Place 9: Force Cage
- Price: 1,500 Gold
- Can be learned by bards, warlocks, and wizards
- Spell level 7
Force Cage requires a ruby worth at least 1,500 gold for successful casting, which is not consumed upon use. If a bard, warlock, or wizard gets hold of such a gem, they can cast it freely – provided they have access to level 7 spells.
As the name suggests, the spell creates an invisible but immobile square cage of magical energy that functions like a prison. Creatures trapped in the cage with 6-meter long sides cannot escape. If they want to flee through a spell, whether by teleportation or interplanar travel, they can only do so with a Charisma saving throw.
Since the spell is particularly strong in combat against individual powerful opponents and can hold them captive for an hour, many DMs have already thought about ways to bypass this spell or at least create an escape route.
Similar tricks, which tend to dampen the fun at the table, are summarized for you in this list: With these 5 tricks in Dungeons & Dragons, you might feel particularly clever, but it only annoys your fellow players
Place 8: Contingency
- Price: 1,500 Gold (plus additional costs of a valuable material)
- Can be learned by wizards
- Spell level 6
Contingency requires a material component that is fancy enough to make you happy that you don’t lose it upon casting. It requires a statue of the caster carved from ivory, adorned with gemstones worth 1,500 gold. Exactly what you always carry around.
When casting Contingency, the wizard selects a spell of level 5 or lower, which requires only one action to cast and can also be cast on the wizard themselves. For the Contingency spell as well as the selected spell, you consume two spell slots, but – and here’s the trick – the selected spell only takes effect when a specific circumstance or trigger occurs.
An example could be the spell Spider Climb. If you choose the condition “Spider Climb only works when I can grab a wall just before falling freely” while casting Contingency, it will only take effect in that situation. However, it must occur within the next 10 days of casting, or the effect expires.
