I like using minor illusion for hiding. It can make an illusion large enough that most characters barely need to squat to hide within it.
My gnome wizard does this all the time. Once she stood in a doorway and shouted, "Fog Cloud!" and cast Minor Illusion of fog. No one thought to disbelieve it and she shot her Fire Bolts out of it with Advantage.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I like using minor illusion for hiding. It can make an illusion large enough that most characters barely need to squat to hide within it.
My gnome wizard does this all the time. Once she stood in a doorway and shouted, "Fog Cloud!" and cast Minor Illusion of fog. No one thought to disbelieve it and she shot her Fire Bolts out of it with Advantage.
GENIUS.
I usually just make crates or snowdrifts to hide in.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I've used Create Water in a couple of interesting ways. One was filling a dais in the desert with water. It had sand in it, but the DM ruled it was porous enough I could still cast since I saw part of the dais. Made it easy to move the sand away.
Also used the rainfall effect to reveal where someone invisible was standing. Where the rain didn't hit the ground, there was a body in the way.
Continual flame cast before the mission on items you can shoot like arrows or sling stones. Just for a distraction in the dark. Or as a signal fired in the air, to your allies. Light also works but just for an hour and can not be cast ahead of time.
Mold earth to bury yourself in a graveyard. Use a blowgun to breath through. Or use it a few times and tunnel under a wall. You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your con score. Every round you can move 5ft. down forward up. Or make a very quick pit trap to slow down anyone following. A quick place to hide your ill gotten gains. Make it smaller than your tent and camp under your tent.
Use a circular glass cutter on a window and use mend to seamlessly fix the glass afterward.
Use floating disk to carry your heavy wounded party members. Or to move a statue around to cast moving shadows on the windows.
Webs to stop yourself from falling down a hole or to stick your friends into a place to hide like the ceiling.
I think we would need a definition of underused spell, though using upcast fog cloud to turn a death tyrant into a punching bag was fairly epic (everything but its central eye requires vision...). I've had a lot of fun with fog cloud, it's super annoying on NPCs as well (spirit guardians can only exclude targets you can see.. don't you hate that ice mephit now?).
Continual flame cast before the mission on items you can shoot like arrows or sling stones. Just for a distraction in the dark. Or as a signal fired in the air, to your allies. Light also works but just for an hour and can not be cast ahead of time.
The problem is that Continual Flame costs gp everytime you want to cast it. Light is free and usually the 1 hour duration (so you do can cast it ahead of time) is enough for these kinds of purposes. The only reason to use it over Light is if you want to enchant an item to use it regularly this way so you don't have to bother with re-casting it anymore.
It's fantastic on an artificer without darkvision or anyone who would rather not take the light cantrip though. Better still, at lvl 11 an artificer can put continual flame on their spell storing item and cast it 8+ times per day for free, so they have a functionally unlimited supply of fiery lights (that don't burn through the bag you put them in). You can even sell them to npcs and make a fortune this way.
Me and my party were being robbed by a couple of NPC's with crossbows at our throats so I cast minor illusion to create a small dragon and have it dive at them, which confused them just long enough to chop their heads off.
Continual flame cast before the mission on items you can shoot like arrows or sling stones. Just for a distraction in the dark. Or as a signal fired in the air, to your allies. Light also works but just for an hour and can not be cast ahead of time.
The problem is that Continual Flame costs gp everytime you want to cast it. Light is free and usually the 1 hour duration (so you do can cast it ahead of time) is enough for these kinds of purposes. The only reason to use it over Light is if you want to enchant an item to use it regularly this way so you don't have to bother with re-casting it anymore.
It might cost materials but it can then be used by party members who can not cast. It can be cast days ahead and saved.
I used Disguise Self & Friends in combo once to good effect, and I rarely see anyone using Friends as a cantrip.
It was a relatively low level campaign at the time, but we were facing a particularly obnoxious shop owner. He had hired thugs at his place. We tried selling some gear. He tried to severely low ball us. We politely declined knowing we weren't likely going to fare well against the thugs at the place. He wouldn't take no for an answer, threatened us, and more or less just took what we had then without payment.
I ended up putting Disguise Self on me, went to the local Constable, used Friends on the Constable, threatened him successfully with Intimidation checks trying to make it sound like the shop owner was trying to set up being a crime boss in the town.
I left, turned the corner, and dropped the Friends spell, and took and action to dismiss the Disguise Self spell.
The effect was that the Constable realized the Friends spell had been used to muddle his brain, but thought it was the Shop Owner due to the disguise, and became irate and hostile towards him. Who then promptly got a bunch of guards together, went to the shop to arrest the Shop owner, the thugs fought back, and the thugs & shop owner all got tossed in a barred cell to await trial.
We went back to the shop to get our stuff back. Problem solved.
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Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
Heh, yeah, but it was fun. The character was an illusionist / enchanter style witch themed character that messed with people's heads. They were all about mental manipulation, and as a Sorlock had high Charisma so it worked well. Plus, I'd taken Pact of the Tome as my Pact Boon, so I had a lot of cantrips to play with.
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Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
That reminds me of the time we used Gust of Wind to fling our lighter, weaker characters across a gap. Then my minotaur threw the caster across and jumped.
Using stone shape to enter and control a stone golem. That really turned the tide of battle.
