Hey Lee! nice to see these types of vids again. it feels like it's been a while. 1. nice 2 caster combo. however, how do you address smart ass DMs who say the maelstrom will destroy the spike growth? 2. hold + smite/sneak attack is a classic. personally though i prefer eldritch smite over divine smite for the extra prone and better spell slot scaling (more dmg). eldritch smite also means hexblade/shilelagh tomelock which mean hold lands more consistently (caster and attack stat alignment which pure paladins don't have). 3. only thing i like about this combo is conjure minor elementals is like the other conjure spells, you are at the mercy of your DM in terms of choosing that specific mephit. 4. to up the chances of it jumping use empowered spell metamagic as well to increase the chances of aligning dice. 5. you can actually choose to release them from telekinesis freely (make them drop and take fall dmg) and use your action to lift them up again for consistent 6d10 falling dmg and prone every 2 rounds. here's my fave spell combo for dmg: scorching ray + invisibility/silent image + assassinate + action surge + bugbear step 1: generate surprise via invisibility/silent image or stealth step 2: cast upcasted scorching ray. assuming a level 10 build with scorching ray upcasted to 3rd level that's 4 rays at 4d6 each. because you auto-crit that's 4 rays of 8d6 each. that's 32d6. step 3: action surge and repeat step 2 for another 32d6. that's 64d6 on round 1 at level 10 with advantage from 120 ft away (outside most creatures blindsight or audible perception range so surprise is easy to achieve).
Hey Rob! Yea, I will be doing a mixture of content. Having fun with skits but don't wanna stop the combos or spell/magic focus of the channel. 1. The difficulty is that the DM has the final say. If I were asking or trying to explain how it works I would simply attribute it to like a "coral reef" situation. Nothing about the maelstrom says anything about destroying terrain, but even if it did "destroy" or "uproot" the spike growth, then it just made the spikes mobile within the whirlpool. It wouldn't just disintigrate it. 2. Yea, the only reason I went with Divine smite was because it can technically be used more than once per turn where you can't do that with a classic "spell". But yea very good point! 3. Thats true, but the good news is only the Azer/Gargoyle don't have death burst. So its highy probable that you at least get a mephit of some sort. 4. Thats an amazing idea that I didn't even consider! Well done! 5. True! Although, I think the likleyhood of them failing multiple times over is pretty slim but it is definitley possible! As for your combo...I feel sorry for your DM...hahah
@@ThisCrits happy valentines! which dnd spell for you best fits the valentine theme? 1. agreed. just curious how you'd explain it to those types of dms. 3. tbh letting the dm choose for any spell was such a bad design choice. 5. ahh. not really. telekinesis is contested charisma check. lots of monsters have low cha. plus this sort of thing is so easy to boost as a sorc (even without multiclassing) by simply pumping cha, magical guidance, picking up the lucky feat and playing as a wild magic sorc (advantage). if you still remember my jedi sorc build, i shared back then i typically didn't fail a single check. i was always rolling with advantage and had 2 rerolls at my disposal. a lore bard can also do this very well with jack of all trades, cutting words and lucky. as for the combo, well its kinda "needed" at our table. he's like matt mercer in that he typically maximizes the monsters hp (like umbrasyl was from legend of vox machina). thought i'd share the anecdote as i just watched the awesome season 2 finale.
Use Rime's binding ice instead of cone of cold if you want to save the 5th level spell slot. Should still pop the mephits and has the bonus of, if the target fails their save, they are restrained
Do you have any more one person spell combos along the lines of Watery Sphere+Freezing Sphere? They don't have to be just for damage either. Other combos I know about are Spike Growth+Thorn Whip, Grease+Fog Cloud, and Hold Person/Monster+Disintegrate.
