One of the main reasons that I think Warlocks don't get spells like Absorb Elements or Shield is that they are so much less useful on a character with so few spell slots. Reaction spells just feel bad to use when they're half of your spell slots in a fight.
@@NerdImmersion Personally, I think giving Warlock's absorb elements via an invocation would be the best. "Eldritch Resilience: You can cast the Absorb Elements spell a number of times equal to your Charisma Modifier. You regain all expended uses after you finish a long rest." Giving it to them once seems underpowered, but at will definitely seems like a bit much.
@@Treblaine the party has to have ~4 short rests every day to have the "most spells slots" per day (in comparison to a full caster). In my experience that never happens. Maybe in a full dungeon dive where cant get long rests.
Guiding Bolt has soo many fun memories. Our Group was fighting Sahuagin and their priest fired guiding bolt at out Celestial warlock who's resistant to Radiant dealing negligible amount of damage. Warlock looks at priest says my turn and crit hits it with 4th level Guiding bolt.
My Shadar Kai fighter got hit with a finger of death from Halaster Black-cloak and it also did negligible damage (made the save, resistance to necrotic), I tried to be cool and talk smack, I then was hit with a meteor swarm and it knocked me out by 1 hit point he then pulled out my tongue (it got regenerated by a druid later on) and cursed me, now my fighter has a black hand print on his face and rambles like an Insane person if he tries to talk about the time he made the mad mage look foolish. i guess what I'm saying is sometimes you try to do cool stuff and it works other times you fail horribly.
The thing about Jim's Magic Missile is that it's one of the few spells that actually can get _worse_ as you upcast it. Upcasting it means more missiles, which means a higher chance of rolling a nat1 on at least one missile, which blows up all of the missiles and wastes the spell slot and action.
I love Detect Magic, and now my Wizard can get it as Eldritch Adept and I'm so happy. Her whole thing was that when she was young she has Sherlock vision for magic and nature and stuff, and I can flavor this as the heightening of that innate ability to just grok the weave
I'd add Bane, reducing enemies saving throws and attacks is as good as what bless does, only downside is that they can save against the initial cast of Bane. However, unlike Bless you rarely need to upcast this so it is a great use of a 1st level spell slot even at higher levels.
In theory, Bane holds its own at higher levels. Until you start fighting higher level monsters with high saves. It doesn't lose *all* it's usefulness, to be sure. But there are a good number of high-CR monsters out there with really high Charisma scores. Most of the time, at higher levels, you're better off avoiding "save or suck" spells, because they get progressively less reliable. And they approach futility when it comes to legendary creatures. What really keeps Bane in the game is that it affects 3 (or more) opponents, so there's a decent chance at least one fails their save. This is something that's killing me playing a Bard currently: exactly ZERO ranged attack spells (and only ONE, mêlée attack spell at 13th level). A spell-focused Bard who doesn't use Magical Secrets to grab an attack spell is literally incapable of benefitting from Advantage, nor can they ever crit.
@@anthonynorman7545 Agreed, plus the normal version takes up space for other potential spells which is a price all its own. Perhaps it would be like a lesser version of Detect Magic as a feature for everyone, and make the actual spell version more powerful. Idk, it'd take some tweaking for sure but it's an interesting idea.
If you use the Sleep spell, the spell specifically mentions it starts with the creature with the lowest hit points first, then the one with the next highest, and so on. The issue will come if all the targets have the same number of hit points and only one will be able to fall asleep. For that, see “Simultaneous Effects” in Xanathar’s Guide on page 77. If two effects would occur simultaneously (in this case, two creatures trying to fall asleep), then whomever’s turn it is gets to decide the order in which it happens. So in the case of a tie, then the caster will get decide, assuming they cast it on their turn. If Sleep is readied, then whomever’s turn it is when it’s triggered will get to decide. So let’s assume I’m casting Sleep, and I roll a 27 to determine how many people I can put to sleep. There are three valid targets with 5, 13, and 13 current hit points. The creature with 5 hp goes to sleep, and then I get to choose which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. Instead, I ready Sleep if any enemies draw weapons. The creature with 13 hp goes, so I use my reaction to target them with sleep. Like before, the creature with 5 hp goes down first. Since it’s the DM’s turn, the DM gets to decide which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. We’ll say in this case, the DM chooses to have the other creature not taking a turn be affected. He could then have the creature decide to spend it’s action to wake up the other 13 hp creature if he was feeling like a meanie.
Yah, I agree. You don't get to choose the target using Sleep. And it can be difficult to get it to target only enemies. Definitely great for taking out mobs of enemies.
Sleep is usually a pretty safe spell to use near allies, since the PCs engaging in melee with a lot of low level creatures (which is when you'd most want to use it) should have higher hp than those creatures.
I'd only have Tasha's if my players actually tell me a joke and make me laugh. But it's ok, cuz I'll literally laugh at ANYTHING. They can throw a pickle and yell DILL WITH IT, and I'll be on the ground. 🥒
The only time I ever thought Blade Ward was useful was to reduce the damage to optimize Armor of Agathys. My Levistus Teifling Hexblade/Redemption Pali used this tactic all the time. I've always wondered if that's how the spell works RAI. It kinda seems a bit exploitive.
Sadly there are better ways to synergyze Agathys than wasting your turn waiting to be hit. Abjuration Wizard's arcane ward is a great example of that, negating the dmg before it even hits agathys' temp hp
Blade Ward is one of the cantrips that gets a big boost in usefulness through the Bladesinger. You can use it as part of your attack once you have Extra Attack. So, if you're concentrating on a spell, any damage you take that gets reduced means a lower CON saving throw.
I'd like Jim's Magic Missile a lot better if it could hit objects as well as creatures. Otherwise I kinda don't see the point. I will say I'm tickled by the idea of spell royalties and royalty fees as material components. Is Tenser somewhere busy counting all his Tenser Transformation profits? If so, this means Tenser is dealing in 'roids for Wizards and this makes me smile.
That just seems massively worse than regular magic missile, for one, it can miss, and for two, you have 3 chances to just slap yourself to the face instead of actually doing anything useful every time you use it.
When I was playing a Druid in an adventure league game, ice knife was by far my favorite spell. The exploding effect was insanely helpful when well aimed.
The other great part about Find Familiar is you don't even need line of sight to teleport your familiar to a location. The spell says you can summon it (with just an action) to any location within 30 feet. This means you can blink it into existence on the other side of walls, or inside locked buildings. It's a bit broken with how well it can bypass high DC locks and get recon on things. That being said, be careful not to step on the toes of your rogue. If you have a rogue in your party, let them do the sneaking and the recon, don't hog the spotlight. Or the other fun synergy you can do is lend them your familiar, have it sit on their shoulder while they sneak around. You can then look through it's eyes and report back to the group what the rogue is doing/seeing. This leaves the agency and the sneaking decisions to the rogue, but lets your familiar contribute in a helpful passive sort of way.
