Regarding Find Familiar... My players seem to enjoy scouting with their familiars, and frankly I don't mind it as a DM. However, as a player who likes to play ranger/rogue scout characters, I would probably hate this spell and the player's handbook it rode in on.
Honestly, I think there are a lot of spells I would despise more as a player, than as a DM. (And there are a lot that I dislike as a DM.) Especially since when I play, I rarely play pure casters.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Putting my chips in on Summon-multiple-weak-creature spells. They're obviously REALLY powerful, but they are SO cumbersome.
Recently had a druid summon 8 bears in our game. While they were INCREDIBLY useful, they took forever on their turn, and even the druid regretted casting the spell since he was keeping track of all the individual HP's and making all the rolls.
He was at the point where he wanted them to die cause he was tired of keeping track of them!
Regarding Find Familiar... My players seem to enjoy scouting with their familiars, and frankly I don't mind it as a DM. However, as a player who likes to play ranger/rogue scout characters, I would probably hate this spell and the player's handbook it rode in on.
Honestly, I think there are a lot of spells I would despise more as a player, than as a DM. (And there are a lot that I dislike as a DM.) Especially since when I play, I rarely play pure casters.
Yeah, it completely nerfs the scouting abilities of a Rogue. I am actually playing that Scout subclass, and I can't imagine what my char would do if we had someone bring in a Familiar. But as a DM, I despise that spell as it heavily nerfs the ability to surprise the group, or at least build tension. Sure, I use Bullettes and Ankhegs for underground surprise, but overall, that and Tiny Hut wreck a lot of DM options.
Find Familiar is definitely an issue. The owl option scarred one of my table's regular DMs for life, primarily because it is such a devilishly effective shortcut for exploration. One of my favorites in the "Characters I Love and Will Never Get a Chance to Play" list is an Archfey warlock with Pact of the Chain, who treats her sprite Chain familiar as a trusted partner rather than just a disposable scout. Memory and Winterbreeze are the next best thing to two entire interdependent PCs, one of whom is an invisible flying Intelligence 14 ultra scout that can easily* inflict poisoned on enemies from forty feet away. Any DM I've floated the idea of actually playing Memory with has more-or-less said "**** you, **** your fairy, **** you with your fairy, no."
One possible fix for Find Familiar is a houserule saying that the familiar will stop obeying the wizard (or warlock) if it's treated particularly poorly. Much like a Pokemon, if you constantly send your familiar into situations where it gets annihilated without any remorse, it will eventually get fed up with you and start performing poorly. players who complain and say the spell forces their familiar to obey without question can get "It's obeying - but its morale is rock-bottom and that means disadvantage on all of its checks and saves, and also it showing absolutely no initiative. Perhaps if you didn't treat it like a disposable 10gp camera drone, it wouldn't have arrived at the conclusion that life is meaningless and all that awaits it is an endless string of painful deaths at the whim of the evil summoner that holds it in thrall. Actions have consequences in D&D - animal abuse is an action, animals not doing what you want them to is a consequence."
* * *
As for my own choice...difficult. Outside the obvious duds (True Strike and Witch Bolt being the standout examples), few spells have ever really struck me as being particularly vile save when players abuse them. Find Familiar is the main one, but the only spell I've ever tried to personally revise is Counterspell. Primarily because it's simply not fair - the overwhelming majority of players feel personally attacked whenever their spells are Countered, primarily due to the all-encompassing importance of action economy and how absolutely terrible it feels to 'waste' a turn, on top of losing one of their awesome cool spells. The DM, of course, is supposed to suck up being constantly Counterspell'd by multiple PC spellcasters without a blink. Any spell the players get to use but the DM is lambasted for is a bad spell, and one cannot entirely blame players for being poor sports on Counterspell. This is not Magic: the Gathering (however hard Wizards keeps trying to make it M:tG -_-), and even in Magic people ******* hate bluedecking.
There's no good way I've figured out to fix Counterspell, though - my proposal was shot down hard, and most every other proposal I've seen has been equally tarred-and-feathered, with many players simply saying "Counterspell is fine, there's no need to change it." I heartily disagree, but until brilliance strikes I don't have much other choice.
