Yeah I'm not sure about the spells until I test them. Spiritual weapon seems like a hard downgrade. But it's so good in 5e that you see it on almost every Cleric, in almost every combat, and that's not great. So maybe it's a good thing it gets balanced some. Aid's temp HP is very sad. Probably more so than Spiritual Weapon for me.
I disagree that the existence of bread and butter spells are an issue. Some spells should be used in almost every combat, it makes perfect sense for some spells to be extremely common within a class due to its basic usefulness.
Have we considered that maybe part of the reason they specifically nerfed Spiritual Weapon, Aid, and Banishment is because they're so good?
They often end up becoming "must-picks", and that might be a factor in their decision to change them? Banishment in particular also has the added factor of being able to trivialize encounters if the situation is just right. And I wouldn't be surprised if Aid was changed because they never intended for it to be a healing spell that can just get your party members back up.
Yeah, absolutely. A second level spell should not be used in every combat for your whole career like Spiritual Weapon often is. At some point there has to be a better option. I'm all for fixing these spells. It will just take testing to know if this is the right way to do it.
No, it is perfectly fine with a second level spell to be used in nearly every combat like Spiritual Weapon often is. It is essentially a bread and butter spell. Misty Step is an example of another Bread and Butter spell. There is nothing wrong with some low level spells maintaining their usefulness.
There will always be "must-pick" spells as there will always be some spells better than others, and there is nothing wrong with that. We don't need every spell to be niche.
In regards to Banishment, it has counterplay with how it requires concentration. It isn't hard to add ways to target that weakness. Whether it is a bunch of minions to cause concentration checks to incapacitating effects that will force concentration loss.
I think the idea behind the banishment change is that simply removing an enemy from a fight for a few rounds is already a powerful effect on its own, but it no longer being an automatic banish means your DM doesn't have to burn a legendary resistance on the initial save; if we're talking about a fight against a legendary enemy with a bunch of allies, then banishing them temporarily while you deal with those allies is still a big boost, and the DM letting that go through to save the resistances for later is a legitimate way to run it.
While it does make actually banishing things a lot less likely, there are still ways to tip the odds in your favour; combo'ing with bane for example, plus anything else that can interfere with saves. Plus if it makes narrative sense your DM can always just have an enemy be fully banished if they feel you've done enough to justify it. Personally I view the changes to banishment as changes to how it behaves in general combat where as a DM you want the fight to play out, but for something that must be banished I'd still let it go through.
It wasn't ever an automatic banish. It always required an initial save and you had to concentrate on it for the entire duration. Also, making it work because it makes narrative sense isn't RAW and we should be judging these spells based on RAW. We shouldn't be applying DM Fiat when determining feedback.
Confusion isn't guaranteed to remove an affected target's action, it also doesn't affect Legendary Actions, it is also a Wisdom save which enemies usually have a higher modifier for than Charisma for Banishment. Confusion is also an AoE so can be difficult to pull off without affecting your allies as well.
This change makes Banishment about equal in power to Confusion but different usage, which is exactly where it should be since they are both 4th level spells.
Confusion is also AoE while Banishment is single target. A better comparison is Resilient Sphere which will also take someone out of a fight while not offering any additional saves.
I'm not asking for Spiritual Weapon to be niche. I just think it would be nice if there was a reason for some variety in Cleric combat. And some choices to be made. It's sad that almost every Cleric puts up Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians before anything else in a fight.
My actual reservation about the way they are changing it is the Concentration part. Currently you can have it going and have Bless up at the same time. Or other buffs of the sort. What I'm afraid of with this change is that Clerics won't buff anymore because they want the damage of the Spiritual Weapon. Because for some reason that's often more appealing to players. If that happens, then the fix made it even worse. Because it will exclude other spells even more.
In fact, I would love it if Bless didn't require Concentration (with some balancing). Then maybe it would be the staple spell. And you could still have both going at once. But the damage would be the part that is up for failure.
I'm also afraid that any change that is perceived as a 'nerf' will never make it through playtesting. That will only lead to more power creep and everyone playing the same way they always did just because it's comfortable. I want genuine improvements to the game. And in some places that will mean reducing the power level of certain spells, abilities, traits etc.
I do think Spiritual Weapon can use a second look. I'm not sure concentration is the answer. But I'm very open to any spell getting a course correction. Like I said, I'll have to test it in an actual game first. That's the only way to know for sure.
