Nerdarchy What about Witch Bolt?It's a 1d12 lightning damage, and if you hit your enemy,you can keep concentrating and use it again.Since you're concentrating,you can keep rolling a d12,and it won't miss.But,you can't use any other spell when you're concentrating.

+WildcardWhirlm_ I type this spread objective information regarding Witchbolt and why it is one of the worst uses of a spell slot in the game. -If you miss the spell doesn't activate at all. -The lightning arc is visual so the target knows what and who is hurting them. -If the target or you get total cover the spell ends instantly. -If the target or you move beyond 30ft the spell ends instantly. -If you fail a concentration check, the spell fails instantly. -On top of that you cannot cast any other spells -Maintain existing concentration on other spells -Take actions (attack, dash, disengage, dodge) Hex is a FAR better spell to have known even at earlier levels. -Lasts for an hour minimum (8 hours at level 5 and 24 levels at level 9) -New target can be designated once the original target is dead -Grants disadvantage on ability checks of your choice on the target, great for making allies MUCH more likely to succeed at grappling, disarming, shoving and such. -1d6 per attack against the target, so it scales well as spells get more attacks (this includes eldritch blast, magic missile, scorching ray.) -Doesn't have the range issue meaning concentration checks are less likely to matter. -You can still cast non concentration spells, make attacks, dodge, take cover after attacking to break LoS, change targets and do any other non concentration impeding task. So yes, even at low levels. Witchbolt is a terrible spell that would require a GM be VERY lenient in how they played the enemies to have it being any real level of effectiveness.

well misty step is great and all.. but your DM has a problem in his wrold if magic isn't accounted for when creating those jails.

Ye old gag and bind. Wizard cannot do anything at that point :P

Hex may be great if you're a warlock. But if you're a sorcerer or a wizard you don't have access to it while you do have access to witch bolt.

The verbal component is yelling "WU TANG!"

HADOKIN!

@@Treblaine that one got me pretty good. Wu-Tang!

I recently read Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and the authors paid enough attention to the D&D rules that I knew Raistlin was about to cast Burning Hands because he did that exact gesture. I hope some of the later books give that much attention to detail.

Wu-Tang Up The Yin-Yang, lol... 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂

NightBringer Tenchy I have found Tasha's Hideous Laughter is favored more by classes like the bard which don't have as much blasting potential so they look for alternative ways of subduing monsters and find the wealth of spells like Laughter

NightBringer Tenchy we killed a dragon with tashas hideous laughter. fallingdamage granted, but he had fun going...

a real bad-ass sends his/her minions on the enemy and casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter on him/herself.

Had fun with it.. until the laughter ended the next round. you a need a really high score to do that well and that includes the ability of the monster not to resist it. the spell is awesome at low levels, at high levels, its really not. because legendary resistances or very high stats from monsters. if i follow people discussions everywhere who say you can be thinking outside the box. Charm Person is the only spell you really need considering apparently it makes CR5 creatures fight for you wherever you go.

Tashas hideous laughter is still really good at high level. because you really don't want to waste a high level spell on forcing a legendary monster to use its legendary resistance. IF (and sometimes that a big if, sure, but your DC is the same regardless of the level of the spell you're casting) it fails the roll, it has to use resistance or be incapacitated. its a GREAT low level spell at high levels. sometimes.

Jim Seevers Now that one I've seen get a lot of play in games. Great spell. Nerdarchist Dave

Yeah Misty Step is super common as an escape mechanism for casters (or Eladrin rogues :P)

stopped a rogue from escaping with it. he moved down 35 feets, dashed up to 70. cunning action dashed out of there for a whooping 105 ft thiking im definitely out of range. monster ran to him 40ft, dashed 40ft. misty stepped 30 thats 110ft which puts him directly in front of him. The rogue was stumped and everyone was laughing at his hit and run strategy finally not working. also, the DM has a problem if in big metropols he let his prisons not have anti-magic properties. i mean in metropolis magic probably is a common thing. as a DM i preffer to let my player think they are fine because magic then when the druid try to wildshape his way out and i say, 5 seconds later, nothing happens. and they are like WHAAAAA. thats priceless. forces them to consider other things like the rogue for instance who i consider always have his thieves tools on his person even if he is naked. you know forcing them to understand non magical classes are important too.

