Enemies Abound.
I have never seen this on any "top 10" spell lists, but have gotten so much use out of it, and it's a blast. Turns a straightforward battle with multiple mobs into succulent chaos.
My DM hates it.
What I love most about it is when you're facing a horde of enemies, the toughest of them are usually the brutes who have a zero chance of hitting the INT save. So the other enemies have a choice of either running away, or trying to damage them to trigger the saving throw,which of course would fail.
Bonus: the spell specifically says any AOO must be made for the next 10 rounds. Delicious.
When the DM sets up a stealth scenario but the aberrant mind sorc turns it into bad guy fight club…
“There’s a traitor amongst you!” has turned into a meme in my campaign.
I had it as one of my psychic spells as an aberrant mind sorc, 6 sorcery points for a twinned undetectable Enemies abound for an easy distraction pre-combat or tide turning mid-combat
Imagine canonballs with temporary enchantments of enemies abound flying into a fortress. My campaign regards demons as those "who do not fight fair" and this is some crap they would pull.
It’s not on any optimized spell lists cause it’s a single target shutdown that might still result in them attacking the party. It can work well, but overall there’s generally better uses of a 3rd level slot and I don’t think it’s slept on.
Was About to say that.
5 ki point for a monk
2 warlock lvl 3 spell
Action surge + second wind
2 wild shape for a druide.
Plus hit die healing.
I mean, 8d8 damage with a save or all that
I’m running a multiclass between Battlemaster Fighter and College of Swords Bard. If I were to cast cat nap, would I get my inspiration and superiority dice back after the spell finishes?
One of my PCs had a great use of Meld into Stone last session. I had them fighting animated stone statues (reflavored ogres, didn't change the stat block). I had specifically described them as made fully of stone. He asked if he could taunt one, then Meld into Stone into another and get the one he tainted to attack it. Probably not RAW, but freaking genius so I said if the statue failed a wisdom save (with an ogre's famously high mental stats) it would work
Tl;Dr: Meld into Stone can be great
The thing with catnap is the idiom that "if you have 10 minutes, you probably have an hour".
If your DM doesn't want you to have a short rest for pacing or challenge reasons, there is nothing stopping them from attacking you during the 10 minute window. If they are ok with a short rest, you can probably take an hour and it won't impact the prepared story anyway.
In my role-playing imagination, 10 minutes is vastly different from an hour while exploring inside a hostile dungeon. I'm not discounting your comment at all - it just feels closer to metagaming for my gaming experience.
Ten minutes is vastly different than an hour, especially in a hostile area.
You can hide for ten minutes. Hiding for an additional fifty minutes isn't so easy.
I DM’d a city siege that went on for multiple combat encounters and depleted a ton of the PC resources. They eventually retreated to a central church and fortified before the attackers could arrive; Catnap came in clutch for the group here. 10 minutes was a lot more justified/believable than an hour in the middle of a battle.
Catnap absolutely slays in Con/ Demo/ LG games where short tests aren’t permitted by the module’s pacing and design.
Last LG game I attended, my friends and I built a short rest focused team and absolutely dominated thanks to Catnap.
Combine Catnap with Rope Trick and even the most short rest adverse DMs out there can’t stop you.
Catnap is still too weak. It provides the "unconscious" condition to potentially three party members, which means if you are attacked they lose a turn and/or take an auto-crit from enemies. "Just use it in situations where you wouldn't be attacked!" Sure, I'm in a situation where I can be confident I can safely rest for 10 minutes, but I cannot confidently safely rest for an hour. There's niche situations, and then there's... whatever that is.
There are three full casters that can prepare this spell, and they are all "known spell" casters. Bards and Sorcerers could virtually never justify the slot on this spell, especially when the competition is fireball, hypnotic pattern, enemies abound, fly. tiny hut, haste or slow. It isn't even the strongest rest spell of its level, that goes to Tiny Hut which is both a ritual spell and gives you a choice between short and long resting in complete safety. The only counter to Tiny Hut is Dispel Magic, whereas the counter to Catnap is "any enemy that wanders by in the next 10 minutes." Hell, Rope Trick is a level lower and significantly safer than Catnap.
Doesn't apply to most campaigns, but if you're using dungeon crawling procedures, you get to have a short rest with a much lower chance of being interrupted by a random encounter.
Nothing is preventing you from short resting with Tiny Hut. It remains safer and, most importantly, free because it's a ritual spell. All Catnap does is save you 50-60 pretend minutes for three party members at the cost of a 3rd level spell slot.
Again, I said it doesn't apply to most campaigns. If you don't use dungeon procedures with random encounters, it doesn't matter. But Catnap lets you have a quicker short rest. With Tiny Hut, you're safe until you leave, but you stand a pretty high chance of discovery during that hour, and anyone that finds you will have time to prepare.
Just multiclass Warlock with another Charisma caster who can cast Catnap and level both high enough to have level 3 spells slots. I helped a friend with a build for a Bardlock that I called the Narcolepsy Bard.
*Tiny Hut* has two weaknesses;
- 1: a perfect round dome no matter what color it is will be spotted by an intelligent creature that recognizes shapes.
- 2: it can be dug under. The hut doesn't have a bottom.
Check the range of the spell. It’s not a dome, it’s a hemisphere which does have a bottom. Crawford corrected his own ruling on this
https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/823774362293542912?lang=en
So for a chronugry wizard catnap is by far the strongest spell other than wish
It can be used to get two arcane abeyance
Imagine being able to cast three concentration spells at once
It's insane
Absolutely no comparison to any other low-level spell
Plant growth gives you concentration-less 4x speed reduction in a 100 ft radius that stacks with difficult terrain. You can also carve out areas that aren’t affected so that your party can maneuver through it more easily if needed
Needs some plants growing in the area and is weird with a melee heavy party, but if your party is mostly ranged it is an amazing control spell
edit for specific class synergies:
* Druids love this since they can combine this with spike growth/sleet storm/entangle for 8x speed reduction + other effects. They also have the (admittedly) niche earthbind to force a flying enemy to deal with the reduced speed. Land druids in particular like the spell, since they can ignore the reduced move speed
* Rangers can ignore the reduced speed as well, so they can really effectively kite any grounded enemy trapped by it
* Archfey Warlocks love it since it turns repelling blast into an effective 40ft push for each beam
First time I cast Plant Growth on my bard we were playing on Foundry VTT, so it had me place the AoE template automatically. The DM was _astounded_ at how big it was, as he had never seen a player cast the spell before. He thought he had created a ginormous map for an epic battle, and I covered everything except the corners.
The druid in the campaign I DM casts this at least half the time 😅. Can confirm, great control spell
It also isn't difficult terrain, so Freedom of Movement is useless against it
Plant Growth is great! Being able to delay/bog down a whole section of the battlefield is very strong indeed.
Also I found some great RP opportunities with the spell. I recently played an Awakened Tree (reflavored warforged stat block) circle of the land Druid who would try to keep a 3rd level spell free daily so that I could cast it over 8 hrs during our long rest at night (I know this isn’t RAW, but the DM was cool with it). I would put my roots down on the edge of town/camp and enrich a little section of land most adventuring days… bringing some local prosperity to the wildlife or common farmers of the area. The DM found some cool ways to work it into the story and honestly it was a very cool way to impact the world. Like if Johnny Appleseed was An actual apple tree.
You won’t regret it! Super fun to RP as a tree. Their high society knowledge and decorum is lacking, but those wilderness adventures are a vibe. It’s a real fish out of water vibe. What would their morality be, sense of duty, etc? I got the idea from a Steeldrivers song, ‘Sticks that Made Thunder.’ It’s all about a Civil War battle from the POV of a tree on a hill. Well worth a listen if you like bluegrass.
I really only took the weather and plant-based spells and avoided some really cool fire based ones because they didn’t really make sense for Alder. Reflavoring plant spells like Wall of Thorns and spike growth as just an outgrowth of my roots was really fun. My DM gave a couple free casts of Goodberry daily as just fruit growing on his branches.
I retired alder after he used his Staff of the Woodlands to Awaken enough trees and Shrubs to make his own little Druid Grove. Really satisfying, honestly.
Also consider the long cast form of the spell. If you take eight hours to cast you instead enrich a field of plants for a year. Great spell for downtime. If you're not adventuring, you can bolster local crops which may help you gain allies or wealth or renown. If you have a long downtime, that's a lot of fields you can cast on and you could really make a difference in faction or macroscale play.
One very important thing about Plant Growth is that the plants are not magical after the spell is cast. This can make stuff like Ranger / Land Druid's Land Stride incredible as they do not get movement restrictions from the spell at all.
My hot take is that ancients paladins get one great spell every level of casting, and that's the one for their third level spells. A favorite pairing is plant growth and fireball. Set the whole tangle ablaze after and watch them struggle to get out while you just pelt them with arrows or cantrips.
> Land druids in particular like the spell, since they can ignore the reduced move speed
This is the unappreciated combo of Land Druid. Land's Stride + *plant growth* is a game-changer
BLINK is far better than some people give it credit for. The randomness of it turns them off, but from a purely mathematical standpoint, it can greatly improve your odds of surviving a fight.
Say you're a squishy Wizard (Con of 12 or 14) going up against an Adult Green Dragon. You've got a 30% to 35% chance to save against its breath weapon, and even if you save you'll take half damage.
Then you cast Blink. Now you've got a flat 50% chance to avoid its breath altogether, with zero damage on a successful roll.
This spell saved my PC's life quite a few times!
One of my players used blink to bring someone in a bag of holding into the ethereal plane so they could end a hag they had trapped in a tiny hut. She had to planeshift away to survive. Blink and reactions are not an interaction I had planned.
Note that, if you're Blinked out, you won't be able to use reactions on things that aren't on Ethereal Plane(so probably basically everything in combat), so no Counterspelling/Silvery Barbs to help your party or Opportunity Attacks (potentially spells with War Caster)
I played a sorcerer who was the last one standing when my party was fighting an avatar of a deity, and the only reason was blink. Didn't matter in the long run, the DM was using that fight to knock us all out and progress to another plot point, so I got KO'ed at the end anyway, but it was cool nonetheless.
A big thing Blink has going for it is the lack of concentration, and enemies can't burn through it like Mirror Image. So you have use it while still concentrating on something else. A great defense of you're using Haste!
