D&D 5E Let's list the "broken" spells

[Immoralkickass]

"A long rest is a peroid of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity."

Assume a human does sleep 7 hours then spends 1 hour on eating and preparing.

An elf meditates for 4 hours, instead of sleeping.

So you want to tell me that the elf has to spend 4 hours on eating or other light activities to get the same benefit as a human?

Its not logical. Its a decision made for balancing purpose. Nothing else.

So whatchu gonna do, brother? Start adventuring alone 4 hours ahead of your party?

 

[rgoodbb]

Mending is the least broken spell,

 

[Joseph Smith]

Animal Shapes - additional reasons. everytime the target switches form, they get the new hit points of the new beast. So you can start with your army or rats transformed into giant Scorpions. When they are down to 10 HP, switch to full HP cave bears. rinse and repeat and defeat any army you are up against.

 

[Joseph Webley]

The correct fix to True polymorph is to make it so it can only effect 1 target at a time not just a third of the characters level makes that stupid as it is a 9th level spell so make a level 18 party member a 6cr creature? Seems terrible. Takes it from a great spell to the worst 9th level spell not named power word kill. I mean you would lose hp damage a whole bunch of other things not to mention that the damage is bad. Just use meteor swarm instead.

 

[Evan Perry]

I have several game-breaking spells. Number one:creation. If you have visions of TNT, you can summon enough square feet of it to level a city. Two: Cone of cold and all other 60ft cone spells(EX: Prismatic spray). With this spell, If a sorcerer uses fly to get 120 feet off the ground, they can use extended spell to double the distance of the cone, which also more than doubles the cone. Assuming your attack an army of creatures with less than 40 hp who are packed together(Perfect for a war situation) you can kill 452 of them.Even if they save. Yes, I did the math. It is OP! Conjure anmials can completeluy troll the DM, and swarms of bats can (True story) shatter deadly encounters. It is crazy. Another OP combo is bestoy curse(5th level slot no concentration),hex, and magic missle. Look at it. It is awesome. Although I have many more, I only will give you one more:Web. If you play a charcter with a trip attack and then quicken-spell web, they are trapped in piles of flammable webbing. Add in oil and fire magic and you get deep frien orcs. Best served before your DM realises your trolls. Have fun with these spells!

 

[CapnZapp]

With the exception of polymorph (a 4th level spell) and possibly wall of Force (5th level) I think we're focusing way too much on high level spells.

High level spells are almost inherently "game breaking" by nature and require a high level of DM adjudication and thought. As importantly, they won't come up that often, certainly not immediately.

I'm more concerned with problematic low level spells. Sleep, for example, can cause problems for a party very early if the DM is not careful.

Another spell, I've seen derail a situation fast is inflict wounds. 1st level spell - 3d10 damage. It will take down ANY first level character on an average roll.

At GenCon, the BBEG took down the party cleric (from full HP of 11 to 100% dead) with a particularly good roll, the DM actually crit, but it didn't matter, standard damage killed the character. I've heard the same story with other parties in the same scenario.

Guiding bolt is also troubling. 1st level, 4d6 damage, an excellent secondary effect (grants advantage) AND it's ranged. 1st level characters are pretty frail for this kind of spell.

That said, the monsters seem to be set up for these spells, higher HPs and lower ACs etc.

First level characters die easily. Spells that kill them are not broken.

 

[CapnZapp]

The level of forcecage makes it extremely limited. You're using your only 7th-level spell slot to trap a monster; not something that's always the best tactic. Both it and wall of force just make a monster unkillable for the duration - which is not forever. They're going to get out and mess you up eventually.

This reveals a very rudimentary insight into combat tactics.

Getting the big bad shunted away while you kill the rest (a task now considerably easier) is a big win.

Killing the lone monster later with no lieutenants or mooks is usually trivial.

The gold cost of forcecage should also not be ignored. This isn't 3e/4e where 1500 go just falls out of the sky each morning. Wizards and sorcerers only get limited numbers of spells, likely four 7th-level spells. Unless the DM is choosing to hand out high level spellbooks. There are a lot of really great spells you're sacrificing to learn forcecage.

Per DMG guidelines, 1500 gp is indeed trivial.

The real limitation of this spell is size.

But when it does work it is a solid spell since it autowins against that targeted foe.

 

[Azzy]

My dat thread necro is gud.

 

[Mort]

First level characters die easily. Spells that kill them are not broken.

Broken is a an overused buzzword

Instead, It's just always best to understand outliers.

A 1st level spell that does as much damage as a crit from a greatsword is something to watch.

Also, since the clear design decision was to make 1st level 5e characters at least somewhat resilient (3 failed death saves or enough damage to go to negative full hp in one blow) spells that bypass that should at least be understood,

 

[jaelis]

Two: Cone of cold and all other 60ft cone spells(EX: Prismatic spray). With this spell, If a sorcerer uses fly to get 120 feet off the ground, they can use extended spell to double the distance of the cone, which also more than doubles the cone. Assuming your attack an army of creatures with less than 40 hp who are packed together(Perfect for a war situation) you can kill 452 of them.Even if they save. Yes, I did the math. It is OP!

Congrats, you have discovered the reason that cone spells actually have a range of "self"