The Most Broken Spells in 5e Dungeons & Dragons | Web DM
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- We're talking about the problematic spells in 5e D&D today- the ones that are confusing, too good not to take, or are just plain boring. We're talking about how we understand them and make em better!
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wait, is that a regular thing or is she just a guest?
It's a guest interview!
I guess im one of the few players that made a warlock who didnt use eldritch blast. Made a pact with the queen of winter fey and tried to build an cold and ice warlock
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@@patient_6925 I never use Eldritch Blast honestly. I prefer to dual wield using Shadow Blade and a Pact Weapon
To be honest, for me, a Warlock spamming Eldritch Blast is about the same as a ranger firing their longbow.
Just more efficent
dicorockhimself I mean... The ranger most likely has +[way too much to hit] and hunter's mark, maybe even Colossus Slayer, depending on the archetype.
@@Azetchki oh I understand but the average turn eldritch blast is awesome (But rangers can do some awesome stuff still.
I've never understood the hate for eldricht blast. It seems like the people that complain the most are fighters too
@@anthonynorman7545 Haha This completely. I love it and all the utility you can pump into it. It becomes rather amazing!
Knock? More like Conjure Enemies.
This implies the party managed to stay quiet long enough to need knock
@@egirlSkeletor
*Cries in full plate half-orc*
Thunderwave be like: Commune with Entire Dungeon
It's also a challenge for the DM to come up with new designs if your player frequently use the spell.
Design doors that aren't stuck, barred or locked, but has to be opened in a specific way:
If the floor has a 1-inch gap in which the door is resting and you have to lift it first, a Knock spell will be useless.
How about a door that's just really heavy to pull open? It seems stuck until you beat the athletics DC.
A personal favourite is fake doors that's not possible to open, but triggers a trap once the "lock" is successfully picked or unlocked.
honestly if a DM is complaining about Knock, I have to ask 'why are you so precious about doors with simple locks?'.
If you ask your agriculture god whether storming the castle is weal or woe, she's just gonna tell you which option will yield better crops, imo
Should we attack the giant army twice as big as ours?
God: Weald(will probably increase the fertility of the land due to all the corpses of your slaughtered army)
@@merlinmeurer5339 that is amaizing
@@merlinmeurer5339 The problem I have with that is that doesn't just nerf the spell, it makes it counterproductive and antagonistic. Presumably the god cares about his or her servant, the cleric? Antagonism might fit for some gods, I suppose, but not everyone has Loki for their patron.
@@crimfan I would have to agree. No god would send their worshippers out to die like that. remember, the Gods not only get their power from the worship of people but they also depend on it for survival. even Auril and Umberlee won't mislead their true worshippers (as opposed to those that appease them out of fear but actively hate them) in a way that will just throw away their lives. even sacrifices will most likely be non believers since the death of a worshipper is a loss of power.
It’s in reference to the caster.
I took prestidigitation and mending and opened a wizard dry cleaners
A man of culture
And your rogue party member turned it into a money laundering business.
@@jesseward4115 You my friend win comment of the day award. May your dice roll high, and your enemies drop low
@@Nexsyana I'm playing tonight in two different fights. My main wizard character and half the party are fighting for our lives in a battle against a group of bandits that out number us 3 to 1 and the other half of the party is fighting a Vampire with another character I made since we couldn't play the bandit fight last week. I will treasure this blessing and hopefully it saves at least 1 of my characters and some of the other party members lol
@Philip mcgrath My half orc barbarian and his gnome barbarian friend were taken by the vampire. They are probably gonna show up later as villains lol
But thankfully we did not end up fighting the bandits. My character was using disguise self and another pc was a changeling, so the bandits thought the two of us were with them. Threw the use of some illusion magic and lucky dice rolls, we were able to convince the the bandits to not kill the party members who were not using disguises. Now all we have to do is break them out, and we are home free.
Stop interrupting me counterspell! ... nice one
My players learned this spell “arcane eye” that basically let them scout out every single dungeon I threw at them. You know how I fixed this problem?
I let them scout out every dungeon.
The players felt like they got an amazing new ability, and revealing the map and encounters didn’t break the game.
I don’t get why so many DMs feel like players are “breaking” their game just because they are getting new abilities, and then they try to handicap those abilities. If the players are having fun, then just let them do it.
It's really about the balance of giving the players amazing powers and big advantages for some things but not all the aspects of the game that the players like to do. Sure, if you gave them that kind of ability for all the parts of the game it does break the game by skipping the good parts, but if you are too stingy with letting these work you have a boring game. Let in as many as you can.
It helps to work out what you want to do ahead of time and work from there: if the players are all excited about mapping some dungeons in a slow careful dangerous scary crawl then you make different choices.
I really have to question your dungeon design if you have not placed a single closed door in the way. Arcane eye can not travel past closed doors.
Because challenging a party who has the ability to know everything which is coming is difficult? Fifth edition is already heavily slanted in the player's favor, to the point where challenging a decent level party is almost impossible unless you're willing to throw deadly encounters at them all day. Do they really need ANOTHER advantage to make the game even easier?
That could work heavily in both parties (no pun intended lol). As the players map out the dungeon, they can't see all the traps, or pitfalls Let alone of chests are or are not mimics. As a gm, hey look, u guys see x amount of monsters...as the players explore, x more monsters show up from a raid or something.
@@Cloud_Seeker a closed door can sometimes slow a party by forty minutes, best to eliminate that risk entirely.
Had a PC that was very nurturing using Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and Mending to do things like making sure everyone had a hot meal when making a fire wasn't a possibility, keeping clothes, shoes, etc. clean and in good repair, getting things off of high shelves...
That's just wholesome as fuck.
we were low on rations in dnd before so we used our alchemist jar to make mayonnaise as it has the calories and nutrients you need to survive and then used prestidigitation to flavor it so it wasn't as gross.
hunter's mark should be a feature of the ranger, it is a staple for their damage
Yeah, maybe make it a d4 damage or something starting out, once per turn. Or possibly make it an option like an Warlock Invocations style. I sort of wish the Ranger's magic worked more like that, things you can take, or not, and most of them are somewhat magical, some would even be learning how to cast a particular spell once per day, but keeping the ability to have true spells an option you don't have to take, and have some more mundane, Battlemaster Manuevers style options, actually.
@discoandherpes yeah he had something in one of his happy fun hour vids that combined hunters mark and preferred enemy that looked cool
On the contrary, I think we should power down 5e players. It is to the point where the PCs have so many powers and options that players may as well be playing a video game.
@@BTsMusicChannel I'm not saying we should or shouldn't have the powers, I'm running a very low magic game right now, but with the way things are set up some things are a bit out of place
4e had that. Rangers had the Hunter's Quarry feature, which dealt 1d6 weapon damage and can be placed at will expending a minor/bonus action and had no. Sustain action/concentration. And there were feats that increased the feature's utility.
Wizard: I don't like eldritch blast, the warlock is only casting one "spell" all the time! Why not mix it up?
DM: there's a group of 4 bandits coming straight for you. What do you do
Wizard: I cast Fireball...
Burning hands at a higher spell slot might be better, depending on how far away they are. It's pretty much the first cone spell you get.
As a Evocation Wizard I indorse this. FIREBALL!!!
Elias Lovell
As a sorcerer with the ability to not cause damage to my allies with evocation spells I have to agree... fireball literally everything
For real though. There was an encounter where I as a warlock casted counterspell and hex, along with eldritch blast. Using all of my slots. And the wizard/druid multiclass only casted scorching ray. At 3rd level. Wasting her strongest resources to do less average damage than any other pc even the monk who didn't use a single resource. And I was just sitting there like, why the hell am I the support mage?
"the 4 bandits are tieflings, they're fine".
16:42 Actually, Moonbeam and other such spells don't deal immediate damage. WotC has answered this for years now. Just as you said, you're not supposed to read into wording for subtle or secret meanings.
"A creature can only take damage from moonbeam on its turn, and it takes this damage when it enters the area of the moonbeam (using its movement) or starts its turn there. No damage is done immediately when the spell is cast. Spells that have an effect which triggers immediately as the spell is cast specify this."
This is a solid point. I've seen this missplayed at several tables. I guess people just assume it does damage when cast. But thats not what the spell says.
yo
I watched something recently where a game designer from WotC was asked about healing word being a problem. Their response was amazing. They said yeah it’s powerful but when you’re in combat and someone goes down to be saved by a well placed healing word who is upset there? No one. The party is happy the person didn’t die. The dm is happy the person didn’t die. Where’s the problem exactly?
Well, some old school grognards miss the good ole days of PCs dying at the drop of a hat. Some of them miss the whole 'my character could die from a single bad roll of a die, at any time' flavor of old school gameplay.
