I'd add Bane, reducing enemies saving throws and attacks is as good as what bless does, only downside is that they can save against the initial cast of Bane. However, unlike Bless you rarely need to upcast this so it is a great use of a 1st level spell slot even at higher levels.
In theory, Bane holds its own at higher levels. Until you start fighting higher level monsters with high saves. It doesn't lose *all* it's usefulness, to be sure. But there are a good number of high-CR monsters out there with really high Charisma scores. Most of the time, at higher levels, you're better off avoiding "save or suck" spells, because they get progressively less reliable. And they approach futility when it comes to legendary creatures. What really keeps Bane in the game is that it affects 3 (or more) opponents, so there's a decent chance at least one fails their save. This is something that's killing me playing a Bard currently: exactly ZERO ranged attack spells (and only ONE, mêlée attack spell at 13th level). A spell-focused Bard who doesn't use Magical Secrets to grab an attack spell is literally incapable of benefitting from Advantage, nor can they ever crit.
If you use the Sleep spell, the spell specifically mentions it starts with the creature with the lowest hit points first, then the one with the next highest, and so on. The issue will come if all the targets have the same number of hit points and only one will be able to fall asleep. For that, see “Simultaneous Effects” in Xanathar’s Guide on page 77. If two effects would occur simultaneously (in this case, two creatures trying to fall asleep), then whomever’s turn it is gets to decide the order in which it happens. So in the case of a tie, then the caster will get decide, assuming they cast it on their turn. If Sleep is readied, then whomever’s turn it is when it’s triggered will get to decide. So let’s assume I’m casting Sleep, and I roll a 27 to determine how many people I can put to sleep. There are three valid targets with 5, 13, and 13 current hit points. The creature with 5 hp goes to sleep, and then I get to choose which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. Instead, I ready Sleep if any enemies draw weapons. The creature with 13 hp goes, so I use my reaction to target them with sleep. Like before, the creature with 5 hp goes down first. Since it’s the DM’s turn, the DM gets to decide which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. We’ll say in this case, the DM chooses to have the other creature not taking a turn be affected. He could then have the creature decide to spend it’s action to wake up the other 13 hp creature if he was feeling like a meanie.
I'd like Jim's Magic Missile a lot better if it could hit objects as well as creatures. Otherwise I kinda don't see the point. I will say I'm tickled by the idea of spell royalties and royalty fees as material components. Is Tenser somewhere busy counting all his Tenser Transformation profits? If so, this means Tenser is dealing in 'roids for Wizards and this makes me smile.
That just seems massively worse than regular magic missile, for one, it can miss, and for two, you have 3 chances to just slap yourself to the face instead of actually doing anything useful every time you use it.
The only time I ever thought Blade Ward was useful was to reduce the damage to optimize Armor of Agathys. My Levistus Teifling Hexblade/Redemption Pali used this tactic all the time. I've always wondered if that's how the spell works RAI. It kinda seems a bit exploitive.
Sadly there are better ways to synergyze Agathys than wasting your turn waiting to be hit. Abjuration Wizard's arcane ward is a great example of that, negating the dmg before it even hits agathys' temp hp
Blade Ward is one of the cantrips that gets a big boost in usefulness through the Bladesinger. You can use it as part of your attack once you have Extra Attack. So, if you're concentrating on a spell, any damage you take that gets reduced means a lower CON saving throw.
Fun fact: I ran a quick 5-session campaign once and the druid cast Ice Knife 4 times throughout it. She didn't cause a single point of damage with it, she missed every attack roll and everybody made their saving throws. Sometimes dice just hate your character...
Bane is critically overlooked in my opinion. It is amazing in early campaigns and has often saved my and my allies butts. Story: We were fighting an air elemental and our druid knows i can cast bane and holds his action blight until i casted bane on it. I cast bane it fails its save and then fails again thanks to bane against blight and takes a huge chunk of damage which gave us a 3-4 turn earlier win which would have downed or killed us maybe.
Ice Knife is still great. Target, hit or miss, has to make the dex saving throw as well, so it can end up taking 1d10+2d6 cold if you hit and they fail, or just the 2d6 if you miss and they fail the save. Sleep is pretty clear. It states that it selects targets going by hp with lowest hp first, no pc involvement other than selecting the point of impact. Not sure where you're getting 1 die roll for magic missle. It says it fires 3 darts, and that each dart does 1d4+1 damage. That sounds like a die roll for each dart to me.
It is a pretty good list Ted. I would but Entangle and Faerie Fire too but still you can't include them all. Also I feel like lots of people miss Ice Knife's hit or miss part I guess.
So I just had an idea for a mechanic to replace detect magic. A character that has the spellcasting or pact magic feature as well as characters with proficiency with arcana can attempt to detect magic in their surrounding. To do so they must make a Arcana ability check and meet a DC determined by the DM, powerful and openly displayed magical auras have a low DC while weak and hidden auras are harder to detect. A character with the ritual caster feat can take 10 minutes to sharpen their senses ability to detect magic, this lets them detect magic the same way the spell allows. As said this is just something I came up off the top of my head, but I still kind off like it. It let's spellcasters use other spells since they don't have to prepare detect magic anymore while also expanding this option to characters who don't cast spells themselves. I anticipate that some might not like tying this ability to Intelligence, which is fair but not really a huge problem. Int is overall the least useful ability score so a boost in that regard is always welcome and this change would make perceiving magic a lot like perception in general where all characters can see and hear, but wise characters are just much better at it.
For magic missile, Jeremy Crawford did confirm yes RAW only one die roll, but then said does it really matter if someone wants to roll one for each? No it doesn't. Totally up to the DM/Player
It actually matters. If some ability adds damage to one damage roll it would either increase the damage of one magic missile or all of them, depending on the ruling you use. The difference between +5 damage and +15 damage is huge.
There’s also the reliability of the spells damage when rolled the two different ways. If you roll separate die for each 1d4 the average damage will be 2.5, but the chances of rolling low or high total are drastically skewed toward the average. If you roll a single die for damage the average is still 2.5. your chances of rolling a 1,2,3, or 4 are all each 25%. This makes the one die much more “swingy”.
Of course I understand the math implications. But as the point is about Rules as Intended, and Jeremy Crawford said RAI it doesn't matter which way, the point still stands
@@antongrigoryev6381 I'll take missing the entire point twice for $1000 Alex. The point: RAI (what the designers intend with the rules, only declares by what they say they intend) it doesn't matter which way you decide. Reason: They said that is their intent (definition of RAI) That was the point of my post. Does your statement about that one level 10 ability of one subclass of wizard change what they said or what the RAI is because of that? No. All it means is "there is a potential static damage swing of 10+5 per SL above 1st. So I am choosing to use RAW." A DM could just as easily rule that ability to apply to each dart of the magic missile and let them roll multiple times because they want to.
I've never taken detect magic, but that's because our DM has always allowed arcana rolls to "detect" magic and figure things out about obviously magical things.
It might not be the most powerful spell. But if you've ever wanted your dm to retconn your cartographer's tool proficient character to have amnesia about the existence of maps. Guiding hand can be used to triangulate your location, locate stores, if you can draw a map you can find your way to anywhere on that map, if a building took blueprints to build? you can find any part of the building. Is there a lost civilization on the far reaches of the world and your dm plans on making you crawl a 3 session long dungeon to find the only remaining way of locating it? Take 10 minutes to ritually cast guiding hand.
Actually you're right bless would work on a druid. All you have to say is the nature spirits are blessing the party members. I do want to see a shaman subclass for druids and a Warden from 4e subclass on rangers that focus on sword and board even though Oath of Ancients kinda is the spiritual successor.
Idk....I see detect magic defence more as, people who cast magic know how it feels and can sense magic in the area as a general thing but to pin point what exactly is the source or what school, that would take an action to cast the spell.
magic missile, a spell that has an average of 10,5 is better than Sleep? Sleep is an AOE effect that has an Average of 22,5. it is the single spell that's basically needed to get you out of Tier 1 play, after that, it becomes useless but until then, it's amazing. You also forgot Hunter's Mark and Hex.
