D&D 5E D&D 5e Basic Set: Things that make you go "what?!"

[fba827]

Elephants cost half as much as a Warhorse!

Seriously? How does that make any sense?

Elephant merchants use the printer-ink model. Where they sell you the elephant cheaper at a loss, but then they build up a market for elephant feed, which gets sold to you at a premium.

 

[Lanefan]

Just got done wading through the spells in the Basic set, some kinda weird stuff but only one spell leaped right out as broken:

Arcane Eye (Wiz-4)

It creates an invisible magic eye with night-sight that I can move 30' per action (i.e. per round) and can freely leave the spell's original range. Its duration is (up to) an hour. Anyone else see any problems here, 'cause I sure do.

First: the eye is invisible, meaning it can float around pretty much anywhere it can get to and almost certainly not be noticed unless someone just happens to have "Detect Magic" going, and how likely is that?

Second: 30' per round for an hour means I can move that puppy somewhat over THREE MILES! Here guys, sit down and have your lunch out front of this huge cavern complex, I'll have the whole thing mapped in an hour provided there's no doors in the way. Oh, and as a bonus I'll have a pretty good idea of what monsters are where, too.

Third: well, to put it delicately, during downtime in town the more voyeuristic of wizards are going to have a field day. Think about it...

Fourth: the invisible eye is given no AC or h.p. rating for the unlikely but very possible event someone wants to physically attack it.

Fixes:

First: the eye should be visible.

Second: duration should be reduced to a minute (so 300' total movement) or at worst the move speed should become 30' per minute (giving 1800' total possible, but at least it's slow).

Third: the eye should be visible.

Fourth: the eye should be given a poor AC and about 2 h.p.

Lan-"about to open the Starter box and wondering what I'll find"-efan

 

[Stormonu]

And is stopped by a door. Also, it can't hear anything - it's just an eye. So, that makes it worth seeing about 60' ahead in a dungeon? Sure, it's really great outdoors or pretty good back in the city (lots of windows to look through), but it doesn't seem very broken to me.

 

[Lanefan]

And is stopped by a door. Also, it can't hear anything - it's just an eye. So, that makes it worth seeing about 60' ahead in a dungeon?

Actually 30' ahead in a dark area. Ahead of itself, mind you, as it wanders around the dungeon on your behalf. You the caster can be sitting outside having a smoke and making a map of what it sees, complete with monster notes, as long as your concentration isn't interrupted. The spell write-up says the eye is created within range (30') of you but goes on to say "There is no limit to how far away from you the eye can move [on this plane]", and that's where it breaks.

Example: Wave Echo Cave (Lost Mine of Phandelver) - you could with one 4th-level spell and an hour's free time map just about the whole thing before ever setting foot in the place, and know what monsters and enemies to expect, and where. Sure there's a few doors your eye can't get through, but you know where they are and how to approach them.

Too good for one risk-free spell.

Lanefan

 

[Li Shenron]

Actually, there's an interesting effect here.

No, the target doesn't get smaller. But, when the target isn't standing stock still, the closer they are, the more their motion means. When they are 30 feet away, their taking one step to the left is a minor adjustment to aim. When they are five feet away, it is a very large adjustment. At larger distances, the apparent size is the larger issue. At small distances, the motion can be.

Really? I don't believe this. It might need a larger "angle adjustment", but I don't think this is relevant. Missing by 30 degrees isn't any worse than missing by 0.3 degrees. What matters is that in both cases if the target moves 3ft to the left, you miss it by 3ft.

The other explanation is fine of course, your target is not only dodging but if it's close to you it also has a distracting effect to your ranged attacks because you're trying to defend yourself. That doesn't happen with a melee weapon maybe because the melee weapon is also defending yourself (parrying) while a bow, sling or crossbow can't do that so you have to fully rely on dodging.

 

[SigmaOne]

Elephant merchants use the printer-ink model. Where they sell you the elephant cheaper at a loss, but then they build up a market for elephant feed, which gets sold to you at a premium.

And you need to buy sooo much Elephant feed!

 

[Kaffis]

Really? I don't believe this. It might need a larger "angle adjustment", but I don't think this is relevant. Missing by 30 degrees isn't any worse than missing by 0.3 degrees. What matters is that in both cases if the target moves 3ft to the left, you miss it by 3ft.

While this is true, at some point, it becomes difficult to track a moving target accurately because the angular motion required to do so is so great. Holding a bead on something by shifting your aim .3 degrees per second is much easier than doing so while shifting your aim 30 degrees per second, to use your example.

 

[evilbob]

Example: Wave Echo Cave (Lost Mine of Phandelver) - you could with one 4th-level spell

Well, you don't get 4th level spells until 7th level, so it's not as big of a problem in that exact scenario.

 

[Thaumaturge]

And then you are giving up your one 4th level spell. If you send the eye in and it finds a giant shambling mound, you're going to wish you'd taken blight.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Tormyr]

Guiding Bolt: a level 1 spell that does 4d6 radiant and grants advantage for the next attacker against that target. For a DM in the early portion of a campaign, that is scary.