And, with powerful build, it means you count as HUGE for carrying things. I feel like you should be able to pick up cars at that point.
you can do some small ones assuming a strength of 17. 17*30 (You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score). 510 if medium 510*2*2 (For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity)
so you would be able to lift 2040 pounds
2015 Scion IQ – 1,896 pounds 2015 Mitsubishi Mirage – 1,972 pounds 2011 Lotus Elise – 1,995 pounds 2008 Ford Ka – 1,808 pounds 2007 Smart Fortwo – 1,610 pounds
I wonder if the original spiritual weapon was tied more to expectations of action economy keeping the power in check. They expected more clerics to be using their bonus action to throw around healing word during combat so they wouldn’t have as much chance to use spiritual weapon.
But then people realized whack-a-mole healing is usually more efficient, and that bonus action is better spent taking down an enemy than propping up an ally. They do seem to be responding to way people actually play, as opposed to the way they thought people would play when doing the initial design.
Confusion is also AoE while Banishment is single target. A better comparison is Resilient Sphere which will also take someone out of a fight while not offering any additional saves.
You are assuming Resilient Sphere won't also get nerfed. But even still Resilient Sphere is no where near as powerful an effect as Banishment. All forms of "Self" targeting teleportation can be used to escape Resilient Sphere (including racial abilities like Fey Step, and spells like Misty Step, and Blink), Resilient Spheres are still on the battlefield so can be targeted and destroyed by Dispel Magic or Disintegrate, and Resilient Sphere it limited to Large or smaller creatures. As a result Resilient Sphere is no where near as powerful as Banishment because Boss monsters are generally either massive muscle-y creatures that won't fit into the sphere, or are a spellcaster than can easily escape the sphere. Resilient Sphere also doesn't up cast so can never target more than one creature.
It wasn't ever an automatic banish. It always required an initial save and you had to concentrate on it for the entire duration. Also, making it work because it makes narrative sense isn't RAW and we should be judging these spells based on RAW. We shouldn't be applying DM Fiat when determining feedback.
While sure, there may be cases where an ally of the enemy could break your concentration, if it didn't have allies then that's not going to happen unless you cast a new concentration spell forgetting you were only 54 seconds in, or stub your toe really hard while looting.
There are also a bunch of ways you can make it basically impossible to break your concentration, like hiding in a rope trick or a tiny hut, so if you have some idea of what you're facing you can just straight up eliminate one of them with fairly minimal preparation. While this requires some degree of combo'ing I think the potential is there for too much abuse.
Now whether Wizards have made it too easy to resist being banished is another matter; personally I think it's a good thing that you need to take some extra steps to make it a sure thing, but it probably should become a 3rd-level spell in this form.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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I wonder if the original spiritual weapon was tied more to expectations of action economy keeping the power in check.
I think they intended it to be like a pseudo-Extra Attack in away, kinda like an how Divine Strike is a sortakinda pseudo stand-in for Extra Attack in its own way. At least, that’s my gut instinct on it.
The major benefit of banishment over resilient sphere is that a banished creature is incapacitated and has no way of seeing where they're going to reappear, and thus it cannot take actions to escape or prepare. I wonder if, rather than a save, it could just change what it does. Say:
You attempt to send one creature that you can see within range to another plane of existence. The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be banished.
For the duration of the spell, the target is sent to the border ethereal. While there, the target is restrained. If the target attempts to use teleportation or planar travel abilities, it must first succeed on a Charisma save. On success, the spell ends and movement occurs normally, otherwise movement fails.
If the spell lasts its full duration on a creature native to another plane of existence, the creature is returned to its home plane; otherwise it returns to the nearest unoccupied point in the material plane.
Being tossed into the border ethereal instead of a demiplane means the creature can still tell what's going on; being restrained instead of incapacitated lets it use abilities it has to evade or prepare for return (and most creatures that will be permanently banished have something they could do). I chose restrained because otherwise it would get used as a cheap etherealness.
Confusion is also AoE while Banishment is single target. A better comparison is Resilient Sphere which will also take someone out of a fight while not offering any additional saves.
You are assuming Resilient Sphere won't also get nerfed. But even still Resilient Sphere is no where near as powerful an effect as Banishment. All forms of "Self" targeting teleportation can be used to escape Resilient Sphere (including racial abilities like Fey Step, and spells like Misty Step, and Blink), Resilient Spheres are still on the battlefield so can be targeted and destroyed by Dispel Magic or Disintegrate, and Resilient Sphere it limited to Large or smaller creatures. As a result Resilient Sphere is no where near as powerful as Banishment because Boss monsters are generally either massive muscle-y creatures that won't fit into the sphere, or are a spellcaster than can easily escape the sphere. Resilient Sphere also doesn't up cast so can never target more than one creature.
Resilient Sphere can hit up to a size of large, which is honestly quite a wide range. Teleportation is actually rather rare among enemies and they also don't often have dispel magic or disintegrate; and they are just counter plays to it. I honestly found outerplanar creatures to often have a decent chance to resist banish. Resilient sphere also has the flexibility of being used on yourself as a form of protection, especially when comboed with contingency. Resilient sphere shouldn't be nerfed either; banishment doesn't need the nerf, there are counterplays to it. Right now, it is worth taking the spell ever.