Top 5 is fair, I think everyone can agree that those spells are strong. However, there should be the command spell somewhere. I'm willing to debate with anyone saying that command doesn't deserve to be in the top 10. In my opinion, command is more useful than Identify and even healing word.
Fog Cloud is one of the most powerful spells in the game, it can shut down the casting of a few 9th-level spells and can neuter many 20+ CR creatures. It even bypasses the immunity to the blinded condition because it doesn't apply a condition it only effectively blinds you.
about Detect Magic...not every class can do ritual casting by default. I personally think that would be a waste of an ASI for a warlock to grab ritual casting imo.
Warlocks have an invocation to cast Detect Magic at will, even without ritual. And Book warlocks can gen invocation for ritual casting, which is really useful.
Unseen servant is great too, the components are just a splinter of wood and a string of cloth from your own clothing. Perfect for casting from a prison cell, and getting a invisible servant on the other side of the bars is an amazing RP set up.
@@trapical I did that once but I used the unseen servant to make the guard run out of the room so we could all escape I cast unseen servant then minor illusion to make a box I told the guard that this box would teleport me outside the cell and make me invisible, jumped in the " box " mentally ordered servant to grab the crossbow by the door the run out into the hall and jump out the window ( saving grace was we where in a tower so he poofed out before hitting the ground since we rp that it's always the same servant summon and he gets pissy if I killed him the last time summoned) guards gave chase quick mage hand to grab the keys break into the area they had our stuff and off we go
A couple of points on detect magic. 1) If all casters had detect magic with no resource cost then that could very easily equal always on magic radar. No surprise magic traps, no missed illusionary walls. I am pretty sure this is the reason it was not made a cantrip. 2) just because some uses magic does not mean they should be able to detect it. We all drive cars. Some of us even do our own maintenance. But it takes having that little meter thing to plug in and find out why your check engine light is own. Even then you have to know whatv"Code 91B" means.
How is magic missile even on this list? There are better ways to deal damage, and better things for casters to do than to deal mediocre damage. It can be good in rare cases, and really good in obscure fringe cases. What about faery fire? Early game for advantage on rolls, and late game a way for your entire party to see through invisibility. Otherwhise a useful list of spells to consider.
One of the main reasons that I think Warlocks don't get spells like Absorb Elements or Shield is that they are so much less useful on a character with so few spell slots. Reaction spells just feel bad to use when they're half of your spell slots in a fight.
@@NerdImmersion Personally, I think giving Warlock's absorb elements via an invocation would be the best. "Eldritch Resilience: You can cast the Absorb Elements spell a number of times equal to your Charisma Modifier. You regain all expended uses after you finish a long rest." Giving it to them once seems underpowered, but at will definitely seems like a bit much.
@@Treblaine the party has to have ~4 short rests every day to have the "most spells slots" per day (in comparison to a full caster). In my experience that never happens. Maybe in a full dungeon dive where cant get long rests.
Guiding Bolt has soo many fun memories. Our Group was fighting Sahuagin and their priest fired guiding bolt at out Celestial warlock who's resistant to Radiant dealing negligible amount of damage. Warlock looks at priest says my turn and crit hits it with 4th level Guiding bolt.
My Shadar Kai fighter got hit with a finger of death from Halaster Black-cloak and it also did negligible damage (made the save, resistance to necrotic), I tried to be cool and talk smack, I then was hit with a meteor swarm and it knocked me out by 1 hit point he then pulled out my tongue (it got regenerated by a druid later on) and cursed me, now my fighter has a black hand print on his face and rambles like an Insane person if he tries to talk about the time he made the mad mage look foolish. i guess what I'm saying is sometimes you try to do cool stuff and it works other times you fail horribly.
Top spells of maybe the most versatile level and it's 15 instead of 10 and you didn't do a poll. Yeah, you're trying to get the internet mad at you! 😅😂
I have plans to do polls eventually. I'm thinking about a fan created Top 10 Magic Items, using Google Forms. I think that's a thing I can do. When I start getting low on energy/ideas, I'll just poll you all and get you to make up my mind for me :P
@@anthonynorman7545 Agreed, plus the normal version takes up space for other potential spells which is a price all its own. Perhaps it would be like a lesser version of Detect Magic as a feature for everyone, and make the actual spell version more powerful. Idk, it'd take some tweaking for sure but it's an interesting idea.
I'd only have Tasha's if my players actually tell me a joke and make me laugh. But it's ok, cuz I'll literally laugh at ANYTHING. They can throw a pickle and yell DILL WITH IT, and I'll be on the ground. 🥒
Honestly not really a fan of Jim's Magic Missile. To me the greatest thing about default magic missile is that it always hits, which makes it perfect for breaking an enemy caster's concentration. When it comes to multi-attack roll spells my go to is Scorching Ray (I know it's lvl 2)
No Hex ? In my mind one of the best spells in the game extra damage on every hit for an houre plus out of combat use by giving disadvantage on an ability check and there is no save against it so fx. if you don't want I person to lie give them disadvantage on charisma. Also feather fall can save one so much. And protection from good and evil can make hard fights extremely easy. But mostly a good list.
Yah, I agree. You don't get to choose the target using Sleep. And it can be difficult to get it to target only enemies. Definitely great for taking out mobs of enemies.
Sleep is usually a pretty safe spell to use near allies, since the PCs engaging in melee with a lot of low level creatures (which is when you'd most want to use it) should have higher hp than those creatures.
The thing about Jim's Magic Missile is that it's one of the few spells that actually can get _worse_ as you upcast it. Upcasting it means more missiles, which means a higher chance of rolling a nat1 on at least one missile, which blows up all of the missiles and wastes the spell slot and action.
I love Detect Magic, and now my Wizard can get it as Eldritch Adept and I'm so happy. Her whole thing was that when she was young she has Sherlock vision for magic and nature and stuff, and I can flavor this as the heightening of that innate ability to just grok the weave
@@evaahh9584 it's as useful as a potion of healing in most combats, if you need to bring someone back up into the action. Not to mention that it can be a literal life safer after combat 10 times per casting.
As a new player playing a Cleric, my favorite and constantly used 1st spells (besides Cure Wounds) is Bless/Bane. I've made the GM lose her mind many of times because she forgets to take that d4 penalty and then misses her action.
Starts to compete with the excellent spirit guardians for your concentration later on. However they are all indeed great. Cleric just has a great low level spell list allround. With healing word, guiding bolt, inflict wounds, detect magic as a ritual as other stand outs.
I'm not a fan of Ice Knife, because splitting up the effects of the spell between an attack roll and a saving throw means you lose out on some of the benefits of either when using it in actual scenarios. You can only crit on part of it, and any bonuses from cover that enemies have will be granting them a +2 or +5 on both their AC and their Dex save. Cold damage isn't as bad as fire, but... it's pretty close. While 64 monsters are immune to fire and only 28 are immune to cold, 83 monsters are resistant to fire and an impressive 103 monsters are resistant to cold. And finally the scaling by 1d6 isn't very impressive. It's the sort of spell that I know I'll never cast after level 5. Identify & Detect Magic are great on Artificers because they're prepared half-casters with ritual casting. Early on when Artificer is pretty weak, (2-3 spell slots per long rest for multiple levels when you're supposed to be acting more like a caster than a martial suuuuuuucks) being able to get use out of ritual spells really helps you to keep feeling relevant and useful. They're also very fun ones to re-flavor :)
I'm really surprised to see Sleep on this list when it falls off pretty hard outside of extremely low level encounters and not to have Bane on the list.
