@@bigdream_dreambig Might be because then the vengeance paladin is no longer standing between the wizard and a second enemy ... who is now wielding *both* a spiked club the size of a small car, and a shit-eating grin.
I had a Horizon Walker in my party who had never played D&D before. His solution to fighting a bunch of archers firing down at them from a ridge was to create a bunch of fog around the archers, Misty Step himself up to the cliff, then shove each archer off the cliff one at a time.
Great list and there is a ton to cover. Some spells we have used to good effect has been Levitate, completely immobilizes if they don't have away to get in contact with something. None of these work if the caster can stop the effect or teleport out, so Silence is an absolute go to and is an area of effect as well. As always thank you great stuff.
My favorite forced movement shenanigan is dragging Grapple/Shove into map features. It isn't limited to spellcasters, but since they tend not to invest too heavily in STR or DEX, it can certainly work on them without having to worry about saving throws.
As soon as you mentioned whirlwind I thought of this, and it's pretty mean. One spellcaster can cast telekinesis on a baddie, and the other spellcaster can cast whirlwind and suck him up, doing the 6d10 damage. The person with telekinesis can then bring him out of the whirlwind and back in, doing another 6d10. The whirlwind only has a 10 ft. radius, and telekinesis can move a creature up to 30ft. per round, so there's enough distance to cover it. Nothing in the spell descriptions say anything that would particularly disqualify this strategy.
It's a bit more involved, but a level 6 Tempest Cleric/level 2 Scribes Wizard can just change all their elemental spells to deal Lightning damage so they all qualify for the Tempest feature Thunderous Strikes.
Shtahp, I've already mentioned my Armourer Artificer/Psi Warrior character I want to play on another of your videos. He has the Telekinetic feat, it's a Psi Warrior, and has Lightning Lure. He's all about moving friendly and hostile creatures alike 😁
Graviturgy Wiz + Magic Initiate (Warlock) [Eldritch Blast(Cantrip) Magic Stone(Cantrip)] + tiny servant. Precast x3 tiny servants, Give them command to throw at target when handed stone. lasts 8 hours (rest trick if dm is down) Action, Eldritch Blast 5 feet movement per beam Bonus action, Magic stone Free action, hand stones to Servants x3 attacks 15 more feet movement. Lots of fun options to it with mostly reliant on cantrips so you can still use other spells over the blasts as needed, Also can force them in to air with movement and can use reaction to up add to fall damage. Extra layer Eldritch Adept Devil’s Sight Precast if possible Darkness on self (or one of the tiny servants) Now all the beams/stones have adv!
dao genie warlock+eldritch blast+grasp of hadar/repelling blast+crusher feat due to eldritch blast being able to deal bludgeoning damage, you can proc the cruser feat, essentially being able to move a target 5ft for free on top of repelling blast/grasp of hadar, and is even multidirectional, so you can even treat enemies like knights in chess, moving in L paths
As a DM, my party has never considered this concept and I feel it is my duty to teach them. Why waste time showing them this video when I can repeatedly fling them into an Entangle until they grasp the concept. Great info guys! You’ve given me a ton of ideas to use.
I've got Vortex warp together with twinned spell on my sorcerer and it's amazing. Just yesterday a Chuul tried to pull our heavy armoured cleric into the water and drown him. Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh noooooooooo. He's back at my side now.
Love vortex warp with my artificer! Usually I'm a heavy damage dealer with sniper shot but fun to switch. Vortexed giants into a lava flow. Played momma bear and kept teleporting party members out of a laviations grasp so they couldn't be eaten. Multiple times enemy wizards put up defensive spells for me to just teleport our barbarian or fighter next to them. Crew tossed over board in a storm...no problem. Been super super fun!
You might be able to something with dissonant whispers causing an enemy to run away from you. While an enemy won't run into obvious harm, Spike Growth isn't obvious
Knocking a character into a prone character's space then the prone character needs to move out of the space but will take their entire movement(unless raised above natural speed). Set up correctly, you can lock creatures into a 5ft radius with only two characters, no magic needed.
If you have a Druid or Bard in the party, dropping Plant Growth in an area on a group of enemies, then an AoE effect spell like Sickening Radiance on top is evil. If you add Spike Growth to that, it can be one of the most brutal combos. Plant Growth is a non-concentration spell, so it's possible for a Bard to setup PG/SR themselves (with the right Magical Secrets choices), and have the ranger or Druid drop Spike Growth. Dropping Entangle or Sleet Storm on top of all that would be downright evil :)
You know whats fun? Playing a Hexblade Warlock with Repelling Blast, Warcaster, and Polearm Master. Hell throw in 6 lvls of Graviturgist and you get a 90ft no save push as a reaction whenever an enemy dares to come within 10ft of you. If you want to be really mean add in Lance of Lethargy to also drop their Move Speed by 10ft on the first hit each turn.
I've been "training" my group to use team tactics and team development using many of these tactics/ideas. I also picked up a couple here and I plan on teaching them using npcs... The poor things won't know who/what hit them. I intend to use your names for the NPCs.
You were flicking creatures through a prismatic wall multiple times? What kind of creature can handle being yeeted through 60d6 worth of damage, more than once?
Love the video, but you fell for the common mistake: Entangle will restrain a creature that's in the area ONLY when you cast the spell. If a creature enters the area later (i.e. get knocked / shoved into it), the only effect it will suffer from is difficult terrain - no restraining takes place at that point.
Exactly =) And for the sake of forced movement-entangle relationship is also good to know that the restrained condition remains until the target free itself or the spells ends, so even if the target is moved outside the original area of effect it is still restrained \o/
I notice that the channel didn’t acknowledge this comment. That’s really too bad. The Dungeon Dudes are at their best when they’re riffing on tier lists or explaining high-level concepts to new viewers. Builds and strategies just aren’t their strength, and I think they’ve been struggling to produce compelling content for the past several months.
Or, for a less imaginative solution, front-line troops/thugs/mooks of the BBEG start getting issued fireball wands. A generous DM would even make it so they're not cursed fireball wands. Now that actually gives an interesting opportunity to the party. You could collect fireball wands from the fallen enemies, and start cosplaying Rambo in D&D (bandoliers of fireball wands instead of machine gun ammunition). In other words, "What if the fireball wizard can take a hit?" (in the form of a barbarian with many fireball wands).
Wall of fire is amazing because there is only one direct saving throw at the time of casting. All Other movement interactions with the wall afterwards automatically cause damage with no save.
The Sentinel feat can be great to keep an enemy in the AOE and has so many other benefits as well. Every time they try to move out, your fighter gets an opportunity attack that can reduce their movement to 0 for the rest of the turn.
A druid wildshaped into a giant spider on a web laid on Spike Growth and covered with darkness is great to have sentinel....... they get free, move, get hit, go to 0 speed, have to save again, if you miss they still take damage.
Combine that with the Crusher Feat, then not only is the Sentinel stopping them from leaving the AoE, but could potentially knock them right back into it with the same AoO
Don’t forget the Drakewarden’s Drake is str 16 and immune to some elemental effects. Is require some thought but having a dragon pulling someone into a wall of fire or over spiked growth - always fun.
As my Wildfire Druid, I like to have my wildfire spirit fly around the battlefield and thorn whip enemies into different hazards like Wall of Fire, Moonbeam, or even the spirits of their dead teammates that I can then ignite.
For extra grins and giggles, try Conjure Woodland Beings and summon a phalanx of Feys to do your bidding as well. While an individual Pixie is hardly a match for anyone, 24 of them can wreak havoc across the board with their spells. And 48 Boggles can create difficult terrain that can last for an hour and can spread by that amount every turn that the Boggles move and can force an ever-tightening ring around the menacing hordes towards their demise. Enjoy!
Shield master is actually really great on barbarians because a shove is a contested strength check, and a raging barbarian gets advantage on strength checks.
@@michaelondic5884 One of the characters I'm considering for my next campaign is a rune knight with the unarmed fighting style, so that should work pretty well (although the fire rune requires a weapon...).
Swarmkeepers get a fun combo if they take the Druidic Warrior fighting style for Thorn Whip. Their Gathered Swarm ability triggers on any attack, including spell attacks. Spike Growth + Thorn Whip + Knockback = 2d6+10d4 damage at level 5.
I was tempted to take the Swarmkeeper Feat, but I had to go with the Fey Wanderer instead. +6 CHA Abilities with only a 12 in Charisma, plus some Proficiencies was too hard to pass up.
@@_Abjuranax_ I had to reread your reply a couple of times to figure out you meant subclass, not feat, cause at first I thought you were comparing it to the Fey Touched feat and I was like "Wait, you can have both" lol Fey Wanderer is fun too though. But in terms of what this video is talking about, it's hard to beat Swarmkeeper. Honestly I'm just a big fan of Rangers in general, idc what everyone else says.
@@brewdaly1873 I may have gotten them mixed up, but I am a Multi-Class Druid 14, Ranger 5, and Rogue 1. As such, my Ranger abilities are quite limited (2x Attacks +), so I took features that supported my character the best.
