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Druid spell analysis: 5th level spells D&D
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ส.ค. 2024
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If you would like to know how I calculate damage or how baseline damage is determined, I go through it in this video:
• How To Calculate Avera...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:31 antilife shell (purple)
6:21 awaken (purple)
8:40 commune with nature (purple)
10:38 cone of cold (purple)
13:23 Valda's Spire of Secrets
15:05 conjure elemental (green)
19:04 contagion (red)
21:04 control winds (orange)
23:33 geas (orange)
24:40 greater restoration (orange)
26:20 insect plague (red)
28:47 maelstrom (red)
30:46 mass cure wounds (purple)
32:15 planar binding (purple)
37:18 reincarnate (orange)
41:40 scrying (orange)
44:12 transmute rock (blue)
47:59 tree stride (red)
49:34 wall of stone (green)
53:15 wrath of nature (orange)
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Hi
Love the blood bowl shoutout. the valda’s game is very reminiscent of it imo.
Two things about Awaken: the Staff of the Woodlands makes it an action to cast and Feeblemind gets rid of the intelligence requirements.
When the Feeblemind wears off after 30 days and you become twice sentient.... do that 100 more times and you've got yourself a backstory worth a divine ascension
@@jacobmiller5510
There was a time, once, when I was but a mere donkey. A humble dray beast, hastily scrawled into a character's starting inventory, overlooked by the DM until the first time the party left town. I know not if I even had a past before that, how simple I was.
But, that was a tale from the old world. This new world, under my reign, has no need for stories like that. Forgive this old ass for feeling nostalgic. Now, I have prepared a gathering of the greatest clerics across the land to commune with you all. And offer our terms.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 lmao
@@jacobmiller5510 Feeblemind doesn’t wear off after 30 days, they just get another save after 30 days.
Something interesting to note about Maelstrom is that 5 ft of water is deep enough that you can force small creatures to swim, which combined with the difficult terrain and the generally low strength of small creatures, means that the spell is a certain death sentence for any such creature caught in it. A druid in my party was able to solo a squad of kobold dragonshields this way.
Note that because of transmute rock's 40ft cube size. It's very possible to hit both the ground and ceiling in one casting of the spell. So you can get both effects depending on the terrain. Since by the reading of the spell, there isn't much benefit on casting this on anything but the surface of the floor.
Hmm, I mean it does turn to mud? could you use to to try and for example break thru a floor? or perhaps what happens if you cast it on the foundations of a tower? I guess the limiting factor is if you have to see all of the 40ft area or only a part of it?
True enough, I was talking about the area control aspect in my post. For the saving throw/restraining condition, it doesn't matter if you turned 5ft of floor into mud or 40ft.
In terms of utility for removing rock, turning more floor into mud might be valuable.
@@Melorific
The most broken combo.
Transmute 40 feet of rock beneath you into mud, then Prestigidation to clean it.
Or, if you're a stickler for the rules, also carry a pile of towels or other cloth in a barrel, throw it in, clean the mud off the cloth, then throw it back in. Repeat until you have violated the laws of thermodynamics to a 40 foot cube of silica and other trace elements, while also making everyone taste purple and hear David Bowie in their ear.
The spell specifies that you choose "an area" of stone. I think it's fair to rule that unless it is continuous through a pillar or wall, you can't target both the ceiling and the floor because that would be two areas.
@@sethcourtad8733 I mean with that the walls would count, so as long as you also have part of the wall it should work
Reincarnate is best used by NPCs I think. It works well as an explanation for why the bad guys seem to willing to throw themselves at the players and die over and over, they're just going to be brought back anyways. And it lets you do stuff like identifying the bad guys by having them all be missing an ear or a finger or something because that's the body part being used to reincarnate them by whatever is bringing them back.
(bbeg wearing a necklace of their followers fingers is also nice imagery)
There is also a situational use for Reincarnate where a plot important NPC dies of old age. Reincarnate doesn't mention death by old age as a limitation, so grandpa Plot Device can come on back to the party.
Regarding Tree Stride-- with Tasha's now any spell caster who doesn't have good options for teleportation can gain Misty Step through Fey Touched, and it's an amazing feat. Build your character with 17 as your main ability score. At level 4 get Fey Touched. You functionally gain an extra 1st and 2nd level spell slot, plus Misty Step as a spell, plus another 1st level spell of your choice from the appropriate schools, such as Bless.
As a cherry on top, now your main ability score is 18. Fey Touched in my opinion is already better than Magic Initiate, and you get an ability score bump to boot.
