ft by 10 ft area at any one time. Additionally. This would slow their movement as they could only move 5 feet per turn.
Action: Mold earth, change 5ft of difficult terrain to non-difficult terrain.
Move: Move 5ft.
End turn.
If i just used normal movement i could move 15 feet through difficult terrain. I could dash and move 30.
I think the term "mold" is part of the challenge in interpreting this spell. Had a fun player in a game store try to turn Mold Earth into not needing any other spell. because we were sitting ina game store (and I did not know exact wording) I let this go but yeah - the word mold really threw him off and he clearly had not read this. I think it would be much better if this was titled (or sub-titled) move loose earth. Kinda sucks as a new name but does help players envision what it can do.
JC has already established in a sage advice that this spell works so long as the target area is something that you could reasonably work with a shovel, thus clarifying the phrase "loose earth" to include things like mud, gravel, sand, and packed dirt. Basically any form of earth that is not solid stone, metal, or wood, which opens up many more applications for the use of this spell. Also, as stated very elegantly in a previous comment, when working with stone think of this spell as a chisel to understand the extent with which you can shape the stone itself. Basically what this spell does is anything those two tools can do to their respective mediums, while expediting the otherwise tedious time and effort it would take to achieve the desired effect. The following are some practical uses that to the best of my knowledge should work within RAW.
1. When working with loose earth as detailed above You can create total cover by casting this spell in your own space and moving the excavated earth to a space between you and the enemy. This puts you in a 5-ft hole with a 5-ft mound of earth in between you and the enemy thus gaining you 10ft of total cover relative to the enemy position. If you have prep time outside of combat, you can do this in succession to create a bulwark/trench surrounding your camp, pitfall traps, vantage points, mazes, foxholes, choke points, animal pens, etc.
2. Given the same principles as above you can hold this spell as your action to cast at the end of an opponent's turn to put them in a hole and then on your following turn cast this again to move the excavated earth back into their space to restrain them. The DC to escape would be DM dependent but my personal suggestion would be to start with your character's spellcasting save DC and then adjust it up or down based on the size and/or strength of the enemy buried (if you've ever been buried up to your neck at the beach you should have an understanding of how hard it would be to get out on your own). Creatures shorter than 5ft might even start to suffocate as they would be completely buried. Who needs manacles when you can just create a prison on the fly? (Also works great for digging graves!) And what makes this not totally broken in combat is the fact that it requires two separate actions to accomplish and can be interrupted if you lose concentration while holding your spell action as per the rules of holding spells as actions.
3. Now this next one is a bit tricky and ultimately DM dependent on whether it works or not but the TLDR is that you can leverage the ability to create difficult terrain with this spell to actually excavate solid stone by casting the spell again on the same space that you created the difficult terrain. WAIT! Hear me out before you call the rules lawyers on me! My logic is as follows: This spell can be used to temporarily create or get rid of a 5 ft cube of difficult terrain so long as it's grounded earth or stone. So first we must ask, how does this spell create difficult terrain? When dealing with earth we can easily assume that it stirs up the ground into something akin to quicksand, but how does it accomplish the same with stone? The spell cannot directly move or change the shape of the stone to extend it out from its original space in any way as to trip up the enemy, that's outside of its parameters. It can't magically evaporate any of the stone to create minor pitfalls otherwise it would basically just be Stone Shape, a 4th level spell. And remember that when dealing with stone this spell acts essentially as a chisel. So how does a chisel turn solid stone into difficult terrain? By forcefully breaking it into smaller, uneven chunks of rock or essentially -wait for it- uneven LOOSE EARTH. And as explained above, any form of earth that isn't wood, metal, or solid stone can be moved around with a shovel and therefore excavated with a successive cast of this spell. Still not convinced? Then allow me to reference the spells Earth Tremor, and Erupting Earth. The first creates a minor earthquake in the ground within a 10-foot reach of the caster, dealing 1d6 bludgeoning damage and leaving behind difficult terrain to the effect of the torn-up ground, but only if it is EARTH or STONE. One spell level jump and not only do you get damage but a DRASTIC