As a new player playing a Cleric, my favorite and constantly used 1st spells (besides Cure Wounds) is Bless/Bane. I've made the GM lose her mind many of times because she forgets to take that d4 penalty and then misses her action.
Starts to compete with the excellent spirit guardians for your concentration later on. However they are all indeed great. Cleric just has a great low level spell list allround. With healing word, guiding bolt, inflict wounds, detect magic as a ritual as other stand outs.
Honestly not really a fan of Jim's Magic Missile. To me the greatest thing about default magic missile is that it always hits, which makes it perfect for breaking an enemy caster's concentration. When it comes to multi-attack roll spells my go to is Scorching Ray (I know it's lvl 2)
No Hex ? In my mind one of the best spells in the game extra damage on every hit for an houre plus out of combat use by giving disadvantage on an ability check and there is no save against it so fx. if you don't want I person to lie give them disadvantage on charisma. Also feather fall can save one so much. And protection from good and evil can make hard fights extremely easy. But mostly a good list.
I almost completely agree with your top 6, and that's roughly the order that I would put them in, too. I would probably drop Magic Missile down to #7 and put Dissonant Whispers at #8 right next to it, but I would leave the rest of your top 6 in that order. And I would find room for Hex in the top 6, maybe in Magic Missile's slot at #3 (and give honorable mention to Hunter's Mark when talking about Hex). I think any Warlock will tell you that Armor of Agathys is one of their better spells, but that if they had to choose just one level 1 spell from their spell list, it would be Hex. According to Sage Advice, you can maintain concentration on a spell during a short rest or long rest as long as you don't sleep (a good reason to choose the Aspect of the Moon invocation if you're a level 9+ Tomelock with a 24 hour duration on Hex). You had a pretty good top 15 list, but I think that Mage Armor and Feather Fall (because of the utility it provides once you learn to fly in a few levels) should also be on that list. I just can't imagine a Sorcerer (except for Draconic Ancestry Sorcerer) or Wizard without mage armor, fly, and feather fall.
I'm really surprised to see Sleep on this list when it falls off pretty hard outside of extremely low level encounters and not to have Bane on the list.
currently playing my first bard and have had three games. in the last two I used whispers to kill the wizard that was about to attack us, before is barely lifted a finger, and on the third I got a large sea serpent to move away for a round to give everyone time to recover a bit.
I like to give a honorable mention to Hex, not as a spell a wartlock casts with their spell slots but from a spell scroll, keep in mind that it has no save so the lower Dc from the scroll not going to effect it here. disadvantage on the right ability check can help someone on your team like a rouge hiding from someone in combat for that sneak attack or the fighter grabing someone and so on, and the 1d6 necrotic per attack helps a lot with Eldritch Blast and can last up to 2 hours, moving from target if your killing them, the most you get out a lv1 spell scroll.
Top spells of maybe the most versatile level and it's 15 instead of 10 and you didn't do a poll. Yeah, you're trying to get the internet mad at you! 😅😂
I have plans to do polls eventually. I'm thinking about a fan created Top 10 Magic Items, using Google Forms. I think that's a thing I can do. When I start getting low on energy/ideas, I'll just poll you all and get you to make up my mind for me :P
14:32 What you were being told about sleep is that because you can choose where the point of origin is and it is a sphere of effect, you can generally pick which creatures it is going to effect. You can pick a point above the battlefield such that the radius only effects the 10' tall oger and not the orc minions surrounding him, etc. Basically, at lower levels you use it as crowd control of multiple creatures, at higher levels you can use it basically as "Power Word: Sleep".
I agree with you on sleep. You dont get to choose the creatures Fun thought, if you're surrounded, you could try to sleep the enemies around you, but you'll risk putting yourself to sleep
I know this video is about 1st levels but I learned that banishing smite works with all weapons like bows and guns so that’s cool to see that theirs a ranged smite.
I like the detect magic rule. I agree that you do not get to choose the targets for sleep. And I have a homebrew rule for Jim's magic missile: If you crit hit BEFORE you crit fail, the crit missile still strikes the target, but each other missile of the fail and after does 2 points of damage per missile when they explode in your face.
@7:15 combining this spell with the warcaster feat and the pole arm master feat lets you cast a spell on someone when they enter your reach. What better spell to use than this one, which can force them to run away.
About Armor of Agathys. There is a Dragonmarked Dwarf race which gets Armor of Agathys added to thier spell lists if there are casters. Team that with being an Abjuration Wizard and you're a pretty tanky wizard. Casting it adds to your shield, which stacks with the Temp HP. Team that with Fire Shield later and you could make a fun Muscle Mage
Why would one have to wait for the familiar's turn to use its reaction? Reactions can occur outside of one's turn which is how early rogues can get 2 sneak attacks in one round.
You don't have to wait the familiar just needs to be in position, the familiar needs to be touching the creature you want to cast a spell on, if it is touching said creature on your turn you can do it otherwise not, most people will hold a spell until the familiars turn so the familiar (an Owl is the best for this) can fly in (or crawl, slither etc...) touch the creature letting you cast your spell through the familiar and (if it is an Owl) fly away without an attack of opportunity. It is about waiting for the familiar to be in a position so you can cast a spell through it, an enemy needs to leave your reach for you to get an attack of opportunity on it, a familiar needs to be touching a creature for you to cast a spell with a range of touch through it and the familiar can only move on its turn, unless you just want to leave it right next to an enemy and hope it doesn't get squished (which it probably will). a reaction occurs when certain criteria are met if your Owl is on your shoulder it can't cast inflict wounds on the Orc 30 feet away can it? But if you hold inflict wounds until your familiar is touching said Orc . . . Like, for example when on your familiars turn it can move to the Orc the spell then goes off and the familiar returns to you.
My personal favourite damaging spell at 1st level is catapult. Magical bludgeoning damage and because of the wording if you have multiple people in the line, if the first enemy makes the save the second has to make the save. If you can line up more than 2 enemy's your basically guaranteed to hit someone. Added bonus is the 3d8 damage and essentially 150ft range
A Levistus Tiefling Blue Dragon Sorcerer is fun too ! Pick ice damage + crowd control (slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm, etc.), it's pretty crippling ..slowing down enemies and hitting them with a less commonly resisted damage type than fire or poison. It's also just fun thematically !
@@evaahh9584 it's as useful as a potion of healing in most combats, if you need to bring someone back up into the action. Not to mention that it can be a literal life safer after combat 10 times per casting.
I love guiding bolt. Like you, I have a fond memory of critting at first level. Best part was the creature was a dm homebrew with vulnerability to radiant.
