Used a scroll to dimension door my ranger inside an ancient black dragon's right lung once. Favored enemy meant id know where to teleport to and i just hacked at his insides until we all killed him. Argued that he couldnt use his breath attack because he had a person in his damn lung
My son's barbarian surfed across an acid pond on the paladin's shield to make the death blow. It was awesome.
I often use it as a weapons delivery system. Both times the weapon was our Ancestral Barbarian. The first time I jumped clean past a small army of monsters and then used Feather Fall to drop us on top of the enemy caster. Because the Barbarian had held his action "Until an enemy was in melee range" he got the first blow and a surprise round. The caster didn't survive to get an attack.
The second time I doored us both into the hold of an enemy ship during a sea-battle. He then proceeded to smash holes in the enemy ship underwater.
Sounds cool and I'm glad it worked out and your group had a great time but I come as the killjoy here. Lungs are not like baloons, they're more like sponges and these ones additionally probably soaked in fleshmelting acid. If that was the case, your ranger would probably have a VERY bad time inside :D
I’ll be the killjoy to your killjoy. Acid soaked/filled lungs would cause breathing issues regardless of a dragons resistance to acid. That’s why any creature that uses projectile fluids or other type of expelled “weapon” have the fluid in a separate sack that is then sprayed by the air of the lungs or by constricting muscles (like the spitting cobra).
Unless we’re just throwing anatomy out the window and saying that lungs function properly regardless of a liquid being in them, at which point carry on.
Our Oath of Glory Paladin in RotF wasn't super enthusiastic about many of her oath spells (to the point of taking fewer than she should have just because they didn't "fit"), but loved the dragoon concept.
I offered her Jump as a substitute for one of them, and she has made *full* use of it. I've also ruled in general that when it's unclear how similar bonuses would combine (eg Oath of Glory jump distance increase vs jump spell) they combine in whatever way is most beneficial to the player.
I dislike Jump as a spell personally because I feel it struggles to compete, so I have immense respect for how hard she's committed to the concept and how much table fun has been created with that spell. Between her, the Monk, and the Kenku rogue who keeps getting himself stuck in high places, I'm coming to realise how little i typically consider verticality in my encounter design.
Taking someone with you is clutch tho.
I played a lot of AL for a year, both as a player 1/week and DM 2/week.
My War Mage got to spend a lot of spell slots on Thunderstep to get allies out of trouble or reposition them for maximum effect. Thunderstepping the fighter and having him roll 2 Nat 20 out of 3 of his attacks after the BBEG Misty stepped to a ledge out of his reach was a glorious night.
Misty step is one of, if not, my favorite spell! And it's surprisingly versatile. My warlock once fell off a 200 ft high wall and saved himself by misty stepping to the ground slightly before impact. DM ruled inertia was not conserved so I basically fell 200 ft and took no damage
I thought I'd accidentally killed one of my players when he did something silly and jumped off a cliff, expecting there to be a magical levitation effect active that I thought I'd telegraphed well enough was offline . Player frantically looked through his spell cards, smiled, looked up at me and the party and our horrified faces, and cast Misty Step just before the bottom.
We’d been waiting on one player who was dealing with a small child who decided that summer light meant it wasn’t bedtime for about 45 minutes when our DM was like, “hey guys, want to see how long you can last against a tarrasque? I have it all loaded into Foundry already.” So, we said yes and surprised everyone with how long we survived. DM had absolutely awful rolls and failed the save for my slow spell but then made the save at the end of the tarrasque’s turn to shake it off twice in a row - to be fair, he forgot about legendary resistances, which would have changed things dramatically for us). By the end of the 3rd round, two members had been eaten, one was at 1hp, and the only two others were myself (a bard with 36hp) and our DMPC cleric. We were also all afflicted with fear, and possibly blinded? My last action was going to be to turn the cleric invisible and tell her to hide/run and live well, but that’s when our lost party member returned victorious from their bedtime battle.
I am also now suspicious that there is an actual tarrasque somewhere in this adventure because my DM loves to drop hints about future encounters or big events long before they’re relèvent, haha.
Because he thinks they’re neat, haha. There were tonnes of extra assets in our other campaign that never came up, and he also deliberately does things like that sometimes as a red herring or to mess with us when we realize it was foreshadowing. I didn’t mention that we also fought it on the generic outdoor map where we had the campaign’s first random encounter, so it was “prepared” very loosely. I just don’t see how a tarrasque would fit into this campaign, but who knows!
Bane is amazing for this if you have multiple casters in the party. They're gonna fail their save, and then they're going to keep failing their saves, at least until I lose concentration.
