Guards and Wards
Level 6 · Abjuration
- AOE
Guards and Wards is an abjuration spell at level 6, sitting on the bard and wizard lists. Cast time: 1 Hour. Range Touch, components V/S/M, duration 24 hours. Material: a silver rod worth 10+ GP. Effect: You create a ward that protects up to 2,500 square feet of floor space.
Stat Block
- Level
- 6
- School
- Abjuration
- Casting Time
- 1 Hour
- Range / Area
- Touch
- Components
- V, S, M
- Duration
- 24 Hours
- Ritual
- No
- Concentration
- No
- Classes
- Bard, Wizard
- Material
- a silver rod worth 10+ GP
Description
You create a ward that protects up to 2,500 square feet of floor space. The warded area can be up to 20 feet tall, and you shape it as one 50-foot square, one hundred 5-foot squares that are contiguous, or twenty-five 10-foot squares that are contiguous. When you cast this spell, you can specify individuals that are unaffected by the spell's effects. You can also specify a password that, when spoken aloud within 5 feet of the warded area, makes the speaker immune to its effects. The spell creates the effects below within the warded area. Dispel Magic has no effect on Guards and Wards itself, but each of the following effects can be dispelled. If all four are dispelled, Guards and Wards ends. If you cast the spell every day for 365 days on the same area, the spell thereafter lasts until all its effects are dispelled.
Fog fills all the warded corridors, making them Heavily Obscured. In addition, at each intersection or branching passage offering a choice of direction, there is a 50 percent chance that a creature other than you believes it is going in the opposite direction from the one it chooses.
All doors in the warded area are magically locked, as if sealed by the Arcane Lock spell. In addition, you can cover up to ten doors with an illusion to make them appear as plain sections of wall. Stairs. Webs fill all stairs in the warded area from top to bottom, as in the Web spell. These strands regrow in 10 minutes if they are destroyed while Guards and Wards lasts.
Place one of the following magical effects within the warded area:
5e (2014) vs 2024 changes
This spell has both a 5e (2014) and 2024 Player's Handbook version. Doungim shows the current 2024 stat block above. Differences between editions typically affect components, range, or scaling — check both source books for the table.
Doungim Lore
School Fit
Abjuration is the school every adventurer is grateful for and few cast offensively. Its strength is that the strongest abjurations leave nothing for the chronicler to describe. On the school axis, Guards and Wards is Abjuration: the spell ends, prevents, or absorbs an effect that would otherwise land. Spells of Guards and Wards's level usually shape an entire encounter, not a single round.
Class Fit
- Bard: Lore Bards reach Magical Secrets at level 6 and 10, which changes the calculus on Guards and Wards: if a non-Bard list has it cheaper, Magical Secrets is the way in.
- Wizard: Arcane Recovery returns one or two slots on a short rest. Guards and Wards's slot cost is therefore not exactly what the slot column says.
Related Spells
Frequently Asked Questions about Guards and Wards
- What level spell is Guards and Wards?
- In D&D 5e, Guards and Wards is classified as a level 6 spell of the Abjuration school. Available classes: Bard, Wizard.
- What is the range of Guards and Wards?
- Touch range on Guards and Wards means the caster has to make physical contact with the target.
- How long does Guards and Wards last?
- Guards and Wards lasts 24 hours. It does not require concentration, so the caster can run other concentration spells alongside it.
- What components and casting time does Guards and Wards need?
- Note: Guards and Wards is cast with V, S, M. Beyond that — Material component: a silver rod worth 10+ GP; the casting time is 1 hour (not a standard Action).