i'll share some as you wait for Lee's vid as this is my expertise: 1. flaming sphere/dawn + booming blade. stay in place and you get punished. move and you get punished. catch-22. add guardian of faith for more punishment. and if they move, flaming sphere/dawn can just follow them anyway. 2. wall of force + sacred flame. this is an assured, no save, no attack roll kill. anybody who cant get out of wall of force will just eventually die to sacred flame since sacred flame passes through wall of force. 3. watery sphere + psychic lance or command: sing. one of watery sphere's understated effects, much like maelstrom, is it engulfs enemies in water. this means unless the enemy can breathe in water or don't need to breathe, they have to hold their breath (thus neutralizing alot of casters). holding one's breath though usually isn't an issue but if you fail to do so it starts the suffocation timer which means that creature will die regardless of hp left in 1 + con mod rounds unless they get out of the water. command: sing forces them to open their mouth and thus stop holding their breath. being incapacitated such via psychic lance also prevents you from holding your breath. both force the suffocation timer. 4. spirit guardians + ray of frost/lance of lethargy. spirit of guardians halves a creature's speed with no save. ray of frost/lance of lethargy reduces that further so that it's difficult for a creature to get out of spirit guardians so they will just keep taking dmg every turn. with action surge + quickened spell on turn 1 and quickened spell on subsequent rounds, you can actually prevent a creature of 40 ft speed or lower from actually moving at all by casting ray of frost/lance of lethargy twice. 5. spike growth/entangle + plant growth. the issue with plant growth is while it's a great control spell, it's not adaptable to alot of areas. spike growth or entangle creates that plant area for you while adding difficult terrain making it difficult for most creatures to get out of your lockdown by needing to expend 25 ft of movement for every 1 square they want to move. so creatures with 40 speed or less can only move 1 square per round (3 if they dash). you can push them back in with telekinetic, gust, etc. most of the combos above are doable by sorcs as they are the masters of spell combos. enjoy!
@@ThisCrits I saw the note, but pretty much everyone I play with forgets that holding a spell takes your concentration a lot of the time, so I took it as an opportiunity for a gentle reminder, not critizism
Hey rivers! Thanks for coming by! I just updated the link but if it still causes you trouble feel free to message me privately here or on Twitter! Don't be a stranger 😄
Pretty sure you can't twin chaos bolt as twinned spells must be incapable of targeting more than one creature and since chaos bolt CAN jump to a second creature it is capable of targeting multiple creatures as all creatures ever effected by a spell are its targets
The way I rationalized it was that when chaos bolt "jumps" to another target it is not just free damage effecting another creature, you need to roll another attack roll as if it were another spell cast. But 100% agree this is definitley up to interpretation!
@@ThisCrits Actually Geoffrey is right here per sage advice. if a spell can potentially target 2 creatures or more at the level it's cast, it's ineligible for twinned spell. chaos bolt potentially can add more targets to the initial cast (it's not re-casting the spell) and thus ineligible. still i can see your logic here since there's a high chance at it's base chaos bolt never jumps. A DM can rule of cool it as always.
Keep in mind all of these are simply meant to inform, not to ruin fun. You can always do whatever you want at your table. Divine Wrath is going to be capped at 6d8 for every single attack you have. Sadly as per RAW the word “maximum” of 6d8 applies to crits too. This is confirmed by sage advice iirc. Kaboom of Cold works in theory though the DC of the Mephits is somewhat low. Twinned spell sadly only works on spells that can NEVER damage more than one creature. See the rules of being unable to twin GFB. A player of mine used coins for animate objects once it was INSANE. Telekinesis is also pretty insane should you manage to get it off so adding them together would probably warrant a “that was fucking nutty, but please don’t hurt me like that again 🥺” from me as the DM.
This is all amazing information! 👏 I honestly never knew that about paladins smite! I knew the death burst ability was questionable but honestly all of these are up to the DM as is anything when your playing hahah. And I honestly think any dm who has experienced the pain of animate objects may be hesitant to allow this but the raw effectiveness of the combo is just stupid hahah Thanks for hanging out! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did your comment 😀
@@ThisCrits oh absolutely! Like I said just meant to inform others not trying to be a pedantic rules lawyer. But yeah animate objects…one of the most underrated and underused spells in the game.
FYI there's no sage advice confirming that divine smite caps crits dice as well. all the sage advice is simply that divine smite works with crits. your RAW reading of it is in very bad faith as well. The wording on critical hits is you roll the dmg dice twice, not add more dmg dice and thus you aren't breaking the 6d8 cap. but as you said, anything can be ruled at your table. RAW? nope. divine smite crits work the way Lee described them.
@@ThisCrits he's right about twinned chaos bolt but not about divine smite crits. the way you explained divine smite crits is what's supported by RAW and sage advice.
Hey Lee! nice to see these types of vids again. it feels like it's been a while.
1. nice 2 caster combo. however, how do you address smart ass DMs who say the maelstrom will destroy the spike growth?
2. hold + smite/sneak attack is a classic. personally though i prefer eldritch smite over divine smite for the extra prone and better spell slot scaling (more dmg). eldritch smite also means hexblade/shilelagh tomelock which mean hold lands more consistently (caster and attack stat alignment which pure paladins don't have).