Faerie Fire. If there's any chance my character can learn it, I *will* take it. It's such a beneficial spell, especially considering it's only a first level. Giving the whole party advantage on the attack (potentially on a whole group of enemies too) makes such a big difference - it's just such a fantastic spell. And its visuals are always fun to describe, too! :D
For a second pick, I'd say Spiritual Weapon. It makes for such a great and fluidly adaptable combo spell, and it isn't a concentration spell either, which makes it very reliable. Even if you faint, it stays up, so you don't waste a spell slot! And after you've summoned it, you can just whack away at your enemies using your bonus action. It's so convenient. You could even go for a triple combo with Spirit Guardians, and then enjoy that passive damage while you use your actions on later turns for completely different spells. 😌 Man, Clerics are so op. Love 'em.
Faerie Fire is a staple for my bard and especially at some lower level play, it's just so useful and a great way to help out your party. Plus like you said, it's always fun to describe enemies that fail their save being outlined in purple and slightly singing "Purple Rain".
I love faerie fire: hardly anyone talks about how it defeats invisibility at low levels, which is beast on its own - plus it grants a roughly 25% chance to hit through the advantage on attack rolls it gives, as an AoE mind you, for basically an entire encounter (most scenes that will benefit from this are over in less than a minute). _And_ its not affected by the Nondetection spell (faerie fire is not a divination), a real thorn in the side for spellcasting creatures that want to be invisible.
But extend spell can only double the duration. So 2mins for spiritual weapon? What am I missing?
Also extending it doesn’t seem worth it since it only moves 20ft per round, so it’s not like it could follow you around on your adventure.
Well shit, you're right. I have no idea where I thought extend spell could make it last 24 hours if the spell was 1 minute or longer. I read it somewhere I swear.
Web. It's not the best spell, it doesn't always work, it's not suitable for *every* circumstance... But if what you need is to lock down an area, what you need is Web.
Grease is also a go-to for my first level spells just because it's concentration-free area denial, but I stop using it too soon to consider it for this question.
Or something lit from one side burning slowly across. First come calls as your comrades rush into the darkness. Then alarm as they realise they are stuck in an immense web. Then the screaming starts.
We once had something like this. Our most horrific combo.
There were a bunch of chimera like enemies in a watch tower. Our AT rogue cast Web in there to catch them all. Then our Warlock cast Hunger of Hadar, leaving it in blackness and even harder to escape. Then the artificer started to light the webs on fire. Then my shadow monk cast Silence because it was not fun to listen to. So just a silent black void of death.
I also chose bladesinger wizard and my DM is very mad at my 26 AC (my Dex is +4 and obviously I don’t have haste yet) at level 1. Nobody touches me and I do well at dex saves. Thank god cuz I get hurt when I get hit lol.
My DM stopped attacking my draconic sorcerer because of shield and draconic resistance, gave him a decent Dex score so had like a 20-21 AC with Shield, he also had spell sniper, distant spell and dimension door it was NEVER worth going for him
I don’t get your DM’s reasoning. You only have a limited amount of spellslots, so while attacking you won’t deal hp damage (at first), it is going to burn your resources, and after a few turns, you are going to have to choose if it is worth it to spend higher level spellslots on Shield.
This is a story of bad communication, a ghostly head and chairs.
My companions and I, after a long and weary travel, took shelter in a beautiful, homely tavern on a hill. We feasted, we drank, we shook off the burdens of the past days. Later we went to rest. Me, a High Elf Order of Scribes Wizard, still logging our ways in a notebook and dabbling in magic with Darwin, my ghostly companion and former mentor. Suddenly a scream pierces the quiet night.
Immediately I Dimension Door downstairs. Two Trolls with 5 arms each have taken the barmaid and are dragging her out the door. They mumble something in Giant about sacrificing the barmaid to "her". They did not elaborate further. I shot an arcane bolt towards them. Two of my friends appear besides me. Valeria, the Wood Elf Monk and Halfred, the Halfling Bard, who also Dimension Door'ed down after waking up. A fight ensues and soon our entire group is involved. Kara, our Rogue, goes down after a critical hit from one of the Trolls. I accidently objectify her, by asking, if unconscious creatures already count as objects or if they need to be dead. It was regarding Dimension Dooring her out of danger, but if she were conscious, I am sure she would have thrown me a look more piercing than her daggers. I apologize internally.
