Top 10 Underrated Spells in D&D (By me)
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- I ranked all these spells with my worst ranking (Red), but these spells are worth another look.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:39 Vampiric Touch #10
7:27 Guards and Wards #9
10:42 Circle of Death #8
13:31 Pulse Wave #7
17:37 Aganazzar's Scorcher #6
19:58 Dawn #5
22:43 Gate #4
26:11 Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound #3
29:50 Confusion #2
34:15 Wall of Ice #1 (Purple)
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"At first I thought Vampiric Touch was bad..."
"What changed that?"
"Torturing hostages."
Guards and Wards also has a range of touch, so it can be cast offensively in full-on enemy territory by, say, an unobtrusive spider familiar.
Oh nice
Guards and Wards, in my opinion, isn't meant for players. It is meant for enemy casters that the players are attacking.
@@FatherRaven85 only until the player finds a way to use it
@@jakubguziur7522
Players who like thinking outside the box. The hallmark of a Wizard :)
@@peterwhitcomb8315 Exactly. If you can't find a use for a spell, you're just thinking in a wrong direction. Even True strike has it's uses. It's just SO niche that it's mostly not worth it.
Dawn ends vampires. There is a vampire in this small room (hello white plume mountain), open the door, chuck in dawn, have the fighter hold the door close till the screaming stops.
spoilers
May have nuked Strahd with this. I don't need your stinking amulet.
My group actually did this one time. We were fighting a vampire when he got like half health and started running, then we dawned him and watched him try to run in futility. They're super easy if you have dawn.
One of the big thing Gate has over Plane Shift is that the material component is not specific to the plane. For example, if I want to go to the Plane of Fire but only have a tuning fork to the Astral Plane, Plane Shift isn’t going to help me at all.
Confusion is fun to cast on the party as DM. Rolling those dice to see what effect you get is very tense, and the effects can be hilarious.
I would add that a bonus to confusion is that it is on the druid spell list. They have very few mental compulsion effects.
The fact you made this vid reinforced in my mind yet again how you come from as objective a perspective as possible. Really appreciate this kind of vid, both for that and to help people like me who try to follow your advice. Thanks, TM!
I think that the most underrated thing about "Gate" is the last paragraph. Set up an ambush point and teleport any non-completely-legendary creature to you (using some simple planar preparations), and you can have the fight "on your own terms" without any minions and nothing else. And you can literaly force some creatures to interract or help you that way.
I've always wondered about this use of the spell. If I just know the name of a king, can I gate him to my party?
@@JavierSanchez-mo2ef get into a portable hole and yes, you can
My playera will be summoned by a Demon Lord using a researched gate spell to make them fight his enemies.
@@mke3053 and that can work as a dm tool quite well, though it usually targets one player :) if the party is nearby they can either jump in or let their teammate die. A choice presented can lead to some fun developments
Plus, if you summon a celestial and you’re fighting demon hordes or whatever trying to save a temple, city, castle, etc, they’d be likely to stick around and help (maybe they’d not be happy, but they’d likely help and be okay afterwards, assuming your DM isn’t a jerk).
Tying up enemies and slowly draining their life with a necromancy spell seems kinda evil.
Be reasonable. You are only torturing and feeding off of prisoners to verge of death. No big deal
There are a lot of spells that do. Character concept is something that should guide your spell selection.
There is no Good/Evil in D&D 5e. Just Demons, Fey, Celestials, and Undead. :-(
@@TreantmonksTemple Well the spell on its own might not be bad, but using it like that is. Attacking or killing someone with Vampiric Touch probably isn't any worse than doing the same with Magic Missile, Fireball or the amazing Frost Fingers.
@@poilboiler I think this is where Treantmonk's comment about character concept comes into play. Certainly some characters would view that as unambiguously evil, but I can also really easily picture a character who doesn't see it as evil at all. After all, they might say, if you're fine with killing them in combat, or handing them over to authorities to potentially be executed or imprisoned, is this really so bad? All I'm doing with my Vampiric Touch is draining them of some of their excess energy, it will all come back with some good bed rest! And with all that health siphoned to me, I can go out in to the world and Do Some Real Good.
Another thing to consider about wall of ice is that you can set it up in a "zig zag" pattern. So if you have a restricted enough space (and with 100 ft to work with it doesn't have to be that restrictive) you can force an enemy to burst through multiple walls, potentially wasting multiple actions and taking a decent amount of damage in the process.
Unless you create the domed setup, what's preventing enemies from using a misty step to reach the top of the wall, then either using a nother misty step or a leap to get down (or flying, for that matter)?
@@willtharp7477 Well it probably wouldn't work for a flying enemies in open terrain. Otherwise if your in a dungeon or narrow corridor or something you may be able to have the wall reach to the ceiling. The wall is only one ft thick, so I think it's an open question whether you can teleport on top of it or not. Plus if they do misty step on top of the wall and back down, that would take at least a few turns, and they might still not be through the "zig zag".
I have absolutely done this and in the right terrain it is very effective. I really like Wall of Ice. I have a wizard in AL with a staff of frost and I use it frequently.
This is such a great idea, but I’m worried you actually can’t do this because of this part:
“… or you can shape a *flat surface* made up of ten 10-foot-square panels.”
