Great video. I really like your discussion of the unusual tactics of this build. I think some of your other build videos could benefit from a similar short presentation of the tactics of the build. Eg how the build would act in combats at different levels.
I hope this video gets a lot of people talking, not just about the Graviturgist, but about tactical play as a whole. So often (like 90%), it is completely impossible to get anyone at a table to think any farther than rolling damage dice. They can't see into the next round. They can't see hit probability. They can't see action economy. They can't see the use of conditions. It is SOOO hard to get anything tactical going, when every single time, the Barbarian and Paladin rush right into the middle of everything, and the Wizard (who doesn't even know what most of his spells do, and can't bother to learn) starts slinging magic missile or fireball, and NOTHING ELSE. Arrggghhhh!!!!!!!!
My table is the complete opposite. We started out treating D&D like a war game, and it has taken quite some effort for the players to open up to roleplaying. Personally my preferred ratio is 80% tactical and 20% RP.
@@M0ebius gawd, I wish. I find that tacticians adapt to RP elements pretty well, as long as the RP doesn't take away from their ability to be tactical. The reverse is not true. In my experience, 90% of the people using the term roleplay, mean exactly, "I'm going to do stupid shit, and dominate the table, and intentionally undo anything productive because it's what my character would do." Honestly, it's the reason that computer AI in video games is still attractive. While predictable and sometimes boring, it at least makes sense and can be planned around. Human idiots have none of those benefits.
I've always liked controller Wizards. I come TT to get ideas for build ideas, for the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 game release. Unfortunately I doubt Gravity Mages will be a priority for modders. But he did inspire me for Nature Domain Cleric / Warlock. This character will use tactics of the environment and conditions, to damage and control foes. Spirit Guardians, Thorn Whip, Repelling Blast, Arms of Hadar, Grasp of Hadar, and such.
@@LG-gn9cx if Ravnica content is available, you can do this with an Orzhov guild background and Spores Druid single class. Spirit Guardians, via the guild spell list, Thorn Whip and Spike Growth... and the THP buffer from Spores to help you survive the enemies that want to undo your tactics.
You have given the most comprehensive (and needed since it’s so new) guide on this! Love stuff like this that gets an entire class flushed out in every way! Good stuff bro!!
I think a winged feral tiefling would probably be the strongest race for this wizard (in the event that your dm lets you use this) that concentration free flight is just too valuable
Great series. Watching you bring it all together in the tactics video warms the soul. ☺ Sometimes in gameplay discussions, I see complaints about "white room optimization" even when it's not justified. (It often feels like it's coming from a place of willful obstinance.) At any rate, videos like this show how practical and fun tactical play can be at the table.
Great video! I was skeptical about the graviturgist but I would love to play this build in its entirety! It does become a lot better and more fun with a coordinated party.
Worth noting, when you’re dealing with difficult terrain, the penalty to your movement speed only applies if the space you’re moving into is the difficult terrain. Moving into an area out of difficult terrain from difficult terrain doesn’t cost you any extra movement
Einsi Bongo the movement to leave a difficult terrain area is not lowered by the difficult terrain. Example, in the small area of a grease spell, as long as you’re willing to go the long way around, you can always leave the grease are and move unrestricted from there
It's worth noting that with simulacrum, you have a twin that you can form your spell list when you cast it to set up your hazard first. Then switch back to your control spell list. Then you don't have to rely on a team mate to make the best choice. Also, you will be guaranteed to have two counterspells available to protect your spells, and if you choose silvery barbs as your at-will spell mastery at level one, you will have 2 free forced rerolls every round. Basically every hazard they fall in they have to save three times, so how much more often will they fail when they have to roll three times every time they fall in the hazard? That's not even nasty,. That's nastaaaaay!
After seeing how you plan to play the build, especially at higher levels, I have to question why fireball wasn't taken at any time. AOE and can move the hit targets 5 feet due to gravity well PLUS your effects/spells (like Dark Star and gravity sinkhole) can pull large groups of enemies into a nice clump. Imagine being a group of enemies caught in Dark Star; a soundless, lightless void suspending you in the air... then BOOM!! Wizard shoots a fireball in the middle of it blowing you all to smithereens and lighting you on fire. Want to know what's more scary? Sound doesn't travel in the Dark Star... so you never hear the boom.