Who said the party and dm are happy? Seems a wild assumption.
The issue is it trivializing combat and "going down" which can make the game less interesting or dramatic
@@Droid6689 what's more wild? assuming people want their characters to live or assuming they want them to die? If you really want character death there are plenty of tools out there to make that happen.
@@Tiyev no doubt there. The challenge of a difficult fight is absolutely great. I agree this spell is problematic if everyone wants to die quicker. It does make things more difficult for the DM to create challenging encounters but I've just taken the route of hmmm that looks way too hard for them to survive... Let's do it!
Boomers just miss the good ol' days when healers could only heal on their turn. God forbid a cleric or bard gets to make an attack too.
The 'Charm' spells making enemies hostile (or at least aware you did it) is a real kick in the peen. None of my players will even take the spells because they're basically "Conjure Lynch Mob".
Absolutely
That’s why I like Suggestion
IMHO, that really should depend a bit on context, say, Friends is cast. Bit of a difference between, say, helping a town guard with 'drop that weapon and come quietly, please,' versus 'can you loan me a 100 gold?'
I mean, Charm type magic is a social sledge-hammer. If you use it on every obstacle, it's only fair that you get a reputation for it.
@@LORDOFDORKNESS42 Yeah, but it should be a case where either the target or witnesses have to figure it out based on changes in behaviour or personality, not that they realise instantly without any type of check that the person that they're being friendly towards has temporarily brainwashed them, it renders what should be a subtle form of magic completely worthless for the purpose of casting.
@@whiskeyhound Most targets of charm do not have the realization that it was done to them until after the spell ends the way they are written. Others may or may not notice that they are affected by it until afterward. And it does not make them immediately hostile but it might make them distrustful or angry causing future interactions to be hard. It does not have to always lead to combat and lynch mob behavior.
That being said. The drawbacks of it should make the players respect the extra abilities of enchanters and the like a bit more if they do prefer such tactics because they can get rid of the problem of people automatically being aware that the magic was used on them. If They can't do that and consider those over say the evoker then it is not the fault of the game or the DM.
I love Mending on my Arcane Trickster. Lock too tough to pick? No lock to pick in the first place? Just break in and have the perfect spell to elimate the evidence.
As long as you can restrict the damage to a single break, shear, or cut that is less than 1ft in any direction. If there are multiple or very large breaks, it's in your DM's court whether to allow multiple castings to finish the mend or if the spell simply doesn't work, and if you do anything to destroy the object's materials (such as pouring acid on a lock), mending is ineffective.
Is your rogue an orc perchance?
@@Nurk0m0rath Jeez, it's a cantrip, multiple castings are its defining feature, cantrip slots are valuable and limited there are many useful ones to pick from, any DM should be trying to maximize its effectiveness to let the player be happy with what they chose and only his character can do
@@1anarquista.sensato Just because a DM should, doesn't mean a DM will. It's a sad truth. But logically, at some point a broken object will become hard to fix even with magic. Let's say you used an adamantine blade to cut a lock into three pieces. That's easy enough, just make sure you line up the pieces and perform a casting for each break. What if you wrenched the lock apart with a crowbar, and you now need to hammer pieces back into place before joining them? Or what if the quest object is broken into 112 pieces? How do you sort out which piece goes where for the mending?
And we also have to ask ourselves whether large breaks simply require more time, or if they are beyond this *cantrip's* power. Let's say instead of breaking the lock, someone hacked the center out of a wooden door and there's now 12 feet of wood that needs to be mended (4 feet up and down and 2 feet across). Does the DM allow multiple mends while you carefully position the missing center, or is that beyond the scope of the spell? That is up to the DM to decide.
I think Eldritch Blast is pretty key to keeping the Warlock treading water. As it stands, the class is built for a style of play most people don't actually do and they need that good cantrip to balance having so few casts per fight.
Your right, but that IMO is a bad compromise. Getting one ability you have to spam in order to make up for your limited isn't a good tradeoff. It's a fundamental problem w/Warlock
I don't disagree, although I do think the Warlock gets slightly more flack than deserved. Invocations are really cool and a lot of the big issues fade away if you get something like a Staff of Fire.
The most interesting warlock build is the "Wrestling Fiend", where you build to Hurl into Hell while flying 100's of meters above the earth, waiting for them to land, and re-grappling them while they are still prone.
@@pranakhan I like the thought of a polearm master with a polearm pact blade. Dip multiclass into shadow sorceror and you're in a ball of magical blackness you can see through while most enemies can't, you've got reach and bonus damage, and advantage on all attacks due to not being seen, while nearly all attacks against you have disadvantage since they can't see you. For ranged you pull back out the EB spam. I don't know a solution other than aoe effects to drop concentration.
@@RPGManoWar For me, this is the main attraction to Warlock. I can still be effective in a fight and not have to worry so much if I've prepared the correct mixture of spells for the adventure. As a wizard, I look at all the spells that _could_ be useful, but then I end up rejecting them because the only thing I'm certain of is that there'll be combat encounters. But then when we run into a problem that _is_ easily solved by one of the spells I decided against preparing, I feel super shitty. (5e improved this issue with having more flexible spell slots).
I think the warlock is perfect as it is. I'm not sure what changes you'd make to it that wouldn't just make it a shitty wizard (and we already have sorcerers!). It has it's own identity, and that's good.
Eldritch blast is no less repetitive than a fighter stabbing with sword. It’s up to the players to flavor the attacks. Though I agree it would be fun to have more gameplay variation to Eldritch Blast.
Just allowing all their EB invocations to work on all their cantrips would be a good step in the right direction
@@saltefan5925 yeah like firebolt doing burning damage over time with a save would be cool
We all know it's a lot easier to flavour melee attacks, though.
To flavor EB you have to take in consideration you Pact entity and how is it flavored, and your Eldritch invocations tied to EB. A archfey lock can have insect themed eb, which make targets step back due to fear when having replling blast. The Hexlock may choose their EB looks like a shadowy bullet if their hex weapon happens to be a cursed out place gun with eldritch spear, a GOO lock can theme his eb as pocket singularities while using the invocation that lets you pull your enemies to you.
@@AWizardsKiss It's not any harder to flavor something like EB. We're just more used to flavoring physical attacks so it seems easier. We're used to just naming spells and assuming people have an idea of the flavor intended by them. There is room to flavor a lot of spells though and too few do so.
I had a DM that hated find familiar but didn't tell anyone.
For aesthetics, I had a blind warlock that needed to use their familiar to see. The DM approved of this, but at every opportunity they got, in combat or out of if, they somehow always found a way to kill it.
Even the other players noticed this, and when we called him out for it, he blamed it on every form I used for it.
In the end I stopped playing as he wouldn't let me change characters, and wouldn't stop killing my familiar in "random accidents"
Fuck that DM. Glad you got out.
As Viden said -- fuck that guy. What an asshole. Instead of adapting aspects of his game to allow for your already-limiting-himself-character (via the blindness, requiring the familiar to mitigate it), he just dicked you whenever he had the opportunity. He was/is likely a dick in general IRL, not just as a DM (as art tends to reflect life, as it were...).
That sounds like a bad DM.
He's not the worst I've seen, but he's obviously a DM that hates magic uses, gets insists on trying to DM a fantasy game like DnD.
The worst I've seen, would have to be this guy that tried to dark souls the shit out of the game.
Impossible battles, either in numbers or CR for the group.
Or customized boss fights with AC so high that if you rolled less than an 18+ on your dice before mods, you'd never land a blow.
But that's what you get for living in an area where these types of games just aren't that popular.
@@mathewpoole3589 So sad... :(
I'm pretty sure one would see more warlocks casting spells that weren't eldritch blast if they had invocations that buffed them. The class itself feels like it is partially designed around that one cantrip. I believe that's a problem with the class/invocations and not the spell.
Don't seem much reason why a warlock couldn't be given a handful of higher level damage spells as essentially cantrips, like scorching ray but it's always cast at the lowest level.
www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/9xmf8s/essay_why_the_warlock_is_badly_designed/
Or just don’t spam Eldritch blast. Sure it’s super optimal but why does that matter?
@@erichall090909 That's kinda like asking the fighter to not spam the attack action or roughes to not spam sneak attack whenever possible though
Salt Efan I mean you can build a cool warlock without Eldritch blast. Can’t really build a fighter without attacking.
I summoned 6 Quicklings in a one shot, and I got everyone in my party to roll for them instead of myself. Worked well
Eldritch blast on its own - like all other cantrips - does pretty shitty damage, and will underperform next to the damage of martial characters.
