Conjure Woodland Beings is a PROBLEM in D&D 5.24 2024 Player's Handbook

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Correction: I say in this video that Spirit Guardians worked this way in BG3. I've been corrected that SG in BG3 only allowed the damage once per round. Maybe that's the fix?

[@neilm838]

Seems the best from a balance point of view. I don't like that speeds can get so ridiculous as well, I reckon there should be a cap of some sort too. I am also no a fan of holding action movement but I would rule that you would need that movement left over from your turn to use it.

[@twiddlebit]

I was thinking of changing it so emanation spells can only do damage once on your turn and once when then enemy ends their turn in it. Maybe even saying they take damage when the spell is cast/at the start of your turn to discourage exploiting high movement to do lots of damage, but that might be too much fiddling with the spell

[@hunterleigh7616]

I think this has to be the starting place for the fix for the same reason you assumed it was wrong in the first place, because that's how people expect it to work based on BG3 (and intuitive balance). I think this is so obviously the solution you should cut a little insert where you correct yourself in the taped version and an addendum to the end as well. Redoing the video is probably too much work.

[@Spacemonkey-r5y]

That's actually not quite correct. Spirit Guardians can damage the same creature twice in a round in BG3- but only if the creature enters the area on their own turn. I've tested this pretty extensively, and it definitely works. The way that Spirit Guardians works in BG3 is that once a creature enters the aura or the aura enters its space, it can't take damage the same way until the start of its next turn. However, creatures that enter the aura on their own turns will also take damage when the creature that controls the aura starts their own turn. What this means is that forced movement won't cause a target to take Spirit Guardians damage twice, but a creature that uses its own movement to enter the aura will be damaged twice- though never more than twice per round. What this means in practice is that positioning and predicting how creatures will move is critical in using Spirit Guardians to the fullest, and its also a lot more effective against melee enemies, since they're much more likely to try to enter the aura to attack.

[@jonathanpickles2946]

@@neilm838 Possibly it could be controlled by very specific triggers & routes & it should be there if you can ready anything but it is sure problematic

[@brannenpfister2579]

BG3 “fixed” the issue by only allowing damage from one source happen once per round. Didn’t matter how many other sources of it. 4 clerics all casting spirit guardians and still a monster would only take 1 instance of damage. My fix, and what my table has really grown to like, is that a hostile can take the damage once on your turn, and once off your turn. This still allows your players to feel tactical like they are squeezing efficiency out of their game, while preventing it from being broken.

[@oginme716]

While not playing this, I have had several of my players raise the question as we look to start campaigns with 5.24. I have interpreted the rule that the creature can take damage once per round on the druid's turn and another time if the creature willingly moves into the range of the spell effect.

[@TheEliteJohan]

For area spells I think just on your turn (or just on theirs, since some effects don't have a turn) works tbh. Shoving will still be good to corral enemies into the area, you just won't be arbitrarily rewarded for taking them out and in again. Grapple/shove are still good, these synergies (even if they're not completely busted) make them a bit polarising and hard to balance imo.

[@FriendlyOne_]

This is the most perfect fix out there for both 5e and 5.5e versions of SG and similar spells

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

Seems like it would be complex to keep track of, I think I'd rule it takes damage only on your and its own turn - yes it does hurt the teamwork a little which is a bit sad, but it is now easy to keep track of - only need to worry about who's turn it is. As the DM I don't want to keep track of which of the horde have been hit by the emanation 'once off your turn' already while you are being treated like a rugbyball...

[@cianomahony6916]

Just do things like range op attacks as held actions on the Druid, they’re bound to fail a con check and then beat the crap out the them 😂 also use evil druids to give it back them them too. Unless it’s fun for dm also I’d change to the old spirit guardians wording

[@mathguydave3699]

Pinball Wizard should be a new patron tier

[@Reepicheep-1]

Gets _Catapult_ as a cantrip.

[@levianderson4439]

At the cost of becoming deaf, dumb, and blind

[@guilha1506]

The idea of an owl Druid flying at the speed of sound and pulverizing everything that crosses its path is extremely funny. Must’ve been fun to watch for the first time

[@TreantmonksTemple]

It was. I should clarify I was completely aware of the strategy beforehand, but like the players, I wanted to see how well it worked unchecked.

[@alexs-roberts5798]

You can also go Giant Owl and have a Cleric hop on your back with Spirit Guardians for extra insanity.

[@john-paulrose1581]

I think my favouret part was when he mentioned the other plays just picking up this owl bayblade to usterlise a spell they would never get themselves.

[@Klaital1]

If you want to nerf those types of spells, just change it so that each of the three different triggers for it (it entering their space, they entering its space, or them ending their turn in it) can happen only once per round. That eliminates the whole grappling and moving them around exploit while still leaving it's core functionately intact.

[@guardiantree8879]

This is a good fix. Better wording than I came up with lol. Logically it makes sense.

[@blackpeoplestorytime802]

I prefer this wording as it still leads to tactical play, while other solutions like 1 per round just seem lazy and boring. As well as make the secondary riders other than damage feel useless

[@znail4675]

Yes, it's fine to take damage twice if both entering the area and ending the turn inside it. The problem lies with entering the area multiple times and taking damage every time.

[@shrootskyi815]

That would fix the balancing issues, but it would be really cumbersome to track. You'd have to manage the three different triggers for each enemy (and each spell if both CWB and SG are used at the same time).

[@guardiantree8879]

@@shrootskyi815The three different triggers don’t overlap though. Player just has to keep track of everyone that contacts their emanation on their turn (which they already were doing) Then on the enemies turn just pay attention to who enters the emanation & or who ends their turn in it for the extra damage.

[@wesslan_]

I do think they probably changed it after seeing how BG3's version is more intuitive to players, but the new version doesn't actually work the same way. It's not just that you can't do as many movement shenanigans in BG3, but that in BG3 Spirit Guardians damage can only be applied once per round per target. Also if you manage to apply damage right before initiative then that prevents damage during the first round. The 2024 version is much more exploitable.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I didn't realize that!

[@Raoul9753]

Only if your DM is a spineless pushover who doesnt dare to say no to his players...

[@notsochosenone5669]

​@@Raoul9753it doesnt matter. It is designer's job, not DM's. Even more - it is a job other designers made for wotc, yet they still failed to replicate it!

[@Raoul9753]

@@notsochosenone5669 Still you are the DM and its your call in the end. Its pretty clear that the damage is supposed to be once per round, its just badly worded, so if your players want to get smart with you and abuse loopholes for spells, its your job to say no.

[@guamae]

​@@Raoul9753yes, any exploit in the book can be fixed by House Rules... But the question remains, "What House Rule do we want to use?" And we also shouldn't let the designers off the hook... This is their job after all.

