D&D 5E Guide to cruddy spells (v1.01)

[Immoralkickass]

Its a pretty complete list, but I'm gonna disagree strongly on Aid, Bless, and Enlarge/Reduce.

Bless is a top tier spell for the sole reason that if the caster is one of the targets, it can help save itself for Concentration checks. Bonuses to saves and attacks are hard to come by and always good. You're absolutely crazy for knocking this spell. The only sad thing is the 3 target limit, which you didn't even mention. But it can be upcast at least.

Aid is good, can't argue with extra HPs. More HP is more HP. No concentration too. Its not S tier, but its good.

Enlarge/Reduce. It has utility for out of combat purpose, and no spell or tool can do what it does. If it was Enlarge and Reduce was split into separate spells, then yes they would be underpowered.

Also, how did FLAME BLADE not make it in?

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

I thought that the point of Skill Empowerment being 5th level and requireing Concentration was to balance the Rogue vs the casters by not devaluing the Rogues Expertise.

 

[Immoralkickass]

I thought that the point of Skill Empowerment being 5th level and requireing Concentration was to balance the Rogue vs the casters by not devaluing the Rogues Expertise.

The point of Skill Empowerment is to trap players who have not heard of Guidance, so that they can spend their 5th level spell slot to do something that Guidance have 25% chance of achieving the same effect. Except Guidance can also be used on just about any skill you choose, and SE only works on one skill that you are already proficient in.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

To be fair, Guidance needs to be recast for every single skill check. Maybe your Monk needs to stealth somewhere, or you want your Paladin to get better Persuasion right before a negotiation, in cases like that you can't keep casting Guidance over and over again.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@tetrasodium
Thank you for the comprehensive list of non concentration buff.
That is actually helpful. Many of those spells are very good, considering they all stack.

Edit: tensers transformation is really bad. On top of the armor issue you notice as soon as you read the spell, concentration on such spells just sucks. Since you want to go into combat, any damage breaks it.
And concentration is actually not necessary here. Why not use the phrase of the barbarian rage: while you are transformed, you can't concentrate on spells. And also: optional component: an armor you wear as focus, that does not hinder your spellcasting.

 

[NotAYakk]

@tetrasodium
Thank you for the comprehensive list of non concentration buff.
That is actually helpful. Many of those spells are very good, considering they all stack.

Edit: tensers transformation is really bad. On top of the armor issue you notice as soon as you read the spell, concentration on such spells just sucks. Since you want to go into combat, any damage breaks it.
And concentration is actually not necessary here. Why not use the phrase of the barbarian rage: while you are transformed, you can't concentrate on spells. And also: optional component: an armor you wear as focus, that does not hinder your spellcasting.

Tensers has the problem that it works reasonably well for certain gishes, but not very well for J random wizard.

Like, a dual-wielding or xbe swords bard or whatever.

It also works much better if you are willing to pre-buff, or if someone else drops a haste on you, as it scales with taps.

 

[dave2008]

It's not hate but it's easy. Most of the rules to support a need for functions like that are not included in 5e & frankly the percentage of campaigns that reach 15th level to cast this spell is so small (Low Single digits & even that is likely inflated by one shots) that you have a spell that functionally has no real use aside from supporting subsystems wotc never wrote & the spell is placed at a level that ensures it's unlikely to be something even available in the vast majority of campaigns. A flufff spell that requires the GM to build rules to give it a use that is placed dramatically beyond the reach of most players & campaigns is a cruddy one no matter how cool it could be in the tiny fraction of games that reach it if the gm creates rules that make it useful failure to consider use cases for a spell does not get a pass.

The 5e developers inherited a game swimming in magic items & in some areas made serious efforts to change that without even telling the people writing other parts of the system. 5e is a game where magic weapons are fairly common & any spells that fail to account for that are problematic. Multiple books support their commonality as dmg213 uncommon weapon xge126 &dmg 135 list as 1d6x100gp & 101-501gp in cost. There is also this line on xge 146 "Having no magic makes it extremely difficult for a party to overcome monsters that have resistances or immunity to nonmagical damage. In such a game, you’ll want to be generous with magic weapons or else avoid using such monsters." The spell is designed for some game other than the one wotc built & sells as d&d 5e no matter how many times someone says "optional" & is not worth licking the shoes of most spells that are merely bad. If that 100-600gp +1 magic weapon being very difficult to obtain despite all of that is the game wotc designed wizards with spell scribe costs & every caster with spell component costs deserve several pounds of flesh from some of the people at wotc. @Democratus that's great that you managed to do that & enjoy it, but as both the dmg & repeatedly in xge show.....

With regards to your mention of experience... this post should help see the problem with overused energy/magic resist & immune+legendary resist t that is always relevant alongside nonmagical Bludgeon/piercing/slashing that is quickly rendered meaningless. The system math already assumes that the resistance to nonmagical b/p/s will frequently be a factor to bridge the gap in badly inverted LFQW damage output. Having nondamage spells cast by the linear mage going an extra step trying to resist LFQW even after inverting it is just gross overkill.

I'm going to disagree and say 5e, IME, works just fine, perhaps even better, without magic items. Now I don't run published adventures, but that is those are not "the game" to me. 5e gives me the tools I need to run a game without magic items and I am very thankful for that. When I came back to D&D with 4e, on of the few things I disliked as the requirement for magic items to keep up with the games math. That is not need the case in 5e.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Necrotic is a fairly good damage type; but "necrotic to which all undead and all constructs are immune" is a crappy damage type, as bad as fire if not worse. On top of that, the range is a mere 30 feet and it targets Con saves.

Most high-level undead resist or are immune to necrotic damage, and there just aren't that many constructs in the MM. It's kind of a dumb restriction, but not really a game-changer. Really, the only thing I've seen come up in play is the short range. Also worth noting that it's one of very few Druid damage spells. Anyway, I'm not saying it's amazing, just that it's around average for what it is.

Edit: tensers transformation is really bad. On top of the armor issue you notice as soon as you read the spell, concentration on such spells just sucks. Since you want to go into combat, any damage breaks it.

I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who has noticed Tenser's transformation works with longbows.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Tensers has the problem that it works reasonably well for certain gishes, but not very well for J random wizard.

Like, a dual-wielding or xbe swords bard or whatever.

It also works much better if you are willing to pre-buff, or if someone else drops a haste on you, as it scales with taps.

It is still a badly designed spell.
The heavy armor proficiency combined with donning heavy armor is just stupid.
At level 6, why not summon armor at the same time or instead give a magearmorlike buff.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Most high-level undead resist or are immune to necrotic damage, and there just aren't that many constructs in the MM. It's kind of a dumb restriction, but not really a game-changer. Really, the only thing I've seen come up in play is the short range. Also worth noting that it's one of very few Druid damage spells. Anyway, I'm not saying it's amazing, just that it's around average for what it is.



I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who has noticed Tenser's transformation works with longbows.

good catch... but see post above.