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

[Shadowdweller00]

Bad:

Blade Ward - as discussed in another thread: lose an action to have resistance to weapon attacks until next turn. Probably the dodge action would be better or in the same league, and available to anyone.

Not so much, it's just more of a niche thing. Blade Ward lasts until the END of your next turn, unlike dodge. So you use it to cover readied actions on the round before placing yourself in danger. For example, before entering a cavern known to be filled with hidden goblins. Or before dropping invisibility with an attack spell.

EDIT: Some parts deleted due to poor reading skills on my part

 

[KarinsDad]

¨The simplest solution is simply to not take the spell.

That is a solution. I like the spell, so I wanted a solution that allowed me to use it, especially at higher levels. I find it interesting to stand close by and risk the wrath of the Titan.

 

[marcelos]

Not so much, it's just more of a niche thing. Blade Ward lasts until the END of your next turn, unlike dodge. So you use it to cover readied actions on the round before placing yourself in danger. For example, before entering a cavern known to be filled with hidden goblins. Or before dropping invisibility with an attack spell.

EDIT: Some parts deleted due to poor reading skills on my part

As far as I know, you lose invisibility by casting any spell, not only attack spells.

 

[Savage Wombat]

That is a solution. I like the spell, so I wanted a solution that allowed me to use it, especially at higher levels. I find it interesting to stand close by and risk the wrath of the Titan.

I liked the idea of applying a condition rider to the spell, but that seems a little powerful so I'm dubious.

What if you stole the bit from Shocking Grasp about targets of the spell losing their reaction? It would make it extremely useful in certain niche situations.

 

[KarinsDad]

I liked the idea of applying a condition rider to the spell, but that seems a little powerful so I'm dubious.

What if you stole the bit from Shocking Grasp about targets of the spell losing their reaction? It would make it extremely useful in certain niche situations.

Is it really that powerful? Let's take it being in a second level slot.

Obviously, round one is not that powerful. We have pages of posts here saying that the spell is totally lame.

Round two. The PC has been standing out in the partial open, 30 feet away from the foe. The PC did 13 points last round. In order to do 13 points this round, the PC loses his action. The PC cannot critical. The PC cannot change targets. The PC cannot have a different concentration spell up. The PC has few options to react to changing situations without dropping the spell. The monster or an ally only has to do 1 point of damage to the PC to force a concentration check. The monster only has to temporarily walk behind cover to stop the spell. The monster only has to get 35 feet away to stop the spell (which a simple disengage does).

So at best, the PC does 13 more damage (the party Rogue at level 3 fighting two weapon is often doing 10 to 13 more damage, both attacks have to miss to do zero damage). In the middle, the foe is disengaging and losing one action. Somewhat less worse, the foe or an ally damages the PC and the spell is lost. And worse case, everybody and his brother drops down an attack on the PC trying to disrupt the spell, the PC keeps making the concentration checks, but he takes a lot of damage and possibly falls.

The difference between other first level spells put into higher level slots and this one is that the PC is seriously hampered with this spell. He loses an action every single round with this spell and he cannot seek heavy cover. He cannot cast other concentration spells, in fact he cannot cast any other spells except bonus and reaction, and he makes himself a target.

Any time that a spell caster has to maintain a spell to this degree, there should be a decent benefit for doing so. IMO. D12 per round is not a decent benefit.


Btw, Burning Hands cast in a second level slot against 3 or 4 foes can do 18 to 52 points of damage in a single round. Modified Witch Bolt averages 13 points a round spread out over many rounds. It could potentially take 4 rounds to do as much damage with Witch Bolt as it takes to do with Burning Hands in a single round.


Let's look at 3rd level spells. Fireball for 28/14 points of damage to multiple foes in a single round and the PC is free to do whatever he wants the following round, or houseruled Witch Bolt 20 points of damage a round against a single foe for multiple rounds and the PC is hampered and a target. That really sounds fairly balanced to me. I suspect that the vast majority of encounters, using Fireball in the third level slot will do more overall damage than using modified Witch Bolt in the third level slot.

Granted, one has to look carefully at Warlock and Sorcerer abilities to ensure that there is no synergy issue there. For example, doing it at 60 feet range is safer than doing it at 30 feet. Course, we have no warlocks or sorcerers PCs in our group, so this only helps the DM (since she might start throwing NPC PC-like foes at us).

 

[aramis erak]

Good:

Sleep?

1st-level Wizard can drop a 4th-level Wizard on the first round. No save. Just need to get the current hp of the opponent on the 5d8 check.

