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I'd been thinking about banning silvery barbs, but instead I just go with a stricter interpretation of the requirement for casting it "1 reaction, which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw." I essentially say that you have to actually see them succeed on the saving throw or ability check or attack, as I don't actually *have* to tell a player when that occurs. Dm's usually do, but their character shouldn't know these things if they are not _visible_ to the character, even if the creature is. (How do you _know_ the creature succeeded vs your charm person spell? Or that the creature succeeded on its perception/deception/arcana check? Etc.) It sounds harsh, but personally I find the language of the spell's requirement really annoying, because it requires a character to be close enough to see a creature succeed on mechanics that ostensibly don't exist for them, but not actually see that mechanic, and the dm to tell the player of something their character wouldn't in a way that's a little weird in action at the table. This change means the spell is good for obvious physical things, like undoing a crit, or someone beating some kind of visible physical save like dex or strength, but less useful for less obvious things like wisdom or charisma that the character shouldn't be aware of. I didn't outright ban it, because I don't mind a spell being able to undo something through distraction, but it also felt like for a 1st level spell it was working outside its power to just undo saves and checks with no limitation. (I mind less for attacks, because a lot of enemies get a ton of those, and missing one is a good save for a PC, but doesn't hurt the creature overmuch. A failed save however, especially of certain types, can totally undo an encounter.) But otherwise, I don't ban anything. (I do mod other stuff, like good berry, I make it cause a save or non-casters of it (or druids and rangers) so that it requires a save, or you fall into delirium and get hooked on it. So it's useful in an emergency, but there's a risk it might make some people less useful.)
CORRECTION: Conjure spells do NOT say the DM pick, it says they have the stats. Some spells, like find familiar, tell you to find the stats in the PHB. Conjure spells are just telling you who has the stats, not who chooses them. In fact, it says “choose one of the following...”
@@HorizonOfHope It says "choose one of the following options for what appears." and in conjure animals for example it lists the following: *One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower *Two beasts of challenge rating 1 or lower *Four beasts of challenge rating 1/2 or lower *Eight beasts of challenge rating 1/4 or lower Those are what you get to choose. There's no mention of choosing specific creatures. The DM has the statistics for creatures that meet those requirements. So you don't choose which creature, cause you don't have the stats. You tell the DM "I want one beast of Cr 2 (or lower)" then they have the stats for that and give you a beast of Cr 2. Otherwise it would tell you to consult the MM for those creatures. Find familiar lists the animals for you to choose from, they could have done the same, or created a list for you to consult if they wanted you to choose, but instead you choose from those options. It's pretty clear. (Whether that's a good way to do it or not is debatable.)
@@HorizonOfHope Yes, but that strictly only says the player chooses the CR/number of creatures. The spell descriptions do not give any definite word on who decides the exact creature summoned.
In a game where “Disguise Self” exists it’s crazy how many players would innately trust a victim who says they were murdered by the butler when they cast “Speak With Dead”.
Also there are a lot of more mundane ways that a corpse would be unable to correctly answer the question. 1) "I was poisoned, I don't know who slipped it into my wine but" [insert some less direct information which narrows down the suspects to a manageable number but doesn't instantly reveal the killer] 2) As you kneel to touch the corpse you see a hole in the neck roll a medicine or investigation check, [on a success] you see that there's a lack of blood around the wound suggesting a post mortem mutilation and the cut is placed around the voice box, looking inside the mouth and you'd also see the tongue has been removed. (spell literally says the creature needs to have a map but i think a reasonable DM ruling is that they also need to have the other equipment for speaking to) this doesn't instantly spoil that element of the mystery, does still let players use mechanical skills, and gives them important information that the killer is probably someone with the education in medical and magical matters to understand both that a spell like speak with dead exists and enough medical knowledge to precisely disable the ability of the corpse to speak. 3) "I didn't recognise my killer but...." give a description of some elements of appearance and description, the players have to at least do the work of matching it to the pictures and/or descriptions i gave. Although maybe not this one as the time I did this once and repeated the a certain detail on the boots with a living witness, both victims they used speak with dead on and use the same line specifically when they met that character both before the murder and later on after the speak with dead and players never caught on and actually ended up helping the killer.
Also that's assuming it WANTS to tell you. Maybe they were a rival or enemy or they died as part of some scheme. The caster gets five questions but the corpse could lie or refuse to answer. It's not compelled to be truthful or cooperative.
Yup, being able to deal with powerful spells is a DM skill that nobody mentions. There are many solutions, but to one powerful player tool, the DM can always with an equally powerful, but opposing player tool. Which requires the DM to expect what tools their players will use, but the more you play the better you get at it and even if you fail to counter a tool, it's good. It's actually fine if your players managed to take a shortcut, outsmart you or just cheeze something you prepped. They will explode with happiness when they manage to find just the right way to solve that problem way too early, it will be an accomplishment they will remember fondly.
@@Kardfogu I agree, but I think it's at least partially the DMG's responsibility to highlight world-altering spells so that new DM's aren't constantly blindsided by them. Just simple stuff like "if you need to hide a magic item, putting it in a lead-lined container will block most low-level magical detection", "the following means can be used to detect an invisible creature if you suspect one is present: ..." or "if you want to make something truly secret and mysterious, the following steps will protect it from all but the highest-level divinations". Make sure to include the disclaimer that overusing these tools can be frustrating to players and to remind players that even if a spell is 'countered' it still provides some utility (ie: an enemy has to waste an action to throw flour to negate a player's invisibility). PF1e's Gamemastery Guide has the "Villain's escape kit" section, which highlights a bunch of spells that can be used to evacuate a plot-important character, which I think is a generally helpful resource to include.
I think people also forget spells like Guidance have Verbal and Somatic components. A lot of times my players would want to cast Guidance in situations where randomly casting a spell during an encounter or intense situation might prove problematic/difficult. IE: Trying to lie to or convince a guard/king of something. Ultimately, I don't mind the spell and don't actively ban anything in my games, but reminding players that casting spells aren't automatically stealthy might be a good way to go.
This bothers me so much, especially when I'm another player and someone else does this and the DM just lets it slide right in front of if the NPC 😂 😭 mUh iMmErSiOn gone
True enough, but it's also not a matter of a caster making a sonorous intonation loud enough to cut through conversation either. In particular Guidance is most often a Cleric spell, and hearing someone murmur 'Oh God Help them' may be a little weird but not unheard of, even in the real world. Ever hang out with overtly religious folk? Things like 'I'm praying for you' or 'Jesus watch over you' are pretty commonplace, same with making the sign of the cross or touching a rosary. It's just in the DnD world, those things convey literal holy power. Yeah, it might make someone more suspicious but unless they're completely paranoid it's not going to seem that odd. Even in a world where everyone knows about magic, that just means it's impossible to tell between when it's a spell and when it's just someone saying it.
You can have curses that require Remove Curse with a higher level spell slot, rather than just "cannot be removed by remove curse", so it can afflict your characters for a few levels or until they go find a powerful allied high priest.
Pathfinder 1st Ed does something similar to this. Some curses just need Remove Curse, others need Break Enchantment or Heal (1st Ed Heal is a big deal) and the big stuff might even need Wish or Miracle.
Fun fact: The curse of Euryale from The Deck of Many Things specifies that it can only be removed by the power of a god or the Wish spell, meaning that Remove Curse does not work on it.
yeah I tend to treat remove curse as written for most cursed items (ie it allows the cursed creature to unattune from or relinquish the item), but for other curses I treat it like counterspell/dispel magic. That is, have the caster roll a check with their spellcasting ability modifier against a DC based on the curse's power, or auto-succeed if it was cast at a high enough level
I like a middle ground for remove curse is that you have to understand the nature of the curse for it to work so the party has to put in some work to discovering the story behind the curse. Powerful curses could then also require specific components to remove as you mentioned. Maybe it straight up works on weaker curses though so you can still shoot your monk occasionally.
I will often talk to the cursed player to see if they are having fun with the curse before I decide how difficult it is to remove as well. I don't want to destroy their fun just because I thought I came up with an interesting story.
34:10 You put up the spell card for True Resurrection, not Transport via Plants. That said, you can technically use True Resurrection to fast travel if you kill a party member, go somewhere, and then True Resurrect them to the new location. I should find a way to use that at some point
True resurrect also could work as a time machine. Just imagine a legend about it used that way: An elf and a human fell in love, but their relationship were not meant to let them die together holding each other. The human decided to give their whole world (and die multiple times in the process, depending on how long elves live in particular setting) to have a chance to grow old together. Many years the elf has to live with that knowledge, resurrecting their loved one once every 200 years for a brief moment, and then killing them. All of that just for the elf once they grow old enough resurrect their loved one for the last time (about 50 years before they expect to die, I imagine). Or maybe the elf resurrects their loved one once every 100-200 years for 10-20 years, to be able to spend time with them.
I think they way they handles Speak with Dead in the latest DND movie was hillarious as others ask questions to the caster and the corpse answers them directly wasting a question
I love seeing the spell run like that because so often players dont plan out what they’re going to ask and what should be 5 pretty simple questions turns into a round table discussion about what they should ask and takes 30 minutes while a corpse is just floating in suspended animation waiting for them to make up their minds
@@Holycrapitschad see also spell duration which runs out as they argue about what to ask the corpse the spell specifically says it works once per corpse opportunity lost
@@RS3isRealscape this is also an option but I’d prefer to not give a hard time limit to my players just because of the logistics of the game in action. Sometimes they decide to cast the spell without really thinking about the questions beforehand and I’d much rather nitpick them about what constitutes a question so they have to self correct and act in character than say “oops time’s up guys better luck never”. If they’re taking way too long sure but that would be a last resort for me
I think the biggest problem with guidance is that it only lasts for one minute. It makes players see it as a reactionary spell that can only be used for one roll especially in exploration. If it had a longer duration even like 10 minutes I think it would help player cast it before hand like when they enter a new room in a dungeon and they start to search it.
@@bye1551 its an increase but it doesn't really make the spell more powerful it just means you don't have to follow your Rogue around the room he is perceiving/investigating/picking locks and casting Guidance every 60 seconds
My rule with Guidance is Guidance is an action. So if you're discussing an action you are going to do and want to help, you can precast Guidance on someone. But if you say you're doing something, you can't cast Guidance as a reaction to panic help them get better.
I run it that It also means that you can't take the help action- which gives them advantage and is arguably better for their roll. So its a way to have 3 party members work together on something- and if 3 people are all working together their odds should be pretty good I think, so it makes sense to me.
For inspiration on speak with dead, try Pushing Daisies, they ask a man who killed him, he said his wife, he tasted something off in the coffee she made him, he went back to being dead, they then learned he was a polygamist.
9:06 a few aspects about comprehend language that dms should consider before outright banning number one the spell does not decode codes or secret messages meaning you can set an entire adventure around finding a cipher number 2 you must touch a page for a minute to read it meaning dms can keep things from being translated by adding some time sensitivity or preventing the text from being touched
You could use Remove Curse sort of like Revivify for Curses. It can remove a curse if it's cast within a certain time frame, sort of like a setting in period. If the players don't know they have lycanthropy, and don't find out until the first full moon after they contract it, it will be far too late for remove curse to work. But the next time they fight a werewolf, they'll know to treat that bite fast.
I don't outright ban them, but if I ever play with a Shepherd druid I ask them to either take the single summon spells or limit them to the 1 or 2 options for summoning instead of all 8. I had a Shepherd druid who would take even longer every time she wanted to cast Conjure Animals but would always end up just going 8 wolves and every time I asked her to please keep track of their initiative to take the load off of myself, but every time she always pushed the burden of tracking their turns onto me.
My go-to fix for Counterspell, which i apply to everyone, both player and NPC: i remove and meld it into the Dispel Magic spell, and you can ready Dispel Magic to Counterspell. That way Counterspell wars are a thing of the past and the action economy unfairness (spending only your reaction to deny essentially your opponent's entire turn) is solved
So i tend to run Remove Curse in a very similar way to how i see a lot of people run revival spells; it requires input from the players and is not just a "spell slot spent, consquences of my actions gone." Usually this is in the form of "welp i got lycanthropy, ill probably need something involved with werewolves to remove said curse as a compnent of my spell." I will likely be adding the "Remove Curse tells you how to remove it" thing to this formula, as its actually had soemtimes to give the players information on what kinds of things would help remove curses that are less simple than lycnsthropy or vampirism.
The fix we've made to Silvery Barbs in the groups that I play with is to make it reduce a roll by 1d4 and allow another character to add 1d4 to their next roll. That brings it more in line with things like Bless or Bane, it's a good "oh this needs *just* a bit less to miss let's try it", and even when it doesn't succeed you still get that crispy +1d4 to your next roll. It definitely brings it down to a 1st Level spell.
I just made it so yo have to actually *see* the success, not just the creature. So if the success on the check or save isn't somehow instantly visible to your character, it doesn't trigger the spell's reaction. So, it will work on strength and dex saves, possibly con saves, but is unlikely to work on int/cha/wis saves/checks. I like your 1d4 thing though, I think it's cleaner, plus it should stack with other +d4 spells. So I might try that too.
I like this but I’d probably also limit SB to only being triggered by successful attack rolls or ability checks to make it less universally useful. Even with these restrictions, it’s still a level 1 spell that, in the right situations, can turn an enemy’s hit into a miss and an allies miss into a hit so it’s pretty nice.
For me and my group, we do talk about certain spells that can cause an issue, so we dont get everyone just casting summon spells with silverybarbs support. But the most important thing is if there are problems with spells, change them to make them fit your group. Playiny in a campaign that is heavy on survival? Make goodberry consume its material component. A horror campaign through the realms of ravenloft? Make identity not reveal the curses on the item and loot you find so the surprise is still there. The most important thing is that this should be communicated and agreed with everyone involved for improving the health of your game.
24:41 The advice to have Conjure Animals conjure a mix of different animal types would tune down the spell’s power but keep in mind that also means there are even more creature stat blocks in play! Probably better to keep all conjured animals the same type but add a random element to what animals get conjured.
I’d say guidance has to be stated before the player rolls after a roll has been asked for. Allows a chance for them to give guidance and helps prevent pre rolling
CORRECTION: Conjure spells do NOT say the DM pick, it says they have the stats. Some spells, like find familiar, tell you to find the stats in the PHB. Conjure spells are just telling you who has the stats, not who chooses them. In fact, it says “choose one of the following...”
The problem with curses is exactly the same problem I have with disease. The 2014PHB has some really cool and flavorful diseases in it with incubation periods, symptoms, mechanical effects and cures. The problem is, like most disease, they begin shoeing symptoms long before they start harming you, and every class and their dog gets access to lesser restoration which solves the problem immediately, making that rare flower you have 4 days to find before you go blind irrelevant to the disease.
Simple solution to Counterspell: make it 4th level. It still only counters 3rd and lower level spells, so you need to spend a higher level slot than the opponent to guarantee it works, which seems fine given the action economy advantage it gives. Also, 3rd level is already ripe with very powerful spells, and it's nice to have more good options for your 4th level pick.
I think Frieren is some good inspiration here. When the humans fought against the Zoltraak spell, they had no defense at all, but in 80 years, the cornerstone of defensive magic was the counter to it. Furthermore, many wizards started using physical objects as barriers instead. There is an evolution to it. If you want to change the way magic feels, you can play before certain fundamental innovations were made - Identify takes an Arcana check now, Counterspell always requires a skill check or you need to upcast it more than usual. Obviously describe this beforehand.
Ah yes, my favorite transportation spell, True Resurrection. Our table has a small check to Counterspell, where you don't have the Meet it to Beat it feature, the cast always requires the DC roll, upcasting doesn't provide any benefit.