I'm having great fun roleplaying a trickster fae with a dreams druid eladrin with said feat. It's unnessasarily redundant from an optimization perspective, but it's been super fun being the "lord of shortcuts".
@@gamecavalier3230 or any cantrips
And thanks to stirxhaven you can learn silverly barbs to boot
I can't thank you enough for being literally the first TH-camr I've ever heard pronounce Geas correctly.
I was shocked and thrilled when I heard that!
@@gregbowen2477 Ikr? As if it's that hard to look up if you aren't familiar with it. The language of origin is Gaelic, just like Shillelagh, and plenty of people get that one right.
TIL
@@dylandugan76 probably because so many weebs have watched Code Geass.
@@jacobjensen7704 yep - no reason to look it up if you think you're already familiar with it.
A note about Mass Cure Wounds: it's actually one of the rare healing spells that can target a creature that you cannot see nor touch. Super situational, but useful to know I think!
About Transmute rock, its a 40ft cube including 40ft tall, so its very likely if inside a dungeon that you will get both the celling and floor, so sure the celling isnt having the effect, but you should both be turning the celling and the floor to mud so you could get both the damage and the effect. I do agree that if it was only a celling you wouldnt get the ground effects, but unless I am missing you should be able to get both.
Contagion can be powerful against bosses with legendary saves that are not immune to the poisoned condition. It's a niche use, but against e.g. dragons, it is really good.
It also has out of combat uses when using intimidation.
And if your Familiar does the Help Action plus uses its Reaction to Deliver the Spell, then you have a pretty reliable way to hit.
@@dylanba5251I think that in order to cast a spell Through your familiar position must be your turn, so is really hard make the help action and deliver a spell with your familiar on the same turn ( you could Make it casting the spell as a readied action but isn't that good)
Also, you could sneak in, tap the boss with this, and run away until they fail their saves. Even better if you or someone in your party has a way to reduce their chances.
The bosses that matter have legendary resistance
If you think of TreeStride as intended as a teleportation spell, everything you said is right. But that is clearly not what the thinking was when it was created. It was designed as a very fast travel option within a forest. Given a forest with a typically homogenous nature (reasonably high percentage of certain type(s) of trees), the Druid can travel a mile over the course of a minute. Not saying this improves its utility very much, but it's a different way to think about when you might use it.
Agreed. But the druid would be in a solo adventure for it to be useful.
@@pistolshr1mp Good point. I suspect it was conceived thinking about a druid roaming/defending his home forest. Not nearly as useful in a typical party setting.
@@topomusicale5580 Yeah there are definitely a few spells on the Druid spell list that are intended for NPC druids rather than PCs. Tree Stride, Druid Grove, Guardian of Nature, Wrath of Nature makes for excellent flavour and mechanics for an NPC druid defending their forest.
I'll add a point to the reincarnate spell : you can use it if the character/NPC died of old age. it doesn't come often, but sometimes it comes.
i'm use to treaten PC to reincarnate them if they die... they do try to avoid punches with that kind of motivation :p (i don't even need to prepare it to make it work) i'll rate it orange and a dash of purple :p
In our last session, my, and two other characters where hit with 3-4 levels of exhaustion. (it was the final fight of the currend main quest)
I was completely draind of all recources, spellslots, sorcery points, hitdie, everything, went to sleep, after bung a big sack of diamod dust, for our druid to cast over the newxt few days on us, to fasten the recovery.
Aaaand then I found out, that the next BBEG has me on his nughty list and casts dream every night to rob my of sleep, so i cant regain my recources...
Greater restoration and my Warlock levels is the only thing that keeps me going at the moment...
for planar bidning: the Summoner can set the trigger to "the druid turn begins" or "the druid moved 5 ft", wich can happen on the druinds turn directly before it casts planar binding.
Another fun combo: in just a week or two a 9th level Druid could take a muddy riverbed area or something similar and turn a big section of it to stone, which can then be used as the supporting stone for Wall of Stone.
A small group of these druids working together could make a whole settlement out of crude stone buildings. Maybe not a great way for players to spend their time but it could make for a cool NPC encounter
Another well thought out video! Druids really get the whole rainbow at this level of spellcasting, and I never really considered antilife shell until you recommended it. Of all classes, and all spell levels, this one feels the most like the Avatar to me except for fire spells: Cone of Cold, Control Winds, Maelstrom, Transmute Rock, and Wall of Stone all seem like advanced bending techniques.
CONGRATS ON BEING AN OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE TANARES RPG CREW!!!!! That makes me so much more excited for the content! I can’t wait to see what you bring to the table!! 💪🏻💪🏻
One character on my table got Transmute Rock as a scroll and used it to turn the walls around a huge metal gate to mud, bringing the gate down, and also putting mud in the way.