3. only thing i like about this combo is conjure minor elementals is like the other conjure spells, you are at the mercy of your DM in terms of choosing that specific mephit.
4. to up the chances of it jumping use empowered spell metamagic as well to increase the chances of aligning dice.
5. you can actually choose to release them from telekinesis freely (make them drop and take fall dmg) and use your action to lift them up again for consistent 6d10 falling dmg and prone every 2 rounds.
here's my fave spell combo for dmg:
scorching ray + invisibility/silent image + assassinate + action surge + bugbear
step 1: generate surprise via invisibility/silent image or stealth
step 2: cast upcasted scorching ray. assuming a level 10 build with scorching ray upcasted to 3rd level that's 4 rays at 4d6 each. because you auto-crit that's 4 rays of 8d6 each. that's 32d6.
step 3: action surge and repeat step 2 for another 32d6.
that's 64d6 on round 1 at level 10 with advantage from 120 ft away (outside most creatures blindsight or audible perception range so surprise is easy to achieve).
Hey Rob!
Yea, I will be doing a mixture of content. Having fun with skits but don't wanna stop the combos or spell/magic focus of the channel.
1. The difficulty is that the DM has the final say. If I were asking or trying to explain how it works I would simply attribute it to like a "coral reef" situation. Nothing about the maelstrom says anything about destroying terrain, but even if it did "destroy" or "uproot" the spike growth, then it just made the spikes mobile within the whirlpool. It wouldn't just disintigrate it.
2. Yea, the only reason I went with Divine smite was because it can technically be used more than once per turn where you can't do that with a classic "spell". But yea very good point!
3. Thats true, but the good news is only the Azer/Gargoyle don't have death burst. So its highy probable that you at least get a mephit of some sort.
4. Thats an amazing idea that I didn't even consider! Well done!
5. True! Although, I think the likleyhood of them failing multiple times over is pretty slim but it is definitley possible!
As for your combo...I feel sorry for your DM...hahah
@@ThisCrits happy valentines! which dnd spell for you best fits the valentine theme?
1. agreed. just curious how you'd explain it to those types of dms.
3. tbh letting the dm choose for any spell was such a bad design choice.
5. ahh. not really. telekinesis is contested charisma check. lots of monsters have low cha. plus this sort of thing is so easy to boost as a sorc (even without multiclassing) by simply pumping cha, magical guidance, picking up the lucky feat and playing as a wild magic sorc (advantage).
if you still remember my jedi sorc build, i shared back then i typically didn't fail a single check. i was always rolling with advantage and had 2 rerolls at my disposal. a lore bard can also do this very well with jack of all trades, cutting words and lucky.
as for the combo, well its kinda "needed" at our table. he's like matt mercer in that he typically maximizes the monsters hp (like umbrasyl was from legend of vox machina). thought i'd share the anecdote as i just watched the awesome season 2 finale.
My favorite 5e combo is (Prismatic Wall + Reverse Gravity)
Use Rime's binding ice instead of cone of cold if you want to save the 5th level spell slot. Should still pop the mephits and has the bonus of, if the target fails their save, they are restrained
Thats a good point! I actually came up with the combo before that spell came out so I should 100% update it!
02:25 "At level 3" *holds up 2 fingers* haha Thanks for the video!
Wow, calling me out hahahah
I love using Mephits to make them explode. I'm happy to see others enjoying it!
Mephits are so fun! I treat them like angry little elemental pixies hahah
Do you have any more one person spell combos along the lines of Watery Sphere+Freezing Sphere? They don't have to be just for damage either.
Other combos I know about are Spike Growth+Thorn Whip, Grease+Fog Cloud, and Hold Person/Monster+Disintegrate.
I may or may not be making a video specifically for single person combos...who knows... But if I were it might be coming out in a few weeks.
i'll share some as you wait for Lee's vid as this is my expertise:
1. flaming sphere/dawn + booming blade. stay in place and you get punished. move and you get punished. catch-22. add guardian of faith for more punishment. and if they move, flaming sphere/dawn can just follow them anyway.
2. wall of force + sacred flame. this is an assured, no save, no attack roll kill. anybody who cant get out of wall of force will just eventually die to sacred flame since sacred flame passes through wall of force.
3. watery sphere + psychic lance or command: sing. one of watery sphere's understated effects, much like maelstrom, is it engulfs enemies in water. this means unless the enemy can breathe in water or don't need to breathe, they have to hold their breath (thus neutralizing alot of casters). holding one's breath though usually isn't an issue but if you fail to do so it starts the suffocation timer which means that creature will die regardless of hp left in 1 + con mod rounds unless they get out of the water. command: sing forces them to open their mouth and thus stop holding their breath. being incapacitated such via psychic lance also prevents you from holding your breath. both force the suffocation timer.