I'm not a fan of Ice Knife, because splitting up the effects of the spell between an attack roll and a saving throw means you lose out on some of the benefits of either when using it in actual scenarios. You can only crit on part of it, and any bonuses from cover that enemies have will be granting them a +2 or +5 on both their AC and their Dex save. Cold damage isn't as bad as fire, but... it's pretty close. While 64 monsters are immune to fire and only 28 are immune to cold, 83 monsters are resistant to fire and an impressive 103 monsters are resistant to cold. And finally the scaling by 1d6 isn't very impressive. It's the sort of spell that I know I'll never cast after level 5. Identify & Detect Magic are great on Artificers because they're prepared half-casters with ritual casting. Early on when Artificer is pretty weak, (2-3 spell slots per long rest for multiple levels when you're supposed to be acting more like a caster than a martial suuuuuuucks) being able to get use out of ritual spells really helps you to keep feeling relevant and useful. They're also very fun ones to re-flavor :)
You might not have noticed but the frightened condition also gives you disadvantage on ability checks, meaning the target or wrathful smite should also have disadvantage on the check to end the effect. Makes wrathful smite even stronger
I personally love using wrathful smite and it is one of my all time favourite Paladin Spells. One thing that really makes it terrifying as well is that a frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks; so they'd have to use their action to make a check at disadvantage to try and break the effect. edit: Also, awesome list and awesome content. Thank you!
The people from The Deck of Many, who made animated spell cards, also made a homebrew sorcerer who called a frost magic sorcerer. It may be helpful if you are wanting to inspiration for an ice themed mage?
I (like most people) homebrewed to add magic missile to Artificer. I also have added some spells to lists. I agree with three spells being 'all caster' abilities as a good idea: Detect magic, identify and absorb elements. As amazing as it is I can see shield making logical sense as an 'all caster spell' but also an argument that shield is OP and deserves to be 'chosen'. Overall Good list. I know mine would be a bit different. Fun video, thanks.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Bane, Shield of Faith and circumstantially Goodberry are all good candidates for the top 15 as well. Shield of Faith is a personal favorite at any level of the game really. Goodberry on a Life Cleric (Magic Initiate or Multiclass, either works) heals an sweet 40 total by the way.
I quibble with armor of agathys. Yes, it's a first level spell, but it's really only useful when upcast. I'd put Hex/Hunter's Mark in its place, as defining damaging features for their class (and we can put them both on the same line, since they're basically the same thing).
There is one thing I don't like about Find Familiar, and that's that it is only available to Wizards (except Pact of the Chain Warlocks and the Druid optional features in Tasha's Cauldron). I wish it was possible to get this spell with other classes, like Sorcerer, without multiclassing or taking Magic Initiate.
Find Familiar + Arcane Trickster is insane. Depennding on how you di Familiar's initiative, if you ready its Help action for when you make an attack, you can hit the target and then use bonus action to disengage and move away without your familiar provoking an OA if it rides on your shoulder, because RAW Opportunity Attacks are only provoked when a creature uses its action, movement or reaction to move out of an enemy's reach - you're using your movement to move your familiar. Arcane Trickster's don't need owls which is great to minimise meta gaming and allows more varied RP opportunities.
Only 2 minutes in. I totally agree with your assessment of detect magic. If everyone (pretty much) can cast it, just give it to them as a ritual. I also feel wizards should automatically get prestidigitation, clerics thaumaturgy, druids druidcraft, and so on. Edit: Having watched the whole thing now, I'm pretty sure all of my top 10 were in there. I agree that some spell casting classes *cough, warlock, cough* could have gotten a little more love with spell options.
Nice thing about Absorb Elements is it doesn't care about the source of the damage so if your in a friendly AoE you can use that to boost your melee for the next round and shave off some of the damage you are taking its still situational but still gives you the chance to target non immunity/ vulnerability
First and last time I used Jim's magic missile the 3rd attack was a nat 1, but I will definitely try again when I get the chance. Also, didn't know how amazing Find Familiar is.
Shield and absorb elements are great at higher level since you'd otherwise basically waste your 1st level slots, but now you can make regular use of those spell slots!
So I just had an idea for a mechanic to replace detect magic. A character that has the spellcasting or pact magic feature as well as characters with proficiency with arcana can attempt to detect magic in their surrounding. To do so they must make a Arcana ability check and meet a DC determined by the DM, powerful and openly displayed magical auras have a low DC while weak and hidden auras are harder to detect. A character with the ritual caster feat can take 10 minutes to sharpen their senses ability to detect magic, this lets them detect magic the same way the spell allows. As said this is just something I came up off the top of my head, but I still kind off like it. It let's spellcasters use other spells since they don't have to prepare detect magic anymore while also expanding this option to characters who don't cast spells themselves. I anticipate that some might not like tying this ability to Intelligence, which is fair but not really a huge problem. Int is overall the least useful ability score so a boost in that regard is always welcome and this change would make perceiving magic a lot like perception in general where all characters can see and hear, but wise characters are just much better at it.
I disagree on the magic missile.. it states "each dart hits..." followed by "a dart deals 1d4+1 damage"... it implies a roll for each dart, similar to other multi target speels like eldrich blast and scorching ray.. and not like area spells that deal X damage to all targets.. of course, the bonus of magic missile is replacing the expected attack roll (and a chance of crits) with automatic hitting the target and being countered by "shield".. was the intent on rolling once for all missiles, they should make it more clear (and on beyound, the text is the same as on the book). ...yet, as google pointed me to a tweet.. and we well know.. it is up to a GM, on stating how to deal with this... I keep it as before, rolling one d4 for each dart.
It is a pretty good list Ted. I would but Entangle and Faerie Fire too but still you can't include them all. Also I feel like lots of people miss Ice Knife's hit or miss part I guess.
Once played a variation of the Seeker Warlock, had Armor of Agathys active and used the Shielding Aurora ability to have resistance to all damage for 1 round, the Boss(Balhannoth) then hit me 3 times taking 75 cold damage (spell slot level 5) and i took less than 25 total, needless to say the boss regretted its decision that day. An amazing spell that scales perfectly, and is incredibly powerful if you have a way to get resistance to the damage coming your way, either through something like Multiclass Barb for Rage, Stoneskin, etc.
You indeed can't directly choose what creatures are impacted by Sleep. As with any AoE you can be fiddly with your positioning to try to only hit enemies, airburst it 19 feet over a high HP thing's head so it's the only thing in range for instance to try to take it down without taking down anyone else nearby
I would take out the Jim's MM as an offshoot thing and put in Shield of Faith. Other than that can't really say there would be any that are significantly better than the ones on the list, and the JMM is also really good, but I just can't really see the themed books being something that should be implemented to every game. There is a thin line between "Lol I'm BATMAN!" and "Lol I'm "
Warlock is generally not a very elemental based caster. they are an evil, death, mind, and lifeforce related caster. this is why they lose out on access to a lot of the pure elemental spells. Sometimes they get cold damage spells to reflect the chill of the grave such as with Armor of Agathys, but generally speaking, I think it fits their flavor that they aren't given all the elemental spells directly, and this is as someone who is currently playing and loves warlocks.
Editing is getting tighter, loved the thumbnail. Drop the bit, you put out content often there's no need to think of some cornball air filler in the two seconds it takes for your logo to play and I think you will have ascended, imo. Great content either way.