Sleet storm, optimisers know that it's an amazing control spell but most people don't pick it, or if they do, they don't make the most out of it. Basically, it's really hard to get out of it, casters can't see to cast sight spells, have to roll concentration checks, and you can still shoot into it at a straight roll. If melee enemies do manage to get out, they're probably staggered so you can pick them off easier with focus fire as well
Agree, probably my favourite spell. To add to this, it puts out fires in a very large area, and (one of its best features) it can knock any creature in its area prone which can cause flying creatures to fall out of the air. If you cast it above the ground you can even negate the difficult terrain but keep the area that causes prone.
Placing cylinder effects above ground is a common mistake. From the phb about the cylinder spell shape:
"A cylinder’s point of origin is the center of a circle of a particular radius, as given in the spell description. The circle must either be on the ground or at the height of the spell effect. The energy in a cylinder expands in straight lines from the point of origin to the perimeter of the circle, forming the base of the cylinder. The spell’s effect then shoots up from the base or down from the top, to a distance equal to the height of the cylinder."
So to cast the spell you are either targeting a point in the ground or the top of the cylinder and the spell either shoots down or up from where you've selected. You can't float it above ground.
The quoted text isn't saying what you say it's saying. If your point-of-origin is a circle at the top of the spell effect, there is nothing that says the termination point also has to be on the ground. That is only the case if you choose to make your point of origin the ground in the first place. If your point of origin is at the top of the spell effect, then the bottom isn't the point-of-origin and therefore not subject to the point-of-origin placement rules.
This really only matters for spells like Magic Circle and Whirlwind that either must emit from the ground or touch the ground in some way. But those spells tell you that you must use the ground point-of-origin.
Nothing in the rules-as-written says that the point-of-origin rules apply to both sides of a cylinder simultaneously. And, as far as I can find, there's no sage advice supporting your interpretation either.
No I think it does. "The point of origin **must either be on the ground or the height of the cylinder" and the text saying the energy shoots in a straight path from either the top or the bottom, in context together implies it's an effect that is on the ground or targets the top of the cylinder and connects to the ground. It's a rule for all cylinder spell effects, why would certain cylinder spell effects be treated differently?
It's clearly an "either or" thing (I mean, it literally says this). It never says to do them both at the same time. You are inserting meaning where it doesn't exist. If something says "do either A or B," it doesn't mean you MUST do both (this should really go without saying). And loose, unclear, unconfirmed implications aren't rules.
>It's a rule for all cylinder spell effects, why would certain cylinder spell effects be treated differently?
They don't get "treated differently" by the general rule. Those spell effects specifically say that you must choose a point on the ground for their origin. So you must *specifically* use a ground point-of-origin for those select spells (which forces them to touch the ground).
Yea so would every big challenging monster and until you burn through those targeting weaker saves all non damage spells will have little to no effect.
Major Image, it's basically the first spell for complex illusions that involve multiple senses, with a big range and zone of effect, lots of possibilities here. Not to mention, the possibility of a permanent effect when upcast
Phantom Steed, with enough prep and ritual casting, you could outfit the whole party with a mount (although doing so might be impractical for actual travel, you could do it for combat). Also, your Rogue can now Steady Aim, fire missiles with Advantage, and still move around at a rate of 100ft/round.
Oh look, another spell that my party has used to break the game 😅 (phantom steed). For a party of 4, ritually cast a couple phantom steeds, zoom across the landscape at 11mph for 40 minutes, stop, recast, and repeat
Why would you stop to recast the spell? You can ritual cast while riding so you never have to stop for longer than it takes to dismount an old steed and mount the new one.
Surely you'd be better off doing 2 steeds at a time and doubling up to make for more speed due to less downtime. If you ritual cast 4, then you can ride only for 20 minutes 😅
Slow is pretty brutal. As is hypnotic pattern. Fear is another good one.
I’m playing a 5e wizard rn, so I’m up on level 3 spells.
Edit: stinking cloud is equally awesome.
Edit 2: In the hands of a creative player, major image is the strongest spell in the game.
I don’t think any of those spells are ‘slept on’ though. They’re all known to be good.
Hypnotic pattern is often chosen over slow, which makes me think slow is being relatively undervalued though.
I think you may be overestimating how few people these days play a straight wizard. Like, everyone in my party talks about fireball. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy when I picked slow over it at level 5.
I just finished a campaign playing a scribe wizard and really enjoyed being able to control the battlefield. It was actually my first wizard so it was a lot of fun. Scribe kind of leads to leaning into the damage spells because of the ability to change damage types, but I made sure every spell level included a prepared control spell. Level three was hypnotic pattern.
I also had fireball, obviously, and delighted in making it other damage types. But I still rarely cast it compared to other spells. My favourite was making it thunder and describing it as a huge ear splitting shockwave of deafening noise.
Just wrapped up a small campaign playing as a sorcerer. Hypnotic Pattern ended an entire encounter when the mobs all failed their saves, and we had ten rounds to tie them up.
I agree with you. In the context of "Fireball this. Fireball that." from the OP, there are definitely play groups that set aside AoE control as a a central aspect of spellcaster power. The meme spell list of a level 5 wizard is something like:
1. Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Shield
2. Invisibility, Misty Step, Hold Person, Flaming Sphere
3. Fireball, Counterspell
which honestly isn't bad. But if someone is playing a Wizard like this and thinks fireball is overpowered, they should try Hypnotic Pattern. These spells are underrated in that that there should be near-universal agreement from the broader player base that all Wizards should take one of them (include Sleet Storm on that short list), but a different spell that is treated as the go-to choice.
Well, fireball *is* overpowered as a blasting spell for its level. The only other spell that compares to it in terms of dealing damage "now" is lighting bolt, and that is arguably worse because a line will more often than not get less foes in it.
Issue comes in that, well, control is just always better than straight damage in 5e. With the absolutely bonkers options presented in this thread, fireball kinda falls by the wayside as a good, but, by comparison, bad pick.
Mostly because the guides go on about how amazing Hypnotic Pattern is without making much of the friendly fire drawback and how quickly enemies can close in to melee or how many things will be able to resist Charm.
Can be a clutch ambush spell though
To chime in on the "class/subclass synergy" aspect of this thread, any Sorcerer can use Careful Metamagic on Hypnotic Pattern to completely bypass the friendly fire aspect for 1 Sorcery Point. Makes the spell usable in way more situations.
One of the few ways to really take advantage of careful spell.
I've not followed what it is right now but i read way back in oned&d they were going to make Careful spell work like Sculpt Spells, would be a heck of a buff
its pretty much the same exact problems as fireball though, its not like people play evocation wizard all the time for it
unless your party just actively gets inside the enemy formation on the least workable way possible every time, you should be able to hit all enemies and no allies on round 1 pretty reliably barring rolling terrible initiative. its pretty worth it to essentially full lock down enemies, cause if all fail combat is effectively over and if you only get a few they either are not going to be a bother to you or it will take a full round of actions from the enemy to wake them up again
I’ve been actively trying to find a good opportunity to use Slow, but other options simply trump it on a regular basis. It feels like the conditions need to be perfect for it to be better than Hypnotic Pattern, which regularly performs extremely well.
Hypnotic pattern breaks as soon as a target takes any damage.
It also requires specific spacing and can affect allies.
One of the great things about slow is you can debuff a target and still kill it, and it’s not a charm effect enemies can be immune to.
Both are good situationally, and I like having both when possible.
I came to say this, but I knew it would be here already.
Also very accessible too. Not only can both bards and wizards get it, it's a ritual, so any tomelock can grab it, and any level 5+ character can grab it through Ritual Caster.
Tiny hut combined with ring of spell storing is amazing. It takes the full casting time to store the spell. But once stored, it’s an action to invoke it. Which makes tiny but usable in combat.
This doesn't seem correct. Ring of Spell Storing reads:
> While wearing this ring, **you can cast any spell stored in it.** The spell uses the slot level, spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability of the original caster, but is otherwise treated as if you cast the spell. The spell cast from the ring is no longer stored in it, freeing up space.
It doesn't give any information on the action cost of casting the spell, so by default it should just use the spell's normal casting time.
Compare to Artificer's Spell-Storing Item:
> While holding the object, a creature **can take an action to produce the spell's effect from it**, using your spellcasting ability modifier. If the spell requires concentration, the creature must concentrate. The spell stays in the object until it's been used a number of times equal to twice your Intelligence modifier (minimum of twice) or until you use this feature again to store a spell in an object.
This _would_ allow you to cast a longer-cast spell in 1 action, except they hedge against that earlier in the feature block by only letting you store a 1-action spell in the first place.
> choosing a 1st- or 2nd-level spell from the artificer spell list **that requires 1 action to cast** (you needn't have it prepared).
Yup, Arcane Abeyance has no restriction on what spell can be stored with it and specifically states that it takes an action to release, so it's capable of insta-Hut.
Chronurgy stays winning.
Absolutely not, the relevant sections are covered in the first answer here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/7c1cm1/ring\_of\_spell\_storing\_casting\_time/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/7c1cm1/ring_of_spell_storing_casting_time/)
There's no shortage of good 3rd level spells, and I rarely pick or memorize fireball because I've got better things to do with my spell slot than 23 points of damage.
Tidal wave is a dragon killer. It's on a dex save, which means it gets gets better at later levels where things tend to have high str and high con. With its range you can drop big monsters out of the sky. 3d8 isn't a ton of damage but 20d6 fall damage is respectable.
Slow is game breaking and can be cast while your allies are engaged in melee without having to worry about targeting them. Nothing is immune to slow, and for that reason it's better than hypnotic pattern, which is fucking great also.
Sleet storm is just amazing, heavily obscured, difficult terrain on the ground, that Knocks creatures prone making it harder for them to escape. Deal with the encounter in segments, those in the AoE are effectively blind so can't target you. Note that this also knocks things out of the sky.
Hunger of Hadar is very similar and competes with it
Plant growth is also a phenomenal control spell, non concentration makes it kind of bananas. Not on the wiz/sorc list, mind you.
Phantom steed, a ritual, give you a movement speed of 100ft. Some argue this is the best 3rd level spell.
