I would argue this spell is far more effective than you may think; just by looking at the spell in the book it works - no spell slot required. Amazing.
Dentist: So how did you lose that tooth? Me: I defended frost fingers online and Chris slapped the shit out of me. Dentist: Sounds like you deserved it.
The "saving grace" of frost finger is that it doesls a slighly better damage type then burning hands. Should only be taken by evoker that, for some reason, want to specialize in cold damage, for whatever reason, though. Everyone else jsut take thunderwave please...
@@Amrylin1337 I sometiems think that the designer simply dont think through what their design entails. For what its worth: I think Snillocs snowball storm is actually the far worse spell comapred to frost fingers. doesnt make frost finger good though
I'd add a caveat to frost fingers. In an underwater campaign freezing a cone of water is significant... I don't know if swimming inside the area counts as "wearing" the water but it'll definitely be stronger than burning hands underwater. VERY situational.
Actually, if you freeze all the water around a target wouldn't that 'insta-kill' a lot of stuff? I mean, they would run out of oxygen very quickly and it would take a long time for that much ice to thaw. And anything that could hold their breath for a really long time or doesn't need to breathe would still be taken out of the fight for a very extended period of time. Actually seems super powerful in an underwater scenario.
@@Pyrela That was my point, in an underwater situation the rider of freezing liquid is strong. Plus there are combinations with spells like create water that could generate a 5ft cube of water and then you freeze it. Personally I wouldn't let a 1st level spell insta-kill without a save or anything, it seems better to treat it as a grappled/restrained situation. (if they're on the edge of the cone, grappled, as the ice holds them in place, if they're completely enveloped in ice then restrained) Technically the freeze does not have a duration, as it's instantaneous, however it will melt eventually. I'd imagine that you could use a strength check to break free of the ice and the DC would be the spellcasters spell DC. Even low-con characters are rarely at risk of drowning in dnd. The rules for suffocation mean that if you envelop someone in ice they've got a handful of rounds to make strength checks to break free, which is still strong for a 1st level spell and still very strong crowd control. Comparing it to burning hands, 3d6 (11) to 2d8 (9) the tradeoff in damage for restrain is fantastic. If you're not underwater though it is strictly worse.
@@IndirectLemon ice floats too, so it could also move entrapped opponents out of combat range, as they drift upwards towards the surface, or with the current
Some terrible spells are useful for that reason. If I want the party to have a moment of "uh oh" when fighting a mage, I might have the mage use Power Word Pain on one of them. "Wait, they just used a 7th level slot on us?" It's a moment where you don't wreck the party but still sketch a power level.
The problem is that there is no official distinction between DM spells and Player spells. Hell, most of the stinkers on this list are in the PLAYER'S handbook! I would be absolutely fine with existence of very situational, low-power NPC spells that PCs don't have access to because they are worse than "adventuring" spells or because they are too specific. "Ziguerro's Find Nearest Beehive" or "Greta's Painless Abortion" can easily exist in the setting, but why even mention them to the players?
@@naddarr1 But the DM shouldn't need to explain these things. They should just do it. Having it there and accessible for a player in the *Player's Handbook* is asinine.
@@Hilianus Exactly, there are so many DM spells that are great as DM spells but are either broken or pathetic in the hands of players. Power Word Pain, Simulacrum, Clone, Circle of Death, Magic Jar - all fantastic DM spells, but should not be used by players.
These spells are all terrible. I would put Legend Lore in the category of Dream of the Blue Veil though... it's pretty obviously presented as a plot device, to be used during downtime.
Legend Lore is something you use during downtime to advance the story or collect otherwise unavailable info. Like for instance, my party has used it a few times to figure out how to destroy a lich’s phylactery.
@@anthonynorman7545 or even in a game where you are treated like a protagonist, this can be useful as a way to get more information than the NPCs can/would give you.
If your dm giving you a fair shot to find information related to main plot lines is “protagonist service” then I guess there’s a whole class of dm I want nothing to do with. For side projects and goals however I could see legend lore nicely facilitating things that would only be remotely possible or take a lot of your downtime.
@@jmass4207 Some DMs give you a large sandbox with no clear "main" plot. It can be fairly engaging and interesting when done correctly of course. Like most things it mostly comes down to execution.
The devs just categorically tend to overvalue spells that deal damage across multiple turns; it often takes 3 rounds, your concentration, and repeat saves to deal about as much damage as an instantaneous blast spell would have done in the first round.
They think they all are spirit guardians. But they also nerfed spirit guardians and moonbeam (by preventing damage by having the effect move past an enemy) which is dumb af. Because damage spells are so weak past 3rd level.
I think Skywrite is my favourite spell. There's a lot of niche uses for it: Advertising for a business, communicating with lost party members, threatening to reveal the location of an enemy base, freaking out random townsfolk by writing 'We are discovered, flee immediately' in the sky above their town... and whenever I manage to actually get use out of it, it feels so good because it's seen as such a useless spell!
I actually used it in one of my backstories on a spell scroll. I needed a low-level way for someone to immediately send a written message to a person who was probably 500 or 1000 feet away. It did the job rather nicely!
There is one legitimate use case of True Strike, on a level 10 Eldritch Knight using Great Weapon Master and a blade cantrip with 20 STR and INT of 13 or lower. The most important facet of True Strike is the 30 ft range. Melee martial characters will have times when they just can’t quite get into melee with an enemy, and they usually have to throw a javelin for negligible damage. An eldritch knight, however, can cast a cantrip and make an attack as a bonus action, so what cantrip will do the most damage? Well, if you are confident that next turn you will be able to enter melee with an enemy, the expected extra damage from having advantage is greater than the expected damage from a firebolt by about 2 points, depending on enemy AC. So, for one highly specific character build (specific, but not a bad build by any means) and a somewhat uncommon situation, True Strike is optimal if you use it as a ranged attack. It is not viable as a substitute for the attack action. Still a trap of a spell.
Wow, Mordenkainen's Sword is really Spiritual Weapon for a little more damage, but a seventh level slot and using concentration. You could cast Spiritual Weapon at 5th level for 3d8 damage on a bonus action, and NOT use concentration. The only thing you miss is taking an extra shot at them when the sword appears.
Wouldn’t you need to cast it using a 6th level slot to get the 3d8? Looking at the language I read it as an extra d8 for every 2 slot levels above 2nd.
Taken? Yes, learn it. Prepare it for actual use? N O P E. You know a spell is pretty worthless when the only use for it is changing damage types by being a Scribes Wizard.
You know a spell is really worthless when the scribes wizard only puts it in his spell book for his One with the Word ability. "I have to lose 16 levels of spells for up to 6 days. I cross out weird, find traps and legend lore."👍
@@dragonhearthx8369 I mean, IIRC Dragon's Breath isn't too bad a spell, but yea, that's def another use for those spells (don't quite remember if those spells other than DBreath are OK or not)
In immolation's defense, sometimes you're only fighting one enemy, or the boss of the encounter has survived the mooks. Or you're the only party member with dark vision. Or you're the only ranged in a party of melee.
Immolation has one good kind of target and that is creatures that cannot pass a dexterity save, like a poor wizard's Disintegrate. Fitting, since it has the much the same effect on targets it kills. Target a stunned enemy and you guarantee that target takes 12d6 damage, and then maybe more. Still a bad spell.
I was going to say "Maybe with the "new" bladesinger's extra attack from Tasha's, True Strike can get some niche use like with Blade Ward." But doesn't even work. U can't use it as ur cantrip and then attack to get advantage, 'cuz the cantrip gives advantage next turn... to one attack.
There's one situation where Dust Devil is somewhat useful: A Moon Druid who casts it before wild shaping into a Giant Spider. Gives you something to do with your bonus action, your blindsight lets you see through the obscurement, your web pins the enemy into the dust devil, and (unlike Flaming Sphere), it doesn't burn the webbing.
If you're preventing their movement, just use Moonbeam. You place the Moonbeam on top of them and transform, they take 2d10 damage and move out, you then grapple/web/restrain them and drag them back in (2d10) and they take the damage again when they start their turn (2d10). During the time Moonbeam did 6d10 damage (or more if more targets were in the initial area), Dust Devil did 0, but will do 1d8 soon.
I can't help but wonder if there was a new guy in the office who confused 7th Level Spells with spells you can cast at 7th level, so a couple of these turds ended up way further up the list than they had any right to be. I mean, Mordenkainen's sword would be underpowered as a 3rd level spell even, never mind a 4th level one.
The really funny part about Mordenkainen's sword is that clerics get a similar spell at 2nd level that doesn't use concentration and moves 30 instead of 20...does the same damage type and if scaled to use the same spell level would absolutely dunk on it in terms of damage haha.
Imo, spells that are bad simply because they do less damage than they should compared to similar spells shouldn't be on the list at all, unless we want the list to include a quarter of all spells. There are plenty of spells that are almost completely ineffective, or have negligibly minor effects, or are so circumstantial that they can almost never be used, to fill a bottom 10 list.
@@dylandugan76 There's a lot more wrong with Witch Bolt than doing less damage than it should, or else there would be a universal agreed upon fix of merely increasing damage; and I haven't seen that. Its problems are legion: Concentration, short range, must use your action every round, fairly easy to end spell, and--of course--about cantrip damage.
I think True Strike should be a reaction to let you or someone else in range re-roll a missed attack. If that is too powerful, make it a first level spell. I think Cantrips are limited enough that it would be fine. Players like hitting, and it burns a reaction.
My homebrew of True Strike is: (1) the target knows that they've been targeted by you; (2) your first attack on them next round uses double your proficiency, and any hit is a crit. This way, it scales in a cantrip-like way, it's attack bonus lets it synergize with other ways to gain advantage, it presents interesting situations since the target can try to get out of your range, get into full cover, etc., and it's especially interesting for sneaking rogues since the target will sense that an attack is imminent but not automatically know where you are (other than that you were within 30' when you cast it, but you could have moved further away afterward).
power word pain is a great spell to have monsters be able to cast once per day. have the person have that character reflect on their most painful memory while doing it. true strike also has a weird niche use: have legendary creatures cast it as a legendary action at the end of the turn of the creature that goes right before them.
Yep. For a couple of Editions it's basically Mass Phantasmal Killer, but that was when Phantasmal Killer was a save or die. Now its very subpar. If made phantasmal killer worthwhile, it would improve Weird quite a bit; still probably wouldn't be a 9th level slot though.
