I'm just suggesting that damage from SG be taken either at end of caster's turn (including the turn it is cast) or the first time a target is inside the emanation during each round such that it does a consistent amount of damage to each target w/in the emanation each round without being subject to retriggers w/in the same round via movement.
That would limit SG damage to once per round instead of once on each participant's turn and prevent silly stuff that people have been proposing like riding the caster around to get another dose of SG damage during a party member's turn, etc.
There are many spells with similar wording and then similar behaviour, e.g. Conjure Animals:
Whenever the pack moves within 10 feet of a creature you can see and whenever a creature you can see enters a space within 10 feet of the pack or ends its turn there, you can force that creature to make a Dexterity saving throw.
This one is even worse because it is "enters a space" which means if a creature is within 10 ft of the pack and it moves 5ft to another space within 10 ft of the pack it takes the damage again. It's more similar to Spike Growth than Spirit Guardians. They probably intended it to be like Spirit Guardians but that's not how it reads to me.
I completely disagree. The old way was awkward, but ok. This...is not ok. Now, as the DM you can spread your 4 monsters around, and the cleric can just run around and touch all 4 of them and hit them for damage. Before, the cleric had to stop so that the largest number of monsters was inside the emenation to take damage when their turn started. The difference between the cleric hitting 1 or 2 monsters, and all 4 monsters is significant.
I think opportunity attacks are going to put a stop to it in most actual-play situations.
Yes, you can contrive scenarios where the cleric can run past a line of critters yet still be out of reach, but it's not going to happen. Especially after the cleric manages to pull it off once.
And yes, there are setups where you can arrange for the cleric to not be provoking opportunity attacks. Great. Good for them. They worked up a combo and used it. The need to retreat to avoid being beaten on by a whole bunch of critters who don't wanna eat another round of spirit guardians is an inherent limiting factor. It rewards clever tactical play.
Spirit Guardians has 15 ft radius, Conjure Woodland Beings that does much the same as Spirit Guardians gives you a Disengage as a bonus action as well. So no, attacks of opportunity won't stop this strategy.
I'm just suggesting that damage from SG be taken either at end of caster's turn (including the turn it is cast) or the first time a target is inside the emanation during each round such that it does a consistent amount of damage to each target w/in the emanation each round without being subject to retriggers w/in the same round via movement. That would limit SG damage to once per round instead of once on each participant's turn and prevent silly stuff that people have been proposing like riding the caster around to get another dose of SG damage during a party member's turn, etc.
Sorry, I thought you were saying it'd only trigger at the end of the caster's turn. That's my bad. You could run it that way but you're adding bookkeeping (the DM has to trick which monsters were forced to make the save before the cleric's turn) just to prevent a situation that only comes up if the cleric manages to maintain concentration and the monster doesn't get out of the emanation during their turn.
Spirit Guardians has 15 ft radius, Conjure Woodland Beings that does much the same as Spirit Guardians gives you a Disengage as a bonus action as well. So no, attacks of opportunity won't stop this strategy.
A monster only needs to spend 10 feet of movement to get out of Conjure Woodland Beings compared to 30 for Spirit Guardians. If the monster keeps leaving the emanation, it's only going to be taking damage on the druid's turns. If the druid is just moving the emanation into the monster and then backing off on the same turn, the monster isn't forced to approach on their own turn.
A monster only needs to spend 10 feet of movement to get out of Conjure Woodland Beings compared to 30 for Spirit Guardians. If the monster keeps leaving the emanation, it's only going to be taking damage on the druid's turns. If the druid is just moving the emanation into the monster and then backing off on the same turn, the monster isn't forced to approach on their own turn.
Sure but a druid can easily hit every single enemy on the battlefield with it which adds up to much more total damage dealt than dealing 2x damage to one enemy. A monster needs 0 ft of movement to get out of either if they can KO or drop the concentration of the caster by attacking them. There is really no reason for an enemy to try to get out of Spirit Guardians or Conjure Woodland Beings in either version since in both cases staying within the area means they only take the damage once and can attack the caster, whereas leaving it risks them taking it twice if they get pushed back into it.
