August 25, 2025 • 9 mins
Today we dig into a spell most players skip right over in the Player’s Handbook. Dig is a 4th-level magic-user spell that lets you move earth and sand, collapse tunnels, and wreck dungeons in ways fireball never could. I’ll talk about how to use it as a player, how to use it as a DM, and why it deserves a second look.
#ADnD #DigSpell #MagicUser
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
Hey, good morning and welcome back to the podcast, the Evil
Dungeon Masters AD and D Podcast.
I'm your host, Evil Dungeon Master Vince, Hopefully you're
doing well out there. It's Monday morning, it's time
for a new podcast, time to get back into the routine.
Birthday month and visits and things like that have thrown me
(00:37):
off quite a bit. Time to get back into the grind
of podcasting for fun and YouTube for fun.
You can head over there youtube.com/the Evil DM or the
Evil dm.com my website. Anyway, I know you're interested
in AD and D stuff and I appreciate everybody that
supports me, listens and downloads quite a few you out
(00:58):
there. So it shows that AD and D is
still relevant in the gaming sphere.
When No, when people say no, it's not.
Yeah, it is. Anyway, so I'm going to keep the
church burning the only one leftfrom Roll for Initiative that's
interested in doing this becausethe rest of them really don't
want to or have time to, and that's just how things work.
(01:19):
Anyway, today we're going to talk about a spell, one that
kind of what I was reading through the book.
I was just like, you know what? That's actually pretty cool.
It's not that big of a spell. I mean, it's a fourth level
spell. It's called Dig now.
It's a vocation spell, and it's something that people really
just kind of glance over, at least I think so.
When it comes to magic user, the4th level spell, its range is 3
(01:42):
inches. Duration is one round per level.
Area of effect is 5 foot cube per level of the magic user.
Verbal, semantic, and material casting time tastes for
segments. Saving through a special doesn't
really apply much in this situation here, but the
description goes, a dig spell enables the caster to evicate
(02:05):
120 feet of earth, sand, or mud per round.
The hole thus dug is a cube 5 foot per side.
The material thrown from the vacation scatters evenly around
the pit. If the magic user continues
downward beyond five feet, thereis a chance the pit will
collapse. 15% slash additional 5foot depth in earth, 35%
(02:32):
additional 5 foot depth in sand,and 55% additional 5 foot depth
in mud. Any creature at the edge of
about 1 foot of such pit uses has to use his Dexterity score
as a saving throw to avoid falling into the hole with a
score equal to or less than the dexterity, meaning that the fall
(02:54):
was avoided. Any creature moving rapidly
towards the pit area will fall in unless it saves versus magic.
Any creature caught in the center of the pit just dug will
fall in. So it doesn't really matter I
guess. No saving throw there.
That's interesting. The spellcaster uses a miniature
(03:16):
shovel and a tiny bucket AW to activate the dig spell and must
continue to hold these material components while each pit is
dugout. This, I mean, overall is pretty,
I would say useful utility spellto have for a magic user.
And I don't see too many people using it.
(03:38):
Maybe because it's a fourth level spell.
And a lot of times by the time you get the 4th level, you're
not thinking, I'm going to use dig, thinking maybe dig might be
a little should be, in my opinion, maybe a lower level
spell, maybe second or third at most 4th level.
I think it's a little high for this type of spell.
But I mean, I was thinking of ways that we could possibly use
(03:59):
this as a dungeon master. Like you can use this as a
dungeon collapse, A villain collapse as a tunnel behind them
with the dig spell stealing off the pursuit.
Now the player characters mustn't waste time with spells
or digging through to get out orat least chase after said
villain. Like you could see him in the
room and they corner him. He was like dig and he, you
(04:20):
know, hits the ceiling or something like that and it makes
it collapse as he runs down the the passageway.
Of course you can give your characters a chance to run after
him before the The Cave in happens, but the chances of them
doing that is probably pretty slim and they'll get caught.
(04:40):
You can tell them they'll probably get caught in the
collapse, so they don't want that.
They don't want to suffocate to death and that's something you
could use that as a trap. The players feel the floor
shake. A hidden caster is using dig to
undermine the floor ceiling. Suddenly the dungeon is falling
on their heads. So there could be some type of
(05:03):
runic magic and the dig spell isthere.
So if they don't, if they crossover a certain area or they
don't move a certain way, the floor boof right below them,
excuse me, below them can collapse.
And then maybe a second spell above.
So you think about this, they'rewalking over.
(05:25):
It's now become a pit trap because they fell into it.
OK. They're like oh this is dumb,
but little did they know there'sa secondary one right above, so
when the first one triggers, thesecond one triggers and then
dirt falls on them while they'rein this said new pit.
Suffocation is going to happen unless they dig their way out or
(05:46):
somebody digs them out. Depending on how you want to
rule it, there's an interesting way to use it.
The party finds a blocked chamber.