While I entirely agree that Immolation is pretty useless as a direct combat spell, take it as a Sorceror with subtle spell metamagic and it becomes an amazing assassination tool. It has only a verbal component, so with subtle spell you can cast it in a totally undetectable manner from 90 feet away (and once cast, concentration can be maintained at any range). The flames are generated around the target with no clear line of effect back to you, and a failed save against a target not prepared for combat is generally guaranteed to kill since it cannot be extinguished nonmagically. Even if the target survives, they will probably have no idea what happened, who tried to kill them, or how to prevent such an attack from occurring again. You can do this to anyone, anywhere, in full view of the general populace, with no real chance of getting caught.
Rogue is probably the only class that could ever justify true strike though. Still a terrible option by pretty much every metric, but hey, at least rogues get guaranteed sneak attack on advantage so there is a very, very, VERY situational possibility for TS+Attack to do better than Attack+Attack.
A lot of these spells can be made ok or good with some minor tweaking and an open minded DM okay with homebrew. -True Strike could be made good if you made it a bonus action and/or you can use it on an ally. You rogue would thank you more often if the latter part was the case. -Weird would be tolerable if it only needed one saving throw, always gave frightened, and did a smidge more damage. One to three more damage die tops. -Find Trap would actually be useable if they cleaned up the wording(making detect all traps too) and changed the name to Reveal Dangers. Also I would personally make it give you the general direction of each trap. Not the specific spot, just a "Hey, there's a danger to your north west" -Mordenkainen's Sword is trash. And even a fix world be trash. Which is sad because flavor wise it's pretty badass. I would say the sword had advantage on attack rolls and added your spell casting modifier to damage rolls. Or make it a lower level spell. No less then a 3rd-4th level spell -Legend Lore. Make it a ritual. Done. You could also make it give extremely vague/cryptic descriptions of "normal" items and places. "This sword is known for it's ease of use, being well balanced and cutting flesh easily" for generic +1-3 weapons. Up to DM really. -Prismatic Spray would be better if it did a few more damage dice, otherwise, it's a fairly hard spell to "fix" without losing the origin. -Power Word spells are generally bad since you need a specific HP to use, which requires guessing or metagaming. Both of which are bad. Power Word Pain specifically could be made okay if it dealt some non leathal damage for all the conditions needed to get it to work. -Immolation. just have it not need concentration. Instantly better. And comparing it to fireball is a little harsh, since spells like fireball and lightning bolt were intentionally jacked BECAUSE they're such iconic spells. They always have been. -Frost Fingers would be amazing if it immobilized undead or similar creatures like how Chilled Touch has a special interaction with them. Or just make it bigger when you upcast it. Give it a reason to up cast. -Searing Smite. No concertation or more damage. Or just not have it. Remove from the game. Honestly a lot of these spells would be better if they just didn't require concentration.
"But what if the DM says the creature is bloodied?" First, that is a house rule for something borrowed from 4e; second you don't know its max HP, so bloodied could be below 120 or below 200. Power Word Pain looks like a spell cast by high leveler Spellcasters against PC spellcasters. - Oh fun, I can't do anything for the next round or two or three cause like an idiot I played a low Con Wizard.
Allow me to defend Searing Smite: low level Forge Cleric. It's something a Cleric doesn't normally do, it's free, and you're already martially inclined. Sure, once you get Heat Metal or Spirit Guardians, you'll never use it. But until then, not a terrible use of a spell slot
@@Oniphire Something can be said about Forge Cleric being someone's favorite domain (me, for example, having Forge Cleric as a pocket pick for any campaign of which I don't know the party make-up and I need an all-rounder character I'm comfortable with), so if you get it as a freebie (as in it's given to you), might as well use it
When you started talking about mordenkainens sword, i was thinking "What is wrong with him? This sounds like a really cool spell..." Then i heard the dreaded words "...takes your concentration." It is crazy how concentration can trash what would otherwise be a really fun spell.
Even if it didn't take your concentration it would be a worse version of just upcasting Spiritual Weapon to 6th. And as is, it's a worse version of Bigby's Hand.
I would've liked to see you tackle how to fix them, if even possible, as you went along. Would a damage buff fix immolation? Would a lower level casting slot fix power word pain? I'm curious as to how I could fix these in case my players ever wanted them and not feel penalized for choosing them.
Funny to see Investiture of Wind here. I played campaign with almost only ranged attack enemies and that spell together with piercing damage resistance was a life saver. I was casting it as a warlock and I never regretted that.
i am reminded me of scene in the online comic "order of the stick": the heroes got into a fight with a GIGANTIC demon. the wizard got desperate, s/he cast "crushing despair" on the monster, the cleric cast "bestow curse" on it, THEN the wizard cast Prismatic Spray... and got the Petrify effect.
Probably fix true strike by making for the duration of the 1 minute you have adv on your first attack against that target. That way you forgo your first attack to gain 1 adv on subsequent attacks for the duration of the min or until concentration is broken.
Maybe truestrike is situationally useful for when your action would otherwise go to waste? Ex: you are 60 ft from a target with 30ft move speed and no ranged attacks or cantrips. You could dash, but not have an attack that round, or you could walk 30 ft, cast true strike, and then next turn you can finish walking and take an attack with advantage.
That situation probably comes up quite often in games where close attention to distances and positions is taken. I've noticed myself casting it all the time in Baldur's Gate 3 where that's something you can't ignore since the computer works that out for you.
True Strike: Cast when you can do nothing this round at all, but really need to hit next time, and have no other way of getting advantage... and you remember you have True Strike, and then remember you didn't bother as you had not used it ever ...
If you have nothing to do on your turn, you can use the action for Dash behind cover, or to Dodge, or, if you can, Hide. Even doing nothing is better than wasting a cantrip slot. Remember that True Strike isn't exactly free, it takes away other options you could've taken.
Yeah I would love to see an appropriately powered Weird. It evokes some cool imagery that the actual spell just doesn't live up to. Like maybe causing an insanity effect over a small town sized radius, one person's greatest fear becoming a real thing for everyone to deal with, temporary teleportation to a bunch of different planes, and then bringing something back from that plane, so many cool options and we ended up with...that...
I've tried to fix True Strike before. Its an oddly tricky spell to fix because of the fact that it's a cantrip. Many of my fixes accidently landed it into the "now it's overpowered" category. One of my fixes was to simply make it so that True Strike gave advantage to an ally on their next attack, essentially allowing a 1st level caster to be sacrifice their action to be an infinite source of advantage. That's not so bad of an ability for when you run out of spells at low level if you have a rogue in the party. Making it a bonus action tipped it into "overpowered" territory. I'd love to see if Chris can balance it out better.
@@MrGuyFaux for making true strike give an ally advantage just the help action but as a cantrip? Edit: just looked it up, didn’t realize true strike would do it at ranged since I’ve never take. It or seen somebody else take it so didn’t realize that.
As a DM i kinda like Power word pain against the players :) I know it'll succeed when I plan on using it and while it certainly affects the fight its effect is preferable to stunning or completely incapacitating the player (as a DM I do like to use debuff spell that allow the players to do at least something, not take them completely out of action, sometimes I'll hit them with a hold person but most often I try to avoid it)
I've thought about a shadow sorcerer conjuring his hound and then twinning _immolation_ on the hound's target and another guy, but that's a LOT of sorcery points spent all at once.
It's worth nothing that very circumstantial spells like legend lore or control weather are mostly OK to druids/clerics who get them for free while at the same time absolutely horrible for, say, a bard who chooses it over a good spell.
I could see myself prepare Legend Lore as a Cleric during downtime, if I was expecting to travel to a legendary location or to interact with a legendary item in the near future. It's definitely the least terrible spell on Treantmonk's list.
Yeah, same. I'd never pick it as a class with a limited spell list (I'd be careful to pay for it as a wizard), but my cleric could prepare it during downtime if we learned our goal/object/opponent was "legendary".
Good video! I'm a little surprised that Witch Bolt didn't make at least the Honorable Mentions list though. I've almost given up criticizing D&D spells online because of the inevitable chorus of "Yeah, but that's really a DM spell" that seems to be constantly brought up. every. time. a. spell. is. criticized. (Except for True Strike. I've never even heard someone mount even this lazy and universal defense for that particular design blunder).
I don't know what they were thinking when designing Mordenkainen's Sword. Spiritual Weapon casted at the 6th level (which is something I've never done) would do more damage at 3d8+Spelcasting Mod, has the same bonus action effect, same damage type, same movement speed, can be casted as a bonus action, doesn't require a 250 gold material component, and most importantly, doesn't require concentration. If a Bard REALLY wants to use the spell for flavor or something, just take Spiritual Weapon.
@@Startoshadows Agreed. Though I'd put Flaming Sphere between the two spells. It still requires concentration and only lasts a minute, but at least has the benefit of doing half damage on a successful save. It's effects are reasonable for a 2nd level spell. Wizards are defiantly better off picking it up over Mordenkainen's Sword even at level 13.
@@seacliff217 Yeah, I prefer spiritual weapon to flaming sphere generally but don't usually have a choice since most classes just have one or the other. Flaming sphere also does an AoE effect if you have some way to encourage or force foes to stay put, so can be situationally better. Btw spiritual weapon also only lasts a minute, you're probably thinking of spirit guardians (another amazing cleric spell).
For Dust Devil, the encounter just before the Air Node in the Howling Caves in the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure is what that spell is for. Four wind priests, concentrating on that, in a winding-and-windy 10' wide hall, sniping with cantrips the whole while. That party has to chug through it, taking damage and getting punted back the whole while. I ran that adventure, and that encounter against 4 CR 2's was shockingly effective against a team of 5 Level 11-or-so PCs. Goes to show some of these spells, like Weird, aren't FOR PC's; they're DM tools for interesting encounters.
Depending on how strict your DM is about spell components, Immolation can be useful to have on your spell list in certain scenarios as the only component is verbal - this means you can cast it without your component pouch or spellcasting focus and even while you are restrained. There are very few damage spells like this. It's very situational but all the same something worth taking note of
The ONLY thing Immolation has going for it is the V-only effect. In case you're roleplaying a mage who has all their limbs cut off or something, in which case it may be their only option. lol
find trap reminds me of Puffin Forest's defective sword of warning, You cast find traps, "there is a trap nearby". While searching for the trap your parties barbarian steps on a pressure plate. Spell, "I warned you"
One of my best kills was with Prismatic Spray... in D&D 3.5. Greater Wyrm Red Dragon got the Plane Shift effect & gpt randomly shunted to Mechanus. Crazy dumb luck, but it was so fun!
