Advanced Guide to Spirit Guardians: D&D 5e
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
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If you would like to know how I calculate damage or how baseline damage is determined, I go through it in this video:
• How To Calculate Avera...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:32 Changing size
6:06 Forced movement
10:06 Casting ability score
14:14 Halving movement
17:38 Multiple spells
19:45 Flying
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I would use the rule on changing speeds in the middle of a turn:
Page 190 of the 5e PHB:
Using Different Speeds
If you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you're already moved from your new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less, you can't use the new speed during the current move.
Yup, this effectively boils down to option 3, and is definitely the intent I believe. It isn't so hard if you just think about a running tally of how far it had moved and track that against its shifting allowed movement. It is a bit weird that it suddenly gets faster when it leaves the area, but it's probably being forced to move unoptimally if they choose to do that for the extra movement, unless they are just cut-and-running.
I'm glad you mentioned in passing the need to see your allies at the time of casting in order to exclude them from spell effect. Parties must be well aware of this when utilizing stealth and or obscurement in attacks. It's very easy to drop a fog cloud and thereby provide total obscurement thus negating the ability to exclude your party from spirit guardians when the cleric casts it.
Had this happen to a party I was in to hilarious effect.
The Bloodhunter tried to be too smart for his own good and was grappled/dragged away. I cast SG to get through that combat bc we were outgunned, then we rushed after him. He got charmed before his next turn and tried to come at the party and SG dropped his speed too low to get there; he also failed his save. I stepped away from him so he wouldn't start his turn in it again, then he ran at us, still charmed and under the enemy's control, and SG dropped him to 0 before he could get there and do any of us any harm.
Another thing that works for getting enemies to enter the radius: Thorn Whip, which a Nature Cleric can get, and combine with Telekinetic. Colby at d4 had a build for it the other week: ruclips.net/video/oZbK8zc3GGw/видео.html
Nice, simple, single-class way to gather enemies in and get the damage twice.
Yes, lot's of forced movement in the game, and it all works well with SG.
I would argue that using the Diagonals rule from the DMG, a circle makes more sense. But if you don't use it, then a square fits the mechanics better.
The fact that AOEs differentiate between spheres and cubes is a very easy indicator that interpreting a sphere as a cube is a poor decision
Agreed. Just use the first diagonal is 5 feet of movement and second is 10 feet rule from dmg and it fixed everything. All circle aoe's just naturally become circles
@@joshuatran6526 The difference is important even when using square circles because of how you calculate the origin of cubes. The origin of a cube is on the fave of the cube, spheres are from the center.
@@austentan8705 The problem is 5-10-5-10 isn't the way the official rule for a grid work. Since the gird is technically an optional rule this is all wishy washy, but from the official rule diagonals are 5 feet. If my players want a grid I use 5-10-5-10, but since we play digitally I just measure things with hotkeys and move things freely.
To me, any time I adjudicate something that is a problem because of the grid, I re-frame the problem from the lens as if there was no grid. Whatever I rule has to comport to what a creature would be able to do if it wasn't constrained to a 5ft grid.
@@KingFate20 the 5-10-5-10 rule is in p252 of dmg :)
What makes sense: "Movement costs are doubled in the area of effect."
on the movement speed thing I would rule as each step of movement would count as doubled... so moving 5 feet would cost 10 feet. so on ur example of moving 5 feet out of the circle would cost it 10 feet, so.it would have 20 feet left once it's out (assuming it has 30ft base movement)
I agree! The first option makes the most sense even though its not RAW
I love using Spirit Gaurdians, with someone else using Spike Growth, and using as much forced movement as possible
A Druidic Warrior Swarmkeeper with Spike Growth, Druid with Moonbeam, Nature Cleric with Thorn Whip, plus a Bear Totem Barbarian to grapple, would make a really brutal nature themed wombo combo. Drop SG, SG, and MB all together and just jostle them around for massive damage. Barbarian can afford to get caught in them a bit with Resistance to all their damage too.
One important thing to mention what spirit guardian users need to keep in mind: you cant exclude creatures to be affectet after you cast this spell. Thats important if you have other party members that tend to summon creatures on the battle field. That's something you have to coordinate before battle. Maybe you cast spirit guardians on the second round or if the enemies are nicely spread around the field it wont be such an issue. Or if you have someone that likes to surround themself in magical darkness: if you cant see them you cant choose them to be unaffected when you cast spirit guardians.
Wow you read my mind. I’ve become mildly obsessed with this spell recently and how to make a build around it. Thank you!!
I personally rule it that if something has it's speed reduced to below how far it has moved, it is forced to stop. So if the speed dropped to 15 when you have moved 20, that's a valid move, but you're forced to stop there.
Thanks for this, by the way! Like the deep dive into key spells with explanations.
I had to share this one with my players. Good job friend
Very close to my cleric leveling up! Thank you!
That was an awesome explanation. I wish I'd had this when I first started playing 5E and chose to play a Cleric. I'm not sure we ever totally got the complex rules right.
This is a wonderful breakdown, but I wish you had discussed the difference in DnD terminology between "enters", as with Moonbeam, Spirit Guardians, etc and "moves into", with Spike Growth, Sickening Radiance, etc, where "enters" means that forced movement is allowed (Warlock Invocations, Crusher feat, Telekinetic feat, Grappling, etc), whereas "moves into/within" means the creature must do it of their own accord.
