The Best and Worst Spell Changes in DnD 2024

[@sicariussavior8250]

Awesome, this is the exact type of comparison I was looking for on the new PHB. Everyone else seemed to just want to cover class changes and a few minor rules. It is a little sad they made suggestion even better, but I suppose it'll just be another Session 0 topic to bring up about nerfing it or changing it in some way. Anyway awesome video, glad to see these previews of the new books.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Glad my videos could be of use! And I agree, hopefully they’ll eventually change Suggestion but for now it’s one of the spells where players and DMs are going to have to talk it out

[@alexstoehr6394]

Small thought I had about changes to Counterspell: if a player at my table really wanted to ensure shutting down a spell from a caster, they could Ready a Dispel Magic. This eats an action, a reaction, and concentration, but I feel it's a much more fair exchange rate than a single reaction to potentially delete a spell. I may rule that casting Dispel Magic (or any spell) in this way may or may not use concentration, not sure yet. Curious what others think!

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

That’s interesting, I don’t know if the spell as written would work that way but considering how many resources they’d need to burn to make it happen (and might still have to roll for it!) I doubt it would be broken. I’d be interested to see if your players went that route or just gambled on Counterspell!

[@radical9169]

My homebrewed version of Crown of Madness functions exactly as you'd hope. Takes a single action to use, is still concentration, but instead it attacks the closest being and can move beforehand. You have no control over which target is chosen, thus actually behaving like a "Crown of Madness" should.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Wizards, hire them please! Thanks for sharing, shocking that this isn’t how it goes!

[@radical9169]

@@TheBardsCollegeYT Thanks haha. Very inspired by "fury" or "confusion" effects in rpgs.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Hopefully your players can get some good use out of it!

[@JnJake]

Great video! I’m so glad to hear someone else have that opinion on Guidance! I feel like it becomes like an annoying gnat that you can’t get rid of lol Definitely like the original version of Counterspell better. I’d be more of a fan of this if it forced a spellcasting save rather than Con. Sorcerers are going to dominate this battle, especially if they use Heightened Spell. So many casters in the 2014 MM are proficient in their spellcasting save but not Con. Players will keep their spell slots while monsters, since they get “x uses per day”, lose their resource. Huge buff for players with this one.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

I hadn’t considered the “x uses per day” they’ve been switching to for monsters, that really is a big advantage for the players! And I suppose they chose CON to mimic concentration checks, and I can see the benefit of keeping it simple with the same save across the board. But I agree that using your spellcasting ability would’ve made more sense. Thanks for watching and I’m glad you enjoyed this one!

[@JnJake]

@@TheBardsCollegeYT Concentration had to be what they were thinking, right? I think you mentioned errata in your video. Is there an official doc now or a link you know of?

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Not officially that I know of, but I found a few forum threads discussing changes. I’m sure the OneDnD subreddit probably has some errata info, too!

[@JnJake]

@@TheBardsCollegeYT yeah, I hadn’t seen anything official yet either. I’ve only heard rumblings. Anyways, great to chat with you! Happy gaming!

[@BurningMonkey]

I need to get a hold of the new rules. I am beginning to realize that while I love playing wizards, I have never played one past 6th level. So I have yet to use spells past 3rd level, and have no idea what effect on game play they have. Beyond my imagination that is. my only real complaint about the spell rules in DnD is I disliked how fire spells do more damage than other spells, but don't actually do fire damage

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

I’m DMing for high level players at the moment - magic gets CRAZY. But very fun! Hopefully you can get there, too!

[@milesgibson9555]

The true travesty is what they did to the twinned spell metamagic in my opinion. It's a real look how they massacred my boy type moment

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Yeah, twinned spell really was done dirty by the changes. At least a lot of other metamagic options were improved to compensate

[@flamefirestorm2512]

Remember, most monsters have insane constitution saving throws. As your DC scales higher, nearly every enemy you cast counterspell on will succeed as their con saves scale higher. Also if you're playing a non-minmaxed caster, you're basically guaranteed to fail. It's much more potent on non-minmaxed PCs that didn't take resilent or a dip in a class with a con save bonus, while it's and far less potent against monsters. For players the nerf is definitely drastic, for DMs not so much.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

I’d be curious to look at CON saves for spellcasting NPCs, like liches and Archmages, to see if their saves scale higher like that, too. But you raise some good points, it does seem like this will affect players more than DMs. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, we’ll have to wait and see!

[@RottenRogerDM]

Adventure League went live today (Sept 17) for the players handbook. So spell changes are not my major problem. Okay since I am DM for a couple of totally new people, I will be leaving the new book out on the table, and reviewing the spell on Beyond. I will have to check my spell cost sheet to see if I need to update the cost of material component. Grumble. I wish they got rid of trance for the elfs.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Good luck with your Adventurer’s League games! Why aren’t you a fan of elf trances?