@@TheGreatDanishI hate DMs with this mindset, you already have ask the tools at your disposal, and the ability to bend or break rules at will, but instead choose to be petty about a powerful, but not broken, spell. It's a very simple spell to deal with as a dm, without trying to scare your players from using their kits.
That method of counterspell would make for a very different kind of setting. Wizards would be much more weary of each other, and Lore Bards would be preferred in courts, able to debuff magic attack rolls, buff saving throws, or have better counterspells with peerless talent and glibness. It's like Frieren, where humans spent 80 years dissecting and innovating on Zoltraak, but you are playing in a setting before Wizards figured out True Counterspell. It has potential to be interesting! As long as you don't just treat everything the same.
I made Guidance and Resistance reactions, so they fit with the way players want to use them. I made True Strike a bonus action, so it has a reason to exist. All three spells add a d4 to a d20 roll of the appropriate type. Changing True Strike to +1d4 instead of granting advantage was necessary to prevent it from becoming a must-have for every rogue, and requiring a multiclass.
I like this solution for Guidance and Resistance. And it means there has to be a triggering action so you can't spam it without cause. But I really like making True Strike a bonus action. It makes it actually worth using and 5e could really use more bonus action spells anyway.
True strike could’ve been acquired through at least 2 feats, Magic initiate, and Aberrant Dragonmark, so multiclassing wouldn’t necessarily be necessary, however it’s on the wizard spell list so Arcane Tricksters would be able to take it innately so it which is often considered the strongest most versatile of rogues would just become even stronger.
@@AtelierGod - Yes, there are other ways to get True Strike, but the point was that if an option is too good, it sets up an illusion-of-choice situation. (And I wouldn't allow Aberrant 'marks in a setting that doesn't have the equivalent of the 12 'marked houses to hunt you. Those 'marks make you a pariah in the way that being a half-orc or tiefling used to, so no one cares that 12 multinational corporations want you dead.)
@@xolotltolox7626 at the cost of their speed, true strike if like the UA would not cost their movement speed and would increase the damage the rogue could do.
Speaking as a player, I have issues with the way some DM's deal with remove curse by making it into a non-spell. Curses are already something that doesn't come up very often, at least in the games I play, so it kind sucks that the one time you get to use the one spell to help, you're effectively told "no, go fuck yourself." Like, I was in a game where my rogue had a sentient cursed magic sword. It was really strong, but it also actively wanted to eat her soul when she would die. But I couldn't get rid of it even if I wanted to because the DM straight up told me "no, remove curse doesn't work." And that's been the case pretty much every time I see curses come up in games. I personally like how Pathfinder does it, in that it's a check against the cruse's dc to get rid of it. The more powerful the curse, the higher the DC to counteract it. It feels more fair so players have a chance against it even if it would be difficult and the DM doesn't get cheated out of their plot hook they came up with. That would be a more balance way to fixing it instead of making it into a useless spell.
Speaking from the other side of the fence, precisely because curse are rare and often debilitating, I dislike how easy it is to remove them. For context, when I GMed "Curse of Strahd", one of the PCs and a child were bit by a werewolf. I rolled to see how much time they had before the next full moon (roughly two weeks). An allied NPC had a Remove Curse scroll, so there was the problem of what to do... until the paladin remembered that he had Remove Curse. So, a potentially debilitating curse, that could have cause much grief and moral quandaries was solved with just an action after the next long rest. My take is that Remove Curse is a badly designed spell, because it remove challenges at a pretty negligeble cost.
Sitting on top of he fence, curses and similar things can be great, if you've got an interesting curse and a person who's invested in the roleplay opportunities it can give them, but they can also be a boring or stupid aggravation, or even the sort of thing that entirely wrecks the fun of a character for it's player, if there's a bad match between the curse's effects and what the player does and does not enjoy roleplaying.
Remove curse and some of the other status removal spells (like raise dead) tend to be very anti-drama. Typically curses in fiction are removable in some way via an escape clause. You can remove your werewolf curse by killing the werewolf that bit you, or some kind of original werewolf that started the chain. Other curses involve something like the kiss of a princess or true love and so forth. These create interesting situations in play. Not all D&D curses have these, and I think if it's just a generic curse with no escape clause, remove curse should just get rid of it. The condition itself isn't interesting so its means of removal can be just a spell. But if there is one, the spell should just help but not remove those qualifications. For remove curse I prefer revising it to: "If the curse in question has no escape clause, you remove it. If there is an escape clause, remove curse tells you what it is and points you to the nearest source of something that can remove it (The werewolf that bit you, or the nearest princess, etc)."
I'm in a game where the DM has homebrewed a "blood" magic mechanic that gets used in some situations. Remove curse works fine to rid you of cursed magical items but if the curse is ON YOU like Lycanthropy it takes a blood sacrifice to boost the spell. Just how much depends on how powerful the curse is. My wizard has been using their own blood for this sort of thing and it's always a risk that it might take too much. If you want to take the darker route you can use something/someone else's blood.
Anyone interested in finding ways to make mysteries that work around Speak with Dead in their games should check out the show "Pushing Daisies." That's basically the main character's whole deal; he can touch something dead and bring it to life, and then touch them again to return them to rest. He uses that power to make pies with eternally fresh fruit, but another main character convinces him to use that ability to interview the recently deceased to help solve their own murders.
I don't mind Guidance at all. My biggest pet peeve is people forget it's vocal and somatic. So people cast it for persuasion checks in front of NPC's and get surprised when the NPC notices the spell... But for locks and stuff yeah. It's by no means a quiet or stealthy spell so I think it's fair honestly.
I remember when silvery barbs came bursting onto the scene I also remember the immediate backlash and hatred that it got. Frankly speaking Mike, I think your way of handling it is the best. Don't outright ban it but give it a cost and make it difficult to acquire
Depending on my prep, I've actually had cyphered a message/handout for the characters. If they have the comprehend languages, I'd give them a key to break it, and they'd still have to long hand translate it. Or it gives them a word for word translation, but not the metaphorical meanings if it's hidden behind that.
I dont ban any spells, because i find it sort of lazy on my end as a GM however, there are some limitations i enforce, typically on things i claim to be game breaking, like the technical infinite simulacrum loop.
@@BroKenYaKnow Pretty sure they are referring to the situation of "my simulacrum casts simulacrum on me, rinse repeat for the new simulacrum." In that case, each of your simulacrums only has 1 simulacrum spell active, so they don't fade unless you interpret your simulacrums casting a spell as an extension of "you" that is casting it, but that opens up a lot of other questions for the spell. Pretty simple to fix though.
@@humblehonchkrow1609 There's no situation in which you have a simulacrum that has the spell slot to cast simulacrum at 8th lvl. They only get the spell slots you have at casting simulacrum, which uses your 8th lvl spell. Meaning your simulacrum has no 8th lvl spells. And if they used a 9th lvl, the most you can have is 2 simulacrum that way. They can't recover spell slots. They turn into a normal dude after using them all. This is reddit misinformation again, reddit likes to not read spells and make nonsense up.
@@BroKenYaKnow For simplicity sake, lets assume a 15th level character with a level 8 and 7 slot as I think that is the earliest point when I think it is doable: Say I use a 7th level slot to cast simulacrum (call it simulacrum 1). My simulacrum and me now both still have an 8th level slot but no 7th level. Simulacrum 1 uses that 8th level slot to cast simulacrum on me creating simulacrum 2. Simulacrum 2 copies MY slots as I am the target of the spell not simulacrum 1's slots (who expended both their 7th and 8th). Since I still have an 8th, then simulacrum 2 also still has their 8th as they are a copy of me and there is nothing stopping simulacrum 2 from repeating the process. To be clear, its not like I want this to work. I just fail to see why it doesn't work the way it is written.
@@humblehonchkrow1609 I was mistake on the fact that this is a 7th lvl spell and not a 8th lvl spell and the fact that it is a touch range, not a self range. This is indeed a wack spell that clearly wasn't thought out. If it were 8th lvl, this cheese at least won't be possible until lvl 20. You're god at that point anyway. Though I feel it is notable that the material components cost 1,500gp of ruby dust, a resource the dm directly has control of the scarcity of.
Haven't gotten all the way through the video, you may touch on this later but I wanted to get it written out while I was thinking about it. As a DM, I make a couple of assumptions with my players in session 0. First, when it comes to the world they live in, the characters are smarter than the players. So I would allow things like some over the table talk about situations where an experienced adventurer might know something that the player would not, or that they'd know the basics of tracking, forest craft, singing, conversation with nobles, etc. BUT there are many situations where the players are smarter than the characters, so at the same time I would prevent the character from acting on information the PLAYER knows. Things like "I botched that roll, I need one of the others to take over something I specialize in". This applies to spells like guidance because they often try to use it as a REACTION when something is currently happening, rather than beforehand. The other thing I do is remind characters of the way the spell is written, especially if they try to abuse it. Comprehend languages: you must touch the surface the writing is on, so you can't read the archway above a door if you can't reach it (or have someone give you a boost) and it takes a minute to cast. Silvery Barbs is a great example of this: RAW, the spell belongs to the Silverquill school of Strixhaven, and if you aren't a student there, you have no way to know the spell. If the spell has a verbal component, they can't cast it in the middle of a social scenario without being noticed, questioned, and potentially stopped. All that said, I also bend every one of the above rules if the rule of cool wins out, or if I see the player is demoralized by the action (not the character) and is genuinely not enjoying the game. Because this is a game first and foremost, and if everyone isn't having fun, what is the point. The only rule I enforce 100% of the time is this: COMMUNICATE with me. Tell me what you are wanting out of the game, what you are planning and need some compromise or help on, and how we as a group can make this a fun environment for everyone. Sometimes that means reflavoring a game mechanic, and sometimes that means outright ignoring certain rules. Cause it's our game, in that moment. And the game is made up, and the rules don't matter. :)
From your first couple lines there and a brief skim of a little more, I feel like this is a comment I would agree with and could learn from... but the Wall of Text format is making my brain absolutely rebel against trying to *read* it. I hope you'll figure out how to make paragraph breaks (actual blank lines between paragraphs, giving visual white space), which for my computer is Shift+Enter.
What if remove curse worked to give you leads / rules for breaking it, and maybe it helps with one ingredient so the players get 1 agency (they get to choose which ingredient they dont want to get), 2 the spell helps clear the curse (it provides the clear conditions and 1 ingredient of the players choice) and 3 the dm still get to make removing the curse harder and more interesting.
While I agree that guidance needs to be said before the roll this causes a major issue in actual play. Let's say the rogue and DM and keyed in and going back and forth on the rogue investigating a chest for traps and lockpicking it. There usually is NOT a break or breath where a priest/druid can casually say "and I cast guidance" because the second the DM says "roll investigation" the rogue is going to immediately roll their dice. This causes the guidance caster to have to yelp out "I CAST GUIDANCE" before the DM finishes saying "roll investigation" because they need to say it before the roll happens but there was no way to say it beforehand without interrupting and speaking over either them DM or rogue. Online you can at least type in the chat and pray the DM and rogue read it before they roll.
idea for spell fixes: comprehend languages: perhaps comprehend languages isn't perfect (especially for ancient or alien languages) for example it might translate words literally, and the players would still have to find the context behind the word choice. like imagine how someone who doesn't know English phrases would take "this injury has been a thorn in my side" maybe they'd take it literally and assume the injury is literally from a thorn in your side speak with dead: honestly there are tons of ways to hide info from speak with dead 1. the dead person hate's the party and refuses to tell the truth 2. the answers are cryptic or obfuscating 3. the answers are misleading or inconclusive 4. the dead person has a secret and will lie to protect it 5. the dead person simply doesn't know the answer to your question 6. the dead person was mistaken in life and shares false information 7. the dead person only spoke a little-known language (in which case you'd also need a way to speak that language) 8. the corpse had its mouth damaged to the point where it can't speak 9. the speak with dead spell was already cast on it in the last 10 days remove curse: alter it maybe in one of the following ways: 1. it only suppresses the curse, not removes it 2. it has to be upcast to match the severity of the curse 3. it's actually just the final step of removing a curse, for example to cure lycanthropy you need a creature to ingest a wolfbane which temporarily suppresses the curse, and if you target them with remove curse while lycanthropy is suppressed, they are cured
The bit about Counterspell reminded me of a campaign that had been one of the best I was ever in, until the GM decided to make the boss of the campaign and all of the monsters backing him up totally immune to magic. I was playing a character whose offensive abilities were all based on spellcasting, so while the other players were getting moments of being absolute badasses, I was barely making a dent on anything. I spent most of the fight mentally checked out, and doing 2-20 hit points of damage to monsters that had hundreds of hp. It went from being one of the best campaigns to one of the absolute worst in a single session.
In Mage the Ascension/Awakening players effectively start with Wish as an unlimited spell and it is never a problem. The world just needs to be internally consistent. Like in our world we have smartphones and they are normally either not allowed when sitting in a exam or exams are setup so they require a smartphone.
A rarer occurrence is Countering a Counterspell with Counterspell as a set reaction from your reaction or another spellcaster in the party's reaction. It's hilarious but shocking to see the party/gamemaster's reactions.
For spells that raise the dead, I like requiring the the spell caster and the character being raised to make a constitution saving throw with a DC of 10 + the level of the spell to raise them. If the character being rezzed fails, they lose a point of Constitution (semi-permanently: they can do a quest to restore the point somehow if they are ever successfully rezzed) and the spell fails. If the character being rezzed fails, the caster rolls at disadvantage. In either case, if the caster fails their roll, they lose a point of Constitution (again, semi-permanently) but the spell still may succeed in bringing the target back from the dead, depending on the target's roll. Reincarnation does not require any of these rolls. It just works, and I use an extended list of possible species/races/subraces that they may come back as.
BTW, I require the spell caster to roll to keep from losing Constitution because it makes it a risk for them. That way NPC clerics arent going to just raise every peasant or unknown adventurer that is brought to them. They only risk it for important people or people they find important.
My current DM bans all resurrection except Revivify, bc she wants the characters to be able to trust in-character that once we've killed someone, they're dead.
I think a safer solution for Remove Curse would be to demand material components and set conditions for it to work on certain curses. Curses that demand this involvement would mostly include Vampirism, Lycanthropy, or anything that a Hag could give you. I.E., save those kinds of curses for entities who actually have some status. If you used remove curse on a cursed magic item, would simply give you the chance to unattune and leave it for the next sad sap to pick it up.
7:08 My campaign has a lot of languages that my players wouldn't have any way to speak, so Comprehend Languages is very useful to them, in addition to magic items(?) that give them extra languages.
My solution for the Resurrection spells is pretty simple, you can only get brought back once. I've toyed with exceptions to that, the one I've settled on is you can only be brought back once by the standard Resurrection spells, and once by Reincarnation. This applies to using Wish to recreate any of the Resurrection spells, however if you use the version of Wish that can risk you losing the ability to cast Wish ever again, that one can work on you as many times as you want, because the price for that is risking losing the spell, and let's be honest, Wish should usually just work. And yes I've really thought through the logistics of this. "Oh why would you ever use the higher level, more expensive spells if your revivify takes the one do-over anyways?" Simple, the advantage of the higher level spells is that since you don't have to use them immediately, you don't need to keep them always prepared like Revivify, thus you can have another combat or utility spell to hopefully prevent death in the first place. And as you use the even higher spells you can over come more difficult situations, like disintegration, it's all already built in. As for flavor/in game reasoning for this? Well you know that diamond all the standard Res spells use? Yeah well the somatic component for casting those spells is cutting out the heart and replacing it with the diamond a-la the Briarhearts from Skyrim. And no amount of healing will ever fully repair the wound. Boom, you can't be Res'd again because you only had the one heart, and it's a permanent reminder of what happened. Even if you later use your one use of Reincarnation, your body still has the wound and the diamond for the heart. For easy mode version of these rules, each level of Res spell can be used once each. So you get one Revivify, one Raise Dead, one Resurrection, etc. The higher level spells can be used in place of the lower level ones, but not the other way around. (i.e. you could theoretically be True Res'd 4 times, and then never be able to be Res'd again with any spell, but you'd only ever get one Revivify)
Good video. Always interesting to listen to takes about House Rules. On a different note: One thing I've noticed being done A LOT in these videos and I've begun noticing and really pay attention after your PHB covers reviews. You use the crutch "We''ll talk about this later/We'll get there soon/We'll get back to this" constantly. In the PHB review it was a funny bit. But it did lampshade how frequently this literary device is used in general.
