Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

The range and need of line-of-sight is pretty clear when spells are initially cast, but what happens if range is exceeded or line of sight is broken in a spell that lasts more than an instantaneous effect — in particular, with spells that require Concentration to maintain them?

(In the case that came up in my campaign, the party wanted to maintain a spell as they fled; a more common instance is the affected party fleeing the caster and breaking LoS or exceeding distance.)\

The General Rule

It’s pretty straightforward:  range and line-of-sight don’t matter once the spell has been cast. As PHB 203 puts it:

Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise.

So, as a general rule (and as confirmed by Jeremy Crawford and also confirmed by Jeremy Crawford), once you have successfully cast a spell on a spot or a target opponent, it will continue until it naturally ends (i.e., with a Concentration spell, until the time limit is passed or the character drops concentration), regardless of what the range or line-of-sight is. You are maintaining the spell, not the targeting.

Spells that say otherwise, of course, are otherwise (the specific overrides the general).

That said, if you and the target are beyond LoS, you don’t know what is going on there. Maybe the guy you threw Heat Metal on ran into the next room, took off the armor, and put it on an orphan waif, and your continuing the damage is killing an innocent. Ah, well …

Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

It’s the damaging, crowd-controlling, Area of Effect spell that keeps on giving. You thought Entanglement was a pain in the ass? Try something (if you are a Druid or Ranger) that doesn’t prevent you from moving, just slows you and damages you when you try to: Spike Growth!

So what does it say?

The ground in a 20-foot radius centered on a point within range twists and sprouts hard spikes and thorns. The area becomes difficult terrain for the duration. When a creature moves into or within the area, it takes 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet it travels.

So we really have two effects here over the Concentration / 10 minutes of the spell:

1. The area of the spell is Difficult Terrain.
2. The area of the spell causes 2d4 piercing damage per 5 feet travelled.

This 2nd level spell would be somewhat effective at crowd control if all it did was slow the bad guys down. Causing 2d4 damage for every 5 feet (one square on a normal grid) traveled is murderous at early levels. A figure with a 30-foot move will be slowed to 15 feet (Difficult terrain), and take 6d4 (6-24) points of damage, with no AC or Save to mitigate it, each turn. And that applies to everyone within the spell area.

No, honestly, I have seem very large early mobs gutted by a well-positioned use of this spell.

This spell is particularly deadly because, while most “this area causes you damage” spells affect someone once per turn (e.g., Moonbeam), Spike Growth will mess them up for every square they move through. Plus, there’s no save.

Plus, it’s Sneaky

The spell notes:

The transformation of the ground is camouflaged to look natural. Any creature that can’t see the area at the time the spell is cast must make a Wisdom (Perception) check against your spell save DC to recognize the terrain as hazardous before entering it.

So you can set it as a trap for pursuers. If they don’t see it cast, they require a save to spot it before they blunder in.

Pushing In

There are a variety of ways of pushing or dragging folk into a Spike Growth spell area, from a Shove attack to Thorn Whip to Thunderwave to Thunderous Smite. It’s not always clear with these effects whether a target is dragged at ground level (in which case they would take damage each square of Spike Growth they were moved through) or somehow hurled through the air (in which case only the target square would cause damage).

The DM will have adjudicate based on the specific spell / effect and the circumstances it occurs in, to see how much damage the target takes.

Getting Out

The old saying of “Getting out means going through” is a losing proposition with Spike Growth. Going through means taking more damage.

Tactics for those caught in the spell:

1. Wait it out. Yeah, that’s not likely over 10 minutes, but one of your comrades might disrupt the Concentration of the caster.
2. Remove Yourself (Usually Vertically).  A long jump away, a high jump to grab something above, or, of course, some sort of teleport or flight can get you out of the area.
3. Enjoy the melee cover.  If you are a spellcaster or ranged weapon person, being stuck in Spike Growth isn’t nearly as problematic. Stand there and ranged-attack your opponents (maybe particularly the caster), knowing that the opposition melee fighters will likely not be charging you.

Limits of Growth

Spike Growth does not scale. Even with no save, at some point in the leveling/CR equation, 2d4 damage per square does not daunt in quite the same way.

Sure, it creates Difficult Terrain (always a good thing), and 2d4 over enough squares starts to add up, but a 15th Level character will be a lot less worried over it (or have ways around it) than a 2nd Level character.

But it’s good while it lasts.

Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

Our party’s Druid (it’s also available for Artificer) had this spell and used it pretty constantly from the time it arrived to the time the campaign ended at Level 13.

The damage from Thorn Whip is okay, maybe a bit better in the early days when damage is hard to come by, though it scales nicely (something 5e has done well with cantrips). But its true utility comes with its ability to shove people around the battlefield.

