Our newest player in our group that joined last year keeps casting Detect Magic on things whenever the DM describes an obvious magical item/phenomenon only to be told it's magical. (Also the school of magic but nobody seems to know them but me). I still think it's kinda funny to use a spell slot in these situations.
I like to imagine Jeremy Crawford bursting into the design team’s room interrupting their work: “everyone to the media room, Treantmonk’s uploaded a new video” 😂😂😂
Something I'm surprised they haven't addressed is the term "Spell Level". New players are generally confused why they can't cast 2nd level spells at 2nd level, and this could easily be fixed by just calling them something else like "Spell Tier [#]", or "Spell Rank [#]". I get that practiced players who know the rules don't need this, but part of the design intent of this new edition is to make things clearer for new players.
Maybe they are worried about the confusion when a new player then picks up an old adventure that says spells below 4th level fail in this area ... not to mention Xanathars and Tashas. In trying to simplify you may create more confusion. I don't think there is an easy answer at this stage if you really mean that thing about backward compatibility. My feeling is that they will drop 'backward compatibility' or implement it as a translation document to go from 5e to, what are they calling it now, fifth edition. Yeah that's not confusing.
D&D Basic Rulebook: "We are talking, therefore of dungeon level, monster level, character level and spell level. Example: 'While on the 4th dungeon level, my 6th level magic-user encounter a 5th level monster and attacked it with a 3rd level spell!' The multiple usage of the term 'level' will become quite familiar and not at all confusing once players have participated in a few sessions of the game." I think it'd be better to change it though. Personally, I've always liked "circle" for spells.
I absolutely love that you did TYPES of problem spells rather than just a list of individual problem spells. True strike comes off as a learning tool for new DMs... "this cantrip is sooo bad, how would *I* fix it?" and they learn a bit more about running the game in an organic, self teaching way.
Funnily enough, true strike can actually be pretty fun for a DM to use on a beefy monster. This turn, the Storm Giant points at Dale the ranger menacingly. Dale better GTFO or you KNOW he's gonna be in a world of hurt next round. Its a cool way to telegraph big devastating attacks as a DM, especially if you make it a legendary action to cast and have them cast it off-turn so they're not wasting their turn but while still giving the party a chance to react
Leomund's Tiny Hut can lead to pretty funny ambushes, where an npc casts "dispell magic" and suddenly the entire party is prone, unarmored, and sleeping in the middle of a dungeon.
My favorite story involving Tiny Hut (short version): Party is exploring a magic wasteland. They come across some undead soldiers and get rid of them easily enough. Winds pick up and start a dust storm. Party uses tiny hut. Next morning as the dust is settling, the party can finally see out of the hut and realizes they are surrounded by over a hundred undead. Soldiers, archers, mages, and a few commanders. Everyone has weapons drawn and are just waiting for the dome to go down. Party comes up with a crazy combination of darkness spells, polymorph, and a variety of other things to make their great escape. Dome goes down, enemy wizards blast with aoe spells, archers fire blindly as the party uses Darkness. Half the party is knocked unconscious, other half manages to fly away with a dozen HP.
except now your party is probably 99 percent dead, because a powerful spellcaster has planned an ambush and can now kill some or all of them in their sleep if nobody is keeping a watch. if your DM does this to you, it would be totally realistic, but would you feel like it was fairly within the social contract of dnd?
@Colin Glynn That's when you're supposed to point directly at your players, laugh, and say, "I win! You lose!" Edit: Just to clear up any possible confusion so that they understand what happened.
Just ran into one of these the other day, when a Ghost succesfully possessed one of the players and the druid immediately cast Protection from Evil and Good which they had prepared. Great move! Except, the spell says it requires a willing creature and not having control over their self, the possessed target would technically be unwilling. But, the spell then goes on to mention that if cast on a creature already under the effects of such a thing, then it would have advantage on the meaningful saving throws against said effects. Also, the spell doesn't say it ends the possession if the target is already under that effect. But in the ghost's statblock it does say the possession ends if the ghost is forced out by an effect such as Protection from Evil and Good. The even weirder part is: the possession is a save or suck effect. So the target will not make a new saving throw AFTER being possessed. On top of that, the ability says the Ghost doesn't benefit from class features and ect, but what if the target is already raging or under the effects of giant's might and such? Unclear. It's just a mess.
So, for casting Pro E+G in the first place; the stance I've taken as a DM is that a character cannot be magically coerced into deciding whether or not they're a willing target, or into choosing to fail a saving throw. Things start getting icky otherwise. Specific beats general. This Ghost's particular feature says that the possession is ended by Pro E+G, so it is. It doesn't matter how Pro E+G interacts with other features that cause possession. Finally, in that case, those effects end. Simple.
Instead of having all of these explanations for why the list is 11 and not 10, you could have just surprised everyone with an “honorable mention” like most creators who run into the same problem you did. Great video, as always.
To add to the Identify spell, I think the whole idea of identifying magical items should be addressed. It just bugs me that your average commoner can find out what the most powerful artifact in existence is and exactly how it works simply by spending time with it, which is the same as what a wizard - who has devoted their entire existence to understanding the arcane - can do with a 2nd level spell.
They could learn something from the movie and make attunement more of a process. Perhaps one which identify will help you with. Attunement at the moment is just a limit on how many powerful items you can use ut it adds no gameplay or worldbuilding interest. Legendary items could have their own attunement process which could lead to quests to unlock the most powerful abilities of the item.
Identify is 1st level. Also there is a variant identification rule in the DMG that removes the ability for just anyone to identify items. I personally would like to see another official variant that is closer to 2nd edition identify (pretty much requiring downtime to identify things).
@tomm35 duh thanks for explaining that. I can tell the difference. The mechanic might be you need a bless spell cast on you, upcast to 9th level by a dwarven cleric while holding the axe of the dwarves Lords. The quest is to find the damn cleric and persuade them that you are worthy.
Indeed, the short rest identification should be removed. I do think using the knowledge skills might be a more suitable pick for identifying magical items. And putting emphasis that there are NPC out there who can automatticaly idenitfy magical items, like taking your loot from a troll cave to elrond to get it identified is a fun thing. Short resting it seems more for a dungeon crawl where it's kill n loot thru rooms.
Honestly, the worst part about Polymorph is that by the time you get access to it, you're already at the CR where you straight-up don't see any more beast options BESIDES Giant Ape, unless your setting has dinosaurs. Like, aside from the prospect of transforming ally NPCs, there's basically NO reason to have the parameter based on your level, because you're never going to get any new beasts with a CR above your level ANYWAY. So, as you said, it might as well be a handful of templates, and then maybe an upcast improve the stat block.
What about both? Keep the list of beasts by cr, but also give a couple of template options. This could let casters choose between a couple different generic/reskinnable fighting or exploration focused forms, or a specific beast that they may happen to want for a very specific situation or for lulz.
@@desislavvelchev8728 one thing thats even worse than that is having find steed too, and casting polymorph onto yourself, riding the mount and then polymorphing both of you, since the find steed spell allows you to target both yourself and the mount with spells that only affect you.
I honestly never really thought of Polymorph, but, from my uses of it, there are only two legal forms, snail and giant ape a template for land air, sea, enhanced form, and a land, air, sea reduced form, would be really really perfect, the enhanced form could scale of the casters proficiency, casting modifier, and their hp could scale off their own level in reduced form, you get a 30ft speed for land, 60ft for air, 40ft for water, and basically have the new familiar statblock, I like the idea that they can still attack for 1 point of damage xD I don't know what to do with true Polymorph though, it should work the same way in theory, but the statblock could be simpler -pick any creature type -pick any size from tiny to gargantuan -pick any damage dice from d1 to 2d12 -speaks language of that creature type, ie devils speak infernal -deals damage type depending on creature chosen: beast, bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing devil, fire, lightning, cold, undead, cold, necrotic, etc etc, hit dice of the creature scale with creature size, and number of dice is up to the targets character level or cr basically true polymorph should completely re-write an entire statblock imo, I don't know exactly how, but fundamentally it should work akin to polymorph
A category I've thought about for a long time were spells that were simplified for 5e, awkward corners cut off and text streamlined... but without really paying attention to the spell or the consequences of streamlining. *E.g.* the _goodberry_ spell. It's a transmutation spell, the material component is one of the druidic focus options--like spells that have 'M(a holy symbol)'. But now in 5th Ed it makes berries *appear* out of thin air. A lot of people reasonably assume they're holly berries. The reason it used to be transmutation and Druidic Focus is that you *waved your focus over real berries, transmuting them into goodberries.* You still had to *find berries* for the survival element of the game. No berries in the wild, no _goodberries._ Nevermind that it used to provide a meal's worth of nutrition, not a day's. The reason it completely subverts survival gameplay is that the 5th Ed port smoothed out the one meaningful requirement without thinking about it.
I adore this type of video. Instead of looking at specific instances, you identify the common patterns. This is what separates a random internet user (such as me) from someone who actually puts effort into what they make.
I think pass without trace is an egregious affront to the core design philosophy of 5e, as it provides such an insane constant 1 hour bonus to stealth every party wants it just to get those precious surprise attacks. A level 3 rogue usually has a +7 to stealth. The party of a level 3 shadow monk or druid has a minimum of +9.
If it also removed penalties/disadvantage, I think giving advantage would be fine. The problem with it only giving advantage is there are maybe ways you can get advantage for yourself anyways, in which case it isn't doing something. Like increase DC survival check to check for tracks by +10 plus advantage on stealth... That way you can truly "pass without a trace..."
Best solution to the Shield spell that I've seen is: "When you are hit by an attack, summon a magical barrier that prevents 5+casting mod +5/spell level points of damage from enemy attacks until the start of your turn". Completely divest it from AC (that should be a mage armor thing) - but still preserve the theme of creating a magical barrier that prevents damage.
I had the thought of making it AC = 20 till your next turn. Your idea is also a good fix which keeps the best payoff for casters, not martials who dipped to get the spell. When playing a wizard I actually do not choose shield. Too many other things to use a spell slot on, so I'm just careful with positioning.
100% agree and God bless the DM's that understood why the player picked Daylight to cast on a group of vampires and decided to treat it as sunlight instead of just bright light.
@@falionna3587 It's effectively a useless spell that provides a ton of light at that point. I do think its a massive radius for it to provide sunlight and that could be tuned down some, but for it to just provide a ton of bright light is kinda pointless. If characters can't see there's plenty of other things they could do about that instead of burning a 3rd level slot.
@@falionna3587 Darkness can also be countered with Dispel Magic though. They're both third level spells. It's silly to add a spell into the game when its only purpose is to counter a lower leveled spell and nothing else.
As a player, my least favorite are automatic passes and automatic pickups. It always feels horrible to be pseudo-forced to use half your picks on spells like Guidance, Shield, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Pass Without Trace, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Spirit Guardians, etc.. Sure you can always not take them, but it always feels like you're just strictly weaker without them. On the other hand, it also sucks when the perfect spell for the flavor you want is just horrible, i.e. Elemental Weakness, Phantasmal Killer, Snilloc's Snowball Swarm, etc.. I find comfort in being able to talk with my DMs about making some spells suck less, but that can only fixes the bad spells and not the auto-pick nature of the broken ones. As a DM on the other hand, my least favorite are the unfun spells. As a player, I don't have to worry about these as much because I can always just not take them, but as a DM, it is very hard to not escalate into Counterspell wars when my players use it against me. This is the easiest to fix since you're the DM, but nerfing spells always feels bad for any players taking them. I personally feel that nerfing some spells, like Counterspell or Wall of Force, is perfectly fine, almost to be expected, but not everyone thinks that. Even spells I know are overpowered I feel an attachment to, like Shield and Absorb Elements. I would like for it to be that everyone could be accostumed to nerfing overpowered spells and abilities, but often times those abilities just become the new normal, making nerfing them seem egregious. Tangent about the power level of spells (Tl;dr at bottom): I feel that spells are in a weird spot now because of how they developed. If you actually look in the DMG pg 283, it has a chart of spell damage for level, which I'm pretty sure is how they balanced the abilities of casters. However, most damage spells, even some not remotely worth their level, just straight up deal more damage than listed in the chart. If Fireball and Meteor Swarm, both egregiously overstated at their levels following the chart, are the only nova splash damage spells that are worth it for their level, then that really gives an indication of how strong other, better spells are. Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Wall of Force, Forcecage, etc., are all vastly more powerful than the designers intended for them to be. There are likely as many or more underpowered spells, but those frankly might as well not exist, since people generally never pick them more than once. This has caused the overall power creep of spells, with newer spells being made more powerful to seem worth it compared to the mistake spells they made in the PBH. Two good examples of this include Rime's Binding Ice and Synaptic Static, which both have damage values according to the chart in addition to a second potent effect added ontop of them. I think this is a partial reason for the whole Caster vs Martial disparity (alongside many other things). When more and more spells are added to the game, casters generally only pick up the ones that are powerful, meaning the list of their powerful options just gets larger and larger (especially due to power creep). Tl;dr: Most spells considered good were never meant to be as powerful as they are, but since they are used so much more than their weaker counterparts, the perception of their spell level's power level adjusted to meet their power level. This caused the power level of casters and newer spells printed to be based off all the overpowered and unbalanced spells, leaving encounter balancing and martial characters in the dust.
I think spells would be really aided by having an italicised flavour section and then a mechanics section. Then spells like hunger of hadar could be flavourful but also have clear mechanics
@@rogerwilco2 It always makes me a little sad when the rules text takes up the entire text box so there's no room for flavor. The flavor is great! At least in a book like D&D has, you don't run out of room so easily.
I totally agree with all of these. Bravo. There are two other spell groups that I want them to fix for OneD&D. They need to add more elemental spells of types other than fire and cold (which could be as easy as allowing characters to reflavor their spells when they pick them during a long rest). And they need to fix in-combat healing spells so healers can actually be healers and not reconsciousers. I love the idea of adding levels of exhaustion (especially with the new exhaustion) to characters who go unconscious, but you can't do that without also fixing the in-combat healing.
@@pseudopod It makes a big difference if Witch Bolt wasn't one of the worst spells in the game. Seriously, I want to know what they were thinking when they made it. Super short ranged, Concentration, and uses an action every turn. One of my DMs homebrewed it to be like a single target Melf`s Minute Meteors for our Lightning Wizard, and it worked great. Action to cast, 1 minute duration, bonus action to damage, 90 foot range. Because you could only pick a single target, it wasn't over powered at all.
I really wish there was some way to distinguish which spells are meant for the dm and which spells are meant for players. While arcane lock is situational at best for players, it's really useful for dms to show the presence of magic users in a dungeon, or to just show that a particular door has something important behind it. Same for continual flame. Pretty useless for players especially when most are gonna have dark vision anyway, but for a dm who doesn't want to explain how a dungeon has a bunch of torches that never burn out, 50gp a piece isn't that unreasonable. Same with glyph of warding, symbol, guards and wards, magic mouth, I could go on. All spells sometimes situational for players, but built for dms. I think there should just be a list of spells in the dungeon master guide that are built for dms, that players could still use but their use as set up and NPC spells is known.
