New Spell: Globe of Winter
This content can now be found at its most updated version in The Elements and Beyond, a free 246-page compendium that you can download right here, filled with 23 subclasses, 8 spellcasting feats, 134 spells, 213 spell variants, 85 monsters, 30 magic items, 4 races plus 12 new subraces each with racial feats, and even more goodies for both players and DMs!
“Wanna know how it feels to be in a snow-globe when someone shakes it?”
Cold damage is probably the second-most common damage type after fire damage, and one of the most common for a spellcaster to specialize in, PC or NPC. Despite a small wealth of options for mages looking to take their foes out using the cold, there are no spells that freeze a target in place! The closest must be ray of frost, which slows enemies, but it being a cantrip, you’d expect some of the higher-level spells to do a better job of that, too.
Enter globe of winter. This point-blank area spell can be a little risky to make the most of — few spellcasters — even with 7th-level spell slots — are particularly confident about surrounding themselves with dangerous enemies in melee range. But while the price is steep, the effect is worth it. Globe of winter not only deals meaningful cold damage in an area, but even freezes targets in place. Those who succeed on the saving throw suffer slightly reduced speed and must still contend with new difficult terrain, meaning it will slow them down no matter what. Those who fail, of course, won’t be moving at all for a few rounds.
Globe of winter is also one of the new Hydromancies coming in The Elements and Beyond. Some spells that deal cold damage aren’t hydromancies, particularly if they make things cold without actually creating any ice — if no ice or water is created or manipulated, its hard to argue that it is a hydromancy. Because of the difficult terrain that this spell creates, however, it is clearly creating some ice, and thus fits the hydromancer feat and its spell list.
This spell is also one of the benefits of specializing in cold damage, even among spell variants. Why? Well, spell variants open many options to damage type specialists that aren’t normally available. For example, thunder damage gains more direct and single-target damage options, and lightning damage gains more varied area shapes (cubes, spheres, etc.) of damage. But some spells with particular effects have no variants. Some of these are published spells, but some of them — like globe of winter — are new in D&D Unleashed. That means that if you want to use this spell, you have to use the cold damage version. The ability to specialize into this spell is thus one upside only available to those looking at cold damage specialization.
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Globe of Winter
