D&D 5E Let's list the "broken" spells

Steely Dan · Aug 31, 2014

The disingenuous misreading of spells still baffles me (they know they are being cheeky, scumbag-lawyer, but they don't care).

Sailor Moon · Aug 31, 2014

Gladius Legis said:
Wall of Force, which is arguably even more broken than Forcecage. Inescapable dome if you can't teleport or Dimension Door or cast Disintegrate.

Dig a hole under the edge and crawl out?

drjones · Aug 31, 2014

TheSleepyKing said:
Another high level spell, Foresight, strikes me as exceedingly powerful. All day long advantage/disadvantage is kinda huge, especially cast on, say, a high level fighter.

That does sound nice, but I think at high level play there is going to be a ton of advantage for the having for a lot of classes.

keterys · Aug 31, 2014

drjones said:
That does sound nice, but I think at high level play there is going to be a ton of advantage for the having for a lot of classes.

I'm not entirely convinced that's true for classes other than rogue. Even for the fighter, having to use 1-2 attacks every round to knock people prone is a notable requirement on obtaining advantage.

Mistwell · Sep 1, 2014

Steely Dan said:
The disingenuous misreading of spells still baffles me (they know they are being cheeky, scumbag-lawyer, but they don't care).

Who are you saying did that?

drjones · Sep 1, 2014

keterys said:
I'm not entirely convinced that's true for classes other than rogue. Even for the fighter, having to use 1-2 attacks every round to knock people prone is a notable requirement on obtaining advantage.

Nobody* plays D&D alone. Even mildly optimized level 18 parties are going to be handing out advantage to each other like valentines candy. This spell is just the capstone one that saves you having to cast a greater invis, faerie fire, Guiding Bolt, True Strike, and every hold, stun, snare, blind etc. spell every encounter. Though you probably still will, this can only effect one person and everyone wants advantage.

The only reason not to is if you find you have no trouble hitting things at all, but even then you would want to pump your chance for a crit and counteract enemy crowd control giving you disadvantage.

It's a nice spell, but seems in line with the other level 9 craziness. Maybe a little weak even for your one spell a day.

*well maybe that one guy.

Plane Sailing · Sep 1, 2014

Steely Dan said:
The disingenuous misreading of spells still baffles me (they know they are being cheeky, scumbag-lawyer, but they don't care).

Mod Note: Let's not cast aspersions on anyone else and just enjoy the conversation, eh?

Thanks

TheSleepyKing · Sep 1, 2014

drjones said:
Nobody* plays D&D alone. Even mildly optimized level 18 parties are going to be handing out advantage to each other like valentines candy. This spell is just the capstone one that saves you having to cast a greater invis, faerie fire, Guiding Bolt, True Strike, and every hold, stun, snare, blind etc. spell every encounter. Though you probably still will, this can only effect one person and everyone wants advantage.

The only reason not to is if you find you have no trouble hitting things at all, but even then you would want to pump your chance for a crit and counteract enemy crowd control giving you disadvantage.

It's a nice spell, but seems in line with the other level 9 craziness. Maybe a little weak even for your one spell a day.

*well maybe that one guy.

It's not just advantage on hits, it's advantage on saving throws and skill checks -- basically any time you roll a D20, you get to roll two of them. What's more, anything that tries to hit you has disadvantage. A fighter with this active would be a monster, hitting close to 100% of the time while only being hit a fraction of the time they normally would. Mostly, though, it's the duration that struck me: 8 hours, no concentration required. It's basically 100% uptime if you're willing to sacrifice a single meteor swarm or time stop for it.

ZombieRoboNinja · Sep 1, 2014

TheSleepyKing said:
It's not just advantage on hits, it's advantage on saving throws and skill checks -- basically any time you roll a D20, you get to roll two of them. What's more, anything that tries to hit you has disadvantage. A fighter with this active would be a monster, hitting close to 100% of the time while only being hit a fraction of the time they normally would. Mostly, though, it's the duration that struck me: 8 hours, no concentration required. It's basically 100% uptime if you're willing to sacrifice a single meteor swarm or time stop for it.

It's hard to claim that Foresight is "broken" because it looks like it does exactly what it's intended to. It's just ludicrous that the very fact that foresight could be balanced against other level 9 spells should have been a wake-up call to the designers. Can you imagine them giving, say, rangers advantage on everything and disadvantage on attacks against them, basically all day long, as a level 17 class ability? And then claim it's balanced because on any given day they use that power, they can't also permanently turn their friend into a dragon?

But really this thread doesn't need to degenerate into a "martial vs caster" debate; lets just keep focusing on spells that seem UNINTENDEDLY powerful.

TheSleepyKing · Sep 1, 2014

ZombieRoboNinja said:
It's hard to claim that Foresight is "broken" because it looks like it does exactly what it's intended to. It's just ludicrous that the very fact that foresight could be balanced against other level 9 spells should have been a wake-up call to the designers. Can you imagine them giving, say, rangers advantage on everything and disadvantage on attacks against them, basically all day long, as a level 17 class ability? And then claim it's balanced because on any given day they use that power, they can't also permanently turn their friend into a dragon?

But really this thread doesn't need to degenerate into a "martial vs caster" debate; lets just keep focusing on spells that seem UNINTENDEDLY powerful.

Technically, it's a little broken as well, since an Elf caster (who only needs 4 hours for a long rest) could cast it, rest to get their 9th level slot back, and still have four hours of free awesomeness