It wouldn’t make any sense for the “flat surface” part to be referring to the panels, since we already know they’re flat, and we’re making the flat surface *out of* those panels. So, it seems like the “flat surface” being referred to here is the overall structure you create, meaning- if you don’t choose the dome option- your only option is a straight line. I.e., just one big flat wall going in a straight line from point A to point B. A zig-zag is arguably not a “flat surface”. Although each panel we used to construct the wall is flat, the overall shape of the surface we created is not. If we were very large, like gargantuan, and we ran our finger across the length of the entire wall, we would say: “that’s not flat, it’s bumpy”.
We can compare the wording to Wall of Stone, which specifies that “The wall can have any shape you desire”. Wall of Ice is missing a sentence like this, and also Wall of Stone is missing any sentence about needing to create a flat surface. So, the zig-zag plan would technically work with Wall of Stone, but maybe not with Wall of Ice. Although, if you enclose the enemy within the stone zig-zag completely, then they get a saving throw.
Perfect timing for when I can’t sleep
Lol
Same
3am, same
I'll continue to say that Catapult is underrated.
1) it's as strong as chromatic orb, no costly component.
2) it can come in at odd angles since it's 60' to target an object and then a 90' line from there.
3) you can catapult flasks of oil, vials of acid or holy water for extra damage or effects. Glue or flower can also work.
4) if you shoot it in a line with at least 2 enemies, and the first one saves, then i've never seen a DM not agree it keeps going and the next target in the line now has to make a save.
This is easy to assume since it never says the spell targets anywhere in the spell, and so if someone saves, that means the spell can easily have 2 or 3 shots at landing.
5) the spell can be utility at getting things over walls, I've launched a grappling hook up the side of a cliff that was 80' high and when it landed we were able to climb up the hill. These are all things to consider.
To me, it's a Green spell. Good and one i consider as a damage option almost every game. It's not always what i jump to, but i almost always consider it. (also if you're someone who likes a theme, like "Fire bender" or "Earth bender" it's a great way to lean into that and bend some spells. Lastly if you're worried about damage reduction, you could just fire a lump of silver, a silver coin or even a magic dagger to by pass damage reduction, you do risk breaking those things, but who cares about all but the dagger.)
I rated it in my 1st Level Blast video as the very best one!
Entirely agree. Another thing to add which I feel is often overlooked is the fact that you can use it to move things _away_ from people you don't want to have them.
BBEG about to grab the plot device? Nope, it's now another 90 feet away from him (and potentially closer to you!) - or maybe even more depending on the DM's ruling on whether momentum is conserved if throwing the object diagonally into the air. Or off a cliff, out a window, or into the sea.
Likewise fantastic if you can combine it with any spell or ability which can cause someone to drop an object they are holding.... say, a weapon, spellbook, or casting focus perhaps?
@@Owlfeathers0117 not only could that wand be sent flying across the room, but also if it hits a wall it could shatter into a dozen pieces,
Disarming isn't always the best because enemies can sometimes just pick the item back up, as its sometimes hard to push them out of their space,
this I find as a fun telekinesis option
not to mention it grabs the TV remote faster than mage hand
@@Owlfeathers0117 don't forget by RAW that damage done to the target is also done to the object...
@@cory849 Yep. Can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on the circumstance, but I lean toward it being more of a positive since you can use it as an automatic "break small object" at long range and without an effect visibly connected to you.
For things you want to keep intact it's _usually_ possible to work around the damage, for example by sending an object to the open air above where you want to put it. When it gets there, the spell stops affecting the object and it takes normal nonmagical fall damage i.e. 0 under 10 feet.
Vampiric touch can also be useful if you have buffs that increase necrotic damage. A fallen aasimar death cleric could heal a formidable amount of hitpoints with vampiric touch.
Fallen aasimar yes, death cleric no. That one time damage boost just isnt enough, and it’s not a cleric spell for the other features
@@laurenzreichelt4911 Why not being both?
@@laurenzreichelt4911
Death Clerics get Vampiric Touch as a Domain Spell. Domain Spells that have non-Cleric spells on them are treated as if they were Cleric spells specifically for the interaction with class features.
Don't forget that using Quicken spell would let you make the vamp attack as a bonus action (cause that's when you cast it) as well as follow it up with using your action to make the attack (it's not casting a spell so no blah blah 2 spells a turn complainers)
And if you really wanted you could follow it up with an action surge to do again.
Especially nice since now ANY caster can get quicken spell thanks to Tasha's Feats
Yeah, he really under-represents the ways that VT can be used well
The combination of an evocation wizard and Dawn is just brutal. You can place Dawn on enemies and allies, exclude the allies from the effect of Dawn. If your allies are in melee with an enemy the enemy has now to decide to either run out of Dawns AOE and risk getting attacks of oportunity or stay in there and take dmg frome the spell. This way i had the dmmg from Dawn easily stack up to 12d10 and more.
Nothing like a video at 2am instead of noon
Gate is also useful as an ambush spell. Instead of the party having to deal with the BBEG's dungeon, the BBEG can be pulled from anywhere to *the party's* dungeon.
Set up a few Glyphs with Gate Seal (so they can't leave), spike growth, dawn, forcecage, Faithful Hound, and sickening radiance. If you have Gate and time to prepare for a major BBEG fight, you can probably almost force a victory.
I like using Wall of Ice as a way to separate enemies and ice-olate them :D
If you have a Twilight Cleric or Artillerist Artificer on your team, you can just Vampiric Touch your allies 😀
LMAO hold still Steve
@@collinbeal LOL Steve is just the plausible deniability - "Dear Torm, I swear I wasn't healing the evil Warlock. I was only healing my friend Steve."