@James Boll Exactly! As soon as a DM starts doing stuff like that I start looking out for more signs of a bad DM. Taking away windows, making magic not work (except in certain circumstances) and things like that are examples of DMs breaking the world and the character's abilities because they can't figure out a smarter way to do it.

so why isn't your world wizards only reigning people ? because seriously... i dont see fighters in a world where magic does it all and cannot be stopped in way or another. to me its unrealistick to have magic be a thing in a world and yet nbobody knows how to counter it. to me its that simple... in high end society magic is a thing and they know it. so why would they ever let the wizard in a jail cell without having his hands tied, his feets tied, his mouth gagged and without any component on his person ? seriously in a world where magic is porminent there is no reason for people not to know how to counter it. the same way we adapt to things and just counter them. you say its bad DM to remove window... but i guarantee you that in a world where windows were that easy. even our own jail cells by today wouldn'T have any. and guess what... todays jail cells dont have any windows to begin with. its called learning from mistakes. if wizards and sorcerer they arrest keep getting out of their cells by the windows... why would those guards keep the windows ? from my point of view, by keeping the players easy escapes, you are the bad DM because you keep giving players an easy time.

That's something that's so rarely done. A lot of players just have this kill-boner, granted a lot of enemies, you can't parlay normally.

I like that player who doesn't just kill everybody

I agree. You just have to be lucky enough to have a DM that doesn't have a kill-boner himself.

***** fair enough

It's something to think about for my own games. Non-violent options for encounters.

Halosty this is brilliant.

Yup. I once launched a Tarrasque into the Astral Plane doing that. Mirage Arcane, baby!

Kind of outclassed, though. You can easily just have a much better thing going by upcasting a Major Illusion at level 6. It becomes permanent until dispelled; and you already have Malleable Illusions, so it doesn't matter what form it takes. You could make it a little mole on your arm, carry it around with you, and then bring it out as an action into a wall, which you make solid with a bonus action. You can even be funny, and make it look like a Wall of Force so that an enemy caster will be trying to Disintegrate it, to no avail. The best use I've seen is a bridge, that the party crosses, but then you drop the solidity and the enemies fall through it behind you. And yes, it is an expended resource... but a permanent one, and easy enough to do while traveling if you wait until just before a long rest. The best thing yet? Also no concentration... so you can have *more then one*.

The problem is, that you can't "drop the solidity" acording to RAW - it lasts for 1 minute solid, that is all...

Also, Silent image is silent and so if made real should make no sound at all, allowing you to sneak by making silent image shoes real. This (probably) won't require a check if it literally can't make sound.

Grease is flammable

That sounds like a cool event but unfortunately it doesn't have really anything to do with the spell. It is all DM fiat really. Casting a spell and performing 2 skill checks takes 2-3 rounds (what was everybody else doing while the cleric was casting spells and staring at the chief?). The advantage on the skills checks is a fiat gift from the DM for doing something they though was cool, and you can't really stick the effect bound to a person it targets a location in space (people tend to move their head to see where the voices are coming from which will break the effect). The DM was kind in giving the effect of a second level+ spell for the casting of a cantrip. It would have been very cool the first time but will wear very thin as the player makes repeated use of the effect economy it provides (considering it has no save). The DM has built a rod for their own back with their soon-to-be-one-off ruling.

Thaumaturgy is great, just yesterday one of my players used it to give a screaming child a stern speaking to!

You could also start an avalanche. Imagine yodeling on a mountaintop at triple the normal sound level. This could be used to cut off travel routes, cave in underground areas, or maybe even smother that one orc fortress built a bit too close to the mountainside.

Uncle Peter Ik this is an old comment, but a player of mine (a tiefling) used thaum to amplify her scream against a huge group of homonuculi, deafining and frightening them to avoid getting slowly ripped to shreads. Great idea in my book so she got away with it.

Oh I do this with my Cleric in out d the Abyss. I got the kua'toans worshipping "Gross" because I made a religious idol of theirs say "gross" as they spit and puked on it. Priestess of Sune ain't got time for that

MrZriael also burning hands is available at first level for casters who wanna start blasting immediately

Burning hands would be good for casters who get into melee-range alot, I would think. Same with thunderwave. I'm surprised they'd think it's underrated.

