Tier Ranking the First Level Spells in D&D 5e (Part 3)

[@chrisfox961]

We had a druid use Goodberries to take out man-eating venus fly trap plants. After the plants ate the berries, they were "full" and let the party pass without any issues.

[@gryfinryder]

I absolutely love when spells are used in creative ways like this 👍🏼

[@tomaspabon2484]

This is simultaneously the most cheesy use of Goodberry and the only acceptable one

[@ImpaleTheLiving]

I had honestly never thought to use goodberry to mollify non-intelligent mobs before but oh my gods it makes so much sense!!!! Pack of hungry wolves? Toss a few goodberries in their mouths after you prestidigitate them to taste like fresh meat for good measure and you have now potentially converted that pack of hungry wolves into a pack of FRIENDLY wolves. 👌🏽

[@Swimavidly]

Zee Bashew did a video on Goodberry in a survival campaign. His fix was to make the material component consumed. That forced the characters to forage for berries in the tundra, but the spell was still useful by reducing the amount of food they needed to find.

[@cfalkner1012]

This is an okay solution, but there are many other games that do wilderness survival much better than D&D.

[@JokerDoom]

I came here to say this. I think it’s a perfect solution.

[@MrDavidKord]

@cfalkner1012 But not any that I can convince almost anyone to try.

[@Koranthus]

@@cfalkner1012 did you just come here to be the "you don't have to play DnD" guy? Cus its a pretty good solution by basically turning resources into longer lasting resources that you still have to procure.

[@Mary_Studios]

That's such a good idea!

[@Akira-ss6cm]

Interestingly enough, feather fall does not require the creature to be willing. So when a suspect in a murder case tried to jump out a tower to catch their mount, our sorcerer cast it on them, leaving time for the barbarian to tackle them mid air and apprehend them before they could properly escape. Weird interaction but it was satisfying in the moment! Edit: Grammar

[@adambielen8996]

Neat

[@Halinspark]

"You didn't save my life, you ruined my death!"

[@laheja]

Imagine having campaign in more modern setting, if someone wants to unalive themselves by jumping off skyscraper the cops are not gonna call crisis negotiator first but like " Mage consultant Jim get here asap, we need another feather fall."

[@xriban4363]

Wanted piggyback on this for a module I got to play. There was a young green dragon that attacked our party on an airship. When the dragon had been weakened it was going to flee by dropping down below the airship to get out of our range to damage it and I was able to keep it close to our ship with featherfall as a reaction. We managed to kill the dragon before it could escape, which the DM later told us that it would have harassed our party with other skirmishes if it had survived.

[@adambielen8996]

@@laheja Magic Adept: Wizard is mandatory on all police officers.

[@Yutah1981]

False Life as a Warlock invocation when it's limitless isn't actually so bad, even good, you just always have 8 temp hp (because you can overcast it until you get max)

[@logancuster8035]

It’s good in tier one play but it falls off in effectiveness pretty hard past that.

[@Yutah1981]

@@logancuster8035 I'd say as an invocation which is free and always maxed it stays relevant longer, especially if you're, say, a hexblade, but on higher levels you'll want to change it to a more potent invocation, yes. I'm not saying it's awesome, just that it's definitely not D for a Warlock.

[@bwaresunlight]

Its great to take with abjuration wizards too in order to refresh your arcane ward. Colby from D4 did an entire build around this actually.

[@taylorsmith9197]

@@bwaresunlight I think you're thinking of the invocation "Armor of Shadows" as that lets you spam Mage Armor, which is an Abjuration spell, which would then recharge arcane ward.

[@taylorsmith9197]

Agreed. On a Bladelock that has no desire to take the Eldritch blast invocations can get lot of use out of this as there isn't many stand out invocations for bladelocks. Works well for a Barb-Lock i made where those Temp HP act a lot more like 16 HP and it isn't a Concentration spell so no worrying about rage.

[@envoy2500]

The Grease spell is also probably the best way to change your heist theme music from Mission Impossible to Benny Hill

[@CarrowMind]

In earlier editions, the grease was also flammable, making a much better option when combined with fire spells, the old grease + fireball combo was a classic.

[@coffeeproblems5780]

On the topic of hex, I love to grant disadvantage on Intelligence Checks to opposing Wizards, so their Counterspells are at Disadvantage. This has saved me a great number of times.

[@chalor182]

I never thought of that it's an excellent idea

[@lordptk4115]

Yeah and of course if you have a grappler in your party, giving an enemy disadvantage on strength/dexterity checks is also useful

[@farrex0]

@@lordptk4115 Yes, I always do strength as the default, not only in case any of my companions want to do anything strength related. But it has also saved us plenty of times when we encounter an enemy that loves to grapple.

[@Mary_Studios]

you're right that would work.

[@PandaKnightsFightingDragons]

Target spellcasting stats for Counterspell, or target Wisdom to help your Rogue hide from that target

[@TheHandgunhero]

A very key thing for Goodberry that was missed is the fact that they last 24 HOURS. This means a Druid can spend all their unused spell slots before a long rest to create WAY more Goodberries, and go back into the thick of things the next day. Heck, a Land Druid regains spell slots on a short rest too so you could do so then. Heck, a Life Cleric Druid multi just does this turned up to 100. It's S tier.

[@matthewlaird5235]

My genie warlock/ sorcerer has find familiar. When he is in a tight spot, he telepathically issues Order 13. He uses his bonus action to quicken shocking grasp, then uses an action to go into his ring. His familiar picks up the ring and uses its reaction to deliver the shocking grasp, and flys away without provoking opportunity attacks.

[@reginaldkelly7809]

my warlock druid does the same thing. hes a pacifist. lvl 12. he has a Owl familiar and he constnatly stays in animal form. the ring/ genie domain allows me to constantly refresh my Beast shape down to 10 minutes. so whenever i need to re up on charges i go into my ring just for a bit. its a disgusting healer. now that i know about the life domain/ and goodberry tactic i might pick that up. but it def is broken.

[@sipjedekat8525]

This would use up your reaction as well and you would have to concentrate on the readied spell, which would end concentration on other spells, but it would work.

