D&D 5E Underdog skills, abilities and spells

[PnPgamer]

So i have been thinking that few of class abilities, spells and skills seemingly are very bad. It came to my mind that maybe there was more than meets the eye, and i just cant think of good uses for them. How could we make good uses for these things?
Some examples:
Conjurationist wizard low end abilities (great, he can create a stool or a grill..)
Transmutation wizard minor alchemy (i can cheat a shopkeeper.. But get thrown in jail for fraud)
Healing skill (can be replaced by cleric cantrip spare the dying)

Let us discuss these, share thoughts and more abilities, and find the gem inside the coal, so to speak. Share the oned that you think is subpar and lets brainstorm.

 

[Paraxis]

Minor conjuration - summon any tool you need in an instant this a very cool and useful power.
Rope, weapon, lock pick, bump key, sack to put something in or over someones face, saw, brace, all kinds of things pretty much anything. The fact it can be dismissed can be used to trigger a series of events if the removal of said item is key to a chain of events.

Minor alchemy - turn your weapons temporary into silver if you need to, take up wood crafting and suddenly you can carve and shape any material just as easy.

Heal skill - pretty much is medical diagnosis skill. But yeah with anyone being able to use a healer's kit untrained to automatically stabilize someone it pretty much makes this skill and the spare the dying cantrip useless. But during skill challenge like situations where your character needs to make checks on multiple npc's and things it is still useful.

 

[PnPgamer]

Nice idea to turn weapons into silver, but minor alchemy requires 10 minuted per squarefoot of transmuting. You cannot use it within combat. If you know beforehand that youll be facing werecreatures it is great.

 

[Paraxis]

Also under minor conjuration - This object can be no larger than 3 feet on a side and weigh no more than 10 pounds, and its form must be that of a non magical object that you have seen. The object is visibly magical, radiating dim light out to 5 feet.

So the form must be of a non magical object, but the very next sentence says the object you do make is visibly magical.

So why you can't conjure a longsword +1, or a potion of healing, it seems that any longsword you do summon is in fact magical. That is pretty helpful early on to bypass damage resistance for the fighters in your party.

 

[Ricochet]

I think the RockGnome "Tinker" ability is quite underwhelming. The clockwork toy is a fun one, but its moves in a random direction makes it quite unreliable for anything.

 

[PnPgamer]

I think the RockGnome "Tinker" ability is quite underwhelming. The clockwork toy is a fun one, but its moves in a random direction makes it quite unreliable for anything.

What if it could function like a clockwork bomb? One could attach alchemist fire to it, and make it explode after a period of time depending on how many turns you put on the clockwork?

Could be possible, but would require a dm approval.

 

[Paraxis]

The thing with the Tinker ability is the wording of "When you create a device, choose one of the following options:" is very limiting, they should have just had those items as examples and explicitly leave what kind of items up to player imagination and DM adjudication.

 

[Ricochet]

PnP: I think getting away from the psycho alchemist/inventor archetype for gnomes is a good thing, but it might be a fun ability.
Paraxis: That's how I intend to use it, yeah.

 

[PnPgamer]

The tinkerer is a really limited ability, whats so wrong about making it at least slightly useful? The music box could also spring as a knifejesterboxtoy, snd do 1d4+1 damage to a too curious of an enemy.

 

[Ricochet]

Nothing wrong with making it usefull - not at all. Swiss army knife thing might be a good fix, yeah. Cutting tool, magnifying glass, pen, small telescope...