Level Up (A5E) Spells: Winners and Losers

[Stalker0]

I like this nerf, although my o5e house rule had been to restore it to only working on interplanar creatures. What don't you like about it?

So Banishment received the following nerfs:

1) Duration: Spell went from 1 minute to 1d4 + 2 rounds.
2) The spell now grants a save every round, instead of 1 save for the duration.
3) Upcast only provides 1 round of duration, instead of another target.

I think that's all too much. I don't mind the duration as much, but I don't like the save every round. I personally don't like spells that have concentration AND saves every round. To me, the point of concentration is that the other monsters are supposed to beat on teh caster to make them drop the spell....that's the implicit balance. The idea that the caster has to concentrate and the monster just breaks out of the spell with another save....it nerfs spells too heavily imo.

Then the upcast was heavily nerfed. This used to be a solid spell to upcast into higher level slots, not its pretty worthless to do so. 1 round duration is "nice", but I'm not blowing a 5th level slot on it.

So ultimately one of these I could have respected, but all of them is just too much imo. Banishment was a strong spell but it wasn't THAT strong.

 

[Satirical Bard]

fair points, thanks! Agree re concentration and every round saves - I'm nowhere near as detail-oriented as you clearly are, but from memory that is not a normal thing in o5e, right?

 

[CapnZapp]

@Stalker0 Please consider switching to the by far most used grading system for D&D:

Red Purple Green Blue Gold (with red being the worst and gold being the best)

It would make your efforts much much faster to read and digest

Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

I feel like you should have included fireball in this list though - I gather it was already nerfed in the playtest, but lots of us here now weren't part of that.

Yeah, comparisons should definitely be made between the official WotC PHB and Adventurer's Guide; not presuming any knowledge about any intermediate playtests.

 

[The_Hanged_Man]

Any thoughts on Polymorph? In o5e it was a go to spell in my groups, and I'm a bit surprised it did not receive a tweak. Turning into Giant Apes and T-Rexes is fun, but rather strong when you get it at 7th-8th level. Or am I missing something?

 

[tetrasodium]

So Banishment received the following nerfs:

1) Duration: Spell went from 1 minute to 1d4 + 2 rounds.
2) The spell now grants a save every round, instead of 1 save for the duration.
3) Upcast only provides 1 round of duration, instead of another target.

I think that's all too much. I don't mind the duration as much, but I don't like the save every round. I personally don't like spells that have concentration AND saves every round. To me, the point of concentration is that the other monsters are supposed to beat on teh caster to make them drop the spell....that's the implicit balance. The idea that the caster has to concentrate and the monster just breaks out of the spell with another save....it nerfs spells too heavily imo.

Then the upcast was heavily nerfed. This used to be a solid spell to upcast into higher level slots, not its pretty worthless to do so. 1 round duration is "nice", but I'm not blowing a 5th level slot on it.

So ultimately one of these I could have respected, but all of them is just too much imo. Banishment was a strong spell but it wasn't THAT strong.

Going to second that concentrate and save every round is too much in nearly all cases but it's more than just concentrate with lots of save to end chances. In nearly all cases those spells are :
*use an action and a spell slot to cast a spell that
* in most cases these are save to end spells so if the initial target saves during the cast the spell will end immediately (often with zero effect) if the target saves
*continue concentrating while the target thst previously failed a save takes their full turn then gets a save with no action cost to end the spell.
*repeat

It's like the old confirm critical rolls but dialed up a notch to have the first failed confirm turn the attack into a miss rather than normal hit & a successful confirm eating an attack or something in the next round that hasn't even happened on the justification that the critical was too good to not limit next round. Even worse the target gets another wack at reversing the vorpal effect or whatever next round after taking a turn

 

[jadxq]

Any thoughts on Polymorph? In o5e it was a go to spell in my groups, and I'm a bit surprised it did not receive a tweak. Turning into Giant Apes and T-Rexes is fun, but rather strong when you get it at 7th-8th level. Or am I missing something?

I thought it should have received some type of nerf. I mean, banishment and polymorph aren't that different in function when cast on an enemy, and banishment was heavily nerfed. I think an unwilling creature should get a save at the end of each of its turns.

 

[Stalker0]

@Stalker0 Please consider switching to the by far most used grading system for D&D:

Red Purple Green Blue Gold (with red being the worst and gold being the best)

It would make your efforts much much faster to read and digest

Cheers

Hehe I’m not ready for that level of differentiation yet! This is a simple “I think the spell is pretty good” vs “I think the spell is bad”.

it’s a straight list, nothing fancy, so colors wouldn’t really help

 

[Stalker0]

Any thoughts on Polymorph? In o5e it was a go to spell in my groups, and I'm a bit surprised it did not receive a tweak. Turning into Giant Apes and T-Rexes is fun, but rather strong when you get it at 7th-8th level. Or am I missing something?

So my notes here:

1) monsters themselves are different, and I haven’t dug in to the managerie yet.

2) martials wouldn’t get combat maneuvers in polymorph, which is a big source of their power now. So my gut thinks the spell is a bit weaker as a buff spell automatically.

3) as a screw you spell…yeah it does still seem really strong.

 

[ArcaneOverride]

The fact that friends has a “seen” component though (since a is no longer somatic) means everybody be knowing you be doin magic

1 decide that your character's seen components are some manner of special effect not gestures
2 get familiar or pet
3 cast friends on it every round for several minutes before trying to use friends on the target
4 claim that the special effects are harmless and involuntary and are occurring due to some magical disorder and that its basically like magical hiccups and will go away after a while on its own
5 cast friends on the target
6 do your charisma check
7 continue casting friends on your pet so the special effects don't stop when talking to them
8 keep casting friends on the pet for several more minutes slowly tapering off letting more and more rounds pass before casting again until you finally stop