[@sipjedekat8525]

​​@@reginaldkelly7809yeah, but you can do that only once per day, since you can't enter again after the first time unless you finish a long rest. Essentially you only shorten one short rest down to 10 min from an hour, that's it. So it's really not the 'recharge my short rest abilities for free' card you seem to use it as atm.

[@reginaldkelly7809]

@@sipjedekat8525 i think u dont know how i use it and just assume. my long rests are 4 hours. easy to do traveling. its everything i want it to be and more. i appreciate u homie

[@Koranthus]

@@reginaldkelly7809 He was specifically referencing you saying that you use the genie domain to refresh wild shape charges, which refresh on a short rest but you can only do it once per day so its kind of a waste of the function just for wild shape charges. Also, its normal to assume you are playing by normal rules unless otherwise specified.

[@fullmetalpoitato5190]

Heroism usefulness reference: Our lvl 10 party of 5 went in to fight a Shadow Dragon. Our Lore Bard upcast Heroism to buff all of us, then ran into a spiral staircase and hid for most of the rest of the fight! The temp HP was nice, but NOT getting feared by the Dragon's roar was the real icing on the cake.

[@MrDavidKord]

Pretty badass and thematic way to fight a dragon, too.

[@Albatross0913]

Sounds like a low-level heroes' feast

[@jacobwolfrom1951]

I have a couple of things to note about fog cloud. I have played on a campaign where that was my main strategy, so I have played out a lot of it's nuances. Firstly, because you get advantage and disadvantage because of the fog cloud, no one can get advantage or disadvantage because instances of advantage and disadvantage don't stack. It is incredibly potent against any enemy with pack tactics or if half the party gets wrapped up by entangle because it acts as a safety net. You also cannot make attacks of opportunity against a creature you can't see, so it completely frees up movement. Up casting fog cloud is also extremely good as it adds an extra 20 foot radius to it. My DM had to start looking for a way to make our battle map larger by the time we reached level 5 because the entire map was fog. Additionally, there are many ways to break the symmetry of it. Blind fighting is only the most obvious one. To name a couple, Druids can wild shape into creatures with blind sight like spiders and snakes and a lot of good spells do not require sight like slow or my favorite to use dissonant whispers. This spell is absolutely busted with conjure animals for tables that allow the player to pick the animals (which is most tables from what I have seen and experienced) as 8 flying snakes or constrictor snakes just end combats. I mostly agree with your rating as a standalone spell, but I think that fog cloud is one of the easiest and best combo spells in the game and it would be criminal to ignore that. It allows the players to trivially end any encounter with enemies that can't work around it with little investment. I thoroughly believe it is one of the best spells in the game, and I have foiled many encounters by just being a wizard who had incidentally picked up fog cloud at level 1

[@chrisvossler8795]

I was going to say this, but I'm glad to see someone beat me to the punch. Our Artificer/Wizard has it, and he has pulled it out a couple times to negate potential advantage/disadvantage. The biggest issue with it is when characters are relying either on advantage or line of sight to be able to hit.

[@crownlexicon5225]

I use it fairly often on my paladin/sorcerer who has blind fighting.

[@darkestlight660]

God, fog cloud + grease is so fucking gross lmfao

[@ozylocz4078]

This just sounds like the dm let you get away with a bunch of shit lmao

[@jacobwolfrom1951]

@@ozylocz4078 How so? The only thing I mentioned that is up to DM interpretation is conjure animals; The rest is by the rules.

[@dtsazza]

Another note to add to Fog Cloud is that because it gives everyone Advantage and Disadvantage, everyone always makes flat rolls, regardless of any other circumstances. This can be very useful for cancelling out e.g. a group of wolves' Pack Tactics - they don't benefit from Advantage any more. Or if the whole party has Disadvantage (some environmental effects makes them all Poisoned, they're attacking a Displacer Beast, etc.), then Fog Cloud effectively gets rid of that too. In the extreme case, the 9th level spell Foresight can be significantly negated (with no save) by a casting of 1st-level Fog Cloud. It's a great way to level the playing field when the party is on the back foot.

[@neileddy6159]

One of the hidden nerfs to rangers is that all of their spells are bonus action concentration spells.

[@daks_7122]

Playing a ranger now, i didnt realize how ALL of the spells are bonus action concentration

[@njfernandes87]

Unnecessarily so. Why u need to concentrate on zephyr strike or lightning arrow for a single attack with no lasting effect?

[@neileddy6159]

@@njfernandes87 right, basically you are a melee half caster, but can only do 1 thing from your kit. Worse they are tuning down hunters strike for one dnd, which makes the other options seem better, but really are still weak. Ranger is a great archetype but they always feel so weak vs other melee or half casters.

[@kalebscott282]

Zephyr strike very much has a lasting effect and you can also choose to use the actual strike at any point during the duration. @njfernandes87

[@donniejefferson9554]

The worst spit in the face to ranger is Favored Foe. They revamped ranger to make them better and the best they could do for a favored enemy replacement is basically just hunter's mark again and still requires concentration

[@JoeyTee420]

I love that you mentioned fog cloud + blind fighting. I played a ranger when the new Tasha’s rules came out, used all the new optional features and chose blind fighting. Very quickly figured out fog cloud was very strong with my dual wielding ranger, it got to the point where the DM started making all the encounters outside and the wind all of a sudden was very strong in that setting… 😅

[@WhiskeyPatriot]

Sounds like he should have had bears or other keen sense creatures instead

[@brianj.841]

I think I would negate the advan/disadvan if adjacent/ 5-feet. A person should be able to see that far even in the densest fog.

[@MsKeylas]

@@brianj.841fog cloud is more like a big spot filled with smoke, and you cant really see through a heavily smoked air

[@CivilWarMan]

An easy way to do survival campaigns while not banning Goodberry is to make the spell consume the material component. That way the berries required to cast the spell can not be replaced by a focus or a spell component pouch, and the player's ability to cast it depends on being able to scrounge them up. It allows the party to use the spell to extend rations without removing ration management as a mechanic.

[@axby1922]

It would be interesting to get your thoughts on the availability of certain spells. What might be a C tier spell for a Wizard or Sorcerer might be a B tier for Druid/Cleric because they can take it for one day and swap out later.