Players are always upset at counterspell because they don't understand what their options as a spellcaster are. Learn to prepare your spells behind cover instead of in full view of the enemy spellcaster. Have people bait out reactions from the spellcaster before blowing your load. Target the spellcaster first before using powerful magic. Silence the spellcaster. Block line of sight of the spellcaster. BLIND the spellcaster. You think a martial has a bad time? No, they simply have disadvantage. Casters simply are not allowed to cast most spell due to the wonderful words "A target/spot you can see". Players like to complain about GMs treating NPCs as if they have more computing power than 90s AI but refuse to open the player's handbook and read how spells/abilities work beyond RAW.
31:52 - Your hands won't be cold and dead, they'll just be replaced by elf hands. Or gnome, or dwarf, or backwards rakshasa hands, if things get _really_ weird.
My own take on each of these: *Guidance:* It's best to keep the downsides of guidance in mind, yeah. I also think if you and the players can agree guidance anxiety is annoying, you can just negotiate a custom rule. A favourite of mine is saying Guidance only works X times a day, but the user can apply its bonus retroactively to a failed skillcheck to try and turn it into a success. *Comprehend Languages:* If you need a document that can't be read, a cipher or secret code will counter this spell. If you _really_ need the language barrier to be important in your game, I'd prefer increasing the spell level to a removal, or perhaps you can rationalise how certain languages might be impenetrable to the spell. *Goodberry:* Yeah, this one is definitely a matter of it breaking _very specific_ kinds of games. I like Zee Bashew's approach because you can apply the logic retroactively. If you're doing a desert adventure where you want to emphasise rationing for that specific adventure's vibes, you can say that Goodberry requires fresh berries, it's never come up as a problem before because of how easy they'd be to get, but in this hostile environment the PCs will have to find a way to preserve berries if they want Goodberry to work. *Identify:* I do understand wanting to make magic items harder to figure out, but the PCs need _some_ way to unambiguously understand what a magic item does at some point. *Healing Spirit:* Post errata I don't think it's problematic enough to ban. I will say personally, if you are getting to the point where you and the players are essentially in a balancing arms race over one specific spell, that's worthy of having a direct balancing discussion with your table. *Counterspell:* IMO spellcasters being able to contest the spells of other casters is too important to ban, but I do think Counterspell is lame. Not just when used against players- Those Critical Role moments are dope, but it can be seriously sad for spellcaster villains to just _fail_ to cast a spell, said Crit Role moments are often enhanced by the context being Matt's villains trying to escape. I have a custom replacement spell that boils down to _"You and the caster you countered are locked in a spell duel and can both use your concentration slot to maintain it. Whoever loses/gives up concentration first loses the duel, and the other gets what they wanted, either that spell succeeding or failing to cast. You can both take your turns as normal, but you both have the choice to use your action to force the other to make a DC10 + your spell mod concentration check. If you cast this at a lower level than the one you're contesting, you need a concentration check of DC10 + the total level difference to start the duel or it fails."_ This way, either way the counterspell goes, you get the cool visual of both casters locked in a big laserbeam battle and it feels way more earned one way or the other. *Speak With Dead:* A DM who doesn't plan for Speak With Dead when making a murder mystery doesn't have any excuse. There are tons of ways for Speak With Dead to be ineffective. The killer smashed the jaw in, the head is missing, the victim was in shock and couldn't make sense of their last moments, or my favourite, they only identify their killer with a cryptic phrase that will make sense in the end, Disco Elysium style. *Summoning Spells:* This is definitely another instance where you should ideally use custom rules to keep combat quick, not ban outright. *Remove Curse:* This is a pretty complex problem that could also be worthy of a custom ruling. It really sucks that the spell is essentially designed assuming "curses" as individual disposable debuffs, whereas the narrative hook for curses is much more grave, and that so many curses DMs deal out just carry Remove Curse immunity. *Resurrection:* Totally fine thing to ban depending on the vibe a campaign is going for. *Charm Monster:* Really not that bad, there are tons of ways for Charm to fail, it's a high risk attempt to defuse the encounter. Don't get mad when one in ten times, your players actually cut all the right wires. *Polymorph:* Some people just hate fun! Ban Fireball next, why don't they? *Teleports:* Definitely a valid rule to set up for a universe in advance, and can go a long way to making high level campaigns easier to manage. *Wish:* Far too iconic to D&D to ever seriously consider banning for me. Wish is definitely a handful but that's the beauty of it. *Silvery Barbs:* Yeah, it's a mess and if there's one spell I'm fine with leaving on a banlist, that would be it.
I would rule that for Speak with Dead, the creature's mouth must be intact enough to physically produce words. That means no casting it on a skeleton, they gotta have lips and a tongue. So if you have a killer that's worthy of a mystery, they may well know to cut out the tongues of their victims.
One way I could see counter spell being limited in its uses would be to make it so that yes you do interrupt the casting of a spell but the afflicted retains its action so it can cast another leveled spell since it didn’t cast a spell with its first spell due to counter spell but due to the lose in time you must cast a spell of a lower level than the spell slot you tried to use.
I love that your suggestions about Remove Curse were basically the same thing I suggested in your Discord while we were waiting for the video to go up 😅.
I like the in-character investigation created by banning short rest identifying and the identify spell. I have a ring that has four abilities that trigger based on random words so the player is incentivised to talk in character more. I had an axe that could be charged up by killing monsters so my player had two options keep charging it up and suffer the consequences or stop charging it up. Simple choice, but big impact. I have an amulet that was used by an npc so the player knew some of what it could already do before testing it out. You would be surprised how creative players can be when testing magic items.
I've had a lot of fun working around remove curse. There's a lot of ways to circumvent it while still giving your players the easy out for curses sometimes. One of the ways around remove curse is having the curse say that the player must attempt to conceal the curse. It gives a fun roleplay opportunity to the player and means the party won't just hit them with remove curse before the curse can do anything. You can also do the voodoo doll method. Instead of an item the player is carrying being cursed, have an object somewhere that has like a lock of the PC's hair or something in it that's projecting the curse onto them. Fun one with that is that you can have remove curse act as a temporary remedy that only alleviates the symptoms for a time while the players search for the object. You can also use one and done curses. An item that when you attune to it, it vaporizes all spell scroll the PC is carrying for example. The final way I've worked around remove curse is just curses that are tougher to remove. Say a curse that you have to make a spellcasting ability check to remove. That can make curses last a long time, especially if you set the dc arbitrarily high like DC 25.
I've changed Silvery Barbs to be 2nd level. It still gets used, but not as much. I also don't tell people more information when hit, other than "you are hit". I started this a long time ago due to the Shield spell. When I give damage I'll inform them if it was a crit with the description of the damage but it is too late to use a "when hit" reaction. They could still use a "when taking damage" reaction of course. This way these reactions are not only used when most effective. I also like the narrative, especially with Shield of the attack sometimes blowing through their hasty defense.
There are enough abilities that are used in responses to crits like the Grave Cleric's Sentinel at Death's Door, so I'd at least let them know the crit. I agree on the not telling them the number rolled though (unless it's comically high, I have to keep up the DM meme of "does a 28 hit?" against someone with like 17 or less AC) as it adds to the making an important choice factor. But yeah my typical levels of info are "welp that was a nat 1" "that'll miss" "that'll hit" and "oooh ok nat 20" when enemies are rolling to hit. Granted, I guess if no one has abilities where the crit is actually important, a simple hit/miss is fine, but idk. I personally think it just feels bad to be like "it hit" "ok no reactions" "alright well that was a crit so."
@@gameraven13 Yeah if there is a mechanical reason to tell them I will, but I view reactions are reflexes, they don't have time to carefully analyze cost/benefits. So they get the minimum information. Of course for the example you gave, since I do inform there is a crit when damage is relayed, it would work fine. I've never had a player play a Grave Cleric though, so no experience there. ;) I also combine everything together if there is no reason to keep them separate. Depends on the party. I'm not trying to penalize people, I'm trying to immerse them and help them stop treating everything like a wargame
Funnily enough thats explicitly how the Shield spell is suppose to work...which works great inperson behind a DM screen but a lot of online DMs roll in the open to show they're being fair/its just their playstyle. The DM rolls, tells you that your character has been hit, you say you use shield and announce your new AC, DM checks the roll and says whether it still hits or not is how the shield spell is MEANT to be used.
This is a video that not only I got useful insigth to improve myself as DM from what Mike said, but from useful tips that people shared in the comments. Great topic and I should save this video apart and come back from time to time if needed.
I don't ban spells but certain spells are problematic. I change the spells to try to balance them. For example, I change Silvery Barbs to be a 2d level spell and I change the trigger of it to: when a creature you can see within 60 ft of you makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. That means that the players must cast it prior to the roll. They do not know ahead of time what the result will be.
When I was introducing some newbies to gaming, I actually made some little cards (from card stock, a little smaller than average playing cards) with envelopes with windows in them. The window showed what the item looked like, and if they rolled well on a check they could slide the card up to see a couple lines (I forget how exactly I managed it, but there were like two or three levels of detail they could get). It gave a little extra mystery and engagement with items that would eventually become background details (like a healing potion or a sunrod). I certainly wouldn't do that for experienced players... except it strikes me that it might indeed be the way to go for specific cool items that they need to explore over time. Hand over the partially disguised card and when they get to whatever mechanic allows them to learn more, tell them just how much they can uncover -- and I don't need to keep track of the details myself.
My FAVORITE counter spell scene is that last fight in C2…. Those chain counter spells when there are warlocks, 2 celerics, and like 4 wizards in a single fight
i dont ban anything, i explicitly make my enemy spellcasters learn from the spells the party defaults towards, and plan their tactics around it. You need to actually be able to SEE two enemies at once for say, silvery barbs to function, which means keeping the enemies seperated out of LOS of the party caster. tactics, i have found, are more fun for the players to try to overcome with all their fancy tricks, rather than taking their tricks away for "fairness"
See, I love this in theory. But it’s really really hard to make it not feel like punishing the party for playing the game. I have this problem in my game with a cleric with a racial fly speed. Nets and arrows fix this very easy to still put a level of risk in. But when the cleric wants to cast spirit guardians and fly above them…. Everyone’s going to target that. This often just feels like punishing the play for using a good spell
@@BroKenYaKnow I mean in your defence, the player is using spirit guardian and going right near the enemies (just above instead of next). It shouldnt be free to just do that, it would be like if the enemies ignored a non-flying version of this situation. And thats simply the cost of such a good spell, small range, easy to retaliate.
@@blazichaos7181 true, and honestly I never hear my players get upset about the situation or my dming. I just really want them to do cool powerful stuff, but I’m not going to make the enemy stupid to let them. Weird balance trying to let them feel powerful and have fun while also challenging them. I’ve started just giving them an idea of the difficulty of a fight (within the game) with NPCs and whatnot. If it’s a surprise, ambush, or underprepared fight- then it’s not going to be as bad as the bandit fight they got to fully devise a plan for and initiate on their terms. The worse fight they had was when I used nets to ground the cleric so the ground people could hit them. Definitely didn’t seem to have fun with that one, but it did have a story reason behind it
@BroKenYaKnow i: don't allow racial flying speed because fly is usually only accessible at 5th level for 10 minutes at a time, with concentration. free flight at level 1 with no concentration is overpowered and you cannot balance around unless you want the player with flight to always be the most important party member at all times
@@BroKenYaKnow It's also just realistic that enemies would focus fire on the flying glowing party member capable of burning them to a crisp if they get close enough
In a game I was in we needed to find out a mystery murderer, cast speak with dead, dead person gives incredibly vague answers, I cast detect thoughts and immediately find the killer anyway
In a similar way to Taliesin's tongue-in-cheek interpretation of his role as "the hacker" in Honey Heist by physically hacking at things, it's fun to interpret Remove Curse as magical censorship of naughty words
I tend to distill my thoughts on Guidance to one simple phrase: "Guidance is not a Reaction spell". Falling off a cliff? No you can't use Guidance because the Athletics check to catch yourself is a Reaction, you literally don't have time. Checking to see if you know something? No you can't use Guidance, because checks like that are just things I have you roll outside of the normal turn structure. Beyond stuff like that I don't worry about it that much.
If players don't like being counter spelled. Counter play it. 60 Feet range. It can get counter spelled. It can't easily beat high level spell slots. Subtle spell.
37:42 I like wish, since it can allow some really interesting sittuations if you are in a high level campaign (also, it can end up badly if you aren't careful with how you word your wish, while also being able to lose the spell if you roll less than 33 in a d100). I was literally thinking about using the wish spell to make a crossover for the final fight of a campaign, breaking the barriers of time and planes to allow all the parties that are doing the adventure my DM is running on that module he created for a final battle against the BBEG of the campaign (also,s ince the BBEG is not native of the plane we are in, this will also allow to kill her permanently.). Also, my character has seen the spell cast before, as an NPC used it in a sittuation in which we were extremely screwed, and that NPC lost the ability to cast spells forever, since he depleted his whole magical reserves by forcing the spell before he was able to wield it naturally (also, he almost dies during that casting, as he ended up with a maximum HP of 10 after that casting to show how much it had drained him), so, my character knows the spell, but not how to draw that much magical energy (since my character only knows up to level 6 spells). I think that is a spell that one should look forward to, but also know what they are getting into, making the spell something that the players don't want to use unless they need to, since the consequences could be devastating.
Something I enjoy doing with Comprehend Languages is having it work just like you said, like a translation app. And the programmers of it (an ancient morally dubious empire that are responsible for many of the artifacts in the world) wouldn’t have every single language in it. Most are in there, but there are three groups of exceptions. 1. Ancient languages that were forgotten before that empire came into power 2. A language from beyond the normal bounds of the setting 3. The language of the nobles of that particular empire, since they didn’t want the lower class to listen in on them. The spell is still useful at all times, because even if it doesn’t give them what the language is, it tells them it is either massively ancient or from beyond the stars. It always gives information of some kind.
The only character I’ve ever been tempted to take Silvery Barbs on is a member of the Orzhov Guild on Ravnica, which is at least in the same continuity as Strixhaven. But, I also have 30+ years of TTRPG experience; I often have to actively hold back to keep from dominating a game. As a GM, I don’t ban spells, mostly because I have the experience to work around them. But, I understand not every GM does; do what works for the health of your game. Just remember: players will always do things you aren’t prepared for. *Always.*
For Remove Curse I think the best solution is for Bestow Curse to be expanded into an effect that might be a part of various monster attacks. Make it another condition like poisoned or charmed. THAT is the kind of curse that Remove Curse removes. Big curses though? Like vampirism or lycanthropy or maybe even some cursed weapon effects? Those require a big major ritual with special ingredients and maybe the help of a particularly skilled NPC (whose whereabouts might be unknown)
A version of Remove Curse that I've considered is change it to "suppress curse". Make it suppress all effects of a curse for 24 hours. You could even make it a ritual spell. 24 hour suppression is long enough get past temporary issues, while not giving you a complete answer for something like curing lycanthropy. If you make it a ritual then it is even something that doesn't have mechanical issues during the adventure but is always looming over your head because it is there waiting if you ever can't cast the spell for a day. It can even be the trigger to some adventure when the old priest of the town who has been suppressing the orphan's lycanthropy suddenly dies due to a normal accident and the party has to look into a decade old town mystery to find the werewolf and either kill it or take on the job of somehow curing them.
