Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 16th episode of our 3rd level spell series. Today we have a very interesting and very popular spell in store for us today we’re looking at dispel magic spell dnd 5e. This is one of the staple spells in d&d i’d put it right up there with magic missile and counterspell 5e it is very cool almost everyone who’s remotely heard of d&d has heard of the spell magic.
That being said, this spell is usable by the bard, cleric, druid, paladin, sorcerer, warlock and the wizard and it is found in the good old players handbook. And there’s a lot of misconceptions about the way this spell is used and we’re gonna be going over those sage advice is a couple very interesting entries along the spell so we’re gonna be addressing those kind of in sequence right after we get into the description so we are gonna cover those in this article. But before we do let’s take a quick look at its mechanics here so you can understand how the spell functions on a basic level.
Table of Contents
Mechanics
- Level: 3rd
- Casting Time: 1 Action
- Range/Area: 120 ft
- Components: V, S
- Duration: Instantaneous
- School: Abjuration
- Attack/Save: None
- Damage/Effect: Control
The effect at a glance is as followed: Cancel the spell of 3rd level or lower. If the spell is above 3rd level you can make an ability check using your spellcasting ability to attempt to cancel the spells effect: The DC is 10 + the spell’s level.
Your cast time is one action, the range is an impressive 120 feet, the duration is instantaneous. At higher levels the spell is stopped if it is equal in level to the spell slot used. The components are verbal and somatic and the school is abjuration. Now let’s take a look at its full description here so we can kind of explain what’s going on and then we will look into the sage advice right after.
Description
Choose one creature, object, or magical effect within range. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell’s level. On a successful check, the spell ends.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you automatically end the effects of a spell on the target if the spell’s level is equal to or less than the level of the spell slot you used.
Fantastic stuff! Now with that out of the way, let’s take a quick look at some sage advice kind of rulings here:
So the first being is can it dispel magical effects like the vampires charm ability or a druids wild shape. Sadly it cannot, this spell is strictly meant to effect spells. That’s it if it’s a spell like ability no cigar, my apologies just the way it is.
The second sage advice addresses spells like animate dead so how does it affect summoning spells….so the rule of thumb you’re gonna want to use here is if it’s instantaneous as in the duration for animate dead is instantaneous there’s a no effect, dispel magic does nothing the skeletons are still skeletons even if you burn through the spell slot.
However if you look at spells like conjure woodland beings the duration there is not instantaneous as a direct result to spell magic would work on conjure woodland beings, very cool stuff!
The third can you already dispel magic to stop another spell from taking place? Technically YES and NO. So you cannot use the dispel magic in the same way that you use countercharmjust because countercharm kind of prevents the whole spell from taking place in the first place it interrupts it at the casting stage.
Dispel magic only gets rid of the effects after they have occurred. So it is to important to draw that distinction however you can still ready dispel magic as an action. But just as a quick heads-up, that does not mean that the creature targeted by the spell will not be affected.
The fourth point they bring up is one regarding the globe of invulnerability can dispel magic and a globe of invulnerability. The answer is yes but dispel magic cannot affect anything that happens within the globe while it is operational. Also read glyph of warding 5e.
The fifth and final point if dispel magic targets the magical effect from blessed does it remove the effect on all targets? So what this question really gets at is if a spell affects multiple targets how does this dispel magic in delay with it. The short answer is that it only affects one target, so it would only affect one of the recipients of bless it would not affect the others.
Now the reason why this is important is it kind of gives you insight as to another key difference between a dnd dispel magic vs counterspell. Dispel magic only affects the effect on a given target, it does not affect all targets and it does not inherently affect the spell itself. Counter spell on the other hand affects the spell itself. Which is very interesting. That being said, let’s get into some quick alternative uses here. You can also check out this wand of dispel magic dnd 5e.
Alternative Uses
So the first that i really thought of and to be honest these are gonna be lacking in depth a little bit just because it’s a tricky spell to find alternative uses for because it’s responding spell so, so the best way i thought about using this is using this to punch up. By this what i mean is using it to debuff your opponent from the spell effects.
Now they have spell like abilities you’re kind of hooped if they have enchanted gear you’re kind of hooped but if they are as mentioned previously the recipient of something like bless you can get rid of it. Alternatively you can use this to get rid of debuffs on your own party so there’s that too.
And through extension that can help drastically with action economy for example dispelling someone’s haste. I think that’d be great. This is also a great way of keeping various NPCs safe and protected from debuffs kind of alluded to earlier once again but i really did struggle with this one. Also read this remove curse 5e.
Conclusion
That being said, if you have any alternative uses, thoughts, questions, comments, concerns or stories involving can you dispel magic a spell?, how powerful is dispel magic? stuff like that please out it down beneath in the comment section. That being said, i hope you all have a great day and as always happy casting everyone.