Mold Earth Cantrip Thoughts.

[Setharious]

I am DMing a game for some friends, and one of them has picked a wizard, and of course now wants to find every way to abuse every spell. Their current favorite is mold earth and I simply do not have the answers to all their questions. Specifically:

What if the earth is dropped off of a building? Does it still not do damage?
What if the earth that was moved was under an opponent? Do they fall down/prone?
What if the earth that was moved out of the hole that the last character fell into, was moved back into the hole? Would they be buried alive?

What are other players rulings or weird things that have happened to them with mold earth? The biggest one for me is what to do if the earth is just, moved right out from under someone.

[Segev]

I am DMing a game for some friends, and one of them has picked a wizard, and of course now wants to find every way to abuse every spell. Their current favorite is mold earth and I simply do not have the answers to all their questions. Specifically:

What if the earth is dropped off of a building? Does it still not do damage?
What if the earth that was moved was under an opponent? Do they fall down/prone?
What if the earth that was moved out of the hole that the last character fell into, was moved back into the hole? Would they be buried alive?

What are other players rulings or weird things that have happened to them with mold earth? The biggest one for me is what to do if the earth is just, moved right out from under someone.

Arguably, "moved out from under someone" is forbidden; it fails if you try.

Hard to justify stopping you from dropping it off a cliff, though. I would treat that as any other falling object.

[PhantomSoul]

Arguably, "moved out from under someone" is forbidden; it fails if you try.

Hard to justify stopping you from dropping it off a cliff, though. I would treat that as any other falling object.

It's transmutation -- the dirt has actually been turned into an earth mephit with a fear of heights who goes back onto the ledge immediately! (But don't tell that to the player -- they'll think they have a cantrip that creates mephits... but these mephits aren't exactly allies...)

Jokes aside, I'd do the same; it's falling, and give a creature underneath a dexterity saving throw to avoid it. (Most likely not based on your DC unless you can actually see and target the creature below effectively, but that's up to the DM as is all of existence.)

[Lunatism]

If a spell doesn't deal damage RAW, I wouldn't allow it to deal damage by whatever means.

But if you feel generous, a 1d4 (no scaling) might be fine.

[GeoffWatson]

Too often casters try to get extra power out of their spells. They are already more powerful than non-casters but they have unlimited greed for power.

1) A rain of loose dirt - they might get dirty, but no damage.
2) No, they stay standing. It doesn't say it in the spell description, but I'd recommend not allowing it to be used directly under a creature.
3) No, that's way too powerful for a cantrip. The dirt slides under the creature, lifting them back up, though I'd disallow this like in 2.

[Mellack]

I don't believe this is meant to be an attack cantrip and I wouldn't let them turn it into one.

1. Dropping a lunch of loose dirt does nothing but annoy them and make them dirty.
2. If done under an opponent it moves them down some. Make it count as difficult terrain to move out of that spot. Might give them partial cover. Not prone or checks needed to move.
3. It moves them up some. If it was a hole, they are now back on level ground. If they were on level ground, they are now up some. I would let that be a good way to negate some cover against ranged attackers by lifting the target up.

[JackPhoenix]

It's not the spell doing damage. The spell does what it is supposed to... moves about 4.5 tons (assuming full 5' cube and average density of soil. Loose or not, that's a lot) of dirt 5' to the side. Gravity and lack of support underneath that does the rest. It's not different to Mage Hand pulling the lever triggering a trap, or starting a fire that burns down half of a city with Prestidigitation. You still have to prepare the trap up front, and get the enemy in position when you're prepared.

[borg286]

I'm curious if I can create a 'U' shape and hunker in the caldera to try and get cover in. I know I can pull 5' cube of dirt and pile it up to make a sort of small wall. But I'm focusing on limiting the ranged attack angles.

[Mellack]

That 4.5 tons of dirt is also spread out over the 5' square. Most will miss a person. Not being a solid object means all that force is spread out instead of concentrated on point of impact. That is a force of just 2.5 pounds per square inch, assuming it has not spread out any which it probably would. Likely less than most shield pushes.
If they want to set up a trap, I would let them stat out a trap. I wouldn't want to make it a base power of the spell. Others are free to play it differently.

[ImproperJustice]

The spell is useful enough on its. The previous replies pretty much covered it.


Better uses are quick cover creation, quick burials, stairs, sealing passages, and creating your own Roman style camp with mini walls and trenches before bed at night.