On the issue of Remove Curse, it's worth mentioning, since apparently 5e hasn't examined this, but it was elaborated on in 3.5. Namely in the supplementary, Book of Vile Darkness (yes it's an actual game Manuel in 3.5) where it made it clear that Remove Curse only works on "weak curses". Namely, anything Bestow Curse is capable of doing, but there are significantly more powerful curses that a simple casting of a spell won't get rid of. Examples were things like a Dying Curse, that involves afflicting someone with a curse powered by the rage that could be in someone's dying breaths. A hex woven by a hag or a full coven that is so intricate and empowered by fell magics that it can't be lifted by a mere wave of the hand, and other such situations where truly "Dire Curses" would require more than a PC to just cast a spell to end it... if it could be ended at all. Keeping this in mind, and how such curses follow how we understand these types of magics to work in folk lore, can go a long way to not actually needing to modify how Remove Curse works, let alone banning the spell out right.
For Conjure Animals, I did the whole "summon 8 dinosaurs" thing once, and then my DM and I had a chat where we basically decided that in combat I would only use the 1 or 2 creature options.
Great video, Mike, gave me a lot of food for thought as a GM. For what it's worth, in my own games, with resurrection spells I don't add a difficulty level, but introduce consequences for over use on the same individuals (straining the soul or the threads of fate etc). One thought for potentially improving silvery barbs might be that it just forces a re-roll, not disadvantage, which would still make it a good option for countering critical hits, but less of a reflexive option for a standard hit.
I’m currently running a curse heavy campaign, and the way I’ve run remove curse is basically the same as a dispel magic. Assign the curse a dc that would equate it roughly to a level of spell and have the players roll. Of course, some of the curses have been put on them by a god so the dc goes beyond 19, but it’s been a way to provide hope of removing a curse while keeping it away from just the remove curse spell. I also had an NPC they went to say that if they gave him a few months he could come up with a ritual to make the remove curse more precise. Cause there was also a backstory curse that was involved and if that one was broken the character would instantly die (by the player’s orders) so that character was hesitant to let the remove curse happen. But yea. Just treat it like a dispel and assign spell levels to the curses! It works!
silvery barbs is the only spell that i ban because, like you said, it’s too good not to take. i like the idea of increasing the spell level of silvery barbs to second or third level, but even then i think it is too powerful. this is especially true for sorcerers with the subtle spell metamagic because they can just never fail a social encounter. i think a good way of limiting this spell would be to up the level of the spell to third and then change the wording of the spell to “when an enemy you can see within range makes an attack roll, you can give them disadvantage on the attack. you can alternatively give advantage on a saving throw to an ally if they and the attacker are both visible” this makes it more like counterspell that works on melee and ranged attacks, but isn’t too much more powerful than counterspell against spell casters. also, you can make the range like 30 feet instead of 60 feet just to nerf it a little bit more
With remove curse i like to add that the spell is the prefix for the cure, not the "active ingredient". Players are free to have remove curse but there is also a ritual aspect. For example, to cure lycanthropy you need wolfsbane and silver in order to force the target to transform, then you fight them down until they are weak and THEN you cast it. It won't work unless they are incensed by wolfsbane, primed by silver, and in a weakened state on the brink of death
We also use the "you can cast Guidance if it makes sense for the characters in-world to be doing that" rule. It helps that our cleric is a ditz and tends to forget about it, so my rogue is usually the one (in character) requesting to have Guidance cast on him. If it's a borderline case, I always check with the DM first if Guidance can be used or not. It's never really been an issue for us (the biggest challenge is reminding the cleric that Guidance and Enhance Ability are both concentration, so he can only use one or the other).
I've recently joined my first campaign (a few sessions in, after finally wrapping my head around how to play with the help of bg3 lol - it's a much less overwhelming introduction) and there's a lot of 'banned' spells in our campaign... but it doesn't really feel like that because it's part of the setting that they're missing. Also, we gained access to one of the spells (true resurrection) as a one time cast as a randomly rolled quest reward and it felt amazing ahaha, so the "fun" of banning vs not banning really is context dependent
For Remove Curse, I really like the idea that much of the more powerful curses would be created specifically to be antagonistic to anyone trying to break it, like a built-in magical trap. So it might be designed to respond to an attempted break by doubling down the effect, spreading the effect to the curse breaker, alerting the original caster that the curse has been broken, any number of nasty triggered effects. The only way to evade this is by carefully studying the curse over downtime and succeeding on a spellcasting check to disable the failsafes...but if you don't have that kind of time, you might have to just cross your fingers and hope for the best.
I like to imagine that there is a cleric of good feels out there somewhere that is always casting guidance every 6 seconds. Everyone hates him, but they are all lucky.
A Counterspell alternative that I know of is casting the exact same spell as reaction into the original one, causing them to cancel each other out. Kinda of requires the enemies to have that exact spell, while revealing part of their arsenal as part of the couterspelling.
There was sort of a soft ban of different spells in the last game in which I played. It was a low resource game. With little coin and no place that it made sense to have a diamond mine or high end jeweler, most of these spells with costed components were very difficult to cast. Revivify was hard to cast, but Silvery Barbs fell like rain in a thunderstorm. LOL
In my campaign I had a player with a rogue wizard multiclass that took Silvery Barbs. I think they only cast it once or twice. There were a few resons: First, I tended to run battles across larger spaces to keep themselves safe my casters tend to stay making the action they wanted to interrupt outside their range. Second, most of the time, when it was used my rerolls succeeded, so they ended up seeing it as an iffy choice. Third they had several reaction options, so often they did not have a reaction. It was often a choice of Shield, Counterspell or SB.
Remove Curse in older editions had a caster level check you had to pass to remove most curses, so you could have curses that were easier or harder to remove, or even ones where they wouldn't be able to remove it now, but they could in a couple levels when they got stronger, if you're having problems with it, you could implement something like that into your games to help mitigate that issue.
18:19 counter spell doesn't encounter any tactical plays with the use of magic. I use a spell blocking system where you have to use a spell like a shield, having it where you use a fire or water spell to block an incoming spell. This way you can use LESS spell LVs or risk being beaten when trying to block with a lower level spell. Magic should be there to encourage your players to think through encounters and not bypass (with some expectations)
I've run a lot of murder mysteries in 5e, both of the "the cops cant interfere, theres a murderer among you, try to survive while you investigate" and of the "you work for the cops and run homicide, do an investigation" variety. My suggestion for the first kind would be to just set the player level at around level 3- this limits magic chicanery a fair bit, and also helps keeps tension up- a level 15 character is basically never gonna feel threatened by a classic murderer anyway, they're too big a pile of hitpoints and class features- but allows some variety in builds. For the second, i make a point of having speak eith dead and zone of truth be things the players colleagues already tried- you dont need to do a multi day investigation if you can ask the corpse who killed them and then confirm with a zone of truth, so every mystery starts with one of three results: the deceased's soul cant give an answer (it didnt see the person who did it, or it was obliterated, indicating a professional assassin of some kind), the deceased gave unvarifiable information (either the person they named cannot be found, or they have claimed something like an alien creature did it) or the zone of truth questioning has revealed contradictory information. Theres always some room for more thorough use of those spells and better wuestioning to get more info, but i find it useful as a place for them to start.
For remove curse I like it to temporarily negate the curses’ effect. Meaning it helps to stabilize a party member while they can resolve their quest for actually removing the curse
For Goodberry I think the 3.5 version can be an alternative. It gives 2d4 enchanted berries instead of 10, so it's a bit harder to know how many spell slots to save. It also limits the healing the spell can do to 8 points per person per day, which, meh, that just adds paperwork. But the important one is: the spell requires freshly picked berries to enchant. So if you're traveling through the wilderness with no towns in sight and your rations were eaten by an owlbear Goodberry now gives you an extra option for how to obtain your meal for today, as well as good in-combat healing, but you shouldn't treat it as your only option. If you pass a river you're going to go fishing rather than marching on confident there will surely be a berry patch ahead. For Conjure Animals my DM decided based on I think a sage advice somewhere to create a random animal table. I can ask the spirits for 8 wolves (or yaks, or giant bats, or giant frogs, or...), but I'm going to get 8 of one random creature of CR 1/4 or lower. Could be yakals, could be camels, could be fish. It does not solve the action imbalance. In fact I'm making extra rolls now. But it does solve me abusing this spell all the time coming from the philosophy that every problem has a solution that starts with "I summon 8 ..." The other summoning spells do let the caster pick their summons, because those are only used by NPCs so far.
As a player my DMs never banned any spell. Sometimes they have changed something to the effects. (Revive are often more complicated than using a spell slot, consume some shiny rocks and nothing more.) As a DM I never ban any spells. After the first change in the UA, I’ve tried Guidance as a reaction fore a one shot and, at my table, the change of the casting time solved some problems (and created some others, lol). And for counterspell my rules are “not in every combat” and “the same amount of caster that can counterspells the party have” (+1 if the encounter is very hard and make sense to have this bunch of spellcasters).
I agree with a lot of the stuff in video. Thoughts on some of the specific spells though are as follows. Comprehend Languages I think is great as it helps with world building. If a place if run by Orcs then a lot of the signs, documents, and such should mostly be in Orc. Same with Dwarves, Elves, and so on. This means if no one in the party speak that language they can't read the signs in some ruins that might be like Armory, Infirmary, warning sudden drop before a bit trap ;), and so on. It makes picking languages matter more so if someone knows it they can translate for the party but if they don't know then caster can step up with it. Also just because you can read something does not mean you understand it. If they really wanna keep the mystery of a text just have it written in code, it says so in the spell, and why would someone trying to keep something hidden write it normally even in a rare language when they know comprehend language exist. Identify is important to allow as I got limited time to play games and don't wanna sit around for 30+ minutes while either I or someone else at the table stumbles around trying to figure out what their item does. Let's keep the game moving. Speak with dead is fine and can even use to mislead your characters. Say someone was killed by shapeshifter or person with disguise magic so speaking with the dead will only confirm what other eye witnesses and planted evidence may reveal because the real killers are setting up a frame job. After all in a world with Speak with dead spell an assassin would know such things and keep their true self hidden. Or the assassin could cast Speak with dead on the victim themselves knowing it prevents further casting. Which then also gives a clue to the players that killer knows magic. Remove Curse I think should be errata to be done in levels. Like it can only remove and equal level or lower curse. And then Bestow curse and other curses have a spell ranking. This way you could have like a bestow curse hieghten to level 7 and the players would need to be able to cast remove curse as a level 7 spell to remove it. Thus need to be level 13. Where as curses like Vampire and Werewolves are Level 10 curses which means pretty much only wish or something like that can remove. Have a once size fits all curse remover and yet still have curses like werewolves in the world makes no sense. The revive spells I think are fine as first one is level 5 spell and has to be done right away which means you specifically need someone who can cast it on site and hope the person who goes down isn't that person. The next you get a level 9 and because it gives 10 days means you can maybe take a day's rest to prepare it if you don't have it on hand. But if you don't the party has to rush back to town in hopes of finding someone who can cast it. If they are based out of a smaller town there may not be a cleric who can cast it within a 10 days march. But also if the party has been together from level 1-9 there is a chance they have grown attached to those characters. So death can still sting in a race against the clock or tax their finances if they are say lower levels but and having to pay for a higher level spell does bring back their friend matter enough to pawn that magic weapon? But also person could RP the trauma of having died and seeing the other side. There is a ton of RP opportunity around player death and revival. Also though if the whole party wipes there is no one to do the reviving. Teleports require to have been to the location already to really get the most out of them. The circle one requires you have a circle at the destination so great for portalling back to a base of operations after a quest. But not so good for getting someplace you never been. Teleport had a very large chance of you ending up in some random location that may or may not be close to your intended target depending on how well you known the location. And even then if you are several miles off you gotta figure out in which direction, like if you try and teleport to a town are you North, South, East, or West of the town? Do you know any landmarks in the area to figure out where you landed? Basically you'd need to live in a location for months for me to consider it very familiar, otherwise it's seen casually or worst odds on that teleport. I don't see the problem here as I think it be fun to have players dropped into the middle of a deadly swamp because they rolled bad on teleport. Wish is end game I don't even see how this matters. Most campaigns will never get there and if your players stuck with it the whole time let them having their power fantasy and change the world. Perhaps they do some world changing wish like breaking teleports for your campaigns going forward in the same settings ;). Or fixing it after the previous campaign broke them. Getting to cast 9th level spells is a massive achievement and players should be able to feel the world altering powers at their finger tips. Or you could play monkey's paw and twist their wishes in unintended ways so they learn to becareful what they wish for. ;) Overall though most of the reason to ban it seem to be from wanting to impose our non-magical view on the way the world works into a fantasy realm where people of that world would already have figured out ways to deal with such magic.
I have had plans (that I need to accelerate now that my Sorcerer wants to take Animate Objects) to create an alternate homebrew for multi-creature summoning spells. I want to use MCDM's beautifully elegant Minion rules to keep all the summons easy to manage, and fast to use in combat, while still making sure the power level of the spells isn’t too heavily affected (unless the spells really need to be wrangled in).
When it comes to Counterspell, for my table, I use it and the players use it. Had a player who was an abjurstion wizard and at 10th level they can add their proficiency bonus to their counterspell check so it was rare they failed a counterspell and they LOVED it, especially when it was against high level spells and other counterspells
For remove curse, I make it to where it works like dispel magic where it only removes curses of a certain level. Higher level spell slots are needed for stronger curses.
Do you ban any spells in your games?
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I mostly work around the spells. I want to know what my players are running so encounters fit their power level.
I'd been thinking about banning silvery barbs, but instead I just go with a stricter interpretation of the requirement for casting it "1 reaction, which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw." I essentially say that you have to actually see them succeed on the saving throw or ability check or attack, as I don't actually *have* to tell a player when that occurs. Dm's usually do, but their character shouldn't know these things if they are not _visible_ to the character, even if the creature is. (How do you _know_ the creature succeeded vs your charm person spell? Or that the creature succeeded on its perception/deception/arcana check? Etc.) It sounds harsh, but personally I find the language of the spell's requirement really annoying, because it requires a character to be close enough to see a creature succeed on mechanics that ostensibly don't exist for them, but not actually see that mechanic, and the dm to tell the player of something their character wouldn't in a way that's a little weird in action at the table.
This change means the spell is good for obvious physical things, like undoing a crit, or someone beating some kind of visible physical save like dex or strength, but less useful for less obvious things like wisdom or charisma that the character shouldn't be aware of.
I didn't outright ban it, because I don't mind a spell being able to undo something through distraction, but it also felt like for a 1st level spell it was working outside its power to just undo saves and checks with no limitation. (I mind less for attacks, because a lot of enemies get a ton of those, and missing one is a good save for a PC, but doesn't hurt the creature overmuch. A failed save however, especially of certain types, can totally undo an encounter.)
But otherwise, I don't ban anything. (I do mod other stuff, like good berry, I make it cause a save or non-casters of it (or druids and rangers) so that it requires a save, or you fall into delirium and get hooked on it. So it's useful in an emergency, but there's a risk it might make some people less useful.)
CORRECTION: Conjure spells do NOT say the DM pick, it says they have the stats. Some spells, like find familiar, tell you to find the stats in the PHB. Conjure spells are just telling you who has the stats, not who chooses them. In fact, it says “choose one of the following...”