[@lukemartineau490]

Order Domain Cleric can cast Heroism as a bonus action starting at 6th level. That could help a lot with the spell. Also, another use for Hex is that when you debuff a spellcaster, you can choose their spellcasting ability modifier. Then, if they try to Counterspell a different spell and are forced to roll to stop the spell, that roll will be with disadvantage because it's an ability check

[@lunamoth34]

I saw a monk take Hex from a feat and basically turn every punch into a crit. It really adds up on classes that can make a bunch of attacks.

[@LeRoiJojo]

The Darkness/Devil's Sight combo is still much better than than Fog Cloud because of the way Darkness works: it can emanate from an object. You can cast Darkness on your hat to have it follow you around, or cast it on a coin to be able to cover it and therefore turn it on and off if you devote a hand to it.

[@wellcomewaggon8569]

Get your tongue pierced, then cast it on the piercing and open and close your mouth.

[@nathanyoung5530]

I think heroism cast on a barbarian is really good. Getting 3-5 temp hit points, every turn, combined with the rage half damage means a nice 6-10 chip zone before damage, every turn.

[@togruta4]

My battlesmith always has Heroism prepared. The most notable use was when we came to a long hallway that we knew was full of traps. A cast of heroism on the fighter and she walked slowly down the hallway, setting off each trap and allowing time to regain temp Hp before activating the next trap. Also it helped the fighter again when she was the only one in melee with a boss monster and only I could get to her. Situational, yes, but it has been a lot of fun for my friends and I when it does come up

[@MsKeylas]

it reminds me of an episode from gamers where cheesy rogue tried to get through trapped with fireball hall and kept dying , then after some tries party and rogue decided... screw it. Just send the barbarian, who just ehhh-ed from that damage and kept walking

[@kmoustakas]

The niche for hellish rebuke is actually levels 1-2: you get hit and you use this in response to weaponise you reaction.

[@brandonedwright]

Hex is also great if you have a high strength party member. On a solo monster, my Hexblade/Swashbuckler would Hex it, the Totem Barbarian would Shove it to knock it prone then grapple it to keep it down. Since they don't have any speed when grappled, they'd need to use their action to just to attempt to get out of it, again at disadvantage, otherwise they'd have disadvantage on attacking us and we'd have advantage on melee attacks against it.

[@cathal341]

I picked up the invocation fpr False Life as transitionary Invocation until I got access to the 5th Level options on my current PC. Got a lot of mileage out of it tbh, a lot more than I expected to.

[@twicedeadmage]

Starting with 8 Temp Hp in every combat adds up really fast.

[@kvici]

agreed. once you remove the cost of 1st level spell slot, it's quite useful indeed.

[@MrSeals1000]

I'm playing the Shadow Domain cleric thats parts of Sabastian's Guide, and it has False Life as part of it's domain spells. Honestly I'm finding that I'm casting it a lot more often than I thought I would. I'm at a level where I have more spell slots than I usually need per day, and casting it at 1st or 2nd level has saved me from being in a deadly situation quite a few times.

[@ppk3882]

Wait, this video is over an hour and we're not even half way the 1st level spells yet! This is a mega-project.

[@braydschannel2077]

The C and D rated spells are great to hand out as spell scrolls. As a scroll, it’s not wasting spell list space or spell slots, just a fun tool for the niche situations if your players can remember they have it.

[@ARatherDapperTapir]

Feather fall not only exists as a safety net, it also exists as an enabler, like you said with the tower example. You can plan for it, and set up situations where it allows full party maneuvers that would be otherwise impossible.

[@Halinspark]

You aren't just limited to getting out if the high tower with Featherfall, either. If you can work out a delivery system, you can also use it to get INTO the high tower like a paratrooper.

[@lulospawn]

In frustration I ripped an entire stack of notes in front of my players because they FF to timeskip a journey down a mountain that I had planned to last 5-6 sessions. I eventually reworked some of that stuff into the campaign but at that moment I was soooo fucking pissed.

[@ARatherDapperTapir]

@@lulospawn general fix for this, mountains aren't completely vertical, and feather fall ends when you touch ground.

[@infinitesheldon5710]

In regards to Heroism, I was part of a party that had both a Bard and a Barbarian. The campaign went on for a couple years, and one of the most consistent combos was the Bard using Heroism on the Barbarian while she was raging. So taking half damage in addition to the refreshing temp HP, helped the Barbarian tank way, way more damage a day than she should have been able to. I'd say it's definitely a practical, very useful spell.

[@RobKinneySouthpaw]

23:30 I did a survival exploration quest and did an end run around goodberry. They were escorting about a hundred commoners. When the fallout of a random encounter destroyed a lot of the supply wagons, suddenly it became a choice between hunting/forging or using an insane amount of spell slots to feed everyone. They opted not to have the two druids use all there first and half their second level spell slots on goodberry and play along with the foragings/hunting as well as throwing in a few good berries to get advantage

[@twicedeadmage]

The False Life Eldritch Invocation is really useful in Gritty Realism variant.

[@lukemartineau490]

Where short rests take 8 hours? Yeah, I see that

[@fortunatus1]

It's also really useful as a spell with which to make scrolls. It's a great scroll but not a great spell preparation.

[@twicedeadmage]

@@lukemartineau490 It was the players fault.

[@AkameOda]

It's also great cuz False Life lasts a full hour. Forget it needing an action you cast that when you enter the dungeon & shrug off damage from the 1st trap if ya need it before combat. Especially at higher levels where you're not reliant on 1st level slots & its just a nice passive buff.

[@TheKilogram1000]

For Fog Cloud, I run it as also giving everyone cover. So everyone's AC increases by 2, but attacks are normal. That makes it so that you get more of the feeling of people swinging wildly with no one hitting each other.

[@gabrielrockman]

An important thing to remember about Fog Cloud is that a lot of spells require you to see your target. If you put Fog Cloud on an enemy caster, or on your own party, then a lot of the spells can no longer be cast. Of course, Fireball isn't affected by this. But something like Hold Person or Counterspell cannot be cast if the caster or the target is in a Fog Cloud.

[@solar4planeta923]

Have done this on both sides of the table, it's a solid escape plan.

