Low Level Disaster Response in 5e

[Trafalgar]

Lets say you are in a low level party (Lvl 4 or less) and a disaster strikes the town/city you are in. This disaster can be natural (Hurricane, Earthquake, Tornado, Flood, etc) or unnatural (a Wandering Tarrasque, Bat Swarms, a God makes a fumble, failed magical experiment leading to a giant explosion, etc). The point is that the party is too low to prevent the calamity but now have to deal with the aftermath.

What skills, abilities, spells does your character use to help the city? The character might have to deal with fires, floods, people trapped in collapsed structures, interrupted food supply, etc.

[Sparky McDibben]

I mean, practically the whole cleric and druid spell lists are useful here. There are obvious ones like create food and water, but what about using conjure woodland beings to find pepple trapped in the rubble? Or passwall, stone shape, and mold earth to dig out survivors.

Sorcerers and wizards are less useful, but Leomunds Tiny Hut can be used to brace unstable structures for evac, or ray of frost might put out fires.

[Trafalgar]

I mean, practically the whole cleric and druid spell lists are useful here. There are obvious ones like create food and water, but what about using conjure woodland beings to find pepple trapped in the rubble? Or passwall, stone shape, and mold earth to dig out survivors.

Sorcerers and wizards are less useful, but Leomunds Tiny Hut can be used to brace unstable structures for evac, or ray of frost might put out fires.

So I guess because I have never played a Druid, I am not that familiar with their spell list and I didn't look it over before starting this thread. I am willing to say that Druid is probably the most useful class. Spells like Mending, Create or destroy water, Gust of Wind, and Locate Object are all pretty useful.

I like your idea about the woodland creatures searching rubble so Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals would be good.

[Silly Name]

Artificer make for good disaster response too. Magical tinkering is extremely useful to set up repeated messages and warnings. Tool expertise comes in handy, and if 7th-level is considered into this scenario, Flash of Genius can literally save lives.

An homunculus servant aids in rescue operations, too, and the spell list in general is good.

[Heavenblade]

In case of collapsed buidings etc., A bearbarian with powerful build could be immensly useful.


The elemental cantrips (earth and flame especially) are good ones.

Bards can help injured people with song of rest

[Sparky McDibben]

Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals would be good.

Speak with Animals would be amazing. "What's that, Lassie? Timmy's trapped in a well?"

Other DM-dependent options might include off-brand uses of spells like entangle (to stop a rockslide or a cliffshear) or even fireball (to blunt an oncoming impact like a tidal wave).

[Silly Name]

Speak with Animals would be amazing. "What's that, Lassie? Timmy's trapped in a well?"

Other DM-dependent options might include off-brand uses of spells like entangle (to stop a rockslide or a cliffshear) or even fireball (to blunt an oncoming impact like a tidal wave).

How big of a fireball do we need to stop a tidal wave?

[TigerT20]

How big of a fireball do we need to stop a tidal wave?

Let alone the fact that tidal waves often travel in groups rather then the typical media representation of a single wave (to be fair I don't think many people stick around to count)

[Sparky McDibben]

How big of a fireball do we need to stop a tidal wave?

Blunt, not stop. All you're looking to do is mitigate damage, not prevent it. That being said, a pretty ****ing big one, I suspect. ;)

Let alone the fact that tidal waves often travel in groups rather then the typical media representation of a single wave (to be fair I don't think many people stick around to count)

I did not know this, but it makes sense.

[Trafalgar]

How big of a fireball do we need to stop a tidal wave?

If we mean by Tidal Wave, we mean Tsunami, a fire ball wouldn't work. It might slow it down, but it wouldn't stop it.

[Unoriginal]

-High Wisdom/Perception/unusual senses to find people in need,

-High Strength to move wreckage and free people

-High Constitution to keep helping people despite your own exhaustion

-High Charisma to help people coordinate and try to keep everyone's morale up

-Healer's Kit/Medicine to help the wounded and those risking getting sick from the aftermath

-Carpenter's tools to build temporary shelters

-Cook's ustensiles to make sustaining food for everyone with whatever's available

-Animal Handling to recover and calm down the animals which managed to escape the calamity

-Mason's tools to identify which structures are still sound and which needs to be avoided, and to handle collapsed structures if needed

How big of a fireball do we need to stop a tidal wave?

Given that Fireball only affect creatures and flammable inanimate object, you mean?

[SpanielBear]

If we mean by Tidal Wave, we mean Tsunami, a fire ball wouldn't work. It might slow it down, but it wouldn't stop it.

