D&D 5E In your opinion, what is the most underrated spell in the PHB and why?

[KarinsDad]

Under those rules, drow darkvision and Goggles of Night also become brokenly powerful. They can attack you and you can't even hit them back... YMMV.

How so? What prevents PCs from using light to negate such tactics?


I like to follow "rules of common sense". In our game, Fog Cloud results in disadvantage because the target cannot be seen. The weird "advantage for foe in fog cannot see negates disadvantage because attacker into fog cannot see" RAW seems dumb in a Fog Cloud. The target's general location is known unless he Stealths and all attacks are at disadvantage because attackers cannot see. But I could see a DM ruling that unless you know the square, then you have to guess as a decent ruling as well (in which case, one would use the RAW advantage negates disadvantage).

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Blindness/Deafness. A verbal-only, non-concentration 2nd-level spell that gives you advantage to hit and your opponent disadvantage to hit and autofail perception checks of the appropriate sense? Hell, yeah! Only problem is that it's a Con save, which makes it not the best versus melee BBGs.

 

[vandaexpress]

Moonbeam. Awesome in Dungeons. I have a Bard who took this and the damage scales very well. In one recent fight he cast one single Moonbeam at 4th level and that was it for the combat. He did 4d10 damage against two creatures each round, extremely efficient use of resources and great damage add. Also it has the added bonus of acting like a terrain control spell.

Seconded for the same reasons. Last session, our Paladin of the ancients threw this down on a chokepoint the bullywugs were rushing and... let's just say a lot of bullywugs died trying to cross that. To say nothing of the (admittedly highly situational) use against shapechangers. Absolutely shuts down lycanthropes.

 

[sigfile]

"Pass Without Trace." It lasts an hour and can grant a small army +10 to stealth for the duration.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

"Pass Without Trace." It lasts an hour and can grant a small army +10 to stealth for the duration.

I agree that's awesome--I just don't think it's underrated, since I regularly see forum comments about how broken it is.

 

[HarrisonF]

Blindness/Deafness. A verbal-only, non-concentration 2nd-level spell that gives you advantage to hit and your opponent disadvantage to hit and autofail perception checks of the appropriate sense? Hell, yeah! Only problem is that it's a Con save, which makes it not the best versus melee BBGs.

I really want to like Blindness/Deafness, it is has lots going for it (no concentration, scaling targeting). The problem I have is that Con is almost never the best attribute to target. A good guide which looks at this is:

http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4162596

Only Fey are bad at Con saves and not bad at Wis/Dex as well.

 

[Celtavian]

Under those rules, drow darkvision and Goggles of Night also become brokenly powerful. They can attack you and you can't even hit them back... YMMV.

We rely on it.

 

[Viridian]

Plant Growth - Non concentration, massive range, massive AoE, absolute control over how it grows. In a large number of environments, it gives you the ability to escape from almost anyone, prevent most anyone from fleeing, and serves as a huge force multiplier. Trap the enemy melee in the middle of 4x travel cost hell while you casually stroll around to dice up their ranged/casters who have nowhere to go but toward you, all while leaving yourself channels through which to flee if the fighting goes bad. Even better in large scale combat or in parties where everyone is good at ranged combat.

 

[Wycen]

Suddenly I feel the need to check and change some of my spell choices. Fortunately my wizard just found his first enemy spellbook, so now I see the need to read them over closely before going with the usual suspects.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sleet storm and feather fall...