Bane is critically overlooked in my opinion. It is amazing in early campaigns and has often saved my and my allies butts. Story: We were fighting an air elemental and our druid knows i can cast bane and holds his action blight until i casted bane on it. I cast bane it fails its save and then fails again thanks to bane against blight and takes a huge chunk of damage which gave us a 3-4 turn earlier win which would have downed or killed us maybe.
I'm playing a paladin with a lil bit of multiclass into a sorcerer. Would you pick Shield in that situation, potentially wasting a spell slot for a smite?
Fun fact: I ran a quick 5-session campaign once and the druid cast Ice Knife 4 times throughout it. She didn't cause a single point of damage with it, she missed every attack roll and everybody made their saving throws. Sometimes dice just hate your character...
Cool thing with Armor of Agathys: Mark of Warding Dwarves have access to this as an abjuration wizard, which makes the temporary hit points (and the reflexive damage) last longer with their arcane ward.
They don't work together well. Arcane Ward takes damage instead of you, it's like a separate entity. And it takes damage before your temp hp. So if you cast Armor of Agathys, it won't reflect damage until your Arcane Ward is destroyed.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Had to reread them. I still think it works the way I said. Yes, the ward takes the damage for you, but the requirement for Armor of Agathys to work is the be hit by a melee attack within 5 feet while you have the temp hp. The caster is the target of the attack, not the ward.
the reason Battle Smith and Artillerist get shield is that it is on their always prepared list, they are the subclasses geared more towards being in the fight and dealing/taking hits. Alchemist is supposed to be more of a support/healing subclass.
As a DM, I'd be more than happy to let someone have cold versions of other spells. Like, instead of taking Fireball, they get an ice version of the spell. Does the same damage and the same range, but its all Cold damage instead of Fire.
@@trapical sadly balancing doesn't really work like that because fire is a more resistant type. That's why Wizards usually add something extra when they are designing spells similar to Fireball , like Synaptic Static's debuff and Erupting Earth's difficult terrain.
Sleep can kinda let you pick your target. If you can position it in such a way that they're the lowest hit point is whatever you chose, they're the only target. I think it removes the most of the usefulness of the spell though, as I see it as a crowd control spell and you want to take as many creatures out of the fight as possible to shift action economy in your favour.
For magic missile, Jeremy Crawford did confirm yes RAW only one die roll, but then said does it really matter if someone wants to roll one for each? No it doesn't. Totally up to the DM/Player
It actually matters. If some ability adds damage to one damage roll it would either increase the damage of one magic missile or all of them, depending on the ruling you use. The difference between +5 damage and +15 damage is huge.
There’s also the reliability of the spells damage when rolled the two different ways. If you roll separate die for each 1d4 the average damage will be 2.5, but the chances of rolling low or high total are drastically skewed toward the average. If you roll a single die for damage the average is still 2.5. your chances of rolling a 1,2,3, or 4 are all each 25%. This makes the one die much more “swingy”.
Of course I understand the math implications. But as the point is about Rules as Intended, and Jeremy Crawford said RAI it doesn't matter which way, the point still stands
@@antongrigoryev6381 I'll take missing the entire point twice for $1000 Alex. The point: RAI (what the designers intend with the rules, only declares by what they say they intend) it doesn't matter which way you decide. Reason: They said that is their intent (definition of RAI) That was the point of my post. Does your statement about that one level 10 ability of one subclass of wizard change what they said or what the RAI is because of that? No. All it means is "there is a potential static damage swing of 10+5 per SL above 1st. So I am choosing to use RAW." A DM could just as easily rule that ability to apply to each dart of the magic missile and let them roll multiple times because they want to.
I've always taken the wording of the sleep spell to be that the caster chooses the point not the Castro chooses who is affected. So there is always a risk, that you're going to put your own party to sleep at low levels or when your party is severely injured.
Magic missile says you make 3 darts, it also says that A DART deals 1d4+1 force damage to ITS target. Why would you not roll the damage separately, especially if you choose different targets? Im kinda confused. Please help
I'm not happy with this. (I haven't actually gone through the list, I'm just here to prompt the algorithm.)
bless
One of the main reasons that I think Warlocks don't get spells like Absorb Elements or Shield is that they are so much less useful on a character with so few spell slots. Reaction spells just feel bad to use when they're half of your spell slots in a fight.
Yet they're the only class that gets hellish rebuke
@@NerdImmersion Personally, I think giving Warlock's absorb elements via an invocation would be the best. "Eldritch Resilience: You can cast the Absorb Elements spell a number of times equal to your Charisma Modifier. You regain all expended uses after you finish a long rest." Giving it to them once seems underpowered, but at will definitely seems like a bit much.
Depends, if your party rests after every fight Warlock has the most spell slots to use.
@@Treblaine the party has to have ~4 short rests every day to have the "most spells slots" per day (in comparison to a full caster). In my experience that never happens. Maybe in a full dungeon dive where cant get long rests.
@@Treblaine coughdruidofthelandcough
Guiding Bolt has soo many fun memories.
Our Group was fighting Sahuagin and their priest fired guiding bolt at out Celestial warlock who's resistant to Radiant dealing negligible amount of damage. Warlock looks at priest says my turn and crit hits it with 4th level Guiding bolt.
Uno reverse card! NO U!
My Shadar Kai fighter got hit with a finger of death from Halaster Black-cloak and it also did negligible damage (made the save, resistance to necrotic), I tried to be cool and talk smack, I then was hit with a meteor swarm and it knocked me out by 1 hit point he then pulled out my tongue (it got regenerated by a druid later on) and cursed me, now my fighter has a black hand print on his face and rambles like an Insane person if he tries to talk about the time he made the mad mage look foolish.
i guess what I'm saying is sometimes you try to do cool stuff and it works other times you fail horribly.
Twin Guiding Bolt as a Divine Soul sorc. sooo good.
Ted looks like vacation did him good
The thing about Jim's Magic Missile is that it's one of the few spells that actually can get _worse_ as you upcast it. Upcasting it means more missiles, which means a higher chance of rolling a nat1 on at least one missile, which blows up all of the missiles and wastes the spell slot and action.
I love Detect Magic, and now my Wizard can get it as Eldritch Adept and I'm so happy. Her whole thing was that when she was young she has Sherlock vision for magic and nature and stuff, and I can flavor this as the heightening of that innate ability to just grok the weave
I'd add Bane, reducing enemies saving throws and attacks is as good as what bless does, only downside is that they can save against the initial cast of Bane. However, unlike Bless you rarely need to upcast this so it is a great use of a 1st level spell slot even at higher levels.
In theory, Bane holds its own at higher levels. Until you start fighting higher level monsters with high saves. It doesn't lose *all* it's usefulness, to be sure. But there are a good number of high-CR monsters out there with really high Charisma scores. Most of the time, at higher levels, you're better off avoiding "save or suck" spells, because they get progressively less reliable. And they approach futility when it comes to legendary creatures. What really keeps Bane in the game is that it affects 3 (or more) opponents, so there's a decent chance at least one fails their save.