I love putting Burning Hands as the thumbnail and not putting it on the list. 3d6 to every creature in a 15 foot cone definitely ain't better than every spell on here, but you knew that which is why you used it as a troll thumbnail. Unsubscribed
@@NerdImmersion It's hard to argue with Crawford, however, I shall try RAI since he avoided making any RAI determination stating "it doesn't matter", but if a class ability can be activated under one interpretation, but not the other, then it DOES matter... The examples he is siting are AoE spells, not a "targeted" spell like Eldritch Blast or Scorching Ray which allows multiple targets; It's not one Dart hitting multiple tagets, it's multiple Darts. So, would Eldritch Blast or Scorching Ray be a single damage roll for all targets as well? I feel like this is in serious need of a Sage Advice...
@@moquips I don't think this make sence either. The spell clearly states that there is a dmg for every single missile. So I allow my players to roll for every single one. And nobody can change my mind. I think that if players use creativity for the use of spell dmg boosting there is no need to punish them for it. And if they think of anything "broken"? Hell, I am a DM, and I can make "broken" encounters that will challenge their ideas.
@@88predy I think you missed my point. I agree that each missile SHOULD have a damage roll, and yes, you as the DM can rule however you want and creativity should be rewarded. That is what Homebrew is all about... The point I was making (or trying to make) is that there seems to be an inconsistency in how the rule is SUPPOSED to work, and thus needs further clarification
@@moquips I agree. The difference in the description of Scorching Ray and Magic Missile is that Scorching Ray requires an attack roll while Magic Missile doesn't. "Each missile does 1d4+1 damage". If they meant to say that all darts make the same amount of damage, they should simply have done so. It seems to me that Crawford didn't really take the time to address this. I will continue to have separate rolls for each dart.
When I was playing a Druid in an adventure league game, ice knife was by far my favorite spell. The exploding effect was insanely helpful when well aimed.
Why would one have to wait for the familiar's turn to use its reaction? Reactions can occur outside of one's turn which is how early rogues can get 2 sneak attacks in one round.
You don't have to wait the familiar just needs to be in position, the familiar needs to be touching the creature you want to cast a spell on, if it is touching said creature on your turn you can do it otherwise not, most people will hold a spell until the familiars turn so the familiar (an Owl is the best for this) can fly in (or crawl, slither etc...) touch the creature letting you cast your spell through the familiar and (if it is an Owl) fly away without an attack of opportunity. It is about waiting for the familiar to be in a position so you can cast a spell through it, an enemy needs to leave your reach for you to get an attack of opportunity on it, a familiar needs to be touching a creature for you to cast a spell with a range of touch through it and the familiar can only move on its turn, unless you just want to leave it right next to an enemy and hope it doesn't get squished (which it probably will). a reaction occurs when certain criteria are met if your Owl is on your shoulder it can't cast inflict wounds on the Orc 30 feet away can it? But if you hold inflict wounds until your familiar is touching said Orc . . . Like, for example when on your familiars turn it can move to the Orc the spell then goes off and the familiar returns to you.
There is one thing I don't like about Find Familiar, and that's that it is only available to Wizards (except Pact of the Chain Warlocks and the Druid optional features in Tasha's Cauldron). I wish it was possible to get this spell with other classes, like Sorcerer, without multiclassing or taking Magic Initiate.
I disagree on the magic missile.. it states "each dart hits..." followed by "a dart deals 1d4+1 damage"... it implies a roll for each dart, similar to other multi target speels like eldrich blast and scorching ray.. and not like area spells that deal X damage to all targets.. of course, the bonus of magic missile is replacing the expected attack roll (and a chance of crits) with automatic hitting the target and being countered by "shield".. was the intent on rolling once for all missiles, they should make it more clear (and on beyound, the text is the same as on the book). ...yet, as google pointed me to a tweet.. and we well know.. it is up to a GM, on stating how to deal with this... I keep it as before, rolling one d4 for each dart.
Warlock is generally not a very elemental based caster. they are an evil, death, mind, and lifeforce related caster. this is why they lose out on access to a lot of the pure elemental spells. Sometimes they get cold damage spells to reflect the chill of the grave such as with Armor of Agathys, but generally speaking, I think it fits their flavor that they aren't given all the elemental spells directly, and this is as someone who is currently playing and loves warlocks.
The other great part about Find Familiar is you don't even need line of sight to teleport your familiar to a location. The spell says you can summon it (with just an action) to any location within 30 feet. This means you can blink it into existence on the other side of walls, or inside locked buildings. It's a bit broken with how well it can bypass high DC locks and get recon on things. That being said, be careful not to step on the toes of your rogue. If you have a rogue in your party, let them do the sneaking and the recon, don't hog the spotlight. Or the other fun synergy you can do is lend them your familiar, have it sit on their shoulder while they sneak around. You can then look through it's eyes and report back to the group what the rogue is doing/seeing. This leaves the agency and the sneaking decisions to the rogue, but lets your familiar contribute in a helpful passive sort of way.
I agree with you on sleep. You dont get to choose the creatures Fun thought, if you're surrounded, you could try to sleep the enemies around you, but you'll risk putting yourself to sleep
Editing is getting tighter, loved the thumbnail. Drop the bit, you put out content often there's no need to think of some cornball air filler in the two seconds it takes for your logo to play and I think you will have ascended, imo. Great content either way.
I almost completely agree with your top 6, and that's roughly the order that I would put them in, too. I would probably drop Magic Missile down to #7 and put Dissonant Whispers at #8 right next to it, but I would leave the rest of your top 6 in that order. And I would find room for Hex in the top 6, maybe in Magic Missile's slot at #3 (and give honorable mention to Hunter's Mark when talking about Hex). I think any Warlock will tell you that Armor of Agathys is one of their better spells, but that if they had to choose just one level 1 spell from their spell list, it would be Hex. According to Sage Advice, you can maintain concentration on a spell during a short rest or long rest as long as you don't sleep (a good reason to choose the Aspect of the Moon invocation if you're a level 9+ Tomelock with a 24 hour duration on Hex). You had a pretty good top 15 list, but I think that Mage Armor and Feather Fall (because of the utility it provides once you learn to fly in a few levels) should also be on that list. I just can't imagine a Sorcerer (except for Draconic Ancestry Sorcerer) or Wizard without mage armor, fly, and feather fall.
@@nnickplays9713 only blind/tremor sense can see through it so basically all attacks have advantage and disadvantage cancelled whilst preventing many spells
Anthony Norman Tremorsense gives a creature the ability to know a creatures location based on vibrations. it does not let them “see” a creature the way regular sight, darkvision, blindsight, or truesight does.
I know this video is about 1st levels but I learned that banishing smite works with all weapons like bows and guns so that’s cool to see that theirs a ranged smite.
A Levistus Tiefling Blue Dragon Sorcerer is fun too ! Pick ice damage + crowd control (slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm, etc.), it's pretty crippling ..slowing down enemies and hitting them with a less commonly resisted damage type than fire or poison. It's also just fun thematically !
Healing Word is only available for full casters right now, decreasing their effectiveness of action spells to cantrips. Giving extra attack half casters this spell is a bad idea. Identify's normal casting time is 1 minute. I don't feel like NPC's would let you cast it on them easily. I expected Hex to be on the list. Completely agree with Find Familiar of course.
currently playing my first bard and have had three games. in the last two I used whispers to kill the wizard that was about to attack us, before is barely lifted a finger, and on the third I got a large sea serpent to move away for a round to give everyone time to recover a bit.
Dissonant whispers “On a failed save, it takes 3d6 psychic damage and must immediately use its reaction, if available, to move as far as its speed allows away from you.” Opportunity attacks “You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction.” Dissonant whispers makes you use your movement to move yourself and makes you use your reaction to do so.
You indeed can't directly choose what creatures are impacted by Sleep. As with any AoE you can be fiddly with your positioning to try to only hit enemies, airburst it 19 feet over a high HP thing's head so it's the only thing in range for instance to try to take it down without taking down anyone else nearby
@7:15 combining this spell with the warcaster feat and the pole arm master feat lets you cast a spell on someone when they enter your reach. What better spell to use than this one, which can force them to run away.
