Can A Level 1 Mage Beat An Excavator?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- The latest in our series of spell-based deep dives, today we're looking at Mold Earth, the premier construction tool available to low-level mages. Surely a cantrip can't change the world... Right?
#fantasy #dnd #dnd5e #worldbuilding #analysis #moldearth
Credits:
The Grungeon Master logo, background and intro music were composed by the wonderful Janina Arndt!
Find her here: / janinaarndt
Can we talk about how a level 1 druid with druid craft, mold earth, and shape water would be an absolutely world-renowned farm super-doctor and most successful greenhouse owner in history
I had an idea of a Fighter/Wizard who had all 4 Elemental Manipulation Cantrips. It sounds fun even though it's not great for combat. (Echo Knight/Wizard Utility & Mobility Build)
You’ve never played a Druid before, have you?
You can use spells like Dig in 2nd edition AD&D to dig canals, make ditches and deposit dirt to make dams. You can also use it to excavate a hollow under a city wall, causing it to collapse.
Depending on how you interpret the area of effect, those 10’x10’x10’ squares can be 5’x5’x40’ of trench or tunnel, so a goblin or pech can dig out long tunnels in a single casting.
I once played a dwarf ranger/druid who was renowned for his roadbuilding through hostile territory. In addition to the 10’ deep ditches on either side of the road, he also built fortified encampments a day’s walk apart along the road.
@@almitrahopkins1873
1)yes
2)we are not talking about ad&d 2, pay attention
3)nobody cares
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 hey more power to you for making an ultra utility character who isn't just about combat! A fighter will still fight real well, regardless
@@Calebgoblin I think you need to level up your social skills, friend.
Also how would one "pay attention" and know what edition you are talking about when you don't even mention which one it is? For all I know reading your post you could talk about any RPG with a level system.
disappointed this wasnt the detailing of a life and death brawl between an excavator and a new mage
You can play Yakuza 7 for something similar, although all the magical stuff is just the main character's schizophrenia
@@ikariyabiollante867 I know what Yakuza is, and the antics it gets up to. But at no point have I ever heard an argument to play it be nearly as convincing as the one you just posed.
... In a fight?
This is one of those things that makes me want to play a dwarven conjurer with a strong focus on magic that creates construction, artwork, statuary, CIVILIZATION.
Dwarf magic in Eon was elemental. Magic was not as powerful as labour.
In 5e... These Cantrips suck in terms of DPS.
In real life... Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth Manipulation Cantrips are busted for common life.
Fire Manipulation Cantrip is exactly like Fire Bending but small scale. Enough to heat a pot of water etc.
Water MC is Water Bending but scaled to a Bucket of Water and it cannot manipulate Ice.
Air MC is Air Bending but enough to push paper, cause a breeze, or push a toy boat.
Earth MC is Earth Bending but it only affects Dirt and Gravel.
Compared to Minor Illusion Cantrip. Which, in a 5ft Cube, can be anything you want. Like a still figure hologram or a boom box for music.
Or the Light Cantrip that sticks light on whatever you target. Think of Skyrim's Mage Light and Candle Light spells.
It works in every edition of D&D and Pathfinder 1st.
I had a goblin Druid for a pathfinder game who used spells to quickly dig trenches around an encampment.
@@absolstoryoffiction6615The Frieren mindset
A new archetype for wizards. The Fortifier. Wall spells made of earth, sand, stone, or metal are permanent (disappear when destroyed).
Shape Water and Mold Earth would play together quite nicely. Pull a cart around with barrels of water. Shape Water to move the water into the ground and freeze it, potentially loosening the soil. Maybe this takes a few freeze/thaw cycles, but hey. Magic. Then you've got your loose soil for Mold Earth.
This is a good solution to the roots/packed together problem
I've used them in combo to make spike traps. Pits dug with mold earth, and shape water to make cones and freeze them. Used it as a trap maker artificer, and it was funny
Was just thinking this but as water excovation. The earth is now mud and you can just use the freezing and pressure to pry it lose even around plant roots. Even faster if you work in tandem with someone. I am over here thinking of how you would be able to use a mix of Shape water, mold earth, and Presditigitation to filter water, build structures, and do extensive farming and land management. As a DM I would reason that concrete would count as dirt while it is dry powder or as wet paste as it is just mud of a specific compound. Imagine making huge builds with just some rebar, maybe some moulds, and some time. you don't have to hop around like a mad man too. just get yourself a chair and as long as you don't break line of sight you can build a house out of packed dirt or concrete in about an hour. Use some ice structures to make pipe holes, modify the big sections later. and with a capenter or, the ability to use carpenter's tools and the fabricate spell, and you can just make homes even faster.
Civil worker mage guild!
Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind Cantrips of similar capability is fun to use in 5e. And cheap too obtain from Caster Classes and Feats.
Thinking about it, if you take the four elemental Cantrips (Control Fire, Gust, Mold Earth, and Shape Water) a cantrip mage wouldn't need the laborer's to loosen the soil, use Shape water to turn the topsoil to mud, and use magical water pressure to dampen the earth deeper and cut through roots, hell, with Control Fire and Gust they can take the leftover soil and bake their own slabs for the road
Cantrip mage would be a great nickname for Warlocks.
Of you can take the leftover soil and use the same technique to make cooked bricks.
Tom is at it again, giving light novel writers ideas for their "protag with the weakest power is actually the strongest" stories.
GURPS puts some control on this, still a useful ability especially taking 1 second instead of 6, but at least you feel as tired as you would from 2 hours shovelling.
GURPS puts some control on this, still a useful ability especially taking 1 second instead of 6, but at least you feel as tired as you would from 2 hours shovelling.
Combine it with something like plant growth to cause the giant root networks under the ground to swell and effectively tear up layers of solid earth into layers of loose earth. This would eliminate the need for laborers to exhaust themselves for the mage to work.
Is your tank, cart, or cannons bogged down by mud? MOLD EARTH TI THE RESCUE!
You can Move Earth once or twice per day. And then you are not Invisible.
@@SusCalvin(He doesn’t know Mold Earth is a cantrip)
I would argue that the act of using mold earth to turn soil into difficult terrain would require it to be worked and loosened in the process. This means that even packed dirt could be turned into loose earth with the first cast of mold earth and then a subsequent casting would allow you to move the now loosened soil. Additionally it could be argued that as long as the soil retains a similar enough shape it would return to being packed dirt after the initial casting wears off, effectively creating 5ft cubes of packed dirt that can be moved almost at will.
Funny thing about 5ft Cube in 3d Space... It doesn't have to be 5ft Cube exactly. Simply... Make a 5ft Cube of Ice. Melt it. Then see what shape you can form with that volume of water.
A 5ft Cube is a lot of space.
Loose earth to me is anything you can move with a trovel or by hand, anything you leave foot prints in when walking over. But still a very handy cantrip!
For the earthen wall, add a few workers or golems to pound in wooden beams as anchors for the earth to be packed around for increased stability... A lot of things you can do with it!
Some of the older designers agreed with you in 2e the equivalent I found is a 6th level spell. Take a look.
Note: an older editions all spells improved with the casters level. Kind of like how cantrips do now. Also 1 round was 1 minute.