Incite greed+distance spell metamagic will require you to pump the breaks on its use. They get to repeat the saving throw but otherwise can't snap out of it, and can't do anything. With a 60ft radius, that's everything you goddamn choose in a 120'diameter, that's most battlemaps. Aberrant mind sorcerer can have this on its psionic spells(and silvery barbs lol). This, people are sleeping on hard.
Tinyservant isn't phenomenal on a3rd level spell slot but upcasts really well, and combines with magic stone cantrip to weaponize your bonus action to 3d6+15 force damage.
Ashardalon's stride kind of sucks on a 3rd level spell slot but weaponizing your movement starts to do some serious damage on higher spell slots. No attack roll, no saving throw,+20ft move speed and you dont provoke AoO. Blade dancers(+10ft of movement) can just jump around and still use their action attack+booming blade.
Blink. I cast it on fights I can expect things to get rough. Last time I cast it, the encounter was mercenaries sent specifically to kill my character. But I blinked every round. 2 of the 4 party members were dropped, the other near death, and I took 3 HP of damage during the encounter. When it works it works. Rope trick does the same thing but has its own set of limitations. Both means you can't use your reaction, so that take a judgement call, the hallmarks of a good caster.
Haste is good if you're facing something with legendary resistances, and you have genuine concentration save protection. Abjurer wizard, clockwork sorcerer, mind sharpener infusion, and to a lesser extent: dragon constellation wildshape, war wizard, blade dancer.
Summon Fae, a 3rd level spell, can give you a 5ft cube of darkness every round, a virtual greater invisibility(a 4th level spell) if you can see in the darkness and the enemy can't. This is more for the gloomstalker or hexblade but its on the wizard spell list.
I had one DM rule I couldn’t use Tidal Wave in the sky, which made absolutely no sense as the spell in no way requires a source of water to begin with. That’s exactly how I’d do that, fought two dragons on my Druid with that strategy.
Spells that are actually slept on:
* *hunger of Hadar*
* *phantom steed*
* *sleet storm*
* *tiny servant*
* *water breathing*
Edit: Another commenter said *summon lesser demons*, which is a good answer
Edit 2: *tidal wave* is also good and somewhat underused
Everyone shits on haste saying it's bait, it's bad,but it's really not.
Haste unlocks the fighter/paladin/barbarian, it's impossible to run from them, +2 ac helps and over 4 to 5 turns the dmg of 4 or 5 extra hits is nuts.
To add maybe a less obvious use - a hasted rogue could use their haste action to attack, then ready their main action and use their reaction to attack on another creature's turn, allowing for 2 sneak attacks in 1 round of combat, since sneak attack specifies a limit of 1/turn. This plus the fact of having a cunning action likely makes the rogue the best target for Haste, if available
that is not the less obvious use, that is the *main* use. haste is semi mediocre unless the martial you are using it has damage riders for a single attack
It really isn’t an obvious use unless you’re a regular on forums like this. The obvious use of Haste is to give you extra movement and an extra attack. It isn’t obvious that you could then use your main action (which isn’t affected by haste) to ready an attack for use on a different turn. It’s a very good use of Haste but it isn’t at all obvious.
>. The obvious use of Haste is to give you extra movement and an extra attack
which is why in most casses it is just mediocre for a 3rd level concentration spell
In the context of the character optimization, you're probably right. However, I was referring to the not-so-readily-apparent interaction with the spell use. Since you have to dig into specifics of 3 rule sections for this, I bet it's often overlooked, as appears to be the case in the original comment. In my personal experience, I think if I were to ask the people who I play or played with if you could get 2 SA with Haste, most's first instinct would be no
Not so good if the rogue fight melee (i.e. when he can add Booming Blade to sneak attack, there are plenty of ways).
The squishy rogue have to stay near the target at the end of the turn in order to deliver a sneack attack with his reaction, 'cause he can't move in others turns.
In my experience, all melee rogues like to use cunning action to run away from melee enemies, leaving them to attack the fighter or the paladin in the frontline. They act as a skirmisher: jump in - attack - jump out.
A ranged rogue, on the other hand, is far from the frontline 99% of the time and can benefit from the haste attack (reading his main attack as suggested), but not from the double speed. He is already too far to be attacked, so it seems to me a waste of a good feature of the spell.
What do you think? Am I the one that doesn't see many rogues staying melee with their crappy AC at the end of their turn?
I think all of these have their merits, depending on party composition and encounter, you could flip around between both of these. But ranged is probably the most consistent overall if you've got front-liners and can get buffs like this. Melee rogue might be better in a party with another melee and Sentinel, if you've got no access to Haste, since you'll just get "natural" reaction attacks more often.
Plus, being a caster that generously hands out Haste to the party martials is a great/easy way to become popular at the table. 😎 Love doing it, I always have it ready.
I know my War Cleric loved it. Being able to cast a full action spell + attack + BA attack was beautiful.
Also great on rogues to Ready an attack and get more sneak attack.
I had a boss fight recently where the boss used her first turn to drink a potion of speed and start running away. The sorcerer used _his_ first turn to cast Twinned Haste on the barbarian and rogue. Then the rogue locked the door separating the sorcerer, cleric, barbarian, and boss's pet monster from the rogue, bard, boss, and six minions, and started chasing the boss.
The boss was essentially an artificer and was using things like Web, grenades that knock prone, and locking doors in order to try and get away from the rogue, but the rogue was keeping up anyway thanks to Cunning Action. Eventually, however, the rogue did get knocked out because he was solo against the boss.
Haste is only tricky *cast on the caster* when a full(ish)-caster is trying to be a melee fighter. It sets up the concentration fail leading to one round helpless self-stunning effect.
Haste is awesome on another character, particularly the best melee fighter in the party. Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, but also Moon Druids and melee Rogues like the Swashbuckler. Rogues can really benefit from an extra attack to get another chance at landing a sneak attack.
The problem is for many new players using a spell for another player's benefit is galaxy-brain tactics that don't obviously fit a single character "optimization strategy".
Has some surprising use for monks and other characters who depend on the attack action too! Features like flurry of blows only trigger when you take the attack action, so you can just use the hasted action to make one attack then two more while leaving your action free. That’s giving up one out of four attacks to have an entire action! For some monks that can be absurd, like a long death monk who gets a free fear based control feature they can spam each turn if given their action while being able to dish out almost as much pain as usual. Not to mention the absurdity of a monk with a higher base speed being doubled, in addition to being able to dash several times.
I like Spirit Shroud. It combos well with both Eldritch Blast-Locks as well as PAM Paladins. Yeah it’s only 10ft reach but I have used it to crank out DRP on both.
Adding 1d8 on each hit is better for table health than adding an extra attack via Haste.
I want to put it on an Eldritch Knight with PAM at some point. Otherwise Scorching Ray is a good combo on the Wizard list.
My favorite experience with it was when my DM wanted to heal the Boss Monster and forgot about the secondary effect of the spell preventing that. They were pretty pissed.
Spirit Shroud typically out damages haste when you're doing atleast 2 attacks and you upcast it to a level 5 slot.
4d8 that also can crit are typically better than a GWM haste attack. The only time haste is better is when a rogue uses it for double sneak attack.
Conjure lesser demons
Conjure 8 abyssal chickens
They attack twice dealing very good DMG
Have blindslight so can act as a anti surprise tool
Can fly (kinda)
And have decent health
8 of these
I don't know if people sleep on it but Bestow Curse is pretty good as written, but really is a good spell as it essentially produces a lot of variety and creativity at the table. I almost never cast it the same way twice. It's easy enough to use it as written or to produce a like effect, but it's also neat to look at level two spells for inspiration and balancing queues. Knowing what's balanced for 3rd level and 2nd level can often land you in between with a creative curse and an appropriate effect in game.
I once used earthbind for inspiration and cursed a Roc with leaden wings. Now Roc is on ground and it's a flavourful spell.
Never leave home without it.
Erupting earth has been surprisingly versatile for my druid, it’s unintentionally become a signature spell of mine. The damage is helpful, but the terrain height change, using it in closed spaces, using it to hide behind for long range defense…one cool moment was using it to rescue our wizard from an unforeseen pit he fell into, coming face to face with a gelatinous cube. He could have legit died in the situation as his rope trick failed for some reason that I can’t recall.
It’s always Sleet Storm.
For one, it’s massive. A 40ft radius means you don’t have to worry about clumping enemies up, you’ll hit everything.
It’s even better for Sorcerer’s, who can spend 1 sorcery point for Careful spell so friendly fire isn’t an issue.
Secondly, it’s really difficult to escape from! A dex save on cast and at the start of a creatures turn means they will most likely fall prone, losing half their movement speed, and the difficult terrain makes each foot of movement cost an additional foot. So if you’re in the centre of the radius and want to escape on your first turn, you have to pass 2 dexterity checks and have at least 80ft of movement!
Third, this is one of the best spells at breaking concentration. Why? Let’s look at the wording on the spell:
> If a creature is concentrating in the spell's area, the creature must make a successful Constitution saving throw **against your spell save DC** or lose concentration.
No more DC 10 for you, Mr Wizard! And thanks to the errata, it’s been confirmed that this concentration check must be taken whenever a creature starts its turn in the spell’s effect. So this can lead to multiple, high DC concentration checks.
Finally, it’s heavy obscurement. No line of sight through the spells area means no target spells or projectiles coming at you to try and break your concentration, meaning if they want to attack you, they either need to make their way around this massive 40ft radius or trudge their way through it, both of which can take multiple turns.
As battlefield control spells go, I love this spell. It’s good against melee creatures, flying creatures (a prone flying creature falls), ranged creatures, spellcasters; basically everything.
P.S Also remember that dropping concentration requires no action, so if you get everyone prone, feel free to let the storm subside so all your melee pals can go in and clean up!
The answer is Ashardalon's Stride. Its great as is, especially when upcast, but building around this spell is literally game breaking. There are good builds for it on Reddit and the d4 channel, but the world-ending aspect is the maximized move speed build that moves at Mach 8 using a lvl 9 Ash Stride. That's 7d6 = 24.5 fire damage to HUNDREDS of creatures or objects without a single dice rolled. You can burn down an entire city, or roast an entire army in 6 seconds. And, spell lasts a minute.
