6-12 damage when the cleric casts or walks up, once, rather than just 6-12 at the start of each turn.
Actually, with your ruling, it's 6-12 damage when the cleric walks up, and another 6-12 damage at the start of the enemy's turn. That's kind of the whole point of this discussion. You're doubling the damage of the spell, and also providing the Cleric with the option of "spend your turns Disengageing and run around with your AoE."
Not to mention your ruling is contradictory; I don't see how you could possibly think, given how you rule, that the Cleric - on their turn - can't just walk away until an enemy leaves the AoE, and then turn around and catch the enemy in the AoE again, triggering damage when it shouldn't be triggered.
You can't just ignore the effect of massively increasing the targets of a spell by claiming it's only single target DPR that needs to be balanced. That is a false supposition. Spells have limited ranges for a reason.
Let's add 30 feet to the radius of fireball! Same single-target DPR, right? Let's have single-target cantrips just hit everyone within range. It just speeds up combat with no other side-effects!
It will deal damage maybe one more time per enemy per combat, you’re exaggerating.
an extra 3d8 (+, if at a higher level) is 13 damage, per enemy, and possibly per round. i don't think we are exaggerating, especially when you realize that this is being potentially applied to creatures the design intent doesn't say it should be applied to. Your ruling would allow a cleric to buzz saw their way into a group of cannon fodder and eliminate them before their turn really gets going (dealing 26 avg damage compared to the 13 it normally would will wipe out a whole host of lower CR creatures before they could even do anything). heck, even some mid-CR creatures you are talking about knocking 20-50% of their hitpoints before they can take a meaningful action.
But again, if you’d rather interpret RAI on this your way, feel free. My point is only that (1) the plain English allows my ruling as RAW, with RAI unclear without reference to outside sources (SAC), and (2) I think my ruling is more RAF and better for combat flow than the alternative.
How the heck is RAI ever clear without an outside source? Even in cases where RAI and RAW align you'd still need a designer to say, "that is what I intended" to truly confirm that. This language was an area of confusion, thus the SAC entry exists to help alleviate it with a ruling on how it should be played. I'm not even sure what wording would work to fix RAW that wouldn't have similar (or new) possible confusion associated with it either, which is probably why we will never see an errata (and why would they when the answer is covered in the SAC)?
And of course your ruling is RAF, why would a player not want to double the potential damage (or more) of a spell? The issue is whether that breaks game balance, and it is pretty clear the overwhelming opinion is it would. Combat flow is at best neutral but honestly probably worse with your ruling, because you are stopping to roll saves much more often, and you have to look to trigger the effect based on caster movement in addition to enemy movement. The design intent is that target movement and position dictate the activation of the spell; that's not hard to adjudicate or understand.
To be clear… Spirit Guardians is a giant meat grinder a cleric drops into the battlefield. That’s true, already. Concerned that the cleric can cast the spell, walk up to a group, and grind them? Already true, either way. Only way for enemies to escape is burst down the cleric to kill them or break concentration? Already true.
Okay, with you so far.
Nothing about the spells use, or expected damage to a target over 2-4 rounds, changes by letting the AOE do damage when an enemy first enters it rather than only when they start their turn in it.
Objectively false. We've discussed this a few times. It can roughly double the damage. More with shenanigans.
OAs are still a thing monsters do to discourage zoomers, attacking the cleric is both the best defense against SG and probably what enemies are interested in doing anyway, the cleric already can walk around combat to bring new enemies into the AOE if they try to run, etc.
Yeah, this would actively encourage the cleric to build up silly amounts of mobility and run around the battlefield in a giant circle. They don't even need to walk next to enemies (ie no OAs) just clip the edge of the spell effect into the enemies. Any tactically minded player can abuse the ever living crap out of this ruling. 100%.
I think you all are building paper tigers in your mind of some ridiculous edge case, when again, the practical impact of this is… 6-12 damage when the cleric casts or walks up, once, rather than just 6-12 at the start of each turn. It’s not going to make Clerics the new DPS kings of 5E by any stretch, just makes “you’re surrounded by a damaging aura” more intuitive for players.
Well, its an average of 13.5 damage, and to all targets in a 15 ft radius centered on the cleric. This is a fairly massive area, so potentially many, many targets.
Let's look at this from another angle. Fireball does what? 8d6 fire damage in a 20ft radius. Fireball is heralded as THE KING of 3rd level DPS spells, since that is a concern for you... you'd not want this spell to outshine fireball right?
So, does it? if it hits right on the cleric's turn AND on the enemy's turns before they act, on the same round, that's 6d8 radiant damage in a (essentially) 17.5 ft radius (minus the cleric's center square). That's an Avg of 27 radiant damage on the 1st round cast. it slows movement, and then continues to last for 10 more minutes doing 3d8 a round. Holy jinkies, that's a lot of front loaded damage plus also constant low level effects afterwards.
Let's just compare the first round effects. Fireball is 28 avg fire damage. Spirit guardians (with this homebrew ruling) is 27 radiant damage plus a slow.
I mean. I kinda think you are accidentally making it better than fireball even if the concentration breaks. I mean, I kinda think that they might actually benefit from Nova-ing and simply Re-casting it every round if they need to, to force it to trigger twice a round and outshine fireball...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
To be clear… Spirit Guardians is a giant meat grinder a cleric drops into the battlefield. That’s true, already. Concerned that the cleric can cast the spell, walk up to a group, and grind them? Already true, either way. Only way for enemies to escape is burst down the cleric to kill them or break concentration? Already true. Nothing about the spells use, or expected damage to a target over 2-4 rounds, changes by letting the AOE do damage when an enemy first enters it rather than only when they start their turn in it. OAs are still a thing monsters do to discourage zoomers, attacking the cleric is both the best defense against SG and probably what enemies are interested in doing anyway, the cleric already can walk around combat to bring new enemies into the AOE if they try to run, etc. I think you all are building paper tigers in your mind of some ridiculous edge case, when again, the practical impact of this is… 6-12 damage when the cleric casts or walks up, once, rather than just 6-12 at the start of each turn. It’s not going to make Clerics the new DPS kings of 5E by any stretch, just makes “you’re surrounded by a damaging aura” more intuitive for players.
6-12? It's minimum 1 (roll 3, target makes save), maximum 24 (24, target fails save), average 13.5 against a target that fails the save, and average 6.5 against targets that make their save. No idea where 6-12 is coming from.
6.5-13.5 damage per caster turn against 48 grid squares (7*7-1 for the caster) is already good, and why SG is so highly prized. 13-27 damage per caster turn against that would be pretty nuts for an L3 spell, let alone upcast (probably by a Hexblade). As others have stated, this goes up even higher, because your ruling allows forced movement on the caster to proc the damage, and forced movement on the caster is absolutely trivial to guarantee. 6.5-13.5 damage per PC turn + NPC turn absolutely would make this spell the DPR king of level 3 spells. 13.5 is more damage than a greatsword deals from an S20 attacker (12, 7 of which can crit).
You guys, once again, are vastly overestimating the impact that this has on expectedaverage damage over the life of the spell (which I'll code purple, for reasons that will soon be clear).
When you cast this spell, you can designate any number of creatures you can see to be unaffected by it. An affected creature's speed is halved in the area, and when the creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 3d8 radiant damage (if you are good or neutral) or 3d8 necrotic damage (if you are evil). On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage.
Spirit Guardians does an expected "starts its turn" (which I'll code blue) damage of 3d8 save for half (average 6/13) on probably 2-4 enemies at the start of their turns. Let's just call "6/13" an average "9", because otherwise this post is gonna look insane. That's 9 damage, times 2-4 enemies, so lets call it somewhere between 18 and 36 damage on the board, median 27 DPRF (to the field) or9 DPRE (per enemy).
