Is Syluné’s Viper correct? There's no save for the Poisoned or Incapacitated condition? The duration is 1 hour? A wizard or Druid can stun lock (or multiple together even) an entire encounter preventing monsters from having any action economy with just a 3rd level slot?
Is Syluné’s Viper correct? There's no save for the Poisoned or Incapacitated condition? The duration is 1 hour? A wizard or Druid can stun lock (or multiple together even) an entire encounter preventing monsters from having any action economy with just a 3rd level slot?
I think you are reading it wrong. The spell's duration is an hour. The effect lasts until the start of your next turn. so you can lock one creature down by continuing to attack it over and over, but you don't lock for an hour, then move on to the next creature and lock for an hour, etc.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Is Syluné’s Viper correct? There's no save for the Poisoned or Incapacitated condition? The duration is 1 hour? A wizard or Druid can stun lock (or multiple together even) an entire encounter preventing monsters from having any action economy with just a 3rd level slot?
I think you are reading it wrong. The spell's duration is an hour. The effect lasts until the start of your next turn. so you can lock one creature down by continuing to attack it over and over, but you don't lock for an hour, then move on to the next creature and lock for an hour, etc.
That's what I mean, you can lock down a creature with a no save and incapacitate which seems not correct. Even 9th level Imprisonment still requires a save for incapacitate.
There's no save, but there is an attack roll. As such, there's still a chance the attempt may fail.
Correct, but if we're given context clues from previous spells we understand that Incapacitate is such a strong ability that it needs a Legendary Resistance-able trigger AKA a save. There are 9 spells from official content that can Incapacitate a creature. Every single one requires failing a save before that effect happens. There's clearly a reason for that.
And that's what makes this new spell so OP: You can stun lock a BBEG out of the fight. Portent Wizards and Star Druids with their ability to add or change numbers are going to stun lock boss fights with ease. Not to mention all the different ways of gaining advantage on attacks or just straight up using Bardic Inspiration, Lucky, Heroic Inspiration...
That's why Legendary Resistances exist: so that you CAN'T auto lock a boss' action economy. But to be fair, it does require the creature to be Poisoned. So this has no effect on Vecna, Acerak, and most Fiends. But as only a 3rd level spell, I'm not sure why this doesn't require a save.
This kind of spell, if used, will make DM's start using it against players. Which will not be fun for anyone.
Additionally, the range of the spell is not great. It is only 50 feet. Incapacitated creatures can still move allowing the creature to move further away and possibly out of range, or directly towards the caster, making their next attack at Disadvantage (barring features that allow them to make Ranged attacks while a creature is adjacent without Disadvantage). Because the Incapacitated condition ends at the start of their turn, if they try and move away to avoid Disadvantage the creature will probably get an Attack of Opportunity (again, barring features) because they are no longer Incapacitated.
Additionally, the range of the spell is not great. It is only 50 feet. Incapacitated creatures can still move allowing the creature to move further away and possibly out of range, or directly towards the caster, making their next attack at Disadvantage (barring features that allow them to make Ranged attacks while a creature is adjacent without Disadvantage). Because the Incapacitated condition ends at the start of their turn, if they try and move away to avoid Disadvantage the creature will probably get an Attack of Opportunity (again, barring features) because they are no longer Incapacitated.
Well, if you incapacitate the creature then most creatures that have a base speed of 30 will only be able to move 30 ft. So, if you attack them at 50 ft, they move 30, they are 80/20 ft away on your turn depending if they moved further or closer. Since most player characters also have a base speed of 30, all you have to do is move 30 feet up and then you're in range again. You would also be allowed to Misty step and then use your action to trigger the spell since it's not a spell slot you're using for your action.
Remember that incapacitate means they can't take reactions, actions, or bonus actions. So as long as they have a normal movement speed they essentially cannot escape the range of the spell or come close to your threat range.