[@derekstein6193]

Fireball is affected by Fog Cloud, as you have to choose a point for it to emanate from that you can SEE.

[@solar4planeta923]

@@derekstein6193 Yeah, I was only referring to the Fog Cloud part, not the interaction with Fireball. For that, I would say that if you drop the fog cloud on the caster, they're not able to cast. But if they're outside they could pick a spot near the fog and fireball would penetrate almost 20' into the fog cloud. Actually having seen a PC warlock drop Hunger of Hadar on a lich, it removed lots of the lich's spell attack actions for the same reason.

[@gabrielrockman]

@@derekstein6193 That's correct. I did not word it properly. I should have said that fireball can find ways to damage people in fog cloud, or that fireball can still damage targets that can't be seen, or something like that. Thank you for the clarification.

[@derekstein6193]

@@gabrielrockman Fair enough.

[@PencilKing21]

Grease absolutely saved my ass in a recent encounter I was in. The party was on a ship sailing to an island chain, but the ship's crew were all being possessed by a demon witch. We then got into combat with the ship's crew, who all turned into shades, and the demon. I was on the top deck with the party's bard and sorcerer (I was a warlock, a lot of charisma casters I know) and the party's fighter and rogue (as well as some non-crew soldiers we had with us) were on the bottom deck, with a middle deck between us. On that middle deck were about 10 shades (give or take a couple). So, I decided to cast grease on the top of the staircase. And this decision saved my (and probably the whole party's, based on how that combat went) life. If you know anything about shades, you know they have an attack that can drain your strength by 1d4, and if it reaches 0, you outright die. Now, I'm an elderly kenku warlock, so naturally not the strongest adventurer out there already (8 strength total). The grease kept the majority of the shades down (they rolled really low on their saves, and the dm ruled it that whenever they failed, they fell down to the bottom again), but 2 managed to make it through, and those two alone were nearly enough to kill me. Both of them hit, and dropped me down to a whopping 3 strength. 1 more hit, and there was about a 50/50 shot I was dead. My next move was to cast a hunger of hadar on the stairs (and on the two that were next to me, blinding them so they couldn't take attacks of opportunity) and fucking jumped out a window, caught myself on a rope (with an athletics check of -4, which I got a clutch nat 20 on) and lived to fight another day. So long story short, If I hadn't cast grease, I probably would've atrophied into dust and been raised as a shade 1d4 hours later

[@willbender9035]

Grease in a Web is also super fun. Grease knocks them down, and Web causes restrained, which sets speed to 0 so they can't get up from prone.

[@backlash660]

When you were discussing Hail of Thorns and its limitations I thought back to what you were saying about Grease and the wheels began turning . It would at the very least present a hilarious visual .

[@sdjmar]

So just as a note, Heroism is pretty much the same as the Twilight Cleric's Twilight Sanctuary for all functional purposes (though you would need to cast it as a 4th level spell in order to impact the whole party). I am playing a Curse of Strahd at the moment and our Barbarian was cursed to be afraid of undead, which is a bit of a problem in the setting for the next level until we can remove the curse, in the meanwhile Heroism is making him back into a beast in combat.

[@therealcromar616]

Glad to see a shout out for Fog Cloud, a seriously underrated spell. Even if nobody has blind fighting, it's a fantastic way to equalize dangerous encounters with berserkers or Pack Tactics; no more advantage, or disadvantage, for anyone! Also works to shut down spellcasters, since they can't target you with most spells, and they can't Misty step out. Best thing they can do is dispel it, which is kind of a win on its own. Great 1st level spell that remains useful for the life of the character. Best part of Hex's secondary effect is 1) helping grapplers and 2) anti-counterspell. Remember: there's no save, so no legendary resistance. Amazing spell. If you guys ever go back and add an S+ tier, Hex goes in there with Bless and Wish. You guys nailed the best use case of Hellish Rebuke; forcing the enemy to save on concentration spells. It's basically a Divine Smite on a reaction, albeit with the dex save involved. Nice for big, slow creatures, though. I think a single classed warlock would prefer to use Dispel Magic as it auto-upcasts and is more reliable. But who single classes warlock? Everybody dips into something to get a few first and second level slots; burn those instead. You guys skipped Frost Fingers and Gift of Alacrity. FF is just Burning Hands, but a different save and damage type. GoA is a pretty nifty non-concentration buff, and it's available to any class via Fey Touched. Granted, it's hard to take GoA when you have a gazillion good enchantment spells to choose from, and you only get to take Fey Touched once. Guiding Bolt is best used against big bag o' hitpoints monsters, like ogres. You likely won't miss (as these things usually have poor ac) and you give advantage to your party's rogue. You make that rampaging ogre think twice about trying to squish your party. I have never seen Heroism used, and I honestly did not know that it refreshed at the start of each turn. I'm going to make an effort to actually pick up and use this spell at some point.

[@joatandimas3098]

About Heroism, if you are playing with 3 players. It gets way better, you really feel the HP boost.

[@larshoffmann1386]

This channel is really becoming the DnD encyclopedia and I love it so much!

[@dwarfburgerswampbeard6181]

DND is so much more than just combat, tier lists are pretty lazy

[@AresiusMajere]

Hellish Rebuke helps with finding invisible enemies (as long as they're the caster) as well. Plus it CAN work well if you're using Armor of Agathys and have resistance.

[@Dr_Dane]

For my campaign I'm playing a battlesmith artificer who's best friend is a barbarian with very low wis score and giving that barbarian effectively +10 hp every turn (because of rage) aswell as immunity to fear has meant that the barbarian can take loads more damage especially since my artificer will usually fly onto a hill or a tree far away and just shoot arrows at the enemy while the barbarian rips the enemies apart.

[@chaoslink1158]

Heroism is that spell that is decent in lower level combat encounters where you have characters that have physical resistance. If you have a barbarian and Rune knight with the rune that offers resistance and such things, you get more mileage out of that temp HP and it can be very worthwhile in a difficult encounter.

[@JuckiCZ]

Heroism is great on raging Barbarian, because those temp HPs are basically doubled. It is also great on characters with Heavy Armor Expert feat, because you can add 3 (from feat) + your spellcasting modifier (from spell) as dmg prevented every round.

