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

[Son of the Serpent]

I don't know who was smoking what when they decided to change this one.

Nothing. They just cast planeshift (demiplane of ash) and continued breathing as normal.

There is no explaining guidance though. That spell its top of the line stupid. My most hated spell.

 

[ChaosOS]

Guidance has some fixes from applying it's rules (minute timeframe, vS components of a prayer make it obvious) but yeah as a passive +2.5 to most skill checks it's not terribly compelling.

 

[Oofta]

It's funny, I don't remember the last time anyone cast guidance in a game. Maybe because we add some simple restrictions? You have to call for it before the action, you have to know it's coming, other people will realize your casting a spell and so on.

 

[cmad1977]

It's funny, I don't remember the last time anyone cast guidance in a game. Maybe because we add some simple restrictions? You have to call for it before the action, you have to know it's coming, other people will realize your casting a spell and so on.

I’ve never seen it cast so the antipathy towards it is... weird.

None of the spells people seem to have an issue with have really come up.

 

[Nebulous]

oops wrong thread

 

[ChaosOS]

Spell I don't think anyone's mentioned - Pass without Trace. Not because I find stealth approaches inherently problematic, but because it's a silly design to have a spell that basically invalidates people who choose to invest in stealth. It's the issue of 3.5 era knock.

 

[Tony Vargas]

wrong thread

That is so true.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I feel like I’m the only DM who doesn’t have a problem with Counterspell. I get why a lot of DMs do, but it’s just never really bothered me. It makes the players feel cool when they thwart an enemy’s spell, and it still eats a spell slot, so I’m good with it.

There are two categories of spell I dislike: spells that trivialize survival at low levels, and spells that are trap options. Of the two, I think I dislike the latter category more, so I would say my top 3 hated spells are probably Spare the Dying, Color Spray, and True Strike.

I don't see any major issue with counterspell either.

@Charlaquin - what do you mean by trap options? Are they traps for the player, as in the spells are actually useless? Or something else? Sorry for the confusion, but I'm not actually familiar with DnD5e.

 

[ChaosOS]

They're referring to traps as in bad ideas to take and strictly worse than doing other actions (eg True Strike)

 

[DrunkonDuty]

They're referring to traps as in bad ideas to take and strictly worse than doing other actions (eg True Strike)

Ah! Thanks. I suspected that was the gist, but I wanted to be sure.