Honestly, if a player casts Conjure Animals, and bring their own statblocks and has a macro for all their attacks on the ready and they are quick with their turns, Id let them pick their creatures. Because i know they put in the effort to make my job easier. And if its in person, bonus points if they bring their own minis.
I can see this as a reasonable option for players, though NOT for Conjure Woodland Beings because *(cringe)* *(shudder)* Pixies with Polymorph. One option to ameliorate but not solve the problem of having to roll initiative for 8 additional creatures would be to allow them to roll initiative as a group. That way, at least they all go at once, even if not on the spellcaster's turn.
My DM allowed me to do exactly this, I'm playing a Sheperd Druid and have the statblocks and macros already pre-written, even have a macro for multiple creatures attacking at once. DM took that over "random creatures" and never looked back.
I tend to go 50/50, or, "Ben 10 drama style". Most of the time, I just let the druid get what they want. Every so often I throw a wrench in it, so there's improvization. Your plan involved snakes, well, you got alligators now. I also have a house rule of: "If your summoned creature waits for your order for over ten seconds, it gets annoyed and does whatever it wants, and usually just tries to attack something to vent its frustrating work conditions", so that helps. And shorting the druid on CR rating is just dirty. Funny, but dirty. I tend to only do that if the summon is part of a social encounter and they roll low for what they are trying. i.e: I am the wise king of the forest, behold my power and my twin mighty companions! *rolls a 2*, and those are two chickens. Bluff away, Wisdom caster.
The whole idea of the DM chosing the creatures - and even screwing you over on the CR - is ridiculous anyways. So, I am a caster that's closely connected to nature, yet I have no idea what beast I will summon this time. Completely stupid.
Heres how you fix the pixie problem. Have them show up shocked and half dressed, flip out on the player for sloppy casting grammar, cast faerie fire on the party, poly the bbegs henchmen into winged trex, and dip out in all directions only occasionally giggling as 3 angry flying dental traumas teach the player why you dont make demands of fey, you ask and hope they dont keep a tab. Then on have 8 pixies show up, poly themselves into snakes... Snakes spelling out a message to the party... It says "Run Fool!" Or even worse... The last faerie falls for the tall "charming" halfling and starts stalking him as various wildlife. It says they summon em, it doesnt say they gotta like it or wanna have their spells burned. If nothing else go naruto style pacts on them. Make them collect those options by befriending, bargaining, or intimidating members of that species/race. Maybe some offer aid as a reward for the quest or sidequest. Others have their own agendas... But simple and common will be how they have to start. Want a wolf pack to come to your aid? Better share your rations with the injured wolf. Be keepin those language, healer, and animal chat spells prepared. never know when calming that angry blink dog that stole your backpack might net you a new bond to employ. The pixies tho, they really hate the wannabe cassanovas tho, try bribing them with clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics.. the poly aint free.
You have become one of my favourite youtube creators specific to tabletop gaming. Your insights peppered with pragmaticism and humour are always appreciated. Thank you for your efforts, and please know your future content is eagerly anticipated here! (You're Canadian, too, which helps with the likeability. I'm in NB!) ;)
You can use Druidcraft to predict the weather (at your location) for the next 24h. You could use that to decide whether or not to prepare Call Lightning. It probably won't make the spell much better, but I just found that connect and wanted to share the possibility.
You could also use it to determine the best time to make a surprise attack on a enemy camp or location using rain or fog for cover to sneak closer. It's really hard to hear anything more than a few feet away during a heavy rain. This could give your group a massive boost to stealth checks if such an event is something you can predict and wait for.
@@Iceblade269 Control weather is a exceptionally powerful and versatile spell. I love it. Your DM could introduce a magic item which did the same thing and recharged over x days. This would keep it from being as good as the 8th level spell. You could also require some kind of ridiculous material component like the bottled wind of an air elemental if it gets too abused.
I'm currently reading "Finding the Mother Tree" a book about the social life of trees. My druid game is about to level up between your videos and learning irl.
Notes on rivivify vs raise dead: Jesus christ Peter just died. No matter - we'll just sleep here, next to his corpse while singing kumbaya and raise his corpse from the dead as a ghoul in the morning, he'll be fine.
Save type for half-on-save spells is actually not that important. It does make a difference, especially if you take proficiency with a save into account, but the impact is far lower than you'd probably intuit. Damage type makes a bigger difference than save type, especially if your target may be immune to one of the damage types in question.
@@theuncalledfor Yeah, naw. With the way enemy Con scales, call lightning is effective in a wider range of combats for longer in the druid's career. It also cannot be used against the party by grapple-capable enemies the way moonbeam can.
@@arcane45 Moonbeam is AoE, you chicken nugget. 5ft radius, 40ft tall cylinder effect that you can move as an Action on subsequent turns. It's pretty damn good for a second level spell. I don't know what you're confusing it with, or if you somehow mistook "radius" for "diameter", to somehow think this was single-target.
2 things about call lightning. One if you get the drop on a group of enemies they might not even realize they're in combat with you instead of a bad storm until it's half over. Two is what I like to call the Thunderbird combo. Cast the spell and turn into a giant eagle. Fly up into the cloud, totally obscured. Only dip down to select your lightning spot you can see, and swoop back above the cloud.
Yeah, not only is there a bunch of tactical uses for it, he even mentioned the better saving throw and also lightning fun. Who wouldn't want to command an entire fucking storm system for ten minutes with just a third level spell?
I was so looking forward to this, particularly for plant growth, and WOW. I didn't think about the chess-style effect for large or bigger enemies. That's so sweet! Nice work as always, Chris!
we had a sorcerer in our party who took tidal wave, and i have to say from experience with it, the specific shape of tidal wave makes it _much_ easier to avoid friendly fire with than something like a fireball. you can almost always catch multiple enemies in a line even if they're mixed up in combat with your allies. i'm not sure if that makes it a _good_ spell, but having seen it cast pretty regularly, it's a much better spell to have when your allies are all clumped up with your enemies than fireball or erupting earth are. well, unless you're an evocation wizard. but compared to the other blast spells on the druid list i think it does pretty good just cause it's so much easier to avoid friendly fire with.
One admittedly situational use of Tidal Wave, is that it knocks creatures prone at range. Namely, knocking flying creatures out of the sky, which usually results in them splatting on the ground, and suddenly the damage it does isn't so bad. But you also have Sleet Storm, so.
Daylight did come up in a homebrew campaign I'm running w/ some friends featuring creatures that are sunlight sensitive. I decided to house rule that daylight would in fact trigger the sensitivity. Needless to say it made the spell a whole lot better than just a magical darkness remover. A little sad they didn't write it so that it does trigger the sensitivity without begging the DM to house rule it.
@@brettmajeske3525 A bit late to reply, but while it doesn't upcast to dispel higher levels of Darkness, the reverse is also true. This means that if both are cast at say, 4th level, neither can dispel the other. But since Darkness only blocks out nonmagical light while dispelling magical light "from a spell of 2nd level or lower", any magical light that doesn't get dispelled will succesfully shine through even magical darkness even if it might not dispel the darkness either.
I think the point about being able to hand the summoned Fey a magic weapon is important. Eventually something like a +1 shortsword will become trivial. You might even be able to give it a +2 weapon at some point, or even better. On top of that, the chance to hit scales, so the summoned fey will eventually have +12 or better to hit, conjure animals will be stuck on their +4 or +5.
Conjure Animals is powerful because it provides a large number of bodies between you and the enemy, not because it can attack good. "Oh, but AoE's!" I hear some people say. Well, spread them out! Don't make them an easy target! Mix them into enemy ranks! Your enemies will waste a spell slot and an Action to damage _themselves_ just to get rid of your swarm, that's a win for you!
While Plant Growths limitation is very real, I'd remind a DM that said it doesn't work that a "plant" by definition includes mosses and shrubs. So if you're a Druid, pay attention to your DMs descriptions, ask questions, and pick up a book on botany haha
Call Lightning is also really good if you're playing ToA, you'll be outside for a lot of the levels where you'll be using it, and it's constantly raining and stormy, so you'll get that extra 1d10 more often than not.
_Meld Into Stone_ has sufficient duration to squeeze a long rest in, protected by being perfectly hidden inside the stone... assuming you have enough time to ritually cast it on each member of your party, and also assuming that's useful to you. It is pretty fantastic for infiltrations. As part of a "standard adventuring day," though, it's hard to use.
@@wyattweber9983 It's range is "touch," not "self." I agree that it is _usually_ less useful than other ways of skinning the same cat (if you even want to), but it does have a niche use which is pretty handy in its niche case (which you can often see coming).
@@Philistine47 Its range is Touch because _the stone_ is the target, not the person entering the stone. Otherwise the description would say "The target steps into a stone object", not "You step into a stone object".
I quite often cast Tidal Wave with my Druid and it's ok. Is the damage good? No, it's not, but the only other option is Erupting Earth for concentrationless damage AND prone is very good when your best spells are summons that love to have advantage on their attacks.
I've had it as a lvl3 blast spell for a "conjuration spell" focused wizard and the area was usually large enough (in that campaign) but that of course depends if you have a dungeon or large area outdoors encounters, I see how it is small in outdoor areas but we are probably using smaller combat maps in general than Treantmonk. The shape covered a good portion of the encounters and was easier to fit enemies without hitting friends compared to a circular blast. Prone (on a failed save) is a sucky condition and its good vs flying stuff since prone cause things to insta drop to the ground and that will also add a bit of extra fall damage. But yes the damage can be a bit lackluster and there is no upcast scaling.
I've seen speak with plants used really well. The area moves with you as the target is self, allowing you to use the options better than I expected. Lot more plants in an area than animals too, and covers a large area so much better tracking than an animal or 4 could help with. I was really surprised seeing it in use.
The issue with Conjure Animals is that the spell specifically states you summon X beasts of CR 2/X or lower, so there is nothing stopping your DM from choosing X CR 0 beasts. Even if they do pick a CR 2/X beast, there is nothing stopping them from choosing a beast that is utterly useless in the current environment: i.e. a fish above water or any non-aquatic animal below water. This is why I advocate the use of Summon Beast instead. You choose the stat block so your DM doesn't need to search the monster manual for an appropriate beast, they can't effectively blank it by picking useless creatures, and you always summon one creature so it can't slow down combat nearly as much as Conjure Animals.
This is true, but if you're playing with a GM who is out to screw you over he or she is very likely to succeed in one way or another. It is however a spell you should talk to your GM about. Is it cool if you play a summoner? How you should handle it? How is the summons chosen, who controls them etc. At my table we made an agreement that I would refrain from summoning 8 creatures, as it was a bit much. So I summon at most 2 creatures, but I get to pick which; we also found it easier if I just control them as it saves my GM some work. We're also thinking of having the upcast increase CR rather than numbers. So far it works rather fine. It's not as powerful as having a full goonsquad of CR 1/4, but it works fairly well. I add a decent amount of damage and "tanking" to our combats.
@@ATMOSK1234 That's a point, but the spell description states OR LOWER. If the "intent" of the spell is that you always get the highest CR beast, then that phrase probably wouldn't be included IMO. And if the prevailing opinion of the spell (Treantmonk nonwithstanding) is it's so good it overshadows every other druid spell, then maybe it shouldn't get the full effect every time it's used?