I'd rank Maelstrom as orange because it combines well with a number of other spells. This often requires coordination (or 2 levels of fighter for action surge) but the pull effect plus damage on a failed save can be really rough.
I've seen it in practice used with spike growth, transmute rock, wall of fire, hunger of hadar, and sickening radiance.
Is it expensive? Yes. Can it win a combat as part of a combination? Yes.
Great reviews as ever, but major props for the correct pronunciation of geas.
Re: Planar Binding: As a DM, I think I would rule that if you summon a concentration-based creature (you know what I mean) into a Magic Circle that potentially prevents it from leaving even by extraplanar magic, it would have to make the Charisma save to disappear once you drop concentration. Of course, you would have to cast Magic Circle at a higher level in order to facilitate the casting time of Planar Binding.
I have to disagree on the Orange color of Greater Restoration… as you said when you need it you need it… in my experience I would add “right now”. Petrification and feeble mind will remove a PC from combat and this is the only way to bring them back into the fight… In my opinion it should be blue preferably with at least two party members having it prepared.
That is such an investment, much rather win most of my combats far easier with good spells prepared rather then hope I might need this one niche spell
Honestly depends on your game. If you're playing a module and your DM has been throwing a lot of those effects at you then for sure it needs to be a must take. Imo if I were playing a Cleric I'd take it every time - unless of course it came on the Cleric spell list.
I can't wait for you to discuss Mirage Arcane at length when you reach 7th level spells for druids. Its extremely loose wording is a bit confusing and leaves a lot of room to break gameplay.
I just got it two sessions ago and I felt scummy every time I used it. I skipped entire encounters. I disabled a frost giant village by placing them inside a colossal (illusory) adamantine dome for 10 days. I made a mile-long bridge hundreds of feet above all potential threats. At one point, I just stopped using it altogether and decided to try to face whatever the DM threw at us without it.
Also, would you mind using a Night Mode addon for your browser, like Dark Reader? It would make watching your videos at night much easier.
If you follow Sage Advice, it not only blocks movement and creates difficult terrain, it outright deals damage. Just in case it wasn't ridiculous enough.
So yeah, forget dungeon crawling. You camp out next to the entrance, spend 10 minutes casting this, and turn the entire dungeon into a sea of lava surrounded by adamantine walls, floors, and ceiling. Then you cancel the spell, and walk through the now intact again dungeon to search the liquified remains for magic items.
Also obliterates armies of course. To add a further layer of absurdity, 5e has stats for gunpowder barrels and Dynamite sticks.
@@ApprovingSeal the range is Sight so unless you can see the entire dungeon at the moment of casting you can only target the entrance, this spell works really well in open spaces but it's not as broken as it seems
@@ascer1175 Good point, but that still doesn't stop you from targeting the ground above the dungeon, turning it into the bottom of a lava lake.
EDIT: Actually no, that doesn't stop it. The range is sight, but the area affected is one mile square. Just like a fireball will hit things beyond its maximum range if you place the origin at the edge of it, Mirage Arcane can still affect terrain even if you can't see it, so long as it's within 1 mile of the origin point.
@@ApprovingSeal anything that exits the illusion area disappears so that still doesn't help you
@@ascer1175 True. That makes it considerably less busted than I thought. Previously I figured it'd be best to ban the spell outright, but now I think it may be salvageable. But it's still way too good for its level.
I'd totally consider using this even if it were a 9th level spell. That's not a good sign.
For Planar Binding - regarding your work around, the Druid cannot ready his action to cast Planar Binding. You can only ready a spell with a casting time of one action.
Doh.
With Geas, I always find it depends on how the DM runs it, if they're just gonna have someone take the damage, then yeah, it's not great, but I find a lot of DM's will treat that as something most creatures want to avoid, and only trigger it if the commands you give are really something they'd fundamentally oppose doing.
Tree stride seems incredibly powerful within a forest. Correct me if I am wrong but it is spend 5 feet of movement to move into a tree, 5 feet to emerge from another tree potentially high up on a branch, cast a spell, then 5 feet in and 5 feet out in another location. This is more powerful for a NPC or lone druid character than in a party, but it does seem situationally strong.
On the topic of Planar Binding, there are few ways to pull it off without needing to worry about who started casting on whose turn.