Find Traps is a curious spell in 5E. The 1978 D&D version read: locate any magical and mechanical traps in a radius of 30 feet. That seems to be exactly what you're saying. I'm not sure why they changed/tried to fix it. It seems like that's exactly what this spell should do. It's clear and concise. On a side note, spell descriptions could be written more like Magic cards. Have the mechanics of the spell in one paragraph and have the flavor text in a separate one. Weaving them into each other makes it harder to pull up a spell during the game and sort through it. Hunger of Hadar is a great example of them slipping in flavor text everywhere.
14:02 I also feel like a lot of illusion spells could use a clarification that if a creature has a special sense then the spell doesn’t work against them. Right now phantasmal force RAW can only be ended on a target if they make an investigation check, there’s no mention of if they have true sight they automatically realize it’s an illusion and the spell fails, and the spell specifically requires the check to succeed for the spell to end. And since the spell says the creature targeted by the spell treats the spell as if it was real, well then RAW it doesn’t matter that a creature with true sight can see through the spell, they will still think the thing they know is an illusion is real. Now there are some illusion spells that say you automatically succeed the saving throw if you have a special sense, but especially when there’s no save this is often missing on illusion spells. Also more clarification on how senses other than true sight work with illusions. Like for blind slight, do you automatically detect any image based illusion but fail if there’s an associated sound? How does tremor sense work with illusions that create the sound the image would normally make? I think that there’s a lot more clarification that is needed when looking at illusion spells and how they interact with special senses.
The text of truesight says that you automatically detect and succeed on saving throws to see through illusions, so phantasmal force wouldn't work on a creature with it.
No. Absolutely not. That's why you have a DM to arbitrate and override rules in situations where they make no sense. Would a wolf with keen sense be fooled by an illusion of a a rock yes. Would it still be able to scent the person behind the rock. Yes. Would the wolf be fooled by a visual illusion of a hunk of meat. Maybe, maybe not, but not for long. It might get distracted for a turn, but it's not going to Chase after the wagon pulling scent free food for much longer than that. The more you try to codify rules for every eventuality, the more complaints you will get about the rules as written.
The difference between most illusion spell and phantasmal force is that most illusion spell exist in the “real world” and is subject to the target’s senses, whereas phantasmal force exists in the target’s mind bypassing the senses. The investigation check is a focused attempt to investigate the target’s own mind.
@@adamstadick2044 An intelligence saving throw is literally the second sentence in the spell description. You only create the illusion if they fail that save. And, even if you got past that hurdle, truesight would allow them to automatically pass the investigation check to detect the illusion.
Yes, very much so. And this should not be relegated to the DMG, but the explanation of illusions should be right in the PHB, maybe a small section for each school of magic.
Shield could grant AC 20 against the incoming attack. Or perhaps 19+spell slot level. The Jeremy Crawford ruling from years ago that upcasting bonuses to spell damage only effects the first round is terrible and doesn't make sense. Spells that scale the number of targets don't grant their effects for only 1 round to additional the targets. The issue is that spells that stick around for more than 1 turn (like spirit guardians or witch bolt) should always only scale +1 die per 2 slot levels. Spells need to account for their opportunity costs in terms of action economy. Spells like witch bolt or call lightning need to take into account the fact the action to reuse the spell replaces just using a cantrip. World building spells in general are terrible and far to easy to dispel. Geas does damage per day, in a system where everyone regenerates to full after in a single night and can be dispelled. Hallow can just be dispelled by any demon or undead with a 3rd level slot. Magic circle doesn't prevent a creature trapped inside it from murdering you and can be easily teleported out of. Some additional "never taken" spells: Flamestrike (same damage as fireball, smaller area, 2 levels higher - fireball isn't even wizard exclusive anymore. Light clerics get this and fireball as bonus spells, why would anyone cast this?) Dispel Evil and Good (atrociously crap, takes 2 actions and your concentration, replicates the effects of spells 2 levels lower than it with additional restrictions) There needs to be some flexibility to concentration... I don't want to go back casting 10 buff spells before kicking open the boss door, but I find that often I cast my first spell in combat... and then I can't do anything else because I can only maintain one buff OR debuff at a time. I think if a negative status effect grants a save every round it doesn't need to also take concentration - unless it's really strong and broad in application. There are some spells where it "feels" like the spell caster is having an active battle of wills against the target, like dismissal or flesh to stone where it is appropriate. (both of spells have a special effect if fully maintained) I don't have a definite idea how this should be done, just don't like the status quo. Spells in general are disappointingly weak in a world sense, like blindess/deafness used to be permanent - it's necromancy after all it literally withers their eyes away. So do their eyes just regrow after 1 or 2 rounds? At least if someone fails 3 rounds in a row or by 10 or more or something it should be permanent. Everything spellcasters do is so fleeting that in only makes sense in terms of dnd combat balance where fights last 3-5 rounds at most.
My most disliked category of spells is Encounter Enders. These are usually Save or Suck spells that shut down entire encounters with no ways for most enemies to do anything about it. Forcecage, Wall of Force, (Banishment), etc. Another category is spells that supersede other options (either spells or proficiencies) too quickly. Fly coming one level after Levitate and all but completely making it obsolete. But also first level ritual spells like Comprehend Languages and Detect Magic. For example, it makes no sense to me that Comprehend Languages cast at lvl 1 enables the caster to decipher Exotic languages as well.
Levitate is a one-target save or suck spell that targets the monsters' CON saves. Targeting an enemy with it is a great way to waste both an action and a spell slot.
So I learned something recently: Wall of Force's 10 panels all have to be on the same geometrical plane. You can't box somebody in with it unless you're using the dome, which doesn't have a floor. As far as I can tell only Wall of Stone allows that. I agree it should still have hit points though.
Having played a necromancer before, so many of these problems come up with Animate Dead on its own. Very specific in some areas but incredibly vague in others, like they never anticipated situations where a necromancer might want to change their minions' equipment, or ask if a slain zombie can be animated yet again. We had to read into so many things and house rule others to make the subclass work.
A zombie can't be reanimated due to the spell targeting only humanoid remains, not undead, which is kinda sorta clear from the spell text... but also, like, why is that limitation is there, it doesn't make much sense? Why can't i animate a wolf zombie? If reusing corpses is a problem, could've added a stipulation that a corpse can only be affected once by this spell. And yeah, a bunch of other problems with this spell.
Another category is spells that do the same thing as a good spell, but have subtly different wording which makes them a bad spell. Example: compare Wall of Light to Wall of Fire. You have to read the details of the spell to figure out that Wall of Light basically does no damage to enemies inside it or moving through it (unless they are restrained or trapped). They often use these subtle wordings to gimp lower level spells, but it's inconsistent. The point is, you should be able to tell what a spell does quickly once you have the general idea, because all spells like it should work the same way (and in a good way).
I think the worst is 'spells should never be automatic picks' and 'spells should never be automatic passes'. I would love to be able to tell new players, "just make sure you have at least 1 spell that sounds useful in combat per level, and then you won't go wrong". But I can't.
I want literally nearly the entire Ranger spell list to be fixed lol. It’s criminal that smite spells exist as they do but Lightning Arrow works the way it does
On the other Hand, i don't understand why Paladins don't get Steal Wind Strike. And honestly, I don't like the Smite Spells, since they are concentration, and I like to use my concentration for Spells that last longer than till the next hit.
also several of them are just worse than comparable spells, on a class with less spell slots! the fact that conjure barrage only deals 3d8 damage (and the save is off your wisdom modifier, the secondary stat) means it just feels worse to use. fireball is the same level but with greater range and less chance of collateral damage, whereas shatter deals the same damage a level lower and has special uses beyond blasting in combat. the ranger unique spells were supposed to be allowed to be more powerful because they’re on a half caster, not less.
@@Hazel-xl8in Maybe the easiest fix for Conjure Barrage would be making it a bonus action cast, so it fits the concept of supplementing the attack action with some AoE ability, while also feeling a bit more unique. Maybe Conjure Volley, too, but that one is better scaled to its level, so maybe not. The other spells are a bit more tricky to fix, so I'll not bother for now with checking if I have any homebrew notes I've gathered on them.
One big thing Truestrike is missing is payoff. If Disintegrate was an attack roll rather than saving throw spell, even status quo Truestrike might be a worthy use of an action (although at least a range bump would be great). But there aren’t big damage spells based on a single attack roll. That’s also one of the problems with Chaos Sorcery. The idea of getting advantage for a big payoff spell attack is sweet, but the big spells don’t exist.
It is a little weird that these 2 effects, that literally replicate biological attributes of spiders would be considered "arcane" I guess? Having them be Druid(/Rangers) spells would be a good way of rebalancing the casters(/half-casters) classes & improve their identity/what makes them different. 👍
Why? You aren't summoning a spider to make the web or invoking a spider's spirit and gaining the attributes of it. You just make something like a web, or gain the ability to do the same thing that coincidentally spiders do (or at least something close to it). If they named it "Sticky strands" and "wall-walk", everyone would agree it's an arcane spell, and nothing in the description needs to change. If I saw someone walking on the walls, I'd probably say they were spider-climbing, despite it having nothing to do with spiders nor nature. Same for web and sticky strands. It's just a reasonable name for what it does, not that it actually is related to spiders in any way.
I have this growing dread about 5.5 that it's not going to be better, just...different than what we have now to the point where we're going to be playing essentially the same DnD for the next 10 years. The optimization and choices won't get better, but just change to accommodate the updates.
Yeah, i think they only care about making the PHB, be consistent with the new releases. I have being asking on those polls, for them to address the Monster Manual, while there are slight hints at that, i have given up hope for those poor monsters...
@@soninhodev7851 A DMG that makes new DM's want to take up the challenge of running a game is what will grow their business. Fast, fun rules and simple tables to get people having fun. More tables playing is WOTC's future income stream. DMG is critical to this new iteration.
Find Familiar is sillier for hunt-the-stat-block. The speld has an exact list of which creatures you can summon… but only half of them are in the back of the PHB. Surely a left-hand vs right-hand problem.
I'm not too familiar with the earlier editions but I think the idea of the DM having secret information on spells, etc. is legacy from the earliest editions.
The DM having secret information is cool and still a good idea, but it shouldn't be a "gotcha moment". Knowing that the item is cursed (but not what the curse actually is) but still attuning to it won't change much: "Maybe the curse isn't so bad. Oh, it's actually pretty bad. Hey, one order of remove curse, please!" vs "Oh, damn, it's cursed. Remove curse, please!"
Honestly it's an artifact of older editions. Sort of a "I *really* want to curse one of my PCs with a neat cursed item idea, but they're doing their due diligence too well so there's no way it could work." IMO if you want to *fix* identify to make it so where cursed items are still relevant, it's pretty easy: add a material cost to Identify (Maybe 25 gold). The spell is meant to be a bit of a stopgap anyway, you can either identify the item on the road or you can take it to a magical library/laboratory and identify it properly with research or the help of a friendly NPC. (Admittedly, this assumes that there is a friendly NPC/library/etc waiting for you when you get back)
I remember having my magic user in 1E cat identify. It didn't even always work, which was really frustrating. Nowadays with the "handle the item during a short rest and learn it's secrets" rule it's not even necessary to have identify. And with this secret trap in the DMG it's more important to have remove curse than the identify spell. Do we really want to punish players with foresight?
We need more niche and specific spells. The right tool for the right job, not universal-multitools for everything. Watery Sphere? Let it kill fire creatures instantly. Earthbind? Let it damage creatures on fall. Daylight? Why wouldn't it turn low level undead for a turn. Old Banishment and Blight got the right idea. And we need more rituals, even at the cost of priced components. It solve problem with non-combat spells.
I totally agree, but I think the know spells number should be increased to compensate. Only knowing 10 spells as a 7th level bard means you don’t have much room for niche spells. I’ll always pick a spell id use in a decent amount of situations over a highly specific spell. If you pick 1 damage spell of each level, you have 1 other spell of each level for utility.
Word of Recall. It forces the DM to build every encounter around the fact the group can just leave anytime the Cleric decides. One Action, Verbal as the only component, Five Targets...and the party is just out of there. "Don't make spells that derail any encounter unless that encounter is specifically built to circumvent that one specific spell"
I am really curious what kind of encounters are you having that have to account for that. This spell wins half the crawl when you get into some dangerous place to steal or find something important, and then need to get out alive. Other than that, I can barely think of encounters that would be won by teleporting out. It sure turns a TPK into a setback, but not into victory. Can't save the village under attack by getting out, can't stop the evil man's evil ritual by getting out, can't finish a travel sequence by teleporting away from a random encounter back to your starting city.
@@arcturuslight_ Any encounter we feel like. The level of threat doesn't matter, it is just always an option. Trapped? Ambushed? Drunk? Poof. It doesn't have to be our starting city, just a place the spell was cast dedicated to the god. And the party might never cast it, but the fact they can needs to be accounted for by the DM, not the players, the DM. I find it curious you don't understand the implications of this spell.
@@MiseryRex I acknowledged the trapped/ needing escape scenario. The starting city was referring to the last large settlement, from which a multi-day travel started. A city likely was the last place that had a temple, setting you days of travel back if used to escape an encounter. A trap and just some forms of ambushes would need special treatment from the DM to account for the spell. I asked what you encounter because I thought either I am missing something, or your every single encounter is getting trapped. You pretty much say that's the case. Almost all encounters in games I played and watched are not solved by getting away, since there are other goals, thus DM does not need to worry about the spell.
@@arcturuslight_ Or...cast Hallow. I feel you are being deliberately obtuse and purposefully missing the point just for some obscure personal pleasure.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with 4th edition, but it might be interesting to compare a 4th edition power to the 5th edition spell equivalent. 4th edition spells were clear and concise, and the spell flavor was at the beginning in italics instead of woven into the rules text. I don’t think my table was ever truly confused by a 4th edition power when they chose or used it. I still see people confused by a 5th edition spell, even when they’ve used it before.
@@rogerwilco2 I suppose I don’t remember 5th edition being rushed. I mainly remember it being an attempt to pull people back to D&D after 4th edition pushed a lot of people away. They returned to using more natural language to describe spells and features, but that bred more ambiguity. In an attempt to leave 4th edition behind, they left some of the best changes behind while hiding some others behind new terminology (such as once per short rest being an encounter power, and once per long rest being a daily power). I wish we kept minions and skill challenges.
**Shield Spell Fix** - You cast the spell and your armor class becomes 20 until your next turn. Fixes the stacking AC problem, and keeps it relevant for low AC casters.
I dont think I have ever heard identify not telling you an item was cursed. Like, isnt that the point? To be sure it isnt cursed before you use it. Like, if the sword just deals an extra 1d8 lightning damage, we can figure that out by using it. It will be nice upside. What we want to know is whether or not wielding it will also deal CON damage everytime we swing it or some other bad effect. Like, I can't be the only person who thinks about it this way, right?