The ability to “trick out” eldritch blast so it can be used for crowd control, and so it deals equivalent damage to martial characters REQUIRES RESOURCES.
Warlocks get two spell slots for most of the game, and the benefits from their Invocations and pact boon are supposed to give them other combat, exploration, and utility functions.
Invocations are limited in number though. And a warlock who has invested in eldritch blast is unable to do other things because they have to make choices.
A warlock who casts hex and eldritch blasts for a bunch of damage only has one more spell slot. Many other warlock features are once per rest too. They don’t have endless endurance for problem after problem that requires a bunch of different spells.
The tricked out elsritch blast that can push enemies really far away is what the character CAN do reliably.
They CANNOT cast other spells round after round.
They CANNOT swing a blade round after round UNLESS they picked invocations that make them better at melee combat.
Eldritch Blast - WITH INVESTMENT - may outstrip other cantrips for damage, but the Warlock’s thing relative to other casters is a few AT WILL spells (mage armor, invisibility, eldritch blast, detect magic, eg) and very LIMITED spell slots. But every at will spell requires an invocation. And EB requires multiple invocations to turn it into the “broken” thing people don’t like.
Thank you
Lance Clemings
As a DM, if repelling blast was becoming an issue, I might tell the player it can be applied once per target, rather than once per turn. That way they have the option of spreading damage to be a little more manupulative of the battlefield, which isn’t mearly as problematic. Most of the game we are talking about 2-3 attacks though which isn’t as big a deal.
That being said, encounter design will also have a lot to do with how useful such an ability is. If the enemies use webs, cover, obscurement, etc then the chances of being successfully hit are reduced. Monsters are intelligent enough to survive. Only certain kinds of creatures would fight out in the open.
If I was playing a warlock, I might consider repelling an enemy caster, in order to 1) remove them from counterspell range, 2) make them waste their reaction on EB, or 3) cause them to make concentration saves.
And if I was playing that enemy caster intelligently they would be making themself difficult to see and difficult to hit. The DM has a role in how useful those abilities are in a fight.
@Lance Clemings I don't really agree with the repelling blast limitation. I was pretty excited that there was finally some cool utility in having 4 beams of EB and not just more damage modifiers. The only time you'll be able to push something 30 feet away (which is the average move speed) is if you are level 11+ and land all 3 hits on a single target. If you're fighting something at level 11+ that MUST be in melee range to be effective, its either not a consequential enemy or its a very very poorly designed important enemy, in my opinion. Not to mention a lot of stuff simply has way more movement speed than that at higher levels or can take a dash action. This one invocation might buy you an extra turn of not getting hit on one or two combats ever; I think that's totally justified in a best case scenario setting.
If you take the Green Flame Blade cantrip and you use your spell slots for Shadow Blade, you don't need any invocations to make you better at melee combat. You can swing a blade round after round and you can use your invocations for fun stuff, and you'll still be quite powerful.
Yeah, and once your fighter gets magic weapons, he's ahead again. It's not overpowered. At all.
I don't see the problem with the 3 cantrips you had being overused.
I mean think about it, everyone in a certain field usually learns a few specific skills to practice the basics before being specialized. Or learns skills that will be useful across all fields. Like Engineers all learning the beginnings of advanced fields of math.
This is the most “old man yells at cloud” episode you guys have ever done
"Old man yells at cloud"? Never heard of that.
I have Guidance written on top of my Cleric's character sheet just for the reason you stated.
nice discussion overall, but don't forget the Players perspective - too many DM's end up trying to control what the players do and have fun with, which never ends well. If a player likes a particular thing and has fun with it, unless it's genuinely disruptive to the group, chances are it's totally fine.
Regarding the length of your videos, I'd happily listen to Jim and Pruitt drop knowledge and hash out issues for as long as they're willing to talk. You guys are a fantastic resource!
This conversation reminded me of the reason why I stopped playing with some groups.
Basically. Sounds like a lot of bad advice.
Spirit Guardians to clear dungeons and take out any shit early comments.
As the DM once the enemy see Spirit Guardian they either keep out of range or throw every available missile or spell at the Cleric. Force them to keep making concentration checks.
@@AEB1066 And this is why I don't use concentration spells that don't have a duration of 10 minutes or more. Thank you Shield of Faith.
TeamOrchid Spirit Guardians is concentration up to 10 minutes. Bless is a good 1 minute con spell, especially for basic “random encounters” on the road once you reach higher levels and your lower level spell slots go farther. As, in, you have more overall spell slots.
@@davidphillips-zee1083 Spirit Guardians is also stapled to you and very obvious when it's going on, so anyone with an int of 3 or more still knows to bombard you as hard as possible. It's a bit of an exception. Bless has the problem where in a combat where the bombardment wouldn't make you lose your spell you probably don't need it anyway and it's a waste of a slot. In a combat where it would be helpful the bombardment will make you drop it like a hot potato. I'd rather cast a spell that's likely to last 3/4 fights especially since 5E spell slots are extremely limited even in lategame.
This is assuming you don't want to spend 40% of your feat/ability score slots on making concentration checks reliable to hit (20% if you're a sorcerer) or you just don't get feats in the first place.
AEB1066 please try again without metagaming. How many times have joe shmo the goblin or terry the grey ooze encountered someone who can cast 3rd level spells? If it isn’t fairly routine, then they should only see cherubs/imps flitting around in an area, and treat it more like additional enemies then as a spell effect. Why would they then attack the random cleric in the middle? This is of course if they are coming upon the cleric after the spell has been cast. If the spell is cast where enemies can see it, they should be in range to start with, where the party can deal with them thanks to the spells difficult terrain and the continuous, no action required, damage.
Even if the enemy knows the exact course of action to take against the spell(even if before the spell is even cast), you still deal some damage(you don’t cast the spell unless there are enough enemies in range to be worth it), you still soak some damage, and now your party can take that opportunity to get well on the way to resolving the encounter.
In short, Spirit Guardians should not be cast if your bulkiness is questionable enough that casting it would not be of extreme benefit. If you are bulky enough to survive the attention(and even keep the spell up), you will destroy most any trash mob that dares step up to your area. Letting the higher damage folks concentrate more on the bigger hp sacks.
The real maneuver against Spirit Guardians is it’s targeting. You designate creatures you can see, when you cast the spell, to be immune to it’s effects. Throw in an unexpected ally or an innocent captive mid way through he duration (remember to remind the player that the character should know the restriction(don’t be a d*ckhead)). The cleric then has to weigh the importance of maintaining the spell versus assisting the new addition.
I don't think Moonbeam actually works like that. When you cast it on top of an enemy or move it on top of enemy, they aren't entering it's space, it's entering their space. It would only trigger once they start their turn.
Icebrick One this is correct and clarified by Jeremy Crawford. They (webdm)were right that the language is plain and clear and in this case along with many others there’s a reason for the very specific wording.
True, you moving it doesn't mean THEY enter it, but the warlock repelling blast method could force them to move into the area, triggering it, and it would trigger again when they start their turn in it.
@@bacterrhea2082 haha that's a good one. There's a precedent already for movement against its own will that would not trigger other effects like opportunity attacks. Given that I would rule on the fly no still only one time damage.
This my be arguing semantics but what about when you move the spell? When the spell moves over them dose that count as them entering the spell they weren't in the spell and now thet are.
According to the rules and designers, no. If they're shoved in that counts however.
Idea for augury: almost always say “weal and woe” unless you are extremely certain of either one.
Use your voice to play the odds.
Example: The level 10 party wants to sneak and surprise attack ambush the Ancient Dragon. You know that is much more dependent on dice rolls and could swing either way, but it’s likely to fail. Whisper “Weal” and say aloud “WOOOOOOOAAAAH”
Therefore you have established that if the dice are with them it could be great... but if that plan fails they are likely screwed
So, a 99.999999% useless spell?
@@josephbeckett2330 I don’t think this is a perfect fix but it could help players gauge risk
I don't consider fireball or counterspell as problematic as some people do. There's actually a lot of competition for what 3rd level spell to take. Those two are major contenders, but you also have spells like fly, haste, Leomund's tiny hut, dispel magic, sending and tongues all at 3rd level, and all of those are spells that you are probably going to want to have access to if they are on your spell list. 3rd level spells just happen to be some of the best spells for middle tier play, and you are going to want a lot of them. Fireball and counterspell are great in combat, but the others are a pretty big deal in either exploration or social encounters (and haste is just a great buff to have access to). Any of these would be problem spells for me, if they didn't have to compete with so many amazing spells at the same level.
Now that you mention it, 3rd level spells are a major power spike for casters
@@loosinit_mc yeah, I never realized it until I started thinking about what you might take instead of fireball and realized how many 3rd level spells I would almost always want to have.
