A first level slot takes an orc off its feet for two straight turns, and no, rules as written you cannot set it on fire. Come fight me about the second part.
Today we’re looking at a 1st level conjuration spell called Grease. Available to Wizards, Sorcerers, and Artificers, this spell drops a slick ten foot square of pork fat on the floor and makes everyone standing in it eat pavement. One action, one slot, no concentration, and suddenly the front rank of the enemy is lying down.
Sitting at a range of 60 feet, a casting time of one action, and a duration of one minute, Grease is the control spell you cast at level 1 and keep casting at level 11. The reason is that duration line. One minute, flat, and no concentration on it. Your wizard can drop Grease in the doorway and still be holding Web, or Hypnotic Pattern, or whatever else is eating your focus that fight. Almost nothing else at first level hands you ten rounds of battlefield for free.
The community angle here is fire. Every table has the player who wants to Firebolt the puddle, and every DM has had to rule on it at the table with four people staring at them. The 2024 book answered that question loudly, and we’ll get there. For now, let’s look at the rules as written, and remember, you can always fight me in the comments if you read it different.
RAW
- Casting Time: 1 action
- Range: 60 feet
- Components: V, S, M (a bit of pork rind or butter)
- Duration: 1 minute
Here’s the 2014 text, straight from the Player’s Handbook, page 246:
“Slick grease covers the ground in a 10-foot square centered on a point within range and turns it into difficult terrain for the duration.
When the grease appears, each creature standing in its area must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there must also succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone.”
Two sentences, and a lot is buried in them, so let’s slow down.
“Slick grease covers the ground.” Floors only. The 1985, 2nd edition, and 3.5 versions all let you coat an object with it, a rope, a ladder rung, a weapon handle, and 5e cut that half of the spell out. If your DM lets you grease a doorknob, that’s a house rule, and a generous one.
“In a 10-foot square centered on a point within range.” A ten foot square is four squares on a battle map, arranged two by two. It’s centered on a point, so you are targeting a patch of floor, not a creature. No attack roll, no chance to miss, and the target gets no say in where it lands. The general targeting rules still apply, meaning you need a clear path to that point and it can’t be hiding behind total cover. Past that, you can drop the square directly underneath somebody who is already standing there, and you should, constantly.
“Turns it into difficult terrain for the duration.” Every foot of movement in there costs one extra foot. Crossing the full ten feet of grease costs 20 feet of somebody’s movement. For a standard 30 foot walker, that’s two thirds of their turn spent going ten feet, and that’s if they’re upright.
“For the duration” means one minute. Ten rounds, and nothing to concentrate on, so there’s no way for an enemy to knock it loose by hitting your wizard. Time and Dispel Magic are the only things that clear it.
“When the grease appears, each creature standing in its area must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone.” Standing is the operative word. Anything flying, hovering, swimming, burrowing, or already lying on the floor is not standing in the area, so it rolls nothing and risks nothing. Grease under a flock of harpies is a puddle.
The save is a Dexterity save against your spell save DC, the same DC as everything else you cast, and it’s all or nothing. No damage, no half effect. You stay up or you go down.
“A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there must also succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or fall prone.” Three separate triggers. The grease grabs at you when it appears, again when anything walks in, and again at the end of every turn anybody spends standing in it. That third trigger is what turns a puddle into a prison, because an enemy stuck in there has to pass a save just to be upright when its turn ends.
Let’s watch it work with real numbers. Your wizard has a spell save DC of 14. An orc is coming at you, Dexterity save plus 1, speed 30. You drop the square under its feet. It needs a 13 on the d20 and rolls a 7. Down it goes. Its turn comes up and it’s prone in a grease square, so first it spends half its speed, 15 feet, just standing back up. That leaves 15 feet of movement and it needs to cross ten feet of difficult terrain to get out, which costs 20. It can’t afford it. So it shuffles part way, ends its turn still standing in grease, rolls the save again, gets a 5, and falls right back down. Round three, same story.
That orc has now spent two full turns standing up and falling over, from one first level slot, while your fighter beats on it with advantage the whole time. It never took a point of damage from the spell. It just stopped getting turns.
The prone condition is doing most of the heavy lifting there, so know what it does. A prone creature has disadvantage on its attack rolls. Attacks against it have advantage from within 5 feet and disadvantage from farther away. Its only movement option is to crawl or to spend half its speed getting up. And crawling out of grease is brutal, because crawling costs one extra foot per foot and difficult terrain costs another, so every foot of crawling through grease costs three. Crawling the full ten feet out is 30 feet of movement. That’s an entire orc turn to travel ten feet on its stomach.
At Higher Levels
Grease has no upcast line in 2014 or in 2024, and people go looking for it, so I’m saying it out loud. Cast it with a 9th level slot and you get the identical ten foot square, the identical DC, the identical one minute. What climbs is your spell save DC, which rides your proficiency bonus and your casting stat, so a first level slot keeps landing on tougher things as you level.
Limits and Cheeses
Three things will bite you, and then I’ll send you to the companion post.
Flying enemies ignore it completely, and so does anything that isn’t standing on the ground when it arrives. Grease is a floor spell, and the floor is optional for a growing share of the monster manual.
Prone cuts both ways for your party. Melee allies within 5 feet swing with advantage at a downed enemy, and your rogue will love you for it. Your archer and your Eldritch Blast warlock take disadvantage from range against that same target. A party of three bows and a warlock gets very little out of a greased goblin. Know your lineup before you call Grease an auto-include.
