The companion piece. If you want the rules, the Crawford rulings, the printing history, and the whole “is there a 2024 version” answer, that’s all in the Earth Tremor explainer post. Go read that first, then come back, because this one is about getting a real turn out of a 1st level spell that does a d6 and trips people.
Earth Tremor is a spell with a small but loud fan club and a much bigger crowd that says “I wouldn’t cast it if you paid me.” So I went through the Reddit threads, the optimizer posts, the rules fights, and the truly dumb stories, and sorted the pile into four buckets: real uses, cheeses, questionable stuff that depends on your DM, and the deviant stuff, because somebody always tries to cast this inside a whale.
Fair warning, the Reddit discussion on this one is thinner than for a Fireball or a Bless. It’s a niche spell and the threads are small. Everything here is pulled from real posts, cited as we go, and where a use comes straight from the rules instead of a thread I’ll say so.
REAL USES (rules-solid)
1. The prone is the product, the d6 is the wrapping. Earth Tremor is a no concentration, no attack roll, area knockdown. Everything within 10 feet of you that fails a Dex save is on the floor, attacking at disadvantage, and getting hit at advantage by anyone in melee. The damage is a side effect. (Rules as written, and the reason the Duck Guide on r/3d6 shrugs at the damage: u/Shipposting_Duck)
2. Time it so your melee friends swing at the bodies. Prone only helps the people who attack before the target stands back up, so sequencing matters. On r/3d6, the top answer to “how do I optimize Earth Tremor” was exactly this: “Using the Ready action to time the casting of the spell to just before your melee allies act, because them attacking a prone target is a significant damage boost. Or, having them ready action until the spell gets cast.” (u/philsov)
3. Stack prone on top of the difficult terrain and watch their movement die. The math sells the spell. An orc with 30 feet of speed fails the save on a gravel road. It’s prone, so standing costs 15. The remaining 15 feet in difficult terrain moves it one square. An r/DnD thread worked it from the enemy’s side: a creature that “had been Right in your face would have to walk through 3 squares (3×5 ft. x2= 30ft.) and may or may not lose all of their movement for their turn.” The targets are glued in place. (u/SpWondrous)
4. Treat it as your “surrounded” button on a melee caster. A backline wizard should never be in range to cast it. A Swords bard, a Bladesinger, an Eldritch Knight, or a druid who likes to wade in is going to be surrounded anyway, and “everything next to me falls over” is exactly the turn they want. One r/dndnext poster: “ET is terrible except in the nichiest of niche situations (tanky gish wanting to keep things near him, and …yeah, ‘tanky gish’).” That’s a dismissal that’s also a build guide. (u/RSquared ; Eldritch Knight access is rules as written, Earth Tremor is an evocation on the wizard list)
5. Slow first, then Tremor. The best combo I found. Slow gives its victims a minus 2 to Dexterity saves, halves their speed, and takes their reactions, so a slowed crowd fails the Tremor save more often, can’t punish you for stepping in to position the bubble, and then stands up at half of half speed in the rubble. Quote: “Cast Slow Turn one and then Earth Tremor to make it a ‘force multiplier’ on round two or beyond is the play I think.” Same poster’s fallback: “At the very least Earth Tremor is a great option to do when you would normally cast a Cantrip.” (u/Ibbenese)
6. Cast it into restrained targets. Restrained creatures have disadvantage on Dexterity saves, and Earth Tremor is a Dex save with no effect on a success, so it’s the ideal follow up to Web, Entangle, or a net. The same r/3d6 thread floated Web into Earth Tremor, then caught the problem: “O crap i forgot it was 10ft centered on yourself. That limits what you can do with web.” You’d be standing in the Web too. A target restrained by an ally’s net or Ensnaring Strike has no such issue. (u/Ibbenese)
7. Use it as a zone trigger. Drop a Wall of Fire, Cloudkill, or Moonbeam on the area, then Tremor everyone inside so they’re prone in difficult terrain and can’t get out before the zone ticks again. Straight from the optimizer thread: “Any sort of ongoing concentration spell like Cloudkill or Wall of Fire to ‘microwave’ creatures knocked prone inside difficult terrain.” Earth Tremor doesn’t need concentration, so it never competes with the zone. (u/philsov)
CHEESES (clever, and mostly legal)
8. Distant Spell turns it into a 20 foot radius quake. The famous one. Xanathar’s prints the range as “10 feet,” and Distant Spell doubles the range of any spell with a range of 5 feet or more, so one sorcery point makes the tremor cover everything within 20 feet of you instead of 10. That’s four times the floor space. r/dndnext chewed on it years ago and landed on yes: “Distant spell doubles the range of the spell. Earth Tremor and Thunderclap affect everything in range. This should work.” Another reply: “RAW yes. RAI yes.” And the r/3d6 crowd agrees: “Earth Tremor is the one spell where the Distant Spell metamagic increases its AoE. You can make it a 20ft radius instead of the 10ft it usually has.” The 2024 Distant Spell still reads “a range of at least 5 feet,” so the trick carries over. (u/j0y0 and u/tconners ; u/Peberro, r/3d6)
9. Sculpt Spells or Careful Spell makes it ally-proof. Earth Tremor is an evocation, so a 2014 Evocation wizard’s Sculpt Spells lets you pick 1 plus the spell’s level creatures in the area, two at 1st level, who automatically succeed, and since a success against this spell does nothing at all, your two front liners are untouched while the goblins around them hit the deck. A sorcerer’s Careful Spell does the same for up to your Charisma modifier in creatures. In 2024 the Evoker gets Sculpt Spells at level 6 instead of level 2, but it works the same way. (Rules as written, from the Player’s Handbook features; no thread needed.)