Move Earth
Range: 10 yards./level
Duration: permanent
When cast, the move earth spell moves dirt (clay, loam, sand) and its other components. Thus, embankments can be collapsed, hillocks moved, dunes shifted, etc.
However, in no event can rock prominences be collapsed or moved.
The area to be affected dictates the casting time; for every 40 yard × 40 yard surface area and 10 feet of depth, one turn of casting time is required. The maximum area that can be affected is 240 yards × 240 yards, which takes four hours.
If terrain features are to be moves as compared to simply caving in banks or walls of earth it is necessary that an earth elemental be subsequently summoned to assist.
All spell casting or summoning must be completed before any effects occur. As any summoned earth elemental will perform most of its work underground, it is
unlikely that it will be intercepted or interrupted. Should this occur, however, the movement of the earth requiring its services must be
stopped until the elemental is once again available. Should the ele mental be slain or dismissed, the move earth spell is limited to collapsing banks or walls of earth.
The spell cannot be used for tunneling and is generally too slow to trap or bury creatures; its primary use is for digging or filling moats or for adjusting terrain contours before a battle.
The material components for this spell are a mixture of soils (clay, loam, sand) in a small bag and an iron blade.
Note: This spell does not violently break the surface of the ground. Instead, it creates wavelike crests and troughs, with the earth reacting with glacierlike fluidity until the desired result is achieved.
Trees, structures, rock formations, etc. are relatively unaffected, save for changes in elevation and relative topography.
I think something that you could touch on is the impact of potential negative uses of spells too
Dispel magic could be used (with sufficient synchronization among casters) to cut off an entire teleportation circle network
You could turn mud to stone but the stone produced would not be magical.
I had another thought after I posted that comment, the order in which a government decides to reestablish a circle network could result in a revolution
@@SusCalvin
True
You can't undo transmutations with Dispell Magic. Once you turn mud into stone. That's that.
But if the stone is maintained by magic to keep its form. Then Dispell Magic Upcasted will work.
Love this idea... I'd totally watch that video if he did it
The thing that makes this spell so greatly overpowered in these scenarios is the fact that it is a Cantrip.
Where even the simplest normal spells could only be used a few times a day even by powerful casters, a cantrip could be used thousand's of times in the day at no cost to even the most novice caster. This from a worldbuilding point of view is utterly reticula's.
This drastic disparity is a complete no issue in the game, where you mostly use spells in specific combat scenarios and dungeons explorations, but it really shows how broken the system is when applied to these kinds of serous worldbuilding analysis.
These has to be some kind of of limit to Cantrip spells over the course of prolonged use during the day that wouldn't make it an infinitely spamable power with no consequences.
Like maybe some kind of spell fatigue system that limits how often you can use cantrip during a day that scales from your level and stats, going from a few dozen for novices, to over 1000 for max level spellcasters
....
....
I think they were fools who made Light a cantrip. It creates situations like this.
You could use this spell but it was not level 1. Bums faced weird situations where workers could not approach. But Ralph-Gandalf could crawl in and toss the spell.
I think a simple way of putting it is: you get to use about 10 cantrip spell slots before you need a short rest.
There's no real need to track it meticulously, just roughly 10 rounds of combat or so in equivalent. The only real restrictions this would apply is for some kind of an intensive repetition of using a cantrip over and over in a single day.
@@guyman1570I would say your con mod plus plus your spell casting stat. It's exhausting doing labor like that. That gives a level 1 caster with a 10 con and 15 for a core stat, 25 times. For most intents that's infinite for them. Basically 2 and a half hours of medium intensity work. It's got spell components like words and hand gestures doing that every six seconds will tire a normal person out after a couple hours. Even an experienced person falls off at 4 hours without a break. This is taking actual people doing work rather than magic.
I would say if they have an 18 con and a 20 casting stat they earn that four hours of dedicated time. You could probably do feats or class features to increase the time. Endurance would mean you can do more without getting physically or mentally exhausted from repeating the same line 38 times in a row
Even then I would rule it would take a feat to cast it for a full workday.
@@guyman1570
Well....yes...obviasly. Intencive repeated continues use of the cantrip and its worldbuilding inplications was the whole point of this vidoe.
The descusion isnt about how you would apply the cantrip in your compain, but how a fantasy world whoes magic system operates by DnD rules would operate. And aperently when you do that, a spell like mold earth that the most besic entry level Wizard, Sorcerer or Druid can learn with no expenditure of material is able to exert power, change and lasting effect apon the world over the course of the day on the same level as many expencive hight level spells.
This is in my opinion a general problem with Dnd's magic system (and to some extent Vanciant magic as a whole), and how it kinda breaks down when traing to applay it logicly in worldbuilding fantasy worlds and story's. Thats why I tuought it necesery to give a limit to the use of Cantrips over extencive use.
Your idea of haveing a limit refreshes every short rest is preaty good, though I feel that while 10 is deacent for lowest skill level of casters, high level casters should logicly be able to do cast way more before tireing out
@@Zippyser
Hmmm...thats actually a preaty great idea.
Although the math could use more work.
25 continues castings is 2 and a half minutes, not hours, and would total 15 cubed feet of earth moved and 25 squear feet of temporaraly altered terain before needing a short rest
Wet cement is loose earth. Cement is earth, yet bricks are not. So roman style cement is , as long as it is loose, able to be moved by the spell. The more I learn about 5e the less I see any mundane thing being in the game. Ash is earth also, so a 5ft by 5ft of that just floating around could cause a lot of issues. This spell would make making bricks easy and far more efficient then we do even today, and the mortar is also a form of earth, so villages could literally pop up in just a day or two, with brick homes. Though once dry the bricks and cement are stone. So just have someone that can move stone, so a 5th level wizard or druid. With how high magic 5e is , this should be easy.
13:07 Incorrect.
If you want "permanent" roads, you can't just use earth/ dirt. You will also need sand (maybe that is also within spell's bounds), gravel of various sizes (from pebbles to finer gravel similar to sand), rocks, potentially mortar, and of course the flagstones. Hell, romans even made cement beds sometimes on particularly important roads.
The roads that survive to this day from ancient rome, china or inca territories all share similar features, and none of them are just dirt+flagstones, compacted or not. One of the main problem with compacted earth is that it's both easily hydrated and offers easy soil for plants and insects to proliferate in. It is actually a big problem with compacted earth homes, as they slowly erode even with good rooves and constant whitewhashing.
Fair point! You're right that the Romans had a much more complex system than I implied here. And did indeed use concrete, rubble and sand as layers. But considering upkeep costs are lower with this cantrip too, I would consider this to be a relatively economical medium-term solution for your average rural spot which would otherwise use dirt tracks
Regarding military uses for mold earth, as described in the video:
Instant forts is a good one. Romans marched from fort to fort, dismantling the previous day's and assembling today's as the legion(s) marched. This necessiated that large formations are need to be used, since there is a huge amount of labour required to just take apart a "makeshift" fort, and then an order of magnitude more for building one.