Basically if you have a Cleric or Druid in your party they will love you for this character. This is the kind of play that build bonds between characters. (hopefully the DM doesn't lose their mind in the process)
Really good video, I'm currently playing as a full Wizard Graviturgist (no multiclass) and your 4 part series inspired me on some spells I should take ! I don't think I'll bother with fly, but I'm looking foward to put people in my Sleet Storms. :) I've only one thing I'd like to point out : When you give the example of Gravity Sinkhole, the green AOE you show seems to be a 20 foot square rather than the 20 foot sphere the spell is supposed to create. I believe that if you use a Sphere rather than a square you wouldn't be able to reach the Drow on the edge of the square in your example. I think you'd need to aim your Gravity Sinkhole a bit lower (let's say 10 ft off the ground, so you get falling damage) to get all the Drow in. The way I've calculated it: - If you were to cast Gravity Sinkhole at 10 feet in the air, the actual surface on the ground you'd be able to affect would also be a bit smaller. (around a 17.5 feet radius I believe). - If you were to cast it at 20 feet in the air, then the AOE on the ground would arguably be something around a 10 feet radius I might be wrong about that, but it's what I've estimated. If I'm mistaken I'd love to have someone show me my error ! :D
Spheres are weird on a grid. Moving diagonally only takes 5 feet of movement (basically, 5’ lets you move like a King in chess). This is different from real life, where moving diagonally would cost you sqrt(2)=1.41421 times as much movement, which we don’t bother with in DnD. Long story short, it results in some non-Euclidean geometry that turns spheres into cubes.
There is lots of debate on this. Xanathars agrees with you btw. I don't though because the distance from the centre of a circle to the edge should always be the same. If diagonal movement is treated as equal in distance, then by definition, a circle is a square and a sphere is a cube in the game.
@@TreantmonksTemple Thanks for the feedback, I didn't even know there was a debate on that. With my group we used to play without a grid, so we just imagined spheres as spheres and cubes as cubes etc... Now we use a grid because it allows more tactical fights. But yeah, now I realize the problem ! I'll see with my DM how to handle it, if he doesn't just go for the more optimized diagonal dashing to get around my Hazards, I won't mind too much. Anyways, thank you ! Love your videos and guides, I'm not really someone who powergames but I like having a measure of what is optimized or not ! :D EDIT : As a follow up, what do you think about Wall of Fire as a spell choice for this build. I've seen people suggest you cast it and make it only 5 ft high, so that you can use Gravity Well to make ennemies affected by it move 5 ft up, and fall into the Wall of Fire. Which would trigger the damage of entering it. That sounds like a rather nasty amount of damage. (Something similar goes for Create Bonfire)
Thinking about it. Would it not be better to take Dao lock 1 with this build [I know it was not released when this was made] Repelling blast + Crusher + Gravity well because it does not say on e ler turn would give you 5+15*#of blasts (2 when it comes online) this would be Superior. [Level 7 if you are V. human w/Eldritch adept and crusher or 8 if you are any other with crusher other.]
Hey man, your videos and guides greatly helped me with my first character, a 5th edition Wizard Abjurer. I am now beginning a 3.5e campaign where I will be a Gray Elf Wizard focusing on necromancy. Any suggestions? Or any plans to do some 3.5e videos?
It's been so long, the 3.5 space in my brain has been cleared and replaced with newer data. I did do a necromancer section to my 3.5 guide long ago, not sure if it's still floating around somewhere
Treantmonk I love your build ideas. I am starting a campaign later this week, do you think this character can be good without help from the rest of the party? How can this work with a party made up of a monk, moon druid, and ranger?
Wonderful video. I love your enthusiasm while speaking about these tactics. However I wonder the world these characters live in. Other people will learn about this tactic. Isn’t it easily countered by ranged an teleporting npc’s
@@Hendori3 lol. You - I would expect enemies can use ranged and teleporting to counter these tactics. Me - Should we actually expect enemies even to have those options? Aren't we both metagaming by having this discussion at all?
@@Hendori3 I think 5e has a lot of this sort of setup--combos/spells/abilities that look insane, but there's always some hard out available for DMs if they need it. Wall of Force/Disintegrate being a narrower example.
Jeremy Crawford did say ''If you get hurled into an effect, you have entered it. This is true for moonbeam and similar spell effects.'', so I suppose it's RAI and RAW.