Summon Greater Demon spell explicitly causes the summoned Demon to persist for 1d6 rounds after you cease concentration. As this is a more specific rule than the general rule that the Demon should disappear at the end of the hour-long duration, so long as the summoner maintains concentration for the whole hour without interruption, and so long as the summoner loses control of the Demon (which is essentially inevitable, as the Demon gets a new save every round!), then the Demon cannot fail to be present for one hour and one round, so the Binder cannot fail to complete the casting of his spell in time.
Other than that specific spell, the only other guaranteed way that I am aware of to ensure a conjured creature is present for the proper duration is for a Sorcerer to cast the summoning spell and use the Extend Spell metamagic option on it, extending the duration to 2 hours. The Metamagic Adept feat could be used by non-Sorcerers who want to Bind the summoning spells that the Sorcerer would not have access to.
I would not rate the spell purple as-is on the Druid spell list. I would rate it red, for the following reasons:
1. You cannot, yourself, use it to bind any creature. Concentration prevents this. Chronurgy or Ring of Spell-Storing shenanigans might help, but you still need three spells - a summoning spell, this spell, and a magic circle spell - and that's all too much for one spellcaster to muster.
2. It has an expensive material component that is consumed. At 9th level, a thousand gold isn't too big of an expense, generally - but it's noticeable, and could be an opportunity cost for something more useful, like restorative items, or reagents for other, more useful spells like Revivify.
3. It still offers a Charisma saving throw to the creature - and if it succeeds, you have wasted your time, spell slots, and an expensive jewel to accomplish nothing at all.
NPCs, however, have none of the worries a PC does. As such, I see Planar Binding as a spell for the DM to use - especially since its long cast time allows it to be used in a dramatic fashion, whether the PCs need to defend a friendly spellcaster for an hour, or assault a dungeon before the nefarious villain at the end completes his spell.
If you have the metamagic adept feat and a simulacrum you can do it
You can have your simulacrum
Extended spell summon greater demon(so its 2 hours)
You Feeblemind the demon so it has a -5 cha save (and auto fails both the break free and planar binding assuming a save dc of 16 or higher)
Planar binding on it
Greater restoration to remove the feeble mind.
And then have 100% control over a demon for a full year
I think it's quite unfortunate that Dao warlock gets Wall of stone instead of transmute rock.
I’ve been looking forward to this video! Thanks for being such a good resource for D&D.
I’ve got a build that I want your opinion on. Is leonin for a conquest paladin as good as varient human? It seems to me that the leonin’s fear ability is better than most feats you could get for human when it comes to conquest paladin.
Sleet storm has basically the same effect against flying enemies as control winds, slightly bigger area, but shorter (20ft vs 100ft) and dex save vs str save. Most importantly 3rd level slot vs 5th level and a ton of other useful benifits vs basically nothing
Note about the grid rules affecting cone of cold and anti life shell: the grid combat rules is an optional rule, like multi classing, feats, or flanking bonuses. So if you don't play with them, the cone shape/length doesn't change based on its orientation. I feel like a lot of people either forget, or just don't know, that grid combat is an optional rule and just handwave it into any rules discussion as though it was. I realize that most people play with it, but do we do so because we choose it over the alternative, or because its all we know?
@Transmute rock to mud - would the ceiling of a cave usually not be inside the same 40ft cube as the ground... and in that case you would get both the falling mud effect as well as the mud-on-the-ground effect? as both the ceiling and the ground can be in the cube as well as something "you can see" at the same time?
You also have to consider RP elements to spells, Wind Control is an AMAZING spell for a sea borne campaign, Transmute Rock is a great spell if you dealing with stone walls, or want to make a wall or building (build a form, fill with mud, turn to stone) etc
Wrath of nature gets a ton better when you have your familiar spread seeds on the map and cast plant growth.
Tree stride isn't a teleportation spell so much as a fast travel spell within the forest. Or a repeatable dimension door to pop in, cast, get out of Dodge, pop back in and blast again.
While I do agree with most of your comments regarding greater restoration, I think you did not do it justice, the difference between a party with greater restoration and a party without greater restoration is *massive* , so rating it orange seems a bit weird.
also, one thing to mention about reincarnate is that it does not care if the creature died of old age, which might matter if you fought a ghost of androsphinx, also it says the DM can roll *or choose* which race you come back as so if the DM is lenient they might just give you the same one.
If insect plague could be moved by the caster it would be a super fun, and pretty good, spell. The way i rule it at my table is that the caster can sacrifice their move action to instead command the insects to move up to thirty feet. One simple change and the spell is suddenly a ton of fun to use.