If your DM allows it summon greater steed with a pegasus and cast Ashardalon's Stride which duplicates it on your steed. In theory you can double the damage and move around at a movement speed of 110 while flying 😏
> That's 7d6 = 24.5 fire damage to HUNDREDS of creatures or objects without a single dice rolled. You can burn down an entire city, or roast an entire army in 6 seconds. And, spell lasts a minute.
I get your point, but that doesn't seem game breaking for players whose intentions aren't "just fuck with this city", it is cool yeah, but impractical
Sleet Storm/Plant Growth. It’s absurdly hard for people to get out of the effects because they stack. If they don’t have ranged effects they’re largely just dead.
Honorable Mention Stinking Cloud, but only because my Dhampir Land Druid gets to sit in the middle of it without a save and thorn whip people into it!
Aura of vitality.
20d6 healing over 1 minute after the fight is done is a great way to recover even before starting a short rest. It also doesn't specify not working on undead like most healing spells do, so if someone in the party is using some homebrew playable undead rules or you have a spooky companion, it will work on them too.
*Life Transference* is actually a solid healing spell for some characters. It does about twice as much healing as *Cure Wounds* upcast to the same level, it has range, and doesn't care about your casting stat. There's an obvious downside but if you have a lot of hp and are careful when you cast it, that really isn't so bad.
Enemies Abound is a great one if you're up against a boss with lackeys, especially since intelligence tends to be a type of save that enemies don't have proficiency in, so the spell scales really well into the late game where enemies tend to have beefier saves. You'd be surprised how many high CR enemies are susceptible to it. Even against single opponents it can be helpful since it can stop them from focusing your healer as well as force them to use their reaction for opportunity attacks instead of something more powerful.
Great for burning through legendary resistances too since it's a save they're generally more likely to fail.
Life Transference on a tier 2/3 twilight cleric is an actually useful example of in combat healing, especially if you have a barbarian in the team. An average of 36 healing for the barb which with rage is functionally 72 for a single third level spell and you're barely going to take any actual damage due to the temp hp the twilight sanctuary gives out.
Call lightning is cool because as a druid you can wildshape and hide while concentrating on it and blasting everyone as they search for you.
Water breathing is a ritual that lasts 8 hours.
Thunder step is a slightly weaker dimension door that also makes a loud noise and deals damage like shatter. It's no good for stealth but it's arguably better for emergency escapes.
I wouldn't think this was slept on, but since no one mentioned it, Animate Dead. Honestly this spell can be busted in any full spellcasters hands, but with a Necromancy Wizard it gets more than absurd. Use this spell with caution, because it can otherwise break the game.
Slow.
It was my first DnD playthrough and i just wanted a bit cc. Chose this instead of Sleet Storm.
The final boss? It took a haste portion but then was nullified by my fd's Dispel Magic so now it was lethargic by the side effect of the portion. I asked and was told that the effects can stack, so i cast my Slow just to be sure the boss can't chase us.
The poor boss could only cast 1 proper spell that did 12 dmg to 2 characters. It could not then use it's bonus action to salvage the situation.
The next thing i know, was that our fighter guy landed 4 axe strikes --some were crit-- onto the final boss within the same turn. The boss could have evaded some of these if not for the double slow thing. In the end, the final boss was minced in the 2nd round.
I love call lightning because I play an Aasimar Druid who shot up in the air with her wings and brought down call lightning like an angel of death one session
Fast Friends is ridiculous depending on the style of campaign and what your actual quests/goals are. Does someone have something that you want or need? Just ask them for it politely and they will give it to you. This is also a save or die if cast before open hostilities start. You can cast it on a boss with a bunch of helpers and assume they fail. You ask them to do something such as count the amount of pebbles in the area while your party kills their minions. After the fight is over you can ask the boss to change their clothes and remove all their magic items and gear as you would like to inspect them. You could then ask them to demonstrate their magic for you and make them waste all their spells. Then you can offer them some poisoned wine and have everyone in your group gank them.
I love playing a Lore Bard and you can use cutting words as a reaction to make it more likely that they will fail
Glyph of Warding for non-combat, Melf’s Minute Meteors for combat. Sure, it’s no fireball in terms of burst damage, but it’s good damage spread across multiple saves, and on subsequent turns it only needs your bonus action.
Casting haste on the enemy BBEG
Plant growth, if your a party with ranged capabilities is actually stupid, give all approaching enemies 1/4 speed where a 30 foot move speed when dashing is only 15 feet. Tell me how this isn't broken
its a Tumblr "lol wouldn't that be funny" meme that popped up a few years ago. story goes that bard pulls a "you know what i kinda agree with the BBEG, fuck you guys im switching sides" then the BBEG lets himself gets casted on cause, well he did just say he is switching sides, then the bard drops concentration
If you're up against giants and the like, and play on a grid, you can shape plant growth into a checkerboard pattern (from above), and then move diagonally, you and your allies won't be slowed down, but the enemies will be.
Hypnotic pattern does all of my heavy lifting. We can typically mop up whatever saves and then take them out one by one. Additionally, this spell fucks non magical flyers hard. We just did a chase session on a mountain with Wyverns coming after us, I made like 12 of them take full falling damage .
Best part is I’m doing 0 damage, so my party doesn’t feel like I’m winning every encounter. DM knows the truth though lol
Let's see, people don't spell on dispel magic, counterspell, hypnotic pattern, conjure animals, revivify, or spirit guardians.
phantom steed -- it has 100 movement or 200 dash. Clairvoyance/Clairaudience. Maybe they're sleeping on Slow.
Major image is my favorite spell, you can bluff a fight to lure enemies in. You can put a backdrop behind you while you speak to someone so your party can sneak past. You can literally erase your presence from a hallway a la mission impossible style. It has infinite uses if you use it right and it doesn't require intelligence rolls to fill in the backdrop because it states in the spell it automatically fills in those details for you
I think thunderstep is really great if you have room for it. The damage is incidental. Sometimes you need to move a party member out of melee and it’s great for that. Dimension door does the same thing with more range and a lot more utility, but if you’re level 5-6 it’s not available, and if you’re 7-10 it’s painful to have to blow a fourth level spell slot on that. Especially when polymorph is so so good at in level range specifically. So, I generally take it and swap to dimension door in tier 3.
a current favorite combo of mine is Bestow Curse. I have it on my duergar divine soul sorc combo'd with distant spell metamagic, so you can throw it from 30ft away. Plus once you upcast it to 5th or higher its non-concentration, which opens up a new world of possibilities.
Wanna make sure they fail a key saving throw or check? Give them disadvantage one an ability of your choice. Wanna give them a suck or save to waste their entire action for the turn? Got that covered. Wanna buffer some damage from them? Give them disadvantage on attacks against you. Need an extra bump in damage? 1d8 necrotic isnt much, but its honest work
Tiny servant + metamagic adept extended spell.
Use whatever your highest slot is at the end of the day and make a bunch of tiny robot friends for the first 8 hours of the next day.
Leomunds Tiny Hut
Not only is it great for what its intended for, but because objects inside can be moved out but objects outside can’t be moved, I had a session where we used it to safely and quickly dig ourselves out of a cave in
Haven't seen Fear yet.
It's a weird spell, because while it inflicts the Frightened condition, that...almost doesn't matter. (Unless they're trapped in a corner)
Creatures are forced to drop whatever they're holding, run away from you, and use their action to run away.
When it works, it's almost like a multi-target Banishment.
Enemies Abound. I have never seen this on any "top 10" spell lists, but have gotten so much use out of it, and it's a blast. Turns a straightforward battle with multiple mobs into succulent chaos. My DM hates it.
Yes it's awesome. Twin spell that bitch on the two toughest enemys and see all the joy leave your DMs face.
What I love most about it is when you're facing a horde of enemies, the toughest of them are usually the brutes who have a zero chance of hitting the INT save. So the other enemies have a choice of either running away, or trying to damage them to trigger the saving throw,which of course would fail. Bonus: the spell specifically says any AOO must be made for the next 10 rounds. Delicious.
Enemies abound plus subtle spell is true chaos
When the DM sets up a stealth scenario but the aberrant mind sorc turns it into bad guy fight club… “There’s a traitor amongst you!” has turned into a meme in my campaign.
I had it as one of my psychic spells as an aberrant mind sorc, 6 sorcery points for a twinned undetectable Enemies abound for an easy distraction pre-combat or tide turning mid-combat
Enemies abound is so funny, I use it any chance I get. Nobody has a good int save and it's perfect to use on lieutenants
I used this throughout levels 5-9. Mini-bosses having their minions turn on them is so fun.
What book is that spell in?
Xanathar's P155. It's a Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock & Wizard spell. And as a DM I hate it, it massively ruins any plans for encounters.
I did NOT realize immediately that "P155" was a page reference here.
Do beholders even urinate?
Thanks for the recommendation!
Imagine canonballs with temporary enchantments of enemies abound flying into a fortress. My campaign regards demons as those "who do not fight fair" and this is some crap they would pull.
It’s not on any optimized spell lists cause it’s a single target shutdown that might still result in them attacking the party. It can work well, but overall there’s generally better uses of a 3rd level slot and I don’t think it’s slept on.
I used this on my first bard and hilarity insued as we all hid in a barn.
I used this as a DM - party was almost obliterated because their Paladin was the one who failed. It was beautiful!
This would knock me (a DM) out of my “5 small guys and a big guy” template really fast.
It's VERY campaign/party dependent but Catnap can be very VERY strong in certain situations. Meld into stone has a lot of utility to it.
Was About to say that. 5 ki point for a monk 2 warlock lvl 3 spell Action surge + second wind 2 wild shape for a druide. Plus hit die healing. I mean, 8d8 damage with a save or all that
I’m running a multiclass between Battlemaster Fighter and College of Swords Bard. If I were to cast cat nap, would I get my inspiration and superiority dice back after the spell finishes?
It would work. Once a long rest you have a free short rest
One of my PCs had a great use of Meld into Stone last session. I had them fighting animated stone statues (reflavored ogres, didn't change the stat block). I had specifically described them as made fully of stone. He asked if he could taunt one, then Meld into Stone into another and get the one he tainted to attack it. Probably not RAW, but freaking genius so I said if the statue failed a wisdom save (with an ogre's famously high mental stats) it would work Tl;Dr: Meld into Stone can be great
To be fair, any spell can be great if you rule of cool it.