[@ram3n_goblin]

Well summarized. I'm one of the optimizers who played this one shot with Chris. It's unfortunate that this change wasn't part of the playtest, since many people immediately saw rugby as inevitable. Like spike growth, emanation spells have scaling beyond just the spell level, or the number of grouped up targets. With spike growth, it scales with movement speed. With rugby, it scales with number of allies in initiative. If you think that this takes a lot of teamwork, action economy, or build investment to abuse, you are wrong. And that's why it's so dangerous. Even if you and your party aren't trying to abuse it, it can take over your game. People who love DnD combat want to be challenged and they want variety -- no one will be happy with one strategy being the best available for all of tier 3, regardless of party comp or encounter design.

[@JugglingAddict]

Depending on the build, these shenanigans could start even much earlier (lvl 3 to 5). Of course there are things that can be used to counter these things. In a really quick look there are 2 (both are a bit tacky to use though) ways to counter this to some degree. 1 giving every minion a dispel magic scroll. 2 lots of areas with a combination of anti-magic or the combination of glyph of warding and dispel magic, we could even heap a few more spells on top of this. I'm just glad they aren't combining it with invisibility/greater invisibility and the hide action (I expect a dance bard with magical secrets and a rogue dip to be a complete menace) and god forbid they add blink, 10 ft blindsight feat/bats echolocation and a spell like pyrotechnics to the mix. No one would be able to stop that.

[@ram3n_goblin]

@@JugglingAddict Rugby starts at character level 5, since there aren't any emanation spells of spell level 1 or 2. Forced movement into persistent AoE spells like cloud of daggers or moonbeam is not the same. I playtested a small trickery cleric at level 6 and it was very good, especially with a goat familiar and transposition. If the counterplay to problem spells is to turn off all magic, then that speaks to the depth of the issue. You really don't need a fancy build to exploit these spells. A straight moon druid wild shaped into an owl is a perfect rugby ball -- tiny, fast, and cannot trigger opportunity attacks. If the druid wants to drag a second emanation caster, the giant eagle is a good choice. Invisibility and obscurement is good to avoid enemies with readied actions. Blink is not good with rugby.

[@JugglingAddict]

@@ram3n_goblin The neighbor's neighbor cat is visiting so I'll keep it brief. Yes the fact that there are so few countermeasures and the fact that they need to be this drastic does signal that it's a problem. Indeed the reason I gave lvl 3 was due to spike growth. The whole invisibility, obscurement, bonus action hide, ecolocation/blindsight and blink was me rolling the concept of ''hiding in obscurity'' where you hide inside an obscurement spell and be able to find/attack them while they are almost incapable of finding you into this spell with the idea that it would be even more annoiying when it also does a bunch of emanation damage. (pyrotechnics with the smoke screen option is a very interesting spell for this kind of stuff since it is the only heavy obscurement spell I could find)

[@mpetrov2402]

I agree with you for emanations but for spike growth the change is simple - don't do repeat damage for running back and forth for one grappled enemy. You can do 80 (32x2.5) damage like that if you drag an enemy across the edge of the briar patch per enemy/ per turn.

[@ram3n_goblin]

@@mpetrov2402 I'm kind of the spike growth guy. Treantmonk, Dave, and I did 490 damage to a dragon in one turn with spike growth. Check out TM's other video on spike growth for details. Since the spell wasn't updated in 2024, you just have to have an agreement at the table not to abuse it. It was a super fun strategy for a oneshot, but no one would like to do it for every encounter in a long campaign.

[@sukmaidomo]

"Combat starts when-and only when-you say it does. Some characters have abilities that trigger on an Initiative roll; you, not the players, decide if and when Initiative is rolled. A high-level Barbarian can’t just punch their Paladin friend and roll Initiative to regain expended uses of Rage. In any situation where a character’s actions initiate combat, you can give the acting character Advantage on their Initiative roll. For example, if a conversation with an NPC is cut short because the Sorcerer is convinced that NPC is a doppelganger and targets it with a Chromatic Orb spell, everyone rolls Initiative, and the Sorcerer does so with Advantage. If the doppelganger rolls well, it might still act before the Sorcerer’s spell goes off, reflecting the monster’s ability to anticipate the spell." - From 2024 DMG Ch2 running combat. This doesn't completely solve the situation, but it seems like the druid is getting away with more than you should be allowing them to. I think it would be fair to have the druid roll initiative before any of the creatures take damage.

[@xolotltolox]

Maybe they should have not made the features recharge on initiative then, and instead something like Pathfinder 2e's Refocusing

[@felipercalvo]

They should make it recharge on initiative, and it is that simple, the players are not the ones who decide when initiative gets rolled

[@dwil0311]

That is what I was thinking when I got to that part. If you are dealing damage, then Initiative has already been rolled.

[@ilovethelegend]

I'd also like to point out that the ready action requires the trigger to be something perceivable; "The start of a creature's turn" is NOT perceivable. And, since reactions go off AFTER their trigger, that means that "The druid wins initiative and gets to move again before anyone can do anything else" isn't actually a thing that happens RAW. And for the rugby strat, unless the other players have a way to disengage as a bonus action, they're also taking AoOs like crazy for that, since they used their action to Attack. Finally, we also still don't know what the '24 monster manual looks like. Ya know what would hard-stop something like this? Any Monster that gets to hit something as it _enters_ their threat range. Any monster that has an emanation that works the same way. Any monster that has any way to punish a creature for moving near it that isn't an opportunity attack. Any monster that has access to spells and is intelligent or worldly enough to have experienced or thought of the strat previously. Any creature with a strong ranged attack. Like... ANY strat looks strong if you're using it against creatures that don't have the tools to effectively counter it.

[@elekbuday81]

​@ilovethelegend yeah, turns out breaking thr game is easy when you ignore some of the rules. Is the rugby strategy still problematic in general? Yeah, probably. But this specific circumstance just doesn't work RAW.

[@KurnazTilki-g7c]

The min maxer who is in charge of the conjure spell at WOTC : 😏

[@xdecatron2985]

Boy am I glad they changed the “Conjure” spells to be more table friendly. It really balances out the three tiers of Roleplay, Exploration, and Massacre.

[@johngeralt]

yeah i would rather deal with 4 flying T-rex than this shit.

[@xdecatron2985]

@@johngeralt Lol, yeah, remember when Conjure Woodland Beings turned your party into a meme when it switched the game to Easy Mode?

[@theearshine8110]

Really loved this reasonable argument. If WotC hasn't reached out to you to get some partnership, they should

[@SortKaffe]

Honestly, they could have handed the draft to any optimizer and asked them how bad they could break it. Chris is just particularly good at communicating and is able to share actual experience from playtesting a lot with his Patreons 😎

[@garion046]

​@SortKaffe Yeah, I feel many people saw this coming. But Chris has a lot better playtest data than most, and he can usually pick the exact point where the problem exists and suggest a reasonable solution.

[@TheRekabNivek]

Genuinely disappointed that they don't. Clearly they need to expand their internal playtesting team. This is a clear indication that they did not pick anyone on that team that would try to break their game, which is a huge mistake. I get their focus might be making a game for your average player, but you should have a playtest group internally for all types of games/players

[@Magnushamann]

This is exactly the reason I have added to my own game that no ongoing effect can damage a creature more than once between that creature's turn

[@vitaly2422]

This is one of those videos that reminds me why Dispel Magic is the most common spell I add to monster stat blocks lol

[@trytoo5167]

They would not even have a turn to use it.

