D&D 5E As a DM - Your Top 3 Most Hated Spells

[Harzel]

I couldn't possibly limit my list to just 3; it would just be so unfair to the other spells that so richly deserve my scorn. So I'll just make mention of one, quite possibly peculiar to me, that hasn't come up yet: Shadow Blade. I dislike the spell because, IMO, one spell known is much too cheap a price to pay for acquiring credible (if not top-notch) melee capability. In more general terms, I do not like the creep toward making wizards (or any other caster) a 'universal class' that is able to emulate other classes via modest investments in spell selection. I don't have a fundamental problem with building, e.g., a magical tank from a wizard, but the price needs to be much, much steeper than a few spells known. Admittedly, we're not quite there yet, but to me it feels like we are well down the slippery slope.

 

[Seramus]

Since you can only long rest once every 24 hours, I don't have any issues with players abusing it in dungeons. They would literally have to sit there in boredom for an entire day giving the bad guys ample time to prepare.

I DO think the hut is brutal when used as a 10 minute bunker. Set it up in a known combat zone and it's a free wall of force your allies can skirmish through. That's waaay better than an actual wall of force, four levels earlier, lasts longer, and takes no resources but time.

Best two fixes I have seen are:
It is not a ritual OR It is opaque both ways.

 

[Coroc]

...
It is not a ritual OR It is opaque both ways.

No privacy for you dudes! You're on a mission!

 

[Seramus]

Sidenote. If someone wanted to be a real jerk with Tiny Hut they could say fresh air is free to leave the dome, and no new air can get in.

 

[Nebulous]

Best two fixes I have seen are:
It is not a ritual OR It is opaque both ways.

I also like adding that it's tough but not invincible.

 

[Nebulous]

So I have a new group of players, five of them, and they've just hit 4th level and they're going to be there a while because I'm running a slow roll milestone tread, but I'm curious to see what spells they find, abuse and exploit.

 

[Anoth]

Circle of Death
Crown of Madness
Charm person

 

[Eric V]

Circle of Death
Crown of Madness
Charm person

Interesting choices! May I ask why?

 

[commandercrud]

Goodberry

 

[tetrasodium]

In the case of Hut, just allowing the PCs to find convenient, secure resting spots when desired avoids the need for the pro-forma ritual (in both senses) of casting Hut; I don't see that anything is lost by avoiding that. Hut in particular is a very obvious piece of metagame artifice; better in my view to just be straightforward about what is going on and handwave it.

People don't hate tiny hut because it lets players find "convenient, secure resting spots". They hate it because it makes anyplace you can be left alone for ten minutes into a near perfectly secure resting spot & as a result treat every encounter like a time they are expected to go nova. Take my example earlier where the players decided it was secure enough to shelter them from the mists of Ravenloft and keep in mind that it was a group of 7 well equipped level 6 PCs who were mostly spent after killing 4 ghosts, a flesh golem, & a revenant in three different encounters where only one lasted more than 2 rounds & potions healed 100% of damage between fights. Even without using x per $typeRest abilities & spell slots those should have been trivial (especially since one player was elemental adept fire, a second had a longsword that did fire damage, & a third had sacred flame to nullify the revenant's regen).