Either that or Moon Druid
My issue with "stranding" spells is that, while effective at removing powerful individuals from the battle, they're gone: no one left to interrogate, negotiate with, ransom, or loot afterward.
Gate might even kill the target off screen. Just imagine sending some big-time devil into the Abyss. Yikes.
Not the best example because if a devil were killed in the Abyss, he'd just pop back up in the Nine Hells in the same form shortly after, but I get your point.
Or you could just push them into a prismatic wall and kill them onscreen!
Or really any non fire enemy into the plane of fire.
Negative Energy plane is pretty good. (Chance I could be mixing up the name)
RAW, no matter what, even if they're normally capable of moving between planes, unless they're a negative energy plane native, they're now stuck there until someone kills or swaps them back with the NightWalker that took their place in this plane.
If you then take advantage of the pretty low mental stats of that critter, you can send it to another plane where it'll just sit there, or maybe imprison it or something.
Even if they're undead or something, and don't get killed by the plane itself, they have stopped being your problem if nothing else.
Good to see someone who is open to revisiting underrated elements.
The best sign that you use data and evidence is an evolving understanding.
Another thing about Gate is that in can transport an unlimited number of creatures. Sure, a cleric could summon a planar ally, or they could open a gate to their deity's dimension and have a host of angelic warriors flood through (so long as summoning the angels would further their patron deity's interests).
I like to cast vampiric touch from my order of scribes wizards spellbook. It can’t be harmed, just send it in, tell it to touch everyone. Risk less encounter.
"there might be cases where you have a helpful superpower"
Cleric and Warlock: What do you mean "might"?
Put the hound on tensor's floating disc and have a bodyguard
That's a lot of barking.
I've used Dawn as the initial spell as foes are charging into us from adjacent rooms - I can think of a fight recently when it racked up sooooo much damage, prevented enemy stealthers from hiding in dim light, and imposed disadvantage on some of their members. Their ranged members would have been able to pop out shoot and walk away, but instead they simply had to eat the damage, and I indeed kept repositioning it to better facillitate our melee characters moving up and engaging. My cleric was recently extremely excited to gain access to it in our current party which is pretty light on AoE damage.
Also, Pulse Wave is pretty good for Graviturgists, who are generally the only ones who are supposed to get it, due to synergy with their subclass features. You even mention Pulse Wave + fly as a core gimmick in your Graviturgist guide!
I’ve always thought circle of deaths huge area was its main reason to take it, glad to see I’m not a dummy hahahahahah
Having Pulse Blast as an Order of Scribes Wizard, wouldn’t that allow you to cast a Fireball with Force Damage? I‘d call that neat.
Only at it's base lvl but yes
@@Booklat1 At higher levels, it's not a concern, as 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th all have spells in which force damage appears. Some of them being really good ones, like Dimension Door. And there's also the fact that Scribe Wizards scribe 60 times faster than other Wizards, so they usually can fill their spellbooks with a lot of spells.
Honestly I think watching your videos is the reason I’ve started getting really into casters.
Regarding a circle being a square on a grid, I must say that many DMs use actual geometries (e.g. circles) for spell effects while simultaneously using a grid for movement. Regardless, the area of effect for Circle of Death remains just as much larger than a Fireball's (9x).
It's worth mentioning that vampiric touch crits if the target is paralyzed or unconcious, dramatically increasing it's healing and can be empowered with 1 lvl Life Domain
I think you missed a trick with Dawn in that its area of effect is large enough often to fill an entire room. Often you walk through a door, into a room, see a bunch of enemies, roll initiative. Now your evoker wizard can overchannel a dawn, filling the entire room so enemies have nowhere to go, sculpt out your party members, step out and take a break while everything inside fries.
Definitely. Even if you're not an Evoker, in the right circumstances, this spell can cover so much area that there is simply no way to avoid it.
I'm loving these longer videos. The spell ones in particular help me with my Wizard character.
Many spells change rating based on the tier you are playing. That could be a video on its own.
Another consideration that Tasha’s brings up with Pulse Wave is that it’s a 3rd level spell that deals Force damage. Order of Scribes Wizards can therefore modify a Fireball into a Forceball if they have both. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any other 3rd level spells that deal force damage.
Summon Fey deals force damage - but also Thunder Step is a good spell and thunder damage is basically as good.
@@nathansmith9597 I can see a reasonable argument by a DM that the spell itself doesn’t deal Force damage in the case of Summon Fey, but rather such damage is done only by an attack made by the creature that the spell summons. Semantics and RAW agrees with you, I’m sure, but it’s something that a reasonable DM could rule. There’s no such quibbling possible with Pulse Wave. In addition, the two spells compliment two types of caster, with regard to spell preference.
And yes, you’re right, Thunder is a good damage type... but it’s not Force. Scribes Wizards are all about collecting spells for those edge-case scenarios.
Again, you’re correct on both counts, I’m just making a point.
@@raikirah975 Now that I think about it pulse wave would be pretty fun with scribe wizard’s Manifest Mind. Makes it way easier to place cones and you could really mess up enemy positioning in some scenarios, or at least pull them 15 ft into air for extra damage and knocking prone. Force fireball would just be the cherry on top
@@nathansmith9597 That was my thought as well! Manifest Mind is great for all of the reasons that a Familiar is good, with the massive benefits of not being restricted to Touch spells or getting shot out of the air like an Owl often is.