Not really, you can drag an enemy on a spike growth and inflict a lot of damage to it.
@@adriel8498 See, that one has always confused me, because it uses the “move” wording, but most people collectively agree that it works with forced movement. But Jeremy Crawford has stated that “enters” works with forced movement but “moves” doesn’t. There is a distinct difference or they wouldn’t change the wording between different spells. The difference is often distinguished by the Opportunity Attack wording, which uses “moves” and is not triggered by forced movement.
I’m personally of the opinion that everything should be triggered by forced movement, but the above is what I’ve found the difference to be.
I just started coming up with a spirit guardians centered build, and this video drops. yay me!
Great demonstration of how "half movement speed when in area" is a really unclear rule.
19:53 thanks you answered my question
Love those spells deep dives!
Love your content, as always, Chris,
I'd love to see you do a similar analysis with Spike Growth. If you're friends with a fast grappler who can drag a mob or two around the periphery (while staying outside the spike growth'd area), the damage gets pretty insane. With the increased battlefield forced movement options that have come out lately, SG is awesome even without a grappler buddy.
My party has three players who can cast Spike Growth, Thorn Whip, and Thunderwave. They shred small armies while basically playing duck duck goose
Awesome video. Love this combination with Spiritual Weapon. Death Cleric is probably my new favorite character to play. I know Telekinetic is another good option
So what I’ve concluded from this is “dang this is a good spell to snag with magical secrets!”
It's a good magical secrets selection.
First, I want to say I love your videos! You really leave no stone unturned when explaining spells and builds!
I do want to offer a correction for how you perform average damage, though, when it comes to successful saves. Since damage is always rounded down unless something specifies otherwise, you can't simply halve the average damage to get the average damage for a save. This is because a result of 3 damage is "halved" to 1. So instead, the halved values need to be calculated first, and then you determine the average of those "halved" values.
In the case of your calculation at 11:42, this means that the average damage of a Failed save is still 13.5, but the average damage of a Successful save is actually only 6.5, not 6.75. An easier way to account for this, though, is to just remember that, any time you are accounting for all possibilities of adding one or more numbers on an even sided die, choosing from consecutive integer values (Ex: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 for a d6), then the sum result of those dice rolled will ALWAYS be split 50% even and 50% odd.
So this means that 50% of the time, you will lose 0.5 damage on a successful save. This is true whether you are rolling a d6, a d8, a d12, etc. It is also true whether you are rolling 1 die, 2 dice, 3 dice, etc.
So the end result is that, when determining the average damage for a successful saving throw vs. the effects, you can ALWAYS just subtract 0.25 from half of the average damage!
So in this case, 13.5 / 2 = 6.75 - 0.25 = 6.5.
And so the average damage for a successful save is 6.5.
Thank you again for all of your great videos!
Re: Movement speed oddities with Spirit Guardians.
1st Scenario -- Creature with 30ft Speed moves five feet out of the area: Remaining movement upon exiting the area is 10ft, which then doubles to 20ft.
2nd Scenario - Creature with Speed 30 moves 15ft before entering area: Creature moves 5ft into area of Spirit Guardians. Its remaining Movement is 10ft, which is then halved to 5ft. The creature could approach 5ft closer to the caster, but no further.
I don’t think that would be how it works. There are other features in the game that alter your speed that would immediately give you your full movement when that feature isn’t applicable any more.
For example, if a creature were grappled or restrained, starting their turn with 0 speed, they would immediately have full access to their regular speed if those conditions ended on their turn.
I’m not saying moving out of the area of spirit guardians would grant you full movement, but if your speed is 30, halved to 15, and you spend 5 ft to get out, you would immediately have 30 speed again while still having spend only 5 ft.
@@binolombardi In order to compare apples to apples, we would need to find an example of a multiplicative bonus/penalty. Grappling doesn’t work for this, unfortunately, as it applies a Condition that sets the Grappled character’s Speed to 0 for the Duration. I can see where you’re going with this - that in Example A the creature would have 25feet remaining and in Example B its movement would end as soon as it entered the area of effect - but that interpretation runs into the problem Chris mentioned of negative movement, about which the rules make no mention. Halving/Doubling remaining movement after a creature leaves a space on one side or the other of the effect’s edge to match its Speed avoids the problem elegantly. Unfortunately, the other situations I could find that modify Speed do so additively, rather than multiplicatively (or, as in the Grappled/Restrained Conditions, simply set the character’s Speed to a certain number).
@@raikirah975 I may be wrong, but I don’t think negative modifiers in the game ever reduce a given resource below zero. This doesn’t seem to be a general rule, but does seem to be an established pattern with many feature interactions. I’d just rule that any “extra” reduction would would just stop at 0, and have them enter the space and stay there. Regarding grids anyways. Your not considered in the space until you’ve fully spent the movement to be there. So if your speed is halved after you move into an area, your speed would still be halved and your movement would likely be done.
This is an interesting interaction but a similar effect could potentially happen with a readied ray of frost spell. What happens if a creature with 30 ft of movement speed gets frosted after it moves 25ft, yet it’s speed is reduced to 20ft after its already moved that 25ft? I’d say it just stops moving. Unless it dashes I suppose… but it’s worth talking about.
As someone mentioned above. The rules for this are found in the PHB under creatures with different movement speeds (fly, general, and burrow).