I think comparing the wording and area of effect between entangle and Transmute Rock (square vs cube, ground vs area) is a strong defense that if you've got a setting with 40 ft ceilings or less you get the blast on top of the battlefield control
An interesting aside on Reincarnate, if your game allows the spell Widogast's Vault of Amber from Critical Role, you can make some fun interactions between severed fingers encased in amber, Magic Mouth, and Reincarnate (either by an NPC or stored in a Ring of Spell Storing), effectively creating a respawn mechanic.
Excellent, as always. Do we have an ETA on the warlock subclasses ranking video?
Cheers!
They should just be glad that Druid Reincarnate doesn't include animals on the list anymore!
hah! reincarnate used to have more upsides and even more downsides, really awesome spell back in 2e
28:30 Heavy obscurement could make insect plague “sting less,” or sting more as the case may be : ) Regardless, enjoyed the insect pun and the great-as-usual content.
I like this guide, but vil mention a good experience with Maelstrom. It allowed an easy win for my 9th lvl party vs a CR5, CR7, 3xCR1/2.
Admittedly this was a small win.
Wait a second, I have caught up with this series already?
Welp, time to wait...
One use I can see for Anti-Life Shell is protecting a squishy spell casting party member who has a lot of range attacks and needs their concentration.
I also got a Staff of Frost, so Cone of Cold doesn't take a place on my spell list or use a spell slot for me to use, but I do think that's a special case.
Transmute rock and water walking would make a great combo allowing your party to move freely in the area
My Druid has an Awakened Scorpion as a companion (he didn't cast it, he found her already 'Awakened' in one of our sessions)
It's great for role play, and in combat I use Giant Insect rather than summoning spells for the most part; having a personal connection to your 'summon' I've found adds a unique layer of rp to the fights
Anti-Life Shell says : "hedging out creatures", and "if you force it on some one it fails", so the only time there's some one hedged is during the casting of the spell. They have to be pushed, which means it's another tool for involuntary movement. I looked up hedging, and it doesn't mean pushing exactly, but the terms say a living thing cannot be inside, does not describe what happens, and allows you to cast with a person inside the area. Therefore it pushes. This might be the only way to get a Tarrasque to move over and share the picnic blanket.
Not to try and upsell control wind its not very good, but the calm winds can potentially be useful in enviormental situations like storms on a ship or a high up area with strong winds that could lead to some deadly situations
You can most effectively Gesh a creature against taking any time- or resource-consuming activity that is interrupted by taking damage. For example, you could tell a creature under Gesh to never rest for more than 7 hrs 58 min, zapping it out of any long rest and requiring it to long rest twice as long each day. You could even qualify it to be something like “Rest no more than 7 hours 58 minutes on any day in which you cast a spell” or the like. Using less mood-breaking language, obviously.
Don't forget tree stride is concentration! Both a positive and a negative. You can hardly beat the distance to spell slot you can go while concentrating on this. In combat it can be a super powerful repositioning tool, but your concentration is probably better elsewhere. A moon druid shifted as a stealthy ambusher with the mobile feat can do some really cool thematic hit and run stuff, but thats more for rp than maximizing it.
This is a pretty rough level for comparing Druids to Wizards as all the best Druid spells ranked here are on the Wizard's list. We see 1 Blue and 2 Green spells and Transmute Rock was ranked Green and Conjure Elemental was ranked Purple for Wizards. And worse those spells are often eclipsed by better options (Wall of Force vs Wall of Stone or Animate Objects vs Conjure Elemental)
For comparison, Wizards have 2 Blue fifth levels spells (Wall of Force, Animate Objects) and 6 Green fifth level spells (Rary's Telepathic Bond, Synaptic Static, Bigby's Hand, Wall of Stone, Telekinesis, Transmute Rock), with a note that Conjure Elemental is only Green for Conjurers and Danse Macabre is only Blue for Necromancers - both were ranked Purple for other Wizards.
Treantmonk, do you think Conjure Elemental is just generally Green for all Wizards now or just for Druids? Also is the reason Transmute Rock is rated higher for Druids because of how heavy concentration spell list is?
Wizards have the best spell list in the game. If we compare to the Sorcerer spell list though, I think Druids compare well.
@@TreantmonksTemple I definitely agree, Wizards are awesome and hard to ever compete with! This series definitely proves that the Druid spell list much more than just Conjure Animals.
Conjure Elemental ; i want to suggest summoning one and placing it on the other side of the enemy than yourself, after a round of the enemy having hit the elemental, release concentration. The elemental will most likely be DM ruled that it attacks whatever is attacking it. Then summon another one or another concentration spell. A nice DM would let you abuse it.
Can confirm that transmute rock is an amazing spell. I can't believe it doesn't require concentration, probably one of the most overlooked spells in the game.