I’ve had great success using it in a lot of the ways one uses an Arcane Eye, but with the added benefit of being able to cast through it... it makes the offensive usage of Guards and Wards that Chris talks about in the video a lot more practical, for example. 300 foot range and being able to bypass any obstacle that’s not airtight is damn good as a scouting tool.
Guards and Wards in the enemy's entrance hall is brilliant. I could see a villain tearing his hair out as the party keeps luring his patrols into a stinking cloud killbox that they get to ignore 😁
Pushing/pulling really changed the meta. I like it. Thanks for helping me see new possibilities for tactical gaming.
Ah, you don't need push effects to use Gate. "You can orient the portal in any direction you choose." Meaning, you can just make a portal under a creature and let gravity do the work. No save, no nothing, their gone. Unless they have flight, this is an instant win button against a whole bunch of creatures.
I'd just be concerned that the statement "in an unoccupied space" would mean that using it on the grid square currently occupied by a creature wouldn't work.
@@adamkaris yeah, that would definitely count as occupied. Pushing something into a gate is nice, but unless the plane is hostile to the point of instant death, creatures will just be able to walk back out if the gate is still their on their turn. I prefer hurling baddies into a prismatic wall. Plus if the BBEG is a god, they can straight up nix your gate whereas you can still hurl tiamat into a prismatic wall from the comfort of her throneroom.
@@adamkaris Ah yes your quite right. That can also however be read as not in a creature literally. So that your not bisecting a creature by putting a gate halfway inside them. But point taken.
This will be DM dependent on weather they consider under them to be within their space or not.
They’re gone? You’re quite right? You’re not bisecting? Whether they consider? Just friendly feedback.
@@glukolover well, either the space below them is occupied by their boots, or by the ground itself, with no gap in between, neither would be considered unoccupied.
Now, if you want to open it underneath a horde of fliers, then it could work
Circle of death is especially good against flying creatures. They tend to spread out in three dimensions, and you cover a whopping 27 times more space than with a fireball.
It is _the_ spell for sieges, I would argue it is even better in an offensive siege, since enemies within fortifications tend to be more clumped. You can also hit a large area _behind_ walls. High wall with arrow slits on each floor, no problem, you hit everyone along 120 feet of the wall and 60 feet behind it, or even further if you have vision on a point behind the wall.
This spell can turn the tides of a war.
Still highly circumstantial. Orange is the correct rating.
(You might kill a few dozen civilians every time you use it, but what hero hasn't commited few war crimes in their days?)
Circle of death is especially heinous and hilarious when you put it as glyph on a battlefield, or in the market square in the middle of the night with a familiar. Everyone going about their business then boom, pile of bodies. Even funnier and crueler with glyphs of animate dead or create dead that react to bodies. With a few hundred gold you can sow mass death and confusion where ever you go while watching through your scrying sensor in the safety of your lair sipping tea.
@@mylesdrake2949 :O Who hurt you?
@@MrDeni23n The world, and maybe a dm or two lol.
I have to disagree on circle of death. You were right about how bad it is. Simply because Otiluke's Freezing Sphere exists. 10d6 instead of 8d6, same range of 60ft radius, extra utility of freezing large bodies of water and the ability to precast it and the same con save. The only down side is that cold damage is more commonly resisted than necrotic. But if we are talking about huge hoards of enemies, you are more likely to face undead than anything resistant to cold
Warlocks don't get access to Freezing Sphere like they do Circle of Death, though considering how Mystic Arcanum works it's still probably not worth it to grab it.
@@normal6483 Yeah, I could buy a wizard picking up a 6th level blast like this if they felt like wasting one of their few picks on bad damage. But even though this is the only aoe blast at 6th level for warlocks I just could never imagine saying "ah yes, this is the spell I want to cast every single day as the only 6th level spell I'll ever have."
Very few hoard type undead are resistant to necrotic. However I do agree with the sphere being largely better than circle. The one thing circle has going for it is it can choose and random point in range even behind cover. The sphere will get stopped by a wall if it's between you and the point.
I like Vampiric Touch for out of combat flavor, and flavoring the touch as a kiss. Also helps that necrotic damage at our tables is similar to psychic damage in that it's subtle, though not as subtle as psychic, it can leave them husk-like if seriously harmed by it or killed with necrotic damage. With this subtle damage type approach, it can be great in some situations.
Warlock has access to Gate. So the very common Sorlock, could quicken a Repelling Blast to have multiple hits/chances to push 10ft, without a save, and no size limitation (Save the size of the gate itself). So a Gate-Sorclock, could instawin a lot of encounters with gate. If the first hit does the job, then your remaining uses of Eldritch Blast could potentially hit other creatures through the Gate as well. The place the gate leads to could also of course be extremely hazardous, naturally or via creature threats. An entity you pull through to your side might be a problem for you, but it could also be like a dumbfire rocket barrage in that you want to get out of dodge anyway, and are just leaving a present behind. Of course, that would reduce team play, so maybe just take Wish as a genie warlock and let the wizard drop it and the warlock pushes it.