I just used this to unbelievable effect just last night. Devastating, just devastating. It was completely awesome.
Great discussion.
Just want to add one thing to the thinking. One of the main criticisms of Clerics is that their spell list lacks a lot of the higher level "wow" that other lists have.
SG upcasts with a 1:1 benefit, which makes it one of the few blast spells truly worth upcasting.
Combine those 2 facts, and the expected potential of the spell on a high level Cleric can be amazing.
What do you mean 1:1 benefit? It's base damage is 3D8 but upcast only adds 1D8/level.
@@N20Joe 1 level, 1d8 extra damage compared to spells like shadow blade or spiritual weapon that don’t
At third level, it's 3d8.
Now for tricky math...
At 4th level, it's 4d8.
At 5th level, it's 5d8.
I know, too fast. If only we have easy access to a calculator for this sort of advanced math.
@@ChristnThms So it's 1:1 upcasting because it works exactly like every other blast spell in existence. Wow, that's some fancy math.
@@N20Joe obviously, you can't math...
Fireball does 8d6 at 3rd level, and only adds 1d6 at each upcast. That means it gets less and less efficient at every upcast level. Most blasts are like this. SG, Moonbeam and Call Lightning are notable for their scaling.
In the Solasta video game, the dev's programmed it so that Spirit Guardians requires 2x movement only while in the area; this movement penalty doesn't stack with multiple spirit guardians, but the damage does still stack with multiple. Interesting to see the other interpretations!
That is how I've always run it, I felt given the examples in the rule they were not talking about damage but effects, like 2 hastes doesn't double haste you.
That spell is so good in solasta, I once combined it with wall of fire and just let the enemies try to come, was a complete massacre
i feel like nature cleric is really underrated for SG now. You can single-handedly hit a single target with 3 instances of SG without needing to spend extra resources or needing party help, or hit 2 targets twice. thornwhip, telekinetic, and base SG starting their turn. I played this in a reasonably optimized group (order cleric/sorc, barbearian, sharpshooter ranger, bard, etc.) and was easily the top damage dealer in any fight that wasn't handily won by a huge group fireball. heavy armor and dampen elements are great too. if it's a setting with beasts (e.g. dinosaurs), it can beat out twilight and peace in effectiveness. of course works great on a winged tiefling, but i played a goblin for the free disengage and that was great too.
This is my first pick as a Valor or swords Bard magic secrets spell. It's the best spell to have going if you are in melee.
The first thing I thought when he said Magical Secrets was a Valor Bard build around this!
@@opposumness3107 take expertise in Athletics for grappling and no one can leave your radius of Doom!!!
My cleric love love loves this spell - it's a great spell and super thematic! She likes protecting her friends and punishing people who threaten them, and this does both while offering an area that allies can also use for maneuvering if they like.
2 clerics, one medium the other small, the small one rides the medium one is the mount, medium gets sentinel and small gets mounted combat, both of them cast spirit guardians and spiritual weapon, if you attack the medium you will be forced to attack the small one, the medium uses his reaction to hit you.
small one is thunder domain, therefore, when hit, deals thunder damage to attacker.
Same spell effects don't stack though? Don't think two Spirit Guardians can affect one creature no matter what.
High Wisdom may not increase spirit guardian damage significantly, however it is important for the follow up spiritual weapon strike (adds to both melee spell attack roll and damage mod), so the cleric can take the dodge action on its turn and still make a bonus action attack to increase damage output, and it will determine prepared spells to ensure you have utility beyond the spirit guardian use (at 5th level, we’re talking minimum of two encounters separated by short rests, more encounters are possible in dungeon settings where you can push into multiple mobs within a 10 minute duration). So, pure spirit guardian analysis maybe high Wisdom isn’t significant, but in most cases you’ll want the other benefits of high Wisdom. That said the Fey Touched feat can give both a higher Wisdom (+1) to round out an odd Wisdom score and get Misty Step which will be very helpful when enemies start focusing control spells on the spirit guardian caster to lock them down and if using Silvery Barbs there will be plenty of saving throws made within the Spirit Guardian field to disrupt and if an attack hits you in spite of dodging, you could make an even worse disadvantage additional roll to help preserve concentration.
Don't forget Divine Soul Sorcerers
The way I run the 'half movement' effect is to just treat all movement as eating up a % of the total movement available to that character that turn (just like difficult terrain or other modifiers). Eg, with a movespeed of 30, moving 5 ft eats up 5/30 =16% of the movement. In difficult terrain, it'd eat up 10/30. In difficult terrain + spirit guardians, it'd eat up 10/15 - and if they then move out of the area, they'd just have that 10 ft of movement left (10/15 = 20/30). Functionally I think that's the same as you run, just maybe a slightly different way of thinking about it.
For multiple spirit guardians, I let the dmg stack, but not the movement effect. The way I see it is that damage is not really an effect (eg, if there were two fireballs cast at the same time using a readied action, a creature caught in both AOEs would take full dmg imo). So that part of it is fine to let stack/use simultaneous effects, while the speed reduction doesn't. Along with that, the damage is not a continuous effect (happening/triggering only 1/turn at most), unlike the movement.
I like casting it on my flying Twilight Cleric. One thing that doesn't get touched on in this is that as you're concentrating on this spell, your action and bonus action are still free. Combining this with your cantrip/attack and Spiritual Weapon really makes you a monster on the field. But strangely in the parties where I'm not the cleric, I just don't see this played out very often.