@@HorizonOfHope It says "choose one of the following options for what appears." and in conjure animals for example it lists the following:
*One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower
*Two beasts of challenge rating 1 or lower
*Four beasts of challenge rating 1/2 or lower
*Eight beasts of challenge rating 1/4 or lower
Those are what you get to choose. There's no mention of choosing specific creatures. The DM has the statistics for creatures that meet those requirements. So you don't choose which creature, cause you don't have the stats. You tell the DM "I want one beast of Cr 2 (or lower)" then they have the stats for that and give you a beast of Cr 2. Otherwise it would tell you to consult the MM for those creatures. Find familiar lists the animals for you to choose from, they could have done the same, or created a list for you to consult if they wanted you to choose, but instead you choose from those options. It's pretty clear. (Whether that's a good way to do it or not is debatable.)
@@HorizonOfHope Yes, but that strictly only says the player chooses the CR/number of creatures. The spell descriptions do not give any definite word on who decides the exact creature summoned.
In a game where “Disguise Self” exists it’s crazy how many players would innately trust a victim who says they were murdered by the butler when they cast “Speak With Dead”.
Also there are a lot of more mundane ways that a corpse would be unable to correctly answer the question.
1) "I was poisoned, I don't know who slipped it into my wine but" [insert some less direct information which narrows down the suspects to a manageable number but doesn't instantly reveal the killer]
2) As you kneel to touch the corpse you see a hole in the neck roll a medicine or investigation check, [on a success] you see that there's a lack of blood around the wound suggesting a post mortem mutilation and the cut is placed around the voice box, looking inside the mouth and you'd also see the tongue has been removed. (spell literally says the creature needs to have a map but i think a reasonable DM ruling is that they also need to have the other equipment for speaking to) this doesn't instantly spoil that element of the mystery, does still let players use mechanical skills, and gives them important information that the killer is probably someone with the education in medical and magical matters to understand both that a spell like speak with dead exists and enough medical knowledge to precisely disable the ability of the corpse to speak.
3) "I didn't recognise my killer but...." give a description of some elements of appearance and description, the players have to at least do the work of matching it to the pictures and/or descriptions i gave. Although maybe not this one as the time I did this once and repeated the a certain detail on the boots with a living witness, both victims they used speak with dead on and use the same line specifically when they met that character both before the murder and later on after the speak with dead and players never caught on and actually ended up helping the killer.
True. Just wait 2 more levels to learn Divination.
Also that's assuming it WANTS to tell you. Maybe they were a rival or enemy or they died as part of some scheme. The caster gets five questions but the corpse could lie or refuse to answer. It's not compelled to be truthful or cooperative.
Yup, being able to deal with powerful spells is a DM skill that nobody mentions. There are many solutions, but to one powerful player tool, the DM can always with an equally powerful, but opposing player tool. Which requires the DM to expect what tools their players will use, but the more you play the better you get at it and even if you fail to counter a tool, it's good. It's actually fine if your players managed to take a shortcut, outsmart you or just cheeze something you prepped. They will explode with happiness when they manage to find just the right way to solve that problem way too early, it will be an accomplishment they will remember fondly.
@@Kardfogu I agree, but I think it's at least partially the DMG's responsibility to highlight world-altering spells so that new DM's aren't constantly blindsided by them. Just simple stuff like "if you need to hide a magic item, putting it in a lead-lined container will block most low-level magical detection", "the following means can be used to detect an invisible creature if you suspect one is present: ..." or "if you want to make something truly secret and mysterious, the following steps will protect it from all but the highest-level divinations". Make sure to include the disclaimer that overusing these tools can be frustrating to players and to remind players that even if a spell is 'countered' it still provides some utility (ie: an enemy has to waste an action to throw flour to negate a player's invisibility).
PF1e's Gamemastery Guide has the "Villain's escape kit" section, which highlights a bunch of spells that can be used to evacuate a plot-important character, which I think is a generally helpful resource to include.
I think people also forget spells like Guidance have Verbal and Somatic components. A lot of times my players would want to cast Guidance in situations where randomly casting a spell during an encounter or intense situation might prove problematic/difficult. IE: Trying to lie to or convince a guard/king of something. Ultimately, I don't mind the spell and don't actively ban anything in my games, but reminding players that casting spells aren't automatically stealthy might be a good way to go.
I agree, the components of a spell overall get "glossed over" by players.
Annoying, but happens
I use this approach too
This bothers me so much, especially when I'm another player and someone else does this and the DM just lets it slide right in front of if the NPC 😂 😭 mUh iMmErSiOn gone
Much like Elan, "Sneak, sneak sneak past the stupid goblins!"
True enough, but it's also not a matter of a caster making a sonorous intonation loud enough to cut through conversation either. In particular Guidance is most often a Cleric spell, and hearing someone murmur 'Oh God Help them' may be a little weird but not unheard of, even in the real world. Ever hang out with overtly religious folk? Things like 'I'm praying for you' or 'Jesus watch over you' are pretty commonplace, same with making the sign of the cross or touching a rosary. It's just in the DnD world, those things convey literal holy power. Yeah, it might make someone more suspicious but unless they're completely paranoid it's not going to seem that odd. Even in a world where everyone knows about magic, that just means it's impossible to tell between when it's a spell and when it's just someone saying it.
You can have curses that require Remove Curse with a higher level spell slot, rather than just "cannot be removed by remove curse", so it can afflict your characters for a few levels or until they go find a powerful allied high priest.
Pathfinder 1st Ed does something similar to this. Some curses just need Remove Curse, others need Break Enchantment or Heal (1st Ed Heal is a big deal) and the big stuff might even need Wish or Miracle.
Fun fact: The curse of Euryale from The Deck of Many Things specifies that it can only be removed by the power of a god or the Wish spell, meaning that Remove Curse does not work on it.
yeah I tend to treat remove curse as written for most cursed items (ie it allows the cursed creature to unattune from or relinquish the item), but for other curses I treat it like counterspell/dispel magic. That is, have the caster roll a check with their spellcasting ability modifier against a DC based on the curse's power, or auto-succeed if it was cast at a high enough level
Do something similar to what bg2 did. Casting a high level healing spell causes the tired or fatigue condition if it's not cast as a ritual spell.
They should really just call it "remove lesser curse"
I like a middle ground for remove curse is that you have to understand the nature of the curse for it to work so the party has to put in some work to discovering the story behind the curse. Powerful curses could then also require specific components to remove as you mentioned. Maybe it straight up works on weaker curses though so you can still shoot your monk occasionally.
I will often talk to the cursed player to see if they are having fun with the curse before I decide how difficult it is to remove as well. I don't want to destroy their fun just because I thought I came up with an interesting story.
34:10 You put up the spell card for True Resurrection, not Transport via Plants. That said, you can technically use True Resurrection to fast travel if you kill a party member, go somewhere, and then True Resurrect them to the new location. I should find a way to use that at some point
Sounds like an 80s movie involving a spell caster and dragon.
True Res costs 25000gp of diamonds. That's a pricey teleport.
@@seeker38 Lucy in the sky with diamonds. You can travel in style or not at all.
True resurrect also could work as a time machine. Just imagine a legend about it used that way:
An elf and a human fell in love, but their relationship were not meant to let them die together holding each other. The human decided to give their whole world (and die multiple times in the process, depending on how long elves live in particular setting) to have a chance to grow old together. Many years the elf has to live with that knowledge, resurrecting their loved one once every 200 years for a brief moment, and then killing them. All of that just for the elf once they grow old enough resurrect their loved one for the last time (about 50 years before they expect to die, I imagine). Or maybe the elf resurrects their loved one once every 100-200 years for 10-20 years, to be able to spend time with them.
@@RottenRogerDM plus the new body forms butt naked with no equipment or weapons.
I think they way they handles Speak with Dead in the latest DND movie was hillarious as others ask questions to the caster and the corpse answers them directly wasting a question
Honestly, I've always seen Speak with Dead handled in similar ways. 😂
I love seeing the spell run like that because so often players dont plan out what they’re going to ask and what should be 5 pretty simple questions turns into a round table discussion about what they should ask and takes 30 minutes while a corpse is just floating in suspended animation waiting for them to make up their minds
@@Holycrapitschad see also spell duration which runs out as they argue about what to ask the corpse
the spell specifically says it works once per corpse
opportunity lost
@@RS3isRealscape this is also an option but I’d prefer to not give a hard time limit to my players just because of the logistics of the game in action. Sometimes they decide to cast the spell without really thinking about the questions beforehand and I’d much rather nitpick them about what constitutes a question so they have to self correct and act in character than say “oops time’s up guys better luck never”. If they’re taking way too long sure but that would be a last resort for me
I think the biggest problem with guidance is that it only lasts for one minute. It makes players see it as a reactionary spell that can only be used for one roll especially in exploration. If it had a longer duration even like 10 minutes I think it would help player cast it before hand like when they enter a new room in a dungeon and they start to search it.
Weird that the fix is actually to buff it lol
But...guidance can explicitly be only used for one roll
@@bye1551 its an increase but it doesn't really make the spell more powerful it just means you don't have to follow your Rogue around the room he is perceiving/investigating/picking locks and casting Guidance every 60 seconds
My rule with Guidance is Guidance is an action. So if you're discussing an action you are going to do and want to help, you can precast Guidance on someone. But if you say you're doing something, you can't cast Guidance as a reaction to panic help them get better.
I run it that It also means that you can't take the help action- which gives them advantage and is arguably better for their roll. So its a way to have 3 party members work together on something- and if 3 people are all working together their odds should be pretty good I think, so it makes sense to me.
I play with a bunch of forgetful folks, so letting them have it as a reaction let's them feel more helpful.
...so you're running it rules as written?
I just made it a reaction when a ally is making a skill check,
Punishing your players for the minute difference of “I would like to make a skill check” vs. “I make a skill check”. Lovely.
For inspiration on speak with dead, try Pushing Daisies, they ask a man who killed him, he said his wife, he tasted something off in the coffee she made him, he went back to being dead, they then learned he was a polygamist.
Pushing Daisies has a bunch of examples of how speaking with the dead can complicate matters instead of simplifying them, hah. Good shot.
9:06 a few aspects about comprehend language that dms should consider before outright banning number one the spell does not decode codes or secret messages meaning you can set an entire adventure around finding a cipher
number 2 you must touch a page for a minute to read it meaning dms can keep things from being translated by adding some time sensitivity or preventing the text from being touched
Or evil DM. COntACT Poison on the page. Or Glyph of warding goes BOOM first. Or other evil stuff.
You could use Remove Curse sort of like Revivify for Curses. It can remove a curse if it's cast within a certain time frame, sort of like a setting in period. If the players don't know they have lycanthropy, and don't find out until the first full moon after they contract it, it will be far too late for remove curse to work.
But the next time they fight a werewolf, they'll know to treat that bite fast.
ooooh that sounds like a great solution
I don't outright ban them, but if I ever play with a Shepherd druid I ask them to either take the single summon spells or limit them to the 1 or 2 options for summoning instead of all 8. I had a Shepherd druid who would take even longer every time she wanted to cast Conjure Animals but would always end up just going 8 wolves and every time I asked her to please keep track of their initiative to take the load off of myself, but every time she always pushed the burden of tracking their turns onto me.
i hate running games for druids, seems like everyone who wants to play a druid can't seem to keep track of their stat blocks and initiative lol
I require the player to give me a copy every creature they want to summon. And the creature goes after the player
if she doesn't track the turns skip them. I don't respect that behaviour and will treat it as the character zoning out as much as the player is.
Baldur's Gate treats all 8 wolves as having the same initiative
Give ‘em all the same initiative
My go-to fix for Counterspell, which i apply to everyone, both player and NPC: i remove and meld it into the Dispel Magic spell, and you can ready Dispel Magic to Counterspell. That way Counterspell wars are a thing of the past and the action economy unfairness (spending only your reaction to deny essentially your opponent's entire turn) is solved
So i tend to run Remove Curse in a very similar way to how i see a lot of people run revival spells; it requires input from the players and is not just a "spell slot spent, consquences of my actions gone." Usually this is in the form of "welp i got lycanthropy, ill probably need something involved with werewolves to remove said curse as a compnent of my spell."
I will likely be adding the "Remove Curse tells you how to remove it" thing to this formula, as its actually had soemtimes to give the players information on what kinds of things would help remove curses that are less simple than lycnsthropy or vampirism.
The fix we've made to Silvery Barbs in the groups that I play with is to make it reduce a roll by 1d4 and allow another character to add 1d4 to their next roll. That brings it more in line with things like Bless or Bane, it's a good "oh this needs *just* a bit less to miss let's try it", and even when it doesn't succeed you still get that crispy +1d4 to your next roll. It definitely brings it down to a 1st Level spell.
Problem with that is because you are rolling a D20, you can actually roll higher, so you are taking a chance that the NPC might critical an attack.
@SuperSpartan3000 what? They just made it so its not dis/adv and instead +/- 1d4
I just made it so yo have to actually *see* the success, not just the creature. So if the success on the check or save isn't somehow instantly visible to your character, it doesn't trigger the spell's reaction. So, it will work on strength and dex saves, possibly con saves, but is unlikely to work on int/cha/wis saves/checks. I like your 1d4 thing though, I think it's cleaner, plus it should stack with other +d4 spells. So I might try that too.
I really like this.
I like this but I’d probably also limit SB to only being triggered by successful attack rolls or ability checks to make it less universally useful. Even with these restrictions, it’s still a level 1 spell that, in the right situations, can turn an enemy’s hit into a miss and an allies miss into a hit so it’s pretty nice.
For me and my group, we do talk about certain spells that can cause an issue, so we dont get everyone just casting summon spells with silverybarbs support. But the most important thing is if there are problems with spells, change them to make them fit your group. Playiny in a campaign that is heavy on survival? Make goodberry consume its material component. A horror campaign through the realms of ravenloft? Make identity not reveal the curses on the item and loot you find so the surprise is still there.
The most important thing is that this should be communicated and agreed with everyone involved for improving the health of your game.
Identify already doesn't reveal curses. Sorry for the nitpick just wanted to point that out 😂
I have long said that Goodberry is completely fixed if it consumes its material component.
24:41 The advice to have Conjure Animals conjure a mix of different animal types would tune down the spell’s power but keep in mind that also means there are even more creature stat blocks in play! Probably better to keep all conjured animals the same type but add a random element to what animals get conjured.
I’d say guidance has to be stated before the player rolls after a roll has been asked for. Allows a chance for them to give guidance and helps prevent pre rolling
CORRECTION: Conjure spells do NOT say the DM pick, it says they have the stats. Some spells, like find familiar, tell you to find the stats in the PHB. Conjure spells are just telling you who has the stats, not who chooses them. In fact, it says “choose one of the following...”
I like how the understand langauge spell has the perfect answer baked in "Just make important documents a Cyhper or half of the words" 😂
The problem with curses is exactly the same problem I have with disease.
The 2014PHB has some really cool and flavorful diseases in it with incubation periods, symptoms, mechanical effects and cures. The problem is, like most disease, they begin shoeing symptoms long before they start harming you, and every class and their dog gets access to lesser restoration which solves the problem immediately, making that rare flower you have 4 days to find before you go blind irrelevant to the disease.
Simple solution to Counterspell: make it 4th level.
It still only counters 3rd and lower level spells, so you need to spend a higher level slot than the opponent to guarantee it works, which seems fine given the action economy advantage it gives.
Also, 3rd level is already ripe with very powerful spells, and it's nice to have more good options for your 4th level pick.
I think Frieren is some good inspiration here. When the humans fought against the Zoltraak spell, they had no defense at all, but in 80 years, the cornerstone of defensive magic was the counter to it. Furthermore, many wizards started using physical objects as barriers instead. There is an evolution to it.
