I noticed that Treantmonk came out with a video on 'outlier' spells, which I don't entirely agree with, but it's an interesting list:
Interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing.
Sleep -- which surprises me. I guess he's seen a problem I haven't?
At level 1 and level 2, it's completely broken. By level 3, it's mostly useless. It's a guaranteed 5d8 (average 22.5) hit points of creatures going Unconscious, which might as well be dead. At low levels, 22.5 gets you really far, so it can be an easy no-save win in a lot of encounters.
Spike Growth -- apparently, he's seen issues of grappler builds dragging people at high speeds through it. Not a problem I've personally encountered but I can see the point.
Builds made specifically to move people around a ton to deal a bunch of damage with spike growth are pretty widespread. Definitely an exploitable problem.
Conjure Animals -- yes, 8x CR 1/4 monsters has apparently scarred his psyche permanently, though wanting to reduce it to 2 CR 1/4 is ... a bit overkill. My expectation is that the Conjure spells will be changed to use a specific limited list.
I'm expecting (and hoping) that they'll be replaced entirely by the summon spells. A ton of creatures in the combat is horrible to work with.
For sleep, everything is broke at 1st and 2nd level so I don't see the issue there and a level 1 spell not being useful later on does not bother me much either.
For spike growth, I've seen people try to exploit it. It rarely works out as well as people think and frequently ends up not being worth even trying. It feels like one of those white room designs that don't land as well as people think outside some really rare tables. I am not too worried about super optmizers as they will always find a way to break the game.
Conjure animals, I'd like that as well but even the summon spells I think need to be tuned down.
The solution I came up with for spike growth was simply to make the "when they move 5 feet" part into "on the creatures turn when it moves 5 feet" and add a clause "when it enters the area for the first time on a turn". Other than that leave it alone. It removes the rare case, but still makes it do what it does at most tables.
symbol ... "mercury, phosphorus, and powdered diamond and opal with a total value of at least 1,000 gp, which the spell consumes"
shapechange ... "a jade circlet worth at least 1,500 gp"
simulacrum... "powdered ruby worth 1,500 gp, sprinkled over the duplicate and consumed by the spell"
I don't spend any time in the deep end of the pool so I don't know first hand, but isn't it up to the dm to stock the powdered ruby shop... or not? and in lieu of that, tie up rich players' finances in running a city or building pyramids or spelljammer maintenance? or send thieves to abscond with their jade circlet (and then expect them to buy more traps)? although it does make sense to place some spells behind additional research, questing, and/or being gifted by gods it still seems like the tools are already there.
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Although I do greatly miss the challenging sessions of figuring out the wording to a wish, I take it way too seriously.
Wish is not a spell I have present, an haven't since the late 80's. Still have wishes, but I generally have them a some kind of mcguffin.
Wish used to age you when you cast it (and so did Haste and a couple others). When it got its huge ass nerf (essentially replacing it with a re-leveled limited wish), it took while for folks to adjust to using it to cheese stuff -- but it also encouraged it, whereas the original style wishes were more valuable.
i had an unused summoner class in my last really big campaign that made use of all the summoning spells. This next time around they are all rituals, and do not confer control over the summoned being. Oh, and PCs can be summoned.
I will note that I have been a proponent of "find your own damn spells" for decades. There is no "oh, I will take these spells". No, you gotta go out and beg, borrow, buy, and beguile them.
It is only recently that I realized folks weren't doin that, lol.
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I noticed that Treantmonk came out with a video on 'outlier' spells, which I don't entirely agree with, but it's an interesting list:
Ceremony -- mostly because of the "+2 AC for a week after a wedding", which I agree is kinda dumb and should probably just be deleted. Or just give +5 temp hit points, which last for a week unless lost earlier for some other reason.
Goodberry -- on the grounds of 'removes survival adventures'. His fix is to just remove the part where it provides food, which is... simple and does the job.
Shield -- which is on everyone's list. I dislike his solution, though.
Sleep -- which surprises me. I guess he's seen a problem I haven't?
Heat Metal -- I have to agree that no-save damage and a (generally no-save) debuff is... a bit much.
Pass Without Trace -- yeah, +10 is dumb. Make it Advantage on Stealth, Disadvantage on Perception (or even only one of those two things).
Spike Growth -- apparently, he's seen issues of grappler builds dragging people at high speeds through it. Not a problem I've personally encountered but I can see the point.
Web -- I think he's opposed to it taking an action to escape and generally having odd mechanics.