There are a bunch of other subtle problems with identifying items. The attunement rules say that you learn how to activate any and all magic properties, not their exact detail (including command words, but also.. how do you know them?) which would be weird to keep track of, like you know 3 command words, now try to find out what they do. Another thing, you don't learn the charges, which also applies to non-attunement items, while identify specifically tells charges, so the intention is that you don't know em unless you identify. So, the DM is expected to keep track of everyone's charges? Especially when the item regenerates a die roll of charges per dawn, so the character effectively loses track. How many people play it like that? A bit more of what nobody cares to do is losing attunement on all items when someone dies and gets revived.
I think the whole magic item system needs a rework. Linking rarity and price is bad as well. They need to figure out how magic items work, and then redo Identify based on that. But for the old one, I think this is really a result of them publishing the 2014 PHB before they had finished wiring the 2014 DMG.
One thing that has been bothering me recently, that I doubt will be fixed since I don't see that many people complain about it... is the timing/existence of repeating saves. Spells that have a duration usually have an opportunity once per turn to possibly escape them with a save. However, sometimes that save is at the start of your turn, sometimes it is at the end, sometimes it is a check, sometimes it takes your action to be able to make that roll. I understand that sometimes they use these mechanics to balance a spell, but it add a lot of confusion that requires looking into the text of a spell sometimes multiple times during the same encounter.
When watching I did think about this issue briefly. There are spells that take effect at the end/start of casters/targets turn, plus do/don't take effect immediately when cast. This is a lot of combinations. I don't mind those mechanics too much, they can subtly alter the power, change the number of defensive opportunities, and add variety, but do mean that you cant skip over that part of the description and say "its a DoT spell, i know how these work". The most problematic part in these are spells that trigger on entering an area. These tend to create the most confusion in interpretation.
@@arcturuslight_ What I mean is that I wish they would be more intentional in OneDND about writing their spell mechanics. I think DoT spells should usually work the same way, and if there is an exception, it should be called out in the description of the spell. We also really need a field for saving throw type & when a save is repeated so you don't have to read through a spell to find them.
There is a video of JC saying that, if someone wants to use Phantasmal Force to blind someone, he would let him do that, but not do the damage. However, this was coming from him as a DM, not a rules as intended thing. I like conjure animals a lot and I use it quite a lot when I play a character that can use it. It's really smooth, but it's a player-dm collaboration. If I cast Bless, I don't have to talk with the DM and prepare a list of tokens on my roll20 and then have a those statblocks in another place so I can press attack from there ( Using multiple monitors as well, so that's pretty quick too ). I know I am using a lot of prep ( it's done once, and then maintained by me having everything ready and having multiple monitors ). However, dnd is not meant to be played with multiple monitors. What if I play IRL? What do I do then? I'm not gonna use conjure animals AT ALL if I play irl. One solution to conjure animals is: Make a pool of possible summoned creatures. If you start your turn without having a creature active, you summon a new one on that turn and it attacks after you. You can keep the 1/2/4/8 summoned creatures, but you wont have 8 at a time, lets say you have 2 at a time or something like that. This solution is for the case where you really want to meddle with statblocks and you love nature a little bit *too much* Another solution: Make it an adaptive swarm ( or one creature ). Lets say you have one big wolf, or you have a pack of wolves, with a swarm-like statblock. Instead of attacking 8 times, you avg the 8 attacks out, and BAM that's the "TO HIT" roll. Then, you avg the damage out, and BAM, that's the dmg roll. It can still have multi attack, and you can give it some speical abilities too ( like always advantage if it's a pack of wolves, or constrict / poison dmg / charge for other creatures, DC will need to be adjusted to match multiple save DCs ). It took me 5 seconds to think of this. I'm pretty sure the idea can be used to make it work. At the end of the day, it's just math.
I wonder if there’s a way to get meta on the effects of the conjure spells, and allow the actual “summoning” to be a skin. For instance, have Conjure Animals creat an area effect which the caster can move with a bonus action, that does some damage and inflicts on of three status effects. Upcasting opens up more Conditions, including options for friendly ones for Allies, like flight within the zone of the spell. The area appears to be a flurry of animal spirits inflicting the damage and conditions. This takes all the pain out of the spell, gives pretty much the same mechanical effects, fits the “druids summon animal and fae spirits” idea.
I've definitely reflavored druid spells to be this exactly! Entangle as a bunch of restraining snakes, Tidal Wave as a flock of birds that knock someone over, etc.
Brilliant idea, reminds me of _Stampede_ , Beastmaster's ultimate ability from Warcraft 3. His other spells focus on summoning individual beasts for you to micro, much like Summon Beast in D&D, but _Stampede_ basically works as you've described it here-hordes of animals charge through to damage things in the area for a while, but they cannot otherwise interact with anything. If they were visually replaced with a tsunami or a spreading fire, it would still feel and function the same way. And honestly, Druid needs literally any decent blast spell in my opinion, would be a welcome addition as Conjure Animals is banned at my table.
Huh, so kinda like Spirit Guardians conjuring a bunch of spirits that beat up your enemies, but mechanically being area DoT. I would've never thought of that. Sounds interesting.
For me, the most egregious has to be the spells that are automatic passes. But it's a problem with 5e and balance in general. Honestly, there are also sub-classes and even some classes that are automatic passes for most people.
Yes. I have always disliked spells and abilities with absolute effects. I would much rather that Knock gives a big bonus on Sleight of Hand to open locks for example. I also very much dislike any spells having no counter at all.
I wonder if it would be better if Counterspell and Dispel Magic were just "things a spellcaster can do with a big enough spellslot" instead of specific spells. And maybe any kind of caster can do them, but with a check and some penalties and minuses depending on the situation (adv if the anti-magic slot is bigger, add proficiency if the targeted spell is on your list or prepped, etc)
Pathfinder 2e makes Counterspell a feat for Sorcerer, Witch, and Wizard, essentially making it counter spells you’ve prepared (Wizard, Witch) or are in your repertoire and can cast (Sorcerer). It then adds higher-level feats that let you do more with it, such as Clever Counterspell for Wizard letting you more flexibly choose spells to counter another given spell with. It has some situational “counterspells” like Shadow Siphon (halves damage by making a spell partially illusory on a successful counteract), but the only true “counter anything of lower level” spell is the 10th-level spell Nullify-and that sees you pay health to negate the spell instead.
Ok I see what you mean for Leomunf Tiny Hut, but one of my favorite memories of a session is the night we were all sleeping in our hut thinking "nothing can happen to us" and boom the hut disapear and we get attacked by a full groups. We soon realized these ennemies, who have been chasing us, had the clever idea to bring a caster with dispel magic.... The sheer fear and adrenaline that the DM gave us by saying "The hut disapear" omg
True strike should be a bonus action that lasts until the end of your turn. This is a huge buff to eldritch knights and arcane tricksters. It’s not a buff to full caster gishes like college of swords and blade singers, because they give up the ability to cast a spell to bolster their martial ability.
My homebrew is pretty much what treantmonk said. I make it a 1 minute duration spell. That way, you can give yourself advantage in your first attack if you can know a combat is coming your way.
Honestly with the game the way it is, I agree: It's easy enough to get an effective bonus action attack as it is, so trading your bonus action for advantage on your attack rolls isn't too big of a deal. The scare is the potential of spells that have attack rolls, but even in those cases getting advantage on the attack roll should be easy enough without true strike. (there are shockingly few high level attack roll spells anyway... hell, Disintegrate shoots a thin green ray... that calls for a reflex save rather than an attack roll for some reason, probably because getting advantage on attack rolls is easy and giving disadvantage on saves is significantly harder)
I'm of the opinion that making True Strike a bonus action would make it too powerful (for a cantrip), too easy to grab it with Magic Initiate and then use it on literally every turn. Instead I'd make the spell work on allies as giving up your action to give some else advantage is a more interesting trade off.
@@pseudopod I don't really see it as that big of an issue. It's *very* easy to get a bonus action attack these days, and as so many critics of the spell point out attacking twice is superior to attacking once with advantage. If you're taking magic initiate, you're not taking Polearm Master, for example. As I mentioned earlier, I'm actually more concerned with it's application on casters, what with the possibility of tacking true strike on to your firebolt every turn, but if you're firebolting then chances are you could be doing something more optimal with your turn as a mage anyway.
Enhance ability should not require concentration and work just like the light spell. Can only have one of them active at the same time. It would then be one of the best spells in the game. Cheap, effective and efficient.
Agreed. The somewhat "random" implementation of concentration was one of the best intentions with lame results of the 5e spell system. I know the intent was to stop mega buffing and stacking boons, but the result is just less interesting choices sometimes, but STILL having boon stacking on all the spells that don't have concentration.
As a mostly pathfinder player we have to say be careful with using templates to simplify systems. Nothing feels worse than finally getting the ability to transform into a grizzly bear and then finding out that your base stats haven't changed so you're actually just a gnome in a cheep fursuit. Well except maybe transforming an ancient dragon into a hamster and learning that it's actually more dangerous because the template doesn't actually remove any of it's draconic abilities so now there's a tiny hard to hit rodent flying around breathing acid on everybody.
D&D seems to be more of a fan of templates that mostly override the original statblock, instead of mostly keeping. Which leads to edge cases and weirdness when people start looking at abilities you should logically keep or lose, and when losing some but not all of interconnected stats and features.
Indeed. I don't know if templates can be done right, but I don't think that Pathfinder has the solution. I really like the Polymorph and Shapechange spells and think the real problem is that they rely on Challenge Rating. I think maybe each monster should have a separate rating for when its abilities are in the hands of the players. That might solve some summoning spells as well.
My biggest gripe with spells in 5e is spells that target a save that a particular class is basically guaranteed to have +0 or -1 on, and completely shut down that class's ability to do anything for the rest of the fight. I don't think DMs should have to choose between basically banning a spell for their monsters or ruining the experience for one player in particular. The same problem applies when those spells are cast by players, since spells like that can really ruin an encounter. It's really as much a problem with the entire saving throw system as it is with individual spells, though, in my opinion. I guess this would fall under "Spells should make the game more fun".
Spells like tiny hut and good berry classes like ranger and druid (and wizard) kinda kills survival..like every time I see on r20 a "survival" campaign idea for 5e I just skip it
12. "fire the pyromaniac", joking but really there's a strong bias towards fire spells which, while that isn't a problem in the spell design on it's own, gives ice mage or black draconic sorcerer very little options (and Transmuted spell is not a good answer to that problem)
The spell list and how they chose to address such big holes in design space that is begging for expansion.... Is the clearest case for homebrew. Just homebrew it for flavor intent and 8 times out of 9 you'll be just fine.
I'm actually shocked you didn't get the invite. You are and where a balanced and fair source to watch when the D&D shenanigans went down. You have always held yourself and subscribers to a moral standard. Love the video by the way. Please keep up the good work. It's needed and appreciated.
In every campaign I have been in, at least once a player(s) has confused what "Chill Touch" is/does due to the name. "Oh, it's ranged not melee? -- Oh it doesn't do Cold damage?!"
People choosing Polymorph: "Oh cool! I can't wait to turn into tons of different strong animals to do unique things for my party!" Monster Manual: "Mmm, Monke."
One way to fix the Shield Spell to address the issue you raise would be to restrict it so that only casters that are wearing light armor, mage armor or no armor can cast it.
I think the problem with spells like polymorph or features like wildshape is that it specifies beast creatures and then the game fails to provide plenty of beast options. The higher you go in challenge rating with beast the less options you get. A Giant Ape is the only challenge rating 7 beast (to my knowledge) so when you gain access to polymorph as level 7 its the only form you'd ever want to choose because if you choose another beast you have to choose a weaker one. If there were 5 more beast of cr 7 then it wouldn't be a problem and you could have some really unique options both mechanically and for the flavour. Throw in a dinosaur like a carnotaurus for the those of us who love dinosaurs in our games and a giant vampire bat for a unique life draining feature. Honestly i would much rather even a small book that is just beast stat blocks maybe a subclass or two and some druid spells then going to a template.
I always interpreted that sacred flame ignored cover because that flame like radiance was able to go trough solid objects. I took it like a divine light that can't be blocked, so it has to be evaded (that's why is a Reflex Save).
Honestly the problem with Polymorph and Giant Ape is that there aren't enough Beasts of mid CR and higher. I hope the new Monster Manual for 2024 has more.
With the Phantasmal Force thing, I think of how the PHB describes darkness, as a creature “EFFECTIVELY suffers from the blinded condition” while in it. Like the mechanical things happen to them, but a Lesser Restoration won’t give just them darkvision because they’re not in fact blinded. So the rules of grappling like being ended for X and Y, etc wouldn’t apply to a phantasmal tentacle as they would the condition of being grappled, but they could be treated as effectively grappled
If they're really adamant on Find Traps not telling you the exact location and nature of a trap, they could make it more vague. So the spell could alert you to hidden mechanisms beneath a certain patch of ground but not what the actual trap is. It could be a pitfall or it could be a pressure plate which causes fire or arrows to shoot out of the walls. Essentially you detect the location of the traps, but not what they do or what triggers them. It gives the players enough information to formulate a plan without spoiling the surprise or completely negating the threat.
There is also a major issue with spells that seem to imply condition effects but are inconsistent with the condition. Fear is a perfect example. The creature becomes frightened but "also" must dash away. Why then when you are frightened does it change to "can't move towards". I have people playing in my game that have played for over a decade and still get these mixed up.
Identify caused quite a bit of anger in my game for the exact reason you explained. Player found a magic ring, cast identify, and thought he was getting a ring of regeneration. Immediately put it on and when he realized his wounds were not magically healing, knew he had a cursed item. Had to show him the exact wording from the DM Guide because he thought identify should have told him the item was cursed. He was pretty salty about that for some time.
Forcecage was somewhat alluded to with saying that Wall of Force has issues, but I'm surprised that Simulacrum wasn't covered, it's simultaneously over-complicated and an automatic pick, and leads to a combo so incredibly broken, infinite wishes, that Adventurer's League has specific rules to prevent it (that somehow aren't part of the main rules), and most campaigns will use those rules anyway.
My favorite phantasmal force question is what happens if you make a fire elemental believe it's trapped in a tank of water? Does the fire elemental instantly have a stroke and die believing it was in contact with hundreds of gallons of water or does it just take the normal damage
Phantasmal Force is even MORE egregious than you've explained at this point. To further add to your point, if the target has to discern the illusion to completely real, then there SHOULDN'T be an option to make an Investigation check to discern otherwise. The spell says the target treats the illusion to be real. Sure, wasting an action to discern an illusion is nice. But it shouldn't be there if the intention is to make a real illusion for the target. Like you said, you can't have it both ways. Either they can break out of it, or they can't. It's really that simple.
Rather than fixing the "must-have" spell problem by nerfing the spell, another approach is to improve the competing spells, until you are forced to make choices among the "must-have" spells. This is why I don't mind the revised Resistance cantrip. In fact, in my game, we have modified True Strike to work the same way as the modified Resistance and Guidance cantrips. Cantrip selection for their new characters became a much more thoughtful process, as nobody could take all the cantrips they would have liked. A new strategic element has been added to combat as well, as each player has to think more carefully about their battlefield positioning and how they use their reactions. The extra 1d4 to a die roll at the cost of a cantrip slot, a reaction, and flexibility in battlefield positioning is by no means overpowered.
