D&D 5E Elemental Evil companion spells underwhelming?

[gyor]

Thunderclap seems like a really good spell for melee, for melee characters getting swarmed by weak enemeies. Perfect for an Eldrich Knight or Bard or even a Paladin with a feat.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

Some of them are weaker some of them aren't. For Abi-Dalzim's horrid wilting it looks like a high level spell for a necromancer. Throw it in to an area where your skeletons are fighting not-undead. They take damage, your skeletons don't. It's pretty niche, which is not something I personally like in my 8th level spells, but as a sorcerer I can't afford to waste spells known. A necromancer wizard might want this in his book for the day you know you're doing an undead vs not undead fight. On the other hand, ice knife, minute meteors, and the investitures look awesome.

Sadly, those skeletons don't even have resistance to necrotic damage. Of the undead that a wizard can summon, only the Ghasts and Wights have resistance (Create Undead in a 8th level slot), though the Mummy is immune (Create Undead in a 9th level slot).

 

[kbrakke]

Sadly, those skeletons don't even have resistance to necrotic damage. Of the undead that a wizard can summon, only the Ghasts and Wights have resistance (Create Undead in a 8th level slot), though the Mummy is immune (Create Undead in a 9th level slot).

This is true, fortunately the third sentence of the spell says "Constructs and undead aren’t affected" So they don't even need to be immune. I like it for a mad wizard who makes golems and zombies. Or a PC if they learn how to do those things. Interestingly the two other 8th spells I looked at Incindeary Cloud does the 10d8 but it lasts for up to a minute, so it's the same initial damage, meaning the wilting should be more. And sunburst does 12d6. Which gives the cloud more damage, assuming that it can chase people, but it's on par with sunburst. Seems like the damage is on par with other 8th level damage spells.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

This is true, fortunately the third sentence of the spell says "Constructs and undead aren’t affected" So they don't even need to be immune. I like it for a mad wizard who makes golems and zombies. Or a PC if they learn how to do those things. Interestingly the two other 8th spells I looked at Incindeary Cloud does the 10d8 but it lasts for up to a minute, so it's the same initial damage, meaning the wilting should be more. And sunburst does 12d6. Which gives the cloud more damage, assuming that it can chase people, but it's on par with sunburst. Seems like the damage is on par with other 8th level damage spells.

They should teach me to re-read the spell description before replying.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm a little late to the party, but unfortunately the real problem with comparing the power level of spells is that fireball gets in the way. Compare almost any 2 spells WITHOUT using fireball as a comparison point and they are all fairly balanced.

Fireball is horribly overpowered. It was only 6d6 in the playtest and suddenly got increased to 8d8 in the final version. I assume due to feedback from people that said that fireball didn't kill absolutely everything in the room every time you cast it. At 6d6 is is slightly overpowered but still reasonable. At 8d8, it makes every damaging spell above 3rd level useless since a fireball scaled to that level is generally better.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Fireball is horribly overpowered. It was only 6d6 in the playtest and suddenly got increased to 8d8 in the final version.

8d6.

At my table, Fireball is considered an effectively 5th level spell, in terms of power. It's only castable as third because some long-ago wizard put serious effort into optimizing it--the equivalent of hand-coded machine language.

Ditto Animate Dead.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

8d6.

At my table, Fireball is considered an effectively 5th level spell, in terms of power. It's only castable as third because some long-ago wizard put serious effort into optimizing it--the equivalent of hand-coded machine language.

Yeah, that was a mistype. 8d6. I know what you mean. It's a pet peeve of mine that fireball gets to be more powerful than every other spell in the game.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, that was a mistype. 8d6. I know what you mean. It's a pet peeve of mine that fireball gets to be more powerful than every other spell in the game.

Yeah, it makes spells like Ice Storm and Cone of Cold look worse than they really are.

 

[spectacle]

Yeah, it makes spells like Ice Storm and Cone of Cold look worse than they really are.

It also means we have two tiers of casters, those who can cast fireball and those who can't. Fiend pact warlocks and Light clerics bring something extra to the table in addition to their other abilities, that other warlocks/clerics can't match.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Conjure Animals makes me laugh at fireball, to be honest.