Conjure Animals -- yes, 8x CR 1/4 monsters has apparently scarred his psyche permanently, though wanting to reduce it to 2 CR 1/4 is ... a bit overkill. My expectation is that the Conjure spells will be changed to use a specific limited list.
Fear -- my experience with this spell is that it scatters monsters all over the dungeon, causing them to make trouble for you later or possibly chain-aggro everything else on you, so not a big issue. It should probably clarify that "unless there is nowhere to move" means that it isn't required to dash (the wording is somewhat unclear), and maybe remove the LOS requirement for breaking free.
Goodberry that doesn’t provide food is pointless. The 1 hp of healing per berrie becomes worthless since everyone with access to goodberry can also cast cure wounds. The proper fix is to make the sprig of mistletoe have to be fresh (up to a week since picked) and consumed by they spell.
Shield- set AC to 18 at level 1, +2 for level above first.
Sleep is fine. Its sad how fast it becomes pointless.
Heat Metal probably shouldn’t be allowed to work on worn objects. The exploitation happens when cast on armor. When cast on an held item the creature has the choice to drop the item.
Pass Without Trace- can be reduced to +5, but any check of 9 or lower is treated as a 10.
Spike Growth- I’ve never seen a problem so I don’t know.
Web is fine because of the alternative ways to get out of it. FIRE!!!!
Conjure Animals- pretty sure it’s getting replaced by Summon Beast
Hypnotic Pattern- is fine in play. Horrible in theory crafting. Oh the things I could think to do. They never happen in play.
Tiny Hut is fine. Make stuff go under it.
Spirit Guardians- I often hear about, how amazing this is, but I’ve only seen it be really good. That’s not me saying it’s not amazing, but I haven’t witnessed it.
Conjure woodland beings might be replaced by summon fey
Black Tentacles is fine
Polymorph it’s such a great spell and I don’t know how to maintain the great things about it and bring it in line with other spells of its level. You could drop it to 10 min duration, but that kills the OoC uses for exploration, and infiltration. Maybe that’s the problem with the spell it it helps in too many pillars of play.
Animate Objects- let’s just say that when you animate multiple things they all attack together as one. They effectively become a swarm.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
Magic Jar I have never seen in play except on a live stream by an npc. I think it’s really hard to make useful for a player unless the whole party is on board with it. One of them needs carry the Jar and the casters body. Then find an enemy you want to take over and they need to fail a save. They also have to be a humanoid. The more I look at this the more I see why players haven’t tried to do more with it. It’s not good.
Planar Ally also never seen in actual play.
Conjure Celestial I agree this will like be replaced with Summon Celestial
Forcecage isn’t that great. You gave up your 7th level spell to trap a creature for an hour. I guess it’s circumstance dependent.
Simulacrum up the cast time to 24 hours with con save to avoid exhaustion at the 12 hour mark if you fail this save the spell fails.
Feeblemind is fine.
Many 9th level Spells are busted and I don’t know how to fix them and have them still feel good.
Goodberry that doesn’t provide food is pointless. The 1 hp of healing per berrie becomes worthless since everyone with access to goodberry can also cast cure wounds. The proper fix is to make the sprig of mistletoe have to be fresh (up to a week since picked) and consumed by they spell.
Well, the 10 bits of 1hp is going to be better than cure wounds out of combat (unless you've got a +5.5 spellcasting modifier), and in combat the 1 hit point you get from a berry is about as good as the 1d8+mod you get from cure wounds. I mean, I use goodberry for reasons other than food, and it seems like a great low-level healing resource to me.
Sleep is fine. Its sad how fast it becomes pointless.
It's way too powerful at low levels. No-save encounter ender. It should really have a more balanced power across campaigns, putting people to sleep is a style that should never go out of fashion.
Tiny Hut is fine. Make stuff go under it.
Not everything has a burrowing speed. In fact, very few things have a burrowing speed. You shouldn't have to figure out how to include a purple worm in the location every time players cast a spell.
Animate Objects- let’s just say that when you animate multiple things they all attack together as one. They effectively become a swarm.
It's not just the number of enemies it brings to the field that makes it so powerful, it's also the sheer quantity of really quite powerful attacks you can make. Just making all the creatures a swarm might get rid of part of the headache, but not the damage. I imagine/hope that it'll get replaced by tiny servant and summon construct.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
I'm pretty sure you need line of sight to actually target creatures with magic, and most "mental" attacks target creatures just as much as "physical" attacks do.