I generally agree with this philosophy. Buff the bad, don't nerf the good. I only generally make exception if something is TOO good (I think Treantmonk's comments about Leomund's Tiny Hut completely ending sleeping risks as a good example). Leomund's Tiny hut would still be amazing if it still did everything it does, but still allows creatures to pass. Or make a save to pass. Conjure animals / woodland beings is another one to me. Summoning spells need to be single-creature summons imo. Cluttering the field with 8 extra units is just never good for the table in m experience. Sure it's VERY powerful, but it's problematic. So while one (tougher) summon is arguably a nerf, it's a nerf for the betterment of the game (and single-creature summons are also still very good).
Maybe Tiny Hut could dissipate a turn or so after being struck BUT everyone inside is immediately made aware of the incoming threat like what the alarm spell does? The party still would have no chance to put their armour on BUT they would all be able to ready an action that would go off the instant the opaque forcefield goes down. That still leaves a lot of room to be creative for a powerful 1st round before having to potentially continue the fight with that huge AC drop. 🙂
I’d argue it’s usually more efficient (and likely to produce good balance) to fix the one spell that is problematic rather than trying to modify the potentially huge number of other spells so they can compete with a particular must-have spell. It also helps you avoid power creep, which can have knock-on effects beyond spellcasters. As long as the nerfed spell is still a viable choice, I am all for that approach.
That part of fooling the players -- just rolled up a wizard in my first D&D campaign in a decade, and guess what spell I took at second level? Identify. It was on theme for the character, and yeah, I knew it wasn't optimal. However, I didn't realize that it was less than that, that the safety I thought I was buying by sacrificing a spell selection that could have been better placed elsewhere wasn't there in the first place. Boy, I feel like an idiot.
You're right about most of these examples, Chris... I've had to add some house rules to either create a variant spell or just to better explain the spell for most of these examples you listed in this video. For one, thing I changed Leomund's Tiny Hut so it is no longer a ritual and so that missiles no longer pass through it. I also added the stipulation that those inside the Hut can only see out of the dome up to 30 feet as if in dim light. Polymorph has been altered to disallow any forms greater than or less than one size difference from the original form. Counterspell requires an opposed spell check against the caster's spell attack roll. Identify does not detect curses, but those items are very rare (and seldom lethal). Instead, Identify has become more important as I don't permit attunement with an item to identify its properties; you have to either experiment with the item or else use the Identify spell. True Strike is a bonus action, and reduces your movement to 0 for the entire turn. (treat this like Steady Aim (Rogue ability from Tasha's) but with concentration.) Blade Ward is a reaction but only works vs. one specific attack. And so on, etc... I should make variants for Mordenkainen's Sword (and Hound), Find Traps, etc. but frankly no one ever picks those spells, so I've been focusing on the ones that come up in my campaigns.
I'd really like it if similar spells worked the same way whenever possible, makes memorizing spells much easier and has less chance of spells being used wrong. For example Moonbeam and Flaming Sphere should deal damage at the same point in the round.
Oh absolutely this. Change the spell level or balance them in some other way if necessary (damage spells usually aren't that great anyway though except for a couple outliers like Fireball so you may not even have to). Just be consistent.
CounterSpell is number one for me simply because it comes up so often. They need to either rethink the entire logic of whether or not players/NPCs have enough knowledge of the target spell being cast to be able to do it in thee first place or they need to add rolls like you mentioned. They probably need to do both. Especially now that many NPC stat blocks have given NPCs abilities that are just spells. Just tear it down and rebuild it from scratch.
Without the ability to detect curses, the Identify spell has no purpose. Alternatively, they could remove the ability to attune to items by playing with them for an hour and discovering all of their properties. I doubt many GMs want more stuff to track, and would rather just give the players the information or tell them they can't use the magical properties until the thing is idetified. Personally, I'd go back to having the spell consume the component.
By raw, you don't know the number of charges on anything without identifying it. And if it is a die roll to regenerate charges, you might have to identify it every day to know. Like, is the DM supposed to keep track of everyone's charges? Who thought of that? Surely nobody plays like that.
On Indentify it needs a mechanic for actually identifying items requireng some osrt of check depending on rarity and if the item is cursed, I almost shouldn't be a spell and just a feature but since it's a ritual I'll let it pass. Polymorph I really feel is only restricted in what it is useful for when used as a combat spell, sure there are only a few offensive and defensive options for it but it is a utility spell not a combat spell and is significantly more useful when used as one.
You missed "spells invalidating other spells" (healing word to cure wounds) or "spells with trivial costs that negate game mechanics/meaning" (healing word again). Healing word can also be on the "automatic picks" list. And one more contender "spells that automatically bypass mechanics" (especially for low costs) such as create and destroy water, goodberry, zone of truth.
@@andyenglish4303 The amount doesn't matter, it could be fixed at 1 HP and it wouldn't change the power level of the spell at all. The point is that you use it when someone drops to 0 to stop them from dying, and you don't even have to give up an action to do it. With at least 1 HP, on their turn they can stand up and take their full turn again. Unless there's enough enemies dogpiling them to make them fail 3 death saves, there's nothing stopping you from doing it again the next round, too. And a lot of groups don't like to have enemies target downed players, which makes it even better. Suddenly, dropping to 0 hit points just means you lose half your movement, and the Cleric or Bard's bonus action...which depending on the level, they may not have a lot to do with anyway (although giving up a Spiritual Weapon attack or something isn't nothing, at least).
I think hunting for stat blocks is a mechanic in the game that sells books. Whether or not it’s good for gameplay is debatable, like I think the reason Druid was the least played class is because might not own the monster manual to find wild shape stat blocks. but also players should have a reason to learn how to read stat blocks so they can learn to be Dm’s. So I think it’s a good gateway into the DM’s chair.
I read heat metal saving as "if you fail saving throw you must drop object and if you failed and could not or would not drop it you have following disadvantages"
In my opinion, the Phantasmal Force example is the most egregious. I had a campaign early in my DM career where a character cast this spell, and I had never seen it before. The lvl 5 characters were fighting a fire giant. The bard cast Phantasmal Force and made the illusion a second fire giant that attacked the first, not a preposterous scenario. I was very perplexed about what to do with, "..the target treats the phantasm as if it were real" and "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC." Many spells in 5e allow creatures to make repeated saving throws against ongoing effects, so naturally I assumed that this should be like one of those spells. But the target thinking the illusion was real seemed to erase the opportunity to make the investigation check. But why have the text about seeing through the illusion if the target was never allowed to disbelieve the illusion? Initially, I ruled that the giant would get to make an investigation check on each of its turns to examine the illusion, but then the wizard (my wife and a much better DM) said I was making the spell useless, which was unfair to the player who had picked the spell. So instead I ruled that the fire giant would get one investigation check because it was weird that another fire giant would appear from nowhere and start attacking him. The fire giant failed that check and spent the rest of the encounter attacking only the illusory fire giant because it was the biggest threat. A 2nd-level spell broke the entire encounter. Spell text should not put the DM in a position where the choice is "ruin the player's fun" or "break the encounter and all other single low-intelligence creature encounters forever".
Giving the Fire Giant the potential to make a check every round is absolutely not "making the spell useless" and honestly that sounds like a very munchkin-like thing to claim. Especially since Fire Giants get a big fat +0 to INT and no proficiency in Investigation. Also checks are easier to give penalties to than saves, and creatures are often much worse at checks than saves, so it's ALREADY stronger than most other save or suck spells even with your interpretation.
I mean, fixing magic jar is would not be that hard, I would order it as following: How you can put your soul in the jar How you can get your soul into another body (what special extras do you get for being the one to cast the spell) What happens to a body if it has no soul What happens when a soul is embodying something that is not its origin, including what senses you get while in an object, what happens if an living host dies) with just some clearer wording it should be fine
idea for absorb elements: instead of damage resistance, it provides damage reduction for the triggering element, equal to prof mod * the level of casting. The prof mod makes it scale naturally, but the spell actually rewards you if you have higher levels slots. You are level 16, and a red dragon breathes fire on you for 35 damage? You know a 7th level absorb elements will negate it.
What would do with "setting"/"world building spells"? Continual Flame, etc. A player will probably never take a spell that cost 50gp and a second level spell slot when Light or Produce Flame exist. Should the DMG have its own boring spell selection? Wall of Force feels like a spell that was originally for DMs as a puzzle solving tool.
Wild Shape, Conjure Animals, Polymorph and similar spells suffer from another problem-- their scope and power level can change with supplements. New Beasts can get brought in, new Fae, new Fiends, new monsters of all kinds, and any one of them can suddenly introduce a new optimal choice for a spellcaster. (Spellcasters also benefit disproportionately from supplements introducing new material. How often does a Fighter get a new, better choice when a new book is released? How often does a Wizard? Compare and contrast...)
Phantasmal force is so weird and definitely extremely flawed, because if the creature believes in the illusion to such an extent that it's mind will rationalize any inconsistencies about it, what would ever prompt them to make an investigation check after they've failed their save? And contrarily, what is stopping a creature from immediately making an intelligence check even if they've failed their save and supposedly 100% believe the illusion to be real if they can always just unrestrictedly use their action do so?
i myself made a ginormous sheet with loads of changes for virtually all spells. the thing i found to be most fun was correcting the first point you brought up. making spells that are trash appealing is just so nice, bc you get to be creative within the limits of what the spells name implys. the second point was also somewhat fun, as i like to inflict suffering onto overoptimizers, as i am a fan of underdog stuff and that doesnt work with third lvl godlike casters, who defeat the entire world. one thing i found to be of importance when changing spells, which you didnt mention was to change spells that dont have sufficient identity. exampels here are the swordburst, word of radiance thunderclap sisters, which if there was only one of them would be cool, but no two variants, notably more powerfull too, that do the same basic thing had to be made.... another example is poison spray and toll the dead, where poison spray is basically just the shorter, more resisted version of toll the dead(unless of course you win innitiative, but still poison spray is boring af). this is admitedly more of a problem with the cantrips than spells, as the former have to be under a cirtain power cealing, but it still happens to a lesser extent with spells.
Made an entire encounter around Conjure Animals, and even for a lvl 10+ party it took most of the session to deal with the summons, while the caster snuck away with their objective.
Great Video I agree with the lot. The only issue is it appears 5e 2024 edition (as we now need to call it) will not resolve things. Jeremy has told us that 5e 2014 is not being superceeded and will work alongside 5e 2024. A Spirit Guardians is still a must take spell because it is in the 2014 PHB and still a valid option. If I decide my PC is going learn banish I will presumably be able to choose the 2024 version where the enemy gets a save every turn andd 2014 edition where they don't (no prizes for guessing which I'll take)
The worst offender for me is the spell name not doing what the spell text actually says it does. Find Traps was such a good spell in older editions because it finds the traps, i have no idea how they thought the 5e version was good enough to ship.
I think the reasoning is that they don't want to obsolete the Rogue, but plenty of OTHER spells obsolete skills and character features so I don't know why they bothered (Goodberry, Comprehend Languages/Tongues, Borrowed Knowledge, Knock, etc.) Not every party has a Rogue anyway and not every Rogue wants to be a trapfinder. Heck, anyone can find traps if they take the right skills and tools.
A creature affected by phantasmal force being held by a tentacle is going to be able to move out and think about something that let him go out, the same reason a creature fall if step on the imaginary bridge.
Misleading spell names is my personal pet peeve. Or feature names in general, because it is not just limited to spells. No greater sin than promising one thing on the tin and then not delivering on that thing. It's also not limited to just the name, often there are flavor descriptions of what a feature is meant to do and then you look at the actual mechanics and realize that the feature doesn't really work in practice, like the Monk's Stillness of Mind or the Shadow Sorcerer's Strength of the Grave. Those kind of straddle the line between having misleading names/descriptions and tricking the player in my eyes. People tend to read them and think "ha, I'm going to be very hard to charm now" or "I'm going to avoid falling unconscious once a long rest, fantastic!" and then get burned the moment the features actually come up in play.
“I cast detect traps” DM: “The spell alerts you to itself”
Our newest player in our group that joined last year keeps casting Detect Magic on things whenever the DM describes an obvious magical item/phenomenon only to be told it's magical. (Also the school of magic but nobody seems to know them but me). I still think it's kinda funny to use a spell slot in these situations.
You get a sudden realization about the "cute druid girl" next to you!
I like to imagine Jeremy Crawford bursting into the design team’s room interrupting their work: “everyone to the media room, Treantmonk’s uploaded a new video” 😂😂😂
That would be glorious!
@@TreantmonksTemple i am no Jeremy Crawford but that's how I react 😂
“Don’t invite him though” 💀
I wish lol
Meanwhile, Jeremy Crawford bursting into the design team’s room interrupting their work:
When you mentioned spell name confusion I immediately thought of Chill Touch. Neither a cold spell or a touch spell lol
Something I'm surprised they haven't addressed is the term "Spell Level".
New players are generally confused why they can't cast 2nd level spells at 2nd level, and this could easily be fixed by just calling them something else like "Spell Tier [#]", or "Spell Rank [#]".
I get that practiced players who know the rules don't need this, but part of the design intent of this new edition is to make things clearer for new players.
Agreed
Great point. Call it "rank", "degree" or "tier" or something. Those aren't perfect, but work better.
Maybe they are worried about the confusion when a new player then picks up an old adventure that says spells below 4th level fail in this area ... not to mention Xanathars and Tashas. In trying to simplify you may create more confusion. I don't think there is an easy answer at this stage if you really mean that thing about backward compatibility.
My feeling is that they will drop 'backward compatibility' or implement it as a translation document to go from 5e to, what are they calling it now, fifth edition. Yeah that's not confusing.
Better yet, come up with names for the spell tiers
D&D Basic Rulebook: "We are talking, therefore of dungeon level, monster level, character level and spell level. Example: 'While on the 4th dungeon level, my 6th level magic-user encounter a 5th level monster and attacked it with a 3rd level spell!' The multiple usage of the term 'level' will become quite familiar and not at all confusing once players have participated in a few sessions of the game."
I think it'd be better to change it though. Personally, I've always liked "circle" for spells.
I absolutely love that you did TYPES of problem spells rather than just a list of individual problem spells. True strike comes off as a learning tool for new DMs... "this cantrip is sooo bad, how would *I* fix it?" and they learn a bit more about running the game in an organic, self teaching way.
Funnily enough, true strike can actually be pretty fun for a DM to use on a beefy monster.
This turn, the Storm Giant points at Dale the ranger menacingly. Dale better GTFO or you KNOW he's gonna be in a world of hurt next round.