The "enters the area of for the first time on a turn" (which I'll code red) damage really doesn't change that much. Yes, it means that in the first round of casting, you immediately effect those 2-4 enemies with an additional average 9damage. But, if they stay in your bubble attacking you? No red damage on future rounds. If you run away and leave them behind? No red damage by hopping off-and-on them (they aren't entering the area for the first time on a turn if they started that turn already in the area), and no red or blue damage if they just choose not to follow you when you leave, and if they do follow you they'll only be taking red "enter" damage not blue "start" damage on their turn.
Basically, against the 2-4 monsters that the cleric would traditionally be casting Spirit Guardians to meat grinder.... we've added a one-time additional 9 red damage each, in addition to the expected round-to-round 9 blue damage. The DPR significance of this diminishes the longer we look at them in the AOE, it really only "doubles" it on Round 1 (9+9, 18 DPRE, 54 DPRF), on Round 2 its more reasonable (13 DPRE, 39 DPRF), and by Round 3 (12 DPRE, 36 DPRF) or 4 (11 DPRE, 33 DPRF) almost entirely swallowed by dice rolling randomness. With the understanding that this average is lower than reality in Round 1 and higher than reality after that... lets call it adjusted 14 DPRE/42 DPRF over the life of the spell. That's better than the 9 DPRE/27 DPRFif you never get to trigger red damage once! But is it shockingly better?
Now, it's these other monsters on the field that this ruling changes (and, which I think you all are vastly over-valuing). Ordinarily, they'd take.... 0, as they'd be off somewhere else and not interacting with the bubble, or maybe they'd take 9once over the life of the spell while clipping through it on their turn on their way somewhere else. With this ruling... a Cleric could chase after them each round (perhaps using a Disengage to leave their regular clump and chase down 1-2 other enemies with 15 feet of movement away and 15 feet back again?) to zap with 9 "enters" damage. Again, they'll need to probably Disengage to do this, meaning they aren't casting Sacred Flame or whatever.... so what does that really do to their adjusted DPRF? If they spend their action casting Sacred Flame (with the level 8 Blessed Strikes enhancement, lets not handicap ourselves) against one enemy, they're doing another average 6 (3d8 save for 0) per turn, 48 DPRF. (Note: The blue-only cleric is doing 33 DPRFat this point). If they spend their turn zooming to grind 1-2 more enemies they're doing another average 13(average 9 per enemy, 1-2 enemies) instead, 55 DPRF.
All of this is to say.... at level 8, a typical cleric on a typical field under your interpretations is doing probably 33 damage per round to the field, between keeping up their Spirit Guardians on 2-4 enemies and casting Sacred Flame on one target. Under my ruling, that same Cleric could expect to do about 48 damage per round to the field, with Spirit Guardians on 2-4 enemies and Sacred Flame on one target, or about 55 damage per round to the field if they use Disengage to run around chasing 1-2 more stragglers. But against any specific enemy that they're trying to focus, the difference is between 15 and 20to that enemy if they're using Sacred Flame on it, or between 9and 14 if they're using their action for something else.
So.... has it significantly buffed damage-per-round-to-the-field (DPRF)? Yeah, a zoomer can maybe double their damage-per-round-to-the-field, if they can catch 1 or 2 extra enemies. Has it significantly buffed damage-per-round-to-one-enemy (DPRE)? Yes but not as significantly, about 1.25x-1.5x as much damage, depending on whether you were focusing them with a Sacred Flame too. Is that "bad" or "unbalancing"? I don't think so, and you've gotten the following benefits:
Rather than casting the spell and it doing... basically nothing, and the DM giving you a lame "remind me about that on the enemy's turn" response, the Cleric does damage right away and gets to give some narrative.
Rather than casting the spell and potentially losing concentration before it has the chance to effect anyone in the area, the cleric can be sure that their 3rd level spell will do at least average 9 per enemy in the initial area.
Rather than trying to understand in-game narratively why the aura damages an enemy that walks into it but not an enemy that is approached, the aura just behaves consistently for all intrusions now.
Without really changing much about how quickly tough enemies die, "chaff" enemies get cleared off the board perhaps a little bit quicker, if the Cleric wants to spend their turns doing that instead of healing etc.
If you run away and leave them behind? No red damage by hopping off-and-on them (they aren't entering the area for the first time on a turn if they started that turn already in the area), and no red or blue damage if they just choose not to follow you when you leave, and if they do follow you they'll only be taking red "enter" damage not blue "start" damage on their turn.
So "starting in" something and "entering" something now mean the same thing. What even is English, I guess. True, they are not in it for the first time on the turn, but they are entering it for the first time (at least with how you define "enter" for this spell, which I think the rest of us all disagree with.)
There's a lot of problems with the rest of your post, but I love that you arrived at "it's only changing 33 damage per round into 55 damage per round, that's no big deal." That's a significant change, my friend.
You guys, once again, are vastly overestimating the impact that this has on expectedaverage damage over the life of the spell (which I'll code purple, for reasons that will soon be clear).
When you cast this spell, you can designate any number of creatures you can see to be unaffected by it. An affected creature's speed is halved in the area, and when the creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 3d8 radiant damage (if you are good or neutral) or 3d8 necrotic damage (if you are evil). On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage.
Spirit Guardians does an expected "starts its turn" (which I'll code blue) damage of 3d8 save for half (average 6/13) on probably 2-4 enemies at the start of their turns. Let's just call "6/13" an average "9", because otherwise this post is gonna look insane. That's 9 damage, times 2-4 enemies, so lets call it somewhere between 18 and 36 damage on the board, median 27 DPRF (to the field) or9 DPRE (per enemy).
The "enters the area of for the first time on a turn" (which I'll code red) damage really doesn't change that much. Yes, it means that in the first round of casting, you immediately effect those 2-4 enemies with an additional average 9damage. But, if they stay in your bubble attacking you? No red damage on future rounds. If you run away and leave them behind? No red damage by hopping off-and-on them (they aren't entering the area for the first time on a turn if they started that turn already in the area), and no red or blue damage if they just choose not to follow you when you leave, and if they do follow you they'll only be taking red "enter" damage not blue "start" damage on their turn.
Basically, against the 2-4 monsters that the cleric would traditionally be casting Spirit Guardians to meat grinder.... we've added a one-time additional 9 red damage each, in addition to the expected round-to-round 9 blue damage. The DPR significance of this diminishes the longer we look at them in the AOE, it really only "doubles" it on Round 1 (9+9, 18 DPRE, 54 DPRF), on Round 2 its more reasonable (13 DPRE, 39 DPRF), and by Round 3 (12 DPRE, 36 DPRF) or 4 (11 DPRE, 33 DPRF) almost entirely swallowed by dice rolling randomness. With the understanding that this average is lower than reality in Round 1 and higher than reality after that... lets call it adjusted 14 DPRE/42 DPRF over the life of the spell. That's better than the 9 DPRE/27 DPRFif you never get to trigger red damage once! But is it shockingly better?
Now, it's these other monsters on the field that this ruling changes (and, which I think you all are vastly over-valuing). Ordinarily, they'd take.... 0, as they'd be off somewhere else and not interacting with the bubble, or maybe they'd take 9once over the life of the spell while clipping through it on their turn on their way somewhere else. With this ruling... a Cleric could chase after them each round (perhaps using a Disengage to leave their regular clump and chase down 1-2 other enemies with 15 feet of movement away and 15 feet back again?) to zap with 9 "enters" damage. Again, they'll need to probably Disengage to do this, meaning they aren't casting Sacred Flame or whatever.... so what does that really do to their adjusted DPRF? If they spend their action casting Sacred Flame (with the level 8 Blessed Strikes enhancement, lets not handicap ourselves) against one enemy, they're doing another average 6 (3d8 save for 0) per turn, 48 DPRF. (Note: The blue-only cleric is doing 33 DPRFat this point). If they spend their turn zooming to grind 1-2 more enemies they're doing another average 13(average 9 per enemy, 1-2 enemies) instead, 55 DPRF.
