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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6429225" data-attributes="member: 2011">Unfortunately, low level wizards cannot have all of those spells prepped (or even learned) at the same time and many of them are situational.Hold Person for example. On paper, it sounds great. In reality:a) The target has to be humanoid. A very tiny percentage of foes in the MM are humanoid.b) Casting it on a mook (not every weak foe has the word mook printed on his forehead) is pretty much a waste.c) Casting it on a big bad sounds good in theory, but in practice, he'll probably save 50% of the time. So:50%: 0 rounds25%: 1 round13%: 2 rounds06%: 3 rounds03%: 4 roundsetc.This works out to an average of the spell working for 0.89 rounds total. Not even an average of one round.Even with a foe that has a 40% chance to make the save, it's an average of 1.15 rounds.40%: 0 rounds24%: 1 round14%: 2 rounds09%: 3 rounds03%: 4 roundsNow if the foe does not make his first save, and several of the other PCs can focus on this foe, and some other foe does not break the caster's concentration, then yes, advantage against one foe and critical damage for melee attacks. Sounds great.Just rare in practice. Spell prep slots are at a premium. If the PCs are in town with a lot of humanoids, this spell might have some limited traction. If not, it's probably a waste of a prep.No doubt at level 5 when a caster can cast Hold Person on 2 foes with a 3rd level slot (or even 3 or more foes at higher level with a higher level slot), then Hold Person states becoming more useful. But at the level it can first be acquired, it's often a waste of a cast and sometimes, a waste of a prep. It's so limited that I passed on it for other spells (Rope Trick, Scorching Ray, Suggestion, and Web so far) that I hoped would help my party more. There are a lot of good second level situational spells, so it's tough to decide which situational spell will help the most.Hold Monster is similar when first acquired except that it's applicable to more foes.Well, I am discussing low level casters. I am sure that high level casters start gaining traction.</blockquote>

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