Wow. Can't believe you put tidal wave as red. The damage is okay. But the prone condition is very nice. You can knock down flying creature, give advantage to melee attacks, or possibly split up enemies by knocking then prone. The range is also very nice. I almost always prep this on a druid and consistently get good value from it.
My Necromancer gets Tidal Wave instead of Fireball, because he has a bit of a water theme going on the side. He'd rather douse fires than cause them. If I can find Fireball in the environment, I'll gladly have him copy it into his spellbook and make good use of it, but Tidal Wave is more important to him.
Speak With Plants. It can be AMAZING, although highly DM dependent. "Plants might be able to perform other tasks on your behalf...they can freely move tendrils and stalks". You can potentially have trees attack (awakened tree stat block) vines grapple. Personally I would require a persuasion check and depending on the result the plants may offer to take a more active role in combat by attacking/grappling/etc. If your DM is cool with this kind of thing, speak with plants become a very attractive non-concentration spell in the right circumstances.
Plant Growth and difficult terrain do stack, but it doesn't double the effect (I.e. 1 foot doesn't cost 8 feet). Difficult terrain has two sets of rules, one under Movement (you move at half speed), and one under the Combat section. Combat is the pertinent section in this scenario: "Combat rarely takes place in bare rooms or on featureless plains. Boulder--strewn caverns, briar-- choked forests, treacherous staircases-the setting of a typical fight contains Difficult Terrain. Every foot of Movement in Difficult Terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as Difficult Terrain." So if each foot costs 4 feet because of Plant Growth, and each foot costs 1 additional foot because of Plant Growth, then 1 foot moved costs 5 feet of your movement. Just a point of clarity, as I always see the one get confused.
And if you're lucky you cast Plant Growth as a Circle of the Land - Druid above Level 6, because "Land's Stride" lets you ignore your own freshly overgrown plants, since : "You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them [...]"^^ So many possible shenanigans :-)
okay, I find this series interesting. I always thought of druids as "diet cleric". Worse AC, no domain spells, no channel divinity, why would I play a druid over a cleric? Turns out there may be a reason to do so
Diet cleric!? DIET CLERIC!? Clerics are diet druids, foo'! Moon and shepherd druids smack the bitch out of clerics in combat effectiveness! Dem animals are a furry frenzy of destruction!
I'm currently playing as a Druid ina party with a Cleric, the Cleric is the one that envy me ngl. It also helps that after 5th level cleric spells take a nose dive in quality and we are at tier 3.
26:43 Difficult terrain doesn't double the penalty, only increases it from 4x to 5x. 29:44 If you arrange the plants like this, the barlguras could 'squeeze into a smaller space' to pass between the plants using only 2x movement instead of 4x. Then at the end of their movement, they can decide to just stop squeezing, so their attacks don't have disadvantage.
If you take the Druidcraft cantrip, you can predict the weather for the next 24 hours, and use that to determine whether you should prepare call lightning. If Druidcraft predicts a storm, you'll be guaranteed the extra damage
It's a good house rule, if the Druid doesn't cast another spell in a turn, it gets a bonus action to call lightning. Makes it a bit more flexible, makes certain druids work really well with it, and the area requirement, I feel, is usually more than enough limitation.
Right on. Druids don’t get Command or Sapping Sting (kind of a reach to cite that one 🤓), which kinda leaves only Tidal Wave & Sleet Storm. Sometimes I’d rather have an AoE prone effect that doesn’t target the entire mat and occupy my concentration. It’s not a big stretch of the imagination for prone effect of Tidal Wave to add 10d6 falling damage. Circumstantial? Yeah, but it ain’t nothing.
Plant Growth is such an underrated battlefield control spell. Conceptualizing a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer now and I would be tempted to multiclass Archfey Warlock since it would put Plant Growth on the Warlock spell list, and it's a Transmutation spell so it counts for Clockwork Magic... but that's sadly too much of a sacrifice since the multiclass offers very little compared to the other Warlock subclasses like Hexblade (duh), Genie (Dao - Spike Growth, extra damage) or Undead (Death Ward, frequent frighten). Or even the Order Cleric, which has to be the multiclass of choice for Voice of Authority combined with Careful spell shenanigans.
Honestly, as a druid player.. that kind of sucks. There are many times when you want creatures with specific traits for tactical reasons or specific creatures for RP reasons. E.g. the party needs to cross a dangerous river so you want some big birds to carry them, or something that swims really well. E.g. the enemy has high AC so you want something with pack tactics or something to strong enough to knock them prone. E.g. your a werewolf-themed moon druid and want to conjure your wolf pack to help. Using a 3rd level spell to get some animals that have +3 to hit so will do nothing against a AC 19 devil just sucks.
@@richardwhaler8717 I tend to rule that if there's a specific purpose the animals are summoned for, they at least always get a creature that can fulfill that role in some form, if not always the same way. Getting spiders to cross a river or ravine or something. General combat, I'm a bit more random when I pick, but I tend to go for like a 50/50 split of the druid getting exactly what they want, and them getting something completely different. And I very rarely undercut the CR, if I do, it's either for comedic, low-stakes effect, or else if there's a problem with getting a creature to fill a particular utility at that CR, and I always translate the CR if I do that.
You mite mention that the druid can change his spell list over a long rest. Those super situational spells mite be game changers and the hart of a new plan. 😘
Feign Death has a very important application in RAW only groups: extracting venom / poison out of a Warlock familiar. The rules for poison state that you need to have an incapacitated creature (or dead), and the easiest way to do so is to cast Feign Death on it since it lasts 1h and requires neither concentration, nor a spell slot.
42:40 Tidal wave can be good for killing flying creatures, knocking them prone out of the sky can be tons of damage, for something you otherwise probably don't have any good tools for, and maybe your party as well. Also a curious phenomenon, followed by wet dead birds on the ground, what a story!
39:17 im not sure the text there "plant growth" is even referring to the spell Plant Growth. i think it just means regular, dense plant growth that the party might happen to run into. They even specify "such as thickets and undergrowth", and i think they specified that in order to steer away from the spell Plant Growth. I think if they were referencing the spell Plant Growth, they would've written "caused by the spell Plant Growth".
Some of the logic here seems pretty inconsistent. We start with 'the druid spell list has lots of good spells other than Conjure Animals and here's a series of ranking videos to demonstrate this'. Then the actual ranking process involves a lot of 'Elemental Weapon/Erupting Earth are orange because druid doesn't have Magic Weapon/Fireball'. Given that the weakness of the druid spell list versus other casters is precisely what you're trying to debunk, surely a red spell should be a red spell?
Tidal wave is easier to position than fireball/lighting bolt. It's just a line you can rotate, its easier to place without causing friendly fire. Also it prones, and can be cast above the ground (120 ft in the air), which can bring flying creatures to the ground, and make them take fall damage. I wouldn't call it bad.
The designers at WotC working on DnD aren't very good at their jobs and really need to get over to the MtG side to see how to design rules and mechanics (at least for clarity for what the rule/mechanic does). Why in the world would the rule for Conjure Animals allow the DM to decide that he can give creatures with a CR rating LOWER than that listed? Why empower douche bags to give 1, 2, 4, or 8 CR 0 creatures? It's just dumb. It's also dumb that they can decide to give you 1 CR 1/4 creature if the player chooses the first option. Why give the option to screw the player in any way? Make the spell do specific things and then playtest it.
On my dwarven druid, I would cast Meld Into Stone right before taking a long rest if I had the spell slot. Lots of laughs at the table, plus he wasn't likely to be ambushed in his sleep
@Treatmonk You are far more experienced at D&D than I, but I wanted weight in on your confusion with regards to Dispel Magic. I think your confusion stems from Jeremy Crawford's extremely poor choice of wording. The way I interpreted his ruling is that Dispel Magic targets and "dispels" a magic effect that is on one single target. You are not targeting the spell itself, but rather that spell's effect on a single target. Hence his ruling of if one spell is affecting multiple targets, one cast of Dispel Magic can only "dispel" one instance of the spell's effect because you can only target one of that spell's targets. Basically, as I understand it, Dispel Magic targets the target of a magical effect and "dispels" the effect on that specific target as opposed to the source of the effect. Hence why it can only ever target one effect. I think Jeremy Crawford was trying to "sound smart" with his response, but ended up failing at that, confusing people even more. I think the simplest way to think of Dispel Magic is that it can only target a spell's effect and not the spell itself and it can only ever target a single effect target. I believe what you were advocating for was for Dispel Magic to "dispel" the spell itself, which it cannot do. Either that or you're advocating for a Mass Dispel Magic Spell (dispel all effect within X area)? That could be cool, but it might be too strong and that might be why they opted not to make it. Anyway, I hope that all made sense.
Using Druidcraft to set up plant growth is an interesting if niche combo if you need to make an escape and nobody has teleports available. You can make a plant instantly flower so you can carry around a bag of seeds and create your own plant life within the dungeon. Deposing on your DM it could take a while to get enough flowers to make it doable but still, it’s an option
Maybe you forgot to mention it, but since Meld into Stone lasts for 8 hours, you could very well just make a long rest with it. Probably wouldn't bump up its ranking, but it is one extra niche utility
Oof extreme disagree with the tidal wave rating. The prone effect is extremly good. This is probably the best dragon killing spell in the game. Their dex suck and when they fall prone they fall out of the sky. Against most flying enemies this spell will destroy them. That alone is orange worthy Even without it putting enemies prone means your melee class can hit them easier and restricts movement. The area being small is not nearly as much of an issue as your making it. You can place the line any way you like and enemies don't tend to be more then 30 feet appart. Not only is it easier to prevent friendly fire but hitting 2-3 enemies is really common with how precise you can place it. This isn't like a line spell that originates from you. I think you are seriously undervallueing it. If i have to fight anything that flies i would pick this spell over fireball 100% of the time
In my experience, Tidal Wave's size makes it easier not to catch my party in it's effect, and makes it pretty useful at the level you pick it up at, and a few beyond, especially since druid's don't have access to spell sculpting or evocation wizard exclusion.
what if you go 10 levels of creation bard(with find steed/find greater steed), 2 levels of wildfire druid 3 levels of battle-smith artificer (with homoculous) and 3 levels of beast master ranger. Then cast feign death on yourself so you are incapacitated and all your pets can activate without the need of your bonus action
@@TreantmonksTemple oh its not a good buld just a world where feign death is useful is one where you take at least 3 bonus action pets (still bad but at least makes the spell useful.)
I was so excited to use Call Lightning in my campaign's big City Seige battle at the end. I was playing a moon druid, and had flavoured my druid as a gnome who had swallowed an elemental gem (thus I used exclusively air+lightning themed spells and the elemental form). However, I'd just hit level 11 and my cantrips were doing competitive damage! I had planned to upcast it, but our plan necessitated a lot of divination magic and a conjure elemental for an invisible stalker to track various doppelgangers and enemy captains, and having a heal spell in the wings as the partys only healer. I kept waiting to bust the spell out, but my poor concentration saves just made it a bad option at every level. I was determined to use it! And the campaign ended before I got a chance. Cool to see all the uses for Speak With Plants here in the comments though! Cant wait for my partys ranger to discover it!
