Thorn Whip: Get Over Here!

Usable By: Artificer, Druid

Spell Level: Cantrip

School: Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 30 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V, S, M (the stem of a plant with thorns)

You create a long, vine-like whip covered in thorns that lashes out at your command toward a creature in range. Make a melee spell attack against the target. If the attack hits, the creature takes 1d6 piercing damage, and if the creature is Large or smaller, you pull the creature up to 10 feet closer to you.

At Higher Levels. This spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

The Yoyo is a classic druid maneuver where you stick down a Spike Growth and Thorn Whip some melee combatant through the spaces to shred it to itty bitty pieces. Unfortunately, it requires a lot to go right, and has just a mediocre average case even should it succeed. Thorn Whip is a spell I try to build around regularly, only to realize just casting a spell made to dish out damage exclusively is better.

Alone, Thorn Whip is pretty bad. An attack roll cantrip dealing 1d6 piercing damage with only a 30 ft. range is terrible; the bulk of the power has to come from its secondary effect. You aren’t getting a lot of tools to work with at 1st or 2nd level, and instead have to rely on very specific holes in the ground or hazardous terrain and odd placements to make the 10 ft. pull decent. There will be some windows where you can pull people off the side of a ship or down out a window, but most of the time the pull isn’t making a massive impact. It's important to note the pull won’t provoke attacks of opportunity, so on its own it isn’t going to offer tremendous utility in the bulk of encounters.

At 3rd level you can finally get some support to weaponize the pull. The obvious go to spell is Spike Growth; a creature takes damage for each 5 feet in the area it passes, making a successful Thorn Whip deal up to 4d4 bonus damage, plus whatever damage the creature needs to take to leave. If it just wants to leave the area, it's taking that 4d4 damage again, meaning you’re potentially getting 8d4+1d6 for a 2nd level spell each turn. This is all conditional, however; if the creature has a fly speed, forget it. If the creature has a ranged attack option it’d rather use, the damage is halved. If the creature can break your concentration, the effect ends. Worst of all, Spike Growth takes an action to set up, meaning you have to wait an entire turn with the Spike Growth deployed HOPING a creature either moves into it or otherwise positions to be adjacent to it for you to pull off the Yoyo. It can happen, and when it does your party will look at you like you're the coolest druid ever to live, but it will be rare.

Alternatively, you can use it with Moonbeam. You set up Moonbeam on a target the round prior; on the next turn, you spend your action pulling a creature into the Moonbeam with Thornwhip, which triggers the damage, then subsequently move the beam onto another creature to damage it at the start of its turn, or just leave it in place to double up damage on the initial burn victim. This again sounds great on paper, but functionally keeping things within 10 feet of the beam is tricky, and not all that likely to happen consistently. If you move the beam within 10 feet of a creature first to attempt to set up the double damage dip, should you miss that Thorn Whip attack roll, you deal a fat zero damage with the Moonbeam too as it sits awkwardly in front of the creature, who surely is laughing at you now.

At higher levels and when paired with other classes options like Spirit Guardians and Blade Barrier you can get a lot of mileage out of the cantrip. If you don’t have to be the one setting up the area, it can be bananas. On its own, even when built around, Thorn Whip just requires too much set up to thrive. It’ll be okay, though, and can be a fine tool just to have on you even without frequent use.

5e Spells

Thorn Whip: Get Over Here!