Its a cool way to telegraph big devastating attacks as a DM, especially if you make it a legendary action to cast and have them cast it off-turn so they're not wasting their turn but while still giving the party a chance to react
Leomund's Tiny Hut can lead to pretty funny ambushes, where an npc casts "dispell magic" and suddenly the entire party is prone, unarmored, and sleeping in the middle of a dungeon.
My favorite story involving Tiny Hut (short version):
Party is exploring a magic wasteland. They come across some undead soldiers and get rid of them easily enough. Winds pick up and start a dust storm. Party uses tiny hut. Next morning as the dust is settling, the party can finally see out of the hut and realizes they are surrounded by over a hundred undead. Soldiers, archers, mages, and a few commanders. Everyone has weapons drawn and are just waiting for the dome to go down. Party comes up with a crazy combination of darkness spells, polymorph, and a variety of other things to make their great escape. Dome goes down, enemy wizards blast with aoe spells, archers fire blindly as the party uses Darkness. Half the party is knocked unconscious, other half manages to fly away with a dozen HP.
except now your party is probably 99 percent dead, because a powerful spellcaster has planned an ambush and can now kill some or all of them in their sleep if nobody is keeping a watch. if your DM does this to you, it would be totally realistic, but would you feel like it was fairly within the social contract of dnd?
@Colin Glynn That's when you're supposed to point directly at your players, laugh, and say, "I win! You lose!"
Edit: Just to clear up any possible confusion so that they understand what happened.
Just ran into one of these the other day, when a Ghost succesfully possessed one of the players and the druid immediately cast Protection from Evil and Good which they had prepared. Great move! Except, the spell says it requires a willing creature and not having control over their self, the possessed target would technically be unwilling. But, the spell then goes on to mention that if cast on a creature already under the effects of such a thing, then it would have advantage on the meaningful saving throws against said effects.
Also, the spell doesn't say it ends the possession if the target is already under that effect. But in the ghost's statblock it does say the possession ends if the ghost is forced out by an effect such as Protection from Evil and Good. The even weirder part is: the possession is a save or suck effect. So the target will not make a new saving throw AFTER being possessed.
On top of that, the ability says the Ghost doesn't benefit from class features and ect, but what if the target is already raging or under the effects of giant's might and such? Unclear.
It's just a mess.
Oh yes, that is another mess that we have encountered in actual play.
So, for casting Pro E+G in the first place; the stance I've taken as a DM is that a character cannot be magically coerced into deciding whether or not they're a willing target, or into choosing to fail a saving throw. Things start getting icky otherwise.
Specific beats general. This Ghost's particular feature says that the possession is ended by Pro E+G, so it is. It doesn't matter how Pro E+G interacts with other features that cause possession.
Finally, in that case, those effects end. Simple.
Instead of having all of these explanations for why the list is 11 and not 10, you could have just surprised everyone with an “honorable mention” like most creators who run into the same problem you did. Great video, as always.
Yeah, I should have done that. Next time.
@@TreantmonksTempleno Chris. Don't be like everyone else. Be your own unique self! 😂
To add to the Identify spell, I think the whole idea of identifying magical items should be addressed. It just bugs me that your average commoner can find out what the most powerful artifact in existence is and exactly how it works simply by spending time with it, which is the same as what a wizard - who has devoted their entire existence to understanding the arcane - can do with a 2nd level spell.
They could learn something from the movie and make attunement more of a process. Perhaps one which identify will help you with. Attunement at the moment is just a limit on how many powerful items you can use ut it adds no gameplay or worldbuilding interest. Legendary items could have their own attunement process which could lead to quests to unlock the most powerful abilities of the item.
@@nicka3697 "Going on a quest" is not a mechanic
Identify is 1st level. Also there is a variant identification rule in the DMG that removes the ability for just anyone to identify items. I personally would like to see another official variant that is closer to 2nd edition identify (pretty much requiring downtime to identify things).
@tomm35 duh thanks for explaining that. I can tell the difference.
The mechanic might be you need a bless spell cast on you, upcast to 9th level by a dwarven cleric while holding the axe of the dwarves Lords.
The quest is to find the damn cleric and persuade them that you are worthy.
Indeed, the short rest identification should be removed. I do think using the knowledge skills might be a more suitable pick for identifying magical items. And putting emphasis that there are NPC out there who can automatticaly idenitfy magical items, like taking your loot from a troll cave to elrond to get it identified is a fun thing. Short resting it seems more for a dungeon crawl where it's kill n loot thru rooms.
Honestly, the worst part about Polymorph is that by the time you get access to it, you're already at the CR where you straight-up don't see any more beast options BESIDES Giant Ape, unless your setting has dinosaurs. Like, aside from the prospect of transforming ally NPCs, there's basically NO reason to have the parameter based on your level, because you're never going to get any new beasts with a CR above your level ANYWAY. So, as you said, it might as well be a handful of templates, and then maybe an upcast improve the stat block.
Polymorph could have been a level 1 spell = CR 1, that can be upgraded
@Hamster Jelly but you can summon other creatures almost as powerful as a Trex, like Elementals and Fiends. tha
What about both? Keep the list of beasts by cr, but also give a couple of template options. This could let casters choose between a couple different generic/reskinnable fighting or exploration focused forms, or a specific beast that they may happen to want for a very specific situation or for lulz.
@@desislavvelchev8728 one thing thats even worse than that is having find steed too, and casting polymorph onto yourself, riding the mount and then polymorphing both of you, since the find steed spell allows you to target both yourself and the mount with spells that only affect you.
I honestly never really thought of Polymorph, but, from my uses of it, there are only two legal forms, snail and giant ape
a template for land air, sea, enhanced form, and a land, air, sea reduced form, would be really really perfect, the enhanced form could scale of the casters proficiency, casting modifier, and their hp could scale off their own level
in reduced form, you get a 30ft speed for land, 60ft for air, 40ft for water, and basically have the new familiar statblock, I like the idea that they can still attack for 1 point of damage xD
I don't know what to do with true Polymorph though, it should work the same way in theory, but the statblock could be simpler
-pick any creature type
-pick any size from tiny to gargantuan
-pick any damage dice from d1 to 2d12
-speaks language of that creature type, ie devils speak infernal
-deals damage type depending on creature chosen:
beast, bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing
devil, fire, lightning, cold,
undead, cold, necrotic,
etc etc, hit dice of the creature scale with creature size, and number of dice is up to the targets character level or cr
basically true polymorph should completely re-write an entire statblock imo, I don't know exactly how, but fundamentally it should work akin to polymorph
A category I've thought about for a long time were spells that were simplified for 5e, awkward corners cut off and text streamlined... but without really paying attention to the spell or the consequences of streamlining.
*E.g.* the _goodberry_ spell. It's a transmutation spell, the material component is one of the druidic focus options--like spells that have 'M(a holy symbol)'. But now in 5th Ed it makes berries *appear* out of thin air. A lot of people reasonably assume they're holly berries. The reason it used to be transmutation and Druidic Focus is that you *waved your focus over real berries, transmuting them into goodberries.* You still had to *find berries* for the survival element of the game. No berries in the wild, no _goodberries._ Nevermind that it used to provide a meal's worth of nutrition, not a day's. The reason it completely subverts survival gameplay is that the 5th Ed port smoothed out the one meaningful requirement without thinking about it.
Agreed
Yes. 5th edition feels like it was a rush job, even after 10 years.
I adore this type of video. Instead of looking at specific instances, you identify the common patterns. This is what separates a random internet user (such as me) from someone who actually puts effort into what they make.
I think pass without trace is an egregious affront to the core design philosophy of 5e, as it provides such an insane constant 1 hour bonus to stealth every party wants it just to get those precious surprise attacks.
A level 3 rogue usually has a +7 to stealth. The party of a level 3 shadow monk or druid has a minimum of +9.
I played in a campaign where it was house ruled so it provided advantage to stealth rolls instead.
If it also removed penalties/disadvantage, I think giving advantage would be fine. The problem with it only giving advantage is there are maybe ways you can get advantage for yourself anyways, in which case it isn't doing something.
Like increase DC survival check to check for tracks by +10 plus advantage on stealth... That way you can truly "pass without a trace..."
Best solution to the Shield spell that I've seen is: "When you are hit by an attack, summon a magical barrier that prevents 5+casting mod +5/spell level points of damage from enemy attacks until the start of your turn". Completely divest it from AC (that should be a mage armor thing) - but still preserve the theme of creating a magical barrier that prevents damage.
I had the thought of making it AC = 20 till your next turn. Your idea is also a good fix which keeps the best payoff for casters, not martials who dipped to get the spell. When playing a wizard I actually do not choose shield. Too many other things to use a spell slot on, so I'm just careful with positioning.
Just make it +2AC per every other spell level, and keep the part about magic missile.
If a spell is called daylight, it should provide a reliable source of bloody light that only occurs during the day!
100% agree and God bless the DM's that understood why the player picked Daylight to cast on a group of vampires and decided to treat it as sunlight instead of just bright light.
I don't think it should provide sunlight given how potent that would be, however renaming it would be more apropiate.
@@falionna3587 It's effectively a useless spell that provides a ton of light at that point. I do think its a massive radius for it to provide sunlight and that could be tuned down some, but for it to just provide a ton of bright light is kinda pointless. If characters can't see there's plenty of other things they could do about that instead of burning a 3rd level slot.
@@snazzyfeathers It's main use is a counter to Darkness, niche, but there. third level is a tad too low for a vampire killer spell.
@@falionna3587 Darkness can also be countered with Dispel Magic though. They're both third level spells. It's silly to add a spell into the game when its only purpose is to counter a lower leveled spell and nothing else.
As a player, my least favorite are automatic passes and automatic pickups. It always feels horrible to be pseudo-forced to use half your picks on spells like Guidance, Shield, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Pass Without Trace, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Spirit Guardians, etc.. Sure you can always not take them, but it always feels like you're just strictly weaker without them. On the other hand, it also sucks when the perfect spell for the flavor you want is just horrible, i.e. Elemental Weakness, Phantasmal Killer, Snilloc's Snowball Swarm, etc.. I find comfort in being able to talk with my DMs about making some spells suck less, but that can only fixes the bad spells and not the auto-pick nature of the broken ones.
As a DM on the other hand, my least favorite are the unfun spells. As a player, I don't have to worry about these as much because I can always just not take them, but as a DM, it is very hard to not escalate into Counterspell wars when my players use it against me. This is the easiest to fix since you're the DM, but nerfing spells always feels bad for any players taking them. I personally feel that nerfing some spells, like Counterspell or Wall of Force, is perfectly fine, almost to be expected, but not everyone thinks that. Even spells I know are overpowered I feel an attachment to, like Shield and Absorb Elements. I would like for it to be that everyone could be accostumed to nerfing overpowered spells and abilities, but often times those abilities just become the new normal, making nerfing them seem egregious.
Tangent about the power level of spells (Tl;dr at bottom):
I feel that spells are in a weird spot now because of how they developed. If you actually look in the DMG pg 283, it has a chart of spell damage for level, which I'm pretty sure is how they balanced the abilities of casters. However, most damage spells, even some not remotely worth their level, just straight up deal more damage than listed in the chart. If Fireball and Meteor Swarm, both egregiously overstated at their levels following the chart, are the only nova splash damage spells that are worth it for their level, then that really gives an indication of how strong other, better spells are. Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Wall of Force, Forcecage, etc., are all vastly more powerful than the designers intended for them to be. There are likely as many or more underpowered spells, but those frankly might as well not exist, since people generally never pick them more than once. This has caused the overall power creep of spells, with newer spells being made more powerful to seem worth it compared to the mistake spells they made in the PBH. Two good examples of this include Rime's Binding Ice and Synaptic Static, which both have damage values according to the chart in addition to a second potent effect added ontop of them. I think this is a partial reason for the whole Caster vs Martial disparity (alongside many other things). When more and more spells are added to the game, casters generally only pick up the ones that are powerful, meaning the list of their powerful options just gets larger and larger (especially due to power creep).
Tl;dr: Most spells considered good were never meant to be as powerful as they are, but since they are used so much more than their weaker counterparts, the perception of their spell level's power level adjusted to meet their power level. This caused the power level of casters and newer spells printed to be based off all the overpowered and unbalanced spells, leaving encounter balancing and martial characters in the dust.
I think spells would be really aided by having an italicised flavour section and then a mechanics section. Then spells like hunger of hadar could be flavourful but also have clear mechanics
To totally be that guy, *ahem* have you ever looked at 4th edition?
Indeed, like MtG cards have had for decades.
@@rogerwilco2 It always makes me a little sad when the rules text takes up the entire text box so there's no room for flavor. The flavor is great! At least in a book like D&D has, you don't run out of room so easily.
I can’t get my players to read their own spells as it is. You’re asking them to read *more*
@@donkeyfly43 No, they actually would be able to read less as they could just skip the italicized flavor bits and focus purely on the mechanics.
I totally agree with all of these. Bravo. There are two other spell groups that I want them to fix for OneD&D. They need to add more elemental spells of types other than fire and cold (which could be as easy as allowing characters to reflavor their spells when they pick them during a long rest). And they need to fix in-combat healing spells so healers can actually be healers and not reconsciousers. I love the idea of adding levels of exhaustion (especially with the new exhaustion) to characters who go unconscious, but you can't do that without also fixing the in-combat healing.
Trying to make a Storm Sorcerer with thematic spells is a little disappointing when you realize how few thunder and lightning spells there
@@pseudopod It makes a big difference if Witch Bolt wasn't one of the worst spells in the game. Seriously, I want to know what they were thinking when they made it. Super short ranged, Concentration, and uses an action every turn.
One of my DMs homebrewed it to be like a single target Melf`s Minute Meteors for our Lightning Wizard, and it worked great. Action to cast, 1 minute duration, bonus action to damage, 90 foot range. Because you could only pick a single target, it wasn't over powered at all.
Very good points.
I really wish there was some way to distinguish which spells are meant for the dm and which spells are meant for players. While arcane lock is situational at best for players, it's really useful for dms to show the presence of magic users in a dungeon, or to just show that a particular door has something important behind it. Same for continual flame. Pretty useless for players especially when most are gonna have dark vision anyway, but for a dm who doesn't want to explain how a dungeon has a bunch of torches that never burn out, 50gp a piece isn't that unreasonable. Same with glyph of warding, symbol, guards and wards, magic mouth, I could go on. All spells sometimes situational for players, but built for dms.
I think there should just be a list of spells in the dungeon master guide that are built for dms, that players could still use but their use as set up and NPC spells is known.
Find Traps is a curious spell in 5E. The 1978 D&D version read: locate any magical and mechanical traps in a radius of 30 feet. That seems to be exactly what you're saying. I'm not sure why they changed/tried to fix it. It seems like that's exactly what this spell should do. It's clear and concise. On a side note, spell descriptions could be written more like Magic cards. Have the mechanics of the spell in one paragraph and have the flavor text in a separate one. Weaving them into each other makes it harder to pull up a spell during the game and sort through it. Hunger of Hadar is a great example of them slipping in flavor text everywhere.
Yes, and have the flavour text in italics, like someone else suggested in some other comment.