Sure but a druid can easily hit every single enemy on the battlefield with it which adds up to much more total damage dealt than dealing 2x damage to one enemy.
If they refuse to scatter, that's their problem (or the players are working together to immobilize them, in which case, good job.)
A monster needs 0 ft of movement to get out of either if they can KO or drop the concentration of the caster by attacking them.
Which is part of why I don't see the big deal here. All of these shenanigans assumes the caster has succeeded on multiple coin flips to keep the spell going.
There is really no reason for an enemy to try to get out of Spirit Guardians or Conjure Woodland Beings in either version since in both cases staying within the area means they only take the damage once and can attack the caster, whereas leaving it risks them taking it twice if they get pushed back into it.
If the caster damages the enemy on the caster's turn (and they will, why wouldn't they) and the enemy is starting their turn inside the emanation, they might as well hit the caster and if that fails, get out. Why would they take another 3d8/5d8 right away? Pushing them back in with an unarmed strike costs that player damage, isn't guaranteed to succeed, and is going to require moving to a specific position opposite the monster and caster. If the party has multiple people with push weapons, it's a lot more practical, but that's a lot of commitment to this strategy. Not everyone's going to build around exploiting Spirit Guardians. In which case, fine, stay in.
If the caster damages the enemy on the caster's turn (and they will, why wouldn't they) and the enemy is starting their turn inside the emanation, they might as well hit the caster and if that fails, get out. Why would they take another 3d8/5d8 right away?
Getting out would often involve taking an AoO, and then on the caster's turn they move causing the aura to immediately damage the enemy anyway. So all they have gained is additional damage from an AoO (possibly multiple AoO). And since True Strike exists and warcaster allows it to be cast as an AoO that cleric's AoO has gotten a lot more deadly.
If they refuse to scatter
Pretty hard to scatter when the cleric can move the emanation 30 ft without even having to Dash, 60 ft with a Dash or a mount, 120 ft with a mount that Dashes (unless of course we are talking about a Druid who can just WS into a horse or a Bird to have a base movement speed of 60-80 ft plus the BA Disengage and possibly something like Flyby). You'd need battle maps that are at least 90 ft x 90 ft to enable enemies to effectively scatter. But the enemies scattering also means they will be limited to ranged attacks which many of them don't have or doing nothing on their turn which makes them a waste of space.
It's just way more effective for the enemies to dog-pile the cleric and bring down that Spirit Guardians ASAP, it also gives the enemies AoO if the cleric tries to move in order to get more targets with their Spirit Guardians.
Sure but a druid can easily hit every single enemy on the battlefield with it which adds up to much more total damage dealt than dealing 2x damage to one enemy.
If they refuse to scatter, that's their problem (or the players are working together to immobilize them, in which case, good job.)
The problem isn't that having a spell that attacks every enemy near the caster is inherently bad. The problem is that a spell like that shouldn't be doing 3d8 damage (+1d8 per level of overcast) for 10 minutes. The spell was overtuned even in 2014 and it's a lot more powerful now -- it's now trivial to double-hit melee monsters, for example, whereas previously you had to at least work at it. Honestly, at current numbers it shouldn't do damage when enemies enter the zone at all -- it should damage monsters that end their turn in the zone and nothing else.
inD&Deed, the 2024 version is even more OP than the busted 2014 version that I assumed surely would be nerfed (but nope). They need to hire some contract lawyers or something to fix the wording on this spell, because the way it's written now, the PC's can dip their enemies in and out of the spell's AOE, using Grapple or one of the many new pushing abilities, dealing damage for each and every ingress. This is because RAW, it says "only once per turn" (same as Sneak Attack's wording). And if the baddy can't break free from the Grapple, presumably it will end its turn within the AOE, and thus be damaged yet again (while the ally remains unharmed). This spell is practically begging you to cast it 15' away from the last enemy to have acted that Round, so that all your allies can spend their turn dipping. The only thing that can go wrong with this spell is losing Concentration, because saving vs. this spell doesn't even prevent the damage, it merely halves it. This spell needs to have its damage dice reduced to 1d8.
inD&Deed, the 2024 version is even more OP than the busted 2014 version that I assumed surely would be nerfed (but nope). They need to hire some contract lawyers or something to fix the wording on this spell, because the way it's written now, the PC's can dip their enemies in and out of the spell's AOE
That was always a tactic with spirit guardians. The difference was that in 2014 you had to have some additional push/pull ability to cause the effect on your turn, whereas in 2024 you can just step forward, hit them, and step back. And if you're willing to spend your action and reaction, ready an action to dash so you can do it again on some other turn.