That's my main go-to as a Cleric. I always play a Cleric as a front row blaster. If the fight lasts long enough to justify both SG & SW, my damage will often eclipse everyone else.
Dodge is a solid action option when you're concentrating on Spirit Guardians. It's not optimal, but after 2-3 rounds you'll find that you're the biggest threat, and enemies will be gunning for you.
Was my main approach as my Light Cleric. Only problem came when combat was spread out and Spiritual Weapon can't keep up with even a Hill Dwarf.
Or take the dodge action and insure your consent ration stays up! I have a trickery cleric and I run to the front lines with mirror image, spirit guardians, war caster and dodging. Very rarely do I drop concentration.
Technically the RAW don't assume you're playing on a grid, so a 15-feet radius really means just that, no mussing or fussing over the shape of the area. I don't actually know anyone that DOESN'T play on a grid, though, but it's one of those things the DM and the players have to sort out in advance - don't assume!
Also, one of my worst experiences as a player involved spirit guardians. Joining a campaign in progress, the DM strongly steered me toward playing a cleric after convincing me the party didn't have any healers (they had two) and rejecting a couple other character concepts because he wouldn't allow the SCAG melee cantrips. Fine, I really just wanted to play, so I decided I'd be the healingest cleric that ever healed. Prepped spirit guardians - because why wouldn't I? - and proceeded to cast it to wonderful effect against a troop of ogres. We bottlenecked them and the warlock dropped darkness, so they forced to blindly run out before smacking into ny spell, it was beautiful! First problem began cropping up - DM began fudging the range of my spell to avoid the ogres taking damage and being competely neutered. Annoying, but fine, we were winning handily anyway. After the battle, I confirmed the spell lasts 10 minutes and that I was definitely concentrating on it. I encouraged the group to keep moving and we could loot on our way back, even suggested we double-time it so we could cover more ground. Still, 10 minutes is 100 rounds, that's a lot of distance you can cover. Didn't matter. A couple rooms later we enter a new fight and my spell had arbitrarily expired.
Later that session, we were pitted against a dragon and forced to begin the encounter clumped in a narrow hallway. Dragon won the initiative - I think everyone can guess what happened next. That was also my last session. Cool group, but the DM was something else.
DMs have to be real careful about ego.
Or they're not DMs anymore: they're competitive bullies.
If it were intended to be approach #1, I feel like the designers should have used wording like difficult terrain or the wording in Plant Growth. It's okay as a house rule, but it is a house rule that changes the effect of the spell and isn't supported elsewhere.
Approach #2 is consistent and imo a valid interpretation of rules as written, but you should be aware that taking the approach of movement speeds being set at the start of your turn implies that spells like Longstrider, Kinetic Jaunt, and possibly Fly shouldn't increase your movement on the turn they're cast.
Even though #3 is kind of weird, I think it's the best fit taking into account the "Using Different Speeds" rule from PHB 190 that other commenters have mentioned. With the language from that rule, I'd argue the creature could move into the spirit guardians area of effect even if that meant its speed was now less than how far it's moved, they just don't have any movement left afterwards.
I think there’s a case to be made about the spirit guardians spell effect regarding halving speed only within the area be played RAW to only effect speed within the space, and then the speed penalty apply immediately in or speed being put to normal out of the spells area.
It’s definitely different, but that means it can be combined with Difficult terrain AND direct movement penalties like plant growth.
Your way is definitely easier and more intuitive to run though.
Spirit Guardians + shape change (thx Druid Dip) into Giant badger will give you a burrow speed of 10 feet per round. There's no need to stay above ground to take hits while your little flying spirits wreak havoc above.
Great with a divine soul/paladin build, quicken this and booming blade/multi attack to open the battle. Follow up with a spiritual weapon and we are cooking!!
Thans Chris
More spell tactics vids ftw
I like the idea of using pole-arm master and sentinel to trap creatures inside spirit guardians.
The spell says "...when a creature moves into the area or starts its turn there..."
The word "or" is vital here... "or" is meaning to make a choice.
If it applied to both, the word "and" would have been used.
I think this is meant to be so that the spell doesnt affect a target more than once a round.
Additional tech for the spell, may be considered an exploit:
If you pronounce Guardians with a soft "G" at your table (i.e. as in "jar"), you can annoy people immensely.
For bonus points, you can describe the spirit guardians as appearing like Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, and do voices for them.
If you're surprised by the damage increase from the saving throw dc going up, check out Pack Tactics video about half damage on spells.
I'd say that if the creature leaves and moves 5 feet it still has 25 because the effect halve the speed inside the area, meaning that once he leaves he losses that debuf and you only substract how much he moved from its original amount, and if he moves 10 ft more (having use a total of 15ft) and then goes back he technically has to stop moving the moment he enters the border because at that point his speed is half again and he has already used the movement speed allowed, which I would say he does enter the next square (because dounding up is useful some times), although this is only an issue in a grid system if you have free measuring (no grid) you can measure the distance to that he could move, this make the game slower in real life but in a system like roll 20 is quite easy to enable
In regards to flying and Spirit Guardians (or many other AOE spells), it is NOT a cylinder. So for every 5 feet UP you go, you effectively reduce the "radius" on the ground by ~2.5 feet. So if you were 15 feet in the air from the ground, it would only effect the 5' square on the ground directly below your character as the AOE is a sphere and not a cylinder. While the description of the spell doesn't say it's a 15' radius, the range/area clearly uses the symbol for sphere vs square/cube.
