D&D 5E Save or Suck Spells and Players

Hey everyone, I'm running PotA and we've hit 9th level. My sorcerer player is starting to outshine all the other players and I'm wondering if anyone else is coming across this? Right now he has absolutely trivialized combat encounters that according to the DMG formula are supposed to be deadly with things like Hypnotic Pattern (in large group battles) and Polymorph vs. large monster fights.

I made the mistake of letting them tie up someone caught in hypnotic pattern which I'm no longer going to allow, but I was so excited to run a Chimera only for it to turn into a sheep.

Are people finding this level to be a shift in power towards the players? Do people have some nerfs on these spells, or should I just reexamine my tactics?

Speaking as a player of a sorcerer who kind of specializes in those effects (I took Heighten Spell for a reason, dangnabbit!)...

These spells aren't more effective than, say, Fireball or Greater Invisibility.

So my first instinct is "reexamine tactics." Like, I don't think tying someone up under HP would be OP, not sure why you see that as a "mistake."

There could be a lot of different reasons you see the sorc as dominating, but some common flubs I've seen include...

• Calibrating expectations. 5e expects that someone who "novas" by spending highish-level spell slots or other daily resources in an encounter is probably going to win that encounter. Encounters aren't balanced in isolation, they're balanced in relationship to the other encounters you have in a day.
• Being generous with rests. Keeping up the pressure with random encounters is the default way to limit this (though active villains often work even better), but if your sorc can nova in every encounter, your sorc needs to be having more encounters between rests. Dominating ONE encounter with a good HP or fireball or whatever is fine. But there should be more than one encounter in a day.
• Janky enemy tactics. Hypnotic Pattern is nice, but you're rarely going to get a situation where every enemy was captured in it, and there's ways for enemies to get their allies out of the effect - including hitting the spellcaster. These effects are Concentration-limited as well. Even big bad monsters should have a cabal of minions around to ensure that one well-placed polymorph doesn't end the thing.

Reexamine tactics.

It's the first thing you should try, long long before nerfing a player's choices.


(I still hate DMing 3e's Web spell, but I've never modified it.)

[MENTION=6789608]maceochaid[/MENTION]Definitely haven't encountered that problem, though still only playing at 4th level and below.

Hypnotic pattern only affects an area within a cube 30-feet on a side (a 6 x 6 square cube), it requires each creature to make a WIS save, and if a creature is shaken or damaged it is no longer charmed. And it requires concentration (which can be broken). It's a great spell under the right conditions, certainly, but those conditions shouldn't be present in *every* fight, not by a long shot.

Polymorph is a great spell, but as soon as the spell ends (1 hour, concentration broken, or "sheep-ified" monster reduced to 0 hp) and the chimera regains its original form it certainly is going to a vendetta against the PCs. Have they made so much progress in that 1 hour that the chimera can't catch fly to catch up with them?

Also remember that when PCs are this level they are supposed to be very powerful. On the flip side of that, they may have to face fearsome enemies with these kinds of abilities. Few monsters are as scary as a high level enemy spell caster.

Also remember the concentration limitation. A spell caster can only concentrate on one spell at a time, and most status effect spells use up that concentration.

I have found that, simply due to the action economy at these levels, a big scary monster by itself, even one of a much higher CR isn't much of a challenge for 9th + level parties.

I find it odd that polymorph is a wisdom save. I think that exaggerates its power. The big solo monsters usually aren't strong there. Nothing like having a cool purple worm encounter foiled with one spell. If it was a gamble to take them down that would be one thing but when the worm needs to roll a 15+. There are a lot of spells that you have to tailor your encounters around or they trivialize them.

maceochaid said:

Hey everyone, I'm running PotA and we've hit 9th level. My sorcerer player is starting to outshine all the other players and I'm wondering if anyone else is coming across this? Right now he has absolutely trivialized combat encounters that according to the DMG formula are supposed to be deadly with things like Hypnotic Pattern (in large group battles) and Polymorph vs. large monster fights.