All of this is to say.... at level 8, a typical cleric on a typical field under your interpretations is doing probably 33 damage per round to the field, between keeping up their Spirit Guardians on 2-4 enemies and casting Sacred Flame on one target. Under my ruling, that same Cleric could expect to do about 48 damage per round to the field, with Spirit Guardians on 2-4 enemies and Sacred Flame on one target, or about 55 damage per round to the field if they use Disengage to run around chasing 1-2 more stragglers. But against any specific enemy that they're trying to focus, the difference is between 15 and 20to that enemy if they're using Sacred Flame on it, or between 9and 14 if they're using their action for something else.
So.... has it significantly buffed damage-per-round-to-the-field (DPRF)? Yeah, a zoomer can maybe double their damage-per-round-to-the-field, if they can catch 1 or 2 extra enemies. Has it significantly buffed damage-per-round-to-one-enemy (DPRE)? Yes but not as significantly, about 1.25x-1.5x as much damage, depending on whether you were focusing them with a Sacred Flame too. Is that "bad" or "unbalancing"? I don't think so, and you've gotten the following benefits:
Rather than casting the spell and it doing... basically nothing, and the DM giving you a lame "remind me about that on the enemy's turn" response, the Cleric does damage right away and gets to give some narrative.
Rather than casting the spell and potentially losing concentration before it has the chance to effect anyone in the area, the cleric can be sure that their 3rd level spell will do at least average 9 per enemy in the initial area.
Rather than trying to understand in-game narratively why the aura damages an enemy that walks into it but not an enemy that is approached, the aura just behaves consistently for all intrusions now.
Without really changing much about how quickly tough enemies die, "chaff" enemies get cleared off the board perhaps a little bit quicker, if the Cleric wants to spend their turns doing that instead of healing etc.
You've put their damage output at or maybe even above a Fireball for AOE damage while somehow trying to justify that as "fine".
Fireball is the best of the best AOE damage for a 3rd level slot. It only pops once. If you're causing a spell that is also 3rd level to deal equivalent damage as a fireball every round... for 10 minutes.... You've made an error and need to start over.
Edit: I'd start by reconsidering your preconceptions about how often this effect should hit the same enemies. By RAW it is designed to only hit them once per round. Are there clever ways to maybe get a target or two to get effected more than once a round? yes, but they require forced movement which is always going to be tricky and require using other resources. The default assumption is this type of spell ticks damage once per round. If you really want to make it tick damage straight away, you should change it to something like "The first time they enter, and At the end of each of your turns, deal spell damage". This way you do damage right out the gate, essentially, and on your turn you can reposition again to clip targets at the end of your turn. The effect would only trigger once a round, generally speaking, and the DPR doesn't go crazy.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A Fireball has a (slightly) larger AOE, can be fired 150 feet away, and does 8d6 save for half (14-28 average, median 21 DPRE), no concentration required. A Spirit Guardians requires concentration, puts the caster at danger, and only does 3d8 save for half (6-13 average, median 9 DPRE) on a single tick, or expected 14 DPRE over the life of the spell as I outlined above.
Fireball does more damage, to more enemies, from further away, more reliably, without taking concentration. What are you even talking about? How does 9ish more damage the first round of the spell somehow shake up Fireball's throne as undisputed DPRF king for 3rd level spells? Casting Create Bonfire does more damage over 10 minutes than Fireball too, or Fire Bolt, is that a problem?
You guys, once again, are vastly overestimating the impact that this has on expectedaverage damage over the life of the spell (which I'll code purple, for reasons that will soon be clear).
When you cast this spell, you can designate any number of creatures you can see to be unaffected by it. An affected creature's speed is halved in the area, and when the creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 3d8 radiant damage (if you are good or neutral) or 3d8 necrotic damage (if you are evil). On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage.
Spirit Guardians does an expected "starts its turn" (which I'll code blue) damage of 3d8 save for half (average 6/13) on probably 2-4 enemies at the start of their turns. Let's just call "6/13" an average "9", because otherwise this post is gonna look insane. That's 9 damage, times 2-4 enemies, so lets call it somewhere between 18 and 36 damage on the board, median 27 DPRF (to the field) or9 DPRE (per enemy).
Absolutely not. Assuming 3 targets and assuming targets fail their save half the time (which is a weird assumption), the average damage per enemy is 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE, not 27 or 9. Assuming real-world stats of a +4 modifier to SAM and a proficiency bonus of +3 gives a save DC of 15. Assuming a wis save bonus for a target is nearly impossible, but a roper has a +3, which would be 55% failure, 45% success, and that's out-of-band high, so this damage estimate is very low, and worse against more numerous minions. The expected damage from this sample caster against 1 roper is 10.35 DPRE.
The "enters the area of for the first time on a turn" (which I'll code red) damage really doesn't change that much. Yes, it means that in the first round of casting, you immediately effect those 2-4 enemies with an additional average 9damage. But, if they stay in your bubble attacking you? No red damage on future rounds. If you run away and leave them behind? No red damage by hopping off-and-on them (they aren't entering the area for the first time on a turn if they started that turn already in the area), and no red or blue damage if they just choose not to follow you when you leave, and if they do follow you they'll only be taking red "enter" damage not blue "start" damage on their turn.
Red damage occurs on potentially every PC turn under your ruling, which to an extent it already does, but it's radically easier now, since you can move the caster, not the enemies.
Basically, against the 2-4 monsters that the cleric would traditionally be casting Spirit Guardians to meat grinder.... we've added a one-time additional 9 red damage each, in addition to the expected round-to-round 9 blue damage. The DPR significance of this diminishes the longer we look at them in the AOE, it really only "doubles" it on Round 1 (9+9, 18 DPRE, 54 DPRF), on Round 2 its more reasonable (13 DPRE, 39 DPRF), and by Round 3 (12 DPRE, 36 DPRF) or 4 (11 DPRE, 33 DPRF) almost entirely swallowed by dice rolling randomness. With the understanding that this average is lower than reality in Round 1 and higher than reality after that... lets call it adjusted 14 DPRE/42 DPRF over the life of the spell. That's better than the 9 DPRE/27 DPRFif you never get to trigger red damage once! But is it shockingly better?
Absolutely not. The absolute minimum damage becomes 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE + 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE, because the cleric need only step backwards and forwards on the cleric's turn to re-deal both blue and red damage.I don't know why you think it only doubles turn 1, but unless the caster has a movement speed of 0, it doubles every turn, on top of moving DPRE damage from grappling 1 enemy to DPRF damage from grappling the cleric.
Baseline spell assuming 1 caster and 3 non-caster PCs who each move 1 enemy to > 15' away and then to < 15' away: 30 DPRF + 3*10 DPRE = 60 DPR.
Your houserule, assuming the 1 caster steps back and forth and 3 non-caster PCs who each move the caster to > 15' away and then to < 15' away: 30 DPRF + 30*4 DPRF = 150 DPR.
150 is more than twice 60.
EDIT: Are you under the false impression that if you start a turn in SG, leave it, and then enter it, you haven't entered it for the first time on that turn? Where does that idea come from?
A Fireball has a (slightly) larger AOE, can be fired 150 feet away, and does 8d6 save for half (14-28 average, median 21 DPRE), no concentration required. A Spirit Guardians requires concentration, puts the caster at danger, and only does 3d8 save for half (6-13 average, median 9 DPRE) on a single tick, or expected 14 DPRE over the life of the spell as I outlined above.
Fireball does more damage, to more enemies, from further away, more reliably, without taking concentration. What are you even talking about? How does 9ish more damage the first round of the spell somehow shake up Fireball's throne as undisputed DPRF king for 3rd level spells? Casting Create Bonfire does more damage over 10 minutes than Fireball too, or Fire Bolt, is that a problem?
Your version deals 6d8 radiant damage per round? Like...
That's 27 radiant damage vs 28 fire damage to roughly the same area.
The difference is that, you're correct, if your version of spirit guardians hold concentration they get to keep doing that damage on every round thereafter for 10 minutes. While fireball is just over.
Edit: Your numbers are wrong. It is 6.75 to 13.5 and then x2, making it: 13.5 and 27, when compared to fireball's 14 and 28. It does maybe a single point of damage less one the first round (and only round for fireball) but then just keeps going for 10 minutes...