It wasn't ever an automatic banish. It always required an initial save and you had to concentrate on it for the entire duration. Also, making it work because it makes narrative sense isn't RAW and we should be judging these spells based on RAW. We shouldn't be applying DM Fiat when determining feedback.
While sure, there may be cases where an ally of the enemy could break your concentration, if it didn't have allies then that's not going to happen unless you cast a new concentration spell forgetting you were only 54 seconds in, or stub your toe really hard while looting.
There are also a bunch of ways you can make it basically impossible to break your concentration, like hiding in a rope trick or a tiny hut, so if you have some idea of what you're facing you can just straight up eliminate one of them with fairly minimal preparation. While this requires some degree of combo'ing I think the potential is there for too much abuse.
Now whether Wizards have made it too easy to resist being banished is another matter; personally I think it's a good thing that you need to take some extra steps to make it a sure thing, but it probably should become a 3rd-level spell in this form.
If it doesn't have allies and is vulnerable to Banish, I'd say that is a flaw in the encounter design rather than a flaw with Banishment. Also, combining it with rope trick or tiny hut is essentially taking extra steps to make it a sure thing; so already you need to take extra steps to make it a sure thing.
I wouldn't even say the nerfed version of banishment is even worth a 3rd level spell slot. It has far too high of a chance of failure. There were already counter plays to it, with plenty of enemies that you generally use it on having magic resistance and/or decent charisma. It's also a 4th level spell which is among the higher echelons of spells that most people get to, since most people end in Tier 2.
Even with the "abuse" there are counterplays and/or flaws to them. For example, Tiny Hut requires you to have set it up in advance and the person casting banishment cannot be the same person who set up the Tiny Hut as Tiny Hut's caster cannot leave the hut without the spell ending. Thus this combo ends up requiring two people to take themselves out of the fight to take out one other person in the fight, and only after taking the time to setup the hut itself.
I'm not asking for Spiritual Weapon to be niche. I just think it would be nice if there was a reason for some variety in Cleric combat. And some choices to be made. It's sad that almost every Cleric puts up Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians before anything else in a fight.
My actual reservation about the way they are changing it is the Concentration part. Currently you can have it going and have Bless up at the same time. Or other buffs of the sort. What I'm afraid of with this change is that Clerics won't buff anymore because they want the damage of the Spiritual Weapon. Because for some reason that's often more appealing to players. If that happens, then the fix made it even worse. Because it will exclude other spells even more.
In fact, I would love it if Bless didn't require Concentration (with some balancing). Then maybe it would be the staple spell. And you could still have both going at once. But the damage would be the part that is up for failure.
I'm also afraid that any change that is perceived as a 'nerf' will never make it through playtesting. That will only lead to more power creep and everyone playing the same way they always did just because it's comfortable. I want genuine improvements to the game. And in some places that will mean reducing the power level of certain spells, abilities, traits etc.
I do think Spiritual Weapon can use a second look. I'm not sure concentration is the answer. But I'm very open to any spell getting a course correction. Like I said, I'll have to test it in an actual game first. That's the only way to know for sure.
I would say that relies more on the encounter design itself. The encounter should be what would provide the reason for Clerics to change it up, make the more niche spells useful. They are already essentially nerfing a lot of things. For example, Bards lost extra magical secrets from lore bard and magical secrets got delayed by a level so it won't be seen until T3.
I'd say Spiritual Weapons is fine, same with Banishment. They currently feel good to use. Rather than nerfing things, I'd say buffing things to match is the better solution; this includes buffing martials as well.
Although I don't like the idea of Spiritual Weapon being a concentration spell, we have no idea where they are going with spells in general. It may seem like a big nerf now, but in comparison to all the other spells it still may be that bread-and-butter spell it is now. We just don't have enough information on how WotC will handle spells in 1D&D.
Same with Aid. I like how unique Aid is now, with increasing max HP/gaining HP. But gaining Temp HP may not be as ubiquitous in 1D&D as it is in 5E. But if there are going to be plenty of ways to get Temp HP in 1D&D then I think Aid needs to stay the way it is now.
I'd say Spiritual Weapons is fine, same with Banishment. They currently feel good to use. Rather than nerfing things, I'd say buffing things to match is the better solution; this includes buffing martials as well.
But some spells and powers are just going to be broken. Maybe not this one, but they do exist. You can't buff everyone else to match a broken feature. You have to fix it. And fixing a few broken things is so much better than just upgrading everything to match them.