[@t.b.cont.]

Reminder that you can cast false life with a 9th lvl spell slot to gain 45-48 hp. Not that it’s a good use of 9th lvl spells, but for combat at 20th lvl this would basically boost your hp to by 50% as a wizard. You can stack this with arcane ward as an abjuration wizard to have on average like 200 hp and as a wizard that puts you on par with many fighters and barbarians at the same level. There’s other ways to become unkillable as a wizard at that level too, but just keep in mind that false life is much better when used with higher spell slots because it gives you +5 to this extra health pool with each spell slot. This spell is useful for abjurers, but it’s especially important to grab as a bladesinger who seeks to be in melee combat to make the most of bladesong as well. I’d boost false life to a high B tier given its functionality with higher spell slots in mind

[@misbac6105]

Goodberry is also quite good in that it can give non-healers in a low healing potion campaign a way to get downed allies back up. It's a tactic my playgroup's druids tend to use.

[@Thamer4life]

Fog Cloud is underrated, yes. What is even more underrated are: 1- Its efficacy at breaking line of sight against ranged attackers. It's like spawning a gargantuan cover from enemy fire. Archers on ambush perches become virtually useless if you position the cloud somewhere between you and them, and they would have to waste one or several turns just trying to get a bead on you again. 2- Same as above, but with the long list of spells and monster abilities that require their user to see their target. 3- The fact that Fog Cloud's radius increases significantly with upcasting (+20 ft per spell level)! There are very few spells that actually affect a larger area when upcast, let alone by this much. A third level fog cloud has a diameter of 120 feet, larger than most battlemaps.

[@carsonrush3352]

So I love Fog Cloud. It's a great spell, and it scales up like crazy. My favorite combo is to cast it and then summon my bat familiar. Then I use the bat's blindsight to navigate through it. It's amazing.

[@darkomen1290]

Regarding fog cloud: I have a pretty smart player at my table that has used it as a smoke signal. Basically, the party was slightly split up amongst the buildings in a busy throughfare, in broad daylight. And when he saw the target, he shoots the fog cloud straight into the air for everyone to see, as a very neat way to have the whole party know where to converge (they don't have any way to communicate telepathically with each other). I thought that was pretty neato tbh

[@lisliaer7999]

Side note for the life domain cleric casting goodberry. You can UPCAST goodberry and it will increase the potency of the "great berrys" slightly. Not the best usage but at the end of an adventuring day sometimes it's a gamble worth it. Especially if you have some sort of time stop refrigerator lol

[@MsKeylas]

or use this idea ''@TheHandgunhero 2 дня назад A very key thing for Goodberry that was missed is the fact that they last 24 HOURS. This means a Druid can spend all their unused spell slots before a long rest to create WAY more Goodberries, and go back into the thick of things the next day. Heck, a Land Druid regains spell slots on a short rest too so you could do so then. Heck, a Life Cleric Druid multi just does this turned up to 100. It's S tier.''

[@lisliaer7999]

@MsKeylas works even better if you have a chronomancer who can talk the dm into making a refrigerator (time stop chest) to keep your food from rotting. Then just store your goodberry stockpile there

[@MsKeylas]

@@lisliaer7999 with that approach you can actually make huge profit by offering your services to somebodies army as a person who answers for food or pop-up medpacs. several not high leve druid/life clerics can completely replace vulnerable,bulky,slow and expensive caravans with food and medical supplies. and druids even if the have no slots can wildshape and either demolish those who came to take them down. or turn into something small to quickly bye-bye away from danger. for example even if they dont yet have flying form ,turn into mouse and get into any ground hole or burrow into ground,and them come out any other quiet place

[@christianschmid1440]

I cast featherfall exactly once. At the end of a campain we returned to our hub city as the great heros. and to celebrate I was flying on the back of a manticore we befriended on the way and jumped of to land softly in the middle of the town square, with a billowing cape to complete the picture. :D

[@vladimirserpov6773]

Goddamn, so I am not the only one who suffered from Shadowhearts lame guiding bolts 😂 Speaking about it. Currently I am playing Star Druid, and that subclass gets a number of guiding bolt casts per rest without spending spellslots. It's a wonderful spell for times when one feels they aren't ready to cast higher level spells when there is someone with sharpshooter or great weapon master feat in the party. Especially if someone has already cast bless for the party.

[@NakamiJun]

Since we talk about Hunter's Mark in this one... I actually considered Hunter's Mark for a very long time and then made it a class feature instead of a spell... And then later did away with it in it's current form at all and instead made it a variation of Sneak Attack (though at half rate) and a core class feature. This just ended up feeling so much better and proved simpler for players.

[@andycarver3264]

22:27 I personally built a ascendant dragon monk with a ring of obscuring and was able to take the blind fighting style along with the mobile feat. By level 5 I was easily dropping fog cloud anywhere on the map (including in the middle of a large group of enemies) and taking out my enemies, or even setting up an escape for my friends as i held the line and then dashed out of there with over 100+ movement speed of a dashing monk on top of step of the wind dragon monk flying. One of my favorite character builds I've ever made and fog cloud is a must have spell for me for its versatility.

[@jonp8015]

Another situation where Hellish Rebuke is very useful... Is on a Sorcerer that took one level in Warlock.

[@Coogman3]

Can confirm

[@kmoustakas]

The niche for heroism is at level 4 when you can upcast it to hit two creatures, giving them (assuming 18 on your stat) 4 hit points at the begining of your turn and immunity to fear on a bard who at level 4 doesn't really have any buff spells (fairie fire and bane are debuff spells).

[@Yutah1981]

the thing with Hex is that on higher levels you get the slot back but still keep the spell active. And with the Sorlock you use your bonus to cast it once and THEN wuicken spell for 2-3-4 more blasts. each with an extra d6. I will also note that checks are used for dispelling/counterspelling and grabs/pushes/grips

[@Spadg]

Guiding bolt was one of my favorite spells on my sorcerer in Solasta: Crown of the Magister (I used the game’s equivalent subclass to divine soul). Twinning guiding bolt allows my paladin and rogue to quickly nuke down two targets right when combat begins.