Planar Ally also never seen in actual play.
That's because people have no idea how any given DM will rule it.
Simulacrum up the cast time to 24 hours with con save to avoid exhaustion at the 12 hour mark if you fail this save the spell fails.
What difference would that make? Nobody's going to be casting it in combat, anyways, and the oft-pointed out problem with it is how it can be combined with wish, which makes it take just an action anyways.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I noticed that Treantmonk came out with a video on 'outlier' spells, which I don't entirely agree with, but it's an interesting list:
Ceremony -- mostly because of the "+2 AC for a week after a wedding", which I agree is kinda dumb and should probably just be deleted. Or just give +5 temp hit points, which last for a week unless lost earlier for some other reason.
Goodberry -- on the grounds of 'removes survival adventures'. His fix is to just remove the part where it provides food, which is... simple and does the job.
Shield -- which is on everyone's list. I dislike his solution, though.
Sleep -- which surprises me. I guess he's seen a problem I haven't?
Heat Metal -- I have to agree that no-save damage and a (generally no-save) debuff is... a bit much.
Pass Without Trace -- yeah, +10 is dumb. Make it Advantage on Stealth, Disadvantage on Perception (or even only one of those two things).
Spike Growth -- apparently, he's seen issues of grappler builds dragging people at high speeds through it. Not a problem I've personally encountered but I can see the point.
Web -- I think he's opposed to it taking an action to escape and generally having odd mechanics.
Conjure Animals -- yes, 8x CR 1/4 monsters has apparently scarred his psyche permanently, though wanting to reduce it to 2 CR 1/4 is ... a bit overkill. My expectation is that the Conjure spells will be changed to use a specific limited list.
Fear -- my experience with this spell is that it scatters monsters all over the dungeon, causing them to make trouble for you later or possibly chain-aggro everything else on you, so not a big issue. It should probably clarify that "unless there is nowhere to move" means that it isn't required to dash (the wording is somewhat unclear), and maybe remove the LOS requirement for breaking free.
Goodberry that doesn’t provide food is pointless. The 1 hp of healing per berrie becomes worthless since everyone with access to goodberry can also cast cure wounds. The proper fix is to make the sprig of mistletoe have to be fresh (up to a week since picked) and consumed by they spell.
Shield- set AC to 18 at level 1, +2 for level above first.
Sleep is fine. Its sad how fast it becomes pointless.
Heat Metal probably shouldn’t be allowed to work on worn objects. The exploitation happens when cast on armor. When cast on an held item the creature has the choice to drop the item.
Pass Without Trace- can be reduced to +5, but any check of 9 or lower is treated as a 10.
Spike Growth- I’ve never seen a problem so I don’t know.
Web is fine because of the alternative ways to get out of it. FIRE!!!!
Conjure Animals- pretty sure it’s getting replaced by Summon Beast
Hypnotic Pattern- is fine in play. Horrible in theory crafting. Oh the things I could think to do. They never happen in play.
Tiny Hut is fine. Make stuff go under it.
Spirit Guardians- I often hear about, how amazing this is, but I’ve only seen it be really good. That’s not me saying it’s not amazing, but I haven’t witnessed it.
Conjure woodland beings might be replaced by summon fey
Black Tentacles is fine
Polymorph it’s such a great spell and I don’t know how to maintain the great things about it and bring it in line with other spells of its level. You could drop it to 10 min duration, but that kills the OoC uses for exploration, and infiltration. Maybe that’s the problem with the spell it it helps in too many pillars of play.
Animate Objects- let’s just say that when you animate multiple things they all attack together as one. They effectively become a swarm.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
Magic Jar I have never seen in play except on a live stream by an npc. I think it’s really hard to make useful for a player unless the whole party is on board with it. One of them needs carry the Jar and the casters body. Then find an enemy you want to take over and they need to fail a save. They also have to be a humanoid. The more I look at this the more I see why players haven’t tried to do more with it. It’s not good.
Planar Ally also never seen in actual play.
Conjure Celestial I agree this will like be replaced with Summon Celestial
Forcecage isn’t that great. You gave up your 7th level spell to trap a creature for an hour. I guess it’s circumstance dependent.
Simulacrum up the cast time to 24 hours with con save to avoid exhaustion at the 12 hour mark if you fail this save the spell fails.
Feeblemind is fine.
Many 9th level Spells are busted and I don’t know how to fix them and have them still feel good.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
That does however mean that Wall of Force, and by extension Forcecage, are incredibly effective against enemies that don't have teleportation or mental attacks. Forcecage in particular takes it one step further and bars spells being cast into or out of it too, and any attempt to teleport out of it is gatekept by a Charisma save.