I would take out the Jim's MM as an offshoot thing and put in Shield of Faith. Other than that can't really say there would be any that are significantly better than the ones on the list, and the JMM is also really good, but I just can't really see the themed books being something that should be implemented to every game. There is a thin line between "Lol I'm BATMAN!" and "Lol I'm "
Ah most of these spells i'm like.. "ALchemist probably should've had that.. they can't be a main healer with their current stuff... adding that spell woud let them be a buffer/debuffer/actual healer" (bless and Prayer of healing being the big notes to me)
I like to give a honorable mention to Hex, not as a spell a wartlock casts with their spell slots but from a spell scroll, keep in mind that it has no save so the lower Dc from the scroll not going to effect it here. disadvantage on the right ability check can help someone on your team like a rouge hiding from someone in combat for that sneak attack or the fighter grabing someone and so on, and the 1d6 necrotic per attack helps a lot with Eldritch Blast and can last up to 2 hours, moving from target if your killing them, the most you get out a lv1 spell scroll.
I've always found it really lazy when DM's allow Goodberry spam. The fluff on it says "Nourishment for 1 day". Shoving 10 berries to heal 10 HP means you're eating the equivalent of 30 meals (or 10 meals if you wanna go with the whole "One meal a day is enough to keep you kicking" argument which in all honesty is stupid, these are adventurers. They *need* 3 meals a day), which is without a doubt not healthy at all.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Bane, Shield of Faith and circumstantially Goodberry are all good candidates for the top 15 as well. Shield of Faith is a personal favorite at any level of the game really. Goodberry on a Life Cleric (Magic Initiate or Multiclass, either works) heals an sweet 40 total by the way.
I cannot count the times command has come in clutch. Non-concentration? Check. Up cast for multiple targets? Check. Ability to move mobs closer or further away? Check. Make a mom drop the big shiny axe of player killing? Check. Room for player creativity and fun like forcing mobs to dance? Check. Holy smokes you mean to tell me it can do all this AND force the creature to ends its turn without do ANYTHING else resulting in efficient action economy? Sure tey can't be undead and have to share a language but I mean command deserves some love.
Magic missile says you make 3 darts, it also says that A DART deals 1d4+1 force damage to ITS target. Why would you not roll the damage separately, especially if you choose different targets? Im kinda confused. Please help
About Armor of Agathys. There is a Dragonmarked Dwarf race which gets Armor of Agathys added to thier spell lists if there are casters. Team that with being an Abjuration Wizard and you're a pretty tanky wizard. Casting it adds to your shield, which stacks with the Temp HP. Team that with Fire Shield later and you could make a fun Muscle Mage
I quibble with armor of agathys. Yes, it's a first level spell, but it's really only useful when upcast. I'd put Hex/Hunter's Mark in its place, as defining damaging features for their class (and we can put them both on the same line, since they're basically the same thing).
My personal favourite damaging spell at 1st level is catapult. Magical bludgeoning damage and because of the wording if you have multiple people in the line, if the first enemy makes the save the second has to make the save. If you can line up more than 2 enemy's your basically guaranteed to hit someone. Added bonus is the 3d8 damage and essentially 150ft range
Armor of Agathy's is almost a goto for a Hexblade at early lvls... The extra hp is always nice and at lower lvl, and as written while you have these t.hp you deal x damage to what attacked you. Forced upcasting as a hexblade at lvl 3 means you get potential 10/10 but a lot of monsters you will face at lvl 3 will not take 10 hp in one hit meaning you get 20 cold dmg out of a lvl 1 spell and 10 damage mitigated.... that is HUGE at lvl 3.
Find Familiar + Arcane Trickster is insane. Depennding on how you di Familiar's initiative, if you ready its Help action for when you make an attack, you can hit the target and then use bonus action to disengage and move away without your familiar provoking an OA if it rides on your shoulder, because RAW Opportunity Attacks are only provoked when a creature uses its action, movement or reaction to move out of an enemy's reach - you're using your movement to move your familiar. Arcane Trickster's don't need owls which is great to minimise meta gaming and allows more varied RP opportunities.
People are gonna be annoyed that burning hands isn't there (luckily I don't really like burning hands). Also, I think Faerie fire deserves a spot. It can give advantage against creatures that are usually invisible. You have quite a lot of damaging spells, which actually makes each damaging spell individually less significant. No matter what the rest is, faerie fire is useful no matter what other 1st level spells.
My first character was a dragonborn sorcerer. My DM had regrets giving our party a magic item that grants +1 AC and a free casting of Shield per long rest, combined with my character knowing the spell. ... My sorcerer was our tank.
I like the detect magic rule. I agree that you do not get to choose the targets for sleep. And I have a homebrew rule for Jim's magic missile: If you crit hit BEFORE you crit fail, the crit missile still strikes the target, but each other missile of the fail and after does 2 points of damage per missile when they explode in your face.
No ted, it’s not boomeranging with healing word, it’s yo-yo-ing. You go down and you come back up again. You down and then come back up again. My party barely made it fighting against a tile chimera thanks to this 😂
I'm not happy with this. (I haven't actually gone through the list, I'm just here to prompt the algorithm.)
bless
I'd add Bane, reducing enemies saving throws and attacks is as good as what bless does, only downside is that they can save against the initial cast of Bane. However, unlike Bless you rarely need to upcast this so it is a great use of a 1st level spell slot even at higher levels.
In theory, Bane holds its own at higher levels. Until you start fighting higher level monsters with high saves. It doesn't lose *all* it's usefulness, to be sure. But there are a good number of high-CR monsters out there with really high Charisma scores. Most of the time, at higher levels, you're better off avoiding "save or suck" spells, because they get progressively less reliable. And they approach futility when it comes to legendary creatures. What really keeps Bane in the game is that it affects 3 (or more) opponents, so there's a decent chance at least one fails their save.
This is something that's killing me playing a Bard currently: exactly ZERO ranged attack spells (and only ONE, mêlée attack spell at 13th level). A spell-focused Bard who doesn't use Magical Secrets to grab an attack spell is literally incapable of benefitting from Advantage, nor can they ever crit.
If you use the Sleep spell, the spell specifically mentions it starts with the creature with the lowest hit points first, then the one with the next highest, and so on. The issue will come if all the targets have the same number of hit points and only one will be able to fall asleep. For that, see “Simultaneous Effects” in Xanathar’s Guide on page 77. If two effects would occur simultaneously (in this case, two creatures trying to fall asleep), then whomever’s turn it is gets to decide the order in which it happens. So in the case of a tie, then the caster will get decide, assuming they cast it on their turn. If Sleep is readied, then whomever’s turn it is when it’s triggered will get to decide.
So let’s assume I’m casting Sleep, and I roll a 27 to determine how many people I can put to sleep. There are three valid targets with 5, 13, and 13 current hit points. The creature with 5 hp goes to sleep, and then I get to choose which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. Instead, I ready Sleep if any enemies draw weapons. The creature with 13 hp goes, so I use my reaction to target them with sleep. Like before, the creature with 5 hp goes down first. Since it’s the DM’s turn, the DM gets to decide which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. We’ll say in this case, the DM chooses to have the other creature not taking a turn be affected. He could then have the creature decide to spend it’s action to wake up the other 13 hp creature if he was feeling like a meanie.
I'd like Jim's Magic Missile a lot better if it could hit objects as well as creatures. Otherwise I kinda don't see the point.
I will say I'm tickled by the idea of spell royalties and royalty fees as material components.
Is Tenser somewhere busy counting all his Tenser Transformation profits?
If so, this means Tenser is dealing in 'roids for Wizards and this makes me smile.
Rolling for attack is fun. That's it.
He is carrying all that loot on a floating disk
No, because Tenser's transformation is a garbage spell for trash casters which I assume means Tenser was some sort of Raccoon person.
That just seems massively worse than regular magic missile, for one, it can miss, and for two, you have 3 chances to just slap yourself to the face instead of actually doing anything useful every time you use it.