There's another detail not yet brought up: The entire spell ends if you lose your temp HP. So you need the monster to:
-Not have a high move speed -Not have immunity to the Poisoned condition -Not have a high enough AC that you miss -Not have any minions capable of dealing a total of 15 damage to you
There's another detail not yet brought up: The entire spell ends if you lose your temp HP. So you need the monster to:
-Not have a high move speed -Not have immunity to the Poisoned condition -Not have a high enough AC that you miss -Not have any minions capable of dealing a total of 15 damage to you
The spell's fine.
- most monsters have 30 foot speed. Even a 50 foot speed cannot catch you since you are ideally attacking at 50 foot range which you then can move 30 or more feet back. Since they cannot take Actions or Bonus actions, this means they can only move their base speed. An Incapacitated creature will not catch you unless the thing has a crazy high speed like a Roc. But that's, what, less than 1% of all monsters that push 50 foot speed? Also, the Martial in your party could Topple the Incapacitated target meaning their speed is now half. Or just hit them with the Slow mastery property that doesn't even require saves.
- I've pointed out already that Poisoned is a common immunity for certain creature types. But that still leaves something around 70% of the Monster Manual to be stun locked.
- I also have already pointed out that since this is a Druid or Wizard spell, Star Druid's Weal and Portent Wizard's portent die laugh at the idea of not being able to hit. Not to mention Lucky, Human Inspiration, Bardic Inspiration and/or your party in general setting up advantage in numerous ways. Given the average AC of higher CR creatures is something around 15-18, your optimized Druid or Wizard with at minimum +7 to hit is going to have at minimum 50%-65% chance to hit before you add in the bonuses or abilities previously mentioned (and not including anything granting advantage).
- That's assuming you allowed yourself to be ganked, your party isn't already blocking or killing minions, you didn't take cover behind a wall preventing range attacks, and those range attacks can reach you. Not many attacks pushing 50+ feet on Monster Manual creatures. And that's assuming they hit and you dont Portent die or Weal them with the abilities described above. Or, just cast Shield. Or you replaced your temp HP from one of your own abilities or an allies. Like the Druid who can just give themselves Temp HP from Wildshape lmao.
There's another detail not yet brought up: The entire spell ends if you lose your temp HP. So you need the monster to:
-Not have a high move speed -Not have immunity to the Poisoned condition -Not have a high enough AC that you miss -Not have any minions capable of dealing a total of 15 damage to you
The spell's fine.
- most monsters have 30 foot speed. Even a 50 foot speed cannot catch you since you are ideally attacking at 50 foot range which you then can move 30 or more feet back. Since they cannot take Actions or Bonus actions, this means they can only move their base speed. An Incapacitated creature will not catch you unless the thing has a crazy high speed like a Roc. But that's, what, less than 1% of all monsters that push 50 foot speed? Also, the Martial in your party could Topple the Incapacitated target meaning their speed is now half. Or just hit them with the Slow mastery property that doesn't even require saves.
- I've pointed out already that Poisoned is a common immunity for certain creature types. But that still leaves something around 70% of the Monster Manual to be stun locked.
- I also have already pointed out that since this is a Druid or Wizard spell, Star Druid's Weal and Portent Wizard's portent die laugh at the idea of not being able to hit. Not to mention Lucky, Human Inspiration, Bardic Inspiration and/or your party in general setting up advantage in numerous ways. Given the average AC of higher CR creatures is something around 15-18, your optimized Druid or Wizard with at minimum +7 to hit is going to have at minimum 50%-65% chance to hit before you add in the bonuses or abilities previously mentioned (and not including anything granting advantage).
- That's assuming you allowed yourself to be ganked, your party isn't already blocking or killing minions, you didn't take cover behind a wall preventing range attacks, and those range attacks can reach you. Not many attacks pushing 50+ feet on Monster Manual creatures. And that's assuming they hit and you dont Portent die or Weal them with the abilities described above. Or, just cast Shield. Or you replaced your temp HP from one of your own abilities or an allies. Like the Druid who can just give themselves Temp HP from Wildshape lmao.