However, if 1.5 cubic meters of earth can be moved per minute by a single caster, then having 10 around would allow much smaller, more specialized units to move around in enemy territory with good defenses set up, basically setting up the way for ancient/ medieval special forces.
Another immediately useful prospect is making fortifications mid-battle. If the objective is to take and hold a hill to gain surveilance of the area, then after capture a gaggle of casters could whip up BOTH ditches to slow down enemy movement, and ramparts to provide protection for the defenders.
Can't do shit with your fireball if it's LOS and you are 1.5 meter down a ditch, the target is crouching behind half a meter of compacted dirt, right on top of a 30° incline. Defilade is a thing.
It would also probably be very useful to when besieging coastal/ island fortifications. The casters could go Alexander and just build a road to the target on the sea.
On that note, it would also help in constructing wave-breakers near the coast, so fleets won't be lost to bad weather that much, or one could entrap a fleet by constructing a semi-circle around them, or the straight/ canal where they could leave from.
They could also remove mud, if the spell's loose earth definition fits, or cover it with more walkable earth if it doesn't. Imagine if during the battle of Agincourt the french would've not been bogged down, and could charge into the english formations. Would've gone in a different direction that's for sure.
It could maybe also used to level the ground for siege engines and the like, which would be quite more efficient if the engineers operating it don't have to calculate with the weapon's iclination too.
Lastly, I guess it could be used for sabotage, like destroying parts of dykes, dams, fortifications, wave-breakers, etc. Basically all the above but reversed.
@@Grungeon_Master Your "average rural spot" is either using river transport or is close to a major road, or is so insignificant it doesn't even have a documented road, and just uses a trampled path that changes with the seasons.
Those "earth roads" you see are A) fairly modern, as in last couple of centuries, or B) actually old "stone" roads that have been covered in dirt since the MILLENIA they've been built.
Also, I'm not just talking about romans here. The Inca Road, or roads made by the ancient and medieval chinese were quite similar in construction.
They all fought the same issues, as in the weather, expected traffic, the landscape and it's barriers (rivers, mountainranges, etc.), and the availability of resources.
Anyway, point still stands: Earth roads are never permanent.
@@Grungeon_Master Or just use Wall of Stone to replace the concrete... And build bridges.
PITS! Always loved doing them with this spell and it pretty much reinforces most military uses mentioned in the video
It could pop up a ditch if you like. But that is one less Phantasm.
loose earth is what you get when an excavator stockpiles excavation spoils--a loose pile of dirt. The only naturally occurring examples of loose earth that readily springs to mind are beaches/dunes/sandbars, scree slopes, swampy muck, and other alluvial deposits. Tilled earth would only be loose as deep as it was tilled. With a team of laborers to loosen the earth tho, sure.
This makes the cantrip basically useless. I would allow its ability to move earth to apply to any dirt that isn't explicitly being held down by roots or packed into a rigid structure. Any dirt that can easily be kicked up like soil for instance.
I would say mix mold earth with something like an decanter of endless water.
You have a moat.
Actually, in mideval combat you had layered defenses. The main wall was only the first layer. You could build both ways, having a raised platform in between the moat and wall while your archers peppered attackers the whole time
But quick houses/shelter, fortifications, and temp roads. You bust them up later for building materials for something more permanent.
Downside- flying creatures, magic such as mold earth, stone shape wreck the fortifications.
On the other hand you can make a wall section a construct with the ability to cast this as a cantrip, then it does slam attacks on anything in its areas
Yeah I always considered Mold Earth as World changing. Thanks for all of your amazing ideas. Here are some other Cantrips or 1st level spells from D&D 5e to consider: Comprehend Languages, Create or Destroy Water, Goodberry, Mending, Message, Purify Food and Drink, Shape Water, and Speak with Animals.
Create water is an incredible spell, it can create enough water to comfortably give water to 11 people. A level 1 caster can give water to 22 people. Which yeah okay whatever. But scrolls exist.
Now nearly anyone can use this scroll. It costs a set of nice clothes or a book. Now you can provide water for your entire platoon for the cost of some finery. Yeah okay that could get pricey right? It's true but compared to needing to employee a wizard even a fresh faced one it's great. You could create food and water which gets you the same water at the high cost of 500 gp and a week of downtime. So you can easily calculate how much money it costs to fund that endeavor without any real overhead. It's pretty awesome and needs to go with this stuff I fully agree
@@Zippyser Imagine furthermore the irrigation uses of Create Water! The ability to literally conjure water from thin air could be used to grow crops nearly anywhere, even in excessively dry conditions... With enough casters, anyway.
This benefit also applies to the Decanter of Endless Water, though, and arguably much moreso with the Decanter. The power of such an item to maintain fertile land would be incredible.
For adventurers, it would be simple to use this spell to make a levelled camp with a wall around it. As a GM, if I wished to limit industrial level use of cantrips I would argue that just as someone can lift a 70 pound package as an ordinary action, doing so hundreds of time would be fatiguing. One of the background things I have in my campaigns are leylines that make it easier to cast cantrips repeatedly without exhaustion. So magical civilizations tend to congregate around those leylines. Rural wilderness may be more resistant to having a magical order imposed on them, and building a road with magic may be more likely to arouse enmity of nature spirits.
This video leaves out some of the really powerful applications for Mold Earth and Shape Water. You can move them uphill. Shape Water could be used for irrigation, for filling a mill pond. You could compact earth with a gigantic wheel where the mage moves earth or water from one side to the other so that gravity causes it to spin. Now, if there is any amount of loose chaos magic in your campaign, this sort of contraption would certainly attract it. And one of the limiting factors may be the innate chaos of magic that *resents* being channelized so much.
But if "loose earth" includes small rocks, you could conceivably use this to set a page for printing, or otherwise use the temporary effect to imprint something more permanently. And while forcing clay to take a particular form may only last an hour, if that clay is fired in a kiln in that hour, would that fix its form permanently? You could form interlocking bricks, or pots, or clay tablets with writing on it and then fire it.
The limiting factor on a lot of industries would be the part that the magic could NOT do, or could not easily do. So that is where the drudge labor would end up.
DnD's suite of earth and stone based spells are perfect for accelerating construction and mold earth is the slowest but most repeatable. If you use spells like wall of stone which can leave permanent stone walls then you can massively cut down on the construction of stone walls or fortresses.
Ok noticed one issue. It can only really move a large part of earth if it's loose. So at some point you're going to run out of loose soil and require tools. Though this cantrip is great for making trenches and dirt walls which would be great for quick defenses in a situation like a war were you have prep time before a battle
Dirt and Gravel is the limit RAW for 5e in a 5ft Cube.
But true... Once you pass gravel. Tools will be needed.
Fire and cold can loosen earth, even break up rocks, certainly kill off roots.
@@ericaltmann5711 Yeah that would require other spells but they'd have to be the type that can target a point rather than a creature
@@zacharyweaver276 yep. Nothing stopping wizards researching new spells in 5e. Older editions of d&d had spells for just this purpose. “Harden/ Soften Earth and Stone” was a 2nd level spell. Trench as a second level spell which dug a trench, smaller dimensions if it was hard earth. Not to mention transmute stone to mud, which is still a thing in 5e. Building castles was a thing in 1st and second edition.
