D&D 5E High-level no-save spells in practice

[kerbarian]

I've seen a decent amount of discussion about a few spells being potentially broken, but I haven't seen much in the way of play reports about them. In particular:

Have you played in a game where players used Forcecage or Contagion (with the interpretation that the effects of the disease happen immediately), and has it been a problem? Have you had any challenging encounters with legendary creatures with those spells available?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

No to both.

However, I'm pretty sure it won't be an issue for me anyway. My style is more quantity than quality anyway. Since I'm willing to throw 70 CR 7 Stygian Skeletons at a level 8 party, I would certainly throw those same 70 Stygian Skeletons at a level 16 party, and if so Forcecage and Contagion aren't going to help them. They avoided the CR 19 dragon (who is also a level 12 Sorcerer), but if they'd engaged him instead and tried to Forcecage him he would either Counterspell it or Misty Step out of it.

If the players Counterspell his Counterspell, they will have played well and deserve to win. A dragon can only be so paranoid, and cannot possibly block every avenue of attack; once it's in the Forcecage and its attempt to Misty Step has been counterspelled, it would recognize that it has lost[1], and resort to threats and bargaining.

[1] Assuming that its breath weapon has been rendered futile as well, since the range of Counterspell and adult red dragon breath weapon are both an identical 60 feet.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My dragons wouldn't even fit inside a forcecage.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My dragons wouldn't even fit inside a forcecage.

You know, I just re-read the Forcecage description, and I don't think even vanilla 5E dragons would fit inside a Forcecage. It only works on creatures that are "completely" within the Forcecage area; any creatures that are "partially" inside the area get pushed outside. A 5E adult dragon is Huge (20' x 20') in terms of the area it controls, but does that really mean its wings are folded tightly against it within that area? The fact that it can beat its wings in a 40' x 40' area suggests otherwise. Ergo it is probably not completely within a 20' cube and cannot be effectively Forcecaged.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Yep, that's what I was thinking. I'm leaning towards using the basic size guidelines in 3e, since 5e really doesn't tell you the dimensions of creatures, only the space they take up. The enlarge spell doubles a creatures dimensions and increases their size category, implying a similar idea to 3e. 5e definitely seems like it wants to a take a looser angle on it, and doesn't necessarily go with the straightforward "longest dimension" angle that 3e took, if you compare some of size categories assigned to real world animals in 5e.

I'm leaning towards something similar to the 3e Draconomicon sizes. It kind of broke the rules in 3e (and it isn't the only part of that book that did...) but should work fine in 5e.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I never played 3E, so feel free to expand on your meaning RE: Draconomicon sizes. It sounds interesting.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

3e had clearly defined size categories, where Medium was 4-8 feet, Large was 8-16, Huge 16-32, etc.

Size was measured either in height (for bipeds), or body length (minus tail) for non-bipeds. It could get a bit tricky if the creature was mostly tail (like a snake), but they tended to err on the side of length, so that a 9 foot long snake would be Large, even though it might have very little body mass compared to many Medium creatures. (That last part annoyed me, personally.)

The Draconomicon gave charts describing a variety of body dimensions for dragons of the various 10 types based on size categories. In order to convert this 5e--where all dragons of the same age are the same size category--one would have to reduce or increase these numbers for different dragons that are supposed to be smaller or larger than others. But the way 3e played fast and loose with the rules was by measuring the sizes of dragons by body length, but not counting necks and heads in that. So here's an example from the silver dragon entry. A Large silver dragon is described as having an overall length of 31', with a body length of 11 ft., a neck (and head) length of 9', and a tail length of 11'. That really ought to count as a 20' creature, which is clearly in the Huge category.

With the looser categories in 5e, I think I can probably use these sizes pretty much as is, after adjusting some of the species for relative size.

Of course, since 3e also had a Colossal size category, I have to take that into account. I tend to skip the Gargantuan entry and go straight to the Colossal entry. (I count the Gargantuan entry as a transitional size the dragon would have if woken up from a dormant state it uses to transition from adult to ancient.)

Random tidbit: 3e had 2 sizes smaller than Tiny (Diminuitive and Fine) and 1+ larger than Gargantuan (Colossal and the quasi-category of Colossal+). Since 5e just treats anything over Huge as Gargantuan, and says that the size it takes up is 20' x 20' or larger, the DM can assign any space and dimensions he wants to Gargantuan creatures.

 

[DaveDash]

Yes for Forcecage. It renderer a C16 creature with no ranged attacks useless. It's fairly limited use per day so I don't consider it too bad, however yes it could ruin your Dragon fight.

If you the DM started ruling arbitrarily what could and couldn't fit inside a Force Cage, instead of using the standard square system, I'd quit your game. The whole reason 3e moved to a standard system in the first place is to prevent these kinds of discrepancies and arguments. It's back to cops and robbers "I shoot you! No you didn't! Yee I did!".

The other high spell I've seen user that isn't a save, but rather an ability check, is Maze. Pretty powerful. My group used it to Maze a Balor while they all buffed up.

Otto's Dance is another. Seen it once, generally its range is too short to be useful all the time.

When your casting DC gets high (17-18) even spells with saves (hold person, hold monster) become deadly as well. A CR20 Fighter without legendary resistances for example, doesn't have a hope in hell of breaking out of a Hold Person at DC19.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yes for Forcecage. It renderer a C16 creature with no ranged attacks useless. It's fairly limited use per day so I don't consider it too bad, however yes it could ruin your Dragon fight.

If you the DM started ruling arbitrarily what could and couldn't fit inside a Force Cage, instead of using the standard square system, I'd quit your game. The whole reason 3e moved to a standard system in the first place is to prevent these kinds of discrepancies and arguments. It's back to cops and robbers "I shoot you! No you didn't! Yee I did!".

It's cool if you quit. If I'm going to run a game, it's going to be run with as much verisimiltude as practical, and that means some monsters aren't shaped like gelatinous cubes. If you have a problem with me saying, "The spell says it actually has to fit inside a 20' cube and I'm going to enforce that," you would undoubtedly have other problems with the way I run my game, and you should indeed find another table.

Or you could just ask, "How big is the dragon?"

 

[DaveDash]

It's cool if you quit. If I'm going to run a game, it's going to be run with as much verisimiltude as practical, and that means some monsters aren't shaped like gelatinous cubes. If you have a problem with me saying, "The spell says it actually has to fit inside a 20' cube and I'm going to enforce that," you would undoubtedly have other problems with the way I run my game, and you should indeed find another table.

Or you could just ask, "How big is the dragon?"

Why ask when there's already a system to handle it? It's a game where men in skirts run around shooting fireballs, and you think the inability to force cage a dragon ruins the believability of the game? Right.

Seriously, martial classes in this game with crossbow expert or Paladins smiting for 150 damage per round (which will kill most huge Dragons in 2 rounds) are totally fine, but lets nerf the Wizards 1/day ability because the Dragons tail might be poking out the cage. Gotcha.