Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes! welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for tuning in to the 8th episode of our second level spell series. Today we’re gonna be talking about one of the most ok defensive spells out there at least that we’ve covered thus far in our website. Today we’ll be writing about barkskin spell dnd 5e which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like in a weird way.
It is usable by the druid and the ranger which makes sense from a thematic standpoint and it is found in the good old player’s handbook to be honest this spell has been a staple of d&d for quite some time indeed. It’s one of the kind of OG spell around. In any case with that being said let’s actually take a look at the mechanics and kind of flesh this out a little bit.
Mechanics
- Casting Time: 1 Action
- Range: Touch
- Duration: 1 Hour (Concentration)
- Components: Somatic, Material and verbal
- School: Transmutation
Your cast time is the standard one action pretty good so far. The range is touch which is great for defensive a spell because it kind of means you can apply to other people. The duration is one hour and it is a concentration. That’s the part i don’t like, i’ll get into why that is in a little bit.
The components are Somatic, Material and Verbal. Somatic means you have to gesture with one hand, the material component in this case is a handful of oka bark and the verbal component means you have to speak an incantation. The school is transmutation. Which means that you changes your body and it does.
The effect at a glance is as followed: Touch a willing creature, their AC cannot be less than 16. Basically makes it so that 16 is their minimum. Fantastic…now let’s move on to the full description.
Description
In this barkskin 5e spell you do touch a willing creature. So until the end of this spell, the target’s skin has a rough, bark-like appearance and also he target’s AC cannot be less than 16, regardless of even what kind of armor it is actually wearing.
Do you read about alarm 5e spell
So basically, the targets new a base AC becomes 16 which is really good. The thing i really don’t like about this spell is once again that’s its concentration. So if you cast this on yourself it’s kind of counterintuitive in a couple ways. So firstly a boost your AC which is good but if you get hit you lose that benefit which is not good. Also it takes up your concentration which means you lose access to some of the best spells in the game.
As a trade-off to be honest i really don’t want 100% see the upside. It does have a ton of use, the fact that you can cast it on other people make it pretty valuable to certain builds personally i kind of think in a lot of ways mage armor dnd 5e might be a little bit better but that’s just my personal thoughts. You’re more than and if you’re more than welcome to have a different opinion you really are. That being said though, let’s move on to some alternative uses.
Alternative Uses
So what a threaded abuse that i thought was pretty cool or the very least a different way to apply this is to use your familiar to apply to people. I mean that’s pretty dang neat.
That’d be naturally through extension i guess you could apply it to the familiar as well if you really wanted to and this one’s a little bit hinky but i would probably a lot of them to hide with advantage in kind of forests well this was applied it just is kind of camouflage when you really think about it.
So that’s my ruling it’s not their rules as written but it makes logical sense and naturally you could definitely use this to cast on squishier NPCs or character or important NPCs for that matter so there’s that to it as well. So it’s not terrible, i just think it’s laid out pretty weird in terms of a defensive spell.
Attributes Of Barkskin 5E Spell
| Casting Time | 1 action |
|---|---|
| Classes | Druid, Ranger |
| Components | V S M |
| Concentration | Yes |
| Duration | Up to 1 hour |
| Level | 2 |
| Material | A handful of oak bark |
| Name | Barkskin |
| Range | Touch |
| School | Transmutation |
| Target | A willing creature |
Conclusion
In any case, if you have any alternative uses, ideas or stories please put it down beneath in the comment section i really appreciate it and i’d like to thank you so much for your time guys, i really do appreciate it hope you all have a wonderful day and as always happy casting.