Unfortunately, that's extremely illegal, for both of these reasons:
A stone golem has the Immutable Form trait which by definition means you can't change its shape using a spell, including stone shape.
Being inside a creature, such as a Tarrasque, confers no special ability to control it, and stone golems don't have control consoles inside them, they're elementals trapped inside statues.
That's before we even get into any weeds discussing whether or not Stone Shape can legally target up to a 5' sphere of stone that's part of a larger-than-Medium creature, as that's legitimately harder to suss out.
My gnome wizard does this all the time. Once she stood in a doorway and shouted, "Fog Cloud!" and cast Minor Illusion of fog. No one thought to disbelieve it and she shot her Fire Bolts out of it with Advantage.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
GENIUS.
I usually just make crates or snowdrifts to hide in.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
This was on a D&D show I watched, but in it, someone misty stepped through a wall of force, which I thought was a neat way to use the spell.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I am definitely using this in my next adventure
Never give your party the deck of many things
I've used Create Water in a couple of interesting ways. One was filling a dais in the desert with water. It had sand in it, but the DM ruled it was porous enough I could still cast since I saw part of the dais. Made it easy to move the sand away.
Also used the rainfall effect to reveal where someone invisible was standing. Where the rain didn't hit the ground, there was a body in the way.
Continual flame cast before the mission on items you can shoot like arrows or sling stones. Just for a distraction in the dark. Or as a signal fired in the air, to your allies. Light also works but just for an hour and can not be cast ahead of time.
Mold earth to bury yourself in a graveyard. Use a blowgun to breath through. Or use it a few times and tunnel under a wall. You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to your con score. Every round you can move 5ft. down forward up. Or make a very quick pit trap to slow down anyone following. A quick place to hide your ill gotten gains. Make it smaller than your tent and camp under your tent.
Use a circular glass cutter on a window and use mend to seamlessly fix the glass afterward.
Use floating disk to carry your heavy wounded party members. Or to move a statue around to cast moving shadows on the windows.
Webs to stop yourself from falling down a hole or to stick your friends into a place to hide like the ceiling.
I think we would need a definition of underused spell, though using upcast fog cloud to turn a death tyrant into a punching bag was fairly epic (everything but its central eye requires vision...). I've had a lot of fun with fog cloud, it's super annoying on NPCs as well (spirit guardians can only exclude targets you can see.. don't you hate that ice mephit now?).
It's fantastic on an artificer without darkvision or anyone who would rather not take the light cantrip though. Better still, at lvl 11 an artificer can put continual flame on their spell storing item and cast it 8+ times per day for free, so they have a functionally unlimited supply of fiery lights (that don't burn through the bag you put them in). You can even sell them to npcs and make a fortune this way.
Me and my party were being robbed by a couple of NPC's with crossbows at our throats so I cast minor illusion to create a small dragon and have it dive at them, which confused them just long enough to chop their heads off.
You mean Silent Image or Major Image, right? Minor Illusion can't move, and unless you're an Illusion wizard, it's either sounds OR image.
It might cost materials but it can then be used by party members who can not cast. It can be cast days ahead and saved.
I used Disguise Self & Friends in combo once to good effect, and I rarely see anyone using Friends as a cantrip.
It was a relatively low level campaign at the time, but we were facing a particularly obnoxious shop owner. He had hired thugs at his place. We tried selling some gear. He tried to severely low ball us. We politely declined knowing we weren't likely going to fare well against the thugs at the place. He wouldn't take no for an answer, threatened us, and more or less just took what we had then without payment.
I ended up putting Disguise Self on me, went to the local Constable, used Friends on the Constable, threatened him successfully with Intimidation checks trying to make it sound like the shop owner was trying to set up being a crime boss in the town.
I left, turned the corner, and dropped the Friends spell, and took and action to dismiss the Disguise Self spell.
The effect was that the Constable realized the Friends spell had been used to muddle his brain, but thought it was the Shop Owner due to the disguise, and became irate and hostile towards him. Who then promptly got a bunch of guards together, went to the shop to arrest the Shop owner, the thugs fought back, and the thugs & shop owner all got tossed in a barred cell to await trial.
We went back to the shop to get our stuff back. Problem solved.
Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
That's about the only way for the Friends spell to be useful.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Heh, yeah, but it was fun. The character was an illusionist / enchanter style witch themed character that messed with people's heads. They were all about mental manipulation, and as a Sorlock had high Charisma so it worked well. Plus, I'd taken Pact of the Tome as my Pact Boon, so I had a lot of cantrips to play with.
Panentheist veneratring a numinous natural multiverse, seeking esoteric enlightenment in biology, geology, physics, philosophy, history, cooking & carpentry.
Recently our Wizard knocked my character out of a damaging AoE with Gust of Wind. That was pretty neat.
That reminds me of the time we used Gust of Wind to fling our lighter, weaker characters across a gap. Then my minotaur threw the caster across and jumped.
Using stone shape to enter and control a stone golem. That really turned the tide of battle.
Unfortunately, that's extremely illegal, for both of these reasons:
That's before we even get into any weeds discussing whether or not Stone Shape can legally target up to a 5' sphere of stone that's part of a larger-than-Medium creature, as that's legitimately harder to suss out.