Fire Storm — Shaped Inferno
Spell Mechanics
Fire Storm
Choose a location within range and arrange up to ten 10-foot cubes of fire. Every cube must be contiguous with at least one other cube. Creatures inside the resulting area make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 7d10 fire damage on a failed save and half as much on a successful one.
Flammable objects in the affected area that are not being worn or carried begin burning.
Fire Storm
Sheets of magical flame fill the chosen shape. Creatures in the area take 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level, to a maximum of 20d6 , with a Reflex save for half damage.
Natural vegetation and ground cover are unharmed. The caster may also choose plant creatures in the area that the flames will not damage.
A creature that fails its Reflex save catches fire and takes 4d6 fire damage each round until the flames are extinguished. Extinguishing those flames requires a full-round action and a successful DC 20 Reflex save.
Mythic Fire Storm
Mythic Fire Storm increases the initial damage to 1d8 per caster level, maximum 20d8 . Half of that damage is fire and half is divine energy. The divine portion bypasses fire resistance and fire immunity.
The caster may exclude animals from damage in the same manner that the base spell can exclude plant creatures.
Augmented (8th)
By expending two uses of mythic power, the caster can select a creature type to exclude from the spell. Humanoids and outsiders require an appropriate subtype. Each additional use of mythic power allows one additional creature type to be excluded.
Fire Storm
Roaring sheets of fire fill the shaped area and deal 1d6 fire damage per caster level, maximum 20d6 , with a Reflex save for half.
Natural vegetation and ground cover are not harmed, and the caster can choose plant creatures in the area to be excluded from the damage.
What Changes Between the Rulesets?
| Rule | 5.5e / 2024 | Pathfinder 1e | D&D 3.5e |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic area | Up to ten 10-ft. cubes | Two 10-ft. cubes/level | Two 10-ft. cubes/level |
| Explicit cube connection | Yes — every cube must be contiguous with another | No equivalent sentence in the spell text | No equivalent sentence in the spell text |
| Initial damage | 7d10 fire | 1d6/level, max 20d6 | 1d6/level, max 20d6 |
| Plant protection | No special exemption | Yes | Yes |
| Failed-save burning | No continuing creature damage stated | 4d6/round until extinguished | No continuing creature damage stated |
| Casting time | 1 Action | 1 standard action | 1 round |
Using Fire Storm Well
Fire Storm is strongest when the battlefield is awkward. A simple circular blast rewards enemies for spreading out. Fire Storm rewards the caster for understanding the ground.
Cut Through a Battle Line
Lay the affected area along a shield wall, firing position or clustered formation instead of wasting fire on empty ground surrounding it.
Reach Awkward Positions
Courtyards, battlements, gate approaches, stairs and fighting platforms suit a spell whose area can be shaped rather than centred on one convenient point.
Leave Ground Untouched
The spell’s value is not that it burns everything in sight. It is that the caster chooses which part of the battlefield becomes lethal.
Think in Three Dimensions
A ten-foot cube is a volume, not merely a coloured square on a flat map. Fire Storm can matter against enemies on stairs, fighting platforms, balconies, walls or other elevations when the selected cubes legitimately occupy those spaces.
Do Not Waste Cubes
Overlapping part of the spell’s area with itself does not create extra instances of damage. Use the available volume to catch more relevant ground rather than trying to pile several cubes onto the same creature.
Choose the Battlefield, Not the Illustration
Despite the name, this is not automatically a city-destroying magical catastrophe. A typical casting is a tactical event: a section of courtyard, gate, street, formation or defended position is suddenly filled with flame while nearby ground can remain completely untouched.
Area and Cube Rulings
How much floor can ten cubes cover?
A single 10-foot-by-10-foot cube covers four 5-foot battlemap squares if laid across a flat floor. Ten non-overlapping cubes can therefore cover as many as 40 five-foot squares when all of the volume is used at floor level.
That is substantial battlefield coverage, but it is still a bounded tactical area rather than an entire settlement.
Do all ten cubes have to form one shape?
The spell explicitly requires every cube to be contiguous with at least one other cube. The rule does not further define the precise geometry of the word contiguous.
A table that requires cubes to share a face has a clear and easy grid convention, but that additional restriction should be identified as a table ruling rather than presented as extra words in the spell.
Do the shapeable cubes have to be contiguous?
These versions use the shapeable (S) area notation and give two 10-foot cubes per caster level, but the Fire Storm description itself does not repeat the modern spell’s explicit contiguity sentence.