True Strike has a minor use. Cast it on a turn when you have the frightened condition, and thus have disadvantage. Advantage from true strike offsets disadvantage from fear, returning you to a normal attack roll.
If you're frightened, you can't move towards the guy. True Strike has a range of 30 feet. Do the maths. Really, you're better off trying to get advantage any other way.
After hearing these balanced points with no sarcasm in them... I just update my list of home brewed spells and made some changes. Weird now adds frightened and confusion on failed save, frightened on success, and lasts an hour. That might not be enough...
There is one use for Prismatic Spray and Mordenkainen Sword: If you are playing a Scribe and if you're faced with a Necrotic-immune enemy, then you can change the damage type of Finger of death.
The use for true strike is situations where you're having a conversation with a potential enemy. It only has a somatic component (pointing) so it is impolite, but not overtly hostile. If the negotiations fail, you get advantage on your first attack. If they don't, no harm done, no spell slot used.
One of my players actually found a good use for true strike: Once my players were fighting an earth creature that kept out of reach by earth gliding, surfacing to attack occasionally, and then burrowing for a random number of rounds before repeating. That way no one could ready action their spells, because they would be wasted if the elemental didn't show in time. So the (college of lore) bard kept preparing true strike while the other players readied grapples. After a successful grapple she hit it with Contagion (thanks to the advantage, no less!) to make it poisoned for disadvantage on escaping the grapple. Brilliant! Not circumstantial at all!
Just cast Immolation on one of your party members, and then have them run into the magical darkness. Easy. I actually like Prismatic Spray... on enemy wizards. It's flashy, it's iconic, it's random... all without being as deadly as an upcast Fireball. I have had DMs make Legend Lore basically mandatory for quest progression purposes. They really liked it, gave enough information to be a reliable description for Legend Lore... Thankfully it's on the Cleric list so we just had to rest before it could be prepared. Embarrassingly... when Princes of the Apocalypse had just come out, we were almost TPK'ed by the Dust Devil spell. Low level, couple earth cult "Monks," and a narrow corridor. The monks called forth small dirt elementals before us and them, blocking off the tunnel... And none of us knew that they weren't actually small elementals (summoning allies like that made total sense). We ended up taking a TON of damage from a couple Dust Devil spells.
soooooo... Thing about Immolation, its its ONLY Verbal, no somatic, no material. Meaning when the guard comes up to gloat over you while your gears in another room and you're tied to a chair, you CAN cast Immolation on him and get the keys off his ash'd corpse. Circumstantial yes, but not without some other use I didn't see mentioned. Yeah, there are probably other options that still fit that bill, but its worth mentioning when comparing directly to something like Fireball.
From time to time I look for edge cases for true strike. And occasionally I'll find something that's better than not acting. Like if you're a melee character, don't have range options, maybe your javellins were stolen, not a caster, maybe just a one level dip or magic initiate so no other use of concentration, and due to positioning can get in 30 foot range but not melee range. Feels like the number of situations it's worth casting might be higher than zero? But...then I actually sit down to make a character, look at how many fantastic cantrips there are, and notice that I can only pick 3 of them, and all thoughts of finding edge cases for True Strike vanish.
I wish dust devil would do damage and the effect when summoned and when pushed into creatures like flank sphere... it would almost be ok at that point ...
I have thought of a very limited case where True Strike might be handy.... If the caster is hidden too far from the enemies to affect them and the barbarian was goading them in so that, when in range, the caster could make a spell attack with advantage on it.... Of course, that would probably only happen at a 5yr olds birthday party to drop a surprise on them, but it COULD be handy.
I think the reason why they made high level spells so bad is either flavor (power word kill for the vision of a wizard killing swarm of low level soldiers) or to encourage wizard to upcast burning hands.
I have to give a dishonorable mention to Witch Bolt only because this is a Trap for so many new players. They read the spell, have images of being like Emperor Palpatine, only to find out the spell is garbage.
Legend Lore seems to be an outlier in this list. Sure, if you go to an adventurer's league game or an online one shot with no session 0 or any kind of game that implies the DM is not going to talk to you in detail about the things your character could do before game, you're probably not going to get anything out of Legend Lore. As always, if you talk to your DM about wanting to use the spell before doing it it can probably add a lot to almost any game that is not solely focused on combat. The rest of the spells are unequivocally bad at any table
I agree Enervate is generally horrible, but I have learned it as a Wizard before and prepared it if I thought I might get wounded while being able to lockdown an enemy who can't get away. I picture a Force Cage (cage version) or anything that might restrain a creature, followed up with Enervate to sap their life away. Again, I know it's not amazing, but I told another player how I pictured it and their reaction to how dark it was is good enough for me to want to achieve it. Your list is very accurate, though. I can't deny that!
I wasn't surprised to see Immolation and Enervation no the list, but I was surprised to see that neither were included in your old 5th level spell variants. I am working on tweaks to the weaker 5e spells, but was interested to see what you would do for each of these.
Power Word Pain has a small, niche use ... if your DM likes using spell casters as a BBEG who then GTFOs before the party finishes him off, this can prevent that. Yes, there are likely better options, but if I was playing a wizard and could cycle this in prior to a known throw down with that type of DM, I might consider it.
I think legend lore can be a decent spell although extremely situational. It’s on the cleric list and they don’t need to commit any resources to prepare it for a day in downtime unlike a wizard/bard adding it to their list. At the level you get it, the components shouldn’t be much of a deterrence either. The cleric in the campaign i DM has used it several times to learn backstory about items and the relic that he’s trying to assemble. It’s been a good way for him to get more lore about the world. This is one of the parts of the game that he enjoys and the spell has been a good way to further this aspect of the game. That being said you definitely need a DM who isn’t going to troll you with something cryptic or worthless. I think the spell has the potential to do what it was intended to do and isn’t clearly outclassed by something similar like most of the combat/adventuring spells listed. So I don’t think it’s a great spell but I’ve seen it used with good effect unlike any of the other spells on the list.
Legend Lore is in that category of what I call "NPC Spells". Need some non-magical artifact identified so you know where to bring it as a sidequest? Pay the NPC wizard to cast Legend Lore on it and see what it gives you. As a player, you won't need it often - but an NPC knowledge-broker, heck yes. There's a few spells like that, which I wish were in the DMG rather than the Player's Handbook.
Technically existent use cases for True Strike: 1. Elven paladin with Elven Accuracy, if you could somehow also get this spell. You give yourself a high crit chance, which has a decent chance of letting you spend 1 smite for 2 smites worth of damage. Of course, as a paladin, you're probably already concentrating on Divine Favour or Crusader's Mantle… 2. You're a melee rogue. A strict DM won't let you attack in melee with the advantage from hiding because you'll have to break stealth to approach the target. This gives you a way to have advantage anyway. 3. You're a melee combatant and can't reach the target this turn. Of course, you'd also have to not need your concentration for anything else… so this is useless to a hexblade.
My bro made a frost themed wizard and basically used frost fingers just to freeze ponds and creeks so that the party could cross. Never did any damage with it and only used it for freezing effect deep into the game when he had lots of low level spell slots to toss around
I'd homebrew weird to 300ft radius, concentration, 10 minute duration, everyone that you don't specify to not be affected has to make a wisdom saving throw every turn or be frightened. When frightened they get a saving throw each turn. Succeeding on the save deals 4d10 psychic damage. They also get advantage on the throw to resist the spell each turn in the radius.
It got buffed in errata, it now poisons until either the target succeeds or failed all three saves. It's *at least* three turns of the target being poisoned, without Concentration, and poisoned is a very powerful condition. Contagion is now a pretty viable spell.
*Very* minor defence for Searing Smite: Zariel Tieflings get it as a racial spell, automatically upcast to 2nd level. So if you're a ZT melee Fighter or Rogue then you can use it to get a small damage bump once a day without worrying about having better options (unless you're an EK/AT, or need your Bonus Action for something else).
As far as Searing Smite goes, there is one caveat: Trolls, Hydras, and other creatures with regeneration halted by fire damage. Against foes such as these, it doesn't matter how *much* Fire damage you do, just that you do some. That and it's the only smite spell you can upcast, so on a multiclass build it can work out if you have higher level slots to burn on it.
Ways True Strike can be good 1. If you really DO have something that valuable that you need to spend a turn to make sure it lands. Say you're upcasting an Acid Arrow SPECIFICALLY. Might save a spell slot, though who knows why you're doing that. Or let's say you have a magic javelin that can be great if it hits, but if you miss it's gone. That would be more for Eldritch Knights. 2. As a sneaky advantage in plain sight. Take a look at the requirements for the spell. It's just pointing. If you just point at somebody, it's not particularly obvious that you're casting a spell at them or doing much anything at all for that matter. But you know if the conversation turns south you will have advantage on hitting them. You can keep casting it every round until the fight begins and nobody will really notice. Again, mostly useful for an Eldritch Knight, an Arcane Trickster, or a Hexblade, but not useless. 3. As a less sneaky advantage in a conversation. Say someone knows you're casting a spell on them. But they can't ask anybody for help, since you have the benefit of the doubt. You were just pointing at them, that's all. You've effectively got someone at gunpoint out in the open. Again, that is if you have something to follow it up with. 4. If you take a liberal interpretation of what's written. Read it again. "Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target’s defenses." What does that mean to you? It could just be flavor text to explain why you get advantage, but let's say it means more. You cast this on a creature, you learn something about it's stat block, it's vulnerabilities, it's hit points, it's saves. It can't be a lot, it is a brief insight, but it could be something. If it's something + advantage, it's more of a tactical choice.