Also, from my experience quite a lot of tables play that when casting a spell onto/into an area any creatures in that area are effectively "entering the area for the first time". For instance, if casting Moombeam on a creature's square, the immediately take damage on your turn when cast, as well as on the start of their turn (unless they're no longer in the AoE for some reason). So it's pretty easy to "double up" on the damage for many spells in the first round.
Debate came up last session; cleric casts spirit guardians, walks forward and encloses the enemy. Has the enemy entered the effect this turn? I argue no, but is there an official ruling or any reason other than "I don't think that's the intent?"
Similar issue when cast 5 feet from enemy.
No. Enter means they moved or were moved there.
Otherwise a spell like causes a save on entering it or starting a turn in its effect will force 2 saves instead of 1.
And also party members can grab and move the cleric around on their turns to do Spirit Guardian damage, which is silly.
@@mjela4516 i agree completely, i'm just hoping for a written ruling somewhere because my group sees no problem with the crazy rushing cleric idea. I suppose I could have crazy rushing clerics of my own, but that feels pedantic.
I would rule it same as you, in both cases. Movement within the effect costs double, and one spell applies, players pick.
From what I know spirit guardians is the cleric equivalent of fireball.
I treat Spirit Guardians as Difficult Terrain except it can stack multiplicatively with Difficult Terrain and other movement hampering effects.
Always upcast this when you can. My 11th lvl war cleric casts it at 6th level. With War Caster and Resilient Con, even if he gets hit, hard to lose concentration. Dodge, even better once you get an upcast Spiritual Weapon going.
dumb question:
why does the cleric stepping forward as seen at 8:08 does not trigger the damage?
The creature was outside of the effect, now it is inside of the effect
per sage advice, effects like this are not triggered by forced movement or the area moving. Its made that way to evade exploits like running around with Spirit Guardians in a killing spree like a road roller monster
The way 5E treats spell effects is the creature's have to move to enter a spell's ongoing area effect in most cases, or it effects at the start of their turn in the area or, rarely, ending their turn in the effect. So you moving the area to include them only triggers the effect when they start their turn there as the spell states, or move into the spell if you started outside it. Forced movement is a work-around because the creature is technically moving.
@@lord6617 Honestly I'd prefer they reword all of these spells so that it is "if a creature starts or ends its turn in the area" it takes X damage. Would make it a lot simpler and get rid of some of the forced movement exploits where they get moved in & out again on multiple character's turns.
It is assumed that a creature entering an area of effect requires that specific creature to be moving. If the area of effect instead enters the creature's space, it isn't movement. I'm not sure why that is a thing but it's how I've always seen it interpreted.
I would rule with the 'moved 20 feet' thing is that it'd simply stop in its tracks the moment it entered the Spirit Guardians because it's remaining movement is now gone.
Just my reading.
Think of the halved movement like Aid spell. You got 15 feet down from 30. You move 5 ft, you are at 10. 10 is your halved movement, which means that your unhalved movement is 20.
I think the movement speed into the aura works the same way as when creatures have two movement speeds, i.e. walk 30 ft., fly 60 ft. If a creature walks 30 feet, they can’t walk anymore, but if they’re able to transition to flying, they can fly for 30 more feet so that they’ve moved a total of 60 feet. On the flip side, if said creature flies for 40 feet and then lands, they don’t have any movement left for walking as their current moved distance is greater than their walking speed.
Unfortunately, I can’t point to where this ruling is off-hand. If I can find it, I’ll edit it in. I’d use this rule for spirit guardians.
Edit: It’s on page 190 of the PHB: Using Different Speeds.
“If you have more than one speed, such a s your walking speed and a flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you've already moved from the new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less, you can't use the new speed during the current move.
For example, ifyou have a speed of 30 and a flying speed of 60 because a wizard cast the fly spell on you, you could fly 20 feet, then walk 10 feet, and then leap into the air to fly 30 feet more.”
One house rule I use at my table is most effects that trigger at the start of a creature's turn, like spirit guardians, instead happens at the end of the caster's turn. This way player's don't miss out on damage because I was going fast with monsters, and it doesn't also turn into "remember to make them make wisdom saves at the start of their turn" a lot while I'm figuring out what monsters do. This does change some stuff, I acknowledge, like a creature entering the area because they fell out of the sky would take damage when they fell but not on their turn, but this isn't a big deal IMO if you know this before you cast the spell, it just means you have to play a little different
I'm not sure I like this. What if the cleric loses concentration on the spell prior to a creature's turn?
@@michaelondic5884 the damage happened, and the spell slot they Invested managed to do some damage. It would be like they casted a weaker fireball on themselves but didn't have to worry about self harm or friendly fire
so... pack tactics made a video about the gun monk like you did in the past... meanwhile you made a video about spirit guardian like pack tactics made it a while ago (even named it almost the same)
its the first of april... nothing can really surprise me today but you two defenitely did something fun
Hey Treatmonk, I was gonna ask this in the sage advice reaction video and was tardy so I thought I’d send it here. With the monsters of the multiverse changes soon in effect and proficiency bonus per long rest seeming to take priority over short rests I have two questions I’d like to hear your thoughts on:
1. Do you reckon short tests will be removed in the PHB 2.0
2. If so, do you have any thoughts on how they might change the warlock and our ever beloved monk?
Would love to here the communities thoughts on this as well!