There are certain things that do need a 'buff.' And there are things that need fixed too, even if it feels like a 'nerf.' It’s just my opinion obviously, but I don't want every class to get progressively stronger and more broken just to try to match the few things that are already broken.
But I have a feeling that most people are going to complain if any ability they like to use gets fixed, because they'll think their favorite is getting 'nerfed.' Lore Bard losing that Magical Secrets might not be a good decision. Or it might end up being great for balance and fixing a problem that would occur in the context of the new classes and spell selection rules.
I complained that Thieves should still get to Use an Object with Cunning Action. I think it was a mistake taking their coolest feature. But I understand why they did it. It was broken because it wasn't clear. I would prefer it come back, just with more limitations and cleary defined uses. It will still be a nerf, but it will be a good fix of a broken ability.
Taking away the +10 damage option from Sharpshooter and GWM bothered a lot of people that depended on it for their builds. But WotC had good reasons to 'nerf' it. And I agree with them. It was broken. Not just meaning it was too strong. It was broken because it was mathematically almost always the optimal choice. Which means it wasn't really much of a choice. And they recognized that. Spiritual Weapon is in that same realm of broken. I don't know that this is the right fix without testing it yet. But it does need a fix.
IMO mis-balanced spells an abilities was less of a problem when only certain classes had access. Who cared if the cleric destroyed a whole horde of minions... as long as there were other "scenes" or encounters. Part of the fun of a class is that it's good at somethings and bad at others. When dnd accentuates a rock paper scissors approach it gets more fun. Actually a Pokémon analogy might be better where difficulty changes but it's still possible for that class to succeed.
Now as for specifically clerics, I haven't seen any thoughts on dual welding changes because it actually changes the interaction with spiritual weapon. Low level clerics that want to do damage can still get 3 attacks via the spiritual weapon. I haven't evaluated the math yet and many clerics wont want the ac trade or the theme of dual welding. But it's a piece of the puzzle and optimizers will look at it eventually if it stays.
As for banish I recommend a 3 failure state. This gives time for opposing teams to respond without too ruining it entirely. Save or suck isn't good but drawn out to useless is also bad. And at the very least there's a principle of death saves and contagion and certain petrification abilities all having more than one save but limited chance to turn things around.
If it doesn't have allies and is vulnerable to Banish, I'd say that is a flaw in the encounter design rather than a flaw with Banishment. Also, combining it with rope trick or tiny hut is essentially taking extra steps to make it a sure thing; so already you need to take extra steps to make it a sure thing.
That's being way too quick to blame encounter design; a DM putting a high CR creature in front of their players should reasonably expect it to be a challenge, not something that a single spell could trivially defeat.
And combining with rope trick or tiny hut is not exactly an arduous extra step, there's also the much simpler one of "cast it and then run away as fast as you possibly can", because your concentration can't be broken if you can't be hit.
I wouldn't even say the nerfed version of banishment is even worth a 3rd level spell slot. It has far too high of a chance of failure.
If your target succeeds on the first save then it's no worse than any other save-or-suck spell like dominate person; however if it fails, then you've removed it entirely from the fight for a minimum of one round. That means a 100% reduction in the damage it can do, and a full round for your allies to focus on other targets, heal themselves and each other, ready abilities and actions for its return etc.
Banishing the target permanently has never really been the main benefit of the spell, it was a narrative sweetener, but it also potentially makes the spell way too strong.
Even with the "abuse" there are counterplays and/or flaws to them. For example, Tiny Hut requires you to have set it up in advance and the person casting banishment cannot be the same person who set up the Tiny Hut as Tiny Hut's caster cannot leave the hut without the spell ending. Thus this combo ends up requiring two people to take themselves out of the fight to take out one other person in the fight, and only after taking the time to setup the hut itself.
Adventuring parties typically number at least 4 players; if the party's goal is to defeat a dangerous enemy then it'd be strange to assume that the other 3+ are unwilling to help. And as I've said, rope trick is also a readily available option for an ally to cast which requires no setup.
Also like I say, there's the free and easy option of just casting the spell at its maximum range of 60 feet and then running away. If you prefer (or can't get very far) you can hide, or simply take cover, your average caster has a pretty high effective range so they don't even necessarily need to take themselves out of a fight to do it.
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Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
If your target succeeds on the first save then it's no worse than any other save-or-suck spell
While I'm not opposed to Banishment getting a nerf in the slightest, I simply hate the idea of any 'save-or-suck' (shouldn't it be 'save-and-suck', by the way? Given that a save is what makes it suck?) spell that isn't a cantrip.
If you're going to be spending a spell slot, it should at least do something, yes? Most non-cantrip spells that do damage and require a save do half damage, at least.
