D&D 5E Waterball, the spell - what level should it be?

[Ancalagon]

Hello

So a while ago, this thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...of-ending-humanity-creates-new-D-amp-D-spells inspired me to create an NPC in my campaign ( Enftebtemang ) who was known to be a gifted spell creator but also a contrarian.

This brought to mind the silly idea of a spell called "waterball" (the reverse of a fireball, creates a 20 feet radius sphere of water) which I thought would be a joke spell but then I realized that it would be pretty handy at firefighting.

So I was going to leave it at that, but recently it's been bothering me, because creating a 40 foot sphere of water is very situational, but can be immensely powerful.

1: As mentioned, firefighting. Also bad for fire elementals
2: Create food and water to create some water? how cute! This creates roughly 950 TONS of water.
3: Fireball a ship sure... but waterball it and you'll sink it almost immediately from all the water flooding it
4: Waterball your enemies in an enclosed space and drown them (also possibly collapse floors etc)
5: Waterball enemies in an open space wouldn't drown, but the rushing water would shove everyone and knock them over.

So erm... what level should be this spell?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I could swear I've seen this spell somewhere, but it's not in my 3E Spell Compendium. Anyway, if I recall correctly, the shove was the big selling point of the spell.

I'd put it at 3rd level. It may not do the raw damage of fireball, but the control elements make up for it. Plus there's the agreeable symmetry.

 

[jaelis]

Here's the 3e version:
http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/ma...rians-druids-and-rangers--44/waterball--1905/

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I think the spell level will greatly depend on how long the water sticks around for. If its instantaneous and disappears seconds after cast then I think you could get away with level 2, but from your descriptions this doesn't seem to be what you want.

With 1 minute duration I think a case could be argued for level 3. By itself it doesn't deal damage, but it is devastating in niche situations. From my experience spells that are situational tend to be a bit ahead of the power curve in situations they apply to (hold person being an example). Since there isn't any damage to scale with spell slot we can scale duration. Add 1 minute per spell level above 3rd is clean and easy to remember.

 

[Caliban]

Watery Sphere is 4th level: http://engl393-dnd5th.wikia.com/wiki/Watery_Sphere (the 5e version of the spell was originally in the Elemental Evil Companion)

Compare it to that.

 

[Dausuul]

If you intend to have the water be permanent and handle it more or less realistically, let's consider the effects:

• First, as you note, this spell creates 1,000 tons of water. By the book, one casting per day is enough to provide water for a quarter million people. That's twice the population of Waterdeep.
• How much damage do you take if 1,000 tons of water fall on your head from the limit of the spell's range?
• Cast on a roof, the sudden weight will collapse almost any structure.
• The water flows downward and can fill up enclosed spaces, drowning creatures that can't escape. Cast repeatedly, you could flood a whole dungeon, then cast water breathing and plunder at your leisure.

Take all that together, and it's a very high-level spell; certainly no lower than 7th, probably 8th or 9th. The side effects are far more powerful than any "conventional" effect (knockdown, etc.).

If you just want a fireball-ish spell that creates water, I suggest having it create a blast of water droplets that knock down and damage creatures, rather than actually filling a 20-foot-radius sphere with water. Or you could do something like the watery sphere spell linked by Caliban, where the sphere of water is suspended in midair and vanishes at the end of the spell's duration.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hello

So a while ago, this thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...of-ending-humanity-creates-new-D-amp-D-spells inspired me to create an NPC in my campaign ( Enftebtemang ) who was known to be a gifted spell creator but also a contrarian.

This brought to mind the silly idea of a spell called "waterball" (the reverse of a fireball, creates a 20 feet radius sphere of water) which I thought would be a joke spell but then I realized that it would be pretty handy at firefighting.

So I was going to leave it at that, but recently it's been bothering me, because creating a 40 foot sphere of water is very situational, but can be immensely powerful.

1: As mentioned, firefighting. Also bad for fire elementals
2: Create food and water to create some water? how cute! This creates roughly 950 TONS of water.
3: Fireball a ship sure... but waterball it and you'll sink it almost immediately from all the water flooding it
4: Waterball your enemies in an enclosed space and drown them (also possibly collapse floors etc)
5: Waterball enemies in an open space wouldn't drown, but the rushing water would shove everyone and knock them over.

So erm... what level should be this spell?

Is the water permanent? I.e. it's actually gated in from the Plane of Water or similar, doesn't vanish into nothingness after a few rounds? If so, I'd take the 8th level Elemental Gate spell that I remember from AD&D, reduce it a level because it's a one-time burst... consider raising it again because Waterball acts so quickly, but decide against it... I'd call it 7th level overall.

BTW, you wouldn't sink a ship unless it was heavily-loaded with cargo already, like coal or metal. After all, wood floats.

 

[Caliban]

Or you could do something like the watery sphere spell linked by Jaelis, where the sphere of water is suspended in midair and vanishes at the end of the spell's duration.

 

[Dausuul]

BTW, you wouldn't sink a ship unless it was heavily-loaded with cargo already, like coal or metal. After all, wood floats.

It's not like ships being heavily loaded enough to sink is an unusual phenomenon. There are plenty of wooden shipwrecks on the bottom of the ocean. Wood gets waterlogged, after all; a ship that's been at sea a while probably doesn't need much cargo to send it to the bottom if it gets swamped.

And even if the ship didn't go to the bottom, a ship full of water is useless for anything but clinging to and waiting to be rescued.

 

[Dausuul]

Whoops, sorry. Got mixed up on who was posting what. I'll fix it.