el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
This doesn’t tell me anything.
Sure. I guess, assuming you know that somehow.
None of this tells me why people think it is a problem or game breaking.
D&D 5E What, if anything, bothers you about certain casters/spells at your table?
- Thread starter Swarmkeeper
- Start date
None of this tells me why people think it is a problem or game breaking.
Oofta
Legend
Summoning large number is annoying most of the time, fortunately the people I play with also find it annoying. Depending on how you rule it, heat metal cast on armor causing semi-permanent disadvantage is annoying. I finally just ruled that it doesn't work that way.
The biggest offender to me? Counterspell. In part because it's annoying, mostly because it's boring. I want my PCs and NPCs to do cool things, not just sit there and shut each other down every time someone casts a spell. Especially when you have multiple casters on both side and it starts the conga line of counterspell. We pretty much decided on the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) fix to this. I don't use it and neither do the PCs.
The biggest offender to me? Counterspell. In part because it's annoying, mostly because it's boring. I want my PCs and NPCs to do cool things, not just sit there and shut each other down every time someone casts a spell. Especially when you have multiple casters on both side and it starts the conga line of counterspell. We pretty much decided on the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) fix to this. I don't use it and neither do the PCs.
CreamCloud0
One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
i'm not the best at understanding all this aspect of the game but my understanding of it is the following
getting flat bonuses to AC is worth more the more AC you already have because bounded accuracy limits how high your attacks can actually roll and it's hard to find alternate ways to improve your to-hit bonuses, and armour's AC is designed around that expected to-hit range.
mages and halfcasters can, pretty easily, get a pretty decent(17~) AC through light, mage or medium armour and maybe a physical shield, the default best AC martials can get without magical assistance is 20(fullplate+shield), the Shield spell pops an additional +5 ontop of their 17~ to bump it up to 22~, better AC than the average martial for someone meant to be squishier and who needs to take less hits, and some of the tankier casters half or otherwise, can already get 20AC from fullplate and a shield before adding Shield ontop of it.
Shield is a 1st level reaction spell that persists until the start of your next turn, this means 1) as a 1st level spell it quite quickly becomes if not spammable, then possible to apply it liberally, 2) as a reaction it's possible to apply it off-turn without cutting into your regular action economy and 3) you don't need to spend the resource until after you already know if you need to spend it as it requires the attack to already hit as it's trigger, and finally 4) it lasts until the start of your next turn rather than merely the one attack so can potentially provide protection multiple times from just the one casting.
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Longspeak
Adventurer
Summoning bothers me, though I think that's more on me and my never taking that into account.
Spells that bypass mystery bother me. They probably shouldn't, but I get annoyed when someone uses magic to detect or identify anything. I'm trying to be mysterious over here!
I know, I need to get better at rolling with it.
Spells that bypass mystery bother me. They probably shouldn't, but I get annoyed when someone uses magic to detect or identify anything. I'm trying to be mysterious over here!
I know, I need to get better at rolling with it.
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Silvery Barbs was a fun-killer for me.
It gets better as the characters level, as low level spell slots become less necessary.
If players use it, it's an OP spell and kills the danger of crits.
If the DM uses it, it's gonna sap the fun out of player crits.
It gets better as the characters level, as low level spell slots become less necessary.
If players use it, it's an OP spell and kills the danger of crits.
If the DM uses it, it's gonna sap the fun out of player crits.
jmartkdr2
Hero
Yup. You end up being punished for playing an explorer if you wanted to explore. If you want to engage with wilderness exploration, do not pick the wilderness exploration class.
This confuses new players (and older ones who want to know why)
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
Not to try and guess statistics about "how people play", but from my own anecdotal observations, as well as reading discussions here over the years, 1-3 encounters per LR does seem to be much closer to the standard than 5-8.
I don't think it's a problem, really. Shield keeps the character alive, which is generally the goal of everyone at the table. The only problem is that it's exceptionally good value once you get into Tier 2 and no longer need level 1 slots for offense.
The only other problem is that it can push a defensive oriented character into nigh-unhittable territory, which can sometimes be frustrating for a DM. The 9th level paladin in our Friday group has a 23 AC normally, as well as being uncrittable, taking 3 less damage from non-magic attacks due to Heavy Armor Master, and bonus action blade ward. Adding shield on top of that, thanks to a feat, he regularly dives into melee scrums of 7-8 enemies and takes almost no damage.
The rest of the party focuses on keeping him alive and identifying threats that a high AC doesn't help against.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
And WotC has never been all that interested in explaining the "why" of anything they do.
jmartkdr2
Hero
Which I understand (explaining things to customers is a fool's errand) but it is kind of annoying on this side of things.
Honestly I don't have strong opinions on the matter - exploration mechanics was never my favorite part of DnD - but I can totally see why people who would like it are not satisfied with what they got.
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