I used conjure elemental, the had previously ritual casted meld into stone to avoid breaking concentration
Mass cure wounds has kinda become my favourite spell, just because my dm made the decision to hand a staff of healing to me, a grave cleric, at level 2. The fighter rather liked me that day when I healed him from 0 to full in one spell alongside like half the party
Extended spell is a good work around for planer binding issues
I ran a campaign in the desert where one of the boss's minions was a Lamia that cursed one of the players with Geas. She commanded the character to attack the then 2nd level party on sight. The player (A rogue swashbuckler and the party's main striker) was a serious threat, but the wizard was clever enough to cast fog cloud on the swashbuckler and ended the otherwise potentially dangerous combat. My players did not know how the Geas spell worked nor that it was the Geas but I roleplayed it as whenever the player thought of disobeying the Lamia's orders, he would get a severe headache and I threatened the damage if he acted on it. He never defied the Lamia, and the party ended up blindfolding the character and bringing him to a temple to get remove curse cast on him. A really fun session.
I would put mass cure wounds as green not for the spell, but for the druid using. We are probably the last one spending in combat, and can simply bring back everyone
Poor Treantmonk had to tap out for Planar Binding, but I completely understand why. Also, fuck Mearls for slitting Glitterdust's throat.
I love this series, especially because it reflects how your views of these spells have evolved over time. However, I think mass cure wounds is orange, maybe even red. It's very weak for its level, and the healing is unreliable. In fact, it's not better than mass healing word, as anything you heal with it will probably drop after one hit anyway. Mass cure wounds is only good on a life cleric.
Druids don’t have access to Mass Healing Word. So in a situation where you need a one round mass heal this is the Druid’s best option (that I can think of anyways).
I think difficult terrain is often underestimated with Druids. In any situation where Plant Growth is in play, difficult terrain can be a death sentence. If you are caught in Plant Growth plus insect plague - good luck!
Insect Plague does have one advantage: it's one of the few ways to create difficult terrain for FLYING creatures. Most Druid difficult terrain spells are on the ground and don't effect flying creatures. Insect Plague provides that option.
Is freedom of winds good?
Just a quick point about conjure elementals. I realize that this is a Druid spell analysis, regardless of subclass. It may be worth noting, however, that conjure elementals doesn't benefit from shepherd druids mighty summoner or guardian spirit.
So....what happens to creatures that are stuck in the StonetoMud mud if you then dispel it? Say they're already restrained, now are they restrained (presumably at least hip-deep) in the original stone (which may be hard granite, not the soft stone that MudtoStone makes, and therefore have better AC/HP)? Do they get a save to float to the surface as if you'd cast MudtoStone (seems fair and I'd bet JCrawford would rule this way, but the rules don't really say)? Maybe they only get this save if they weren't already restrained? Depending on your DM this could be absolutely brutal!
Important note about Conjure Elemental you may not be aware of. You do not lose control if you "lose" concentration. You lose control if your concentration is BROKEN. Things that can BREAK concentration are casting another spell that requires concentration, taking damage, or being incapacitated or killed (PHB Spellcasting rules, under Duration). Ending concentration willingly is not one of these things, and because you can end concentration at any point even during someone else's turn, if you are ever scared that you are about to take a lot of damage for example, you can just decide to stop concentrating on the spell, ending the spell, which causes the elemental to disappear.
the planer binding spell stat the the summon creature summoning duration get extended to match the spell I think all DMs would agree that the casting of a spell is part of the spell duration
and a single druid can cast it alone it would be super difficult but it can be done they cast Conjure elemental and then bound or restrain the elemental somehow that they cant escape and then start casting Planer binding the Elemental would still exist but would become hostile . its summoning Duration extendeds to match the casting of the spell too
Scrying has a great use, though highly situational, that wasn't mentioned. You're sent on a quest, but vital information is missing. A scout's report hasn't come in yet. Sages are digging through old tomes. Whatever. You travel 3 weeks to reach a desert cave - but before you go in to face danger, you've arranged with the quest giver to scry him at noon or sunrise each day (of your journey - he or she can choose to fail the ST) to see if new info has arrived. It has! They hold up a paper for you to read, explaining that the gnomes found an important password to get through a trap without being hurt, and you're given the password --- or the scout returned with information that a red dragon or a ghost has been seen in this cave, so you know one of the monsters you face. You get the basic idea.
I don’t think the normal Druid gets cone of cold, just arctic circle of land
Hey, Treantmonk. I am not sure if this is something you do, but I am on my third draft of a homebrew monk subclass that involves mimicking certain spells to give a tankier feel to the class. I call this subclass Way of The Waning Moon. If you'd be interested in reviewing it, just let me know. I know that I would love your feedback.
