Undermaster and Move Earth

[Odin's Eyepatch]

I recently noticed the 9th level spell Undermaster (Spell Compendium), which allows you to cast a whopping 16 different earth related spells. The most interesting bit about it is that you can cast all of these spells as standard actions, even those like Move Earth (Player's Handbook), which normally takes between 10 minutes and over 4 hours to cast. This means that with Undermaster, you could effectively reshape the landscape to your liking with a single standard action!

However, I'm confused about the description of Move Earth. What exactly can you do with it?

Say there is a field of nice, soft earth. Could I make a 50 foot high hill (which would be approximately 150 foot square) by piling up each 150 foot square of soil? Or can I go higher than 50 feat? Or am I only limited to a maximum height variation of 10 feat?


In short: is Undermaster worth taking? (say for a Wizard Transmuter)

And what could you do with a standard action Move Earth?

Any advice or examples welcome!

[Venger]

I recently noticed the 9th level spell Undermaster (Spell Compendium), which allows you to cast a whopping 16 different earth related spells. The most interesting bit about it is that you can cast all of these spells as standard actions, even those like Move Earth (Player's Handbook), which normally takes between 10 minutes and over 4 hours to cast. This means that with Undermaster, you could effectively reshape the landscape to your liking with a single standard action!

However, I'm confused about the description of Move Earth. What exactly can you do with it?

Say there is a field of nice, soft earth. Could I make a 50 foot high hill (which would be approximately 150 foot square) by piling up each 150 foot square of soil? Or can I go higher than 50 feat? Or am I only limited to a maximum height variation of 10 feat?


In short: is Undermaster worth taking? (say for a Wizard Transmuter)

And what could you do with a standard action Move Earth?

Any advice or examples welcome!

Undermaster is an ok spell. You could do a lot worse than taking it.

move earth is largely a fluff spell. you can make a hill to build on, fill in a valley, redirect a river, etc. good for reshaping a landscape and such, but it has no mechanical combat advantage and can't provide any bfc due to its lack of statted effects.

you could make anything within the 750x10ft limit, so if you wanted to elevate 50ft, it could only be 150 feet square.

due to undermaster's short duration, you'll probably be more interested in the other effects

[Dysart]

One thing I'd say as a GM is that unless the spell says specifically it creates earth out of thin air (or pulls from Earth plane) then remember that the earth it moves has to move from somewhere.

Although there's no specific stats for it you could fluff some. For instance if you moved 750ft of earth from under someone in a single standard action (the equivilent of under 6 seconds) then it would cause them to fall 750ft... but may also hit unsavoury things like Lava depending on how deep the land goes.
Also, burying people alive is probably quite an evil act, unless they're undead... then it's probably more like Lawful Good :P

It's at the GMs discretion, if that's you, let your imagination go wild. If it's not you, ask. That's the best option!

[jiriku]

Yes, undermaster's good. Especially if you are persisting it. Much of its strength is the sheer versatility of being able to call upon so many effects without having to choose in advance. Move earth as a standard action is generally useful in reaction to environmental hazards or obstacles, rather than as an offensive tactic. For example, you might use it to dig up a comrade buried by a transmute rock to mud spell, smooth an area of difficult terrain so that an ally can charge through it, raise a berm in front of yourself to make life complicated for an enemy charger, or quickly fill in a pit. And of course, undermaster gives you a lot of other options through the other effects it emulates. There's just an enormous variety of problems that it lets you solve as a standard action.

[atemu1234]

One thing I'd say as a GM is that unless the spell says specifically it creates earth out of thin air (or pulls from Earth plane) then remember that the earth it moves has to move from somewhere.

Although there's no specific stats for it you could fluff some. For instance if you moved 750ft of earth from under someone in a single standard action (the equivilent of under 6 seconds) then it would cause them to fall 750ft... but may also hit unsavoury things like Lava depending on how deep the land goes.
Also, burying people alive is probably quite an evil act, unless they're undead... then it's probably more like Lawful Good :P

It's at the GMs discretion, if that's you, let your imagination go wild. If it's not you, ask. That's the best option!

Well, to be fair, undead don't suffocate.

[Dysart]

Well, to be fair, undead don't suffocate.

Exactly! Plus it's technically returning them to wear they belong.

[Odin's Eyepatch]

Unfortunately, I'm not the DM in this case. We've actually got 3 DMs for this next campaign, which makes it quite hard to predict what they decide has a consensus. There is no knowing how the decision will turn out. I’ll see what they say.

I suppose that Undermaster is not as powerful as some of the other 9th level heavy-weighters, like Time Stop or Shapechange. However, I've seen it rarely mentioned in most forums, so it has been a bit hard trying to work out if the spell is just a big hidden trap. Apparently, it isn't that bad.

After thinking about it, it wouldn't be a bad spell to share with your familiar, so that you can double your terra-forming capabilities, or give your familiar the ability to do all the stone work, while you find other ways to destroy/hinder/humiliate your enemies.

Cheers for the various applications of Move Earth. Depending on the DM’s interpretation, it could be an awesome spell with which to prepare the battlefield before hand. At least now I have an idea of the other things it can achieve.