Let me go over a few honourable mentions that didn't make it into the video: 1) Booming Blade. Combined with the Crusher feat, you can knock someone away and they can only get back into melee range if they take the secondary damage. 2) Watery Sphere. Up to four medium creatures that fail a save can be picked up and dragged wherever the sphere goes -- like right into a Hunger of Hadar area. 3) Bones of The Earth. Put a horizontal Wall of Force over your enemy. Then cast Bones of The Earth and do the monster mash. 4) Spike Growth. Yeah they mentioned it, but they didn't go over the cheese grater option where you grapple enemies and drag them back and forth over the spikes. Druids could be especially good at this if they can wildshape into a size huge creature and drag medium creatures without being slowed to half speed. 5) Grasping Vine. Put one in the middle of someone else's damage area spell and use it to drag enemies back in. 6) Storm Sphere. This one is only good if you're playing an evoker who can sculpt it around party members. Then the rest of the party can try to keep enemies in the constant damage area without worrying about it themselves.
What a coincidence, in our last play session last week our party encountered a band of kobolds and thugs in a powdered bone factory. It had bone crushers, conveyor belts, moving pistons and gears, dark pits. My Warlock used Repelling Blast and Thorn Whip (from Pact of the Tome), to push and pull kobolds into the machinery. Gory, cruel, and fun combat encounter!
I think one of my favorite, my wife was playing a bard and carefully got into position on top of a tall look out tower. Used dissonant whispers to get the two guards to start fighting each other and one accidentally pushed the other off a 40 foot drop. While shocked at what he did, she pushed the other guard off. The guards on the ground freaked out as two of their compatriots had just splatted on the ground. So she hid. A group of 5 guards get up to the tower to investigate, so she cast Thunder wave and knocked the majority of them off the tower.
Mordekainen's Momentous Meatgrinder: Have a slippery surface in a hallway immediately behind door. People entering the door slip on that surface and forcefully move twice their intended movement in their intended direction. But wait, there's more. (Soldier says Nooooo.) Right behind the slippery area, there's Spike growth or some similar effect. Right after the spikes sits the party having a picnic and watching the BBEG's minions getting shred to pieces while tasting Neverwinter's best wine.
my party is starting a guild, and there is competition. They never strategize or synergize, so I'm making NPC parties with tactics like these to challenge the actual party. Opinion question: Would it be OP and almost like bullying to fight them with a min-maxed party built and played by one person around one strategy, or is it a fair and engaging way to show the players what they're up against / what could pull off if they wanted to?
As long as it doesn't kill or affect role play show them. And when I say affect role play I just mean manage it if it turns into something the player doesn't want to do with their character, there's no reason to beat the party every time, but there should be some stakes, remember they are probably just there to have fun too.
I’m playing a warlock and I just got access to Sickening Radiance. It was incredibly effective last week! I was shocked at how useful it was against a large number of enemies who had to come out of a cave to get to us.
I've used it to solo a remorhaz in a tomb with no damage to my other party members and DM PCs at level 8. Just dropped it and left the room into a too narrow hall.
One that I love is Plant Growth and Spike Growth My Ancients Paladin would whack a Plant Growth down while the Druid did Spike Growth and the best thing about it was that Plant Growth SPECIFICALLY isn't 'Difficult Terrain' and therefore sidesteps the rule they don't stack. A creature spends 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved. (Plant Growth) Every 5 feet moved is 2d4 damage. (Spike Growth) By the time they managed to leave the area, they were shredded, and then the Warlock Repelling Blasted them back in.
I'm hoping that in an upcoming campaign a friend of mine will be running, I can play a lorehold college necromancer. The idea being to combo Spirit Guardians with Grim Harvest. Visually, the necromancer conjures these undead spirits that fly around in a 15' radius drawing life energy from foes and return that life force to the caster.
For more early level "forced movement" options, try command flee/approach or Dissonant whispers. The benefit of these two is because these technically aren't forced movement (they are using their action economy to move) they also trigger attacks of opportunity! So with good positioning if the enemy is running towards the ranger who cast spike growth or web to try to drop concentration, with a bard, warlock, or cleric command/dissonant whispers, you can scare the person AWAY from you and your ranger pal, provoking attacks of opportunity AND pushing them back into the hazards they just tried to run away from.
5:40 I've personally always interpreted Sickening Radiance as basically being a nuclear-radiation beam. A while back I was playing a Scourge Aasimar Hexblade whom I themed as being pretty much a walking nuclear-reactor/bomb, with nearly all of her spells being either radiant or necrotic-based. We were able to set up the Entangle/Sickening Radiance combo a number of times and it was pretty much always horrifying for whoever we were fighting. Probably the worst one was a bunch of celestials that resisted the radiant damage but not the exhaustion so they just slowly died agonizing deaths over the course of six turns.
You just broke my mind with that idea of Spell Mastery on Vortex Warp! Being able to infinitely move your foes and allies around on the battlefield up to 90ft is amazing!
The deadlies5 combo I've seen was hunger if Hadar with wall of fire, turned outward, around it. The enemy was trapped, wondering blind trying to get out, taking cold and acid damage, and then stumble through the wall of fire and get burned. And then shoved back by eldritch blast push and telekinetic shove. Then don't all over again. Trapped a high level caster in there and just shut him down because he couldn't see to do his nastiest spells. Completely trashed the encounter and made me have to rethink all other combats for the campaign.
Throw on Lance of Lethargy Invocation on top of that. At that point, not only are they in the middle of Spike Growth, but their speed will be reduced too. Then next turn, get your Druid to use Plant Growth on the Spike Growth spell they have down and it suddenly becomes impossible for them to escape without flight since you can just keep pulling them back in with Eldritch Blast and Telekinetic lol 😆
I've only played one session in which I really got to use my Tank Wizard, but using Lightning Lure to constantly pull enemies across tables, chairs and other enemies was very fun. I can't wait to apply all these tricks as well!
Love this channel, but one word always gives me shivers “particularly”… IYKNK Also, anyone else ever thought Marty and Austin John Plays look like they could be brothers?
My artificer has routinely levitated enemies in and out of the storm sphere our sorceror has cast or the spirit guardian bubble of the cleric. Also fun when our arcane archer adds grasping arrow the the mix. Just ended a T-Rex encounter at level 5 before it even started. When it was supposed to be a deadly encounter for us.
There's also the option of "enemies and objects that are pushed into a grease spell should continue on their path until they collide with something substantial". Depending on the map, that can be deadly (if the map has a lot of pits or cliffs or the like) or comical (if the map is mostly flat, leading to them sliding off into the sunset).
Transmute rock is a really great concentration-free effect-not for any debilitating effects, but because enemies’ speed is reduced by FOUR TIMES. Watch them slog through that to the edge, push them back to the middle of the effect, and watch the DM’s face fall.
In regard to Grasp of Hadar & Repelling Blast, hitting your allies with those means you can move them. But do you think you could limit the damage your blast deals to an ally? Either way though, these invocations open options to maneuver your party a little too.
Did something like this in a recent one shot, i as the sorcerer set down web and the warlock did hunger of hadar. Bascially won the fight right there and then
I once made a Homebrew boss for my players in a one shot that was an undead Druid sworn to the forest. It used a mix of lair actions which created stationary hazards, followed by its actions and legendary actions to thorn whip the players into these hazards.
A Curse of Strahd group I was in that consisted of myself (Paladin), a Barbarian, and a Druid, managed to completely body the vampire spawn in the Vallaki coffin maker's shop at 4th level. The Druid laid down a Spike Growth and then hit the spawn with Thunderwave whenever they made it close to the edge, while the Barbarian and me mostly acted as meat shields to keep them from being able to walk out of the spikes (plus my Paladin, as a Scourge Aasimar, used his Radiant Consumption to turn off the spawns' regen by hitting them with chip radiant damage).
A Nature Cleric with Thorn whip and telekinetic ABSOLUTELY destroys with a high AC. You're potentially able to pull 2 creatures into your spiritual guardians!!!
I believe the number 1 spot belongs to the Dao warlock. At spell level 2, you get spike growth and at level 4 you get sickening radiance. When attack with eldrich blast, you add 2+ hit points to your 1st blast. Take the crusher feat and the telekinetic feat and you are cooking with a blowtorch!
Ascendant Dragon Monk/Tempest Cleric multiclass. Make your unarmed strikes lightning damage and have fun. Combine with a single-handed quarterstaff for polearm master/sentinel shenanigans.
Made a Rogue with a Sorceror dip for Cloud of Daggers and Booming Blade. Idea being find enemy next to melee friend, Quickened Cloud of Daggers + Sneak Attack Booming Blade. Now they have to choose between taking Daggers, or stepping out and taking Booming Blade + Opportunity Attacks.