10. It goes through walls. Crawford’s 2018 ruling was that each creature on the ground within 10 feet of you makes the save “even if behind a barrier; being on the ground is the key.” So the bandit waiting behind the door, if he’s within 10 feet of you and standing on the same ground, is rolling. Most spells need a clear path to the target. This one shakes the floor under the door. Expect a DM to squint at it, but the lead rules designer said it out loud. (Sage Advice ruling, discussed in the r/DnD wording thread:)
11. Trickery cleric with a Lightning Lure leash. A multiclass idea from the optimizer thread: use Earth Tremor for area denial, then yank stragglers back into the rubble. “Multiclass Trickery Cleric, and now you have an area-denial spell that you can lightning lure people back into from your duplicity feature.” The poster’s summary of the movement tax: “Half speed to stand, half speed to move. Double movement tax means they’re gonna have to dash to even escape.” (u/ChessKn1ght)
12. Scribes wizard, cast it from your Manifest Mind. The Order of Scribes’ Manifest Mind lets you cast your wizard spells as if you were in the spectral mind’s space, which means the 10 foot bubble goes off around the floating book in the middle of the enemies while you stand forty feet back. Same thread: “Earth Tremor is great at something like a quick knockdown,” and with Manifest Mind you’re “doing it at a distance.” That fixes the spell’s biggest problem, the squishy caster in the mosh pit. (u/notmy2ndopinion)
13. Put it on a magic item and hand it to the barbarian. Two different DMs on r/dndnext did exactly this and both report zero balance problems. “I gave my barbarian player an adamantine magic hammer that let’s him cast earth tremor even if he is raging once per day. It plays fine at my table and doesn’t break nothing.” And: “I gave my Barbarian some magic boots made of granite that do the same thing. She loves ’em.” The boots were named Earthshakers, which is correct. (u/tachibana_ryu, u/i_tyrant)
QUESTIONABLE (check with your table)
14. Does a dungeon floor count as ground? The big one. Crawford said “ground” means what it means in English, only one of its meanings is soil, and your DM decides. Most tables say a floor is ground. At sea it gets worse. An r/DMAcademy DM asked what happens if a player casts it in the bottom of a ship, and the answers were “I would probably rule that there’s no earth or ground on which to cast it, so the spell would have no effect at sea” and the harder line, “A floor/deck != the ground at my table.” Ask before you prep it for a pirate campaign. (u/Baxfail and u/xdrewP)
15. What is “loose stone,” and can I break a wall with it? An r/dndnext thread spent an afternoon on this. Gravel slopes, scree, the rubble of a collapsed house, and one poster’s favorite, “Sand would count as loose stone and is common in a desert.” The original poster’s objection: “all the examples sound like they’d already be considered difficult terrain.” Fair. And no, it does not smash solid rock. Someone asked if it could break a medium sized stone and got the reading everyone agrees on: “No, it’s loose earth or stone – meaning the stone has to be loose. Like rubble.” (u/LaronX and u/SbM_Yggdrassil ; r/DnD)
16. Voice of Authority off your own Tremor. Under 2024 rules, “target” is defined to include any creature forced to make a saving throw by an effect, so an Order cleric who Tremors an ally arguably “targets” them and hands them a reaction weapon attack. r/onednd mostly said yes: “Yes, you can hit your ally with an AoE and ‘make up for it’ with granting them an attack.” Best replies: “I call it friendly fire with benefits,” and “‘You lazy bastard, kill them already or I’ll hit you again’, a fitting use of Voice of Authority IMO.” Your ally is also prone and attacking at disadvantage if they failed, so pick a Dex-heavy friend. Under 2014 rules this is a much shakier read, DM’s call. (u/Earthhorn90, u/Valdrax, u/Summerhowl)
17. Crusher does NOT push people off your Tremor. Myth bust. Crusher’s push needs you to hit with an attack that deals bludgeoning damage. Earth Tremor is a save, not an attack, so no push. The r/3d6 thread caught it immediately: “As earth tremor is a save and not an attack, I don’t think it interacts with crusher.” (u/EelsWhoTry)
