D&D 5E Spells: the Good, the Bad, and the Downright Orcish Grandmother

[FormerlyHemlock]

The problem I see with animate objects is that it is almost always better to animate more smaller objects than less larger objects in combat--which is sad. It would be nice if the combat dynamics were different, but didn't clearly favor the smaller objects.

Easily fixed: just rule that you can't use the spell to create an illegal situation. Since ten tiny creatures can't share a space by 5E rules, you cannot use Animate Objects to animate ten Tiny objects unless they are properly distributed in space. Now you can't just drop a handful of coins out of your coin pouch and then immediately Animate them--you'll be more likely to animate objects that are actually in the vicinity, like statues. Since the number of objects in the vicinity is likely to be the limiting factor, you'll see people more often animating large objects rather than letting object "slots" go to waste: animating a table (Medium) and a coin from your coin pouch (Tiny) is better than animating a coin from your coin pouch (Tiny) and a single fork from a plate on top of the table (Tiny). In both cases you're wasting most of the spell's potential, but at least you get more meat shield HP out of the table.

 

[S'mon]

Edit: The following is falsely interpreted and should be largely ignored unless you want to laugh at my folly.

I'm a big fan of the paladin's Find Steed spell. At first glance it seems extremely weak, but with a bit of work it can be extremely powerful. It's a second level spell, so paladins get it at level 5. Keep that in mind. All of this is from a level 5 paladin.

"You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an unusualy intelligent, strong, and loyal steed, creating a long-lasting bond with it. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the steed takes on a form that you choose, such as a warhorse, a pony, a camel, an elk, or a mastiff. (Your DM might allow other animals to be summoned as steeds.) The steed has the statistics of the chosen form, though is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type."

That bolded section there gives you an incredible amount of freedom. The rest of the setence lists examples (that you don't necessarily have to pick from), and then says the DM gets the final say. After a short conversation with my DM, I got him to allow me to pick the form as long as I could justify it a decent amount.

My gold dragonborn, paladin of Bahamut (the god of metallic dragons) decided to go with a young gold dragon. The text says, I explained, that I summon a celestial that takes a form I choose. Surely a celestial sent from the realm of the dragon god would be capable of taking the form of a dragon. That alone gave my PC a massive boost in power.

The spell text continues: "Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell that targets only you also target your steed.
When the steed drops to 0 hit points, it disappears leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, recasting this spell again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.
While your steed is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with it telepathically."

Those two bolded parts there make it seem like the summoned steed acts as one with you. What this means is undefined (to the best of my knowledge), so I take it to mean the player controls both steed and PC on the same initiative, sharing a move action but both getting their own standard and bonus actions. So my young gold dragon can swoop down 40 feet, breathe fire on the enemies, paladin takes a couple swings, then both fly 40 feet away again. Give the rider a reach weapon (I use a glaive) and you can fly high enough to avoid opportunity attacks.

Overpowered as that is, it gets ten times worse with the Mounted Combatant feat. Not only do you now get advantage on your attacks against most enemies, but you can redirect all attacks against your mount to you. Paladin with 18 AC from plate, +2 from a shield, apply the shield of faith spell to yourself for another +2 AC, putting you up at 24 AC against attacks. Now keep in mind that you're flying so only ranged attacks will be going for you, and your mount provides partial cover for an extra +2 AC. And to top it all off, you're preventing your mount getting hit so you don't have to worry about potential fall damage.

But, I hear you say, that's only because your DM gave you a dragon. Yes, that's true. Let's say I went for a Griffon instead. The flavour text in the MM even mentions that they "can be trained to serve as a mount." (Page 174, if you were wondering) Looking at the stats, you lose its reach attacks, so it'll have to fly lower to fight. That means opportunity attacks, but that's fine. You can still redirect attacks away from it to yourself. It has two attacks, plus you still get two of your own, meaning four attacks with hit-and-run tactics so enemy melee can't get their own attacks (excluding opportunity attacks) off at you. With fly 80 you will fly just as high as with the dragon, and you'll get the same partial cover against ranged attacks, so no worries there. It has darkvision, and has its mind linked to you, so you effectively gain darkvision through its eyes in case you didn't have it.