I have an eldritch night who is a fire genasi and oh my god it so good for me because I get it for free and I waltz in and kill all of the tiny weak minions.

as well, area of effect. Fireball catches your allies in that blast. 5e got a comp out with being able to take your allies out of the spell effect, that's why 3.5 had better rules. You want the big bang, you're all at risk. Plus makes the more focused spells useful

Eric B I know this is 2 months old now, but my impression with 3.5 is simply that there are far too many rules. For better or not there is a rule telling you how to play every aspect of the game in detail. Honestly, after 2 months of playing, it has begun to stagnate for everyone and we are seriously considering just going back to 5e.

For an NPC, I created the idea of a wizard who uses a swarm of animated forks to defend himself. It is silly, but also a little scary.

All I can hear in my head now is the narration, after carefully picking your way through the agromancer's abode, in Jack Patillo's voice: "Haha; get forked!"

I was actually thinking about buying some caltrops and ball bearings and using Animate Objects on some of them.

or better yet fork you

Thats some pyrope level crazy there heh

Tyler Williams If you are talking 3rd lvl rituals then Tiny Hut is a must must must.

Up-Cast FOG CLOUD On The Ship, That Way The Canoer's CAN'T Target The Ship... 😂🤣😂

Yeah but doesnt everyone know how awesome sleep is?

Stirges? More like pains in the chest... hate those things...

Sleep is one of the most overpowered spells in early levels. It’s not underrated at all.

Yep Especially potent vs swarms since it knocks out the lowest hp creature and works its way up

Man the last time I used sleep i rolled like a 6 or something put one creature to sleep that his buddies immediately woke up. Wasted turn, wasted spell slot never used it again.

However, acid splash can only target creatures. I think firebolt is only cantrip that damages that can target objects also

Even though the book specifies that acid splash targets 'creatures,' saying it can't target anything else is ridiculous. The DM could possibly rule that the acid isn't strong enough to eat through metal very well, but common sense tells me a caster should be able to splash acid on anything.

Ridiculous to read the text of a spell or the PHB?

C Seider It's ridiculous to interpret the description in the handbook to mean you can target only creatures with the spell. 'Acid splash' creates a bubble of acid. You should logically be able to target anything with it. The DM interprets the rules for his campaign. The DM could rule that the acid disappears if the caster targets anything but a creature, or something like that. But it seems more reasonable to just let players throw the acid at anything.

Not gonna argue but consider how fire bolt clearly says you can target an object meaning the spells are designed purposely

Go to druid spell. Nerdarchist Dave

I once had to jump in for our almost constantly absent druid player and oh boy casting spike growth was the best thing I did all session.

Tad Meissner the problem and advantage of minor image is it affects up to a 5ft cube. so nothing can be taller than 5ft. However, my forest gnome is well under 5ft. And my dm well knows it lol. She is pretty much a ranged rogue, honestly nothing short of anti magic zones have been able to counter 'I hide inside an illusory rock'

I love illusion spells, but i have a hard time to make it work correctly. As a DM im not sure how to react to a Wizard casting illusion in battle. Do i automaticlly make all the enemies in the room target it, do i roll some sort of check on it everytime. It's hard stuff :O

ArngrimTV yeah that makes it tricky! I usually go off how believable it is. If something just poofs into existence that's an illusion not a phantasm (in their mind) then I'd say that's not very believable. It depends on what it is though and how clever the players are.

5e's rule on illusions is that the observer acts normally and believes it is real (unless suspect of course) until physically interacted with. Once 'physically' interacted with, you act normally as if it weren't there. so in the case of wizard popping an illusion, common sense comes into play. For example my dm allowed me to spread the 5ft cube over a larger area, but was effectively paper thin in width. (we ruled 5ftcu volume as opposed to the singular block space for minor illusion) Using this, my first real application was 'setting a barn on fire' and 'a huge archdemon type thing walking out. Now to cite the example it was the barn in greenest from Hoard of the Dragon Queen. (to explain, I used the spell first to make it sound like something was beyond the wall, then again to make it as if a fire was starting in the barn; thus the mercs left the barn. Once outside I used it again to do as mentioned above.) So if you looked at it from the side, we have a gnome standing in front of a barn, facing a platoon of mercs. from the front, we see a platoon of mercs frozen in fear at a flame engulfed barn as a firey demon lord falls from the roof to the ground and stares down the group. now I had help from the group, syncing in a thaumaturgy to add roaring and such to said demon. but nonetheless no one dared interacting with the illusion.