If you attack at 50 feet there is a very good chance that they can just take cover and prevent a second attack. Yes, if they move towards you you can move away, but only after they are no longer incapacitated. This means you have a limited 'safe' range of 35-50 feet (even less if their move is over 30') and they still have quite a few valid counters.
And I'm not sure what you mean about not many attacks pushing 50+ feet. Lets and lots of creatures can launch ranged attacks, and those that can't fairly frequently have movement over 30'.
Even if there is cover for the creature, the players 90% of the time have more options to grant bonuses to roll per what I've listed already (again, Portent Wizards can literally just replace dice). I can't think of many, if any, monsters in the new MM that give anything other than their base +X to hit.
The range attack thing I think I will in good faith concede that point. But since Shield is a reaction spell that adds +5 to AC and that's before potential cover bonuses (or even falling prone on purpose to grant disadvantage to range), I see most scenarios where this spell will last the full hour.
not me being validated :))))) it's pretty sad that most people's opinions will be changed about the spell because a YouTuber said something about it instead of them having the intellectual capacity to just.... read.... but whatever lmao. Least I have proof I was calling this thing overpowered before dungeon dudes did.
I agree with OP, if for no other reason than having a near automatic method for shutting down concentration is brutal. Especially at high levels when 3rd level spells are trivial, getting to stop a Storm of Vengeance with nothing more than an attack roll is crazy powerful. From a player perspective, suddenly your Polymorphs are useless if a DM opts to use this.
I just used this spell on a T2 game against a Solar Dragon and I feel really dirty for using this spell. Feels like Cheesing a BBEG and unfortunately the DM didn't know the spell and didn't know how to deal with it. It made the game unfun for the party cause we just breeze through against the last encounter without a scath.
Spell needs some modification that needs to have a DC for the Poison to take effect.
I just used this spell on a T2 game against a Solar Dragon and I feel really dirty for using this spell. Feels like Cheesing a BBEG and unfortunately the DM didn't know the spell and didn't know how to deal with it. It made the game unfun for the party cause we just breeze through against the last encounter without a scath.
Spell needs some modification that needs to have a DC for the Poison to take effect.
If a DM is using a single monster without minions, that's always going to be easy.
not me being validated :))))) it's pretty sad that most people's opinions will be changed about the spell because a YouTuber said something about it instead of them having the intellectual capacity to just.... read.... but whatever lmao. Least I have proof I was calling this thing overpowered before dungeon dudes did.
Or, hear me out, my opinion doesn't change just because of this YouTuber (not to mention there's not been a cavalclade of new replies since your post suddenly agreeing its "Overpowered").... Agreeing "this is a really good spell" is fine - even S tier, sure! I'd say you reveling in being "validated" only because "A YouTuber" said it was S tier is more you telling on yourself than anything about what other people are going to start thinking now.
already even in this thread you've had to:
1. Tacitly retreat from your initial misreading of the Duration, in your OP here originally stating that it would stunlock an "entire encounter" Preventing monsterS (plural) from having action economy, which you retconned to [a creature] in your first reply as if you never intended the original (possible, but that opens up a can of worms about why you would have chosen to write your OP the way you did if you intended to be referring to a single target in the first place).
2. Disregarded and later had to incorporate, the multiple conditionals on the Incapacitated Condition being applied successfully, including waffling over "no save"/not triggering Legendary Resistance vs. "actually having to hit with an attack roll" as a significant difference. (Which again, yes, agreed that it's a powerful spell in certain circumstances for that reason)
3. Created increasingly contrived scenarios where you are assuming nearly free action for the spell caster and essentially no damage being taken by said caster, while staying in visual range within 50' of, presumably, dangerous opponents. An "average" fireball almost deletes the temp HP even if saved against (avg is 28, half is 14). Sure you MIGHT have resistance to fire or make the DEX save, but hey, now we're adding more contrived elements to our "guaranteed" lockdown! (And ignoring enemies that might cast similar but non-fire spells, unless we want to get even more contrived with how many resistances we have?)