Even a basic pit fiend (without any customization, which you should honestly do, since the basic stat block is garbage for high level purposes) can be trapped by it without any means of escape.
For 1 hour. The Pit Fiend stares at you with a menacing grin. In your mind you hear, “You’ve bought yourself some time. I wonder how long this will hold me. I’ll wait.” It continues to stare at you. We are effectively out of combat, so turn order doesn’t matter what is every doing? Caster you know exactly how long that spell last and the Fiend isn’t taking his eyes off you.
A 10-foot-radius immobile dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains stationary for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area. The spell doesn’t describe a floor. By RAW it does not.
A 10-foot-radius immobile dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains stationary for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area. The spell doesn’t describe a floor. By RAW it does not.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
That does however mean that Wall of Force, and by extension Forcecage, are incredibly effective against enemies that don't have teleportation or mental attacks. Forcecage in particular takes it one step further and bars spells being cast into or out of it too, and any attempt to teleport out of it is gatekept by a Charisma save.
Even a basic pit fiend (without any customization, which you should honestly do, since the basic stat block is garbage for high level purposes) can be trapped by it without any means of escape.
For 1 hour. The Pit Fiend stares at you with a menacing grin. In your mind you hear, “You’ve bought yourself some time. I wonder how long this will hold me. I’ll wait.” It continues to stare at you. We are effectively out of combat, so turn order doesn’t matter what is every doing? Caster you know exactly how long that spell last and the Fiend isn’t taking his eyes off you.
What am I doing? I'm completing the objective, grabbing the MacGuffin, and heading home. Or maybe I should cast magic circle. Or symbol.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Nothing about the definition of hemisphere says it has a floor; a mathematical sphere is the set of points at a constant distance from a center, and a hemisphere is half a sphere -- which just means what happens when you slice a sphere along a great circle -- which leaves you a hollow shape. Since this is D&D and not math, the formal definition may not be relevant, but there's nothing about the formal definition that says it has a floor, nor does anything about the wording of the spell say the dome has a floor.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
That does however mean that Wall of Force, and by extension Forcecage, are incredibly effective against enemies that don't have teleportation or mental attacks. Forcecage in particular takes it one step further and bars spells being cast into or out of it too, and any attempt to teleport out of it is gatekept by a Charisma save.
Even a basic pit fiend (without any customization, which you should honestly do, since the basic stat block is garbage for high level purposes) can be trapped by it without any means of escape.
For 1 hour. The Pit Fiend stares at you with a menacing grin. In your mind you hear, “You’ve bought yourself some time. I wonder how long this will hold me. I’ll wait.” It continues to stare at you. We are effectively out of combat, so turn order doesn’t matter what is every doing? Caster you know exactly how long that spell last and the Fiend isn’t taking his eyes off you.
If you use Wall of Force or a Forcecage with bars, the pit fiend could try to take you out with wall of fire. With Wall of Force, that might actually do something to break it out because it requires concentration. But Forcecage doesn't have that weakness, so even if the caster goes down, the fiend is still trapped in there and can be picked off by the rest of the party if they're also kicking.
I just meant it waits the 1 hour until the spell ends. Force cage doesn’t allow spells in either direction except teleportation from outside to in. Now if you have a radiant explosive you could teleport it into the cage with him. But for the most part Box Forcecage put the enemy and the players in a 1 hour countdown.
Force wall and forcecage are both "no-save remove one or more creatures from a fight, with no ability to escape unless they have special abilities that are not particularly common". That's really just not even in the normal design paradigm of 5e -- pretty much every other form of CC has both a save and a standard way of recovering from it.
Nothing about the definition of hemisphere says it has a floor; a mathematical sphere is the set of points at a constant distance from a center, and a hemisphere is half a sphere -- which just means what happens when you slice a sphere along a great circle -- which leaves you a hollow shape. Since this is D&D and not math, the formal definition may not be relevant, but there's nothing about the formal definition that says it has a floor, nor does anything about the wording of the spell say the dome has a floor.
A sphere is a round solid shape. Cut an orange in half is it hollow or solid with a bottom/floor? And Crawford said Tiny Hut had a floor. So RAW and RAI Tiny Hut has a floor.