Sébastien Delmas I mean, that’s pretty awesome. I think I was initially confusing my own point of having a spell effect such as moon beam move into a creature’s space vs a creature being moved into its space. The difference being once the moonbeam is stationary before or after using the action to move it, creatures can be moved into it. But any space the moonbeam passes through to get to its next location does not trigger that damage. Otherwise you could just plow through a 60ft line of creatures.
never mind I found it. Best explanation I could ask for. www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2016/05/02/can-you-be-damaged-by-moonbeams-light-if-youre-pushed-into-it/amp/
In case I do not want to multiclass: What could i do instead of thornwip (not a wizard spell)? Anything that would significantly change or just less tools in general?
The closest thing a wizard gets is lightning lure, but it's not nearly as good for these tactics. I think you would feel the difference at lower levels, but not forever
Perhaps you could take variant human with the magic initiate feat. I bet you could get the thornwhip cantrip from artificer that way. The druid cantrip would be useless since that one is based on wisdom
Jeremy Crawford@JeremyECrawford · Dec 16, 2015 Moonbeam isn't intended to deal damage when it first appears. #DnD twitter.com/phivexdown/status/676770127929589760 … It appears the double damage from moon beam and spirit guardians is NOT legal according to RAW and RAI.
I would not have been able to make a video on this topic without saying "They've fallen, and they can't get up."
🤣
Great video.
I really like your discussion of the unusual tactics of this build.
I think some of your other build videos could benefit from a similar short presentation of the tactics of the build. Eg how the build would act in combats at different levels.
The best sub 10k view build
#1 out of 1.
I hope this video gets a lot of people talking, not just about the Graviturgist, but about tactical play as a whole.
So often (like 90%), it is completely impossible to get anyone at a table to think any farther than rolling damage dice. They can't see into the next round. They can't see hit probability. They can't see action economy. They can't see the use of conditions.
It is SOOO hard to get anything tactical going, when every single time, the Barbarian and Paladin rush right into the middle of everything, and the Wizard (who doesn't even know what most of his spells do, and can't bother to learn) starts slinging magic missile or fireball, and NOTHING ELSE.
Arrggghhhh!!!!!!!!
My table is the complete opposite. We started out treating D&D like a war game, and it has taken quite some effort for the players to open up to roleplaying. Personally my preferred ratio is 80% tactical and 20% RP.
@@M0ebius gawd, I wish. I find that tacticians adapt to RP elements pretty well, as long as the RP doesn't take away from their ability to be tactical.
The reverse is not true. In my experience, 90% of the people using the term roleplay, mean exactly, "I'm going to do stupid shit, and dominate the table, and intentionally undo anything productive because it's what my character would do."
Honestly, it's the reason that computer AI in video games is still attractive. While predictable and sometimes boring, it at least makes sense and can be planned around. Human idiots have none of those benefits.
Yep. I'm amazed at how often I job a group and less than half the party even has ranged weapons or attacks?!?
I've always liked controller Wizards. I come TT to get ideas for build ideas, for the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 game release. Unfortunately I doubt Gravity Mages will be a priority for modders. But he did inspire me for Nature Domain Cleric / Warlock. This character will use tactics of the environment and conditions, to damage and control foes. Spirit Guardians, Thorn Whip, Repelling Blast, Arms of Hadar, Grasp of Hadar, and such.
@@LG-gn9cx if Ravnica content is available, you can do this with an Orzhov guild background and Spores Druid single class. Spirit Guardians, via the guild spell list, Thorn Whip and Spike Growth... and the THP buffer from Spores to help you survive the enemies that want to undo your tactics.
"Hokey religions and Martial weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid"
Great walkthrough of how to implement the build !
You have given the most comprehensive (and needed since it’s so new) guide on this! Love stuff like this that gets an entire class flushed out in every way! Good stuff bro!!
I've used the Thorn whip pull strat with Create bonfire before for no slot cost before. It's pretty effective.
I think a winged feral tiefling would probably be the strongest race for this wizard (in the event that your dm lets you use this) that concentration free flight is just too valuable
Haha who is going to let you have wings, get outta here Timmy
Or get a Broom of Flying
Great series. Watching you bring it all together in the tactics video warms the soul. ☺
Sometimes in gameplay discussions, I see complaints about "white room optimization" even when it's not justified. (It often feels like it's coming from a place of willful obstinance.) At any rate, videos like this show how practical and fun tactical play can be at the table.
Great video! I was skeptical about the graviturgist but I would love to play this build in its entirety! It does become a lot better and more fun with a coordinated party.
Awesome build and description of tactics
Worth noting, when you’re dealing with difficult terrain, the penalty to your movement speed only applies if the space you’re moving into is the difficult terrain. Moving into an area out of difficult terrain from difficult terrain doesn’t cost you any extra movement
What does that mean? English isn't my first.
