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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6660160" data-attributes="member: 2011">Actually, percentage-wise, most offensive spells in 5E have a lot more utility than Hold Person (there are exceptions like Banishment, but most offensive spells affect creatures in general).Of the examples you gave:20-% of all listed creatures: Hold Person70+% of all listed creatures: Tasha's Hideous Laughter90+% of all listed creatures: Magic Missile (including dragons)92+% of all listed creatures: Fireball (96+% if we are only talking immunity)75+% of all listed creatures: Animate Dead (and only some of the most powerful creatures like demiliches, liches, and the tarrasque are immune to weapon damage, so Animate Dead is almost always applicable 99%, it might not be the best choice, but it is almost always a choice)Granted, in a campaign where the PCs mostly interact with human, elves, etc., Hold Person's utility increases. In those cases, however, PCs tend to not cast Hold Person on most of those NPCs, so it tends to be self limiting.But a low level Wizard can prep Hold Person and never cast it for an entire adventuring week. The same typically cannot be said of Tasha's. Yes, damage will typically negate Tahsa's, but even if it does, that's still about nearly as much time as Hold Person usually lasts, it just has a much higher number of potential targets and does not result in melee crits. The target is still prone until its next turn which allows multiple PCs to still melee attack with advantage.The same might have happened with Tasha's.But if it had been 3 Specter's (or a wide variety of other CR 1 creatures), Hold Person wouldn't have helped at all.Note: To be fair, Hold Person in higher level slots is amazingly powerful against multiple humanoids. The odds of at least one NPC failing multiple saves is high. For example, a level 4 Hold Person against 3 humanoid +0 Wis NPCs has a 96% chance (or higher) of affecting at least one NPC and a 81% of chance of affecting at least one NPC for more than a round. But Hold Person at second level can easily fizzle though and there goes one of the low level Wizard's big guns for the day.</blockquote>

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