Sure, powerful, but FAR from a practical "guaranteed, encounter-long incapacitation" as you've described, except MAYBE, and this is still a significant maybe because a DM would have to be an idiot to allow this sort of thing, MAYBE a 1 or 2 opponent "Boss Fight" where the boss is simply unable to get out of the way of the effect at any point and doesnt even have a relevant lair action to stop you with. But that's a different whole design problem
this man really came to this post outta nowhere to argue with about nothing lmao. Rent free. Also, I aint reading all that since I'm very obviously correct. Have fun on the ignore list!
Turns out this spell is basically useless because it only lasts while you have the temp HP it gives you. I imagine any combat you use it in going like this:
Round 1: cast the spell and hit the attack roll, one enemy is now incapacitated.
The enemies gang up on you, you take 15+ damage, and the spell ends.
You have now spent a third level slot afflicting a creature with worse Hold Person for a single turn.
Turns out this spell is basically useless because it only lasts while you have the temp HP it gives you. I imagine any combat you use it in going like this:
Round 1: cast the spell and hit the attack roll, one enemy is now incapacitated.
The enemies gang up on you, you take 15+ damage, and the spell ends.
You have now spent a third level slot afflicting a creature with worse Hold Person for a single turn.
Strictly speaking, it ends if you have no temporary HP at all, not specifically the ones it gives you — it works like the new Armor of Agathys in this way — but you're right that it seems fairly easy to counter for a 3rd-level spell.
It had minions all around but DM spread it out in every PC in the field. As i said, the DM didn't have knowledge about the spell and so when I used Guardian of Nature, he was shocked cause didn't broke the Viper Spell because it wasn't a Concentration spell. It was already too late, Now 15 feet of me was now a difficult terrain, i have adv on my Wisdome based attack and concentration spell. Oh did I mention I casted the spell 5th level so I have 25 THP. And I was a Spore Druid so if my THP dropped to single digit, i could just go Symbiotic Entity and gain 40 THP. This will however use an Action but I just wasted Monsters action on focusing on me while the rest of the party ganks on an Incapitated BBEG (Which was an Adult Dragon). We managed to finish the fight without the dragon being able to do a Dragon's breath.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Is Syluné’s Viper correct? There's no save for the Poisoned or Incapacitated condition? The duration is 1 hour? A wizard or Druid can stun lock (or multiple together even) an entire encounter preventing monsters from having any action economy with just a 3rd level slot?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/3078519-sylunes-viper
I think you are reading it wrong. The spell's duration is an hour. The effect lasts until the start of your next turn. so you can lock one creature down by continuing to attack it over and over, but you don't lock for an hour, then move on to the next creature and lock for an hour, etc.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
That's what I mean, you can lock down a creature with a no save and incapacitate which seems not correct. Even 9th level Imprisonment still requires a save for incapacitate.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
ModeratorThere's no save, but there is an attack roll. As such, there's still a chance the attempt may fail.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/dnd
Correct, but if we're given context clues from previous spells we understand that Incapacitate is such a strong ability that it needs a Legendary Resistance-able trigger AKA a save. There are 9 spells from official content that can Incapacitate a creature. Every single one requires failing a save before that effect happens. There's clearly a reason for that.
And that's what makes this new spell so OP: You can stun lock a BBEG out of the fight. Portent Wizards and Star Druids with their ability to add or change numbers are going to stun lock boss fights with ease. Not to mention all the different ways of gaining advantage on attacks or just straight up using Bardic Inspiration, Lucky, Heroic Inspiration...
That's why Legendary Resistances exist: so that you CAN'T auto lock a boss' action economy. But to be fair, it does require the creature to be Poisoned. So this has no effect on Vecna, Acerak, and most Fiends. But as only a 3rd level spell, I'm not sure why this doesn't require a save.
This kind of spell, if used, will make DM's start using it against players. Which will not be fun for anyone.
