D&D 5E Poison Spray

[Warpiglet]

I have a sick fascination with d12s. I want to like poison spray. I wondered what people's experience with this cantrip are like. I would imagine Con is pretty typical save for many monsters.

I had a really crazy and inefficient idea: I could take Thief of Five Fates with a Warlock and throw poison spray. It seems sinister and I like d12s. Just have giving up an invocation to make it work...

 

[MiraMels]

It works well against enemies who don't have terribly good con saves. (obviously, c'mon Mira, better analysis)

It shares the same advantage that all saving throw damage spells have in that, there's a lot of circumstances and situations that'll impose disadvantage on your spell attack rolls, but far fewer that give bonuses or advantage to your opponent's saving throws. So Poison Spray keeps its modest effectiveness consistently over a wide variety of environments. The only thing that counters poison spray is a monster's innate resistance or save proficiency. It's rarely, if ever, countered by the environment you are fighting in.


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[Leatherhead]

Poison Spray is just really bad. The Range, The Save, The Damage type. All those add up to something you wouldn't want to spend one of your cantrip slots on. However, you can get it for free as a yuan-ti pureblood, so that is an option for you. I just wouldn't ever use it as a first or even second string pick.

Now, If you really want to toss around d12's, You should look into Toll the Dead from UA: Starter Spells. It does 1d12 necrotic damage at a respectable range, and targets Wis instead of Con. Making it just a bit more usable by every metric, and thus a decent spell to pair along with another damage cantrip.

 

[discosoc]

Poison spray is a really bad option, IMO. The range of 10 feet means you better have some good defenses, and the nature of poison (haha) damage is that a lot of things are simply immune to it. Furthermore, quite a high number of monsters have a decent Con mod anyway, so even if the creature isn't proficient in Con, it probably still gets a +1 or +2 on it's save at the very least. Even the school of magic it belongs to (Conjuration ?!) makes no sense and offers no hidden benefits as far as I can tell.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I've never been a fan of Poison Spray. It just has so many things going against it.

Poison is the most resisted element, with a fairly large number of enemies being outright immune. Con is also a very common ability to be high, and is almost never low, meaning a large number of creatures have middling to good Con saves. IMX, it's also typically much easier to hit with a spell attack compared to a saving throw as levels increase. AC progression is relatively flat, but higher level creatures have many saving throw defenses like Magic Resistance as well as inflated Con for more hp. Furthermore, when I want to crush opponents with weak saves, I just use regular spells since those almost always do. Finally, it's also incredibly short range (10') making it compete with melee-only cantrips like Shocking Grasp and Shillelagh.

If I'm a Druid, I take Produce Flame, Shillelagh, and (probably) Thorn Whip first.
If I'm a Warlock, I take Eldritch Blast and Chill Touch first.
If I'm a Wizard or Sorcerer, I take Chill Touch, Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, or Shocking Grasp first.

I'd still take Poison Spray before Create Bonfire, though. I need a concentration cantrip like another hole in the head.