I actually played a session where this happened- Talosians hit Neverwinter docks with a tidal wave. We were a level 5 party with a Moon Druid, Ancients Paladin, battle master fighter, a hexblade and a GOOlock. Things that were done-

- Hexblade casting Slow on the First tidal Wave. Didn’t help with the ones after that, but gave people time to get out (not RAW, but DM thought the idea was cool and gave a high DC arcana check to pull it off)

- GOOlock casting flight on the paladin to have them go out and look for survivors pulled out to sea.

- Druid using wildshape to sniff out survivors on land and carry them to safety

- fighter using action surge to move quickly house to house, waking people and getting them clear whilst the tidal wave was incoming.

It was mostly run as a skill challenge, and was a damn memorable session.

[Evaar]

Since we're low level, I'm going to stick to cantrips. Everything else will be very limited in number of uses - still possibly effective, but these can be used a lot.

Control Flames, Shape Water, Mold Earth cantrips can all be used to mitigate disasters. Control Flames and Shape Water to douse fires, Shape Water and Mold Earth to redirect flood waters, Mold Earth and Control Flames to quickly and safely excavate and illuminate collapsed structures. Obviously Light and Dancing Lights for illumination, too.

Spare the Dying would be hugely useful for medical triage.

Crowd control can be helped with Thaumaturgy (the loudspeaker effect), Friends ("We'll find your cat, but you need to get to safety now"), or Minor Illusion (giant arrow pointing where to go).

Depending on your DM, Druidcraft might be able to predict aftershocks, or how long the hurricane will continue.

All sorts of skill checks are likely to be happening, so naturally Guidance will be useful. Resistance is also bad for combat, but very useful if you know you're doing something likely to prompt a saving throw - like running into a burning building, for instance.

And for cleanup, Mending will be useful for salvaging as much stuff as possible.

[Danielqueue1]

•Barbarian is going to be well suited to getting people out of rubble, and various other dangers. Raging to lift and throw a boulder trapping people sounds quite thematic. But also getting children out of a flooding basement, danger sense giving them advantage on avoiding falling through the unstable floor.

•bard is going to be a great helper, bardic inspiration on searchers, song of rest for survivors, jack of all trades to cover any checks that more specialized people are not available for.

•clerics have a wonderful spell list full of healing and purification.

•Druids also have a wonderful spell list and are well fitted to getting things with good senses of smell to help.

•fighters will depend on the build, but more muscle is always useful.

•Monks are going to be tricky mechanically

•Paladin is going to be usefull as muscle, but also the heals will help.

•Ranger healing, finding, hunting for food, they might not be the best at any one thing, but they can fill any number of gaps.

•Rogue is going to be an oddball depending on situation and build. Thief's second story work could be a literal life savor, while inquisitor might find that Sahuagin sympathizer who caused the flood in the first place.

•Sorcerer could be a great help or useless depending on situation or build. More cantrips means more likely to have a clutch elemental cantrip like mold earth, but if you didn't, quickened scorching ray or heightened hypnotic pattern isn't going to help.

•Warlock entirely dependent on build.

•wizard. So many spells that could be useful, did you prepare any of them today?

And of course all of them are great at
• fighting off the panicked owlbear running out of the forest fire into the village.
•stopping the looting bandits.
•keeping back the spellplagued from the magical explosion, or sahuagin who rode the flood in while the people evacuate.
•stringing up the cultists who drew calamity to their own homes.

[JackPhoenix]

ray of frost might put out fires.

No, it might not, unless the "fire" is followed by "elemental". It can only affect creatures. If you want to put out fires, pick Control Flames or even Prestidigitation instead. Or Shape Water or Mold Earth to dump water/dirt on the flames.

[Sparky McDibben]

No, it might not, unless the "fire" is followed by "elemental". It can only affect creatures. If you want to put out fires, pick Control Flames or even Prestidigitation instead. Or Shape Water or Mold Earth to dump water/dirt on the flames.

It might...if your DM allows for creative uses of combat spells outside of combat. And it's not like it's a stretch, or a major power boost.

[Unoriginal]

It might...if your DM allows for creative uses of combat spells outside of combat. And it's not like it's a stretch, or a major power boost.

Giving additional powers to a spell isn't a "creative use" of said spell.

[8wGremlin]

Ritual Casting of Unseen Servant

once every 10 mins you can create a servant capable of helping out, In one hour a ritual caster with this spell, can do the basic work of 6 people.

[Sparky McDibben]

Giving additional powers to a spell isn't a "creative use" of said spell.

Semantics, dear fellow. The spell creates a ray of frost. How is that not a fire extinguisher? Literally all I'm doing is expanding the target options.