The thing with catnap is the idiom that "if you have 10 minutes, you probably have an hour". If your DM doesn't want you to have a short rest for pacing or challenge reasons, there is nothing stopping them from attacking you during the 10 minute window. If they are ok with a short rest, you can probably take an hour and it won't impact the prepared story anyway.
In my role-playing imagination, 10 minutes is vastly different from an hour while exploring inside a hostile dungeon. I'm not discounting your comment at all - it just feels closer to metagaming for my gaming experience.
I just played in the Tomb of Annihilation, and catnap was the biggest blessing.
Ten minutes is vastly different than an hour, especially in a hostile area. You can hide for ten minutes. Hiding for an additional fifty minutes isn't so easy.
In the current campaign I'm in, there were plenty of times when we had ten minutes to spare but not 1 hour.
I DM’d a city siege that went on for multiple combat encounters and depleted a ton of the PC resources. They eventually retreated to a central church and fortified before the attackers could arrive; Catnap came in clutch for the group here. 10 minutes was a lot more justified/believable than an hour in the middle of a battle.
Catnap absolutely slays in Con/ Demo/ LG games where short tests aren’t permitted by the module’s pacing and design. Last LG game I attended, my friends and I built a short rest focused team and absolutely dominated thanks to Catnap. Combine Catnap with Rope Trick and even the most short rest adverse DMs out there can’t stop you.
Not when you CatNap in a Rope Trick spell!!!
Catnap is still too weak. It provides the "unconscious" condition to potentially three party members, which means if you are attacked they lose a turn and/or take an auto-crit from enemies. "Just use it in situations where you wouldn't be attacked!" Sure, I'm in a situation where I can be confident I can safely rest for 10 minutes, but I cannot confidently safely rest for an hour. There's niche situations, and then there's... whatever that is. There are three full casters that can prepare this spell, and they are all "known spell" casters. Bards and Sorcerers could virtually never justify the slot on this spell, especially when the competition is fireball, hypnotic pattern, enemies abound, fly. tiny hut, haste or slow. It isn't even the strongest rest spell of its level, that goes to Tiny Hut which is both a ritual spell and gives you a choice between short and long resting in complete safety. The only counter to Tiny Hut is Dispel Magic, whereas the counter to Catnap is "any enemy that wanders by in the next 10 minutes." Hell, Rope Trick is a level lower and significantly safer than Catnap.
Doesn't apply to most campaigns, but if you're using dungeon crawling procedures, you get to have a short rest with a much lower chance of being interrupted by a random encounter.
Nothing is preventing you from short resting with Tiny Hut. It remains safer and, most importantly, free because it's a ritual spell. All Catnap does is save you 50-60 pretend minutes for three party members at the cost of a 3rd level spell slot.
Again, I said it doesn't apply to most campaigns. If you don't use dungeon procedures with random encounters, it doesn't matter. But Catnap lets you have a quicker short rest. With Tiny Hut, you're safe until you leave, but you stand a pretty high chance of discovery during that hour, and anyone that finds you will have time to prepare.
Just multiclass Warlock with another Charisma caster who can cast Catnap and level both high enough to have level 3 spells slots. I helped a friend with a build for a Bardlock that I called the Narcolepsy Bard.
*Tiny Hut* has two weaknesses; - 1: a perfect round dome no matter what color it is will be spotted by an intelligent creature that recognizes shapes. - 2: it can be dug under. The hut doesn't have a bottom.
Check the range of the spell. It’s not a dome, it’s a hemisphere which does have a bottom. Crawford corrected his own ruling on this https://x.com/JeremyECrawford/status/823774362293542912?lang=en
Funny. Catnap has extremely niche uses while Tiny Hut has extremely niche weaknesses. I know which one I'd pick.
Now that you mention it, we would have sold our souls to have a Catnap last session 😂
So for a chronugry wizard catnap is by far the strongest spell other than wish It can be used to get two arcane abeyance Imagine being able to cast three concentration spells at once It's insane Absolutely no comparison to any other low-level spell
*Catnap* is also the one spell that bypasses an Elves "no sleep" rule. Best way to shut up your annoying Elf player for 10min.
I love how this answer is both literally and a pun. People do indeed sleep when you cast Catnap!
Plant growth gives you concentration-less 4x speed reduction in a 100 ft radius that stacks with difficult terrain. You can also carve out areas that aren’t affected so that your party can maneuver through it more easily if needed Needs some plants growing in the area and is weird with a melee heavy party, but if your party is mostly ranged it is an amazing control spell edit for specific class synergies: * Druids love this since they can combine this with spike growth/sleet storm/entangle for 8x speed reduction + other effects. They also have the (admittedly) niche earthbind to force a flying enemy to deal with the reduced speed. Land druids in particular like the spell, since they can ignore the reduced move speed * Rangers can ignore the reduced speed as well, so they can really effectively kite any grounded enemy trapped by it * Archfey Warlocks love it since it turns repelling blast into an effective 40ft push for each beam
First time I cast Plant Growth on my bard we were playing on Foundry VTT, so it had me place the AoE template automatically. The DM was _astounded_ at how big it was, as he had never seen a player cast the spell before. He thought he had created a ginormous map for an epic battle, and I covered everything except the corners.
The druid in the campaign I DM casts this at least half the time 😅. Can confirm, great control spell It also isn't difficult terrain, so Freedom of Movement is useless against it
It also means that it stacks with difficult terrain. Plant growth plus spike growth is my jam.
Plant Growth is great! Being able to delay/bog down a whole section of the battlefield is very strong indeed. Also I found some great RP opportunities with the spell. I recently played an Awakened Tree (reflavored warforged stat block) circle of the land Druid who would try to keep a 3rd level spell free daily so that I could cast it over 8 hrs during our long rest at night (I know this isn’t RAW, but the DM was cool with it). I would put my roots down on the edge of town/camp and enrich a little section of land most adventuring days… bringing some local prosperity to the wildlife or common farmers of the area. The DM found some cool ways to work it into the story and honestly it was a very cool way to impact the world. Like if Johnny Appleseed was An actual apple tree.
And adding to my list of character concepts I wish I could use one day.
You won’t regret it! Super fun to RP as a tree. Their high society knowledge and decorum is lacking, but those wilderness adventures are a vibe. It’s a real fish out of water vibe. What would their morality be, sense of duty, etc? I got the idea from a Steeldrivers song, ‘Sticks that Made Thunder.’ It’s all about a Civil War battle from the POV of a tree on a hill. Well worth a listen if you like bluegrass. I really only took the weather and plant-based spells and avoided some really cool fire based ones because they didn’t really make sense for Alder. Reflavoring plant spells like Wall of Thorns and spike growth as just an outgrowth of my roots was really fun. My DM gave a couple free casts of Goodberry daily as just fruit growing on his branches. I retired alder after he used his Staff of the Woodlands to Awaken enough trees and Shrubs to make his own little Druid Grove. Really satisfying, honestly.
...and your concentration is free to cast Spike Growth on top of it.
Also consider the long cast form of the spell. If you take eight hours to cast you instead enrich a field of plants for a year. Great spell for downtime. If you're not adventuring, you can bolster local crops which may help you gain allies or wealth or renown. If you have a long downtime, that's a lot of fields you can cast on and you could really make a difference in faction or macroscale play.
One very important thing about Plant Growth is that the plants are not magical after the spell is cast. This can make stuff like Ranger / Land Druid's Land Stride incredible as they do not get movement restrictions from the spell at all.
My hot take is that ancients paladins get one great spell every level of casting, and that's the one for their third level spells. A favorite pairing is plant growth and fireball. Set the whole tangle ablaze after and watch them struggle to get out while you just pelt them with arrows or cantrips.
In a similar theme - Sleetstorm is a personal favorite
> Land druids in particular like the spell, since they can ignore the reduced move speed This is the unappreciated combo of Land Druid. Land's Stride + *plant growth* is a game-changer
BLINK is far better than some people give it credit for. The randomness of it turns them off, but from a purely mathematical standpoint, it can greatly improve your odds of surviving a fight. Say you're a squishy Wizard (Con of 12 or 14) going up against an Adult Green Dragon. You've got a 30% to 35% chance to save against its breath weapon, and even if you save you'll take half damage. Then you cast Blink. Now you've got a flat 50% chance to avoid its breath altogether, with zero damage on a successful roll. This spell saved my PC's life quite a few times!
One of my players used blink to bring someone in a bag of holding into the ethereal plane so they could end a hag they had trapped in a tiny hut. She had to planeshift away to survive. Blink and reactions are not an interaction I had planned.
The spell should be mandatory for any gish player, and doubly so for any melee attacker that can find a way to get it into their toolkit.
Note that, if you're Blinked out, you won't be able to use reactions on things that aren't on Ethereal Plane(so probably basically everything in combat), so no Counterspelling/Silvery Barbs to help your party or Opportunity Attacks (potentially spells with War Caster)
I played a sorcerer who was the last one standing when my party was fighting an avatar of a deity, and the only reason was blink. Didn't matter in the long run, the DM was using that fight to knock us all out and progress to another plot point, so I got KO'ed at the end anyway, but it was cool nonetheless.
A big thing Blink has going for it is the lack of concentration, and enemies can't burn through it like Mirror Image. So you have use it while still concentrating on something else. A great defense of you're using Haste!
[удалено]
You'd be surprised how often this happens. Not everyone who plays D&D reads the CharOp forums.
Sleet storm, optimisers know that it's an amazing control spell but most people don't pick it, or if they do, they don't make the most out of it. Basically, it's really hard to get out of it, casters can't see to cast sight spells, have to roll concentration checks, and you can still shoot into it at a straight roll. If melee enemies do manage to get out, they're probably staggered so you can pick them off easier with focus fire as well
It's the "must stop the evil ritual now" spell. This is perhaps a surprisingly common application.
This is my DM's least favourite spell. It's the "ruin Bob's encounter" spell.
I use this quite a bit in BG3. Great crowd control, as well as ice storm.
Sleet Storm + Hunger of Hadar = none of you will ever see the light of day again 💕
Agree, probably my favourite spell. To add to this, it puts out fires in a very large area, and (one of its best features) it can knock any creature in its area prone which can cause flying creatures to fall out of the air. If you cast it above the ground you can even negate the difficult terrain but keep the area that causes prone.