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Absolutely not. Assuming 3 targets and assuming targets fail their save half the time (which is a weird assumption), the average damage per enemy is 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE, not 27 or 9. Assuming real-world stats of a +4 modifier to SAM and a proficiency bonus of +3 gives a save DC of 15. Assuming a wis save bonus for a target is nearly impossible, but a roper has a +3, which would be 55% failure, 45% success, and that's out-of-band high, so this damage estimate is very low, and worse against more numerous minions. The expected damage from this sample caster against 1 roper is 10.35 DPRE.
That's some strident language for a disagreement about rounding and save accuracy that comes down to... 1 damage per enemy per tick? If we want to call a single tick of 3d8 save for half "10" instead of "9", okay fair enough, though I think that rounding up instead of down can cause a lot of problems when we're talking about adding the rounded number to itself over and over again over multiple rounds.
Red damage occurs on potentially every PC turn under your ruling, which to an extent it already does, but it's radically easier now, since you can move the caster, not the enemies.
I think you just stumbled across why everyone's outrage is so amusing...
Absolutely not. The absolute minimum damage becomes 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE + 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE, because the cleric need only step backwards and forwards on the cleric's turn to re-deal both blue and red damage... EDIT: Are you under the false impression that if you start a turn in SG, leave it, and then enter it, you haven't entered it for the first time on that turn? Where does that idea come from?
Yup, sorry to snip out the meat of your math, but even under my more-permissive interpretation, if a creature starts in the AOE, the caster moves it away, and then brings it back... they have not "entered the area for the first time on a turn" to trigger red damage. Flip it on its head... for your preferred interpretation, if a creature started its turn and took blue damage, but then moved away to make an attack somewhere else, but then came back (either voluntarily, or maybe being force-moved back by someone's reaction)... would you trigger a second instance of red damage on that same turn? I sure wouldn't, since they're re-entering a zone they were already in on this turn, not entering the area for the first time.
Your version deals 6d8 radiant damage per round? Like...
That's 27 radiant damage vs 28 fire damage to roughly the same area.
The difference is that, you're correct, if your version of spirit guardians hold concentration they get to keep doing that damage on every round thereafter for 10 minutes. While fireball is just over.
Edit: Your numbers are wrong. It is 6.75 to 13.5 and then x2, making it: 13.5 and 27, when compared to fireball's 14 and 28. It does maybe a single point of damage less one the first round (and only round for fireball) but then just keeps going for 10 minutes...
No, it doesn't. It does 3d8 on the caster's first turn the cast it, and 3d8 on the enemy's turn(s). That's one extra instance of 3d8 right at the front end of the spell, not an extra instance every round. You and the rest of the "it doubles!" crowd are going a lot further with "enters the first time" than I think is required, and that's your hang up.
Other than that, no, my numbers aren't wrong. 3d8 is an average 13.5 on a failed save, or 6.75 on a succesful save, as you've said. But rounding 13.5 up to 14 and 6.75 up to 7, when we're talking about using that number 4 or 5 times, when 5E damage actually rounds down for fractions, gives misleading DPRE and DPRF. It's not a huge problem, 7-14 rather than 6-13, maybe you'd rather I have used "10" instead of "9" as the base damage per enemy per tick in my math... not a big difference either way, dice are random.
Your version deals 6d8 radiant damage per round? Like...
That's 27 radiant damage vs 28 fire damage to roughly the same area.
The difference is that, you're correct, if your version of spirit guardians hold concentration they get to keep doing that damage on every round thereafter for 10 minutes. While fireball is just over.
Edit: Your numbers are wrong. It is 6.75 to 13.5 and then x2, making it: 13.5 and 27, when compared to fireball's 14 and 28. It does maybe a single point of damage less one the first round (and only round for fireball) but then just keeps going for 10 minutes...
No, it doesn't. It does 3d8 on the caster's first turn the cast it, and 3d8 on the enemy's turn(s). That's one extra instance of 3d8 right at the front end of the spell, not an extra instance every round. You and the rest of the "it doubles!" crowd are going a lot further with "enters the first time" than I think is required, and that's your hang up.
3d8 + 3d8 = 6d8 CC...and then its either 3d8 per round after (assuming the target doesn't move) or 6d8 per round (if the creature flees on their turn and the cleric pursues). Its also 6d8 for every new creature enveloped on subsequent rounds. While they might be overselling this, you are definitely underselling it.
On the comparison to Fireball, that spell would, by DMG "standards" hit two creatures, once, for an average of 56 damage. Spirit Guardians, under the "standard" (which is "hits 2 creatures, both fail the save") would do 27 average damage per round under design intent, and would take two full rounds of concentration to deal the same damage as fireball. Under your ruling, it instead deals 54 damage in one round, nearly equalling fireball in 1 round of concentration (and remember, Fireball is 2d6 more powerful than what the DMG recommends for its level). By two rounds of concentration, it would have dealt either 81 (targets stay in), or 108 (targets flee and are pursued) damage, nearly twice that of fireball. And thats only two rounds of concentration. You are making a spell 50-100% better than it is supposed to be. That is not trivial.
Other than that, no, my numbers aren't wrong. 3d8 is an average 13.5 on a failed save, or 6.75 on a succesful save, as you've said. But rounding 13.5 up to 14 and 6.75 up to 7, when we're talking about using that number 4 or 5 times, when 5E damage actually rounds down for fractions, gives misleading DPRE and DPRF. It's not a huge problem, 7-14 rather than 6-13, maybe you'd rather I have used "10" instead of "9" as the base damage per enemy per tick in my math... not a big difference either way, dice are random.
Your version deals 6d8 radiant damage per round? Like...
That's 27 radiant damage vs 28 fire damage to roughly the same area.
The difference is that, you're correct, if your version of spirit guardians hold concentration they get to keep doing that damage on every round thereafter for 10 minutes. While fireball is just over.
Edit: Your numbers are wrong. It is 6.75 to 13.5 and then x2, making it: 13.5 and 27, when compared to fireball's 14 and 28. It does maybe a single point of damage less one the first round (and only round for fireball) but then just keeps going for 10 minutes...
No, it doesn't. It does 3d8 on the caster's first turn the cast it, and 3d8 on the enemy's turn(s). That's one extra instance of 3d8 right at the front end of the spell, not an extra instance every round. You and the rest of the "it doubles!" crowd are going a lot further with "enters the first time" than I think is required, and that's your hang up.
Other than that, no, my numbers aren't wrong.
Yes, they are. Because you repeatedly try to argue it is "only" 3d8. But on round one it would be 6d8.
3d8 + 3d8
That's 6d8.
3d8 is an average 13.5 on a failed save, or 6.75 on a succesful save, as you've said.
Yes. Now do the important part: Double it. Because you're causing it to hit twice when it isn't supposed to. The numbers in this quote are for one of those two hits. So.. double them. That's how much damage it'd do. Because you're not actually accounting for that in the dps comparison.
But rounding 13.5 up to 14 and 6.75 up to 7, when we're talking about using that number 4 or 5 times, when 5E damage actually rounds down for fractions, gives misleading DPRE and DPRF. It's not a huge problem, 7-14 rather than 6-13, maybe you'd rather I have used "10" instead of "9" as the base damage per enemy per tick in my math... not a big difference either way, dice are random.
Rounding is done at the end, not mid-calculation. Some of your numbers get super off-base because you rounded down numerous times at all possible steps in the equation.
It is the reason 1d6 is 3 avg when rounded, but 2d6 is 7 avg. You round. At. The. End.
Example:
we've added a one-time additional 9 red damage each, in addition to the expected round-to-round 9 blue damage.
Here you're telling us that 3d8 somehow equals 9 damage? Excuse me?
How did you get that?? Let's look:
Spirit Guardians does an expected "starts its turn" (which I'll code blue) damage of 3d8 save for half (average 6/13) on probably 2-4 enemies at the start of their turns. Let's just call "6/13" an average "9", because otherwise this post is gonna look insane.