What's that? Griffon is listed as a monstrosity so it's not allowed? Ignoring that the only mention of animals is that your "DM might allow other animals", and that it says nothing about not allowing other types, and that "the steed takes on a form that you choose", I'll play. Let's take the warhorse. Now this warhorse is a special warhorse. Keep in mind that we "fight as a seamless unit" and that I can redirect attacks against it because of my feat. Let's use its speed 60 to charge an enemy thirty feet away. Warhorse hits, target has to make strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If it fails the DC 14 and go prone I'll take two attacks (with advantage) at it thank you very much, before using the rest of the speed 30 to ride away. Even if knocking it prone fails the feat still grants advantage on my attakcs so long as it's not mounted on something as large as my horse. If its still alive, my foe will take an opportunity attack at my steed. Wait a sec, I'll make it target me (still with my 24 AC). And it has disadvantage if it's prone. I'm not too worried about the chances there.

I'm sure you're all thinking by now that I'm a horrible person to do that to my DM. In truth, I agree with you. I was a jerk for breaking it that hard, but there are a couple weaknesses with it.
1. This is the big one. Ultimately the DM can just say no to everything. The same rule applies to any spell (or anything else in the game for that matter), but it is something to keep in mind.
2. Spell casters. There is a reason I didn't mention them. If you only get the warhorse then there are several rather weak saves that could be targeted. No proficiencies, no modifiers higher that +1 except for strength. Ouch.
3. Area attacks. I can redirect targeted attacks to myself, but I can't do much about that cloudkill except try to outrun it. The steed still only has as much life as a regular mount, so it'll drop very easily at higher levels.
4. The DM, part two. The spell makes the mount intelligent to the point that it knowns a language. Its intelligence increases to 6 if it would otherwise be lower. Nowhere does it say that the mount is your servant. The DM could simply say "your steed understands your command, but thinks it is too risky and refuses."
5. If you're not outside that day then none of this applies. When was the last time the BBEG in your campaign has his lair open to the sky?

My DM and I realized just how absurdly powerful this spell could be after the incident with the dragon, and we decided to come up with some house rules to prevent it in the future.
1. The paladin has to have a good* reason for why they want to summon that particular form.
2. The paladin must roll d20 + spell casting modifier + proficiency bonus vs 9 + that form's CR + that form's proficiency bonus. For the young gold dragon that works out to 9+10+4 = 23. Most paladins won't be rolling that reliably until later in the game. On a failed roll the spell fails and the slot is expended.

*good is at the DM's (or table's) discretion


In short (well, not really short at all), that is why I find the Find Steed spell ridiculously powerful.

You should have summoned a Balor for your steed. Or maybe a Kraken.

 

[Herobizkit]

Really? Witch Bolt is not terrible great.

... Automatic D12 of damage every single round? Or 2D12 if cast as a second level spell?

Apologies if this has been addressed already, but the Automatic damage isn't increased with higher casting.

"At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the initial damage increases by 1d12 for each slot level above 1st."

This means that it hits hard initially, then for next to nothing every round thereafter. It is a bad spell for anyone who can't somehow up their lightning damage.

 

[CapnZapp]

Interesting how people somehow still discuss Witch Bolt as if it wasn't easily one of the worst spells in the entire PHB (except to fix it, of course)...

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

CONTACT THE GREAT VOODOO SPELL CASTER FOR INSTANT DEATH SPELL AND ALL KIDS OF SPELL EVER NEEDED

That is actually impressively on-topic for this thread

 

[Corwin]

I guess bots are getting better and analyzing forum subject matter for there post content!

 

[KarinsDad]

I really wish WotC would revisit the truly bad spells that few if anyone ever uses.

Why? Because if there are more decent to good alternatives, the selection of spells that you actually consider increase, thereby increasing variety to the game.

I'm especially thinking of the Cleric in my recent campaign. He cast Spirit Guardians in almost every encounter.
And yes, it is THAT good. I really think Clerics need a few more strong contenders, so he would vary himself once in a while.

Yup.

Our player ran two Clerics from levels 1 to 10 (or maybe to 11 or 12 the first time around) and once a certain level is hit, there is rarely an encounter where she isn't casting Spirit Guardians. It really is repetitive. Almost 3 gaming years of that spell being cast nearly every single gaming session and often multiple times per (except at lower levels).

She never casts Bless anymore. Why? Because she is a melee cleric and she only wants to cast one Action required spell per encounter (house rule of 3 Concentration spells per caster and she still won't waste 2 rounds casting spells).