@@ericaltmann5711 Man WOTC never give us the fun spells these sound awesome
This right here is peak content
Earthdawn exists in this sort of world. Low-key magic and general aura effects and nonsense affects daily life. Low-level adepts are common and can pop out magic all day.
Being able to quickly etch messages and images on slate or similar stone would also be quite effective for printing presses. You wouldn't even need to remove the stone from the press each time.
You should a video on how spells can be used for education. Like how you mentioned with the the stone carver . Magical stencils for scribes to follow. Magical control of someone's body for them to learn through muscle memory. And "bad" spells like friendship are good for calming an upset student bc when it wears off the lesson is finished and student won't as likely to hold a grudge against the castor.
Depending on density you are talking about moving roughly 5 tons of dirt. That is a tremendous amount of potential energy, the trick is figuring out mechanisms and means to use that energy. With even the most rudimentary of engineering this would enable construction and excavation on a scale that rivals modern methods. This spell turns dirt into fuel, 5 tons moved 5 feet every 6 seconds could equate to upwards of 500 horse power?
I have always thought because of similar things like this, that magic heavy DnD worlds are awefully inconsistent. So I generally build low magic worlds to keep things cobsistent. After having discovered this channel I see that you have put way more thought into this. I think you have your first kikckstarter cut out for you. What about a high magic dnd world that is consistent ( not realistic) ?
There also military hygiene. Latrine duty is much easier when the pit digs itself and covers itself up, a massive hygiene boost to limit disease (Presdigitation follow up also helping).
This really shows why the Earth Kingdom was so big and powerful.
Another thing not mentioned is if the enemy have this cantrip they can counter whatever you do with the spell
Turns it into something akin to medieval WW1 with one side charging into the enemies trench, then desperately trying to turn the trenches defenses around to stop the inevitable counterattack
At a range of 30ft. Sure, the enemy can tear down your hill, if they're willing to be shot.
@@erikvale3194 They can throw up dirt cover on the way
@@erikvale3194 by that same logic, fireball is inside a Longbow’s short range. There’s nowhere truly safe barring staying back in the generals tent, and that assumes the enemy doesn’t launch a stealth raid.
Nowhere in warfare is safe friend.
If you were able to, somehow, preserve the properties of Goodberry indefinitely, it would also change how war was waged, there would be no more need for supply lines, and cities could hold against a siege (maybe) for years.
You wouldn't need to preserve it indefinitely? Just make a scroll of it. Anyone can use scrolls. Not just wizards. Printing press would make the world go hyper brrrrrrr.
Gone are the days of heavy food, now you send bound books of goodberry as supplies. Gentle repose scrolls to keep the berries
Good Video! as a note, having a fellow mage with control water can fracture land into loose earth by freezing the moisture in the ground to shatter the ground's cohesiveness. They can also remove the water from the ground just packed by the earth shaper to in effect create sandstone. All our ancient cultures build with packed earth to create a 'stone' foundation for huge buildings. Look up the Chinese history on their castles. Thinking Egyptian what about a Sphynx in a day?
This is why magic is at a waaaay lower level in my campaign. Rarity breeds value. The moment cantrip level magic becomes commonplace, you get 'MagicPunk'. Hard pass! :D
As a note, move your teleprompter or script closer to your camera. I put my just under it, (an ipad) no one can tell I'm reading it!
A level 3 coffee-lock can replace quite a few different kinds of technology we have, adding a level in Cleric or Druid dramatically increases this utility. Your descriptions and reactions show how many people view magic abilities to be OP and is often needlessly handicaped. It's a game, have fun.
Mining in tropical lands, with a lot of top soil would suddenly lay become very feasible
I might have missed this being explained but since the roots were mentioned i could not stop thinking: When exactly will roots become a problem? Could i mold earth the earth away from the roots? I could see this work for the quick replanting of older plants and trees, perhaps into an elven-nature styled home with living trees or quick battlements of living trees? Allthough living or dead trees would not make a difference i suppose. but howsabout landscaping for the rich? if you could remove dirt from between roots i could see forests turned into fantastical parks serving both as art aswell as defences in perhaps an afternoon's work. but then where to draw the line...
Aqueducts construction, sewers, cellars Basements for storage, trenches, moats, tunnel networks, land reclamation, artificial islands, pit fall traps, easier to put in supports for building larger buildings.
I love your videos so much! I don't think there's anyone else on the Internet that doves as far into the societal ramifications of game mechanics, I love it! I really used a lot of your material for inspiration in my own world building. Keep your stick on the ice, we're all in this together.
so when a player takes this cantrip and then learns you as the dm have decided it doesnt work on anything but sand, would you let them swap it out for a different cantrip or would you have to find a new player?
Not sure I'd quite put it like that. It works on sand, topsoil, mud, gravel, wet clay and tilled earth in my games. And generally, yes, I allow my players to swap things around if they're not fulfilling the fantasy.
Whether my players are using this spell to its full potential or not, the people of the world certainly are. Even with these limitations (which, again, are implied by the spell's own wording) it's still incredibly powerful.
then add golem with roller made of stone or a juggernaut and boom better road repair and protection
2:06 One think to add. From a worldbuilding point of view, I think you shouldent be able to mold earth a detaled schematic or artustuc structructure with the same easy as say, writing leters or crude shape.
It wouldent make sence that a person that cant visualise/drow anything better then a stick figure could mold a map of Rome on the ground😅
I think that mechanicly one need to be of higher level (abilety to upscale the spell for better resolution) or have a background of already being artiaricly inclined to pull off the more complex stuff mentioned in the vidoe, or some combination of the two.
Homebrew masters, get on that😂
It's so funny that DND's magic system is tuned to combat, so you'll get spells like this that are totally revolutionary to society as a dinky cantrip or low level spell
Completely revolutionary spells on the Wizard`s spell list that I want in real life...
Mold Earth, Mending, Shape Water, Create Bonfire(heating, cooking, powering a forge, etc.), Unseen Servant(free labor), Continual Flame(no light bill!), Magic Mouth(can be used to create pseudo-electronics), Arcane Lock(works with Magic Mouth to automate things), Fabricate, Stone Shape, Transmute Rock, Wall of Stone, Telekinesis(Move heavy objects), Move Earth. You could be a one Wizard construction company... Take two levels of Artificer for the tool proficiencies, Cure Wounds(save lives!), and the ability to make magic items and you`re set for life. With Smith`s tools and Tinker`s tools proficiencies you can now use the Fabricate spell to make something like an engine. It might take multiple castings, but you can do it. I would also take the feat Magic Initiate:Druid for Goodberry... Combined with the Alchemy Jug from Artificer Infusions, and I wont ever need to worry about food or water again.
Was considering this and your Undead video. Why not a Necromancer with signed off cadavers they use to till or otherwise loosen soil, then said Necromancer uses Shape Water and Mold Earth for projects.
Adding on the Undead raised could require legal documents to "possess", on top of paying families or the local government for prisoners, there's a lot that could sprout from that line of work. That's no even considering adding a Druid (maybe Spore for more labour) to that in order to make quick and flourishing farmlands.
