D&D 5E Surprise underrated abilities

[JackOfAllTirades]

Oh, and Evard's Black Tentacles is surprisingly effective too. Especially when someone runs into it on their turn for some reason--if they've already used their action to attack or something, then failing the Dex save and getting snared is an automatic 6d6 points of damage (because 3d6 happens when you first get caught, and 3d6 happens at the start of every turn you're ensnared). That makes it almost as good as Fireball at AoE damage. I ran a whole squad of 8 umber hulks into Evard's Black Tentacles (in a chokepoint) over the course of 2-3 rounds and it was really painful and demoralizing for them.

EBT was pretty much always a game-changing spell since its first appearance, so I'm not sure who considers it "surprising" any more, let alone underrated. I think at this point everyone knows how good it is, and unlike some other spells, it didn't get an unexpected power-up when converted to 5E.

 

[Celtavian]

I think Grapple and Shove is a bit too effective in this edition given how monster's are designed. It's pretty easy to knock over even large creatures if you have a good Athletics skill. I've started to counter this by giving a bunch of creature Athletics or Acrobatics as appropriate.

The Help action is better than I thought it would be. Granting advantage to an ally with a single big attack that can't be dispelled is effective.

Guidance spell is extremely helpful for ability checks. A spell you can cast an unlimited number of times for a 1d4 on ability checks is helpful even in combat.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

One big early surprise was Spirit Guardians - an incredible spell for defense and offense at the same time and a good duration as well.

 

[Arial Black]

We cast darkness in the alley where the baddies were (who all had three attacks and each had twice our hit points and there were as many of them than there were of us!), and then the wizard cast fear. Instead of spending their turns attacking us three times, they spent their turns moving away from the wizard, at half speed because darkness. By the time they emerged from the dark area, the wizard had run around to that end of the alley, and the frightened baddies retreated through the darkness again, by which time the wizard had run back again!

They would have absolutely creamed us in a toe-to-toe fight, but while they were spending their turns moving instead of attacking, we were nickling and diming them to death.

 

[KarinsDad]

The 5E version of the Faerie Fire spell surprised me, and I actually overlooked it for quite a while because it didn't impress me at all in previous editions. In 5E, however, it's improved to the point of being a game-changing spell.

It's not just good, it's overpowered to the point of being broken.

The same level spell Bless gives +D4 to hit for 3 PCs. For a 5 PC party with an average of 50% chance to hit a fairly tough foe, that's an increase of 15% more damage per round. Since Faerie Fire gives everyone Advantage (+5 to hit in the 50% case, but usually ~+4.5 to hit), that's an increase of 50% more damage per round. More than 3 times as powerful as Bless. Granted, Bless is not limited to just the targets in the initial area of effect, but then again, Bless doesn't find invisible foes.

Advantage is one of those game mechanics that the game designers did not realize would be as game shaking as it is.

 

[iserith]

Big bosses do not work in 5E if they are solos, regardless of which special abilities the PCs have.

Our group of 7 7th level PCs took on a solo Dragon Turtle last night. We crushed it (hard encounter according to Kobold Fight Club and the PCs took something like 120 total hit points in damage, less than 40% each on average and nobody went unconscious).

Since I am no longer the DM, I do not know if Dragon Turtles can speak or not in the straight MM, but this one did. My PC did try to warn it that it didn't have a chance to survive if it did not stop fighting right away. It ignored the warning. 3 rounds later, it was dead.

The DM should have included some kameks to fight alongside that dragon turtle.

 

[KarinsDad]

One big early surprise was Spirit Guardians - an incredible spell for defense and offense at the same time and a good duration as well.

Yes. Spirit Guardians is very very strong, almost at the broken level. It's about the same as summoning in an additional meleeing PC for each NPC in the area of effect. At our table, it has decimated encounters.

When one compares Spirit Guardians (3D8 or 14.5 damage) to Fireball (8D6 or 28 damage), for example, it's half of the damage round after round after round in almost as large of an area. It's also damage that cannot be resisted. And it's ally friendly damage. Fireball's only significant advantage is range.

In a 4th level slot, Spirit Guardians does 4D8 compared to Fireball doing 9D6. It even scales better than Fireball. In a level 9 slot, it's 40.5 points of damage per round per nearby foe (usually for the entire encounter) compared to the Fireball's 49 points of damage once. In three rounds, that 250% of the damage of Fireball.

 

[KarinsDad]

The DM should have included some kameks to fight alongside that dragon turtle.

I agree, but he's brand new at DMing (second session). He was very bummed about how quickly we leveled the Dragon Turtle, but the real problem was the Faerie Fire spell which allowed us to damage it 60% faster (my PC's to hit went from 35% to 58%). Faerie Fire (IMO) is just flat out broken.

 

[KarinsDad]

We cast darkness in the alley where the baddies were (who all had three attacks and each had twice our hit points and there were as many of them than there were of us!), and then the wizard cast fear. Instead of spending their turns attacking us three times, they spent their turns moving away from the wizard, at half speed because darkness. By the time they emerged from the dark area, the wizard had run around to that end of the alley, and the frightened baddies retreated through the darkness again, by which time the wizard had run back again!

They would have absolutely creamed us in a toe-to-toe fight, but while they were spending their turns moving instead of attacking, we were nickling and diming them to death.

I think your DM gave you one here.

Several mistakes:

1) Darkness is only 30 foot wide. A foe could get out of it in a single round.

2) Darkness does not halve the speed of foes. So, feared enemies would Dash through it at normal pace (60 feet for most foes). The Wizard should not have been able to beat them around the alley. He could have moved through the alley and stayed up with them, but around seems too much.

3) Fear gives an additional saving throw if the target cannot see the caster. So, the NPCs should have gotten a saving throw every single round any time they are either in the Darkness, or they were on the other side of the Darkness from the wizard. For example, Wizard casts Fear, every NPC that failed the save would get another save at the end of their turn at least for that first round.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

EBT was pretty much always a game-changing spell since its first appearance, so I'm not sure who considers it "surprising" any more, let alone underrated. I think at this point everyone knows how good it is, and unlike some other spells, it didn't get an unexpected power-up when converted to 5E.

It was surprising to me! I never cast the spell in AD&D, and AD&D was more melee-oriented anyway so being pinned in place wouldn't have been so big of a deal. In AD&D there was no "restrained" condition, so EBT wouldn't have given you disadvantage to attack and advantage to be attacked. Even reviewing the AD&D version of the spell today, the only standout feature is the enormously good scaling (N tentacles with N HP for N hours over 30 * N square feet for an N level wizard). The 5E version has a rather different profile: short-ranged and short-duration, scaling only in DC, but the penalty imposed is more severe.

Anyway, I found it surprising. It did twice as much damage on the initial failed save as I was initially expecting it to from having skimmed it in the PHB.