[@andrewlewis2123]

20:00 this has always been my struggle with Fog Cloud, too. I’ve taken it on several characters, but rarely use it because I worry about debuffing my allies’ attacks - and then there’s the age old “The goblin just walks 10 feet forward to escape the fog”. Outside of combat, I personally struggle to find uses for it - it has a small range and might give away that there’s a spellcaster around if fog suddenly manifests in a 10-foot cube (depending on your DM). C-Tier for me, personally.

[@Zaffron77]

My party and I were laying an ambush for a bandit patrol. Grease + Spike Growth from the Wizard and Ranger turned them all into oily kebobs!

[@euansmith3699]

25:56 🎶Grease is the word Grease is the word, is the word that you heard It's got groove it's got meaning Grease is the time, is the place is the motion Grease is the way we are feeling🎶

[@simonmoody8400]

One comment about Feather Fall, from a singular, personal angle, I very much keep in mind Misty Step as a self save reaction if you suddenly find yourself falling, either preventing the fall in the first place, or just before you hit to Step to safety rather than impact. And given how good Misty Step is for so many uses, both in and out of combat, having the ability to use that to save yourself from a fall, does eat a little into Feather Fall, making it a little harder to justify unless your in the very specific group flying sort of situation.

[@inakiconde894]

The funniest memory I have from an encounter was, when we were in a ship and a pirate crew tried to board us through two wooden planks... Then was when we we cast a grease spell that covered both planks. All the pirates ended feeding the sharks while we looked at them really amused, because the DM ruled that, being very thin planks, and with the movement of the ships and the amount of water, the pirates had disadvantage on their saving throws. We couldn't stop laughing at the weird situation

[@jamescoughlan7175]

My only defense that hunter's mark should be higher is that it does deal weapon damage which is even less resisted than necrotic damage which if your fighting undead is a little more common

[@RDQuodomine]

So here's my combo, and I just used it with grease. I have a multi-class sorlock who was able to pick up Grease. The combination is Eldridge blast plus repelling blast plus grease against low decks lumbering creatures who must cross a relatively narrow area. At the very least, it can significantly delay their action. At best you give your mellet people some targets who are prone or at least have to deal with difficult terrain. It's an excellent defensive and board control spell.

[@TheBucketOfTruth]

For False Life I think there is an argument for it as a Warlock at low levels using Fiendish Vigor where you can cast it at-will for free. Having average 6.5 extra HP as a Warlock circa Level 2 whenever you want seems like a huge boost when your total HP is probably something like 17. Later on you'll probably swap out the Invocation as the relative strength of that extra health will continue to diminish, but when I was considering building a Level 2 Fiend Warlock this invocation and spell felt quite strong.

[@raxenladevaldak1749]

The ability of False Life is pretty good, but at the cost of a spell slot and action it really doesn't feel great often. Getting rid of the spell slot cost with the Invocation really makes it worth it at even mid levels in my opinion.

[@TheBucketOfTruth]

@@raxenladevaldak1749 Perhaps if you're a blaster Warlock you can get some more mileage out of it, but I think the opportunity cost of giving up the Invocation slot you could use for something else that's arguably better means you won't hold on to it too long.

[@Bigswordenergy-b7u]

The frustrating thing about the ranger spellcasting. is that alot of spells that give modifications for your arrow shots demand concentration. even though they mostly don't do continuous effects but are just single time effects. So you can't concentrate on a buff spell and use a single attack modifying spell. I think a great solution to this is a thing that was included in the one d&d UA's before it got removed(because of an op combo). and it's allowing rangers to have dual concentration(at early levels maybe have a limitation to have one of them be a first level spell and open it up to any level at high levels of play). and subvert the broken combo by making the feature only possible to work with ranger spells. That way it opens up your options to all the single shot spells that always seemed not worth it in comparison to your other options or you can just make yourself a beast by stacking two buff spells. The damage output isn't too broken your still falling behind the fighter. But you just have more utility. instead of having to choose between some small utility/control or damage now you have a little bit of both so I think it's balanced

[@indigoblacksteel1176]

I think the auto-upcasting of Hellish Rebuke on Warlocks to do more damage makes it good. You usually have enough slots for Hex and Hellish Rebuke because all your attacks are with Eldritch Blast anyway and you recover on a short rest. Plus retribution damage is just fun. Our warlocks' spellcasting is all pretty vanilla. Variety generally comes with everything else.

[@tylerwebb2495]

Imo, a decent way to fix goodberry is make the spell require a berry as a material that is expended when casting. If you can’t find a berry than you can’t use the spell. No berries in the desert or in the shadowfell. And if you want to make survival more difficult then take out the part where it sustains you for 24 hours, that way the spell can still be used if the player wants it

[@Boone_Faustus]

It's great to see some Grease love. I use it to some great effect with my Arcane Trickster / Bladesinger. Dropping an enemy with Grease and then hitting them with Booming Blade is fun when they take the extra damage after standing up. I've also got some great use out of Hex on them (picked up through Fey Touched), especially when I see something that I think will be trouble before initiative is rolled and Hex their Dexterity so they have disadvantage on the initiative roll.

[@jamboozler7589]

I use Hex on my Arcane Trickster Rogue, and while I might not benefit as much as a warlock might damage wise, the disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks helps make sure I can nearly always hide from my target.

[@Rodshark75]

A seldom used almost secret ability that Hex and Hunters Mark provide is outside Combat. Hex doesn't cause aggro, isn't detectable, and doesn't do damage on its own, so you can target someone outside combat and hex their charisma checks so you can make them more manipulatable or on a target you are tailing through the city with Hunters Mark and you can track them through a crowded city back to their hideout,

[@chrisscott9564]

Always super videos guys, massive thanks. I feel like fog cloud was slightly underrated, you spoke about it being an equaliser in a negative sense but actually I think that's a great strength. Even at high levels if you get accosted by a band of melee enemies with some ranged support you can cast on yourselves, taking all the ranged guys out of combat so you can clean up the melee's. The added benefit of stopping casters from any sight required spells is gravy too. So much for such a low level spell, not to mention just how massive it gets when you upcast.... you can smoke out an entire battlefield :D

[@ryanhilliker375]

44:50 One of the players in my campaign wanted to play a skeleton. I saw advantage on death saving throws and was both interested and also worried about the power. But then I realized I'm able to be a more ruthless dm because I'm 1: adding a rule that you gain a level of exhaustion, at 6 you auto fail 3 death saving throws. 2: can use this player as a sort of "warning" for when particularly nasty threats are around. They are a fighter, so I won't have to try to make that happen ;)

[@futurecaredesign]

About Hex: You can also use it to hex someone's Intelligence Checks. Dispel Magic and Counterspell both require intelligence checks in certain parts of their mechanics.