For 2024 spells, use [ spells] rather than [ spell]. E.g. Spirit Guardians
Pretty hard to scatter when the cleric can move the emanation 30 ft without even having to Dash, 60 ft with a Dash or a mount, 120 ft with a mount that Dashes (unless of course we are talking about a Druid who can just WS into a horse or a Bird to have a base movement speed of 60-80 ft plus the BA Disengage and possibly something like Flyby).
It's not hard. Monsters can dash too, and moving in opposite directions is going to put distance between them at twice the rate. Even with 30 foot speed (non-bipeds would be faster) and enemies right next to each other, you're going to end up with monsters spaced at least 40 feet apart, usually much more if they're not bipedal. The cleric is going to have to run in one direction, waste an equal amount of movement backtracking to the middle, and then move some more in the opposite direction. Next round the monsters won't need to dash.
Mundane horses are easy to kill and also a pain in the ass in any kind of dungeon situation, so I'm not sure why we're assuming that's going to be a constant factor. Also, a horse that's dashing is a horse that's not dodging.
And again, we're assuming at least 2 enemies that almost certainly have Multiattack. The caster would have to either dodge or save 4 times to get to that point.
But the enemies scattering also means they will be limited to ranged attacks which many of them don't have or doing nothing on their turn which makes them a waste of space.
That's an encounter design problem. If you throw a bunch of monsters with 0 ranged attacks at the party then spells as basic as Entangle and Levitate can become a death sentence (especially Levitate, which will still affect fliers and doesn't rely on a condition.) If they do have ranged attacks, they just need to play keep away until the cleric's concentration is broken.
The higher level you go, the more of an issue this is. Wall of Force is going to take a monster out of the fight no matter what if it can't teleport. It's just stuck there, and there isn't even a save. You need multiple monsters, and at least some of them had better have ranged options. Otherwise, you should accept the possibility of one spell shutting down the whole encounter (which isn't always a bad thing, depending on what the encounter is.)
It's just way more effective for the enemies to dog-pile the cleric and bring down that Spirit Guardians ASAP, it also gives the enemies AoO if the cleric tries to move in order to get more targets with their Spirit Guardians.
I 100% agree that intelligent enemies should dogpile the cleric. But if that fails, the cleric is just going to Withdraw; they're not going to risk the opportunity attacks, and since the monsters came to them, the cleric doesn't need to dash either. Staying in the area is just not worth it, and taking that much constant damage is not something most creatures would choose to endure. The damage from being set on fire is only 1d4 and most people would try to put that out immediately.
Honestly, at current numbers it shouldn't do damage when enemies enter the zone at all -- it should damage monsters that end their turn in the zone and nothing else.
This actually doesn't sound that unfair even though it would potentially allow damage to be fully avoided since it still provides for zone control and cc (slow). However, I've suggested a few other options for fixes to emanation mechanics below that would still give the caster the ability to have some control over damage while limiting movement related triggers/retriggers.
Simple Interpretive Fix:
There's the simple fix of interpreting "once per turn" to MEAN "once per round" such that you keep all the triggers but just limit damage to once per round, including once in the round it is cast. Then the first time any trigger occurs during each round, that is when damage is applied. This would keep the spells basically as they are and just prevent retriggers. After all, a round is six seconds and everyone's turn is supposed to be happening at the same time. So, why should standing in an emanation for six seconds do LESS than popping in and out of it for brief moments in time?
Timing Variation on Interpretive Fix:
A variation on the interpretive fix that I saw proposed for emanation spells in 2024 as a homebrew rule would be to just limit the damage to once per round starting from the END of the TARGETs turn.