If it was up to me to design this sort of thing, I would have these spells always do a lesser version of what they were supposed to for one turn on a successful save. (For Banishment I would make the target blink out until the start of their next turn, so they couldn't take reactions, threaten spaces, use Lair or Legendary action, etc.. in the interim, but also wouldn't be robbed of their move and action.)
If your target succeeds on the first save then it's no worse than any other save-or-suck spell
While I'm not opposed to Banishment getting a nerf in the slightest, I simply hate the idea of any 'save-or-suck' (shouldn't it be 'save-and-suck', by the way? Given that a save is what makes it suck?) spell that isn't a cantrip.
If you're going to be spending a spell slot, it should at least do something, yes? Most non-cantrip spells that do damage and require a save do half damage, at least.
If it was up to me to design this sort of thing, I would have these spells always do a lesser version of what they were supposed to for one turn on a successful save. (For Banishment I would make the target blink out until the start of their next turn, so they couldn't take reactions, threaten spaces, use Lair or Legendary action, etc.. in the interim, but also wouldn't be robbed of their move and action.)
I am not going to lie, but if you haven't tried it yet, you might want to check out PF2E. It might have some things you like. Its spell effects specifically work almost exactly like this and the class flavor is pretty cool. You might enjoy checking it out.
This said, I think it would be ok for some of these save or suck spells to get that if the creature is going to get a save every turn. Right now Banishment has been over-nerfed. Range 30 feet and you can't hit the creature while it is controlled, it is just generally worse than most other control spells at this point.
My sarky side wants to say 'nah, I played 3.5e when it was new, thanks.' But really, that kinda is the reason I haven't really ever seriously considered playing Pathfinder. When 4e was in development, but nothing was revealed yet, I kinda realised I was ready for something new. Now... 4e was not the new I wanted, but PF1E was too much of the old I didn't want any more either. I might have a look at 2E at some point, but from what I've heard it retains many of the things I was already sick of in 3.x even when I was actively playing and loving every second of it.
My sarky side wants to say 'nah, I played 3.5e when it was new, thanks.' But really, that kinda is the reason I haven't really ever seriously considered playing Pathfinder. When 4e was in development, but nothing was revealed yet, I kinda realised I was ready for something new. Now... 4e was not the new I wanted, but PF1E was too much of the old I didn't want any more either. I might have a look at 2E at some point, but from what I've heard it retains many of the things I was already sick of in 3.x even when I was actively playing and loving every second of it.
It honestly holds very little from 3.5E or PF 1st edition. 2e has as much in common with 3.5 as 5e does honestly. It learned a lot from the failures and hardships of 3.5, 4e and even took some things from 5e. Don't let the experience of PF1 or 3.5 dissuade you it is nothing like them. Not saying it is perfect, or that everyone should play it in stead of 5e or that "if you don't like 5e don't play it play a different game herdur herdur Grognar". It is just some of the things you are suggesting and looking for are changes that were made in 2e so it has a lot of the mechanics and flavor that I thought you might like to check out.
Ok, so... The thing is (and this is relevant for the discussion of 1D&D as well, from what I've seen) is that what I really didn't like about 3.5e was the reliance on feats to make characters/class more 'modular'.
And the reason why I didn't like that is because it locked away so many interesting actions and possibilities behind predefined feats and I was really, really tired of people talking about how this 'gave you so many cool new options', when those options were always present, you just had to think of them yourself and discuss it with the DM.
I had a quick look on Archives of Nethys and I saw the level 1 Fighter Feat 'Combat Assessment' (it happens to be the first feat I looked at), which, translated to 5e term, lets you do a Knowledge check about a creature if you hit it (I'm not entirely sure whether you do this in addition to damage or in place of it). And I instantly dislike this, because the fact that this is a feat implies that you can't do it without having that feat.
If you're playing a system where you have to take a feat in order to make a feint so you can learn something about an enemy instead of just saying "GM, I use my action to make a feint attack because I want to see what I can assess about my opponent from their reaction" and having the GM respond with "Cool idea, make the appropriate 'knowing about this thing' check instead of an attack roll." then you are playing a system that's trying to turn every interesting roleplay interaction or creative use of your abilities into a rule and that's not the kind of system I like.
I disagree that the existence of bread and butter spells are an issue. Some spells should be used in almost every combat, it makes perfect sense for some spells to be extremely common within a class due to its basic usefulness.
No, it is perfectly fine with a second level spell to be used in nearly every combat like Spiritual Weapon often is. It is essentially a bread and butter spell. Misty Step is an example of another Bread and Butter spell. There is nothing wrong with some low level spells maintaining their usefulness.
There will always be "must-pick" spells as there will always be some spells better than others, and there is nothing wrong with that. We don't need every spell to be niche.
In regards to Banishment, it has counterplay with how it requires concentration. It isn't hard to add ways to target that weakness. Whether it is a bunch of minions to cause concentration checks to incapacitating effects that will force concentration loss.