[@michaellavy4482]

I suspect a main reason behind the mechanics change was to make it more intuitive for non-optimizers. The fact that they needed a Sage Advice to clarify the old mechanics implies that lots of people were confused with the old rules. If you don’t build around “double dipping” on the damage, this new rule is probably easier for the table since the player will usually deliver the damage on their turn instead of having to interject at the start of the enemy’s turn.

[@scotttaylor1479]

The once per ROUND change seems to be the easiest solution, but I would include the caveat that it can trigger again if an enemy ends its turn in the emanation. I don’t think it is broken if it goes off twice IF the enemy decides not to move and you loose the incentive for enemies to run away if it’s once per ROUND (as it’s safer just to camp in the emanation if they already took the damage in players turn).

[@guardiantree8879]

Yep, I agree. They take damage once per round when in the emanation & if they enter it or end their turn in it on their turn.

[@roblake666]

I think it is meant to be a once per round as the save is only once per turn. This would do away with the Fighter and the Monk playing catch football with the Druid to deal damage.

[@erikhanson9391]

I was one of the play-testers for Kobold Press's Tome of Heroes and they included all of the spells. I focused most of my feedback in that area and thanks largely to what I'd learned from your spell evaluations I was able to make many (IMHO) useful recommendations. In most cases this was to temper overpowered spells and almost every suggestion was included in the final rules - to my surprise some verbatim. WotC made a BIG mistake by not play-testing spell changes. Honestly, I don't know why they don't just hire you outright as a consultant!

[@daviddalrymple2284]

The team is smart enough to know how playtesting works, but it's clear that Hasbro didn't give them the resources to do it right. Comparing the playtest process for Xanathar's Guide in 2017 to the 2024 PHB, it really is day and night. With Xanathar's, the final book incorporated lots of feedback from surveys and social media. Looking at the finished book, I could see 3 or 4 changes that I (and presumably hundreds of others) had suggested in the surveys. Xanathar's wasn't perfect, and it did have a few things that needed to be errata'd almost immediately, but those problems didn't come from ignoring feedback. "Healing Spirit" was one of the few spells in the book that didn't appear in Unearthed Arcana first, and the magic arrow requirement for the Arcane Archer was an unfortunate typographical error. You could visibly see that the playtest process was working. But with the 2024 PHB, everything seems to have been a strictly "yay or nay" proposition. Low-scoring options (Brawlers, Manimals, and uniform subclass progression) were unceremoniously tossed aside. And well-scoring options (like the conjure emanation spells) came in warts and all. Comparing the UA with the final 2024 PHB, there doesn't seem to be the kind of granular, point-by-point refinement that you can see when you compare the Xanathar's UA to the final book.

[@nm2358]

The Emanation recap is hilarious, this owl is hasted and killing everything by flying by enemies.

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

If turning all the Conjuration spells into spirit guardians isn't working out then the obvious solution is to use the 2014 conjure spells and just make the changes WotC should have done after they saw them work so well during an Acq. Inc. stage game at PAX. 1. Limit the number of creatures that can be summoned with the old spells. Either one summon of the highest CR possible or a number of appropriate CR creatures equal to the number of players in the game. 2. The caster needs to have the stat blocks ready to go beforehand. 3. Summons can't cast leveled spells. 4. All summons go at the end of the turn order on the same turn. Each player is given control of one of the summon's attacks. The summons target the enemy chosen by the caster and automatically use their movement to close with the target. Mike Krahulik ran a PUBG inspired D&D game at PAX. Among his players, Morgan Webb played a pre Tasha's Ranger in a game where Mike didn't even bother looking at or incorporating any of the ranger's travel/terrain features. Webb's ranger was the MVP of the game because she cast conjure animals twice. The first time, she summoned 4 crocodiles, so each player got a mount to cross a lake. The second casting gave each player a panther to swarm the Boss and give each player an "everyone smack the Boss" round at the end of turn order. These are simple changes to make, rule out the "I summon 8 vipers to spam the poison condition" or "8 pixies to polymorph all of us into T-Rexs" trick, and they make what was one player doing too many attacks into the whole party getting bonus attacks they can all enjoy. Giving every caster class spirit guardians is as detrimental to the game as giving every class fireball. I'll give ranger "arrow based super moves" that boil down to piercing damage versions of fireball and cone of cold, but that's just because I hate Hunter's Mark so damn much.

[@starsnoireart]

Thank you for this. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I’ve been so upset that their solution to the conjure spells was to make them generic as possible instead of trying other things, like limiting the number of creatures, or letting you summon stronger creatures instead of summoning 32 of them.

[@danieltush7792]

I think a lot of people will think this is a cop-out, but the paragraph in the new DMG about "Rules rely on good-faith interpretations" is enough for me. Otherwise, what's to stop the bad guys from using to wipe out the PCs the next time they camp? "Heroes slain in their sleep--nothing to be done" reads the broadsheet in their hometown ;)

[@riccardomicciche6418]

I commented the exact same thing above and then found this. I agree wholeheartedly. Optimizing isn't the same as mindlessly abiding to RAW rules without any sort of critical thinking process. As a player, I wouldn't ever think this is a justifiable and enjoyable way to play the game, regardless of how into optimizing I am, and accordingly as a DM I would say to the player it isn't a reasonable approach to combat.

[@bradleyhurley6755]

​@@riccardomicciche6418I wouldn't find it an enjoyable way to play the game, but I also think it is how you are supposed to use the spell. Like if you can think critically at all, you are going to turn into an owl and useflyby to hit more targets. I think the biggest issue is WotC changes things without thinking about it. The owl thing isnt an issue with the old wild shape rules because an owl would have too few hit points. But idk how the designers of a game couldn't figure out that you would turn into an owl and fly around the battlefield.

[@josequiles7430]

The issue has more to do with balance than rule interpretations imo

[@dwil0311]

@@josequiles7430No, its rules interpretations. Mainly not rolling initiative before any of this. And then given that, most of those enemies should have held attacks actions (not opportunity attacks) that they can do.

[@danieltush7792]

It's probably both, rules interpretation and balance in some combination. But good faith usage of any of it helps, I think. Not everyone will, or has to, agree with me.

[@schmickstien1177]

In the Pinball section of your video, I noticed something off about the emanation that commonly happens in Roll20. The emanation has a 25ft diameter (notice how the emanation is stretched across five 5ft tiles), thus having a 12.5ft radius, contrary to the spell description. This is because Roll20 begins measuring the radius of an aura from the edge of your token instead the center of your token, effectively adding the token's radius to the aura's radius. It's not a bad mistake, but instead a programming compromise, as it keeps the behavior of auras consistent across tokens of different sizes. In order for emanations to have an accurate radius (in most cases), you may consider subtracting the token's radius from the aura. So in the case of Spirit Guardian, an aura of 12.5ft will actually have a 15ft radius in accordance with the spell's description.

