New Sage Advice: Class Features, Combat, Spells, & Monsters

There's a new Sage Advice column up from D&D designer Jeremy Crawford. This month he tackles class features, combat (bonus actions; reach weapons), spellcasting, and monsters. It's quite a long edition, covering 18 questions in total, all questions asked via Twitter.

You'lll find the article here. All Sage Advice material is added to the Sage Advice Compendium, which is a 6-page PDF of questions and answers.

 

[Coredump]

On if the die is d4 or d8, here is the relevant part of Shillalagh:

"For the duration, you can use your spellcasting ability instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of melee attacks using that weapon, and the weapon's damage die becomes a d8."

Since Polearm Master grants you a weapon damage die, and this then takes an existing damage die and modifies it, I would say this does work. But there could be discussion about "order of operations" so that could be wrong. To me the order of operations is clear - shillalagh modifies an existing weapon damage die, so it comes after that gets assigned be it by wielding a weapon (club = d6) or via the feat. But again, that's not as clear cut.

It is not a matter of Order of Operations... it is a matter of Specific vs General.

The Weapons damage die is....

The Weapon's damage die for this attack is...

The more specific takes precedence over the more general....

 

[I'm A Banana]

I actually dislike the random chart solution for anything other than a wild sorcerer. Randomness is not what you want in a spell, especially one that can have super amazing results or very poor results. And there's very little practical difference between a random chart and a DM choosing the result: you still ultimately don't get pixies 100% of the time, which is what the spell is all about. So that means it's failing the expectations.

I wouldn't mind letting pixies be ineligible for the spell and then making a higher level spell that only summoned pixies. That nerfs the spell pretty badly, but it's a solution. I suspect there are other, better solutions, though.

If the spell is about getting pixies 100% of the time, there should just be a "summon pixie" spell at an appropriate level.

I *like* the creative play aspect added by taking that choice away from the player, and that the variability allows for some different calibers of results. It leans the game toward being about the thing you play in the moment rather than the planning you do before you even sit down to the table. Sometimes you get wolves, sometimes you get a camel. Make it work, player!

Every action you take as a player in D&D has some randomness associated with it - I don't think spells should be any different.

 

[haphazarduk]

Conjuration Changes

Conjuration change; We have a system, I guess you could call it a houserule, where certain tricky situations require a skill or ability roll to resolve to the players satisfaction. Sometimes these are things you might take for granted such as casting a spell that requires finesse under difficult circumstances. I think this approach would work well for the conjure spells.

When the player casts he/she also rolls an skill roll in an appropriate skill - it could be Arcane, Religion or Nature depending on the spell or the caster. On a poor roll the DM chooses, on a good one the player does with options for discussion on 1's and 20's. It doesn't slow things down very much and it can add to the narrative of the situation very nicely.

 

[iserith]

Ok, my party of four flying CR 7 ape monsters (obtained at level 7) isn't spectacularly more useful than four satyrs? Eh, whatever you want, but I think I'll take the ape monsters.

Flying ape monsters sounds awesome! But is it fun for everyone at the table to see them brought out all the time? Does it make for an exciting, memorable story? Maybe. But maybe not. It'll vary from table to table, scene to scene. Same goes with summoning pixies all the time or whatever else.

As I see it, it's the player's responsibility to take this into consideration when making choices. I don't need to make this choice for them as we should all have the same goals according to the rules and I trust them to keep that in mind for anything they do in the game. I think players are plenty capable of often choosing "creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene."

 

[TwoSix]

Make it work, player!

Every action you take as a player in D&D has some randomness associated with it - I don't think spells should be any different.

View attachment 69391

 

[Mistwell]

Ok, my party of four flying CR 7 ape monsters (obtained at level 7) isn't spectacularly more useful than four satyrs? Eh, whatever you want, but I think I'll take the ape monsters.

As I said in the part of my post that you cut out, "The rest were all considered varying levels of "just fine" to "really quite good". "

 

[Celtavian]

I'll dispute your assertion that anything but pixies is a waste. But this obviously depends greatly on the game in question.

Dryads look interesting as well.

 

[evilbob]

As I said in the part of my post that you cut out, "The rest were all considered varying levels of "just fine" to "really quite good". "

Well, I think you're wrong on that, but it's completely subjective, so we can't really argue any more than we already have. I guess we've been skirting around an actual list, so for the record, here's what you can summon:

- 2 dryad, CR 1, can talk to plants/animals and cast barkskin, and can each charm some humanoid with a decent save
- 1 seahag. CR 2, has a death glare that's pretty cool, but takes 2 easy saving throws and will kill your party and not the monsters you're fighting
- 8 pixies. CR 1/4, can cast each cast confusion, entangle, fly, polymorph, and sleep, among other really good spells
- 4 satyrs, CR 1/2, have magic resistance but otherwise suck, I'd rather have 8 wolves
- 8 sprites, CR 1/4, can poison at range and tell you alignment of things, but 2 HP and otherwise useless
- 8 blink dogs, CR 1/4, can teleport a short ways and attack, but 8 wolves is still probably better although these have twice the HP

And that's it, folks! There's actually only one other fey in the whole MM, and that's a green hag, CR 3, and they're pretty terrible as well. (The spell conjure celestial is even MORE useless, btw.) For my money the pixies are the only thing worth casting the spell for. You might come up with some niche situations for the dryad, but nothing else really does much of anything, and you'd be better off conjuring animals.

Again, the main issue is the conjure spells themselves: they are all terrible except conjure animal and conjure elemental, and "conjure pixies" - which is too good. Part of this will hopefully get better if more MMs are ever released, but given the current situation at WotC I don't see much happening... maybe ever.

Ultimately, I still like the idea of raising the pixie CR to 1 or 1/2 at a minimum. That gives you 4 (or 8) pixies as a 6th level spell instead of a 4th, which seems more reasonable.

 

[evilbob]

Flying ape monsters sounds awesome! But is it fun for everyone at the table to see them brought out all the time? Does it make for an exciting, memorable story? Maybe. But maybe not. It'll vary from table to table, scene to scene. Same goes with summoning pixies all the time or whatever else.

As I see it, it's the player's responsibility to take this into consideration when making choices. I don't need to make this choice for them as we should all have the same goals according to the rules and I trust them to keep that in mind for anything they do in the game. I think players are plenty capable of often choosing "creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene."

That's why I think it's better to avoid this conflict altogether and just fix the spell, not leave the wonky power imbalance up to each table to adjudicate every time it's cast.

 

[evilbob]

Ultimately, I still like the idea of raising the pixie CR to 1 or 1/2 at a minimum. That gives you 4 (or 8) pixies as a 6th level spell instead of a 4th, which seems more reasonable.

Thinking about it more, I like making pixies CR 1 the best. Casting fly or invisibility on up to 4 creatures is a 6th level spell slot; getting 4 pixies to do it for you would also be a 6th level spell slot. Seems about right.

The other issue is polymorph, though. Giant apes have 157 HP and comparable attack and damage for a 7th level party member, and you could still make two party members into them. But at least they couldn't fly? Also, I just noticed that the pixies can't maintain their invisibility while they're concentrating on a spell (although they are so small you could probably just hide them on your person).