Find Familiar is definitely an issue. The owl option scarred one of my table's regular DMs for life, primarily because it is such a devilishly effective shortcut for exploration. One of my favorites in the "Characters I Love and Will Never Get a Chance to Play" list is an Archfey warlock with Pact of the Chain, who treats her sprite Chain familiar as a trusted partner rather than just a disposable scout. Memory and Winterbreeze are the next best thing to two entire interdependent PCs, one of whom is an invisible flying Intelligence 14 ultra scout that can easily* inflict poisoned on enemies from forty feet away. Any DM I've floated the idea of actually playing Memory with has more-or-less said "**** you, **** your fairy, **** you with your fairy, no."
One possible fix for Find Familiar is a houserule saying that the familiar will stop obeying the wizard (or warlock) if it's treated particularly poorly. Much like a Pokemon, if you constantly send your familiar into situations where it gets annihilated without any remorse, it will eventually get fed up with you and start performing poorly. players who complain and say the spell forces their familiar to obey without question can get "It's obeying - but its morale is rock-bottom and that means disadvantage on all of its checks and saves, and also it showing absolutely no initiative. Perhaps if you didn't treat it like a disposable 10gp camera drone, it wouldn't have arrived at the conclusion that life is meaningless and all that awaits it is an endless string of painful deaths at the whim of the evil summoner that holds it in thrall. Actions have consequences in D&D - animal abuse is an action, animals not doing what you want them to is a consequence."
I've been tinkering with different costs and grace periods before a familiar can be returned to the Material Plane, but I haven't really struck gold yet that way (even 24 hours between the familiar getting removed and being able to bring it back can cut down significantly on the scouting, but obviously only if the familiar can get caught snooping fairly easily). I like the idea of consequences (I'm big on consequences in general) though I expect my players would prefer something a little more strictly defined.
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Any spell the players get to use but the DM is lambasted for is a bad spell, and one cannot entirely blame players for being poor sports on Counterspell.
I agree about Counterspell. I did it once to my Sorcerer player, and he didn't like it much, but that's the only time I have done it in 31 sessions. And to be honest he had it coming -- he did the same spell 3 or 4 times, so after the 3rd time, the bad guy was able to recognize what he was doing and counter it.
Whatever players may like or hate, though, I tend to enforce the rule that what's good for the PCs is good for the Monsters. If the players ever said they hated Counterspell and didn't want me to give it to any monsters, I would happily agree -- by disallowing it completely as a spell. That is, if you hate it so much, we can take it out of the game. But we're not going to have spells the PCs can cast but the NPCs can't.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah my last campaign was in the underdark and we had a gloomstalker on the team. The homebrew druid's familiar did nearly all of the scouting. A gloomstalker in the underdark being overshadowed as scout by a 1st level ritual spell was too much for me. I completely understand why people enjoy the spell and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Pets are fun and playing with powerful things are fun. My wizard certainly had fun slapping dragon's breath on the thing for a little tag-team synergy. But if I have to hear "send in the familiar" one more time I may just vomit. Not how I want to be playing.
About Conjure Spells: I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love them because there are certain character concepts they enable that I adore. I hate them because they were designed poorly and 9/10 players are not prepared to handle them. Not trying to be disparaging. It just takes a really fastidious person with expansive rules knowledge that can handle game operations super efficiently and commit to their tactics on the fly. It's a huge ask.
Conjure Animals is the poster boy so I'll just talk about that. I think the ideal way to handle this spell as a DM is to have a talk with the player and come up with a small list of options from the various CRs that fit the character's origins and/or what has been experience throughout the campaign. This list should also take into account how comfortable the DM feels with the player's ability to handle the spell. Sticking to CR 1 and 2 is the safest thing to do, but if you have a more trusting relationship then maybe throw in a CR 1/2 option. CR 1/4 should probably just be wiped off the face of the planet, but if you want to give your player an "oh shit button" and you trust them not to spam it every combat then it's there. 8 of anything is egregious and entirely unfun for everyone else at the table. The spectacle wears off quick and what you're left with is an ugly soup of a combat no one is really enjoying.
By curating this list ahead of time you allow the player to become familiar with their options. The whole "choose the CR and then the DM chooses a setting appropriate beast and hands the statblock to you" routine is super inefficient. Too much time is spent on the DM thinking about what to choose and then looking it up. Too much time is spent on the player reading the statblock and deciding what tactics work with something they've never seen. Curating the list and giving the player the statblocks to look at on their own time helps eliminate so much of that.