I recently played a game as an aberrant mind sorc, and I gotta say that some difficult terrain [Hunger of Hadar] + tidal wave definitely swung combat in a super satisfying way for the creatures that fell prone. I could see the coordination/combo of Plant Growth + Tidal Wave could make it circumstantially worthwhile to take, maybe bumping TW up to orange. Particularly being able to arrange the wave on the battlefield to avoid allies and screw with enemies is a nice treat, though the damage certainly isn't incredible for its level. Thanks for the video TM! Great breakdowns to peruse for whenever I build my next druid :D
Plant growth has single handedly saved my lvl 13 ranger from a group I joined late that tried to pvp and kill me (long story). Due to the plants being non-magical after they manifest and rangers movement not being impeded by non-magical plants, I was able to escape and get reinforcements. They sent a flame elemental after me and ended up being a bad idea for them because it created a massive wildfire with smokescreens. This WAS inside by the way. Mushrooms, lichens, roots, etc. You have to make a survival or nature check to figure that out but once you do, you have to be strategic.
I feel that (sadly), Plant Growth should be orange (**) or purple (***), because it is not versatile enough : it require plants to be on the battlefield. This will exclude most dungeons (and the game is named D&D for a reason), it will also (DM dependant) exclude most frozen and aquatic environments, maybe even some rocky (mountain) environment. And it will do nothing against flying creature. Finally, it will be much less useful against creatures who have good ranged options. This mean that, while great, it is kind of circumstancial. A good portion of most campaign will have environments which will not allow the use of the spell. I do see that it is so good, just like Dispel Magic, that in the circumstances where it work, it change the game. But there are so many restrictions. It does not change anything on the review of the spell by treantmonk. Just a possible rating change. Thanks for sharing.
Have you considered bringing your druids 'magic' mushrooms into the dungeon? Plant growth doesnt specify it has to be plants that are already there. As for underwater, there are plenty of plants such as seaweed, or kelp, or even coral. In addition, in my experience at least. Most dungeons have roots growing through the ceiling or fungus in the cracks, or patches of moss on the floor. Or if its a lived-in and looked castle, what lord/lady doesnt feel like sprucing up the place with a few potted plants.
@@MetaKaios in reality i agree. But in dnd, all fungus monsters are considered plant type... so fungus does count as a plant in dnd. Unless you think that things such as brown mold and Myconids should count as an animal (in the animal kingdom) and that has some very wierd implications as far as magic is concerned. Myconids specifically are a plant type monster. As far as coral i was mistaken. As you are correct with them being invertabrates. Regardless of the counterpoint, my original message is still useful. Its the sort of thinking i would reward my players for... if any of them would ever play a druid.
@@vadaritis that is a cool idea and I would probably reward the players for it. I do think it would go in the "rule of cool" part, rather than "rules as intended". If taken to a wide scope, I mean crazy wide scope, you could also argues that there are plants at the microscopic level on anything. Under that assumption, it would bring the spell to blue (*****) rating. My point still remains and your point is equally valid. It is a choice for a DM, just like rulings on illusions, which also can make spells go from purple to blue rating, according to the table. Fun fact : any druid of level 10 and higher could cover their entire ground are with plant growth, since the effect does not stop, ever. It would not stop anyone from putting fire to it, so there is that. Thanks for you comments.
I not sure if Plant Growth would work that great on Large Creature. I mean, on that strategy they can always squeeze for moving half of they normal movement. But It surely work against Huge+
@@TreantmonksTemple yup. My DM learned that the hare way when he (spoiler alert) bumped Tinder the young red dragon in ToA up to an adult red, without making her lair bigger. Too fat, had to squeeze, got smite-critted twice due to advantage. 😎
Tidal Wave could have a niche use of being able to destroy fire elementals outright. From the fire elemental description : "Water Susceptibility. For every 5 feet the elemental moves in water, or for every gallon of water splashed on it, it takes 1 cold damage." A Tidal wave could contain up to about 22,440 gallons of water so as a DM I would rule that any fire elemental caught in it's area would take enough damage to be reduced to 0hp. Thoughts?
Given the dimensions of the spell (30'x10'x10') I'd rule it the same as moving through 10' of water. The elemental would still be surrounded by water though so would take further damage from moving.
Love the tactical use of Aura of Vitality out of combat. Used it between 2 major battles and was able to max everyone out before the level boss. Druid put the Cleric to shame. Hahaha
I thought Call Lightning covered a larger area than Moonbeam? 'Each creature within 5 feet' of each bolt, so 9 squares vs Moonbeams 4... I thought the bigger area plus the Dex save were the main reasons to take Call Lightning over Moonbeam
See now _that_ is a good point. It does say it targets a "point", which could be tile corner node or a tile center, so it's sorta ambiguous, but the nine square interpretation definitely sounds good to me. Do note however, CON and DEX aren't that big of a difference on a half-on-save pure damage spell. Save type is mostly relevant for spells that have debuff effects or all-or-nothing damage, for half-on-save the DPR impact is low.
1. If there are a lot of allied summoned creatures, I lean towards letting the player just split them into 2 groups and attack with advantage. 4 velociraptors can (and arguably would) surround a creature, flank it, and attack. They're murder turkeys. It's what they do. They all act on the same initiative, one roll, because I sure as hell am not keeping track of that, or just after the druid to keep it simple. All 4 then hit on a hit, meaning they also all crit on a crit, and miss on a miss. Roll it all as one big hit, add bonus x 4. There is your damage and we don't all suddenly have time to go cook dinner while the summoner works out their turn and plays their spreadsheets. Saves me (as a DM) having to deal with too many rolls and initiatives to keep track of. Sucks when both groups fail to hit anything, great fun and really memorable if both swarms crit. It's how I make groups of summons easier and hopefully more fun. 2. As for Tidal Wave, it has one use (I know of) that is quite obsucre and effective. I'm fairly sure it does basically instanly kill fire elementals, because of their damage/gallon of water weakness. 3. Wind Wall could protect you from flying swarms. Not really something I see coming up often, but if you know there will be a lot of flying swarms... might be worth trying? Or if you're up against something gassy perhaps? Should also maybe keep a vampire trapped in mist form too. Still not a spell I'd prepare unless I just wanted to be weird and try weird stuff for fun.
@@MetaKaios They are good rules for a DM wanting their players to feel cool standing against a horde. But from a player perspective they are not fun, in my experience. Casting Animate Objects for a guaranteed 3d4+12 damage to the dragon just feels bad. Doing same for two tries with advantage for a 5d4+20 hit that might crit is, in my experience, a lot more exciting for the player. Especially when the dice are kind and they crit with both attacks for 2x(10d4)+40 and get to feel really powerful!
Druids have 1 3rd Level Blue spell (Conjure Animals) compared to Wizard's 4 Blue spells (Counterspell, Thunderstep, Tiny Hut, Hypnotic Pattern) Druids have 8 3rd Level Green spells (Aura of Vitality, Dispel Magic, Plant Growth, Revivify, Sleet Storm, Summon Fey, Water Breathing, Water Walk) compared to Wizard's 7 Green spells (Dispel Magic, Sleet Storm, Fireball, Fear, Animate Dead, Slow, Water Breathing) An easy to see difference is that Druid spells are not the standard spell you would cast to solve certain combat like Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Fear and Fireball are, plus Thunderstep and Counterspell are powerhouses to help in combat. Druid highly ranked spells are mostly out of combat healing, utility or require circumstance like plant growth or dispel magic. It just leaves Conjure Animals, Summon Fey and Sleet Storm. This is the issue I was having with playing my Druid after I was tired of Conjure Animals and mass summoning then wasn't really sure what to do while remaining effective, so I am now playing a Wizard.
Tidal Wave: it's tiny, that's the point. It's *up-to* 30'long x 10'wide x 10'high. You *can* make it as small as a pebble, and it keeps all of its effects. That level of scalable targeting is amazing, even to the point of it not being upcastable. It doesn't blow your concentration either. Have summons up and party members around? Pow! Drop of water drops the big bad! Got a bit of room to boom? Pow! Double width crappy lightning bolt surges on through! Annoying mob of flying enemies, flapping around being annoying? Prone those mo'foes out of the air with an aerial geyser (nothing says it has to be on the ground, or near water, or anything like that. It's only the lights-go-out bit that refers to the ground, and even that is 30' away from the edge of the effect, so feel free to send a surge 10' upward down a street if there's multi-storey buildings about). Sometimes the fall damage splats them better than the spell damage! Need the lights to go out? Do you know how many light-sources this can turn off down a street or at a castle entrance or in a cavern or anywhere near non-darkvision members of the party (both upsides and down to this one). Stealth mode on, or tavern brawl escape, your choice! It's a great spell to have prepared due to its versatility. It should be called Psionic EMP Blast Surge or something. Tidal Wave gives totally the wrong impression of what the spell actually does. Goes down chimneys, through windows, over walls, and around corners in dungeons as well. Can you see through a keyhole with your superb perception? Whoosh a Tidal Wave through it if you don't like what you see. I'd knock it up a rank or three just because of that. It it amazingly modifiable with superb targeting, turns the lights out, and doesn't blow your concentration. This is very valuable to Druids. Very!
actually speak with plants is quite good if you interpret the 1st line differently. For 10 minutes, you continue to imbue plants within 30ft around you with.... which means this is similar to plant growth but you can carry along with you for 10 minutes. It can be like i am following a trail and i keep asking different plants i meet to show me the way whenever i lose the trail or i am being chased by creatures but i ask all plant i pass by to hinder the ones chasing me. I have had it on my UA CFV ranger and it has been quite useful in circumstances.
Conjure animals says you choose what you get, not the DM. It simply says the DM has the stat blocks for the summons, not that the DM chooses what you get
This was really good. I really liked the examples you used to show the uses of plant growth. I think it would be really useful to do some more videos sometime showing actual examples of the tactical uses of various spells, abilities, etc, that you recommend. That could either be just an example you create to best show off the tactical applications, but I'd really love to see a short video of actual play uses, because those are more dynamic. But anyway, that's just my thoughts, I'm looking forward to the rest of this series and your ranking series, and anything else you put out.
wall of water is much easier to use for imposing disadvantage on ranged attacks, at least down a hallway or something. warding wind deafens yourself and nearby allies, wall of water doesnt.
Meld to stone is a ritual.. so that right there gives it a lot more reason to prepare... also if you're ever isolated from your party, 8 hours for a long!! Got to be creatkve to use this, but in the campaign it can potentially be an always prepared spell Also to note, Errupting Earth when updated can be a pretty good damage spell. Not worth it as a 3rd level slot, but especially with limited spell slots, but it's either this or tidal wave for non concentrations spells at level 3
In our party we read "Daylight" as a source of sunlight. But our dm is very nice to us, so every comrade trying to attack being next to me rolls with disadvantage and at the time spell was cast - everybody rolled for constitution to not be blinded... So I am not sure, that i would pick conjure animals xd
Speak with plants does have a crazy ability to be used without an action, so the difficult terrain thing is actually mega broken since you can turn it on an off without any restrictions or actions, the peak of this is using it in a bush heavy area where you can remove cover on your turn and allies turn, and then bring it back imediately with no restrictions. Honestly they kinda messed up the wording a bit.