[@DRuckle]

This is how I house rule these spells: you can only take damage from a spell once per ROUND, instead of turn. Works with Spike Growth cheese grater as well when you consider each square is a source of damage.

[@Aldaking444]

I might further limit to on your turn. It makes these spells much easier to track.

[@RandomToon1]

Basically came here to say this - cap it to round instead of turn. Same thing with Spike Growth. I do understand the tracking aspect too - but you have to draw the line somewhere. Some things will just suck sometimes.

[@andybaxter4442]

I conceptualize a Round in DND as being six seconds where a bunch of things are happening more-or-less simultaneously. So, by default, a given effect can only happen to you once in that time frame. There may be exceptions if something interesting is happening (I'll give the players an extra hit if they are doing something interesting), but it mostly makes sense that things hit once per round. I view the "when it enters" and "at the start of its turn" as just doubling the number of circumstances where the enemy may be subjected to the effect. I also don't think it would be fair to hit players twice in a Round with the same AOE, so same concept of fairness applies to the monsters.

[@pederw4900]

I think maybe once on the casters turn and once on the targets turn would be fair enough too

[@mogalixir]

This is fine, I think I'd still prefer to revert the wording on the spells to match 2014 Spirit Guardians to keep the synergy parts. It would also fix the 'glitch' where they make CWB +1d8 damage in exchange for a smaller radius - the radius would actually matter.

[@danielhusnik9059]

@TreantmonksTemple You can only force the creature to make the save once per turn. If you want to fly around the creatures on your turn and then land far away as an owl and then ready an action to do it all again only this time trigger the save I guess that's up to you. They only make the forced save once per your turn. Just because you delayed doesn't mean you can suddenly trigger the save more than once per creature. Seems easy enough to understand to me as written. This is how our table reads it.

[@Tryptyophan]

My table looked at these and immediately decided they should be once per round. Seemed like an easy fix and they are still perfectly good spells.

[@joshuatran6526]

There is an existing spell that works like this: Ashardalon’s stride. It has a 5 foot emanation and only deals 1d6 as a 3rd level spell. That’s how much it had to be cut down to be considered “fair”.

[@clarkside4493]

This is definitely something that'll get patched later. That said, dungeons, just in general, need more traps. The traps don't even have to break concentration, their presence alone would at least keep you from zipping through corridors like a madman. Granted, you'll have to take flying PCs into account with your traps, but that's fine, we need to get better at that anyway.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Get out of my brain!

[@CJWproductions]

Ah yes, the dungeon trap that catches owls

[@daviddalrymple2284]

@@CJWproductions DEFCON Owl Traps: Kills Owls Dead.

[@clarkside4493]

@@CJWproductions In a world with Stirges as a low-level threat, I'm surprised there AREN'T more traps to deal with flying creatures.

[@andrewshandle]

Unsprung Traps all over a temple that has dozens of creatures walking around it and living in it doesn't really work from a world building perspective. Just make a super easy fix to the broken spells. Designing unrealistic work arounds rather than fixing the real problem will always make things feel broken.

[@Snockooz]

15th level beast master ranger will love this. Beast of the sky, shared spells, and Shillelagh.

[@SacredBobCMB]

17:51 I feel like a big part of the the problem here is that you allowed the Druid to get a free extra turn of damage at the start of most combats, when that’s not how Surprise is supposed to work anymore. Also, the whole “Ready an action to do my turn again when it’s not my turn, but before any enemies get to act” thing is pretty big cheese, which I don’t think will fly at many tables. It’s just not what the Ready action is meant to represent.

[@CJWproductions]

You move into a room. You roll initiative. 2 guys go into the initiative order before you, 3 guys go into the initiative order after you. You proceed with the rest of your turn, because it's still your turn. No additional surprise round needed -- they still don't get to react to you until it's their turn, by which time they may very well be dead. Ready costs your action, so you'd almost never use it to "double up" like this. The only time you would is when you're triggering something that can only trigger once on a turn. This, and Sneak Attack, are the preeminent ones, and the latter ONLY works if you have Haste (or I guess if you have a bonus action attack with a finesse or ranged weapon that doesn't require an action attack to set up, but I don't know of any. War Domain Cleric, maybe?).

[@tendracalrissian8820]

​@@CJWproductionsThere's a problem with your first paragraph. In Chris' example, the Druid was moving around the dungeon outside of combat. As soon as any enemy saw the Druid, Initiative should have been rolled. If Chris had ruled that the Druid qualified for Surprise, the enemies would have rolled with disadvantage, but Initiative would still be rolled immediately. Now if the Duid, as per your example, had rolled third in the turn order, then the Druid would not be permitted to do anything, except take a reaction, until the beginnig of his turn, as he must abide by the turn order rolled. If he had rolled first, then he would be permitted to finish his movement. If, however, any other enemy sees the Druid, then they too would roll initiative and enter the turn order. This is where it gets a bit odd, and a DM ruling would be needed, as it is still technically the Druid's turn, and they would be permitted to continue their turn. I might rule, in such a case as Chris presented, where the Druid moved down the left hallway into a new room full of enemies, that the Druid has effectively withdrawn from the first combat, and that any new initiative rolls made by the new set of enemies also require the Druid to roll initiative for this new combat, and the enemies of that first combat are free to move or Dash during the rounds of this new combat. If they happen to join this new combat, they would be slotted into the new turn order according to their initial initiative order. This second paragraph isn't really covered by the Initiative rules or the turn order rules, and, as I said, would require a DM to make a ruling about this interaction.

[@garethhamilton1252]

This is the reason I subscribe to this channel! As someone who hates optimising it is for videos like this. Now I am forewarned as to possible abuse and can end it before it begins. My first thought is to rule a creature can only be affected by each emanation once per round.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

This guy gets it

[@FriendlyOne_]

I'll keep saying this, I'd rather have cleric standing ominously with spirit guardians active rather than cleric cartoonishly running around the battlefield

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Agreed

[@Jordan-kq3qw]

[He]'s just standing there, MENACINGLY.

[@michaelpenner6053]

"Whenever the Emanation enters the space of a creature you can see ON YOUR TURN, and whenever a creature you can see enters the Emanation or ends its turn there, you can force that creature to make a Wisdom saving throw." That's my fix. Keeps the old power of forced movement to knock things into an AoE, and the new intuitive ability to move it onto enemies, but stops you abusing that. Still punishes things for staying until the end of their turn.

[@snakept69]

My version is sligtly changed to include: "Once a creature takes this damage it cannot do so again until the end of it's next turn". I use this on alll ongoing spells. I also cap Sike Growth at 16d4 (max damage for cossing entire area). To compensate I do increase the damage to 3d4 if the target is prone, same Max. No more cheese. If speed is a problem simply had a Acrobatics Check to fly those tight corners as an Bird (birds don't fly indoors for a reason, they contantly hit walls). Fail means fall damage equal to half their speed, or their speed, whichever you preffer.