Transmute Rock also has the situational benefit of messing up stone structures. If you want to take down a castle for example, no (nonmagical) stone wall is going to withstand this. Even the greatest and innermost of the Theodosian walls (Constantinople) were roughly 20 feet thick and 40 feet tall, meaning 2 out of 3 dimensions fall entirely within the 40-foot cube and you could effectively dissolve a 40 wide section of wall. Most ancient and medieval walls would be smaller than these, and even if walls would be taller than 40 feet, it could still end up with either only the foundation remaining while the higher parts sink into a muddy ramp that could be dispelled back into stone to cross, or with a 40 feet tall and wide gap in the wall that might mess up the structure of some additional remaining parts that weren't caught in the area, causing them to collapse anyway.
Any stone structure that isn't magical or supported well enough by structures made from different materials is screwed the moment someone casts Transmute Rock on it.
In your ratings I'd say it has an orange utility benefit on top of its blue combat effectiveness.
P.S. Someone else pointed out that the stars are missing in these ratings, so I thought I'd repeat that on their behalf. I also hadn't noticed the slightly altered presentation of the rating until I looked for the missing stars, but after noticing it I do prefer the new style, though it'd be nice if the stars do make their return.
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Ah. But that is why the walls were made up of worked stone in mortar, no continuous stone for the Druid to ruin. As of Roman city would be so foolish as to let themselves s open to Celtic magic.
I think that Greater Restoration should probably be ranked green or at worst purple because because it is the only way to get rid of some of those debuffs at 5th level or lower and there is a high chance of these things happening. I wholeheartedly agree that it shouldn't be used to remove exhaustion (I mean 100g and a 5th level spell slot, geez)
I think antilife shell is green because it can be a no save auto win. Not in every circumstance, but it’s not particularly rare either
Tree Stride thought:
If a rope (100ft) is tied to a tree and the druid holds the remaining rope and casts Tree Stride and teleports himself to another tree on the other side of a chasm, does the rope teleport with him? If so, what is the resulting outcome?
It would be cool if the rope then "magically" lies across the chasm still connected to the tree and druid holding it.
Tree Stride would be significantly better if you could bring your party with you. I've always wanted to use it because its such a cool idea. I mean, maybe you could use it in combat as it only takes an action to cast, and allows you to basically disappear inside trees if you're playing outdoors in a forest or something. You could use it when you're low hp to get away from the enemy?
Reincarnate is potentially a hilarious spell, imagine the provided example of a great weapon master being reincarnated as a gnome: "oh hell no, take 1000 more gold imma kill myself real quick and next body better be bigger"
It's strange, but by 9th level, the Druid can feel like a pretty ok'ish backup blaster. The fact that they've got so many concentration spells/summons reinforces this. If you want, you can spend 4 of your 12-14 potential prepared spell slots on Ice Knife, Tidal Wave, Ice Storm and Cone of Cold, and you've got a nice mixture of AoE instants to add to any of your damage-over-time/ summons/ lockdown spells. Ice Knife is an ok'ish mini-AoE but with too many saves, Tidal Wave can be between 1" in size to 30long'x10'x10' and prones enemies, Ice Storm difficult terrains and cylinder targets, and Cone of Cold crushes many mooks, all for ok'ish types of damage. Druids seem to specialise in Cold and Bludgeoning damage, which makes Elemental Adept (Cold) as a feat slightly better (there's only 29 creatures in total immune to Cold damage, and none to magical bludgeoning that I know of). Amazing targeting versatility, and spell slot sustain, due to the wide spread of these spells too.
It's a nice little toolkit, and can combo with subclass auto-preps, wildshape uses, and a menagerie of concentration spells so that you still do pretty good DPR, just not with any individual spell (or bit of a spell).
Where did the stars go?
So if I have this right - a Druid’s party can almost always have water walk be unaffected by Transmute Rock? Seems… really good
I think if your as either variant human or CL reincarnate has a pretty good chance to actually improve your character. Or just be a sidegrade where you lose +1 to your primary attribute but gain other useful features. In the case where you are gimped like the 30% chance a two weapon fighter could be switched to halfling or gnome you could have that be a whole character arc for them as they search for a way to restore their body etc. So I personally think reincarnate while not super powerful is still very cool and fun.
Don't you lose the feat from being a variant human.
Spells with a casting time greater than one action require concentration only while you are casting the spell, not for the duration of the spell. It makes planar binding a little bit better
Also, raise dead gives the player a 4 day penalty to all attacks, saving throws and ability checks that is crippling on the first 2 days. If time is a big factor in your campaign, you probably don't have 2 days to waste.