Additionally, the range of the spell is not great. It is only 50 feet. Incapacitated creatures can still move allowing the creature to move further away and possibly out of range, or directly towards the caster, making their next attack at Disadvantage (barring features that allow them to make Ranged attacks while a creature is adjacent without Disadvantage). Because the Incapacitated condition ends at the start of their turn, if they try and move away to avoid Disadvantage the creature will probably get an Attack of Opportunity (again, barring features) because they are no longer Incapacitated.
Well, if you incapacitate the creature then most creatures that have a base speed of 30 will only be able to move 30 ft. So, if you attack them at 50 ft, they move 30, they are 80/20 ft away on your turn depending if they moved further or closer. Since most player characters also have a base speed of 30, all you have to do is move 30 feet up and then you're in range again. You would also be allowed to Misty step and then use your action to trigger the spell since it's not a spell slot you're using for your action.
Remember that incapacitate means they can't take reactions, actions, or bonus actions. So as long as they have a normal movement speed they essentially cannot escape the range of the spell or come close to your threat range.
There's another detail not yet brought up: The entire spell ends if you lose your temp HP. So you need the monster to:
-Not have a high move speed
-Not have immunity to the Poisoned condition
-Not have a high enough AC that you miss
-Not have any minions capable of dealing a total of 15 damage to you
The spell's fine.
- most monsters have 30 foot speed. Even a 50 foot speed cannot catch you since you are ideally attacking at 50 foot range which you then can move 30 or more feet back. Since they cannot take Actions or Bonus actions, this means they can only move their base speed. An Incapacitated creature will not catch you unless the thing has a crazy high speed like a Roc. But that's, what, less than 1% of all monsters that push 50 foot speed? Also, the Martial in your party could Topple the Incapacitated target meaning their speed is now half. Or just hit them with the Slow mastery property that doesn't even require saves.
- I've pointed out already that Poisoned is a common immunity for certain creature types. But that still leaves something around 70% of the Monster Manual to be stun locked.
- I also have already pointed out that since this is a Druid or Wizard spell, Star Druid's Weal and Portent Wizard's portent die laugh at the idea of not being able to hit. Not to mention Lucky, Human Inspiration, Bardic Inspiration and/or your party in general setting up advantage in numerous ways. Given the average AC of higher CR creatures is something around 15-18, your optimized Druid or Wizard with at minimum +7 to hit is going to have at minimum 50%-65% chance to hit before you add in the bonuses or abilities previously mentioned (and not including anything granting advantage).
- That's assuming you allowed yourself to be ganked, your party isn't already blocking or killing minions, you didn't take cover behind a wall preventing range attacks, and those range attacks can reach you. Not many attacks pushing 50+ feet on Monster Manual creatures. And that's assuming they hit and you dont Portent die or Weal them with the abilities described above. Or, just cast Shield. Or you replaced your temp HP from one of your own abilities or an allies. Like the Druid who can just give themselves Temp HP from Wildshape lmao.
If you attack at 50 feet there is a very good chance that they can just take cover and prevent a second attack. Yes, if they move towards you you can move away, but only after they are no longer incapacitated. This means you have a limited 'safe' range of 35-50 feet (even less if their move is over 30') and they still have quite a few valid counters.
And I'm not sure what you mean about not many attacks pushing 50+ feet. Lets and lots of creatures can launch ranged attacks, and those that can't fairly frequently have movement over 30'.
Even if there is cover for the creature, the players 90% of the time have more options to grant bonuses to roll per what I've listed already (again, Portent Wizards can literally just replace dice). I can't think of many, if any, monsters in the new MM that give anything other than their base +X to hit.
The range attack thing I think I will in good faith concede that point. But since Shield is a reaction spell that adds +5 to AC and that's before potential cover bonuses (or even falling prone on purpose to grant disadvantage to range), I see most scenarios where this spell will last the full hour.
not me being validated :))))) it's pretty sad that most people's opinions will be changed about the spell because a YouTuber said something about it instead of them having the intellectual capacity to just.... read.... but whatever lmao. Least I have proof I was calling this thing overpowered before dungeon dudes did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62K5Rh2mMRw&t=2392s
I agree with OP, if for no other reason than having a near automatic method for shutting down concentration is brutal. Especially at high levels when 3rd level spells are trivial, getting to stop a Storm of Vengeance with nothing more than an attack roll is crazy powerful. From a player perspective, suddenly your Polymorphs are useless if a DM opts to use this.
