D&D (2024) PHB 2024 Is Hilariously Broken. Most OP of All Time?

[Oofta]

Grappling and dragging a person or creature is far different from dragging an inanimate object. The inanimate object is, hopefully not struggling. A creature being dragged towards something hazardous is going to do everything they can to avoid that hazard if they're conscious.

I envision grappling something like any one of the following

I have no idea what other people envision it as where you can drag someone kicking and fighting at arms length and then some.

 

[Rainynights]

Nystul's Magic Aura to change a creature type to "humaniod".
Magic Jar to take control of it's body.

Possibly a Hold Person or Suggestion in the middle to make it go along with your plan.

Definitely takes some setup.

So running some quick math, the kraken is gonna succeed on its saves more often than not. At 11th level a wizard will have only gotten two ASIs, assuming they used both of them to boost an ability score instead of taking a feet, and chose Intelligence to boost that's a total of +4 to the asi. Let's look at the absolute minimum their intelligence might be first, then take a look at the maximum. For a primary ability you never want to start with anything less than a +2 mod, so those ASIs will get you up to a +4 for a spell save DC of 16, meaning the kraken only needs to roll an 11 for its save against magic jar and a 12 for its save against hold person or suggestion. And it only needs to make its save against the hold person to completely ruin the setup you did and at best force you back into your body and at worst instantly kill you by breaking the magic jar on its turn.
Absolute maximum for your primary ability score would be a 20 at first level if you got insanely lucky with rolled abilities, that only bumps our numbers up by 1, still pretty easy rolls for the kraken to make with how high its ability mods are. So let's see if we can swing our odds with any spells, abilities or feats. A quick search of the 2024 phb for the term disadvantage doesn't show much of anything that imposes disadvantage on saves but lets look at the few things that do:
Bestow Curse, well this requires a save to take effect in the first place so it suffers from the same issue as the other spells, and even then can only force disadvantage in whatever control spell you use to make the rest of this possible.
Contagion, mostly the same as bestow curse, it can impose disadvanage on saves but only if they fail a save first, this time con which the kraken has a +7 on. Granted if you succeed it has disadvantage for as long as it remains poisoned, so if you get lucky on your first turn you do improve your odds a little.
If we dip over to 2014 and bring over the div wizard subclass we can possibly force a failure on 2 saves, but only if you rolled less than a 12 for at least one of your portent dice and less than a 13 for the other, most likely this will only let you force one save at which point your back to the original odds

 

[Rainynights]

Thanks for clarifying. I don't see it as a mistake. I think it's deliberate. That being said, everyone is welcome to disallow it.

I feel like it's worth pointing out that the main text of the opportunity attack rules still seem to imply that it only triggers if the creature's involved veiw each other as enemies with the first sentence in the section:

Combatants watch for enemies to drop their guard.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Not sure where I might have done that. I believe that I explicitly & consistently said that wotc should issue an errata because the RAW is awful in ways that invite problems that the GM should not be responsible for houseruling something in such obvious need of an errata.

Addendum, errata... whatever. You're proposing some sort of official announcement clarifying your corner case, which I don't mind. Whether your position is in 'obvious need of an errata' is most definitely up for debate though.

 

[Mort]

Nystul's Magic Aura to change a creature type to "humaniod".
Magic Jar to take control of it's body.

Possibly a Hold Person or Suggestion in the middle to make it go along with your plan.

Definitely takes some setup.

Since Nystul's magic aura requires a willing target, you'd also need one heck of a persuasion check (I'd definitely make the player at least explain just HOW they're trying to convince the powerful baddie!) or something like charm monster to kick it off. Suggestion might work, love to see the player try and phrase it though!

 

[Rainynights]

A person cannot do it easily every round because it's still gated by spell slots and concentration applied to typical buffs. Every spell used that way is a spell not used offensively.

Meanwhile, the argument was that it allowed for 2 spells in a round. This is true. So does an offensive spell in that regard. The difference is buffing that way also uses the reaction and then the offensive option has become an opportunity cost as well.

It might be easier to set up with allies that way, but it doesn't seem to be superior.

Am I remembering something wrong or didn't the 2024 rules say that once you cast a spell that uses a spell slot you can't cast another spell that uses a spell slot that turn, which means only way to get two spells in a turn is either a leveled spell and a cantrip or have an ability or feat that let's you cast a normally leveled spell without using a spell slot somehow, the latter of which is very limited because there's no ability or feat that just says "you may cast any spell you know without expending a spell slot x times per (short or) long rest"

 

[Stalker0]

Just came in to check. Does 2024 let you remake pun pun yet?

If not....well 2024 keep trying, maybe one day you will be as broken as 3e....one day!!!!

 

[Zardnaar]

Just came in to check. Does 2024 let you remake pun pun yet?

If not....well 2024 keep trying, maybe one day you will be as broken as 3e....one day!!!!

Pun pun was theoretical and required more than the phb.

I specifically said phb only and at levells people actually play. By that level 1-10 (or even 1-7).

4E for example had a kill Orcus combo on release. But it was level 25 or so which falls into the theoretical camp for me (translation care factor 0)

 

[Zardnaar]

Since Nystul's magic aura requires a willing target, you'd also need one heck of a persuasion check (I'd definitely make the player at least explain just HOW they're trying to convince the powerful baddie!) or something like charm monster to kick it off. Suggestion might work, love to see the player try and phrase it though!

Combo involved what people are talking about. Charm whatever nystuls magical aura.

Not really viable but might be able to do it with something that's not a Kraken. Diviner portent was involved.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Pun pun was theoretical and required more than the phb.

I specifically said phb only and at levells people actually play. By that level 1-10 (or even 1-7).

4E for example had a kill Orcus combo on release. But it was level 25 or so which falls into the theoretical camp for me (translation care factor 0)

Honestly we need to either accept the whole PH or not. Arbitrarily limiting it to the parts that one guy has decided they like using makes the whole discussion meaningless.