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.

 

[KarinsDad]

I only had a problem with the following ruling. It's inconsistent.


"If I have 10 temporary hit points and I take 30 damage from an attack while concentrating on a spell, what is the DC of the Constitution save to maintain my concentration? The DC is 15 in that case. When temporary hit points absorb damage for you, you’re still taking damage, just not to your real hit points.

In contrast, a feature like the wizard’s Arcane Ward can take damage for you, potentially eliminating the need to make a Constitution saving throw or, at least, lowering the DC of that save."


The writeup for temp hit points includes "Some spells and special abilities confer temporary hit points to a creature. Temporary hit points aren’t actual hit points; they are a buffer against damage, a pool of hit points that protect you from injury."

Are they a buffer against damage or not?


I don't see the difference between temp hit points, the Fighter's parry ability, damage resistance, Arcane Ward, or any other game mechanic that mitigates actual damage. Either concentration should be on damage before mitigation, or after mitigation. There shouldn't be special rules based on the type of damage mitigation. It's unnecessary and confusing.

 

[kerbarian]

Just summoning one pixie makes it a very strong spell. You cast a 4th-level spell to get two 4th-level spells (polymorph, confusion), two 3rd-level spells (fly, dispel magic), and a bunch of lower-level spells. Also, aside from the pure efficiency, it makes for an extremely flexible choice of prepared spell.

With CR1 pixies, you'd be getting double that number of spells.

 

[Mistwell]

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

So pretty decent.

- 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

I disagree. If you have warning, you can avert your gaze. You can have your party prepare for the eventuality of a hag appearing, but your foes won't be prepared. You can also command the hag to put up her Illusory Appearance (and get frightened another way, probably through team work), or even throw up your own illusion of a wall/box between the hag and the party (a cantrip - minor illusion). Bottom line, the hag can be useful if you are prepared for that option, and can outright kill foes with that gaze. Not useless at all. And a lot easier to prepare for with this ruling being that the summons is connected to the particular setting and situation. If you are in a swamp, the odds of a sea hag go way up and you're more prepared for that outcome.

- 4 satyrs, CR 1/2, have magic resistance but otherwise suck, I'd rather have 8 wolves

31 hit points versus 11? Higher AC, higher attack bonus, higher damage bonus, ranged attack, can wield weapons and wear armor, etc..come on, the satyr is a pretty good summon.

- 8 sprites, CR 1/4, can poison at range and tell you alignment of things, but 2 HP and otherwise useless

And INVISIBLE with a +8 stealth. Fly over there, invisible and silent, and tell me what creatures you see and their alignment - yeah, you want that sometimes. Even in combat, it's not a wasted spell (though it might not be the desired effect) to have them scatter turn invisible and hide, then attack with ranged poison (which can kill if the target rolls bad on their save).

- 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

Teleport and attack is pretty darn powerful.

So, none of them are "terrible" or "useless" like you described them. Two of them are more situational than the others (sea hag and sprites). The rest vary from "Just fine" to "Damn good", like I said. The situational ones are excellent...in their correct situation (and scouting isn't rare and the sprites can still be effective in combat, nor is "death gaze, but need to prep for it" that weird either).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The spell conjure celestial is even MORE useless, btw.

Couatls have immunity to nonmagical weapons and some healing spells. Not useless, just expensive.

 

[Falling Icicle]

The biggest concern I have with the conjuration ruling is this part: "The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. For example, if you pick the second option, the DM chooses the two elementals that have a challenge rating of 1 or lower." (emphasis mine)

The "or lower" part means the DM may pick something much weaker than the CR option the player chose. The player could choose to summon a CR 2 elemental and get a CR 1/4 mephit instead. That's crap. A player never has to worry about casting fireball and getting a 1d6 mini-fireball instead of an 8d6 fireball. By the same token, a player that casts conjure elemental shouldn't ever have to worry about getting a CR 2 gargoyle instead of a CR 5 earth elemental.

 

[KarinsDad]

The biggest concern I have with the conjuration ruling is this part: "The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. For example, if you pick the second option, the DM chooses the two elementals that have a challenge rating of 1 or lower." (emphasis mine)

The "or lower" part means the DM may pick something much weaker than the CR option the player chose. The player could choose to summon a CR 2 elemental and get a CR 1/4 mephit instead. That's crap. A player never has to worry about casting fireball and getting a 1d6 mini-fireball instead of an 8d6 fireball. By the same token, a player that casts conjure elemental shouldn't ever have to worry about getting a CR 2 gargoyle instead of a CR 5 earth elemental.

I don't think that the intent there is to lowball the PC, rather it is to give the DM a little flexibility.

I know that with Conjure Animals, it's can be obscenely abusive if the player is allowed to bring in the perfect animal for the situation. There are at least 6 or 8 animals, though, for each CR. Elementals do not have that amount of flexibility. When Jeremy writes things like this, I just take it with a grain of salt.

Just like when he wrote that "The DM will often choose creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene". Not at our table. We created a list and it is random. This prevents DM bias (pro or con), just like it prevents player bias.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I feel sorry for all of you players who are playing in games where you think your DM is intentionally going to screw you over on your conjurations. I can't imagine playing in any game like that.

 

[iserith]

I feel sorry for all of you players who are playing in games where you think your DM is intentionally going to screw you over on your conjurations. I can't imagine playing in any game like that.

It does seem like a lot of people approach this cooperative game in a fairly adversarial manner. Either players at the table are out to abuse the rules to "break" the game which puts the DM on defensive or the players are on the defensive in case the DM tries to shortchange them in one way or another. Both try to use the rules as a shield and complain when that shield isn't perfectly designed to counter the attack of the other.

 

[Blue]

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....

Specific vs. general is a 4e rule, not a 5e rule. But using it as a guideline still leads to d8.

The feat assigns a weapon damage die. The spell modifies an already existing damage die. That's more specific - you already need a weapon damage die.

It's the same way it works with anything else.

Wield a club. It has a weapon damage die. Shillilagh modifies it. Trying to reverse the order makes the spell never work with any weapon.

 

[iserith]

Specific vs. general is a 4e rule, not a 5e rule.

Specific Beats General is in the Basic Rules, page 4.