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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6659203" data-attributes="member: 2067">The phantom steed stuff was showing up by mid-level-spread in 4e - it gave one ritualist the power to kind of negate what should have been an important part of the challenge of the game for all 30 levels. 4e's approach to magic isn't a panacea - it had the problems you're talking about. And in comparison, my experience with 5e does not have those problems. Advantage on skill checks are the major use of that spell. The change in attitude to "friendly acquaintance" is little more than a fluff justification for why you have advantage on skill checks. It all means the same thing: you have advantage on skill checks to interact with the charmed person. That has a use - you are now much less likely to miserably fail your skill check because you are a wizard with 10 CHA, and you might even get lucky! If you really need to get past the guard, and you don't have the luxury of waiting around for the paladin, give it a try! That is some weak sauce noodly-armed limp toothless DMing, man. "You fail your check and nothing happens" is no way to fail a check! And still, you could do the same thing with a rock or a hedge to hide behind - "you fail your Stealth check and nothing happens" doesn't need Invis to work! So the point still stands: useless as long as you're not in a barren room. If it might take you more than an hour, it is. Plus, there seems to be this assumption that a charmed creature is somehow putty in the PC's hand - my guards don't let their friendly acquaintances take a look at the baron's treasure. They'd be pretty awful guards if any friend of theirs could waltz in and do whatever! I've got friends I wouldn't trust near an open bag of potato chips let alone with treasure. You're kind of ignoring the rules to amp up the power of these spells, and if that's how you play, it's no wonder your mages dominate the game. You're giving them all sorts of power ups that the RAW doesn't give them! Flying doesn't mean you can find your way. You can see a hill off in the distance, it doesn't mean when you're back on the ground that you can do anything with that information - that's what Survival checks are for. The RAW says if you want to do anything more than move vertically, you've gotta climb - which means Athletics check. Your table is reading all sorts of advantages into these spells that aren't written there. Your DM is making very generous rulings. You're running with Older Edition Instinct and gut-checks that make these things significantly more powerful than they're written to be. You're letting them bypass skill checks that they shouldn't be bypassing. This isn't a problem if everyone's having fun, but it doesn't illustrate any flaw in 5e's design with regards to the power of non-combat magic. It just illustrates that old habits are hard to break.</blockquote>

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