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D&D Wizard 5E – 3 Deadly Spells Verbal Components Only

In 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons words can kill. Especially if you are playing a wizard character. We’ve put together a D&D Wizard 5e guide to the three most potent spells plus a bonus spell. If people enjoy this video and transcription we will make a series of it and break more spells down by their casting components.

D&D Wizard 5E – 3 Deadly Spells Verbal Components Only Video

D&D Wizard 5E – 3 Deadly Spells Verbal Components Only Video and Transcription

Dave: “I have you know wizard you are helpless.”

Ted: “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

Dave: “Your hands are bound. You cannot even wiggle your fingers. You have no spell components. You have no arcane focus. What can you possibly do?”

Ted: “I wish, I wish you were a fish. Well he didn’t see that one coming. Let’s talk about fifth edition wizard spells that can kill you with words.”

Dave: “Welcome to the Nerdarchy for nerds by nerds. I’m Nerdarchist Dave and as always I’m hanging out with this nerd.”

Ted: “Nerdarchist Ted.”

Dave: “Hey, maybe it’s your first time hanging out in Ted’s basement. It’s a place where we’d like to discuss news, views, and home brews for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes we even talk about other role playing games.”

Ted: “So if you don’t want to miss a single video, don’t forget to crit hit that subscribe button and attune to that notification bell.”

Dave: “All right, so we had this idea, we wanting it to talk about 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons wizard spells specifically, but you know, I mean all spells you can’t do the same thing with regardless of the character class. And that is the idea that each spell is made up of three different casting components, verbal semantic material and in different combinations. Sometimes you need one of them, sometimes you need all of them or just two of them. So we decided to just focus in on the verbal spell casting components this time”

Ted: “Now it’s really cool to be able to have spells that you can just say something and have a magical effect happen. You know, you don’t have to wiggle your fingers, you don’t have to pull out a focus do, you don’t have to pull out, you know, some kind of material component. You know, doing all of this would be pretty interesting. And as you kind of saw in our you know, humorous or not humorous depending upon your opinions opening, you know, to be able to just say, say something and have a magical effect happen. And when we started looking through, uh, you know, we wound up finding that there’s actually quite a large number of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons spells that only have verbal components.”

Dave: “Yeah. And also another area that it’s worth mentioning as well. Yeah. Whenever we’ve read novels or stories, what do they always do to disable the wizard They want to like break their fingers, smashed their hands, bind them, tie them up, maybe even permanently disfigure them so they keep them from spell casting. So this is also an area where if you want it to create a character, possibly with a, with a disability, you could kind of like cherry pick the spell list in order to do that and be like, well, you know what I had this limiting factor to them, my character, but what can I still do So that’s another area where you could take this same discussion and utilize it in your game.”

Ted: “So we found 23 spells, two of which are cantrips spread out among all of the spells that in there. But before we get into that, I think it’s time to, uh, you know, pay some homage to the sponsor for this video.”

Dave: “Absolutely. We want to thank Frog God Games for sponsoring this video. Right now they have a KickstarterKickstarter going on.”

Ted: “They have a KickstarterKickstarter going on for The World of Lost Lands. It is a really great Kickstarter Frog God is known for making these massive tomes of of information that you can play for hours and hours and months and months, if not years and years. So this one has some elements of a lot of different books that are out there. You’ve got the Blight, you got Stone Haven, you’ve got Rappan Athuk in a lot, lots of great stuff that is going into The World of Lost Lands.The World of Lost Lands.”

Dave: “Yeah, it is actually 42 years in the making. They’ve been at it for a while. They are blasting through the stretch goals on this Kickstarter. It is well over $100,000 already with time left to go. They have unlocked, not one, not two, not three stretch goals, but 10 stretch goals.”

Ted: “Now the cool thing about the stretch goals, if you happen to be, you know, into getting PDFs, every stretch goal that they’re unlocking and they are adding another pdf from their catalog just into your base pledge. Anything for $15 an over, you’re getting access to loads and loads of great material. Highly recommend if you like collecting PDFs of of gaming material. This is a, this is a Kickstarter that you just can’t miss.”

Dave: “and I will point out, you know you can get the physical books as well. You get the physical book for this campaign setting and this world. And not only that, Frog God Games is known for these massive tomes. They’ve literally have tested these bullet tested, these tomes and a bullet. A bullet was not able to make it all the way through from uncovered to the other. So these, this, this book may very well save your life. Nerdarchy does not condone or recommend using D&D books or any other kind of books as life saving devices when it comes to firearms.”

Ted: “Anyway, back to D&D spells. As I said, there’s 23 spells spread out among all the levels and we’re going to talk about, you know, a small selection of those that we think are literally spells that you can kill with word.”

Dave: “Or at least make you wish you were a dead well. So that being said, at 20th level, wizard can no 25 spells.”

Ted: “If they’ve maxed out their intelligence.”

Dave: “If they maxed out their intelligence. So you’re already, you’re already practically there. You’re not missing much. Um, I, it’s worth pointing out. There’s a lot of crossover between sorcerer and wizard. With that subtle metamagic. If it is a verbal component and you remove it, there’s no components. It’s literally you’re just doing stuff with your brain.”

Ted: “And that’s a great way to, you know, make a psionicist if you want to do it the easy peasy way.”