[quinron]

I'm mostly just wondering how often your characters end up in a situation where a) they are standing within 10 feet of a sheer ledge, b) there's enough loose dirt in a 5-foot square along that ledge to hurt someone if it were dropped on them, and c) there's something at the foot of that ledge to drop the dirt on. Seems... niche.

[Valmark]

I am DMing a game for some friends, and one of them has picked a wizard, and of course now wants to find every way to abuse every spell. Their current favorite is mold earth and I simply do not have the answers to all their questions. Specifically:

What if the earth is dropped off of a building? Does it still not do damage?
What if the earth that was moved was under an opponent? Do they fall down/prone?
What if the earth that was moved out of the hole that the last character fell into, was moved back into the hole? Would they be buried alive?

What are other players rulings or weird things that have happened to them with mold earth? The biggest one for me is what to do if the earth is just, moved right out from under someone.

If you drop it off the ledge gravity is already after the spell was cast so I'd treat it as something falling. That said, I don't think a rain of dirt does appreciable damage unless it was VERY high up.
At least to hp. Clothes will probably need a lot of cleaning.

An opponent would fall... And nothing in particular would happen. It's not enough distance to treat it as a Fall.

Ideally, yes. You'd need two casters to stop someone fr getting out and even then the 'buried alive' person just needs to twist a bit to get out, so it's hardly effective. Keep in mind that it's loose dirt, not some rock solid concrete they got covered in.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Best answer is to go by the RAW. If it doesn't deal damage, no damage is dealt.

[da newt]

AS others have said, the cantrip does NOT cause damage. I like to think of it as using the entire 6 seconds to dig and move the 5' cube of dirt one handful at a time (10" deep per second).

* If the dirt is dropped a long way it creates a rain of loose dirt - annoying, but nothing more.
* If you use it to dig under someone, they slowly sink into a 5' deep hole as the dirt is removed from under them, they do not fall, and on their turn during the round they can just step out of the hole as it is being dug.
* If you try to bury someone who is not incapacitated, they just get out of the hole on their turn as it is slowly being filled in.

[x3n0n]

I like to think of it as using the entire 6 seconds to dig and move the 5' cube of dirt one handful at a time (10" deep per second).

I appreciate reminders of scale like this. Thank you.

[JackPhoenix]

I like to think of it as using the entire 6 seconds to dig and move the 5' cube of dirt one handful at a time (10" deep per second).

Except the movement is explicitly instantaneous.

[Wraith]

An opponent would fall... And nothing in particular would happen. It's not enough distance to treat it as a Fall.

I think drawing on the rules for falling damage is an excellent suggestion. A 5ft drop does no damage, so that is the end of that problem!

A worst, the opponent is now in a hole so maybe they have Disadvantage on their attack until they climb out, but are counting as being in 3/4 cover unless you're directly ajacent to them? They're already going to have to spend movement in order to climb out, seems like plenty of penalty for a mere cantrip already to my mind.


Except the movement is explicitly instantaneous.

I think that 4.5 tons of dirt going *FOOMP* and moving itself 5ft in the fraction of a blink of an eye messes with the basic written text of the spell: It doesn't move fast or hard enough to cause damage. Since it's not of the Conjuration school, we can probably say with some certainty that a form of teleportation doesn't happen; the dirt has to slide into place.

I don't think we can sensibly say that it can do both at the same time; 4.5 tones of soil can't slide sideways at the speed of thought and not damage whatever it hits.

Instead, you probably have to abstract it; stabbing someone with a sword is one action and that happens instantaneously, but it also takes 6 seconds because that's how D&D tends to interpret 'now'. "Within the space of one full action" is good enough for "instant", I think?

[Tanarii]

I think that 4.5 tons of dirt going *FOOMP* and moving itself 5ft in the fraction of a blink of an eye messes with the basic written text of the spell: It doesn't move fast or hard enough to cause damage. Since it's not of the Conjuration school, we can probably say with some certainty that a form of teleportation doesn't happen; the dirt has to slide into place.The text of the spell is explicit that it moves, and how it moves for that matter.

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.

They really shouldn't have used the word "instantaneously", because flowing along the ground and building up into a heap clearly isn't happening with no time passing. They're using it to me "during the duration of the action to cast the spell and it to have effect", which they've done before in other spells.

The PHB definition of Instantaneous duration is:
INSTANTANEOUS
Many spells are instantaneous. The spell harms, heals, creates, or alters a creature or an object in a way that can't be dispelled, because its magic exists only for an instant.

Not that it happens without any time passing. Just that it happens very quickly.