Haste keeps getting better with levels as well, without extra slot cost.
3rd level spells usually come at 5th level when the fighter types are getting their extra attacks that they can use every turn.
Conjure animals isn't actually calling on animals. It's calling upon fae and nature spirits to take on the form of animals to aid you.
Sounds like it should be dangerous. If it were, then magic might seem more like something to fear than just something that 5e power gamers can use as another tool of destruction.
@@BTsMusicChannel DMs who want to take the fun and piss out of the game is also something to be feared and a few episodes on this channel always seem to speak to that mindset.
@@davidlewis5312 My intent is not to take the fun out of the game -- unless you are a power game, at which point I don't what you at my table anyway. The idea is to have a sort of fun that power gamers generally don't like. Like a real story or a challenge that you can't simply manipulate rules to overcome, you would have to actually think.
Well that intro was basically the exact experience of being a substitute teacher.
Maybe stop doing that?
BTsMusicChannel, lol I did.
@@chasanhall2500 :D Brilliant!
I have a Pass Without Trace story that's pretty great. It's a module so I'll be vague to avoid spoilers:
The party is a Druid(me,) Barbarian, and Warlock, lvl 2 or 3. We were in The Bad Guy's cave lair, and we needed to get past them into a room full of Heavy Objects we Wanted, the Objects were also guarded inside the room by guard animals.
We were in no condition to fight, so I cast Pass Without Trace, then turned into a Giant Lizard. Warlock turned herself invisible, then Barb tied himself to my back and then tied himself to the Warlock. We had a plan. The three of us now acted as an invisible Claw Machine game, walking along the ceiling and dropping our Invisible Warlock Claw down on the Objects. She picked up the object, turning it invisible, and Barb hoisted her back up. We would then deposit the Objects outside the bad guy room.
It worked twice before the Bad Guys finally looked up (+10 to stealth is NOT invisible, it turns out!) an we had to run for out lives.
I had a party cast past without trace and then pick a route walking right by a dragon. Got the shock of their lives when he looked straight at them and said "I can see you" because they got cocky and thought their high stealth roles made them as good as invisible and had failed to really think about where and how they were stealthing.
One Big complain about all of this is: DO NOT design your adventure to counter certain spells. If you want to get rid of a spell just ban it BEFORE character creation. Nothing makes players more angry then taking away their cool toys they spend so much effort to get. Bad GM! If you do this sort of antagonistic bullshit you are playing with yourself in no time.
Cant agree more. Its terrible game design to make certain spells/ abilities/ tools effectively trap options just because you want to feel clever as a DM. Let characters use their stuff. If you feel like something is truly problematic and you cant find an elegant way to deal with it without screwing the player over for having taken the spell ban it and tell the group openly and honestly why you think the game is better without it.
Don’t always counter it, having it not work at times is fun
I was thinking the exact same thing. Way to take the fun out of the game. I look for ways to let the users use their awesome spells.
Imo it's a matter of subversion.
In the beginning, when a bad thing happens to the players that's a subversion of the everything succeeds paradigm.
Then when the player's use their noggin to use a spell, that's another subversion to the accepted pattern of that bad thing happening.
However, once that paradigm is established, the occasional subversion via either a well planned enemy force or a bad guy you want to highlight to the players as a big deal is, in my opinion, engaging.
@@j2dragon109 Damn straight. I used counterspell precisely one time in adventure that went from 1-17. They never saw it coming and they talk about still, years later.
Pass without trace...Defeated by a lvl 1 ritual spell....Alarm.
Right on point. People often forget that every spell can be circumvented by another spell. Also, if a spell is available to the party, it may be available to their foes.
Even Goblins could defeat it, doesn't matter how quietly you move when one of your party triggers a trap.
Well yes alarm defeats it so do traps but if your in a fight that your outmatched in you can just leave or be invisible and just kill it while he can’t hit you unless he has aoe
@@devonhalford5522 Pass Without Trace doesn't work like that, because stealth doesn't work like that. First, to hide, a character must be concealed. So, if you're in a fight, adds are you're in plain view of the enemy. Meaning, you can't take hide action, regardless of the bonuses you have to stealth. Second, attacking from stealth reveals your position (unless you're also concealed in darkness or behind cover or something), meaning that if you somehow manage to hide in combat, by attacking you reveal yourself and are now at square one.
Most broken spells are only broken because DMs don't know how the rules work.
Edit: to clarify - Pass Without Trace is not "mass invisibility". It just makes you and your companions better at stealth. Stealth is not invisibility. It makes you able to sneak behind people, break and enter buildings and prepare ambushes. It does not make you some invisible super ghost.
FelineElaj Ohhh I’m not a dm and I’m a relatively new player I interpreted it as pretty much a circle of silence and darkness
For summoning spells, you should have a prepared list for the DM, with the stats.
^This. If I were DMing and a player asked for a conjuring spell, I'd say "yes, but YOU have to have the stat blocks on hand; if you don't when the spell happens, it fizzles". DMs have enough to keep track of, they don't also need to micromanage the player's kit.
OR you're summoning a demon and you just know him by name at this point.
And...if you have ever read any fairy tales or HP Lovecraft or have any sense of the history of magic in the real world...there should be a chance of some seriously bad consequences when summoning entities. Without that problem, conjuration seems to video gamey to me. It takes the wonder, fear and awe out of the fantasy game. Magic becomes just another tool of the power gamer.
Yeah, I had a similar thing in a game where I could polymorph into anything that was cr equal to my level or lower, I made a list with the hitpoints rolled up so everything was specifically the creature I'd seen.
@@whiskeyhound Druid ability of polymorph in 5e is absolutely ridiculous, in my opinion. It is another one of those Wizards of the Coast superhero things that has to go.
Look you guys prestidigitation mending Mage hand and minor illusion are just centerpieces of spellcaster life. Every kindergartener learns their ABCs every spellcasters learns those spells
I actually tend to forgo at least two of those spells on my casters. Which two can vary but they aren't necessarily at all useful to me compared to others at times.
38:53 - ackchually, the conjured creatures are not "living beings", according to Mike Mearls (if my memory serves).
Of course, it all depends on your particular campaign setting. Personally, I have no problem with the conjured creatures being essentially though constructs, ideal representations, of you will.
Yeah, they're Fey spirits in the form of animals.
My Druid did treat the summon fey spirits as living beings, but that was purely role playing. My / His rational was that they were predators being summoned to the real world to help me solve my problems, so they needed to be compensated for their services (usually be maintaining concentration after the fight so they would feast on whatever they killed). It certainly wasn’t in the rules, but it was something I needed to do to play my character accurately.
I don't know why a LOW MAGIC campaign is ever an option - We play so little - we don't want to be like the common street folk when we play aswell.
Would you tell the Barbarian not to Rage ?
Or the Monk not to use Ki ?
I find the low magic setting shit usually comes from the melee heavy players who become DM's and don't want to bother even reading up the spells.
I like low magic, because it makes the magic that does exist feel so much more special. I think that magic should be wondrous and a thing of awe. If every village has at least two 5th level casters, your 3rd level wizard PC is going to feel a lot less special. If you already have ten magic items in your backpack, the eleventh isn't going to be hard pressed to impress.
The reason I actually don't like playing in low magic settings is because the gameplay in 5th edition becomes incredibly stale if you remove magical options from the PCs' or the villain's repertoire. D&D is not good at making dudes in armor fight other dudes in armor interesting.
The difference between Barbarian rage or Monk Ki and magical cantrips is that cantrips don't cost anything to use. A monk will run out of Ki, a Barbarian rage, a Ranger arrows, and so on, but a Wizard can cast Firebolt all day.
For me, though, game balance. It's narrative structure. If magic is safe and reliable, it's boring. If every problem can be solved with magic, then other classes can't contribute. Heroes in low magic settings are still heroes, but they're forced to use their wits, environment, and tools they're proficient in, rather than a catch-all cantrip like Mending.
Look at Lord of the Rings: perhaps the archetypical low magic setting. There's one magic item the whole quest revolves around, Gandalf is absent or obstinate as often as he's useful, and most of the plot is spent with characters without a lick of magical talent. The absence of magic for most of the plot makes its rare appearances memorable, and they carry narrative weight.
Conversely, high-magic settings like Harry Potter make the extraordinary mundane. Because they can cast any spells they want as often as they want, the plot has to rely on potions, rituals, and secrets, or else the characters are one invocation away from solving their problems.
They're both valid approaches. Maybe the world is full of magic users and you find that setting rich and engaging. Maybe the world is magic users and it robs magic of its sense of wonder.
