Insect Plague creates swarm of insects which will attack up to 6 creatures. Multiple casts can be stacked on the same enemies to increase damage per round, but it does not bypass magic resistance. Haste effects on plagued enemies will also increase damage significantly, similarly to what happens with poisons and haste.
Description[]
| “ | When this spell is cast by the priest, a hoard of creeping, hopping, and flying insects gather and swarm. This swarm will jump first to the target, then to the nearest allies of the target's, until up to 6 creatures have been affected. Spellcasting within the swarm is impossible (100% chance of spell failure). Creatures in the insect plague sustain 1 point of damage every 2 seconds they remain within regardless of their Armor Class, due to the bites and stings of the insects. Invisibility is no protection. Due to the suffocating nature of the writhing insect swarm, each victim must make a Saving Throw vs. Breath Weapon or run away in fear for 1 round. | ” |
Gameplay[]
This spell is very dangerous when targeted on you by enemies. However, there are certain ways to protect against it (all those also work against Creeping Doom):
Magic resistance provides a chance to completely evade the spell.
Spell Immunity: Conjuration (for Mage, Sorcerer, Bard; and also Thief with Use Any Item if he has a scroll) completely protects and can't fail.
- Turning invisible while the enemy is casting the spell, before it is released, because it requires an initial target the spell will then fail. Use Potion of Invisibility, Shadow Door etc. at the right time. However this only works if the character who is the initial target turns invisible. Invisibility does not protect against the area spread.
- Improved Invisibility totally prevents targeting by the initial spell, but this also requires your entire party to be under Improved Invisibility as otherwise the enemy could simply target someone else and then the AoE can still hit everyone.
- The invisibility strategies do not work against enemies that innately see through invisibility and can easily be negated by a timely True Seeing, Detect Illusion or comparable spell.
An ongoing Insect Plague / Creeping Doom can be removed by a successful Dispel Magic roll, but because of the spellcasting failure by the insects, this would require a character who is standing outside the area of effect or was otherwise protected (e.g. by Spell Immunity), or that the affected character casts the spell via an item (e.g. using a Dispel Magic scroll or using one of the daily Dispel Magic casts available from the Wizard Slayer (axe), Carsomyr or the upgraded Purifier).
Protection From Magic scrolls work, but are very rare and also remove all friendly buffs on the character. The same for the Potion of Magic Blocking, which only works against Insect Plague but not Creeping Doom.
- Someone who is not the initial target, but is standing inside the area of effect, can try to "outrun" the insect swarm before it has spread. This requires high speed (Haste, Boots of Speed...). It is advisable to spread your party out if enemies are going to use insect spells, then it can't hit multiple characters at once.
Single-target protection spells like Spell Turning do not work and can't reflect / deflect Insect Plague, even if they are applied on the initial target. Spells such as Mirror Image, protection from weapons or fireshield don't help either - at least in the unmodified game.
There are many possible protections against Insect Plague's panic effect (e.g. Remove Fear, Resist Fear, Bard songs ...), but those don't protect against the damage and spell failure part.
Creatures with innate spell Power level immunity, such as a Lich, Rakshasa or Demi-Lich will shrug off the spell because of that immunity. All of the internal spell effects of Insect Plague are assigned Power level 5 attributes.
See also[]
Other insect-based Druid spells:
- Summon Insects, level 3 spell
- Creeping Doom, level 7 spell
Gallery[]
Mod content[]
This section is about unofficial content that is only available via fan-made mods.
Sword Coast Stratagems mod will install the following:
Rebalance Insect Plague spells (and the like)
In the unmodified game, Insect Plague and Creeping Doom (and, to a lesser extent, Summon Insects) are very hard indeed for a spellcaster to deal with or defend against. This component (which was partly inspired by Demivrgvs's Spell Revisions) grants a per-round saving throw against the spell-failure effects of the insects. It also handles the insects more systematically as summoned creatures: they cannot harm or affect creatures immune to nonmagical weapons; they are unaffected by antimagic or by Dispel Magic; they will not attack undead creatures, and cannot penetrate the extreme heat or cold of a Fire Shield.
Spell Revisions mod version as follows:
Insect Plague
Level: 5
School: Conjuration
Sphere: Animal
Range: Long
Duration: 6 rounds
Casting Time: 5
Area of Effect: Target, and enemies within 30’
Saving Throw: Special
When this spell is cast, a mass of creeping, hopping, and flying insects gather and swarm, first attacking the target, and then moving on to all enemies of the caster within the spell’s radius.
For the duration of the spell, those affected fight with a -2 penalty to attack rolls and armor class. In addition, each round the victims suffer 2d3 points of damage from insect bites and have a 100% chance of spell failure. If a successful save vs. breath at -2 is made, the target manages to avoid most of the swarm, reducing damage from bites by half and completely negating the spell failure penalty. Magic resistance does not affect this spell.
External links[]
- Insect plague on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms.