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D&D 5E Surprise underrated abilities
- Thread starter Sacrosanct
- Start date
Pickles III
First Post
Doesn't that just mean you are bad at theorycrafting?
I am trying to think if anything I have seen was surprisingly good (I may have adjusted my world view to thinking they were as I expected :O)
I guess the Invoker ability to avoid friends made Fireball etc super effective. It was obviously good but it turned out to be very good indeed.
Except that Clerics do not get Hypnotic Pattern. Yes, I mistyped on the "cannot be resisted". I meant that unlike Fireball, it is almost never resisted. There are virtually no monsters and very few NPCs that have resistance to Radiant damage. Fire resistance and immunity shows up in the game a lot more.
Fireball is absolutely great when a player can get 4 or more NPCs in the blast. It does have a very large area. Unfortunately, at least at our table, that's a fairly rare event. The other two DMs (and myself as DM) rarely had 4, 5 or more ducks set up in a row like that. Our foes are sometimes bunched together, but that's not always the case. A lot of times, foes come at the PCs from multiple different locations or rooms, or even directions in the same room. Or other PCs are in the way of the blast (if the PCs do not have an Evoker PC). If you play a game where the PCs often bust into a room and the PC Wizard or Sorcerer (or in our game, the PC Bard) Fireballs the entire room before the other PCs move in, that's cool. It doesn't happen that often in the games I've been in during the last 4 decades. It's just too pedestrian of a tactic that DMs allow it to go on for long. Have the PCs burn the important papers on the desk or accidently killing non combatant NPCs a few times, and Fireball starts taking a back seat to other tactics.
On the other hand, Spiritual Guardians works a lot because of Amoeba Ball. For those not familiar with the term, it's what we used to use for Girl's Soccer for girls in the 5 to 8 age range when they would all cluster around the ball as opposed to spreading out like their coaches taught them. Amoeba Ball happens all of the time in D&D. Sure, there are times where the entire group of NPCs is spread out, but Amoeba Ball happens all of the time. I've seen it a lot, even at gaming events and not just at our table.
In the case of Spiritual Guardians, when combined with Amoeba Ball, it is very difficult to prevent the player of a PC Cleric from positioning that PC to be near the center of the Amoeba Ball. With the removal of the 5 foot step, PCs in 5E can move around foes quite a bit without provoking. Only if they have two foes is their movement restricted. Since most monsters in the MM have at least some melee capability if not being primarily melee combatants, the Cleric can use Amoeba Ball to his advantage in any encounter where there are a lot of NPC melee combatants.
In fact, DMs purposely have their NPCs enter the Amoeba Ball in order to prevent area effect spells like Fireball or Hypnotic Pattern. If the NPCs are interspersed amongst the PCs, PC area effect spells are harder to manage without also targeting some PCs.
Just like Fireball, the Cleric would not cast the spell when there are only a couple of foes nearby. The Cleric would save the spell for when s/he can get 4 or more NPCs in it.
With regard to disrupting Spiritual Guardians, yeah, I don't see it happening too often. Many Clerics in 5E walk around in Plate, or Plate and Shield. So, the odds of foes hitting them is less than many other spell casters. And most damage is less than 20 hit points for most foes (until much higher level) and many Clerics often have +1 or +2 to their save, so the chances of the Cleric failing are often 35% or 40% (and that's without any feats or any save buff spells up). It's not that rare to have Spiritual Guardians stay up for 2 or 3 rounds before it gets disrupted.
Looking at it mathematically, Fireball will be cast when there are usually 4 or more foes clumped together. Spiritual Guardians will also be cast when there are usually 4 or more foes clumped together. The two differences being that Fireball is usually used for range / larger area / PCs not in that area, and Spiritual Guardians is used in larger melee fights. Assuming that the odds of saving are typically the same for both Fireball and Spiritual Guardians (although in the MM, a higher percentage of monsters have better Dex than Wis than the other way around), it means that Spiritual Guardians has to last for 2.07 rounds in order to do the same damage as Fireball. If it lasts less than that, it does less DPR. More, and it does more. So, if your DM is throwing easier (few round) or ranged multi-foe fights at you, Fireball will be better. If your DM is throwing tougher (many round) melee multi-foe fights at you, Spiritual Guardians will be better. At our table, the latter happens a lot more often than the former.
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
N.b. for intelligent enemies, the counter to dodging is grappling. But I typically wouldn't use it on a dodging PC unless he's fighting intelligent enemies like hobgoblins.
Grappling while getting torn up by spiritual guardian is no fun.
Knocking someone to the ground helps against Dodging. Grappling doesn't. I've used the knockdown tactic against Dodging PCs quite a bit. That's why I like to pick up Athletics or Acrobatics for my clerics.
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Yes it does. See PHB 192's rules for Dodge. You lose Dodge benefits if your speed drops to zero, which is what grappling does.
Well isn't that interesting. I did not notice that rule. I was knocking Dodging creatures down. There might be a few situations where Grappling them is better if there are a lot of ranged attackers. Grappling and Shove are while Athletics and Acrobatics are such valuable skills.
Spirit Guardians is still extremely powerful. If the Grappler grabs the target, you kill them faster. Usually a party is helping you kill them. If the enemy wastes time targeting Grapples which does no damage, I welcome it. They usually end up targeted by the party and killed off quickly while spirit guardians continues to act as a buzz saw against any enemies that want to attack the party in melee.
Life Domain in combination with Favoured Soul. Its turns the sorceror into a great healer, but with some good combat spells like Spiritual Weapon, Guardians of Faith, Bless, plus a great defensive spell, Death Ward. Plus at will flying.
Death Ward alone helps make up for the sorcerors squishness in melee, makes it less of a risk.
And the spells go well with twinned spell.
Death Ward alone helps make up for the sorcerors squishness in melee, makes it less of a risk.
And the spells go well with twinned spell.
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