I’ve actually found a possible use for Searing Smite. It was added to the ranger list with Tasha’s. It’s also a self targeting spell, which means it’s eligible for Beastmaster Shared Spells. Normally, if you’re looking at spending a BA, concentration, and slot on damage, it’d be better to use another spell, but the twinning changes that. For example, steel wind strike doesn’t target you so you can’t double it as a Beastmaster. Lightning Arrow deals more damage and scales better than SS for a single ranger, but that triggers off of a ranged weapon attack so even though you can twin it, it won’t do anything on your pet. Ensnaring Strike only deals damage at the end of a creature’s turn that is ensnared by the spell and because a creature can only be affected by one copy of any single spell at a time, you can’t double up the damage this way on a single target. Good for restraining and hurting two targets simultaneously though! Anyway, at lvl15, you can cast as a bonus action a 4th level Searing Smite on yourself, and then use your attack action to attack once while your beast attacks twice for a combined additional damage of 8d6 fire damage on top of your normal weapon damage (we’ll assume STRanger with a GS and GWM to compare directly to other top melee damage builds) of 2d6 + 15 + 2x(1d8 + 7). That’s pretty good for spike damage. Especially since you can do it twice at this level, and then cast it at third level for 6d6 “smites”. Speaking of smites; the temptation might be to continue in ranger, but if we go into Paladin we can continue our spell progression anyway, and we’ll also get actual smites at lvl17, meaning we can now “smite” for 10d6 + 5d8 4th lvl smite on top of all the weapon damage. Pretty good, pretty good....but how far are we going to go into Paladin? Another level gets us Vengence, so with a turn of setup we can give ourselves advantage on all of our attacks, making our smites that much more likely to land immediately. Then it doesn’t seem to matter where we’ll go from there, both Paladin 4 and ranger 16 are ASI levels, right? We’re gonna get them both at levels 19 and 20? No. We’re going Paladin 5. “What!?!” I hear you say. “Never go five levels in two martial classes!” Ah, but Extra Attack isn’t all that Paladins get at level 5. They also get Find Steed. Which inherently lets you copy self-spells onto it as well. So at level 20, your 5th level Searing Smite will deliver a total bonus damage of **15d6** on top of all of your other damage (provided you charge into battle on top of a CR 1/2 horse, lol), and you’re combining that with a 4th level smite for 5d8, for a grand total including all basic weapon damage of an average alpha strike on a single target of 52.5 + 22.5 + 22 + 23 + 11 = 131 damage using a fifth and fourth level slot and no magic items. Plus 1d6 per round until they pass the CON save, ofc. Meanwhile the wizard just casts a 9th level Meteor Swarm, a similarly throttled resource at this level, to deal 140 average damage to everything on the map....and the Samurai Fighter action surges for 9 greatsword attacks (7 at advantage) for 9x(2d6 + 15) = 198 damage, and he can do that a couple of times in one combat, and similar numbers at range, and his damage is boosted more relatively speaking by magic weapons. Oh and the basic vengeance Paladin who Hasted himself (and his Greater Steed) and used his lvl20 aura is frightening everyone in a 30’ radius, getting reaction attacks on everyone who flees or tries to attack, and dealing (assuming he can get one bonus action attack from GWM per turn from a crit or kill on one of his “normal” three attacks at advantage per turn) 4x(2d6 + 15 + 1d8) + Nx5d8 (where N is the number of 4th or 5th level slots he wants to drop on a target in one turn, up to four) + (1d8 + 4 + 2x(2d6+4)) = anywhere from 136.5 to 226.5. And the 136.5 is **repeatable**. Ok, so it’s not great damage. And actually, any Beastmaster could just cast Guardian of Nature on themselves, get advantage on all their attacks, and give them and their pets an additional 1d6 per hit, meaning the two of them deal 2x(3d6+15) + 2x(1d8 + 1d6 + 8) = 83 damage repeatedly after the first turn with no additional resources. So I guess what I’m saying is this was a huge waste of time and only useful if you absolutely must use a Beastmaster in melee to deliver the biggest single turn of damage they can possibly do.
Another major flaw of Find Trap is that, despite its range being 120 feet, the trap you're trying to find via the spell must be "in line of sight". This means two things: 1- If you cast Find Traps in dungeons, which are usually segmented into rooms and are also probably where parties encounter traps most often, the spell can only tell you about traps *one room at a time.* It'd be like you're a bird watcher and every time you wanna look at a different bird, you smash your binoculars and bring out a new pair. 2- If a trap must be in line of sight to be revealed by Find Traps, why not just try to, I dunno, find it? With your eyes and ears?
Weird is such a bad spell i managed to convince five out of five people that it was a homebrew spell i created and we'd argue if it's a fifth or fourth level spell and mostly ended up agreeing on fourth level
Man did they do my boi Prismatic Spray dirty in this edition. Compare the effects in D&D 3,5. 1: 20 fire damage (reflex half) 2: 40 acid damage (reflex half) 3: 80 electric damage (reflex half) 4: Poison (fortitude or die, success still reduces your con by 1d6) 5: Turned to stone (fortitude negates) 6: Creature is driven insane (permanently confused) (Will negates) 7: Sent to another plane (Will negates) 8: Roll twice and discard any "8" results Oh and every creature in the cone that has 8 or fewer hd (basically level 8 or less) is blinded for 2d4 rounds as well with no save. This spell is actually pretty good in 3,5 edition.
Frost fingers could be great if the targets are walking through water or swimming since it freezes the water in the area. It could create a bridge over any liquid like a pool of acid, or even lava.
I have genuinely found a use for True Strike. Now this is so situational that it's never going to come up in a normal game, but here it is, the one case where True Strike is genuinely helpful. So this is an RP heavy campaign and K decided to play a blind character to really challenge myself. He is a wizard, with the entertainer background. Now I figured his acts would naturally be performing feats of skill and accuracy while blindfolded. One if his acts is knife throwing. Something that being blind would normally give him disadvantage on, but thanks to True Strike he makes those with a straight roll. Here is why it works for this character: He is blind, so already have a disadvantage on all attack rolls. This also means that a lot of spells doesn't work for him as you need to be able to see your target to cast them. True Strike does not work like that, it only says you have to point at a target within range, nothing about being able to see it. Also since it is a stationary target, even the blind guy can point at it reliably. He is performing a circus act, so it is out of combat and therefore no Action Economy to worry about. Sure he can't muck around too much, but taking a few seconds to aim carefully when throwing knives blindfolded seems reasonable. Lastly throwing knives is arguably a performance skill, but it is also arguably a thrown weapon attack, hence True Strike can give you advantage. Advantage cancels out disadvantage, which leads to a straight roll. Let's be honest, the few times that character has been in combat he just throws twice at disadvantage instead of using True Strike, but on stage, it's neat. That is how specific a circumstance has to be for True Strike to be useful, it's not in 99,9% of cases, so don't even try to get it to work, just smile and accept the bonus if it happens to come in handy for one weird character. Doesn't help that True Strike is probably the only offensive cantrip that doesn't scale with level or ASI. It is useless at level 1, it is even worse after level 5 when you are trading 2 attacks for advantage on a single attack.
I've got a genuine use case for True Strike: If the attack you're making can only be made once. Say you're fighting the BBEG and you've got one arrow of BBEG slaying - you want to have advantage on the attack roll when you use it on round 2 more than you want to make a second attack action on round 2, so you cast True Strike on round one. Now, you could gain advantage some other way, like by gaining invisibility or being sneaky, and a party member who can cast True Strike should probably not be also the best archer in the party, so this is even still extremely niche and doesn't rescue True Strike in any way, but there you go. A valid situation when casting True Strike might be better than attacking twice.
"I'd like to cast Find Trap."
"...you just cast one."
unrealistic
you wouldn't get such a precise information from casting it
I'd like to cast find clam.
Brutal. Top-tier comment.
I would argue this spell is far more effective than you may think; just by looking at the spell in the book it works - no spell slot required. Amazing.
I'd like to cast find who asked.
I had to pause and cackle at the "be sure to include your address so I can come and slap you." Absolutely savage, Chris.
Will the slap hit without True Strike?
4:45
That bit was great!
*Upcasts Searing Smite*
I laughed so hard my sore back reminded me what pain is.
Dentist: So how did you lose that tooth?
Me: I defended frost fingers online and Chris slapped the shit out of me.
Dentist: Sounds like you deserved it.
You have a good dentist.
The "saving grace" of frost finger is that it doesls a slighly better damage type then burning hands.
Should only be taken by evoker that, for some reason, want to specialize in cold damage, for whatever reason, though.
Everyone else jsut take thunderwave please...
Dentist: get out of my office
@@TainakaRicchan Or we could agree that the balance of the game and elements is completely arbitrary and NOT by design.
@@Amrylin1337 I sometiems think that the designer simply dont think through what their design entails.
For what its worth: I think Snillocs snowball storm is actually the far worse spell comapred to frost fingers. doesnt make frost finger good though
I'd add a caveat to frost fingers. In an underwater campaign freezing a cone of water is significant... I don't know if swimming inside the area counts as "wearing" the water but it'll definitely be stronger than burning hands underwater.
VERY situational.
Include your address
Or you could just cast thunderwave and get a knockback effect
Actually, if you freeze all the water around a target wouldn't that 'insta-kill' a lot of stuff? I mean, they would run out of oxygen very quickly and it would take a long time for that much ice to thaw. And anything that could hold their breath for a really long time or doesn't need to breathe would still be taken out of the fight for a very extended period of time. Actually seems super powerful in an underwater scenario.
@@Pyrela That was my point, in an underwater situation the rider of freezing liquid is strong. Plus there are combinations with spells like create water that could generate a 5ft cube of water and then you freeze it.
Personally I wouldn't let a 1st level spell insta-kill without a save or anything, it seems better to treat it as a grappled/restrained situation. (if they're on the edge of the cone, grappled, as the ice holds them in place, if they're completely enveloped in ice then restrained) Technically the freeze does not have a duration, as it's instantaneous, however it will melt eventually. I'd imagine that you could use a strength check to break free of the ice and the DC would be the spellcasters spell DC.
Even low-con characters are rarely at risk of drowning in dnd. The rules for suffocation mean that if you envelop someone in ice they've got a handful of rounds to make strength checks to break free, which is still strong for a 1st level spell and still very strong crowd control.
Comparing it to burning hands, 3d6 (11) to 2d8 (9) the tradeoff in damage for restrain is fantastic. If you're not underwater though it is strictly worse.
@@IndirectLemon ice floats too, so it could also move entrapped opponents out of combat range, as they drift upwards towards the surface, or with the current
Some terrible spells are useful for that reason. If I want the party to have a moment of "uh oh" when fighting a mage, I might have the mage use Power Word Pain on one of them. "Wait, they just used a 7th level slot on us?" It's a moment where you don't wreck the party but still sketch a power level.
