Is it me or can the spell, creeping ice, cover an insanely large area in ice?
I calculated* that at CL 9, it can coat an area of 81,000,000 square feet under 9 inches of ice in under an hour and a half. By caster level 20, the area would be exponentially larger.
In what ways might this be used effectively or otherwise put to good use?
EDIT: I guess the overall area would still be limited by the spell's maximum range (medium). Still, I suppose you could use metamagic to extend it quite far.
Want to put a hockey game together with little notice
Seems like a good option to cross water or swamp
If you math is right
Actually, now I'm thinking think I undershot it.
I estimate 162,405,225 square feet at 9th-level if range doesn't present a problem. That's starting with a 15x15 foot square, and having it extend an additional 9,000 feet in all directions excepting the one side of the initial square where the caster stood.
Well that would be a very fast way to create a bridge and at 9" thick there isn't much in game that couldn't cross it
I think that's generally considered the intended purpose of the spell, but I still think we can come up with something more creative and useful than that.
would stop attacks from the same water source atleast temporarily. Or create ice then wait for it to melt and you as much water as you need. To drink or put out a fire.
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This would be an extremely sweet way to just lock people into their houses then raid them from the roofs(and I will probably add that as a thing that happens in the Reign of Winter campaign I'm running, winter witches should definitely get this spell on their lists) Also you could create an iceberg and launch it at stuff.
For those doing the calculations, remember 1 important part: the ice does not expand toward the caster. So the ice isn't expanding in a circle or equally on all sides of a square. (Unless of course the caster stands in the middle of the area for the duration.)
Each round on your turn, the sheet of ice grows 1 foot in all directions except toward you.
20th level, you make 20 10-foot squares.
Then the ice grows in all directions 1 foot per round for 200 minutes (2000 rounds).
That's effectively increasing the vertical and horizontal sides of the rectangle by 2 feet per round.
so that ends up as a square/circle aprox. 4000X4000 feet (approx 16 million square feet).
Note that "16 million square feet" is *NOT* the same as "16 million feet squared", it *IS* the same as "4000 feet squared" and comes in at about 1 square mile (slightly less, but who's measureing really).
At 9th level, you're casting for approx 1/2 the time, which means it grows in all directions for 1/2 the distance, which comes out at about 1/4 the are covered. So a 9th level caster can cover an area about 1/4 of a square mile (maybe 1/5 since I'm doing a lot of approximating).
To put that in perspective, a football field is 360X160 feet, so at 9th level if you wanted to cover a football field you'd start in the middle with 10X90 and grow it 2 feet in both axes each round (that's adding 10 feet to length and width every 30 seconds). It would take 7.5 minutes to reach the full width of the football field, and another 6 minutes (for a total of 13.5 minutes) to completely cover the field in Ice.
That means a 9th level caster can cover an area about 7 times the size of a football field in an hour and a half, whereas a 20th level caster can cover and area more like 50 times that (or 60X, my maths was pretty vague).
Yes that's a pretty big area, but covering 1 square mile in ice (which takes more than 3 hours) doesn't seem as impressive as stopping time, or resurrecting someone who's body was thrown into a volcano, or pretty much any other spell you could cast at 20th level. At 9th level it could be pretty impressive, if hard to utilize in any useful way (aside from bridges).
Extend and Widen it for extra fun!
Remember though that it moves away from you, which generally means forward, and out to the sides I think, not back.
So if it expanded 1,000 feet, it would be 1,000 feet ahead of you, 1,000 feet to your left, and 1,000 feet to your right, covering an area roughly 1,000 x 2,000 feet (not counting the initial starting area), or 2,000,000 square feet.
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Effect: anchored plane of ice, up to one 10-ft. square/level
My interpretation was, it starts out at size zero, grows until it reaches the maximum size (9 10 foot squares at CL9), then stops growing. After that the ice lasts 10 minutes/level before melting.
Pretty sure that's not how it works, Matt.
Pretty much destroy crops over night with that spell.
Effect: anchored plane of ice, up to one 10-ft. square/level
My interpretation was, it starts out at size zero, grows until it reaches the maximum size (9 10 foot squares at CL9), then stops growing. After that the ice lasts 10 minutes/level before melting.