The only way to get into the chamber is to dig carefully
without collapsing. High risk, high reward there.
So they get some type of Riddle or maybe they get some type of
(06:06):
knowledge written on a piece of paper from somebody that that's
in this, it's buried in said chamber.
The only way to get in is to carefully dig your way into the
center. You know, digging the wrong way
could collapse everything and not only collapse all over the
somewhat whatever treasure is, it'll just collapse on them as
(06:29):
well, sealing them inside there,causing a chain reaction.
The whole tunnel falls and pretty much they're going to be
dead at that point. Harsh, but yeah, big raw risk.
Big, big risk in the high rewardgoing on there.
You could use it during a castlesiege.
Honestly, if you think about it,the magic user with the Digg
(06:49):
spell becomes a big game changeras he basically uses it below
walls and things like that or doors into the castle and
collapses the ground. They're going to use it and
opens a giant hole into the castle where they can throw, I
don't know, a plank or somethingover.
And then I mean, it's just, I mean, the soldiers just run
right in afterwards. A clever MPC could use dig to
(07:15):
start a landslide or a, you know, a landslide or a dust
cloud to cover his escape. As he's running past the
mountain, he'll start casting the spell and, you know, running
around the mountainside and thenboom, he's triggers this like
landslide and dust. The covers escape.
The characters have to stop in their tracks to prevent prevent
(07:37):
them from sliding down the side of the mountain as this whole
thing just collapses downward, downward.
I cannot speak this morning. I don't know There's just some
ways you can use this spell as Adm as a player.
You can always use it the same way as well.
You're in a major battle. You can collapse some of the
ceiling inside of a dungeon on top of the monsters that are in
(08:03):
this certain room, or you can use it to dig underneath them to
trap them in a hole. There's a lot of ways you can
use this spell That's pretty interesting.
Granted, it may not be this is abiggest draw spell, but I think
there's some use in this spell. It maybe falls under a utility
type thing, but I like the idea of it.
(08:25):
So tell me what you think in thecomments about this spell and
we'll talk about it. I'm always up for conversation.
You can e-mail me or hit me up on Spotify because you can
reply, I can reply. They actually have a whole reply
system now so that's great comment system. youtube.com/the
Evil DM you can do there as well. support.me@patreon.com/the
(08:46):
Evil DM where you can get a weekly live stream there as
well. Figured out a way to do live
stream on Patreon so hopefully it works.
So when I do the member stream on Friday for YouTube, it'll be
on the Patreon as well. So if you're a Patreon member
you can view into it. With that said, I'm going to
head out. Hopefully you have a great day.
(09:07):
So keep it original. Keeper old school goodnight and
God bless.
Hey, good morning and welcome back to the podcast, the Evil
Dungeon Masters AD and D Podcast.
I'm your host, Evil Dungeon Master Vince, Hopefully you're
doing well out there. It's Monday morning, it's time
for a new podcast, time to get back into the routine.
Birthday month and visits and things like that have thrown me
(00:37):
off quite a bit. Time to get back into the grind
of podcasting for fun and YouTube for fun.
You can head over there youtube.com/the Evil DM or the
Evil dm.com my website. Anyway, I know you're interested
in AD and D stuff and I appreciate everybody that
supports me, listens and downloads quite a few you out
(00:58):
there. So it shows that AD and D is
still relevant in the gaming sphere.
When No, when people say no, it's not.
Yeah, it is. Anyway, so I'm going to keep the
church burning the only one leftfrom Roll for Initiative that's
interested in doing this becausethe rest of them really don't
want to or have time to, and that's just how things work.
(01:19):
Anyway, today we're going to talk about a spell, one that
kind of what I was reading through the book.
I was just like, you know what? That's actually pretty cool.
It's not that big of a spell. I mean, it's a fourth level
spell. It's called Dig now.
It's a vocation spell, and it's something that people really
just kind of glance over, at least I think so.
When it comes to magic user, the4th level spell, its range is 3
(01:42):
inches. Duration is one round per level.
Area of effect is 5 foot cube per level of the magic user.
Verbal, semantic, and material casting time tastes for
segments. Saving through a special doesn't
really apply much in this situation here, but the
description goes, a dig spell enables the caster to evicate
(02:05):
120 feet of earth, sand, or mud per round.
The hole thus dug is a cube 5 foot per side.
The material thrown from the vacation scatters evenly around
the pit. If the magic user continues
downward beyond five feet, thereis a chance the pit will
collapse. 15% slash additional 5foot depth in earth, 35%
(02:32):
additional 5 foot depth in sand,and 55% additional 5 foot depth
in mud. Any creature at the edge of
about 1 foot of such pit uses has to use his Dexterity score
as a saving throw to avoid falling into the hole with a
score equal to or less than the dexterity, meaning that the fall
(02:54):
was avoided. Any creature moving rapidly
towards the pit area will fall in unless it saves versus magic.