The Spell

Here is the spell description:

You create a long, vine-like whip covered in thorns that lashes out at your command toward a creature in range [30 ft]. 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.

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

That’s actually pretty cool. A 30-foot range magical attack (requiring an actual attack roll) that does decent damage and lets you yoink people around the game map (at least closer across the game map) by up to 10 feet.

And it’s a cantrip, so you can be playing with this every single round, if you are so inclined.

Note also that, as a (30-foot reach) melee attack (not a ranged attack), the caster takes no Disadvantage using it while standing next to an opponent. The caster is still at Disadvantage vs prone targets over 5 feet away (the rules don’t differentiate between melee and ranged attacks there). Cover effects also still apply.

Finally, in visualizing this spell, most people imagine the caster holding the whip and swing it themselves. However, there’s nothing in the spell that actually says that — it could be floating in mid-air, erupting from the ground — whatever, and because it’s a spell attack, not a weapon attack — you don’t dexterously swing it, but “command it to lash out.”  It’s magic!

Moving the target around

Those words “pull the creature up to 10 feet” are important, because they make it clear that the caster has a choice about whether to move the target at all or how much. It can be left just as a 1d6 damage attack, with the target still standing where they were, or they can be moved 5 feet or 10 feet (or whatever increments your battle grid has, within that 10 foot limit).

But what does closer mean here? Because of the limited distance being moved, I would (in lieu of a more informed reading) argue that each square needs to be toward the caster, reducing the overall distance each step.

 x  x  x  x  x
 x  x  T  x  x
 x  5  5  5  x
10 10 10 10 10
 -  -  -  -  -
 -  -  C  -  -

So, in the case above, the (C)aster could move the (T)arget into each of the numbered points at 5 feet; if moving 10 feet, they would have to got to one of the 10 foot marks. They could not shift into a different 5 foot mark, and definitely not into any of the (x) squares because the move to those is further or the same distance from the Caster.

(Note: Some of this may depend what rule you are using to judge distance on a grid.) (Also Note: A little flexibility here from the DM can fulfill the Rule of Cool.)

Kind of a drag

A lot of questions are raised by the pulling aspect of Thorn Whip (is the victim dragged? catapulted? floated through the air? teleported? and why is there no Strength Save?), but a main use for this power is dragging someone into a hazard — off a cliff, into a Bonfire spell, into a Moonbeam spell, into a Spike Growth spell, up to the immobilized Barbarian, etc.

Is this legit? And (when) does the victim take damage from those hazard areas? The answers are, “Yes” and “It depends.”

Let’s start off by noting that Opportunity Attacks will not be triggered by being yoinked away by a Thorn Whip. That’s pretty much straight out of the book:

You also don’t provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your Movement, Action, or Reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.

Since being yoinked by a Thorn Whip doesn’t use your Movement, Action, or Reaction, no OA is triggered.

That said, it is considered completely legit to involuntarily move someone into a hazard (p. 19) through a spell or force like Thorn Whip:

Entering such an area of effect needn’t be voluntary, unless a spell says otherwise. You can, therefore, hurl a creature into the area with a spell like Thunderwave. We consider that clever play, not an imbalance, so hurl away!

The subject in that ruling is on spells creating …

… an area of effect that does something when a creature enters that area for the first time on a turn or when a creature starts its turn in that area.

That includes things like  Blade Barrier, Cloudkill, Spirit Guardians, and Moonbeam. While “creating an area of effect on the creature or moving it onto the creature doesn’t count,” involuntarily entering the area does.

One caveat there:

Keep in mind, however, that a creature is subjected to such an area of effect only the first time it enters the area on a turn. You can’t move a creature in and out of it to damage it over and over again on the same turn.

(Remember that a round in 5e consists of a sequence of each combatant taking their turn. While a round is about 6 seconds, a turn is some (overlapping) slice of that period, ordered by initiative, but not a defined period of time.)

So given a Moonbeam occupying four squares, you could not force an attack from the spell for each square you used Thorn Whip to drag the target through (i.e., if you dragged them through two squares of it, the 5 foot and 10 foot marks of the spell), just for the initial entry square on your turn.

An exception here (of course there is an exception) is something like Spike Growth. Unlike spells like Moonbeam that trigger “when a creature enters the spell’s area for the first time on a turn,” Spike Growth states:

When a creature moves into or within the area, it takes 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet it travels.

Within and every 5 feet it travels are the keys here. You can Thorn Whip someone through two squares (10 feet) of Spike Growth and it will take the 2d4 piercing for each of those squares.

Thorn Whip: It’s Magic!

The magical nature of the pulling done by Thorn Whip is interesting. As described:

If the creature is Large or smaller, you pull the creature up to 10 feet closer to you.