The only time I ever thought Blade Ward was useful was to reduce the damage to optimize Armor of Agathys. My Levistus Teifling Hexblade/Redemption Pali used this tactic all the time. I've always wondered if that's how the spell works RAI. It kinda seems a bit exploitive.
It sorta makes sense for Eldritch Knight using War Magic.
Sadly there are better ways to synergyze Agathys than wasting your turn waiting to be hit. Abjuration Wizard's arcane ward is a great example of that, negating the dmg before it even hits agathys' temp hp
Blade Ward is one of the cantrips that gets a big boost in usefulness through the Bladesinger. You can use it as part of your attack once you have Extra Attack. So, if you're concentrating on a spell, any damage you take that gets reduced means a lower CON saving throw.
These videos are getting better, I appreciate your output.
Fun fact: I ran a quick 5-session campaign once and the druid cast Ice Knife 4 times throughout it. She didn't cause a single point of damage with it, she missed every attack roll and everybody made their saving throws. Sometimes dice just hate your character...
The group I DM for decided that casting sleep in the middle of a sprinting crowd of civilians was a good idea. Manslaugther charge, accquired
Bane is critically overlooked in my opinion. It is amazing in early campaigns and has often saved my and my allies butts. Story: We were fighting an air elemental and our druid knows i can cast bane and holds his action blight until i casted bane on it. I cast bane it fails its save and then fails again thanks to bane against blight and takes a huge chunk of damage which gave us a 3-4 turn earlier win which would have downed or killed us maybe.
I haven't watched the last few videos but DAMN this new camera is nice.
Funnily enough, not a new camera! Just took this webcam off auto settings and added more light
Wait. am I just noticing a TCRI tube... is that legit a TMNT prop? man, you've got some of the coolest stuff.
it is!
@@NerdImmersion if you havent already, i'd love to see a video of all the neat stuff youve got on display.
Once I get everything finalized in the basement a tour is definitely planned
Ice Knife is still great. Target, hit or miss, has to make the dex saving throw as well, so it can end up taking 1d10+2d6 cold if you hit and they fail, or just the 2d6 if you miss and they fail the save. Sleep is pretty clear. It states that it selects targets going by hp with lowest hp first, no pc involvement other than selecting the point of impact. Not sure where you're getting 1 die roll for magic missle. It says it fires 3 darts, and that each dart does 1d4+1 damage. That sounds like a die roll for each dart to me.
It is a pretty good list Ted. I would but Entangle and Faerie Fire too but still you can't include them all. Also I feel like lots of people miss Ice Knife's hit or miss part I guess.
I was reading down his list in the video description and was thinking... "there better be find familiar or I'm going.... ah, there we go."
So I just had an idea for a mechanic to replace detect magic.
A character that has the spellcasting or pact magic feature as well as characters with proficiency with arcana can attempt to detect magic in their surrounding.
To do so they must make a Arcana ability check and meet a DC determined by the DM, powerful and openly displayed magical auras have a low DC while weak and hidden auras are harder to detect. A character with the ritual caster feat can take 10 minutes to sharpen their senses ability to detect magic, this lets them detect magic the same way the spell allows.
As said this is just something I came up off the top of my head, but I still kind off like it. It let's spellcasters use other spells since they don't have to prepare detect magic anymore while also expanding this option to characters who don't cast spells themselves. I anticipate that some might not like tying this ability to Intelligence, which is fair but not really a huge problem. Int is overall the least useful ability score so a boost in that regard is always welcome and this change would make perceiving magic a lot like perception in general where all characters can see and hear, but wise characters are just much better at it.
For magic missile, Jeremy Crawford did confirm yes RAW only one die roll, but then said does it really matter if someone wants to roll one for each? No it doesn't. Totally up to the DM/Player
It actually matters. If some ability adds damage to one damage roll it would either increase the damage of one magic missile or all of them, depending on the ruling you use. The difference between +5 damage and +15 damage is huge.
There’s also the reliability of the spells damage when rolled the two different ways.
If you roll separate die for each 1d4 the average damage will be 2.5, but the chances of rolling low or high total are drastically skewed toward the average.
If you roll a single die for damage the average is still 2.5. your chances of rolling a 1,2,3, or 4 are all each 25%. This makes the one die much more “swingy”.
Of course I understand the math implications. But as the point is about Rules as Intended, and Jeremy Crawford said RAI it doesn't matter which way, the point still stands
@@LandonTheDM Again, it matters if you have something that adds damage to a single roll, like Evocation wizard's ability.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I'll take missing the entire point twice for $1000 Alex.
The point: RAI (what the designers intend with the rules, only declares by what they say they intend) it doesn't matter which way you decide. Reason: They said that is their intent (definition of RAI)
That was the point of my post. Does your statement about that one level 10 ability of one subclass of wizard change what they said or what the RAI is because of that? No. All it means is "there is a potential static damage swing of 10+5 per SL above 1st. So I am choosing to use RAW."
A DM could just as easily rule that ability to apply to each dart of the magic missile and let them roll multiple times because they want to.
Magic Missile is great to screw with hostile casters - you can force three concentration saving throws.
I've never taken detect magic, but that's because our DM has always allowed arcana rolls to "detect" magic and figure things out about obviously magical things.
It might not be the most powerful spell. But if you've ever wanted your dm to retconn your cartographer's tool proficient character to have amnesia about the existence of maps. Guiding hand can be used to triangulate your location, locate stores, if you can draw a map you can find your way to anywhere on that map, if a building took blueprints to build? you can find any part of the building. Is there a lost civilization on the far reaches of the world and your dm plans on making you crawl a 3 session long dungeon to find the only remaining way of locating it? Take 10 minutes to ritually cast guiding hand.
Actually you're right bless would work on a druid. All you have to say is the nature spirits are blessing the party members. I do want to see a shaman subclass for druids and a Warden from 4e subclass on rangers that focus on sword and board even though Oath of Ancients kinda is the spiritual successor.
With Ice Knife my group once had a group of enemies around a table. I cast it on the table.
Idk....I see detect magic defence more as, people who cast magic know how it feels and can sense magic in the area as a general thing but to pin point what exactly is the source or what school, that would take an action to cast the spell.
Had a blind witch whose familiar was a bat. She used it's blindsight like Daredevil.
magic missile, a spell that has an average of 10,5 is better than Sleep? Sleep is an AOE effect that has an Average of 22,5. it is the single spell that's basically needed to get you out of Tier 1 play, after that, it becomes useless but until then, it's amazing. You also forgot Hunter's Mark and Hex.
Top 5 is fair, I think everyone can agree that those spells are strong. However, there should be the command spell somewhere. I'm willing to debate with anyone saying that command doesn't deserve to be in the top 10. In my opinion, command is more useful than Identify and even healing word.
Fog Cloud is one of the most powerful spells in the game, it can shut down the casting of a few 9th-level spells and can neuter many 20+ CR creatures. It even bypasses the immunity to the blinded condition because it doesn't apply a condition it only effectively blinds you.
Just had a character murderlize a retreating quickling at first level with magic missile.
about Detect Magic...not every class can do ritual casting by default. I personally think that would be a waste of an ASI for a warlock to grab ritual casting imo.
Warlocks have an invocation to cast Detect Magic at will, even without ritual. And Book warlocks can gen invocation for ritual casting, which is really useful.
Thanks for this
True strike = when your wizard is too lazy to roll attack twice!
Ice knife is the perfect prison break spell for a non druid since you always can find a drop of water even if they take your components
Unseen servant is great too, the components are just a splinter of wood and a string of cloth from your own clothing. Perfect for casting from a prison cell, and getting a invisible servant on the other side of the bars is an amazing RP set up.
@@trapical I did that once but I used the unseen servant to make the guard run out of the room so we could all escape I cast unseen servant then minor illusion to make a box I told the guard that this box would teleport me outside the cell and make me invisible, jumped in the " box " mentally ordered servant to grab the crossbow by the door the run out into the hall and jump out the window ( saving grace was we where in a tower so he poofed out before hitting the ground since we rp that it's always the same servant summon and he gets pissy if I killed him the last time summoned) guards gave chase quick mage hand to grab the keys break into the area they had our stuff and off we go
Where does it say armor of agathys stops dealing damage when the spell breaks?