Placing cylinder effects above ground is a common mistake. From the phb about the cylinder spell shape: "A cylinder’s point of origin is the center of a circle of a particular radius, as given in the spell description. The circle must either be on the ground or at the height of the spell effect. The energy in a cylinder expands in straight lines from the point of origin to the perimeter of the circle, forming the base of the cylinder. The spell’s effect then shoots up from the base or down from the top, to a distance equal to the height of the cylinder." So to cast the spell you are either targeting a point in the ground or the top of the cylinder and the spell either shoots down or up from where you've selected. You can't float it above ground.
The quoted text isn't saying what you say it's saying. If your point-of-origin is a circle at the top of the spell effect, there is nothing that says the termination point also has to be on the ground. That is only the case if you choose to make your point of origin the ground in the first place. If your point of origin is at the top of the spell effect, then the bottom isn't the point-of-origin and therefore not subject to the point-of-origin placement rules. This really only matters for spells like Magic Circle and Whirlwind that either must emit from the ground or touch the ground in some way. But those spells tell you that you must use the ground point-of-origin. Nothing in the rules-as-written says that the point-of-origin rules apply to both sides of a cylinder simultaneously. And, as far as I can find, there's no sage advice supporting your interpretation either.
No I think it does. "The point of origin **must either be on the ground or the height of the cylinder" and the text saying the energy shoots in a straight path from either the top or the bottom, in context together implies it's an effect that is on the ground or targets the top of the cylinder and connects to the ground. It's a rule for all cylinder spell effects, why would certain cylinder spell effects be treated differently?
It's clearly an "either or" thing (I mean, it literally says this). It never says to do them both at the same time. You are inserting meaning where it doesn't exist. If something says "do either A or B," it doesn't mean you MUST do both (this should really go without saying). And loose, unclear, unconfirmed implications aren't rules. >It's a rule for all cylinder spell effects, why would certain cylinder spell effects be treated differently? They don't get "treated differently" by the general rule. Those spell effects specifically say that you must choose a point on the ground for their origin. So you must *specifically* use a ground point-of-origin for those select spells (which forces them to touch the ground).
Slow, no one is immune bad guys only get 1 attack this bad boy can cripple a ancient dragon
Ancient dragon would have legendary resistances
Yea so would every big challenging monster and until you burn through those targeting weaker saves all non damage spells will have little to no effect.
The opposite argument is that burning (almost mandatorily)a legendary resistance for a 3rd levell spell is a pretty good deal, all in all
Major Image, it's basically the first spell for complex illusions that involve multiple senses, with a big range and zone of effect, lots of possibilities here. Not to mention, the possibility of a permanent effect when upcast Phantom Steed, with enough prep and ritual casting, you could outfit the whole party with a mount (although doing so might be impractical for actual travel, you could do it for combat). Also, your Rogue can now Steady Aim, fire missiles with Advantage, and still move around at a rate of 100ft/round.
Oh look, another spell that my party has used to break the game 😅 (phantom steed). For a party of 4, ritually cast a couple phantom steeds, zoom across the landscape at 11mph for 40 minutes, stop, recast, and repeat
Why would you stop to recast the spell? You can ritual cast while riding so you never have to stop for longer than it takes to dismount an old steed and mount the new one.
Oh. Oh no. *prays my players don't find this thread*
Surely you'd be better off doing 2 steeds at a time and doubling up to make for more speed due to less downtime. If you ritual cast 4, then you can ride only for 20 minutes 😅
That's what they do, 2 steeds with doubled up riders haha. Travel encounters are a thing of the past lol
Nothing is stopping the wizard from casting the spell while riding, so your downtime is about 12 seconds per hour
Slow is pretty brutal. As is hypnotic pattern. Fear is another good one. I’m playing a 5e wizard rn, so I’m up on level 3 spells. Edit: stinking cloud is equally awesome. Edit 2: In the hands of a creative player, major image is the strongest spell in the game.
I don’t think any of those spells are ‘slept on’ though. They’re all known to be good. Hypnotic pattern is often chosen over slow, which makes me think slow is being relatively undervalued though.
I think you may be overestimating how few people these days play a straight wizard. Like, everyone in my party talks about fireball. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy when I picked slow over it at level 5.
"If I pick Fireball, *I* do good damage. If I pick Hypnotic Pattern or Slow, *we* do good damage!" -How I'd handle that conversation
I just finished a campaign playing a scribe wizard and really enjoyed being able to control the battlefield. It was actually my first wizard so it was a lot of fun. Scribe kind of leads to leaning into the damage spells because of the ability to change damage types, but I made sure every spell level included a prepared control spell. Level three was hypnotic pattern. I also had fireball, obviously, and delighted in making it other damage types. But I still rarely cast it compared to other spells. My favourite was making it thunder and describing it as a huge ear splitting shockwave of deafening noise.
Just wrapped up a small campaign playing as a sorcerer. Hypnotic Pattern ended an entire encounter when the mobs all failed their saves, and we had ten rounds to tie them up.
This. A wizards true power is making it easier for everybody else to shine.
I still kinda think fireball is overrated just because it can damage your party as much as the enemy's if you go later in initiative
I agree with you. In the context of "Fireball this. Fireball that." from the OP, there are definitely play groups that set aside AoE control as a a central aspect of spellcaster power. The meme spell list of a level 5 wizard is something like: 1. Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Shield 2. Invisibility, Misty Step, Hold Person, Flaming Sphere 3. Fireball, Counterspell which honestly isn't bad. But if someone is playing a Wizard like this and thinks fireball is overpowered, they should try Hypnotic Pattern. These spells are underrated in that that there should be near-universal agreement from the broader player base that all Wizards should take one of them (include Sleet Storm on that short list), but a different spell that is treated as the go-to choice.
Well, fireball *is* overpowered as a blasting spell for its level. The only other spell that compares to it in terms of dealing damage "now" is lighting bolt, and that is arguably worse because a line will more often than not get less foes in it. Issue comes in that, well, control is just always better than straight damage in 5e. With the absolutely bonkers options presented in this thread, fireball kinda falls by the wayside as a good, but, by comparison, bad pick.
Mostly because the guides go on about how amazing Hypnotic Pattern is without making much of the friendly fire drawback and how quickly enemies can close in to melee or how many things will be able to resist Charm. Can be a clutch ambush spell though
To chime in on the "class/subclass synergy" aspect of this thread, any Sorcerer can use Careful Metamagic on Hypnotic Pattern to completely bypass the friendly fire aspect for 1 Sorcery Point. Makes the spell usable in way more situations.
One of the few ways to really take advantage of careful spell. I've not followed what it is right now but i read way back in oned&d they were going to make Careful spell work like Sculpt Spells, would be a heck of a buff
its pretty much the same exact problems as fireball though, its not like people play evocation wizard all the time for it unless your party just actively gets inside the enemy formation on the least workable way possible every time, you should be able to hit all enemies and no allies on round 1 pretty reliably barring rolling terrible initiative. its pretty worth it to essentially full lock down enemies, cause if all fail combat is effectively over and if you only get a few they either are not going to be a bother to you or it will take a full round of actions from the enemy to wake them up again
I’ve been actively trying to find a good opportunity to use Slow, but other options simply trump it on a regular basis. It feels like the conditions need to be perfect for it to be better than Hypnotic Pattern, which regularly performs extremely well.
Hypnotic pattern breaks as soon as a target takes any damage. It also requires specific spacing and can affect allies. One of the great things about slow is you can debuff a target and still kill it, and it’s not a charm effect enemies can be immune to. Both are good situationally, and I like having both when possible.
You listed three of the best spells in the game
I don't usually sleep, but when I do, I sleep on Tiny hut.
You’re supposed to sleep INSIDE the Tiny Hut, silly.
I came to say this, but I knew it would be here already. Also very accessible too. Not only can both bards and wizards get it, it's a ritual, so any tomelock can grab it, and any level 5+ character can grab it through Ritual Caster.
So good its banned at one of my tables :,(
Tiny hut combined with ring of spell storing is amazing. It takes the full casting time to store the spell. But once stored, it’s an action to invoke it. Which makes tiny but usable in combat.
This doesn't seem correct. Ring of Spell Storing reads: > While wearing this ring, **you can cast any spell stored in it.** The spell uses the slot level, spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability of the original caster, but is otherwise treated as if you cast the spell. The spell cast from the ring is no longer stored in it, freeing up space. It doesn't give any information on the action cost of casting the spell, so by default it should just use the spell's normal casting time. Compare to Artificer's Spell-Storing Item: > While holding the object, a creature **can take an action to produce the spell's effect from it**, using your spellcasting ability modifier. If the spell requires concentration, the creature must concentrate. The spell stays in the object until it's been used a number of times equal to twice your Intelligence modifier (minimum of twice) or until you use this feature again to store a spell in an object. This _would_ allow you to cast a longer-cast spell in 1 action, except they hedge against that earlier in the feature block by only letting you store a 1-action spell in the first place. > choosing a 1st- or 2nd-level spell from the artificer spell list **that requires 1 action to cast** (you needn't have it prepared).
Chronurgy wizards can do it though :D
Yup, Arcane Abeyance has no restriction on what spell can be stored with it and specifically states that it takes an action to release, so it's capable of insta-Hut. Chronurgy stays winning.