This is something that's killing me playing a Bard currently: exactly ZERO ranged attack spells (and only ONE, mêlée attack spell at 13th level). A spell-focused Bard who doesn't use Magical Secrets to grab an attack spell is literally incapable of benefitting from Advantage, nor can they ever crit.
Interesting take on Detect Magic. I'll definitely take some of that into consideration in the future...
Right, but doesn't the ritual aspect take away from wizards and cause some confusion with that being other casters only ritual?
@@anthonynorman7545 Agreed, plus the normal version takes up space for other potential spells which is a price all its own. Perhaps it would be like a lesser version of Detect Magic as a feature for everyone, and make the actual spell version more powerful. Idk, it'd take some tweaking for sure but it's an interesting idea.
It's so a must that my bard is pondering of taking the Drow High Magic talent at 8th level.
I like pathfinder 2e's detect magic which is a cantrip instead of a 1st
@@anthonynorman7545 It's worth noting that only casters that have the ritual casting feature can cast it as a ritual.
If you use the Sleep spell, the spell specifically mentions it starts with the creature with the lowest hit points first, then the one with the next highest, and so on. The issue will come if all the targets have the same number of hit points and only one will be able to fall asleep. For that, see “Simultaneous Effects” in Xanathar’s Guide on page 77. If two effects would occur simultaneously (in this case, two creatures trying to fall asleep), then whomever’s turn it is gets to decide the order in which it happens. So in the case of a tie, then the caster will get decide, assuming they cast it on their turn. If Sleep is readied, then whomever’s turn it is when it’s triggered will get to decide.
So let’s assume I’m casting Sleep, and I roll a 27 to determine how many people I can put to sleep. There are three valid targets with 5, 13, and 13 current hit points. The creature with 5 hp goes to sleep, and then I get to choose which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. Instead, I ready Sleep if any enemies draw weapons. The creature with 13 hp goes, so I use my reaction to target them with sleep. Like before, the creature with 5 hp goes down first. Since it’s the DM’s turn, the DM gets to decide which creature with 13 hp goes to sleep. We’ll say in this case, the DM chooses to have the other creature not taking a turn be affected. He could then have the creature decide to spend it’s action to wake up the other 13 hp creature if he was feeling like a meanie.
Yah, I agree. You don't get to choose the target using Sleep. And it can be difficult to get it to target only enemies. Definitely great for taking out mobs of enemies.
Never had problems since iz always targets the creature with least hp first
Maybe if they all have the same hp?
Sleep is usually a pretty safe spell to use near allies, since the PCs engaging in melee with a lot of low level creatures (which is when you'd most want to use it) should have higher hp than those creatures.
Tasha's hideous laughter feels like a pretty big omission from this list.
So is Thunderwave, which is the best first level damage spell, instead he put in meme spells like Jim's Magic Missile...
one might even say it is laughable to have a top 1st lvl spells list and not put tasha's into it
I'd only have Tasha's if my players actually tell me a joke and make me laugh. But it's ok, cuz I'll literally laugh at ANYTHING. They can throw a pickle and yell DILL WITH IT, and I'll be on the ground. 🥒
Klaital1 really? I thought inflict wounds dealt more damage on a one on one fight...
Yeah, but that’s more because stupid puns are fun to abuse...
The only time I ever thought Blade Ward was useful was to reduce the damage to optimize Armor of Agathys. My Levistus Teifling Hexblade/Redemption Pali used this tactic all the time. I've always wondered if that's how the spell works RAI. It kinda seems a bit exploitive.
It sorta makes sense for Eldritch Knight using War Magic.
Sadly there are better ways to synergyze Agathys than wasting your turn waiting to be hit. Abjuration Wizard's arcane ward is a great example of that, negating the dmg before it even hits agathys' temp hp
Blade Ward is one of the cantrips that gets a big boost in usefulness through the Bladesinger. You can use it as part of your attack once you have Extra Attack. So, if you're concentrating on a spell, any damage you take that gets reduced means a lower CON saving throw.
I'd like Jim's Magic Missile a lot better if it could hit objects as well as creatures. Otherwise I kinda don't see the point.
I will say I'm tickled by the idea of spell royalties and royalty fees as material components.
Is Tenser somewhere busy counting all his Tenser Transformation profits?
If so, this means Tenser is dealing in 'roids for Wizards and this makes me smile.
Rolling for attack is fun. That's it.
He is carrying all that loot on a floating disk
No, because Tenser's transformation is a garbage spell for trash casters which I assume means Tenser was some sort of Raccoon person.
That just seems massively worse than regular magic missile, for one, it can miss, and for two, you have 3 chances to just slap yourself to the face instead of actually doing anything useful every time you use it.
You always have different spells on your lists than other TH-camrs. Great stuff :D
When I was playing a Druid in an adventure league game, ice knife was by far my favorite spell. The exploding effect was insanely helpful when well aimed.
Timestaps are a nice addition to the lists.
I've had timestamps in the descriptions of all my Top 10s for months now. I like the addition of Chapters though through TH-cam
@Nerd Immersion , yes i meant the chapters in the video player. I didn’t know the proper word and said timestamps.
I think maybe what they meant by “You can choose who you sleep” was referring to if the creature’s affected are tied for hit points.
The other great part about Find Familiar is you don't even need line of sight to teleport your familiar to a location. The spell says you can summon it (with just an action) to any location within 30 feet. This means you can blink it into existence on the other side of walls, or inside locked buildings. It's a bit broken with how well it can bypass high DC locks and get recon on things.
That being said, be careful not to step on the toes of your rogue. If you have a rogue in your party, let them do the sneaking and the recon, don't hog the spotlight. Or the other fun synergy you can do is lend them your familiar, have it sit on their shoulder while they sneak around. You can then look through it's eyes and report back to the group what the rogue is doing/seeing. This leaves the agency and the sneaking decisions to the rogue, but lets your familiar contribute in a helpful passive sort of way.
As a new player playing a Cleric, my favorite and constantly used 1st spells (besides Cure Wounds) is Bless/Bane. I've made the GM lose her mind many of times because she forgets to take that d4 penalty and then misses her action.
Starts to compete with the excellent spirit guardians for your concentration later on. However they are all indeed great. Cleric just has a great low level spell list allround. With healing word, guiding bolt, inflict wounds, detect magic as a ritual as other stand outs.
Honestly not really a fan of Jim's Magic Missile. To me the greatest thing about default magic missile is that it always hits, which makes it perfect for breaking an enemy caster's concentration.
When it comes to multi-attack roll spells my go to is Scorching Ray (I know it's lvl 2)
I initially didn’t take shield as a wizard noob, it was sooo worth it to take it instead of a lvl 2 spell.
You can always find another wizard and ask if you can get it from his spell book. Boom copy it
No Hex ? In my mind one of the best spells in the game extra damage on every hit for an houre plus out of combat use by giving disadvantage on an ability check and there is no save against it so fx. if you don't want I person to lie give them disadvantage on charisma.
Also feather fall can save one so much.
And protection from good and evil can make hard fights extremely easy.
But mostly a good list.