It wasn't ever an automatic banish. It always required an initial save and you had to concentrate on it for the entire duration. Also, making it work because it makes narrative sense isn't RAW and we should be judging these spells based on RAW. We shouldn't be applying DM Fiat when determining feedback.
Confusion is also AoE while Banishment is single target. A better comparison is Resilient Sphere which will also take someone out of a fight while not offering any additional saves.
I'm not asking for Spiritual Weapon to be niche. I just think it would be nice if there was a reason for some variety in Cleric combat. And some choices to be made. It's sad that almost every Cleric puts up Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians before anything else in a fight.
My actual reservation about the way they are changing it is the Concentration part. Currently you can have it going and have Bless up at the same time. Or other buffs of the sort. What I'm afraid of with this change is that Clerics won't buff anymore because they want the damage of the Spiritual Weapon. Because for some reason that's often more appealing to players. If that happens, then the fix made it even worse. Because it will exclude other spells even more.
In fact, I would love it if Bless didn't require Concentration (with some balancing). Then maybe it would be the staple spell. And you could still have both going at once. But the damage would be the part that is up for failure.
I'm also afraid that any change that is perceived as a 'nerf' will never make it through playtesting. That will only lead to more power creep and everyone playing the same way they always did just because it's comfortable. I want genuine improvements to the game. And in some places that will mean reducing the power level of certain spells, abilities, traits etc.
I do think Spiritual Weapon can use a second look. I'm not sure concentration is the answer. But I'm very open to any spell getting a course correction. Like I said, I'll have to test it in an actual game first. That's the only way to know for sure.
you can do some small ones assuming a strength of 17.
17*30 (You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score).
510 if medium
510*2*2 (For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity)
so you would be able to lift 2040 pounds
2015 Scion IQ – 1,896 pounds
2015 Mitsubishi Mirage – 1,972 pounds
2011 Lotus Elise – 1,995 pounds
2008 Ford Ka – 1,808 pounds
2007 Smart Fortwo – 1,610 pounds
Hot Take: Spiritual Weapon should have always been concentration and Banishment has always been too powerful.
Just my opinion of course.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I wonder if the original spiritual weapon was tied more to expectations of action economy keeping the power in check. They expected more clerics to be using their bonus action to throw around healing word during combat so they wouldn’t have as much chance to use spiritual weapon.
But then people realized whack-a-mole healing is usually more efficient, and that bonus action is better spent taking down an enemy than propping up an ally. They do seem to be responding to way people actually play, as opposed to the way they thought people would play when doing the initial design.
You are assuming Resilient Sphere won't also get nerfed. But even still Resilient Sphere is no where near as powerful an effect as Banishment. All forms of "Self" targeting teleportation can be used to escape Resilient Sphere (including racial abilities like Fey Step, and spells like Misty Step, and Blink), Resilient Spheres are still on the battlefield so can be targeted and destroyed by Dispel Magic or Disintegrate, and Resilient Sphere it limited to Large or smaller creatures. As a result Resilient Sphere is no where near as powerful as Banishment because Boss monsters are generally either massive muscle-y creatures that won't fit into the sphere, or are a spellcaster than can easily escape the sphere. Resilient Sphere also doesn't up cast so can never target more than one creature.
I suspect it was just a mistake.
While sure, there may be cases where an ally of the enemy could break your concentration, if it didn't have allies then that's not going to happen unless you cast a new concentration spell forgetting you were only 54 seconds in, or stub your toe really hard while looting.
There are also a bunch of ways you can make it basically impossible to break your concentration, like hiding in a rope trick or a tiny hut, so if you have some idea of what you're facing you can just straight up eliminate one of them with fairly minimal preparation. While this requires some degree of combo'ing I think the potential is there for too much abuse.
Now whether Wizards have made it too easy to resist being banished is another matter; personally I think it's a good thing that you need to take some extra steps to make it a sure thing, but it probably should become a 3rd-level spell in this form.
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I think they intended it to be like a pseudo-Extra Attack in away, kinda like an how Divine Strike is a sortakinda pseudo stand-in for Extra Attack in its own way. At least, that’s my gut instinct on it.
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The major benefit of banishment over resilient sphere is that a banished creature is incapacitated and has no way of seeing where they're going to reappear, and thus it cannot take actions to escape or prepare. I wonder if, rather than a save, it could just change what it does. Say:
Being tossed into the border ethereal instead of a demiplane means the creature can still tell what's going on; being restrained instead of incapacitated lets it use abilities it has to evade or prepare for return (and most creatures that will be permanently banished have something they could do). I chose restrained because otherwise it would get used as a cheap etherealness.