Einsi Bongo the movement to leave a difficult terrain area is not lowered by the difficult terrain. Example, in the small area of a grease spell, as long as you’re willing to go the long way around, you can always leave the grease are and move unrestricted from there
It's worth noting that with simulacrum, you have a twin that you can form your spell list when you cast it to set up your hazard first. Then switch back to your control spell list. Then you don't have to rely on a team mate to make the best choice. Also, you will be guaranteed to have two counterspells available to protect your spells, and if you choose silvery barbs as your at-will spell mastery at level one, you will have 2 free forced rerolls every round. Basically every hazard they fall in they have to save three times, so how much more often will they fail when they have to roll three times every time they fall in the hazard? That's not even nasty,. That's nastaaaaay!
After seeing how you plan to play the build, especially at higher levels, I have to question why fireball wasn't taken at any time. AOE and can move the hit targets 5 feet due to gravity well PLUS your effects/spells (like Dark Star and gravity sinkhole) can pull large groups of enemies into a nice clump.
Imagine being a group of enemies caught in Dark Star; a soundless, lightless void suspending you in the air... then BOOM!! Wizard shoots a fireball in the middle of it blowing you all to smithereens and lighting you on fire. Want to know what's more scary? Sound doesn't travel in the Dark Star... so you never hear the boom.
Basically if you have a Cleric or Druid in your party they will love you for this character. This is the kind of play that build bonds between characters. (hopefully the DM doesn't lose their mind in the process)
SpikeRosered I think if this tactic were to be deployed by the players, the dm could just send a lot of ranged attackers your way.
nice combos :) i ll try spider climb+hadars grasp with my warlock next D&D sesion +1d6 dmg and falling prone when hit from above
Really good video, I'm currently playing as a full Wizard Graviturgist (no multiclass) and your 4 part series inspired me on some spells I should take ! I don't think I'll bother with fly, but I'm looking foward to put people in my Sleet Storms. :)
I've only one thing I'd like to point out :
When you give the example of Gravity Sinkhole, the green AOE you show seems to be a 20 foot square rather than the 20 foot sphere the spell is supposed to create.
I believe that if you use a Sphere rather than a square you wouldn't be able to reach the Drow on the edge of the square in your example. I think you'd need to aim your Gravity Sinkhole a bit lower (let's say 10 ft off the ground, so you get falling damage) to get all the Drow in.
The way I've calculated it:
- If you were to cast Gravity Sinkhole at 10 feet in the air, the actual surface on the ground you'd be able to affect would also be a bit smaller. (around a 17.5 feet radius I believe).
- If you were to cast it at 20 feet in the air, then the AOE on the ground would arguably be something around a 10 feet radius
I might be wrong about that, but it's what I've estimated. If I'm mistaken I'd love to have someone show me my error ! :D
Technically diagonals don't use more movement
So this kinda means all spheres are cubes instead
Its weird, you can watch Matt Colville's video on it
Spheres are weird on a grid. Moving diagonally only takes 5 feet of movement (basically, 5’ lets you move like a King in chess). This is different from real life, where moving diagonally would cost you sqrt(2)=1.41421 times as much movement, which we don’t bother with in DnD. Long story short, it results in some non-Euclidean geometry that turns spheres into cubes.
There is lots of debate on this. Xanathars agrees with you btw. I don't though because the distance from the centre of a circle to the edge should always be the same. If diagonal movement is treated as equal in distance, then by definition, a circle is a square and a sphere is a cube in the game.
@@TreantmonksTemple
Thanks for the feedback, I didn't even know there was a debate on that.
With my group we used to play without a grid, so we just imagined spheres as spheres and cubes as cubes etc... Now we use a grid because it allows more tactical fights.
But yeah, now I realize the problem !
I'll see with my DM how to handle it, if he doesn't just go for the more optimized diagonal dashing to get around my Hazards, I won't mind too much.
Anyways, thank you ! Love your videos and guides, I'm not really someone who powergames but I like having a measure of what is optimized or not ! :D
EDIT : As a follow up, what do you think about Wall of Fire as a spell choice for this build. I've seen people suggest you cast it and make it only 5 ft high, so that you can use Gravity Well to make ennemies affected by it move 5 ft up, and fall into the Wall of Fire. Which would trigger the damage of entering it. That sounds like a rather nasty amount of damage. (Something similar goes for Create Bonfire)
@@Temujin.Thinketh. What's the name of that video ? I'd love to check it out
And the first one-shot will have a wizard, druid and cleric in it. Because we all must reap what we sow. 😂
It's going to be fun. And if groaning is the same as laughing, you'll be laughing like crazy.