Goodberry that doesn’t provide food is pointless. The 1 hp of healing per berrie becomes worthless since everyone with access to goodberry can also cast cure wounds. The proper fix is to make the sprig of mistletoe have to be fresh (up to a week since picked) and consumed by they spell.
Well, the 10 bits of 1hp is going to be better than cure wounds out of combat (unless you've got a +5.5 spellcasting modifier), and in combat the 1 hit point you get from a berry is about as good as the 1d8+mod you get from cure wounds. I mean, I use goodberry for reasons other than food, and it seems like a great low-level healing resource to me.
Sleep is fine. Its sad how fast it becomes pointless.
It's way too powerful at low levels. No-save encounter ender. It should really have a more balanced power across campaigns, putting people to sleep is a style that should never go out of fashion.
Tiny Hut is fine. Make stuff go under it.
Not everything has a burrowing speed. In fact, very few things have a burrowing speed. You shouldn't have to figure out how to include a purple worm in the location every time players cast a spell.
Animate Objects- let’s just say that when you animate multiple things they all attack together as one. They effectively become a swarm.
It's not just the number of enemies it brings to the field that makes it so powerful, it's also the sheer quantity of really quite powerful attacks you can make. Just making all the creatures a swarm might get rid of part of the headache, but not the damage. I imagine/hope that it'll get replaced by tiny servant and summon construct.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
I'm pretty sure you need line of sight to actually target creatures with magic, and most "mental" attacks target creatures just as much as "physical" attacks do.
Planar Ally also never seen in actual play.
That's because people have no idea how any given DM will rule it.
Simulacrum up the cast time to 24 hours with con save to avoid exhaustion at the 12 hour mark if you fail this save the spell fails.
What difference would that make? Nobody's going to be casting it in combat, anyways, and the oft-pointed out problem with it is how it can be combined with wish, which makes it take just an action anyways.
Goodberry is 1 hp per action isn’t worth me wasting a spell prepared on. If you think that version is worth it that’s your opinion. I don’t agree. It’s easier to keep the spell as is and make it consume the material, thus limiting the spell use in survival games.
Sleep makes things unconscious not dead. They will wake up unless you take the time to unalive them. You have 1 minute, Go!
Tiny Hut is go under or just wait. You’ve completed your long rest as the spell ends you hear a voice yell, “Now!!!” Roll for innovative.
Animate objects working as a swarm would change its damage output and hp. So if you animate objects that are medium or smaller they become a large swarm with 80hp that deal 8d4+4 damage on hit. Every time the swarm takes 10 hp damage it’s damage drops -1d4. When it’s hp is 40 it’s size drops to medium. When you animate a large or huge object the hp is still 80 but the damage is 2d12+4 but doesn’t decrease as they take damage. Or something like this. This isn’t me brainstorming, so don’t judge the numbers.
Wall of Force is invisible. You can see them.
Simulacrum isn’t broken because of Wish. Wish is just broken. 24 hours means they have to plan this out days in advance since they need to rest the day after they complete it. The con save is just to add a chance of failure. I didn’t want to literally make it a failure chance. You could say the more material you have the more likely the spell will work. Roll d100 and have failure states like teleportation, but based on how much material you have. Then add in “if this spell is cast with no material components and succeeds the Simulacrum looks like the creature you wanted but has 10 in all stats and none of their proficiencies or abilities.”
Goodberry that doesn’t provide food is pointless. The 1 hp of healing per berrie becomes worthless since everyone with access to goodberry can also cast cure wounds. The proper fix is to make the sprig of mistletoe have to be fresh (up to a week since picked) and consumed by they spell.
Well, the 10 bits of 1hp is going to be better than cure wounds out of combat (unless you've got a +5.5 spellcasting modifier), and in combat the 1 hit point you get from a berry is about as good as the 1d8+mod you get from cure wounds. I mean, I use goodberry for reasons other than food, and it seems like a great low-level healing resource to me.
Sleep is fine. Its sad how fast it becomes pointless.
It's way too powerful at low levels. No-save encounter ender. It should really have a more balanced power across campaigns, putting people to sleep is a style that should never go out of fashion.
Tiny Hut is fine. Make stuff go under it.
Not everything has a burrowing speed. In fact, very few things have a burrowing speed. You shouldn't have to figure out how to include a purple worm in the location every time players cast a spell.
Animate Objects- let’s just say that when you animate multiple things they all attack together as one. They effectively become a swarm.
It's not just the number of enemies it brings to the field that makes it so powerful, it's also the sheer quantity of really quite powerful attacks you can make. Just making all the creatures a swarm might get rid of part of the headache, but not the damage. I imagine/hope that it'll get replaced by tiny servant and summon construct.