The problem is that there is no official distinction between DM spells and Player spells. Hell, most of the stinkers on this list are in the PLAYER'S handbook! I would be absolutely fine with existence of very situational, low-power NPC spells that PCs don't have access to because they are worse than "adventuring" spells or because they are too specific. "Ziguerro's Find Nearest Beehive" or "Greta's Painless Abortion" can easily exist in the setting, but why even mention them to the players?
A really poor excuse for a bad spell to be published though. The same is said about other poorly designed features.
@@naddarr1 Or if someone just wants a cool flaming sword for the aesthetic.
@@naddarr1 But the DM shouldn't need to explain these things. They should just do it. Having it there and accessible for a player in the *Player's Handbook* is asinine.
@@Hilianus Exactly, there are so many DM spells that are great as DM spells but are either broken or pathetic in the hands of players. Power Word Pain, Simulacrum, Clone, Circle of Death, Magic Jar - all fantastic DM spells, but should not be used by players.
These spells are all terrible. I would put Legend Lore in the category of Dream of the Blue Veil though... it's pretty obviously presented as a plot device, to be used during downtime.
The verbal component of Power Word Pain is "I think I'm going to learn Power Word Pain."
Legend Lore is something you use during downtime to advance the story or collect otherwise unavailable info. Like for instance, my party has used it a few times to figure out how to destroy a lich’s phylactery.
Or to play a charlatan sorcerer without having to do It. *Subtlespells Legend Lore
-I'll Tell YOU about the
I agree. I think it could have its place, especially with a DM that doesn't treat the players like protagonists
@@anthonynorman7545 or even in a game where you are treated like a protagonist, this can be useful as a way to get more information than the NPCs can/would give you.
If your dm giving you a fair shot to find information related to main plot lines is “protagonist service” then I guess there’s a whole class of dm I want nothing to do with.
For side projects and goals however I could see legend lore nicely facilitating things that would only be remotely possible or take a lot of your downtime.
@@jmass4207 Some DMs give you a large sandbox with no clear "main" plot. It can be fairly engaging and interesting when done correctly of course. Like most things it mostly comes down to execution.
The devs just categorically tend to overvalue spells that deal damage across multiple turns; it often takes 3 rounds, your concentration, and repeat saves to deal about as much damage as an instantaneous blast spell would have done in the first round.
They think they all are spirit guardians.
But they also nerfed spirit guardians and moonbeam (by preventing damage by having the effect move past an enemy) which is dumb af. Because damage spells are so weak past 3rd level.
So true. So very true.
@@moto2442 Until meteor swarm anyways.
@@OnlineSarcasmFails Yes, but it's very rare to use the spell slot on meteor swarm because instead you generally take wish.
Chris is spicy here and I’m here for it. Get at it my dude.
I think Skywrite is my favourite spell. There's a lot of niche uses for it: Advertising for a business, communicating with lost party members, threatening to reveal the location of an enemy base, freaking out random townsfolk by writing 'We are discovered, flee immediately' in the sky above their town... and whenever I manage to actually get use out of it, it feels so good because it's seen as such a useless spell!
I actually used it in one of my backstories on a spell scroll. I needed a low-level way for someone to immediately send a written message to a person who was probably 500 or 1000 feet away. It did the job rather nicely!
Yeah I don't get the hate for Skywrite. It's clearly a role-playing oriented spell, it's great at what it does
reminds me of a scene in the online comic "order of the Stick", where the villains used a spell called "dancing lights" to call for reinforcements.
There is one legitimate use case of True Strike, on a level 10 Eldritch Knight using Great Weapon Master and a blade cantrip with 20 STR and INT of 13 or lower. The most important facet of True Strike is the 30 ft range. Melee martial characters will have times when they just can’t quite get into melee with an enemy, and they usually have to throw a javelin for negligible damage. An eldritch knight, however, can cast a cantrip and make an attack as a bonus action, so what cantrip will do the most damage?
Well, if you are confident that next turn you will be able to enter melee with an enemy, the expected extra damage from having advantage is greater than the expected damage from a firebolt by about 2 points, depending on enemy AC.
So, for one highly specific character build (specific, but not a bad build by any means) and a somewhat uncommon situation, True Strike is optimal if you use it as a ranged attack. It is not viable as a substitute for the attack action.
Still a trap of a spell.
I could sort of see a case for true strike if your playing as a wizard with a nuke paladin... but that's about it
Mordenkainen's Sword - proving yet again why he isn't Raistlin or Elminster.
Angry, snarky Chris is the best Chris.
Great video.
Wow, Mordenkainen's Sword is really Spiritual Weapon for a little more damage, but a seventh level slot and using concentration. You could cast Spiritual Weapon at 5th level for 3d8 damage on a bonus action, and NOT use concentration. The only thing you miss is taking an extra shot at them when the sword appears.
Wouldn’t you need to cast it using a 6th level slot to get the 3d8?
Looking at the language I read it as an extra d8 for every 2 slot levels above 2nd.
Is there any good reason for this spell to have concentration?
@@brettmajeske3525 No. And there's no reason why it should deal such pathetic damage.
@@PlanetOfTheApes999 I do not think most of the seventh level spells were played tested.
But you'd miss out on 3 wizard levels
Prismatic spray should only be taken by a scribe wizard so that he can use his "change damage type" ability for 7th level spells.
Taken? Yes, learn it. Prepare it for actual use? N O P E.
You know a spell is pretty worthless when the only use for it is changing damage types by being a Scribes Wizard.
@@benjoffe948 it's the same reason my chromatic orb, dragon's breath, elemental weapon, and elemental bane should be taken
You know a spell is really worthless when the scribes wizard only puts it in his spell book for his One with the Word ability. "I have to lose 16 levels of spells for up to 6 days. I cross out weird, find traps and legend lore."👍
@@nicka3697 You are a genius and i bow to your experience Master Alldridge.
@@dragonhearthx8369 I mean, IIRC Dragon's Breath isn't too bad a spell, but yea, that's def another use for those spells (don't quite remember if those spells other than DBreath are OK or not)
In immolation's defense, sometimes you're only fighting one enemy, or the boss of the encounter has survived the mooks. Or you're the only party member with dark vision. Or you're the only ranged in a party of melee.
Or it's a troll and you lost your tinderbox.
@@nicka3697 Single trolls are about the only good target.
@@brettmajeske3525 Ditto for searing smite.
Immolation has one good kind of target and that is creatures that cannot pass a dexterity save, like a poor wizard's Disintegrate. Fitting, since it has the much the same effect on targets it kills. Target a stunned enemy and you guarantee that target takes 12d6 damage, and then maybe more. Still a bad spell.
Something else I would have mentioned about Mordekainen's Sword is that it's objectively worse than just upcasting Bigby's Hand to 7th level.
Flaming sphere against resistance does more damage than mordenkainens sword when cast with a 7th level slot lol.
I was going to say "Maybe with the "new" bladesinger's extra attack from Tasha's, True Strike can get some niche use like with Blade Ward." But doesn't even work. U can't use it as ur cantrip and then attack to get advantage, 'cuz the cantrip gives advantage next turn... to one attack.
Nah it sucks complete ass.
Doing 2 attacks is always better
There's one situation where Dust Devil is somewhat useful: A Moon Druid who casts it before wild shaping into a Giant Spider. Gives you something to do with your bonus action, your blindsight lets you see through the obscurement, your web pins the enemy into the dust devil, and (unlike Flaming Sphere), it doesn't burn the webbing.
If you're preventing their movement, just use Moonbeam. You place the Moonbeam on top of them and transform, they take 2d10 damage and move out, you then grapple/web/restrain them and drag them back in (2d10) and they take the damage again when they start their turn (2d10). During the time Moonbeam did 6d10 damage (or more if more targets were in the initial area), Dust Devil did 0, but will do 1d8 soon.
I can't help but wonder if there was a new guy in the office who confused 7th Level Spells with spells you can cast at 7th level, so a couple of these turds ended up way further up the list than they had any right to be. I mean, Mordenkainen's sword would be underpowered as a 3rd level spell even, never mind a 4th level one.
The really funny part about Mordenkainen's sword is that clerics get a similar spell at 2nd level that doesn't use concentration and moves 30 instead of 20...does the same damage type and if scaled to use the same spell level would absolutely dunk on it in terms of damage haha.
How did Witch Bolt avoid at least (dis)honorable mention?
Imo, spells that are bad simply because they do less damage than they should compared to similar spells shouldn't be on the list at all, unless we want the list to include a quarter of all spells. There are plenty of spells that are almost completely ineffective, or have negligibly minor effects, or are so circumstantial that they can almost never be used, to fill a bottom 10 list.
@@dylandugan76 There's a lot more wrong with Witch Bolt than doing less damage than it should, or else there would be a universal agreed upon fix of merely increasing damage; and I haven't seen that. Its problems are legion: Concentration, short range, must use your action every round, fairly easy to end spell, and--of course--about cantrip damage.
Fireball
It can lead to unimaginative spam to dealing with enemies, instead of finding another creative alternative.
I think True Strike should be a reaction to let you or someone else in range re-roll a missed attack. If that is too powerful, make it a first level spell. I think Cantrips are limited enough that it would be fine. Players like hitting, and it burns a reaction.
My homebrew of True Strike is: (1) the target knows that they've been targeted by you; (2) your first attack on them next round uses double your proficiency, and any hit is a crit. This way, it scales in a cantrip-like way, it's attack bonus lets it synergize with other ways to gain advantage, it presents interesting situations since the target can try to get out of your range, get into full cover, etc., and it's especially interesting for sneaking rogues since the target will sense that an attack is imminent but not automatically know where you are (other than that you were within 30' when you cast it, but you could have moved further away afterward).
they really need to re-vamp a LOT of things in 5e
Branch out to non D&D games and broaden your horizons. It's worth it. Go further than Pathfinder while you're at it.
But if they do every forum/content creator will scream power creep while lamenting the need for 6E
@@Amrylin1337 Have some suggestions?
@@xthebumpx I have been experimenting with Godforsaken, a Cypher based game. So far have been impressed.
power word pain is a great spell to have monsters be able to cast once per day. have the person have that character reflect on their most painful memory while doing it.
true strike also has a weird niche use: have legendary creatures cast it as a legendary action at the end of the turn of the creature that goes right before them.