I want to make a Ghostlancer. Genie Patron for Spike Growth, Repelling Blast for the forced movement, and Echo Knight and Warcaster for the Opportunity Blast. I’d roleplay him as a coward who stays away from the fight, hitting whoever is closest to him or any important friends. Even make him a Swiftstride Shifter but flavored as a rat folk for extra timidity.
I want to see a whole party with forced movement options, just pinballing enemies around- not just casters. The Jugernaught Barbarian has some good forced movement options, and I think the crusher feat has a forced movement aspect. Crusher would let basically any martial character contribute to this. Another way to go for this is effects like Fear, that prevent enemies from moving towards the caster, so it adds an extra safety net for the caster, and is a different way of forcing their movement.
I found a few spells that might make your list: Command? Compulsion? The various Dominate spells Levitate (if the effect is above them) Suggestion/Mass Suggestion (if they don't see the danger) Pulse Wave Ravenous Void Reality Break Stinking Cloud Storm of Vengeance Storm Sphere Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (can't move out of an affected area) Tether Essence Transmute Rock Tsunami Wall of Ice? Wall of Light Wrath of Nature
I disagree that druid X/wizard 2. Is bad. I’m playing this. Lots of low level wizard rituals and cantrips which do not need int higher than 13. Land Druid, so spellcaster. Huge utility - massive range of spells not usually available to druids. Upcasting summon spells, so high level slots are well used. Portent to make my Druid control spell’s stick, or make a critical con check. And… the bit people always forget- I can use any wizard magic item too.
Guys, you have to realize something - you just don’t like Rangers and ignore their abilities in your videos! Here, you are talking about Shove Action - you mention Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin shoving enemies. Barbarian is fine, he has advantage in Athletics while raging, but other two have nothing else than proficiency. On the other hand, Ranger has proficiency and can also have Expertise in Athletics right from lvl 1! So Ranger is awesome at shoving! Then you mention Shield Master and highlight Paladin and Fighter. Again, Ranger has proficiency with shield, with Athletics and can have Expertise, so he is much better at shoving than those you mentioned. In one of your previous videos, while evaluating Frontliners, you gave Rangers B/C, so they ended far behind something like Clerics, Artificers or Fighters. Again, this doesn’t make sense at all. Hit Die d10, Defensive FS, many defensive features for almost every subclass, Absorb Elements, healing spells, a lot of temporary HPs from lvl 10, evasion equivalents,… and B/C? You should really check Ranger class and go through it slowly to realize how much you are missing.
My favorite is spike growth, every 5 feet is 2d4. Add Warlock with Repulsion and Grasp. Plus Sorcerer quicken spell At 17th level that is a maximum of 32d4+8d10 per tern!
It's easy to underestimate how punishing _Maelstrom_ is as a trap, especially for softer targets. But if you dig into all the rules involving water and difficult terrain, you can start to see the spell's potential. (1.) *Special Types of Movement:* _"Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you’re [...] swimming[.] You ignore this extra cost if you have [...] a swimming speed and use it to swim. At the DM’s option, [...] gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check."_ It's reasonable to say "a swirling mass of water" counts as "rough water". If a creature lands in the water, or tries jumping up to get its head above water, it may have an even harder time escaping: "When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone." (2.) *Underwater Combat:* it's harder to hit things through the water with most weapons. _"When making a melee weapon attack [underwater], a creature that doesn't have a swimming speed (either natural or granted by magic) has disadvantage on the attack roll unless the weapon is a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident._ _A ranged weapon attack automatically misses a target beyond the weapon's normal range. Even against a target within normal range, the attack roll has disadvantage unless the weapon is a crossbow, a net, or a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart)."_ (3.) *Suffocating:* Most water spells aren't persistent enough to create an issue with breathing, but _Maelstrom_ is. Creatures who can't hold their breath (because they're talking, using verbal spell components, laughing, sneezing/ choking, put to sleep, knocked unconscious, or maybe paralyzed) can get into big trouble quickly by suffocating, especially if they have a low CON modifier like most humanoid mages. _"When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again."_ Being unconscious in a _Maelstrom_ is *extremely punishing,* because unconscious creatures automatically fail Strength saving throws (so at the start of their turn they take the 6d6 bludgeoning damage from this spell and automatically suffer a failed death saving throw, and get pulled toward the center of the water so they're harder to extract) and can't be stabilized or healed there. (4.) *Concentration:* concentrating on a spell is difficult in the swirling water. Not only does the damage force concentration saves, but just being tossed about in a whirlpool might force another concentration save: _"The DM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you're on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell."_ With the right ally, it combos well with the 6th-level _Wall of Thorns_ against earthbound enemies, or _Sickening Radiance_ if they also can't teleport. Depending on the size of the creatures involved, _Animate Objects_ can fill the air above them with hostile creatures whose space they can't move through, and which can do mean things like opportunity attacks and shoves to knock enemies prone. You don't have to take it that far, though. Lower-level spells with no save can keep them trapped in the _Maelstrom,_ like _Silence_ to shut down casters or _Darkness_ for creatures that might use teleportation or other abilities based on sight. _Hex_ can make those Athletics checks harder. There are some other good combos that enemies do have a chance to avoid. _Telekinesis_ and _Bigby's Hand_ are solid all-purpose ways to keep enemies trapped in the whirlpool or knock them back in. _Earthbind_ or _Control Winds_ can keep them from flying out. _Tasha's Hideous Laughter_ means they immediately drop prone and stop holding their breath. Lots of things can cause enemies to automatically fail their Strength saving throws (imposing the stunned, paralyzed, or unconscious conditions) or have a much harder time with those saves (like _Silvery Barbs,_ or _Enlarge/Reduce_ which also hurts their Athletics checks). _Slow, Tasha's Mind Whip, Confusion, Transmute Rock,_ (fittingly) _Watery Sphere,_ or a simple _Ray of Frost_ can slow them down, or _Grasping Vine_ can pull them back in. _Major Image, Phantasmal Force,_ or any means of frightening enemies can prevent them from moving toward the best escape from the spell.
Last campaign the bard in our group had Reverse Gravity & I was playing a Celestial Warlock w/ a Wall of Light & Sickening Radiance. I would cast my spells at the highest point of RG. Monsters would sit inside my spells constantly making CON saves & taking damage as they just floated there. OMG it's so funny!!!
Just started a CoS campaign where I'm playing a Dao Genie Warlock with the crusher feat. All my attacks (most notably eldritch blast) do additional bludgeoning damage so if I combine that with repelling blast/grasp of hadar, I get a full 15ft of forced movement per turn. At level 3 when I get spike growth, I can potentially do my eldritch blast damage plus 6d4 if I can push an enemy the full 15ft through the AOE. Needless to say, I'm downright giddy to play more of this character.
Bit late to the party, but: Mold Earth cantrip; forced movement 5 feet down. Single casting can give your ranged friends nice cover that they can pop out, shoot and duck back in. Three castings can make a pit 10 feet deep. This is king of trap making if you have prep time before battle. Just announce, there are now x pits on battle field, here, here and there. With readied action you can do shenanigans. Choose enemy who is after you in initiative roster. Ready Mold Earth, wait for them move and gently move them 5 feet downwards. Come next turn, you act before them casting Mold Earth again, burying them chest deep in soil. They must now waste their action to dig themselves out and haft of their movement to get back up. Remember those 10 feet pits you dug before the battle. Wait until somebody drops in one or help it about with a shove action or a nice spell like Gust of Thorn Whip. If you also have Create Bonfire cantrip, give the poor sucker a nice fire to keep warm (you must be able to see bottom of the pit). If you don’t have that available, you could simply return the earth back to the pit and bury them. Level 1 trap master. Choose variant human sorcerer and take magic initiate (druid) as your feat. Start game with 6 cantrips (Gust, Bonfire, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Thorn Whip and Infestation) and 3 1st level spells (Longstrider from druid list to help positioning and 2 of your choice from sorcerer list)
Cloud of Daggers? Also, i play Hill Dwarf Light Cleric (Level 12) with a Warhammer, Sentinel Shield, and the Crusher Feat. Getting Wall of Fire for free, as well as Fireball is just so much fun when you can push people around the battlefield.
I'm playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin and my GF is playing a Ranger w/ Spike Growth and Cordon of Arrows. We've been waiting for a good opportunity for her to use her traps and I can cast Command and have the target "Approach" pulling it into the traps. Another thing that we've strategized, is if they have a lot of minions (We're going up against a Goblin Boss/King soon), I can Command him to "Approach" first, and then she can cast the Spike Growth afterwards to separate him from the horde of goblins.
7:18 Nope. Still dying on this hill. Prismatic Wall says "when a creature ATTEMPTS to pass through the layers". Attempt implies willfully trying to move through it. Willful. Therefore forced movement does. not. work. Best you can hope for is bludgeoning damage from being smashed against it, but you cannot force the to undergo the different layers effects.
The spell Dark Star from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is INSANELY good. It's an 8th level spell that creates a huge area of darkness that is silent, acts as difficult terrain, AND does 8d10 force damage per round to creatures, disintegrating anything that is reduced to 0 hit points. If you can get this spell as an evocation wizard....let's just say your party is going to have an easy encounter. Especially if someone has the devil's sight invocation and the party has Rary's Telepathic Bond going.