This solution preserves what seems like the intended power of emanations - damage once on caster's turn when the caster imposes the aura on a creature and a second time at the end of the creature's turn if it doesn't move out. Unlike the first interpretive fix above, this has the potential for two applications of damage in round 1 if the target takes its turn after the caster.
After that, it works similarly to the first interpretive fix by limiting damage to once per round - so if the target moves out, the caster could do damage by chasing back into range - and if the target stays in, then the target would take damage at the end of its turn but additional damage could not be created through movement on other characters' turns during the round. This is stronger that the first option due the possibility for 2 frontloaded damage applications in round 1 but at least limits damage to once per round after that.
More balanced and intuitive fix (imo):
A third fix that I was proposing above would be to - limit emanation damage to once per round as determined at the END of the CASTER'S turn. That way the caster can choose where to park the emanation at the end of it's own movement phase and anything in range at that point takes the damage which could be rolled on the caster's turn for all affected parties so you don't have to keep remembering to apply the emanation and roll on each target's turn and so that the caster feels like the emanation effect is resolved as part of their own turn.
After that, damage could not occur again until the end of the caster's next turn. If targets move away, the caster could chase them to get them back in by end of the caster's next turn. If targets stay, they would take damage at end of next caster's turn unless the caster moves away. Under this approach, the caster would not be able to spread damage by riding all over the place and could only impose the area of effect of the emanation on one location each round which strikes me as more balanced. So, similar to the first interpretive option, this option limits damage to once per round in all cases and additionally limits the area of effect per round to one location to prevent using fast travel mechanics to dramatically multiply the area of effect.
Weapon Mastery:
Just wanted to also note here that weapon mastery exacerbates the power of the new emanation mechanics if they aren't tamped down since it allows the party to push monsters around the battle field using their normal attacks (e.g. heavy crossbow or war hammer can push a mob 10 feet, etc.).
At a certain point, "encounter design problem" bleeds over into "system design problem". There are a lot of melee brute monsters in D&D, even at very high levels, and thus the system is implying that it's supposed to be a valid encounter design. In general the solution to making melee monsters useful is to force the PCs to fight in an arena small enough that kiting is impossible -- and that means avoiding spirit guardians is also impossible.
Having more than 1 enemy with no ranged attacks in a combat is a "encounter design problem"? Something like 50% of the enemies in the books have only melee attacks, so half of the published monsters are unusable? That sounds like a game-design problem to me.
You need multiple monsters
The more monsters on the board, the more damage Spirit Guardians deals because every single one of them can be hit every single turn. Spirit Guardians kills 10 enemies as easily as it kills 3 - probably more easily TBH because those 10 enemies are probably lower CR thus lower Wis saves and lower hit points.
If you throw a bunch of monsters with 0 ranged attacks at the party then spells as basic as Entangle and Levitate can become a death sentence
Levitate is single target and only effective in an area with ceilings more than 20ft high and one save negates it entirely. Entangle is a smaller area and a STR save which melee-only enemies are almost always good at, and works only when cast and cannot be moved.
PS the existence of other problematic OP spells doesn't justify the existence of this OP spell. That kind of logic leads to powercreep.
Winning by a landslide because you used the right spells is a perfectly acceptable outcome for some fights. If an encounter has to be climactic and you're relying on a single boss monster, you're expected to use a Legendary Creature. While the Monster Manual and DMG weren't as explicit about that as they should be, the encounter design guidelines in Xanathar's Guide to Everything are:
If the fight is against a single opponent, your best candidate for that foe is one of the game’s legendary creatures, which are designed to fill this need.
If you ignore that advice, you've got a situation where the players can force a single target to make half a dozen saves in a single round, and if any of them succeeds, the monster's crippled by one or more conditions. It's statistically unlikely for the monster to come out winning.
Diversifying multi-monster boss fights isn't a new concept either. Chapter 1 of the adventure that came with the Starter Set ends with a fight against a Bugbear, a wolf, and 2 goblins.