So you start off by defining the average results of 3d8 but then rounding it down, then compare it to a halved (save) number than you round down from the rounded down average...you average both those rounded down numbers and round it down yet again? You've introduced errors and have bad numbers from this point forward.
Curiously, you don't make these same errors when comparing it to fireball...
does 8d6 save for half (14-28 average, median 21 DPRE),
So 3d8 + 3d8 is 6d8 which is: 27 avg or 13.5 on a save. (13 If you're rounding here which you still shouldn't yet because we have another calc to do.) This averages to 20.25 if we average the save and not save damages. THIS is where we do our final rounding, so 20. Phrased like your firebal damage, thats: (13-27 average, median 20 DPRE) One less damage.
.
Anyway. The point remains: The comparison is this double-tap guardians doing 27 vs Fireball doing 28 in a round. This makes Spirit Guardians rival Fireball for best possible AOE spell at 3rd AND still has other benefits on top: Huge AOE slow, continues doing damage for 10 minutes, radiant damage vs commonly resisted fire damage.
Having these types of spells hit twice instead of once... means their damage is doubled. I don't understand how you can argue that's "not a big deal" or has "no balance implications".
Imagine just doubling Fireball's damage for no reason and trying to convince someone that has "no balance implications".
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
It's a lot easier to throw around "9" (or "10" if you prefer) than a full string of "3d8 save for half (average between 6.75 and 13.5)". This isn't rocket science, Spirit Guardians does "an average of about 9 or 10 damage every time it ticks, all things considered."
I have, in all my years, never seen a creature run away from a Spirit Guardians. Not once. In fact, the spell is written in such a way as to specifically discourage that, since it doubles movement costs within its 15 foot radius (meaning, unless they dash they are very unlikely to get away from you, and even if they do it still isn't a sure thing). If you require imagining that multiple enemies are spending their turns running away from the caster in order to trigger red "enters" damage every round, then you are (as I've said) constructing a scenario with little or no resemblance to actual play. What monsters do when they're in a spirit guardians is (1) attack the caster, to try to kill them or break concentration, or (2) completely ignore it and do their normal behavior while standing in it.
My interpretation does not do 3d8 red "enters" damage on every caster turn, and 3d8 blue "starts" on every enemy turn. It does 3d8 red on the caster's turn once when they first cast or approach the enemy to cause it to enter the AOE, and 3d8 blue at the start of enemy turns as normal. If the player builds for zooming, they can realistically do 3d8 red to 1 or 2 other nearby enemies by spending their action to disengage.
The spell is good. I don't think that zooming is so universally useful or over-powered that this ruling will mandate a new meta of cleric builds; at most, it provides a way for a niche mobility cleric to have some good combats when the circumstances align. It doesn't approach Fireball damage, or overlap with Fireball's use-cases for anything other than a tanky melee Evoker who casts at their own feet? And, none of these balance arguments are relevant to the question of "RAW, what does "enters the area for the first time" mean?", which as I argued pages ago clearly includes bringing the AOE to the creature just as well as bringing the creature to the AOE (whether or not that's RAI).
9 (or 10, you math geeks) extra damage to a small handful of enemies once or twice does not fundamentally change the spell, or how clerics are already accustomed to using it. It just makes it easier to use at the table, more intuitive, and more fun.
Incidentally, 6d8 deals 13.25 damage against successful saves. 3d8 deals 6.5. 6d8 is more than double 3d8 because of how you always round fractions down.
3d8+3d8 = 27 (0 failures), 20 (1 failure), 13 (2 failures); average damage 20, assuming the target makes or fails saves half the time, as C_C assumed.
6d8 = 27 (0 failures), 13.25 (1 failure); average damage 20.125, assuming the target makes or fails saves half the time, as C_C assumed.
8d6 = 28 (0 failures), 13.75 (1 failure); average damage 20.875 damage under C_C's assumptions, which are particularly invalid for Dexterity saves, as Dexterity saves are subject to cover.
Ravnodaus is extremely correct that doubling Spirit Guardians nearly gets you to Fireball, but I wanted everyone to have the precise numbers on hand to avoid any confusion about rounding.
Because this is getting glossed over with the Fireball comparisons, I'm going to belabor it one more time:
Average 20 (3d8 red and 3d8 blue Spirit Guardians), over two different turns of one round, in a 15 foot radius around the caster, taking up concentration, but can exempt allies vs. Average 21 (8d6), all at once, in a 20 foot radius delivered at 150 foot range, with no concentration, with friendly fire... one of those is usually better than the other, if we're in the business of weighing 3rd level spells against each other, but it isn't always (or even usually) SG. Where you guys are getting your juice is by pretending that the Spirit Guardians will keep doing average 20 on future rounds "for free", while Fireball would need to keep getting cast with new slots. Screaming it loudly again for the folks in the cheap seats, in most realistic combat scenarios, you'll be doing 3d8+3d8 (average 20) to a clump in the first round that you approach them, but only 3d8 (average 10) to that clump in future rounds as you slog it out with them. Not. 20. Every. Turn.
Over multiple rounds, does Spirit Guardians do more than Fireball? Yeah, always has! Under y'all's ruling, usually it would take 2 rounds to match a fireball, and 4 rounds to double it. Under my ruling, it takes 1 round to match a fireball, and 3 rounds to double it.
Perhaps its the fact that I actually remember to ask players to make concentration saves (and volunteer to do them myself rather than needing to be asked), but if you're imagining a Spirit Guardians that's up for more than 2-4 rounds, you probably are in a different sort of fantasy than 5E is set in. I have witnessed many Spirit Guardians castings that drop before they do damage even a single time due to initiative shennanigans, a problem that my ruling solves elegantly.
Because this is getting glossed over with the Fireball comparisons, I'm going to belabor it one more time:
Average 20 (3d8 red and 3d8 blue Spirit Guardians), over two different turns of one round, in a 15 foot radius around the caster, taking up concentration, but can exempt allies vs. Average 21 (8d6), all at once, in a 20 foot radius delivered at 150 foot range, with no concentration, with friendly fire... one of those is usually better than the other, if we're in the business of weighing 3rd level spells against each other, but it isn't always (or even usually) SG. Where you guys are getting your juice is by pretending that the Spirit Guardians will keep doing average 20 on future rounds "for free", while Fireball would need to keep getting cast with new slots. Screaming it loudly again for the folks in the cheap seats, in most realistic combat scenarios, you'll be doing 3d8+3d8 (average 20) to a clump in the first round that you approach them, but only 3d8 (average 10) to that clump in future rounds as you slog it out with them. Not. 20. Every. Turn.
Over multiple rounds, does Spirit Guardians do more than Fireball? Yeah, always has! Under y'all's ruling, usually it would take 2 rounds to match a fireball, and 4 rounds to double it. Under my ruling, it takes 1 round to match a fireball, and 3 rounds to double it.
Perhaps its the fact that I actually remember to ask players to make concentration saves (and volunteer to do them myself rather than needing to be asked), but if you're imagining a Spirit Guardians that's up for more than 2-4 rounds, you probably are in a different sort of fantasy than 5E is set in. I have witnessed many Spirit Guardians castings that drop before they do damage even a single time due to initiative shennanigans, a problem that my ruling solves elegantly.
But... we're not pretending.
It can, periodically do so while concentrating merely by moving around the map, and/or by enemies moving on the map. It'll happen a lot actually.
But, more than that, the cleric can force it to spike up to Fireball damage any time they want. How? Just cast it again.
That's the thing. On the first round it does fireball damage, then thereafter somewhere between half and full fireball damage every round. BUT can just as easily be recast for Fireball damage again. I mean, you could even go higher than fireball damage by moving first, snagging a few bonus hits in with the old guardians before recasting it and getting them with the initial hit of the new guardians.