@@rosly_yt
This is someone who missed the point and decided to cover it up with an essay
probably a fighter or rogue 80% of the time
@@rosly_yt You said:
Look at Lord of the Rings: perhaps the archetypical low magic setting. There's one magic item the whole quest revolves around, Gandalf is absent or obstinate as often as he's useful, and most of the plot is spent with characters without a lick of magical talent. The absence of magic for most of the plot makes its rare appearances memorable, and they carry narrative weight.
The One Ring wasn't the only magic item in Lord of the Rings.
I can think of several magic items in Lord of the Rings:
Sting, Glamdring, mithril armor, Phial of Galadriel, elven cloaks, Anduril, lembas (the elf food), elven rope, palantirs (the magic scrying orbs), box of elven dirt, Doors of Durin (which magically opened when you said "friend" in the appropriate language -- but I can't remember what that language was), Merry's Barrow Blade (unsure if it had a name). That is more magic items than our current level 7 party has amassed to date.
Plus, besides the 2 wizards, there was a Balrog, an entire army of ghosts, whatever Tom Bombadil was, 9 wraiths, a crap load of elvish lords and a Dark Lord all brandishing magic around. Oh, and Gandalf and Saruman each had a magical staff.
While I can understand why conjuration spells are problematic, nobody ever talks about making it work. The discussion is always about how to nerf the conjurer. Conjuring, in general, is already a weak area. Beast CRs are already inflated, so the only benefit is numbers.
In general, I think the idea of something being TOO GOOD is dangerous, because it ignores the reason that it's so good. Healing word- because healing spells in general suck, so you want to nerf the one that DOES work? Shield, because a player worked the rules to gain a 30 AC, so you want to nerf a primary survival tool of a caster?
See, these "too good" spells are ways of finding the real problem.
Healing Word is entirely a perception issue. It's not actually any better or worse than cure wounds. It's a series of trade off's and misconceptions that makes people think one is better than the other. They are both situational and have their actual advantages and should be used as such. healing Word for example blocks usage of things like Spiritual weapon causing one or more rounds that you heal with Healing word to be wasted on it. And doing Force Damage as well as being boostable by spell level it's a source of a fair bit of damage for a cleric that can rival their cantrip damage overall. So you can often get an equivilant affect in a turn by using Cure Wounds on a Target and attacking with your spiritual weapon as you can casting a cantrip and using your bonus action for Healing word. There is also the fact that Healing word trades half it's possible healing for some ranged capability. Cure wounds is more potent with twice the healing but is a touch spell. Weighing out when to use each can be important.
@@Quandry1 actually no. Healing word is measurably superior. The amount healed, in both cases, includes the casting mod. This means that they're a lot closer at level 1, and even closer at higher levels. But the real value is range. Range is huge. Action economy is always a tradeoff, and using a single instance to represent the value is ridiculous.
Range is king. If you don't see that, then I can't help you.
@@ChristnThms This is entirely false. Healing word does 1d4+mod and Cure wounds does 1d8+mod. There is an average difference of 2 and a maximum difference of 4. This gap increases the more you upscale the healing. At level 2 there is an average difference of 4 and a maximum difference of 8. It is not closer at higher levels. Just to illustrate what I mean. Let's assume the unlikely hood of a Wisdom of 20 for the maximum stat modifier(and using some basic math). This means that the average healing of Healing Word is 7(1d4+5) and the Average healing of Cure wounds is 9(1d8+5). With a 9 and 13 maximum healing respectively. The numbers don't look too different at level 1 but this is misleading. Jumping up just one level. Healing word goes to an Average healing of 9(2d4+5) and a Maximum healing of 13 while Cure light Wounds goes to an average of 13(2d8+5) and a Maximum of 21. Casting them at third level the gap gets even larger. With Healing word Averaging 11-12hp(3d4+5) and maxing out at 17. While Cure wounds cast at third level is averaging 17-18(3d8+5) with a maximum of 29. By just a third level casting Cure wounds has actually outpaced the maximum healing that Cure wounds can do and the numbers do not really improve. With cure wounds on average doing as good if not a bit better than the maximum possible healing from Healing Word. This is the cold hard reality of how the numbers work.
Your perception is that Range is king. But since damage for most things actually increases as they go up with the exception of certain front loaded classes. Healing Words Healing does not actually keep up with the damge output for as long as Cure Wounds does in return for that range and that range is not necessarily always the superior benefit with that consideration in mind. The differences in the numbers could be in reality and actual game play the difference between giving a character a couple of hits before they go down again to bringing that person up to a point where unless they are really being focused they may not even need healing the next round (because your healing potentially half or more of even your brawny party members hitpoints in a single spell) and don't have to worry about losing their next action because the enemy is just going to knock them down again the next turn thus creating the yoyo effect that many mention when talking about healing and the issue that enemies do not tend to be played with a decent modicum of intelligence that they should be. That range that your favoring a bit too highly comes at a price.
@@Quandry1 nobody that can do math will ever upcast either of these. The fact that they can be upcast is irrelevant to a discussion on strategic value, since no decent strategy considers upcasting them. Along with that, since dice are random, it is only relevant to use the average roll for comparing. In this case, the d4 average is 2.5 and the d8 average is 4.5. But, it can be expected that even at level 1, the casting modifier is +2 (and should be +3). So that 2.5 turns into 4.5, and that 4.5 turns into 6.5. At higher levels, when you've bumped your casting stat, they would become 6.5 and 8.5. Obviously, CW is still bigger than HW, but nothing like double. Of even greater note here, is that even at level 1, NEITHER of them is larger than an enemy can do in a single hit. At no point in the game is in-combat healing EVER going to be able to keep a player standing while he's being attacked. Once this is realized, the real benefit of healing shifts. It's not like playing a healer in a video game, where you pump heal throughout the fight. D&D heals are precious and few, and in combat the only cases where they make sense are when you have a downed player that you need back in the mix. Since, you only need 1hp to be up, the amount healed isn't so relevant. But, being able to stand that ally up from across the battlefield, when you may not be able to physically reach him, is priceless. There is some luck here, always. But it is completely possible for a player to go down on the first round of combat, and pop back up before his turn comes again, and never miss a shot. THIS is what HW brings to the fight.
As I said originally, range is king and the healed amount is largely irrelevant. Comparing bad usage is irrelevant. Comparing maxes is irrelevant. The only relevant part of these spells is what they can accomplish in a bad scenario, and for THAT purpose, range trumps everything.
@@ChristnThms they are your go to healing spells for your first few levels of casting. They do get upcast and people do strategically consider upcasting them. Saying that they don't suggests play primarily or only in low level scenerios.
And if you think it can't keep a player standing you are mistaken and feeding to the yoyo mentality and potential lost rounds to your team mates.
I always thought of mending as a sort of full metal alchemist type thing like it doesn't create something out of nothing, it has to pull from the surrounding material. For example if you were to mend armor it takes the material around the hole and mends the hole but makes the area around the mended hole thinner as a result. And do that enough times and the AC might lower or it might get easier for it to break.
Or have to provide raw materials. Like having to have the right metal on hand to patch a breast plate. Thus you could use it to fix the wagon...but if you don't any of the same type of tree nearby it might not be worth much as a patch job. And there could also be problems with that. Maybe when you cast it material just disappears from the surrounding area to fuel the repair regardless of consent. Might piss people off.
Waffle842 It’s probably just moving the material back into place as if the damage had never happened at all remember most damage does not actually delete material
From the actual spell description: "As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage". Note the "leaving no trace of the former damage" part there: as long as the damage is small enough for mend to work, it fixes it 100%. It's not "pulling material from the surrounding area" to fix it, and more like using magic to "weld" the broken edges back together, only with a perfect effect, because it's magic as opposed to melting the metal back together.
Kedolan I was just saying it was more interesting way to do it and to lessen the power of spell. That was listed as overpowered in the video.
Coach Davis is gonna make your Wizard run laps
He's not gonna tell you twice!!
Good thing mine is a Mountain Dwarf War Mage whose strength and con are about as high as their intelligence
Fuck Coach Davis.
@@BTsMusicChannel All the moms do!
@@FirstnameLastname-kn5sw ikr?
I can’t figure out why people who admit to not playing Warlock’s seem to have the most problems with Eldritch Blast.
Dude, I've been house-ruling that wizards could cast unlimited cantrips since 2e. Those early levels sucked as a Mage without it (and it still wasn't that great), but at least it made the character actually _feel_ like a magic user. Having at-will magical attacks for the casters was one of the very few things I liked about 4e. It seems criminal to me to limit the cantrips in 5e. And this is coming from someone who's still reluctant to play a caster.
How are cantrips limited in 5e?
They aren't, but Jim and Pruitt talked about doing so.
