D&D 5E (2024) Circle Casting is gonna break a lot of games

[Sacrosanct]

No it is not always in the same round, given that fighters typically have higher dexterity than Clerics, more often than not the spell will not complete until the second round, because the Cleric will start it after the Fighter's turn and the fighter will complete it in round 2 ... assuming they stayed inside 30 feet for two full rounds.

Even when the Cleric goes first and it is one round it will be uncommon that they are right next to each other where there will not be a gap.

This is complete guesswork. You're just making assumption after assumption that isn't necessarily true.

Are we bumping the AOE or allowing the Fighter to concentrate on something else? Increasing the AOE on spirit guardians or letting the EK concentrate on SG so the Cleric can cast something else in the second round is rarely going to be better than the EK attacking. Not never better, but rarely better.

rarely? Show the math. I already explained how expanding a radius, even by 10 feet, is going to have a big difference. I don't know how many extra creatures it will impact because that's situational, but you would normally only do SG in the first place when you're surrounded by enemies.

Doing 3d8 extra damage each round to 6 additional creatures is greater than one round of two attacks at 1d8+5 damage. It seems like it doesn't take much to make using your action for one round to augment SG for multiple rounds the lesser of the two things.

No it is only 1-2 rounds after you get it turned on. Average combat is generally about 3 rounds, less at high levels.

Citation?

No usually. Increasing the AOE does require a slot and Tasha's Hideous Laughter or Command is going to be worth more than those 51 squares usually.

Only if you're attacking a single creature. When you wouldn't do SG anyway. A single target spell is not usually going to be better than hitting all or most targets.

Heck with Command you can actually force the enemy into that AOE!

 

[Sacrosanct]

Just FYI, you can only have 1 effect at a time.

I know. I was just disagreeing that you had to have a bunch of NPC mooks in order to make the exploits work. My examples were independent of each other.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If you aren't sure about using this as a DM but your players want to, just suggest this scenario to them and ask if they still want it:

Suppose a trio of cultists circle cast a banishment or heat metal on your heaviest hitter of a PC then use distribute to distribute concentration. You still want us to use circle casting?

And then see how they feel.23rd

EH, a spell thwt already creates bad gameplay being amplified if used adversarially isn't gonna come across as a question askrd in good faith, so my players would just as why the hell im pulling that sort of thing. They would rightly and rightfully tell me to stop being vvwe

The examples listed here actually don’t worry me. Dragons have Legendary Resistance, great Stealth bonuses and often more than 70 hp. They will be very annoyed, though, and vow to destroy the party.

Animal shapes has always been limited to willing creatures. I don’t think this really makes things that much more broken than it already was.

No, my main worry is Aura of Vitality. At the cost of a 3rd and 1st level spell slot, you can heal the party to full.

It’s the only one that seems easy to access, reliable and powerful to me.

Not lileu to be used in combat right? Im okay with that cost to full heal outside combat.

 

[Ferrousbones]

@ECMO3 With regards to Earth Tremor, you are missing what @Sacrosanct is saying:

Without Circle Casting, the spell has a range of 10 feet, and the effect applies to the entirety of the area within range.

But, with the Augment option of Circle Magic, which only requires secondary casters to take the Magic Action, not expend a spell slot, that range increases by 1000 feet per secondary caster.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Earth Tremor is a spell from Xanathar's Guide to Everything, of course, from quite near the beginning of 5th Edition's development cycle. I imagine it will be worded differently if and when it's updated to the 2024 ruleset (it will probably be an Emanation with a range of Self, for example). At the moment, it doesn't work well with circle casting because it has its range listed as 10 feet. It still functions as written, but it leads to some slight silliness as discussed. If you're allowing players to pick spells from XGE and also use circle casting, you might consider house ruling that interaction, because the effect likely isn't intended.

 

[ECMO3]

This is complete guesswork. You're just making assumption after assumption that isn't necessarily true.

No but with completely random ability scores it is true 50% of the time. So 50% of the time the spell takes effect on the 2nd round not the first if the Cleric and the Fighter have the same dexterity.

It is still not always in the first round like you claimed, and if we assume the fighter has a higher dexterity the spell will complete in the second round more than it will complete in the first round.

I already explained how expanding a radius, even by 10 feet, is going to have a big difference.

No you didn't explain it.

I don't know how many extra creatures it will impact because that's situational, but you would normally only do SG in the first place when you're surrounded by enemies.

Ok so now you are saying this supposed gamebreaking mechanic is so highly situational that it only works on long combats where you are surrounded by enemies?

Doing 3d8 extra damage each round to 6 additional creatures is greater than one round of two attacks at 1d8+5 damage.

Except an Eldritch Knight is going to do significantly more damage than that and you are almost never going to have 6 more enemies in the AOE.

Not considering accuracy or weapon mastery, a 9th level Eldritch Knight should do around 40 damage with an attack action. That is going to be more than you are going to generally do by increasing the size of Spirit Guardians, especially when you consider accuracy/saves, magic weapons and other augmentation.

Even if you get 4 more enemies, doing 35 damage to 1 enemy is usually better than the 45 or so you are going to do spread across 4 enemies.

It seems like it doesn't take much to make using your action for one round to augment SG for multiple rounds the lesser of the two things.

It will almost never be better in play on 9th level PCs. It has to be a unique situation, those situations rarely happen and it won't be gamebreaking when it does.

Citation?

Observation. I have played four 1-20 games using the 2024 rules.

Only if you're attacking a single creature. When you wouldn't do SG anyway. A single target spell is not usually going to be better than hitting all or most targets.

Nope, even with multiple enemies it will usually be better, most of the time A LOT better.