increase in area of effect. (Note that this spell should logically damage burrowing creatures as the tremor would reach AT LEAST 5 ft underground as well since it is literally shaking the squares within reach, and you could even rule it to be a 10-ft radius hemisphere if you don't consider sight to be a factor of the reach of this spell.) The latter adds another two spell levels and gets you, as the name suggests, a literal eruption of EARTH and STONE that damages a 20-ft cube originating from a point in range for 3d12 leaving behind -you guessed it- difficult terrain. Admittedly this is less total area than the former, but is a much more violent effect, can extend further above ground, and still gets you (not so coincidentally in my opinion) a Mold Earth's amount of extra area per spell level. "But Sylpharian! The difficult terrain effect of Mold Earth only lasts up to an hour. What happens to the broken up stone if you've moved it from its original space?" Simple. It would form back into a solid whole, just in the space that it is currently occupying. "But couldn't you use this effect to create large structures like castles the way you could with Wall of Stone, Stone Shape, Bones of the Earth, etc. thus making this way too overpowered for a cantrip?" Actually, no. Since both the difficult terrain effect and the ability to move the earth can only be used ON/ALONG THE GROUND, you could never achieve more than the 10-ft differential caused by the 5-ft hole you created and the 5-ft block of stone should you leave it next to the hole when it re-solidifies. Otherwise the most you could get off the ground would be the 5 ft block itself (when it re-solidifies) as anything more than that would no longer be considered moving the earth "along the ground." And again, this still would not be a broken mechanic as just like the #2 example, it enacts a higher toll on action economy since it requires two separate casts of the spell to achieve. As such, I rest my case.
4. Using the same principle as stated in my argument for #3 you could leverage the difficult terrain effect to create a cache of pebbles to be used with the Magic Stone cantrip.
5. When working with stone you can create the appearance of pitfalls and/or other hazards on the ground in order to trick the enemy into not entering those squares in order to control space. Similarly you can use this on walls to create the appearance of false doors, passages, or archways with fleeing enemies in them in order to trick the enemy into running into them Wiley Coyote style (lol), or waste an action attacking. If there are statues in a courtyard you could even color them to make them appear to have come to life for a moment as a distraction. And I'm sure there is a lot more you can do with hyper-realistic 2D imaging if you are creative.
6. You can use this spell as a means of silent communication between party members or anyone else within 30 ft by writing a message at their feet or on an earthen surface they happen to be facing. This is also incredibly useful for scouts as they can leave behind detailed messages or instructions for the party to follow that will last up to an hour.
7. If an enemy is standing on the edge of a cliff or slope you can move the ground out from under them in an attempt to have them fall off and/or down it.
I'm thinking, Mold Earth right beneath Target, followed up with Homunculus Servant over head dropping a payload in a bag of Alchemist Fire + Caltrops..
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This guy gets it
Loose earth. Not solid stone.
Also a 5 foot cube is 125 cubic feet. The bag of holding can only hold 64 cubic feet.
So, you can move a 5-foot cube of dirt up to 5 feet away with this spell. Now assuming that the dirt will hold shape, can we stack other 5-foot cubes of dirt on top of each other? If so, then that means we can build a 20-foot mega cube of dirt. This mega cube would sit in a trench 5-foot deep and 10-feet across. This trench is built out of the left over remains of our multiple castings of Mold Earth. It would take an assailant 50-feet of movement to cross the trench and climb the cube, 40-feet assuming someone with 20 Str did a standing long jump from the other side of the trench. If they reach the top simple ball bearings, shove actions, or any form of forced movement will send them careening off the side. Our mega cube also pairs well with a casting of Leomund's Tiny Hut, given that the top of the cube is 20-feet across and LTH effects a 10-foot radius.
I did some experimenting and found that this mega cube and trench combo can be made with 160 castings of Mold Earth, or in as little as 16 minutes. My experiment was pretty low tech, a bundle of coins stacked on top of each other and me counting in my head, so I would like to hear if anyone can figure out if 160 castings is the minimum for a single caster.
what if you divide the 5x5 stone in to a bunch of thin layers? like for example: the cube is 5 feet tall or 60inches tall, 1 layers base would be 5x5ft but its height would be 1 inch. Would i be able to spread 60 1 inch tall plates of stone.