I remember when Wierd was a mass save or die spell.
2e I believe - in 3e it was the AOE Phantasmal Killer just as it is now (except PK was slightly better then because it could actually just kill you)
In Pathfinder it still has the save or die effect, 2nd edition atleast.
Yep. For a couple of Editions it's basically Mass Phantasmal Killer, but that was when Phantasmal Killer was a save or die. Now its very subpar. If made phantasmal killer worthwhile, it would improve Weird quite a bit; still probably wouldn't be a 9th level slot though.
While I entirely agree that Immolation is pretty useless as a direct combat spell, take it as a Sorceror with subtle spell metamagic and it becomes an amazing assassination tool.
It has only a verbal component, so with subtle spell you can cast it in a totally undetectable manner from 90 feet away (and once cast, concentration can be maintained at any range). The flames are generated around the target with no clear line of effect back to you, and a failed save against a target not prepared for combat is generally guaranteed to kill since it cannot be extinguished nonmagically. Even if the target survives, they will probably have no idea what happened, who tried to kill them, or how to prevent such an attack from occurring again. You can do this to anyone, anywhere, in full view of the general populace, with no real chance of getting caught.
Can confirm, as a new player I played a high elf rogue. Almost took true strike. Thank god my party convinced me to take minor illusion instead.
Rogue is probably the only class that could ever justify true strike though. Still a terrible option by pretty much every metric, but hey, at least rogues get guaranteed sneak attack on advantage so there is a very, very, VERY situational possibility for TS+Attack to do better than Attack+Attack.
A lot of these spells can be made ok or good with some minor tweaking and an open minded DM okay with homebrew.
-True Strike could be made good if you made it a bonus action and/or you can use it on an ally. You rogue would thank you more often if the latter part was the case.
-Weird would be tolerable if it only needed one saving throw, always gave frightened, and did a smidge more damage. One to three more damage die tops.
-Find Trap would actually be useable if they cleaned up the wording(making detect all traps too) and changed the name to Reveal Dangers. Also I would personally make it give you the general direction of each trap. Not the specific spot, just a "Hey, there's a danger to your north west"
-Mordenkainen's Sword is trash. And even a fix world be trash. Which is sad because flavor wise it's pretty badass. I would say the sword had advantage on attack rolls and added your spell casting modifier to damage rolls. Or make it a lower level spell. No less then a 3rd-4th level spell
-Legend Lore. Make it a ritual. Done. You could also make it give extremely vague/cryptic descriptions of "normal" items and places. "This sword is known for it's ease of use, being well balanced and cutting flesh easily" for generic +1-3 weapons. Up to DM really.
-Prismatic Spray would be better if it did a few more damage dice, otherwise, it's a fairly hard spell to "fix" without losing the origin.
-Power Word spells are generally bad since you need a specific HP to use, which requires guessing or metagaming. Both of which are bad. Power Word Pain specifically could be made okay if it dealt some non leathal damage for all the conditions needed to get it to work.
-Immolation. just have it not need concentration. Instantly better. And comparing it to fireball is a little harsh, since spells like fireball and lightning bolt were intentionally jacked BECAUSE they're such iconic spells. They always have been.
-Frost Fingers would be amazing if it immobilized undead or similar creatures like how Chilled Touch has a special interaction with them. Or just make it bigger when you upcast it. Give it a reason to up cast.
-Searing Smite. No concertation or more damage. Or just not have it. Remove from the game.
Honestly a lot of these spells would be better if they just didn't require concentration.
Prismatic Spray might actually have some use for Scribe wizards, having that many damage types to trade other spells into.
"But what if the DM says the creature is bloodied?" First, that is a house rule for something borrowed from 4e; second you don't know its max HP, so bloodied could be below 120 or below 200.
Power Word Pain looks like a spell cast by high leveler Spellcasters against PC spellcasters. - Oh fun, I can't do anything for the next round or two or three cause like an idiot I played a low Con Wizard.
A great D&D insult I've heard: "Are you True Strike? Because you're useless."
Allow me to defend Searing Smite: low level Forge Cleric. It's something a Cleric doesn't normally do, it's free, and you're already martially inclined. Sure, once you get Heat Metal or Spirit Guardians, you'll never use it. But until then, not a terrible use of a spell slot
We fought a regenerating foe and searing smite was our only access to killing it. Best case I can think of.
Agreed. If I didn't have it given to me for free, would I prepare it? No. But it's free, and if it's free, it's for me
It's not free though. You could've had some other, far better domain spell.
@@Oniphire Something can be said about Forge Cleric being someone's favorite domain (me, for example, having Forge Cleric as a pocket pick for any campaign of which I don't know the party make-up and I need an all-rounder character I'm comfortable with), so if you get it as a freebie (as in it's given to you), might as well use it
Sometimes I wonder what the developers were thinking or at least intending when the crafted bad spells and bad subclasses.
When you started talking about mordenkainens sword, i was thinking "What is wrong with him? This sounds like a really cool spell..." Then i heard the dreaded words "...takes your concentration." It is crazy how concentration can trash what would otherwise be a really fun spell.
Even if it didn't take your concentration it would be a worse version of just upcasting Spiritual Weapon to 6th. And as is, it's a worse version of Bigby's Hand.
0:22 Treatmonk and the terrible no good very bad spells.
Look... You can either curse the Darkness, or cast Immolation. Or something like that. I'm pretty sure its a bumper sticker.
I would've liked to see you tackle how to fix them, if even possible, as you went along. Would a damage buff fix immolation? Would a lower level casting slot fix power word pain? I'm curious as to how I could fix these in case my players ever wanted them and not feel penalized for choosing them.
Funny to see Investiture of Wind here. I played campaign with almost only ranged attack enemies and that spell together with piercing damage resistance was a life saver. I was casting it as a warlock and I never regretted that.
i am reminded me of scene in the online comic "order of the stick":
the heroes got into a fight with a GIGANTIC demon.
the wizard got desperate,
s/he cast "crushing despair" on the monster, the cleric cast "bestow curse" on it, THEN the wizard cast Prismatic Spray...
and got the Petrify effect.
Probably fix true strike by making for the duration of the 1 minute you have adv on your first attack against that target. That way you forgo your first attack to gain 1 adv on subsequent attacks for the duration of the min or until concentration is broken.
Maybe truestrike is situationally useful for when your action would otherwise go to waste? Ex: you are 60 ft from a target with 30ft move speed and no ranged attacks or cantrips. You could dash, but not have an attack that round, or you could walk 30 ft, cast true strike, and then next turn you can finish walking and take an attack with advantage.
That situation probably comes up quite often in games where close attention to distances and positions is taken. I've noticed myself casting it all the time in Baldur's Gate 3 where that's something you can't ignore since the computer works that out for you.
True Strike: Cast when you can do nothing this round at all, but really need to hit next time, and have no other way of getting advantage... and you remember you have True Strike, and then remember you didn't bother as you had not used it ever ...
If you have nothing to do on your turn, you can use the action for Dash behind cover, or to Dodge, or, if you can, Hide. Even doing nothing is better than wasting a cantrip slot. Remember that True Strike isn't exactly free, it takes away other options you could've taken.
Hearing you go off on these spells is hilarious. You do a good rant lol
I need a follow up video...homebrew to make these spells viable
Treantmonk has already made this! Look up "Treantmonk spell variant"
Yeah I would love to see an appropriately powered Weird. It evokes some cool imagery that the actual spell just doesn't live up to. Like maybe causing an insanity effect over a small town sized radius, one person's greatest fear becoming a real thing for everyone to deal with, temporary teleportation to a bunch of different planes, and then bringing something back from that plane, so many cool options and we ended up with...that...
I've tried to fix True Strike before. Its an oddly tricky spell to fix because of the fact that it's a cantrip. Many of my fixes accidently landed it into the "now it's overpowered" category.
One of my fixes was to simply make it so that True Strike gave advantage to an ally on their next attack, essentially allowing a 1st level caster to be sacrifice their action to be an infinite source of advantage. That's not so bad of an ability for when you run out of spells at low level if you have a rogue in the party.
Making it a bonus action tipped it into "overpowered" territory.
I'd love to see if Chris can balance it out better.
@@MrGuyFaux for making true strike give an ally advantage just the help action but as a cantrip?
Edit: just looked it up, didn’t realize true strike would do it at ranged since I’ve never take. It or seen somebody else take it so didn’t realize that.
As a DM i kinda like Power word pain against the players :) I know it'll succeed when I plan on using it and while it certainly affects the fight its effect is preferable to stunning or completely incapacitating the player (as a DM I do like to use debuff spell that allow the players to do at least something, not take them completely out of action, sometimes I'll hit them with a hold person but most often I try to avoid it)
I've thought about a shadow sorcerer conjuring his hound and then twinning _immolation_ on the hound's target and another guy, but that's a LOT of sorcery points spent all at once.
It's worth nothing that very circumstantial spells like legend lore or control weather are mostly OK to druids/clerics who get them for free while at the same time absolutely horrible for, say, a bard who chooses it over a good spell.
I could see myself prepare Legend Lore as a Cleric during downtime, if I was expecting to travel to a legendary location or to interact with a legendary item in the near future.
It's definitely the least terrible spell on Treantmonk's list.
Yeah, same. I'd never pick it as a class with a limited spell list (I'd be careful to pay for it as a wizard), but my cleric could prepare it during downtime if we learned our goal/object/opponent was "legendary".
Good video! I'm a little surprised that Witch Bolt didn't make at least the Honorable Mentions list though. I've almost given up criticizing D&D spells online because of the inevitable chorus of "Yeah, but that's really a DM spell" that seems to be constantly brought up. every. time. a. spell. is. criticized. (Except for True Strike. I've never even heard someone mount even this lazy and universal defense for that particular design blunder).
I don't know what they were thinking when designing Mordenkainen's Sword. Spiritual Weapon casted at the 6th level (which is something I've never done) would do more damage at 3d8+Spelcasting Mod, has the same bonus action effect, same damage type, same movement speed, can be casted as a bonus action, doesn't require a 250 gold material component, and most importantly, doesn't require concentration. If a Bard REALLY wants to use the spell for flavor or something, just take Spiritual Weapon.
Upcast flaming sphere similarly is better in most respects except the damage type, so it's not even just spiritual weapon that outclasses it.