@@rogerwilco2 Yes! That's a great idea.
14:02 I also feel like a lot of illusion spells could use a clarification that if a creature has a special sense then the spell doesn’t work against them. Right now phantasmal force RAW can only be ended on a target if they make an investigation check, there’s no mention of if they have true sight they automatically realize it’s an illusion and the spell fails, and the spell specifically requires the check to succeed for the spell to end. And since the spell says the creature targeted by the spell treats the spell as if it was real, well then RAW it doesn’t matter that a creature with true sight can see through the spell, they will still think the thing they know is an illusion is real. Now there are some illusion spells that say you automatically succeed the saving throw if you have a special sense, but especially when there’s no save this is often missing on illusion spells.
Also more clarification on how senses other than true sight work with illusions. Like for blind slight, do you automatically detect any image based illusion but fail if there’s an associated sound? How does tremor sense work with illusions that create the sound the image would normally make?
I think that there’s a lot more clarification that is needed when looking at illusion spells and how they interact with special senses.
The text of truesight says that you automatically detect and succeed on saving throws to see through illusions, so phantasmal force wouldn't work on a creature with it.
No. Absolutely not. That's why you have a DM to arbitrate and override rules in situations where they make no sense.
Would a wolf with keen sense be fooled by an illusion of a a rock yes. Would it still be able to scent the person behind the rock. Yes. Would the wolf be fooled by a visual illusion of a hunk of meat. Maybe, maybe not, but not for long. It might get distracted for a turn, but it's not going to Chase after the wagon pulling scent free food for much longer than that.
The more you try to codify rules for every eventuality, the more complaints you will get about the rules as written.
The difference between most illusion spell and phantasmal force is that most illusion spell exist in the “real world” and is subject to the target’s senses, whereas phantasmal force exists in the target’s mind bypassing the senses. The investigation check is a focused attempt to investigate the target’s own mind.
@@adamstadick2044 An intelligence saving throw is literally the second sentence in the spell description. You only create the illusion if they fail that save. And, even if you got past that hurdle, truesight would allow them to automatically pass the investigation check to detect the illusion.
Yes, very much so.
And this should not be relegated to the DMG, but the explanation of illusions should be right in the PHB, maybe a small section for each school of magic.
Shield could grant AC 20 against the incoming attack. Or perhaps 19+spell slot level.
The Jeremy Crawford ruling from years ago that upcasting bonuses to spell damage only effects the first round is terrible and doesn't make sense. Spells that scale the number of targets don't grant their effects for only 1 round to additional the targets. The issue is that spells that stick around for more than 1 turn (like spirit guardians or witch bolt) should always only scale +1 die per 2 slot levels.
Spells need to account for their opportunity costs in terms of action economy. Spells like witch bolt or call lightning need to take into account the fact the action to reuse the spell replaces just using a cantrip.
World building spells in general are terrible and far to easy to dispel. Geas does damage per day, in a system where everyone regenerates to full after in a single night and can be dispelled. Hallow can just be dispelled by any demon or undead with a 3rd level slot. Magic circle doesn't prevent a creature trapped inside it from murdering you and can be easily teleported out of.
Some additional "never taken" spells:
Flamestrike (same damage as fireball, smaller area, 2 levels higher - fireball isn't even wizard exclusive anymore. Light clerics get this and fireball as bonus spells, why would anyone cast this?)
Dispel Evil and Good (atrociously crap, takes 2 actions and your concentration, replicates the effects of spells 2 levels lower than it with additional restrictions)
There needs to be some flexibility to concentration... I don't want to go back casting 10 buff spells before kicking open the boss door, but I find that often I cast my first spell in combat... and then I can't do anything else because I can only maintain one buff OR debuff at a time. I think if a negative status effect grants a save every round it doesn't need to also take concentration - unless it's really strong and broad in application. There are some spells where it "feels" like the spell caster is having an active battle of wills against the target, like dismissal or flesh to stone where it is appropriate. (both of spells have a special effect if fully maintained) I don't have a definite idea how this should be done, just don't like the status quo.
Spells in general are disappointingly weak in a world sense, like blindess/deafness used to be permanent - it's necromancy after all it literally withers their eyes away. So do their eyes just regrow after 1 or 2 rounds? At least if someone fails 3 rounds in a row or by 10 or more or something it should be permanent. Everything spellcasters do is so fleeting that in only makes sense in terms of dnd combat balance where fights last 3-5 rounds at most.
Good points.
This is quite good, and I think pointing out the general problems is actually way more beneficial than just proposing a bunch of solutions.
My most disliked category of spells is Encounter Enders.
These are usually Save or Suck spells that shut down entire encounters with no ways for most enemies to do anything about it.
Forcecage, Wall of Force, (Banishment), etc.
Another category is spells that supersede other options (either spells or proficiencies) too quickly.
Fly coming one level after Levitate and all but completely making it obsolete.
But also first level ritual spells like Comprehend Languages and Detect Magic. For example, it makes no sense to me that Comprehend Languages cast at lvl 1 enables the caster to decipher Exotic languages as well.
Levitate is an excellent control spell when you cast it on an enemy...
Levitate is a one-target save or suck spell that targets the monsters' CON saves. Targeting an enemy with it is a great way to waste both an action and a spell slot.
@@morganpetros9635 It's basically Stunning Strike!
So I learned something recently: Wall of Force's 10 panels all have to be on the same geometrical plane. You can't box somebody in with it unless you're using the dome, which doesn't have a floor. As far as I can tell only Wall of Stone allows that. I agree it should still have hit points though.
@@andyenglish4303 The spell description literally says "hemisphere OR sphere"
Having played a necromancer before, so many of these problems come up with Animate Dead on its own. Very specific in some areas but incredibly vague in others, like they never anticipated situations where a necromancer might want to change their minions' equipment, or ask if a slain zombie can be animated yet again. We had to read into so many things and house rule others to make the subclass work.
A zombie can't be reanimated due to the spell targeting only humanoid remains, not undead, which is kinda sorta clear from the spell text... but also, like, why is that limitation is there, it doesn't make much sense? Why can't i animate a wolf zombie? If reusing corpses is a problem, could've added a stipulation that a corpse can only be affected once by this spell. And yeah, a bunch of other problems with this spell.
Another category is spells that do the same thing as a good spell, but have subtly different wording which makes them a bad spell. Example: compare Wall of Light to Wall of Fire. You have to read the details of the spell to figure out that Wall of Light basically does no damage to enemies inside it or moving through it (unless they are restrained or trapped). They often use these subtle wordings to gimp lower level spells, but it's inconsistent. The point is, you should be able to tell what a spell does quickly once you have the general idea, because all spells like it should work the same way (and in a good way).
I think the worst is 'spells should never be automatic picks' and 'spells should never be automatic passes'. I would love to be able to tell new players, "just make sure you have at least 1 spell that sounds useful in combat per level, and then you won't go wrong". But I can't.
I want literally nearly the entire Ranger spell list to be fixed lol. It’s criminal that smite spells exist as they do but Lightning Arrow works the way it does
Yes this.
I used that spell a single time and the confusion that spiraled from it made me never want to use it again.
On the other Hand, i don't understand why Paladins don't get Steal Wind Strike.
And honestly, I don't like the Smite Spells, since they are concentration, and I like to use my concentration for Spells that last longer than till the next hit.
also several of them are just worse than comparable spells, on a class with less spell slots! the fact that conjure barrage only deals 3d8 damage (and the save is off your wisdom modifier, the secondary stat) means it just feels worse to use. fireball is the same level but with greater range and less chance of collateral damage, whereas shatter deals the same damage a level lower and has special uses beyond blasting in combat.
the ranger unique spells were supposed to be allowed to be more powerful because they’re on a half caster, not less.
@@Hazel-xl8in Maybe the easiest fix for Conjure Barrage would be making it a bonus action cast, so it fits the concept of supplementing the attack action with some AoE ability, while also feeling a bit more unique. Maybe Conjure Volley, too, but that one is better scaled to its level, so maybe not. The other spells are a bit more tricky to fix, so I'll not bother for now with checking if I have any homebrew notes I've gathered on them.
One big thing Truestrike is missing is payoff. If Disintegrate was an attack roll rather than saving throw spell, even status quo Truestrike might be a worthy use of an action (although at least a range bump would be great). But there aren’t big damage spells based on a single attack roll. That’s also one of the problems with Chaos Sorcery. The idea of getting advantage for a big payoff spell attack is sweet, but the big spells don’t exist.
Make Web and Spider Climb part of the primal spell list.
It is a little weird that these 2 effects, that literally replicate biological attributes of spiders would be considered "arcane" I guess?
Having them be Druid(/Rangers) spells would be a good way of rebalancing the casters(/half-casters) classes & improve their identity/what makes them different. 👍
@@zTom_ Of all the languages in the Player's Handbook this gamer could have used to speak, it had to be facts lol.
there are a decent number of arcane spells that really should be primal spells too, if not only primal and not arcane
Why? You aren't summoning a spider to make the web or invoking a spider's spirit and gaining the attributes of it. You just make something like a web, or gain the ability to do the same thing that coincidentally spiders do (or at least something close to it).
If they named it "Sticky strands" and "wall-walk", everyone would agree it's an arcane spell, and nothing in the description needs to change.
If I saw someone walking on the walls, I'd probably say they were spider-climbing, despite it having nothing to do with spiders nor nature. Same for web and sticky strands. It's just a reasonable name for what it does, not that it actually is related to spiders in any way.
I have this growing dread about 5.5 that it's not going to be better, just...different than what we have now to the point where we're going to be playing essentially the same DnD for the next 10 years. The optimization and choices won't get better, but just change to accommodate the updates.
I am cautiously optimistic it will be an improvement, but I've far less optimism it will address all my concerns with 5e
Yeah, i think they only care about making the PHB, be consistent with the new releases. I have being asking on those polls, for them to address the Monster Manual, while there are slight hints at that, i have given up hope for those poor monsters...
@@soninhodev7851 A DMG that makes new DM's want to take up the challenge of running a game is what will grow their business. Fast, fun rules and simple tables to get people having fun. More tables playing is WOTC's future income stream. DMG is critical to this new iteration.
@@samuelbroad11 i hope they see it that way...
Find Familiar is sillier for hunt-the-stat-block. The speld has an exact list of which creatures you can summon… but only half of them are in the back of the PHB. Surely a left-hand vs right-hand problem.
5th edition feels like a rush job to me on so many levels.
I like the idea of Find (Detect) Traps as a cantrip - that feels right for its utility, kind of like a Paladin’s Divine Sense.
I would like to add a spell to the make the spells do what it sounds like they do. Too many people think chill touch is a melee spell
That delivers cold damage...
The funniest part is that the "Chill _Touch_" spell is one of only three cantrips that have a range of 120ft, and one of those three is Eldritch Blast
I'm not too familiar with the earlier editions but I think the idea of the DM having secret information on spells, etc. is legacy from the earliest editions.
The DM having secret information is cool and still a good idea, but it shouldn't be a "gotcha moment".
Knowing that the item is cursed (but not what the curse actually is) but still attuning to it won't change much:
"Maybe the curse isn't so bad. Oh, it's actually pretty bad. Hey, one order of remove curse, please!" vs "Oh, damn, it's cursed. Remove curse, please!"
Honestly it's an artifact of older editions. Sort of a "I *really* want to curse one of my PCs with a neat cursed item idea, but they're doing their due diligence too well so there's no way it could work."
IMO if you want to *fix* identify to make it so where cursed items are still relevant, it's pretty easy: add a material cost to Identify (Maybe 25 gold). The spell is meant to be a bit of a stopgap anyway, you can either identify the item on the road or you can take it to a magical library/laboratory and identify it properly with research or the help of a friendly NPC. (Admittedly, this assumes that there is a friendly NPC/library/etc waiting for you when you get back)
I remember having my magic user in 1E cat identify. It didn't even always work, which was really frustrating. Nowadays with the "handle the item during a short rest and learn it's secrets" rule it's not even necessary to have identify. And with this secret trap in the DMG it's more important to have remove curse than the identify spell. Do we really want to punish players with foresight?
We need more niche and specific spells. The right tool for the right job, not universal-multitools for everything. Watery Sphere? Let it kill fire creatures instantly. Earthbind? Let it damage creatures on fall. Daylight? Why wouldn't it turn low level undead for a turn. Old Banishment and Blight got the right idea.
And we need more rituals, even at the cost of priced components. It solve problem with non-combat spells.
I totally agree, but I think the know spells number should be increased to compensate. Only knowing 10 spells as a 7th level bard means you don’t have much room for niche spells. I’ll always pick a spell id use in a decent amount of situations over a highly specific spell. If you pick 1 damage spell of each level, you have 1 other spell of each level for utility.
Word of Recall. It forces the DM to build every encounter around the fact the group can just leave anytime the Cleric decides.
One Action, Verbal as the only component, Five Targets...and the party is just out of there.
"Don't make spells that derail any encounter unless that encounter is specifically built to circumvent that one specific spell"
I am really curious what kind of encounters are you having that have to account for that.
This spell wins half the crawl when you get into some dangerous place to steal or find something important, and then need to get out alive. Other than that, I can barely think of encounters that would be won by teleporting out. It sure turns a TPK into a setback, but not into victory. Can't save the village under attack by getting out, can't stop the evil man's evil ritual by getting out, can't finish a travel sequence by teleporting away from a random encounter back to your starting city.
@@arcturuslight_ Any encounter we feel like. The level of threat doesn't matter, it is just always an option. Trapped? Ambushed? Drunk? Poof.
It doesn't have to be our starting city, just a place the spell was cast dedicated to the god.
And the party might never cast it, but the fact they can needs to be accounted for by the DM, not the players, the DM.
I find it curious you don't understand the implications of this spell.
@@MiseryRex I acknowledged the trapped/ needing escape scenario.
The starting city was referring to the last large settlement, from which a multi-day travel started. A city likely was the last place that had a temple, setting you days of travel back if used to escape an encounter.
A trap and just some forms of ambushes would need special treatment from the DM to account for the spell. I asked what you encounter because I thought either I am missing something, or your every single encounter is getting trapped. You pretty much say that's the case.
Almost all encounters in games I played and watched are not solved by getting away, since there are other goals, thus DM does not need to worry about the spell.
@@arcturuslight_ Or...cast Hallow. I feel you are being deliberately obtuse and purposefully missing the point just for some obscure personal pleasure.
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with 4th edition, but it might be interesting to compare a 4th edition power to the 5th edition spell equivalent. 4th edition spells were clear and concise, and the spell flavor was at the beginning in italics instead of woven into the rules text. I don’t think my table was ever truly confused by a 4th edition power when they chose or used it. I still see people confused by a 5th edition spell, even when they’ve used it before.
5th edition was a rush job I think. That's what it looks like to me.
@@rogerwilco2 I suppose I don’t remember 5th edition being rushed. I mainly remember it being an attempt to pull people back to D&D after 4th edition pushed a lot of people away. They returned to using more natural language to describe spells and features, but that bred more ambiguity. In an attempt to leave 4th edition behind, they left some of the best changes behind while hiding some others behind new terminology (such as once per short rest being an encounter power, and once per long rest being a daily power). I wish we kept minions and skill challenges.