Wall of Force- is weak if you go by what’s written on the page. I’ve seen DMs not let magic work on things on the other side of it, but it can. You or and attack just can’t physically go through it. Mental attacks, Misty Step and Dimension Door bypass the wall.
I'm pretty sure you need line of sight to actually target creatures with magic, and most "mental" attacks target creatures just as much as "physical" attacks do.
Planar Ally also never seen in actual play.
That's because people have no idea how any given DM will rule it.
Simulacrum up the cast time to 24 hours with con save to avoid exhaustion at the 12 hour mark if you fail this save the spell fails.
What difference would that make? Nobody's going to be casting it in combat, anyways, and the oft-pointed out problem with it is how it can be combined with wish, which makes it take just an action anyways.
Goodberry is 1 hp per action isn’t worth me wasting a spell prepared on. If you think that version is worth it that’s your opinion. I don’t agree. It’s easier to keep the spell as is and make it consume the material, thus limiting the spell use in survival games.
Just pointing out that goodberry would definitely get used even without the food restriction, thereby making it not useless. The great thing about spells is you can choose which ones you take, so if you wouldn't use a spell but I would, then I can take it and you can decide not to and we can both be happy with the existence of the spell.
Sleep makes things unconscious not dead. They will wake up unless you take the time to unalive them. You have 1 minute, Go!
How tough is it going to be to kill somebody who's unconscious? Think about it. everybody can gather around, hold their actions to attack, and then whoever's got the biggest damage die kicks things off with a crit. I don't know many goblins who'll survive that. Then you just go to the next one. 1-2 rounds of combat for each one, and you've got 10. Not too tough.
Tiny Hut is go under or just wait. You’ve completed your long rest as the spell ends you hear a voice yell, “Now!!!” Roll for innovative.
Who cares? You already got your long rest.
Animate objects working as a swarm would change its damage output and hp. So if you animate objects that are medium or smaller they become a large swarm with 80hp that deal 8d4+4 damage on hit. Every time the swarm takes 10 hp damage it’s damage drops -1d4. When it’s hp is 40 it’s size drops to medium. When you animate a large or huge object the hp is still 80 but the damage is 2d12+4 but doesn’t decrease as they take damage. Or something like this. This isn’t me brainstorming, so don’t judge the numbers.
Well, at that point you're just reflavoring one of the spells I pointed to. Not something I'm opposed to, mind you.
Wall of Force is invisible. You can see them.
That's not what line of sight is. It's confusing, I know.
Simulacrum isn’t broken because of Wish. Wish is just broken. 24 hours means they have to plan this out days in advance since they need to rest the day after they complete it. The con save is just to add a chance of failure. I didn’t want to literally make it a failure chance. You could say the more material you have the more likely the spell will work. Roll d100 and have failure states like teleportation, but based on how much material you have. Then add in “if this spell is cast with no material components and succeeds the Simulacrum looks like the creature you wanted but has 10 in all stats and none of their proficiencies or abilities.”
Who cares if a caster has to spend a day or two casting it? They pretty much have to already, since it takes 12 hours to cast. It lasts indefinitely no matter how you cast it, though, so it doesn't really matter much.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Nothing about the definition of hemisphere says it has a floor; a mathematical sphere is the set of points at a constant distance from a center, and a hemisphere is half a sphere -- which just means what happens when you slice a sphere along a great circle -- which leaves you a hollow shape. Since this is D&D and not math, the formal definition may not be relevant, but there's nothing about the formal definition that says it has a floor, nor does anything about the wording of the spell say the dome has a floor.
A sphere is a round solid shape. Cut an orange in half is it hollow or solid with a bottom/floor? And Crawford said Tiny Hut had a floor. So RAW and RAI Tiny Hut has a floor.
So my basketball isn’t a sphere and neither is a tennis ball. Man I need to go back to school. Lol. Nice try though.
RAW is what is written. RAW it doesn’t have a floor. Like a tennis ball when it’s cut in half. RAI is what the designers meant. RAI according to JC is that it has a floor. I’m betting it wasn’t something they even thought about. Just like the many times someone in the community yells, “but what happens is an anti magic field?” The designers are thinking that’s a high level spell and like 10 monster have that or some similar ability. They didn’t care if it had a floor. They were like here is this thing you can safely sleep in.