@@Startoshadows Agreed. Though I'd put Flaming Sphere between the two spells. It still requires concentration and only lasts a minute, but at least has the benefit of doing half damage on a successful save. It's effects are reasonable for a 2nd level spell. Wizards are defiantly better off picking it up over Mordenkainen's Sword even at level 13.
@@seacliff217 Yeah, I prefer spiritual weapon to flaming sphere generally but don't usually have a choice since most classes just have one or the other. Flaming sphere also does an AoE effect if you have some way to encourage or force foes to stay put, so can be situationally better.
Btw spiritual weapon also only lasts a minute, you're probably thinking of spirit guardians (another amazing cleric spell).
@@Startoshadows Thanks for the correction.
For Dust Devil, the encounter just before the Air Node in the Howling Caves in the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure is what that spell is for. Four wind priests, concentrating on that, in a winding-and-windy 10' wide hall, sniping with cantrips the whole while. That party has to chug through it, taking damage and getting punted back the whole while. I ran that adventure, and that encounter against 4 CR 2's was shockingly effective against a team of 5 Level 11-or-so PCs. Goes to show some of these spells, like Weird, aren't FOR PC's; they're DM tools for interesting encounters.
Would true strike be better as a bonus action that didn't require concentration?
Depending on how strict your DM is about spell components, Immolation can be useful to have on your spell list in certain scenarios as the only component is verbal - this means you can cast it without your component pouch or spellcasting focus and even while you are restrained. There are very few damage spells like this. It's very situational but all the same something worth taking note of
Sadly, if Find Trap worked like Detect Magic (but could only find intentionally created traps), the spell would have been worth taking.
Immolation: Out of combat you want to make an example of one NPC that shows everyone they were so wrong that nobody should every do that again ....
The ONLY thing Immolation has going for it is the V-only effect. In case you're roleplaying a mage who has all their limbs cut off or something, in which case it may be their only option. lol
find trap reminds me of Puffin Forest's defective sword of warning, You cast find traps, "there is a trap nearby". While searching for the trap your parties barbarian steps on a pressure plate. Spell, "I warned you"
One of my best kills was with Prismatic Spray... in D&D 3.5. Greater Wyrm Red Dragon got the Plane Shift effect & gpt randomly shunted to Mechanus.
Crazy dumb luck, but it was so fun!
True Strike has a minor use. Cast it on a turn when you have the frightened condition, and thus have disadvantage. Advantage from true strike offsets disadvantage from fear, returning you to a normal attack roll.
If you're frightened, you can't move towards the guy. True Strike has a range of 30 feet. Do the maths. Really, you're better off trying to get advantage any other way.
After hearing these balanced points with no sarcasm in them...
I just update my list of home brewed spells and made some changes. Weird now adds frightened and confusion on failed save, frightened on success, and lasts an hour. That might not be enough...
I love your humor. Drier than the ground after I transform the mud to rock.
Best video yet....very informative and Funny. Perfect video upload for a Friday
There is one use for Prismatic Spray and Mordenkainen Sword:
If you are playing a Scribe and if you're faced with a Necrotic-immune enemy, then you can change the damage type of Finger of death.
I was patiently waiting for True Strike and Treeantmonk did not disappoint.
The use for true strike is situations where you're having a conversation with a potential enemy. It only has a somatic component (pointing) so it is impolite, but not overtly hostile. If the negotiations fail, you get advantage on your first attack. If they don't, no harm done, no spell slot used.
One of my players actually found a good use for true strike: Once my players were fighting an earth creature that kept out of reach by earth gliding, surfacing to attack occasionally, and then burrowing for a random number of rounds before repeating. That way no one could ready action their spells, because they would be wasted if the elemental didn't show in time. So the (college of lore) bard kept preparing true strike while the other players readied grapples. After a successful grapple she hit it with Contagion (thanks to the advantage, no less!) to make it poisoned for disadvantage on escaping the grapple.
Brilliant! Not circumstantial at all!
Just cast Immolation on one of your party members, and then have them run into the magical darkness. Easy.
I actually like Prismatic Spray... on enemy wizards. It's flashy, it's iconic, it's random... all without being as deadly as an upcast Fireball.
I have had DMs make Legend Lore basically mandatory for quest progression purposes. They really liked it, gave enough information to be a reliable description for Legend Lore... Thankfully it's on the Cleric list so we just had to rest before it could be prepared.
Embarrassingly... when Princes of the Apocalypse had just come out, we were almost TPK'ed by the Dust Devil spell. Low level, couple earth cult "Monks," and a narrow corridor. The monks called forth small dirt elementals before us and them, blocking off the tunnel... And none of us knew that they weren't actually small elementals (summoning allies like that made total sense). We ended up taking a TON of damage from a couple Dust Devil spells.
Just set your party members on fire. Easy
It's better than some of the plans I've seen players come up with.
soooooo... Thing about Immolation, its its ONLY Verbal, no somatic, no material. Meaning when the guard comes up to gloat over you while your gears in another room and you're tied to a chair, you CAN cast Immolation on him and get the keys off his ash'd corpse. Circumstantial yes, but not without some other use I didn't see mentioned. Yeah, there are probably other options that still fit that bill, but its worth mentioning when comparing directly to something like Fireball.
From time to time I look for edge cases for true strike. And occasionally I'll find something that's better than not acting. Like if you're a melee character, don't have range options, maybe your javellins were stolen, not a caster, maybe just a one level dip or magic initiate so no other use of concentration, and due to positioning can get in 30 foot range but not melee range.
Feels like the number of situations it's worth casting might be higher than zero?
But...then I actually sit down to make a character, look at how many fantastic cantrips there are, and notice that I can only pick 3 of them, and all thoughts of finding edge cases for True Strike vanish.
I wish dust devil would do damage and the effect when summoned and when pushed into creatures like flank sphere... it would almost be ok at that point ...
I have thought of a very limited case where True Strike might be handy.... If the caster is hidden too far from the enemies to affect them and the barbarian was goading them in so that, when in range, the caster could make a spell attack with advantage on it.... Of course, that would probably only happen at a 5yr olds birthday party to drop a surprise on them, but it COULD be handy.
I think the reason why they made high level spells so bad is either flavor (power word kill for the vision of a wizard killing swarm of low level soldiers) or to encourage wizard to upcast burning hands.
I have to give a dishonorable mention to Witch Bolt only because this is a Trap for so many new players. They read the spell, have images of being like Emperor Palpatine, only to find out the spell is garbage.
Legend Lore seems to be an outlier in this list. Sure, if you go to an adventurer's league game or an online one shot with no session 0 or any kind of game that implies the DM is not going to talk to you in detail about the things your character could do before game, you're probably not going to get anything out of Legend Lore. As always, if you talk to your DM about wanting to use the spell before doing it it can probably add a lot to almost any game that is not solely focused on combat.
The rest of the spells are unequivocally bad at any table
I agree Enervate is generally horrible, but I have learned it as a Wizard before and prepared it if I thought I might get wounded while being able to lockdown an enemy who can't get away. I picture a Force Cage (cage version) or anything that might restrain a creature, followed up with Enervate to sap their life away. Again, I know it's not amazing, but I told another player how I pictured it and their reaction to how dark it was is good enough for me to want to achieve it. Your list is very accurate, though. I can't deny that!
I wasn't surprised to see Immolation and Enervation no the list, but I was surprised to see that neither were included in your old 5th level spell variants. I am working on tweaks to the weaker 5e spells, but was interested to see what you would do for each of these.
Power Word Pain has a small, niche use ... if your DM likes using spell casters as a BBEG who then GTFOs before the party finishes him off, this can prevent that. Yes, there are likely better options, but if I was playing a wizard and could cycle this in prior to a known throw down with that type of DM, I might consider it.
"Yes, there are likely better options..."
Entangle is a 1st-level spell.
@@naddarr1 If you want to stop a wizard from fleeing, you'd probably be better off upcasting Sleep at 7th level.
I think legend lore can be a decent spell although extremely situational. It’s on the cleric list and they don’t need to commit any resources to prepare it for a day in downtime unlike a wizard/bard adding it to their list. At the level you get it, the components shouldn’t be much of a deterrence either.
The cleric in the campaign i DM has used it several times to learn backstory about items and the relic that he’s trying to assemble. It’s been a good way for him to get more lore about the world. This is one of the parts of the game that he enjoys and the spell has been a good way to further this aspect of the game. That being said you definitely need a DM who isn’t going to troll you with something cryptic or worthless.
I think the spell has the potential to do what it was intended to do and isn’t clearly outclassed by something similar like most of the combat/adventuring spells listed. So I don’t think it’s a great spell but I’ve seen it used with good effect unlike any of the other spells on the list.
Same I've seen it used to good effect a few times. Legend Lore is a great spell for half a dozen situations during a campaign.
Legend Lore is in that category of what I call "NPC Spells". Need some non-magical artifact identified so you know where to bring it as a sidequest? Pay the NPC wizard to cast Legend Lore on it and see what it gives you. As a player, you won't need it often - but an NPC knowledge-broker, heck yes.
There's a few spells like that, which I wish were in the DMG rather than the Player's Handbook.
Good video. I prefer to call Find Traps by names like 'Cause Paranoia, Range Self'.
Technically existent use cases for True Strike:
1. Elven paladin with Elven Accuracy, if you could somehow also get this spell. You give yourself a high crit chance, which has a decent chance of letting you spend 1 smite for 2 smites worth of damage. Of course, as a paladin, you're probably already concentrating on Divine Favour or Crusader's Mantle…
2. You're a melee rogue. A strict DM won't let you attack in melee with the advantage from hiding because you'll have to break stealth to approach the target. This gives you a way to have advantage anyway.
3. You're a melee combatant and can't reach the target this turn. Of course, you'd also have to not need your concentration for anything else… so this is useless to a hexblade.
My bro made a frost themed wizard and basically used frost fingers just to freeze ponds and creeks so that the party could cross. Never did any damage with it and only used it for freezing effect deep into the game when he had lots of low level spell slots to toss around
True strike makes me feel like Can -Trip was supposed to be spelled Can - Trap.
Got'em
I'd homebrew weird to 300ft radius, concentration, 10 minute duration, everyone that you don't specify to not be affected has to make a wisdom saving throw every turn or be frightened.