Anyways - time to watch the actual video now 😋
My opinion: Yes, they will remove short rests as much as they can imo, but I don't know how Healing using Hit Dice could be implemented. Regarding Monk and Warlock, one option would be that they regain their Pact Slots/Ki Points when they roll initiative, or possibly when you can expend Hit Dice, since campaigns that have a big focus on Out-of-Combat DnD roll initiative much less. I think it will be the same with Subclasses like Battle Master. This would help extremely with making the Strength of different classes less reliant on the amount of Short rests you get, the only fear I have is that this could cause problems if social encounters and things like that are much more common than combat encounters
no way. the warlock class is still a thing, and people need a way to spend hit die.
My guess is short rests will remain, but they will be for spending HD alone. If that's the case, I'm not sure how Warlocks and Monks will be handled, and I'm excited to see what they do!
Sorry to be a grammar native, but you meant to say reckon. Recon means to scout ahead
@@cephelos1098 fixed it, I am really bad when I comes to getting grammar right on the fly! There was probably a couple more that fixed right after posting lol
Almost 50k you need to do another one shot with the boys
That would be nice for sure. I think Colby will be to 50k soon as well.
@@TreantmonksTemple you have been doing this year I’m so happy for you definitely do a 50k one shot with d4 and dungeon dudes asap you channel will hit 60k right after also hit up Ginny di she has a great channel
@@anthonycassidy1124 Yeah that would be great.
DnD Optimized did an entire build dedicated to spirit guardians and using thorn whip to drag the enemies into the aura.
I'd go with the 2nd interpretation for spirit guardians movement halving. basically the halving of movement happens on the start of the creatures turn, regardless if you end up outside of the area at some point in your turn. they would need to start a turn outside of spirit guardians to gain their full speed.
Not sure if you considered this, but if you wanted to be consistent in that speed is determined at the start of a creature's turn, that would mean spells like Longstrider, Fly and Kinetic Jaunt won't actually give you their speed increases on the turn they're cast.
@@Michael-ls9eu nah. what i meant was i treat the halving of the speed as like a debuff being cast at the start of the turn. like imagine a free action ability like this:
1. as a free action you can halve the speed of a target within spirit guardians at the start of their turn. this effect lasts until the start of that creature's next turn.
it is totally unrelated to having speed determined at the start of that creature's turn and works with any further increase or decrease to speed.
@@TheRobversion1 Adding that "this effect lasts until the start of that creature's next turn" isn't supported by the spell description at all though.
@@Michael-ls9eu as Chris said, this is just a way to interpret it as the wording of the spell on that matter is vague. it doesn't state what happens if you move out of the area or how long the debuff lasts once you get afflicted with it. it just states that it happens once you move into the area or start your turn there. in fact another way to read it is that since duration isn't specified, as long as you get hit with it once, you're stuck it with it forever. i just choose to enforce it this way as choosing option #3 basically breaks rules.
@@TheRobversion1 the spell description is pretty clear that the speed halving is while they're in the area. Ergo, when they leave, the effect ends.
What specific rules does option 3 break? We have precedent for having used more speed than you currently have available with the Using Different Speeds rule other commenters have been quoting. It just means you can't continue moving.
Wait, could I cast SG so the guardians are 5' away from a target, then use my movement after that action so that the target enters the effect for the first time on my turn?
I think a creature that starts it's turn in SG has its speed halved, a creature that moves through the SG on its own turn without starting there must spend twice as much movement to travel through the spell's area.
If the creature is at the edge of the effect, would the caster be able to step back and forth to trigger the damage multiple times in a round?
It's amazing how his game is different enough that within ten minutes of one combat he's regularly getting another, whereas in any games I've been in you're only looking at maybe 4 combats in a day (5 combat days are "long days" for us 😂)
Only 10 inches of the third 5ft square that is diagonal to you would be within 15 ft of your square's corner. So even if you were a gelatinous cube that takes up every inch of your square less than 1/5th of the 3rd square would be within reach.
If i start my turn and an enemy is in the spirit guardians, can I move away from them, and pull them back in to take damage? (I guess it depends on whether or not that counts as their "entering the area for the first time".)
Alternatively:
If that doesn't work, I'd consider holding my action to move out of range (every round) and use my bonus action to pull them back into range. That should be a way to give the best odds of two triggers per round.
Another of layer of complication to the movement speed question is making a long jump into the area immediately before entering. Since its not difficult terrain you don't have to save to not fall prone, but its also a 3 dimensional area and applies to you even while you're in the air before you hit the ground. So when you jump are you using all the movement part of the jump at the moment you make the jump or throughout, and will the effect physically slow you down to only cover half the distance you would have even though you still had your full movement when you made the jump? Jumping rules can be really wacky in the right scenarios depending on how your dm handles the scenario, like potentially invalidating the plant growth spell entirely raw. I don't see them get a lot of attention.
If you had access to this as a lorehold bladesinger would it be one of your must take spells or would it be something you’d need to think about?
I’d grab it in any way possible if I plan on spending time in melee.
I've been meaning to ask you how a cleric's DPR stacks up against your baseline. Could I approximate your calculations by assuming a 60% chance to hit/fail save?