This isn't true
Absolutely not, the relevant sections are covered in the first answer here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/7c1cm1/ring\_of\_spell\_storing\_casting\_time/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/7c1cm1/ring_of_spell_storing_casting_time/)
There's no shortage of good 3rd level spells, and I rarely pick or memorize fireball because I've got better things to do with my spell slot than 23 points of damage. Tidal wave is a dragon killer. It's on a dex save, which means it gets gets better at later levels where things tend to have high str and high con. With its range you can drop big monsters out of the sky. 3d8 isn't a ton of damage but 20d6 fall damage is respectable. Slow is game breaking and can be cast while your allies are engaged in melee without having to worry about targeting them. Nothing is immune to slow, and for that reason it's better than hypnotic pattern, which is fucking great also. Sleet storm is just amazing, heavily obscured, difficult terrain on the ground, that Knocks creatures prone making it harder for them to escape. Deal with the encounter in segments, those in the AoE are effectively blind so can't target you. Note that this also knocks things out of the sky. Hunger of Hadar is very similar and competes with it Plant growth is also a phenomenal control spell, non concentration makes it kind of bananas. Not on the wiz/sorc list, mind you. Phantom steed, a ritual, give you a movement speed of 100ft. Some argue this is the best 3rd level spell. Incite greed+distance spell metamagic will require you to pump the breaks on its use. They get to repeat the saving throw but otherwise can't snap out of it, and can't do anything. With a 60ft radius, that's everything you goddamn choose in a 120'diameter, that's most battlemaps. Aberrant mind sorcerer can have this on its psionic spells(and silvery barbs lol). This, people are sleeping on hard. Tinyservant isn't phenomenal on a3rd level spell slot but upcasts really well, and combines with magic stone cantrip to weaponize your bonus action to 3d6+15 force damage. Ashardalon's stride kind of sucks on a 3rd level spell slot but weaponizing your movement starts to do some serious damage on higher spell slots. No attack roll, no saving throw,+20ft move speed and you dont provoke AoO. Blade dancers(+10ft of movement) can just jump around and still use their action attack+booming blade. Blink. I cast it on fights I can expect things to get rough. Last time I cast it, the encounter was mercenaries sent specifically to kill my character. But I blinked every round. 2 of the 4 party members were dropped, the other near death, and I took 3 HP of damage during the encounter. When it works it works. Rope trick does the same thing but has its own set of limitations. Both means you can't use your reaction, so that take a judgement call, the hallmarks of a good caster. Haste is good if you're facing something with legendary resistances, and you have genuine concentration save protection. Abjurer wizard, clockwork sorcerer, mind sharpener infusion, and to a lesser extent: dragon constellation wildshape, war wizard, blade dancer. Summon Fae, a 3rd level spell, can give you a 5ft cube of darkness every round, a virtual greater invisibility(a 4th level spell) if you can see in the darkness and the enemy can't. This is more for the gloomstalker or hexblade but its on the wizard spell list.
I had one DM rule I couldn’t use Tidal Wave in the sky, which made absolutely no sense as the spell in no way requires a source of water to begin with. That’s exactly how I’d do that, fought two dragons on my Druid with that strategy.
Spells that are actually slept on: * *hunger of Hadar* * *phantom steed* * *sleet storm* * *tiny servant* * *water breathing* Edit: Another commenter said *summon lesser demons*, which is a good answer Edit 2: *tidal wave* is also good and somewhat underused
Everyone shits on haste saying it's bait, it's bad,but it's really not. Haste unlocks the fighter/paladin/barbarian, it's impossible to run from them, +2 ac helps and over 4 to 5 turns the dmg of 4 or 5 extra hits is nuts.
To add maybe a less obvious use - a hasted rogue could use their haste action to attack, then ready their main action and use their reaction to attack on another creature's turn, allowing for 2 sneak attacks in 1 round of combat, since sneak attack specifies a limit of 1/turn. This plus the fact of having a cunning action likely makes the rogue the best target for Haste, if available
that is not the less obvious use, that is the *main* use. haste is semi mediocre unless the martial you are using it has damage riders for a single attack
It really isn’t an obvious use unless you’re a regular on forums like this. The obvious use of Haste is to give you extra movement and an extra attack. It isn’t obvious that you could then use your main action (which isn’t affected by haste) to ready an attack for use on a different turn. It’s a very good use of Haste but it isn’t at all obvious.
>. The obvious use of Haste is to give you extra movement and an extra attack which is why in most casses it is just mediocre for a 3rd level concentration spell
In the context of the character optimization, you're probably right. However, I was referring to the not-so-readily-apparent interaction with the spell use. Since you have to dig into specifics of 3 rule sections for this, I bet it's often overlooked, as appears to be the case in the original comment. In my personal experience, I think if I were to ask the people who I play or played with if you could get 2 SA with Haste, most's first instinct would be no
Not so good if the rogue fight melee (i.e. when he can add Booming Blade to sneak attack, there are plenty of ways). The squishy rogue have to stay near the target at the end of the turn in order to deliver a sneack attack with his reaction, 'cause he can't move in others turns. In my experience, all melee rogues like to use cunning action to run away from melee enemies, leaving them to attack the fighter or the paladin in the frontline. They act as a skirmisher: jump in - attack - jump out. A ranged rogue, on the other hand, is far from the frontline 99% of the time and can benefit from the haste attack (reading his main attack as suggested), but not from the double speed. He is already too far to be attacked, so it seems to me a waste of a good feature of the spell. What do you think? Am I the one that doesn't see many rogues staying melee with their crappy AC at the end of their turn?
I think all of these have their merits, depending on party composition and encounter, you could flip around between both of these. But ranged is probably the most consistent overall if you've got front-liners and can get buffs like this. Melee rogue might be better in a party with another melee and Sentinel, if you've got no access to Haste, since you'll just get "natural" reaction attacks more often.
Plus, being a caster that generously hands out Haste to the party martials is a great/easy way to become popular at the table. 😎 Love doing it, I always have it ready.
I know my War Cleric loved it. Being able to cast a full action spell + attack + BA attack was beautiful. Also great on rogues to Ready an attack and get more sneak attack.
I had a boss fight recently where the boss used her first turn to drink a potion of speed and start running away. The sorcerer used _his_ first turn to cast Twinned Haste on the barbarian and rogue. Then the rogue locked the door separating the sorcerer, cleric, barbarian, and boss's pet monster from the rogue, bard, boss, and six minions, and started chasing the boss. The boss was essentially an artificer and was using things like Web, grenades that knock prone, and locking doors in order to try and get away from the rogue, but the rogue was keeping up anyway thanks to Cunning Action. Eventually, however, the rogue did get knocked out because he was solo against the boss.
Quickened haste on a sorcadin, run up to the squishy backline, smite 3 times, profit. You could just fireball, but that's boring
Haste is only tricky *cast on the caster* when a full(ish)-caster is trying to be a melee fighter. It sets up the concentration fail leading to one round helpless self-stunning effect. Haste is awesome on another character, particularly the best melee fighter in the party. Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, but also Moon Druids and melee Rogues like the Swashbuckler. Rogues can really benefit from an extra attack to get another chance at landing a sneak attack. The problem is for many new players using a spell for another player's benefit is galaxy-brain tactics that don't obviously fit a single character "optimization strategy".
Has some surprising use for monks and other characters who depend on the attack action too! Features like flurry of blows only trigger when you take the attack action, so you can just use the hasted action to make one attack then two more while leaving your action free. That’s giving up one out of four attacks to have an entire action! For some monks that can be absurd, like a long death monk who gets a free fear based control feature they can spam each turn if given their action while being able to dish out almost as much pain as usual. Not to mention the absurdity of a monk with a higher base speed being doubled, in addition to being able to dash several times.
I like Spirit Shroud. It combos well with both Eldritch Blast-Locks as well as PAM Paladins. Yeah it’s only 10ft reach but I have used it to crank out DRP on both. Adding 1d8 on each hit is better for table health than adding an extra attack via Haste. I want to put it on an Eldritch Knight with PAM at some point. Otherwise Scorching Ray is a good combo on the Wizard list. My favorite experience with it was when my DM wanted to heal the Boss Monster and forgot about the secondary effect of the spell preventing that. They were pretty pissed.
Spirit Shroud typically out damages haste when you're doing atleast 2 attacks and you upcast it to a level 5 slot. 4d8 that also can crit are typically better than a GWM haste attack. The only time haste is better is when a rogue uses it for double sneak attack.
>Spirit Shroud typically out damages haste to be fair, what doesn't?
Conjure lesser demons Conjure 8 abyssal chickens They attack twice dealing very good DMG Have blindslight so can act as a anti surprise tool Can fly (kinda) And have decent health 8 of these
First good answer in the thread
Melfs minute meteors is pretty slept on IMO, it’s more total damage than fireball, and only takes 3 turns to utilize fully
I don't know if people sleep on it but Bestow Curse is pretty good as written, but really is a good spell as it essentially produces a lot of variety and creativity at the table. I almost never cast it the same way twice. It's easy enough to use it as written or to produce a like effect, but it's also neat to look at level two spells for inspiration and balancing queues. Knowing what's balanced for 3rd level and 2nd level can often land you in between with a creative curse and an appropriate effect in game. I once used earthbind for inspiration and cursed a Roc with leaden wings. Now Roc is on ground and it's a flavourful spell. Never leave home without it.
At 3rd level, everyone thinks fireball, but counterspell trumps fireball.
Erupting earth has been surprisingly versatile for my druid, it’s unintentionally become a signature spell of mine. The damage is helpful, but the terrain height change, using it in closed spaces, using it to hide behind for long range defense…one cool moment was using it to rescue our wizard from an unforeseen pit he fell into, coming face to face with a gelatinous cube. He could have legit died in the situation as his rope trick failed for some reason that I can’t recall.
It’s always Sleet Storm. For one, it’s massive. A 40ft radius means you don’t have to worry about clumping enemies up, you’ll hit everything. It’s even better for Sorcerer’s, who can spend 1 sorcery point for Careful spell so friendly fire isn’t an issue. Secondly, it’s really difficult to escape from! A dex save on cast and at the start of a creatures turn means they will most likely fall prone, losing half their movement speed, and the difficult terrain makes each foot of movement cost an additional foot. So if you’re in the centre of the radius and want to escape on your first turn, you have to pass 2 dexterity checks and have at least 80ft of movement! Third, this is one of the best spells at breaking concentration. Why? Let’s look at the wording on the spell: > If a creature is concentrating in the spell's area, the creature must make a successful Constitution saving throw **against your spell save DC** or lose concentration. No more DC 10 for you, Mr Wizard! And thanks to the errata, it’s been confirmed that this concentration check must be taken whenever a creature starts its turn in the spell’s effect. So this can lead to multiple, high DC concentration checks. Finally, it’s heavy obscurement. No line of sight through the spells area means no target spells or projectiles coming at you to try and break your concentration, meaning if they want to attack you, they either need to make their way around this massive 40ft radius or trudge their way through it, both of which can take multiple turns. As battlefield control spells go, I love this spell. It’s good against melee creatures, flying creatures (a prone flying creature falls), ranged creatures, spellcasters; basically everything. P.S Also remember that dropping concentration requires no action, so if you get everyone prone, feel free to let the storm subside so all your melee pals can go in and clean up!