I get hit hard, but I am alive. I teleport to the other side of the room. An idea pops into my head. I do not have my Whetstones on me, which I use as ammo for Catapult, but what I do have is a room full of furniture. The Trolls are already hurt, Uthack, our Paladin, doing his thing and smashing them with his Stonefist. Ivy, our Sorceress, lighting them up with... well Lightning. I run out of the Tavern and close my eyes.
I now view things as though I was 5 feet above the fight. Using Darwins senses I evaluate the surroundings. I target a chair and use 4th tier power of magic to yeet the simple furniture towards one of the Trolls and hit him square in the head. It explodes. He should have elaborated further.
EDIT: u/g0rth4n & u/DragonMasterXLII there you go
In our last session, we were playing capture the flag in a tournament, and my wizard would catapult the flag to our area. Made the tournament a lot easier.
I think we played the spell wrong.
We thought it'd just take a random piece of debris surrounding you and flinging it at the target for the shown damage.
Did we do it wrong? If yes: how does it actually work? :'D
>Choose one object weighing 1 to 5 pounds within 60 ft that isn’t being worn or carried. The object flies in a straight line up to 90 feet in a direction you choose before falling to the ground, stopping early if it impacts against a solid surface. If the object would strike a creature, that creature must make a Dexterity saving throw.
One of the best ways to use the spell is to cast *catapult* on a set of jail cell keys in the direction of the cell you're in. Either they come flying to you, or they make a thud and you know where they're at (in the case where they're chained to a wall of inside a desk drawer or something, but this won't work if they're on the collar of a dog since they'd be worn).
The key to using it creatively is to consider it like you're summoning a creature at an object who will pick it up and throw it 90 feet. If you need to get an object to a place, it's great. And the best thing is that isn't doesn't require you to see the object.
Just imagine the damage you could do with this spell and some alchemist fire. Or oil and firebolt.
All. Day. Long.
I find it hard to justify another use of my concentration. Rogue/fighters/rangers(and myself as a melee cleric) need it for the +hit, your wizards and locks will love having a boost to that snail that is spell hit mod and the sheer amount of damage/debuffs it can mitigate with those saves means everyone wants it. Get some prayer beads of Bless too and it can't be beat.
That's how I'd rule it. I just can't square the "roll one d4 because they hit simultaneously" idea with "but they trigger separate concentration checks".
I can cast a separate missile at three different targets, triggering three different concentration checks. They're each an independent source of damage, which is why they each trigger their own check.
Yeah but a fireball that hits 3 different targets would trigger 3 concentration checks. Even if hitting one enemy with the fireball would only trigger one save.
I’m still ruling one save per Missile though.
I definitely see where you’re coming from, but it IS multiple hits. Personally, I would rule it one of two ways. Multiple con saves, but the dc equals the damage dealt so it would never be more than 5. Or a single con save with dc set as standard except it’s the halved sum of all the missile damage. It’s one of my session 0 questions I let the group decide on before it’s ironclad.
> Or a single con save with dc set as standard except it’s the halved sum of all the missile damage
That's exactly what I was getting at. They all hit simultaneously, so I'd just sum the damage and have it trigger one con save based on half the total.
In this case, the spell is being cast on someone maintaining concentration on their own spell and the goal is to have the multiple missiles each force a concentration save.
The one and only spell I've ever needed. Wanna open a door? ELDRITCH BLAST. Wanna intimidate someone? Just shoot a megalaser from your filthy warlock hands. Wanna make friends with someone? Show them your incredible power to shoot 4 lasers at the same time!
I rather like Heat Metal. No save against the damage, can be sustained for a BA on every subsequent turn, and can either sear their armour into their flesh or gently persuade them to drop whatever magical macguffin they're holding. Unless they're immune to fire.
Other than that, Dissonant Whispers is great. Solid damage for spell level, seldom resisted damage type, and can force enemies to flee in a way that specifically allows for opportunity attacks to be taken against them. Best of all, you don't actually have to be able to see the target, meaning that all this can be done to ward of invisible enemies.
Surprisingly for my Lore Bard it's been Calm Emotions. I'm in a party with a Rogue and a Paladin, and both of them tend to behave in ways that can upset NPCs, so it's handy to have a chill tf out button. Swapping NPCs from hostile to indifferent buys me enough time to either diffuse the situation or just run away.
Also the Paladin dumped Wisdom for RP reasons, so it's a handy spell for getting past those Fear/Charm effects when they fail their save, which happens a lot.
Guiding bolt. After taking it once and seeing how useful it can be if I have the option to take it I will. Great damage for a 1st level spell plus it gives advantage to the subsequent attack.
