Flesh to Stone spell - why the poor rating

[Phazonfish]

The main feature I was focusing on was grounding a flying creature or keeping a creature at a distance while attacking it with ranged weapons and spells while possibly preventing it from successfully attacking you, unless it had spells or abilities to attack creatures from afar.

Earthen Grasp also inflicts the restrained condition, Levitate and Hold Person can prevent enemies from positioning on you, and if you want to ground something you can use Earthbind. All of these are 2nd level.

Also, anything that induces the frightened condition prevents enemies from approaching you and gives disadvantage on attacks even if they have ranged ones, many options coming before 6th level.

 

[Immoralkickass]

The poor rating is because nobody wants their loot to be turned into stone. They want to kill the enemy and take the loot.

 

[TwoSix]

The drawback I can see is to select a spell that you are planning to use if a certain situation arises.

That's not a drawback, that's a blaring klaxon with flashing red lights saying "Danger!".

6th level spells and higher are extremely limited. You don't want one with a situational use, PLUS a bad save, PLUS requires three failed saves to be an insta-kill. Restrained is fine, but it's not that hard to inflict. If your party is really built to kite things with ranged attacks, chances are you've already figured out ways to slow your enemies before 11th level.

 

[Dausuul]

That's not a drawback, that's a blaring klaxon with flashing red lights saying "Danger!".

6th level spells and higher are extremely limited. You don't want one with a situational use, PLUS a bad save, PLUS requires three failed saves to be an insta-kill. Restrained is fine, but it's not that hard to inflict. If your party is really built to kite things with ranged attacks, chances are you've already figured out ways to slow your enemies before 11th level.

Exactly. On top of all that, for the flying foes you would most like to target with this spell (big dragons), even if they manage to fail the save, they can just burn a shot of Legendary Resistance and ignore it.

 

[Sadras]

The poor rating is because nobody wants their loot to be turned into stone. They want to kill the enemy and take the loot.

So you're saying the rating improves considerably after the spell Command Undress

 

[ScuroNotte]

Dude don't get all argumentative. All I'm saying is that Faerie Fire is a freaking level 1 spell and it's not that much weaker than the level 6 Flesh to Stone spell you are talking about.

Tasha's Hideous laughter, another level 1 spell that can/will cause most flying enemies to be prone and unable to stand (they fall when they are prone). Yea I get neither of these combine all those effects into 1 spell but we are talking about freaking level 1 spells vs level 6 spells.

I apologize. I did not intend to be harsh or disrespectful towards you.
I was just trying to point out the immibilization part that had the potential to last several rounds if the creature failed on the first save. I do realize (now) there are lower level spells that can do something similar without using a high level spell slot.

 

[ScuroNotte]

Exactly. On top of all that, for the flying foes you would most like to target with this spell (big dragons), even if they manage to fail the save, they can just burn a shot of Legendary Resistance and ignore it.

But they could use legendary resistance against disintegrate. However, I see the responses that with the Con save combined with the legendary actions of some creatures why the value of the spell falls.

 

[CapnZapp]

Reading through the class guides, most give this spell a poor rating which I don't understand.

So what am I missing for its poor grade?

It's the designers tripping up.

I can sympathize with the idea to tone down a permanent petrification effect on a single failed save; pretty much a save-or-die.

But the devs didn't make the initial effect strong enough for player characters to use it.

Imagine the spell petrifying the target instantly on a failed save, and then if it fails three saves before it succeeds at three saves, the petrification becomes permanent (and the magic leaves the petrified statue).

Now the spell is at least not worse than other spells (as exemplified by other posters), and would earn a higher rating.

The current spell, however, basically is Restraint - but with three saves to shake it off. That's far from great, and nowhere near the worth of a 6th level slot.

TLDR the devs only had eyes on slowing down the petrification without keeping in mind the instant effect.

They vastly overrate petrifying your opponents. Basically, petrifying a monster is worthless to a hero.

Getting petrified, however, is very scary to players. That does not translate to a willingness to pay a lot to petrify monsters.

 

[cmad1977]

Reading through the class guides, most give this spell a poor rating which I don't understand.

I know it is a Con save which is not a good save to go against, but if the the creature fails the first save, it is restrained until it succeeds on 3 saves. Its not like other spells in which once it saves the spell is done.

While it is restrained, it has a speed of 0. That dragon or whatever flying creature can't fly and all attacks against it are at advantage. And its attacks are at disadvantage.

So what am I missing for its poor grade?

You’re looking at build guides for an RPG.
D&D isn’t WoW...
Anymore.

 

[Gadget]

Someone above pointed out the Restrained condition gives everyone advantage to everyone to hit, but it also gives the target disadvantage to attacks and dexterity saves, in addition to reducing their speed to zero. Not bad, but as has been pointed out, lower level spells can produce the same or similar results.

The designers do this quite frequently with higher level spells: in their haste to tone down the 'save or die' effects, they often make higher level spells quite restricted in what they can do, while at the same time reducing the high level spell slots available to casters.

To be fair, I think they put a lot of thought into having the these spells used against the PCs, which may account for some of the watering down, as it where. But this leads to spells that are less useful to the PCs by the time they acquire them (see Power Word spells).

Someone also mentioned Otto's Irresistible Dance, at the same level as Flesh To Stone as being good, yet it does not do much more Tasha's Hideous Laughter, a first level spell. Why is this considered superior when Flesh to Stone is not? Otto's does not allow an initial save to escape the effects. The target has to wait until their turn and spend an action to make a Saving Throw. That is a big difference mechanically, if not conceptually, from Tasha's. If Flesh to Stone immediately inflicted the restrained condition (which is mechanically the same as what Otto's inflicts on the target) and the target had to spend an action on their turn to end the effect (maybe another failed save could reduce the target to paralyzed and so forth), it would rank much better in the guides.