[@RottenRogerDM]

@@TheBardsCollegeYT Elf get all the good stuff which is not needed. I can see them getting advantage against Sleep due to living 1,000 years. So they can occasionally skip the beauty rest. Trance is clunky if there is a mixed party. Does Dobby take two hour shifts while Harry sleeps? And it just kind of blah to me.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Fair enough, it never really bothered me but everyone has their preferences!

[@RottenRogerDM]

@@TheBardsCollegeYT In a Mr Crocker voice. "ELFS. ELFS. There ELFS every where. In the city. In the woods. In the sea. In the ground. In the Fey wild. In the Shadowfell. Frack there one on the Starship Enterprise. ELFS!!!"

[@xiongray]

Big fan of Bladeward & Witch Bolt.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Both good changes! Especially Witch Bolt, which really needed it!

[@jrockpowers1229]

Isn't feeblemind backwards compatible so befuddlement is a different spell with similar effects

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

I hadn’t considered that - I guess you COULD still use it if you want to! But the fact that almost every spell got brought over from the handbook, but that one was missing while another incredibly similar spell got added makes me think the intention was to replace it. But I could be wrong!

[@jrockpowers1229]

@@TheBardsCollegeYT I just know at my table i would allow either as in my mind they are different enough

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Fair enough, Feeblemind is still a terrifying spell! There’s not anything in the new rules that I can think of which would prevent you from using it

[@manchld]

I think animal messenger could be abused by turning someone into a creature and then making them run or fly away for a whole day.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

In original 5e, I think you’re right! Definitely not a use of the spell I had considered! But in the new handbook, polymorphed creatures retain their creature type, so they wouldn’t be an eligible target

[@Medul759]

Conjure Animals is actually worse than you think. -It says "When A CREATURE" gets within 10 feet", that has friendly fire on. So you have a massive brick your melee allies can't go into without risking taking more damage, and it doesn't even hinder enemy movement. -It does no damage on save as well. It's just kind of inferior to even Call Lightning, which is already a relatively low damage 3rd level spell. It's just awful AND has lost all out of combat uses. Terrible job by WotC, but I can't say I'm surprised.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Great points, it 100% needed to be balanced but they really missed the mark on that one!

[@ryanrindler1715]

The spell says that you CAN force the creature to make a dexterity throw. It's your choice so no friendly fire

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Good catch! Thanks for clarifying!

[@NexusNemesis]

New counterspell is a joke honestly, the enemy only uses the action used for the spell, but retains the actual spell slot, so they can just repeat casting the same spell until the counterspeller runs out of spell slots, it's delaying the inevitable and it's annoying, not a good change. Although I did hope for some kind of change to counterspell since it was overused for a while, but nowadays with people constantly doing silvery barbs and lucky combos and whatnot, counterspell is hardly a problem anymore. New sleep is interesting, but the reduced range makes it very niche, also having to wait 2 rounds for it to MAYBE take effect after the enemies fail 2 con saves in a row (the most used and generally strongest save most characters, npcs and whatnot else has), along with it being very visible because the people are obviously zoning out for a whole round instead of immediately falling asleep. This also makes me concerned for anything you try to make covertly and quick "in and out" schemes and the like, and then the reduced cast range too? it's an interesting change to be sure, but I feel it needs more work. Sure, I MIGHT be able to put that ogre to sleep, but some of the 5 guards I can't, simply because the range is so small and failing that many saves in a row is not likely. So it is now basically a 1-2 target spell with diminished cast range and more dice luck. *shrug* Chromatic orb is a cool change, but I am going to miss Chaos bolt, since they just smacked that spell into Chromatic orb and called it a day. Befuddlement is certainly going to be entertaining, I do like the wording better, since being a drone for 30 (maybe more) days ingame, is not fun for any player. Suggestion is going to become a serious problem, mainly for DMs I recon. Achievable is a very broad descriptor to put on it and all too many things can be achievable that won't directly harm the person or their allies, but greatly benefit party. With this kind of wording and knowing how many players can think up malicious compliance and whatnot else, this should almost be bumped up to a higher level spell slot because of it's amped up usefulness. Conjure Minor Elementals is conked out of its mind. Sure, no one is ever going to be casting it at 9th level, but a possible +12d8 to any attack you make to anyone within 15 feet of you for 10 minutes, is insane, along with it also giving difficult terrain to enemies. With it, most enemies will have to use all of their movement just to get out of the range, for the caster to just move back up to them, rinse and repeat. And any multiple attacks per turn is going to kill them so quickly, because right, not only is it the possible +12d8, it's also a damage type (from a list) of your choosing every time you attack so you can account for resistances and immunities. Glad to see spells like Barkskin getting some love, more of that please.

[@TheBardsCollegeYT]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I think we agree on a lot of points! I don’t think Counterspell is THAT bad - while I agree not losing the spell slot is lame, it’s still removing their entire action for a turn. A lot can change in a round! But Suggestion and Conjure Minor Elementals ARE that bad, hopefully we get some errata on them in the future!