D&D 5E What, if anything, bothers you about certain casters/spells at your table?

[Stalker0]

Guidance - extremely spammable, I still consider it one of the most powerful spells in the game, and its available on a lot of classes, so there is no reason the vast majority of parties won't have this in their arsenal unless the players want to play really casually.

Tiny Hut - its silly and stupid as written. who thought going from a "spell to keep us out of the rain" and make it a "lets create an invincible barrier of force that we can attack through and our enemies can't" was a good idea?

Spiritual Weapon/Spirit Guardians: The only offensive spells clerics use, its the number one reason I think clerics are boring as dirt in 5e.

Contact Other Plane - on its own its a fine spell. But once you see a party able to autopass DC 15 int checks (as my group did) and then start to ask you 50 questions a day....yeah its a problem. Its probably more that certain spells should just not be rituals.

Pass without Trace - +10 bonuses should not exist in a game of bounded accuracy.

Counterspell - I hate hate hate this spell, ESPECIALLY when you have two casters in the party with it. 1 is bad enough, with 2 you might as well just rip out all spellcasting monsters from the book.

 

[Stalker0]

Or just made ritual casting a way for non-casters to use magic, not a way to avoid the spell slot system.

I don't mind a ritual allowing a 1/day free slot kind of thing, where its problematic is when you can cast it 5-10 times a day.

 

[Stoutstien]

Can I just say all of it?

It's really difficult to make spell casting in DND work on any deeper level than a bunch of specific special rule exceptions that have to be individually memorized or referenced with no coherent pattern. You can't make intuitive decision without risking shooting yourself in the foot or, heaven forbid, make a world that isn't just lol random because spells.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The fact that Paladin and Ranger are spellcasters to begin with is a pretty big one.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't mind a ritual allowing a 1/day free slot kind of thing, where its problematic is when you can cast it 5-10 times a day.

Ironically, this means you would in fact prefer how 4e did it.

A few classes got the Ritual Caster feat for free (Cleric, Druid, Wizard, and Bard, IIRC). Some even could get a couple rituals a day without cost (Wizard and Bard, IIRC). Anything else, you had to either buy or find ritual components, and maybe drop a feat on Ritual Caster in the first place. Or you could just buy (or find) scrolls, which didn't require any further components.

Players--allegedly--hated this. They felt they were being shortchanged, having their precious, precious lewts stolen from them for icky ritual casting components.

That's why ritual casting is completely free (apart from a casting time) for 5e. And guess what! It turns out that that is stupidly powerful, so almost no spells are actually allowed to be rituals, even when it would make sense for them to be so.

It's almost like there are consequences for mucking about with the internal rules for a well-designed system. Especially if you're effectively hot-wiring it to remove all the safety checks.

Doubly funny because we've had years and years of folks complaining that 5e is swimming in gold with little or nothing to spend it on due to the dearth of rules for it (which even the halfhearted efforts we've gotten took years to deliver.)

 

[Minigiant]

I don't mind a ritual allowing a 1/day free slot kind of thing, where its problematic is when you can cast it 5-10 times a day.

The issue isn't hat you cant cast rituals over and over. It was that these noncombat spells don't cost offensive or defensive power.

Unless you were a sorcerer, preparing comprehend languages meant one less burning hands or magic missile. Which meant spells were allowed to be op.

 

[Burnside]

The issue isn't hat you cant cast rituals over and over. It was that these noncombat spells don't cost offensive or defensive power.

Unless you were a sorcerer, preparing comprehend languages meant one less burning hands or magic missile. Which meant spells were allowed to be op.

In 5E isn't this is ONLY an "issue" with wizards?

Artificers, clerics, and druids still need to prepare ritual spells (and thus not prepare something else) in order to cast them. Bards always have all their spells prepared, but still have to sacrifice knowing another spell in order to have a ritual spell. Sorcerers, rangers, paladins, and most warlocks aren't ritual casters at all.

IMO, Wizards should be able to ritual cast unprepared ritual spells from their spell books as it's part of what makes them unique; I have never know it to be game-breaking in any way.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

The fact that Paladin and Ranger are spellcasters to begin with is a pretty big one.

My ideal paladin class design has paladin as a spell-less martial character surrounded by a divine aura that, as you level up, provides increasingly better effects. Initially the effects apply only to yourself, but you can spend some resource to extend the aura to boost your allies.

 

[Stormonu]

I just don't like endless cantrips, especially with the likes of Guidance floating around. I'm glad Cure Minor Wounds didn't make it as a cantrip this edition, but the current implementation made it so True Strike, Friends and Blade Ward had to be useless. I don't care if the wizard has to go back to darts/dagger/quarterstaff/crossbow to defend themselves. On the other hand, eldritch blast should be just a class feature, though as force damage, it ought to be scaled back to d6 damage (then make a "two-handed" invocation that allows the damage to be upped. I'd also like to strip out autoscaling damage on cantrips as well (it's just extra attack in disguise, further taking away from the martials).

As others, shield on hybrid (armored) characters is annoying, spiritual weapon/spirit guardians is a bit too good and detracts from Clerics ever using physical weapons and Leomund's Tiny Hut has morphed into something it shouldn't be.

However, I think unlike others I miss the old Summon Monsters spell and the days of being able to have henchmen & hirelings in the party without detracting from the balance/power of the group. I like the idea of pets/familiars and the like in the party and would like to see them return instead of become punishments where only either the PC or the summon/companion gets to act.

And polymorph - I hate 5E's implementation of it. It's too good on allies and stinks as an anti-enemy spell. It should have been broken out into at least a polymorph self/other and baleful polymorph spell.

Lastly, on darkness, I've always wished that the caster (and possibly allies) could be selected to be able to see through the darkness it creates. Without that, I struggle to find use for the spell.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't have issues with any of the spells... I only have issues with my players and their decisions on which spells they choose to take.

Is Fireball "overpowered" compared to other 3rd level spells? Yeah, maybe, but that doesn't bother me. What bothers me though is the player who says they want to play a Necromancer in theming and background... and yet throws nothing but Fireballs during combat because it's the "best" 3rd level spell. To me, if you want to play a necromancer, play a necromancer! Use necromancy skill in all kinds of interesting and cool ways! You do so, I will be helping you out as the DM to be the most interesting and best necromancer ever!

But I won't usually do that if you just default to a metagame idea of "I want to make sure we win at all the combats!" by just throwing Fireballs and Lightning Bolts more than playing a thematically consistent character. That's the easiest way for me to just shrug my shoulders and lose interest in your character's progression through the campaign. I'm fine with you playing your character that way and won't stop you... I just won't be all that enthused about trying to spotlight your PC at various points in the story because there's nothing to hold onto.