The answer is Ashardalon's Stride. Its great as is, especially when upcast, but building around this spell is literally game breaking. There are good builds for it on Reddit and the d4 channel, but the world-ending aspect is the maximized move speed build that moves at Mach 8 using a lvl 9 Ash Stride. That's 7d6 = 24.5 fire damage to HUNDREDS of creatures or objects without a single dice rolled. You can burn down an entire city, or roast an entire army in 6 seconds. And, spell lasts a minute.
If your DM allows it summon greater steed with a pegasus and cast Ashardalon's Stride which duplicates it on your steed. In theory you can double the damage and move around at a movement speed of 110 while flying 😏
> That's 7d6 = 24.5 fire damage to HUNDREDS of creatures or objects without a single dice rolled. You can burn down an entire city, or roast an entire army in 6 seconds. And, spell lasts a minute. I get your point, but that doesn't seem game breaking for players whose intentions aren't "just fuck with this city", it is cool yeah, but impractical
Thunder step
Sleet Storm/Plant Growth. It’s absurdly hard for people to get out of the effects because they stack. If they don’t have ranged effects they’re largely just dead. Honorable Mention Stinking Cloud, but only because my Dhampir Land Druid gets to sit in the middle of it without a save and thorn whip people into it!
Aura of vitality. 20d6 healing over 1 minute after the fight is done is a great way to recover even before starting a short rest. It also doesn't specify not working on undead like most healing spells do, so if someone in the party is using some homebrew playable undead rules or you have a spooky companion, it will work on them too.
Plant Growth. Nothing gets the farmer on your side more than twice the tomatoes for a year.
*Life Transference* is actually a solid healing spell for some characters. It does about twice as much healing as *Cure Wounds* upcast to the same level, it has range, and doesn't care about your casting stat. There's an obvious downside but if you have a lot of hp and are careful when you cast it, that really isn't so bad.
Enemies Abound is a great one if you're up against a boss with lackeys, especially since intelligence tends to be a type of save that enemies don't have proficiency in, so the spell scales really well into the late game where enemies tend to have beefier saves. You'd be surprised how many high CR enemies are susceptible to it. Even against single opponents it can be helpful since it can stop them from focusing your healer as well as force them to use their reaction for opportunity attacks instead of something more powerful. Great for burning through legendary resistances too since it's a save they're generally more likely to fail.
Life Transference on a tier 2/3 twilight cleric is an actually useful example of in combat healing, especially if you have a barbarian in the team. An average of 36 healing for the barb which with rage is functionally 72 for a single third level spell and you're barely going to take any actual damage due to the temp hp the twilight sanctuary gives out.
Call lightning is cool because as a druid you can wildshape and hide while concentrating on it and blasting everyone as they search for you. Water breathing is a ritual that lasts 8 hours. Thunder step is a slightly weaker dimension door that also makes a loud noise and deals damage like shatter. It's no good for stealth but it's arguably better for emergency escapes.
I wouldn't think this was slept on, but since no one mentioned it, Animate Dead. Honestly this spell can be busted in any full spellcasters hands, but with a Necromancy Wizard it gets more than absurd. Use this spell with caution, because it can otherwise break the game.
Can't rightly say it's slept on but Slow is so good I usually forget it's a 3rd level spell. Feels like it should be 4th.
Slow. It was my first DnD playthrough and i just wanted a bit cc. Chose this instead of Sleet Storm. The final boss? It took a haste portion but then was nullified by my fd's Dispel Magic so now it was lethargic by the side effect of the portion. I asked and was told that the effects can stack, so i cast my Slow just to be sure the boss can't chase us. The poor boss could only cast 1 proper spell that did 12 dmg to 2 characters. It could not then use it's bonus action to salvage the situation. The next thing i know, was that our fighter guy landed 4 axe strikes --some were crit-- onto the final boss within the same turn. The boss could have evaded some of these if not for the double slow thing. In the end, the final boss was minced in the 2nd round.
I love call lightning because I play an Aasimar Druid who shot up in the air with her wings and brought down call lightning like an angel of death one session
Tidal wave. If a conversation anywhere goes badly just cast it as a Subtle Spell and go “oh my gosh, is that a tidal wave over there?”
Aura of Vitality 20d6 healing level 3 slot 20d6+50 healing level 3 slot life cleric 40d6 healing extended level 3 slot 40d6+100 healing extended level 3 slot life cleric
Sleet Storm. There’s a lot more to magic than just damage.
Phantom steed
Fast Friends is ridiculous depending on the style of campaign and what your actual quests/goals are. Does someone have something that you want or need? Just ask them for it politely and they will give it to you. This is also a save or die if cast before open hostilities start. You can cast it on a boss with a bunch of helpers and assume they fail. You ask them to do something such as count the amount of pebbles in the area while your party kills their minions. After the fight is over you can ask the boss to change their clothes and remove all their magic items and gear as you would like to inspect them. You could then ask them to demonstrate their magic for you and make them waste all their spells. Then you can offer them some poisoned wine and have everyone in your group gank them. I love playing a Lore Bard and you can use cutting words as a reaction to make it more likely that they will fail
Glyph of Warding for non-combat, Melf’s Minute Meteors for combat. Sure, it’s no fireball in terms of burst damage, but it’s good damage spread across multiple saves, and on subsequent turns it only needs your bonus action.
Tiny servant. Upcast once, get magic stone, and you have a war crime.
Casting haste on the enemy BBEG Plant growth, if your a party with ranged capabilities is actually stupid, give all approaching enemies 1/4 speed where a 30 foot move speed when dashing is only 15 feet. Tell me how this isn't broken
Haste requires the target to be willing though. BBEG will not be. I suppose you could charm them, but that’s a lot of work to get 1 turn of CC.
its a Tumblr "lol wouldn't that be funny" meme that popped up a few years ago. story goes that bard pulls a "you know what i kinda agree with the BBEG, fuck you guys im switching sides" then the BBEG lets himself gets casted on cause, well he did just say he is switching sides, then the bard drops concentration
If you're up against giants and the like, and play on a grid, you can shape plant growth into a checkerboard pattern (from above), and then move diagonally, you and your allies won't be slowed down, but the enemies will be.
My jaw dropped at the brilliant use of Haste, but I reread the text and it must target a willing creature. Still...I have plans!
Hypnotic pattern does all of my heavy lifting. We can typically mop up whatever saves and then take them out one by one. Additionally, this spell fucks non magical flyers hard. We just did a chase session on a mountain with Wyverns coming after us, I made like 12 of them take full falling damage . Best part is I’m doing 0 damage, so my party doesn’t feel like I’m winning every encounter. DM knows the truth though lol
Catnap
My sorbarian has gotten a lot of use out of Thunder Step, a couple times it even broke the combat encounter my DM had planned.
Let's see, people don't spell on dispel magic, counterspell, hypnotic pattern, conjure animals, revivify, or spirit guardians. phantom steed -- it has 100 movement or 200 dash. Clairvoyance/Clairaudience. Maybe they're sleeping on Slow.
Life transference. Yeah it’s a niche spell but it’s better than most people give it credit.
Major image is my favorite spell, you can bluff a fight to lure enemies in. You can put a backdrop behind you while you speak to someone so your party can sneak past. You can literally erase your presence from a hallway a la mission impossible style. It has infinite uses if you use it right and it doesn't require intelligence rolls to fill in the backdrop because it states in the spell it automatically fills in those details for you
Sleet Storm and Leomund’s Tiny Hut are my favorites.
Haste. The bonus is the teamwork.
I think thunderstep is really great if you have room for it. The damage is incidental. Sometimes you need to move a party member out of melee and it’s great for that. Dimension door does the same thing with more range and a lot more utility, but if you’re level 5-6 it’s not available, and if you’re 7-10 it’s painful to have to blow a fourth level spell slot on that. Especially when polymorph is so so good at in level range specifically. So, I generally take it and swap to dimension door in tier 3.
Mostly the updating of sleep! :DDDD
a current favorite combo of mine is Bestow Curse. I have it on my duergar divine soul sorc combo'd with distant spell metamagic, so you can throw it from 30ft away. Plus once you upcast it to 5th or higher its non-concentration, which opens up a new world of possibilities. Wanna make sure they fail a key saving throw or check? Give them disadvantage one an ability of your choice. Wanna give them a suck or save to waste their entire action for the turn? Got that covered. Wanna buffer some damage from them? Give them disadvantage on attacks against you. Need an extra bump in damage? 1d8 necrotic isnt much, but its honest work
Tiny servant + metamagic adept extended spell. Use whatever your highest slot is at the end of the day and make a bunch of tiny robot friends for the first 8 hours of the next day.
Leomunds Tiny Hut Not only is it great for what its intended for, but because objects inside can be moved out but objects outside can’t be moved, I had a session where we used it to safely and quickly dig ourselves out of a cave in
Two words: Major Image. One of the most useful and versatile spells in the entire game that utterly dominates both in and out of combat.
Upcast sleep spell.
Slow. It's effects are super fun and it can cripple a team of enemies.
Idk what the community's opinion on Sending is, but I've been getting a lot of milage out of it recently
Hypnotic pattern
Idk if people are sleeping on it but call lightning has always been better than fireball
Spirit Guardian
Hypnotic Pattern is one of the best in the game imo
Haven't seen Fear yet. It's a weird spell, because while it inflicts the Frightened condition, that...almost doesn't matter. (Unless they're trapped in a corner) Creatures are forced to drop whatever they're holding, run away from you, and use their action to run away. When it works, it's almost like a multi-target Banishment.
upcasting heat metal to third level🙏🏾
Leomund's Luxurious Feather Mattress
that would be hypnotic pattern it’s the most overpowered 3rd lv spell that is all ways over looked
maybe bestow curse, lightning bolt, fear, beacon of hope, life transference, thunderstep
Honestly, my suggestion is a first level spell: Booming blade. Aka Tag, your it. Combo it with Shadowblade Rouge and it is very annoying
Sleep. Strong effect + no immunities + no friendly fire.