Pruitt's drip is kinda fire doe
Thanks a lot guys, your material really helps me feel ready to start my own campaign. Appreciate it all, keep it up!
I don't mind players having counterspell. DMs should only use it sparingly in circumstances that would be suitably dramatic.
Agreed. An NPC that uses Counterspell is one tool in the DM's toolbox, to be brought out at the appropriate time. Having a dungeon where every single encounter has a mage with Counterspell only works if the party is assaulting a wizard's tower or the like. Anywhere else, and it strains credulity (and gets tedious). Most of the time, a dungeon will have maybe one such mage, and that mage will probably be sticking close to the Boss.
I don't really mind the frequent use of counterspell, specially because it costs a reaction, and from that point on you create the opportunity for a teammate to cast anything else. It creates (for me) a really fun dynamic of baiting the counter to hit the enemy with something more powerful, or even do a chain counterspell, where you counter the enemy counter, and another enemy counters your counter and a teammate counters that enemy counter. Counter chains are so fun, and also demand resource management. Do I counter this low level counter that will have to be rolled to match my spell, do I upcast my counter to garantee a counter on that counter? It's fun :)
I'm currently running a 15+ level game, the challenges my players face at this point would be more bizarre and incredulous if the opponents couldn't marshal a 5th level mage. And it adds some needed dynamism to the spellcaster end of the fights, they actually worry about dropping their biggest spells because there is regular mage support. Encourages them to deal with the mage before cutting loose and keeps the fights from becoming formulaic.
If holding a spell, Counterspell, as written, can only be used when the caster holds the spell, it can't be used on the activated spell once discharged by the trigger.
Do note, subtle spell also nullifies counterspell as the opposing mage is unable to see that you are casting a spell (this is it's express purpose).
I was informed that my Twin casting Simulacrum on myself and the Wizard was broken after we Otto's Irresistible Danced a Blue Dragon to death after burning it's Legendary Resistances.
That's a good idea
Well, at that point you are level 20. There are alot of crazy things you can do.
@@nhetsk 13th level. Otto's Irresistible Dance doesn't allow a save on the first round, so the strategy was for one caster to hold action: If that Dragon stops dancing, I cast Dance, while 2 Rouges and a Fighter wailed on it.
My issue with Eldritch Blast is not that it's too good - I have generally found its damage pretty balanced. My problem is that Warlocks are built to push you to eldritch blast without it being a core ability. If Warlocks had the ability to buff up another attack cantrip to a similar degree, I would have absolutely no probelm with eldritch blast. If you are a warlock who didn't use their resources to get Eldritch Blast and trip it up with your invocations, you are pretty useless as a caster, and that is the problem I have.
Also, if familiars scouting the dungeon is a problem, there's a pretty simple solution: locked doors. Your familiar might be able to scout out the dungeon incospicuously, but it's not getting past any and all barriers. Or, at higher levels, you might ocasionally have a protective spell on the dungeon that banishes extra-planar creatures.
Those glasses on Jims head look like little red devil horns.
They're actually rainbow glasses, but only the red is easy to see
Finally someone who doesn't misuse the term "broken". It's incredible how many people on the Internet use it exclusively when they mean to say "overpowered", when that word has many other meanings. A spell that is too weak or too confusing can also break the game and is therefore "broken". I'm glad this was addressed in the video.
>find familiar
make owl familiar
cast dragon breath on it
congrats, you have a flying flamethrower that doesn't take op attacks.
I 100% do this with my necromancer. Give him poison breath and he doesn't accidentally hurt my zombies
I love that videos r slowly creeping up to an hour long
The way I've tried using _augury_ in my recent campaign was to use it as part of a whole sort of algorithm of divinations during downtime. Between sessions I presented my DM with a list of topics and specific questions I wanted to ask with _commune_ but before casting _commune_ I'd cast _augury_ to get a sense of whether the question would be one my god would deign to answer, or be able to provide useful information on. Mostly I would ask factual questions about the current state of the world.
To my thinking this gave the DM time to sort things out, the sort of things I might or might not learn rather than putting him on the spot and really slowing things down mid session, while also minimizing the degree to which I was putting him in a position where he'd have to predict the future.
Unfortunately, I fear I might have overwhelmed the DM, or he might have just been really busy, because he didn't do much with what I gave him and we pretty much just glossed over that section of downtime. (The most disappointing part was that a chain of divinations, capped off with _legend lore_ did not reveal anything we didn't already know about a legendary grimoire in our possession, which we _know_ hasn't yet yielded all of its secrets, which we are _slowly_ uncovering by attempting to decipher its encoded/encrypted text. I was really hoping for something that might point to a table of context, or something that would give us a boost to our attempts to decipher it.)
I thought the wording on Moonbeam was specifically designed to avoid the damage being caused more than once per round, e.i. the idea being that in ONLY happens on the victim's turn - when THEY walk into it or when THEY start their turn in it, not when anybody else does anything.
I am playing a wizard whose familiar is an undead spirit of his former pet rat. Since it died once, it doesn't mind doing it again - especially if it is being helpful.
We don't run a game with enough dungeon delving for it to be a huge problem
Don't understand the hate for it, most traps are gonna be too well hidden, most familiars get stopped by the first door they encounter and enemies can move around so it's pretty underwhelming if the DM thinks for a minute.
@@whiskeyhound also FF is a low level spell. I imagine many average intelligent people/monsters would be wary of small animals moving with purpose around their area of operations. I have never run into this issue, but granted I don't run much rather than just theory craft, and hope and dream.
@@nuclearchezburgr3857 Most of the familiars aren't particularly stealthy and would look like lunch to most of the things you'd tend to find in dungeons.
For low magic games you can have some of the cantrips re-flavoured in some cases. I have a barbarian/sorcerer who flavours all her spells as regular things a person may have. She has mending but i term it as she carries around a tool kit she does quick repairs with, and for infestation she collects honey combs that she keeps in a bag and tosses at the enemies, for prestidigitation they are all just quick hand tricks and slight of hand stuff. For first level: Thunderwave is a loud yell and Mage armor is her war paint.
Other cantrips,
Bonfire - maybe they toss an oilly stick and ignite it with a burning brand,
Mage hand could be re-flavoured as charming or coercing a near by vermin or small animal or tiny bird that can fetch a thing by offering food or something... (not as strong but works)
i don't think knock is that big of a problem spell i think the problem is DM's not really reacting to the 300feet Cthunk that happens like if that happened every single encounter in the dungeon should change monster's should either move or flee depending on what there trying to do
On one of my more mapped out encounters that had certain creatures that basically would be found in certain places because they were in a stronghold and certain places were occupied much of the time. The party I had running died because they pulled 4 different encounters because they used Knock just to push their way through on their path and they all rolled perception checks more than high enough to be alerted by the sound and they all went after the party at the same time.
They had a thief in the party that was more than capable of taking care of the doors they went through. They had just decided that was too slow and were over confident that they could just stomp through any normal encounter.
Sorry, but making summoning *random* is what is slowing it down. Have a player know exactly what they want to summon, why, and what are the thing's stats and there is no slowdown... if there is slowdown tell your player to learn their abilities to act a little bit quicker.
having 8 extra creatures in combat is still something that takes time.
@@osunievogden1145 sure, extra 10 seconds.
Move, roll dice, done. When you don't have to look things up rounds go surprisingly fast.
The invisible-flying-T Rex-pixie strat is more than enough for me to say "No, I'm rolling on this pre-prepared table for your creatures", personally. But every table is different.
@@osunievogden1145 There are great ways to speed it up summoned beast play. My Druid is predominantly a summoner, I have paper circles I use in place of miniatures that are color coated to my dice.
All my beast move at the same time, maintain the same attack order, and roll at the same time.
My move takes no longer than any other character in my party. Before we came up with this system it did indeed take a long time.
Also, they are not actual animals, but fey spirits in the shape of animals. No reason to first get to know specific wolves and bears, when they are simply spiritual beings taking a familiar shape.
Knock also only undoes a single locking effect on a portal/door. So you could also just throw on more locks. (E.g. Have it barred and have a key lock), that's on top of the incredible cacophony it makes.
Pruitt. I dare you to wear a tuxedo for an episode. Bet you'd look extra sharp
Love cantrips. Coming from AD&D in the 80s, your 1st level Magic User with a dagger (or sling) and a single Magic Missile or Sleep per day (and 1d4 hit points) was a rubbish playing experience...
Removing cantrips DOES fundamentally change them - it makes them useful after they cast that one Magic Missile spell. If the presence of cantrips changes your game world, you can simply say that only the mages with the greatest potential can cast cantrips they way they do. Or drop damage from cantrips by a die size or two.
