Fun with D&D 5 Magic: Reverse Gravity

Wow, this has to be one of the most destructive magic spells known to fantasy gaming. And that makes it one of the most fun.

The spell reverses gravity in a 50-foot radius area 100 feet high. If you strike something while falling, you take normal impact damage. If you don't hit anything, you kinda float at the top of the cylinder up there according to the spell description. You should either splatter or fly off into space, because at the end of a fall like that, your body will be moving at 55mph after a 2.5 second fall - "normal falling damage" typically means this is physics-by-the-book. It must decelerate you for safety's sake, but that is a heck of a stop.

Since the spell is concentration, if you cancel it just before the target hits the top, the target's velocity alone should throw them another 100 feet in the air before they stop and begin to fall back down - a total of a 200' rise and fall. This spell would be so cool to fling people up 200-foot cliffs because they would be in freefall at the apex of the fall.

If you cast it on a house, the effect would be to take the whole house and turn it upside down for up to a minute. Given the fact that most houses, stone walls, fences, or other constructions aren't built to allow for gravity being reversed, the house would most likely fly to pieces and be utterly destroyed.

If you cast it on half of a ship it would either rip in half or flip, and most likely both. Many things do not take well to gravity being turned on its head.

If you cast it on a body of water I'm not certain what would happen. The cylinder would likely fill up with water completely since nothing can go past the top, but when you released it the whole 22,138 metric tons of water would come down in a devastating local tidal wave.

Volcanoes. Volcanoes are fun, but since this magic spell only has a 100 foot range I wouldn't recommend it unless you had fire resistance.

If you had two mages, with that range you could cast one on top of the other for double the fun. Though I'm thinking a second reverse gravity would reverse the original if it was cast on top of one another, so you'd have to stack. If you got enough mages together you could build towers of any height just by raising 100' blocks up and having them chain cast. You'd need a giant or two to push them into place, but hey, we're in a fantasy world, remember?

With more than one mage, it's possible to get things flying upwards at terminal velocity if the last one cancels the spell at the right time. Neat.

If you cast it on a forest fire, the smoke would go down and possibly smother the fire. The heat would also go down, creating a superheated area at the base of the tower that would likely explode and flash violently when the spell stops, since it's only a minute maximum - not really enough time to smother a huge forest fire. Thermodynamics and gravity are cool. Or hot. There's a lot here to think about, especially with heat and gas reactions to flipped gravity.

The spell is centered at a vague "point within range", so presumably that point could be up to 100 feet underground. That would be great for digging up earthworms or backing up a city block's sewer system into the surrounding neighborhood. The spell also goes directly through any material, so you could give a 100' deep and wide area of a dungeon a pretty powerful love tap before you got started for the day.

Good morning dungeon! I hope all of you like the fresh smell of ceiling this morning. And the floor. Double falling damage for you all and we'll be down to collect your loot in a moment.

Don't cast it on the king's castle if you don't want to piss him off at you. Did you know most all giant castle or temple stones aren't mortared or 'glued' into place, this thing called, um, gravity holds them down? Yeah, that's going to really piss him off.

Warning: Do not cast this spell on piles of boulders, jetties, cliffs, large statues, or on huge piles of logs.

Even reasonably rocky or forested areas would see tons of debris flying into the air, logs, stones, leaves, yard waste, animals, trees with roots that can't support their weight, and anything else not tied down would go - up. Letting that crap go would turn the entire area into a hailstorm of death and flying debris.

Caution: Do not use on objects in motion that would leave the area of effect! Avoid casting near freeways, rivers, or rockslides.

The rest of the creative, silly, and destructive ways this wonderful magic spell can be used is left up to the fantasy gamer's imagination. A smart DM would probably rule against all of the above and make the spell work as-intended, but where's the fun in that? Science! It's made for fun and a classic part of old-school role-playing craziness, check it out.