CLOUD OF DAGGERS | A Room Full of Needles - Spell A Day D&D 5E +1

Alrighty day 53! Today is Cloud of Daggers. Clip from Tomska. A classic from 2011. There is also the situation of the enemy being paralyzed or restrained in a single space to maximize the damage over a minute.

Classes Available:
PHB: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Video the clip is from:

Got to catch the time stopper. Also if you get the game reference, good for you. Supposed to be Gears 2.

[zinogrevz]

one important thing: there is NO SAVE and its magical slashing

[shadowmyst]

Where this spell truly shines as a God Tier Damage Spell is when you use Coordinated Teamwork with the rest of the Party. Every single class is capable in some way to stop a creature from moving, and/or move another creature by force. The Fighter or Barbarian can just Grapple someone, drag another creature in and out of the Cloud of Daggers, and shove the enemy back into the knives face first. Anyone can shove another creature really. The Warlock has Invocations for Eldritch Blast to move enemies around. Now in 5e anyone can learn the Telekinetic Feat and shove people with their mind. So I think that now more than ever Cloud of Daggers has potential to be one of the best damage spells when used with proper coordination.

[targetdreamer]

Or combo with your barbarian YEETing them back into the cloud. Well for that matter any thing that forces movement. The come out of the cloud?
YEET!

[legendarychomper]

So basically think of a swarm of bees. Now imagine all those bees are brandishing knifes!

[willwhite]

It felt pretty strong with Hexblades curse, but we had to focus our fight around keeping the enemy there

[kypsta]

Ah yes, the clasical golbin halway scenario. We've all been there.

Also, nothing like seeing a ten year old Tomska these days. My kind of humour sir.

[luizfelipe]

Drag your enemies to this spell is such a cool way to deal damage! 8d4 every single turn!

[Chefdriscoll]

You forget 1 important thing. It deals damage when cast, and again at the start of their turn!

[audioblisseternal]

In one of my previous campaigns, we had an Earth Genasi with a homebrew ability to create pillars of stone. He had a penchant for holding his turn and preparing a reaction to create 2 of these pillars in front of and behind creatures as they walked through a doorway, pinning them down. Our Bard would cast Cloud of Daggers centered 8' up, shredding the creatures upper body while the Kobold Monk and Halfling Fighter would run up under the cloud and beat up their lower half.

[frantisekvrana]

Guaranteed magical slashing damage. Plus, if you can force someone to enter it, they take it again, all you need to do is concentrate.

[kwaksea]

Boy, Spike Growth had spoiled me quite badly.

[tofastninj]

Nope, this is a 9/10 spell. First, it affects an area which means that it can affect multiple creatures. Second, it locks down an area which can make enemies either need to spend more movement or be forced to run through it. Third, like magic missile, no save, no roll, consistent damage to take out swarms of enemies and with better upcasting. Fourth, and the biggest reason why it is a 9/10, is that it deals damage to creatures in the area when cast and then deals it's damage again at the start of the creature’s turn making the spell deal a guaranteed 8d4 damage and dealing 4d4 more per level of upcast. Making its damage higher than fireball at 3rd level(according to single target damage)!

[burgmond]

There is another option, too: considering its rare damage type, its lack of a save, and its wording, this makes it effective at damaging very large and very slow creatures.

If you have the resources, you can also store multiple of these in Glyphs of Warding and just grind anything. A whole bunch of Clouds, occupying all the spaces, overlapping each other to be less of a Cloud of Daggers and more of a Sea of Daggers. Anything that falls into that, no matter how big they might be, will die in that pit.

But as for players, nah, no way are they going to get a realistic mileage out of this spell. Not unless they build around it.

[tuseroni]

at 2nd level is a little under magic missile for the initial damage (3d4+3 vs 4d4) but magic missile scales by 1d4+1 and cloud of daggers scales by 2d4. but again, this is only SINGLE hit, if you can tie the enemy down so they aren't moving (like by surrounding them with allies) then it will KEEP doing this damage every turn. most combat i have been in the enemy stands in one place fighting the allies who usually have them somewhat surrounded. now maybe if the enemy is inside of a cloud of daggers they might want to move, but if they do they will take an AoT from one of the allies surrounding him, if he has sentinel he isn't moving.

similarly if you can hold him down in other way, like getting him to fall in a pit trap and filling the pit with a cloud of daggers and putting a lid over it, upcast to 5th level and you have 10d4 of damage over a minute, or about 100d4 of damage, if it's still alive...just do it again.

in this way it synergizes well with the cantrip "mold earth"

[SSEasygoing]

We fix this in my campaign by making it centered on a single point with 5 ft in each direction essentially making it a 15x15 ft cube. It totally never does that much damage and with a larger space you can do things like shoving creatures prone into the cloud, or put a flaming sphere in the center by another player turning it into a flaming blender of sorts. Still not op and much better than a single square. 😊 4d4 has an average of 6-8 damage which on an unmoving but consistently damaging space I think isn't that op when it takes up 9 squares vs 1

[skycrafter]

put yourself infron of the blades if they want to fight you in the hall your blocking them so they cant get passed and are forced to be hit and even better if your put them prone

[Tomeroche]

I'd say it's good if you got someone restrained or unable to move and are low on slots. It's 40d4 damage if you can keep hitting the guy for the full duration. Could maybe force a guard trying to block off an area to get out of the way or get chewed up.

[saucierspoon]

Day 9 of waiting for him to cover Zone of Truth

[laithao]

It's not 4d4. It's once they enter and one they start their turn. No save. 8d4. Not 5d4

[adjsmith]

Hallway full of screaming goblins is about the only useful situation I can see for this spell. And even then, there are better options (such as simply blasting the lot of them with Shatter or Scorching Ray, or plopping a Flaming Sphere down and rolling that sucker around).
Graaanteed, in the PHB and for these classes, this *is* one of only two 2nd level area-denial-type save-vs-damage spells. Flaming Sphere is only 2d6, but it can roll around. And there are none at 1st. *And* Bard has nothing else of that sort at any level (they do not get Flaming Sphere (normally)). So I suppose, technically, if you're a Bard, this is the *only* opportunity you have to make a damaging barrier (although they have *much* better things to be using spell slots on), and for everyone else you have to wait until the 4th level Wall of Fire spell...
but good lord there are much better spells you could be casting.