**Shield Spell Fix** - You cast the spell and your armor class becomes 20 until your next turn.
Fixes the stacking AC problem, and keeps it relevant for low AC casters.
I dont think I have ever heard identify not telling you an item was cursed. Like, isnt that the point? To be sure it isnt cursed before you use it.
Like, if the sword just deals an extra 1d8 lightning damage, we can figure that out by using it. It will be nice upside. What we want to know is whether or not wielding it will also deal CON damage everytime we swing it or some other bad effect.
Like, I can't be the only person who thinks about it this way, right?
There are a bunch of other subtle problems with identifying items. The attunement rules say that you learn how to activate any and all magic properties, not their exact detail (including command words, but also.. how do you know them?) which would be weird to keep track of, like you know 3 command words, now try to find out what they do.
Another thing, you don't learn the charges, which also applies to non-attunement items, while identify specifically tells charges, so the intention is that you don't know em unless you identify. So, the DM is expected to keep track of everyone's charges? Especially when the item regenerates a die roll of charges per dawn, so the character effectively loses track. How many people play it like that?
A bit more of what nobody cares to do is losing attunement on all items when someone dies and gets revived.
I think the whole magic item system needs a rework. Linking rarity and price is bad as well.
They need to figure out how magic items work, and then redo Identify based on that.
But for the old one, I think this is really a result of them publishing the 2014 PHB before they had finished wiring the 2014 DMG.
One thing that has been bothering me recently, that I doubt will be fixed since I don't see that many people complain about it... is the timing/existence of repeating saves. Spells that have a duration usually have an opportunity once per turn to possibly escape them with a save. However, sometimes that save is at the start of your turn, sometimes it is at the end, sometimes it is a check, sometimes it takes your action to be able to make that roll. I understand that sometimes they use these mechanics to balance a spell, but it add a lot of confusion that requires looking into the text of a spell sometimes multiple times during the same encounter.
When watching I did think about this issue briefly. There are spells that take effect at the end/start of casters/targets turn, plus do/don't take effect immediately when cast. This is a lot of combinations. I don't mind those mechanics too much, they can subtly alter the power, change the number of defensive opportunities, and add variety, but do mean that you cant skip over that part of the description and say "its a DoT spell, i know how these work".
The most problematic part in these are spells that trigger on entering an area. These tend to create the most confusion in interpretation.
@@arcturuslight_ What I mean is that I wish they would be more intentional in OneDND about writing their spell mechanics. I think DoT spells should usually work the same way, and if there is an exception, it should be called out in the description of the spell. We also really need a field for saving throw type & when a save is repeated so you don't have to read through a spell to find them.
There is a video of JC saying that, if someone wants to use Phantasmal Force to blind someone, he would let him do that, but not do the damage. However, this was coming from him as a DM, not a rules as intended thing.
I like conjure animals a lot and I use it quite a lot when I play a character that can use it. It's really smooth, but it's a player-dm collaboration. If I cast Bless, I don't have to talk with the DM and prepare a list of tokens on my roll20 and then have a those statblocks in another place so I can press attack from there ( Using multiple monitors as well, so that's pretty quick too ). I know I am using a lot of prep ( it's done once, and then maintained by me having everything ready and having multiple monitors ). However, dnd is not meant to be played with multiple monitors. What if I play IRL? What do I do then? I'm not gonna use conjure animals AT ALL if I play irl.
One solution to conjure animals is: Make a pool of possible summoned creatures. If you start your turn without having a creature active, you summon a new one on that turn and it attacks after you. You can keep the 1/2/4/8 summoned creatures, but you wont have 8 at a time, lets say you have 2 at a time or something like that. This solution is for the case where you really want to meddle with statblocks and you love nature a little bit *too much*
Another solution: Make it an adaptive swarm ( or one creature ). Lets say you have one big wolf, or you have a pack of wolves, with a swarm-like statblock. Instead of attacking 8 times, you avg the 8 attacks out, and BAM that's the "TO HIT" roll. Then, you avg the damage out, and BAM, that's the dmg roll. It can still have multi attack, and you can give it some speical abilities too ( like always advantage if it's a pack of wolves, or constrict / poison dmg / charge for other creatures, DC will need to be adjusted to match multiple save DCs ). It took me 5 seconds to think of this. I'm pretty sure the idea can be used to make it work. At the end of the day, it's just math.
I wonder if there’s a way to get meta on the effects of the conjure spells, and allow the actual “summoning” to be a skin. For instance, have Conjure Animals creat an area effect which the caster can move with a bonus action, that does some damage and inflicts on of three status effects. Upcasting opens up more Conditions, including options for friendly ones for Allies, like flight within the zone of the spell. The area appears to be a flurry of animal spirits inflicting the damage and conditions.
This takes all the pain out of the spell, gives pretty much the same mechanical effects, fits the “druids summon animal and fae spirits” idea.
I've definitely reflavored druid spells to be this exactly! Entangle as a bunch of restraining snakes, Tidal Wave as a flock of birds that knock someone over, etc.
I really love this novel idea of an AOE where people have more abilities or buffs that's really cool
great idea
Brilliant idea, reminds me of _Stampede_ , Beastmaster's ultimate ability from Warcraft 3. His other spells focus on summoning individual beasts for you to micro, much like Summon Beast in D&D, but _Stampede_ basically works as you've described it here-hordes of animals charge through to damage things in the area for a while, but they cannot otherwise interact with anything. If they were visually replaced with a tsunami or a spreading fire, it would still feel and function the same way. And honestly, Druid needs literally any decent blast spell in my opinion, would be a welcome addition as Conjure Animals is banned at my table.
Huh, so kinda like Spirit Guardians conjuring a bunch of spirits that beat up your enemies, but mechanically being area DoT. I would've never thought of that. Sounds interesting.
Hypnotic pattern and fear should probably provide an additional saving throw. Then I could take slow and not feel suboptimal!
Ya, hypnotic pattern is generally the best of them all because of that. Even fear can have an additional save of you break line of sight.
"A spells name should not be misleading."
What about Mislead?
Touche!
For me, the most egregious has to be the spells that are automatic passes. But it's a problem with 5e and balance in general. Honestly, there are also sub-classes and even some classes that are automatic passes for most people.
Yes. I have always disliked spells and abilities with absolute effects.
I would much rather that Knock gives a big bonus on Sleight of Hand to open locks for example.
I also very much dislike any spells having no counter at all.
@@rogerwilco2 By "passes", I mean passed over, neglected, never selected.
I wonder if it would be better if Counterspell and Dispel Magic were just "things a spellcaster can do with a big enough spellslot" instead of specific spells. And maybe any kind of caster can do them, but with a check and some penalties and minuses depending on the situation (adv if the anti-magic slot is bigger, add proficiency if the targeted spell is on your list or prepped, etc)
Pathfinder 2e makes Counterspell a feat for Sorcerer, Witch, and Wizard, essentially making it counter spells you’ve prepared (Wizard, Witch) or are in your repertoire and can cast (Sorcerer). It then adds higher-level feats that let you do more with it, such as Clever Counterspell for Wizard letting you more flexibly choose spells to counter another given spell with.
It has some situational “counterspells” like Shadow Siphon (halves damage by making a spell partially illusory on a successful counteract), but the only true “counter anything of lower level” spell is the 10th-level spell Nullify-and that sees you pay health to negate the spell instead.
Find traps should work like Detect Magic. 10 minute duration, 30 feet, know location of traps and their general nature - mechanical, magical.
That would be worth a second level spell slot.
Ok I see what you mean for Leomunf Tiny Hut, but one of my favorite memories of a session is the night we were all sleeping in our hut thinking "nothing can happen to us" and boom the hut disapear and we get attacked by a full groups. We soon realized these ennemies, who have been chasing us, had the clever idea to bring a caster with dispel magic.... The sheer fear and adrenaline that the DM gave us by saying "The hut disapear" omg
True strike should be a bonus action that lasts until the end of your turn. This is a huge buff to eldritch knights and arcane tricksters. It’s not a buff to full caster gishes like college of swords and blade singers, because they give up the ability to cast a spell to bolster their martial ability.
As a Cantrip every single rogue would be doing everything in their power to make sure they had access to it.
My homebrew is pretty much what treantmonk said. I make it a 1 minute duration spell. That way, you can give yourself advantage in your first attack if you can know a combat is coming your way.
Honestly with the game the way it is, I agree: It's easy enough to get an effective bonus action attack as it is, so trading your bonus action for advantage on your attack rolls isn't too big of a deal.
The scare is the potential of spells that have attack rolls, but even in those cases getting advantage on the attack roll should be easy enough without true strike. (there are shockingly few high level attack roll spells anyway... hell, Disintegrate shoots a thin green ray... that calls for a reflex save rather than an attack roll for some reason, probably because getting advantage on attack rolls is easy and giving disadvantage on saves is significantly harder)
I'm of the opinion that making True Strike a bonus action would make it too powerful (for a cantrip), too easy to grab it with Magic Initiate and then use it on literally every turn. Instead I'd make the spell work on allies as giving up your action to give some else advantage is a more interesting trade off.
@@pseudopod I don't really see it as that big of an issue. It's *very* easy to get a bonus action attack these days, and as so many critics of the spell point out attacking twice is superior to attacking once with advantage. If you're taking magic initiate, you're not taking Polearm Master, for example.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm actually more concerned with it's application on casters, what with the possibility of tacking true strike on to your firebolt every turn, but if you're firebolting then chances are you could be doing something more optimal with your turn as a mage anyway.
Enhance ability should not require concentration and work just like the light spell. Can only have one of them active at the same time. It would then be one of the best spells in the game. Cheap, effective and efficient.
Agreed. The somewhat "random" implementation of concentration was one of the best intentions with lame results of the 5e spell system.
I know the intent was to stop mega buffing and stacking boons, but the result is just less interesting choices sometimes, but STILL having boon stacking on all the spells that don't have concentration.
As a mostly pathfinder player we have to say be careful with using templates to simplify systems. Nothing feels worse than finally getting the ability to transform into a grizzly bear and then finding out that your base stats haven't changed so you're actually just a gnome in a cheep fursuit. Well except maybe transforming an ancient dragon into a hamster and learning that it's actually more dangerous because the template doesn't actually remove any of it's draconic abilities so now there's a tiny hard to hit rodent flying around breathing acid on everybody.
D&D seems to be more of a fan of templates that mostly override the original statblock, instead of mostly keeping. Which leads to edge cases and weirdness when people start looking at abilities you should logically keep or lose, and when losing some but not all of interconnected stats and features.
Indeed. I don't know if templates can be done right, but I don't think that Pathfinder has the solution.
I really like the Polymorph and Shapechange spells and think the real problem is that they rely on Challenge Rating.
I think maybe each monster should have a separate rating for when its abilities are in the hands of the players.
That might solve some summoning spells as well.
My biggest gripe with spells in 5e is spells that target a save that a particular class is basically guaranteed to have +0 or -1 on, and completely shut down that class's ability to do anything for the rest of the fight. I don't think DMs should have to choose between basically banning a spell for their monsters or ruining the experience for one player in particular. The same problem applies when those spells are cast by players, since spells like that can really ruin an encounter. It's really as much a problem with the entire saving throw system as it is with individual spells, though, in my opinion.
I guess this would fall under "Spells should make the game more fun".
Spells like tiny hut and good berry classes like ranger and druid (and wizard) kinda kills survival..like every time I see on r20 a "survival" campaign idea for 5e I just skip it
Goodberry would be a good spell even if it didn't provide nourishment, so maybe just get rid of that part?
12. "fire the pyromaniac", joking but really there's a strong bias towards fire spells which, while that isn't a problem in the spell design on it's own, gives ice mage or black draconic sorcerer very little options (and Transmuted spell is not a good answer to that problem)
The spell list and how they chose to address such big holes in design space that is begging for expansion.... Is the clearest case for homebrew. Just homebrew it for flavor intent and 8 times out of 9 you'll be just fine.
I'm actually shocked you didn't get the invite. You are and where a balanced and fair source to watch when the D&D shenanigans went down. You have always held yourself and subscribers to a moral standard. Love the video by the way. Please keep up the good work. It's needed and appreciated.
In every campaign I have been in, at least once a player(s) has confused what "Chill Touch" is/does due to the name.
"Oh, it's ranged not melee? -- Oh it doesn't do Cold damage?!"
People choosing Polymorph: "Oh cool! I can't wait to turn into tons of different strong animals to do unique things for my party!"
Monster Manual: "Mmm, Monke."
One way to fix the Shield Spell to address the issue you raise would be to restrict it so that only casters that are wearing light armor, mage armor or no armor can cast it.
I think the problem with spells like polymorph or features like wildshape is that it specifies beast creatures and then the game fails to provide plenty of beast options. The higher you go in challenge rating with beast the less options you get. A Giant Ape is the only challenge rating 7 beast (to my knowledge) so when you gain access to polymorph as level 7 its the only form you'd ever want to choose because if you choose another beast you have to choose a weaker one. If there were 5 more beast of cr 7 then it wouldn't be a problem and you could have some really unique options both mechanically and for the flavour. Throw in a dinosaur like a carnotaurus for the those of us who love dinosaurs in our games and a giant vampire bat for a unique life draining feature. Honestly i would much rather even a small book that is just beast stat blocks maybe a subclass or two and some druid spells then going to a template.
I think the resistance cantrip would be perfect if you could only use it on allies and not yourself.
It needed one more slight nerf to make it manageable and this is what I was thinking as well.
I always interpreted that sacred flame ignored cover because that flame like radiance was able to go trough solid objects. I took it like a divine light that can't be blocked, so it has to be evaded (that's why is a Reflex Save).
Honestly the problem with Polymorph and Giant Ape is that there aren't enough Beasts of mid CR and higher. I hope the new Monster Manual for 2024 has more.
With the Phantasmal Force thing, I think of how the PHB describes darkness, as a creature “EFFECTIVELY suffers from the blinded condition” while in it. Like the mechanical things happen to them, but a Lesser Restoration won’t give just them darkvision because they’re not in fact blinded. So the rules of grappling like being ended for X and Y, etc wouldn’t apply to a phantasmal tentacle as they would the condition of being grappled, but they could be treated as effectively grappled
If they're really adamant on Find Traps not telling you the exact location and nature of a trap, they could make it more vague. So the spell could alert you to hidden mechanisms beneath a certain patch of ground but not what the actual trap is. It could be a pitfall or it could be a pressure plate which causes fire or arrows to shoot out of the walls. Essentially you detect the location of the traps, but not what they do or what triggers them. It gives the players enough information to formulate a plan without spoiling the surprise or completely negating the threat.
There is also a major issue with spells that seem to imply condition effects but are inconsistent with the condition. Fear is a perfect example. The creature becomes frightened but "also" must dash away. Why then when you are frightened does it change to "can't move towards". I have people playing in my game that have played for over a decade and still get these mixed up.