Absorb elements really said “thunder damage instead of poison” to make it great against 4/5 of the chromatic dragons
Might have something to do with poison not being 'elemental 'damage.
I almost completely agree with your top 6, and that's roughly the order that I would put them in, too. I would probably drop Magic Missile down to #7 and put Dissonant Whispers at #8 right next to it, but I would leave the rest of your top 6 in that order. And I would find room for Hex in the top 6, maybe in Magic Missile's slot at #3 (and give honorable mention to Hunter's Mark when talking about Hex).
I think any Warlock will tell you that Armor of Agathys is one of their better spells, but that if they had to choose just one level 1 spell from their spell list, it would be Hex. According to Sage Advice, you can maintain concentration on a spell during a short rest or long rest as long as you don't sleep (a good reason to choose the Aspect of the Moon invocation if you're a level 9+ Tomelock with a 24 hour duration on Hex).
You had a pretty good top 15 list, but I think that Mage Armor and Feather Fall (because of the utility it provides once you learn to fly in a few levels) should also be on that list. I just can't imagine a Sorcerer (except for Draconic Ancestry Sorcerer) or Wizard without mage armor, fly, and feather fall.
These videos are getting better, I appreciate your output.
I'm really surprised to see Sleep on this list when it falls off pretty hard outside of extremely low level encounters and not to have Bane on the list.
currently playing my first bard and have had three games. in the last two I used whispers to kill the wizard that was about to attack us, before is barely lifted a finger, and on the third I got a large sea serpent to move away for a round to give everyone time to recover a bit.
great list! bless is amazing on beads
I like to give a honorable mention to Hex, not as a spell a wartlock casts with their spell slots but from a spell scroll, keep in mind that it has no save so the lower Dc from the scroll not going to effect it here.
disadvantage on the right ability check can help someone on your team like a rouge hiding from someone in combat for that sneak attack or the fighter grabing someone and so on,
and the 1d6 necrotic per attack helps a lot with Eldritch Blast and can last up to 2 hours, moving from target if your killing them, the most you get out a lv1 spell scroll.
Top spells of maybe the most versatile level and it's 15 instead of 10 and you didn't do a poll. Yeah, you're trying to get the internet mad at you! 😅😂
I have plans to do polls eventually. I'm thinking about a fan created Top 10 Magic Items, using Google Forms. I think that's a thing I can do. When I start getting low on energy/ideas, I'll just poll you all and get you to make up my mind for me :P
@@NerdImmersion I was teasing lol but good idea
14:32 What you were being told about sleep is that because you can choose where the point of origin is and it is a sphere of effect, you can generally pick which creatures it is going to effect. You can pick a point above the battlefield such that the radius only effects the 10' tall oger and not the orc minions surrounding him, etc. Basically, at lower levels you use it as crowd control of multiple creatures, at higher levels you can use it basically as "Power Word: Sleep".
I agree with you on sleep. You dont get to choose the creatures
Fun thought, if you're surrounded, you could try to sleep the enemies around you, but you'll risk putting yourself to sleep
I know this video is about 1st levels but I learned that banishing smite works with all weapons like bows and guns so that’s cool to see that theirs a ranged smite.
I like the detect magic rule. I agree that you do not get to choose the targets for sleep. And I have a homebrew rule for Jim's magic missile: If you crit hit BEFORE you crit fail, the crit missile still strikes the target, but each other missile of the fail and after does 2 points of damage per missile when they explode in your face.
@7:15 combining this spell with the warcaster feat and the pole arm master feat lets you cast a spell on someone when they enter your reach. What better spell to use than this one, which can force them to run away.
About Armor of Agathys. There is a Dragonmarked Dwarf race which gets Armor of Agathys added to thier spell lists if there are casters. Team that with being an Abjuration Wizard and you're a pretty tanky wizard. Casting it adds to your shield, which stacks with the Temp HP.
Team that with Fire Shield later and you could make a fun Muscle Mage
Why would one have to wait for the familiar's turn to use its reaction? Reactions can occur outside of one's turn which is how early rogues can get 2 sneak attacks in one round.
You don't have to wait the familiar just needs to be in position, the familiar needs to be touching the creature you want to cast a spell on, if it is touching said creature on your turn you can do it otherwise not, most people will hold a spell until the familiars turn so the familiar (an Owl is the best for this) can fly in (or crawl, slither etc...) touch the creature letting you cast your spell through the familiar and (if it is an Owl) fly away without an attack of opportunity. It is about waiting for the familiar to be in a position so you can cast a spell through it, an enemy needs to leave your reach for you to get an attack of opportunity on it, a familiar needs to be touching a creature for you to cast a spell with a range of touch through it and the familiar can only move on its turn, unless you just want to leave it right next to an enemy and hope it doesn't get squished (which it probably will). a reaction occurs when certain criteria are met if your Owl is on your shoulder it can't cast inflict wounds on the Orc 30 feet away can it? But if you hold inflict wounds until your familiar is touching said Orc . . . Like, for example when on your familiars turn it can move to the Orc the spell then goes off and the familiar returns to you.
@@thefracturedbutwhole5475 correct
My personal favourite damaging spell at 1st level is catapult. Magical bludgeoning damage and because of the wording if you have multiple people in the line, if the first enemy makes the save the second has to make the save. If you can line up more than 2 enemy's your basically guaranteed to hit someone. Added bonus is the 3d8 damage and essentially 150ft range
No Faerie Fire?
I'm currently playing a cold themed Arcane Trickster, can confirm it's pretty fun
A Levistus Tiefling Blue Dragon Sorcerer is fun too ! Pick ice damage + crowd control (slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm, etc.), it's pretty crippling ..slowing down enemies and hitting them with a less commonly resisted damage type than fire or poison. It's also just fun thematically !
I like that your take seems more about your favorite spells rather than the most powerful.
First reaction I had was... are there even 15 good level 1 spells?
Then I saw you didn't put goodberry, and that spells is amazing.
He did mention good berry when he mentioned healing word
Dilson Camacho eh, it’s pretty useless in combat given it takes an action to eat 1 berry
@@evaahh9584 it's as useful as a potion of healing in most combats, if you need to bring someone back up into the action. Not to mention that it can be a literal life safer after combat 10 times per casting.
13:04 sudden flashbacks to Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Mr Freeze.
Great list and content!
I love guiding bolt. Like you, I have a fond memory of critting at first level. Best part was the creature was a dm homebrew with vulnerability to radiant.
I'm not a fan of Ice Knife, because splitting up the effects of the spell between an attack roll and a saving throw means you lose out on some of the benefits of either when using it in actual scenarios. You can only crit on part of it, and any bonuses from cover that enemies have will be granting them a +2 or +5 on both their AC and their Dex save. Cold damage isn't as bad as fire, but... it's pretty close. While 64 monsters are immune to fire and only 28 are immune to cold, 83 monsters are resistant to fire and an impressive 103 monsters are resistant to cold. And finally the scaling by 1d6 isn't very impressive. It's the sort of spell that I know I'll never cast after level 5.