So FULL nova is actually more like 12d8 a round. So: 3d8 at cast, 3d8 on enemy turn, 3d8 peace cleric teleport reaction, 3d8 on clerics turn when they move, and repeat > 3d8 at re-cast etc etc
Edit: I highlighted blue the statement that should give you pause. You're saying you are aware that this spell does as much damage, as Fireball, on the first round it is cast. Yes yes, more than fireball later for sure but also... as much as Fireball. The undisputed king of AOE damage so much that it gets meme'd about. But also while trying to argue this change won't affect balance, nor make clerics the kind of aoe dps.
So, doing as much aoe damage as the king of aoe damage isn't making you the king of aoe damage?
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
It does (almost) as much as Fireball per creature, but has a smaller area than Fireball, is not cast at range, requires concentration, and doesn't apply all its damage at once (meaning there are opportunities to avoid that damage by leaving the area before the start of your turn or causing the caster to lose concentration). I can't keep repeating myself to you any longer, since it's clear that "20 damage per creature the round you cast it?!?" is the start and end of what you're interested in looking at.
Balance it however you want, or choose your own RAI interpretation as you please.
Actually, with your ruling, it's 6-12 damage when the cleric walks up, and another 6-12 damage at the start of the enemy's turn. That's kind of the whole point of this discussion. You're doubling the damage of the spell, and also providing the Cleric with the option of "spend your turns Disengageing and run around with your AoE."
Not to mention your ruling is contradictory; I don't see how you could possibly think, given how you rule, that the Cleric - on their turn - can't just walk away until an enemy leaves the AoE, and then turn around and catch the enemy in the AoE again, triggering damage when it shouldn't be triggered.
This is out there even for you, CC.
You can't just ignore the effect of massively increasing the targets of a spell by claiming it's only single target DPR that needs to be balanced. That is a false supposition. Spells have limited ranges for a reason.
Let's add 30 feet to the radius of fireball! Same single-target DPR, right? Let's have single-target cantrips just hit everyone within range. It just speeds up combat with no other side-effects!
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
an extra 3d8 (+, if at a higher level) is 13 damage, per enemy, and possibly per round. i don't think we are exaggerating, especially when you realize that this is being potentially applied to creatures the design intent doesn't say it should be applied to. Your ruling would allow a cleric to buzz saw their way into a group of cannon fodder and eliminate them before their turn really gets going (dealing 26 avg damage compared to the 13 it normally would will wipe out a whole host of lower CR creatures before they could even do anything). heck, even some mid-CR creatures you are talking about knocking 20-50% of their hitpoints before they can take a meaningful action.
How the heck is RAI ever clear without an outside source? Even in cases where RAI and RAW align you'd still need a designer to say, "that is what I intended" to truly confirm that. This language was an area of confusion, thus the SAC entry exists to help alleviate it with a ruling on how it should be played. I'm not even sure what wording would work to fix RAW that wouldn't have similar (or new) possible confusion associated with it either, which is probably why we will never see an errata (and why would they when the answer is covered in the SAC)?
And of course your ruling is RAF, why would a player not want to double the potential damage (or more) of a spell? The issue is whether that breaks game balance, and it is pretty clear the overwhelming opinion is it would. Combat flow is at best neutral but honestly probably worse with your ruling, because you are stopping to roll saves much more often, and you have to look to trigger the effect based on caster movement in addition to enemy movement. The design intent is that target movement and position dictate the activation of the spell; that's not hard to adjudicate or understand.
Okay, with you so far.
Objectively false. We've discussed this a few times. It can roughly double the damage. More with shenanigans.
Yeah, this would actively encourage the cleric to build up silly amounts of mobility and run around the battlefield in a giant circle. They don't even need to walk next to enemies (ie no OAs) just clip the edge of the spell effect into the enemies. Any tactically minded player can abuse the ever living crap out of this ruling. 100%.
Well, its an average of 13.5 damage, and to all targets in a 15 ft radius centered on the cleric. This is a fairly massive area, so potentially many, many targets.
Let's look at this from another angle. Fireball does what? 8d6 fire damage in a 20ft radius. Fireball is heralded as THE KING of 3rd level DPS spells, since that is a concern for you... you'd not want this spell to outshine fireball right?
So, does it? if it hits right on the cleric's turn AND on the enemy's turns before they act, on the same round, that's 6d8 radiant damage in a (essentially) 17.5 ft radius (minus the cleric's center square). That's an Avg of 27 radiant damage on the 1st round cast. it slows movement, and then continues to last for 10 more minutes doing 3d8 a round. Holy jinkies, that's a lot of front loaded damage plus also constant low level effects afterwards.
Let's just compare the first round effects. Fireball is 28 avg fire damage. Spirit guardians (with this homebrew ruling) is 27 radiant damage plus a slow.
I mean. I kinda think you are accidentally making it better than fireball even if the concentration breaks. I mean, I kinda think that they might actually benefit from Nova-ing and simply Re-casting it every round if they need to, to force it to trigger twice a round and outshine fireball...
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
6-12? It's minimum 1 (roll 3, target makes save), maximum 24 (24, target fails save), average 13.5 against a target that fails the save, and average 6.5 against targets that make their save. No idea where 6-12 is coming from.
6.5-13.5 damage per caster turn against 48 grid squares (7*7-1 for the caster) is already good, and why SG is so highly prized. 13-27 damage per caster turn against that would be pretty nuts for an L3 spell, let alone upcast (probably by a Hexblade). As others have stated, this goes up even higher, because your ruling allows forced movement on the caster to proc the damage, and forced movement on the caster is absolutely trivial to guarantee. 6.5-13.5 damage per PC turn + NPC turn absolutely would make this spell the DPR king of level 3 spells. 13.5 is more damage than a greatsword deals from an S20 attacker (12, 7 of which can crit).
Love the enthusiasm :)
You guys, once again, are vastly overestimating the impact that this has on expected average damage over the life of the spell (which I'll code purple, for reasons that will soon be clear).
Spirit Guardians does an expected "starts its turn" (which I'll code blue) damage of 3d8 save for half (average 6/13) on probably 2-4 enemies at the start of their turns. Let's just call "6/13" an average "9", because otherwise this post is gonna look insane. That's 9 damage, times 2-4 enemies, so lets call it somewhere between 18 and 36 damage on the board, median 27 DPRF (to the field) or 9 DPRE (per enemy).
The "enters the area of for the first time on a turn" (which I'll code red) damage really doesn't change that much. Yes, it means that in the first round of casting, you immediately effect those 2-4 enemies with an additional average 9 damage. But, if they stay in your bubble attacking you? No red damage on future rounds. If you run away and leave them behind? No red damage by hopping off-and-on them (they aren't entering the area for the first time on a turn if they started that turn already in the area), and no red or blue damage if they just choose not to follow you when you leave, and if they do follow you they'll only be taking red "enter" damage not blue "start" damage on their turn.
Basically, against the 2-4 monsters that the cleric would traditionally be casting Spirit Guardians to meat grinder.... we've added a one-time additional 9 red damage each, in addition to the expected round-to-round 9 blue damage. The DPR significance of this diminishes the longer we look at them in the AOE, it really only "doubles" it on Round 1 (9+9, 18 DPRE, 54 DPRF), on Round 2 its more reasonable (13 DPRE, 39 DPRF), and by Round 3 (12 DPRE, 36 DPRF) or 4 (11 DPRE, 33 DPRF) almost entirely swallowed by dice rolling randomness. With the understanding that this average is lower than reality in Round 1 and higher than reality after that... lets call it adjusted 14 DPRE/42 DPRF over the life of the spell. That's better than the 9 DPRE/27 DPRF if you never get to trigger red damage once! But is it shockingly better?
Now, it's these other monsters on the field that this ruling changes (and, which I think you all are vastly over-valuing). Ordinarily, they'd take.... 0, as they'd be off somewhere else and not interacting with the bubble, or maybe they'd take 9 once over the life of the spell while clipping through it on their turn on their way somewhere else. With this ruling... a Cleric could chase after them each round (perhaps using a Disengage to leave their regular clump and chase down 1-2 other enemies with 15 feet of movement away and 15 feet back again?) to zap with 9 "enters" damage. Again, they'll need to probably Disengage to do this, meaning they aren't casting Sacred Flame or whatever.... so what does that really do to their adjusted DPRF? If they spend their action casting Sacred Flame (with the level 8 Blessed Strikes enhancement, lets not handicap ourselves) against one enemy, they're doing another average 6 (3d8 save for 0) per turn, 48 DPRF. (Note: The blue-only cleric is doing 33 DPRF at this point). If they spend their turn zooming to grind 1-2 more enemies they're doing another average 13 (average 9 per enemy, 1-2 enemies) instead, 55 DPRF.