Find Familiar is definitely an issue. The owl option scarred one of my table's regular DMs for life, primarily because it is such a devilishly effective shortcut for exploration. One of my favorites in the "Characters I Love and Will Never Get a Chance to Play" list is an Archfey warlock with Pact of the Chain, who treats her sprite Chain familiar as a trusted partner rather than just a disposable scout. Memory and Winterbreeze are the next best thing to two entire interdependent PCs, one of whom is an invisible flying Intelligence 14 ultra scout that can easily* inflict poisoned on enemies from forty feet away. Any DM I've floated the idea of actually playing Memory with has more-or-less said "**** you, **** your fairy, **** you with your fairy, no."
One possible fix for Find Familiar is a houserule saying that the familiar will stop obeying the wizard (or warlock) if it's treated particularly poorly. Much like a Pokemon, if you constantly send your familiar into situations where it gets annihilated without any remorse, it will eventually get fed up with you and start performing poorly. players who complain and say the spell forces their familiar to obey without question can get "It's obeying - but its morale is rock-bottom and that means disadvantage on all of its checks and saves, and also it showing absolutely no initiative. Perhaps if you didn't treat it like a disposable 10gp camera drone, it wouldn't have arrived at the conclusion that life is meaningless and all that awaits it is an endless string of painful deaths at the whim of the evil summoner that holds it in thrall. Actions have consequences in D&D - animal abuse is an action, animals not doing what you want them to is a consequence."
* * *
As for my own choice...difficult. Outside the obvious duds (True Strike and Witch Bolt being the standout examples), few spells have ever really struck me as being particularly vile save when players abuse them. Find Familiar is the main one, but the only spell I've ever tried to personally revise is Counterspell. Primarily because it's simply not fair - the overwhelming majority of players feel personally attacked whenever their spells are Countered, primarily due to the all-encompassing importance of action economy and how absolutely terrible it feels to 'waste' a turn, on top of losing one of their awesome cool spells. The DM, of course, is supposed to suck up being constantly Counterspell'd by multiple PC spellcasters without a blink. Any spell the players get to use but the DM is lambasted for is a bad spell, and one cannot entirely blame players for being poor sports on Counterspell. This is not Magic: the Gathering (however hard Wizards keeps trying to make it M:tG -_-), and even in Magic people ****ing hate bluedecking.
There's no good way I've figured out to fix Counterspell, though - my proposal was shot down hard, and most every other proposal I've seen has been equally tarred-and-feathered, with many players simply saying "Counterspell is fine, there's no need to change it." I heartily disagree, but until brilliance strikes I don't have much other choice.
A DM, a Pact of the Chain Warlock, an Artificer, a Wizard and a Beastmaster Ranger walk into a bar.
The DM says "you know, I am so tired of all the headaches of running a large table. I am capping the table at 4 players."
The players, in their best Ruprect voice, say in unison, "Really?".
But I agree that any spell which summons multiple entities into a combat is definitely on my hate list. My players haven't even tried to use these yet, but just the idea of adding 2, 4, 8 or more things into a battle to make it that much longer and more complicated... ugh.
Now that I'm actually running for a Shepard druid, I have discovered an additional issue as well. The summons get in the way of the party just as much as they block the monsters. The paladin struggles to engage things already surrounded by beasts. Summoner would be a great solo class, but it's really tough to have one in the party and still give everyone a chance to shine. It's tough to balance encounters when you don't know if you're balancing for party + summons or not.
Damage is way beyond single target estimates placed in the DMG. It is a BA to make the creatures attack meaning you get your action to cast a spell every turn.
The usual counters people offer:
"One AoE and they are dead!"
Not absolutely....they have decent saves and unless its a spell of sufficiently high level they have a very good chance of saving...and they have 20 hp meaning it would likely need to be a 3rd level spell or higher to attempt to kill them.
Also you would have to center the AoE on yourself to get all the tiny creatures surrounding you.....so yeah make a save!
"Just hit the caster...its a Concentration spell!"
This used to be more of an option but now there are so many ways to mitigate concentration saves that its hard to counter. Also that means the creature is either using a ranged attack or eating 10 attacks of opportunity to move to hit.
Also you could theoretically move the tiny creatures into a wall to block the caster from LOS.
Here is a good article discussing the spell, damage output, and ways to fix it.
I have a grudge against Inflict Wounds. For a long time, the only spells the cleric in the party casted were spiritual weapon and inflict wounds. It denied the other players the possibility of being able to shine, especially with how often he rolled a crit on a 3rd level spell slot, dealing 10d10 necrotic damage.