[@Klaital1]

It makes sense that it does slightly more damage than spirit guardians since it's higher level spell, has smaller area, and doesn't slow enemies in it which makes it lot easier for the enemies to manuever around it.

[@mogalixir]

Yeah. But the whole point is that the radius doesn't matter that much anymore because you just have to move to do damage - your arguments would make sense if it read exactly like old Spirit Guardians.

[@Klaital1]

@@mogalixir It still matters because you have to spend lot more movement to get same amount of spread out enemies into the aura on your turn than you do with 15ft radius.

[@Matanlimer]

Eh, in a world where those spells work without these pinball strats it makes sense. The point of the video is that those spells are so broken that the existing balancing factors don't matter. ​@@mogalixir

[@RulesLawyerDnD]

This is why im going to homebrew that rule as once per turn unless they end their turn inside in. - ive been thinking about doing this video for a while now but got to busy with getting my kids in school. - thanks for the video. I hope wizards see this and then fix it.

[@rpgguyi8076]

We played with once per round per enemy and also I disagree on the open the door take damage immediately free turn thing, You can't do free combat damage before combat, initiative is rolled as soon as the door opens before damage even if that stops the druid at the door with the emanation on the creature.

[@CJWproductions]

Sure, but the monsters can't interrupt a turn that's already in progress. They have to wait their turn.

[@bradleyhurley6755]

​​@@CJWproductionsthe problem is there are no turns until combat starts. You don't take turns outside of combat. Everyone acts simultaneously before combat.

[@LukeBeeman]

In the campaign I’ve been playing in, we haven’t quite been taking things to these extremes, but I’ve been grappling enemies and dragging them into Spirit Guardians and it’s been quite good: they take the damage on the caster’s turn when the Emanation moves into them, on my turn when I move them into the Emanation, and on their own turn when they end their turn still stuck in the Emanation. It’s great single target damage (or double target since I’ll often grapple 2 enemies at a time) but isn’t wiping out an entire room all at once.

[@Aldaking444]

I the best change for these spell is that they only deal damage at the end of your turn, and at the end of each effected creatures turns. This encourages players to control and lock enemies down in the area, increasing the length of time spent in the area and thus makes the spell work more intuitively and rewards players for doing so, but sets a maximum cap on damage at twice per round. Setting it to deal damage at the end of of a turn also avoides the bookeeping of tracking which creatures have already taken damage, which you would need to do if the limit was once per round.

[@mogalixir]

This is ACTUALLY the perfect solution. Also fixes the risk vs reward. No need to track anything because it happens at set times.

[@Itomon]

yes, but it may need an extra rule of taking damage if a creature leaves the emanation on a turn they just entered it, otherwise skirmishers may become immune to the aura by going in, attacking, then out before the end of the turn

[@Aldaking444]

@@Itomon personally I am fine with a creature being able to drop in and out of the aura without taking any damage. At least one instance of damage (end of players turn) is in the players control, and the end of the enemy's turn damage is a reward for locking the enemy down with control effects, environmental features, or opportunity attacks from allies. This rule is less about simulating a realistic laser/exposure based hazard, and more about making creatures behave as if it was a realistic exposure based hazard.

[@Gumby-vx7ki]

House rule: Conjure Woodland Beings can only affect a creature once on the caster's turn and twice per round. It would still be a very powerful effect.

[@guamae]

My answer is "Whenever the Emanation enters the space of a creature you can see *on your turn*" I like the Caster being able to run around and tag folk on their turn, and I like the idea of the enemy having to leave it by the end of their turn... But the exploitation is in the multiple turns. I saw a Gauntlet run where the Druid did this owl trick, and it was *Extremely* Powerful, even without shinanigans... But I don't think I mind that...

[@tylergolias]

The table after the DM tries to adapt their enemy design to give the players a challenge: "Have you ever wondered why we run into so many opponents with reach weapons and sentinel..."

[@tmryns]

and all of the other enemies are either invisible or hidden when we show up...

[@Domkhxiii]

Remind your players if they get this idea that once they open up Pandora’s box, there’s no going back. One day, as they sit on their mountain of corpses, the light will fade as the skies are blotted out with owls surrounded by woodland animals. The alliance has formed, and they’re their prey…

[@jakewarman7277]

Reading a grapple can be a counter measure as well, this is especially effective against the owl technique you described.

[@Ulkrisxion]

I honestly do not understand why they even changed it, since day one I knew that this would be a problem, and even if it isn't a problem it is incredibly gamey. Very simple fix, all Spirit Guardians like spells work just like they did in 2014, this was never broken and I am really perplexed as to why it was changed.

[@MrJSar]

The BG3 issue is an interesting take that i hadn't considered. My thoughts are they're making up for the lack of utility Conjure Woodland Beasts (and Cunjure Minor Elementals for that matter) they once provided. In the 2014 edition you could use them for shenanigans ('I summon giant moles to dig under the castle walls'') and defence ('I summon sixteen giant badgers to soak attacks') . Witt those stripped as options they decided to up the damage and went to far.

[@jordanmetcalf3383]

For countermeasures, after the initial “flyby” their death throw cries alert nearby monsters and having them enter initiative (as long as rooms aren’t sound proof). The other room’s monsters in earshot ready action to attack an enemy who approaches. And if an enemy knows the enemy strategy (maybe survived the first flyby) and the monster has high strength, have them ready an unarmed attack to grapple as the owl flies in reach. Flyby prevents opportunity attacks but not ready action attacks.

[@xxthevampirate]

It's already been house ruled to only damage on the druid's turn and the "current being's" turn at my table as a player. The way it works is druid can dash around and do a massive aoe burst (no real need for haste but dash is good) hitting virtually everything one time, no ready action to move at the start of next turn. People cant grapple them around but any enemy who enters the emenation o(or ends it there took a 2nd) but that was it, and it required a decent amount of coordination on our part to take advantage of that. Usually we only got 2 hits max but with sentinal+shove, eldrich blasts readied, and using the terain to force them to enter the emenation on their turn it's pretty reliable to force importaint enemies to get hit 2 times. That's still about 3 times as strong as spirit guardians was due to both the MASSIVE AOE nature of the spell and also causing damage way more often. I like dashing around with emenation spells working, its intuitive that it should hit things entering the radius the since its not doing X damage per second its one big instance of taking damage which is represented by the summons/guardians attacking for Xd8 at certain times. If it dealt a weird X damage per second for remaining in the emenation I'd agree that it makes less sense for it to do more damage remaining in it for an entire round but thats not how damage works in D&D and they dont have good DoT implementation because it's a pain in the ass to track unlike a videogame where it works automatically.

[@FTomazelli]

they got me at the grapples, i was not expecting that 😆

[@donaldroberts6356]

Instead of once per turn, limit the save to once per round. Situation resolved.

