Level Up (A5E) Spells: Winners and Losers

[MarkB]

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

That wouldn't fly with me. The point of Seen components is that they're not just visible, they are visibly a sign of spellcasting.

 

[The_Hanged_Man]

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.

Yes, I agree the spell is really strong both as a buff and a debuff. Incredibly flexible in what it can do. I think it will remain the first pick for many casters at 7th level. The fact that many spells like banishment were nerfed but polymorph was left alone only widens the gulf and exacerbates the problem of it being a "must take" spell.

 

[RangerWickett]

Bestow Curse (R) - Now THAT is a real curse. The regular spell is a loser to me, but the rare one is rock solid.

I'll take credit for the cauldron-linked idea. I remember when converting the ZEITGEIST one-shot Bonds of Forced Faith to 5e that it was really frustrating how short the durations of the curses were. This was an adventure where the villains were a coven of witches, and part of the fun of the original 4e and PF versions was that the party got assailed with multiple obnoxious but not character-killing curses, and you only had so many remove curse usages, so people were going to go into the final combat with a variety of curses limiting their options.

The cauldron-link seemed like a good way to justify longer durations (and letting witches have more than one curse active, instead of having to concentrate on only one).

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I will say, I still think astral projection needed a fix.

In previous editions, when you went to a new plane from the Astral using this spell, it made you a totally new, totally fake body and all your gear, and you could walk around that plane being nigh-unkillable too. This was too strong and also caused issues with questions about item-duplication. But now the spell feels indistinct from gate.

Both let you travel between planes, but gate lets you yoink a being if you know its true name.

I wanted to change astral projection back to the 'create a duplicate of yourself when you land in a new plane' for astral projection? And just add that any items that are away from your astral body for more than a minute cease to exist, and any charges expended are drained from the real items too.

 

[Stalker0]

Ah I forgot to add Blur to the my LOSER list.

Blur is a pretty meh spell to start, until you realize mirror image exists, which is just better. Mirror image has no concentration (a godsend for defensive buffs, let alone the ability to stack with other things) and its protection is actually stronger than Blur.

Yes Blur can technically protect against more attacks, but in the fast majority of scenarios, I want stronger protection, as they both are basically one fight anyway.

Blur got no love in level up, its still the watered down second fiddle to Mirror Image.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I will say, I still think astral projection needed a fix.

In previous editions, when you went to a new plane from the Astral using this spell, it made you a totally new, totally fake body and all your gear, and you could walk around that plane being nigh-unkillable too. This was too strong and also caused issues with questions about item-duplication. But now the spell feels indistinct from gate.

Both let you travel between planes, but gate lets you yoink a being if you know its true name.

I wanted to change astral projection back to the 'create a duplicate of yourself when you land in a new plane' for astral projection? And just add that any items that are away from your astral body for more than a minute cease to exist, and any charges expended are drained from the real items too.

A funny thing about O5e is that the DMG actually adds some of that functionality back into astral projection, expanding on (one might say contradicting) the material in the PHB. I‘m glad they did that, but you do have to find it in the DMG, they never changed the PHB to include those additional features.

 

[Stalker0]

What are your thoughts about Time Stop? I feel like the new language is more ambiguous than in O5E - e.g., are delayed blast fireballs now allowed? If so, it seems OP. More broadly, I'd have liked explanation about what narratively during a time stop. Do objects freeze or keep falling? etc.

As far as I can tell, nothing has really changed in the spell between LU and O5e. In fact, I'm pretty sure delayed blast fireballs are completely allowed in the O5e version.

Also the new version does say "the world is frozen in place".... which would suggest objects do not keep falling during the Time Stop.

now the one thing that has changed, is many high level casters can maintain concentration on two spells. So you could cast TWO delayed blast fireballs during a time stop instead of one.


If your concerned about that balance, lets consider Meteor Swarm in context.

So sake of arguments, lets say we got the full 5 turn timestop, and were able to cast two delayed blast fireballs. The first one we wait as long as we can, and then cast the last one on the last round of the timestop, detonating them both.

That is 12d6 + 4d6 (for delayed rounds) + 12d6 (for second blast). Or 28d6 damage. A lot of damage for sure. But then look at Meteor Swarm, which for a single 9th level slot does 28d6 damage in a much larger radius.

Frankly casting Time Stop to do "meer damage" is probably the weakest use of that spell.

 

[ronalmb]

I know I am late to this topic, but as for Tiny Hut, I would point out that unlike the other version, it is now a Ritual, which means unlimited casting. Perhaps that weighs on the consumable cost?

 

[Satirical Bard]

I know I am late to this topic, but as for Tiny Hut, I would point out that unlike the other version, it is now a Ritual, which means unlimited casting. Perhaps that weighs on the consumable cost?

Tiny Hut has always been a ritual spell in 5e.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think the way I might handle it is to say that it doesn‘t provide a haven at 3rd-level, but can be upcast at some higher level to do so. The component cost might vary based on usage.

With the mansion, I‘d just say it’s a haven, since it is balanced to be so and it seems to require a lot of strained reasoning to accept the RAW version.

 

[Nebulous]

I thought the O5e Tiny Hut was horribly broken and a big departure from past editions. I'm glad it is nerfed in LU and no longer an indestructible shield, but the cost is still high. To clarify, is the thatch roof AND the idol consumed in the casting, or just the latter? Regardless, as written, this would be a very situational spell, and the caster probably wouldn't have more than a few idols on hand at once, so they would be carefully doled out. I would think that 5e players reliant on the O5e version will not like this at all though.