Identify & Detect Magic are great on Artificers because they're prepared half-casters with ritual casting. Early on when Artificer is pretty weak, (2-3 spell slots per long rest for multiple levels when you're supposed to be acting more like a caster than a martial suuuuuuucks) being able to get use out of ritual spells really helps you to keep feeling relevant and useful. They're also very fun ones to re-flavor :)
You might not have noticed but the frightened condition also gives you disadvantage on ability checks, meaning the target or wrathful smite should also have disadvantage on the check to end the effect. Makes wrathful smite even stronger
I personally love using wrathful smite and it is one of my all time favourite Paladin Spells. One thing that really makes it terrifying as well is that a frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks; so they'd have to use their action to make a check at disadvantage to try and break the effect.
edit: Also, awesome list and awesome content. Thank you!
Yeah, that's just weird design choice, considering most other spells require a saving throw to end an ongoing affect.
Love it Ted. Best of luck. Everything looks good.
The people from The Deck of Many, who made animated spell cards, also made a homebrew sorcerer who called a frost magic sorcerer. It may be helpful if you are wanting to inspiration for an ice themed mage?
Thought I'd see Faerie Fire, but still good list! Can't argue against any of them.
I haven't watched the last few videos but DAMN this new camera is nice.
Funnily enough, not a new camera! Just took this webcam off auto settings and added more light
I (like most people) homebrewed to add magic missile to Artificer. I also have added some spells to lists. I agree with three spells being 'all caster' abilities as a good idea: Detect magic, identify and absorb elements. As amazing as it is I can see shield making logical sense as an 'all caster spell' but also an argument that shield is OP and deserves to be 'chosen'.
Overall Good list.
I know mine would be a bit different.
Fun video, thanks.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Bane, Shield of Faith and circumstantially Goodberry are all good candidates for the top 15 as well. Shield of Faith is a personal favorite at any level of the game really.
Goodberry on a Life Cleric (Magic Initiate or Multiclass, either works) heals an sweet 40 total by the way.
The only spell I have successfully done zero damage on multiple times. Ice knife.
Ice knife still does its explosion damage even if it misses .
@@ventrue7 But if every enemy in the explosion succeeds on their saving throw, the spell literally does zero damage.
I wonder if there any particular reason that faeri fire cant make it to the list?
I was surprised Bane wasn't as well. I feel like Bane goes hand in hand with Bless.
I quibble with armor of agathys. Yes, it's a first level spell, but it's really only useful when upcast. I'd put Hex/Hunter's Mark in its place, as defining damaging features for their class (and we can put them both on the same line, since they're basically the same thing).
Magic Missile is on armorer artificer. I played one and fluffed in as Iron Man smart missiles launching out of the suit's shoulders.
Sleep Well you can choose where the 20m template drops so you can kinda choose to keep it away to hit just 1 or 2 or all
There is one thing I don't like about Find Familiar, and that's that it is only available to Wizards (except Pact of the Chain Warlocks and the Druid optional features in Tasha's Cauldron).
I wish it was possible to get this spell with other classes, like Sorcerer, without multiclassing or taking Magic Initiate.
Find Familiar + Arcane Trickster is insane. Depennding on how you di Familiar's initiative, if you ready its Help action for when you make an attack, you can hit the target and then use bonus action to disengage and move away without your familiar provoking an OA if it rides on your shoulder, because RAW Opportunity Attacks are only provoked when a creature uses its action, movement or reaction to move out of an enemy's reach - you're using your movement to move your familiar. Arcane Trickster's don't need owls which is great to minimise meta gaming and allows more varied RP opportunities.
Only 2 minutes in. I totally agree with your assessment of detect magic. If everyone (pretty much) can cast it, just give it to them as a ritual. I also feel wizards should automatically get prestidigitation, clerics thaumaturgy, druids druidcraft, and so on.
Edit: Having watched the whole thing now, I'm pretty sure all of my top 10 were in there. I agree that some spell casting classes *cough, warlock, cough* could have gotten a little more love with spell options.
Nice thing about Absorb Elements is it doesn't care about the source of the damage so if your in a friendly AoE you can use that to boost your melee for the next round and shave off some of the damage you are taking its still situational but still gives you the chance to target non immunity/ vulnerability
Will there be similar videos for the other spell levels?
First and last time I used Jim's magic missile the 3rd attack was a nat 1, but I will definitely try again when I get the chance.
Also, didn't know how amazing Find Familiar is.
Shield and absorb elements are great at higher level since you'd otherwise basically waste your 1st level slots, but now you can make regular use of those spell slots!
So I just had an idea for a mechanic to replace detect magic.
A character that has the spellcasting or pact magic feature as well as characters with proficiency with arcana can attempt to detect magic in their surrounding.
To do so they must make a Arcana ability check and meet a DC determined by the DM, powerful and openly displayed magical auras have a low DC while weak and hidden auras are harder to detect. A character with the ritual caster feat can take 10 minutes to sharpen their senses ability to detect magic, this lets them detect magic the same way the spell allows.
As said this is just something I came up off the top of my head, but I still kind off like it. It let's spellcasters use other spells since they don't have to prepare detect magic anymore while also expanding this option to characters who don't cast spells themselves. I anticipate that some might not like tying this ability to Intelligence, which is fair but not really a huge problem. Int is overall the least useful ability score so a boost in that regard is always welcome and this change would make perceiving magic a lot like perception in general where all characters can see and hear, but wise characters are just much better at it.
magic missile is on the extended spell list for one of the artificer subclasses
I disagree on the magic missile.. it states "each dart hits..." followed by "a dart deals 1d4+1 damage"... it implies a roll for each dart, similar to other multi target speels like eldrich blast and scorching ray.. and not like area spells that deal X damage to all targets.. of course, the bonus of magic missile is replacing the expected attack roll (and a chance of crits) with automatic hitting the target and being countered by "shield"..
was the intent on rolling once for all missiles, they should make it more clear (and on beyound, the text is the same as on the book).
...yet, as google pointed me to a tweet.. and we well know.. it is up to a GM, on stating how to deal with this... I keep it as before, rolling one d4 for each dart.
It is a pretty good list Ted. I would but Entangle and Faerie Fire too but still you can't include them all. Also I feel like lots of people miss Ice Knife's hit or miss part I guess.
Once played a variation of the Seeker Warlock, had Armor of Agathys active and used the Shielding Aurora ability to have resistance to all damage for 1 round, the Boss(Balhannoth) then hit me 3 times taking 75 cold damage (spell slot level 5) and i took less than 25 total, needless to say the boss regretted its decision that day.
An amazing spell that scales perfectly, and is incredibly powerful if you have a way to get resistance to the damage coming your way, either through something like Multiclass Barb for Rage, Stoneskin, etc.
healing word is amazing playing a hexblade bard and being able to sustain and suport while staying in the fight is amazing...
You indeed can't directly choose what creatures are impacted by Sleep. As with any AoE you can be fiddly with your positioning to try to only hit enemies, airburst it 19 feet over a high HP thing's head so it's the only thing in range for instance to try to take it down without taking down anyone else nearby
I'm glad someone else out there remembers the Dead Alewives!