A sphere is a round solid shape. Cut an orange in half is it hollow or solid with a bottom/floor? And Crawford said Tiny Hut had a floor. So RAW and RAI Tiny Hut has a floor.
Tiny Hut is not solid all the way through, it has a shell and only that shell is solid. Cut an orange in half and there's no orange peel where you sliced it, it's only on the outside.
I just meant it waits the 1 hour until the spell ends. Force cage doesn’t allow spells in either direction except teleportation from outside to in. Now if you have a radiant explosive you could teleport it into the cage with him. But for the most part Box Forcecage put the enemy and the players in a 1 hour countdown.
Forcecage doesn't allow spells in either direction if it's a solid barrier. If it's a barred cage, you and the creature inside can fling spells at each other just fine, though only one of you has freedom of movement to get out of something like a sickening radiance.
Well then it’s still a fight. That Pit Fiend is throwing Fireballs hoping to drop concentration and maybe party members.
Goodberry without providing food just isn’t worth it for me. 10hp of mostly OoC healing. In combat any other healing spell is better.
Remember how Sleep works, did you find a single low hp thing and that’s the whole combat? Your party was going to kill it easily anyway.
You care because now at the start of your day your resources are being depleted. Your day isn’t over, it just began.
I’m only reflavoring Animate Objects to work with swarm mechanics. If if reads like something else you like then good.
Thats literally what line of sight is, an unobstructed line of vision. If anyone has told/taught you different they are wrong. I know all the debates about glass, but line of sight is no hindered by glass. Unless you see in inferred or ultraviolet, but that’s another conversation. From the DMG:
Line of Sight
To precisely determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If at least one such line doesn’t pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision — such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog — then there is line of sight.
I know in the type of games I run increasing the cast time of Simulacrum would have it be used far less. I probably don’t give enough down time. Honestly maybe it’s my DM bias that doesn’t see this as powerful. It looks like a money sink to me. I suppose with Wish being surprised by them adding another member with half health could mess up a planned fight, but I doubt it would. Also more importantly wouldn’t my failure table suggestion fix all the issues. Since the Wish version wouldn’t replicate the stats.
The solution I came up with for spike growth was simply to make the "when they move 5 feet" part into "on the creatures turn when it moves 5 feet" and add a clause "when it enters the area for the first time on a turn". Other than that leave it alone. It removes the rare case, but still makes it do what it does at most tables.
symbol ... "mercury, phosphorus, and powdered diamond and opal with a total value of at least 1,000 gp, which the spell consumes"
shapechange ... "a jade circlet worth at least 1,500 gp"
simulacrum... "powdered ruby worth 1,500 gp, sprinkled over the duplicate and consumed by the spell"
I don't spend any time in the deep end of the pool so I don't know first hand, but isn't it up to the dm to stock the powdered ruby shop... or not? and in lieu of that, tie up rich players' finances in running a city or building pyramids or spelljammer maintenance? or send thieves to abscond with their jade circlet (and then expect them to buy more traps)? although it does make sense to place some spells behind additional research, questing, and/or being gifted by gods it still seems like the tools are already there.
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Although I do greatly miss the challenging sessions of figuring out the wording to a wish, I take it way too seriously.
Wish is not a spell I have present, an haven't since the late 80's. Still have wishes, but I generally have them a some kind of mcguffin.
Wish used to age you when you cast it (and so did Haste and a couple others). When it got its huge ass nerf (essentially replacing it with a re-leveled limited wish), it took while for folks to adjust to using it to cheese stuff -- but it also encouraged it, whereas the original style wishes were more valuable.
i had an unused summoner class in my last really big campaign that made use of all the summoning spells. This next time around they are all rituals, and do not confer control over the summoned being. Oh, and PCs can be summoned.
I will note that I have been a proponent of "find your own damn spells" for decades. There is no "oh, I will take these spells". No, you gotta go out and beg, borrow, buy, and beguile them.
It is only recently that I realized folks weren't doin that, lol.
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Well, the 10 bits of 1hp is going to be better than cure wounds out of combat (unless you've got a +5.5 spellcasting modifier), and in combat the 1 hit point you get from a berry is about as good as the 1d8+mod you get from cure wounds. I mean, I use goodberry for reasons other than food, and it seems like a great low-level healing resource to me.
It's way too powerful at low levels. No-save encounter ender. It should really have a more balanced power across campaigns, putting people to sleep is a style that should never go out of fashion.
Not everything has a burrowing speed. In fact, very few things have a burrowing speed. You shouldn't have to figure out how to include a purple worm in the location every time players cast a spell.
