D&D 5E A use for True Strike

[DND_Reborn]

That seems like the best fix to True Strike I've seen. It's not too overpowered but it keeps the function of making divining your opponent's weakness.

Thanks. I like it myself as it is a really simple fix and think it deserves some further thought. Honesty, we have a Cleric/Paladin MC in our main game and I might suggest to our DM to allow him to try it when we resume play. It might work, might not. Who knows?

 

[NotAYakk]

Btw, don't use the "natural 20" wording. Critical hit. Natural 20s trigger vorpral words, which go snicker-snack.

Critical hits don't.

What I don't like about "your first attack, if it hits, is a critical hit" is that it is only useful if you use smite-type tricks; it can basically be used to conserve spell slots, and not much else; using a smite on both rounds is going to do more damage than using true strike and then hoping for a hit.

Advantage + Auto-crit makes it useful more broadly. It "pays" for the cost of delaying your damage by a round and concentration with advantage. Auto-crit pays for it being 2 rounds worth of actions in one.

However, we could have it scale.

True Stike

You extend your hand and point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target's defenses. On your next turn, if you hit on your first attack roll on the target, the attack is a critical hit, provided this spell hasn't ended. Starting at 5th level, that attack roll is also at advantage.

This moves the 2nd damage boost (advantage) back to level 5, which makes it compete with 2 attacks on most smite builds.

 

[jaelis]

As for true strike - If you do not have surprise or another means of gaining advantage, yet you can still prepare for a battle before it begins, it is a useful non-spell slot buff to cast before combat.

Do keep in mind that you have to see your target when you cast true strike. So the circumstances when you can use it before combat are somewhat limited.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Btw, don't use the "natural 20" wording. Critical hit. Natural 20s trigger vorpral words, which go snicker-snack.

Critical hits don't.

What I don't like about "your first attack, if it hits, is a critical hit" is that it is only useful if you use smite-type tricks; it can basically be used to conserve spell slots, and not much else; using a smite on both rounds is going to do more damage than using true strike and then hoping for a hit.

Advantage + Auto-crit makes it useful more broadly. It "pays" for the cost of delaying your damage by a round and concentration with advantage. Auto-crit pays for it being 2 rounds worth of actions in one.

However, we could have it scale.

True Stike

You extend your hand and point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target's defenses. On your next turn, if you hit on your first attack roll on the target, the attack is a critical hit, provided this spell hasn't ended. Starting at 5th level, that attack roll is also at advantage.

This moves the 2nd damage boost (advantage) back to level 5, which makes it compete with 2 attacks on most smite builds.

LOL, fine "critical hit".

I'm not big on cantrips scaling as it is, and giving advantage and crits is too OP as I see it, even at a mid-level.

First, I would stop looking at this from a Paladin Smite/ Rogue Sneak Attack view. They don't get it unless MCed or Feats are used and you take Magic Initiate. Let's examine it for who it was intended (i.e. Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock).

Now, it is useful in some situations (the critical hit version, I mean). I would stop features like Undead Fortitude from kicking in, etc. I'm sure there are others if we think about it (zombies came to mind because we fought some in our game yesterday). I'm not saying its perfect, but at least it would have a purpose that could be useful.

 

[NotAYakk]

No, just a critical hit on a Bard/Sorc/Wizard/Warlock (without smite) is a waste of a cantrip.

It might have corner cases (like undead fortitude), but even then, it would usually be dumb to use it unless you had some homebrewed zombie with +20 con save or something silly.

True Strike that grants advantage and crits is going to be marginal on a Bard/Sorc/Wizard/Warlock. The cost of a round delayed damage and concentration is huge.

When doesn't a bard have something better to use concentration on? Wizard? Sorc? Warlock? The Warlock by mid levels will want to cast hex at 6 am, then have an hour nap and remain concentrating on it. Bards combat spells are pretty much all concentration based. Sorcerers can twin-cast haste. Wizards have, well, a book of awesome concentration spells.

Just auto-crit is a toy. You can use it to win archery competitions when there is no ban on magic.

With smites, auto-crit is going to drop your DPS but increase your spell slot efficiency at low levels. By mid levels, it might not even do that; a round of at-will one-handed attacks (which you are giving up) is like 20+ damage by level 8, and 32 by level 12. A 5d8 crit-smite is +22.5 damage over a normal smite.

But you do you.

I'm not big on cantrips scaling as it is, and giving advantage and crits is too OP as I see it, even at a mid-level.

Before calling something OP, run actual numbers.

Eyeballs are often wrong.

 

[Asisreo]

No, just a critical hit on a Bard/Sorc/Wizard/Warlock (without smite) is a waste of a cantrip.

It might have corner cases (like undead fortitude), but even then, it would usually be dumb to use it unless you had some homebrewed zombie with +20 con save or something silly.

True Strike that grants advantage and crits is going to be marginal on a Bard/Sorc/Wizard/Warlock. The cost of a round delayed damage and concentration is huge.

When doesn't a bard have something better to use concentration on? Wizard? Sorc? Warlock? The Warlock by mid levels will want to cast hex at 6 am, then have an hour nap and remain concentrating on it. Bards combat spells are pretty much all concentration based. Sorcerers can twin-cast haste. Wizards have, well, a book of awesome concentration spells.

Just auto-crit is a toy. You can use it to win archery competitions when there is no ban on magic.

With smites, auto-crit is going to drop your DPS but increase your spell slot efficiency at low levels. By mid levels, it might not even do that; a round of at-will one-handed attacks (which you are giving up) is like 20+ damage by level 8, and 32 by level 12. A 5d8 crit-smite is +22.5 damage over a normal smite.

