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The Wall of Fire spell describes its "damage zone" as:

One side of the wall, selected by you when you cast this spell, deals 5d8 fire damage to each creature that ends its turn within 10 feet of that side or inside the wall.

This question discusses whether this is to be understood as a general distance or an outward spread from that side.

What I would like to know is if the damage zone spreads upwards (or downwards) to damage a creature up to 10ft above it or if you can end your turn flying just over the edge of the wall and be unharmed.

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It's ambiguous.

Here's a diagram of the two options, where the blue diamond represents a flying creature that's ending its turn, and we want to know if the blue diamond is on fire or not.

Diagram of the possible wall of fire areas

This is going to mostly be a question for your DM. The rules don't make it clear whether they mean "within 10' along a line orthogonal to a point on the wall", or "within 10' of any point on the wall", or something entirely different.

...but do you really want to make it complicated?

Personally, while I think the second interpretation is the most clear way to interpret the spell, that actually ends up being a very complicated way to think of the spell at the table. Any interpretation of a spell that ends up making me do geometry to figure out what the spell does is probably not a good interpretation.

Realistically, I'm going to use the first interpretation -- a big rectangular space that extends 10' straight out from the wall is fast and simple, and speed is what matters most to me when I'm running a game.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, I did mean to ask if you could end your turn above the wall without risking damage, I edited the question to avoid drawing focus from the important part. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jave
    Commented Jul 13, 2021 at 15:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ OK, I've updated my answer to remove the part about jumping. \$\endgroup\$
    – Darth Pseudonym
    Commented Jul 13, 2021 at 15:55
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Spells do what they say they do.

When cast, the wall of fire burns any creature that ends a turn within 10 feet of one specified side or inside the wall. That designation could be the top or bottom, but choosing so precludes the ability to choose a more traditionally useful front.

The wall of fire does not give warded volume for free. You get one side of warding - if the foe can bypass that volume then they outwitted your spell.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ A very interesting point that the top/bottom of the wall could be selected as the "dangerous" side. One could however argue that nothing prevents the possible volumes from overlap; the top and front sides could share the "diagonal" corner volume. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jave
    Commented Jul 13, 2021 at 15:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Jave A corner is not a side. But if the DM wanted to allow it then have fun. \$\endgroup\$
    – ValhallaGH
    Commented Jul 13, 2021 at 16:10

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