It's not just the number of enemies it brings to the field that makes it so powerful, it's also the sheer quantity of really quite powerful attacks you can make. Just making all the creatures a swarm might get rid of part of the headache, but not the damage. I imagine/hope that it'll get replaced by tiny servant and summon construct.
I'm pretty sure you need line of sight to actually target creatures with magic, and most "mental" attacks target creatures just as much as "physical" attacks do.
That's because people have no idea how any given DM will rule it.
What difference would that make? Nobody's going to be casting it in combat, anyways, and the oft-pointed out problem with it is how it can be combined with wish, which makes it take just an action anyways.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Tiny Hut has a floor.
For 1 hour. The Pit Fiend stares at you with a menacing grin. In your mind you hear, “You’ve bought yourself some time. I wonder how long this will hold me. I’ll wait.” It continues to stare at you. We are effectively out of combat, so turn order doesn’t matter what is every doing? Caster you know exactly how long that spell last and the Fiend isn’t taking his eyes off you.
A 10-foot-radius immobile dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains stationary for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area.
The spell doesn’t describe a floor. By RAW it does not.
It’s a Hemisphere so it does have a floor.
What am I doing? I'm completing the objective, grabbing the MacGuffin, and heading home. Or maybe I should cast magic circle. Or symbol.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Nothing about the definition of hemisphere says it has a floor; a mathematical sphere is the set of points at a constant distance from a center, and a hemisphere is half a sphere -- which just means what happens when you slice a sphere along a great circle -- which leaves you a hollow shape. Since this is D&D and not math, the formal definition may not be relevant, but there's nothing about the formal definition that says it has a floor, nor does anything about the wording of the spell say the dome has a floor.
I just meant it waits the 1 hour until the spell ends. Force cage doesn’t allow spells in either direction except teleportation from outside to in. Now if you have a radiant explosive you could teleport it into the cage with him. But for the most part Box Forcecage put the enemy and the players in a 1 hour countdown.
Force wall and forcecage are both "no-save remove one or more creatures from a fight, with no ability to escape unless they have special abilities that are not particularly common". That's really just not even in the normal design paradigm of 5e -- pretty much every other form of CC has both a save and a standard way of recovering from it.
A sphere is a round solid shape. Cut an orange in half is it hollow or solid with a bottom/floor? And Crawford said Tiny Hut had a floor. So RAW and RAI Tiny Hut has a floor.
Just pointing out that goodberry would definitely get used even without the food restriction, thereby making it not useless. The great thing about spells is you can choose which ones you take, so if you wouldn't use a spell but I would, then I can take it and you can decide not to and we can both be happy with the existence of the spell.
How tough is it going to be to kill somebody who's unconscious? Think about it. everybody can gather around, hold their actions to attack, and then whoever's got the biggest damage die kicks things off with a crit. I don't know many goblins who'll survive that. Then you just go to the next one. 1-2 rounds of combat for each one, and you've got 10. Not too tough.
Who cares? You already got your long rest.
Well, at that point you're just reflavoring one of the spells I pointed to. Not something I'm opposed to, mind you.
That's not what line of sight is. It's confusing, I know.
Who cares if a caster has to spend a day or two casting it? They pretty much have to already, since it takes 12 hours to cast. It lasts indefinitely no matter how you cast it, though, so it doesn't really matter much.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
So my basketball isn’t a sphere and neither is a tennis ball. Man I need to go back to school. Lol. Nice try though.
RAW is what is written. RAW it doesn’t have a floor. Like a tennis ball when it’s cut in half. RAI is what the designers meant. RAI according to JC is that it has a floor. I’m betting it wasn’t something they even thought about. Just like the many times someone in the community yells, “but what happens is an anti magic field?” The designers are thinking that’s a high level spell and like 10 monster have that or some similar ability. They didn’t care if it had a floor. They were like here is this thing you can safely sleep in.
Tiny Hut is not solid all the way through, it has a shell and only that shell is solid. Cut an orange in half and there's no orange peel where you sliced it, it's only on the outside.
Well then it’s still a fight. That Pit Fiend is throwing Fireballs hoping to drop concentration and maybe party members.
Line of Sight
To precisely determine whether there is line of sight between two spaces, pick a corner of one space and trace an imaginary line from that corner to any part of another space. If at least one such line doesn’t pass through or touch an object or effect that blocks vision — such as a stone wall, a thick curtain, or a dense cloud of fog — then there is line of sight.