 

[ECMO3]

@ECMO3 With regards to Earth Tremor, you are missing what @Sacrosanct is saying:

Without Circle Casting, the spell has a range of 10 feet, and the effect applies to the entirety of the area within range.

But, with the Augment option of Circle Magic, which only requires secondary casters to take the Magic Action, not expend a spell slot, that range increases by 1000 feet per secondary caster.

Ok and I don't get what makes this gamebreaking.

Let me put it this way:

Being able to do 1d6 damage to everyone who fails their save, not behind full cover, including allies, within 1000 feet is MUCH, MUCH less powerful than being able to have a Stone Golem on the ground rolling and laughing or have a Hill giant run off the side of a mountain and both of those examples would use the same number of spell slots and one less action.

Make it a mile and it is still much less powerful.

This may be neat, but it is not powerful.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Quik e

No you didn't explain it.

I did when I have the number of impacted squares of 15 ft compared to 25 ft radius. They way math works, increasing by 10 ft is not increasing by 66%, but by 3x the impacted area.

Ok so now you are saying this supposed gamebreaking mechanic is so highly situational that it only works on long combats where you are surrounded by enemies?

No, I am not saying that. Please don't put words in my mouth. I said it's situational so it's hard to say if you impact 4 creatures or 6 creatures or 9 creatures. I didn't say it's highly situational that it only occurs in long combats surrounded by enemies. I'll show the math in a second to show that even if it's just a few creatures, it's a far better option.

Except an Eldritch Knight is going to do significantly more damage than that

Show the math

and you are almost never going to have 6 more enemies in the AOE.

This is just not true at all.

Observation. I have played four 1-20 games using the 2024 rules.

Your own anecdotal experience is not a citation. Please show proof that the typical 5e encounter is less than 3 rounds long, less at higher levels. Everything I could find from others' experiences is 5-7 rounds.

Nope, even with multiple enemies it will usually be better, most of the time A LOT better.

Nope. Let's look at a typical encounter. Encounters like this are common both in my own experience, and in published adventures. The blue is a standard radius SG. The red is an augment with one helper. 5th level PCs. The eldritch knight has 2 attacks per round at 1d8+4 damage (assuming 20 str). Let's assume every hit is successful and every save against SG fails. That EK can either move and attack one hobgoblin for 17 damage.

OR

The EK spends a level 1 spell slot to augment SG. It immediately impacts 2 additional creatures for 13.5 damage each. If the hobgoblins move in to attack, it also impacts more than one a round earlier than they would if we used the blue radius. They would all have to dash in order to be impacted by SG the same time they would if it were blue (which means they give up their attack action). Even if they don't move forward, the cleric can move forward and capture more of them in the 25 ft radius than they could with a 15 ft radius.

That's just on the first round after casting. The next round, the EK can do whatever they would no normally, and the SG keeps damaging opponents at the tune of 13.5 damage each. All of this extra damage at the cost of 17 total points given up by the EK on the first round.

Even if you are extremely conservative and say only two extra hobgoblins are impacted by the increased radius, that's an extra 27 points of damage each round, at the cost of an initial 17 points. Show me the math where this is weaker than just attacking like you claim. Show me the math how casting Tasha's on one monster is better than doing that extra damage to all of them.

And then....SG lasts 10 minutes, so you get to keep using it for the next encounter if you keep moving!

 

[mellored]

I did when I have the number of impacted squares of 15 ft compared to 25 ft radius. They way math works, increasing by 10 ft is not increasing by 66%, but by 3x the impacted area.

once you can hit everyone in the room, extra size (or range) doesn't help.

And in my experience, Spirit Guardians can hit everyone most of the time. Expanding it might save a Disengage or Dash now and then, but not usually worth the cost IMO.

Extra duration however, turning 1 minute into 1 hour, is going to really help spell slot economy.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

C'mon man, you started quoting my posts when I was talking about that subject. I am not saying you said that.

This is going nowhere.

That was not mentioned at any point in the post I quoted, nor the post to which you were replying. Having system mastery ≠ being an "optimizer". Otherwise, the only way you could have someone design a system is to do it blind, because by definition if the designer knows how their system works they have a high degree of system mastery.

It simply is true that if you're testing something, having testers who knows what they're doing is better than testers who are totally ignorant. Yes, you should also test for various other things, like how approachable the system is, looking for fresh customer pain points or problem areas so you can cut things off at the pass. But prioritizing approachability above all other goals no matter what is just as harmful as pretending that approachability doesn't matter at all.

People are only new for a time. Then they aren't new, and their concerns are going to grow. I've seen plenty of games over-prioritize a hyper simplified, hyper streamlined, absolutely zero roughness experience....and I have found that those are games where players slide in super easily and then slide right back out again just as easily. If you want folks to stay, you need to offer texture and depth, which requires that you be willing to offer experiences that provide some degree of challenge, some degree of learning to play, some degree of reasonable, targeted, purposeful resistance. Because that creates a feeling of mastery; it leads players to feel some degree of ownership or accomplishment from their developing skill; and, best of all, it makes people want to stick around because they know that they know what they're doing.

Inherently unbalanced systems that intentionally give no f#$&s about that long-term player experience suffer for it. You need both. You need an onboarding process that is approachable and which avoids excessive or unnecessary pain points, and you need a long-term experience that feels rewarding, textured, and worthwhile. Miss the former and your game can't grow. Miss the latter and your game won't survive.

I mean, I guess if you only care about those initial sales and are perfectly fine with the game living by boom and bust cycles, then sure, all you need is a slick onboarding, because screw the long-term players amirite? We only care about up-front profits here!