Flame Arrows is even more useless: Elemental Weapon works on bows and other ranged weapons. This has been confirmed both in Sage Advice and in an errata to the handbooks. So for the same level of spell, you get to turn a nonmagical weapon into a magical weapon, give +1 to the attack, and add 1d4 elemental damage of multiple different types. Theoretically, flame arrow can cause one more damage maximum, but it doesn't let the arrow's piercing damage bypass resistances, and in practice, you're getting an additional ensured point of damage vs a potential 2 points. And there's no ammo limitation. Flame Arrow only increases the number of arrows you can empower, and only by two, when upcasted, a single upcast to Elemental Weapon far outstrips it.
"It is Plant Growth, so Green is the obvious choice." ROFLMAO!! However, regarding Speak with Plants, I don't think the plant growth mentioned in the spell is actually the Plant Growth spell; otherwise it would SAY it was the spell or at least call it Plant Growth (capitalized, as the spell title), and not just "plant growth." In fact, my read of the spell in the PH says that it can turn only NORMAL plants that create difficult terrain into normal terrain (which makes it even worse than the Red rating you gave it ... Infrared, maybe? Black? Black and Blue because it hurts to actually cast it?)
Tidal Wave can be shaped to avoid friendly fire which can be useful, but more importantly it can knock flying creatures prone. I've seen this take down wyverns and young dragons who then get jumped by melee. It isn't always great but against flying creatures it can be a great spell.
I've found speak with plants to be a fantastic spell, but it is subject to DM fiat. My dm has made it a point that plants are a lot more useful and friendlier than animals. Animals are mischievous and unreliable whereas trees are wise and such. I've made the trees dance too in social interactions where people want to see a display of my powers, and finally the most important of all is plants can be in areas where animals aren't. Like a potted plant in someone's office. It has helped me gain information that we normally wouldn't have before.
I have a small issue with your analysis of Erupting Earth and Tidal Wave .. you compare them to fireballs area, but you measure 2 dimensionally.... 64 squares. Erupting Earth is 4 sq x 4 sq x 4 sq area - also 64 squares and Tidal Wave is actually double the squares for 10' height... While not totally redeeming the spells, they can at least hit flyers or things on a ceiling... Personally, I think that Tidal wave should have received the call lightning treatment and been meh to okay on it's own and drastically improved if cast on a body of water... Like the scene from Lord of the Rings where the river rose against the riders.
Plant Growth isn’t talked about enough and I really think you need to revisit this spell. For example, could a druid bring a potted plant into a dungeon and then use the spell? Would a single plant grow to cover a 100’ radius area? If not, would it only cover 1 square or more? What about a 5’ x 5’ patch of grass? What happens when the spell is cast on an Assassin Vine or some other dangerous plant? Finally, in your example with the Balgura, I just want to point out that they could always squeeze into the spaces between plants for only difficult terrain instead of 4x movement…
Ironically Call Lightning is a lot better when used by other classes. Tempest Cleric gets to maximize the damage and push people around with it every turn. A Sorcerer that gets access to the spell somehow (Izzet Engineet background or multiclassing) also makes good use of it by Quickening Call Lightning and then using their action to call lightning again, which makes it 6d10 damage, 33 on average, which is better than Fireball's 28 average damage.
28 minutes in on the Balgura stat block they can jump 40', thus clearing the plant growth. so possibly a poor choice of large size example monster, but I get it, just being picky! So they move 10" costing 40' and then jump as a dash option clearing another 40', 50' in total. Oh and a certain irony they can cast Entangle back at ya!
I had a DM that banned all summoning (so no conjure animals, no summon beast or fey), AND played Theater of the Mind with it usually skewed in the enemy's favor so spells like Spike Growth, Plant Growth, or Moonbeam very rarely had any real effect. That was the most miserable experience ever playing a druid.
Plant growth is even better for me because my DM ruled that, even in a dungeon, there's still some residual plants SOMEWHERE arouns there (moss or small blades of grass or anything) and that, as long as there's any plant In the radius, it works for the full radius. It's a bit weird up to interpretation if the affected square needs a plant in it or not so I think this worke?
for Erupting Earth I just read it as if it creates a 20ft cube of earth, like a 20 by 20 by 20 hill is now where you cast the spell. Its so bad otherwise, how could it not be that way. Seriously though, I think it might be meant that way, and the language could be interpreted both ways, it lacks the "if there is no room above then X" clause but alot of 5e effects leave circumstances like that up to the DM. And why else would you have the "1 min to clear by hand" clause if it didn't cause blockages? There is the 20ft cube area as well, but I don't know if they are very consistent with their area types in the first place. Now I really don't know
Summon Fey is bad because of its extremely costly component. 300g could've been an uncommon magic item in some modules, and you'd much rather have an uncommon magic item over this when conjure animals exists. Thats my argument against it. A DM has to give you this component very, VERY early on or the player will never even consider this spell. Same for all the tashia summon spells tbh.
I don't think you give quite enough weight to druid spells that AREN'T concentration, since so many of the best ones are. You mention it briefly in the Erupting Earth ranking, but then go on to give the spell an orange rating anyways for some reason. Assuming my druid will be concentrating on Conjure Animals or Summon Beast 100% of the time in every combat, what spells should they be casting to supplement that? That is where it gets tough finding other spells that you want to be using, and where I was hoping these videos would give me some good ideas. You seem to be ranking just about every non-concentration spell as red or orange though, which is a bit discouraging.
Make em list any animals seen giving them only the most common at first so they cant actually summon like a pixie til they see one.but leaves wolves etc.start em with 2 of each cr that might appear. Or my fave. Pick 5 of each cr with one good one like pixie as 20 and stench kow at 16 to 19 then reducing utility and 1 to 5 being like.. useless slug. Then if you get a 20 you roll again for how the rest appear with 1 pixie in the mix. Maybe give em the 8 pixies on a double 20 or if the party needs long range travel as a utility solution. Let it be a jackpot moment and that way its more unique to the situation or local animals. For cr2 do like 20 for giant centipedes, hags, giant apes, whatever. Makes conjure animals and woodland beings fkin sweet but not abusable, not just a break the game free card. Occasionally youll get a free spell or effect occasionally you roll a 1 and get 8 suffocating roctopus or a hostile rat swarm in the sewers.
Erupting Earth: I think any DM would be hard-pressed to say that this 20 ft area of "churned earth" doesn't qualify as "loose earth" for the mold earth cantrip. And because this ground remains this way until cleared, this becomes an out of combat or downtime utility spell along with the mold earth. In areas (or entire underdark campaigns) where mold earth isn't viable, this helps get additional mileage out of a cantrip selection.
I came on to defend the honor of Tidal Wave, lol. Anyway, as many, many comments have said, you really missed on this one. The shape/"positionability", knocking creatures out of air, and good range make it a solid, if situational spell. Red isn't unfair, it's just wrong.
Comment on call lightning: As a druid you can druidcraft the weather forecast to see if you're going to get that tasty thunderstorm. My DM has rewarded this twice so far by giving us combat during a storm that I predicted but he has also had 2 storms go by that did not see combat. We had a bit of back and forth, but the final answer was that the RAW is that I can zap any target under the cloud. Now a storm can be made up of many clouds etc etc but basically I could zap a target miles away on the side of a mountain, IF I managed to see it with a high DC perception check. The end result was that the strike split off 3 of the 7 minions of the group that we were chasing and made them tumble down the side of the mountain. That was really helpful once we caught up and went into actual combat since their numbers where already lower.
In an underdark campaign, I was able to use Meld Into Stone to escape captivity and then hide while I made my escape. Plant growth. Moss, alge, lichen, ect are everywhere. In that same underdark campaign DM ruled that the fungi affected by the spell made the surface slick and slimey.
Just to clarify your interpretation of plant growth + difficult terrain Chris, is it's double (4+4=8 ft required per 1 foot move) and not 4+1=5 ft per 1 foot moved?
The only reason I'm not preparing call lightning is that all the fights we had so far were outdoors and there was a lot of movement and even though 60 feet radius sounds like a lot, it's really not. I was struggling to shoot with guiding bolt sometimes at the range of 120 feet so did the warlock with eldritch blast. and the DM (enemies) aren't stupid, they wont just stay under the cloud
Honestly, if a player casts Conjure Animals, and bring their own statblocks and has a macro for all their attacks on the ready and they are quick with their turns, Id let them pick their creatures. Because i know they put in the effort to make my job easier. And if its in person, bonus points if they bring their own minis.
I can see this as a reasonable option for players, though NOT for Conjure Woodland Beings because *(cringe)* *(shudder)* Pixies with Polymorph. One option to ameliorate but not solve the problem of having to roll initiative for 8 additional creatures would be to allow them to roll initiative as a group. That way, at least they all go at once, even if not on the spellcaster's turn.
My DM allowed me to do exactly this, I'm playing a Sheperd Druid and have the statblocks and macros already pre-written, even have a macro for multiple creatures attacking at once. DM took that over "random creatures" and never looked back.
I tend to go 50/50, or, "Ben 10 drama style". Most of the time, I just let the druid get what they want. Every so often I throw a wrench in it, so there's improvization. Your plan involved snakes, well, you got alligators now.
I also have a house rule of: "If your summoned creature waits for your order for over ten seconds, it gets annoyed and does whatever it wants, and usually just tries to attack something to vent its frustrating work conditions", so that helps.
And shorting the druid on CR rating is just dirty. Funny, but dirty. I tend to only do that if the summon is part of a social encounter and they roll low for what they are trying.
i.e: I am the wise king of the forest, behold my power and my twin mighty companions! *rolls a 2*, and those are two chickens. Bluff away, Wisdom caster.
The whole idea of the DM chosing the creatures - and even screwing you over on the CR - is ridiculous anyways. So, I am a caster that's closely connected to nature, yet I have no idea what beast I will summon this time. Completely stupid.
Heres how you fix the pixie problem. Have them show up shocked and half dressed, flip out on the player for sloppy casting grammar, cast faerie fire on the party, poly the bbegs henchmen into winged trex, and dip out in all directions only occasionally giggling as 3 angry flying dental traumas teach the player why you dont make demands of fey, you ask and hope they dont keep a tab.
Then on have 8 pixies show up, poly themselves into snakes... Snakes spelling out a message to the party... It says "Run Fool!"
Or even worse... The last faerie falls for the tall "charming" halfling and starts stalking him as various wildlife.
It says they summon em, it doesnt say they gotta like it or wanna have their spells burned. If nothing else go naruto style pacts on them. Make them collect those options by befriending, bargaining, or intimidating members of that species/race. Maybe some offer aid as a reward for the quest or sidequest. Others have their own agendas... But simple and common will be how they have to start. Want a wolf pack to come to your aid? Better share your rations with the injured wolf. Be keepin those language, healer, and animal chat spells prepared. never know when calming that angry blink dog that stole your backpack might net you a new bond to employ. The pixies tho, they really hate the wannabe cassanovas tho, try bribing them with clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics.. the poly aint free.