Do you find that there is one best use of a cleric's action in open combat, if we assume that they are concentrating on S.G. and using Spiritual Weapon?
Depending on the level I would say spamming guiding bolts and then either use a cantrip or a weapon with blessed strikes depending on your character.
You're already dealing respectable sustained damage so I'd say Dodge is a good all rounder use of your main action, SG is concentration so you gotta protect it plus the damage from a weapon or 'trip isn't gonna be very impressive unless you have something enhancing it.
There’s something to be said about a cleric who chooses to take the telekinetic feat and combo it with the spirit guardians spell.
It’s almost as effective as the spiritual weapon spell on a use by use basis when using the spirit guardians spell, but has the additional benefit of being able to be used on the first turn of combat when spirit guardians is cast. The push effect of the feat completely ignores the bonus action spellcasting limitations imposed by general rules.
Spiritual weapon is very effective for damage at its slot used, but telekinetic doesn’t use slots at all. This is another advantage in telekinetic favor.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say spiritual weapon isn’t worth preparing, especially at lower levels when there are limited 3rd level slots to cast the spirit guardian spell, but at higher level it may begin to loose its appeal with more slots available.
I’m lowballing the mod but the DPR for a lvl 5 cleric that has a +3 Wis mod, uses spirit guardians, and has telekinetic is 16.042 on the first round.
Every round after that, assuming the action used to cast spirit guardians switches to casting sacred flame, DPR rises to just under 21. Till the dead would be about 23 DPR.
So regarding treenmtmonks baseline damage calcs, this is about .3 off on round 1 and almost 50% higher with toll the dead on round 2 and onward.
This is also all assuming single target.
@@binolombardi Thanks! I think assuming a single target is good to start with, and perhaps making a side note of how much damage would be added per additional target in S.G.
I just found Chris' "how to calculate damage" video, so assuming he hasn't changed his approach since making it I'll be able to do what you've done and see the math myself
Spiritual Weapon also has the advantage of playing nice with other concentration spells when SG isn't the right option for the combat
@@devin5201 yeah, dodge is my go-to choice at my current table, since my cleric is a frontliner and relatively effective damage dealer compared to my party.
Divine Soul Sorcerer, 5th level, very fun.
Side note, dip in fighter or Hexblade for armor.
Or Cleric to keep your spell level progression and still get heavy armor - plus a bunch of cool Cleric abilities.
@@wwade7226 Depends on how you build and where/when you multi-class.
I like Hexblade cuz I can start sorcerer and get con prof but not worry about my stats besides that, and maybe get tough.
Also, as far as the movement speed, I don't think the third option is that bad. You could say that it has 15 ft left to move positioned outside SG, so allowing it to move five more feet is legal. Then, once it is within the radius, its speed is reduced. Because it has moved 15+ ft already this turn, its move action is finished. I wouldn't call this "illegal" movement, but "quirky" movement. In the end, I think it functions the same as your ruling. If moves 15 feet to the radius, moves five feet in, then doesn't have enough remaining movement speed to move any more (your ruling of essentially ruling it difficult terrain meaning it would have effectively covered 25/30 ft of its movement speed).
We are playing a Strixhaven campaign (basically DnD + Harry Potter).
So I got this on my sorlock with the background. I am obviously not a melee character and don't want to be a frontline fighter. I also have other stuff competing for the concentration. Do you still think this spell is worth it, and even at higher levels?
You probably have better spells, but halving the movement of foes means that between other allies blocking their approaches and confined routes, they might not be able to actually reach you to get into the melee that you aren't good at. If you are facing a lot of enemies, this might be pretty important. But overall you probably have other spells you'd rather concentrate on.
I mean... If you take Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar, you can just bump your enemies out and back in with an Eldritch Blast, thereby getting a big spike in damage.
Two sets of Spirit Guardians Flanking…. Using forced movement… PONG!!!!
Doesn't spirit guardians count as a magical effect? The Golem gets advantage against magical effects. Wouldn't that advantage be effectively better than the dragon's +4 on Wis saves?
Would you classify it as theoretical optimization for someone to read the Spirit Guardians description and try to argue that if they cast it and then move so that the radius encloses a creature that it as "entered" it's space?
I think common sense would say the creature itself did not "enter" the space, but I can also imagine particular individuals quibbling on what defines "entering" the space.
No the creature has to enter, if you move so it's in the area, it will take the damage at the start of a turn. This is more or less to avoid you stacking movement and running past everything on the field to damage them.
Fun spirit guardians build be a 10th level bard now you have find greater steed and spirit guardians Jeremy Crawford has said that moving up to a creature would prock spirit guardians so we summon a pegasus which has 90ft of flying speed now fly above a crowd and all of the enemies in said crowd will have to save against it
oooooo starting with battlemap!!!@
I dont know if this was answered or not but if a creature is prone and in spirit guardians, do they use all their movement just to stand up?
They would use half their (modified) movement. So if you normally had 30, you would have 15 and have 5 left after standing.
I don't have my book with me, but I kind of remember reading that when you are mounted you take the space of your mount. Would that apply to the radius of spirit guardian as well? if my elven cleric (medium size) is riding a horse (large size) the guardian spirit would be 15 t around my horse as long as I'm riding it?
You actually don't occupy your mount's space according to the rules, but that's a common houserule.