If a creature hits you with a melee attack *while you have these hit points*, the creature takes 5 cold damage.
@@NerdImmersion yeah, thanks, there were a few people who quoted it wrong when I 1st heard about it, sorry.
Good.
A couple of points on detect magic.
1) If all casters had detect magic with no resource cost then that could very easily equal always on magic radar. No surprise magic traps, no missed illusionary walls. I am pretty sure this is the reason it was not made a cantrip.
2) just because some uses magic does not mean they should be able to detect it. We all drive cars. Some of us even do our own maintenance. But it takes having that little meter thing to plug in and find out why your check engine light is own. Even then you have to know whatv"Code 91B" means.
How is magic missile even on this list? There are better ways to deal damage, and better things for casters to do than to deal mediocre damage. It can be good in rare cases, and really good in obscure fringe cases.
What about faery fire? Early game for advantage on rolls, and late game a way for your entire party to see through invisibility.
Otherwhise a useful list of spells to consider.
One of the main reasons that I think Warlocks don't get spells like Absorb Elements or Shield is that they are so much less useful on a character with so few spell slots. Reaction spells just feel bad to use when they're half of your spell slots in a fight.
Yet they're the only class that gets hellish rebuke
@@NerdImmersion Personally, I think giving Warlock's absorb elements via an invocation would be the best. "Eldritch Resilience: You can cast the Absorb Elements spell a number of times equal to your Charisma Modifier. You regain all expended uses after you finish a long rest." Giving it to them once seems underpowered, but at will definitely seems like a bit much.
Depends, if your party rests after every fight Warlock has the most spell slots to use.
@@Treblaine the party has to have ~4 short rests every day to have the "most spells slots" per day (in comparison to a full caster). In my experience that never happens. Maybe in a full dungeon dive where cant get long rests.
@@Treblaine coughdruidofthelandcough
Ted looks like vacation did him good
Guiding Bolt has soo many fun memories.
Our Group was fighting Sahuagin and their priest fired guiding bolt at out Celestial warlock who's resistant to Radiant dealing negligible amount of damage. Warlock looks at priest says my turn and crit hits it with 4th level Guiding bolt.
Uno reverse card! NO U!
My Shadar Kai fighter got hit with a finger of death from Halaster Black-cloak and it also did negligible damage (made the save, resistance to necrotic), I tried to be cool and talk smack, I then was hit with a meteor swarm and it knocked me out by 1 hit point he then pulled out my tongue (it got regenerated by a druid later on) and cursed me, now my fighter has a black hand print on his face and rambles like an Insane person if he tries to talk about the time he made the mad mage look foolish.
i guess what I'm saying is sometimes you try to do cool stuff and it works other times you fail horribly.
Twin Guiding Bolt as a Divine Soul sorc. sooo good.
Top spells of maybe the most versatile level and it's 15 instead of 10 and you didn't do a poll. Yeah, you're trying to get the internet mad at you! 😅😂
I have plans to do polls eventually. I'm thinking about a fan created Top 10 Magic Items, using Google Forms. I think that's a thing I can do. When I start getting low on energy/ideas, I'll just poll you all and get you to make up my mind for me :P
@@NerdImmersion I was teasing lol but good idea
Interesting take on Detect Magic. I'll definitely take some of that into consideration in the future...
Right, but doesn't the ritual aspect take away from wizards and cause some confusion with that being other casters only ritual?
@@anthonynorman7545 Agreed, plus the normal version takes up space for other potential spells which is a price all its own. Perhaps it would be like a lesser version of Detect Magic as a feature for everyone, and make the actual spell version more powerful. Idk, it'd take some tweaking for sure but it's an interesting idea.
It's so a must that my bard is pondering of taking the Drow High Magic talent at 8th level.
I like pathfinder 2e's detect magic which is a cantrip instead of a 1st
@@anthonynorman7545 It's worth noting that only casters that have the ritual casting feature can cast it as a ritual.
Tasha's hideous laughter feels like a pretty big omission from this list.
So is Thunderwave, which is the best first level damage spell, instead he put in meme spells like Jim's Magic Missile...
one might even say it is laughable to have a top 1st lvl spells list and not put tasha's into it
I'd only have Tasha's if my players actually tell me a joke and make me laugh. But it's ok, cuz I'll literally laugh at ANYTHING. They can throw a pickle and yell DILL WITH IT, and I'll be on the ground. 🥒
Klaital1 really? I thought inflict wounds dealt more damage on a one on one fight...
Yeah, but that’s more because stupid puns are fun to abuse...
Honestly not really a fan of Jim's Magic Missile. To me the greatest thing about default magic missile is that it always hits, which makes it perfect for breaking an enemy caster's concentration.
When it comes to multi-attack roll spells my go to is Scorching Ray (I know it's lvl 2)
No Hex ? In my mind one of the best spells in the game extra damage on every hit for an houre plus out of combat use by giving disadvantage on an ability check and there is no save against it so fx. if you don't want I person to lie give them disadvantage on charisma.
Also feather fall can save one so much.
And protection from good and evil can make hard fights extremely easy.
But mostly a good list.
No Faerie Fire?
Yah, I agree. You don't get to choose the target using Sleep. And it can be difficult to get it to target only enemies. Definitely great for taking out mobs of enemies.
Never had problems since iz always targets the creature with least hp first
Maybe if they all have the same hp?
Sleep is usually a pretty safe spell to use near allies, since the PCs engaging in melee with a lot of low level creatures (which is when you'd most want to use it) should have higher hp than those creatures.
The thing about Jim's Magic Missile is that it's one of the few spells that actually can get _worse_ as you upcast it. Upcasting it means more missiles, which means a higher chance of rolling a nat1 on at least one missile, which blows up all of the missiles and wastes the spell slot and action.
I love Detect Magic, and now my Wizard can get it as Eldritch Adept and I'm so happy. Her whole thing was that when she was young she has Sherlock vision for magic and nature and stuff, and I can flavor this as the heightening of that innate ability to just grok the weave
First reaction I had was... are there even 15 good level 1 spells?
Then I saw you didn't put goodberry, and that spells is amazing.
He did mention good berry when he mentioned healing word
Dilson Camacho eh, it’s pretty useless in combat given it takes an action to eat 1 berry
@@evaahh9584 it's as useful as a potion of healing in most combats, if you need to bring someone back up into the action. Not to mention that it can be a literal life safer after combat 10 times per casting.
As a new player playing a Cleric, my favorite and constantly used 1st spells (besides Cure Wounds) is Bless/Bane. I've made the GM lose her mind many of times because she forgets to take that d4 penalty and then misses her action.
Starts to compete with the excellent spirit guardians for your concentration later on. However they are all indeed great. Cleric just has a great low level spell list allround. With healing word, guiding bolt, inflict wounds, detect magic as a ritual as other stand outs.
I'm not a fan of Ice Knife, because splitting up the effects of the spell between an attack roll and a saving throw means you lose out on some of the benefits of either when using it in actual scenarios. You can only crit on part of it, and any bonuses from cover that enemies have will be granting them a +2 or +5 on both their AC and their Dex save. Cold damage isn't as bad as fire, but... it's pretty close. While 64 monsters are immune to fire and only 28 are immune to cold, 83 monsters are resistant to fire and an impressive 103 monsters are resistant to cold. And finally the scaling by 1d6 isn't very impressive. It's the sort of spell that I know I'll never cast after level 5.
Identify & Detect Magic are great on Artificers because they're prepared half-casters with ritual casting. Early on when Artificer is pretty weak, (2-3 spell slots per long rest for multiple levels when you're supposed to be acting more like a caster than a martial suuuuuuucks) being able to get use out of ritual spells really helps you to keep feeling relevant and useful. They're also very fun ones to re-flavor :)
The only spell I have successfully done zero damage on multiple times. Ice knife.
