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D&D 5E Wizard able to prepare a single spell from any class

HarrisonF

Explorer
Well, as a God style player, I'd pick Contagion, mainly because I believe you've mis-read the text.

From the PHB (Bolding the relevant bits)
Your touch inflicts disease. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, you afflict the creature with a disease of your choice from any of the ones described below.
At the end of each of the target’s turns, it must make a Constitution saving throw. After failing three of these saving throws, the disease’s effects last for the duration, and the creature stops making these saves.
After succeeding on three of these saving throws, the creature recovers from the disease, and the spell ends.

The way I read it, the Creature suffers from the disease the moment you connect your melee spell attack. Causing a minimum of 3 rounds of which it makes it saving throws, whilst suffering from the attacks.
Pick the Slimy Doom, to disadvantage it's Constitution Saving Throws.... which it happens to be forced to make every turn :p
Meanwhile, have your attackers hit the creature and cause the stun effect to proc non stop.

Unfortunately, Sage Advice disagrees with you on this:

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/13/contagion-effects/

In our games, we generally will follow everything SA says (at least Crawford, Mearls can go off the reservation sometimes).

From a balance point of view, the spell seems pretty uber with your interpretation, so I can see why SA says what they do. With that ruling, it makes the spell much more a plot piece, rather than a real combat threat.
 

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Tanaka Chris

First Post
Oh meh, did not see that Sage advice.

I'll then revise my opinion that that the spells pretty crap then, for a level 5 slot that has the potential to miss and be wasted. Keep in mind that this is a wizard charging into battle to deliver a melee spell attack.
Also, how can the spell be a plot piece not meant for combat when all the effects are clearly meant to be used in battle? e,g: Stun when damaged, disadvantage on attack rolls etc?

As for being Uber... it is a lvl 5 spell, and that's sort of when creatures with Legendary Resistances and Liar effect start popping up, so... isn't that actually balanced?
Ah well, I'll check with my DM on his interpretation.

Thanks for pointing it out.
 

HarrisonF

Explorer
Oh meh, did not see that Sage advice.

I'll then revise my opinion that that the spells pretty crap then, for a level 5 slot that has the potential to miss and be wasted. Keep in mind that this is a wizard charging into battle to deliver a melee spell attack.
Also, how can the spell be a plot piece not meant for combat when all the effects are clearly meant to be used in battle? e,g: Stun when damaged, disadvantage on attack rolls etc?

As for being Uber... it is a lvl 5 spell, and that's sort of when creatures with Legendary Resistances and Liar effect start popping up, so... isn't that actually balanced?
Ah well, I'll check with my DM on his interpretation.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Yea, I'm not entirely sure I agree with SA, but since we generally follow it, we do it for this spell. It does make the spell very meh and it feels like an over-nerf. But the other interpretation is probably too strong against legendary monsters (basically auto-win if you hit). It seems like they really messed up the balance of this spell in some direction. There have been a number of threads on forums about how to "fix" the spell, such as adding an initial save to avoid, or otherwise.
 

We do play with the sage advice ruling that the DM gets to be the ultimate pick. The ranger has been using this spell, and so far the DM has been pretty lenient with allowing for what he wants. But if I did 16 wolfs, he might a bit annoyed and give me something crappy instead

I honestly can't think of anything that is bad if you get 16 of them for a single 5th level slot. One guy suggested draft horses once, but I think 16 draft horses (+6 to hit for 9 points of damage each) would actually be just fine.
 




HarrisonF

Explorer
I honestly can't think of anything that is bad if you get 16 of them for a single 5th level slot. One guy suggested draft horses once, but I think 16 draft horses (+6 to hit for 9 points of damage each) would actually be just fine.

Draft horses are actually really strong, probably in the top 5 of the CR 1/4 critters.

I did some looking at 1/4 CR and it there are definitely some under performers. It seems like both Giant Bat and Giant Lizard are duds. The Giant Bat is +4 to hit and does 5 damage. It can fly and has some blindsight stuff going on, but in a lot of cases if it is randomly picked, they would kinda suck. The Giant Lizard is +4 to hit and does 6 damage. It doesn't fly or do anything at all useful, not sure where it's CR came from.

Regular boars seem pretty meh as well, +3 to hit and 4 damage. They do get charge, which would probably be easy to use which make them do 7 though, and a chance for prone. The +3 just makes the prone chance very low.
 

Draft horses are actually really strong, probably in the top 5 of the CR 1/4 critters.

I did some looking at 1/4 CR and it there are definitely some under performers. It seems like both Giant Bat and Giant Lizard are duds. The Giant Bat is +4 to hit and does 5 damage. It can fly and has some blindsight stuff going on, but in a lot of cases if it is randomly picked, they would kinda suck. The Giant Lizard is +4 to hit and does 6 damage. It doesn't fly or do anything at all useful, not sure where it's CR came from.

Regular boars seem pretty meh as well, +3 to hit and 4 damage. They do get charge, which would probably be easy to use which make them do 7 though, and a chance for prone. The +3 just makes the prone chance very low.
Are any of those bad in your eyes when you get 16 with one spell?
 

HarrisonF

Explorer
I worked with my DM on Conjure Animals, and it looks like we will get to pick a theme (one of combat, travel, flying, or aquatic) and then pick the specific animal randomly within that category. This should help reduce some of the variance by random across all of the options.

For the combat list, it looks like:

Combat
1 / 4 CR d8
Boar
Elk
Giant Badger
Giant Centipede
Giant Poisonous Snake
Giant Wolf Spider
Panther
Wolf
1 / 2 CR d4
Ape
Black Bear
Giant Wasp
Giant Goat
1 CR d8
Brown Bear
Dire Wolf
Giant Hyena
Giant Spider
Giant Toad
Lion
Tiger
Giant Vulture
2 CR d6
Allosaurus
Giant Constrictor Snake
Giant Elk
Polar Bear
Rhinoceros
Sabre Toothed Tiger
 

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