But I agree that any spell which summons multiple entities into a combat is definitely on my hate list. My players haven't even tried to use these yet, but just the idea of adding 2, 4, 8 or more things into a battle to make it that much longer and more complicated... ugh.
Now that I'm actually running for a Shepard druid, I have discovered an additional issue as well. The summons get in the way of the party just as much as they block the monsters. The paladin struggles to engage things already surrounded by beasts. Summoner would be a great solo class, but it's really tough to have one in the party and still give everyone a chance to shine. It's tough to balance encounters when you don't know if you're balancing for party + summons or not.
I played with a Homebrew Summoner class once were the focus was buffing up one summon. That was really enjoyable and fun for the group and player! But I completely agree, a million little summons is too cumbersome for everyone involved.
True strike because its such a trap. so many new players see it and think it will be great until they try to use it a few times and find out what complete crap it is. And like Star Spawn says above, I'm kind of annoyed at guidance for the opposite reason. It's a bit too useful to the point its about required for clerics to take it.
And to pile on ceremony, which I actually do generally like, the real cheese is that marriage doesn't say it can only be two people. It just says "adult humanoids" without specifying the number. It may have been RAI for two, but RAW, it can be any number. Yes. you have to touch them, but the casting time is an hour, so there's plenty of time to just high-five as many as you want. The whole party could decide to become some kind of poly commune the day before fighting the BBEG.
1 - Comprehend Languages - I feel like this spell cheapens languages as a whole. It's a first level ritual so it costs literally nothing and is available immediately. When you have someone with this spell on your team, any languages you have from your background just become a formality. I don't think this spell is especially bad but I wish there was more of a cost to use it. That or it should be a higher level spell.
One thing to remember about Comprehend Languages is that it only provides a literal translation. It's like trying to read a book that you ran through Google Translate- some things are not going to make sense.
For example, if you used it on a Dwarven map, a forest might have a note saying "unstable tunnels." If you used Comprehend Languages to read it, you might actually think that there are tunnels that are prone to cave-ins when someone who's actually fluent in Dwarven would realize that it's actually saying that the forest is dangerous.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I have a grudge against Inflict Wounds. For a long time, the only spells the cleric in the party casted were spiritual weapon and inflict wounds. It denied the other players the possibility of being able to shine, especially with how often he rolled a crit on a 3rd level spell slot, dealing 10d10 necrotic damage.
Once I was in a group with a chainlock who used inflict wounds and used their imp to deliver it, and the number of times they critted with a fifth level spell slot was huge.
Fortune's Favor - it feels too weak. Only one advantage? True Strike does that. If it was three fragments of possibility, then it'd be better. Not that I hate the spell - it's a weird relationship, as I'll always pick it!
Absorb Elements is a fantastic spell. It can literally be the difference between life and death if you get hit with something like Cone of Cold or a dragon's breath weapon. The damage boost it provides is inconsequential, you can safely ignore that it even exists.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Absorb Elements is almost more important than Shield. Shield comes up a lot more often because attacks are much more common than big elemental blasts, but like 6LG says - when Absorb Elements does factor in, it tends to do so in a big way.
I do agree that Guidance is annoying. I've had it on my artificer since day 1, but I find myself rarely using it simply because watching people who yell "GUIDANCE!" every. Single. Goddamn time someone throws a d20 irritates me to no end and throws me right out of the game. The spell is best reserved for climactic throws and moments where the entire team can contribute to a thorny problem, rather than slapping it on every skill check made since 1983.
You're America's Sweetheart, Laura Bailey, and Jester is a treasure, but Jeezus Christmas. Leave the poor Traveler be, let your d4 have a break once in a while, and get your dice-juju issues under control. Not everything merits a Guidance roll.
If it were me, it'd probably be one of those one-minute cast time spells like Mending, and as a DM I refuse to allow Guidance on any skill check associated with a task that takes longer than a minute to produce. If the one roll is representing several minutes/hours/days/etc. of work, one single Guidance doesn't get to affect the outcome.
Absorb Elements is almost more important than Shield. Shield comes up a lot more often because attacks are much more common than big elemental blasts, but like 6LG says - when Absorb Elements does factor in, it tends to do so in a big way.