I think you should be able to set the grease spell on fire and can't be put it out with water like a real grease fire, perhaps this effect could even be upcast to deal extra fire damage.
Forcecage + Sickening Radiance is a combo a single player can pull off that will melt just about anything like a microwave...if the damage doesn't finish them the exhaustion will. Honorable mention to Hold Person + Heat Metal (2 person combo), paralyzing a knight in their own plate mail oven is absolutely brutal.
If you really want forced movement, then set up a 5ft by 100ft corridor, and cast force cage as a 1ft by 100ft rectangle down the middle. A medium-sized creature can't squeeze in the remaining space so is pushed all the way down the corridor. I call it Bloody Stupid Johnson's railgun ™
The Repelling Blast invocation for warlocks is my favorite Forced Movement method. Some notes: 1. There's no save. As far as I know, there's no way for the target to prevent the movement if the attack hits. 2. There's no limit on the size of enemies you can move this way. 3. It's not once per turn, but triggers on EVERY hit with Eldritch Blast. (This was mentioned in the video) 4. It's attached to a ranged cantrip so it can be used from a distance without limit. It's probably the most consistent Forced Movement ability in the game. Most of the other unlimited ones are either melee only, can only be used once on your turn, or involve a saving throw. The only limitations are that it only has 10 feet of movement, and you can't choose the direction except by maneuvering yourself before attacking. Compare that to, say, the Gathered Swarm ability from the Swarmkeeper Ranger that can move the enemy 15 feet in any direction, but can only be used once on your turn and has a Strength saving throw.
my friend Jon hates me because of the Grease spell, his artificer cast it in game and I asked what the verbal component was, after a brief think he said "Slippy?"and I replied "No, Jon. Grease is the word!" Even through we wereplaying online with audio but no video I could feel the face palm 3:-)
Non-magical setup options seem to have been overlooked, but in my experience tend to be a favorite for one of my players (we joke that his character's spell list is her inventory). Here's some I've seen used: Caltrops Ballbearings Hunting trap Oil flask - esp combined with a source of fire like a torch Also, class features like desert storm barbarian's aura.
A challenge for the DM? Not at all! This is exactly what DMs should do to swing the battle back to where PCs actually worry about their lives. Thunderwaving those Strength Dump PCs into a Hunger of Hadar will now be a bucket list item.
Another spell to combo with these, and which isn't concentration, is Plant Growth (bard, druid, ranger,...). Rather than forced movement, its forced lack of movement. Cutting the enemies speed to a quarter normal speed, makes it rather hard for them to get out of the area of effect. Imagine the bardlock dropping this and then an enemy with a speed of 40 even moves forward 10' each turn, only to have repelling blast back him right to where he started. With a friend around to place sickening radiance or spike growth (which would bring movement to 1/8th), they're never getting out of there
I wanna mention Cloak of Flies, the warlock invocation that may not deal big damage but is so ridiculously free-to-activate that you might as well throw it on your auramancer types, and Walloping Ammunition, which doesn't have to be single-use if you weild it as an improvised melee weapon; a check of 10 isn't much once, but multiple times a turn and it's gonna work at some point, and again... ridiculously free, given that it doesn't get destroyed-on-hit so long as you don't fire it out of a projectile launcher. Combining it with saves-debuffs isn't a bad idea either. One of my favourite modes of battlefield control though was an entirely non-mechanics one; I had a team of two characters, Arbadac a gnome who looks like a typical magician in nothing but a soft cloak and stars-and-moon hat weilding a short staff, and Prentiss who towers over everyone as a goliath in very heavy full plate armor weilding a ruby-encrusted revenant double-scimitar. Arbadac's the spongey barbarian. Prentiss is the squishy wizard. For the enemies who do get fooled, their choice of where to position themselves is a bit akin to forced movement, even without actually being that. I guess the same would go for people using lots of illusions. It's a complete fudge-of-topic, absolutely, but this made me think of it nonetheless.
Playing a Metallic Dragonborn Psi Warrior that uses magic stone and crusher. I’ve also got Gift of the Gem Dragon. So all-and-all I can push some 4 different ways in a single round. I think the metallic breath weapon is my favourite.
Hear me out.. Gust of wind BEBG into reversed gravity in a 60 foot room. He hits ceiling and takes damage. Thorn whip him towards yourself. He is pulled out of reverse gravity and takes fall damage. Gust of wind pushes him back into reverse gravity. He falls up again.
I have a ranger/nature cleric build at themready for an upcoming mid level one shot. 1 level Nature Cleric for heavy armor and shillelagh. Telekinetic for shove, Swarmkeeper ranger for more shove, thornwhip for pull and spike growth for damage. Ofc crusher was taken and with shillelagh, telekinetic and the rangers swarm I can shove someone 15 feet across spike growth. Its fantastic.
If you want to really abuse the hell out of movement mechanics on the regular in combat then a great Combo is 2 levels of Warlock (Taking the Undead Pact) and then going all in on Cleric (any Cleric will do) At that point, what you can do every time you go into combat is Transform into your Form of Dread as a Bonus Action, then throw up Spirit Guardians. After that, All you have to do is throw out Spirtual Weapon next turn and then slap them with Eldritch Blast utilizing Repelling Blast and Lance of Lethargy and if you want to get really spicy with it, throw in Polearm Master and Warcaster. Whenever they step into the Spirit Guardians (or start their turn in it) they get their speed cut in half and take the damage from it, then when they get within 10 feet of you, Polearm Master triggers an opportunity attack and then Warcaster lets you turn that attack into a spell. At that point you can hit them with Eldritch Blast as an opportunity attack and if any of those attacks hit, it will knock them back out of the Spirit Guardians and reduce their speed by 10 feet and have to make a Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened. At that point, melee enemies can't touch you and if they somehow are able to close the distance anyway, you can always throw uo Armor of Agathys lol
My DM counterplayed or nerfed Web the two times I used it... I ended up switching it out for Suggestion on my next level up, which I had to ask him if he'd play it RAW. Web seems like an incredible asset, but I haven't had great experiences with it.
I knooooooow this has been asked a million times so here is a million and one times. Repelling blast and Spike Growth. Does the target take damage when it is being repelled through the spike growth? I know some will rule voluntarily vs. involuntarily and Jeremy Crawford has danced around with word play. What say you?
Honestly, I just had a TON of fun playing a Swarmkeeper Ranger. Set up the Spike Growth or Web before using the arrows to knock them into the traps. Had a moment where the enemy had to walk through the cheese grater to feel comfortable only for an arrow to shoot them back in. What made it even better was the Wizard picked up Shadowspawn, and when summoned in Despair mode, reducd movement even worse, meaning they were drained of movement before they had a chance to go though difficult terrain.
![CAMPปลิ้น | EP.82[1/2] แก๊ง 3 สาวเพื่อนซี้บุก CAMPปลิ้นครั้งนี้ห้ามเสียอาการ](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_6WUjXHe1TM/mqdefault.jpg)
My group has a running joke that Vortex Warp is my most damaging spell because it drops an enemy right in front of our Vengeance Paladin
Nice. Sounds fun
🤔 Why not drop your paladin right in front of the enemy? No save to worry about in that case!
@@bigdream_dreambig this.
@@bigdream_dreambig Might be because then the vengeance paladin is no longer standing between the wizard and a second enemy ... who is now wielding *both* a spiked club the size of a small car, and a shit-eating grin.
That is beautiful.
I had a Horizon Walker in my party who had never played D&D before. His solution to fighting a bunch of archers firing down at them from a ridge was to create a bunch of fog around the archers, Misty Step himself up to the cliff, then shove each archer off the cliff one at a time.
Great list and there is a ton to cover. Some spells we have used to good effect has been Levitate, completely immobilizes if they don't have away to get in contact with something. None of these work if the caster can stop the effect or teleport out, so Silence is an absolute go to and is an area of effect as well. As always thank you great stuff.
My favorite forced movement shenanigan is dragging Grapple/Shove into map features. It isn't limited to spellcasters, but since they tend not to invest too heavily in STR or DEX, it can certainly work on them without having to worry about saving throws.
As soon as you mentioned whirlwind I thought of this, and it's pretty mean.
One spellcaster can cast telekinesis on a baddie, and the other spellcaster can cast whirlwind and suck him up, doing the 6d10 damage. The person with telekinesis can then bring him out of the whirlwind and back in, doing another 6d10. The whirlwind only has a 10 ft. radius, and telekinesis can move a creature up to 30ft. per round, so there's enough distance to cover it. Nothing in the spell descriptions say anything that would particularly disqualify this strategy.
Just made a shield master paladin to play D&D first time in a year. Perfect timing Dudes!
What’s your plan?
There is a strange energy that must be recognized when you have a 20th level Fighter action surging to shove 8 people into a Prismatic Wall.