So, note first, this targets creatures. You cannot Thorn Whip over to you the idol sitting on the pedestal over there, or Thorn Whip away the sword in someone’s hand (or that they dropped on the floor).

Second, within the parameter of “Large or smaller,” the target gets no choice or control in the matter of being moved. Standing there slack-jawed or holding onto a support beam for dear life with a STRength of 20, the creature doesn’t even get a Save — they just come. It’s magic!

How does the targeted creature actually move? Fly through the air? Dragged along the ground? It’s not just a teleport because they can take damage from environmental and magical conditions each step of the way. But the spell also doesn’t tie into movement or movement obstacles — it stays nothing about being “slowed” by Difficult Terrain, for example.

I dunno. It’s magic!

Can you Thorn Whip someone through another creature’s square? If you have defeated the cover that other creature is providing, then the answer would seem to be yes, even if it’s an enemy of the target; the only things the rules don’t permit is leaving them in another creature’s square unless it fits other movement/size rules.

What about other obstacles? Assuming you can see past/around them, can you pull a Thorn Whipped person through an obstacle they couldn’t move through themselves? I’d say not, as a general rule; they’ll have to be pulled around.  (But hold this thought for a moment …)

Showing Restraint vs Thorn Whip

What if the target is restrained in some way — grappled, or Entangled, or held by Black Tentacles, or even shackled to a wall? Can Thorn Whip just pull them over regardless? Remember, the individual creature is powerless to stop themselves from being pulled by the spell. But can outside forces prevent it?

Boy, can you find a lot of online argument about that!

General conclusions I’ve drawn on these questions:

• Thorn Whip breaks a grapple, because the grapple rules literally allow for the grapple to be broken by some outside force.
• Against spells that Restrain, like Entangle or Black Tentacles, two alternatives are suggested and, to be honest, I vacillate between them as I reductio ad absurdem each case:
  • Being Restrained does not prevent Forced Movement unless the cause says so (maybe the Entangling vines aren’t deeply rooted). So Thorn Whip will pull an Entangled character from the point where they were Restrained (and ignoring the Difficult terrain), but they will remain Restrained where they land.
  • Being Restrained should resist against Forced Movement. In which case, turn it into a spell contest by the Thorn Whip caster versus the Entangled caster — e.g., the Thorn Whip exerts a “Strength” for the Entangle spell’s Strength Save of d20 + proficiency + stat bonus.  This makes logical sense, but (a) isn’t RAW, and, more importantly (b) starts implying that strength of some sort can counter Thorn Whip, and it’s clear (from lack of a Save against being yoinked) that’s simply not true.
• Against actual physical restraints (being shackled to the wall) … well, it works like the spells mentioned above:  either Thorn Whip just moves the target creature regardless of the shackles (because it’s magic!), or make the Thorn Whip save with the spell strength vs a DC 20 for the manacles.
  • In either case, no additional damage should be done to the target. It’s only a freaking cantrip, fergoshsakes.

This escalating conflict between the Thorn Whip‘s clear it’s magic! nature, which is baked into the language the spell, and the voice of reason as restraints become bigger and more powerful, can only end in things like “I try to Thorn Whip the target through the bars of the jail cell,” and what silliness that results in. At some point the DM has to step in and adjudicate something that feels right while fitting the Rule of Cool.

One final  weird factor in all of this is that the duration for Thorn Whip is “instantaneous.”

Many spells are instantaneous. The spell harms, heals, creates, or alters a creature or an object in a way that can’t be dispelled, because its magic exists only for an instant.

That is, it’s not faster than the eye (you can see the whip, you can see it strike, you can see the yank, you could theoretically Counterspell it), but it happens faster than can be addressed or exploited by, for example, a Dispel Magic (or cutting the whip with your sword, or using the whip to make a gibbet, etc.).

Bearing in mind that D&D is not a tool for modeling physics, Thorn Whip is a spell whose nature and execution does not bear too close an examination. Take it as written. It’s magic!

Is Thorn Whip a magical weapon or not?

I keep saying “it’s magic,” but when does it count as magic? This question can come up in a number of circumstances — in my game, it was when the Druid used Thorn Whip on a Gargoyle, which is “resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons.” Does Thorn Whip qualify, or not? Is Thorn Whip a magical weapon?

As one commenter summarized the argument:

• YES: It’s created by a spell, it uses a melee spell attack to hit, and the spell damage increases with level.

• NO: The spell description only mentions piercing damage, from an object created by the spell, not from the spell directly.