I like the fact that wall of stone only provides the save if you try to trap them inside. I was in a one shot where the DM put us up against a vampire that was stat blocked out to be Straud. He came to scare us off and one of the guys tossed up Dawn. I tossed Wall of Stone and left a 5' gap on our end for him to escape through so no save. Our Echo Knight fighter stood in the 5' gap and fought to keep him in. Our DM was surprised and a little upset as we basically ended the game very early. We ended up RPing going and raiding his castle for treasure. It is nice to know that there is some use to Wall of Ice.
Always love these!
Very well reasoned. Thanks for the revisit.
The gate trick is a good way to utterly destroy a lot of enemies, as others have said. If you are facing a super powerful highly optimised lich, just chuck them over to the base of mount celestia, where presumably they will be quickly swarmed by planetars and the like. Send a devil to the abyss or a demon to the nine hells. Send a regular humanoid to an especially unpleasant corner of an elemental plane.
But then you miss out on their lootz! :-(
Great video and a great addendum to the spell review series! Would you consider doing your spell by level rating for the different spell casting classes? I’m playing a Druid right now and there is some overlap between them and Wizards, but there are a lot of unique spells too. One of my favorite dnd channels to watch!
Curse of Strahd has a staff of power and a staff of frost, and I was THE arcane caster in that group. It was a good time, but really, I wasn't thinking about how great wall of ice was, but kept running into situations where I was very happy to have it.
Worth noting:
Confusion is a Wisdom save that has a 60-80% chance to waste an enemy turn, then they repeat the save. Hold Monster is a Wisdom save that has a 100% chance of wasting an enemy turn, then they repeat the save. Thinking of it that way, Confusion acts as a sort of "poor-man's Hold Monster", with a chance of not quite working but also a chance of affecting multiple enemies with it at once.
For Dawn, if I am reading it right, creatures within do take 4d10 (on a fail) when the light first appears and then again at the end of their turn. So, on the first turn, it can double-down that first turn.
Hey, love your content and been watching a lot of it lately. I'm about to get to play my first dnd game ever after like 5+ years of wanting to play. I love support/battlefield control so your God wizard guide has been a huge help! I'm wanting to play an order of the scribe wizard and I was wondering if you had any tips for a order of the scribe god wizard (level 3-5ish)? I know it isn't the most optimal subclass but I just love it the most. not to mention (in my uneducated opinion) it seems to be able to make spells like cloudkill, which you understandably rank low, into solid control spells but maybe I'm just not understanding the game well enough. 5d8 (insert desired damage that isn't poison) in a 20ft area seems really good. especially if you take the telekinesis feat which you can use to force enemies into the AoE with a little bit.
Playing a scribes level 5 wiz myself currently. Still working my head around how to make the best use of the abilities - of course the big one comes at level 6.
Dawn on an Evocation Wizard seems super strong, Getting the damage off on multiple turns would usually be quite difficult due to friendly fire, but being able to just drop it on the party without worry is huge.
On Evokers it competes with Sickening Radiance a bit, depending on whether there is enough space to leave the area
In looking into it, a "spell attack" counts as an attack, which means a 6th level Bladesinger could use Vampiric Touch as one of it's two attacks on a turn. So they could heal 5 HP per round, potentially 30 HP on average over the life of the spell. Which is a bigger percentage of their HP than pretty much any other class, and effectively doubles a L6 wizard's HP pool. And it's an attack spell, which means it can crit. (Then just for fun they cast Shocking Grasp for their other attack and dance away to another enemy as their target can not take an opportunity attack). And you 1/2 of necrotic damage dealt for the attack, which means there might be a clever way to boost necrotic damage.
Interesting, I have said before that I think almost all spells are circumstantially useful, it just depends on how circumstantially we're talking. If you're in a hell based campaign, lots of spells that usually aren't better than fireball, become better than fireball, for example. Of these spells, I think there are a few I wouldn't have ranked red before this video, gate and gaurds and wards especially, but that might just be because I find the situations you can use them in more common than other people. My groups tend to end up with a home base that may well be the focus of some sessions of combat, and the ability to permanently make that better with guards and wards is pretty good to me. Wall of Ice was not one I really thought of though, but that's a really good point.
I agree that pushing stuff into a gate could be useful, but it is overshadowed by prismatic wall that can be used the same way, in addition to being the ultimate wall. Nothing shreds through legendary resistance and HP like 7 saves threatening 50d6 damage, restraining, and blinding, that could turn into petrification and banishment, every time you use a push someone through the wall.
A very interesting video, which effectively brings underdog spells into the new meta.
I’d like to see a top overrated 10 spells (by me)
Would be very interested to see which spells you fell the hardest on, and why you see them as merely good instead of great or ok instead of very good or even ok to bad.
thoughts:
-Guards and Wards... uh... find familiar exists... this was mentioned here in the comments before, just have a familiar scout ahead and cast GaW through it and make the Dungeon your playground
-Pulse Wave... I know this is not great but at least funny: flying above enemies and yoinking them up in the air for a lil' extra fall-dmg OR yanking flyers outa the air
-Wall of Ice... I have never seen or heard anyone talk 'bout dis but... this spell doesn't say "has to be vertical"... and "on a solid surface" does not imply "ground" or "floor"... 2x5 10x10 feet Wall of Ice panels horizontal from wall to wall in a dungeon, anyone? put it ~4 feet of the ground and now "pushed to one side" enemies will have to go prone underneath cuz there is not enough space to stand upright wich also prevents them from standing up again. And if they DO want to stand up they have to destroy the wall and accept that they are now standing in a dmg-aoe *smirk*
The big win for faithful hound is that it’s an immortal, no concentration, summon spell that lasts for 8 hours
Late response here, I know. A surprisingly common scenario: “you enter the temple and BBEG is standing at an altar, partway through a summoning ritual. BBEG is surrounded by dozens of minions and you have to fight through them to stop the summoning of even bigger BBEG.” OK, round 1, I cast MFH on the altar. Round 2, I cast Forcecage or Wall of Force around the BBEG and the altar (and the hound). Not only does MFH distract and possibly kill the BBEG before it can complete the summoning, it might even kill the summoned EBBBEG.