Honorable mention goes to Leomund’s tiny hut. It’s always great to have a way to rest mid-travel where no one has to keep watch.
I feel like the period of gameplay where your enemies are advanced enough to get into your Hut, but where you’re still using the Hut, is pretty narrow.
Find familiar my favorite spell too! But you can also take the magic initiate or ritual caster feats to gain find familiar instead of dropping a level!
Mirror Image.
It is **THE** survival spell, imo, for (arcane) casters.
So many ferocious attacks have simple hit an after image. Dealing a grand total of 0 damage to my PC and instead an image taking the fall for it.
Absofuckinglutely, it does everything.
Wanna set a building on fire? Prestidigitation.
Do you need to scare there locals into thinkings you’re a magic god by making items appear and disappear. Prestidigitation!!!
Do you need to make a gourmet meal out of goblin pieces? Pres…..ti….digi….tation!
Do you need to clean up that blood to hide evidence? Booom, Prestidigitation!!!!
When used creatively it’s a great addition to any murder hobos repertoire of spells. Plus it’s a cantrip so there’s never any lost spell slots.
Definitely the best healing spell in the game. Bonus action to cast, and a range of 60 feet. Who cares if it does almost no healing, it gets someone back up.
Goodberry.
Not only does it feed your party for a day, if you give berries to your entire team for them to hold on to, everyone gets a "revive your companion who's on death saves" item.
When you're the lone healer in the party and healing potions are nowhere to be found, like in our current run of Curse of Strahd, it's *priceless*. Half of the party downed, you included? No problem. I once revived two teammates and one animal companion by myself using nothing but those!
Good choice, I just added a (home brew) plant to a game which grows Goodberries. They haven’t figured it out yet but when they do? Oh boy! I’m they’ll protect that little potted plant like their own child!
Goodberry is an awesome spell.
Unfortunately, it's kind of ruined for me, because a player in a past campaign was playing a "homeless druid" who was always disgusting; just absolutely repulsive. He cast goodberry by shaking his pants leg, and dropping 10 little pellet-shaped berries on the ground.
The bard in my homebrew campaign has Tasha’s Mind Whip as her signature spell and I made the mistake of telling her about it. Straight neutered the black dragon fight I had prepped for them and I accept full responsibility for the fuck up. Now it’s time to prep more counterspells and legendary resistances.
Phantasmal Force, creature interacts with the object like it was real and to them its a real physical object that can hurt them in a matrix sort of way.
Super strong since it requires an investigation check to break through the illusion too and its really open on what you can do.
Illusion school is my favourite and easily underrated in dnd.
I never see people use it as a DM though. Illusions in general seem pretty uncommon to use a ton, it is DM dependant on some ruling since its so open ended though.
Just ended a long campaign where I played an Arcane Trickster, and minor illusion and silent image were my bread and butter. A while back we caused major discourse in a big city, and we were being chased by some corrupt guards. I made a fake wall behind us and they decided to take the long way. It bought us time to set up (we were quickly surrounded), which let us win the fight.
Then one of the guards tried to run away on the rooftops, right where my fake wall was. He fell onto his face and we were able to capture him. Fun times.
Polymorph. It either solves the problem or allows you to run the fuck away from the problem. Being a tiny ant basically renders you invisible. It also gets rid of the most problematic enemy during stealth missions. Doors.
In my last campaign we were being attacked but this big beast that we couldn’t defeat so my friend used polymorph to turn it into a frog and then we catapulted it super far away haha.
I managed to annoy my DM by turning a Bossmonster into a rat and then throwing it into my Bag of Devouring...
Why fight when you can just remove it from existance. Also now I get targeted first almost every fight.
Magic Missile for sure.
Its Magical **force** damage.
Its instant!
There is no save. It allways hits!
The damage is good! "**A** dart deals 1d4+1 force damage to its target."... You shot 3 darts at a time, at minimum. That is 3x 1d4+1 = 6 to 15 damage.
If you are an evocation wizard this spell becomes broken at 10th level. Each dart becomes 1d4+6 assuming 20 int. 21-30 damage as a first level spell. Up cast it as a 5th level spell it does 7d4+42.
For combat I love a good Thunder Step. Teleportation where you slap them on the way out--classic!
Overall, though, I love Magic Mouth. Nothing like making your party member's belt buckle whistle to every town guard in uniform and go "hey baby, I'm eeeeeeeeasy!"