If you want to change the way magic feels, you can play before certain fundamental innovations were made - Identify takes an Arcana check now, Counterspell always requires a skill check or you need to upcast it more than usual.
Obviously describe this beforehand.
Ah yes, my favorite transportation spell, True Resurrection.
Our table has a small check to Counterspell, where you don't have the Meet it to Beat it feature, the cast always requires the DC roll, upcasting doesn't provide any benefit.
@@TheGreatDanishI hate DMs with this mindset, you already have ask the tools at your disposal, and the ability to bend or break rules at will, but instead choose to be petty about a powerful, but not broken, spell. It's a very simple spell to deal with as a dm, without trying to scare your players from using their kits.
That method of counterspell would make for a very different kind of setting. Wizards would be much more weary of each other, and Lore Bards would be preferred in courts, able to debuff magic attack rolls, buff saving throws, or have better counterspells with peerless talent and glibness.
It's like Frieren, where humans spent 80 years dissecting and innovating on Zoltraak, but you are playing in a setting before Wizards figured out True Counterspell.
It has potential to be interesting! As long as you don't just treat everything the same.
I made Guidance and Resistance reactions, so they fit with the way players want to use them. I made True Strike a bonus action, so it has a reason to exist. All three spells add a d4 to a d20 roll of the appropriate type. Changing True Strike to +1d4 instead of granting advantage was necessary to prevent it from becoming a must-have for every rogue, and requiring a multiclass.
I like this solution for Guidance and Resistance. And it means there has to be a triggering action so you can't spam it without cause. But I really like making True Strike a bonus action. It makes it actually worth using and 5e could really use more bonus action spells anyway.
True strike could’ve been acquired through at least 2 feats, Magic initiate, and Aberrant Dragonmark, so multiclassing wouldn’t necessarily be necessary, however it’s on the wizard spell list so Arcane Tricksters would be able to take it innately so it which is often considered the strongest most versatile of rogues would just become even stronger.
@@AtelierGod - Yes, there are other ways to get True Strike, but the point was that if an option is too good, it sets up an illusion-of-choice situation.
(And I wouldn't allow Aberrant 'marks in a setting that doesn't have the equivalent of the 12 'marked houses to hunt you. Those 'marks make you a pariah in the way that being a half-orc or tiefling used to, so no one cares that 12 multinational corporations want you dead.)
@@AtelierGodrogues already have a binus action that gives them advantage
@@xolotltolox7626 at the cost of their speed, true strike if like the UA would not cost their movement speed and would increase the damage the rogue could do.
Speaking as a player, I have issues with the way some DM's deal with remove curse by making it into a non-spell. Curses are already something that doesn't come up very often, at least in the games I play, so it kind sucks that the one time you get to use the one spell to help, you're effectively told "no, go fuck yourself." Like, I was in a game where my rogue had a sentient cursed magic sword. It was really strong, but it also actively wanted to eat her soul when she would die. But I couldn't get rid of it even if I wanted to because the DM straight up told me "no, remove curse doesn't work." And that's been the case pretty much every time I see curses come up in games.
I personally like how Pathfinder does it, in that it's a check against the cruse's dc to get rid of it. The more powerful the curse, the higher the DC to counteract it. It feels more fair so players have a chance against it even if it would be difficult and the DM doesn't get cheated out of their plot hook they came up with. That would be a more balance way to fixing it instead of making it into a useless spell.
Speaking from the other side of the fence, precisely because curse are rare and often debilitating, I dislike how easy it is to remove them.
For context, when I GMed "Curse of Strahd", one of the PCs and a child were bit by a werewolf. I rolled to see how much time they had before the next full moon (roughly two weeks). An allied NPC had a Remove Curse scroll, so there was the problem of what to do... until the paladin remembered that he had Remove Curse. So, a potentially debilitating curse, that could have cause much grief and moral quandaries was solved with just an action after the next long rest.
My take is that Remove Curse is a badly designed spell, because it remove challenges at a pretty negligeble cost.
I like that, giving it a Counterspell/Dispel like check. But it does put some load ono the GM to set a DC if it's not immediately obvious.
Sitting on top of he fence, curses and similar things can be great, if you've got an interesting curse and a person who's invested in the roleplay opportunities it can give them, but they can also be a boring or stupid aggravation, or even the sort of thing that entirely wrecks the fun of a character for it's player, if there's a bad match between the curse's effects and what the player does and does not enjoy roleplaying.
Remove curse and some of the other status removal spells (like raise dead) tend to be very anti-drama. Typically curses in fiction are removable in some way via an escape clause. You can remove your werewolf curse by killing the werewolf that bit you, or some kind of original werewolf that started the chain. Other curses involve something like the kiss of a princess or true love and so forth. These create interesting situations in play. Not all D&D curses have these, and I think if it's just a generic curse with no escape clause, remove curse should just get rid of it. The condition itself isn't interesting so its means of removal can be just a spell. But if there is one, the spell should just help but not remove those qualifications.
For remove curse I prefer revising it to: "If the curse in question has no escape clause, you remove it. If there is an escape clause, remove curse tells you what it is and points you to the nearest source of something that can remove it (The werewolf that bit you, or the nearest princess, etc)."
I'm in a game where the DM has homebrewed a "blood" magic mechanic that gets used in some situations. Remove curse works fine to rid you of cursed magical items but if the curse is ON YOU like Lycanthropy it takes a blood sacrifice to boost the spell. Just how much depends on how powerful the curse is. My wizard has been using their own blood for this sort of thing and it's always a risk that it might take too much. If you want to take the darker route you can use something/someone else's blood.
Anyone interested in finding ways to make mysteries that work around Speak with Dead in their games should check out the show "Pushing Daisies." That's basically the main character's whole deal; he can touch something dead and bring it to life, and then touch them again to return them to rest. He uses that power to make pies with eternally fresh fruit, but another main character convinces him to use that ability to interview the recently deceased to help solve their own murders.
Man, I need to watch Pushing Daisies again.
I don't mind Guidance at all.
My biggest pet peeve is people forget it's vocal and somatic.
So people cast it for persuasion checks in front of NPC's and get surprised when the NPC notices the spell...
But for locks and stuff yeah.
It's by no means a quiet or stealthy spell so I think it's fair honestly.
I remember when silvery barbs came bursting onto the scene I also remember the immediate backlash and hatred that it got. Frankly speaking Mike, I think your way of handling it is the best. Don't outright ban it but give it a cost and make it difficult to acquire
Depending on my prep, I've actually had cyphered a message/handout for the characters. If they have the comprehend languages, I'd give them a key to break it, and they'd still have to long hand translate it. Or it gives them a word for word translation, but not the metaphorical meanings if it's hidden behind that.
I dont ban any spells, because i find it sort of lazy on my end as a GM however, there are some limitations i enforce, typically on things i claim to be game breaking, like the technical infinite simulacrum loop.
Infinite simulacrum only works if you don’t read the spell. It no “technically works”
@@BroKenYaKnow Pretty sure they are referring to the situation of "my simulacrum casts simulacrum on me, rinse repeat for the new simulacrum." In that case, each of your simulacrums only has 1 simulacrum spell active, so they don't fade unless you interpret your simulacrums casting a spell as an extension of "you" that is casting it, but that opens up a lot of other questions for the spell. Pretty simple to fix though.
@@humblehonchkrow1609 There's no situation in which you have a simulacrum that has the spell slot to cast simulacrum at 8th lvl. They only get the spell slots you have at casting simulacrum, which uses your 8th lvl spell. Meaning your simulacrum has no 8th lvl spells. And if they used a 9th lvl, the most you can have is 2 simulacrum that way. They can't recover spell slots. They turn into a normal dude after using them all. This is reddit misinformation again, reddit likes to not read spells and make nonsense up.
@@BroKenYaKnow For simplicity sake, lets assume a 15th level character with a level 8 and 7 slot as I think that is the earliest point when I think it is doable:
Say I use a 7th level slot to cast simulacrum (call it simulacrum 1). My simulacrum and me now both still have an 8th level slot but no 7th level. Simulacrum 1 uses that 8th level slot to cast simulacrum on me creating simulacrum 2. Simulacrum 2 copies MY slots as I am the target of the spell not simulacrum 1's slots (who expended both their 7th and 8th). Since I still have an 8th, then simulacrum 2 also still has their 8th as they are a copy of me and there is nothing stopping simulacrum 2 from repeating the process.
To be clear, its not like I want this to work. I just fail to see why it doesn't work the way it is written.
@@humblehonchkrow1609 I was mistake on the fact that this is a 7th lvl spell and not a 8th lvl spell and the fact that it is a touch range, not a self range. This is indeed a wack spell that clearly wasn't thought out. If it were 8th lvl, this cheese at least won't be possible until lvl 20. You're god at that point anyway.
Though I feel it is notable that the material components cost 1,500gp of ruby dust, a resource the dm directly has control of the scarcity of.
Haven't gotten all the way through the video, you may touch on this later but I wanted to get it written out while I was thinking about it. As a DM, I make a couple of assumptions with my players in session 0. First, when it comes to the world they live in, the characters are smarter than the players. So I would allow things like some over the table talk about situations where an experienced adventurer might know something that the player would not, or that they'd know the basics of tracking, forest craft, singing, conversation with nobles, etc. BUT there are many situations where the players are smarter than the characters, so at the same time I would prevent the character from acting on information the PLAYER knows. Things like "I botched that roll, I need one of the others to take over something I specialize in". This applies to spells like guidance because they often try to use it as a REACTION when something is currently happening, rather than beforehand. The other thing I do is remind characters of the way the spell is written, especially if they try to abuse it. Comprehend languages: you must touch the surface the writing is on, so you can't read the archway above a door if you can't reach it (or have someone give you a boost) and it takes a minute to cast. Silvery Barbs is a great example of this: RAW, the spell belongs to the Silverquill school of Strixhaven, and if you aren't a student there, you have no way to know the spell. If the spell has a verbal component, they can't cast it in the middle of a social scenario without being noticed, questioned, and potentially stopped.
All that said, I also bend every one of the above rules if the rule of cool wins out, or if I see the player is demoralized by the action (not the character) and is genuinely not enjoying the game. Because this is a game first and foremost, and if everyone isn't having fun, what is the point.
The only rule I enforce 100% of the time is this: COMMUNICATE with me. Tell me what you are wanting out of the game, what you are planning and need some compromise or help on, and how we as a group can make this a fun environment for everyone. Sometimes that means reflavoring a game mechanic, and sometimes that means outright ignoring certain rules. Cause it's our game, in that moment. And the game is made up, and the rules don't matter. :)
From your first couple lines there and a brief skim of a little more, I feel like this is a comment I would agree with and could learn from... but the Wall of Text format is making my brain absolutely rebel against trying to *read* it. I hope you'll figure out how to make paragraph breaks (actual blank lines between paragraphs, giving visual white space), which for my computer is Shift+Enter.
What if remove curse worked to give you leads / rules for breaking it, and maybe it helps with one ingredient so the players get 1 agency (they get to choose which ingredient they dont want to get), 2 the spell helps clear the curse (it provides the clear conditions and 1 ingredient of the players choice) and 3 the dm still get to make removing the curse harder and more interesting.
While I agree that guidance needs to be said before the roll this causes a major issue in actual play. Let's say the rogue and DM and keyed in and going back and forth on the rogue investigating a chest for traps and lockpicking it. There usually is NOT a break or breath where a priest/druid can casually say "and I cast guidance" because the second the DM says "roll investigation" the rogue is going to immediately roll their dice. This causes the guidance caster to have to yelp out "I CAST GUIDANCE" before the DM finishes saying "roll investigation" because they need to say it before the roll happens but there was no way to say it beforehand without interrupting and speaking over either them DM or rogue. Online you can at least type in the chat and pray the DM and rogue read it before they roll.
idea for spell fixes:
comprehend languages: perhaps comprehend languages isn't perfect (especially for ancient or alien languages) for example it might translate words literally, and the players would still have to find the context behind the word choice.
like imagine how someone who doesn't know English phrases would take "this injury has been a thorn in my side" maybe they'd take it literally and assume the injury is literally from a thorn in your side
speak with dead: honestly there are tons of ways to hide info from speak with dead
1. the dead person hate's the party and refuses to tell the truth
2. the answers are cryptic or obfuscating
3. the answers are misleading or inconclusive
4. the dead person has a secret and will lie to protect it
5. the dead person simply doesn't know the answer to your question
6. the dead person was mistaken in life and shares false information
7. the dead person only spoke a little-known language (in which case you'd also need a way to speak that language)
8. the corpse had its mouth damaged to the point where it can't speak
9. the speak with dead spell was already cast on it in the last 10 days
remove curse:
alter it maybe in one of the following ways:
1. it only suppresses the curse, not removes it
2. it has to be upcast to match the severity of the curse
3. it's actually just the final step of removing a curse, for example to cure lycanthropy you need a creature to ingest a wolfbane which temporarily suppresses the curse, and if you target them with remove curse while lycanthropy is suppressed, they are cured
The bit about Counterspell reminded me of a campaign that had been one of the best I was ever in, until the GM decided to make the boss of the campaign and all of the monsters backing him up totally immune to magic. I was playing a character whose offensive abilities were all based on spellcasting, so while the other players were getting moments of being absolute badasses, I was barely making a dent on anything. I spent most of the fight mentally checked out, and doing 2-20 hit points of damage to monsters that had hundreds of hp.
It went from being one of the best campaigns to one of the absolute worst in a single session.
In Mage the Ascension/Awakening players effectively start with Wish as an unlimited spell and it is never a problem. The world just needs to be internally consistent.
Like in our world we have smartphones and they are normally either not allowed when sitting in a exam or exams are setup so they require a smartphone.
A rarer occurrence is Countering a Counterspell with Counterspell as a set reaction from your reaction or another spellcaster in the party's reaction. It's hilarious but shocking to see the party/gamemaster's reactions.
For spells that raise the dead, I like requiring the the spell caster and the character being raised to make a constitution saving throw with a DC of 10 + the level of the spell to raise them. If the character being rezzed fails, they lose a point of Constitution (semi-permanently: they can do a quest to restore the point somehow if they are ever successfully rezzed) and the spell fails. If the character being rezzed fails, the caster rolls at disadvantage. In either case, if the caster fails their roll, they lose a point of Constitution (again, semi-permanently) but the spell still may succeed in bringing the target back from the dead, depending on the target's roll.
Reincarnation does not require any of these rolls. It just works, and I use an extended list of possible species/races/subraces that they may come back as.
BTW, I require the spell caster to roll to keep from losing Constitution because it makes it a risk for them. That way NPC clerics arent going to just raise every peasant or unknown adventurer that is brought to them. They only risk it for important people or people they find important.
My current DM bans all resurrection except Revivify, bc she wants the characters to be able to trust in-character that once we've killed someone, they're dead.
I think a safer solution for Remove Curse would be to demand material components and set conditions for it to work on certain curses.
Curses that demand this involvement would mostly include Vampirism, Lycanthropy, or anything that a Hag could give you. I.E., save those kinds of curses for entities who actually have some status.
If you used remove curse on a cursed magic item, would simply give you the chance to unattune and leave it for the next sad sap to pick it up.
7:08 My campaign has a lot of languages that my players wouldn't have any way to speak, so Comprehend Languages is very useful to them, in addition to magic items(?) that give them extra languages.
My solution for the Resurrection spells is pretty simple, you can only get brought back once. I've toyed with exceptions to that, the one I've settled on is you can only be brought back once by the standard Resurrection spells, and once by Reincarnation. This applies to using Wish to recreate any of the Resurrection spells, however if you use the version of Wish that can risk you losing the ability to cast Wish ever again, that one can work on you as many times as you want, because the price for that is risking losing the spell, and let's be honest, Wish should usually just work.
