Critical Role Introduces New Dungeons & Dragons Spell

Critical Role has just introduced a new Dungeons & Dragons spell, and it’s a doozy. Earlier this week, Critical Role aired its eightieth episode of its second campaign, which follows the adventures of the ragtag “Mighty Nein.” The latest episode was a busy one, but one part that stood out was a new spell used by the wizard Caleb Widogast, played by Liam O’Brien. The spell – Widogast’s Web of Fire – is a new homebrew 4th Level evocation spell that shoots out several streaks of flames at multiple enemies. Upon making contact with an enemy, the flames explode into a column of fire, dealing out 8D6 of damage (or half that on a successful Dexterity save). The caster can also choose to have all five streaks of fire converge on a single enemy, which does 12D6 of damage (or half that damage on a successful Dexterity save.) DM Matthew Mercer noted that he and O’Brien collaborated together on the spell and that potential tweaks could occur in the future to give it more balance.

The spell seems to be a more powerful version of Fireball – while it deals out the same amount of damage per opponent as a Fireball spell would, it can be aimed at specific enemies instead of hitting everyone within a 20 foot blast radius. This eliminates the chance of hitting allies engaged in combat with powerful foes, and it can be directed at one enemy, which deals out even more damage. And while Widogast’s Web of Fire is a 4th level spell, it’s pretty darn powerful as it can deal out an average of 24 points of damage to up to five enemies.

The only potential drawback to Widogast’s Web of Fire spell is that its effectiveness can be limited when fighting against small groups of enemies. Dealing out 8D6 points of damage to multiple foes is still useful in any situation, but the spell limits you to either converging all the columns of fire on one foe or hitting multiple enemies. You can’t, for instance, converge the streaks on two or three foes instead.

Widogast’s Web of Fire seems like a pretty powerful spell, especially when compared to other 4th level spells. You can check out the full description of the spell in the tweet shared by O’Brien below.