Wind Wall: blocks small flying creatures from passing through
Also Wind Wall: *Is only 15ft tall*
@@sharkforce8147 good point
Pixie living in a 17&1/2 foot tall cave: >:)
You have become one of my favourite youtube creators specific to tabletop gaming. Your insights peppered with pragmaticism and humour are always appreciated. Thank you for your efforts, and please know your future content is eagerly anticipated here! (You're Canadian, too, which helps with the likeability. I'm in NB!) ;)
Wow, thank you!
You can use Druidcraft to predict the weather (at your location) for the next 24h. You could use that to decide whether or not to prepare Call Lightning.
It probably won't make the spell much better, but I just found that connect and wanted to share the possibility.
You could also use it to determine the best time to make a surprise attack on a enemy camp or location using rain or fog for cover to sneak closer. It's really hard to hear anything more than a few feet away during a heavy rain. This could give your group a massive boost to stealth checks if such an event is something you can predict and wait for.
If you could cast the lightning as a bonus action I think it would be so much better
You can also action surge to use it twice. (But I recommend you use it for other spells that deal more damage or can buff/heal
I wish we had a way to make it rain aside from Control Weather. Create or Destroy Water has a drizzle effect, but it doesnmt summon rain clouds
@@Iceblade269 Control weather is a exceptionally powerful and versatile spell. I love it. Your DM could introduce a magic item which did the same thing and recharged over x days. This would keep it from being as good as the 8th level spell. You could also require some kind of ridiculous material component like the bottled wind of an air elemental if it gets too abused.
I'm currently reading "Finding the Mother Tree" a book about the social life of trees. My druid game is about to level up between your videos and learning irl.
You just completely blew my mind with the plant growth checkerboard tactic! Holy cow, I never would have even considered that!
Squeezing rules counter this unfortunately.
can have birds or bats scatter seed in the dungeon or cave, hit it with a tidal wave, and plant or spike growth from there.
Notes on rivivify vs raise dead:
Jesus christ Peter just died. No matter - we'll just sleep here, next to his corpse while singing kumbaya and raise his corpse from the dead as a ghoul in the morning,
he'll be fine.
The Con save of moonbeam next to the Dex of call lightning is going to make a bigger difference than the damage type in almost all circumstances.
Save type for half-on-save spells is actually not that important. It does make a difference, especially if you take proficiency with a save into account, but the impact is far lower than you'd probably intuit.
Damage type makes a bigger difference than save type, especially if your target may be immune to one of the damage types in question.
@@theuncalledfor Yeah, naw. With the way enemy Con scales, call lightning is effective in a wider range of combats for longer in the druid's career. It also cannot be used against the party by grapple-capable enemies the way moonbeam can.
Also, moonbeam is single target. Storm hits all adjacent squares to the target.
@@arcane45
Moonbeam is AoE, you chicken nugget. 5ft radius, 40ft tall cylinder effect that you can move as an Action on subsequent turns. It's pretty damn good for a second level spell.
I don't know what you're confusing it with, or if you somehow mistook "radius" for "diameter", to somehow think this was single-target.
@@arcane45 The AoEs are identical. Five foot radius around a point.
2 things about call lightning. One if you get the drop on a group of enemies they might not even realize they're in combat with you instead of a bad storm until it's half over. Two is what I like to call the Thunderbird combo. Cast the spell and turn into a giant eagle. Fly up into the cloud, totally obscured. Only dip down to select your lightning spot you can see, and swoop back above the cloud.
Now _this_ is pod racing!
Yeah, not only is there a bunch of tactical uses for it, he even mentioned the better saving throw and also lightning fun. Who wouldn't want to command an entire fucking storm system for ten minutes with just a third level spell?
I was so looking forward to this, particularly for plant growth, and WOW. I didn't think about the chess-style effect for large or bigger enemies. That's so sweet! Nice work as always, Chris!
we had a sorcerer in our party who took tidal wave, and i have to say from experience with it, the specific shape of tidal wave makes it _much_ easier to avoid friendly fire with than something like a fireball. you can almost always catch multiple enemies in a line even if they're mixed up in combat with your allies.
i'm not sure if that makes it a _good_ spell, but having seen it cast pretty regularly, it's a much better spell to have when your allies are all clumped up with your enemies than fireball or erupting earth are. well, unless you're an evocation wizard. but compared to the other blast spells on the druid list i think it does pretty good just cause it's so much easier to avoid friendly fire with.
One admittedly situational use of Tidal Wave, is that it knocks creatures prone at range. Namely, knocking flying creatures out of the sky, which usually results in them splatting on the ground, and suddenly the damage it does isn't so bad. But you also have Sleet Storm, so.
Sleet storm does hinder your allies though. It makes it much harder to jump on top of the downed opponent and grapple them for instance.
I love Plant Growth and I also had my character casting Speak with Plants so often our DM made Kelp a hive mind creature called Charlie the Help Kelp.
"I cast average wave at the beach" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Idk, total wave seems really good. Your hitting 12 squares in total if you facing many enemies this also brings them to prone which is huge in battle.
Daylight did come up in a homebrew campaign I'm running w/ some friends featuring creatures that are sunlight sensitive. I decided to house rule that daylight would in fact trigger the sensitivity. Needless to say it made the spell a whole lot better than just a magical darkness remover. A little sad they didn't write it so that it does trigger the sensitivity without begging the DM to house rule it.
Yes, if it was actually defined as sunlight, then it has a lot more uses.
I didn't realize Daylight doesn't upcast by RAW. In my campaigns I treat Daylight upcast dispels any Darkness of equal or lower level.
@@sharkforce8147 All spells can be cast with higher level slots, which is not the same as upcasting.
@@brettmajeske3525 A bit late to reply, but while it doesn't upcast to dispel higher levels of Darkness, the reverse is also true. This means that if both are cast at say, 4th level, neither can dispel the other.
But since Darkness only blocks out nonmagical light while dispelling magical light "from a spell of 2nd level or lower", any magical light that doesn't get dispelled will succesfully shine through even magical darkness even if it might not dispel the darkness either.
I think the point about being able to hand the summoned Fey a magic weapon is important. Eventually something like a +1 shortsword will become trivial. You might even be able to give it a +2 weapon at some point, or even better.
On top of that, the chance to hit scales, so the summoned fey will eventually have +12 or better to hit, conjure animals will be stuck on their +4 or +5.
Conjure Animals is powerful because it provides a large number of bodies between you and the enemy, not because it can attack good.
"Oh, but AoE's!" I hear some people say. Well, spread them out! Don't make them an easy target! Mix them into enemy ranks! Your enemies will waste a spell slot and an Action to damage _themselves_ just to get rid of your swarm, that's a win for you!
While Plant Growths limitation is very real, I'd remind a DM that said it doesn't work that a "plant" by definition includes mosses and shrubs. So if you're a Druid, pay attention to your DMs descriptions, ask questions, and pick up a book on botany haha
DM: "It's a natural, stone, cavern floor"
Druid: "So, you're saying that this is a massive, open field of moss and lichen?"
Call Lightning is also really good if you're playing ToA, you'll be outside for a lot of the levels where you'll be using it, and it's constantly raining and stormy, so you'll get that extra 1d10 more often than not.
_Meld Into Stone_ has sufficient duration to squeeze a long rest in, protected by being perfectly hidden inside the stone... assuming you have enough time to ritually cast it on each member of your party, and also assuming that's useful to you.
It is pretty fantastic for infiltrations. As part of a "standard adventuring day," though, it's hard to use.
It's a worse Tiny Hut, other than the possible stealth/surprise angle, but you can't cast it on other party members so it's very limited.
@@wyattweber9983 It's range is "touch," not "self."
I agree that it is _usually_ less useful than other ways of skinning the same cat (if you even want to), but it does have a niche use which is pretty handy in its niche case (which you can often see coming).
@@Philistine47 Its range is Touch because _the stone_ is the target, not the person entering the stone. Otherwise the description would say "The target steps into a stone object", not "You step into a stone object".
I quite often cast Tidal Wave with my Druid and it's ok.
Is the damage good? No, it's not, but the only other option is Erupting Earth for concentrationless damage AND prone is very good when your best spells are summons that love to have advantage on their attacks.
I've had it as a lvl3 blast spell for a "conjuration spell" focused wizard and the area was usually large enough (in that campaign) but that of course depends if you have a dungeon or large area outdoors encounters, I see how it is small in outdoor areas but we are probably using smaller combat maps in general than Treantmonk.
The shape covered a good portion of the encounters and was easier to fit enemies without hitting friends compared to a circular blast.
Prone (on a failed save) is a sucky condition and its good vs flying stuff since prone cause things to insta drop to the ground and that will also add a bit of extra fall damage.
But yes the damage can be a bit lackluster and there is no upcast scaling.
I've seen speak with plants used really well. The area moves with you as the target is self, allowing you to use the options better than I expected.
Lot more plants in an area than animals too, and covers a large area so much better tracking than an animal or 4 could help with.
I was really surprised seeing it in use.
You can have the terrain effect follow you, slowing down pursuers in a chase. Just used it to that effect last week
The issue with Conjure Animals is that the spell specifically states you summon X beasts of CR 2/X or lower, so there is nothing stopping your DM from choosing X CR 0 beasts.
Even if they do pick a CR 2/X beast, there is nothing stopping them from choosing a beast that is utterly useless in the current environment: i.e. a fish above water or any non-aquatic animal below water.
This is why I advocate the use of Summon Beast instead. You choose the stat block so your DM doesn't need to search the monster manual for an appropriate beast, they can't effectively blank it by picking useless creatures, and you always summon one creature so it can't slow down combat nearly as much as Conjure Animals.
If your DM actively sabotages you then I think there are other problems you need to sort out.
This is true, but if you're playing with a GM who is out to screw you over he or she is very likely to succeed in one way or another. It is however a spell you should talk to your GM about. Is it cool if you play a summoner? How you should handle it? How is the summons chosen, who controls them etc.
At my table we made an agreement that I would refrain from summoning 8 creatures, as it was a bit much. So I summon at most 2 creatures, but I get to pick which; we also found it easier if I just control them as it saves my GM some work. We're also thinking of having the upcast increase CR rather than numbers.
So far it works rather fine. It's not as powerful as having a full goonsquad of CR 1/4, but it works fairly well. I add a decent amount of damage and "tanking" to our combats.
@@Bam31415 I'm playing a Shepard druid atm and having 8 creatures isn't a big deal since I use a macro to roll their attacks very quickly.
@@ATMOSK1234 That's a point, but the spell description states OR LOWER. If the "intent" of the spell is that you always get the highest CR beast, then that phrase probably wouldn't be included IMO. And if the prevailing opinion of the spell (Treantmonk nonwithstanding) is it's so good it overshadows every other druid spell, then maybe it shouldn't get the full effect every time it's used?
Using macros I can run 8 creatures faster than some players take to do their turns lol.
Wow. Can't believe you put tidal wave as red. The damage is okay. But the prone condition is very nice. You can knock down flying creature, give advantage to melee attacks, or possibly split up enemies by knocking then prone.
The range is also very nice. I almost always prep this on a druid and consistently get good value from it.
My Necromancer gets Tidal Wave instead of Fireball, because he has a bit of a water theme going on the side. He'd rather douse fires than cause them.
If I can find Fireball in the environment, I'll gladly have him copy it into his spellbook and make good use of it, but Tidal Wave is more important to him.