And the big one. Grease is not flammable. The 2014 text never gives it a fire interaction, and spells in 5e do what they say and nothing else. Lighting it is a DM call, always was, and in 2024 the designers slammed the door. More on that in one second.
The chokepoint tricks, the Spike Growth pairing, the metamagic, and the cursed stuff people have done with a puddle of butter all live in the companion Grease uses post. Go read that one after this.
The 2014 version versus the 2024 version
Grease came back in the 2024 Player’s Handbook on page 280, and it’s the same spell with one new word bolted onto the front.
The 2014 version opens “Slick grease covers the ground.” The 2024 version opens “Nonflammable grease covers the ground,” which is a rules decision dressed up as flavor. For ten years, every table argued about whether a torch or a Firebolt turned your first level control spell into an area damage spell. Wizards read the room and wrote the answer into the first word. If your DM wants to allow it, they still can, but they’re now house-ruling against explicit text instead of filling a silence.
Everything else is identical or cosmetic. Same 1st level conjuration, same one action, same 60 feet, same one minute with no concentration, same ten foot square, same difficult terrain, same Dexterity save, same three triggers, same prone. The material component is still a bit of pork rind or butter, which I’m delighted survived the rewrite.
The wording got tightened in two spots. The first sentence of the second paragraph now says a creature that fails “must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or have the Prone condition,” which is 2024 house style for every condition in the book. And the follow-up sentence says a creature entering or ending its turn there “must also succeed on that save” instead of spelling out Dexterity saving throw a second time. Same rule, fewer words.
One genuine upgrade came from outside the spell. In 2014, the sorcerer metamagic Heightened Spell cost 3 sorcery points and gave one target disadvantage on its first saving throw against the spell. In 2024, on page 142, it costs 2 sorcery points and gives disadvantage on saves against the spell, plural, with no “first” in the sentence. Grease makes its victim save at the end of every turn it spends in the puddle. A 2024 sorcerer spending 2 points is handing one enemy disadvantage on all of them.
Also, sorcerers finally get it for free. In 2014 Grease was a Wizard spell, with Artificers picking it up in Tasha’s and sorcerers only reaching it through Tasha’s optional expanded spell list. The 2024 Player’s Handbook puts Grease on the Sorcerer list outright.
History
Grease feels ancient, and it’s younger than you think. It missed the 1974 boxed set, and it missed the 1978 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook. It arrives in 1985, in Gary Gygax’s Unearthed Arcana, on page 52, as a 1st level magic-user spell.
And the first version is a lunatic. Casting time 1 segment, range 1 inch on the tabletop, and a duration of permanent. Its area of effect is one square foot per level of caster, so a fresh first level magic-user could grease a patch of floor the size of a dinner plate. Forever. Anyone stepping on it saved versus petrification or slipped and fell, and the spell could also coat a rope, ladder rungs, or a weapon handle, so it doubled as a disarm. The material component was a bit of pork rind, butter, or other greasy material, and that pork rind has survived forty-one years and every edition since without a single edit.
2nd edition, 1989, cleaned it up. Still 1st level, save versus spell instead of petrification, and the duration finally became sane at 3 rounds plus 1 round per level. It kept the object trick, so a failed save meant dropping whatever you were holding, and you saved again every round you tried to use a greased item. The caster could also end it early with a single spoken word, which is a bit of control nobody has had since.
3rd edition and 3.5 gave us the version most old players remember. Conjuration (Creation), 1st level for Bards and for Sorcerers and Wizards, a standard action, close range, one object or a 10 foot square, 1 round per level. Reflex save or you fall, repeated every round you stayed in, and you could walk through at half speed with a DC 10 Balance check. The object half got mean here. An unattended object was greased automatically, a wielded one got a Reflex save, and a failure meant dropping it where you stood. Greased armor even gave a plus 10 circumstance bonus on Escape Artist checks and on grapple checks to get out of a grab. Every 3.5 party had someone who greased the ogre’s club and then greased their own armor to slide out of a chokehold.
4th edition kept it, over in Arcane Power on page 102, as a 1st level wizard daily. Very 4e about it, too. An area burst attack that rolled against Reflex, knocked its targets prone, and left a zone of slippery difficult terrain behind to punish anyone moving through it.
Then 5e in 2014 pared it down to the shape we have now. The object half got amputated, taking the disarms and the greased armor with it. In exchange, the floor half got better, with a full minute of duration, nothing to concentrate on, and a save at three separate moments instead of one. The 2024 revision left all of that alone and just told you to stop lighting it on fire.
Opinion
Grease is the best first level control spell in the game, and the word that makes it good is the one missing from the stat block. No concentration. Your wizard spends a first level slot, creates ten rounds of terrain, and keeps their focus free for a real spell. That is why you’ll find Grease prepared on level 15 wizards with nine flashier things to do with an action.
Where it disappoints is the party it wants. Grease is built for a melee party, and if your group is three archers and a warlock, you’re handing them disadvantage on a plate. It also folds against anything that flies.
Even so, a wizard who understands doorways, chokepoints, and stairwells will get more out of this than out of half the third level spells on their list. Forty-one years old, costs a pat of butter, still puts orcs on the floor.
So tell me, does your table let you light the grease, and be honest about whether the 2024 wording changed your mind or you’re just ignoring it? And which is the better ten foot square of misery, Grease or Web? Let me know in the comments below, go read the companion post for the chokepoint tricks and the cursed stuff, and until next time, roll high and stay ridiculous.