Oh that's not with mounts in general, that's with the... Find Steed spell, you can cast spells that have a range of "self" on your magic horse aaand... I think the way it's written it would effectively give you two Spirit Guardian auras at once though this I'm not sure of and would need to read it again to be sure.
@@devin5201 "While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell you cast that Targets only you also target your steed."
Problem I see is the same problem with Twinning Dragon's Breath. The AOE part of the spell can hit multiple targets so its not allowed. Twinned Spell and Find Steed both have a restriction of targeting only 1 creature... Targets from all the official rulings is on spells seems to boil down to "All the things that a a DIRECT effect of your spell/ability can and or will affect".
Thing is, just like Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade the range of Self says you are the origin of the effect, not the target of the effect.
Regardless if I had a Paladin try that shit I'd just say no. If they insisted and complained I'd allow it, but their horse would for some reason get absolutely merced in the first combat every day for some reason. Tales of the paladin riding a radioactive horse would not go unnoticed on medieval 4Chan where all the villains share gossip about the heros.
@@KingFate20 yeah I imagined as much, to me that text seems to exist mostly for healing and teleporting spells.
Wouldnt the golem have a better chance of making its save than the dragon, given it has Magic Resistance?
Does Spirit Guardians target all creatures in the area, only enemies or only the caster? This affects Order Domain Clerics.
Wait is it not considered "entering" the area if a creature is in the area when the spell os cast or if you move forward causing the creature to be in the area?
15:56 You say it's confusing but it's not really as far as I can see it. It seems pretty cut and dry if you think about each square taking 5 feet of movement to leave that square and progress to the next square. With my view point 'your' speed of travelling that 5 feet is halved then each square would be "10 feet" for each square in the spirits. So, in your example of the golem moving 5 feet out, it essentially took 10 feet out of it's movement pool before leaving the spirits leaving 20 remaining speed. It's essentially a convoluted way of saying difficult terrain because it's not technically terrain. At least that is how I would play it. /shrug
Doesn't walking closer force the enemy to "enter" the aoe? Or does it have to be the enemy moving, either forced or voluntarily?
Same Q for moonbeam
What happens if I'm a Nature domain cleric with Spirit Guardians active, and I cast Plant Growth on top of me. A creature with a base speed of 30 gets halved to 15, and it's 1/4 speed, so would they be able to move at all? Even with regular difficult terrain, they would only be able to move 1 square.
Not sure about being able to pull the enemy into your spirit guardian to cause them damage with the telekinetic feat. Pretty sure they need to use their own movement to do so, either their actual movement or their action/bonus action/reaction to get there. Much the same as you not provoking AoO when you're pulled out of someone's melee range without your own input?
Yea, its more of a check with your dm thing. I know some dms that allow it and some that don't
If you mapped out the squares you could move to with 15' of movement you would get four corners, but it'd be a diamond (rhombus) not a square and it'd hit 25 total squares (including yours), not 49 (including yours). Basically half the area.
I would add that it's also available to Divine Soul Sorcerers
If you were fighting burrowed creatures or creatures hidden underground due to a burrow speed would this spell still effect them if they were within 15 feet in the earth?
No being underground would give you full cover which blocks spells.
Hey everyone,
On the 10 min duration: I have heard this come up in a number of TT videos that h assumes multiple combats in 10 minutes - i wanted to check with others if that matches your experience, in my 3 years of actively playing multiple games i have not once had a second combat within 10min and am always rather surprised by the frequency at which that must happen for TT that he even considers it in his choices. (it would seem equally likely to me to have 2 radiant damage immune encounters in a row that 2 encounters in 10 minutes xD both never happened)
So - hbu all?
We already play such that when you cast it any enemies that are within the circle are treated as entering the area. No telekinetic gimmicks needed.
A lot of focus on how to deal damage with this spell. (And how to abuse forced movement)
But I think an advanced guide on Spirit Guardians should cover how to avoid damage with the spell.
A simple example: Any melee enemy with 60 feet move can be totally prevented from dealing any damage to the cleric, as long as he disengages and moves 20 feet away. And if the enemy refuses to enter the area, you can keep pinging him with cantrips. (The list of enemies matching this description is long)
Interesting math RE Damage and Spell D/C... thanks
Wouldnt moving with the spirit guardians to engulf an enemy be counted as the enemy entering the spell for the first time on a turn
No, they have to move.
@@TreantmonksTemple I know that's rules as written, but couldn't one reasonably argue that if the spell calls out damage at both entering the area and starting a turn in the area, that it make little sense for the guardians to differentiate between HOW the enemies enter the area? :)
If my character is neutral, can I choose radiant or necrotic dammage?
Not RAW, but your DM could rule differently. Though if I were to make the ruling I might say you could choose either, but once you've selected one you're stuck with it, no switching back and forth for damage types.
Last comment re: two castings of SG
I think the first urge I have is to allow both instances of damage to stack because hey, that's fun, and common sense says that if two weapons are whirling about two players and a creature walks in between them, it's very likely both would hit it, but my question is: Should the rule be ignored entirely, or should a special case be made for SG? I mean, I don't want any double Haste shenanigans going on. I don't usually play casters, so I don't know if there are other similar AoE attacks similar to SG that would also benefit from allowing both instances to work, either. And I don't have a good "common sense" explanation for why the second slightly less powerful version of SG wouldn't even force a save other than "well that's not RAW" despite it railing against common sense.
When an area moves does that not count as entering an area?