@@theuncalledfor ok
Speak With Plants. It can be AMAZING, although highly DM dependent. "Plants might be able to perform other tasks on your behalf...they can freely move tendrils and stalks". You can potentially have trees attack (awakened tree stat block) vines grapple. Personally I would require a persuasion check and depending on the result the plants may offer to take a more active role in combat by attacking/grappling/etc. If your DM is cool with this kind of thing, speak with plants become a very attractive non-concentration spell in the right circumstances.
I used this to have trees and plants to attack and restrain enemies.
Plant Growth and difficult terrain do stack, but it doesn't double the effect (I.e. 1 foot doesn't cost 8 feet). Difficult terrain has two sets of rules, one under Movement (you move at half speed), and one under the Combat section. Combat is the pertinent section in this scenario: "Combat rarely takes place in bare rooms or on featureless plains. Boulder--strewn caverns, briar-- choked forests, treacherous staircases-the setting of a typical fight contains Difficult Terrain.
Every foot of Movement in Difficult Terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as Difficult Terrain."
So if each foot costs 4 feet because of Plant Growth, and each foot costs 1 additional foot because of Plant Growth, then 1 foot moved costs 5 feet of your movement.
Just a point of clarity, as I always see the one get confused.
And if you're lucky you cast Plant Growth as a Circle of the Land - Druid above Level 6, because "Land's Stride" lets you ignore your own freshly overgrown plants, since : "You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them [...]"^^
So many possible shenanigans :-)
Kind of hurts to hear just how bad Call Lightening is. I always thought of it as the Druid aoe spell.
okay, I find this series interesting.
I always thought of druids as "diet cleric". Worse AC, no domain spells, no channel divinity, why would I play a druid over a cleric?
Turns out there may be a reason to do so
Best reason is not having to rely on a dm controlled God for your powers. More freedom in roleplay
Diet cleric!? DIET CLERIC!? Clerics are diet druids, foo'! Moon and shepherd druids smack the bitch out of clerics in combat effectiveness! Dem animals are a furry frenzy of destruction!
@@captainpandabear1422 *laughs in light/twighlight domain cleric*
But seriously both are awesome but for different reasons.
I'm currently playing as a Druid ina party with a Cleric, the Cleric is the one that envy me ngl.
It also helps that after 5th level cleric spells take a nose dive in quality and we are at tier 3.
@@pedrodarosamello64 just playing at t3 is enough to envy you
SMH, you *don't* play in an all small bird campaign? Wind Wall is obviously obviously strongest wall ever
Wind curtain is actually a way to slay a vampire as seen in Critical Role Campaign 1.
The vampire can't get back to their grave when in mist form.
That was indeed surprisingly clever tactic :)
26:43 Difficult terrain doesn't double the penalty, only increases it from 4x to 5x.
29:44 If you arrange the plants like this, the barlguras could 'squeeze into a smaller space' to pass between the plants using only 2x movement instead of 4x. Then at the end of their movement, they can decide to just stop squeezing, so their attacks don't have disadvantage.
Source?
Also if the squeezing thing is going on, next time im just going to cast it so that only the party can squeeze through the area
If you take the Druidcraft cantrip, you can predict the weather for the next 24 hours, and use that to determine whether you should prepare call lightning. If Druidcraft predicts a storm, you'll be guaranteed the extra damage
Wait, Daylight doesn't count as sunlight in 5e? Shameful.
When I first read "Call Lightning" I was shocked that it wasn't a bonus action every round after casting for each lightning strike.
It's a good house rule, if the Druid doesn't cast another spell in a turn, it gets a bonus action to call lightning.
Makes it a bit more flexible, makes certain druids work really well with it, and the area requirement, I feel, is usually more than enough limitation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but IIRC, Tidal Wave is the only concentration-free dexterity save that can knock flying creatures from the sky.
It might be. There are certainly lower level spells that can do it (even a cantrip), but I'm not sure any of them are dex saves.
Right on. Druids don’t get Command or Sapping Sting (kind of a reach to cite that one 🤓), which kinda leaves only Tidal Wave & Sleet Storm. Sometimes I’d rather have an AoE prone effect that doesn’t target the entire mat and occupy my concentration. It’s not a big stretch of the imagination for prone effect of Tidal Wave to add 10d6 falling damage. Circumstantial? Yeah, but it ain’t nothing.
Plant Growth is such an underrated battlefield control spell. Conceptualizing a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer now and I would be tempted to multiclass Archfey Warlock since it would put Plant Growth on the Warlock spell list, and it's a Transmutation spell so it counts for Clockwork Magic... but that's sadly too much of a sacrifice since the multiclass offers very little compared to the other Warlock subclasses like Hexblade (duh), Genie (Dao - Spike Growth, extra damage) or Undead (Death Ward, frequent frighten). Or even the Order Cleric, which has to be the multiclass of choice for Voice of Authority combined with Careful spell shenanigans.
As a DM I have a rolling table for conjure animals for each CR option, higher rolls typically give better creatures
Honestly, as a druid player.. that kind of sucks. There are many times when you want creatures with specific traits for tactical reasons or specific creatures for RP reasons.
E.g. the party needs to cross a dangerous river so you want some big birds to carry them, or something that swims really well.
E.g. the enemy has high AC so you want something with pack tactics or something to strong enough to knock them prone.
E.g. your a werewolf-themed moon druid and want to conjure your wolf pack to help.
Using a 3rd level spell to get some animals that have +3 to hit so will do nothing against a AC 19 devil just sucks.
@@richardwhaler8717
I tend to rule that if there's a specific purpose the animals are summoned for, they at least always get a creature that can fulfill that role in some form, if not always the same way. Getting spiders to cross a river or ravine or something.
General combat, I'm a bit more random when I pick, but I tend to go for like a 50/50 split of the druid getting exactly what they want, and them getting something completely different.
And I very rarely undercut the CR, if I do, it's either for comedic, low-stakes effect, or else if there's a problem with getting a creature to fill a particular utility at that CR, and I always translate the CR if I do that.
You mite mention that the druid can change his spell list over a long rest. Those super situational spells mite be game changers and the hart of a new plan. 😘
Feign Death has a very important application in RAW only groups: extracting venom / poison out of a Warlock familiar. The rules for poison state that you need to have an incapacitated creature (or dead), and the easiest way to do so is to cast Feign Death on it since it lasts 1h and requires neither concentration, nor a spell slot.
Wow, that is certainly an obscure use haha. I presume you use an Imp for this?
42:40 Tidal wave can be good for killing flying creatures, knocking them prone out of the sky can be tons of damage, for something you otherwise probably don't have any good tools for, and maybe your party as well. Also a curious phenomenon, followed by wet dead birds on the ground, what a story!
39:17 im not sure the text there "plant growth" is even referring to the spell Plant Growth. i think it just means regular, dense plant growth that the party might happen to run into. They even specify "such as thickets and undergrowth", and i think they specified that in order to steer away from the spell Plant Growth. I think if they were referencing the spell Plant Growth, they would've written "caused by the spell Plant Growth".
I used wind wall to make all of an enemies arrows fly out of their quiver and scatter
Some of the logic here seems pretty inconsistent.
We start with 'the druid spell list has lots of good spells other than Conjure Animals and here's a series of ranking videos to demonstrate this'.
Then the actual ranking process involves a lot of 'Elemental Weapon/Erupting Earth are orange because druid doesn't have Magic Weapon/Fireball'.
Given that the weakness of the druid spell list versus other casters is precisely what you're trying to debunk, surely a red spell should be a red spell?
Context does matter. Not that I would consider an orange spell a "good spell".
Tidal wave is easier to position than fireball/lighting bolt. It's just a line you can rotate, its easier to place without causing friendly fire. Also it prones, and can be cast above the ground (120 ft in the air), which can bring flying creatures to the ground, and make them take fall damage. I wouldn't call it bad.
The designers at WotC working on DnD aren't very good at their jobs and really need to get over to the MtG side to see how to design rules and mechanics (at least for clarity for what the rule/mechanic does). Why in the world would the rule for Conjure Animals allow the DM to decide that he can give creatures with a CR rating LOWER than that listed? Why empower douche bags to give 1, 2, 4, or 8 CR 0 creatures? It's just dumb. It's also dumb that they can decide to give you 1 CR 1/4 creature if the player chooses the first option. Why give the option to screw the player in any way? Make the spell do specific things and then playtest it.
On my dwarven druid, I would cast Meld Into Stone right before taking a long rest if I had the spell slot. Lots of laughs at the table, plus he wasn't likely to be ambushed in his sleep
@Treatmonk You are far more experienced at D&D than I, but I wanted weight in on your confusion with regards to Dispel Magic. I think your confusion stems from Jeremy Crawford's extremely poor choice of wording. The way I interpreted his ruling is that Dispel Magic targets and "dispels" a magic effect that is on one single target. You are not targeting the spell itself, but rather that spell's effect on a single target. Hence his ruling of if one spell is affecting multiple targets, one cast of Dispel Magic can only "dispel" one instance of the spell's effect because you can only target one of that spell's targets.
Basically, as I understand it, Dispel Magic targets the target of a magical effect and "dispels" the effect on that specific target as opposed to the source of the effect. Hence why it can only ever target one effect. I think Jeremy Crawford was trying to "sound smart" with his response, but ended up failing at that, confusing people even more. I think the simplest way to think of Dispel Magic is that it can only target a spell's effect and not the spell itself and it can only ever target a single effect target. I believe what you were advocating for was for Dispel Magic to "dispel" the spell itself, which it cannot do. Either that or you're advocating for a Mass Dispel Magic Spell (dispel all effect within X area)? That could be cool, but it might be too strong and that might be why they opted not to make it. Anyway, I hope that all made sense.
Using Druidcraft to set up plant growth is an interesting if niche combo if you need to make an escape and nobody has teleports available. You can make a plant instantly flower so you can carry around a bag of seeds and create your own plant life within the dungeon. Deposing on your DM it could take a while to get enough flowers to make it doable but still, it’s an option
Maybe you forgot to mention it, but since Meld into Stone lasts for 8 hours, you could very well just make a long rest with it. Probably wouldn't bump up its ranking, but it is one extra niche utility
Oof extreme disagree with the tidal wave rating. The prone effect is extremly good.
This is probably the best dragon killing spell in the game. Their dex suck and when they fall prone they fall out of the sky. Against most flying enemies this spell will destroy them. That alone is orange worthy
Even without it putting enemies prone means your melee class can hit them easier and restricts movement. The area being small is not nearly as much of an issue as your making it. You can place the line any way you like and enemies don't tend to be more then 30 feet appart. Not only is it easier to prevent friendly fire but hitting 2-3 enemies is really common with how precise you can place it. This isn't like a line spell that originates from you.
I think you are seriously undervallueing it. If i have to fight anything that flies i would pick this spell over fireball 100% of the time
Animated dead or other instantaneous effects (pretty much all special ones too) are completely unaffected by dispel magic or anti-magic field.