It's a bit more involved, but a level 6 Tempest Cleric/level 2 Scribes Wizard can just change all their elemental spells to deal Lightning damage so they all qualify for the Tempest feature Thunderous Strikes.
My aberrant mind sorcerer and my friend's druid with a staff of the woodlands. We did a Hunger of Hadar and Wall of Thorns combo. It went well.
As a fight I grappled and dragged a vampire back into a Dawn spell from our Wizard just to make sure the vampire died. I also died…
Shtahp, I've already mentioned my Armourer Artificer/Psi Warrior character I want to play on another of your videos. He has the Telekinetic feat, it's a Psi Warrior, and has Lightning Lure. He's all about moving friendly and hostile creatures alike 😁
Graviturgy Wiz + Magic Initiate (Warlock) [Eldritch Blast(Cantrip) Magic Stone(Cantrip)] + tiny servant.
Precast x3 tiny servants, Give them command to throw at target when handed stone. lasts 8 hours (rest trick if dm is down)
Action, Eldritch Blast 5 feet movement per beam
Bonus action, Magic stone
Free action, hand stones to Servants x3 attacks 15 more feet movement.
Lots of fun options to it with mostly reliant on cantrips so you can still use other spells over the blasts as needed,
Also can force them in to air with movement and can use reaction to up add to fall damage.
Extra layer
Eldritch Adept Devil’s Sight
Precast if possible Darkness on self (or one of the tiny servants) Now all the beams/stones have adv!
dao genie warlock+eldritch blast+grasp of hadar/repelling blast+crusher feat
due to eldritch blast being able to deal bludgeoning damage, you can proc the cruser feat, essentially being able to move a target 5ft for free on top of repelling blast/grasp of hadar, and is even multidirectional, so you can even treat enemies like knights in chess, moving in L paths
As a DM, my party has never considered this concept and I feel it is my duty to teach them. Why waste time showing them this video when I can repeatedly fling them into an Entangle until they grasp the concept. Great info guys! You’ve given me a ton of ideas to use.
I've got Vortex warp together with twinned spell on my sorcerer and it's amazing. Just yesterday a Chuul tried to pull our heavy armoured cleric into the water and drown him.
Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh noooooooooo. He's back at my side now.
Love vortex warp with my artificer! Usually I'm a heavy damage dealer with sniper shot but fun to switch. Vortexed giants into a lava flow. Played momma bear and kept teleporting party members out of a laviations grasp so they couldn't be eaten. Multiple times enemy wizards put up defensive spells for me to just teleport our barbarian or fighter next to them. Crew tossed over board in a storm...no problem. Been super super fun!
I don't use Bigby's Hand for forced movement but i do Bigby's Hand grapple and quickened spells to eat the enemy's legendary resistances.
You might be able to something with dissonant whispers causing an enemy to run away from you. While an enemy won't run into obvious harm, Spike Growth isn't obvious
Incredible resource for the community!
Knocking a character into a prone character's space then the prone character needs to move out of the space but will take their entire movement(unless raised above natural speed). Set up correctly, you can lock creatures into a 5ft radius with only two characters, no magic needed.
If you have a Druid or Bard in the party, dropping Plant Growth in an area on a group of enemies, then an AoE effect spell like Sickening Radiance on top is evil. If you add Spike Growth to that, it can be one of the most brutal combos. Plant Growth is a non-concentration spell, so it's possible for a Bard to setup PG/SR themselves (with the right Magical Secrets choices), and have the ranger or Druid drop Spike Growth. Dropping Entangle or Sleet Storm on top of all that would be downright evil :)
You know whats fun? Playing a Hexblade Warlock with Repelling Blast, Warcaster, and Polearm Master. Hell throw in 6 lvls of Graviturgist and you get a 90ft no save push as a reaction whenever an enemy dares to come within 10ft of you. If you want to be really mean add in Lance of Lethargy to also drop their Move Speed by 10ft on the first hit each turn.
I recently dropped Hunger of Hadar and Cloud Kill on My PCs while a Glabrezu held them in the spell.
finally, the war crimes video :D
I've been "training" my group to use team tactics and team development using many of these tactics/ideas. I also picked up a couple here and I plan on teaching them using npcs... The poor things won't know who/what hit them. I intend to use your names for the NPCs.
You were flicking creatures through a prismatic wall multiple times? What kind of creature can handle being yeeted through 60d6 worth of damage, more than once?
tempest cleric with the ability to move anyone who is hit with lightning damage 10 ft away
Love the video, but you fell for the common mistake: Entangle will restrain a creature that's in the area ONLY when you cast the spell. If a creature enters the area later (i.e. get knocked / shoved into it), the only effect it will suffer from is difficult terrain - no restraining takes place at that point.
huh - that's a good point!
Exactly =) And for the sake of forced movement-entangle relationship is also good to know that the restrained condition remains until the target free itself or the spells ends, so even if the target is moved outside the original area of effect it is still restrained \o/
Honestly it's why I feel Web is such a massive upgrade to Entangle, and the reason I swapped Entangle off of my Swarmkeeper once I got Web.
@@receth oooh that could be interesting...
I notice that the channel didn’t acknowledge this comment. That’s really too bad. The Dungeon Dudes are at their best when they’re riffing on tier lists or explaining high-level concepts to new viewers. Builds and strategies just aren’t their strength, and I think they’ve been struggling to produce compelling content for the past several months.
These tactics are a great tool for DM's to use against characters who have those insane AC's to hit.
Or, for a less imaginative solution, front-line troops/thugs/mooks of the BBEG start getting issued fireball wands.
A generous DM would even make it so they're not cursed fireball wands.
Now that actually gives an interesting opportunity to the party. You could collect fireball wands from the fallen enemies, and start cosplaying Rambo in D&D (bandoliers of fireball wands instead of machine gun ammunition).
In other words, "What if the fireball wizard can take a hit?" (in the form of a barbarian with many fireball wands).
@@44R0Ndineverybody gangsta til the battlemaster gets akimbo fireball wands
Wall of fire is amazing because there is only one direct saving throw at the time of casting. All Other movement interactions with the wall afterwards automatically cause damage with no save.
The Sentinel feat can be great to keep an enemy in the AOE and has so many other benefits as well. Every time they try to move out, your fighter gets an opportunity attack that can reduce their movement to 0 for the rest of the turn.
A druid wildshaped into a giant spider on a web laid on Spike Growth and covered with darkness is great to have sentinel....... they get free, move, get hit, go to 0 speed, have to save again, if you miss they still take damage.
Combine that with the Crusher Feat, then not only is the Sentinel stopping them from leaving the AoE, but could potentially knock them right back into it with the same AoO
@@aarons.8161 unfortunately the giant spider only has piercing damage. But it wouldn't be bad for someone outside the web/darkness to have.
Don’t forget the Drakewarden’s Drake is str 16 and immune to some elemental effects. Is require some thought but having a dragon pulling someone into a wall of fire or over spiked growth - always fun.
That's really smart
As my Wildfire Druid, I like to have my wildfire spirit fly around the battlefield and thorn whip enemies into different hazards like Wall of Fire, Moonbeam, or even the spirits of their dead teammates that I can then ignite.
For extra grins and giggles, try Conjure Woodland Beings and summon a phalanx of Feys to do your bidding as well. While an individual Pixie is hardly a match for anyone, 24 of them can wreak havoc across the board with their spells. And 48 Boggles can create difficult terrain that can last for an hour and can spread by that amount every turn that the Boggles move and can force an ever-tightening ring around the menacing hordes towards their demise. Enjoy!
Shield master is actually really great on barbarians because a shove is a contested strength check, and a raging barbarian gets advantage on strength checks.
Rune knights are also good for shoves (and grapples) when enlarged.
Savage
Hell yea. And not related to movement effects but the other 2 parts of shield master can work with barbarian Danger Sense, too.
@@michaelondic5884 One of the characters I'm considering for my next campaign is a rune knight with the unarmed fighting style, so that should work pretty well (although the fire rune requires a weapon...).
@@bigdream_dreambig I want to play a duergar rune knight so at level 18 you can grow huge then cast enlarge and become gargantuan
Swarmkeepers get a fun combo if they take the Druidic Warrior fighting style for Thorn Whip. Their Gathered Swarm ability triggers on any attack, including spell attacks. Spike Growth + Thorn Whip + Knockback = 2d6+10d4 damage at level 5.
I was tempted to take the Swarmkeeper Feat, but I had to go with the Fey Wanderer instead. +6 CHA Abilities with only a 12 in Charisma, plus some Proficiencies was too hard to pass up.
@@_Abjuranax_ I had to reread your reply a couple of times to figure out you meant subclass, not feat, cause at first I thought you were comparing it to the Fey Touched feat and I was like "Wait, you can have both" lol
Fey Wanderer is fun too though. But in terms of what this video is talking about, it's hard to beat Swarmkeeper. Honestly I'm just a big fan of Rangers in general, idc what everyone else says.