There are a lot of melee brute monsters in D&D, even at very high levels, and thus the system is implying that it's supposed to be a valid encounter design. In general the solution to making melee monsters useful is to force the PCs to fight in an arena small enough that kiting is impossible -- and that means avoiding spirit guardians is also impossible.
I don't think there's such thing as a "valid" encounter, but yes, that's one way to do things. The cleric isn't going to be able to escape a beating either.
The more monsters on the board, the more damage Spirit Guardians deals because every single one of them can be hit every single turn.
Assuming they're all limited to melee range and the cleric can get to all of them, sure. But even if you rig the encounter in Spirit Guardians' favor that way, you're severely underestimating how quickly the odds of winning multiple coin flips in a row approaches 0. That's why I keep harping on and on and on about how even just 2 monsters with 2 attacks each is a huge problem for the cleric. This graph is also the reason Animate Objects was nerfed to no longer create 10 creatures, why Stunning Strike was reduced to one attempt per round, and why pretty much every condition-inflicting spell gives a save every round and only lasts an average of 1.5 turns.
Levitate is single target and only effective in an area with ceilings more than 20ft high and one save negates it entirely.
Almost every spell in the game gets negated by a single save. The thing about Levitate is that the monster only gets one save to dodge it. Once it sticks, they don't get any additional saves to end it.
Not that it matters but 15 feet is usually enough. It doesn't matter much if the enemy is able to crawl around on the roof at half speed if it can't reach you with its melee attacks on the floor.
Entangle is a smaller area and a STR save which melee-only enemies are almost always good at
They don't almost always have proficiency, and without that, even a Strength score of 20 only gets you an average Strength save of 15. Even a level 1 spellcaster is going to have a save DC of 13.
More importantly, it's an area spell, which means you can target multiple creatures, which means the odds of all of them making their save is really low. That little graph I posted comes up a lot.
PS the existence of other problematic OP spells doesn't justify the existence of this OP spell. That kind of logic leads to powercreep.
If most area spells turn out to be problematic, the problem isn't power creep, it's that you threw a bunch of functionally identical monsters at the player. Even the authors of Starter Set adventure understood this back in 2014, so I don't understand how this is a controversial stance.
Yeah, many gods in Faerûn are not happy with that.
It's a bad solution.
Still not following you.
I'm just suggesting that damage from SG be taken either at end of caster's turn (including the turn it is cast) or the first time a target is inside the emanation during each round such that it does a consistent amount of damage to each target w/in the emanation each round without being subject to retriggers w/in the same round via movement.
That would limit SG damage to once per round instead of once on each participant's turn and prevent silly stuff that people have been proposing like riding the caster around to get another dose of SG damage during a party member's turn, etc.
This one is even worse because it is "enters a space" which means if a creature is within 10 ft of the pack and it moves 5ft to another space within 10 ft of the pack it takes the damage again. It's more similar to Spike Growth than Spirit Guardians. They probably intended it to be like Spirit Guardians but that's not how it reads to me.
Spirit Guardians has 15 ft radius, Conjure Woodland Beings that does much the same as Spirit Guardians gives you a Disengage as a bonus action as well. So no, attacks of opportunity won't stop this strategy.
Sorry, I thought you were saying it'd only trigger at the end of the caster's turn. That's my bad. You could run it that way but you're adding bookkeeping (the DM has to trick which monsters were forced to make the save before the cleric's turn) just to prevent a situation that only comes up if the cleric manages to maintain concentration and the monster doesn't get out of the emanation during their turn.
A monster only needs to spend 10 feet of movement to get out of Conjure Woodland Beings compared to 30 for Spirit Guardians. If the monster keeps leaving the emanation, it's only going to be taking damage on the druid's turns. If the druid is just moving the emanation into the monster and then backing off on the same turn, the monster isn't forced to approach on their own turn.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Sure but a druid can easily hit every single enemy on the battlefield with it which adds up to much more total damage dealt than dealing 2x damage to one enemy. A monster needs 0 ft of movement to get out of either if they can KO or drop the concentration of the caster by attacking them. There is really no reason for an enemy to try to get out of Spirit Guardians or Conjure Woodland Beings in either version since in both cases staying within the area means they only take the damage once and can attack the caster, whereas leaving it risks them taking it twice if they get pushed back into it.