Identify caused quite a bit of anger in my game for the exact reason you explained. Player found a magic ring, cast identify, and thought he was getting a ring of regeneration. Immediately put it on and when he realized his wounds were not magically healing, knew he had a cursed item. Had to show him the exact wording from the DM Guide because he thought identify should have told him the item was cursed. He was pretty salty about that for some time.
Forcecage was somewhat alluded to with saying that Wall of Force has issues, but I'm surprised that Simulacrum wasn't covered, it's simultaneously over-complicated and an automatic pick, and leads to a combo so incredibly broken, infinite wishes, that Adventurer's League has specific rules to prevent it (that somehow aren't part of the main rules), and most campaigns will use those rules anyway.
My favorite phantasmal force question is what happens if you make a fire elemental believe it's trapped in a tank of water? Does the fire elemental instantly have a stroke and die believing it was in contact with hundreds of gallons of water or does it just take the normal damage
Phantasmal Force is even MORE egregious than you've explained at this point. To further add to your point, if the target has to discern the illusion to completely real, then there SHOULDN'T be an option to make an Investigation check to discern otherwise. The spell says the target treats the illusion to be real. Sure, wasting an action to discern an illusion is nice. But it shouldn't be there if the intention is to make a real illusion for the target. Like you said, you can't have it both ways. Either they can break out of it, or they can't. It's really that simple.
Rather than fixing the "must-have" spell problem by nerfing the spell, another approach is to improve the competing spells, until you are forced to make choices among the "must-have" spells. This is why I don't mind the revised Resistance cantrip. In fact, in my game, we have modified True Strike to work the same way as the modified Resistance and Guidance cantrips. Cantrip selection for their new characters became a much more thoughtful process, as nobody could take all the cantrips they would have liked. A new strategic element has been added to combat as well, as each player has to think more carefully about their battlefield positioning and how they use their reactions. The extra 1d4 to a die roll at the cost of a cantrip slot, a reaction, and flexibility in battlefield positioning is by no means overpowered.
I generally agree with this philosophy. Buff the bad, don't nerf the good. I only generally make exception if something is TOO good (I think Treantmonk's comments about Leomund's Tiny Hut completely ending sleeping risks as a good example). Leomund's Tiny hut would still be amazing if it still did everything it does, but still allows creatures to pass. Or make a save to pass.
Conjure animals / woodland beings is another one to me. Summoning spells need to be single-creature summons imo. Cluttering the field with 8 extra units is just never good for the table in m experience. Sure it's VERY powerful, but it's problematic. So while one (tougher) summon is arguably a nerf, it's a nerf for the betterment of the game (and single-creature summons are also still very good).
Maybe Tiny Hut could dissipate a turn or so after being struck BUT everyone inside is immediately made aware of the incoming threat like what the alarm spell does?
The party still would have no chance to put their armour on BUT they would all be able to ready an action that would go off the instant the opaque forcefield goes down.
That still leaves a lot of room to be creative for a powerful 1st round before having to potentially continue the fight with that huge AC drop. 🙂
I’d argue it’s usually more efficient (and likely to produce good balance) to fix the one spell that is problematic rather than trying to modify the potentially huge number of other spells so they can compete with a particular must-have spell. It also helps you avoid power creep, which can have knock-on effects beyond spellcasters.
As long as the nerfed spell is still a viable choice, I am all for that approach.
That part of fooling the players -- just rolled up a wizard in my first D&D campaign in a decade, and guess what spell I took at second level? Identify. It was on theme for the character, and yeah, I knew it wasn't optimal. However, I didn't realize that it was less than that, that the safety I thought I was buying by sacrificing a spell selection that could have been better placed elsewhere wasn't there in the first place. Boy, I feel like an idiot.
You're right about most of these examples, Chris... I've had to add some house rules to either create a variant spell or just to better explain the spell for most of these examples you listed in this video. For one, thing I changed Leomund's Tiny Hut so it is no longer a ritual and so that missiles no longer pass through it. I also added the stipulation that those inside the Hut can only see out of the dome up to 30 feet as if in dim light.
Polymorph has been altered to disallow any forms greater than or less than one size difference from the original form.
Counterspell requires an opposed spell check against the caster's spell attack roll.
Identify does not detect curses, but those items are very rare (and seldom lethal). Instead, Identify has become more important as I don't permit attunement with an item to identify its properties; you have to either experiment with the item or else use the Identify spell.
True Strike is a bonus action, and reduces your movement to 0 for the entire turn. (treat this like Steady Aim (Rogue ability from Tasha's) but with concentration.)
Blade Ward is a reaction but only works vs. one specific attack.
And so on, etc... I should make variants for Mordenkainen's Sword (and Hound), Find Traps, etc. but frankly no one ever picks those spells, so I've been focusing on the ones that come up in my campaigns.
I'd really like it if similar spells worked the same way whenever possible, makes memorizing spells much easier and has less chance of spells being used wrong. For example Moonbeam and Flaming Sphere should deal damage at the same point in the round.
Indeed.
Oh absolutely this. Change the spell level or balance them in some other way if necessary (damage spells usually aren't that great anyway though except for a couple outliers like Fireball so you may not even have to). Just be consistent.
CounterSpell is number one for me simply because it comes up so often. They need to either rethink the entire logic of whether or not players/NPCs have enough knowledge of the target spell being cast to be able to do it in thee first place or they need to add rolls like you mentioned. They probably need to do both. Especially now that many NPC stat blocks have given NPCs abilities that are just spells. Just tear it down and rebuild it from scratch.
Without the ability to detect curses, the Identify spell has no purpose.
Alternatively, they could remove the ability to attune to items by playing with them for an hour and discovering all of their properties. I doubt many GMs want more stuff to track, and would rather just give the players the information or tell them they can't use the magical properties until the thing is idetified. Personally, I'd go back to having the spell consume the component.
By raw, you don't know the number of charges on anything without identifying it. And if it is a die roll to regenerate charges, you might have to identify it every day to know. Like, is the DM supposed to keep track of everyone's charges? Who thought of that? Surely nobody plays like that.
On Indentify it needs a mechanic for actually identifying items requireng some osrt of check depending on rarity and if the item is cursed, I almost shouldn't be a spell and just a feature but since it's a ritual I'll let it pass.
Polymorph I really feel is only restricted in what it is useful for when used as a combat spell, sure there are only a few offensive and defensive options for it but it is a utility spell not a combat spell and is significantly more useful when used as one.
You missed "spells invalidating other spells" (healing word to cure wounds) or "spells with trivial costs that negate game mechanics/meaning" (healing word again). Healing word can also be on the "automatic picks" list.
And one more contender "spells that automatically bypass mechanics" (especially for low costs) such as create and destroy water, goodberry, zone of truth.
Bonus action 1d4+Wis healing is... not as game breaking as you seem to think it is.
@@andyenglish4303 The amount doesn't matter, it could be fixed at 1 HP and it wouldn't change the power level of the spell at all. The point is that you use it when someone drops to 0 to stop them from dying, and you don't even have to give up an action to do it. With at least 1 HP, on their turn they can stand up and take their full turn again.
Unless there's enough enemies dogpiling them to make them fail 3 death saves, there's nothing stopping you from doing it again the next round, too. And a lot of groups don't like to have enemies target downed players, which makes it even better. Suddenly, dropping to 0 hit points just means you lose half your movement, and the Cleric or Bard's bonus action...which depending on the level, they may not have a lot to do with anyway (although giving up a Spiritual Weapon attack or something isn't nothing, at least).
I think hunting for stat blocks is a mechanic in the game that sells books. Whether or not it’s good for gameplay is debatable, like I think the reason Druid was the least played class is because might not own the monster manual to find wild shape stat blocks. but also players should have a reason to learn how to read stat blocks so they can learn to be Dm’s. So I think it’s a good gateway into the DM’s chair.
I read heat metal saving as "if you fail saving throw you must drop object and if you failed and could not or would not drop it you have following disadvantages"
inb4 Wizards watches and quickly adjusts their plans
In my opinion, the Phantasmal Force example is the most egregious. I had a campaign early in my DM career where a character cast this spell, and I had never seen it before. The lvl 5 characters were fighting a fire giant. The bard cast Phantasmal Force and made the illusion a second fire giant that attacked the first, not a preposterous scenario.
I was very perplexed about what to do with, "..the target treats the phantasm as if it were real" and "The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC." Many spells in 5e allow creatures to make repeated saving throws against ongoing effects, so naturally I assumed that this should be like one of those spells. But the target thinking the illusion was real seemed to erase the opportunity to make the investigation check. But why have the text about seeing through the illusion if the target was never allowed to disbelieve the illusion?
Initially, I ruled that the giant would get to make an investigation check on each of its turns to examine the illusion, but then the wizard (my wife and a much better DM) said I was making the spell useless, which was unfair to the player who had picked the spell. So instead I ruled that the fire giant would get one investigation check because it was weird that another fire giant would appear from nowhere and start attacking him. The fire giant failed that check and spent the rest of the encounter attacking only the illusory fire giant because it was the biggest threat. A 2nd-level spell broke the entire encounter.
Spell text should not put the DM in a position where the choice is "ruin the player's fun" or "break the encounter and all other single low-intelligence creature encounters forever".
Giving the Fire Giant the potential to make a check every round is absolutely not "making the spell useless" and honestly that sounds like a very munchkin-like thing to claim. Especially since Fire Giants get a big fat +0 to INT and no proficiency in Investigation. Also checks are easier to give penalties to than saves, and creatures are often much worse at checks than saves, so it's ALREADY stronger than most other save or suck spells even with your interpretation.
Conjure spells should, when you summon lots (3+) of creature, should just state "for the purposes of combat, treat these as a SWARM".
It would nice if Swarm was a mechanic rather than a creature stat block. Then just make it applicable to most anything smaller than large sized.
I mean, fixing magic jar is would not be that hard,
I would order it as following:
How you can put your soul in the jar
How you can get your soul into another body (what special extras do you get for being the one to cast the spell)
What happens to a body if it has no soul
What happens when a soul is embodying something that is not its origin, including what senses you get while in an object, what happens if an living host dies) with just some clearer wording it should be fine
idea for absorb elements:
instead of damage resistance, it provides damage reduction for the triggering element, equal to prof mod * the level of casting. The prof mod makes it scale naturally, but the spell actually rewards you if you have higher levels slots. You are level 16, and a red dragon breathes fire on you for 35 damage? You know a 7th level absorb elements will negate it.
What would do with "setting"/"world building spells"? Continual Flame, etc. A player will probably never take a spell that cost 50gp and a second level spell slot when Light or Produce Flame exist. Should the DMG have its own boring spell selection? Wall of Force feels like a spell that was originally for DMs as a puzzle solving tool.
Wild Shape, Conjure Animals, Polymorph and similar spells suffer from another problem-- their scope and power level can change with supplements. New Beasts can get brought in, new Fae, new Fiends, new monsters of all kinds, and any one of them can suddenly introduce a new optimal choice for a spellcaster. (Spellcasters also benefit disproportionately from supplements introducing new material. How often does a Fighter get a new, better choice when a new book is released? How often does a Wizard? Compare and contrast...)
I have upcast options for Mage Armor, Shield, Bark Skin, and Identify. If the item is Legendary or cursed, you have to upcast to find out.
Phantasmal force is so weird and definitely extremely flawed, because if the creature believes in the illusion to such an extent that it's mind will rationalize any inconsistencies about it, what would ever prompt them to make an investigation check after they've failed their save? And contrarily, what is stopping a creature from immediately making an intelligence check even if they've failed their save and supposedly 100% believe the illusion to be real if they can always just unrestrictedly use their action do so?
i myself made a ginormous sheet with loads of changes for virtually all spells. the thing i found to be most fun was correcting the first point you brought up. making spells that are trash appealing is just so nice, bc you get to be creative within the limits of what the spells name implys. the second point was also somewhat fun, as i like to inflict suffering onto overoptimizers, as i am a fan of underdog stuff and that doesnt work with third lvl godlike casters, who defeat the entire world. one thing i found to be of importance when changing spells, which you didnt mention was to change spells that dont have sufficient identity. exampels here are the swordburst, word of radiance thunderclap sisters, which if there was only one of them would be cool, but no two variants, notably more powerfull too, that do the same basic thing had to be made.... another example is poison spray and toll the dead, where poison spray is basically just the shorter, more resisted version of toll the dead(unless of course you win innitiative, but still poison spray is boring af). this is admitedly more of a problem with the cantrips than spells, as the former have to be under a cirtain power cealing, but it still happens to a lesser extent with spells.
Honestly, as soon as I saw the title of this video my brain went, "If Find traps isn't talked about, I'll be very disappointed"
Made an entire encounter around Conjure Animals, and even for a lvl 10+ party it took most of the session to deal with the summons, while the caster snuck away with their objective.
Great Video I agree with the lot. The only issue is it appears 5e 2024 edition (as we now need to call it) will not resolve things. Jeremy has told us that 5e 2014 is not being superceeded and will work alongside 5e 2024. A Spirit Guardians is still a must take spell because it is in the 2014 PHB and still a valid option. If I decide my PC is going learn banish I will presumably be able to choose the 2024 version where the enemy gets a save every turn andd 2014 edition where they don't (no prizes for guessing which I'll take)
The worst offender for me is the spell name not doing what the spell text actually says it does.
Find Traps was such a good spell in older editions because it finds the traps, i have no idea how they thought the 5e version was good enough to ship.
The whole of 5th edition feels like a rush job to me.
It is so unfinished.
I think the reasoning is that they don't want to obsolete the Rogue, but plenty of OTHER spells obsolete skills and character features so I don't know why they bothered (Goodberry, Comprehend Languages/Tongues, Borrowed Knowledge, Knock, etc.) Not every party has a Rogue anyway and not every Rogue wants to be a trapfinder. Heck, anyone can find traps if they take the right skills and tools.
A creature affected by phantasmal force being held by a tentacle is going to be able to move out and think about something that let him go out, the same reason a creature fall if step on the imaginary bridge.
As someone creating my own DnD type game, this interests me greatly!
I value your little mechanical brain and knowledge
This is the needle eye that all new spells should be put through - it'll certainly be my 10+1 commandments when i homebrew spells
Brilliant job of tying together why a spell needs to be fixed with the examples!
Misleading spell names is my personal pet peeve. Or feature names in general, because it is not just limited to spells. No greater sin than promising one thing on the tin and then not delivering on that thing. It's also not limited to just the name, often there are flavor descriptions of what a feature is meant to do and then you look at the actual mechanics and realize that the feature doesn't really work in practice, like the Monk's Stillness of Mind or the Shadow Sorcerer's Strength of the Grave. Those kind of straddle the line between having misleading names/descriptions and tricking the player in my eyes. People tend to read them and think "ha, I'm going to be very hard to charm now" or "I'm going to avoid falling unconscious once a long rest, fantastic!" and then get burned the moment the features actually come up in play.
This video goes up to 11