@@brewdaly1873 I may have gotten them mixed up, but I am a Multi-Class Druid 14, Ranger 5, and Rogue 1. As such, my Ranger abilities are quite limited (2x Attacks +), so I took features that supported my character the best.
Let me go over a few honourable mentions that didn't make it into the video:
1) Booming Blade. Combined with the Crusher feat, you can knock someone away and they can only get back into melee range if they take the secondary damage.
2) Watery Sphere. Up to four medium creatures that fail a save can be picked up and dragged wherever the sphere goes -- like right into a Hunger of Hadar area.
3) Bones of The Earth. Put a horizontal Wall of Force over your enemy. Then cast Bones of The Earth and do the monster mash.
4) Spike Growth. Yeah they mentioned it, but they didn't go over the cheese grater option where you grapple enemies and drag them back and forth over the spikes. Druids could be especially good at this if they can wildshape into a size huge creature and drag medium creatures without being slowed to half speed.
5) Grasping Vine. Put one in the middle of someone else's damage area spell and use it to drag enemies back in.
6) Storm Sphere. This one is only good if you're playing an evoker who can sculpt it around party members. Then the rest of the party can try to keep enemies in the constant damage area without worrying about it themselves.
What a coincidence, in our last play session last week our party encountered a band of kobolds and thugs in a powdered bone factory. It had bone crushers, conveyor belts, moving pistons and gears, dark pits.
My Warlock used Repelling Blast and Thorn Whip (from Pact of the Tome), to push and pull kobolds into the machinery. Gory, cruel, and fun combat encounter!
I think one of my favorite, my wife was playing a bard and carefully got into position on top of a tall look out tower. Used dissonant whispers to get the two guards to start fighting each other and one accidentally pushed the other off a 40 foot drop. While shocked at what he did, she pushed the other guard off. The guards on the ground freaked out as two of their compatriots had just splatted on the ground. So she hid. A group of 5 guards get up to the tower to investigate, so she cast Thunder wave and knocked the majority of them off the tower.
Love videos like this, especially about just tactically playing combat! That's what I live for in d&d!
Hear Hear
Mordekainen's Momentous Meatgrinder: Have a slippery surface in a hallway immediately behind door. People entering the door slip on that surface and forcefully move twice their intended movement in their intended direction. But wait, there's more. (Soldier says Nooooo.) Right behind the slippery area, there's Spike growth or some similar effect. Right after the spikes sits the party having a picnic and watching the BBEG's minions getting shred to pieces while tasting Neverwinter's best wine.
my party is starting a guild, and there is competition. They never strategize or synergize, so I'm making NPC parties with tactics like these to challenge the actual party.
Opinion question: Would it be OP and almost like bullying to fight them with a min-maxed party built and played by one person around one strategy, or is it a fair and engaging way to show the players what they're up against / what could pull off if they wanted to?
As long as it doesn't kill or affect role play show them. And when I say affect role play I just mean manage it if it turns into something the player doesn't want to do with their character, there's no reason to beat the party every time, but there should be some stakes, remember they are probably just there to have fun too.
If your players don’t want to min max, don’t make them.
I would at least ask them out of game if they’re interested in crunchy, deadly encounters.
I’m playing a warlock and I just got access to Sickening Radiance. It was incredibly effective last week! I was shocked at how useful it was against a large number of enemies who had to come out of a cave to get to us.
I've used it to solo a remorhaz in a tomb with no damage to my other party members and DM PCs at level 8. Just dropped it and left the room into a too narrow hall.
As a DM I had a similar experience from the warlock in my CoS campaign. Those poor werewolves…
One that I love is Plant Growth and Spike Growth
My Ancients Paladin would whack a Plant Growth down while the Druid did Spike Growth and the best thing about it was that Plant Growth SPECIFICALLY isn't 'Difficult Terrain' and therefore sidesteps the rule they don't stack.
A creature spends 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved. (Plant Growth)
Every 5 feet moved is 2d4 damage. (Spike Growth)
By the time they managed to leave the area, they were shredded, and then the Warlock Repelling Blasted them back in.
I'm hoping that in an upcoming campaign a friend of mine will be running, I can play a lorehold college necromancer. The idea being to combo Spirit Guardians with Grim Harvest. Visually, the necromancer conjures these undead spirits that fly around in a 15' radius drawing life energy from foes and return that life force to the caster.
For more early level "forced movement" options, try command flee/approach or Dissonant whispers. The benefit of these two is because these technically aren't forced movement (they are using their action economy to move) they also trigger attacks of opportunity!
So with good positioning if the enemy is running towards the ranger who cast spike growth or web to try to drop concentration, with a bard, warlock, or cleric command/dissonant whispers, you can scare the person AWAY from you and your ranger pal, provoking attacks of opportunity AND pushing them back into the hazards they just tried to run away from.
5:40 I've personally always interpreted Sickening Radiance as basically being a nuclear-radiation beam. A while back I was playing a Scourge Aasimar Hexblade whom I themed as being pretty much a walking nuclear-reactor/bomb, with nearly all of her spells being either radiant or necrotic-based. We were able to set up the Entangle/Sickening Radiance combo a number of times and it was pretty much always horrifying for whoever we were fighting. Probably the worst one was a bunch of celestials that resisted the radiant damage but not the exhaustion so they just slowly died agonizing deaths over the course of six turns.
ow
You just broke my mind with that idea of Spell Mastery on Vortex Warp! Being able to infinitely move your foes and allies around on the battlefield up to 90ft is amazing!
The deadlies5 combo I've seen was hunger if Hadar with wall of fire, turned outward, around it. The enemy was trapped, wondering blind trying to get out, taking cold and acid damage, and then stumble through the wall of fire and get burned. And then shoved back by eldritch blast push and telekinetic shove. Then don't all over again. Trapped a high level caster in there and just shut him down because he couldn't see to do his nastiest spells. Completely trashed the encounter and made me have to rethink all other combats for the campaign.
This reminds me of your Tasha's Feats episode... in particular grabbing Crusher for my Monk.
My favorite continual damage spell is the barbarian. Shove the Enemy’s into him and they come back in pieces.
"I CAST SWORD!"
@@CharlesUrban upcast it to greatsword.
Shoving is great but grappling can allow movement round after round. It can let you effectively weaponize your movement
Warlock with repelling blast and the telekinetic feat + Druid with Spike growth= Chef's kiss
Combine them in a party with a sentinel feat user and the enemies could just give up on movement.
Or a dao genie warlock! They get spike growth, and you can throw on crusher for another 5 feet
@@Lich-x2g as someone with a Daolock, very much yes!
Throw on Lance of Lethargy Invocation on top of that. At that point, not only are they in the middle of Spike Growth, but their speed will be reduced too. Then next turn, get your Druid to use Plant Growth on the Spike Growth spell they have down and it suddenly becomes impossible for them to escape without flight since you can just keep pulling them back in with Eldritch Blast and Telekinetic lol 😆
I've only played one session in which I really got to use my Tank Wizard, but using Lightning Lure to constantly pull enemies across tables, chairs and other enemies was very fun. I can't wait to apply all these tricks as well!
Love this channel, but one word always gives me shivers “particularly”… IYKNK
Also, anyone else ever thought Marty and Austin John Plays look like they could be brothers?
My artificer has routinely levitated enemies in and out of the storm sphere our sorceror has cast or the spirit guardian bubble of the cleric. Also fun when our arcane archer adds grasping arrow the the mix. Just ended a T-Rex encounter at level 5 before it even started. When it was supposed to be a deadly encounter for us.
Artillerist's force ballista plus grease is pretty amusing. Especially when the DM decides that grease should be flammable.
There's also the option of "enemies and objects that are pushed into a grease spell should continue on their path until they collide with something substantial".
Depending on the map, that can be deadly (if the map has a lot of pits or cliffs or the like) or comical (if the map is mostly flat, leading to them sliding off into the sunset).
Transmute rock is a really great concentration-free effect-not for any debilitating effects, but because enemies’ speed is reduced by FOUR TIMES. Watch them slog through that to the edge, push them back to the middle of the effect, and watch the DM’s face fall.
The dao warlock also gets spike growth prior to sickening radiance
A air genasi tempest cleric can push people around with shocking grasp.
In regard to Grasp of Hadar & Repelling Blast, hitting your allies with those means you can move them. But do you think you could limit the damage your blast deals to an ally? Either way though, these invocations open options to maneuver your party a little too.
Did something like this in a recent one shot, i as the sorcerer set down web and the warlock did hunger of hadar. Bascially won the fight right there and then
I once made a Homebrew boss for my players in a one shot that was an undead Druid sworn to the forest. It used a mix of lair actions which created stationary hazards, followed by its actions and legendary actions to thorn whip the players into these hazards.
