D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook preview: "New Spells"

[Bitbrain]

Magic Weapon is useless in most games. I feel bad for the dirt farmer game where people don't have +1 weapons by 7th level.

Ditching the Gish cantrips was a mistake. They're balanced over other cantrips by requiring multiple attributes (str/dex and a caster stat)

You and I have had a near-totally opposite 5e experience as players then. I envy you.

In my personal experience, most DMs go entire campaigns without giving their players any gold or magic items. NONE WHATSOEVER.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You and I have had a near-totally opposite 5e experience as players then. I envy you.

In my personal experience, most DMs go entire campaigns without giving their players any gold or magic items. NONE WHATSOEVER.

Hey, no one from my group is supposed to be posting here! Now go and eat your gruel!

 

[Chaosmancer]

Oh yeah, had a random thought.

Do we think Animate Dead will still be a spell in the 2024 book, since we have Summon Undead? I realized partway through the video that Animate Dead kind of is like the Conjuration spells, so I wondered if it would receive the same treatment.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Do we need spells to do more?

Don’t we want there to be some hard strategic choices? It sucks to forgo an attack to cure people.

Why does every round have to be easy without any sacrifices?

I can’t pass judgment t without reading the book but the focus on “more better” has me wondering if challenging situations are that unpopular…

I have always been excited by overcoming adversity as a player and seeing players win though guile when I am DM.

A lot of fixes to make things easier seems very odd to me. I am down with streamlining and ease of use of course…but the tenor of the video was very “now spells do even more!”

And I am thinking…why?

 

[Chaosmancer]

For the high-level damage spells do more damage which ones do you think are lacking in the damage department?
Chain Lightning?
Otiluke's Freezing Sphere?
Circle of Death?
Prismatic Spray?

Meteor Swarm is probably just right as a 9th level spell at 20d6 fire + 20d6 bludgeoning damage.

I know some have complained about Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, if that's a spell that graduates to the PHB, but it might have been about how it only did damage and nothing else.

Chain Lightning is doing decent damage for its level, being very targeted is a nice boost to it, so it doesn't need to do as much damage, because it always hits only who you want to hit.

Otilukes is under-performing, the ability to throw it is useless (you can't get it further than the radius of the spell) and the damage is too low. I raised it to be 12d6 instead of 10d6, and basically ignored the "make a marble" part of it. The freezing people in water part is niche, but counted toward utility.

Circle of Death under-performs by A LOT. IT does the same damage as a 3rd level spell. I ended up making three changes. 1) The spell ignores all cover. 2) Increased the damage to 10d6 from 8d6. 3) No one who fails the save can regain hp for 1 minute. This is because I didn't want to just push the damage to where it should be, and instead wanted to give the spell some unique flavor. As for what the damage should be... probably at least 12d6 baseline.

Prismatic Spray seems to be fine, you have a low chance of dealing 20d6 which is huge, as well as a potential banishment or petrification. I didn't end up altering it much. Might get away with bumping the damage rays to 11d6.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh yeah, had a random thought.

Do we think Animate Dead will still be a spell in the 2024 book, since we have Summon Undead? I realized partway through the video that Animate Dead kind of is like the Conjuration spells, so I wondered if it would receive the same treatment.

If it does, it would be completely missing the point of animate dead IMO.

 

[mellored]

Oh yeah, had a random thought.

Do we think Animate Dead will still be a spell in the 2024 book, since we have Summon Undead? I realized partway through the video that Animate Dead kind of is like the Conjuration spells, so I wondered if it would receive the same treatment.

I kinda of expect it to get a stat block and scale by level, instead of summoning multiple creatures.

I curious about animate objects though.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Does it say that anywhere?

Here is how he is described.

Evard is a man of sturdy build and average musculature, with pale skin and long dark hair.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Do we need spells to do more?

Don’t we want there to be some hard strategic choices? It sucks to forgo an attack to cure people.

Why does every round have to be easy without any sacrifices?

I can’t pass judgment t without reading the book but the focus on “more better” has me wondering if challenging situations are that unpopular…

I have always been excited by overcoming adversity as a player and seeing players win though guile when I am DM.

A lot of fixes to make things easier seems very odd to me. I am down with streamlining and ease of use of course…but the tenor of the video was very “now spells do even more!”

And I am thinking…why?

Honestly, I would say you are missing the point.