When frightened they get a saving throw each turn.
Succeeding on the save deals 4d10 psychic damage.
They also get advantage on the throw to resist the spell each turn in the radius.
Contagion isn’t even in the honorable mentions?!? Man that spell is SUCH a trap
It got buffed in errata, it now poisons until either the target succeeds or failed all three saves. It's *at least* three turns of the target being poisoned, without Concentration, and poisoned is a very powerful condition. Contagion is now a pretty viable spell.
Auto poisoned condition until you make 3 saves isn't that bad.
*Very* minor defence for Searing Smite: Zariel Tieflings get it as a racial spell, automatically upcast to 2nd level. So if you're a ZT melee Fighter or Rogue then you can use it to get a small damage bump once a day without worrying about having better options (unless you're an EK/AT, or need your Bonus Action for something else).
As far as Searing Smite goes, there is one caveat: Trolls, Hydras, and other creatures with regeneration halted by fire damage. Against foes such as these, it doesn't matter how *much* Fire damage you do, just that you do some. That and it's the only smite spell you can upcast, so on a multiclass build it can work out if you have higher level slots to burn on it.
Ways True Strike can be good
1. If you really DO have something that valuable that you need to spend a turn to make sure it lands. Say you're upcasting an Acid Arrow SPECIFICALLY. Might save a spell slot, though who knows why you're doing that. Or let's say you have a magic javelin that can be great if it hits, but if you miss it's gone. That would be more for Eldritch Knights.
2. As a sneaky advantage in plain sight. Take a look at the requirements for the spell. It's just pointing. If you just point at somebody, it's not particularly obvious that you're casting a spell at them or doing much anything at all for that matter. But you know if the conversation turns south you will have advantage on hitting them. You can keep casting it every round until the fight begins and nobody will really notice. Again, mostly useful for an Eldritch Knight, an Arcane Trickster, or a Hexblade, but not useless.
3. As a less sneaky advantage in a conversation. Say someone knows you're casting a spell on them. But they can't ask anybody for help, since you have the benefit of the doubt. You were just pointing at them, that's all. You've effectively got someone at gunpoint out in the open. Again, that is if you have something to follow it up with.
4. If you take a liberal interpretation of what's written. Read it again. "Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target’s defenses." What does that mean to you? It could just be flavor text to explain why you get advantage, but let's say it means more. You cast this on a creature, you learn something about it's stat block, it's vulnerabilities, it's hit points, it's saves. It can't be a lot, it is a brief insight, but it could be something. If it's something + advantage, it's more of a tactical choice.
"make sure you include your address so I can come and slap you" = LOLLING 😂😂😂
Absolutely love the sarcasm and sass in this video 😂
I’ve actually found a possible use for Searing Smite. It was added to the ranger list with Tasha’s. It’s also a self targeting spell, which means it’s eligible for Beastmaster Shared Spells. Normally, if you’re looking at spending a BA, concentration, and slot on damage, it’d be better to use another spell, but the twinning changes that. For example, steel wind strike doesn’t target you so you can’t double it as a Beastmaster. Lightning Arrow deals more damage and scales better than SS for a single ranger, but that triggers off of a ranged weapon attack so even though you can twin it, it won’t do anything on your pet. Ensnaring Strike only deals damage at the end of a creature’s turn that is ensnared by the spell and because a creature can only be affected by one copy of any single spell at a time, you can’t double up the damage this way on a single target. Good for restraining and hurting two targets simultaneously though!
Anyway, at lvl15, you can cast as a bonus action a 4th level Searing Smite on yourself, and then use your attack action to attack once while your beast attacks twice for a combined additional damage of 8d6 fire damage on top of your normal weapon damage (we’ll assume STRanger with a GS and GWM to compare directly to other top melee damage builds) of 2d6 + 15 + 2x(1d8 + 7).
That’s pretty good for spike damage. Especially since you can do it twice at this level, and then cast it at third level for 6d6 “smites”. Speaking of smites; the temptation might be to continue in ranger, but if we go into Paladin we can continue our spell progression anyway, and we’ll also get actual smites at lvl17, meaning we can now “smite” for 10d6 + 5d8 4th lvl smite on top of all the weapon damage. Pretty good, pretty good....but how far are we going to go into Paladin? Another level gets us Vengence, so with a turn of setup we can give ourselves advantage on all of our attacks, making our smites that much more likely to land immediately. Then it doesn’t seem to matter where we’ll go from there, both Paladin 4 and ranger 16 are ASI levels, right? We’re gonna get them both at levels 19 and 20?
No.
We’re going Paladin 5.
“What!?!” I hear you say. “Never go five levels in two martial classes!”
Ah, but Extra Attack isn’t all that Paladins get at level 5. They also get Find Steed. Which inherently lets you copy self-spells onto it as well.
So at level 20, your 5th level Searing Smite will deliver a total bonus damage of **15d6** on top of all of your other damage (provided you charge into battle on top of a CR 1/2 horse, lol), and you’re combining that with a 4th level smite for 5d8, for a grand total including all basic weapon damage of an average alpha strike on a single target of 52.5 + 22.5 + 22 + 23 + 11 = 131 damage using a fifth and fourth level slot and no magic items.
Plus 1d6 per round until they pass the CON save, ofc.
Meanwhile the wizard just casts a 9th level Meteor Swarm, a similarly throttled resource at this level, to deal 140 average damage to everything on the map....and the Samurai Fighter action surges for 9 greatsword attacks (7 at advantage) for 9x(2d6 + 15) = 198 damage, and he can do that a couple of times in one combat, and similar numbers at range, and his damage is boosted more relatively speaking by magic weapons.
Oh and the basic vengeance Paladin who Hasted himself (and his Greater Steed) and used his lvl20 aura is frightening everyone in a 30’ radius, getting reaction attacks on everyone who flees or tries to attack, and dealing (assuming he can get one bonus action attack from GWM per turn from a crit or kill on one of his “normal” three attacks at advantage per turn) 4x(2d6 + 15 + 1d8) + Nx5d8 (where N is the number of 4th or 5th level slots he wants to drop on a target in one turn, up to four) + (1d8 + 4 + 2x(2d6+4)) = anywhere from 136.5 to 226.5. And the 136.5 is **repeatable**.
Ok, so it’s not great damage. And actually, any Beastmaster could just cast Guardian of Nature on themselves, get advantage on all their attacks, and give them and their pets an additional 1d6 per hit, meaning the two of them deal 2x(3d6+15) + 2x(1d8 + 1d6 + 8) = 83 damage repeatedly after the first turn with no additional resources.
So I guess what I’m saying is this was a huge waste of time and only useful if you absolutely must use a Beastmaster in melee to deliver the biggest single turn of damage they can possibly do.
Another major flaw of Find Trap is that, despite its range being 120 feet, the trap you're trying to find via the spell must be "in line of sight". This means two things:
1- If you cast Find Traps in dungeons, which are usually segmented into rooms and are also probably where parties encounter traps most often, the spell can only tell you about traps *one room at a time.* It'd be like you're a bird watcher and every time you wanna look at a different bird, you smash your binoculars and bring out a new pair.
2- If a trap must be in line of sight to be revealed by Find Traps, why not just try to, I dunno, find it? With your eyes and ears?
Weird is such a bad spell i managed to convince five out of five people that it was a homebrew spell i created and we'd argue if it's a fifth or fourth level spell and mostly ended up agreeing on fourth level
Smart 5 people.
Man did they do my boi Prismatic Spray dirty in this edition.
Compare the effects in D&D 3,5.
1: 20 fire damage (reflex half)
2: 40 acid damage (reflex half)
3: 80 electric damage (reflex half)
4: Poison (fortitude or die, success still reduces your con by 1d6)
5: Turned to stone (fortitude negates)
6: Creature is driven insane (permanently confused) (Will negates)
7: Sent to another plane (Will negates)
8: Roll twice and discard any "8" results
Oh and every creature in the cone that has 8 or fewer hd (basically level 8 or less) is blinded for 2d4 rounds as well with no save.
This spell is actually pretty good in 3,5 edition.
Frost fingers could be great if the targets are walking through water or swimming since it freezes the water in the area. It could create a bridge over any liquid like a pool of acid, or even lava.
I have genuinely found a use for True Strike. Now this is so situational that it's never going to come up in a normal game, but here it is, the one case where True Strike is genuinely helpful.
So this is an RP heavy campaign and K decided to play a blind character to really challenge myself. He is a wizard, with the entertainer background. Now I figured his acts would naturally be performing feats of skill and accuracy while blindfolded.
One if his acts is knife throwing. Something that being blind would normally give him disadvantage on, but thanks to True Strike he makes those with a straight roll.
Here is why it works for this character:
He is blind, so already have a disadvantage on all attack rolls. This also means that a lot of spells doesn't work for him as you need to be able to see your target to cast them. True Strike does not work like that, it only says you have to point at a target within range, nothing about being able to see it. Also since it is a stationary target, even the blind guy can point at it reliably.
He is performing a circus act, so it is out of combat and therefore no Action Economy to worry about. Sure he can't muck around too much, but taking a few seconds to aim carefully when throwing knives blindfolded seems reasonable.
Lastly throwing knives is arguably a performance skill, but it is also arguably a thrown weapon attack, hence True Strike can give you advantage.
Advantage cancels out disadvantage, which leads to a straight roll.
Let's be honest, the few times that character has been in combat he just throws twice at disadvantage instead of using True Strike, but on stage, it's neat.
That is how specific a circumstance has to be for True Strike to be useful, it's not in 99,9% of cases, so don't even try to get it to work, just smile and accept the bonus if it happens to come in handy for one weird character.
Doesn't help that True Strike is probably the only offensive cantrip that doesn't scale with level or ASI. It is useless at level 1, it is even worse after level 5 when you are trading 2 attacks for advantage on a single attack.
I've got a genuine use case for True Strike: If the attack you're making can only be made once. Say you're fighting the BBEG and you've got one arrow of BBEG slaying - you want to have advantage on the attack roll when you use it on round 2 more than you want to make a second attack action on round 2, so you cast True Strike on round one.
Now, you could gain advantage some other way, like by gaining invisibility or being sneaky, and a party member who can cast True Strike should probably not be also the best archer in the party, so this is even still extremely niche and doesn't rescue True Strike in any way, but there you go. A valid situation when casting True Strike might be better than attacking twice.