All of this is to say.... at level 8, a typical cleric on a typical field under your interpretations is doing probably 33 damage per round to the field, between keeping up their Spirit Guardians on 2-4 enemies and casting Sacred Flame on one target. Under my ruling, that same Cleric could expect to do about 48 damage per round to the field, with Spirit Guardians on 2-4 enemies and Sacred Flame on one target, or about 55 damage per round to the field if they use Disengage to run around chasing 1-2 more stragglers. But against any specific enemy that they're trying to focus, the difference is between 15 and 20 to that enemy if they're using Sacred Flame on it, or between 9 and 14 if they're using their action for something else.
So.... has it significantly buffed damage-per-round-to-the-field (DPRF)? Yeah, a zoomer can maybe double their damage-per-round-to-the-field, if they can catch 1 or 2 extra enemies. Has it significantly buffed damage-per-round-to-one-enemy (DPRE)? Yes but not as significantly, about 1.25x-1.5x as much damage, depending on whether you were focusing them with a Sacred Flame too. Is that "bad" or "unbalancing"? I don't think so, and you've gotten the following benefits:
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
So "starting in" something and "entering" something now mean the same thing. What even is English, I guess. True, they are not in it for the first time on the turn, but they are entering it for the first time (at least with how you define "enter" for this spell, which I think the rest of us all disagree with.)
There's a lot of problems with the rest of your post, but I love that you arrived at "it's only changing 33 damage per round into 55 damage per round, that's no big deal." That's a significant change, my friend.
You've put their damage output at or maybe even above a Fireball for AOE damage while somehow trying to justify that as "fine".
Fireball is the best of the best AOE damage for a 3rd level slot. It only pops once. If you're causing a spell that is also 3rd level to deal equivalent damage as a fireball every round... for 10 minutes.... You've made an error and need to start over.
Edit: I'd start by reconsidering your preconceptions about how often this effect should hit the same enemies. By RAW it is designed to only hit them once per round. Are there clever ways to maybe get a target or two to get effected more than once a round? yes, but they require forced movement which is always going to be tricky and require using other resources. The default assumption is this type of spell ticks damage once per round. If you really want to make it tick damage straight away, you should change it to something like "The first time they enter, and At the end of each of your turns, deal spell damage". This way you do damage right out the gate, essentially, and on your turn you can reposition again to clip targets at the end of your turn. The effect would only trigger once a round, generally speaking, and the DPR doesn't go crazy.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A Fireball has a (slightly) larger AOE, can be fired 150 feet away, and does 8d6 save for half (14-28 average, median 21 DPRE), no concentration required. A Spirit Guardians requires concentration, puts the caster at danger, and only does 3d8 save for half (6-13 average, median 9 DPRE) on a single tick, or expected 14 DPRE over the life of the spell as I outlined above.
Fireball does more damage, to more enemies, from further away, more reliably, without taking concentration. What are you even talking about? How does 9ish more damage the first round of the spell somehow shake up Fireball's throne as undisputed DPRF king for 3rd level spells? Casting Create Bonfire does more damage over 10 minutes than Fireball too, or Fire Bolt, is that a problem?
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Absolutely not. Assuming 3 targets and assuming targets fail their save half the time (which is a weird assumption), the average damage per enemy is 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE, not 27 or 9. Assuming real-world stats of a +4 modifier to SAM and a proficiency bonus of +3 gives a save DC of 15. Assuming a wis save bonus for a target is nearly impossible, but a roper has a +3, which would be 55% failure, 45% success, and that's out-of-band high, so this damage estimate is very low, and worse against more numerous minions. The expected damage from this sample caster against 1 roper is 10.35 DPRE.
Red damage occurs on potentially every PC turn under your ruling, which to an extent it already does, but it's radically easier now, since you can move the caster, not the enemies.
Absolutely not. The absolute minimum damage becomes 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE + 30 DPRF or 10 DPRE, because the cleric need only step backwards and forwards on the cleric's turn to re-deal both blue and red damage. I don't know why you think it only doubles turn 1, but unless the caster has a movement speed of 0, it doubles every turn, on top of moving DPRE damage from grappling 1 enemy to DPRF damage from grappling the cleric.
150 is more than twice 60.
EDIT: Are you under the false impression that if you start a turn in SG, leave it, and then enter it, you haven't entered it for the first time on that turn? Where does that idea come from?
Your version deals 6d8 radiant damage per round? Like...
That's 27 radiant damage vs 28 fire damage to roughly the same area.
The difference is that, you're correct, if your version of spirit guardians hold concentration they get to keep doing that damage on every round thereafter for 10 minutes. While fireball is just over.
Edit: Your numbers are wrong. It is 6.75 to 13.5 and then x2, making it: 13.5 and 27, when compared to fireball's 14 and 28. It does maybe a single point of damage less one the first round (and only round for fireball) but then just keeps going for 10 minutes...
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
That's some strident language for a disagreement about rounding and save accuracy that comes down to... 1 damage per enemy per tick? If we want to call a single tick of 3d8 save for half "10" instead of "9", okay fair enough, though I think that rounding up instead of down can cause a lot of problems when we're talking about adding the rounded number to itself over and over again over multiple rounds.
I think you just stumbled across why everyone's outrage is so amusing...
Yup, sorry to snip out the meat of your math, but even under my more-permissive interpretation, if a creature starts in the AOE, the caster moves it away, and then brings it back... they have not "entered the area for the first time on a turn" to trigger red damage. Flip it on its head... for your preferred interpretation, if a creature started its turn and took blue damage, but then moved away to make an attack somewhere else, but then came back (either voluntarily, or maybe being force-moved back by someone's reaction)... would you trigger a second instance of red damage on that same turn? I sure wouldn't, since they're re-entering a zone they were already in on this turn, not entering the area for the first time.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
No, it doesn't. It does 3d8 on the caster's first turn the cast it, and 3d8 on the enemy's turn(s). That's one extra instance of 3d8 right at the front end of the spell, not an extra instance every round. You and the rest of the "it doubles!" crowd are going a lot further with "enters the first time" than I think is required, and that's your hang up.
Other than that, no, my numbers aren't wrong. 3d8 is an average 13.5 on a failed save, or 6.75 on a succesful save, as you've said. But rounding 13.5 up to 14 and 6.75 up to 7, when we're talking about using that number 4 or 5 times, when 5E damage actually rounds down for fractions, gives misleading DPRE and DPRF. It's not a huge problem, 7-14 rather than 6-13, maybe you'd rather I have used "10" instead of "9" as the base damage per enemy per tick in my math... not a big difference either way, dice are random.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
3d8 + 3d8 = 6d8 CC...and then its either 3d8 per round after (assuming the target doesn't move) or 6d8 per round (if the creature flees on their turn and the cleric pursues). Its also 6d8 for every new creature enveloped on subsequent rounds. While they might be overselling this, you are definitely underselling it.
On the comparison to Fireball, that spell would, by DMG "standards" hit two creatures, once, for an average of 56 damage. Spirit Guardians, under the "standard" (which is "hits 2 creatures, both fail the save") would do 27 average damage per round under design intent, and would take two full rounds of concentration to deal the same damage as fireball. Under your ruling, it instead deals 54 damage in one round, nearly equalling fireball in 1 round of concentration (and remember, Fireball is 2d6 more powerful than what the DMG recommends for its level). By two rounds of concentration, it would have dealt either 81 (targets stay in), or 108 (targets flee and are pursued) damage, nearly twice that of fireball. And thats only two rounds of concentration. You are making a spell 50-100% better than it is supposed to be. That is not trivial.