Resilient Sphere can hit up to a size of large, which is honestly quite a wide range. Teleportation is actually rather rare among enemies and they also don't often have dispel magic or disintegrate; and they are just counter plays to it. I honestly found outerplanar creatures to often have a decent chance to resist banish. Resilient sphere also has the flexibility of being used on yourself as a form of protection, especially when comboed with contingency. Resilient sphere shouldn't be nerfed either; banishment doesn't need the nerf, there are counterplays to it. Right now, it is worth taking the spell ever.
If it doesn't have allies and is vulnerable to Banish, I'd say that is a flaw in the encounter design rather than a flaw with Banishment. Also, combining it with rope trick or tiny hut is essentially taking extra steps to make it a sure thing; so already you need to take extra steps to make it a sure thing.
I wouldn't even say the nerfed version of banishment is even worth a 3rd level spell slot. It has far too high of a chance of failure. There were already counter plays to it, with plenty of enemies that you generally use it on having magic resistance and/or decent charisma. It's also a 4th level spell which is among the higher echelons of spells that most people get to, since most people end in Tier 2.
Even with the "abuse" there are counterplays and/or flaws to them. For example, Tiny Hut requires you to have set it up in advance and the person casting banishment cannot be the same person who set up the Tiny Hut as Tiny Hut's caster cannot leave the hut without the spell ending. Thus this combo ends up requiring two people to take themselves out of the fight to take out one other person in the fight, and only after taking the time to setup the hut itself.
I would say that relies more on the encounter design itself. The encounter should be what would provide the reason for Clerics to change it up, make the more niche spells useful. They are already essentially nerfing a lot of things. For example, Bards lost extra magical secrets from lore bard and magical secrets got delayed by a level so it won't be seen until T3.
I'd say Spiritual Weapons is fine, same with Banishment. They currently feel good to use. Rather than nerfing things, I'd say buffing things to match is the better solution; this includes buffing martials as well.
Although I don't like the idea of Spiritual Weapon being a concentration spell, we have no idea where they are going with spells in general. It may seem like a big nerf now, but in comparison to all the other spells it still may be that bread-and-butter spell it is now. We just don't have enough information on how WotC will handle spells in 1D&D.
Same with Aid. I like how unique Aid is now, with increasing max HP/gaining HP. But gaining Temp HP may not be as ubiquitous in 1D&D as it is in 5E. But if there are going to be plenty of ways to get Temp HP in 1D&D then I think Aid needs to stay the way it is now.
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But some spells and powers are just going to be broken. Maybe not this one, but they do exist. You can't buff everyone else to match a broken feature. You have to fix it. And fixing a few broken things is so much better than just upgrading everything to match them.
There are certain things that do need a 'buff.' And there are things that need fixed too, even if it feels like a 'nerf.' It’s just my opinion obviously, but I don't want every class to get progressively stronger and more broken just to try to match the few things that are already broken.
But I have a feeling that most people are going to complain if any ability they like to use gets fixed, because they'll think their favorite is getting 'nerfed.' Lore Bard losing that Magical Secrets might not be a good decision. Or it might end up being great for balance and fixing a problem that would occur in the context of the new classes and spell selection rules.
I complained that Thieves should still get to Use an Object with Cunning Action. I think it was a mistake taking their coolest feature. But I understand why they did it. It was broken because it wasn't clear. I would prefer it come back, just with more limitations and cleary defined uses. It will still be a nerf, but it will be a good fix of a broken ability.
Taking away the +10 damage option from Sharpshooter and GWM bothered a lot of people that depended on it for their builds. But WotC had good reasons to 'nerf' it. And I agree with them. It was broken. Not just meaning it was too strong. It was broken because it was mathematically almost always the optimal choice. Which means it wasn't really much of a choice. And they recognized that. Spiritual Weapon is in that same realm of broken. I don't know that this is the right fix without testing it yet. But it does need a fix.
IMO mis-balanced spells an abilities was less of a problem when only certain classes had access. Who cared if the cleric destroyed a whole horde of minions... as long as there were other "scenes" or encounters. Part of the fun of a class is that it's good at somethings and bad at others. When dnd accentuates a rock paper scissors approach it gets more fun. Actually a Pokémon analogy might be better where difficulty changes but it's still possible for that class to succeed.
Now as for specifically clerics, I haven't seen any thoughts on dual welding changes because it actually changes the interaction with spiritual weapon. Low level clerics that want to do damage can still get 3 attacks via the spiritual weapon. I haven't evaluated the math yet and many clerics wont want the ac trade or the theme of dual welding. But it's a piece of the puzzle and optimizers will look at it eventually if it stays.
As for banish I recommend a 3 failure state. This gives time for opposing teams to respond without too ruining it entirely. Save or suck isn't good but drawn out to useless is also bad. And at the very least there's a principle of death saves and contagion and certain petrification abilities all having more than one save but limited chance to turn things around.