Thinking about the use of Guards and Wards in a heist scenario where you've had the chance to scope out the target.
23:50 Gate is a spell that smart players can use to summon a celestial army to help take down a BBEG's army, while the PCs take on the BBEG themselves.
Have the players ever contacted their gods or patrons directly using a variety of divination magics? Gate could be the culmination use of that connection.
PS, Gate is most often used by DM's villains to do the opposite ... summon hell's hordes to lay waste ... turnabout is fair play.
Double team: Dawn with Spike Growth in a locked room. Friends + Hound: "creature becomes hostile to you". Also like the idea of G & W for incrementally clearing out dungeons or rendering hostile fortresses dangerous to their owners.
Thanks for the video! When you consider a spell like Gate, do you consider what classes it's available to? Something might, for example, be a great choice compared to other Cleric options, but not other Wizard options. Or do you compare spells against all other spells at that level, discounting class?
Ok the comment about high level gameplay. This is the most underrated knowledge that players and optimizers online overlook constantly. I see so many builds and talks about strategy, that just would NOT work at high level play. Currently in a campaign rn, 1-10 so far, and creatures are immune to the likes of charm, fear, they have sight thru mirror image, improved invisibilty, and so on. The creatures just start getting really strong and i dont think enough ppl really understand or realize that.
Pulse Wave can also be used from ABOVE a group of enemies, like if you can fly or jump well, to pull up all that fail and apply an extra 1d6 bludgeoning and knock prone, or 2d6 if L6 Graviturgy wizard. I've entertained the idea of an Aarakocra Graviturgy wizard. Would be a lot of fun in the right party.
Where did you get the idea for the MFH/WoF combo? Was it by any chance the Guardian Armorer build that Bilbrons & Dragons recently made? Also, what did you think of his Alchemist video?
I got it from my Discord community. I really liked his Alchemist vid, though I find issues with the poisoner feat, I do think it's super thematically appropriate.
Vampiric Touch isn't bad in combat on a Death Domain Cleric. I've played a campaign where a L6 Death Cleric lost concentration and was at low health, there were still 5 hostile rogues, spread out, of medium power and a slaad. He was going to get hit and die before his next turn for almost for sure. He was able to cast VT and Channel Divinity: Touch of Death to kill one of the rouges and heal up ~15 HP with one action. This let him survive 2 more rogue hits on the next 2 rounds, I think he got off 3 more actions and bonus actions as result before going down. Had he cast spirit guardians or something, he would have just done small damage to one or two rogues and died.
Not sure if that channel divinity works. It states melee attack, not melee spell attack. This things are quite specifically worded. Considering death cleric is a melee focused build, I would say that it doesn't work with vampiric touch. I'm uncertain.
@@andreacristiano5452 "Melee attack" is any melee attack, including melee spell attack. If it needed a weapon, it would say "melee weapon attack", or "melee attack with a weapon". As you say, those things are quite specifically worded so most of the time it's pretty clear what the text is telling about if you know general terms.
@@antongrigoryev6381 oh ok thanks for the clarification!
14:30 "Why wouldn't you just take fireball?"
Well, force damage won't set a forest or a house on fire. There are so many places where big fire spells are off the table unless you don't care about mass destruction.
Always great to see corrections done in a humble way.
You're the best D&D RUclipsr.
I didn't see the (by me) at the end of the title so I was sitting here watching this video going "man, he doesn't even consider these underrated, he's just going over his own mistakes in previous ratings!" Then I reread the title, and realized that maybe watching this at 4am was a mistake. Cheers y'all!
With Tasha's Ive actually been able to create a build capable of utilizing Vampiric Touch in combat. Its Life Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer X. At level 6 you can cast and attack with Vampiric Touch as a bonus action using Quickened Metamagic then attack with it again using your action. If both attacks hit you'll do an average of 21 damage and heal for an average of 20, that's roughly the equivalent of casting a 3rd level Cure Wounds while attacking twice with a longsword. On subsequent turns you can continue to attack with Vampiric Touch while using your bonus action on Spiritual Weapon, another Quickened Spell, or Healing Word.
Gotta love his humility and ability to admit when he might be wrong. My favorite RUclipsr
That is why you can rely on his advice. Does he have personal preferences? Yes. But he's still human. :-) And even they tend to be based on the ways that work best in D&D. And I also like how he constantly reminds us of his playstyle, so we can make adjustments if ours does not match his.
Another good use of the gate spell is if you have a BBEG and they are dug in to a lair, you can use it to pull them out and fight them in your prepared area instead. One of my friends did this to avoid fighting a dragon and its minions in its lair.