Yes, they are. Because you repeatedly try to argue it is "only" 3d8. But on round one it would be 6d8.
3d8 + 3d8
That's 6d8.
Yes. Now do the important part: Double it. Because you're causing it to hit twice when it isn't supposed to. The numbers in this quote are for one of those two hits. So.. double them. That's how much damage it'd do. Because you're not actually accounting for that in the dps comparison.
Rounding is done at the end, not mid-calculation. Some of your numbers get super off-base because you rounded down numerous times at all possible steps in the equation.
It is the reason 1d6 is 3 avg when rounded, but 2d6 is 7 avg. You round. At. The. End.
Example:
Here you're telling us that 3d8 somehow equals 9 damage? Excuse me?
How did you get that?? Let's look:
So you start off by defining the average results of 3d8 but then rounding it down, then compare it to a halved (save) number than you round down from the rounded down average...you average both those rounded down numbers and round it down yet again? You've introduced errors and have bad numbers from this point forward.
Curiously, you don't make these same errors when comparing it to fireball...
So 3d8 + 3d8 is 6d8 which is: 27 avg or 13.5 on a save. (13 If you're rounding here which you still shouldn't yet because we have another calc to do.) This averages to 20.25 if we average the save and not save damages. THIS is where we do our final rounding, so 20. Phrased like your firebal damage, thats: (13-27 average, median 20 DPRE) One less damage.
.
Anyway. The point remains: The comparison is this double-tap guardians doing 27 vs Fireball doing 28 in a round. This makes Spirit Guardians rival Fireball for best possible AOE spell at 3rd AND still has other benefits on top: Huge AOE slow, continues doing damage for 10 minutes, radiant damage vs commonly resisted fire damage.
Having these types of spells hit twice instead of once... means their damage is doubled. I don't understand how you can argue that's "not a big deal" or has "no balance implications".
Imagine just doubling Fireball's damage for no reason and trying to convince someone that has "no balance implications".
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
It's a lot easier to throw around "9" (or "10" if you prefer) than a full string of "3d8 save for half (average between 6.75 and 13.5)". This isn't rocket science, Spirit Guardians does "an average of about 9 or 10 damage every time it ticks, all things considered."
I have, in all my years, never seen a creature run away from a Spirit Guardians. Not once. In fact, the spell is written in such a way as to specifically discourage that, since it doubles movement costs within its 15 foot radius (meaning, unless they dash they are very unlikely to get away from you, and even if they do it still isn't a sure thing). If you require imagining that multiple enemies are spending their turns running away from the caster in order to trigger red "enters" damage every round, then you are (as I've said) constructing a scenario with little or no resemblance to actual play. What monsters do when they're in a spirit guardians is (1) attack the caster, to try to kill them or break concentration, or (2) completely ignore it and do their normal behavior while standing in it.
My interpretation does not do 3d8 red "enters" damage on every caster turn, and 3d8 blue "starts" on every enemy turn. It does 3d8 red on the caster's turn once when they first cast or approach the enemy to cause it to enter the AOE, and 3d8 blue at the start of enemy turns as normal. If the player builds for zooming, they can realistically do 3d8 red to 1 or 2 other nearby enemies by spending their action to disengage.
The spell is good. I don't think that zooming is so universally useful or over-powered that this ruling will mandate a new meta of cleric builds; at most, it provides a way for a niche mobility cleric to have some good combats when the circumstances align. It doesn't approach Fireball damage, or overlap with Fireball's use-cases for anything other than a tanky melee Evoker who casts at their own feet? And, none of these balance arguments are relevant to the question of "RAW, what does "enters the area for the first time" mean?", which as I argued pages ago clearly includes bringing the AOE to the creature just as well as bringing the creature to the AOE (whether or not that's RAI).
9 (or 10, you math geeks) extra damage to a small handful of enemies once or twice does not fundamentally change the spell, or how clerics are already accustomed to using it. It just makes it easier to use at the table, more intuitive, and more fun.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Incidentally, 6d8 deals 13.25 damage against successful saves. 3d8 deals 6.5. 6d8 is more than double 3d8 because of how you always round fractions down.
3d8+3d8 = 27 (0 failures), 20 (1 failure), 13 (2 failures); average damage 20, assuming the target makes or fails saves half the time, as C_C assumed.
6d8 = 27 (0 failures), 13.25 (1 failure); average damage 20.125, assuming the target makes or fails saves half the time, as C_C assumed.
8d6 = 28 (0 failures), 13.75 (1 failure); average damage 20.875 damage under C_C's assumptions, which are particularly invalid for Dexterity saves, as Dexterity saves are subject to cover.
Ravnodaus is extremely correct that doubling Spirit Guardians nearly gets you to Fireball, but I wanted everyone to have the precise numbers on hand to avoid any confusion about rounding.
Because this is getting glossed over with the Fireball comparisons, I'm going to belabor it one more time:
Average 20 (3d8 red and 3d8 blue Spirit Guardians), over two different turns of one round, in a 15 foot radius around the caster, taking up concentration, but can exempt allies vs. Average 21 (8d6), all at once, in a 20 foot radius delivered at 150 foot range, with no concentration, with friendly fire... one of those is usually better than the other, if we're in the business of weighing 3rd level spells against each other, but it isn't always (or even usually) SG. Where you guys are getting your juice is by pretending that the Spirit Guardians will keep doing average 20 on future rounds "for free", while Fireball would need to keep getting cast with new slots. Screaming it loudly again for the folks in the cheap seats, in most realistic combat scenarios, you'll be doing 3d8+3d8 (average 20) to a clump in the first round that you approach them, but only 3d8 (average 10) to that clump in future rounds as you slog it out with them. Not. 20. Every. Turn.
Over multiple rounds, does Spirit Guardians do more than Fireball? Yeah, always has! Under y'all's ruling, usually it would take 2 rounds to match a fireball, and 4 rounds to double it. Under my ruling, it takes 1 round to match a fireball, and 3 rounds to double it.
Perhaps its the fact that I actually remember to ask players to make concentration saves (and volunteer to do them myself rather than needing to be asked), but if you're imagining a Spirit Guardians that's up for more than 2-4 rounds, you probably are in a different sort of fantasy than 5E is set in. I have witnessed many Spirit Guardians castings that drop before they do damage even a single time due to initiative shennanigans, a problem that my ruling solves elegantly.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
But... we're not pretending.
It can, periodically do so while concentrating merely by moving around the map, and/or by enemies moving on the map. It'll happen a lot actually.
But, more than that, the cleric can force it to spike up to Fireball damage any time they want. How? Just cast it again.
That's the thing. On the first round it does fireball damage, then thereafter somewhere between half and full fireball damage every round. BUT can just as easily be recast for Fireball damage again. I mean, you could even go higher than fireball damage by moving first, snagging a few bonus hits in with the old guardians before recasting it and getting them with the initial hit of the new guardians.
So FULL nova is actually more like 12d8 a round. So: 3d8 at cast, 3d8 on enemy turn, 3d8 peace cleric teleport reaction, 3d8 on clerics turn when they move, and repeat > 3d8 at re-cast etc etc
Edit: I highlighted blue the statement that should give you pause. You're saying you are aware that this spell does as much damage, as Fireball, on the first round it is cast. Yes yes, more than fireball later for sure but also... as much as Fireball. The undisputed king of AOE damage so much that it gets meme'd about. But also while trying to argue this change won't affect balance, nor make clerics the kind of aoe dps.
So, doing as much aoe damage as the king of aoe damage isn't making you the king of aoe damage?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
It does (almost) as much as Fireball per creature, but has a smaller area than Fireball, is not cast at range, requires concentration, and doesn't apply all its damage at once (meaning there are opportunities to avoid that damage by leaving the area before the start of your turn or causing the caster to lose concentration). I can't keep repeating myself to you any longer, since it's clear that "20 damage per creature the round you cast it?!?" is the start and end of what you're interested in looking at.
Balance it however you want, or choose your own RAI interpretation as you please.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.