That's being way too quick to blame encounter design; a DM putting a high CR creature in front of their players should reasonably expect it to be a challenge, not something that a single spell could trivially defeat.
And combining with rope trick or tiny hut is not exactly an arduous extra step, there's also the much simpler one of "cast it and then run away as fast as you possibly can", because your concentration can't be broken if you can't be hit.
If your target succeeds on the first save then it's no worse than any other save-or-suck spell like dominate person; however if it fails, then you've removed it entirely from the fight for a minimum of one round. That means a 100% reduction in the damage it can do, and a full round for your allies to focus on other targets, heal themselves and each other, ready abilities and actions for its return etc.
Banishing the target permanently has never really been the main benefit of the spell, it was a narrative sweetener, but it also potentially makes the spell way too strong.
Adventuring parties typically number at least 4 players; if the party's goal is to defeat a dangerous enemy then it'd be strange to assume that the other 3+ are unwilling to help. And as I've said, rope trick is also a readily available option for an ally to cast which requires no setup.
Also like I say, there's the free and easy option of just casting the spell at its maximum range of 60 feet and then running away. If you prefer (or can't get very far) you can hide, or simply take cover, your average caster has a pretty high effective range so they don't even necessarily need to take themselves out of a fight to do it.
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While I'm not opposed to Banishment getting a nerf in the slightest, I simply hate the idea of any 'save-or-suck' (shouldn't it be 'save-and-suck', by the way? Given that a save is what makes it suck?) spell that isn't a cantrip.
If you're going to be spending a spell slot, it should at least do something, yes? Most non-cantrip spells that do damage and require a save do half damage, at least.
If it was up to me to design this sort of thing, I would have these spells always do a lesser version of what they were supposed to for one turn on a successful save. (For Banishment I would make the target blink out until the start of their next turn, so they couldn't take reactions, threaten spaces, use Lair or Legendary action, etc.. in the interim, but also wouldn't be robbed of their move and action.)
I am not going to lie, but if you haven't tried it yet, you might want to check out PF2E. It might have some things you like. Its spell effects specifically work almost exactly like this and the class flavor is pretty cool. You might enjoy checking it out.
This said, I think it would be ok for some of these save or suck spells to get that if the creature is going to get a save every turn. Right now Banishment has been over-nerfed. Range 30 feet and you can't hit the creature while it is controlled, it is just generally worse than most other control spells at this point.
My sarky side wants to say 'nah, I played 3.5e when it was new, thanks.' But really, that kinda is the reason I haven't really ever seriously considered playing Pathfinder. When 4e was in development, but nothing was revealed yet, I kinda realised I was ready for something new.
Now... 4e was not the new I wanted, but PF1E was too much of the old I didn't want any more either. I might have a look at 2E at some point, but from what I've heard it retains many of the things I was already sick of in 3.x even when I was actively playing and loving every second of it.
It honestly holds very little from 3.5E or PF 1st edition. 2e has as much in common with 3.5 as 5e does honestly. It learned a lot from the failures and hardships of 3.5, 4e and even took some things from 5e. Don't let the experience of PF1 or 3.5 dissuade you it is nothing like them. Not saying it is perfect, or that everyone should play it in stead of 5e or that "if you don't like 5e don't play it play a different game herdur herdur Grognar". It is just some of the things you are suggesting and looking for are changes that were made in 2e so it has a lot of the mechanics and flavor that I thought you might like to check out.
Ok, so... The thing is (and this is relevant for the discussion of 1D&D as well, from what I've seen) is that what I really didn't like about 3.5e was the reliance on feats to make characters/class more 'modular'.
And the reason why I didn't like that is because it locked away so many interesting actions and possibilities behind predefined feats and I was really, really tired of people talking about how this 'gave you so many cool new options', when those options were always present, you just had to think of them yourself and discuss it with the DM.
I had a quick look on Archives of Nethys and I saw the level 1 Fighter Feat 'Combat Assessment' (it happens to be the first feat I looked at), which, translated to 5e term, lets you do a Knowledge check about a creature if you hit it (I'm not entirely sure whether you do this in addition to damage or in place of it). And I instantly dislike this, because the fact that this is a feat implies that you can't do it without having that feat.
If you're playing a system where you have to take a feat in order to make a feint so you can learn something about an enemy instead of just saying "GM, I use my action to make a feint attack because I want to see what I can assess about my opponent from their reaction" and having the GM respond with "Cool idea, make the appropriate 'knowing about this thing' check instead of an attack roll." then you are playing a system that's trying to turn every interesting roleplay interaction or creative use of your abilities into a rule and that's not the kind of system I like.