A Curse of Strahd group I was in that consisted of myself (Paladin), a Barbarian, and a Druid, managed to completely body the vampire spawn in the Vallaki coffin maker's shop at 4th level. The Druid laid down a Spike Growth and then hit the spawn with Thunderwave whenever they made it close to the edge, while the Barbarian and me mostly acted as meat shields to keep them from being able to walk out of the spikes (plus my Paladin, as a Scourge Aasimar, used his Radiant Consumption to turn off the spawns' regen by hitting them with chip radiant damage).
Grease + Spike Growth = Merilwen’s Meat Grinder
A Nature Cleric with Thorn whip and telekinetic ABSOLUTELY destroys with a high AC. You're potentially able to pull 2 creatures into your spiritual guardians!!!
I believe the number 1 spot belongs to the Dao warlock. At spell level 2, you get spike growth and at level 4 you get sickening radiance. When attack with eldrich blast, you add 2+ hit points to your 1st blast. Take the crusher feat and the telekinetic feat and you are cooking with a blowtorch!
Why would you take the crusher feat as a blaster caster? As a caster after all?
Ascendant Dragon Monk/Tempest Cleric multiclass. Make your unarmed strikes lightning damage and have fun. Combine with a single-handed quarterstaff for polearm master/sentinel shenanigans.
Made a Rogue with a Sorceror dip for Cloud of Daggers and Booming Blade. Idea being find enemy next to melee friend, Quickened Cloud of Daggers + Sneak Attack Booming Blade. Now they have to choose between taking Daggers, or stepping out and taking Booming Blade + Opportunity Attacks.
I want to make a Ghostlancer. Genie Patron for Spike Growth, Repelling Blast for the forced movement, and Echo Knight and Warcaster for the Opportunity Blast.
I’d roleplay him as a coward who stays away from the fight, hitting whoever is closest to him or any important friends. Even make him a Swiftstride Shifter but flavored as a rat folk for extra timidity.
Battlefield control and manipulation can really make or break an encounter. 👍
~ Adam
I want to see a whole party with forced movement options, just pinballing enemies around- not just casters.
The Jugernaught Barbarian has some good forced movement options, and I think the crusher feat has a forced movement aspect. Crusher would let basically any martial character contribute to this.
Another way to go for this is effects like Fear, that prevent enemies from moving towards the caster, so it adds an extra safety net for the caster, and is a different way of forcing their movement.
I found a few spells that might make your list:
Command?
Compulsion?
The various Dominate spells
Levitate (if the effect is above them)
Suggestion/Mass Suggestion (if they don't see the danger)
Pulse Wave
Ravenous Void
Reality Break
Stinking Cloud
Storm of Vengeance
Storm Sphere
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (can't move out of an affected area)
Tether Essence
Transmute Rock
Tsunami
Wall of Ice?
Wall of Light
Wrath of Nature
I disagree that druid X/wizard 2. Is bad. I’m playing this. Lots of low level wizard rituals and cantrips which do not need int higher than 13. Land Druid, so spellcaster. Huge utility - massive range of spells not usually available to druids. Upcasting summon spells, so high level slots are well used. Portent to make my Druid control spell’s stick, or make a critical con check. And… the bit people always forget- I can use any wizard magic item too.
Guys, you have to realize something - you just don’t like Rangers and ignore their abilities in your videos!
Here, you are talking about Shove Action - you mention Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin shoving enemies. Barbarian is fine, he has advantage in Athletics while raging, but other two have nothing else than proficiency. On the other hand, Ranger has proficiency and can also have Expertise in Athletics right from lvl 1! So Ranger is awesome at shoving!
Then you mention Shield Master and highlight Paladin and Fighter. Again, Ranger has proficiency with shield, with Athletics and can have Expertise, so he is much better at shoving than those you mentioned.
In one of your previous videos, while evaluating Frontliners, you gave Rangers B/C, so they ended far behind something like Clerics, Artificers or Fighters. Again, this doesn’t make sense at all. Hit Die d10, Defensive FS, many defensive features for almost every subclass, Absorb Elements, healing spells, a lot of temporary HPs from lvl 10, evasion equivalents,… and B/C?
You should really check Ranger class and go through it slowly to realize how much you are missing.
My favorite is spike growth, every 5 feet is 2d4. Add Warlock with Repulsion and Grasp. Plus Sorcerer quicken spell
At 17th level that is a maximum of 32d4+8d10 per tern!
It's easy to underestimate how punishing _Maelstrom_ is as a trap, especially for softer targets. But if you dig into all the rules involving water and difficult terrain, you can start to see the spell's potential.
(1.) *Special Types of Movement:* _"Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you’re [...] swimming[.] You ignore this extra cost if you have [...] a swimming speed and use it to swim. At the DM’s option, [...] gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check."_
It's reasonable to say "a swirling mass of water" counts as "rough water".
If a creature lands in the water, or tries jumping up to get its head above water, it may have an even harder time escaping: "When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone."
(2.) *Underwater Combat:* it's harder to hit things through the water with most weapons.
_"When making a melee weapon attack [underwater], a creature that doesn't have a swimming speed (either natural or granted by magic) has disadvantage on the attack roll unless the weapon is a dagger, javelin, shortsword, spear, or trident._
_A ranged weapon attack automatically misses a target beyond the weapon's normal range. Even against a target within normal range, the attack roll has disadvantage unless the weapon is a crossbow, a net, or a weapon that is thrown like a javelin (including a spear, trident, or dart)."_
(3.) *Suffocating:* Most water spells aren't persistent enough to create an issue with breathing, but _Maelstrom_ is. Creatures who can't hold their breath (because they're talking, using verbal spell components, laughing, sneezing/ choking, put to sleep, knocked unconscious, or maybe paralyzed) can get into big trouble quickly by suffocating, especially if they have a low CON modifier like most humanoid mages.
_"When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again."_
Being unconscious in a _Maelstrom_ is *extremely punishing,* because unconscious creatures automatically fail Strength saving throws (so at the start of their turn they take the 6d6 bludgeoning damage from this spell and automatically suffer a failed death saving throw, and get pulled toward the center of the water so they're harder to extract) and can't be stabilized or healed there.
(4.) *Concentration:* concentrating on a spell is difficult in the swirling water. Not only does the damage force concentration saves, but just being tossed about in a whirlpool might force another concentration save:
_"The DM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you're on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell."_
With the right ally, it combos well with the 6th-level _Wall of Thorns_ against earthbound enemies, or _Sickening Radiance_ if they also can't teleport. Depending on the size of the creatures involved, _Animate Objects_ can fill the air above them with hostile creatures whose space they can't move through, and which can do mean things like opportunity attacks and shoves to knock enemies prone.
You don't have to take it that far, though. Lower-level spells with no save can keep them trapped in the _Maelstrom,_ like _Silence_ to shut down casters or _Darkness_ for creatures that might use teleportation or other abilities based on sight. _Hex_ can make those Athletics checks harder.
There are some other good combos that enemies do have a chance to avoid. _Telekinesis_ and _Bigby's Hand_ are solid all-purpose ways to keep enemies trapped in the whirlpool or knock them back in. _Earthbind_ or _Control Winds_ can keep them from flying out. _Tasha's Hideous Laughter_ means they immediately drop prone and stop holding their breath. Lots of things can cause enemies to automatically fail their Strength saving throws (imposing the stunned, paralyzed, or unconscious conditions) or have a much harder time with those saves (like _Silvery Barbs,_ or _Enlarge/Reduce_ which also hurts their Athletics checks). _Slow, Tasha's Mind Whip, Confusion, Transmute Rock,_ (fittingly) _Watery Sphere,_ or a simple _Ray of Frost_ can slow them down, or _Grasping Vine_ can pull them back in. _Major Image, Phantasmal Force,_ or any means of frightening enemies can prevent them from moving toward the best escape from the spell.
Last campaign the bard in our group had Reverse Gravity & I was playing a Celestial Warlock w/ a Wall of Light & Sickening Radiance. I would cast my spells at the highest point of RG. Monsters would sit inside my spells constantly making CON saves & taking damage as they just floated there. OMG it's so funny!!!
Just started a CoS campaign where I'm playing a Dao Genie Warlock with the crusher feat. All my attacks (most notably eldritch blast) do additional bludgeoning damage so if I combine that with repelling blast/grasp of hadar, I get a full 15ft of forced movement per turn. At level 3 when I get spike growth, I can potentially do my eldritch blast damage plus 6d4 if I can push an enemy the full 15ft through the AOE. Needless to say, I'm downright giddy to play more of this character.
Bit late to the party, but:
Mold Earth cantrip; forced movement 5 feet down.
Single casting can give your ranged friends nice cover that they can pop out, shoot and duck back in.
Three castings can make a pit 10 feet deep. This is king of trap making if you have prep time before battle. Just announce, there are now x pits on battle field, here, here and there.
With readied action you can do shenanigans. Choose enemy who is after you in initiative roster. Ready Mold Earth, wait for them move and gently move them 5 feet downwards. Come next turn, you act before them casting Mold Earth again, burying them chest deep in soil. They must now waste their action to dig themselves out and haft of their movement to get back up.