Arguments for Yes, it’s a magic attack

• Because it’s a melee spell attack roll, not a normal melee weapon attack roll, the resistance to weapons doesn’t apply. Melee spell attacks follow the same rules as melee attacks; in this case, a melee attack with a 30 foot range. But it uses the spell attack modifier (spellcasting ability + proficiency) to hit, so, again, it’s a spell attack and ignores the resistance. 
• The Sage Advice Compendium notes (p. 21), in determining if something is magical, qualifying questions would include “Is it a spell? … Is it a spell attack?” This is a spell, and uses a melee spell attack.
•  Mike Mearls (one of the 5e designers) agrees that “any piercing, bludgeoning or slashing damage from spells count as magical in nature.”
• The Monster Manual notes “Particular creatures are even resistant or immune to damage from non-magical attacks (a magical attack is an attack delivered by a spell, a magic item, or another magical source).” This attack is delivered by a spell.
• The whip both magically appears and disappears. That indicates it’s not some sort of physical item being created, but a magic construct.
• The whip not only does damage, it magically lets you pull something closer to you without any additional roll (or save). Thus the overall attack is magical.

Arguments for No, it’s a non-magical weapon attack

• The name of it is a weapon. And the spell actually creates a whip, which is a weapon. So it’s a weapon, crafted by non-conventional means.
• The spell itself doesn’t do the damage; the whip created by it does. Again, the spell doesn’t indicate it creates a magical whip, just a long, vine-like whip that the spell allows you to commend.
• And it does piercing  damage, like a weapon, not magical damage (force, radiance, necrotic, etc.).
• That the damage increases with level doesn’t mean it’s additional magical damage, but could be additionally pointy / strong non-magical thorns.

Conclusion

Net-net, I am persuaded that Thorn Whip is a magical / spell attack (i.e., textualist arguments aside, the vine-like whip is an embodied spell, following the arguments around Spiritual Weapon), so it would defeat non-magical weapon resistance or immunity.

Of course, as an extension of that, something like an Antimagic Field would affect the vine reaching a target within it (even if the caster was outside of the field). It could also be countered, as noted, by a Counterspell.

Because … it’s magic!

Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

The first time I DMed this, I did it wrong. Which, given it was an NPC I had thought I had well in hand, is not a cool move on my part.

So here it is, done right.

Here’s the core of the spell’s effect:

Each creature that is completely within the cloud at the start of its turn must make a Constitution saving throw against poison. On a failed save, the creature spends its Action that turn retching and reeling.

When I first played with this, I ruled that this still allowed Movement (since that isn’t mentioned), but, just as anything that takes away your Action also takes way your Bonus Action, the only thing you could do was retching and reeling.

But that’s not what it says. The Stinking Cloud doesn’t take away your Action, it dictates your action (retching and reeling). I.e., your Action is set, but you still have your Bonus Action (and Reaction, for that matter).

Or, as the Sage Advice Compendium puts it:

The stinking cloud spell says that a creature wastes its Action on a failed save. So can it still use a Move or a Bonus Action or a Reaction?

Correct. The gas doesn’t immobilize a creature or prevent it from acting altogether, but the effect of the spell does limit what it can accomplish while the cloud lingers.

Movement is a bit problematic, of course. The area covered by Stinking Cloud  is Heavily Obscured.

A heavily obscured area–such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage–blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.

Or, presumably, out of that area. Blinded, in turn:

A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any Ability check that requires sight.

Attack rolls against the creature have Advantage, and the creature’s attack rolls have Disadvantage.

Note the offsetting penalties — trying to Attack someone inside the cloud has to deal with Heavily Obscured conditions, and so is at Disadvantage (as though blinded). But the target is, themselves, blind to the attack, putting them at a Disadvantage. That makes, even without all the loud retching sounds attacks on a figure within a Stinking Cloud even money. (A figure inside the cloud can’t Attack if they failure save, except through a Bonus Action, but with that Bonus Action, or if they make the save, theoretically they are also a wash to attack a target outside the cloud, unless that target is using stealth or a Dodge or something of that sort.)

I might House Rule that, combined with the Retching and Reeling, being blinded in such a circumstance would lead to disorientation — perhaps another Save (Intelligence?) to move in a desired direction?

As a final note, the rules say “completely within the cloud” for the nausea effect. So if you are playing on a grid, and are using a true circle for your template (physically or on a VTT), any one in a partially covered circle isn’t affected. Which is why I prefer to have a template that fills in full boxes on the grid, to avoid the ambiguity.

Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

Since I’ve had players pick this, because it sounds very cool (and it can be), I had to do some digging into some of the aspects of Spiritual Weapon that are not completely obvious.

Spiritual Weapon is weird

No, seriously. But that’s because people see “weapon” and try to (incorrectly) apply all sorts of melee combat weapon rules and assumptions to it. It’s not:

Spiritual Weapon is a multi-round melee attack spell
that looks like a weapon because that’s really cool. 