 

[KarinsDad]

What are your thoughts on Animate Object (with a bag of caltrops). They can take out a Beholder quick quick

Don't allow caltrops.

For a tiny object, our game does not allow coins or other really small objects (tiny does not necessarily mean "as small as possible"). We require rocks the size/weight of about a cannonball and carrying (let along getting them out of your backpack) requires effort (and time). Problem solved.


Even if you did not want to solve it that way and allow caltrops, rule that the player has to pull 8 caltrops out of his pouch one at a time with the Use an Object action. 8 rounds is a lot of setup.

PS. A Beholder's main eye typically prevents Animate Objects from working.

 

[CapnZapp]

The spell selection in the PHB was fine, but really, we need more spells by now.

And while power creep is not an issue to take lightly, the spells need to be able to compete with the mainstays, or the effort is wasted, really.

For instance, most Elemental Evil spells are only adding middling alternatives. This makes the compendium useful for a DM that wants to widen the repertoire of monster spellcasters, but it really does nothing to shake things up for player characters.

The game really needs something similar to the balance provided by the auction system used by certain board games. That is, providing a menu of options is fine even when the choices aren't equal, if you have an in-game mechanical means of compensating the player that takes the inferior option.

In board games, you auction money or action points or places on the starting order.

I think something similar would really help us balance-minded gamers.

For example: Fireball, Lightning Bolt and Wall of Sand are three level 3 spells (the last one from the EEPC). Yet, Treeantmonk rates Fireball green (good), Lightning Bolt purple (average) and [COLOR="#CC000"]Wall of Sand[/COLOR] red (bad, relative to its level).

I really wish there was a way to provide a rational reason for even mechanical-minded players to pick Lighting Bolt or Wall of Sand, without having to sacrifice efficiency on the altar of coolness and characterization.

A very simplistic (and probably abusable) approach: each time you pick an average spell (presumably instead of an excellent or good one), you gain something minor (+2 hp, a once/day spell slot at least four levels lower than the spell's level etc). Each time you pick a [COLOR="#CC000"]bad[/COLOR] or worse spell, you gain something not minor (+1 HD, a spell slot just two levels lower).

For instance, casting the spell [COLOR="#CC000"]Weird[/COLOR] might feel much more reasonable if it also grants you a bonus level 7 slot (two levels lower than Weird).

Just an example to explain what I'm talking about. No need to start discussing Treeantmonk's ratings (there's a thread for that), or to point out the myriad ways this particular approach can ruin your campaign

 

[Corwin]

For example: Fireball, Lightning Bolt and Wall of Sand are three level 3 spells (the last one from the EEPC). Yet, Treeantmonk rates Fireball green (good), Lightning Bolt purple (average) and [COLOR="#CC000"]Wall of Sand[/COLOR] red (bad, relative to its level).

I really wish there was a way to provide a rational reason for even mechanical-minded players to pick Lighting Bolt or Wall of Sand, without having to sacrifice efficiency on the altar of coolness and characterization.

A very simplistic (and probably abusable) approach: each time you pick an average spell (presumably instead of an excellent or good one), you gain something minor (+2 hp, a once/day spell slot at least four levels lower than the spell's level etc). Each time you pick a [COLOR="#CC000"]bad[/COLOR] or worse spell, you gain something not minor (+1 HD, a spell slot just two levels lower).

For instance, casting the spell [COLOR="#CC000"]Weird[/COLOR] might feel much more reasonable if it also grants you a bonus level 7 slot (two levels lower than Weird).

Just an example to explain what I'm talking about. No need to start discussing Treeantmonk's ratings (there's a thread for that), or to point out the myriad ways this particular approach can ruin your campaign

Or...

Those who feel compelled to make only the most deadly/efficient casters can go ahead and insist on taking fireball-level elite spells*. And those who don't care as much about that, and just about what would be fun for their character, can take other spells. Because, at the end of the day, a party without a fireball caster can still manage the average adventuring day. Regardless of whether the party is sans fireball due to not having a character capable of casting it, or by choice. Like, if I ever make a desert nomad earth genasi caster, I'll probably go ahead and take wall of sand before fireball. And I'll probably do just fine. But maybe that's just me?



(*I believe the devs have gone on the record saying that the intentionally made fireball better than other 3rd level spells because of its iconic nature. Why they felt that way? I can't remember. I also believe there were a few other spells they treated the same way, but I don't recall the specifics.)