If they refuse to scatter, that's their problem (or the players are working together to immobilize them, in which case, good job.)
Which is part of why I don't see the big deal here. All of these shenanigans assumes the caster has succeeded on multiple coin flips to keep the spell going.
If the caster damages the enemy on the caster's turn (and they will, why wouldn't they) and the enemy is starting their turn inside the emanation, they might as well hit the caster and if that fails, get out. Why would they take another 3d8/5d8 right away? Pushing them back in with an unarmed strike costs that player damage, isn't guaranteed to succeed, and is going to require moving to a specific position opposite the monster and caster. If the party has multiple people with push weapons, it's a lot more practical, but that's a lot of commitment to this strategy. Not everyone's going to build around exploiting Spirit Guardians. In which case, fine, stay in.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Getting out would often involve taking an AoO, and then on the caster's turn they move causing the aura to immediately damage the enemy anyway. So all they have gained is additional damage from an AoO (possibly multiple AoO). And since True Strike exists and warcaster allows it to be cast as an AoO that cleric's AoO has gotten a lot more deadly.
Pretty hard to scatter when the cleric can move the emanation 30 ft without even having to Dash, 60 ft with a Dash or a mount, 120 ft with a mount that Dashes (unless of course we are talking about a Druid who can just WS into a horse or a Bird to have a base movement speed of 60-80 ft plus the BA Disengage and possibly something like Flyby). You'd need battle maps that are at least 90 ft x 90 ft to enable enemies to effectively scatter. But the enemies scattering also means they will be limited to ranged attacks which many of them don't have or doing nothing on their turn which makes them a waste of space.
It's just way more effective for the enemies to dog-pile the cleric and bring down that Spirit Guardians ASAP, it also gives the enemies AoO if the cleric tries to move in order to get more targets with their Spirit Guardians.
The problem isn't that having a spell that attacks every enemy near the caster is inherently bad. The problem is that a spell like that shouldn't be doing 3d8 damage (+1d8 per level of overcast) for 10 minutes. The spell was overtuned even in 2014 and it's a lot more powerful now -- it's now trivial to double-hit melee monsters, for example, whereas previously you had to at least work at it. Honestly, at current numbers it shouldn't do damage when enemies enter the zone at all -- it should damage monsters that end their turn in the zone and nothing else.
inD&Deed, the 2024 version is even more OP than the busted 2014 version that I assumed surely would be nerfed (but nope). They need to hire some contract lawyers or something to fix the wording on this spell, because the way it's written now, the PC's can dip their enemies in and out of the spell's AOE, using Grapple or one of the many new pushing abilities, dealing damage for each and every ingress. This is because RAW, it says "only once per turn" (same as Sneak Attack's wording). And if the baddy can't break free from the Grapple, presumably it will end its turn within the AOE, and thus be damaged yet again (while the ally remains unharmed). This spell is practically begging you to cast it 15' away from the last enemy to have acted that Round, so that all your allies can spend their turn dipping. The only thing that can go wrong with this spell is losing Concentration, because saving vs. this spell doesn't even prevent the damage, it merely halves it. This spell needs to have its damage dice reduced to 1d8.
Spirit Guardians
You are winning the game. Good job! Oh wait...
You're welcome.(If someone knows how to make it 2024 version also, please do so, this is driving me crazy)
You are winning the game. Good job! Oh wait...
That was always a tactic with spirit guardians. The difference was that in 2014 you had to have some additional push/pull ability to cause the effect on your turn, whereas in 2024 you can just step forward, hit them, and step back. And if you're willing to spend your action and reaction, ready an action to dash so you can do it again on some other turn.
For 2024 spells, use [ spells] rather than [ spell]. E.g. Spirit Guardians
Are you sure about that?
Edit: that is working now.
You are winning the game. Good job! Oh wait...
Yes, it's like @Pantagruel666 said.
