Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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This is an old, ancient and rather pointless debate that has raged since Gygax first requested payment for the first PHB. Wizards of the Coast and its parent corporation are obliged to show a profit or else go the way of the dodo bird. Please change the subject.
I will respond to posts addressed to me as I see fit. You are welcome to not read them.
I think it's decent value; $30 seemed fair for the character options. I have been eagerly awaiting the wizard subclasses.
Mixed bag with the new spells (weird to think the aforementioned Detonate made it past any playtesting without someone just pointing at Meteor Swarm and asking "Why would any one choose this over that??"), but it's always been that way.
Grave Ground, Festering Blast, and Spirit Lantern are so fun. Illusory Dragon might be too powerful (dm-dependant).
The Portal Jumper feat seems like it will end up breaking things at low levels similarly to how the Echo Knight did. It's not extra movement, and it can't get you out of a grapple, but teleporting through windows and cages, etc., really creates a headache for DMs.
Anyway, there are duds and overpowered things throughout every book. I'm not that concerned. I have several tables I play at of a wide variety of vibes. I'm sure there's stuff in here that break the game that some folks will never be bothered by because it's not their style of play. As much as I wish Treantmonk or the Dungeon Dudes (or, I guess, anyone who can honestly assess the crunch side of the rules) were given a chance to alert the authors of these new rules of the sometimes very obvious possible abuses of new spells, feats, etc., all of that stuff is just a corner of how these books are used.
So, yeah, I was excited for this book, and, as I have for the last 40 years, I poured over the new content instantly and could pick out things I loved and stuff I shrugged at.
On sheer raw damage, there's not a single 9th-level spell that comes close to meteor swarm. You just have to ignore it when designing spells. Detonate is, if you ignore MS, a perfectly cromulent spell. If anything, it may be overtuned, with that large range and radius. (Compare psychic scream.)
Please roll your Bardic Inspiration. They'll need to subtract the result from their next saving throw until the start of your next turn.
"Life is Cast by Random Dice"
Burn my candle twice.
I have done my life justice
Against random dice.
Detonate does have extreme range, I'll give it that.
psychic scream does more than damage. for a pure damage spell detonate sucks.
I am usually not anxious about 8th and 9th level spells because the majority of my arcane spell casters retire (or expire) long before they get any where near to being able to cast such spells.
It does slightly more damage than psychic scream at longer range in a wider area, likely often with disadvantage on the save for most targets. PS is at the suggested normal damage for a multi-target spell. Detonate is fine; it's just not the "nuke an army" spell.