Vampiric touch is a good npc spell for dramatically and slowly killing a friendly npc while the party races to save them
Since you changed your mind on confusion, does that also mean you change your mind on the invocation that gives you 1 confusion cast, or no because it still takes a warlock spell slot and it's only once a day and it's level 7 requirement?
Vampiric Touch: 30d6 DoT. It's not bursty, but for a single lvl 3 spell slot, you're actually dealing 30d6 (potentially, if you use it for it's full duration), as well as getting 15d6 healing. If you want sustain DPR and healing, this is a great spell. It's not bursty, however, so it's not ideal for alpha strike, which is what most people go for.
Guards and Wards: Awesome for when the session ends with a 'final assault' type scenario where the players need to defend an area from a wave of enemies. 6th level is a bit high though. This feels more like a 5th level spell. As an optional homebrew, you can also allow the caster to swap out some of the effects for other, equivalent (same level) effects for different flavor - for example, you might let them replace Gust of Wind with Darkness, Immovable Object, Magic Mouth, or Silence.
Circle of Death: penetrates obstructions like walls. Deals necrotic damage.
Aganazzar's Scorcher: I agree it kinda sucks. But also, if I were going to take a line AoE, I'd take Lightning Bolt instead. I mean, sure Lightning Bolt is 3rd level and this is 2nd...but I'd just skip this one and hold out for Lightning Bolt, take something more utilitarian for a 2nd level spell.
Dawn: Just like Circle of Death, this spell is so much bigger than Moonbeam.
Gate: Can be used to create a lot of chaos. Just because a creature might be hostile to you, doesn't mean it isn't also hostile to everything else in the area as well.
Confusion: is just great. Wis is not a common ability for most enemies to have a lot of, and it can completely swing the action economy in your favor.
Wall of Ice is great. It can be used to traverse chasms and ravines.
I always love these kind of insight videos, might give you new infomation you didn't know or hadn't thought about yet. On another note, what's your opinion about the _Ceremony_ spell? Seems like a great NPC spell, but for PC's I think it might be Red/Orange.
Honestly a spell that can create holy water might find uses in very niche circumstances - I know it has that material component, but maybe you can ask the DM is the dwarf with proficiency in smiths tools (and who has smith tools on themself) can somehow grind some silvercoins to make powdered silver (maybe even loosing a bit extra money in the process).
So when you are in a situation you know you'll be facing undead (and you have a day or two to prepare) and you get the opportunity to have or create silver dust I could see it being really useful -> and it is a very circumstantial spell on spell lists of prepared casters, who can take it when that very niche situation happens :)
You could also dedication yourself or the paladin/cleric/whoever it makes sense thematically before a very important fight etc. and again you just don't have it randomly prepared, only when it is worth it
Ceremony is not a spell I recommend for preparation. Clerics of course can always prepare it in the few cases where they need to make holy water or something.
I consider Vampiric touch on Necromancy Wizard a good choice.
Even not upcast, you can do up to 30d6 dmg - with 60% chance to hit and familiar, it is on average 88.2 dmg, so 44.1 heal and on top 9 hps healed per enemy killed. So with let's say 3 killed enemies, we have 88.2 dmg and 71.1 hps healed - fantastic for one third level spell!
Upcast:
lvl 4: 117.6/94.8
lvl 5: 147/118.5
lvl 6: 176.4/142.2
lvl 7: 205.8/165.9
lvl 8: 235.2/189.6
lvl 9: 264.6/213.3
I know it takes time to use it all, but it is an efficient spell from both dmg and healing point of view.
I did use Guards and Wards offensively once. We needed to neutralize a small fortification to protect the flank of an advancing army. It required using Clairvoyance and Arcane Eye to scout out the interior somewhat and two characters used Dimension Door to get the other two inside. As I recall, I was only able to effect about half of the floor plan, but this included a lot of the doors and all of the staircases (unless there were some secret ones). There were only three casters inside capable of getting through the locked doors and a couple of groups successfully broke them down. But, overall, we were able to subdue most of the defenders piecemeal and captured it intact without needing to kill everything that moved. The fact that we had mercifully spared most of the opposition had some RP benefits in the next scenario, which was the end of the campaign. It is clearly highly circumstantial, but as battlefield control if you can pull it off it turns the dungeon against the occupants.
Speaking of the gate spell, it says you can orient the gate any way you want.
So, just open it under the enemy, so they fall through, then quickly close it. Unless the enemy can fly, it's basically a guaranteed banishment spell. And, without the caveat of needing to be from a different home plane. You could send a vampire to Mt Celestia, or a fire elemental to the endless plane of water. T'ssssss much? LoL!
Or, open it above an enemy, and link it to the inside of a volcano. Lava/magma shower, anyone...? Lol.
Or, in a non combat, more utility version of the spell, you could use it like plane shift, but for an entire crowd.
I think people would actually rate this spell better, if the text of the spell ended before the "draw a being forth" part.
Another advantage of Wall of Ice over Wall of Stone: Wall of Stone requires existing stone to emerge from, Wall of Ice just requires a flat surface.
This depends on the campaign, but I'm presently playing a Mountain Land Druid with a Staff of Frost, so I have access to both. I've gotten far more use out of Wall of Ice because the particular campaign has put us in two dungeons made entirely of ice in a row. The damage can also be clutch, as can it being used to make any shape you want. I actually wiped out a large number of Shadows swarming the party with Wall of Ice, and when it comes to Shadows, wiping out a good chunk of their swarm is very important.