There is also a post about how to add tooltips in the General Discussion forum, where you can test it: How To Add Tooltips
It's not hard. Monsters can dash too, and moving in opposite directions is going to put distance between them at twice the rate. Even with 30 foot speed (non-bipeds would be faster) and enemies right next to each other, you're going to end up with monsters spaced at least 40 feet apart, usually much more if they're not bipedal. The cleric is going to have to run in one direction, waste an equal amount of movement backtracking to the middle, and then move some more in the opposite direction. Next round the monsters won't need to dash.
Mundane horses are easy to kill and also a pain in the ass in any kind of dungeon situation, so I'm not sure why we're assuming that's going to be a constant factor. Also, a horse that's dashing is a horse that's not dodging.
And again, we're assuming at least 2 enemies that almost certainly have Multiattack. The caster would have to either dodge or save 4 times to get to that point.
That's an encounter design problem. If you throw a bunch of monsters with 0 ranged attacks at the party then spells as basic as Entangle and Levitate can become a death sentence (especially Levitate, which will still affect fliers and doesn't rely on a condition.) If they do have ranged attacks, they just need to play keep away until the cleric's concentration is broken.
The higher level you go, the more of an issue this is. Wall of Force is going to take a monster out of the fight no matter what if it can't teleport. It's just stuck there, and there isn't even a save. You need multiple monsters, and at least some of them had better have ranged options. Otherwise, you should accept the possibility of one spell shutting down the whole encounter (which isn't always a bad thing, depending on what the encounter is.)
I 100% agree that intelligent enemies should dogpile the cleric. But if that fails, the cleric is just going to Withdraw; they're not going to risk the opportunity attacks, and since the monsters came to them, the cleric doesn't need to dash either. Staying in the area is just not worth it, and taking that much constant damage is not something most creatures would choose to endure. The damage from being set on fire is only 1d4 and most people would try to put that out immediately.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Honestly, at current numbers it shouldn't do damage when enemies enter the zone at all -- it should damage monsters that end their turn in the zone and nothing else.
This actually doesn't sound that unfair even though it would potentially allow damage to be fully avoided since it still provides for zone control and cc (slow). However, I've suggested a few other options for fixes to emanation mechanics below that would still give the caster the ability to have some control over damage while limiting movement related triggers/retriggers.
Simple Interpretive Fix:
There's the simple fix of interpreting "once per turn" to MEAN "once per round" such that you keep all the triggers but just limit damage to once per round, including once in the round it is cast. Then the first time any trigger occurs during each round, that is when damage is applied. This would keep the spells basically as they are and just prevent retriggers. After all, a round is six seconds and everyone's turn is supposed to be happening at the same time. So, why should standing in an emanation for six seconds do LESS than popping in and out of it for brief moments in time?
Timing Variation on Interpretive Fix:
A variation on the interpretive fix that I saw proposed for emanation spells in 2024 as a homebrew rule would be to just limit the damage to once per round starting from the END of the TARGETs turn.
This solution preserves what seems like the intended power of emanations - damage once on caster's turn when the caster imposes the aura on a creature and a second time at the end of the creature's turn if it doesn't move out. Unlike the first interpretive fix above, this has the potential for two applications of damage in round 1 if the target takes its turn after the caster.
After that, it works similarly to the first interpretive fix by limiting damage to once per round - so if the target moves out, the caster could do damage by chasing back into range - and if the target stays in, then the target would take damage at the end of its turn but additional damage could not be created through movement on other characters' turns during the round. This is stronger that the first option due the possibility for 2 frontloaded damage applications in round 1 but at least limits damage to once per round after that.
More balanced and intuitive fix (imo):
A third fix that I was proposing above would be to - limit emanation damage to once per round as determined at the END of the CASTER'S turn. That way the caster can choose where to park the emanation at the end of it's own movement phase and anything in range at that point takes the damage which could be rolled on the caster's turn for all affected parties so you don't have to keep remembering to apply the emanation and roll on each target's turn and so that the caster feels like the emanation effect is resolved as part of their own turn.