Dave: “Absolutely. So we’re gonna jump into it. We’re going to grab our handy Dandy devices and we’re going to pull up D&D Beyond because it just makes life easy. Why would we not, we’re going to look at our top three picks for spells that could kill you just with the words or at least made you wish you were dead. And we have a bonus one as well.”

Ted: “All right, so do we want to start off with immolation?”

Dave: “Sure, go ahead.”

Ted: “All right. Fifth level. Spell casting time is one action rings of 90 feet. Verbal components, as we said, duration is a minute. It’s an evocation attack is a dex save flames rise, wreath , one creature you can see within range, the target must make a dex save. It takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save has half as much one on a successful on a failed save. The target also burns for the spells duration. The burning sheds bright light in a 30 foot radius. Dim light for an additional 30 at the end of each switch turn the target repeats a saving throw. It takes an additional 4d6 fire damage on the failed save spell ends on a successful one. These magical flames cannot be extinguished by non magical means. If the damage from this spell kills a target, the target is turned to ash.”

Dave: “Yep. Stop. Drop and roll. I don’t think so. I also reminds me of the eighties movie fire starter as well. If you’re a sorcerer and used the subtle spell just setting things on fire with your brain.”

Ted: “Just flames going everywhere.”

Dave: “I’ll kill you with my brain. Oh, also fifth level. This spell probably not going to outright kill you, but it might make you do some things you don’t want to do and make you wish you were dead. And that is geas casting time is one minute says, yeah, you’re gonna need it. A little prep to get this one off range is 60 feet and it lasts 30 days. You got to wisdom save. You place a magical command on a creature that you can see with range, forcing it to carry out some service or refrain from some action or course of activity as you decide. It’s a great way to get people to quit smoking. If the creature can understand you, it must succeed at wisdom savings throw or become charmed by you for the duration while the creature is charmed by you. Takes 5d10 psychic damage each time. It acts in a manner directly countered to your instructions, but no more than once each day. So technically it could probably make your brain explode depending on how many hit points you have. A creature that can’t understand you is unaffected by the spell. You can issue any command you choose. Sure. I’m an activity that would result in certain death. Should you issue a suicidal command. The spell ends, you can end the spell early by using an action to dismiss it. It removed curse greater restoration or wish spelled also ends it. So I love of Magic to get rid of it at a higher level. So you can cast a spell using a spell slot of seventh or eighth level duration is one year. When you cast the spell using spell slot of ninth level. The spell last until end up by one of the spells mentioned above forever basically.”

Ted: “So Nerdarchy has got a bit of a history with this spell and earlier editions It was, you know, a little bit different. Did Not have the minute casting time or if it, if, if it did the DM kind of hand waved that one. And you know, we, we struggled against the effects of the spell for, you know, multiple sessions there’s a bit of a, you know, angst with that one.”

Dave: “We did eventually end it by dying.”

Ted: “Yes. The character who was under a geas did walk across the uh, you know, a glyph of death and died.”

Dave: “Fixed it. That’s how we fixed it. All right, so what is our third spell?”

Ted: “ All right, now this, this one is super crazy. Ninth level power, word kill. I mean, come on. Power Word Kill. That should just be, you say die and they fall over dead.”

Dave: “That is so metal.”

Ted: “Ninth level, Casting Time one action. A range, 60 feet, verbal component, duration, instantaneous its enchantment There is no attack. There is no save. You utter a word of power that can compel one creature. You can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or a few or it dies. Otherwise the spell has no effect. So you know, no taking damage. No. Just you know, oh, we have to, we have to make a save. No. If they’ve got under a hundred hit points, they’re just dead.”

Dave: “Pretty much. Plain and simple. Easy enough with the word dead. So lastly on our list is on our wish list is wish. And the reason why we include this as a bonus spell and not as the actual spell is because it’s a ninth level spell and it encompasses pretty much every spell lists. There is eighth level under any spell now becomes verbal. You only need to say say it for it to happen. So now the, the range of spells we could possibly kill you with just our words has greatly increased.”

Ted: “So the this spell is, as Dave says, it’s going to duplicate any effects, removing any requirements for, you know, other verbal semantic or material components. Oh, you know, you’ve got a costly resource nah we’re going to, we’re going to ignore that 10,000 gold peace diamond. You gotta it takes a month to cast a spell. Nope. It’s just you utter a phrase and the effect that just goes off. It’s amazing. And that’s only, you know, the, the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the spell because you can do other things and you know, possibly have, you know, your inability to ever cast the spell again.”

Dave: “Well, yes, if you choose to do something that is not a eighth level spell or lower, but you decided to just make up to the wish on, you know, on the spot, you can absolutely do that. But there’s a chance you lose the ability to cast wish ever again. So I find most wizards are not interested in doing that at all.”

Ted: “If you’re using wish and you’ve done this other crazy stuff, feel free to share those awesome stories and whether you passed that roll or not down in the comments.”

Dave: “Absolutely. So the question is, what do you think of our list of three spells that could kill you with your words for the 5e D&D wizard. Let us know down in the comments below while you’re at it, don’t forget to like share and subscribe.”

Ted: “On your way down there don’t forget to stop by the the description and check out the link to Frog God’s Kickstarter World of the Lost Lands.”

Dave: “Until next time.”

Both: “Stay Nerdy!”