If you just keep that in mind, you can ignore the whole rest of this post.

The Nuts and Bolts

Base spell:

Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action
Range: 60 feet

You create a floating, spectral weapon within range that lasts for the Duration or until you cast this spell again. When you cast the spell, you can make a melee spell attack⁠⁠ against a creature within 5 feet of the weapon. On a hit, the target takes force damage equal to 1d8 + your Spellcasting Ability modifier.

As a Bonus Action on your turn⁠, you can move the weapon up to 20 feet and repeat the attack⁠ against a creature within 5 feet of it.

The first confusion comes when wondering whether on Round 1 you simply cast it as your BA, and then need to take a regular Attack action to wield it, or not. The consensus wisdom out there is “or not”:  the attack is also part of the Bonus Action (as it is in subsequent rounds), which  means the following “what can you do with it when?”:

Round 1: As a Bonus Action: cast up to 60 feet away + attack.

Rounds 2ff: As a Bonus Action: move it up to 20 feet + attack.

And that lasts either until you dispel it or 1 minute (10 rounds).

These Are Not the Weapons You’re Looking For

“But! But!” people sputter, “It’s a weapon attacking! That has to happen during a normal Action as an attack! You can’t have a spell doing a weapon attack and then do a different weapon attack or even a spell-cast, on the same turn!”

Yes. Yes you can. Because what you see isn’t what’s really happening. It’s not actually a weapon, not matter what it says in the name.

Think of the Spiritual Weapon as a deconstructed magical attack spell. Nobody would question the ability to manifest a magical zap spell and attack with it that very same Bonus Action. Which is what you’re actually doing with Spiritual Weapon, but the magical zap spell looks and moves like a weapon, which confuses the heck out of people, because they want to treat it as a glowing animated physical weapon that does physical damage.

But it’s not. It is, quite literally “a floating, spectral weapon” that does “force damage” — and the likelihood of hitting with it has nothing to do with your physical melee abilities (Strength and Dexterity), but your melee spell abilities.

So while you’re doing Spiritual Weapon, what else can you do?

Well, on the round you cast it, that only burns your Bonus Action. So you have your full normal Movement and an Action to work with.

Except, regarding casting multiple spells in a turn, remember …

If you want to Cast a Spell that has a casting time of 1 Bonus Action, remember that you can’t cast any other Spells before or after it on the same turn, except for Cantrips with a Casting Time of 1 Action.

So on that initial round when you cast the Spiritual Weapon, you can’t do any other spells except a 1-Action casting time Cantrip. You can still move around, shoot your bow, swing your sword, Hide, etc.

On subsequent rounds, though, you can be casting spells during your normal Action, because the move-and-attack of the Spiritual Weapon is not a casting of a spell. As noted in the Sage Advice  Compendium (p. 12)

Until Spiritual Weapon ends, it gives you the option of controlling its  spectral weapon as a Bonus Action. That Bonus Action does not involve casting a spell, despite the fact that it’s granted by a spell, so you can control the weapon and cast whatever spell you like on the same turn.

In that same context, also note that Spiritual Weapon is not a Concentration spell. So even if the caster is attacked or otherwise distracted, that does not affect the spell, and casting the Spiritual Weapon does not interfere with other Concentration spells you already have up. (One could even argue that, should the caster go unconscious, the Spiritual Weapon would simply remain there, floating — it can’t attack without command — until the caster was revived if within the 1 minute spell duration.)

There Are No Stupid Questions About Spiritual Weapon

Well, maybe a few.

Does moving away from a Spiritual Weapon trigger an Opportunity Attack?

No. The Spiritual Weapon is not a creature of itself (it has no volition or reaction).  And it only attacks during a Bonus Action: Opportunity Attacks are a Reaction.

Is this a magical weapon I see before me?

No, because it’s not a physical object, thus not actually a weapon.

Again, from the spell text:

Clerics of deities who are associated with a particular weapon (as St. Cuthbert is known for his mace and Thor for his hammer) make this spell’s effect resemble that weapon.

“Effect resemble.” The shape and appearance of the SW is a “spell effect,” not actual substance.

Also, it’s an Evocation spell, one to “manipulate magical energy to produce a desired effect”; it is not a Conjuration which “involve the transportation of objects” or a Transmutation which can “change the properties of a … object.” Again, no object, just effect.

Remember that deconstruction mantra? If this was summoning a magical zap bolt that flitted about the field of combat, it would clearly not be thought of as a magical weapon. That’s basically what Spiritual Weapon is, a spell that resembles an actual weapon because that’s cool.

Can someone hold onto the Spiritual Weapon as it’s moved and essentially fly like Thor?

(People have actually asked this question.)

No. As just noted, the SW is a spectral weapon. It has no substance to grasp or hold onto. It invokes Force damage, but you can’t grab onto that.