In regards to the abuse of healing word, I use the injury chart from the DMG. It’s made dropping to zero have some consequence. It’s pretty simple, and can fix the way most people look at combat. Nothing on the list is broken, but it has some merit for making combat memorable.
I'm confused, moonbeam seems cut and dry to me. It says when a creature moves into the zone, not when the zone moves over a creature. I would never allow a lv 2 spell with 1 min concentration to do that much damage in my game.
The only time I have used augury (with my nature cleric) was for really abstract role play scenes that maybe stretched the rules of the spell but in mechanics function as nothing more than a description.
Basically before sending off some npcs and before a pc did a really important branching decsion my cleric cast augury trying to impart divine wisdom. I was a simple role play use but I liked it.
For my spellcasters I usually don't look at spells thinking about wich are the strongest most useful ones, I think about wich spells that particular character would use.
Jim Davis just fixed the way I'll play familiars from this night on......classic Davis insight gets me every time
I'd be very careful following the exact wording on summon spells that say the dm chooses the creatures summoned. It sounds like a good fix, but making your player use a spell slot to summon some random (and likely unhelpful) creatures when they wanted some extra attack power doesn't usually end well. It would be like if the dm decided what a druid turned into with wildshape.
Especially if they planned to use it utility wise, what are you gonna do with 8 seahorses in the tundra??? (And if the Dm is a prick)
@@diegodeleon2933 The animals are based on the surrounding environment, it's not like you're going to summon some fish whilst in a desert
@@charliescheirmann2926 I mean if we are at the point that this conversation is happening its fair for the players to half-suspect what they get won't be helpful at all.
@@davidlewis5312 I mean sure, but most likely only extremely spiteful DMs that are tired of the spell itself. Nowhere in the spell description does it state that you should roll for the creatures or anything.
Most of these "problem spells" seem more like "problem DMs"...
i like the idea of using Living Graveyards and Flesh Golems to speed up the turn order for Necromancy raise dead spells. Rather than 10 undead rolling their own initiative combine them into a single creature with half the combined stats, not including any equipment that wouldnt be useful beyond maybe some metal fused in as armor or an axe fused into the arm.
I'm a teacher and I will say i approve of the intro.
What bothers me isn't when spells are "too good" it's when they're "too easy" something like create food and water or goodberry means if I want to plan a survival section for my players if they can prepare it something that could have been an interesting challenge requiring them to use different abilities and be creative becomes a two sentence interaction. They don't have to think of a way to use the spell there's nothing that stops it from working every single time as a blanket solution, and I get I could ban it but I feel that leaves too large a vacuum, and a solution like "well the food you get from the spell isn't as nourishing as real food" either ads one sentence to the interaction or leads to math no one wants to do.
I've accepted there isn't a solution that will perfectly fix the problem and I can live with that it just bothers me that whenever I think "I could put in a fun survival section here" my brain just immediately goes to a very bored druid dismissively saying "I cast goodberry."
@Lance Clemings First off: awesome!
Second off: I kinda have to put traps on a bit of a hiatus as my party clearly got fed up after I made a fun house dungeon that killed two PCs then TPKed on subsequent nights, the poison dart over the pitfall was a personal favorite but the sequence of doors which surrounded them by a wall of force polymorphed them into chickens then dropped a cloudkill was what did them in.
Though I will keep robin hood fairies on file for when traps make their triumphant return.
I think any class can be boring if the player is boring, inexperienced at rp, simply wants to enjoy D&D as a blaster or cares more about numbers than building a story.
I think warlocks appeal to new players and seasoned players assign inexperience woth D&D/RP as boring classes. It's likely you did the same when you started playing D&D. Sword or EBlast makes no difference at all.
I weave my eldritch powers into a silver strand and whip it around my enemy slashing into their flesh and pulling them forward a few feet as I retract it.
After connecting with my upward slash and following up with a mighty pommel strike I shoulder into my foe with all my body weight behind my shield and knock them prone.
Imo ranged combat lacking flavor or vitality has nothing to do with distance and everything to do with DM/player engagement, experience, and bias.
Mod D&D till its you own creation but remember the spirit intended behind these actions and abilities. Clases and certain abilities/spells are all situationally overpowered by design.
Enjoyed the video even if I don't see these as "problems". If you are having a reoccurring issue you need more diverse encounters, to include more varied rp scenes, and/or retract the +2 stick of the buzzkill from thy behind.
I'm in a campaign right now where the DM has homebrewed rules to train a legitimate pet to do new things and get stronger. So there's an active trade off between having a pet vs a familiar. A pet can do more things, but you have to take care of them. A familiar is more limited, but you can treat them as an asset that never tires or takes offense to your actions. I really enjoy it! I prefer to flavor familiars as mindless extensions of the self vs a genuine animal.
This was a fantastic video guys. Thanks for posting it, you all are definitely my favorite RPG RUclipsrs.
Loved the comments on limiting cantrip magic. It's one of the longest ongoing DnD systems I fiddle with and think about.
Thank you David!
I have an idea, if uses of cantrips is limited, how about sword swings being limited uses. 'okay mister fighter, you can only swing your greatsword martial level + str
Mage hand is telekinesis on a cantrip. Arcane tricksters have the hand invisible so.... things things float towards them. Though putting the keys to the rogue cell 31 feet away forces them to think creatively its still mildly ridiculous.
Aside from mage hand only being able to hold 1/100th the weight of telekinesis
Your interpretation of Conjure Animals feels like it's going out of its way to be unfriendly to one specific player (the caster in question). It conjures fey spirits to 'take the form of' animals, not specifically real animals or animal spirits, and they disappear when reduced to 0 HP. D&D has had a long history of distinguishing 'conjuring' from 'calling'.
You could also interpret it as spirits willing to help a caster who is in trouble, they can't die and they just go back to whatever it is they were doing beforehand, so it's a good way to represent the caster's connection to nature or the divine. It's why wizards conjure elementals, not animals. But that might be too "fun" for your anti-spell interpretation.
In counter to the familiar complaining: Put doors in your dungeons, it's not that hard.
Yeah would a spirit feel death as they are hit to 0 hp. Imagine being summoned over and over by a guy just to die and feel the agony of death.
It comes down to the spell just makes battles a slog and generally boring to the rest of the group. I ask my players to not take those spells to respect the other players
If this spell slows down your game you're doing it wrong, or your players aren't well prepared to use their abilities. Many of my games have people cast those spells and the players who have to roll for their animals just roll all their D20 at the same time. Have expectations that the players have to be prepared for their turn and they will be
arthur Busse yeah having 8 more things doing attacks and moves totally doesnt slow things down at all😂
@@erichall090909 By that logic hunters mark slows the game down because it adds an extra dice roll for every single hit, and is therefore disrespectful to the other players because you're extending your turn. Better tell your players not to use buffs or debuffs, they're adding more dice rolls and slowing the game down. 8 more dice rolls in the way arthur mentioned is basically just casting fireball.
To me some of the gripes people have with some of these spells seems to come from a place of playing against your players as a DM. When my players use a clever spell to thwart the bad guy, I'm happy for them. I want them to succeed.
I love the knock spell, had one party that didn't use pick lock instead they relied on the knock spell, so i put a 'enviromental' hazard in a dungion....
A locked door with a locked trapdoor leading to the guard room above. when the party inevitably use knock on the door to open it the trap door opened as well, the party fighter underneth ready to attack any guards.... who was very supprised when a 2 ton bolder fell on him as it was sitting on the trapdoor and crushed him.
My advice for making Eldritch Blast more interesting is to play up the *eldritch* part. Make it a terrifying moment full of unearthly sounds and sights that leave the warlock shaken afterwards.
For Archfey, have the spell make a howling, screeching sound as it tears into creatures like a thousand ravenous beasts. For Fiend, talk about hearing the wailing, crying, and gnashing of teeth of the Lower Planes as it lashes into foes. For Great Old One, talk about how the beams seem to warp reality around them, and an eerie sound causes the warlock's sanity to bend for just a moment. For Celestial, talk about how the warlock's consciousness is forced to the side for a fraction of a second as something powerful beyond their comprehension hurls their divine fury at those who dare oppose their will.
Make it something horrible, wonderful, and awesome. And if they spam it recklessly, change focus to them becoming ever more numb to the terrifying nature of the power, how it might unsettle the party, and how perhaps their patron is twisting them into something else...
...or you could toss in enemies resistant to force. That...that works too...