I just used this spell on a T2 game against a Solar Dragon and I feel really dirty for using this spell. Feels like Cheesing a BBEG and unfortunately the DM didn't know the spell and didn't know how to deal with it. It made the game unfun for the party cause we just breeze through against the last encounter without a scath.
Spell needs some modification that needs to have a DC for the Poison to take effect.
If a DM is using a single monster without minions, that's always going to be easy.
Or, hear me out, my opinion doesn't change just because of this YouTuber (not to mention there's not been a cavalclade of new replies since your post suddenly agreeing its "Overpowered").... Agreeing "this is a really good spell" is fine - even S tier, sure! I'd say you reveling in being "validated" only because "A YouTuber" said it was S tier is more you telling on yourself than anything about what other people are going to start thinking now.
already even in this thread you've had to:
1. Tacitly retreat from your initial misreading of the Duration, in your OP here originally stating that it would stunlock an "entire encounter" Preventing monsterS (plural) from having action economy, which you retconned to [a creature] in your first reply as if you never intended the original (possible, but that opens up a can of worms about why you would have chosen to write your OP the way you did if you intended to be referring to a single target in the first place).
2. Disregarded and later had to incorporate, the multiple conditionals on the Incapacitated Condition being applied successfully, including waffling over "no save"/not triggering Legendary Resistance vs. "actually having to hit with an attack roll" as a significant difference. (Which again, yes, agreed that it's a powerful spell in certain circumstances for that reason)
3. Created increasingly contrived scenarios where you are assuming nearly free action for the spell caster and essentially no damage being taken by said caster, while staying in visual range within 50' of, presumably, dangerous opponents. An "average" fireball almost deletes the temp HP even if saved against (avg is 28, half is 14). Sure you MIGHT have resistance to fire or make the DEX save, but hey, now we're adding more contrived elements to our "guaranteed" lockdown! (And ignoring enemies that might cast similar but non-fire spells, unless we want to get even more contrived with how many resistances we have?)
Sure, powerful, but FAR from a practical "guaranteed, encounter-long incapacitation" as you've described, except MAYBE, and this is still a significant maybe because a DM would have to be an idiot to allow this sort of thing, MAYBE a 1 or 2 opponent "Boss Fight" where the boss is simply unable to get out of the way of the effect at any point and doesnt even have a relevant lair action to stop you with. But that's a different whole design problem
this man really came to this post outta nowhere to argue with about nothing lmao. Rent free. Also, I aint reading all that since I'm very obviously correct. Have fun on the ignore list!
Turns out this spell is basically useless because it only lasts while you have the temp HP it gives you. I imagine any combat you use it in going like this:
Strictly speaking, it ends if you have no temporary HP at all, not specifically the ones it gives you — it works like the new Armor of Agathys in this way — but you're right that it seems fairly easy to counter for a 3rd-level spell.
pronouns: he/she/they
It had minions all around but DM spread it out in every PC in the field. As i said, the DM didn't have knowledge about the spell and so when I used Guardian of Nature, he was shocked cause didn't broke the Viper Spell because it wasn't a Concentration spell. It was already too late, Now 15 feet of me was now a difficult terrain, i have adv on my Wisdome based attack and concentration spell. Oh did I mention I casted the spell 5th level so I have 25 THP. And I was a Spore Druid so if my THP dropped to single digit, i could just go Symbiotic Entity and gain 40 THP. This will however use an Action but I just wasted Monsters action on focusing on me while the rest of the party ganks on an Incapitated BBEG (Which was an Adult Dragon). We managed to finish the fight without the dragon being able to do a Dragon's breath.