Can a person move through the square occupied by a Spiritual Weapon?

Yes. The rules about moving through squares occupied by other creatures only apply to creatures. The Spiritual Weapon is not a creature. It has no substance to block someone, only doing Force damage when it attacks (which, to make it worse, it can’t do during the part of a round when someone would be moving through its square).

Now, that said, a lot of people would be naturally hesitant to do such a thing, even if they knew the spell. So there’s some role-playing involved here, and I’d suggest the average peasant / Kobold / etc. would just sort of naturally avoid running through a square occupied by a mystical floating weapon (or a spectral appearance of same) unless they had no other choice.

For that matter, there’s nothing to stop a person (friend or enemy) from ending or pausing movement in the same square as the weapon, nor from the caster from moving it into an occupied square (again, either by a friend or an enemy). It would not make attacks by the Spiritual Weapon any more likely or powerful, though it might be kind of distracting.

Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

5e has very much simplified (perhaps oversimplified, some argue) the issue of dealing with water as an obstacle, a location for fighting, and a danger. Always remember, D&D is not a physics simulator (or, as some have countered, it is a horrendously and hilariously bad physics simulator).

Note that there are a lot of exceptions below for creatures that have a Swimming speed in their stat block.

Movement in the Water

• Water is basically considered Difficult terrain if you don’t have a native Swimming speed. That is, each foot moved costs two feet of movement.
  • If the terrain within the swim is itself Difficult (e.g., a strong current, a kelp bed, etc.), this might increase to each foot moved costs three feet of movement.
  • You can, however, use any other movement speed (e.g., walking, flying) to swim with.
• If the water is “rough,” making any progress swimming might require a Strength (Athletics) check.
• There is (remarkably) no distinction in speed between swimming underwater or swimming on the surface.
• Don’t forget the Dash action, if you are doing nothing but movement.

Long-Distance Movement in the Water

If you have a Swimming speed, you can swim all day without penalty; use Forced March rules from the PHB.

Otherwise (per DMG 116), you need to roll a CON Save vs DC 10 for each hour swimming. Failure means +1 level of Exhaustion. Beyond that, there is a cap on 8 hours of swimming per day.

Deep Water

The pressures and temperatures of deep water take their toll. Per DMG 116, for creatures lacking a swimming speed:

• if swimming over 100 feet deep, makes every hour count as two for Exhaustion checks and limits.
• if swimming over 200 feet deep, makes every hour count as four for Exhaustion checks and limits.

Vision in the Water

• Clear water, bright light — 60 foot visibility to notice an encounter
• Clear water, dim light — 30 foot visibility to notice an encounter (Disadvantage to Perception).
• Murky water / no light — 10 foot visibility to notice an encounter (Disadvantage to Purcepti0n).

The above presume light sources or Darkvision.

Doing Stuff in the Water

By which we mean, of course, combat and magic.

Combat in the Water

When fighting underwater, again unless you have a native Swimming speed:

• Melee weapon attacks are at a Disadvantage (as you and/or your weapons are slowed by the drag of the water) …
• … except for a thrusting/piercing weapon like a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident.

This melee weapon restriction Rule-As-Written would seem to apply to fighting while on the surface (swimming), or even while partially immersed (imagine fighting in waist-deep water); I’m not sure that last makes sense, and an appeal to the DM might be possible. (I can see any sort of melee weapon attack being at Disadvantage when standing in, but not under, water, as you are partially Restrained.)

• Ranged weapon attacks are possible underwater, but they are at a Disadvantage …
• … except when using a crossbow, net, or a weapon thrown like a javelin, spear, trident, or dart.
• They are an automatic miss if beyond normal range.

Magic in the Water

• You can cast spells underwater.
  • But if they have a verbal component, you have stopped holding your breath and have gone into step 2 of Drowning (below).
  • Material components may be difficult to manipulate while swimming or immersed in water.
  • Somatic components aren’t a problem, as only a single hand is needed for them.
• Spells that require a to-hit roll do so at a Disadvantage (if above water, because of aiming while trying to stay afloat; if underwater, because of the murk and visual distortion underwater, and drag on your body).

When you are fully immersed in water, you have Resistance to fire damage.

But aside from that, spells don’t do anything tricky. For example, lightning does not electrify the whole area. Remember (a) Bad Physics Simulator, and (b) it’s not actual lightning, it’s magic acting like lightning (handwaves).

Going “Prone” underwater

If something should knock you Prone while in the water, you are instead tumbling/floundering … but suffering the same status effects as being Prone (including slowed movement, Disadvantage to attack, Advantage to adjacent attackers) until you “stand up” / regain control with half your movement. (References 1, 2, 3).