[@mikegilkey]

You nailed it! They did it for programming a game

[@TheMichaellathrop]

The first countermeasure that comes to mind for me would be creatures with a dispel magic aura that has a higher chance of dispelling a wall or an emanation than a spell cast on a target, of course that is also very punishing to the battlefield control caster... so maybe just emanations. It could also check for the dispelling every time the emanation entered the emanation of each dispelling aura.

[@garion046]

Thanks so much for highlighting this. I know lots of people are aware of it but i suspect many still dont realise how broken this combo all is, and you dont have to go anywhere near what these optimisers did for it to break games. This needs errata or homebrew. People are banning CME but tbh spirit guardians comes online way earlier and is way worse for many levels.

[@erikbjelke4411]

28:37: "I guess it's the pulling in and out and in and out that's the problem." So. . . Druids are _literally_ screwing the game, now? I think the simple fix would be to say "once on your turn, when the emanation enters a creature's space." That would disallow repeats, I should think.

[@pogodonuts]

I think a decent countermeasure would be to have an enemy focused on grappling or another way to restrict movement. If the druid/cleric/bard/wizard can't move away, they can only proc it once per round when the enemy ends it's turn in the space. Druid and cleric very rarely get any kind of teleport option so they won't easily escape. This can also lead to more teamwork where the party has to focus a bit on getting the caster out of there, which can eat up some more actions. I think most importantly this won't necessarily feel like you're targeting anyone if you play it right.

[@rodrigoabreu3305]

These cautionary videos are amazing. A strong strategy is one thing, and obviously broken stuff because they messed up in the wording is completely different. In my table, we will use the rule of this spell only dealing damage once per round.

[@indigoblacksteel1176]

I went to a convention where one of the other players at my table was sure that this was already how it worked. I told him that if they chose to play it that way at their table, they could do what they wanted, but RAW that's not how Spirit Guardians worked. I think WotC changed it to work this way because many people already thought it worked that way, and they were trying to avoid confusion. It certainly is much easier to say that every time they see the circle and monster overlapped during a turn, they take damage. Unfortunately, in this case, avoiding confusion makes it much too powerful. I didn't even think of the fact that you mentioned at the end, that now that you have three spells with this behavior, the effects could all overlap causing more or less triple damage.

[@goodguyjosh3142]

An alternative, is converting it to the ashardalon stride wording so it only works if you use your movement that way, it’s limited more by speed than action economy. Maybe include an exception for a controlled a mount

[@aryst0krat]

Once per round for the *entering* is definitely how I'll run it, but I'll still allow a second time per round for the 'ending a turn there' part. Seems fair and within what the spell set out to do.

[@prixtront7240]

My DM loves it when we talk about Baldurs Gate nonstop during his weekly oneshots /s :D

[@LordOz3]

A couple of ways to handle this. Change the spell so it only does damage to a target once per _round_. The other is to inform the players anything they can do, the bad guys can do as well. Excess cheese will be met with counter-cheese.

[@stevebellhouse1869]

I think we should be rolling initiative as soon as those first monsters see the threat of the owl approaching? Obviously a combat encounter has begun at that point.

[@The9volt1]

I'm going to try the following in my game for all relevant spells: 1- They are cast as cylinders, centered on the caster, with a height equal to their base radius. 2- All spells now contain the wording, "When you move on your turn you can also move the (relevant conjuration) with you up to your walking speed." 3- and of course, a creature can only be affected once per turn.

[@comfortablegrey]

Druid is uniquely good at doing a lot of stuff, their damage and healing are both top tier. When I play one, I usually just try to be the party's mascot and help them do the butt kicking!

[@ethanseng1260]

My simple fix to these spells is to make it so that creatures only take damage if the emanation moves over their space ON YOUR TURN so you can't double dip by having party members carry you around, but you still benefit from a good movement speed. Other spells with AOEs that can move (Cloud of Daggers, Moonbeam) can only move on your turn, and they aren't an issue.

[@idofrommer3619]

I think this is perfect and I will personally run it this way It still allows for the enemies to be affected if they are pushed into the area more than once per round, something that would be limited with the common "once per round" fix, I think this is a fully intended bonus for good teamwork and can feel really good Thank you for basically writing my thoughts but with clear language 👏

[@ethanseng1260]

@@idofrommer3619 Thank you! To be honest, it felt pretty obvious as a fix for me, because the real problem starts when you start using these spells to tag people on tons of other peoples' turns. The wording of the spells even have a convenient place to slot the term "During your turn" in without messing anything else up.

[@giuseppesiena955]

Hi Chris! Thoose things happened to me even with previous version 5e 2014. You simple have to boost the enemy action. I 've choose some roll20 module with pump monsters (legendary ability, bonus actions, ect..) and the new monster rules with a lot of spells at will (by the monsters) . Power players needs power monsters😂

[@CJWproductions]

16:00 "what are they supposed to do?" Block the door for at least 1 minute?

[@jinxtheunluckypony]

The Druid Gauntlet video does a great job of showing how cracked this spell is. The Druid player had great luck and a fairly permissive DM but beating the Gauntlet is always an achievement.

[@adammasters684]

Changing one word in the text of the spell should make the spell powerful but balanced, changing the word turn to round. That one change nerfs the extreme damage whilst still keeping it as a friendly (doesn't target allies) massive area of effect (once you take into account speed scaling) spell with a reliable damage that scales faster than fireball (1d8 vs 1d6 per spell level) and last for up to ten minutes for one spell slot (possibly muliple encounters). The once per turn limit on damage would be my fix for conjure minor elements too.

[@ZohMyFkinGod]

Baldur's gate 3 has items that stack on top of spirit guardian though. 5e only has the base damage as far as I'm aware. So even though it's once per round, with the standard build you deal extra damage, apply 9+ radiating orbs on everybody, remove their reactions, make some of them prone. As one of the top comments suggests, I think the best fix is to trigger the damage once on your turn and once outside of your turn. That way it will still feel as powerfull as bg3 and you can heavily commit to it youself, but your team doesn't feel compelled to be your taxi.

[@KevinVideo]

I'm definitely in the camp of reverting the wording to the 2014 version.

[@jlafrenaye237]

I would rather homebrew the emanation spell's saving throw timing as "Any creature in the emanation during the caster's turn must...". That would limit damage to once per round and reduce the movement shenanigans while also being easier to adjudicate. It wouldn't stop the hasted longstrider owl, but it would stop the held action movement and grapple rugby.

[@Paradukes]

The fix I'm planning to use in my games if this ever comes up is that the damage triggers once per round when the creature enters the emanation, or the emanation enters the creature's space, and then one additional time if the creature _ends_ its turn in the emanation. If they end their turn there, it would mean they'd have to have been stuck in the emanation for a good deal longer, suggesting they should have taken more damage. This means that there's still the option for tackling and dragging to do additional damage, but rather than it being the monk dragging the druid around, the monk is instead dragging hostile creatures back into the hot-zone - which thematically makes so much more sense.