I do agree that Guidance is annoying. I've had it on my artificer since day 1, but I find myself rarely using it simply because watching people who yell "GUIDANCE!" every. Single. Goddamn time someone throws a d20 irritates me to no end and throws me right out of the game. The spell is best reserved for climactic throws and moments where the entire team can contribute to a thorny problem, rather than slapping it on every skill check made since 1983.
You're America's Sweetheart, Laura Bailey, and Jester is a treasure, but Jeezus Christmas. Leave the poor Traveler be, let your d4 have a break once in a while, and get your dice-juju issues under control. Not everything merits a Guidance roll.
If it were me, it'd probably be one of those one-minute cast time spells like Mending, and as a DM I refuse to allow Guidance on any skill check associated with a task that takes longer than a minute to produce. If the one roll is representing several minutes/hours/days/etc. of work, one single Guidance doesn't get to affect the outcome.
Also, it's a good idea to absolutely forbid Guidance to work on skills that are indiscernible. Like Knowledge, Insight and most of the time Perception.
False life, I get that low level wizards don’t have a lot of health, but for a same level spell as Sleep, where you can take down a creature with ( an average of ) 22.5 HP?? It’s just not worth spending a slot, especially since the only reason you would need it is if you don’t have a lot of health = your spell slots are finite= you won’t cast it at higher lvls, because you’ll have enough hit points.
Also please keep in mind this is the only thing I had in my head, I’m sure there are much more horrible spells.
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Regarding Find Familiar... My players seem to enjoy scouting with their familiars, and frankly I don't mind it as a DM. However, as a player who likes to play ranger/rogue scout characters, I would probably hate this spell and the player's handbook it rode in on.
Honestly, I think there are a lot of spells I would despise more as a player, than as a DM. (And there are a lot that I dislike as a DM.) Especially since when I play, I rarely play pure casters.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Putting my chips in on Summon-multiple-weak-creature spells. They're obviously REALLY powerful, but they are SO cumbersome.
Recently had a druid summon 8 bears in our game. While they were INCREDIBLY useful, they took forever on their turn, and even the druid regretted casting the spell since he was keeping track of all the individual HP's and making all the rolls.
He was at the point where he wanted them to die cause he was tired of keeping track of them!
Yeah, it completely nerfs the scouting abilities of a Rogue. I am actually playing that Scout subclass, and I can't imagine what my char would do if we had someone bring in a Familiar. But as a DM, I despise that spell as it heavily nerfs the ability to surprise the group, or at least build tension. Sure, I use Bullettes and Ankhegs for underground surprise, but overall, that and Tiny Hut wreck a lot of DM options.
Find Familiar is definitely an issue. The owl option scarred one of my table's regular DMs for life, primarily because it is such a devilishly effective shortcut for exploration. One of my favorites in the "Characters I Love and Will Never Get a Chance to Play" list is an Archfey warlock with Pact of the Chain, who treats her sprite Chain familiar as a trusted partner rather than just a disposable scout. Memory and Winterbreeze are the next best thing to two entire interdependent PCs, one of whom is an invisible flying Intelligence 14 ultra scout that can easily* inflict poisoned on enemies from forty feet away. Any DM I've floated the idea of actually playing Memory with has more-or-less said "**** you, **** your fairy, **** you with your fairy, no."
One possible fix for Find Familiar is a houserule saying that the familiar will stop obeying the wizard (or warlock) if it's treated particularly poorly. Much like a Pokemon, if you constantly send your familiar into situations where it gets annihilated without any remorse, it will eventually get fed up with you and start performing poorly. players who complain and say the spell forces their familiar to obey without question can get "It's obeying - but its morale is rock-bottom and that means disadvantage on all of its checks and saves, and also it showing absolutely no initiative. Perhaps if you didn't treat it like a disposable 10gp camera drone, it wouldn't have arrived at the conclusion that life is meaningless and all that awaits it is an endless string of painful deaths at the whim of the evil summoner that holds it in thrall. Actions have consequences in D&D - animal abuse is an action, animals not doing what you want them to is a consequence."
* * *
As for my own choice...difficult. Outside the obvious duds (True Strike and Witch Bolt being the standout examples), few spells have ever really struck me as being particularly vile save when players abuse them. Find Familiar is the main one, but the only spell I've ever tried to personally revise is Counterspell. Primarily because it's simply not fair - the overwhelming majority of players feel personally attacked whenever their spells are Countered, primarily due to the all-encompassing importance of action economy and how absolutely terrible it feels to 'waste' a turn, on top of losing one of their awesome cool spells. The DM, of course, is supposed to suck up being constantly Counterspell'd by multiple PC spellcasters without a blink. Any spell the players get to use but the DM is lambasted for is a bad spell, and one cannot entirely blame players for being poor sports on Counterspell. This is not Magic: the Gathering (however hard Wizards keeps trying to make it M:tG -_-), and even in Magic people ******* hate bluedecking.