Drowning

The rules here are essentially the same as suffocation rules:

1. You can hold your breath for (CON mod + 1) minutes (to a minimum of 30 seconds).
2. After that you survive (CON mod) rounds (minimum of 1) without needing more air.
3. After that, you are at 0 hp and are unconscious and dying. You can’t stabilize or heal until you can breathe — even if you make your three successful Death Saves, you only erase any unsuccessful ones and start the process over. You can be magically healed, but that can only get you back up to Step 2 unless you are out of the water by then.

Example: A creature with CON = 14 (CON mod = 2) can hold their breath for 3 minutes. After that, they start drowning/suffocating, and have 2 rounds to reach air before dropping to 0 hp.

Note that 3 minutes (or even 1 minute) is a ridiculous amount of time in the game (1 minute = 10 rounds of combat). People tend to be terrified of their character running out of air … the first time they get into underwater combat.  (It’s still a real threat, but not a close one.)

Workarounds

• Various races can either breathe underwater, or (such as Lizardfolk and Tortles) can hold their breath for longer, as defined in their stat blocks.
• Wild Shape and Polymorph can change folk into creatures that can swim or breathe in water.
• Anything that magically gives you a Swimming speed will be useful in the above.
• Water Breathing is a spell that literally lets you breathe underwater for 8 hours. It’s a 3rd level for Druids, Rangers, Sorcerers, and Wizards, can affect up to ten people, doesn’t require concentration, and can be done as a ritual. Alternately, Water Walk (same parameters) lets you walk on water and not worry about having to breathe it.

Wait, that’s it?

But aren’t there some classic tropes that these rule ignore?

Yes.

 

1. There’s no provision for heavy armor or a full backpack dragging you to the bottom, etc.; if you are strong enough to wear it, you are strong enough to swim in it (handwaves) … which is good, because it takes 5 minutes to remove heavy armor.
2. There are no provisions for using up breath faster if you are slowly flailing about with your greatsword instead sitting still and reserving oxygen.

Again, largely this is because D&D is a crappy physics (and biology) simulator, and intentionally so. The game design thought seems to be “Does this complication take away from the fun? Does it mean extra calculations, rolls, and otherwise bogging-down of the game? Then simplify or eliminate it.”

(Note to self: if I ever decide this is too simplified, this site has some interesting homebrewed additions.)

Part of an ongoing series of 5e Rules notes.

Skills and Abilities … 5e has a system that interestingly modular, providing for a lot of flexibility, and occasional confusion.

5e has also given terminology a big stir, so sometimes folk (especially those coming from earlier editions, homebrews, or variant systems) get a little mixed up as to what’s being referred to as what. So forgive me if I digress a bit first …

Everything starts with Abilities

Abilities are your five primary statistics (and some people still refer to them as your stats):

• STRength, measuring physical power
• DEXterity, measuring agility
• CONstitution, measuring endurance
• INTelligence, measuring reasoning and memory
• WISdom, measuring perception and insight
• CHArisma, measuring force of personality

Everything you as a character can do stems from or is primarily influenced by these stats. (And, just to start there, I remember back in the good old days when they were a bit more nonsensically ordered STR, INIT, WIS, DEX, CON, and CHA — so D&D has shown a bit of rational evolution there.

Your level as a Player Character in each of these Abilities is from 3-20, though, depending on how you build them at character creation, it’s rare you’ll start off above 18.

Based on the level of the Ability, you get an Ability Modifier:

Score	Modifier
1	-5
2-3	-4
4-5	-3
6-7	-2
8-9	-1
10-11	+0
12-13	+1
14-15	+2
16-17	+3
18-19	+4
20-21	+5

In many ways, the actual Ability Score is meaningless; it’s the resulting Modifier that ultimately impacts the game mechanics, as modifying D20 die rolls associated with that Ability. Indeed, many character sheets emphasize the Modifier vs the Score (which begs the issue of why, aside from legacy / nostalgia reasons, we still need the Ability Score itself any more … but that’s a change for the next edition).

You could (and some systems can) run quite neatly with just these Abilities dividing up all your capability into six buckets. But since the golden days of D&D, people have wanted a bit more.

Skills!

Those Abilities are a bit broad for the level of tactical and adventuring crunchiness that D&D players consider the sweet spot.  So long ago, lists of skills were developed that people could specialize in through some mechanic, influenced primarily by the Ability they are associated with.

So, for example, Sleight of Hand is a very different skill than, say, Acrobatics. Both are clearly associated with the Dexterity (“measuring agility”), but you can easily think of someone who would be mediocre at one but dazzling in the other.