After that, damage could not occur again until the end of the caster's next turn. If targets move away, the caster could chase them to get them back in by end of the caster's next turn. If targets stay, they would take damage at end of next caster's turn unless the caster moves away. Under this approach, the caster would not be able to spread damage by riding all over the place and could only impose the area of effect of the emanation on one location each round which strikes me as more balanced. So, similar to the first interpretive option, this option limits damage to once per round in all cases and additionally limits the area of effect per round to one location to prevent using fast travel mechanics to dramatically multiply the area of effect.
Weapon Mastery:
Just wanted to also note here that weapon mastery exacerbates the power of the new emanation mechanics if they aren't tamped down since it allows the party to push monsters around the battle field using their normal attacks (e.g. heavy crossbow or war hammer can push a mob 10 feet, etc.).
At a certain point, "encounter design problem" bleeds over into "system design problem". There are a lot of melee brute monsters in D&D, even at very high levels, and thus the system is implying that it's supposed to be a valid encounter design. In general the solution to making melee monsters useful is to force the PCs to fight in an arena small enough that kiting is impossible -- and that means avoiding spirit guardians is also impossible.
Having more than 1 enemy with no ranged attacks in a combat is a "encounter design problem"? Something like 50% of the enemies in the books have only melee attacks, so half of the published monsters are unusable? That sounds like a game-design problem to me.
The more monsters on the board, the more damage Spirit Guardians deals because every single one of them can be hit every single turn. Spirit Guardians kills 10 enemies as easily as it kills 3 - probably more easily TBH because those 10 enemies are probably lower CR thus lower Wis saves and lower hit points.
Levitate is single target and only effective in an area with ceilings more than 20ft high and one save negates it entirely. Entangle is a smaller area and a STR save which melee-only enemies are almost always good at, and works only when cast and cannot be moved.
PS the existence of other problematic OP spells doesn't justify the existence of this OP spell. That kind of logic leads to powercreep.
Winning by a landslide because you used the right spells is a perfectly acceptable outcome for some fights. If an encounter has to be climactic and you're relying on a single boss monster, you're expected to use a Legendary Creature. While the Monster Manual and DMG weren't as explicit about that as they should be, the encounter design guidelines in Xanathar's Guide to Everything are:
If you ignore that advice, you've got a situation where the players can force a single target to make half a dozen saves in a single round, and if any of them succeeds, the monster's crippled by one or more conditions. It's statistically unlikely for the monster to come out winning.
Diversifying multi-monster boss fights isn't a new concept either. Chapter 1 of the adventure that came with the Starter Set ends with a fight against a Bugbear, a wolf, and 2 goblins.
I don't think there's such thing as a "valid" encounter, but yes, that's one way to do things. The cleric isn't going to be able to escape a beating either.
Assuming they're all limited to melee range and the cleric can get to all of them, sure. But even if you rig the encounter in Spirit Guardians' favor that way, you're severely underestimating how quickly the odds of winning multiple coin flips in a row approaches 0. That's why I keep harping on and on and on about how even just 2 monsters with 2 attacks each is a huge problem for the cleric. This graph is also the reason Animate Objects was nerfed to no longer create 10 creatures, why Stunning Strike was reduced to one attempt per round, and why pretty much every condition-inflicting spell gives a save every round and only lasts an average of 1.5 turns.
Almost every spell in the game gets negated by a single save. The thing about Levitate is that the monster only gets one save to dodge it. Once it sticks, they don't get any additional saves to end it.
Not that it matters but 15 feet is usually enough. It doesn't matter much if the enemy is able to crawl around on the roof at half speed if it can't reach you with its melee attacks on the floor.
They don't almost always have proficiency, and without that, even a Strength score of 20 only gets you an average Strength save of 15. Even a level 1 spellcaster is going to have a save DC of 13.
More importantly, it's an area spell, which means you can target multiple creatures, which means the odds of all of them making their save is really low. That little graph I posted comes up a lot.
If most area spells turn out to be problematic, the problem isn't power creep, it's that you threw a bunch of functionally identical monsters at the player. Even the authors of Starter Set adventure understood this back in 2014, so I don't understand how this is a controversial stance.
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