Ritual Casting of Unseen Servant

once every 10 mins you can create a servant capable of helping out, In one hour a ritual caster with this spell, can do the basic work of 6 people.

I would argue that in that hour, the caster can do the work of 1 5/6ths people. The spell only creates one servant, and it takes 10 minutes to cast, meaning it's only active for 50 minutes.

[Valmark]

Semantics, dear fellow. The spell creates a ray of frost. How is that not a fire extinguisher? Literally all I'm doing is expanding the target options.

Expanding the target options IS giving additional power. Using a spell that only targets creatures on objects isn't semantics.

Plus there are spells that explicitely extinguish flames, so logically Ray Of Frost would not.

[JackPhoenix]

Semantics, dear fellow. The spell creates a ray of frost. How is that not a fire extinguisher?

How *is* it a fire extinguisher? No fire extinguisher I'm aware of uses "rays of frost" instead of a physical payload to put out fires. What does "ray of frost" even mean?

I would argue that in that hour, the caster can do the work of 1 5/6ths people. The spell only creates one servant, and it takes 10 minutes to cast, meaning it's only active for 50 minutes.

You can keep casting the spell to summon more servants. If you mark the time from the start of the casting, you'll get 50 + 40 + 30 + 20 + 10 = 150 minutes worth of work in the first hour, and 6 hours worth of work for every following hour, as new servants go up just as the old ones disappear.

Now, it's not really the same amount of work as normal people would be able to do, due to limited speed, strength and range of the servants, and their inability to act and react on their own, but it's still something.

[Evaar]

Semantics, dear fellow. The spell creates a ray of frost. How is that not a fire extinguisher? Literally all I'm doing is expanding the target options.

This does not work for the same reason you cannot Blind a creature by casting Light on its cornea. That is also only expanding the target options.

[Unoriginal]

Semantics, dear fellow. The spell creates a ray of frost. How is that not a fire extinguisher? Literally all I'm doing is expanding the target options.

It's not semantics. You're expanding the target options and adding a "cold ray extinguish fire" effect which does not exist in the descriptions of neither the spell nor the cold damage type.

[Trafalgar]

Semantics, dear fellow. The spell creates a ray of frost. How is that not a fire extinguisher? Literally all I'm doing is expanding the target options.

A fire extinguisher works by discharging Carbon Dioxide. This displaces Oxygen and smothers the fire. The cold is from the rapid expansion of the CO2 as it is released from the bottle (See Boyle's Law). It helps but is not the primary way an extinguisher puts out a fire.

So unless Ray of Frost has some other extinguishing agent in it, it's not going to do much.

[TigerT20]

A fire extinguisher works by discharging Carbon Dioxide. This displaces Oxygen and smothers the fire. The cold is from the rapid expansion of the CO2 as it is released from the bottle (See Boyle's Law). It helps but is not the primary way an extinguisher puts out a fire.

So unless Ray of Frost has some other extinguishing agent in it, it's not going to do much.

Except heat is also part of the fire triangle, as well as oxygen. So logically, removing heat in a region should put out any fires there. We don't do that in real life, yes, but we also don't have owlbears in real life or people capable of casting Mending.

[SirGraystone]

Mold Earth, you can move earth to dig water channel, use the earth to make dam, stop flame by covering it with dirt or just dig under collapsed building.

[kazaryu]

Except heat is also part of the fire triangle, as well as oxygen. So logically, removing heat in a region should put out any fires there. We don't do that in real life, yes, but we also don't have owlbears in real life or people capable of casting Mending.

On the contrary, we do do that in real life. Water isnt used to smother a fire generally. Its used to remove heat. Smothering a fire *can* happen, but typically fire boses are set to spray rather than stream, creating a rainlike effect. Which isnt gonna smother anything, it will, however, absorb the heat so and interupt the chain reaction

[Wraith]

•Monks are going to be tricky mechanically

I think a Monk would contribute as well as a fighter, under most circumstances.

Improved movement speed, not being weighed down by armour, spending Ki to Dash/Disengage - they're all great for running around, warning people of imminent danger and/or picking them up and carrying them to safety.

At only slightly higher level, Unarmoured Movement lets you climb over stuff and then jump down without worrying about the landing - crucial for navigating a city ruined by an earthquake or flood, for example. Their usually-high WIS makes them great for making Perception checks to spot trapped people, and then getting to them regardless of the danger.
Arguably even during such an events, Deflect Missiles could be used to protect people from falling rubble, shrapnel, and the likes. It's a small contribution, but it would make for a very impressive set-piece as the Monk stands facing the storm, punching rocks and falling debris out of the air.