But you do you.

Before calling something OP, run actual numbers.

Eyeballs are often wrong.

Most attacks are likely to hit. You're effectively increasing the chances of a crit by 50+ percentage points. Now, again, it's only really useful for attack roll spells but Chromatic Orb would act effectively as a spell of a much higher level. For example, it's basically making a 1st level chromatic orb a fourth level spell in all areas except counterspell.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

In 3.5, True Strike gave +20 to hit and let you ignore 'miss chance' and 'cover. The two latter bonuses were very nice because it allowed you to hit enemies that might be firing at you through arrow slits or from behind rocks etc...

I think a fairly conservative boost to the spell in 5e would be to allow it to ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover. So, not only do you have advantage, you also get to avoid those annoying +2 and +5 to AC. While it is still situational, those particular situations make the spell that much more worth casting.

 

[NotAYakk]

Most attacks are likely to hit. You're effectively increasing the chances of a crit by 50+ percentage points. Now, again, it's only really useful for attack roll spells but Chromatic Orb would act effectively as a spell of a much higher level. For example, it's basically making a 1st level chromatic orb a fourth level spell in all areas except counterspell.

Sure, but you are doing so at the cost of an action. In that action you could have attacked instead.

2 attacks that hit are better than 1 attack that crits in almost every situation, because only damage dice double. Two attacks that hit, one the round before, don't require concentration, and don't require pre-commiting to a target, is insanely better than 1 attack that crits.

It is a chromatic orb cast ... that takes 2 rounds to cast. That is a really really sucky level 4 spell (actually it already was a sucky level 4 spell, now it is abysmal).

At level 1, you could orb (3d8) then fire bolt (1d10) for 19 damage. Or you could true strike concentrate for a round, then orb (6d8) for 27 damage. At a higher variance.

Suppose you have +5 to attack, and the enemy has 16 AC. So you hit 50% of the time for 13.5 with true strike, and 9.5 with the other one. But the other one has crits, while true-strike gets nothing; so now it is 10.45 vs 13.5.

Now suppose 1 in 5 times your concentration is broken, the enemy dies before you act, or the enemy gets behind cover. So now the true strike situation drops to 10.8, while for the fire bolt situation you can reaim your bolt at a new target.

And the orb + bolt situation could have dropped the enemy before it got another action, because its damage was front-loaded.

By level 5, the fire bolt damage goes up to 11, while the true strike combo remains the same, unless you burn higher level spell slots.

We now compare level 3 witch bolt (+7 to hit at 3d12 * 2) vs a true strike + level 3 orb (+7 to hit at 10d8) on an AC 16 target. They hit on an 9+; witch bolt deals 25.35 damage on average (assuming crits double all dice), while true strike + orb does 27 damage. A 6% edge, easily lost if you lose concentration, cover, or the creature dies.

At level 11 we can use a level 6 slot. Witch bolt does 6d12*2 or 78 damage over 2 rounds; true strike + orb does 72.

Add in advantage and true strike combo pulls ahead in damage per 2 rounds. Which as a cantrip being used optimally it sort of should? If it isn't ahead in damage in an ideal situation, shouldn't it not be chosen?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Hmm... looking at something like a 2d10 cantrip (Fire Bolt or Eldritch Blast, etc.), casting twice in succession yields 14.30 damage over 2 rounds. Casting True Strike and allowing both auto-crit and advantage would be 18.48, which is a bump of 4.18 or a bit over 29%.

But, tack on Elemental Affinity or Agonizing Blast (either likely), and your normal damage over two rounds (assume +3 bonus) would be 17.90. Now, the True Strike of auto-crit/advantage is a 3.58 bump or 20%.

Is a 20% bump in damage worth delaying half the damage (for the round no attack is made) and having to concentrate until the next round???

Using Chromatic Orb at level 1:

Cast two rounds in a row (oops, no more non-cantrips!) would deal (again 60% hit) 8.775 per round or 17.55 damage.
Cast TS then CO RAW is 12.66 damage on round two. (that SUCKS, but you still have 1 1st-level slot...)

If you extend it to 4 rounds (two CO's followed by two FB) is almost identical to TS-CO-TS-CO. The TS-CO combo only improves damage by 0.62 over FOUR rounds!

Making TS into an auto-crit (but no advantage):
Cast TS/ac then CO is 16.20 damage. Still less than the 17.55 of casting CO twice in a row, but you have your spell slot left.

If you extend this to 4 rounds (TS/ac-CO-TS/ac-CO) you would get 35.10, 10.40 points over the 24.70 of a CO-CO-FB-FB sequence. Over 4 rounds that is a boost of 2.6 per round. Pretty significant bump but you have to worry about concentration so viable IMO.

Making TS into an auto-crit with advantage:
Cast TS/ac-ad then CO is 22.68 damage! Significantly more than using CO twice in a row.

In four rounds you would have 45.36 damage, 20.66 over the 24.70 of the CO-CO-FB-FB. That is over a 83% bump in damage and way too much for "concentration and delaying damage."

 

[DND_Reborn]

In 3.5, True Strike gave +20 to hit and let you ignore 'miss chance' and 'cover. The two latter bonuses were very nice because it allowed you to hit enemies that might be firing at you through arrow slits or from behind rocks etc...

I think a fairly conservative boost to the spell in 5e would be to allow it to ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover. So, not only do you have advantage, you also get to avoid those annoying +2 and +5 to AC. While it is still situational, those particular situations make the spell that much more worth casting.

That is a nice idea, too! It would be really situational to even allow something crazy like "you can ignore total cover provided you can still see your target."