[@BlueFoxXT]

If I, in the off-chance, had a party abusing this spell to the point of no return, I'd probably house rule that they can only take the initial instance of emanation damage once per round, but keep the end-turn damage in tact to promote team play. If I had a team of munchkins wanting to abuse this, it would be a new session zero to discuss it. However, the spell is still incredibly powerful and worth looking at. One of the CMCC gauntlets got kinda soloed by this spell, but to Chris's final points, that dungeon had no counter measures in place for a major battle.

[@jakewarman7277]

I think the new monster manual is going to advise to essentially add class levels to powerful creatures you're trying to buff, including level 1 feats, alert and tough can make a lot of sense to fill out a creature without having to do almost any Homebrew.

[@AMRosa10]

A couple of things where I think that you messed up the rulings. 1- There are no longer surprise rounds in 2024. As soon as your "monsters" see the Owl, you role initiative. If you want to rule that the Druid had Surprise, then your monsters get disadvantage on their initiative roll, but there is no free round like 2014. 2- While the Owl wouldn't trigger an attack of opportunity, you have all of the opponents ready an attack action on their turn, so that as soon as the druid tries the flyby again, they attack the owl, then the druid. 3-You can only force the saving throw once per turn, so you can only inflict damage once by moving in and moving out of the 10ft range on the Druid's turn. 4- If you want to prevent the forced movement of the Druid, then rule that the Conjured Beings view any grapple against the Druid as an attack that forces a Saving Throw and Damage.

[@grr-OUCH]

On D&D Beyond, at the end of the paragraph for Conjure Woodland Beings says "A creature makes this save only once per turn.". The damage of 5d8 is pretty high, though.

[@LukeBeeman]

The point is that it’s per turn and not per round, so that can include once on your turn, and once on each ally’s turn that carries you around, and once on an enemy’s turn when you use readied movement, all in the same round of combat

[@Notsogoodguitarguy]

Honestly, this looks like it's gonna be fun to be done once. Afterwards, it's anti-fun. About the changes - I don't think they made the change that much because of BG3, but to standardize how these types of spells work. When you look at 5e spells like Spirit Guardians, Wall of Fire, etc, they all have one thing in common - you cannot take damage from a single casting of the spell twice without being able to react. They either did "At the start of your turn", or "when cast and if you end your turn in them". And that's where I think the big problem was. A lot of people (at least in my experience) were confused about when a spell actually dealt damage. A lot of people thought Spirit Guardians did its damage when you cast it and then ran around. So the new change makes it clear, concise and standardized. There's no more ambiguity on when and how often a spell like that deals damage. BUT! The problem is that in 5.5e you have a LOT more options for forced movement that you didn't have before, and basically every class can toss people around like ragdolls, not even talking about things like grappling and running around and such. In 5e, it was also possible to do these kinds of shenanigans, but you needed a way, way more specific party. In 5.5e, even without all the "grapple and run around" or "haste+hold action" stuff, if you have 2 marshals in a party and a cleric/druid/whatever, you can literally pinball an enemy around inside and out of the spirit guardians and there's basically nothing they can do. My solution would be as follows: they should standardize it to either "at the start of a creature's turn", or "at the end of a creature's turn" (only one, not both) and if a creature willingly enters the area (e.g. with their action, bonus action, reaction or speed), but only once per turn with this as well. That way, if you play your cards right, you can still get 2 instances of damage per round, and if you only get 1 or 0, then the spell did its job right, cause it provided area denial.

[@hopeandpiece]

I would think an easy fix would be to take that "A creature makes this save only once per turn" combined with the effects only stating the damage and effects only occur once the foe passes or failes the save to be that they only roll the save once, the damage only occurs when they roll the save. aka badly worded "once per turn" even then though... mutliple turns/round so homerule the save to once a round.

[@onslaught147]

23:25 As a druid main, it makes sense to me. It hurts more leaving and entering vs just staying there because in my mind the spirit animals around the druid becomes a stampede. As you walk around, I imagine you're surrounding by a bunch of spirit animals, and they just stampede what they run over. That why it's better to keep on leaving and entering an enemies space, it gives the spirits "room" to do their stampeding. While just staying there, the animals have less of a chance to hit the enemy multiple times. So think of it less as animal spirits draining health, and more like stampeding animals pushing over whatever they come up against. But if I used this at a table, my only request would be I get to do this once, for a single fun/cheesy moment. But after that one, I'm fine with it being banned. I just want the chance to cheese at least one encounter.

[@kaffiend1969]

I feel like they had a decent idea with conjure animals. You can move the the aoe as part of a move action on your turn. If they change emanation to follow you when you move on your turn, it preserves the multi turn interactions through teamwork while ending the rugby issue.

[@theformation3781]

Realising two things: 1. Ranger damage is (quite a bit more than) fine if they cast this. 2. Conjure animals is extremely balanced in the fact than while it can be moved 30ft freely and it affects a gigantic area, you cannot pinball it this freely as you have to force enemies into the space, and especially the haste/dash stuff doesn't work. Probably to the extent that even if it doesn't do half on save, it's fine

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Yes, conjure animals is not a problem anymore.

[@leelafond]

If the best thing a Ranger can do at level 17 is the same thing the Druid could do at level 9, then their damage is most certainly not fine.

[@theformation3781]

@leelafond assuming you're being charitable to the DM while using conjure woodland beings, that is only attempting to get the damage twice a round at the maximum (once when it enters an enemy's area, once at the end of their turn) after round 1 you can still use GWM+graze to multiattack with a to-hit of 11 (probably more taking into account magic weapons) on your action and get a reaction attack on any enemy with a braincell who's trying to escape your emanation, and you get 4th level spell slots at level 13. A druid will either never get multiattack so their single target damage will always lag behind a ranger, or their multiattack will arise from moon druid, and CR4 creatures (which is what they have access to till level 15) only have a to hit of +8. Their own damage only ramps up at level 15 too since that is when their on-hit effects become so high via improved lunar radiance and improved elemental fury that calculating their ability to hit at least once becomes relevant. And all the while rangers will have a much better armour class and going into melee is way more justified (again, assuming you're being charitable to the poor dm so no flyby abuse) for CWB, they will have more HP, and subclasses like hunter have exceptional tanking and defensive abilities that pretty much no druid can match unless they dump all their resources into healing word. Now if you are actually powergaming, and I assumed the spirit of this video was exactly to avoid trying to roast your dm's campaign over an open flame, then any spellcaster will always outperform any martial any day of the week. There is not a single martial in the game including any half casters who can actually do anything remotely comparable to that owl thing that treantmonk outlined. This is like saying "oh barbarian damage is not fine because conjure minor elementals exists" yes welcome to dnd where the team sometimes forgets that martials aren't there for the team to get to level 5 out of the squishy zone and then discard

[@johngeralt]

Ranger is better multiclassing into druid after level 5 to get 1 turn earlier then full Ranger

[@theformation3781]

@johngeralt I'd personally only multiclass out of gloomstalker because beastmaster has scaling and a good level 7 feature, hunter has a good level 7 feature and if we're playing till 12 then might as well play till 15 for their feature as well, and level 11 for fey wanderer is great (probably multiclass out after that). That said that's what I would do, I can see the appeal and typically multiclassing is more powerful than straight classing anyways

[@TelsMaviston]

I would change the wording to “A creature cannot take damage from entering the area of this spell more than once per round.” That way, at least, you can get the damage from entering the emanation, and if the enemy ends their turn in the emanation.