Also - I've sent you all the info for joining the campaign through Discord...let me know if you have any questions!
Thinking about it. Would it not be better to take Dao lock 1 with this build [I know it was not released when this was made] Repelling blast + Crusher + Gravity well because it does not say on e ler turn would give you 5+15*#of blasts (2 when it comes online) this would be Superior.
[Level 7 if you are V. human w/Eldritch adept and crusher or 8 if you are any other with crusher other.]
Hey man, your videos and guides greatly helped me with my first character, a 5th edition Wizard Abjurer. I am now beginning a 3.5e campaign where I will be a Gray Elf Wizard focusing on necromancy. Any suggestions? Or any plans to do some 3.5e videos?
It's been so long, the 3.5 space in my brain has been cleared and replaced with newer data. I did do a necromancer section to my 3.5 guide long ago, not sure if it's still floating around somewhere
I think a more appropriate name is the Lord of Tilt, because your DM will be quite tilted by the end
Could we please get a Chronurgy Wizard build?
Treantmonk I love your build ideas. I am starting a campaign later this week, do you think this character can be good without help from the rest of the party? How can this work with a party made up of a monk, moon druid, and ranger?
Just curious if you played the Graviturgist? I'm starting Frostmaiden and next level I'll taking it as my subclass.
when you talked about hazards you showed us a picture that did me think of hunger of hadar, but you forgot that spell. And it is a great hazard spell
The reason I didn't include it is because it's missing the "when a creature enters the area for the first time on a turn..." language.
Wonderful video. I love your enthusiasm while speaking about these tactics. However I wonder the world these characters live in. Other people will learn about this tactic. Isn’t it easily countered by ranged an teleporting npc’s
It depends what you are fighting, but most creatures at least in the official MM, MtoF and VGtM don't have teleport or ranged options.
Treantmonk's Temple this sounds like extreme metagaming 🧐😉
@@Hendori3 lol.
You - I would expect enemies can use ranged and teleporting to counter these tactics.
Me - Should we actually expect enemies even to have those options?
Aren't we both metagaming by having this discussion at all?
Treantmonk's Temple touché
@@Hendori3 I think 5e has a lot of this sort of setup--combos/spells/abilities that look insane, but there's always some hard out available for DMs if they need it. Wall of Force/Disintegrate being a narrower example.
“The first time a creature enters the area on a turn”
I’ve seen it both ways and one is significantly more effective than the other. Is this RAI?
Jeremy Crawford did say ''If you get hurled into an effect, you have entered it. This is true for moonbeam and similar spell effects.'', so I suppose it's RAI and RAW.
Sébastien Delmas I mean, that’s pretty awesome. I think I was initially confusing my own point of having a spell effect such as moon beam move into a creature’s space vs a creature being moved into its space. The difference being once the moonbeam is stationary before or after using the action to move it, creatures can be moved into it. But any space the moonbeam passes through to get to its next location does not trigger that damage. Otherwise you could just plow through a 60ft line of creatures.
It is indeed. There's a sage advice that confirms it
@@TreantmonksTemple Can I get sage advice or other link. all I found wa is a cloud of daggers that ruled opposite
never mind I found it. Best explanation I could ask for. www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2016/05/02/can-you-be-damaged-by-moonbeams-light-if-youre-pushed-into-it/amp/
In case I do not want to multiclass: What could i do instead of thornwip (not a wizard spell)? Anything that would significantly change or just less tools in general?
The closest thing a wizard gets is lightning lure, but it's not nearly as good for these tactics. I think you would feel the difference at lower levels, but not forever
Perhaps you could take variant human with the magic initiate feat. I bet you could get the thornwhip cantrip from artificer that way. The druid cantrip would be useless since that one is based on wisdom
Technically you couldn’t with magic initiate, but you could with artificer initiate
In your original review of the subclasses you did you thought this class was in the bottom half of Wizard subclass. Have you revised that opinion?
Yes
I think pulse wave has 25% effectiveness when pushing things through plant growth.
Jeremy Crawford@JeremyECrawford
· Dec 16, 2015
Moonbeam isn't intended to deal damage when it first appears. #DnD twitter.com/phivexdown/status/676770127929589760 …
It appears the double damage from moon beam and spirit guardians is NOT legal according to RAW and RAI.
your link is dead.....and that's RAW & RAI