Wall of Sand: It's Coarse and Rough and Irritating and It Gets Everywhere
Usable By: Wizard
Spell Level: 3
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Range: 90 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Components: V, S, M (a handful of sand)
You conjure up a wall of swirling sand on the ground at a point you can see within range. You can make the wall up to 30 feet long, 10 feet high, and 10 feet thick, and it vanishes when the spell ends. It blocks line of sight but not movement. A creature is blinded while in the wall’s space and must spend 3 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves there.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
A group of hardened veterans fight for their lives against the undead horde. The wizard, with one precious level three spell left, turns to their allies, and says “I shall hold them off! They won’t be able to catch us now!” “What are you going to cast?” asked the rogue. “A Sleet Storm to slow them down? A Fireball to destroy them? A Wall of Fire to cut them off from passing?” “Better!” cries the wizard. “I shall conjure a Wall of SAND!”
These were the last words of a group that proceeded to get run down, as a Wall of Sand did little to nothing to hold the monsters at bay.
I’m confident in saying Wall of Sand is the second worst wall spell, only to Wall of Water. Functionally, for a 3rd level spell, you’re eating half of the movement of however many creatures that can get in the wall. That is all. Nearly every creature you cast this on is going to walk directly out of it for half their movement, or walk through it for all of their movement. This isn’t eating any actions, nor will it reliably actually blind anything. At least it is opaque; that is the only redeeming quality it adds over Wall of Water.
At its best use case you have to wonder “Is this better than Wall of Fire?” to which the answer is a resounding “No”! Sleet Storm creates a reasonable area of lockdown that actually slows enemies down enough that they need to spend multiple TURNS getting out of it, where Wall of Sand can’t come close to doing that. The only real use case for this is filling a ten foot wide and tall corridor with sand. Outside of that exact instance, this spell has such few instances of power I can’t recommend it. Every once in a while you can use it for cover in a pinch, as it's opaque. Things can still pass through it (including ranged attack rolls), so if they still know where you are this is basically just heavily obscuring the area.
If you’re the DM or you have a DM that likes expanding magic beyond the written rules, you could do some neat stuff with lightning or letting it run and fill spaces, but as is, I would avoid this Wall. It's not hard to do anyway.
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