[@HikariKenzaki]

A pattern I'm noticing already in these videos and my own play is that the first-level spells I'm taking at levels 1-4 are very different from those taken at 5-10 and 10+. So, a really great low-level spell becomes forgotten at higher play while a spell you haven't really used at low levels becomes the 'gravy' spell later on when you've already unleashed all your big spells and hey, might as well cast this, too

[@thebardbarian5061]

Y’all are great!

[@thunderwe_ryesiam]

16:04 Dayum I feel really called out with my dog sitting right besides me

[@TrapeZoid_-117]

One of my players picked up the Pact of the Chain and chose the Sprite familiar. There have been so many moments where they look at the stat block and go “Wait, this thing can just tell me what this person’s alignment is?” Or “Hey, this thing can turn invisible! I can use it like a spy drone!” Or “Oh cool, if I use its attack, it has a small chance to put enemies to sleep. Neat!” It’s hilarious.

[@dinomichalopoulos1517]

One advantage of Hunters Mark over hex is that HM does magical weapon damage whereas Hex does necrotic which can be resisted.

[@greenplumberL]

On Healing Word spam keeping a character in the battle, bouncing in and out of consciousness: it's awesome. The cleric is consistently channeling their magic into keeping a character that should be dead in a fight. Is that not part of the cleric fantasy? You get to show the power of your God in that moment, and turn your fighter into an unstoppable juggernaut. The only problem is people gloss over how crazy powerful it is, and rob it of its inherent drama. "Oh, Rob the fighter is awake again and gets two swing his sword three times before dying again."

[@TheSeventhChild]

After watching this video I had the fridge thought of "Healing Word is Feather Fall but for horizontal things approaching you really quickly instead"

[@patrickrear]

On the matter of bosses using a legendary resistance to avoid Faerie Fire, I think that's another example of why it's such a good tactically-relevant spell. I will *absolutely* trade a casting of Faerie Fire for a boss monster burning a legendary resistance (as opposed to a higher level spell slot), and it's also absolutely a useful enough spell for it to be one they might want to burn a legendary resistance to avoid.

[@H1Guard]

Invisibity is a glamer. It isn't making the creature physically invisible (which would be a figment). It makes the creature look like the background in the perception of the viewer. If an invisible creature picks up an item, that item gets glamered. It doesn't stay visible and seemingly float in the air. You can't toss physical glitter, flour, dye powder, etc on an invisible critter to show where it is. The stuff would just get glamered. The fairy fire glow would just be glamered along with everything else on the creature. The exception would be in darkness. The feeble light shed by the fairy glitter onto surrounding objects would clue the viewer into the fact that something is in that area.

[@Voriclexx]

BG3 actually made me realize just how good False Life is for Warlocks as their invocation. Early levels, Wyll was a really good tank with False Life, Armor of Agathys, and Dark One’s Blessing. He always had temporary hp that was being used up first and then for the next fight (or during the fight if he killed the enemy) would have more temporary hp. It’s one of those combos along with Armor of Agathys that is also really good as a barbarian multiclass since it’s not concentration.

[@wizrad2099]

A couple of ideas come to mind when considering Hail of Thorns, both with concern to concentration. Mind you, these are open to debate, I didn't spend a lot of time checking these ideas against every concentration spell, mostly just the lower level spells. 1) Consider making it possible to cast a concentration spell without concentrating, at which point it only lasts for the turn (not round) that it was cast. So something like Hail of Thorns could be used, but if the attack misses the spell just dissipates, it does not persist until the next attack that lands. Consider other spells like True Strike, already not a favored spell, but if applied like this, you'd only have that advantage for your own attack, not someone else's unless they prepared their attack specifically for after you cast True Strike. It doesn't seem especially broken when looking at lower level concentration spells. You're more likely to waste the spell than you are to abuse this. (Again, feel free to let me know if there are higher level spells that would utterly break this system as a homebrew option, I was mainly thinking about this in the context of Rangers using Hunter's Mark on their first turn and then still being able to use Hail of Thorns while concentrating on Hunter's Mark.) 2) I have considered severe penalties that would allow a player to concentrate on two spells at once. I know this is widely regarded as a broken system, but if you put some heavy limitations on it, it could be better. For example (mind you, I am proposing ALL of these penalties at once, not individually, but a DM could be more lenient if they wanted): - You have permanent disadvantage on concentration checks when concentrating on two spells (something that gives you advantage would not negate this disadvantage). - You have an additional penalty to those checks, subtracting the level of the higher level spell from the rolls (a third level concentration spell would reduce each concentration roll by 3). - You do separate rolls for each spell, both at disadvantage, both with the penalty, and failing either ends both spells. - You must maintain line of sight on the target of the spells (no buffing the party, debuffing the enemy, then hiding in a pocket dimension to maintain concentration, you must remain on the battle field with them). - You can only cast cantrips while concentrating on two spells at once, casting a leveled spell while concentrating on two spells immediately breaks concentration on both spells. I could see implementing either or both approaches in a home game, or just adjusting certain spells like Hail of Thorns in particular. I could also see designating certain spells as "complex concentration," following more traditional concentration rules for those spells in particular.

[@johnmason7628]

Freaking fog cloud. I ran a session where my players had to get across a 10ft wide by 50ft long log that was over a raging river. Problem was that there was a sizeable amount of orcs on the other side of the river. I thought that my players might engage them at range or cross the log and rush them. BUT WE HAVE A FREAKING WIZARD. Don't cast fog cloud over hazardous terrain kids. It was a pretty fun session that made me conclude the same thing that these guys have said: Fog cloud doesn’t make combat easier, it just makes it more chaotic. The players had a great time though. Fog cloud is a great pick.