HuchiaZ without auditory, olfactory or thermal- I dont see how anyone, even someone of animal intelligence, would fall for that.

Can Archers not free fire into an area? Would work better at castle defense when you have a lot of Archers.

they can shoot but will have all disadvantages.

An attack roll is still an attack roll even with disadvantage. No reason they still shouldn't attack

You cannot see a target who is 5 feet into a heavily obscured area, so you can't target them. With that degree of clouds and downpour, taking any sort of calculated shot in is going to be tricky. Two seconds after it starts you have no clue anymore where anyone is/was. As a DM I'd hide the models of all creatures in the zone and make you guess what square to shoot at. Then if there's is someone there, you get disadvantage on the roll. You roll either way, and I never tell you if you hit something or not, because how would you know? Despite this, Sleet Storm is still amazing, able to lock out the enemy ranged and spellcasting support entirely while you kill their melee.

You can still target creatures you can't see, you just have disadvantage.

LeetMasterAce I put Unseen Servant on my Rogue Arcane Trickster too. She would summon him before battle and he would go fetch her daggers for her (slow moving daggers of returning lol, but useful nonetheless). She was also an alchemist and used him to supply the help action for almost all her survival checks to gather ingredients and use her alchemist's tools. Picking that spell was the best in-character decision I ever made.

That's awesome! Using Unseen Servant to get Help action advantage on skill checks in non-threatening situations. Very clever!

why use that when you have a invisible mage hand that can do almost all the same things already?

There's a Bard in my party which constantly uses Unseen Actor, which is very similar, he's used it to douse flames, open boxes, bypass certain traps, and to help him perform juggling tricks.

Turtle Pirate Master bonus action to command an active unseen servant vs your action for mage hand

You really like transmutation spells don't you...

I didn't even notice that, but yes.

Expeditious Retreat doesn't really mingle well with Cunning Action, since Cunning Action uses your bonus action and Expeditious Retreat allows you to cast Dash as a bonus action.

Expeditious retreat lasts for, I believe, a minute. So, it actually works really well with cunning action, just not for 1 round. For 9 other rounds it's great.

It lasts 10 minutes. We played through an AL mod that requires you to keep a timer, basically, since you only have 20 minutes. I cast Expeditious Retreat on round 1 and enjoyed it for the rest of the mod :)

ok, do they use them on characters that get knocked unconcsious or on low hp characters? My Players always want to be on max hp before every fight that means too they use to much resources, how should tell them? I give them some gaming tips during Sessions like you can't kill everything sometimes you have to flee from the dragon and they get upset about it.

I agree, healing as a bonus action is potentially so useful and Ive hardly ever seen it used

Earlthepirate The Bard in the group I DM for multi-classed into a Life Cleric for the Wisdom plus Cleric level bonus. I house ruled Charisma plus Wisdom stack with healing word only and I'll tell ya whut, it's a GREAT "OH SHIT" button.

nice, my Player wants to multiclass the first time as a Aarockra ranger/ live cleric multiclass. he gets around really fast in the battle field and in worst case scenarios can lift Players to safty and fly away. ( in a fight with a normal amount of archers)

actually they don't Play such games or RPG's in General but they love D&D

Hold him down and beat the shit out of him. As someone for whom D&D was still the nerdy thing when I was young, I'm familiar with the technique.

Sounds like the rematch needs to be a Kraken! (Freedom of movement, FTW!)

elie challita that sounds more like modify memory than suggestion. Suggestion suggests an action and it has to be reasonable. He wouldn't reasonably chase you going a different way if he can clearly see you in front of him. However with modify memory you could wipe his memory and hide and he could think you ran a way you didn't.

Justin Ashman The suggestion only needs to be worded in a way that sounds reasonable. It doesn't actually have to be reasonable, although it does have to be a suggestion, not simple misinformation like "they went thatta way!"

