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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6842190" data-attributes="member: 5834">Prebuffing in 5E is an enormous mistake given the short duration of spells and ease of dispelling. I thought this would be obvious. We tried prebuffing during early runs in the game, the DM countered this by having the creature not engage until visible magic disappeared. Dragons flew off. Monsters that detected casting stayed away for about ten minutes. Casters opened up by stripping spells off automatically. You spent these resources prebuffing only to have them eliminated quickly. So it was better to cast during combat to ensure you didn't waste resources once you determined if an opponent caster was present stripping spells or the monsters could just avoid you for a while. It was an early lesson learned that the prebuffing common in 3E wasn't going to work in 5E and was a way to cause serious resource depletion without merit. Pick your spots for buffing and only do so if you have to.Is defeating the above encounter with three spell slots that surprising? I would have used a first level slot had we stealthed on the location. The giants wouldn't even have closed the distance and we would have danced behind cover before being engaged hammering them with ranged very quickly. Your slaad encounter is the one that will be a drain.</blockquote>