Control Winds, calms winds... all I can think of is if you're in a environment of strong wind already and it's enough of a problem that you would use a high level spell to remove that natural strong wind obstacle. It's like that other super-niche feature of Control Water that lets you be like Moses, but only for 100 feet.
Based on where we think it all went down…Moses likely didn’t control much more than that.
I think you're picking nits on Planar Binding, but otherwise I find your ratings pretty much spot-on. As far as Reincarnate goes, I've always loathed that spell, and for exactly the same reason you've outlined. I've solved the problem in my own campaigns by giving druids access to Raise Dead and just ignoring Reincarnate altogether.
„..Greater Restoration is a spell that you aren‘t going to need - “ cut to ad xDD
Well well well, Treantmonk bad confirmed..
Maybe druid was the wrong choice for my current campaign which takes place entirely in the astral sea. A lot of the best druid spells so far have required natural terrain of some kind; plant growth, spike growth, wall of stone, transmute rock... Are there any druid spells that use psychic winds 😅?
In watching this you mention Druids not having teleportation. I thought Druids had Dimension Door in AD&D 1e but I researched it and they did not; I do not think they have had it in any edition. I think on any of the teleportation spells, Dimension Door should be on the Druid spell list.
I'm not saying that Insect Plague is a great spell, but in my last campaign my 2nd or 3rd level wizard was hit with it while on a flying broom. It still makes me shudder.
About reincarnation: if you actually want to change your race, this seems like the cheapest option. Not optimal, but has niche use.
This is why I would just let the soul decide it's race and it could be any playable race in that world. You could literally just keep dying and be brought back until you get the race you want anyways.
Circumstantial spells like Awaken, Scrying, Greater Restoration, even Reincarnate are so much better when you prepare from your entire class list that the orange rating is effy. You never prepare them without knowing you gonna use them, and when you need them they often make the difference. In other notes, Reincarnate was so much fun when you could come back as an awakened/anthropomorphic animal, they should have kept that.
I've used transmute rock to blow holes in walls. Not the best way to do it, but it's reliable.
You do have high hit point focused healing. It's called Polymorph.
I noticed you didn't actually put the stars on the spell names like you usually do.
I'm not colourblind myself so its hardly a bother to me, I was just curious why you stopped?
I screwed up, stars will be back next vid.
When playing a summoner of any kind the DM needs to be your ally. Find one who is cooperative, encouraging, easily bribed, and lazy enough to just let you tell them what creature you try to summon.
In my experience, most DM's like to know beforehand so they can have the stats ready. Or, if they're as "lazy" as me, they let you keep track of the creature(s) and chose what you summon. Because they have enough creatures to run, it's good future DM training for the player to have to run the creature(s) themselves, and they just want you to get to play with whatever creature it was that you wanted to summon because they want you to have fun and live the dream (so long as your dream doesn't take too long and bores everyone else).
TL;DR: I am the kind of DM who will let you have your pack of velociraptors, several time a day if you have the slots. I will also come at you with my own packs of velociraptors. It's only fair...
Had a player charge up to a guy and Antilife Shell this, trapping it inside with him and fought him Thunderdome style.
The commentary on Reincarnate was interesting. Unconscious is the absence of conscious thought. Dead is... well, in a fantasy campaign that has entire planes of existence relegated to collecting the souls of the dead, I'd have to consider that the dead are not, in fact, unconscious, and fully capable of making the choice to be reincarnated or not. Sometimes I think that optimization does not strive beyond mechanics, and ignores the meta-mechanics that the game itself makes abundantly clear.
I don't think there is an argument that Planar Binding requires concentration. The duration is listed as 24 hours and there is no concentration indication as there always is for concentration spells. Also, the arguments about casting time being 1 round off for someone else summoning really wouldn't make much sense given that the spell describes "Typically, the creature is first summoned into the center of an inverted magic circle in order to keep it trapped while this spell is cast.". This implies one round of casting "first".
43:45 Fairy sure a creature has to be aware of a spell effect to use it's legendary resistance against it.
With conjure elemental my celestial warlock gained the friendship of an air elemental and could summon it and not need to concentrate to keep it friendly.
Ok just imagine this... in your turn you cast transmute rock (rock to mud), any enemy that fails their save sinks in the mud... Then one other other spellcaster in your party (or you on your turn) dispels the effect... Would you rule that the enemies are now trapped in the rock?
I would treat it the same as transmute mud to rock.
Dude. Planar binding maintains the summoning during casting. You can use your own summon.