@@Tengokuchi ....with your description,suggestion is pretty much useless.the suggested (haha) effect listed in the spell is to "make a knight give his treasured warhorse to the first beggar he sees" Not very reasonable sounding,does it?

DoctorSawbonesPHD It's not necessarily his job though

Yeah 5e has plenty of healing options, apart from someone back up throwing tiny healing here and there is usually not worth it as the BBG will just do more damage then was healed anyway.

when your cleric brings the pain it's just using an ounce of prevention rather than a pound of cure

+rr ww Probs reverse those. A pound of prevention rather then an ounce of cure. Tempest Clerics can bring some of the best hurt in the entire game if played correctly.

As a War Domain Cleric, I too prefer to smash first, heal later. (I have Revivify and Raise Dead prepared... I got this ;)

what kind of things would you do with telekinesis?

The strongest points about telekinesis are it's spell slot efficiency (you can make one 5th level slot last the full duration of 10 minutes EASILY since you can keep using your actions after casting it), and the ability to bypass legendary saves, as it involves an ability contest (target's strength vs. your spellcasting modifier). My favorite usage is to get an easy prone on any creature without a flying speed. It's much better than having a Strength-based character simply shoving the target because it's a contested Strength check for Telekinesis, not Athletics or Acrobatics. So any creatures with low strength or reliance on their Athletics/Acrobatics profiencies are pretty much boned, though this becomes less effective once you start seeing creatures with over 20 STR. Telekinesis gets even better if you're a sorcerer, since you can abuse your ability to break the action economy by spending every action on it while still getting to quicken spells. It can get silly if you optimize into a Sorcerer with a 2-3 level Warlock dip, because then you could use Telekinesis to pull someone into the air, and then smack them with Repelling Blast - Eldritch Blasts to send them flying. It's an absolutely fantastic controller spell. The biggest problem is that it's competing with other 5th level spells, namely Animate Objects, Dominate Person, Hold Monster, and Destructive Wave for bards.

lift up a 1000lb rock, and drop it on someones head. lift someone up, 30ft, flip them over, drop them on their head, or off a cliff. Grab ANY beholder, lich, wizard, basilisk, etc, that requires line of sight, turn them around and literally face them into a corner and hold them there. Its single target and not self cast... so I think you can twin spell it... its concentration and lasts many turns.. quicken spell+tk on later turns should also allow casting while still doing TK actions. TK almost seems like a must for sorcerer. so much versatility, and economy for the limited spells. hold a targets mouth shut, or arms behind their back, so they can't attack or use spells. Pick up your barbarian ally, and move them 30ft closer, over obstacles, etc. pick up and drop your rogue, directly on that giants back. or, save your tk as a reaction, to pull a wounded ally OUT of combat immediately. Or, move an enemy out of position, drawing attacks of opportunity on them. Pick up an enemy and hold them in the air as a meat shield in front of you. Pull rugs out from under people, tables, etc. Use it to fly, without fly.

All of this is delightful good fun, however, you can't use forced movement to provoke opportunity attacks. Also, facing isn't really a thing so they can always still look back at you so putting them in a corner doesn't work, but behind a wall does though you'd have to be able to see it... It's restrained, not stunned so the condition is very specifically laid out, so holding spellcaster's mouths shut is also a no go. Also, it doesn't say it can prone anywhere in the description, so that's a no. Pretty sure you can't twin it, since it has the potential to target more than one object with the spell, so no go there. It does work to use the action with quickened spells though. The rest is solid gold though, so managing allies around the battlefield is fun, as is making some non-strength melee enemy a piece of cover for yourself and all of the weight dropping and cliff tossing shenanigans. I'm playing a non-combat oriented Abjurer anti-caster who does nothing but counter and hinder, zero damaging, and this feels like a fun addition to his repitoire of annoyance for when no spellslingers are afoot!

Cassandra you can't turn creatures around only move them

While it's definitely a great spell, it's not underrated as it's widely considered one of the best spells in low level 5e

Arthur DeLuca there are several monsters that grow weaker as their hit points are whittled down. Swarms being a prime example.

melee while concentration kind of hurts it.

please do :) thank you bi

Reverse Gravity is fun as well as Enlarge Reduce.