Ice knife still does its explosion damage even if it misses .
@@ventrue7 But if every enemy in the explosion succeeds on their saving throw, the spell literally does zero damage.
I'm really surprised to see Sleep on this list when it falls off pretty hard outside of extremely low level encounters and not to have Bane on the list.
Absorb elements really said “thunder damage instead of poison” to make it great against 4/5 of the chromatic dragons
Might have something to do with poison not being 'elemental 'damage.
Timestaps are a nice addition to the lists.
I've had timestamps in the descriptions of all my Top 10s for months now. I like the addition of Chapters though through RUclips
@Nerd Immersion , yes i meant the chapters in the video player. I didn’t know the proper word and said timestamps.
I initially didn’t take shield as a wizard noob, it was sooo worth it to take it instead of a lvl 2 spell.
You can always find another wizard and ask if you can get it from his spell book. Boom copy it
I love putting Burning Hands as the thumbnail and not putting it on the list. 3d6 to every creature in a 15 foot cone definitely ain't better than every spell on here, but you knew that which is why you used it as a troll thumbnail. Unsubscribed
I think maybe what they meant by “You can choose who you sleep” was referring to if the creature’s affected are tied for hit points.
HOLD ON! What is this about only rolling once for Magic Missile? I need to hear the argument for this, because that makes ZERO sense to me...
twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/774030989894955008?s=19
@@NerdImmersion It's hard to argue with Crawford, however, I shall try RAI since he avoided making any RAI determination stating "it doesn't matter", but if a class ability can be activated under one interpretation, but not the other, then it DOES matter... The examples he is siting are AoE spells, not a "targeted" spell like Eldritch Blast or Scorching Ray which allows multiple targets; It's not one Dart hitting multiple tagets, it's multiple Darts. So, would Eldritch Blast or Scorching Ray be a single damage roll for all targets as well? I feel like this is in serious need of a Sage Advice...
@@moquips I don't think this make sence either. The spell clearly states that there is a dmg for every single missile. So I allow my players to roll for every single one. And nobody can change my mind. I think that if players use creativity for the use of spell dmg boosting there is no need to punish them for it. And if they think of anything "broken"? Hell, I am a DM, and I can make "broken" encounters that will challenge their ideas.
@@88predy I think you missed my point. I agree that each missile SHOULD have a damage roll, and yes, you as the DM can rule however you want and creativity should be rewarded. That is what Homebrew is all about... The point I was making (or trying to make) is that there seems to be an inconsistency in how the rule is SUPPOSED to work, and thus needs further clarification
@@moquips I agree. The difference in the description of Scorching Ray and Magic Missile is that Scorching Ray requires an attack roll while Magic Missile doesn't. "Each missile does 1d4+1 damage". If they meant to say that all darts make the same amount of damage, they should simply have done so. It seems to me that Crawford didn't really take the time to address this. I will continue to have separate rolls for each dart.
When I was playing a Druid in an adventure league game, ice knife was by far my favorite spell. The exploding effect was insanely helpful when well aimed.
Why would one have to wait for the familiar's turn to use its reaction? Reactions can occur outside of one's turn which is how early rogues can get 2 sneak attacks in one round.
You don't have to wait the familiar just needs to be in position, the familiar needs to be touching the creature you want to cast a spell on, if it is touching said creature on your turn you can do it otherwise not, most people will hold a spell until the familiars turn so the familiar (an Owl is the best for this) can fly in (or crawl, slither etc...) touch the creature letting you cast your spell through the familiar and (if it is an Owl) fly away without an attack of opportunity. It is about waiting for the familiar to be in a position so you can cast a spell through it, an enemy needs to leave your reach for you to get an attack of opportunity on it, a familiar needs to be touching a creature for you to cast a spell with a range of touch through it and the familiar can only move on its turn, unless you just want to leave it right next to an enemy and hope it doesn't get squished (which it probably will). a reaction occurs when certain criteria are met if your Owl is on your shoulder it can't cast inflict wounds on the Orc 30 feet away can it? But if you hold inflict wounds until your familiar is touching said Orc . . . Like, for example when on your familiars turn it can move to the Orc the spell then goes off and the familiar returns to you.
@@thefracturedbutwhole5475 correct
You always have different spells on your lists than other RUclipsrs. Great stuff :D
There is one thing I don't like about Find Familiar, and that's that it is only available to Wizards (except Pact of the Chain Warlocks and the Druid optional features in Tasha's Cauldron).
I wish it was possible to get this spell with other classes, like Sorcerer, without multiclassing or taking Magic Initiate.
I disagree on the magic missile.. it states "each dart hits..." followed by "a dart deals 1d4+1 damage"... it implies a roll for each dart, similar to other multi target speels like eldrich blast and scorching ray.. and not like area spells that deal X damage to all targets.. of course, the bonus of magic missile is replacing the expected attack roll (and a chance of crits) with automatic hitting the target and being countered by "shield"..
was the intent on rolling once for all missiles, they should make it more clear (and on beyound, the text is the same as on the book).
...yet, as google pointed me to a tweet.. and we well know.. it is up to a GM, on stating how to deal with this... I keep it as before, rolling one d4 for each dart.
Warlock is generally not a very elemental based caster. they are an evil, death, mind, and lifeforce related caster. this is why they lose out on access to a lot of the pure elemental spells. Sometimes they get cold damage spells to reflect the chill of the grave such as with Armor of Agathys, but generally speaking, I think it fits their flavor that they aren't given all the elemental spells directly, and this is as someone who is currently playing and loves warlocks.
I wonder if there any particular reason that faeri fire cant make it to the list?
I was surprised Bane wasn't as well. I feel like Bane goes hand in hand with Bless.
The other great part about Find Familiar is you don't even need line of sight to teleport your familiar to a location. The spell says you can summon it (with just an action) to any location within 30 feet. This means you can blink it into existence on the other side of walls, or inside locked buildings. It's a bit broken with how well it can bypass high DC locks and get recon on things.
That being said, be careful not to step on the toes of your rogue. If you have a rogue in your party, let them do the sneaking and the recon, don't hog the spotlight. Or the other fun synergy you can do is lend them your familiar, have it sit on their shoulder while they sneak around. You can then look through it's eyes and report back to the group what the rogue is doing/seeing. This leaves the agency and the sneaking decisions to the rogue, but lets your familiar contribute in a helpful passive sort of way.
I agree with you on sleep. You dont get to choose the creatures
Fun thought, if you're surrounded, you could try to sleep the enemies around you, but you'll risk putting yourself to sleep
Editing is getting tighter, loved the thumbnail. Drop the bit, you put out content often there's no need to think of some cornball air filler in the two seconds it takes for your logo to play and I think you will have ascended, imo. Great content either way.
I always love the attempt for an air filler within those two seconds, off the cuff
13:04 sudden flashbacks to Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Mr Freeze.
I almost completely agree with your top 6, and that's roughly the order that I would put them in, too. I would probably drop Magic Missile down to #7 and put Dissonant Whispers at #8 right next to it, but I would leave the rest of your top 6 in that order. And I would find room for Hex in the top 6, maybe in Magic Missile's slot at #3 (and give honorable mention to Hunter's Mark when talking about Hex).
I think any Warlock will tell you that Armor of Agathys is one of their better spells, but that if they had to choose just one level 1 spell from their spell list, it would be Hex. According to Sage Advice, you can maintain concentration on a spell during a short rest or long rest as long as you don't sleep (a good reason to choose the Aspect of the Moon invocation if you're a level 9+ Tomelock with a 24 hour duration on Hex).
You had a pretty good top 15 list, but I think that Mage Armor and Feather Fall (because of the utility it provides once you learn to fly in a few levels) should also be on that list. I just can't imagine a Sorcerer (except for Draconic Ancestry Sorcerer) or Wizard without mage armor, fly, and feather fall.
god, i love guiding bolt so much
i'm gonna play a Divine Soul Sorcerer just so i can use it with metamagic
No fog cloud?! I'm incensed! ;D
But actually...Fog Cloud is the ultimate force multiplier/evener!