I would take out the Jim's MM as an offshoot thing and put in Shield of Faith. Other than that can't really say there would be any that are significantly better than the ones on the list, and the JMM is also really good, but I just can't really see the themed books being something that should be implemented to every game. There is a thin line between "Lol I'm BATMAN!" and "Lol I'm "
If you are doing an ice character i have been thinking along the lines of the winter court fey. Maybe a winter eladrin.
I think Ted should wait till the Frostmaiden book is out.
There may be new ice spells and icethemed options for players.
Wait. am I just noticing a TCRI tube... is that legit a TMNT prop? man, you've got some of the coolest stuff.
it is!
@@NerdImmersion if you havent already, i'd love to see a video of all the neat stuff youve got on display.
Once I get everything finalized in the basement a tour is definitely planned
Warlock is generally not a very elemental based caster. they are an evil, death, mind, and lifeforce related caster. this is why they lose out on access to a lot of the pure elemental spells. Sometimes they get cold damage spells to reflect the chill of the grave such as with Armor of Agathys, but generally speaking, I think it fits their flavor that they aren't given all the elemental spells directly, and this is as someone who is currently playing and loves warlocks.
god, i love guiding bolt so much
i'm gonna play a Divine Soul Sorcerer just so i can use it with metamagic
i like your excitement :D
Absorb elements is great!! My range survived quiet afew breath weapons thanks to that spell
Editing is getting tighter, loved the thumbnail. Drop the bit, you put out content often there's no need to think of some cornball air filler in the two seconds it takes for your logo to play and I think you will have ascended, imo. Great content either way.
I always love the attempt for an air filler within those two seconds, off the cuff
Bane is critically overlooked in my opinion. It is amazing in early campaigns and has often saved my and my allies butts. Story: We were fighting an air elemental and our druid knows i can cast bane and holds his action blight until i casted bane on it. I cast bane it fails its save and then fails again thanks to bane against blight and takes a huge chunk of damage which gave us a 3-4 turn earlier win which would have downed or killed us maybe.
I'm playing a paladin with a lil bit of multiclass into a sorcerer. Would you pick Shield in that situation, potentially wasting a spell slot for a smite?
Thats tricky. Its the trade off of damage vs survivability. If it was me, I'd like to have both options
Fun fact: I ran a quick 5-session campaign once and the druid cast Ice Knife 4 times throughout it. She didn't cause a single point of damage with it, she missed every attack roll and everybody made their saving throws. Sometimes dice just hate your character...
@Nerd Immersion warlock gets an invocation for shield or mage armor not sure which but hexblade gets shield as is expanded spells
For Mage armor. It's not that great since they have light armor proficiency, and Invocations are limited.
I played a naked pact of the chain hexblade and mage armor was great btw the character was a senile old drow man
The group I DM for decided that casting sleep in the middle of a sprinting crowd of civilians was a good idea. Manslaugther charge, accquired
Cool thing with Armor of Agathys: Mark of Warding Dwarves have access to this as an abjuration wizard, which makes the temporary hit points (and the reflexive damage) last longer with their arcane ward.
They don't work together well. Arcane Ward takes damage instead of you, it's like a separate entity. And it takes damage before your temp hp. So if you cast Armor of Agathys, it won't reflect damage until your Arcane Ward is destroyed.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Had to reread them. I still think it works the way I said. Yes, the ward takes the damage for you, but the requirement for Armor of Agathys to work is the be hit by a melee attack within 5 feet while you have the temp hp. The caster is the target of the attack, not the ward.
the reason Battle Smith and Artillerist get shield is that it is on their always prepared list, they are the subclasses geared more towards being in the fight and dealing/taking hits. Alchemist is supposed to be more of a support/healing subclass.
Doesn’t fear also give disadvantage on checks when they can see you?
Can you make a cold caster build? Idk if it might be best to wait till the frost maiden book comes out but I'd love to see one.
As a DM, I'd be more than happy to let someone have cold versions of other spells. Like, instead of taking Fireball, they get an ice version of the spell. Does the same damage and the same range, but its all Cold damage instead of Fire.
@@trapical sadly balancing doesn't really work like that because fire is a more resistant type. That's why Wizards usually add something extra when they are designing spells similar to Fireball , like Synaptic Static's debuff and Erupting Earth's difficult terrain.
Healing elixir is my favorite!
Too bad it never got published outside of UA
Dissonant Whisper + Warcaster + Booming Blade (taken at lvl 6 as Lore Bard) is an evil combo for when foes get up in your face
Sleep can kinda let you pick your target. If you can position it in such a way that they're the lowest hit point is whatever you chose, they're the only target. I think it removes the most of the usefulness of the spell though, as I see it as a crowd control spell and you want to take as many creatures out of the fight as possible to shift action economy in your favour.
For non casters my go to is Expeditious Retreat.
Bonus Action spell, that let's you Bonus Action Dash.
For magic missile, Jeremy Crawford did confirm yes RAW only one die roll, but then said does it really matter if someone wants to roll one for each? No it doesn't. Totally up to the DM/Player
It actually matters. If some ability adds damage to one damage roll it would either increase the damage of one magic missile or all of them, depending on the ruling you use. The difference between +5 damage and +15 damage is huge.
There’s also the reliability of the spells damage when rolled the two different ways.
If you roll separate die for each 1d4 the average damage will be 2.5, but the chances of rolling low or high total are drastically skewed toward the average.
If you roll a single die for damage the average is still 2.5. your chances of rolling a 1,2,3, or 4 are all each 25%. This makes the one die much more “swingy”.
Of course I understand the math implications. But as the point is about Rules as Intended, and Jeremy Crawford said RAI it doesn't matter which way, the point still stands
@@LandonTheDM Again, it matters if you have something that adds damage to a single roll, like Evocation wizard's ability.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I'll take missing the entire point twice for $1000 Alex.
The point: RAI (what the designers intend with the rules, only declares by what they say they intend) it doesn't matter which way you decide. Reason: They said that is their intent (definition of RAI)
That was the point of my post. Does your statement about that one level 10 ability of one subclass of wizard change what they said or what the RAI is because of that? No. All it means is "there is a potential static damage swing of 10+5 per SL above 1st. So I am choosing to use RAW."
A DM could just as easily rule that ability to apply to each dart of the magic missile and let them roll multiple times because they want to.
Yay some of my favorites are in there. But uh... I'm also very fond of fire. XD
I've always taken the wording of the sleep spell to be that the caster chooses the point not the Castro chooses who is affected. So there is always a risk, that you're going to put your own party to sleep at low levels or when your party is severely injured.
Magic missile says you make 3 darts, it also says that A DART deals 1d4+1 force damage to ITS target. Why would you not roll the damage separately, especially if you choose different targets? Im kinda confused. Please help
Wrathful Smite can be used against objects, but most (if not all) objects are immune to psychic damage, so it would be useless