[@youtubeseagull]

: "You summon two fey spirits that take the form of Satyr. You resummon them by names each time to cast the spell and they reappear with any gear and magic items you bestow upon them, except items with attunemtent, or just one of them with Fairy wings. etc they have summon beast stats and Satyr racial bonuses."

[@biodude15]

I think the once per round wording, while simple, ignores that the spell is intended to occur multiple times per round. My suggestion is for CWB and similar spells "Whenever the Emanation enters the space of a creature you can see on your turn and whenever a creature you can see enters the Emanation on its turn or ends its turn there, ..." It stil procs multiple times per round, and while a majority of the ally grappling is gone, if the monster teleports/dashes away too far, having an ally give you that extra 15+ ft may still be useful to get you close enough to proc it once more

[@DeadpoolAli]

Love that we have these house rules for balancing out the overpowered martials.

[@elhombredequeso]

We have been trying a way to play this spell that is kind of a mix of rewarding you for placing your character in harms way, and hurting enemies for ending their turn next to you, which I feel like it should be. Simple version: Any enemy in the emanation at the end of your turn or at the end of their turn takes the damage.

[@ricklawrence2515]

I've already talked with my group on this. I told them I'll allow it twice per round: once on their turn and once per round off of their turn

[@KorhalKk]

I knew that the "Emanation enters the space" would cause all sorts of problems.

[@GameEasyRollGood]

I've been expanding further on Ranger builds since my last video and looking at CWB as an alternate 4th level spell. Based on the numbers I've seen within that context, CWB feels fine if it's played "honestly." The gameplay example you presented really feels like the perfect storm, even to the point you seemed to let them get one instance of damage in before rolling initiative which feels generous. And I don't say that to detract from the evidence. Even if this was the best-case scenario for this strategy, there are a ton of scenarios between this and what we might consider a "fair" use of these spells that are also problematic. I think you're right that even if the game designers did some playtesting with the spell, I don't think they play with the intent to break it or take it to its extreme; or at least they just didn't have the time to do so. I feel like a good compromise is to only allow the damage if the player the emanation is on moves it into an enemy's space **on their turn.** This still allows getting damage 2/round if the enemy re-enters the space or ends their turn there, and the usual push/grapple tactics against the enemy to move the ENEMY into their space can still apply as that was always the case. But it at least breaks up the readied action movement, allied grapple and drag shenanigans, using minions as mounts, etc. So effectively the number of instances of damage per-target, per-round is only up to +1 from 2014.

[@danjbundrick]

When you end your turn, the Spirit guardians teleports to you and deals damage. Or a creature can be damaged by it once per round. Might work.

[@arsov9885]

Mr Dungeon and Mr Dragon had a game on CMCC build channel. It was insane how easily the druid can clear the Gauntlet challenge. They used the strategy presented here without abusing it too much, so Conjure Woodland Beings is still an OP spell even without movement out of the druid's turn.

[@jordanmetcalf3383]

A solution could be to allow conjure woodland beings (and spells like it) to still do damage on 1: the emanation entering a creatures space OR 2: the creature entering the emanation’s space once per round (not both). AND 3: the creature takes the damage once more if a creature ends its turn in the emanation. This discourages the creature from trying to stay in the emanation to avoid damage. This also caps the damage at twice per round. This also discourages players from trying to make builds around getting the spell’s damages to trigger as many times as possible using other ally’s turns, which is probably how it was intended.

[@JonasFontanellaMoroso]

Imagine the enemies’ faces while these shenanigans are going on 😂😂😂

[@marshallwilver8831]

My initial thought was to tell my players that there’s a maximum of two instances of damage per round. It makes it so it plays like the baulders gate version of the spell but isn’t crazy ass broken in D&D

[@donaldcrankshaw1627]

I see a couple of different approaches. One, you kind of let the druid have what's essentially a surprise round. The moment an owl surrounded by spirits enters sight, roll initiative. If the enemy is truly surprised, they roll with disadvantage, but they still act that round. This particular scenario is complicated by the hasted owl's speed and the narrow corridors that let it get out of sight. However, if every enemy readies a ranged attack for as soon as the owl is visible, then that's a lot of attacks focus fired on one creature, and unless he's a Moon druid, he doesn't have a great AC. Also, this may be just a rules quibble, but I'm not a great fan of letting a Ready action be "as soon as someone else's turn begins." It should be something the player can observe and react to. He can't react to someone else starting a turn but not yet doing anything, especially if he's in another room and can't see it.

[@robertbromley5230]

It’s beginning to feel like a peasant rail gun given the number of times a party can the same owl through the same area in six seconds.

[@AwesomeWookiee]

Thank you for this. Here's the wording I'll be using at my table: "Once a creature takes this damage, it can't take it again until it after the start of your next turn."

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Seems like a perfect fix!

[@Ichareus]

I don't think it's a perfect fix: sure the caster can't just delete the encounter with one spell in a round anymore, but it's still RIDICULOUSLY easy for them to make every single enemy in the encounter take 5d8 damage every single round with just one spell slot and dashing

[@mogalixir]

@@Ichareus That's probably the intended power level for the spell (aside from it being 4d8). I still think we should revert to 2014 spirit guardians rules to fix the risk v reward aspect of these spells. You can synergize more damage for single targets taking damage multiple times by using allies, but there's less chance you ping pong everyone in the effect.

[@znail4675]

@@TreantmonksTemple As others have pointed out as well so should it be fine to take damage once for entering the area and another time if ending the turn in the area as those are two different damage cases and makes enemies not want to stand around inside the area.

[@Baily16]

It's insane to me how so much was improved, and they completely broke all of these spells for no reason whatsoever...

[@aurelioantas5522]

I'm happy that Druid can deal damage now. They take away the tankness from the Moon Druid, but it can deal nice damage now!

[@JonnyValentine7]

You conjure nature spirits that flit around you in a 10-foot Emanation for the duration. Whenever the Emanation enters the space of a creature you can see and whenever a creature you can see enters the Emanation or ends its turn there, you can force that creature to make a Wisdom saving throw. The creature takes 5d8 Force damage on a failed save or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature makes this save only once per turn. In addition, you can take the Disengage action as a Bonus Action for the spell’s duration. Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. The damage increases by 1d8 for each spell slot level above 4. This is new correction on beyond

[@Shamalaya311]

The best fix i found online was to allow the spell to trigger only twice and once more if the creature ended is turn in the area. It rewards teamwork but limit the exploit somehow

[@SamiJ1508]

I think I would rule it that it does damage at the end of your turn at the and of the creatures turn if they end their turn in the space. That feels like it would do what is intended