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

[Salthorae]

TIny Hut

Find Familiar

Misty Step

 

[Coroc]

..
Counterspell feels too binary and there is no significant risk involved.
...

Yea but one risk is involved: It takes up the casters reaction, so no shield spell for him this round.

 

[Coroc]

The bat is easy to take care of. Spiders to the rescue!

Spoiler: Bat eating spider

View attachment 116764

Hand clapping frost giant also works, You know thats their local folklore, they love clapping rythms will not killing adventurers...

 

[jayoungr]

The thing is...Tiny hut is a ritual...it doesn't really cost spell slots.

It does take up one of the available spells learned per level, though, so players still have to prioritize it over anything else they could learn. (And if you don't want the players to get it any other way, you can just make sure it's not available as a scroll or in any spellbooks they find.)

 

[Lanefan]

Rope Trick - my version of everyone's Leo's Hut problem, as in my game Leo's Hut is nowhere near as powerful as the versions being mentioned here.

Magic Missile - so reliable, and so boring; even as a player.

Reveal / True Sight - why do Illusionists even bother?

Counterspell works if it's presented and ruled properly; unfortunately 5e botches this in its RAW and thus I understand why it's on so many hated lists here. However, it is fixable if one is willing to overrule RAW.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not as worried about Tiny Hut because that just gives the enemy time to prep for an ambush when the spell expires. I rule that it doesn't have a floor so there's always the option of having a bullette tunnel up from underneath which causes the spell to fail. If you're high enough level to cast the Mansion spell, your enemies are high enough level to set up a trap. When the spell ends you go to the nearest open space and into a handy dandy prison cell or similar.

 

[Undrave]

There's something wrong with dispelling and resummoning it each time you want a different shape.

People DO that?? I figured people picked the flavour that best suit their caster... Or the Owl since it's absolute best.

 

[jayoungr]

Counterspell works if it's presented and ruled properly; unfortunately 5e botches this in its RAW and thus I understand why it's on so many hated lists here. However, it is fixable if one is willing to overrule RAW.

You're not just going to leave us hanging, are you? What did you do to it?

Heat metal: have someone with this? Never have the big bad wear metal armor. Want to nerf the one guy that dares to run a tank in armor? Give this to the enemy. One of the few spells I've rewritten or banned.

Same question: how did you rewrite it? Or did you just ban it?

 

[Oofta]

You're not just going to leave us hanging, are you? What did you do to it?


Same question: how did you rewrite it? Or did you just ban it?

For heat metal I've tried a couple variations. One is just ruling that if you make your con save you don't have disadvantage.

That, and/or the disadvantage is only for the first round. You can continue the damage round after round but disadvantage is only until the start of the caster's next turn.

The other option is a house rule that if cast on armor it doesn't cause disadvantage.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yea but one risk is involved: It takes up the casters reaction, so no shield spell for him this round.

That's true, that choice is a tactical risk in some scenarios (e.g. caster and a bunch of brutes).

I don't see it as universal risk (won't apply in other scenarios), a sufficient risk (shutting down a high-level spell often is more than worth risk of getting hit), nor does it feel like a magical risk in the vein of what we imagine a spell duel to look like.