It's not 5 cubic feet, it's a 5-foot cube, which is 125 cu ft. That's a massive amount of soil that weighs over 700 lbs, give or take depending on moisture levels.
I bet this would make casting metal, acid etching and differential heat treating VASTLY simpler than it is even today. wet clay ought to work too or.... ok so about the very detailed stuff.... i think it is reasonable to expect this would still be dependent on the artistic skill of the caster. So they might be able to do a sand castle roughly like the enemy camp, but if they want detail it still takes time...less than sculpting tools but crafting and sculpting is more than simply the manipulation of the material
I imagine most military commanders above a certain rank have a mage as part of their general staff, and if said mage has a familiar (especially an avian) they could be watching through its eyes and constructing exactly what they see in real time as they see it.
Would be immensely helpful to have what essentially could be akin to an RTS video game map, complete with troop formations
In 3.5, I thought Stone to Mud could be used to make some serious fortifications, provided you had a substantial stone outcrop. This is even more broken, given it is a cantrip. I don't know if 5 has Stone to Mud, but if it does, combining the spells can shape quite a bit of ground.
I love the engineering and logistics of this concept.
Now I knew that it would make a difference. But this just turned Midgard on its head lol.
Awesome
Hey Grungeon master can you do a video about assassin guilds. Maybe discuss how they get their contracts and stuff.
You could just bring a bag of holding filled with the most solid kind of loose dirt and have an instant bridge.
I would be curious to see your thoughts on which gods would actually be the strongest due to number of worshipers they have
Dang! The power creep is real. In AD&D this would have been like a 4th level spell.
Hobbit style burrows would be rather simple to make with this!
I enjoy all of The Grungeon Master videos 😊
The title is just so funny to me 😂
Posting at video's start. Clerics and wizards (low levels) can do quite a bit of earth moving!
This was not even a level 1 spell. Cantrips was not a thing.
Don't forget that concrete and cement are loose earth when they're still wet
Well I have to disagree just a little. Yes this one cantrip would be game changing in building fortifications out of dirt but as per the spell once excavated or targeted that 5' cube of dirt can only move 5 feet away. You could have a long encircling trench with a mound of dirt on the other side but that trench could only be 5' deep. If you target dirt more then then 10' deep then you can't move it out of the trench with out having a 5' step up to catch the dirt. That being said with some extra planning this is an amazing spell if you look at from a worldbuilding perspective.
If there is a 'expansion out west' type of situation a Druid would be hired by many types people. Just say a first level druid would get the settler a plethora of tools. Mold Earth for ditches, dirt roads that are relatively smoothed out (at least until heavy rains), dikes, dirt fortifications, and sped up tilling of soil.
Shape water could freeze water so it could be lifted and transported to a water storage area. Sure you could just move it in it's liquid form but what is easier, moving a solid object or that same amount of liquid? Making a pump or a water wheel takes material and some expertise in moving water plus everything has to be water tight to minimize losses to leaking. Not of that matters when you are moving ice. Plus it is MAGICAL ice, as per the description it only melts after an hour it says nothing about heat melting the ice. Cast it then you have one hour to get that ice where you want it. A 5' cube of ice is heavy, 141 kg (like 312 pounds) but don't have to freeze the full amount. Even so a mule can lift 420 pounds.
And then there are the spells (even if you throw away Goodberry); Animal Friendship, Speak with Animals, Create Water, Purify Food and Drink, Detect Poison and Disease, and Purify Food and Drink
It can only be moved 5 feet in one casting. I see no reason why a caster couldn't repeatedly cast it and walk around with a 5 foot cubes worth of soil.
@@Sivanot true you could walk that cube around and even up in the air but my thought was what happens if you move it up in the air by five feet would gravity re-assert itself? Could you ‘juggle’ by casting it again and move it higher then the 5’ feet?
Or would it be horizontal move because of gravity taking over the after the casting?
@@targetdreamer257 This is why I hate the way these spells are worded. It doesn't make any sense that the spell can only exert force once every 6 seconds instead of just being able to sustainably hold or exert force on the mass for those 6 seconds. Like it's not teleporting it to a new location or configuration.
For those curious, assuming an average crawler excavator, Mold Earth moves more roughly 1.2 to 22 times depending if you’re just interested in moving dirt 5ft or 90ft (about the farthest a crawler excavator can move dirt without moving).
Assumptions: 3 cycles per minute and a 20ft^3 bucket for calculations
Good guess using common sense and logical thinking. As an experienced (and old) civil construction foreman, you are almost correct, but try 4 to 8 meters reach,(with a medium sized ( 12- 25t) excavator. and 3 cycles per minute is slow, even for a large excavator. For example, a 300t excavator, with around 8 meters of reach, is expected to load 50t of rock in a dump truck every three minutes, including backing up and driving off. This is around 5-6 buckets in a minute and a half, or you taken off the machine.
I am just starting the video but I had a campaign where one of the societies basically answered this question with: yes. So I’m v excited to watch. I love these videos because they go to the same places I do w these spells. In an upcoming game I’m making a character partially around these kinds of spells (mold earth, unseen servant, prestidigitation after your video on it) can’t wait to watch !!
So i would cap the move earth thing where a mage cant move more than a certain amount of mass consecutively without taking con checks or take levels of exhaustion. 5x level maybe. so you can move a bunch of earth but it might give you a migraine if you wanna do it that quickly. Also if it cant do damage, i am picturing a fairly imprecise spray of dirt into an adjacent square.
...what kinda vs debate?
In a lot of places, compaction occurs at quite shallow depths. Applying the limitation of "loose" implies that no manipulation would be possible below that depth. In my location that would prevent manipulation much below a couple of feet or 50cm... 🤓👍
No
But a wonderful item can
Asking the real questions 🤝
I was cooking, so maybe I missed it - but did you mention undermining?
If by undermining you mean digging a tunnel underneath the surface to pop up behind defenses or lay explosives, this wouldn't work. You'd have to be at a depth where you're only moving soil, which likely doesn't give you much of a tunnel. Otherwise, it's only useful for clearing mined out stone.
You get to move loose dirt. With a single casting, you can turn 20% of a grid cube of loose (not packed) earth into a three foot ditch behind a 1.5 foot high loose pile. In thirty seconds, a creature 5.5' tall could have a personal earthwork providing concealment and coverage (a 3' trench behind a loose 2' sloping pile).
You would still need shovels and excavators and everything else if you want to deal in sturdy earthworks or place your adobe fortress atop an existing elevation, perhaps to maintain a desirable sightline
This makes me think how druids are so underutalized. Everyone sees them as the victims of civilzation, the people constantly being bullied out of their ancestral lands when they could easily be lords in their own right and use their powers to influncec civilzation to their benefit. Hell its suprising to me that druids aren't royals themselves in a lot of campagins when a druid could pay the princess' dowry with just a few seasons of hard work and bribing a few dozen horses.
If you are strictly talking about D&D
That might be a problem.
See there is thing tou need to take into account.
Such as production no one can't deny forging material with today's technology is far more superior then even fantasy. Add magic to the situation and it becomes more powerful.
Let's not think about how much faster it can be produced that isn't in question.