Remember those 10 feet pits you dug before the battle. Wait until somebody drops in one or help it about with a shove action or a nice spell like Gust of Thorn Whip. If you also have Create Bonfire cantrip, give the poor sucker a nice fire to keep warm (you must be able to see bottom of the pit). If you don’t have that available, you could simply return the earth back to the pit and bury them.
Level 1 trap master. Choose variant human sorcerer and take magic initiate (druid) as your feat. Start game with 6 cantrips (Gust, Bonfire, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Thorn Whip and Infestation) and 3 1st level spells (Longstrider from druid list to help positioning and 2 of your choice from sorcerer list)
Cloud of Daggers? Also, i play Hill Dwarf Light Cleric (Level 12) with a Warhammer, Sentinel Shield, and the Crusher Feat. Getting Wall of Fire for free, as well as Fireball is just so much fun when you can push people around the battlefield.
I'm playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin and my GF is playing a Ranger w/ Spike Growth and Cordon of Arrows. We've been waiting for a good opportunity for her to use her traps and I can cast Command and have the target "Approach" pulling it into the traps. Another thing that we've strategized, is if they have a lot of minions (We're going up against a Goblin Boss/King soon), I can Command him to "Approach" first, and then she can cast the Spike Growth afterwards to separate him from the horde of goblins.
7:18 Nope. Still dying on this hill.
Prismatic Wall says "when a creature ATTEMPTS to pass through the layers". Attempt implies willfully trying to move through it. Willful. Therefore forced movement does. not. work.
Best you can hope for is bludgeoning damage from being smashed against it, but you cannot force the to undergo the different layers effects.
The spell Dark Star from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is INSANELY good. It's an 8th level spell that creates a huge area of darkness that is silent, acts as difficult terrain, AND does 8d10 force damage per round to creatures, disintegrating anything that is reduced to 0 hit points. If you can get this spell as an evocation wizard....let's just say your party is going to have an easy encounter. Especially if someone has the devil's sight invocation and the party has Rary's Telepathic Bond going.
I think you should be able to set the grease spell on fire and can't be put it out with water like a real grease fire, perhaps this effect could even be upcast to deal extra fire damage.
Forcecage + Sickening Radiance is a combo a single player can pull off that will melt just about anything like a microwave...if the damage doesn't finish them the exhaustion will. Honorable mention to Hold Person + Heat Metal (2 person combo), paralyzing a knight in their own plate mail oven is absolutely brutal.
If you really want forced movement, then set up a 5ft by 100ft corridor, and cast force cage as a 1ft by 100ft rectangle down the middle. A medium-sized creature can't squeeze in the remaining space so is pushed all the way down the corridor. I call it Bloody Stupid Johnson's railgun ™
The Repelling Blast invocation for warlocks is my favorite Forced Movement method. Some notes:
1. There's no save. As far as I know, there's no way for the target to prevent the movement if the attack hits.
2. There's no limit on the size of enemies you can move this way.
3. It's not once per turn, but triggers on EVERY hit with Eldritch Blast. (This was mentioned in the video)
4. It's attached to a ranged cantrip so it can be used from a distance without limit.
It's probably the most consistent Forced Movement ability in the game. Most of the other unlimited ones are either melee only, can only be used once on your turn, or involve a saving throw.
The only limitations are that it only has 10 feet of movement, and you can't choose the direction except by maneuvering yourself before attacking. Compare that to, say, the Gathered Swarm ability from the Swarmkeeper Ranger that can move the enemy 15 feet in any direction, but can only be used once on your turn and has a Strength saving throw.
my friend Jon hates me because of the Grease spell, his artificer cast it in game and I asked what the verbal component was, after a brief think he said "Slippy?"and I replied "No, Jon. Grease is the word!" Even through we wereplaying online with audio but no video I could feel the face palm 3:-)
Vortex Warp is one of my favorite spells. And I NEVER considered putting it in my Artificers Spell-Storing Item until now. How have I been so blind???
Non-magical setup options seem to have been overlooked, but in my experience tend to be a favorite for one of my players (we joke that his character's spell list is her inventory). Here's some I've seen used:
Caltrops
Ballbearings
Hunting trap
Oil flask - esp combined with a source of fire like a torch
Also, class features like desert storm barbarian's aura.
A challenge for the DM? Not at all! This is exactly what DMs should do to swing the battle back to where PCs actually worry about their lives. Thunderwaving those Strength Dump PCs into a Hunger of Hadar will now be a bucket list item.
Another spell to combo with these, and which isn't concentration, is Plant Growth (bard, druid, ranger,...). Rather than forced movement, its forced lack of movement. Cutting the enemies speed to a quarter normal speed, makes it rather hard for them to get out of the area of effect. Imagine the bardlock dropping this and then an enemy with a speed of 40 even moves forward 10' each turn, only to have repelling blast back him right to where he started. With a friend around to place sickening radiance or spike growth (which would bring movement to 1/8th), they're never getting out of there
I wanna mention Cloak of Flies, the warlock invocation that may not deal big damage but is so ridiculously free-to-activate that you might as well throw it on your auramancer types, and Walloping Ammunition, which doesn't have to be single-use if you weild it as an improvised melee weapon; a check of 10 isn't much once, but multiple times a turn and it's gonna work at some point, and again... ridiculously free, given that it doesn't get destroyed-on-hit so long as you don't fire it out of a projectile launcher. Combining it with saves-debuffs isn't a bad idea either.
One of my favourite modes of battlefield control though was an entirely non-mechanics one; I had a team of two characters, Arbadac a gnome who looks like a typical magician in nothing but a soft cloak and stars-and-moon hat weilding a short staff, and Prentiss who towers over everyone as a goliath in very heavy full plate armor weilding a ruby-encrusted revenant double-scimitar. Arbadac's the spongey barbarian. Prentiss is the squishy wizard. For the enemies who do get fooled, their choice of where to position themselves is a bit akin to forced movement, even without actually being that. I guess the same would go for people using lots of illusions. It's a complete fudge-of-topic, absolutely, but this made me think of it nonetheless.
Playing a Metallic Dragonborn Psi Warrior that uses magic stone and crusher. I’ve also got Gift of the Gem Dragon. So all-and-all I can push some 4 different ways in a single round.
I think the metallic breath weapon is my favourite.
Hear me out.. Gust of wind BEBG into reversed gravity in a 60 foot room. He hits ceiling and takes damage. Thorn whip him towards yourself. He is pulled out of reverse gravity and takes fall damage. Gust of wind pushes him back into reverse gravity. He falls up again.
I have a ranger/nature cleric build at themready for an upcoming mid level one shot.
1 level Nature Cleric for heavy armor and shillelagh. Telekinetic for shove, Swarmkeeper ranger for more shove, thornwhip for pull and spike growth for damage.
Ofc crusher was taken and with shillelagh, telekinetic and the rangers swarm I can shove someone 15 feet across spike growth. Its fantastic.
If you want to really abuse the hell out of movement mechanics on the regular in combat then a great Combo is 2 levels of Warlock (Taking the Undead Pact) and then going all in on Cleric (any Cleric will do) At that point, what you can do every time you go into combat is Transform into your Form of Dread as a Bonus Action, then throw up Spirit Guardians. After that, All you have to do is throw out Spirtual Weapon next turn and then slap them with Eldritch Blast utilizing Repelling Blast and Lance of Lethargy and if you want to get really spicy with it, throw in Polearm Master and Warcaster.
Whenever they step into the Spirit Guardians (or start their turn in it) they get their speed cut in half and take the damage from it, then when they get within 10 feet of you, Polearm Master triggers an opportunity attack and then Warcaster lets you turn that attack into a spell. At that point you can hit them with Eldritch Blast as an opportunity attack and if any of those attacks hit, it will knock them back out of the Spirit Guardians and reduce their speed by 10 feet and have to make a Wisdom saving throw or become Frightened. At that point, melee enemies can't touch you and if they somehow are able to close the distance anyway, you can always throw uo Armor of Agathys lol
Craziest combo I've seen was Slow, Hungar of Hadar and Sickening Radiance all stacked on top of each other.
My girlfriend is sadistic 😵💫
My DM counterplayed or nerfed Web the two times I used it... I ended up switching it out for Suggestion on my next level up, which I had to ask him if he'd play it RAW. Web seems like an incredible asset, but I haven't had great experiences with it.
I knooooooow this has been asked a million times so here is a million and one times. Repelling blast and Spike Growth. Does the target take damage when it is being repelled through the spike growth? I know some will rule voluntarily vs. involuntarily and Jeremy Crawford has danced around with word play. What say you?
Honestly, I just had a TON of fun playing a Swarmkeeper Ranger. Set up the Spike Growth or Web before using the arrows to knock them into the traps. Had a moment where the enemy had to walk through the cheese grater to feel comfortable only for an arrow to shoot them back in. What made it even better was the Wizard picked up Shadowspawn, and when summoned in Despair mode, reducd movement even worse, meaning they were drained of movement before they had a chance to go though difficult terrain.