There's no good way I've figured out to fix Counterspell, though - my proposal was shot down hard, and most every other proposal I've seen has been equally tarred-and-feathered, with many players simply saying "Counterspell is fine, there's no need to change it." I heartily disagree, but until brilliance strikes I don't have much other choice.
Please do not contact or message me.
I've been tinkering with different costs and grace periods before a familiar can be returned to the Material Plane, but I haven't really struck gold yet that way (even 24 hours between the familiar getting removed and being able to bring it back can cut down significantly on the scouting, but obviously only if the familiar can get caught snooping fairly easily). I like the idea of consequences (I'm big on consequences in general) though I expect my players would prefer something a little more strictly defined.
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I agree about Counterspell. I did it once to my Sorcerer player, and he didn't like it much, but that's the only time I have done it in 31 sessions. And to be honest he had it coming -- he did the same spell 3 or 4 times, so after the 3rd time, the bad guy was able to recognize what he was doing and counter it.
Whatever players may like or hate, though, I tend to enforce the rule that what's good for the PCs is good for the Monsters. If the players ever said they hated Counterspell and didn't want me to give it to any monsters, I would happily agree -- by disallowing it completely as a spell. That is, if you hate it so much, we can take it out of the game. But we're not going to have spells the PCs can cast but the NPCs can't.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah my last campaign was in the underdark and we had a gloomstalker on the team. The homebrew druid's familiar did nearly all of the scouting. A gloomstalker in the underdark being overshadowed as scout by a 1st level ritual spell was too much for me. I completely understand why people enjoy the spell and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Pets are fun and playing with powerful things are fun. My wizard certainly had fun slapping dragon's breath on the thing for a little tag-team synergy. But if I have to hear "send in the familiar" one more time I may just vomit. Not how I want to be playing.
About Conjure Spells: I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love them because there are certain character concepts they enable that I adore. I hate them because they were designed poorly and 9/10 players are not prepared to handle them. Not trying to be disparaging. It just takes a really fastidious person with expansive rules knowledge that can handle game operations super efficiently and commit to their tactics on the fly. It's a huge ask.
Conjure Animals is the poster boy so I'll just talk about that. I think the ideal way to handle this spell as a DM is to have a talk with the player and come up with a small list of options from the various CRs that fit the character's origins and/or what has been experience throughout the campaign. This list should also take into account how comfortable the DM feels with the player's ability to handle the spell. Sticking to CR 1 and 2 is the safest thing to do, but if you have a more trusting relationship then maybe throw in a CR 1/2 option. CR 1/4 should probably just be wiped off the face of the planet, but if you want to give your player an "oh shit button" and you trust them not to spam it every combat then it's there. 8 of anything is egregious and entirely unfun for everyone else at the table. The spectacle wears off quick and what you're left with is an ugly soup of a combat no one is really enjoying.
By curating this list ahead of time you allow the player to become familiar with their options. The whole "choose the CR and then the DM chooses a setting appropriate beast and hands the statblock to you" routine is super inefficient. Too much time is spent on the DM thinking about what to choose and then looking it up. Too much time is spent on the player reading the statblock and deciding what tactics work with something they've never seen. Curating the list and giving the player the statblocks to look at on their own time helps eliminate so much of that.
A DM, a Pact of the Chain Warlock, an Artificer, a Wizard and a Beastmaster Ranger walk into a bar.
The DM says "you know, I am so tired of all the headaches of running a large table. I am capping the table at 4 players."
The players, in their best Ruprect voice, say in unison, "Really?".
Now that I'm actually running for a Shepard druid, I have discovered an additional issue as well. The summons get in the way of the party just as much as they block the monsters. The paladin struggles to engage things already surrounded by beasts. Summoner would be a great solo class, but it's really tough to have one in the party and still give everyone a chance to shine. It's tough to balance encounters when you don't know if you're balancing for party + summons or not.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Animate Objects
Damage is way beyond single target estimates placed in the DMG. It is a BA to make the creatures attack meaning you get your action to cast a spell every turn.