4. spirit guardians + ray of frost/lance of lethargy. spirit of guardians halves a creature's speed with no save. ray of frost/lance of lethargy reduces that further so that it's difficult for a creature to get out of spirit guardians so they will just keep taking dmg every turn. with action surge + quickened spell on turn 1 and quickened spell on subsequent rounds, you can actually prevent a creature of 40 ft speed or lower from actually moving at all by casting ray of frost/lance of lethargy twice.
5. spike growth/entangle + plant growth. the issue with plant growth is while it's a great control spell, it's not adaptable to alot of areas. spike growth or entangle creates that plant area for you while adding difficult terrain making it difficult for most creatures to get out of your lockdown by needing to expend 25 ft of movement for every 1 square they want to move. so creatures with 40 speed or less can only move 1 square per round (3 if they dash). you can push them back in with telekinetic, gust, etc.
most of the combos above are doable by sorcs as they are the masters of spell combos. enjoy!
@@TheRobversion1 Thank you for sharing these. I appreciate it.
@@anonymouse2675 np. If you have questions, let me know.
Don't forget for Kaboom of Cold that holding a spell needs your concentration so two casters needed
Good call out! I put a note during the intro so I didnt have to say it at every combo hahah
@@ThisCrits I saw the note, but pretty much everyone I play with forgets that holding a spell takes your concentration a lot of the time, so I took it as an opportiunity for a gentle reminder, not critizism
@@glarak9819 Oh please don't think I took it offensivley! I really apprecaite it and really should mention it on a per combo basis hahah
Cool video
BTW your discord invite does not work
Hey rivers! Thanks for coming by! I just updated the link but if it still causes you trouble feel free to message me privately here or on Twitter! Don't be a stranger 😄
Pretty sure you can't twin chaos bolt as twinned spells must be incapable of targeting more than one creature and since chaos bolt CAN jump to a second creature it is capable of targeting multiple creatures as all creatures ever effected by a spell are its targets
The way I rationalized it was that when chaos bolt "jumps" to another target it is not just free damage effecting another creature, you need to roll another attack roll as if it were another spell cast. But 100% agree this is definitley up to interpretation!
@@ThisCrits Actually Geoffrey is right here per sage advice. if a spell can potentially target 2 creatures or more at the level it's cast, it's ineligible for twinned spell. chaos bolt potentially can add more targets to the initial cast (it's not re-casting the spell) and thus ineligible.
still i can see your logic here since there's a high chance at it's base chaos bolt never jumps. A DM can rule of cool it as always.
Keep in mind all of these are simply meant to inform, not to ruin fun. You can always do whatever you want at your table.
Divine Wrath is going to be capped at 6d8 for every single attack you have. Sadly as per RAW the word “maximum” of 6d8 applies to crits too. This is confirmed by sage advice iirc.
Kaboom of Cold works in theory though the DC of the Mephits is somewhat low.
Twinned spell sadly only works on spells that can NEVER damage more than one creature. See the rules of being unable to twin GFB.
A player of mine used coins for animate objects once it was INSANE. Telekinesis is also pretty insane should you manage to get it off so adding them together would probably warrant a “that was fucking nutty, but please don’t hurt me like that again 🥺” from me as the DM.
This is all amazing information! 👏
I honestly never knew that about paladins smite! I knew the death burst ability was questionable but honestly all of these are up to the DM as is anything when your playing hahah.
And I honestly think any dm who has experienced the pain of animate objects may be hesitant to allow this but the raw effectiveness of the combo is just stupid hahah
Thanks for hanging out! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did your comment 😀
@@ThisCrits oh absolutely! Like I said just meant to inform others not trying to be a pedantic rules lawyer.
But yeah animate objects…one of the most underrated and underused spells in the game.
FYI there's no sage advice confirming that divine smite caps crits dice as well. all the sage advice is simply that divine smite works with crits. your RAW reading of it is in very bad faith as well. The wording on critical hits is you roll the dmg dice twice, not add more dmg dice and thus you aren't breaking the 6d8 cap.
but as you said, anything can be ruled at your table. RAW? nope. divine smite crits work the way Lee described them.
@@ThisCrits he's right about twinned chaos bolt but not about divine smite crits. the way you explained divine smite crits is what's supported by RAW and sage advice.