D&D 5E High-level no-save spells in practice

[mflayermonk]

There should never be a point where the player says "I cast X" and the DM says "Aha! The spell doesn't work how you expect, due to a difference in opinion on the rules!", because frankly that's just being a jerk.

Illusion spells always have some problems.

 

[Li Shenron]

One of my houserules is that legendary saves give a save when you don't normally get one - eg for sleep, forcecage, etc.

I think this is very much attuned with the spirit of Legendary Saves actually (and thus a very good house rule)... Legendary Saves are not meant to be mere balancing factors in a monster's design, but instead they are meant exactly to avoid the case when an encounter is supposed to be amazing (usually implying it's not over too quickly) but is trivialized by a single event.

 

[AtomicPope]

I categorically disagree. The game is built to require some amount of ad-hoc/GM Fiat rulings.

More pertinent to forcecage, we have huge creatures (frost, cloud, and storm giants) who are explicitly too tall to fit in a 20x20x20 ft. cube, if you go by the listed heights on page 153 of the MM.

Playing a 13th Level Feylock who fights a LOT of Giants, this is always a factor. At the same time, the GM is lenient when it comes to things like giant snakes, creatures that curl up when they're ready to fight. In game terms, it means I need to ready an action to use Force Cage which is usually the case since high CR monsters tend to be big.

Back to the OP, the spells listed are not as bad as a Hold Person, Banishment, or Hold Monster with a DC19+. When my Warlock was 9th level I held Elf 4 Gladiators for nearly an entire combat. Our Druid dropped a Flaming Sphere on top of them and they just burned, auto-failing their Dex saves as we fought off the Devils. Did the Devils try to break my Concentration? Yes, they tried in vain.

The thing about those spells are they can target a creature's worst save, which could be a penalty meaning they'll never save except with pure luck. I recently Banished two Stone Giants and it cut our combat in half. Then I released them when we were hidden and ready. That's actually better than Force Cage since the Stone Giants were more than 20ft apart. Did the Stone Giants get a save? Sure, but they needed a natural 20.

Even low level spells like Bane will seem broken when they target the right creatures. Casting Bane on a large group of monsters like Trolls shuts them down because it makes their saves worse (incoming fireball) and their attacks are worse (PCs' Armor Class is effectively raised). Bestow Curse cast as a 5th Level spell has no Concentration and lasts for 8 hours. Target a Purple Worm and it's incapacitated for 8 hours.

If you're having problems with spell casters then you need to switch up your monsters a bit. Certain monsters are better for certain groups. The key is to challenge the group, but not shut them down. If everyone is a melee fighter then don't send Manticores. At the same time if everyone is a low-level caster you don't send a Rakshasa. On the flip-side, you don't send Giants to fight an Enchanter or Beasts to fight a Druid. Creatures like Demons and Devils tend to be effective against any group since they have a wide range of defenses and attacks, not to mention variety. I guess what I'm really trying to say is...

it ain't easy being a DM.

 

[Sezarious]

The players were all over the thing, the fighter pried open the mouth to get the swallowed rogue out, and an aboleth took control of the paladin...twas a glorious battle.

Wha?! You can't just tell us a story like that and NOT tell us if they survived! What happened? Was there glorious victory?

In regards to forecage, I've just been turned off it as a spell. Ewwwww...

 

[DaveDash]

I have run in a campaign up to level 16. I ran the wizard. We never once used forcecage. It looks good on paper, but isn't particularly useful in actual play.

As Dave Dash stated it is more effective to cast a 3rd level fly spell on a martial and let them kill whatever BBEG you are fighting. They can withstand enough damage and do enough damage to kill most things, even Legendary Creatures without you having to spend a 7th level spell slot to seal it in a force cube that makes killing it more difficult. I imagine some seal it in the cube with bars and then fire through the bars. That can make killing some large creature much easier. I don't know it if is an ideal use of a 7th level spell slot.

I'm in a group now with a cleric. I will let you know about contagion when I use it. I am Trickery Domain and intend to use it with Invoke Duplicity. I'm thinking that one will be more powerful than forcecage.

Yep. When I first read it, I couldn't believe they'd put such a "broken" spell in the game. But now actually getting up to level 16 it hasn't come up much.

It's already limited enough that I find it quite silly some DMs here will fuss over it. It has the potential to be annoying in a Dragon fight, but that's why there is the spellcasting variant Dragon in the monsters manual...

I did spend about an hour making a custom CR16 Chuul which they force caged, I could have been a jerk and said "It jumps up on the air like a starfish, ha, your force cage no longer works!", but I let them have their moment and kill it. That's D&D.

@AtomicPope I totally agree, once your DC start to get up there, Hold Person, Banishment, and Hold Monster become much more potent. Lots of classes get access to these spells as well, and they're efficient slot wise. 3/4 of my group can cast banishment, and 4/4 can cast hold person (Paladin, Cleric, Bard, Wizard).
They'd Hold Person their way through entire portions of my campaign, and it turned into one big counterspell fest.

My group just cast Hold Monster on a purple worm - no need for bestow curse - and it had no chance of surviving.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yep. When I first read it, I couldn't believe they'd put such a "broken" spell in the game. But now actually getting up to level 16 it hasn't come up much.

It's already limited enough that I find it quite silly some DMs here will fuss over it. It has the potential to be annoying in a Dragon fight, but that's why there is the spellcasting variant Dragon in the monsters manual...

I haven't seen anyone on this thread fussing about it from a balance perspective. The universal response from post #2 onwards was, "it's not really a problem."

So I think you're criticizing DMs who don't exist, or more likely imputing false motives to DMs who do exist.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Wha?! You can't just tell us a story like that and NOT tell us if they survived! What happened? Was there glorious victory?

Yep, they defeated it. I can't remember who struck the final blow, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the Eldritch Knight (he never made the best use of his spellcasting, but still: fighter). I'd have liked it to be a bit harder, but it did end up knocking one PC out (or close), and it definitely didn't feel easy to them, which is probably more important than using up 80% of their resources to fight it.

 

[DaveDash]

I haven't seen anyone on this thread fussing about it from a balance perspective. The universal response from post #2 onwards was, "it's not really a problem."

So I think you're criticizing DMs who don't exist, or more likely imputing false motives to DMs who do exist.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

We will just agree to disagree shall we?

I'm very much for clarity and consistent boundaries for my players to work with. They can rest assured whatever results they achieve are purely due to their efforts. The less DM "fiat" the better.

 

[vandaexpress]

My style is more quantity than quality anyway. Since I'm willing to throw 70 CR 7 Stygian Skeletons at a level 8 party, I would certainly throw those same 70 Stygian Skeletons at a level 16 party...

70 skeletons!? This is crazy! I'm just curious, how do you manage combats at this scale? I use Roll20 which is great for managing a ton of creatures at once, but after running a fight against like... 20-30 bullywugs and giant frogs, I got kind of turned off to the concept (PCs bottlenecked them and used lightning bolt to fry them 5 or 6 at a time) of hordes of enemies, but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Perhaps more pertinent, on a practical level, what are the effects of this style of combat? I bet it scares the snot out of your PCs for one... do you do waves, or do they all come in simultaneously? Group initiative where all the skeletons go at once?

 

[miniaturehoarder]

I just removed Forcecage from my game. Plenty of other spells for players to take. Might do the same with True Polymorph, though that one would need a replacement.