Good vid as usual Lee! I'll share a combo as well: "this is going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me" magic missile + summon construct (clay) position your clay construct beside an enemy. upcast a magic missile but decide to send 1 dart towards your clay construct (they will take 1d4 +1). send the remaining darts towards the target. the clay construct can do a reaction slam attack in response to the dmg towards your enemy along with its normal set of attacks and your magic missile dmg.

It's a high level combo, but one of my favorites I call Time Delayed Blast. Use Time stop and take as many turns as you are given to cast Delayed Blast Fireball. Granted it's a concentration spell so it would be up to DMs discretion if the blasts go off during the timestop or after. But for the sake of the combo and my understanding of the spells, let's say they don't detonate until time returns to normal. Each Blast gains an additional 1d6 damage if they have not detonated by the end of your turn. Timestop allows you to immediately take 1d4+1 turns in a row so each Blast would be empowered once time begins to flow again. So you're looking at 2-3 20ft radius explosions that reach around corners doing anywhere from 13-16 d6 fire damage a piece with little to no time for reaction.

One of my favorite combos is Watery Sphere and Otiluke's Freezing Sphere. I like both spells, and I love them together.

It's super high level, but personally, I'm partial to the Microwave. Step 1: Forcecage the enemy. This is the point of failure for this spell, as if they lack teleportation, their only option for escape is to make the initial saving throw. Step 2: Sickening Radiance. Constant radiant damage over 100 rounds, and due to the exhaustion effects, 6 failed saves result in death. That's 6 out of 100.

What about the meat grinder combo of spike growth+eldrich blast? This combo can also be used with cloud of daggers, spirit guardias, thorn whip, or lightning lure.

a c t i o n e c o n o m y

... Familiars can not attack. Explicitly written, can not attack.

You cast mental ruin in the wrong order. If you cast mind sliver first, the target uses the -1d4 on the save for bane. Bane has to be cast first.

The only issue I see here is Silenced Knock. Silence prevents the casting of spells that have the verbal component, I guess you could Subtle Spell cast Knock for this to work but unless you have that feature it's a no-go.

How about sickening radiance and force cage?

The only issue with your “murder of crows” is that they can’t attack and you can only cast a spell through one familiar in the flock per turn even if you have enough action economy to cast multiple spells. So it’s not really a murder of ass kicking birds since they’re just going to do the same thing as if you’d cast flock itself. The funny thing about mental ruin is that they build off of each other too. Mind sliver causes them to subtract the d4 from their save of Bane and each subsequent casting of mind sliver is going to proc Bane. Synaptic Static also accomplishes this same effect just with a d6 and much more damage. You could sub out either spell for static in this case and it’s just the nastiest thing around. I’ve had it done to me by my PCs and it’s not the most fun thing out there 😅 Blooming amulet is actually pretty cool though very niche in application frequency Silenced knock also would work with say thunderwave or thunderclap You’re right about sanctified armor it’s not the most important combo but it’s protection when you really need it Combos that are very powerful I’ve had used on me as a forever DM: Slow + any terrain spell that requires you to stay in it. My PCs have used it with web and sickening radiance both of which are awful to slog through. Not a spell but sovereign glue + immovable rod is pretty funny. Glue the creature’s skin or most difficult to remove piece of armor to the rod and you’ve got a makeshift prison for your enemies. Grease + any fire spell is a classic combo. Guardian of faith + wall of fire in a more confined space is super crazy. If they want to get out on one end they need to deal with the guardian and take radiant if they fail which guardian isn’t concentration. If they want to leave from the other end they need to deal with the fire.

well, knock has verbal components, so silence actually keeps you from using it

Cool combos Question: level 5 bard picks up a level 3 spell, what would you take?

I don't know if you know about this one, but the Chronurgy wizard can cast private sanctum into his arcane abeyance and then maze someone (doesn't allow any initial saving throw) then on the same round the familiar can release private sanctum. Thus completely removing a single foe for 24 hours without requiring concentration.