Is your party outnumbered? Low on armour? Confined to a narrow passage? No worries, mate! Just roll out this camouflaged welcome mat, and let your foes take care of themselves!
Shape a piece of ground into hard spikes. A creature walking on the spikes takes 2d4 piercing damage for every 1.5 m / 5 ft it moves.
The diminutive die in that description might look laughable at first glance, but consider how large the spiked area is: 40 ft diameter, meaning 16d4 or an average of 40 damage to anything that crosses its full width. All those tetra-dice sure are pointy!
The area is wider than a typical humanoid’s movement per turn, so most things without wings won’t have time to do much after crossing it.
On top of that:
The spikes are difficult terrain, halving a creature’s movement speed.
So, while waiting for the baddies to slog through the brambles, you can pass the time with target practice on their ranged-attack buddies.
What’s that you say? Your visitors somehow made it across, and are now breathing down your neck and twice as pissed off? Perfect! Now’s the time to practice your thunderwave, or favorite knock-back ability, or turn undead if the neighbours are necrotic, or just give them a good old fashioned shove, and let them enjoy your garden tour all over again.
Wait a minute! You’re facing a threat of higher intelligence and refined poise, and they stopped before stepping on your grass? What a great time for your druid to yoink them out of their comfort zone with a thorn whip, or (if you earned it as a reward) try out Sorrow’s similar spell.
Did your barbarian charge in before you could seed the field? Ask her to toss a body or two onto the flower bed while they’re still standing. They make great compost!
In short, wizards and sorcerers might love to talk about their fireballs, but with this horticultural marvel, my bard has more fun. All natural, certified organic, and (as a level 2 spell) cheap and easy.
Happy plowing!
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This was entertaining and informative! I liked it a lot. Please do more! Haha
You’re like the Bill Nye of dnd haha
Thanks! I guess I rolled high with my inspiration die.
Great run down of the spell! I actually just used it for the first time (mid way through second act) and it saved me, you make some good points that I didn’t think of!
The level 4 druid spell that summons a nature spirit gives you four great abilities on it.
- It has a superior version of Shillelagh.
- It has unlimited casts of Spike Growth.
- It had a poison resistance aura.
- It can summon one Wood Woad / short rest. That gets unlimited Entangle and heals when it’s on entangled ground.
Wow. I had no idea about #4 and barely ever cast Entangle. I just made him tank for me until he died
Yeah, I tried this out after a certain druid joined the party and I was impressed. Not quite as good as Hunger of Hadar, but it’s lower level.
My only issue with this (and Hunger) is that the AI is inconsistent about jumping through/out of it. Sometimes it’ll be great, sometimes they’ll just jump and shrug it off.
That’s been my experience, too. I much enjoyed reading this and it would theoretically be just as much of a favorite spell, but I’ve only actually used it to real effect twice. Usually they just jump over it, so I stopped bothering to use it in favor of reliable fun like Call Lightning. I hadn’t gotten a good reason to use Hunger of Hadar yet, and I’m disappointed to hear the same. Not really surprised.
Tbf, it IS technically one of the things that make combat so interesting/stressful. There is little you can do that they can’t also do back and I’m not even going to complain about the time they pushed me down in my own spikes. Thinking nothing I’m facing is going to have the brainpower to avoid or use the same terrain is my own miscalculation.
But it is less fun. This may be another of the things I chalk up to the subtle split between what RPers expect going in (clever tactical planning) vs. what gamers expect (to dominate the field bc I’m the protagonist). Mixing the two groups has been interesting to watch
I’ve used Cloud of Daggers to great effect in a similar manner. Half the Goblin Camp cleared itself out trying to run at me
I just finished the game as a druid and, like the other commenter said, the Woodland Being summon can cast it with no spell slots so I just never used it on the druid.
Not to poopoo on your great post but I found the spell to have very little use compared to other AOE spells mainly because of its size. You have to position it perfectly or else your team suffers, too. A lot of times enemies walk backwards out of it so any melee has to use a bow lest they take 20 damage getting to the enemy. Normal mode though, maybe I’ll like it more during my upcoming Tactician run
Sorry that was a bit of a vent. I’m a newbie to anything dnd-related but I was kind of disappointed with my class. Wild shape felt weak, my most-used spell was Call Lightning followed by Moonbeam. Its only saving grace for me were all the summons
I found the spell to have very little use compared to other AOE spells mainly because of its size. You have to position it perfectly or else your team suffers, too.
I haven’t found it unwieldy (I view its size as an advantage) but I should note that I like the tactical aspect of combat, and positioning is an important part of that.
If my martials are itching to get their hands dirty, I send them forward first, or place the spike circle slightly to one side to create a small area that they can jump over on the other side. That not only grants a bloodthirsty barb two-way passage, but carves a sort of choke point out of an open field. Since Spike Growth isn’t fenced in by slopes or steps, a side shift like that sometimes has the bonus effect of overlapping high ground and denying access to sniper spots.
Sorry that was a bit of a vent. I’m a newbie to anything dnd-related but I was kind of disappointed with my class. Wild shape felt weak,
What druid circle did you choose? Wild Shape is widely considered an ability of utility, not combat, with one exception: Circle of the Moon, which has power spikes at levels 2 and 10. Outside of that, their spells are their great strength. (Which makes sense, given that they have the magic progression and capacity of full casters.)
Full disclosure: My druid experience comes from 5th edition D&D. I haven’t yet played one in Baldur’s Gate 3, so I suppose it’s possible their kit was nerfed.
I didn’t know that about wild shape and I was bummed! I was looking forward to fighting as an animal but I never found a use for it besides traveling through small spaces. I think I used Wild Shape with purpose maybe…twice the whole game?
I can’t remember what circle I picked, i think Circle of the Ancient or something. I didn’t walk in with a plan, I was just feeling things out as I went. Now that I’ve looked into it more, I’m ironically playing druid again for my tactician run…2 spore druids, a war cleric, and necro wizard. For an insane amount of summons which seems to be where druids shine in this game
Yeah, one place where this game currently falls down is expecting players to make subclass decisions without showing them the path they’re committing to. I recommend keeping some D&D (5e) references (tools) on hand for this reason, at least until you get familiar with how different builds progress as they level up.
I’m glad you found a druid you like. (Related: I had a concept for a decay-and-fungus-focused druid before the Circle of Spores was introduced, so I’ve been wanting to try the official version ever since.) If you haven’t lost interest in fighting as an animal, give the moon druid a try some time. Becoming a brown bear with an independent health pool at level 2 is awesome.
That’s funny because bear form was the one I wanted. I played exclusively tanks in WoW but didn’t care for druid (bear) so I was hoping bg3 would be my chance. I’ll probably pick druid if I ever play a real game of DND because I like the RP aspect of it and I feel like there’s more “flexibility” in a tabletop game
And when it’s not enough, you can replace it with a fire or thorn wall!
This spell is amazing. My PC ranger single-handedly shut down some encounters just by using this spell, defending the portal in Act 2 was a breeze when most of the enemies killed themselves on the spikes before they even reached it. Well worth dropping concentration from Hunter’s Mark if the terrain works well with it.
Tried this today.
Opened the door to see a bunch of mobs in a room at the other end of a narrow passage under Moonrise Tower . Dropped this in the passage. A lot of dead/dying mobs.
Worked a treat.
Amazing for choke points, even just a doorway! Let the bad guys come to you! Let them waste their actions using dash through some thorny brambles!
