Reality Break: 8th-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, S, M (a crystal prism)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Reality Break: You shatter the barriers between realities and timelines, thrusting a creature into turmoil and madness. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw, or it can’t take reactions until the spell ends. The affected target must also roll a d10 at the start of each of its turns; the number rolled determines what happens to the target, as shown on the Reality Break Effects table.
At the end of each of its turns, the affected target can repeat the Wisdom saving throw, ending the spell on itself to success.
Reality Break Effects
| d10 | Effect |
| 1-2 | Vision of the Far Realm. The target takes 6d12 psychic damage, and it is stunned until the end of the turn. |
| 3-5 | Rending Rift. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 8d12 force damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. |
| 6-8 | Wormhole. The target is teleported, along with everything it is wearing and carrying, up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see. The target also takes 10d12 force damage and is knocked prone. |
| 9-10 | Chill of the Dark Void. The target takes 10d12 cold damage, and it is blinded until the end of the turn. |
Spell Lists. Chronurgy Wizard
Chance to Save
As you can see in the chart, on average a monster will fail a wisdom saving throw on average 56.33% of the time.
This means when you cast it on the average monster in your level, expect for it to be successful 56.33% of the time, and fail 43.67% of the time.
Effects
Now that you know what the spell does, let’s go over their effects.
Vision of the Far Realm- Probably the best option. While damage is low, the ability to stun a target for a wisdom save can be really powerful for the party.
Rending Rift- This is the worst option, you force a saving throw, to trigger another saving throw. Which, if they fail both will take 56 points of damage. Pass 1 of them, 28 points, and pass both of them 0 points of damage. Hope you don’t get it.
Wormhole- Forced movement is always huge and dealing 70 points of damage is a great bonus as well. Probably the second-best option.
Chill of the Dark Void- Good damage but a lot of creatures at this level have blindsense, Blindsight, truesight, etc. So not the best effects.
All in all, there are two notable abilities that have good effects and damage.
Meanwhile, the other 2 are much weaker than the others and are probably what you don’t want.
So since the effects are random, this is pretty detrimental to the spell.
Pro
- No Reactions
- Good Damage
- Versatile effects
8th level spells are insane, you have spells like anti-magic field, Maze, or Dominate Monster.
These kinds of spells really set the bar for how good a spell is.
So, like all my other spell reviews, let’s see how good this is.
No Reactions
The first notable pro is the ability to steal reactions from enemies.
While fighters with reactions can be dangerous, spellcasters with reactions are deadly.
At this time, most spellcasters will have spells like counterspell or temporal shunt.
Which, when pitted against other spellcasters, can ruin an entire party’s plans.
As a result, the ability to take away their reactions for up to a minute can be huge for the party.
That said, as noted in the chance to save section, they will fail the save 56.33% of the time.
This means you can extrapolate how often the spell’s duration will last.
As shown below
Interesting to note, that a little over a quarter of the time the person will be affected for 2 rounds.
Then 17% of the time they will be affected for 3 rounds.
With anything after that being a 10% chance or less.
So, at best expect this spell to last 1-2 rounds, as anything above that is slim chances.
Good Damage
As you saw above, the damage
This means that the damage can reliably stack.
Allowing me to calculate how much damage the spell will actually do.
As can be shown in the chart below, on average, a reality break will deal 78 points of damage to a target.
This is a pretty large amount of damage that reality break can deal.
In fact, out of all the 8th level spells for wizards, this deals the highest single target damage out of any of them.
Making this a pretty nice boon for wizards.
Versatile Effects
While random, reality break’s effects have a large versatility to them on 3 of the 4 options.
While the stunned effect is the strongest, the ability to force blindness or forced movement can also prove to be a boon in battle.
Forced movement can place the enemy in an area advantageous for the barbarian.
Or blindness can shut down many spells or martial attacks.
While stunned forces them to waste their turn.
As a result, as long as you get one of these 3 effects, this can further change the board in your party’s favor.
Con’s
- Requires a save
- Random Effects
- 8th level
Requires a save
Now that you know the pro’s of the spell, let’s go over the weaknesses.
The first downside is that reality break requires a save.
A wizard will only be able to cast one 8th level spell a day.
This means save or suck spells at this level are not good.
The reason why is because if they pass then you wasted your spell slot and did nothing to advance the board.
Meanwhile, if they fail, the effect must be so powerful that it shuts the game down.
Therefore at 8th level, this spell should kill the opponent or stop them from performing.
After All, there are spells like antimagic field, Maze, or even Feeblemind at this level.
All of which end the encounter once cast and only one of them has a save.
To put this in other terms, there is a 54% chance your 8th level spell will work and a 46% chance your spell will not work on the average enemy.
Which is a little low just to do damage.
Random Effects
Random Effects are fun.
They can do incredibly powerful stuff or incredibly useless things.
But we all like taking that risk one way or another.
However, when you are casting 8th level spells, you are probably in a dire situation.
And casting reality breaks for a random effect is not very good in dire situations.
This makes it hard to properly plan for the situation and find an appropriate solution for it.
Limiting its viability in the game
8th level
Already talked about at 8th level, the spell should end encounters.
As a result, for an 8th level spell to be good, it needs to be judged on that standard.
The reason being, your opportunity cost of casting an 8th level spell is so high.
While 78 points of damage is a solid amount of damage, the expected monster at this CR is 252, which will not usually kill them even if they fail their save.
Making this, not usually worth the cost of casting.
Reality Break Applications
- Wording Abuse
- Turn off casters
- Single Target Removal
Wording Abuse
Now it is time for applications of reality break.
The first use is a more creative use which is using the wording of the spell to your advantage.
Because reality break states: “The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw, or it can’t take reactions until the spell ends.”
This implies that the first save is only for no reactions.
The reason being it has a period in the end, symbolizing the end of the effect.
Therefore, depending on your DM’s wording and opinion, the first roll for damage will always happen with the first save only shutting down reactions not spells damage.
Making this much better if your DM agrees with this reading.
Turn off casters
The second application of reality break is to turn off casters.
Not only can this spell deal large damage to a single target, it can also shut off reactions.
Thus ending a spellcaster’s use to counterspell, but more importantly, decreasing the chances they can concentrate on spells.
This can ruin a spellcaster as it forces them to only focus on short burst spells until reality break ends.
Effectively shutting off the caster for 1-2 turns minimum.
Single Target Removal
Finally, the best application of this spell is to deal high nova damage for single target removal.
This will deal high damage to the boss of a battle greatly increasing your odds of finishing a fight quickly.
But, more importantly, this can be a great way to burn legendary resistances if your DM agrees with the wording abuse section.
The reason being, they must first make a save to keep their reactions, which most DM’s will want their BBEG to keep.
Secondly, they then take huge damage and must make another save to prevent that from happening again.
Which if they fail will use a resistance on.
And finally, there’s a chance “Rending Rift” will trigger, which will force a third save.
So, if all this happens on your turn, you force the BBEG to make 3 saves that can burn through their legendary resistances.
Reality Break Conclusion
In conclusion, reality break is okay at best.
There are better 8th level spells than this, but is one of the best 8th level spells for damage.
Dealing 78 points of damage on average to a single target.
Moreover, its ability to shut down reactions and wording manipulation can make this spell much more powerful in certain contexts.
As a result, while not the best spell out there, it is still a solid pick for subclasses like chonurgist wizard or divination wizards.