Create or Destroy Water: Make It Rain

Usable By: Cleric, Druid

Spell Level: 1

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S, M (a drop of water if creating water or a few grains of sand if destroying it)

You either create or destroy water.

Create Water. You create up to 10 gallons of clean water within range in an open container. Alternatively, the water falls as rain in a 30-foot cube within range, extinguishing exposed flames in the area.

Destroy Water. You destroy up to 10 gallons of water in an open container within range. Alternatively, you destroy fog in a 30-foot cube within range.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you create or destroy 10 additional gallons of water, or the size of the cube increases by 5 feet, for each slot level above 1st.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Create or Destroy Water is an iconic spell to me. It's one of the big question spells player’s like to use to push the bounds of the game and mix real world physics with nonsense magic and game mechanics. The language leaves room for interpretation, the physical mechanics can be repeated for however many spell slots you have, and there are a ton of versatile ways to use dozens of gallons of water, from drowning somebody to creating a huge amount of pressure instantly.

In terms of practical, non-cheesy uses, I rarely see Create or Destroy Water pop up. It's a cleric and druid spell that just makes water or takes some away. Outside of killing some fish in a tank, the destroy mode isn’t often going to actually have a meaningful effect on anything. Few people are drowning in a ten gallon tank. Destroying fog is technically usable with this, but if you need a specific answer to Flog Cloud, the Gust cantrip is probably where you want to be.

Create water I think has more uses, but it's hard to say, as needing ten gallons of water for something not intended to leverage physics in some weird way doesn't come up that often. The rain puts out fires, sure, so if you know you’re traveling with some players who tend to get overly excited with their Fireballs you can act as a personal fire department to keep them from ruining a quiet town. There aren’t a lot of tables playing in settings where fresh water is that much of a challenge to get, and if it is, Create or Destroy Water probably has been discussed as something not to include, otherwise it just mitigates the challenge entirely.

I just don’t see fair, common uses for this that justify preparing it. You kind of have to ask yourself how much better is this than just lugging around ten gallons of water in jugs. The answer, I think, is not that much better. You don’t need Create or Destroy Water, unless you and your group really love figuring out what happens when you fit ten gallons worth of water in a tiny open waterskin.

5e Spells

Create or Destroy Water: Make It Rain