The normal 5e Skill list is alphabetical, but you can also break it out by the Abilities they traditionally align with:

Strength

• Athletics

Dexterity

• Acrobatics
• Sleight of Hand
• Stealth

Intelligence

• Arcana
• History
• Investigation
• Nature
• Religion

Wisdom

• Animal Handling
• Insight
• Medicine
• Perception
• Survival

Charisma

• Deception
• Intimidation
• Performance
• Persuasion

(There are no Skills based on CONstitution.)

The modifier on the D20 roll for any given skill starts with the modifier for the Ability it’s associated with. You can also have special Proficiency in a given skill (usually from your Class, or from a Feat, or even from a Race), which means you add your Proficiency Bonus in.

So with the character in question, when they make an Acrobatics roll, they roll a D20, add in their DEXterity Ability Modify (+1), and then (because it’s checked off as a Proficiency), their Proficiency Bonus (+2) — 1d20+3.

Mixing and Matching Abilities and Skills

You will almost never see a Skill written in official material like this:

Athletics

Instead, it will be written as

Strength (Athletics)

But why? Doesn’t Athletics imply Strength?

Not necessarily.

There are a couple of ways of looking at this. You are actually always rolling these checks on an Ability — this is a STRength check, this is a CONstitution check, this is an INTelligence check, etc. The Skills listed are only to help you narrow down which Ability you are rolling (“Oh, I’m trying Sleight of Hand, so this is going to be a DEX-based roll) or to indicate a specific proficiency in the technical aspects of what is essentially a Sub-ability, a Skill.

But sometimes that technical training and experience of a Skill can be applied to different Ability at its base. Let’s say you have been thrown overboard from a ship by pirates, and you need to swim to an island you can barely see in the distance.

Okay, well, clearly, Athletics is going to be the technical Skill set. But what the Ability is is what actually matters. This isn’t a race across the pool where STRength is the deciding factor. This is going to be all about endurance … so you’re going to be using CONstitution as the active Ability.

So, yes, you will be rolling Constitution (Athletics). 

To use the character sheet bits above, you’ll make a roll of 1d20 + 3 (CON modifier) + 2 (Proficiency Bonus for Athletics), for a 1d20 + 5.

(Yes, yes, the character in question has the same STRength and CONstitution, which means the die roll is the same in this one particular case, but I hope you see the point.)

So, yeah, sure, STRength normally powers Athletics, and WISdom makes sense with Perception … but it doesn’t have to be that way. The rules treat those as the default. If you can make a cogent argument for it to the DM, you can use any ability to power a skill, such that the skill roll becomes:

1d20 + (the chosen Ability modifier) + (your Skill Proficiency Bonus)

(If you are using a VTT like Roll20, you’ll have to calculate this manually, but it’s pretty easy.)

This is both good story-tellilng — using the appropriate Ability for a given test — but it’s also something the the Players can use to their advantage (leaning into their stronger Abilities) or the DM can use to mix things up a bit.

As another example, from the PHB, you usually use CHArisma as the basis for your Intimidation rolls — bringing your force of personality to play in beating down their resistance. But if you’re some savagely-strong looking barbarian, maybe you just show your target how you can snap them in half as easily as this thick log waiting to go into the fireplace, with a Strength (Intimidation) roll.

Your intent here is still to intimidate, but rather through word and body language (CHArisma), you’re using force of sinew (STRength). But Intimidation as a skill has its own goals and techniques; if you have proficiency in them, you should be able to use them different ways.

Indeed, I can easily imagine other types of intimidation —

• Intelligence (Intimidation): showing off your vast knowledge to cow a sage
• Constitution (Intimidation): demonstrating how nonchalant you are standing in a bed of coals to shake your torturers
• Dexterity (Intimidation): plucking flies out of the air to daunt some fellow thieves.

Yes, you could argue in that last case what you are really doing is Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) — but it’s not, because your purpose in the scene is not actually to catch flies, but to completely unnerve the person you are engaged with, to break their will and intent: thus Intimidation.

This Reddit thread has some other fun examples. If you’ve got a high CONstitution, you could argue for using it with a variety of non-CON-associated Skills:

• Constitution (Deception): You jump into near-freezing water, but want to convince the others to Come on in, it’s fine, no, no, not cold at all, do you see me shivering?
• Constitution (Sleight of Hand): You have the duke’s large signet ring hidden in your mouth, but the guards are checking everyone. Can you swallow it without anyone noticing?
• Constitution (Animal Handling): Wrangling … that damned … cat … who is very liberal … with use of … teeth and claws …

Not all combinations are easy to think of examples for (Strength (History) … maybe something about how you were the only person back at the monastery strong enough to get Abbot Shang’s Book of Exceedingly Great Dimensions down from the shelf to study from it). But figuring out a way to lean a higher Ability into a Skill roll can give you a real boost … if you can talk the DM into it.