And yes I've really thought through the logistics of this. "Oh why would you ever use the higher level, more expensive spells if your revivify takes the one do-over anyways?" Simple, the advantage of the higher level spells is that since you don't have to use them immediately, you don't need to keep them always prepared like Revivify, thus you can have another combat or utility spell to hopefully prevent death in the first place. And as you use the even higher spells you can over come more difficult situations, like disintegration, it's all already built in.
As for flavor/in game reasoning for this? Well you know that diamond all the standard Res spells use? Yeah well the somatic component for casting those spells is cutting out the heart and replacing it with the diamond a-la the Briarhearts from Skyrim. And no amount of healing will ever fully repair the wound. Boom, you can't be Res'd again because you only had the one heart, and it's a permanent reminder of what happened. Even if you later use your one use of Reincarnation, your body still has the wound and the diamond for the heart.
For easy mode version of these rules, each level of Res spell can be used once each. So you get one Revivify, one Raise Dead, one Resurrection, etc. The higher level spells can be used in place of the lower level ones, but not the other way around. (i.e. you could theoretically be True Res'd 4 times, and then never be able to be Res'd again with any spell, but you'd only ever get one Revivify)
Good video. Always interesting to listen to takes about House Rules.
On a different note: One thing I've noticed being done A LOT in these videos and I've begun noticing and really pay attention after your PHB covers reviews.
You use the crutch "We''ll talk about this later/We'll get there soon/We'll get back to this" constantly. In the PHB review it was a funny bit. But it did lampshade how frequently this literary device is used in general.
Players are always upset at counterspell because they don't understand what their options as a spellcaster are.
Learn to prepare your spells behind cover instead of in full view of the enemy spellcaster.
Have people bait out reactions from the spellcaster before blowing your load.
Target the spellcaster first before using powerful magic.
Silence the spellcaster.
Block line of sight of the spellcaster.
BLIND the spellcaster. You think a martial has a bad time? No, they simply have disadvantage. Casters simply are not allowed to cast most spell due to the wonderful words "A target/spot you can see".
Players like to complain about GMs treating NPCs as if they have more computing power than 90s AI but refuse to open the player's handbook and read how spells/abilities work beyond RAW.
Best way to deal with Silvery Barbs is to have the occasional NPC cast it when it would be funny as hell.
31:52 - Your hands won't be cold and dead, they'll just be replaced by elf hands. Or gnome, or dwarf, or backwards rakshasa hands, if things get _really_ weird.
My own take on each of these:
*Guidance:* It's best to keep the downsides of guidance in mind, yeah. I also think if you and the players can agree guidance anxiety is annoying, you can just negotiate a custom rule. A favourite of mine is saying Guidance only works X times a day, but the user can apply its bonus retroactively to a failed skillcheck to try and turn it into a success.
*Comprehend Languages:* If you need a document that can't be read, a cipher or secret code will counter this spell. If you _really_ need the language barrier to be important in your game, I'd prefer increasing the spell level to a removal, or perhaps you can rationalise how certain languages might be impenetrable to the spell.
*Goodberry:* Yeah, this one is definitely a matter of it breaking _very specific_ kinds of games. I like Zee Bashew's approach because you can apply the logic retroactively. If you're doing a desert adventure where you want to emphasise rationing for that specific adventure's vibes, you can say that Goodberry requires fresh berries, it's never come up as a problem before because of how easy they'd be to get, but in this hostile environment the PCs will have to find a way to preserve berries if they want Goodberry to work.
*Identify:* I do understand wanting to make magic items harder to figure out, but the PCs need _some_ way to unambiguously understand what a magic item does at some point.
*Healing Spirit:* Post errata I don't think it's problematic enough to ban. I will say personally, if you are getting to the point where you and the players are essentially in a balancing arms race over one specific spell, that's worthy of having a direct balancing discussion with your table.
*Counterspell:* IMO spellcasters being able to contest the spells of other casters is too important to ban, but I do think Counterspell is lame. Not just when used against players- Those Critical Role moments are dope, but it can be seriously sad for spellcaster villains to just _fail_ to cast a spell, said Crit Role moments are often enhanced by the context being Matt's villains trying to escape. I have a custom replacement spell that boils down to _"You and the caster you countered are locked in a spell duel and can both use your concentration slot to maintain it. Whoever loses/gives up concentration first loses the duel, and the other gets what they wanted, either that spell succeeding or failing to cast. You can both take your turns as normal, but you both have the choice to use your action to force the other to make a DC10 + your spell mod concentration check. If you cast this at a lower level than the one you're contesting, you need a concentration check of DC10 + the total level difference to start the duel or it fails."_ This way, either way the counterspell goes, you get the cool visual of both casters locked in a big laserbeam battle and it feels way more earned one way or the other.
*Speak With Dead:* A DM who doesn't plan for Speak With Dead when making a murder mystery doesn't have any excuse. There are tons of ways for Speak With Dead to be ineffective. The killer smashed the jaw in, the head is missing, the victim was in shock and couldn't make sense of their last moments, or my favourite, they only identify their killer with a cryptic phrase that will make sense in the end, Disco Elysium style.
*Summoning Spells:* This is definitely another instance where you should ideally use custom rules to keep combat quick, not ban outright.
*Remove Curse:* This is a pretty complex problem that could also be worthy of a custom ruling. It really sucks that the spell is essentially designed assuming "curses" as individual disposable debuffs, whereas the narrative hook for curses is much more grave, and that so many curses DMs deal out just carry Remove Curse immunity.
*Resurrection:* Totally fine thing to ban depending on the vibe a campaign is going for.
*Charm Monster:* Really not that bad, there are tons of ways for Charm to fail, it's a high risk attempt to defuse the encounter. Don't get mad when one in ten times, your players actually cut all the right wires.
*Polymorph:* Some people just hate fun! Ban Fireball next, why don't they?
*Teleports:* Definitely a valid rule to set up for a universe in advance, and can go a long way to making high level campaigns easier to manage.
*Wish:* Far too iconic to D&D to ever seriously consider banning for me. Wish is definitely a handful but that's the beauty of it.
*Silvery Barbs:* Yeah, it's a mess and if there's one spell I'm fine with leaving on a banlist, that would be it.
I would rule that for Speak with Dead, the creature's mouth must be intact enough to physically produce words. That means no casting it on a skeleton, they gotta have lips and a tongue.
So if you have a killer that's worthy of a mystery, they may well know to cut out the tongues of their victims.
I think the problem with this is it creates a bit of useless spell syndrome. I think it's better just to tell your players not to take it.
One way I could see counter spell being limited in its uses would be to make it so that yes you do interrupt the casting of a spell but the afflicted retains its action so it can cast another leveled spell since it didn’t cast a spell with its first spell due to counter spell but due to the lose in time you must cast a spell of a lower level than the spell slot you tried to use.
I love that your suggestions about Remove Curse were basically the same thing I suggested in your Discord while we were waiting for the video to go up 😅.
I like the in-character investigation created by banning short rest identifying and the identify spell.
I have a ring that has four abilities that trigger based on random words so the player is incentivised to talk in character more.
I had an axe that could be charged up by killing monsters so my player had two options keep charging it up and suffer the consequences or stop charging it up. Simple choice, but big impact.
I have an amulet that was used by an npc so the player knew some of what it could already do before testing it out. You would be surprised how creative players can be when testing magic items.
I've had a lot of fun working around remove curse. There's a lot of ways to circumvent it while still giving your players the easy out for curses sometimes. One of the ways around remove curse is having the curse say that the player must attempt to conceal the curse. It gives a fun roleplay opportunity to the player and means the party won't just hit them with remove curse before the curse can do anything.
You can also do the voodoo doll method. Instead of an item the player is carrying being cursed, have an object somewhere that has like a lock of the PC's hair or something in it that's projecting the curse onto them. Fun one with that is that you can have remove curse act as a temporary remedy that only alleviates the symptoms for a time while the players search for the object.
You can also use one and done curses. An item that when you attune to it, it vaporizes all spell scroll the PC is carrying for example.
The final way I've worked around remove curse is just curses that are tougher to remove. Say a curse that you have to make a spellcasting ability check to remove. That can make curses last a long time, especially if you set the dc arbitrarily high like DC 25.
Treantmonk has a great couple videos highlighting spells he loves as a DM but hates as a player and vice versa. Great advice and good observations.
I've changed Silvery Barbs to be 2nd level. It still gets used, but not as much. I also don't tell people more information when hit, other than "you are hit". I started this a long time ago due to the Shield spell. When I give damage I'll inform them if it was a crit with the description of the damage but it is too late to use a "when hit" reaction. They could still use a "when taking damage" reaction of course.
This way these reactions are not only used when most effective. I also like the narrative, especially with Shield of the attack sometimes blowing through their hasty defense.
There are enough abilities that are used in responses to crits like the Grave Cleric's Sentinel at Death's Door, so I'd at least let them know the crit. I agree on the not telling them the number rolled though (unless it's comically high, I have to keep up the DM meme of "does a 28 hit?" against someone with like 17 or less AC) as it adds to the making an important choice factor. But yeah my typical levels of info are "welp that was a nat 1" "that'll miss" "that'll hit" and "oooh ok nat 20" when enemies are rolling to hit.
Granted, I guess if no one has abilities where the crit is actually important, a simple hit/miss is fine, but idk. I personally think it just feels bad to be like "it hit" "ok no reactions" "alright well that was a crit so."
@@gameraven13 Yeah if there is a mechanical reason to tell them I will, but I view reactions are reflexes, they don't have time to carefully analyze cost/benefits. So they get the minimum information. Of course for the example you gave, since I do inform there is a crit when damage is relayed, it would work fine. I've never had a player play a Grave Cleric though, so no experience there. ;)
I also combine everything together if there is no reason to keep them separate. Depends on the party. I'm not trying to penalize people, I'm trying to immerse them and help them stop treating everything like a wargame
Funnily enough thats explicitly how the Shield spell is suppose to work...which works great inperson behind a DM screen but a lot of online DMs roll in the open to show they're being fair/its just their playstyle. The DM rolls, tells you that your character has been hit, you say you use shield and announce your new AC, DM checks the roll and says whether it still hits or not is how the shield spell is MEANT to be used.
i love how when the wish spell is brought up, suddenly everyone turns into a lawyer XD
This is a video that not only I got useful insigth to improve myself as DM from what Mike said, but from useful tips that people shared in the comments. Great topic and I should save this video apart and come back from time to time if needed.
I don't ban spells but certain spells are problematic. I change the spells to try to balance them. For example, I change Silvery Barbs to be a 2d level spell and I change the trigger of it to: when a creature you can see within 60 ft of you makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. That means that the players must cast it prior to the roll. They do not know ahead of time what the result will be.
Just enjoying seeing The Game Master's Book Ofs in the background, those books are amazing.
When I was introducing some newbies to gaming, I actually made some little cards (from card stock, a little smaller than average playing cards) with envelopes with windows in them. The window showed what the item looked like, and if they rolled well on a check they could slide the card up to see a couple lines (I forget how exactly I managed it, but there were like two or three levels of detail they could get). It gave a little extra mystery and engagement with items that would eventually become background details (like a healing potion or a sunrod).
I certainly wouldn't do that for experienced players... except it strikes me that it might indeed be the way to go for specific cool items that they need to explore over time. Hand over the partially disguised card and when they get to whatever mechanic allows them to learn more, tell them just how much they can uncover -- and I don't need to keep track of the details myself.
My FAVORITE counter spell scene is that last fight in C2…. Those chain counter spells when there are warlocks, 2 celerics, and like 4 wizards in a single fight
i dont ban anything, i explicitly make my enemy spellcasters learn from the spells the party defaults towards, and plan their tactics around it.
You need to actually be able to SEE two enemies at once for say, silvery barbs to function, which means keeping the enemies seperated out of LOS of the party caster.
tactics, i have found, are more fun for the players to try to overcome with all their fancy tricks, rather than taking their tricks away for "fairness"
See, I love this in theory. But it’s really really hard to make it not feel like punishing the party for playing the game.
I have this problem in my game with a cleric with a racial fly speed. Nets and arrows fix this very easy to still put a level of risk in. But when the cleric wants to cast spirit guardians and fly above them…. Everyone’s going to target that. This often just feels like punishing the play for using a good spell
@@BroKenYaKnow I mean in your defence, the player is using spirit guardian and going right near the enemies (just above instead of next). It shouldnt be free to just do that, it would be like if the enemies ignored a non-flying version of this situation. And thats simply the cost of such a good spell, small range, easy to retaliate.
@@blazichaos7181 true, and honestly I never hear my players get upset about the situation or my dming. I just really want them to do cool powerful stuff, but I’m not going to make the enemy stupid to let them. Weird balance trying to let them feel powerful and have fun while also challenging them.
I’ve started just giving them an idea of the difficulty of a fight (within the game) with NPCs and whatnot. If it’s a surprise, ambush, or underprepared fight- then it’s not going to be as bad as the bandit fight they got to fully devise a plan for and initiate on their terms.
The worse fight they had was when I used nets to ground the cleric so the ground people could hit them. Definitely didn’t seem to have fun with that one, but it did have a story reason behind it
@BroKenYaKnow i: don't allow racial flying speed because fly is usually only accessible at 5th level for 10 minutes at a time, with concentration.
free flight at level 1 with no concentration is overpowered and you cannot balance around unless you want the player with flight to always be the most important party member at all times
@@BroKenYaKnow It's also just realistic that enemies would focus fire on the flying glowing party member capable of burning them to a crisp if they get close enough
In a game I was in we needed to find out a mystery murderer, cast speak with dead, dead person gives incredibly vague answers, I cast detect thoughts and immediately find the killer anyway
In a similar way to Taliesin's tongue-in-cheek interpretation of his role as "the hacker" in Honey Heist by physically hacking at things, it's fun to interpret Remove Curse as magical censorship of naughty words
XD
I tend to distill my thoughts on Guidance to one simple phrase: "Guidance is not a Reaction spell". Falling off a cliff? No you can't use Guidance because the Athletics check to catch yourself is a Reaction, you literally don't have time. Checking to see if you know something? No you can't use Guidance, because checks like that are just things I have you roll outside of the normal turn structure. Beyond stuff like that I don't worry about it that much.
If players don't like being counter spelled.
Counter play it.
60 Feet range.
It can get counter spelled.
It can't easily beat high level spell slots.
Subtle spell.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
It is indeed a good channel. We do like Mike.
37:42 I like wish, since it can allow some really interesting sittuations if you are in a high level campaign (also, it can end up badly if you aren't careful with how you word your wish, while also being able to lose the spell if you roll less than 33 in a d100). I was literally thinking about using the wish spell to make a crossover for the final fight of a campaign, breaking the barriers of time and planes to allow all the parties that are doing the adventure my DM is running on that module he created for a final battle against the BBEG of the campaign (also,s ince the BBEG is not native of the plane we are in, this will also allow to kill her permanently.). Also, my character has seen the spell cast before, as an NPC used it in a sittuation in which we were extremely screwed, and that NPC lost the ability to cast spells forever, since he depleted his whole magical reserves by forcing the spell before he was able to wield it naturally (also, he almost dies during that casting, as he ended up with a maximum HP of 10 after that casting to show how much it had drained him), so, my character knows the spell, but not how to draw that much magical energy (since my character only knows up to level 6 spells). I think that is a spell that one should look forward to, but also know what they are getting into, making the spell something that the players don't want to use unless they need to, since the consequences could be devastating.