Actually, I just re-read the spell description and this is pretty clearly exactly what it's saying.
"Effect: anchored plane of ice, up to one 10-ft. square/level"
Every other spell in the game that as an effect "up to X Squares" or "up to whatever..." is saying that's the maximum it'll ever get, so I think that's pretty clear.
In terms of the look of the spell that works better too, Imagine a 9th level caster just suddenly plonking a 9 inch thick sheet of ice that covers the area of a house, then the ice starts slowly oozing out ... I think they would have called it something other than "Creeping Ice" if it instantly created that much ice.
I think if I were GMing and one of my players wanted to make it bigger I'd probably let them, but the unlimited size might have to be accompanied by constant concentration (thus limiting the player's options for an hour and a half) or something similar.
I looked again to see why anyone would think that it grows beyond the maximum size, and I noticed the text refers to the "initial sheet of ice". That implies there is a starting sheet of ice that immediately appears, and since that starting size is not otherwise specified, I can see that it might be intended to start at the 'up to' size, and grow from there.
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Alright, so some baseline calculations. This is assuming real world physics, because I'm lazy. Perfect plane, no obstructions. At level 9 it covers 900 square feet, that's a circle with a radius of about 17 feet. (or a 30x30 foot square). Each round it increases the radius by 1 foot (or the length of all side by 2 feet). It grows for 900 rounds, so for the circle that's 2.64 million square feet (pi*917^2) and for the square that's 3.35 million square feet (1830*1830). You could squeeze a little more out by starting with a 10x90 area but hopefully you get the idea.
Now, as for using the spell. You can't really use it bar people in their homes. Front doors open inward for a reason. I can't actually remember any front doors I've seen that open outward right now. The duration means all the ice disappears at the end so there's not much permanent you can do with it (though 90 minutes is quite a bit of time). Snow cones in a summer or desert climate? Blockading harbors? Preventing ships from chasing you? Actually, probably using it offensively or defensively in naval combat is the best use. Though the ability to recreate the siege of Tyre could be fun.
Edit: One s in desert, one s.
Doors are not vacuum sealed so they have an open area below it and thus would be surrounded by the ice as it would enter the peoples homes and surround it with ice on both sides.
Sounds like a great spell to use as the basis for making "the wall" from Game of Thrones. You might need multiple magic items, but if they're "always on" that basically creates your core wall that you can add onto with decanters of endless water. Basically you have a magic core that keeps the mundane outer waters sufficiently frozen. Hell, in a hot environment you could have a large defensive wall made of ice. As an added bonus you could have a portion desigated to allow people to chip the mundane ice off of the outside (presumably you have a decanter constantly "refreshing this portion") for their personal use. I imagine there are few things in the desert that would make people happier than free unlimited access to icewater.
Permanency might be a problem, TCG. The spell only lasts tens of minutes, then the whole thing disappears.
Something has been missed in calculating the area. A spell can never extend beyond its range.
A spell's range indicates how far from you it can reach, as defined in the range entry of the spell description. A spell's range is the maximum distance from you that the spell's effect can occur, as well as the maximum distance at which you can designate the spell's point of origin. If any portion of the spell's area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted. Standard ranges include the following.
At9th level, the range is 190 feet. At most, the ice field would be a circle with a radius of 190 feet, for a total area of about 113,000 square feet.
Edit: Nevermind. That was mentioned in the very first post.
Permanency might be a problem, TCG. The spell only lasts tens of minutes, then the whole thing disappears.
an expensive custom magic item then.
The spell starts with level number of 10' squares, in a continuous form. It then grows away from you. If you walk onto the ice, it grows in all directions.
While a widen effect will let you cover more area, there is a better way to extend it: Ring of Continuation. Have it going for 24 hours. :-)
/cevah
The spell starts with level number of 10' squares, in a continuous form. It then grows away from you. If you walk onto the ice, it grows in all directions.
While a widen effect will let you cover more area, there is a better way to extend it: Ring of Continuation. Have it going for 24 hours. :-)
/cevah
Range of creeping Ice is not Personal.
Dang. Forgot about that. :-(
/cevah