The usual counters people offer:
"One AoE and they are dead!"
Not absolutely....they have decent saves and unless its a spell of sufficiently high level they have a very good chance of saving...and they have 20 hp meaning it would likely need to be a 3rd level spell or higher to attempt to kill them.
Also you would have to center the AoE on yourself to get all the tiny creatures surrounding you.....so yeah make a save!
"Just hit the caster...its a Concentration spell!"
This used to be more of an option but now there are so many ways to mitigate concentration saves that its hard to counter. Also that means the creature is either using a ranged attack or eating 10 attacks of opportunity to move to hit.
Also you could theoretically move the tiny creatures into a wall to block the caster from LOS.
Here is a good article discussing the spell, damage output, and ways to fix it.
https://thinkdm.org/2020/07/11/animate-objects/
I have a grudge against Inflict Wounds. For a long time, the only spells the cleric in the party casted were spiritual weapon and inflict wounds. It denied the other players the possibility of being able to shine, especially with how often he rolled a crit on a 3rd level spell slot, dealing 10d10 necrotic damage.
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXIX?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
I played with a Homebrew Summoner class once were the focus was buffing up one summon. That was really enjoyable and fun for the group and player! But I completely agree, a million little summons is too cumbersome for everyone involved.
True strike because its such a trap. so many new players see it and think it will be great until they try to use it a few times and find out what complete crap it is. And like Star Spawn says above, I'm kind of annoyed at guidance for the opposite reason. It's a bit too useful to the point its about required for clerics to take it.
And to pile on ceremony, which I actually do generally like, the real cheese is that marriage doesn't say it can only be two people. It just says "adult humanoids" without specifying the number. It may have been RAI for two, but RAW, it can be any number. Yes. you have to touch them, but the casting time is an hour, so there's plenty of time to just high-five as many as you want. The whole party could decide to become some kind of poly commune the day before fighting the BBEG.
One thing to remember about Comprehend Languages is that it only provides a literal translation. It's like trying to read a book that you ran through Google Translate- some things are not going to make sense.
For example, if you used it on a Dwarven map, a forest might have a note saying "unstable tunnels." If you used Comprehend Languages to read it, you might actually think that there are tunnels that are prone to cave-ins when someone who's actually fluent in Dwarven would realize that it's actually saying that the forest is dangerous.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Once I was in a group with a chainlock who used inflict wounds and used their imp to deliver it, and the number of times they critted with a fifth level spell slot was huge.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
My personal most hated spells are:
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
Absorb Elements is a fantastic spell. It can literally be the difference between life and death if you get hit with something like Cone of Cold or a dragon's breath weapon. The damage boost it provides is inconsequential, you can safely ignore that it even exists.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Absorb Elements is almost more important than Shield. Shield comes up a lot more often because attacks are much more common than big elemental blasts, but like 6LG says - when Absorb Elements does factor in, it tends to do so in a big way.
I do agree that Guidance is annoying. I've had it on my artificer since day 1, but I find myself rarely using it simply because watching people who yell "GUIDANCE!" every. Single. Goddamn time someone throws a d20 irritates me to no end and throws me right out of the game. The spell is best reserved for climactic throws and moments where the entire team can contribute to a thorny problem, rather than slapping it on every skill check made since 1983.
You're America's Sweetheart, Laura Bailey, and Jester is a treasure, but Jeezus Christmas. Leave the poor Traveler be, let your d4 have a break once in a while, and get your dice-juju issues under control. Not everything merits a Guidance roll.
If it were me, it'd probably be one of those one-minute cast time spells like Mending, and as a DM I refuse to allow Guidance on any skill check associated with a task that takes longer than a minute to produce. If the one roll is representing several minutes/hours/days/etc. of work, one single Guidance doesn't get to affect the outcome.
Please do not contact or message me.
Also, it's a good idea to absolutely forbid Guidance to work on skills that are indiscernible. Like Knowledge, Insight and most of the time Perception.
False life, I get that low level wizards don’t have a lot of health, but for a same level spell as Sleep, where you can take down a creature with ( an average of ) 22.5 HP?? It’s just not worth spending a slot, especially since the only reason you would need it is if you don’t have a lot of health = your spell slots are finite= you won’t cast it at higher lvls, because you’ll have enough hit points.
Also please keep in mind this is the only thing I had in my head, I’m sure there are much more horrible spells.