However what is in question is a 1 level magic user against a Modern Machine.
Short of starting a fire can a 1 level Mage destroy a home?
It would be kinda hard right if not pretty much impossible unless they can start a fire.
However an excavator is something that would have a harder time catching on fire and on top of that they have fire extinguishers.
But let's get to the damage you would have to somehow rework damage rating.
Let's be real would you allow someone firing magic missiles at a castle and level it?
No right?
In Palladium books they use
MDC (Mega Compacity Damage),
SDC (Small Compacity Damage),
Hit points I'm sure you know what that is.
Majority of the things in the world will have SDC. Weapons blades, guns, thrown objects does SDC damage armor also has SDC.
depending one the makeof the item. like trying to use a fork to stab a car might ruin the the paint,
Might make a small dent but that's
About it.
I kinda made my own system Theo. There is
Hp: you know what that is
SDC: small Compacity Damage
MDC: Mega Compacity Damage
Anything doing only Hp Damage
Can't do anything to SDC or MDC
Only hp.
SDC Can't do anything to MDC
But will seriously hurt or out kill
Hp.
MDC will seriously hurt, Damage or kill SDC and will vaporize anything with hp.
Move Earth is nerfed, as it should be since it is a cantrip, by only moving loose earth, which is not packed earth, but is earth which can be moved by hand without a tool. That makes this spell much, much less useful, but it is only a cantrip.
Now, add to this the spell Transmute Rock, which if I understand it correctly can convert a 40' by 40' area of rock 10' deep into mud. Now, this is a 5th level spell, so definitively not as easy to cast as a cantrip. But, mud is loose earth. Now, this spell lasts until dispelled. So, you could take an area of hard stone, turn it to mud, move it around with the Move Earth cantrip, then dispel the Transmute Rock spell and have the mud return to being hard stone. This then can allow you to make hard stone shapes, which probably should not be very detailed, but certainly could be simple shapes. Imagine how this could be used in a granite mountain to make a tunnels and rooms into.
There is the other direction you can use Transmute Rock, turning mud into soft stone. This is less useful though, because whenever the Transmute Rock spell is dispelled it turns back into mud.
Then, 2nd level Borrowed Knowledge and 4th level Fabricate. Get the raw materials for something you want to make for your newly excavated granite dungeon and borrow the relevant knowledge and you can make quality designed items to decorate with.
So, get these spells to make your own dungeon.
Move Earth cantrip
Borrowed Knowledge 2nd level
Fabricate 4th level
Transmute Rock 5th level
A level 1 mage is probably about as expensive to train as an excavator is to build, and both require "human operation" so to speak
Excavators cost $80-500k and the cost to train a level 1 mage is unknown
Anyone can learn how to operate an excavator and only a very few number of people have the talent for magic
Electric Excavators, (technically very new but doable with a bit of modern tech plus a few years of factory scaling)
Lets assume the time taken to train a mage accounts for all 4 skill proficiencies, as well as their tool proficiencies, and spells
For level 1 wizard (playtest for gold consistency), the class has 55gp worth of stuff as well as a spellbook with 6 spells
The spellbook costs 50gp, and it costs 2 hours and 50 gold to scribe a 1st level spell, which they have 6 of
In total that is 305 gp worth of class equipment, not including the 50gp worth of gear from their background, their job before they started becoming a wizard specifically
For 5 years of study, with a modest living (fit for a student in academia), a king would spend 1800gp on the aspiring mages accommodation, food, and drink
The price of tuition for a tool is 1gp per day, (the price to pay for the tutors modest living, 5sp of that is on food),
The cost to hire someone to cast 1 common spell per day is 10-50gp, because this is full time tuition, I would er on the side of expense, so I would charge 50gp per day and work 250 days a year, like other jobs in D&D, this costs 2,500 - 12,500 gp per year, and for 5 years this is 12,500-62,500gp
Assume 2cp = 1$
Excavator = 1,600-10,000 gp
Level 1 wizard = 14,605-64,605 gp
Even if 'loose earth' only refers to non-packed dirt... it should still include sand, gravel, mud, etc. Most dirt at relatively shallow depth isn't that packed though, so... instant trench warfare, instant cover, instant dirt walls (which sure, the enemy can tear it down but you can reinforce it faster than they can break it so you can effectively permanently make an area impassable if you have some four mages taking shifts).
This interpretation must then, necessarily, be wrong.
Additionally this would let you very quickly make lethal traps by grabbing 1.524m.
Let's for sake of argument say that 'loose soil' means a density of 1.5g/cm³ or less (so for example tilled surface soil at 1.3g/cm³ or loamy sand surface soil, but not soil that has had traffic pass over it which clocks in at 1.67g/cm³)... then you can in seconds move 2286kg of dirt (almost 2.3 metric tonnes of dirt!), move this onto an elevated platform via a pulley system and you now have a COMPLETELY LETHAL TRAP, almost nothing would stand a snowball's chance in hell of surviving a 2.3 tonne anything dropped on them from on high.
The applications are practically endless!
If you're clever you can also make a small hole using any method of choice so you can see deeper layers of earth, now you can start excavating deeper layers, say excavating out the area under a road or structure.
Not to mention major public service projects, infrastructure, etc. Roads, ditches, etc. A single level 1 mage could build huge dirt embankments, lay out impressive roads, build drainage ditches, divert rivers, etc all in a single afternoon!
Level 1 mages would offset a huge portion of skilled laborers.
Seeing a surprising lack of setting earthworks, like concrete, clay, or mortar.
For perspective, a decent-sized cement truck could hold around 10 cubic yards (270 cubic feet) and the 5ft cube is 125 cubic feet. This means a stone mason and his apprentice could nearly match that.
Also thinking about the bulk of the great pyramids is constructed of 2.5-foot blocks. So one 1st level mage alone could build the pyramids!
Having magic makes mundane efforts a lot easier.
Yeah obviously. It's the big problem I have with most fantaay settings. They are just vaguely medieval (often somehow since forever), dispite having so much impact on the world. It's why I like Ebberon so much, it actually asks the question: what happens in a world where magic is real? And it's not even remotely medieval, because that just doesn't make sense in a world where magic exists. It would industrialise in weeks.
Depending on the GM, a Circle of the Shepherd Druid with just their 2nd level Aura would be the Florence Nightingale of the Modern Fantasy world, for one reason; Goodberry.
It becomes better if your higher level, and either have Sorcerer’s Flexible Casting to pump and dump 1st level spell slots, or the Spell Point Optional Rule to avoid wasting bonus actions on Font of Magic Sorcerer Point transfers.
Question: does Mold Earth target A) the dirt within a 5' cube within range, or B) 125 cubic feet of dirt within range? The wording of the spell strikes me as ambiguous but most people I've seen (including my DM) seem to treat it as A. While still useful, this is much, much slower for engineering projects that affect a large area (up to 36x slower than you're assuming).
This is unfortunate because just think about how awesome it would be for a squad leader with this cantrip to be coordinating his troops by drawing personalized orders on the ground from just behind the front lines.