Where a table requires a ruling on separated islands of flame, decide that interpretation before placement rather than inventing an unprinted restriction after the caster commits to the spell.
Can overlapping cubes damage one creature several times?
No. The cubes define the spell’s affected area. A creature does not take repeated copies of the spell’s damage merely because several parts of that area overlap its space.
Does a successful Reflex save prevent the ongoing flames?
Yes. The continuing 4d6 fire damage applies to creatures that fail the initial Reflex save.
Does the spell deal 7d10 damage to every object?
The current spell specifically says that unattended flammable objects in the affected area begin burning. It does not add a general rule stating that every object receives the spell’s 7d10 creature damage.
Can Fire Storm be upcast for more damage?
No additional higher-slot effect appears in the current spell description.
Fire Storm Questions
Is Fire Storm just a larger Fireball?
No. Fireball is principally a burst centred on one point. Fire Storm’s defining strength is the ability to construct an irregular area that follows the part of the battlefield the caster actually wants to burn.
Can Fire Storm go around allies?
Its shape can be arranged to avoid spaces occupied by allies when the selected area permits it. That is not the same as gaining a general ability to exempt arbitrary creatures already standing inside the chosen area.
Can Fire Storm affect creatures above ground level?
Yes when the chosen cubes occupy those creatures’ spaces. The spell uses three-dimensional cubes, making walls, towers, balconies and elevated fighting positions particularly relevant.
Does fire resistance still work?
Normally, apply the rules for fire damage and the affected creature’s protection. Mythic Fire Storm has its own exception: half of its initial damage is divine energy that bypasses fire resistance and fire immunity.
Does Fire Storm automatically burn down a building or city?
No. Resolve the spell according to its actual area and object rules first. Ordinary fires that result afterward can become separate environmental problems, but the spell should not be silently expanded into an unlimited conflagration.
Fire Storm in the World
The frightening part of Fire Storm is not infinite scale. It is controlled scale. A powerful caster can choose a crucial section of real ground and make that particular place almost impossible to hold.
Gate defenders learn not to pack too tightly behind one entrance. Soldiers disperse across courtyards. Commanders hesitate to mass reserves in a single enclosed yard. Archers using a wall walk must consider whether several nearby positions could be caught inside one shaped spell.
In a town, the immediate magical area may be modest while the consequences are not. Workshops hold timber, oil, charcoal, cloth and other combustible material. Stables panic. Roof fires spread. Narrow streets obstruct movement. A precisely placed magical attack can therefore create an ordinary urban fire after the spell itself has finished without changing the spell’s printed area.
Historical and Mythic Context
The Great Fire of Valencia, 1447
In March 1447 a major fire struck Valencia’s Market Square and surrounding craftsmen’s district. Houses and workshops were destroyed, and the disaster became serious enough to demand organised clearance, compensation and reconstruction.
The event is a useful reminder of the difference between the area of a magical attack and the consequences of fire in a late-medieval city. A spell need not cover an entire district itself to create a crisis where tightly packed buildings, workshops, stored fuel and restricted streets allow ordinary flame to become the larger danger.
Phaethon and Fire From Above
Greek myth offers an older image of uncontrolled celestial fire in the story of Phaethon, whose disastrous attempt to drive the sun’s chariot scorches the earth below. Fire Storm reverses the central failure of that story: its defining feature is not uncontrolled flame spreading everywhere, but destructive fire forced into a deliberate shape.
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Related SpiralWorlds Magic
Return to the SpiralWorlds Magic reference for spells, schools and magical practice.
Rules Sources and Licensing
Rules material has been checked separately rather than assuming that similarly named versions of the spell use identical mechanics.
- System Reference Document 5.2.1 — current open rules source.
- D&D Beyond — Fire Storm — current spell presentation.
- Archives of Nethys — Fire Storm — Pathfinder spell and Mythic Fire Storm.
- d20 SRD — Fire Storm — revised Third Edition spell.
- Carmel Ferragud and Juan Vicente García Marsilla, “The great fire of medieval Valencia (1447)” — historical context.
- Wikimedia Commons — Edward Middleton Manigault, The Rocket (1909) — artwork record and public-domain status.
SRD 5.2.1 Creative Commons Notice
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (“SRD 5.2.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at D&D Beyond . The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .
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Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
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The Archives of Nethys. Copyright 2010, Blake Davis.
Fire Storm — Shaped Inferno. Copyright 2026, SpiralWorlds.