Largest AoE/effect are direct damage spells?

[Fero]

Question for the community: What low and mid level (1-7) damaging spells have the largest AoEs or otherwise effect a large area? I am looking for spells that do damage natively (i.e. no Locate City bombs).

So far, my top contenders are:

Dance of Ruin (2),
wall of Fire (and its various siblings) (4),
Boreal Wind (4), and
Firebrand (5).

Any other suggestions?

[Inevitability]

Boreal Wind's area is a 20 ft. wide and tall square of wind that extends out to Long range (so 920 ft. at level 13).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

20 ft. wide and tall square...Something about this description seems...off...for some reason.

[FauxKnee]

The spell apocalypse from the sky (book of vile darkness, elder evils, and possibly others) has a 10 mile radius per caster level IIRC. Unfortunately the material component is an artifact. Of course, since the component doesn't have a price it already exists in your spell component pouch.

[Fero]

Boreal Wind's area is a 20 ft. wide and tall square of wind that extends out to Long range (so 920 ft. at level 13).

Ooh, Boreal Wind, good call

[Inevitability]

...Something about this description seems...off...for some reason.

Probably, but I'm not going to stoop to the level of saying 'cuboid' when WotC never bothered to either.

In all seriousness, it seems clear enough to me. Imagine a 20 ft. by 20 ft. square with height and width but no depth, now extend it 920 feet away from you: this is the shape of Boreal Wind.

[Chronos]

Control Winds also has a very large area of effect, but whether it does damage depends on the initial wind conditions and on your caster level.

[threefivearchve]

Blistering Radiance is a 50-foot radius that deals 2d6 fire damage per round, 1 round per level.

For my Radiant Servant of Pelor, since it was a light spell, that radius was doubled.

So we didn't even bother to draw it out on the battlemat when I used it. We just drew a line to determine the outer border of it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Any breath weapon spell used with Strafing Breath and a high move speed? If you have a move speed of 80' (which is fairly easy to get if you try) and have a 60' cone-shaped breath, that's a 60' x 220' "rectangle" (with rounded edges).

[Quentinas]

Celestial brilliance is a 4th level light spell with 60 feet radius area of bright light (and another 60 of dim light) and every evil outsider or undead take damage while inside the area. The most powerful thing of that spell is the duration which is 1 day/level which is quite a bit long. Maybe it's not exactly a damaging spell , but it has at least one part where it does innately damage. And if one is a radiant cleric of pelor the radius is doubled so it's quite large but it's not dependent on level so it can''t become too much big

[Anthrowhale]

Celestial brilliance is a 4th level light spell with 60 feet radius area of bright light (and another 60 of dim light) and every evil outsider or undead take damage while inside the area. The most powerful thing of that spell is the duration which is 1 day/level which is quite a bit long. Maybe it's not exactly a damaging spell , but it has at least one part where it does innately damage. And if one is a radiant cleric of pelor the radius is doubled so it's quite large but it's not dependent on level so it can''t become too much big

This is a great spell for the undead army scenario. A few days worth of precasts on ammunition, and then the party can cover a battlefield in a round. The ability to use many precasts ups the effective area substantially.

[Beni-Kujaku]

There are a lot of damaging 60ft cone spells (Cone of Cold, Ayailla's Radiant burst, Blast of Flame and Diamond Spray).
But the truly big AoEs are those that affect climate.
Rain of Roses is a 80ft-radius cylinder and looks fabulous. Storm of Shards fills the same space, but replaces the rose with Senbonzakura Kageyoshi's blades.
Larger than that, Call Avalanche creates snowfall in a 10ft/level radius, dealing actually pretty good damage.
Even larger, Sandstorm (you know, the spell from Sandstorm), very similarly to Control Winds, creates a sand... storm... in a 40ft/level radius, with strength depending on caster level, but at least the flying sand damages all creatures, rather than only those below a certain size category.
But the biggest direct damage spell below level 7 is Blizzard, with a 100ft/level area so massive that even with long range, it is impossible to cast this spell without including yourself in its effect, and not only covers the area with a dozen feet of snow, it also deals 1d6 nonlethal points of cold damage (maybe per round, unclear).

Still, there is a spell with an even larger area that can technically deal damage, that is Cold Snap (Drd 5, Clr 6), which reduces temperature to the point that if people stay in the 1-mile radius area for more than 10 minutes, they take 1d6 nonlethal damage! (Oooo! Probably not the best choice for Fell Drain).

Even bigger spells exist, but they're of higher levels, like Evil Weather (1 mile/level, level 8), Apocalypse from the Sky (10 mile/level, level 9), and a few large epic spells (but none printed as stupidly big as Apocalypse from the Sky). If you want, an epic spell covering the entire world (4000 mile radius) with a magic weather including damaging thunder dealing 20d6 sonic damage per round for 20 hours would have a casting DC of around 8084 (Energy (sonic) 19 + Energy (Weather) 25 + increase damage to 20d6 (+40) increase area by 200,000% (+8000) ).

Let's say you're a level 27 sorcerer with 32 Cha (Leadership score 38), Epic Spellcasting, Epic Leadership and Legendary Commander.
You have more than 8000 followers. Through ritual casting alone, you can mitigate that DC to 0.
Any level 27 sorcerer can, literally on a whim (if they took Epic Spellcasting and Leadership earlier, taking Epic Leadership and Legendary Commander can be done directly at 27), choose to destroy the world, dealing a total of 50 million sonic damage to each 5ft square on the planet, destroying a depth of 250,000ft of stone (which is enough to crack the world crust and make it permanently uninhabitable).