This is one of those spells where the GM needs to negotiate with the player when it starts getting used. In the groups I historically play in, the question of "packed" versus "not packed" would be a disastrous limitation because of the engineering geek factor. that is continuos spectrum you just split into 2 funtional categories at an arbitrary value and you have to start answering whether it is higher or lower than other arbitrary values and the how much dirt must sit on something for how long to compact the bottom layer and insanity like that.
I feel the need to point out that your road compacting cart would not really work, roads require dirt sufficiently compact that you typically load the road down with other dirt for a few weeks then remove the loose stuff on top. Moving 5 cubic feet 30 feet in the air every 6 seconds to power a gravity hammer you may be able to compact it a lot faster, but a cart is not likely to help. Even in modern times we do some preliminary compacting with the roller machines you are probably thinking of then leave to work site for some length of time to let the ground settle and compact. Those long times where it looks like nothing is happening at road construction sites between the digging and the pouring of concrete is not inefficiency, that is an engineered length of time the soil needs to settle before it can be trusted not to shift under the load. And yes, the wait for settling was used in the construction of the roman roads.
Weird question: where'd you get the image of the "Level 1 caster" from the thumbnail? She looks resoundingly like a cleric I played for multiple years! It's quite uncanny!
Nice house/business/fortification/bank/dam/etc you got there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to the ground it's built on.
Yup. Totally a cantrip level effect.
Lots of spells can be used to losses earth and break up packed earth. Mold earth would probably be the last step, by the apprentices. What happens when you heat up and quickly quench rocks? , they crack and break up(and sometimes even explode.). What is sand but rocks ground to smaller particles? Does sand, or very fine gravel classify as loose earth? Well, in older versions of d&d it does. There were spells in older versions of d&d such as Dig, or Harden/soften Earth,, or Trench. This was a big thing back in the day when Castles and fortresses were available to players.
Mold Earth would also be revolutionary in irrigation. Ditches to route water to fields would be produced almost overnight. Humanoid-inhabited lands might not have any deserts or swamps at all; they would be watered or drained respectively by a handful of people armed with one cantrip. If any uncultivable wetlands or deserts remained, it would probably have to be by royal decree declaring them as national parks. China’s Grand Canal would be a trivial accomplishment. Any isthmus between large oceans or even rivers would have a canal connecting them.
I asked a few weeks ago about what castles would be like in D&D worlds. I think this video answers that: they’ll be mottes and baileys, and they’ll be incredibly common, to the point that every village will have one, because they’re that cheap and easy to make.
Still, the more I learn about 5th edition cantrips, the more I feel that they break the game. Cantrips were originally intended to be trivial, largely for atmosphere. Serious work was supposed to be done by numbered-level spells, which were limited to prevent magic from being overpowered. When cantrips revolutionize the world this way, it becomes hard to imagine a D&D world not completely dominated by spellcasters, a world in which Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would have no place.
In 5e there is variant human that allows a feat right out of the box and the feat of magic initiate.
Wizards cast magic generally from there knowledge of magic so if it is deemed in a setting that basic wizard spells can be learned through wrote memorization and not needing a fundamental underlying understanding of magic you could have a society where every commoner could know Mold Earth along with another cantrip and a 1-st level spell.
The other cantrip could be Mending allowing for the tool needed to initially bust up the earth to be much more easily maintained along with any other tools and clothing the commoners would have. Blacksmiths with still need to supply small billets of iron or steel for the use of the mending spell so they would not be putting themselves out of business.
For the first level spell:
Alarm would be good for general security.
Catapult would be good moving objects and city/town/settlement defense.
Feather Fall could be used as a safety measure.
Find Familiar and Unseen Servant could be good for light domestic tasks.
Floating Disk good for a quick bit of cargo hauling (the mercury may be an issue to obtain).
Longstrider: could be useful for a variety of day to day activities.
Magic Missile could be good for taking pot shots at small game.
Charm Person, Disguise Self, Hideous Laughter, and Sleep would likely cause a lot of distrust of the people who know any of those spells.
You ended on the battlefield defense aspect, but quite logically, anything one caster can build, another could break. It would be interesting, the casters attempting to open and close lines in their hasty earthworks.
With only one caster, sure. But a caster using mold earth to make walls with a few other people ready to compact it would render it unaffected by another castor's mold earth.
@Sivanot, true, unless they have their water casters, as stated several times, working in concert to break the compaction.
Druid, looking at the compact soil: "There's a lot to unpack there."
Specifying that one way of realizing the "...cause it to become difficult terrain..." function of the cantrip is to make the designated area (temporarily as may be) into loose earth (if you've ever tried to walk through an area of genuinely loose dirt, you know how much it slows you down), I see no problem with using the "...excavate..." function as the second simultaneous effect, allowing the earth in question to resume its previous level of compactedness and plant root interpenetration once that portion fades but in the new, reconfigured shape and location. This can be enhanced and reinforced via use of a very simple technology: bags. Specifically sandbags, filled with the temporarily loose earth can be easily moved via manual labor to a desired location and used to form stabilized earthworks of fairly significant size. Alternately, simple woven baskets can be used in the bags' stead, made from the grasses and other plants in the area to be shaped. (Possibility exists for a custom cantrip that takes such materials and weaves baskets or canvas bags for the user...) Add in some finishing work to cover the new earthworks with some additional soil, the planting of grasses on the sides and thorny hedge bushes along the top, and a use of the 3rd level spell Plant Growth, followed by pruning of the results via tool or grazing animals, and you've got a nice, steep, sturdy barrier with slick short grass on the outside slope creating easily maintained difficult terrain. Want a wooden palisade along the top instead? Plant saplings instead of thorn bushes and reduce to the previous problem's solution.
As for field prep for farming, again the temporarily loosened dirt need only be raised into long, thin structures along the line of plowing, then it can be knocked over easily manually, then furrowed as needed via another use of the cantrip. Easy-peasy.
every time i play a wizard i take this cantrip, i always tell people it's the best cantrip in the game.
one good thing is just making quick cover, i had a wizard/alchemist artificer, i would make good use of the flight experimental elixir and mold earth, he was a gnome so he was small, i could make a hole and jump in it with a wall facing the enemy, then use my 10 foot flight speed to fly up, pop and enemy with a spell, fly down to avoid being hit, or i could do it the other way and give myself a 5 foot wall and put the 5 foot pit in front, so anyone approaching from that area has a 10 foot climb, and i could use minor conjuration to make myself a step stool to pop up, shoot, pop back down. mold earth gives you full cover just about anywhere.
i had a bunch of enemies coming and a few minutes so i made a 10 foot wall with a 10 foot moat in front of it all around my party and our wagon. sadly it wasn't enough...3 frikken armies with a dragon came and parlay seemed the better option (we were level 2 at this point, i hadn't even TAKEN artificer yet)
wasn't too long before all our encounters were in stone dungeons and similar stone areas.
also, if you need to barricade a door, 125 cubic feet of dirt can do a pretty good job.
just killed a bunch of enemies and wanna do something about the bodies? burial is super quick.
my dm nerfed it a bit by not allowing me to shape the excavated dirt except through the time limited effect, and so the pile of dirt isn't so much a wall as it is a mound of loose soil. basically like you just dug up a hole and threw the dirt out...which...i guess fair enough, but it limits its usability a bit.
also mold earth+druidcraft+fabricate=a saturated linen market.