I made the mistake of letting them tie up someone caught in hypnotic pattern which I'm no longer going to allow, but I was so excited to run a Chimera only for it to turn into a sheep.

Are people finding this level to be a shift in power towards the players? Do people have some nerfs on these spells, or should I just reexamine my tactics?

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Reexamine tactics, and perhaps also reexamine your expectations. If you're not prepared to lose over and over again, you can't be a good DM. When the players do something awesome and completely trash something that (by the book) "should" be way out of their league, that's awesome! That's why you play D&D in the first place! I heartily approve of your players tying up the Chimera. That's smart and completely appropriate.

There are ways for a DM to be a complete killjoy and completely outplay the plyaers. As a DM, you're (probably?) the best player at the table, and you probably know the rules better than anyone, and if you really tried you could probably beat any of your players in a one on one PC vs. PC duel. But you shouldn't play that hard as DM. Or at least, you should only do this a small fraction of the time, when running highly motivated and intelligent opponents with a reason to want the PCs dead. The rest of the time, your job is to roleplay the monsters as what they are, which includes knowing what mistakes they should make and what it takes to make them cut and run (or go berserk/kamikaze if they can't run). If you're trying to "win", you are unfortunately doing it wrong. DMing a combat isn't a game between equals, like chess.

Let them be awesome, much of the time.

And the other times, be a nasty killer DM whose goblins scatter caltrops and do hit-and-run from out of the darkness, whose dragons retreat just long enough for the party's short-term spell buffs to wear off and then return to snatch up a lone PC off the ground and kill him away from the others, whose ankhegs and umber hulks dig pits for PCs to fall in (remember, taking falling damage leaves you prone, giving advantage to any attackers within 5'), whose mariliths and balors exploit total cover, whose mind flayers go prone to avoid missile fire, whose skeleton archers spread out over an area so that the cleric's Turn Undead can only destroy a handful of them at a time, etc.

Try to make the players feel like you're a nasty killer DM all of the time, while actually only being a nasty killer DM once in a while.

Quickleaf said:

[MENTION=6789608]maceochaid[/MENTION]Definitely haven't encountered that problem, though still only playing at 4th level and below.

Hypnotic pattern only affects an area within a cube 30-feet on a side (a 6 x 6 square cube), it requires each creature to make a WIS save, and if a creature is shaken or damaged it is no longer charmed. And it requires concentration (which can be broken). It's a great spell under the right conditions, certainly, but those conditions shouldn't be present in *every* fight, not by a long shot.

Polymorph is a great spell, but as soon as the spell ends (1 hour, concentration broken, or "sheep-ified" monster reduced to 0 hp) and the chimera regains its original form it certainly is going to a vendetta against the PCs. Have they made so much progress in that 1 hour that the chimera can't catch fly to catch up with them?

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Agree with the comment about hypnotic pattern. As with any area effect spell, it can't be used in every fight and if the targets make their saves, they're unaffected. By the way, if the party are using this against fire cultists, some of whom have fire resistance, just have the cultists drop a fireball on everyone. That will end the effect on those who missed their saves.

As for polymorph, it is all or nothing. So when it doesn't work, the spellcaster uses up both a spell slot and an action. My group has found banishment to be very powerful - twice it worked, allowing them to get avoid a tough fight. But once it didn't work. So any all or nothing spell is a gamble, which is reasonable. Besides, the bad guys can return the favor with similar spells.

Characters are heroes. They should be allowed to be heroic. The other characters get a chance to shine when saves are made. This is the design of the classes.

Ahglock said:

I find it odd that polymorph is a wisdom save. I think that exaggerates its power. The big solo monsters usually aren't strong there. Nothing like having a cool purple worm encounter foiled with one spell. If it was a gamble to take them down that would be one thing but when the worm needs to roll a 15+. There are a lot of spells that you have to tailor your encounters around or they trivialize them.

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Obviously your insight and perception are stopping your body from changing shape! Chalk it up to yet another random thing that wisdom does.