Or maybe finish a dragon that has 20hp left?

Bad:

Blade Ward - as discussed in another thread: lose an action to have resistance to weapon attacks until next turn. Probably the dodge action would be better or in the same league, and available to anyone.

Only works if there are no minions, familiars, flunkies, etcetera, in range of the spell.

Oh, and it's a reasonably good chance against even 5th level wizards.

 

[Thank Dog]

I view Sleep as being one of the ultimate mook-KO spells. I wouldn't use it against a primary enemy like a levelled spellcaster. I'd use it against all his minions. With Bounded Accuracy, they're the ones that are the biggest threat. If you can shut them down, then you can focus-fire the big nasties, which turns them into mince-meat in short order.

 

[Cannyjiggit]

On the bad list:

Spare the dying. It was grossly overpowered in the playtest* but its been trimmed back now to the point that it can be replicated by anyone with a healers kit or the cleric in question probably has a 70% or more chance of doing the same thing with no kit or magic at all (DC 10 check on wisdom[medecine] so most clerics will have at least +4 on that and could have +9 for automatic success by level 9). I think to make it useful now it either needs to be a bonus action to cast or be able to cast at range of some sort (30ft would be my suggestion).


*In the playtest it restored 1hp and was also a swift cast (bonus action). Its power was proved in our campaign as the DM was testing encounter limits. The party of 5 blundered into a partially mist filled room spreading out as 8 skeletons rose to attack. Separated with multiple opponents on each tank most of the party was cut down rather quickly with the exception of my cleric (light domain). There then followed a farcical pattern where I would cast spare the dying on the dwarf whilst making an attack on one of the skeletons, having recovered 1hp, the dwarf was now concious and able to make an attack from prone against one of the skeletons before the skeletons retaliated and put her out again. Any that got to my cleric were disadvantaged by Flare (now correctly has limited uses) and prioritised by the dwarf fighter on the next round. Basically, as long as the skeletons didn't finish me off (hard to do with ac 18 and disadvantage) we were invincible.

As for the Witch Bolt discussion, I can see its usefulness with the right people alongside the caster but a big thing has been made about it being broken easily. That is down to the DM properly playing the situation.
Would the target know the spell and all its details? - I would guess not unless they could cast it themselves and even casters with it on their list may not know or remember all the details if they can't actually cast it. Even if they do know and remember all the details, can they tell the difference right away between that and Eldritch blast?. I can't think of many reasons why random fighter, ranger, barbarian, cleric, druid, rogue etc would know any of this stuff unless they had the sage background with a speciality in spellcasting. If the argument is that they would naturally run away from something that hurts, well thats fine but provokes opportunity attacks from those engaged with them and do they also run away from everything else that hurts them (also provoking opportunity attacks).

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

That...is actually pretty brilliant. If you didn't want to go the multiclass route, you could always grab the Magic Initiate feat:



Of course, you'd need a decent Wisdom, so your Über charisma isn't helpful, unless you're doing the aforementioned Devotion paladin channel divinity. But still. If you're playing a Paladin, you'll likely have decent wisdom anyway, and the ability to have increased accuracy and a D8 damage die with a stick (!) is nothing to sneeze at!

The trick with Magic Initiate is that it specifically says that the magic ability score for the spell is Wisdom for Druid spells, which means the Shillelagh would use wisdom instead of cha. As far as I can figure the only way to use Shillelagh with charisma is either tome pact or bard magical secrets.

The cheesiest, of course, would be somehow stacking Shillelagh, that paladin channel divinity, and blood drinking sword (or whatever it's called) so you add double your charisma to melee attack rolls AND damage. But I think you'd need to tri-class bard, warlock and paladin to do it.

 

[Falling Icicle]

On the bad list:

Spare the dying. It was grossly overpowered in the playtest* but its been trimmed back now to the point that it can be replicated by anyone with a healers kit or the cleric in question probably has a 70% or more chance of doing the same thing with no kit or magic at all (DC 10 check on wisdom[medecine] so most clerics will have at least +4 on that and could have +9 for automatic success by level 9). I think to make it useful now it either needs to be a bonus action to cast or be able to cast at range of some sort (30ft would be my suggestion).

I think spare the dying is fine. A healing kit can do the same thing, but it costs money and has limited uses. Spare the dying can be cast at-will and doesn't cost money. A cleric with medicine can eventually do the same thing, but that costs a skill. I'd much rather give up a cantrip slot than a skill slot.