18. Is it ever worth upcasting? The numbers say maybe, the table says no. The big r/dndnext spell damage treatise ran every 1st level damage spell through a model with expected targets and save chances, and in its “1st upcast to 9th” table Earth Tremor came in at 42.0, fourth behind Thunderwave at 50.5, Witch Bolt at 49.2, and Burning Hands at 42.9. So upcast Tremor is a legitimate multi-target option on paper. In practice you’re spending a high slot on a 10 foot bubble that hits your friends and whiffs on a save. Spend it on almost anything else. (u/gfntyjzpirqf)
19. The “I wouldn’t cast it if you paid me” camp. In the one thread dedicated to optimizing this spell, two of the replies were “It’s…usable I guess. I wouldn’t cast it if you payed me tho” and “Don’t try to optimize this it’s not worth casting.” And a Trickery cleric who asked about grabbing it via Magic Initiate was told, “If you’re brave enough to get into the frontlines for Earth Tremor, then Booming Blade will be a better pick.” They’re right about a backline caster. Item 4 is who should ignore them. (u/DivineEye and u/AdWrong6374 ; u/DashedOutlineOfSelf, r/dndnext)
DEVIANT, FUNNY, AND CURSED
20. The stomach earthquake. A party got swallowed by something whale-like, and a player tried to cast Earth Tremor inside it to give the monster indigestion. The DM said no, because the inside of a stomach is not the ground, and the player stayed salty about it until r/DnD talked him down. Top reply: “Yeah be salty all you want, the DM is right. The inside of a stomach isn’t the ground you muppet.” Runner up: “The spell is two words, one of them is earth. If it ain’t earth, it ain’t tremoring.” And the galaxy brain fix: “Get this, cast flesh to stone, then cast earth tremor, slowly turn the whale into stone then use said stone to become a rumbling tummy.” The original poster’s edit: “Okay fine, you’ve convinced me. He was right.” (u/varvaSasen, u/joekriv, u/Chfullerton26)
21. The playtest city-block earthquake. During the 2023 One D&D playtest there was a proposed wizard spell called Modify Spell that let you create a tweaked version of another spell, including one with a longer range. Somebody noticed Earth Tremor’s range IS its area and did the math: “Juiced to the max it would be a 610ft radius AoE that does 10d6 damage. (Level 20 Wizard Modifying it — Upcast to Level 9).” A reply caught the dice error, it’s 9d6, and another saw the ghost of 3.5: “wait, isn’t this the exact same oversight that enabled the Locate City Nuke in 3.x? Range and area being the same?” Modify Spell never made it into the 2024 book, so this one is dead, but it was a fun couple of weeks. (u/ryeaglin, u/ejdj1011)
22. The medusa that lost to a tremor and a hand mirror. An r/DnD DM’s party beat a medusa with a rogue’s magic item casting of Earth Tremor to trip it, plus an invisible bard who used Prestidigitation to conjure a handheld mirror and turned the gaze back on it, “And then it failed its save rolling a 2.” That’s the spell used right. The tremor’s job was the knockdown, the mirror did the killing, and nobody at that table remembers the d6. (u/Graph1te)
23. The Quaker. The r/dndnext thread about letting martials cast Earth Tremor off Strength produced a homebrew feat called “Quake Fighter,” at which point someone pointed out, “You just invented The Quaker,” and the original poster ran with it: a lone fighter enters the battlefield, the earth trembles, “Camera pans up revealing the Quaker Oats guy.” And if you want this fantasy without homebrew, a Swords bard flavoring the spell as smashing the ground works today: “Want to slam the ground hard enough to shake it? Earth Tremor.” (u/BeeBarfBadger, u/DangSquirrel ; u/General-Yinobi, r/dndnext)
24. One for the card nerds, no Reddit needed. Earth Tremor is also a Magic: The Gathering card, printed in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate in June 2022, a red instant that deals damage equal to the number of lands you control. Flavor text: “Every cave-in is Moradin telling you to leave the earth where it is.” Which, given everything above, is also decent advice.
So there it is. Cast it when you’re surrounded, time it for your melee friends, Distant Spell it if you’re a sorcerer, Sculpt it if you’re an evoker, ask your DM about the floor before you prep it, and never try it from inside a whale. What’s your Earth Tremor story? Has it ever won you a fight, or did it just trip your cleric? And the question from the explainer still stands: Earth Tremor or Thunderwave, if you only get one slot? Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, roll high and stay ridiculous.