In my experience, Tidal Wave's size makes it easier not to catch my party in it's effect, and makes it pretty useful at the level you pick it up at, and a few beyond, especially since druid's don't have access to spell sculpting or evocation wizard exclusion.
what if you go 10 levels of creation bard(with find steed/find greater steed), 2 levels of wildfire druid 3 levels of battle-smith artificer (with homoculous) and 3 levels of beast master ranger. Then cast feign death on yourself so you are incapacitated and all your pets can activate without the need of your bonus action
Um, that's 18 levels. If I'm going 18 levels, give me 9th level spells please!
@@TreantmonksTemple oh its not a good buld just a world where feign death is useful is one where you take at least 3 bonus action pets (still bad but at least makes the spell useful.)
@@isaragnor its also good for extracting poisons from familiars/ dominated creatures since it incapacitates them
I was so excited to use Call Lightning in my campaign's big City Seige battle at the end. I was playing a moon druid, and had flavoured my druid as a gnome who had swallowed an elemental gem (thus I used exclusively air+lightning themed spells and the elemental form). However, I'd just hit level 11 and my cantrips were doing competitive damage! I had planned to upcast it, but our plan necessitated a lot of divination magic and a conjure elemental for an invisible stalker to track various doppelgangers and enemy captains, and having a heal spell in the wings as the partys only healer.
I kept waiting to bust the spell out, but my poor concentration saves just made it a bad option at every level. I was determined to use it! And the campaign ended before I got a chance.
Cool to see all the uses for Speak With Plants here in the comments though! Cant wait for my partys ranger to discover it!
I recently played a game as an aberrant mind sorc, and I gotta say that some difficult terrain [Hunger of Hadar] + tidal wave definitely swung combat in a super satisfying way for the creatures that fell prone. I could see the coordination/combo of Plant Growth + Tidal Wave could make it circumstantially worthwhile to take, maybe bumping TW up to orange. Particularly being able to arrange the wave on the battlefield to avoid allies and screw with enemies is a nice treat, though the damage certainly isn't incredible for its level.
Thanks for the video TM! Great breakdowns to peruse for whenever I build my next druid :D
Goodberry... get Magic Initiate druid and pick that as your first level spell once a day for free. So usefull
Plant growth has single handedly saved my lvl 13 ranger from a group I joined late that tried to pvp and kill me (long story). Due to the plants being non-magical after they manifest and rangers movement not being impeded by non-magical plants, I was able to escape and get reinforcements. They sent a flame elemental after me and ended up being a bad idea for them because it created a massive wildfire with smokescreens. This WAS inside by the way. Mushrooms, lichens, roots, etc. You have to make a survival or nature check to figure that out but once you do, you have to be strategic.
I feel that (sadly), Plant Growth should be orange (**) or purple (***), because it is not versatile enough : it require plants to be on the battlefield. This will exclude most dungeons (and the game is named D&D for a reason), it will also (DM dependant) exclude most frozen and aquatic environments, maybe even some rocky (mountain) environment. And it will do nothing against flying creature. Finally, it will be much less useful against creatures who have good ranged options. This mean that, while great, it is kind of circumstancial. A good portion of most campaign will have environments which will not allow the use of the spell.
I do see that it is so good, just like Dispel Magic, that in the circumstances where it work, it change the game. But there are so many restrictions.
It does not change anything on the review of the spell by treantmonk. Just a possible rating change.
Thanks for sharing.
Have you considered bringing your druids 'magic' mushrooms into the dungeon? Plant growth doesnt specify it has to be plants that are already there.
As for underwater, there are plenty of plants such as seaweed, or kelp, or even coral.
In addition, in my experience at least. Most dungeons have roots growing through the ceiling or fungus in the cracks, or patches of moss on the floor. Or if its a lived-in and looked castle, what lord/lady doesnt feel like sprucing up the place with a few potted plants.
@@vadaritis Coral and fungi are not plants.
@@MetaKaios in reality i agree. But in dnd, all fungus monsters are considered plant type... so fungus does count as a plant in dnd.
Unless you think that things such as brown mold and Myconids should count as an animal (in the animal kingdom) and that has some very wierd implications as far as magic is concerned. Myconids specifically are a plant type monster.
As far as coral i was mistaken. As you are correct with them being invertabrates.
Regardless of the counterpoint, my original message is still useful. Its the sort of thinking i would reward my players for... if any of them would ever play a druid.
@@vadaritis that is a cool idea and I would probably reward the players for it. I do think it would go in the "rule of cool" part, rather than "rules as intended".
If taken to a wide scope, I mean crazy wide scope, you could also argues that there are plants at the microscopic level on anything.
Under that assumption, it would bring the spell to blue (*****) rating.
My point still remains and your point is equally valid. It is a choice for a DM, just like rulings on illusions, which also can make spells go from purple to blue rating, according to the table.
Fun fact : any druid of level 10 and higher could cover their entire ground are with plant growth, since the effect does not stop, ever. It would not stop anyone from putting fire to it, so there is that.
Thanks for you comments.
For Sleet Storm - even if you're in a 40 ft room, couldn't you put the center/point of origin in the corner? Thus not filling the entire room?
To be fair, "average wave at the beach" is pretty much exactly what the tide is.
I not sure if Plant Growth would work that great on Large Creature.
I mean, on that strategy they can always squeeze for moving half of they normal movement. But It surely work against Huge+
Though there are other advantages if they squeeze too.
@@TreantmonksTemple yup. My DM learned that the hare way when he (spoiler alert) bumped Tinder the young red dragon in ToA up to an adult red, without making her lair bigger.
Too fat, had to squeeze, got smite-critted twice due to advantage. 😎
Tidal Wave could have a niche use of being able to destroy fire elementals outright.
From the fire elemental description :
"Water Susceptibility. For every 5 feet the elemental moves in water, or for every gallon of water splashed on it, it takes 1 cold damage."
A Tidal wave could contain up to about 22,440 gallons of water so as a DM I would rule that any fire elemental caught in it's area would take enough damage to be reduced to 0hp.
Thoughts?
Given the dimensions of the spell (30'x10'x10') I'd rule it the same as moving through 10' of water. The elemental would still be surrounded by water though so would take further damage from moving.
Awesome
I'm confused-- how can you use Aura of Vitality on more than one party member???
It can’t heal more than one party member per turn since it uses your bonus action, but you can target a different member each time.
Love the tactical use of Aura of Vitality out of combat. Used it between 2 major battles and was able to max everyone out before the level boss. Druid put the Cleric to shame. Hahaha
I thought Call Lightning covered a larger area than Moonbeam? 'Each creature within 5 feet' of each bolt, so 9 squares vs Moonbeams 4...
I thought the bigger area plus the Dex save were the main reasons to take Call Lightning over Moonbeam
See now _that_ is a good point.
It does say it targets a "point", which could be tile corner node or a tile center, so it's sorta ambiguous, but the nine square interpretation definitely sounds good to me.
Do note however, CON and DEX aren't that big of a difference on a half-on-save pure damage spell. Save type is mostly relevant for spells that have debuff effects or all-or-nothing damage, for half-on-save the DPR impact is low.
Tidal Wave absolutely destroys fire elementals and Vampires, id call it orange
1. If there are a lot of allied summoned creatures, I lean towards letting the player just split them into 2 groups and attack with advantage.
4 velociraptors can (and arguably would) surround a creature, flank it, and attack. They're murder turkeys. It's what they do. They all act on the same initiative, one roll, because I sure as hell am not keeping track of that, or just after the druid to keep it simple. All 4 then hit on a hit, meaning they also all crit on a crit, and miss on a miss. Roll it all as one big hit, add bonus x 4. There is your damage and we don't all suddenly have time to go cook dinner while the summoner works out their turn and plays their spreadsheets.
Saves me (as a DM) having to deal with too many rolls and initiatives to keep track of. Sucks when both groups fail to hit anything, great fun and really memorable if both swarms crit. It's how I make groups of summons easier and hopefully more fun.
2. As for Tidal Wave, it has one use (I know of) that is quite obsucre and effective. I'm fairly sure it does basically instanly kill fire elementals, because of their damage/gallon of water weakness.
3. Wind Wall could protect you from flying swarms. Not really something I see coming up often, but if you know there will be a lot of flying swarms... might be worth trying? Or if you're up against something gassy perhaps? Should also maybe keep a vampire trapped in mist form too.
Still not a spell I'd prepare unless I just wanted to be weird and try weird stuff for fun.
For (1), you could also use the Mob combat rules on DMG pg250, which forgo attack rolls.
@@MetaKaios They are good rules for a DM wanting their players to feel cool standing against a horde. But from a player perspective they are not fun, in my experience.
Casting Animate Objects for a guaranteed 3d4+12 damage to the dragon just feels bad. Doing same for two tries with advantage for a 5d4+20 hit that might crit is, in my experience, a lot more exciting for the player. Especially when the dice are kind and they crit with both attacks for 2x(10d4)+40 and get to feel really powerful!
Druids have 1 3rd Level Blue spell (Conjure Animals) compared to Wizard's 4 Blue spells (Counterspell, Thunderstep, Tiny Hut, Hypnotic Pattern)
Druids have 8 3rd Level Green spells (Aura of Vitality, Dispel Magic, Plant Growth, Revivify, Sleet Storm, Summon Fey, Water Breathing, Water Walk) compared to Wizard's 7 Green spells (Dispel Magic, Sleet Storm, Fireball, Fear, Animate Dead, Slow, Water Breathing)
An easy to see difference is that Druid spells are not the standard spell you would cast to solve certain combat like Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Fear and Fireball are, plus Thunderstep and Counterspell are powerhouses to help in combat. Druid highly ranked spells are mostly out of combat healing, utility or require circumstance like plant growth or dispel magic. It just leaves Conjure Animals, Summon Fey and Sleet Storm. This is the issue I was having with playing my Druid after I was tired of Conjure Animals and mass summoning then wasn't really sure what to do while remaining effective, so I am now playing a Wizard.
Tidal Wave: it's tiny, that's the point. It's *up-to* 30'long x 10'wide x 10'high. You *can* make it as small as a pebble, and it keeps all of its effects. That level of scalable targeting is amazing, even to the point of it not being upcastable. It doesn't blow your concentration either. Have summons up and party members around? Pow! Drop of water drops the big bad!
Got a bit of room to boom? Pow! Double width crappy lightning bolt surges on through!
Annoying mob of flying enemies, flapping around being annoying? Prone those mo'foes out of the air with an aerial geyser (nothing says it has to be on the ground, or near water, or anything like that. It's only the lights-go-out bit that refers to the ground, and even that is 30' away from the edge of the effect, so feel free to send a surge 10' upward down a street if there's multi-storey buildings about). Sometimes the fall damage splats them better than the spell damage!
Need the lights to go out? Do you know how many light-sources this can turn off down a street or at a castle entrance or in a cavern or anywhere near non-darkvision members of the party (both upsides and down to this one). Stealth mode on, or tavern brawl escape, your choice!
It's a great spell to have prepared due to its versatility. It should be called Psionic EMP Blast Surge or something. Tidal Wave gives totally the wrong impression of what the spell actually does.
Goes down chimneys, through windows, over walls, and around corners in dungeons as well. Can you see through a keyhole with your superb perception? Whoosh a Tidal Wave through it if you don't like what you see. I'd knock it up a rank or three just because of that. It it amazingly modifiable with superb targeting, turns the lights out, and doesn't blow your concentration. This is very valuable to Druids. Very!