How so?
@@nnickplays9713 only blind/tremor sense can see through it so basically all attacks have advantage and disadvantage cancelled whilst preventing many spells
@@anthonynorman7545 but gust of wind can counter it, or dispel magic...
Anthony Norman
Tremorsense gives a creature the ability to know a creatures location based on vibrations.
it does not let them “see” a creature the way regular sight, darkvision, blindsight, or truesight does.
I know this video is about 1st levels but I learned that banishing smite works with all weapons like bows and guns so that’s cool to see that theirs a ranged smite.
I'm currently playing a cold themed Arcane Trickster, can confirm it's pretty fun
A Levistus Tiefling Blue Dragon Sorcerer is fun too ! Pick ice damage + crowd control (slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm, etc.), it's pretty crippling ..slowing down enemies and hitting them with a less commonly resisted damage type than fire or poison. It's also just fun thematically !
Healing Word is only available for full casters right now, decreasing their effectiveness of action spells to cantrips. Giving extra attack half casters this spell is a bad idea.
Identify's normal casting time is 1 minute. I don't feel like NPC's would let you cast it on them easily.
I expected Hex to be on the list. Completely agree with Find Familiar of course.
alchemist get healing word.
My fiancée was thinking Hex or Hunter's Mark would find a place on the list.
She is not wrong, I'd take any of those over identify and ice knife any day of the week.
currently playing my first bard and have had three games. in the last two I used whispers to kill the wizard that was about to attack us, before is barely lifted a finger, and on the third I got a large sea serpent to move away for a round to give everyone time to recover a bit.
W8 i thought dissonant whispers is forced movement so iz doesnt provoke attacks of oppoturnity
Well the creature is moving on its own. Its not being pushed or pulled by outside force
Forced movement can cause opportunity attacks if the target is forced to use its reaction (dissonant whispers), or action (command).
Dissonant whispers
“On a failed save, it takes 3d6 psychic damage and must immediately use its reaction, if available, to move as far as its speed allows away from you.”
Opportunity attacks
“You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction.”
Dissonant whispers makes you use your movement to move yourself and makes you use your reaction to do so.
Got it thanks guys!
You indeed can't directly choose what creatures are impacted by Sleep. As with any AoE you can be fiddly with your positioning to try to only hit enemies, airburst it 19 feet over a high HP thing's head so it's the only thing in range for instance to try to take it down without taking down anyone else nearby
@7:15 combining this spell with the warcaster feat and the pole arm master feat lets you cast a spell on someone when they enter your reach. What better spell to use than this one, which can force them to run away.
I would take out the Jim's MM as an offshoot thing and put in Shield of Faith. Other than that can't really say there would be any that are significantly better than the ones on the list, and the JMM is also really good, but I just can't really see the themed books being something that should be implemented to every game. There is a thin line between "Lol I'm BATMAN!" and "Lol I'm "
Ah most of these spells i'm like.. "ALchemist probably should've had that.. they can't be a main healer with their current stuff... adding that spell woud let them be a buffer/debuffer/actual healer"
(bless and Prayer of healing being the big notes to me)
I like to give a honorable mention to Hex, not as a spell a wartlock casts with their spell slots but from a spell scroll, keep in mind that it has no save so the lower Dc from the scroll not going to effect it here.
disadvantage on the right ability check can help someone on your team like a rouge hiding from someone in combat for that sneak attack or the fighter grabing someone and so on,
and the 1d6 necrotic per attack helps a lot with Eldritch Blast and can last up to 2 hours, moving from target if your killing them, the most you get out a lv1 spell scroll.
I've always found it really lazy when DM's allow Goodberry spam. The fluff on it says "Nourishment for 1 day". Shoving 10 berries to heal 10 HP means you're eating the equivalent of 30 meals (or 10 meals if you wanna go with the whole "One meal a day is enough to keep you kicking" argument which in all honesty is stupid, these are adventurers. They *need* 3 meals a day), which is without a doubt not healthy at all.
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Magic Missile is on armorer artificer. I played one and fluffed in as Iron Man smart missiles launching out of the suit's shoulders.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Bane, Shield of Faith and circumstantially Goodberry are all good candidates for the top 15 as well. Shield of Faith is a personal favorite at any level of the game really.
Goodberry on a Life Cleric (Magic Initiate or Multiclass, either works) heals an sweet 40 total by the way.
I cannot count the times command has come in clutch. Non-concentration? Check. Up cast for multiple targets? Check. Ability to move mobs closer or further away? Check. Make a mom drop the big shiny axe of player killing? Check. Room for player creativity and fun like forcing mobs to dance? Check. Holy smokes you mean to tell me it can do all this AND force the creature to ends its turn without do ANYTHING else resulting in efficient action economy? Sure tey can't be undead and have to share a language but I mean command deserves some love.
Magic missile says you make 3 darts, it also says that A DART deals 1d4+1 force damage to ITS target. Why would you not roll the damage separately, especially if you choose different targets? Im kinda confused. Please help
About Armor of Agathys. There is a Dragonmarked Dwarf race which gets Armor of Agathys added to thier spell lists if there are casters. Team that with being an Abjuration Wizard and you're a pretty tanky wizard. Casting it adds to your shield, which stacks with the Temp HP.
Team that with Fire Shield later and you could make a fun Muscle Mage
I quibble with armor of agathys. Yes, it's a first level spell, but it's really only useful when upcast. I'd put Hex/Hunter's Mark in its place, as defining damaging features for their class (and we can put them both on the same line, since they're basically the same thing).
My personal favourite damaging spell at 1st level is catapult. Magical bludgeoning damage and because of the wording if you have multiple people in the line, if the first enemy makes the save the second has to make the save. If you can line up more than 2 enemy's your basically guaranteed to hit someone. Added bonus is the 3d8 damage and essentially 150ft range
Armor of Agathy's is almost a goto for a Hexblade at early lvls... The extra hp is always nice and at lower lvl, and as written while you have these t.hp you deal x damage to what attacked you. Forced upcasting as a hexblade at lvl 3 means you get potential 10/10 but a lot of monsters you will face at lvl 3 will not take 10 hp in one hit meaning you get 20 cold dmg out of a lvl 1 spell and 10 damage mitigated.... that is HUGE at lvl 3.
Find Familiar + Arcane Trickster is insane. Depennding on how you di Familiar's initiative, if you ready its Help action for when you make an attack, you can hit the target and then use bonus action to disengage and move away without your familiar provoking an OA if it rides on your shoulder, because RAW Opportunity Attacks are only provoked when a creature uses its action, movement or reaction to move out of an enemy's reach - you're using your movement to move your familiar. Arcane Trickster's don't need owls which is great to minimise meta gaming and allows more varied RP opportunities.
People are gonna be annoyed that burning hands isn't there (luckily I don't really like burning hands). Also, I think Faerie fire deserves a spot. It can give advantage against creatures that are usually invisible. You have quite a lot of damaging spells, which actually makes each damaging spell individually less significant. No matter what the rest is, faerie fire is useful no matter what other 1st level spells.
My first character was a dragonborn sorcerer.
My DM had regrets giving our party a magic item that grants +1 AC and a free casting of Shield per long rest, combined with my character knowing the spell.
...
My sorcerer was our tank.
I like inflict wounds.
I like the detect magic rule. I agree that you do not get to choose the targets for sleep. And I have a homebrew rule for Jim's magic missile: If you crit hit BEFORE you crit fail, the crit missile still strikes the target, but each other missile of the fail and after does 2 points of damage per missile when they explode in your face.
How the heck did Hex not make it
What about burning hand
No ted, it’s not boomeranging with healing word, it’s yo-yo-ing. You go down and you come back up again. You down and then come back up again. My party barely made it fighting against a tile chimera thanks to this 😂