[@Mary_Studios]

My famous use of Grease was it before Spike growth. The enemies slipped right into the spike growth. The live play famously called it Merilwen's Meatgrinder because of how many died to it.

[@jacobmoll2878]

Heroism, used it as a scourge aasimar (legacy)paladin. I was being attacked by nearly thirty little creatures with only a couple hit points and vulnerable to my radiance effect, I had heroism giving me the temp hit points that was the same as the damage I was taking from my radiance. The rest of my party had retreated except the cleric who had fallen to the enemy and I was charged with his safety. Cast heroism and then activated my radiance and waded into mess. It was glorious.

[@ForDerrick]

I remember playing in a drop-in game, first session for me as a level 1 Artificer with a party of Level 3/4s and having Grease be the absolute show stopper. It single-handedly changed half of the party’s opinion on the spell and most of them picked up it up if they could.

[@drax1526]

A plan I have for my rogue right now, since he has a headband of intellect, is to grab Magic Initiate in Wizard. I'll check Shocking Grasp as one of my cantrips. And I'll get Find Familiar as well. So I can use Steady Aim (optional rogue rule), stab with my rapier (because Steady aim never specifies ranged or melee), use my action surge because I'm a fighter multi, and use Shocking Grasp through either myself or my familiar. I love options.

[@Klaital1]

Hail of Thorns is one of my favorite spells, especially for characters multiclassed with a full spellcasting class, because it upcasts really well.

[@akjakjakj]

Great thing about divine favour is that you don't need a bonus action to move it from target to target and you can switch targets without killing the first one, so pams and cbes get great use of it. I once had a tattoo of it on a character with a two bird sling and using it is a awesome memory I have now. Also while it's only a d4 it's a d4 of radiant damage.

[@derekstein6193]

With Fog Cloud, you can use it in combat to shut down ranged and spellcasting enemies. Because you need to see your target or see a location with most spells to cast them, spellcasters cannot do much unless they leave the fog. Ranged weapon attacks can generally be still used through the fog, but the attacker has disadvantage and has no idea where friends or foes are. This not only leaves enemy melee combatants on their own, but it also forces the spellcasters/ranged combatants a choice: either move out of the fog away from the action and thereby still have no eyes on the battle, or move closer out of the fog and gett much closer to melee combat. Either way, good crowd control. Also, casting a line spell ( Lightning Bolt) into the fog is great, as you don't need to see to just cast it in a direction. Not only that, the enemy can't see the attack coming and therefore would have disadvantage on their Dexterity saving throw; much more likely to deal full damage. Works best against bunched up foes, and two PCs can agree beforehand to have one spellcaster Ready the Lightning Bolt spell, casting it in response to Fog Cloud being cast by the other. A resl one-two punch.

[@glizzygalaxy5407]

I don't know if you guys have videos on something like this; however, I would love to see videos focusing on spells, abilities, and mechanics from older editions that might be worth taking the look at, to in implement in your own game

[@TheRealMuckluck]

Regarding Faerie Fire vs Bless, it's worth remembering that while Bless gives you a defensive bonus, unless you have Advantage from another source, Faerie Fire (assuming it hits) also doubles the chance of getting a critical hit on attacks. While great for everyone relying on attack rolls, it makes FF especially useful for half-orcs, rogues, high-level 2H barbarians, TWF rangers (gloomstalkers especially, regardless of fighting style), paladins ... and, of course, champion fighters of every level, especially half-orc ones. Level 15 half-orc champions attacking with advantage will have 3 attacks per turn (6 with AS), each with a ~30 % chance to crit (which, don't forget, includes an auto hit), and dealing an extra 1d12 or 2d6 on that crit, assuming they use the big dice weapons. Now *that's* the definition of "the best defense is a good offense". Throw in Fey touched there, and watch them Misty Step right up to the enemy caster immediately on their first turn.

[@christopherpurches2774]

Heroism: situational, but on a barbarian that's raging, it can functionally double the regenerating temp hp. Hex: a fighter with magic initiate hexing their opponents strength can start shoving them around with near impunity. Also, +1d6 damage per attack when you can double your number of attacks is exceptional for an incremental bump. Far better than Hunter's Mark for a Fighter (generally speaking).

[@daltigoth3970]

Late to the party here, but Heroism is a very niche spell because the circumstances you would want to use it over other options are very rare, but when those circumstances are there, it is amazing. One example would be the party facing large groups of monsters that don't deal much damage per hit. There are too many of them for your 1st-level AOE spells to do much, but if you can use a narrow hall or a doorway to funnel the enemies and have just one character getting hit, that one character is effectively taking no damage from the first 5 or 6 hits they take. Another great use of Heroism is casting it on a raging barbarian. That effectively doubles the temp HP that they get, since the damage they take is halved, and they get those temp HP back every round. Let the barbarian soak all the damage. It is also potentially exploitable with a life-stealing weapon. Between combats, cast Heroism on one character, let another character use the life-stealing weapon to hit them repeatedly until fully healed. The character with Heroism takes no damage to their own HP, and the other character can heal dozens of HP for the cost of a first-level spell slot. (I personally don't allow temp HP lost to be counted toward any sort of life-stealing effect, partially because of this exploit)

[@rakatika]

As a DM running a survival campaign with Goodberry users, I would require the the Material component (a sprig of mistletoe) required for each casting of the spell. This ensures nature checks and foraging are still relevant and if they can't find it they must resort back to hunting with survival checks. No need to ban a great spell.

[@TheRealMuckluck]

Use case for Guiding Bolt: Divine Soul sorcerer at low levels, twinning it. Level 1 spell slot + 1 sorcery point for 2x4d6 radiant damage that can crit.

[@M_M_ODonnell]

A couple of weeks ago my party's warlock used Faerie Fire to save the party by basically playing Battleship with the invisible enemy wizard. (Then the sorcerer used a Heightened Vortex Warp to drop that wizard between the fighter and the shifted Moon druid. Because cooperation always wins.)

[@mishiara5499]

Do not forget scorching ray for Hex as well so not a must with eldrich blast even if it has more consistent use of it 💛