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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 9457092" data-attributes="member: 6802765">As I mentioned in the thread that spawned this one, I dislike the 2024 Spirit Guardians changes because the upper bound on the spell's utility is now dependent on what your group considers creative versus what your group considers ridiculous. Personally I find navigating that dynamic less fun than the straight tactical challenge provided by the 2014 version of the spell.I would also note that in terms of maximizing effectiveness of the spell, grappling and dragging is probably surpassed by having a small-sized Cleric ride shotgun on a mount controlled in sequence by each of the other PCs on their turns. (Alternatively, the mount could pull a vehicle the Cleric is on rather than the mount carrying two creatures.) Every time one of the PCs takes control of the mount its initiative changes to the match theirs, letting the mount move and Dash repeatedly. And since mounting/dismounting requires movement rather than an action, the other PCs still get to take their actions (although they'll provoke opportunity attacks on themselves or the mount if they want to get close enough to make melee attacks) on top of the Spirit Guardians damage.So, without hard-to-set-up Legendary or Lair Actions providing off-turn movement, the maximum number of turns Spirit Guardians activates each round may be once on the Cleric's turn, once on the Cleric's readied action on an enemy's turn (although they'll only get half their movement on the readied action since they want to end up back on the mount), once on each of the other PC's turns as they control the mount, once on each of the PC's allies' (or summoned creatures') turns if they're able to ride a mount, and then individually on any enemy who ends their turn in the emanation.And there's no need for your allies to build around this tactic. But if they do, it goes from lots of damage to ludicrous. For example, the 2024 Animate Objects spell explicitly counts the animated objects as creatures that each have their own turn. So, as long the objects have the right "anatomy" to ride (or grapple) Spirit Guardians can trigger on each Bard or Sorcerer or Wizard's turn and again on each of their animated objects' turn. A 17th level party of 3 Wizards or Sorcerers or Bards and 1 Cleric can trigger Spirit Guardians on 23 turns each round for 10 rounds using one 3rd and three 5th level slots.</blockquote>

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