Wall of Water gives Frost Fingers an actually beneficial function. Truly the powerhouse spell combo you were looking for.
actually speak with plants is quite good if you interpret the 1st line differently. For 10 minutes, you continue to imbue plants within 30ft around you with.... which means this is similar to plant growth but you can carry along with you for 10 minutes. It can be like i am following a trail and i keep asking different plants i meet to show me the way whenever i lose the trail or i am being chased by creatures but i ask all plant i pass by to hinder the ones chasing me. I have had it on my UA CFV ranger and it has been quite useful in circumstances.
Conjure animals says you choose what you get, not the DM. It simply says the DM has the stat blocks for the summons, not that the DM chooses what you get
Sage advice or errata made mention that the dm gets to choose for balance reasons.
Erupting Earth is seriously underrated, you need to realise EE damage begins to scale better than Fireball after 5th level spell slot.
Q: Since Meld into Stone doesn't require Concentration, can you ritually cast it and then perform a long rest inside the stone?
Why wouldn't you be able to do that? Seems pretty clear to me that you can.
This was really good. I really liked the examples you used to show the uses of plant growth. I think it would be really useful to do some more videos sometime showing actual examples of the tactical uses of various spells, abilities, etc, that you recommend. That could either be just an example you create to best show off the tactical applications, but I'd really love to see a short video of actual play uses, because those are more dynamic. But anyway, that's just my thoughts, I'm looking forward to the rest of this series and your ranking series, and anything else you put out.
wall of water is much easier to use for imposing disadvantage on ranged attacks, at least down a hallway or something. warding wind deafens yourself and nearby allies, wall of water doesnt.
Meld to stone is a ritual.. so that right there gives it a lot more reason to prepare... also if you're ever isolated from your party, 8 hours for a long!! Got to be creatkve to use this, but in the campaign it can potentially be an always prepared spell
Also to note, Errupting Earth when updated can be a pretty good damage spell. Not worth it as a 3rd level slot, but especially with limited spell slots, but it's either this or tidal wave for non concentrations spells at level 3
In our party we read "Daylight" as a source of sunlight. But our dm is very nice to us, so every comrade trying to attack being next to me rolls with disadvantage and at the time spell was cast - everybody rolled for constitution to not be blinded...
So I am not sure, that i would pick conjure animals xd
Speak with plants does have a crazy ability to be used without an action, so the difficult terrain thing is actually mega broken since you can turn it on an off without any restrictions or actions, the peak of this is using it in a bush heavy area where you can remove cover on your turn and allies turn, and then bring it back imediately with no restrictions. Honestly they kinda messed up the wording a bit.
Flame Arrows is even more useless: Elemental Weapon works on bows and other ranged weapons. This has been confirmed both in Sage Advice and in an errata to the handbooks.
So for the same level of spell, you get to turn a nonmagical weapon into a magical weapon, give +1 to the attack, and add 1d4 elemental damage of multiple different types. Theoretically, flame arrow can cause one more damage maximum, but it doesn't let the arrow's piercing damage bypass resistances, and in practice, you're getting an additional ensured point of damage vs a potential 2 points. And there's no ammo limitation.
Flame Arrow only increases the number of arrows you can empower, and only by two, when upcasted, a single upcast to Elemental Weapon far outstrips it.
Dispel magic should have a stated area if cast on the ground. Like 10 ft radius or somethin.
"It is Plant Growth, so Green is the obvious choice." ROFLMAO!!
However, regarding Speak with Plants, I don't think the plant growth mentioned in the spell is actually the Plant Growth spell; otherwise it would SAY it was the spell or at least call it Plant Growth (capitalized, as the spell title), and not just "plant growth." In fact, my read of the spell in the PH says that it can turn only NORMAL plants that create difficult terrain into normal terrain (which makes it even worse than the Red rating you gave it ... Infrared, maybe? Black? Black and Blue because it hurts to actually cast it?)
Tidal Wave can be shaped to avoid friendly fire which can be useful, but more importantly it can knock flying creatures prone. I've seen this take down wyverns and young dragons who then get jumped by melee.
It isn't always great but against flying creatures it can be a great spell.
It's a DEX save. Don't dragons usually get worse DEX as they grow up? So, wouldn't this be _more_ effective against larger dragons?
I've found speak with plants to be a fantastic spell, but it is subject to DM fiat.
My dm has made it a point that plants are a lot more useful and friendlier than animals. Animals are mischievous and unreliable whereas trees are wise and such. I've made the trees dance too in social interactions where people want to see a display of my powers, and finally the most important of all is plants can be in areas where animals aren't. Like a potted plant in someone's office. It has helped me gain information that we normally wouldn't have before.
My problem is that plants don't have eyes or ears so it's hard to imagine them being able to give good info
I have a small issue with your analysis of Erupting Earth and Tidal Wave .. you compare them to fireballs area, but you measure 2 dimensionally.... 64 squares.
Erupting Earth is 4 sq x 4 sq x 4 sq area - also 64 squares and Tidal Wave is actually double the squares for 10' height...
While not totally redeeming the spells, they can at least hit flyers or things on a ceiling...
Personally, I think that Tidal wave should have received the call lightning treatment and been meh to okay on it's own and drastically improved if cast on a body of water... Like the scene from Lord of the Rings where the river rose against the riders.
Plant Growth isn’t talked about enough and I really think you need to revisit this spell.
For example, could a druid bring a potted plant into a dungeon and then use the spell?
Would a single plant grow to cover a 100’ radius area? If not, would it only cover 1 square or more? What about a 5’ x 5’ patch of grass?
What happens when the spell is cast on an Assassin Vine or some other dangerous plant?
Finally, in your example with the Balgura, I just want to point out that they could always squeeze into the spaces between plants for only difficult terrain instead of 4x movement…
Ironically Call Lightning is a lot better when used by other classes.
Tempest Cleric gets to maximize the damage and push people around with it every turn.
A Sorcerer that gets access to the spell somehow (Izzet Engineet background or multiclassing) also makes good use of it by Quickening Call Lightning and then using their action to call lightning again, which makes it 6d10 damage, 33 on average, which is better than Fireball's 28 average damage.
28 minutes in on the Balgura stat block they can jump 40', thus clearing the plant growth. so possibly a poor choice of large size example monster, but I get it, just being picky! So they move 10" costing 40' and then jump as a dash option clearing another 40', 50' in total. Oh and a certain irony they can cast Entangle back at ya!
Average Wave at the Beach :D I wish it was called that, but I don't think my Wish works outside of the game.
I had a DM that banned all summoning (so no conjure animals, no summon beast or fey), AND played Theater of the Mind with it usually skewed in the enemy's favor so spells like Spike Growth, Plant Growth, or Moonbeam very rarely had any real effect. That was the most miserable experience ever playing a druid.
Plant growth is even better for me because my DM ruled that, even in a dungeon, there's still some residual plants SOMEWHERE arouns there (moss or small blades of grass or anything) and that, as long as there's any plant In the radius, it works for the full radius.
It's a bit weird up to interpretation if the affected square needs a plant in it or not so I think this worke?
for Erupting Earth I just read it as if it creates a 20ft cube of earth, like a 20 by 20 by 20 hill is now where you cast the spell.
Its so bad otherwise, how could it not be that way.
Seriously though, I think it might be meant that way, and the language could be interpreted both ways, it lacks the "if there is no room above then X" clause but alot of 5e effects leave circumstances like that up to the DM. And why else would you have the "1 min to clear by hand" clause if it didn't cause blockages?
There is the 20ft cube area as well, but I don't know if they are very consistent with their area types in the first place.
Now I really don't know
Summon Fey is bad because of its extremely costly component. 300g could've been an uncommon magic item in some modules, and you'd much rather have an uncommon magic item over this when conjure animals exists. Thats my argument against it. A DM has to give you this component very, VERY early on or the player will never even consider this spell. Same for all the tashia summon spells tbh.
I don't think you give quite enough weight to druid spells that AREN'T concentration, since so many of the best ones are. You mention it briefly in the Erupting Earth ranking, but then go on to give the spell an orange rating anyways for some reason.
Assuming my druid will be concentrating on Conjure Animals or Summon Beast 100% of the time in every combat, what spells should they be casting to supplement that? That is where it gets tough finding other spells that you want to be using, and where I was hoping these videos would give me some good ideas. You seem to be ranking just about every non-concentration spell as red or orange though, which is a bit discouraging.
Make em list any animals seen giving them only the most common at first so they cant actually summon like a pixie til they see one.but leaves wolves etc.start em with 2 of each cr that might appear. Or my fave. Pick 5 of each cr with one good one like pixie as 20 and stench kow at 16 to 19 then reducing utility and 1 to 5 being like.. useless slug. Then if you get a 20 you roll again for how the rest appear with 1 pixie in the mix. Maybe give em the 8 pixies on a double 20 or if the party needs long range travel as a utility solution. Let it be a jackpot moment and that way its more unique to the situation or local animals. For cr2 do like 20 for giant centipedes, hags, giant apes, whatever. Makes conjure animals and woodland beings fkin sweet but not abusable, not just a break the game free card. Occasionally youll get a free spell or effect occasionally you roll a 1 and get 8 suffocating roctopus or a hostile rat swarm in the sewers.
Erupting Earth: I think any DM would be hard-pressed to say that this 20 ft area of "churned earth" doesn't qualify as "loose earth" for the mold earth cantrip. And because this ground remains this way until cleared, this becomes an out of combat or downtime utility spell along with the mold earth.
In areas (or entire underdark campaigns) where mold earth isn't viable, this helps get additional mileage out of a cantrip selection.
I came on to defend the honor of Tidal Wave, lol. Anyway, as many, many comments have said, you really missed on this one. The shape/"positionability", knocking creatures out of air, and good range make it a solid, if situational spell. Red isn't unfair, it's just wrong.
Comment on call lightning: As a druid you can druidcraft the weather forecast to see if you're going to get that tasty thunderstorm. My DM has rewarded this twice so far by giving us combat during a storm that I predicted but he has also had 2 storms go by that did not see combat. We had a bit of back and forth, but the final answer was that the RAW is that I can zap any target under the cloud. Now a storm can be made up of many clouds etc etc but basically I could zap a target miles away on the side of a mountain, IF I managed to see it with a high DC perception check. The end result was that the strike split off 3 of the 7 minions of the group that we were chasing and made them tumble down the side of the mountain. That was really helpful once we caught up and went into actual combat since their numbers where already lower.
In an underdark campaign, I was able to use Meld Into Stone to escape captivity and then hide while I made my escape.
Plant growth. Moss, alge, lichen, ect are everywhere. In that same underdark campaign DM ruled that the fungi affected by the spell made the surface slick and slimey.
Just to clarify your interpretation of plant growth + difficult terrain Chris, is it's double (4+4=8 ft required per 1 foot move) and not 4+1=5 ft per 1 foot moved?
The only reason I'm not preparing call lightning is that all the fights we had so far were outdoors and there was a lot of movement and even though 60 feet radius sounds like a lot, it's really not. I was struggling to shoot with guiding bolt sometimes at the range of 120 feet so did the warlock with eldritch blast.
and the DM (enemies) aren't stupid, they wont just stay under the cloud