Since gate can be oriented any direction you choose, just orient it directly underneath the enemy of your choice. They fall through, and then you drop concentration. Sometimes the simplest answers are the best answers.
do you stream the hight level one shots? i would love to watch it
I could mostly see Circle of Death as useful for Evocation Wizards because the much larger radius and higher level spell slot both work really well with Sculpt Spells.
It isn't Evocation so Sculpt Spells doesn't work
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you said that creatures only take damage from Dawn at the end of their turns if they are in the area, but it says that when it first appears anything in the area of effect takes the damage when it appears and then also if they end their turn inside it.
Ive upcasted vampiric touch to 6th level with my level 19 wiz/1 order cleric. It's a ton of healing for my wizard, especially on a critical hit, which is very common with even accuracy and foresight- it also gives me an option for dealing with air elementals, since they go in melee and are immune to shocking grasp...
Gate is also one-way; it's a great way to retreat while also drawing in enemies to a potential trap.
I combine faithful hound with wall of force all the time... Love it; the trap also stays long enough for you to potentially scatter multiple people inside
Early videos are back!! Yes!!!
I'm afraid not, this one was posted early in error.
@@TreantmonksTemple damn, I enjoyed listening to your videos as part of my Monday/Friday morning rituals. Hope the 11 release time does what you were expecting with the algorithm.
@@theshadowbadger There has been a view boost since the time change. I think it's more visible in people's feeds.
Thank you for this.
How many squares of ice I could create with wall of ice around the target?
one thing with gate is you can orient it in any direction, including upwards and downwards,
if you are facing a flying enemy you could knock them prone through the portal
if you are facing an enemy who can't fly you can place it over their heads and reverse gravity,
just the fact that you can pull a named creature through it means you can summon anyone you know the true name of, which maybe your enemy, but also could be a mutual enemy to whom you are already fighting
I see this being alot of fun in cases where you want to trap any creature in a demiplane, you open the demiplane, pull a king into it from his palace, then just drop concentration on the gate and use your movement to exit the demiplane
who once the door closes, is trapped
lots of planes like the plane of fire, you will die instantly when you get there, hence it's name the crematorium, which as mentioned in the video is waaay stronger than a wall of fire,
still not as good as true polymorph, but man this spell looks really fun
I love the _Gate_ spell! I'm a bounty hunter and this spell lets me find anyone for whom I'm looking.
I think Gate also has other uses:
1) combo with planar binding. It's one of the few summoning spells that combines with planar binding unproblematically, and it allows you to summon practically anything. It's nice that balors and pit fiends lack legendary resistances.
2) summoning natural enemies. If you are fighting fiends or undead, a solar is not going to turn you down if you ask for help
3) summoning universally hostile creatures can still be advantageous if you control the placement. For example, summon greater demon. This is a more powerful version of that.
4) transporting large groups of creatures
5) portals into environmental hazards. what happens if you open a portal to a deep drench in plane of water? the Goblin slayer anime has a good illustration what might happen.
It's not a no-brainer like a wish or foresight, but it is still fun and powerful
Guards and Wards + Leomund's Tiny Hut would make for a pretty secure resting spot against any Wandering Monsters.
Dawn. I’m playing COS and will pick it to finish Strahd. (Level 7 currently).
Thanks for the content, now I am planing to add mordekainen hound to fry strahd in the wall of force untill is time to cast dawn and finish it
Aganazzar’s scorcher with Transmuted is a good play or boost as well
Another use for gate. Combine it with glyph/planar binding/magic circle tactics to call a high CR creature and bind it to your will, and lets you do it with fey and celestials, which a wizard has no way of summoning.
For Gate, since you can pick a precise location on another plane to open your Gate, you can be pretty crazy with what exactly you do with it (DM willing, of course). There are other planes that have day/night cycles. Open a gate to that plane’s star’s photosphere and point it at an enemy. Good luck surviving the full heat of a star.
Yeah, that would not be hard for a DM to deny. I would prefer the much more reliable, tried and true technique of pushing your foes into a prismatic wall instead.
I would argue that something like that would kill the enemy but also devastate the planet. Most likely killing you.p
Shit, just open up a max size gate to the elemental plane of water inside the bbeg's dungeon. Good luck surviving that.
@@Suichimo until the DM rules that water doesn't flow through the gate
@@cmckee42
The laws of physics an' magic be a cruel mistress, yarr.
Ya open the gate, but because the plane of water be eternal, thar be no pressure. In fact, the air pressure of the normal plane be a weak deterrent to water flowin' in. Ya can siphon a stream out, if ya start it goin', but it ain't much.
But then ya open a gate to a star or the elemental plane of fire, an' the air starts burnin.
Bein' a planar pirate be tough work.
Classy to make a follow up video to tighten the ratings up...
a point about cirle of death: some characters have evasion, wich means they get no damage on successful dex save, but there is no evasion on successful con save, so SOD can be used to get rid of those anoying rogues and monks who are hiding somwhere ahead
how are you guys ruling Wall of Force? because to me it reads like an oxymoron. It is invisible but nothing can physically pass through. So does light get blocked or does it pass through? The only way i can see this working is if the outside registers incoming light, blocks it, but then somehow recreates that light on the insight so it "looks" invisible but still blocks any movement through it. What are your thoughts? is there an official ruling?
I mean, if it's invisible, that literally means light is passing through it.