Something I enjoy doing with Comprehend Languages is having it work just like you said, like a translation app. And the programmers of it (an ancient morally dubious empire that are responsible for many of the artifacts in the world) wouldn’t have every single language in it. Most are in there, but there are three groups of exceptions. 1. Ancient languages that were forgotten before that empire came into power 2. A language from beyond the normal bounds of the setting 3. The language of the nobles of that particular empire, since they didn’t want the lower class to listen in on them. The spell is still useful at all times, because even if it doesn’t give them what the language is, it tells them it is either massively ancient or from beyond the stars. It always gives information of some kind.
The only character I’ve ever been tempted to take Silvery Barbs on is a member of the Orzhov Guild on Ravnica, which is at least in the same continuity as Strixhaven. But, I also have 30+ years of TTRPG experience; I often have to actively hold back to keep from dominating a game.
As a GM, I don’t ban spells, mostly because I have the experience to work around them. But, I understand not every GM does; do what works for the health of your game. Just remember: players will always do things you aren’t prepared for. *Always.*
For Remove Curse I think the best solution is for Bestow Curse to be expanded into an effect that might be a part of various monster attacks. Make it another condition like poisoned or charmed. THAT is the kind of curse that Remove Curse removes. Big curses though? Like vampirism or lycanthropy or maybe even some cursed weapon effects? Those require a big major ritual with special ingredients and maybe the help of a particularly skilled NPC (whose whereabouts might be unknown)
A version of Remove Curse that I've considered is change it to "suppress curse". Make it suppress all effects of a curse for 24 hours. You could even make it a ritual spell. 24 hour suppression is long enough get past temporary issues, while not giving you a complete answer for something like curing lycanthropy. If you make it a ritual then it is even something that doesn't have mechanical issues during the adventure but is always looming over your head because it is there waiting if you ever can't cast the spell for a day.
It can even be the trigger to some adventure when the old priest of the town who has been suppressing the orphan's lycanthropy suddenly dies due to a normal accident and the party has to look into a decade old town mystery to find the werewolf and either kill it or take on the job of somehow curing them.
On the issue of Remove Curse, it's worth mentioning, since apparently 5e hasn't examined this, but it was elaborated on in 3.5. Namely in the supplementary, Book of Vile Darkness (yes it's an actual game Manuel in 3.5) where it made it clear that Remove Curse only works on "weak curses".
Namely, anything Bestow Curse is capable of doing, but there are significantly more powerful curses that a simple casting of a spell won't get rid of. Examples were things like a Dying Curse, that involves afflicting someone with a curse powered by the rage that could be in someone's dying breaths. A hex woven by a hag or a full coven that is so intricate and empowered by fell magics that it can't be lifted by a mere wave of the hand, and other such situations where truly "Dire Curses" would require more than a PC to just cast a spell to end it... if it could be ended at all.
Keeping this in mind, and how such curses follow how we understand these types of magics to work in folk lore, can go a long way to not actually needing to modify how Remove Curse works, let alone banning the spell out right.
For Conjure Animals, I did the whole "summon 8 dinosaurs" thing once, and then my DM and I had a chat where we basically decided that in combat I would only use the 1 or 2 creature options.
Great video, Mike, gave me a lot of food for thought as a GM. For what it's worth, in my own games, with resurrection spells I don't add a difficulty level, but introduce consequences for over use on the same individuals (straining the soul or the threads of fate etc). One thought for potentially improving silvery barbs might be that it just forces a re-roll, not disadvantage, which would still make it a good option for countering critical hits, but less of a reflexive option for a standard hit.
I’m currently running a curse heavy campaign, and the way I’ve run remove curse is basically the same as a dispel magic. Assign the curse a dc that would equate it roughly to a level of spell and have the players roll. Of course, some of the curses have been put on them by a god so the dc goes beyond 19, but it’s been a way to provide hope of removing a curse while keeping it away from just the remove curse spell. I also had an NPC they went to say that if they gave him a few months he could come up with a ritual to make the remove curse more precise. Cause there was also a backstory curse that was involved and if that one was broken the character would instantly die (by the player’s orders) so that character was hesitant to let the remove curse happen. But yea. Just treat it like a dispel and assign spell levels to the curses! It works!
silvery barbs is the only spell that i ban because, like you said, it’s too good not to take. i like the idea of increasing the spell level of silvery barbs to second or third level, but even then i think it is too powerful. this is especially true for sorcerers with the subtle spell metamagic because they can just never fail a social encounter. i think a good way of limiting this spell would be to up the level of the spell to third and then change the wording of the spell to “when an enemy you can see within range makes an attack roll, you can give them disadvantage on the attack. you can alternatively give advantage on a saving throw to an ally if they and the attacker are both visible” this makes it more like counterspell that works on melee and ranged attacks, but isn’t too much more powerful than counterspell against spell casters. also, you can make the range like 30 feet instead of 60 feet just to nerf it a little bit more
With remove curse i like to add that the spell is the prefix for the cure, not the "active ingredient". Players are free to have remove curse but there is also a ritual aspect. For example, to cure lycanthropy you need wolfsbane and silver in order to force the target to transform, then you fight them down until they are weak and THEN you cast it. It won't work unless they are incensed by wolfsbane, primed by silver, and in a weakened state on the brink of death
We also use the "you can cast Guidance if it makes sense for the characters in-world to be doing that" rule. It helps that our cleric is a ditz and tends to forget about it, so my rogue is usually the one (in character) requesting to have Guidance cast on him. If it's a borderline case, I always check with the DM first if Guidance can be used or not. It's never really been an issue for us (the biggest challenge is reminding the cleric that Guidance and Enhance Ability are both concentration, so he can only use one or the other).
I've recently joined my first campaign (a few sessions in, after finally wrapping my head around how to play with the help of bg3 lol - it's a much less overwhelming introduction) and there's a lot of 'banned' spells in our campaign... but it doesn't really feel like that because it's part of the setting that they're missing. Also, we gained access to one of the spells (true resurrection) as a one time cast as a randomly rolled quest reward and it felt amazing ahaha, so the "fun" of banning vs not banning really is context dependent
For Remove Curse, I really like the idea that much of the more powerful curses would be created specifically to be antagonistic to anyone trying to break it, like a built-in magical trap. So it might be designed to respond to an attempted break by doubling down the effect, spreading the effect to the curse breaker, alerting the original caster that the curse has been broken, any number of nasty triggered effects. The only way to evade this is by carefully studying the curse over downtime and succeeding on a spellcasting check to disable the failsafes...but if you don't have that kind of time, you might have to just cross your fingers and hope for the best.
I like to imagine that there is a cleric of good feels out there somewhere that is always casting guidance every 6 seconds. Everyone hates him, but they are all lucky.
9:00 you could also just use a note that references some obscure information or is written in code
So I noticed that when you were talking about transport via plants you put up true resurrection instead.
You know what's funny is that our Silverquill bard in our Strixhaven game has never once cast Silvery Barbs
A Counterspell alternative that I know of is casting the exact same spell as reaction into the original one, causing them to cancel each other out. Kinda of requires the enemies to have that exact spell, while revealing part of their arsenal as part of the couterspelling.
There was sort of a soft ban of different spells in the last game in which I played. It was a low resource game. With little coin and no place that it made sense to have a diamond mine or high end jeweler, most of these spells with costed components were very difficult to cast. Revivify was hard to cast, but Silvery Barbs fell like rain in a thunderstorm. LOL
In my campaign I had a player with a rogue wizard multiclass that took Silvery Barbs. I think they only cast it once or twice. There were a few resons: First, I tended to run battles across larger spaces to keep themselves safe my casters tend to stay making the action they wanted to interrupt outside their range. Second, most of the time, when it was used my rerolls succeeded, so they ended up seeing it as an iffy choice. Third they had several reaction options, so often they did not have a reaction. It was often a choice of Shield, Counterspell or SB.
Remove Curse in older editions had a caster level check you had to pass to remove most curses, so you could have curses that were easier or harder to remove, or even ones where they wouldn't be able to remove it now, but they could in a couple levels when they got stronger, if you're having problems with it, you could implement something like that into your games to help mitigate that issue.
18:19 counter spell doesn't encounter any tactical plays with the use of magic. I use a spell blocking system where you have to use a spell like a shield, having it where you use a fire or water spell to block an incoming spell. This way you can use LESS spell LVs or risk being beaten when trying to block with a lower level spell. Magic should be there to encourage your players to think through encounters and not bypass (with some expectations)
I've run a lot of murder mysteries in 5e, both of the "the cops cant interfere, theres a murderer among you, try to survive while you investigate" and of the "you work for the cops and run homicide, do an investigation" variety.
My suggestion for the first kind would be to just set the player level at around level 3- this limits magic chicanery a fair bit, and also helps keeps tension up- a level 15 character is basically never gonna feel threatened by a classic murderer anyway, they're too big a pile of hitpoints and class features- but allows some variety in builds.
For the second, i make a point of having speak eith dead and zone of truth be things the players colleagues already tried- you dont need to do a multi day investigation if you can ask the corpse who killed them and then confirm with a zone of truth, so every mystery starts with one of three results: the deceased's soul cant give an answer (it didnt see the person who did it, or it was obliterated, indicating a professional assassin of some kind), the deceased gave unvarifiable information (either the person they named cannot be found, or they have claimed something like an alien creature did it) or the zone of truth questioning has revealed contradictory information. Theres always some room for more thorough use of those spells and better wuestioning to get more info, but i find it useful as a place for them to start.
For remove curse I like it to temporarily negate the curses’ effect. Meaning it helps to stabilize a party member while they can resolve their quest for actually removing the curse
For Goodberry I think the 3.5 version can be an alternative. It gives 2d4 enchanted berries instead of 10, so it's a bit harder to know how many spell slots to save. It also limits the healing the spell can do to 8 points per person per day, which, meh, that just adds paperwork. But the important one is: the spell requires freshly picked berries to enchant. So if you're traveling through the wilderness with no towns in sight and your rations were eaten by an owlbear Goodberry now gives you an extra option for how to obtain your meal for today, as well as good in-combat healing, but you shouldn't treat it as your only option. If you pass a river you're going to go fishing rather than marching on confident there will surely be a berry patch ahead.
For Conjure Animals my DM decided based on I think a sage advice somewhere to create a random animal table. I can ask the spirits for 8 wolves (or yaks, or giant bats, or giant frogs, or...), but I'm going to get 8 of one random creature of CR 1/4 or lower. Could be yakals, could be camels, could be fish. It does not solve the action imbalance. In fact I'm making extra rolls now. But it does solve me abusing this spell all the time coming from the philosophy that every problem has a solution that starts with "I summon 8 ..."
The other summoning spells do let the caster pick their summons, because those are only used by NPCs so far.
As a player my DMs never banned any spell. Sometimes they have changed something to the effects. (Revive are often more complicated than using a spell slot, consume some shiny rocks and nothing more.)
As a DM I never ban any spells.
After the first change in the UA, I’ve tried Guidance as a reaction fore a one shot and, at my table, the change of the casting time solved some problems (and created some others, lol). And for counterspell my rules are “not in every combat” and “the same amount of caster that can counterspells the party have” (+1 if the encounter is very hard and make sense to have this bunch of spellcasters).
I agree with a lot of the stuff in video. Thoughts on some of the specific spells though are as follows.
Comprehend Languages I think is great as it helps with world building. If a place if run by Orcs then a lot of the signs, documents, and such should mostly be in Orc. Same with Dwarves, Elves, and so on. This means if no one in the party speak that language they can't read the signs in some ruins that might be like Armory, Infirmary, warning sudden drop before a bit trap ;), and so on. It makes picking languages matter more so if someone knows it they can translate for the party but if they don't know then caster can step up with it. Also just because you can read something does not mean you understand it. If they really wanna keep the mystery of a text just have it written in code, it says so in the spell, and why would someone trying to keep something hidden write it normally even in a rare language when they know comprehend language exist.
Identify is important to allow as I got limited time to play games and don't wanna sit around for 30+ minutes while either I or someone else at the table stumbles around trying to figure out what their item does. Let's keep the game moving.
Speak with dead is fine and can even use to mislead your characters. Say someone was killed by shapeshifter or person with disguise magic so speaking with the dead will only confirm what other eye witnesses and planted evidence may reveal because the real killers are setting up a frame job. After all in a world with Speak with dead spell an assassin would know such things and keep their true self hidden. Or the assassin could cast Speak with dead on the victim themselves knowing it prevents further casting. Which then also gives a clue to the players that killer knows magic.
Remove Curse I think should be errata to be done in levels. Like it can only remove and equal level or lower curse. And then Bestow curse and other curses have a spell ranking. This way you could have like a bestow curse hieghten to level 7 and the players would need to be able to cast remove curse as a level 7 spell to remove it. Thus need to be level 13. Where as curses like Vampire and Werewolves are Level 10 curses which means pretty much only wish or something like that can remove. Have a once size fits all curse remover and yet still have curses like werewolves in the world makes no sense.
The revive spells I think are fine as first one is level 5 spell and has to be done right away which means you specifically need someone who can cast it on site and hope the person who goes down isn't that person. The next you get a level 9 and because it gives 10 days means you can maybe take a day's rest to prepare it if you don't have it on hand. But if you don't the party has to rush back to town in hopes of finding someone who can cast it. If they are based out of a smaller town there may not be a cleric who can cast it within a 10 days march. But also if the party has been together from level 1-9 there is a chance they have grown attached to those characters. So death can still sting in a race against the clock or tax their finances if they are say lower levels but and having to pay for a higher level spell does bring back their friend matter enough to pawn that magic weapon? But also person could RP the trauma of having died and seeing the other side. There is a ton of RP opportunity around player death and revival. Also though if the whole party wipes there is no one to do the reviving.
Teleports require to have been to the location already to really get the most out of them. The circle one requires you have a circle at the destination so great for portalling back to a base of operations after a quest. But not so good for getting someplace you never been. Teleport had a very large chance of you ending up in some random location that may or may not be close to your intended target depending on how well you known the location. And even then if you are several miles off you gotta figure out in which direction, like if you try and teleport to a town are you North, South, East, or West of the town? Do you know any landmarks in the area to figure out where you landed? Basically you'd need to live in a location for months for me to consider it very familiar, otherwise it's seen casually or worst odds on that teleport. I don't see the problem here as I think it be fun to have players dropped into the middle of a deadly swamp because they rolled bad on teleport.
Wish is end game I don't even see how this matters. Most campaigns will never get there and if your players stuck with it the whole time let them having their power fantasy and change the world. Perhaps they do some world changing wish like breaking teleports for your campaigns going forward in the same settings ;). Or fixing it after the previous campaign broke them. Getting to cast 9th level spells is a massive achievement and players should be able to feel the world altering powers at their finger tips. Or you could play monkey's paw and twist their wishes in unintended ways so they learn to becareful what they wish for. ;)
Overall though most of the reason to ban it seem to be from wanting to impose our non-magical view on the way the world works into a fantasy realm where people of that world would already have figured out ways to deal with such magic.
I have had plans (that I need to accelerate now that my Sorcerer wants to take Animate Objects) to create an alternate homebrew for multi-creature summoning spells. I want to use MCDM's beautifully elegant Minion rules to keep all the summons easy to manage, and fast to use in combat, while still making sure the power level of the spells isn’t too heavily affected (unless the spells really need to be wrangled in).
When it comes to Counterspell, for my table, I use it and the players use it. Had a player who was an abjurstion wizard and at 10th level they can add their proficiency bonus to their counterspell check so it was rare they failed a counterspell and they LOVED it, especially when it was against high level spells and other counterspells
That's a cool method for silvery barbs, I like that a lot. Thanks for the tips and insight.
For remove curse, I make it to where it works like dispel magic where it only removes curses of a certain level. Higher level spell slots are needed for stronger curses.