Does it suck to forgo an attack to heal your allies? No, not really. What sucks is forgoing an attack to heal your allies, and healing them for less than a single attack's worth of damage. If I forgo attacking and spend my entire turn healing my ally for 6 hp... and then on the enemy's turn, they get hit three times for 9 damage each, taking 27 damage... then I wasted my turn. I didn't even prevent a single hit's worth of damage, and now all three enemies are still around to hit him again. I'd have been better served attacking in every instance, unless he was so close to death and I knew the DM would keep hitting him after he fell to zero, so I needed to heal him just enough to only get hit once after he started dying and I knew that my character could not possibly deal enough damage to drop a single enemy. But even then... I haven't actually saved him, and would be relying on the other party members to take out the enemies so I can spend my next action healing them again, and hoping they just aren't straight killed after that.

Shouldn't there be hard strategic choices? Sure. But what is the real hard strategic choice between these three options: 1) Auto-hit any enemy for an average of 10.5 damage, no save (magic missile) 2) Auto-hit multiple enemies with a dex save for half starting at 10.5 in a small area of effect (Burning Hands) 3) Auto-hit a single enemy for 10 damage, dex save for half, as long as you set the area of effect directly on top of them, or have them in a 5-ft wide corridor so they can't bypass the spell, and it takes your concentration, and it is a 2nd level spell not a 1st level spell (Cloud of Daggers). That... isn't really a hard choice between the three. Tactically, the only time Cloud of Daggers is useful is if you are in a 5ft cooridor. And it does less damage than the cheaper spells. So... if we want more tactical choice... then cloud of daggers needs to be a better spell.

Because, let's not kid ourselves. There are already some ridiculously good spells that people can use. So taking the mid to bad spells and giving them a boost... just makes it so they are actually contending with the good spells. Which increase the number of tactical considerations at play.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Honestly, I would say you are missing the point.

Does it suck to forgo an attack to heal your allies? No, not really. What sucks is forgoing an attack to heal your allies, and healing them for less than a single attack's worth of damage. If I forgo attacking and spend my entire turn healing my ally for 6 hp... and then on the enemy's turn, they get hit three times for 9 damage each, taking 27 damage... then I wasted my turn. I didn't even prevent a single hit's worth of damage, and now all three enemies are still around to hit him again. I'd have been better served attacking in every instance, unless he was so close to death and I knew the DM would keep hitting him after he fell to zero, so I needed to heal him just enough to only get hit once after he started dying and I knew that my character could not possibly deal enough damage to drop a single enemy. But even then... I haven't actually saved him, and would be relying on the other party members to take out the enemies so I can spend my next action healing them again, and hoping they just aren't straight killed after that.

Shouldn't there be hard strategic choices? Sure. But what is the real hard strategic choice between these three options: 1) Auto-hit any enemy for an average of 10.5 damage, no save (magic missile) 2) Auto-hit multiple enemies with a dex save for half starting at 10.5 in a small area of effect (Burning Hands) 3) Auto-hit a single enemy for 10 damage, dex save for half, as long as you set the area of effect directly on top of them, or have them in a 5-ft wide corridor so they can't bypass the spell, and it takes your concentration, and it is a 2nd level spell not a 1st level spell (Cloud of Daggers). That... isn't really a hard choice between the three. Tactically, the only time Cloud of Daggers is useful is if you are in a 5ft cooridor. And it does less damage than the cheaper spells. So... if we want more tactical choice... then cloud of daggers needs to be a better spell.

Because, let's not kid ourselves. There are already some ridiculously good spells that people can use. So taking the mid to bad spells and giving them a boost... just makes it so they are actually contending with the good spells. Which increase the number of tactical considerations at play.

This option makes it too easy. Therefore the problem is that all the options don’t make it too easy?

not going to agree on this and that is ok.

We have healed in combat despite the high opportunity cost. Its last ditch.

If there is not much of an opportunity cost it’s an easy calculus. Of course healing in combat is not the best route much of the time. But if you keep me on my feet so I can recover and misty step out, mission accomplished. Or smite big or cast fireball, etc.

No one is taking big hits each round and doing puny heals as the main counter. If you heal it is strategic with some other end in mind.

As to overpowered spells, it seems better to fix them than pump other stuff up. Psychologically though no one likes nerfs. Change is usually unidirectional and I know that.

Again, this is all broad strokes but I can see the winds have changed. Much more emphasis on every round being “great” and avoiding sacrifices to win the day—-it is how it appears with extant info.

The actual publication may prove this an unnecessary worry and totally wrong!

I will keep an open mind.