Expanding the radius of a spell

[TheChangelingMC]

Looked around a little bit and I can't seem to find anything so I thought I'd ask here too.

I'm trying to work out if there's a way to increase the area of effect of a spell, either by ability or magical item.

I doubt there is, but I was just wondering, so if anyone knows your help would be much appreciated!

[Crgaston]

Upcasting Fog Cloud increases the radius, but I can’t think of anything else by RAW.

For an AOE like Fireball allowing upcasting to increase radius instead of damage might be ok, but that’s in the purview of your DM.

[KillingTime]

You'll need to very carefully consider the balance implications of increasing spell radius.

Consider fireball:
20 foot radius with 8d6 damage.

If you upcast this you add 1 extra d6, which increases the effective damage by 12.5%

If you were to increase the radius by 5feet (the minimum) then you would be increasing the area of effect by 56%, allowing you to catch a great deal more enemies and grossly exceeding the extra damage caused by upcasting.

So you'd need to upcast it by quite a few levels for me to allow you to increase the AOE by even a single grade.

[nickl_2000]

What about charging 3 sorcery points to do this instead?

[MrStabby]

What about charging 3 sorcery points to do this instead?

For many spells this might be ok but sorcerer can get spells like spirit guardians through divine soul archetype. Things like this get sick with higher radius and should be avoided.

[FreddyNoNose]

You'll need to very carefully consider the balance implications of increasing spell radius.

Consider fireball:
20 foot radius with 8d6 damage.

If you upcast this you add 1 extra d6, which increases the effective damage by 12.5%

If you were to increase the radius by 5feet (the minimum) then you would be increasing the area of effect by 56%, allowing you to catch a great deal more enemies and grossly exceeding the extra damage caused by upcasting.

So you'd need to upcast it by quite a few levels for me to allow you to increase the AOE by even a single grade.

I totally agree with this. Lesser GMs have done this with game breaking results. But if the GM is ok with game brokenness, then fine. A problem is only a problem if it's a problem.