That the Magic User could mold the earth to build ditches and flood walls, An Engineer or Architect he is not. Ditches not properly dug would quickly fill in, flood walls would collapse without proper foundations and stabilizing sections. And as with all things: "you want me to use my magical abilities to cast what?! Now that is going to cost you." Hmm, better to hire an Engineer or Miner and a bunch of laborers and save some cash.
The catch is that it’s in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, which like all d&d supplements should be in a constant stranglehold by DM’s who don’t want to allow the players to break their games. Not to mention that 5e is a fundamentally broken piece of crap even in the base game and should be abandoned for homebrewed 3.5 when your group has gotten a grasp of the basics.
I imagine this would accelerate the further development of defenses and fortifications reliant on earthworks. For example, the first line of defense for 'star forts' were earthworks that channeled attackers along specific pathways. Have 100 people with pickaxes to break the soil, 1 caster with the cantrip, all the builders and lumber you need, but only 24hrs or less: Prep a mote and bailey. Have the same people and supplies but a week (or more) to prepare: Prep the land for a star fort.
Every time I see someone claim the capstone for the Fathomless warlock is situational because there might not be a pond within a mile, I bring up the fact that it's a level 14 ability. By level 14, your party should have access to mold earth and a decanter of endless water. Fathomless warlocks should be making ponds and swimming pools every time they travel one mile.
If you sit down and actually study the list of cantrips you should quickly come to the conclusion that you only really need one damage dealing cantrip. Maybe two if your DM is obsessed with homebrewing elemental resistances.
After that the obvious go-to cantrips are guidance, something that makes light or fire, and all the sky's the limit utility cantrips.
Mold earth
Shape water
Mage Hand
Minor illusion
Mending
Message
I've dipped one level of sorcerer for just 4 of those 6 cantrips. If a player of mine makes a fathomless warlock or a character with any other "water" subclass and they don't take options that give them extra cantrips I eventually give the party a wand that can cast mold earth or shape water at will and a decanter of endless water.
I want to see what they come up with when they have endless landscaping and trench warfare options and the ability to cause a flash flood whenever and wherever.
In the novel series "The Death Gate Cycle," simple magic could temporarily enhance an individual's drawing and painting skills, as well as magically improving the fidelity of architecture and construction drawings based on visual observation of things like buildings and machines. The effect would diminish with repeated use. I wonder if this led to humans in The Death Gate Cycle developing perspective drawing and painting skills at a faster rate than those in our own reality. If so, it would suggested that artists initially used those particulary advanced techniques under the effects of magic, without fully realizing their actions. Only later would it have occured to them to stop and deconstruct the details of what had been created, so that then people would sometimes decide to try making similar art without using any magic.
imagine the finesse a caster would have with a spell they use once per minute like 8~10 hours a day. Think about it, at level 5 your cantrip do almost double damage and how many times you used that firebolt ? one work DAY would be 600 uses
Somethings to keep in mind with this spell. a 5 foot cube is not 5 cubic feet. It's 125 cubic feet. It also states that each cast of this spell effect a portion of dirt or stone that fits inside a 5 foot cube. Not that IS IN a 5 foot cube, but that fits in one. In otherwords you can take 125 cubic feet of dirt and move it up to 5 feet in any direction along the ground in 6 seconds. Considering the 'the ground' is just a way to describe dirt/soil you can theoretically use the dirt you are moving to qualify meaning you can get some wacky shapes out of this.
You can also combo this well with Shape Water as some other people have mentioned.. but there's an extra layer here. If you have alchemy proficiency you should likely understand how to make cement. Which is effectively 'loose earth'. You can now use this spell along with Shape Water to make massive cement works in moments. They will need time to set of course but you can still build entire castles effectively with this so long as you have the logistics to get the materials for cement to where you are, and with vastly less manpower/labour needed.
Additionally this can be used to get some pretty sophisicated manufacturing going since you can use it to move, and shape sand to use as a mould for different types of metal casting processes, in high detail. All you need is the abilty to produce an intense enough flame to melt whatever metal you want to cast. This means that some fairly modern production methods are avaialble using cast aluminum or in theory iron/steel
Then lastly there's the really immediate military implication. You know that thing the Romans were famous for where they would dig a fortification in every night when they made camp? Yea.. this cantrip can probably do a 10 foot long section of that trench wall every 6 seconds.
It's a wildly good cantrip and I take it or shape water just about every game. Or both if I can manage it.
The definition of what you can move with Mold Earth will let you move anything that can already be moved with a shovel in any capacity‐ dirt, clay, sand, gravel, small rocks, mud, etc.
Irl a particular mix of soil, clay and sand is used to make rammed earth walls that are compacted to the point of nearly being as hard as stone. Just requires wooden molding to hold in the mix and vibrating/impacting the top of the mix to compress it.
This will sound facetious, and to ward that off: I rarely think of concepts like these before I see Tom's videos on them.
But; it's almost like druids are meant to be *incredibly impactful forces* within their communities and settings, isn't it? Like they were always designed, lore-wise and mechanically, to hold even with or exceed the effect of clerics and all their ilk on the world?
You’re talking about D&D. For a moment I thought you might be talking about MtA. Because an Arête 1 Mage in Mage the Ascension wouldn’t be able to do that.
A backhoe can actually move more earth *AND* can move boulders as well. So no, a level 1 spellcaster *CAN'T* "beat an excavator." 😛
One of the most amazing things about this interpretation is that while the GM would narrate a highly altered field, with so much engineering works the WW1 trenches would look like childs play, the PCs would see the terrifying results of a war.
Once you get into assaulting Star Forts with firearms or a magical equivalent you'd be able to make trenches using Mold Earth extremely easy. The initial tunneling for sappers probably couldn't be done with it but you could use it to clear the dirt away.
There is an important issue regarding magic: It is so stupidly rare and expensive despite claims of setting being full of it that there is no reason anyone would develop a spell that cannot be used.
Mold Earth is called Mold EARTH, not Mold Sand or Mold Dust. A spell that cannot affect dirt someone stepped on is less than useless. The limits on this spell do not exist because of any logical rule or limit of magic but because developers decided you need to be level 500 archmage to be able to actually build a dungeon or tower for yourself without resorting to multiple castings of Wish.
22:45
A necromancer could arm a dozen skeletons with shovels, skeletons literally never get tired, because they are immune to exhaustion, meaning, not just 8 hours a day, they can work for 24 hours a day, you can tell them to go off digging overnight in a straight line, and just not to stop at all
Since you can excavate faster than they dig, when you wake up, you follow after them at a leisurely pace and eventually you catch up, after 8 hours, then they have the next 16 hours to go on ahead of you while you rest, and you catch up over the next 8 hours
Remember skeletons work more efficiently than humans because they don't get distracted, they don't need to stop to eat, they dont take breaks (hard labour is very intensive)
The mage doesn't need to "wait" for anyone, since the skeles can go on ahead while the mage rests and sleeps, you could be doing 1 mile a day!