D&D 5E What's the worst spell?

[Caliban]

Care to explain?

Basically builds similar to the one Iserith is using. Have Armor of Agathys up, and then try to mitigate damage as much as possible so it can keep doing damage.

I have a Goliath Fighter/Warlock who uses Blade Ward, Heavy Armor Mastery, and Stone's Endurance to keep the Armor of Agathys up.

It's also great for "kick in the door" dungeon crawls, since it lasts until the end of your next turn. Cast blade ward, kick in the door, and soak the first round of attacks.

Eldritch Knights can also spam Blade Ward and still get a bonus action weapon attack for those situations where they need to tank a heavy hitter.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Find traps.

"There's a trap somewhere. You don't know where it is, or how to trigger it, but you know it has something to do with fire damage."

Wow.

 

[Phazonfish]

Find traps.

"There's a trap somewhere. You don't know where it is, or how to trigger it, but you know it has something to do with fire damage."

Wow.

Woooooow... I mean, seriously. It's not even a ritual? What were the devs thinking?

I think so far the spells listed that meet my expectations of truly useless are true strike and find traps. Blade ward could stand to be better, but it sounds like good use of it is being made by some clever builds. Mord's sword is an embarrassment to its spell level, but hypothetically if I found a scroll of it at a low level it could potentially be helpful. True strike and find traps are just bad even if they are handed to you for free.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Barkskin is the worst, because the wording of the mechanics is not reasonably able to be reconciled with the wording of the description. (Compare [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] 's recent alternative fluff: "lazy fey spirits protect you, but they only work as hard as they have to in order to grant you AC 16.") That at least matches the given mechanics.

 

[discosoc]

From the perspective of a DM, I hate most (all?) of the rituals. They seem to exist for no other reason than prevent or trivialize certain RPG tropes.

 

[jaelis]

I can't even agree with jaelis' statement that it would be useful to conserve spell slots, because cantrips don't take slots and hit harder except very early on.

Well, don't overlook the value of autohit in subsequent rounds. It definitely poops out later when your cantrips get good, but if you can manage to get advantage on your first attack with the witch bolt, it ends up being a decent choice if the fight stretches to 5 rounds or more.

Which is not to say it's a good spell. Just that there are non-crazy situations where it could work OK.

Heh, it actually combines sort of well with true strike. So there you go

 

[Croesus]

It's also great for "kick in the door" dungeon crawls, since it lasts until the end of your next turn. Cast blade ward, kick in the door, and soak the first round of attacks.

Eldritch Knights can also spam Blade Ward and still get a bonus action weapon attack for those situations where they need to tank a heavy hitter.

Not to derail the thread, but concerning blade ward: The intent of the spell is defensive, not offensive, but since using one's action to just cancel some damage isn't terribly helpful in most battles, it's rarely used by most players. On the other hand, I find that players commonly choose to Dodge when they don't have something useful to do in a turn, or when they're worried about damage. So how about combining the two? Change blade ward so that, when cast, the caster may choose to Dodge as a bonus action.

Would this be unbalanced? Since blade ward takes an action, and the Dodge would be a bonus action, I don't see any obvious ways this could be abused, but I may also be missing something.

 

[Caliban]

Not to derail the thread, but concerning blade ward: The intent of the spell is defensive, not offensive, but since using one's action to just cancel some damage isn't terribly helpful in most battles, it's rarely used by most players. On the other hand, I find that players commonly choose to Dodge when they don't have something useful to do in a turn, or when they're worried about damage. So how about combining the two? Change blade ward so that, when cast, the caster may choose to Dodge as a bonus action.

Would this be unbalanced? Since blade ward takes an action, and the Dodge would be a bonus action, I don't see any obvious ways this could be abused, but I may also be missing something.

Not sure why you are quoting me, I don't have a problem with the spell.

But since you ask - how do mean?

Change the casting time to a bonus action and that count as your Dodge? That steps on the toes of Rogues and Monks, since as a cantrip it would effectively give the spellcaster an unlimited "bonus action dodge" ability. Although it would prevent them from casting anything other than cantrips, since it would be a bonus action spell.

Or change blade ward so that it has a duration and for that duration it allows the caster to Dodge as a bonus action? Still to good for a cantrip.

But even if a cantrip that lets you dodge as a bonus action is acceptable - I would just make it a new cantrip and keep Blade Ward the way it is.

 

[Argyle King]

I've found that Witch Bolt has the potential to be good when mixed with other classes such as the Tempest Cleric. Casting at higher levels to give more d12s and then channel divinity for max damage is something I've had good luck with when I need hurt something quickly. Though, the fact that the auto-damage doesn't scale is sometimes lame.

Personally, I also feel like animate dead is pretty good too. I just gave my skeletons ranged weapons, and I'd have the occasional zombie which I'd give instructions such as "stand in front of me" to use as a literal meat shield. It's also worth noting that skeletons have ribcages withing which you could put a few bags of treasure for them to carry. Walking treasure chests or weapon caddies are useful. Sure, they die easily, but they don't need to eat or sleep and are generally cheaper than hirelings. I had considered rigging up gunpowder and ballbearings to create walking claymore mines, but I never got around to it during that campaign. I think the DM was a little bit annoyed when I had the skeletons carry around a dark tablecloth as a way to create places for the shadow monk to teleport to, so I tried to tone down what I was doing.

 

[Caliban]

I think Witch Bolt would be decent if the continuing damage was dealt as a bonus action instead of an action.