I find that giving advantage or disadvantage depending on the augury for that specific action works well
Thank you for that. I feel people have problems with augury due to firstly a lack of understanding on what the player is trying to get from casting it. Secondly I think a lot of DMs commit an ergo hock fallacy, meaning that they don’t separate causation from correlation. In example if i am going to be attacked that is woe, if I get loot or information from the assailant that does not mean that there is now also wail. The actual cause is bad the “good” is not in reference of the action in question, that is an illogical correlation. It funny to me that we went through all of this when you could have just given the player advantage on their perception to notice the attack.
Uhg auto correct...Weal.
In my Undead Campaign the Lich didn't like that the party was zipping over the slow, groundbound zombies with Fly, so he necromanced sum Griffins. That was fun.
One thing you could think about with say knock or find familiar is that, these spells and uses for them are known to the broader magical community, so there might be say enchantments or wards placed on things that are meant specifically to deter or look for those spells, so a chest might be enchanted to detect knock and let out a loud alarm when its used. Or certain important rooms or buildings might be enchanted to repel familiars because spellcasters know familiars can be used in certain ways to spy on things
Hey now, fireball is fun EVERYTIME
Did somebody say backdraft?
Are you easily amused by the same thing, over and over?
To me, the plain, straight forward English reading of "entering" a zone, involves _moving into_ the zone, not having the zone moved into you. A stationary object doesn't "enter" anything. That's not me trying to be legalistic or anything, it just comes from my intuitive grasp of the language. The fact that this also aligns with the designer's stated intent of the spells (via Sage Advice) and is the more balanced interpretation of how the could spells work isn't biasing my reading of the language at all, I promise!
Quinstol Same for me and my group. We didn’t have any doubts or arguments about the meaning of the spell description. Our intuitive interpretation was ”moonbeam is cast onto a group of enemies, nothing happens, then on their turns they all start taking damage”.
I don’t think the idea that it would deal damage when cast ever even crossed out minds. Following that logic, a polearm master should be able to use their reaction attack on their turn when approaching enemies, since technically, the enemies are entering their reach.
Healing Word was never too problematic on the tables that i have been on, usually there is enough going on that the bards or clerics using it have enough to do on their own.
Picking a player back up to have them downed immediately may keep them alive short term, but it burns through your spell slots and we usually have more than one difficult encounter per adventuring day.
Yeah, mage hand is great. Last Oneshot we had a group of 6 players enter a 10th level dungeon. There was a room full of platforms where you had to enter a codeword or get fried on the platforms. The platform triggered at 40lbs but we had 4 magehands. Didn't get a single point of damage
so... what you're saying is... Magic is over powered? Well... I mean duh. lmao!
So what I gathered from this is that these guys don't like Warlocks too much. They have so few spell slots, and so rely either on invocations (and EB) to do stuff; they're highly customizable, and if your player wants to get all the EB invocations, go for it, they're missing out on Devil Sight and a bunch of other cool stuff.
Not to mention, a Warlock casting EB isn't too different than an archer firing their longbow. Yeah, it might be repetitive, but it works, and their patrons give them a limited pool of magic to draw from otherwise
Hang on, did you watch the video? They pretty much agreed with what you said. It is possible to criticize things without disliking them
I like what you said about find familiar, as far as it remembering. the way I interpret it, you aren't creating a spirit but "finding" one or essentially trapping a thing from another realm and forcing it into a physical gorm of your choice. I told my DM this early on and that the thing hates my wizard for it, especially when stuck in the locket dimension, and is more than willing to be killed because that's the only way to go back to Mount Celestia.
For Weal or Woe, the response should never be a prediction of success, but of ramifications. Gonna break into somewhere? Weal or Woe could reflect whether or not the owner will escalate. The players will not know the details, but if they succeed, how likely are the guards they snuck past to be executed, or if they fail, how severe would the response be. That kind of thing.
The spell says "Specific course of action". I take that as the players describing exactly what they plan to do and how they plan to go about it.
Then it's up to you as a dm to give an estimate of their chances of success if they do it as described. You can also remember that the spell does not specify who the result is good or bad for. A god of murder would probably say weal to any action involving fighting and taking lives regardless of who ends up dead.
Webdm wants to literally get rid of an entire school of magic XD "conjuration slows down the game making it boring"
bryce golie Um... no. Where did you get that?
@@adamroquemore6410 probably from the episode
1) complaints about timing
2) wants the summons to be random unless
3) you do a fetch quest
4) then says he would make them randomly disobey you
There are conjuration spells that specifically mess with you. If it isn't one of those spells, then your summons should obey. You aren't using summon greater demon when you want a pixie or wolf, so why would you get disobedience from supposed safe summons?
Waiting on Animate Objects to be in the video.
Great discussion as always... Recently Paizo released the second edition for Pathfinder, it would be really interesting to see a video about you thoughts and impressions on it. Keep up the good work!
I love a lot of the solutions you give to these spells, especially the ones that keep the rules as written but involve adding more variety to settings and combats. Any time anyone encourages a DM to step out of their familiar territory and try interesting new approaches it makes that DM's just a little better at their job.
10:38 I tried doing this a while back, with the summoning spell letting you summon a creature that you've had bound to you from another plane (Beastlands, Feywild, Shadowfell, Elemental Planes, 9 Hells, etc.) I also agree that role playing the creatures properly is another great way to deal with this. I had a player's sorcerer (Kaz) bound to a mite (Frank) who he would often summon and trick into walking down corridors to set off traps. (There was no rogue in the party to deal with traps.) Eventually Frank caught on to the fact that all his painful mishaps were a result of deliberate trickery and he turned on the party. (It all worked out in the end; Kaz and Frank are much better friends now.) Oh, and about that thing I always see in forums where you summon 8 pixies to turn each party members into a flying tyrannosaurus rex... it doesn't work if you read the pixie entry in the Monster Manual (page 253) all the way to the bottom. I read the "Opposed to Violence" header a meaning that they would be very upset with you after you use their help to maul your foes to death. The moment they realized your violent intentions they would likely drop all of their spells and flee. Conjure Celestial (PHB p 225) states that a conjured celestial will not violate its alignment. I would go ahead and extend this to read that all conjured creatures should not violate their core nature. I'd like to think that conjured creatures start out friendly and helpful (as a part of the bonding process) but that this trust can be broken. By simply not reading the word "obey" in the spell entries as totally stripping the summoned creature of all autonomy you can put a lot of the broken aspects and applications of these spells to bed while also enriching the role play aspects of the game.
33:20 I have a house rule based on this very thing that makes it a little harder to die but a little harder to recover from hitting death's door. You stabilize with one death save and can fail any number of death saves, but every time you make a death save you gain a level of exhaustion. I also use the slow natural healing optional rule (DMG p 267) and have players record negative hit points (dying if their negative hit points reach an amount equal to their hit point total) to further make the pace of natural healing somewhat more realistic. The exhaustion for death saves simulates characters being wounded long term and suffering penalties for those wounds while not bogging the game down with an entirely new mechanic. The negative hit points rule means that mortally wounded characters may require multiple healing spells to get them back on their feet. Being knocked out of commission by a low level soldier's crossbow bolt will be a lot easier to recover from than being knocked out of commission by a demon warlord's enchanted battleaxe.
Familiars are literally disposable. In the description of the spell, they always follow your orders, and if one spirit doesn't like you, summon a different one with find familiar. I don't think it has to be the same one every time.
Ugh I love the #DM problem line. Like if your players do the same thing every time plan your encounter accordingly
For augury, I ask my DM for a custom version: just give me a heads up when we're about to run into a challenging encounter or obstacle ... this simplification works wonders for the whole party.
I used always miss my guidance opportunities. I'm not good at speaking up for myself, and so even when I do remember I tend to hesitate so long that its not appropriate anymore. I decided to try to actively remember to cast it when people are about to do something. We were doing some long drawn out boring court case thing, and my friend goes to make an appeal, and I think oh hey, I haven't been casting guidance, I could do that! So I go to cast guidance, and my DM fines me 1000 gold for casting spells in court. We had just started playing and I was one of the few people who had any gold left after character creation, I was saving it so I could make some decisions a little after getting to know my character better. I don't miss guidance triggers anymore, because I don't play dnd. At some point I'll find a new group and try again, and it's still interesting to learn about the game and lore outside playing it
I've never played warlock and I don't know if this would be too powerful, but one way spamming eldritch blast could be made more fun is some ability to morph the shape on the fly. Like you can cast it as an aoe, a ray, a small cone, a large cone, a touch spell, or other gemetries, trading off damage and other effects for area depending on the shape. Personally I love the geometry game that is positioning yourself and then casting cone spells, and having a flexible and reusable shaped spell would be really fun and dynamic, and it would add a lot of room for creative description of the attacks. It even mechanically requires the player to give a rudimentary description of how they cast the spell, and invites further elaboration