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Overview

“A storm of fire appears within range. The area of the storm consists of up to ten 10-foot Cubes, which you arrange as you like. Each Cube must be contiguous with at least one other Cube. Each creature in the area makes a Dexterity saving throw, taking 7d10 Fire damage on a failed save or half as much damage on a successful one.

“Flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried start burning.” (Dnd Beyond Link)

It’s a more fiddly and less fun delayed blast fireball. It’s got a larger area, but one that players spend long agonizing minutes optimizing each time they cast it. And other than that, it does slightly less damage and lacks the lit-fuse fun of dbf.

Damage-wise, it’s on-par with other 7th-level spells. An evocation spell with no material components, it’s a simple and direct damage-dealer. It’s available to clerics and druids, giving them a bit of offensive firepower they debatably lack (sorcerers already have enough offensive firepower). I’m not sure why it’s not a wizard spell. Maybe wizards would never bother with it?

Fire storm in past editions

Fire storm has been around for a long time. In OD&D it was a 7th-level druid spell that did 1d6 damage to each creature in the area, or 2d6 damage to undead, and ignited all combustible materials across a huge area: 240-600 sq. ft.. depending on your level. The spell could also be reversed to extinguish normal fires and even potentially magical ones (5% chance per caster level). In AD&D, fire storm covered a slightly smaller area (160-400sq. ft.), but did more damage: 2d8, +1 point per caster level. Creatures within ten feet would also take that damage, which begs the question, why didn’t they just increase the area of effect? AD&D added a Dex save for half damage and called out that flametongue swords could be permanently extinguished if caught in the reverse of the spell. Ad&D also made the casting time almost an entire round.

3rd Edition pulled out all the stops, except for keeping the long casting time (1 full round to cast) and the saving throw (Reflex save for half). Fire storm could be cast 230-300’ away, covered an area of 200 cu. ft./level and inflicted 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level. In addition, you could choose whether or not any plants in the area were harmed when you cast it. However, reversing the spell was no longer an option. In 4th edition, the spell became a cleric-only power usable once a day. Its range was reduced (100’) but its area remained substantial (490’ sq. ft.) It’s damage was reduced to 3d10+Wis Modifier damage, but the area remained on fire, doing 1d10+Wis Modifier damage to any who entered the space if sustained.

The 2014 verison of fire storm kept the option to leave plants unharmed when casting the spell, but that option was left out of the 2024 PHB.

How good is fire storm?

It’s fine, but it’s not particularly inspiring. The fiddliness of having a customizable area of contiguous cubes means that every time it gets cast, the caster is going to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what shape will have the best effect, slowing the game to a crawl while they optimize their casting. The optional “plants immune” bit was always a wierd legacy piece the spell is better off without. Despite putting fire across a large area, it doesn’t feel like unleashing a storm. It feels like carefully placing sixteen bonfires. It’s C-tier for me.

House rules and other thoughts

Take it off the cleric list (except for fire domain clerics). Give it to the wizards.

Spells should have a really clear design goal. For this one, it should be setting the world on fire. And it should feel like that. Make it an emanation with a crazy radius. The kind of thing that wipes out all the minions around you, reduces a tavern to cinders, or razes a village to the ground. You know, like a storm of fire.

About Spell-by-Spell

Spell-by-spell is a series of articles where we discuss the spells in Dungeons & Dragons 5.5e. We start with the spell as-written, and we’ll provide our take on how “good” the spell is (S-Tier to F-Tier), and thoughts for using the spell as a player or DM. We offer up suggestions for adding color or flavor to the spell, out-of-the-box ideas for non-combat applications, and occasionally stories from the game-table. We might look the history of a spell and the different versions across editions or even different games.  Finally, we weigh in on how well the spell does what it says it does; how well it plays in-game (does it slow the game down, does it steal the thunder of other classes, is it fun); whether it should be banned, nerfed, or boosted; and revisions we’d like to see in theoretical future editions or that we plan to make (or have made) in our own D&D games.

Spell-by-Spell Tier Rankings

• S-Tier: Spells that are so cool or so useful that you want to be able to cast them as many times as possible.
• A-Tier: Spells that you always want to have in your spellbook or spell list. There may be situations where you would choose to not memorize or prepare them, but those cases are rare.
• B-Tier: Good, solid spells. Spells you are often happy you have in your spellbook or spell list, but maybe don’t memorize or prepare every day.
• C-Tier: Spells that are only situationally useful, that do too little damage, or that have some other strange or confusing unexpected flaw. Also poorly-named spells that don’t do what you would think they do.
• D-Tier: Spells that are poorly designed, overshadow the schtick of other classes, or interact with other effects or abilities in ways detrimental to the player or game.
• F-Tier: Spells that are so bad, they shouldn’t be in the game. This includes useless and trap spells, as well as always-spam spells that seem to have been created to cause friction between players and GMs.