Any creature caught in the center of the pit just dug will
fall in. So it doesn't really matter I
guess. No saving throw there.
That's interesting. The spellcaster uses a miniature
(03:16):
shovel and a tiny bucket AW to activate the dig spell and must
continue to hold these material components while each pit is
dugout. This, I mean, overall is pretty,
I would say useful utility spellto have for a magic user.
And I don't see too many people using it.
(03:38):
Maybe because it's a fourth level spell.
And a lot of times by the time you get the 4th level, you're
not thinking, I'm going to use dig, thinking maybe dig might be
a little should be, in my opinion, maybe a lower level
spell, maybe second or third at most 4th level.
I think it's a little high for this type of spell.
But I mean, I was thinking of ways that we could possibly use
(03:59):
this as a dungeon master. Like you can use this as a
dungeon collapse, A villain collapse as a tunnel behind them
with the dig spell stealing off the pursuit.
Now the player characters mustn't waste time with spells
or digging through to get out orat least chase after said
villain. Like you could see him in the
room and they corner him. He was like dig and he, you
(04:20):
know, hits the ceiling or something like that and it makes
it collapse as he runs down the the passageway.
Of course you can give your characters a chance to run after
him before the The Cave in happens, but the chances of them
doing that is probably pretty slim and they'll get caught.
(04:40):
You can tell them they'll probably get caught in the
collapse, so they don't want that.
They don't want to suffocate to death and that's something you
could use that as a trap. The players feel the floor
shake. A hidden caster is using dig to
undermine the floor ceiling. Suddenly the dungeon is falling
on their heads. So there could be some type of
(05:03):
runic magic and the dig spell isthere.
So if they don't, if they crossover a certain area or they
don't move a certain way, the floor boof right below them,
excuse me, below them can collapse.
And then maybe a second spell above.
So you think about this, they'rewalking over.
(05:25):
It's now become a pit trap because they fell into it.
OK. They're like oh this is dumb,
but little did they know there'sa secondary one right above, so
when the first one triggers, thesecond one triggers and then
dirt falls on them while they'rein this said new pit.
Suffocation is going to happen unless they dig their way out or
(05:46):
somebody digs them out. Depending on how you want to
rule it, there's an interesting way to use it.
The party finds a blocked chamber.
The only way to get into the chamber is to dig carefully
without collapsing. High risk, high reward there.
So they get some type of Riddle or maybe they get some type of
(06:06):
knowledge written on a piece of paper from somebody that that's
in this, it's buried in said chamber.
The only way to get in is to carefully dig your way into the
center. You know, digging the wrong way
could collapse everything and not only collapse all over the
somewhat whatever treasure is, it'll just collapse on them as
(06:29):
well, sealing them inside there,causing a chain reaction.
The whole tunnel falls and pretty much they're going to be
dead at that point. Harsh, but yeah, big raw risk.
Big, big risk in the high rewardgoing on there.
You could use it during a castlesiege.
Honestly, if you think about it,the magic user with the Digg
(06:49):
spell becomes a big game changeras he basically uses it below
walls and things like that or doors into the castle and
collapses the ground. They're going to use it and
opens a giant hole into the castle where they can throw, I
don't know, a plank or somethingover.
And then I mean, it's just, I mean, the soldiers just run
right in afterwards. A clever MPC could use dig to
(07:15):
start a landslide or a, you know, a landslide or a dust
cloud to cover his escape. As he's running past the
mountain, he'll start casting the spell and, you know, running
around the mountainside and thenboom, he's triggers this like
landslide and dust. The covers escape.
The characters have to stop in their tracks to prevent prevent
(07:37):
them from sliding down the side of the mountain as this whole
thing just collapses downward, downward.
I cannot speak this morning. I don't know There's just some
ways you can use this spell as Adm as a player.
You can always use it the same way as well.
You're in a major battle. You can collapse some of the
ceiling inside of a dungeon on top of the monsters that are in
(08:03):
this certain room, or you can use it to dig underneath them to
trap them in a hole. There's a lot of ways you can
use this spell That's pretty interesting.
Granted, it may not be this is abiggest draw spell, but I think
there's some use in this spell. It maybe falls under a utility
type thing, but I like the idea of it.
(08:25):
So tell me what you think in thecomments about this spell and
we'll talk about it. I'm always up for conversation.
You can e-mail me or hit me up on Spotify because you can
reply, I can reply. They actually have a whole reply
system now so that's great comment system. youtube.com/the
Evil DM you can do there as well. support.me@patreon.com/the
(08:46):
Evil DM where you can get a weekly live stream there as
well. Figured out a way to do live
stream on Patreon so hopefully it works.
So when I do the member stream on Friday for YouTube, it'll be
on the Patreon as well. So if you're a Patreon member
you can view into it. With that said, I'm going to
head out. Hopefully you have a great day.
(09:07):
So keep it original. Keeper old school goodnight and
God bless.
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