Curse you maaaaaath! Nerdarchist Dave

Cloud of daggers in a sleet storm even funner. Nerdarchist Dave

@@Nerdarchy oh god!

I can agree on Sleet Storm's effectiveness. Although my players were none to happy with this battle, for they were caught in this storm and suffered greatly.

2d8 around you also has you surrounded which is bad

AlmightyK Really? My DM ruled it as merely having to originate from your tile, rather than being centered on it. Even still, the utility of the knockback would help if you're surrounded.

AlmightyK www.sageadvice.eu/2015/04/13/thunderwave-spell-cube/

I mean that means you have put yourself in the middle of a group, as opposed to burning hands which lets you attack an opposing line

AlmightyK You still don't have to. It's a 15 foot cube you're standing outside of, as opposed to a 15 foot cone.

I love conjuration spells but the problem is the 1 minute casting time. Most encounters don't allow that kind of spell to be used, as for the necromancy spells, if you think about it they are rather good whilst being balanced at the same time, it's just difficult walking around with undead.

clericofchaos1 Wizards are terrible summoners in 5e. Druids totally stole their cake.

eh, depends on how the world works. I personally subscribe to the idea that necromancy is not inherently evil and should be studied like any other form of magic, so as I dm I build worlds and civilizations that have that mindset as well. with that being said, I don't think the necromancy spells in 5e are balanced in the slightest. by making it so you have to cast the spell every 24 hours they are actually punishing people who decide to play that way. which is why I make the spells permanent. makes more sense from the limited resources standpoint.

yea, pretty much.

clericofchaos1 I like the whole mechanic of using the spell to control undead not merely create them. it also creates a situation of be careful what you do because the undead aren't intrinsically loyal to you so you can be killed by your own creations.

I agree. IMO, in D&D 5e, Slow is better than Haste.

Burning Hands is better at close quarters or while in a small room than Fireball. I'll trade less damage for more accuracy any day.

mdiem Lightning bolt has the same damage as fireball and has a line shape.

@@ollie6458 and your in no way garunteed to have that prepaired

I agree. In Pathfinder, Haste is supreme, in D&D 5e, Slow is better imo.

I have very few concentration spells, and Slow is one that i always have memorized, it helped so much for the one round that it worked on the Kraken.

Morten Dreier I have noticed that sacrifice in action to cast haste becomes a detriment when battles rarely last longer than a couple rounds

If you have something overwhelming strong with a single swing [looks intensely at the new Hexblade's Curse Bringer] then throwing out Haste isn't so bad. I am working on a 14th level Cleric that dips into Hexblade and the numbers on a swing are beautiful. If I was a Sorcerer, I would gladly throw out Twinned Haste on that and a Barbarian.

Yeah. We also thought about using it when I was playing a Melee Druid and you become something with one powerful strike. And I really like the new Hexblade. I am playing a paladin right now and plan on dipping it.

Nawh, u Wana upcast precast aid before the fight in one of your higher spell slots. It's legit

Devin Colborn k

Actually, Fireball has a 20ft radius

Thank you for pointing this out. I was almost screaming that a radius is half a circle, so double the radius would make 4 fireballs, or you miss out on half the total area.

Well, the equation would be ((pi)40^2)/(pi)(20^2) the pis cancel and then you're left with 1600 sq. ft/ 400 sq. ft which comes out to equal 4. Soooo yeah, OP is right.

They may have equivalent areas, but 4 fireballs could still not totally cover the area of the sleet storm. Some areas would be hit multiple times, and some not at all.

Isn't Phantom steed useful in combat too? :o

It might, but there's a big drawback to it. If the phantom steed itself suffers any damage whatsoever, it disappears and ends the spell early.

I thought it was invincible, or at least had a sizeable amount of HP. As a mage, the steed would give you some really crazy movement speed bonuses while active.

No I am first.

hmm the beginning of rivalry... ( just kidding )

Really interested in this rivalry. Who will be the ultimate 1ST forever tune in next episode to find out, will Claude be 1st or will earlthepirate be the upset victory.

Find out in the next Episode of Nerdarchy, but I don't know if I would be first because I am European and it was like evening in my country. But that will not stop me from beeing First. ^‿^