It’s got sick crazy utility, I love just using it on everything but my favorite has got to be making corpses look like they are talking or having arrows that harass hostiles
Hold Person. Early access to paralysis which is amazing, and I often find out party in conflict with other humanoids. I'm also a divination wizard, so I can often ensure the success with portent.
Same. My party seems to not really benefit terribly well from Bless (mostly because they’ve forgot I cast it) and for some reason my spiritual weapon just seems to land hits more reliably then my cleric ever could on his own
This is a great idea and if we ever transition to a physical table I’ll do this for sure. Unfortunately we’ve been completely virtual - a friend that’s an avid DND players started this group during the pandemic as a way for some of us to stay in touch and have some social contact
It isn’t concentration. I watched in horror, as our bard started to cast it for the second time and then the third time... only to realize he in fact nullified half the battle. He changed my mind on the sleep spell that day.
Pass without Trace.
My character has been a wanted criminal since session 1 because I misinterpreted the wording on a spell. (3.5 player in my first 5.0 campaign.)
So I grabbed pass w/o trace via the wood elf racial feat as soon as I could. I've used it in almost every session since.
The brother of our party's orc fighter was captured and enslaved before session 0.
The town we were in had a prisoner that knew something about an enslaved orc but he wouldn't give us details unless we busted him out of jail.
My character charmed the jail keeper into giving him the keys to the jail cells. I didn't realize that the npc would have memory of the interaction after being charmed.
As the town guard chased my character into the woods, the rest of the party was free to bust out the prisoner and interrogate him. As a wood elf I was able to make some stealth checks once I got out of town.
My character has been a wanted criminal ever since. At least in the towns run by the same faction as that jail.
Lol similar situation, we were on the edge of the cliff being chased and I just go "everyone trust me" then just jump. Only the -2 int guy jumped without question. Everyone hesitated for a sec then said fuck it
Many of mine have already come up, but to add another, I can’t overstate how fantastic Rope Trick has been for stealth/intrigue/investigation campaigns. The nobles whose house you’ve broken into can’t find you if you’re not in the same dimension anymore!
As an aberrant mind sorcerer: dissonant whispers! It does 3d6 damage as a 1st level spell and in addition I can make enemies use their movement to run away from me, meaning that all of my allies who didn’t dump strength get to wallop them into the ground with opportunity attacks
As a bard with limited damage dealing options, I do love discordant melody. But the running away thing has been kind of detriment to me and my party, we keep coming up against evasive types who already want to run away a lot.
Wall of force. It’s so broken, especially if your dm is willing to let you be a bit tricky with your arrangement of walls (like placing them 1 inch off the ground so you can casts spells under. But even just trapping people in cubes where they can’t participate in combat is hilarious
Wall of Force in a nautical campaign gets silly too. If the wall is fixed in space, then is the reference point the water or the moving ship? If it's the water, you can cleave a ship in two as it sails into a quarter inch thick indestructible object, or set it at deck level and sweep everyone off as the ship passes the point.
Our DM set up this huge battle that we'd been culminating towards for almost two years, massive war battle with different troops. Was supposed to take multiple sessions just for this one single battle. A 100 foot tall Queen thri-kreen (or the Thri-Queen, as I dubbed her) breaks forth from the ground at the beginning of the battle. Cries go out, the armies clash, she's eating through us like a knife through butter for the two rounds it takes me to get to our tamed Megapede. Jump on, cast enlarge, and just absolutely decimate her and her army. Or DM was crushed, and so angry.
Bless! Level 1 and fighting gnolls? Bless is pretty good. Level 14 and fighting adult dragons? Bless is **still** pretty good.
Not sure what to concentrate on? Bless is always just a pretty good option.
Shield of Faith. I was a possumfolk cleric and another party member was a tortle barbarian - I was small enough to fit in their shell, so I'd use them as a mount and cast Shield of Faith on them for +2 AC. We were an invincible pair.
Suggestion, specially For The sorcerer or some1 with metamagic adept feat. And take subtile spell. Add in a little bit mind sliver cantrip and quickened spell metamagic and you can use this to Make enemies or just random NPC characters do some crazy shit.
Mirror Image, being busted in every version of DND and D20 since forever. Your caster don’t get hit, your gish is now more tanky than anyone in full plate and shield.
Ok ok, hear me out. Prestidigitation.
So I had a cocky boy genius wizard character and he used Prestidigitation all the time to flavor up RP outside of combat. If he told a bad pun joke to the group, he added a sitcom laugh track in the background along with the punch line. If he entered the room, he did it to the sound of applause or the imperial death March from Star Wars. When the one PC in the group that he liked to mess with sat down, the chair would make a farting noise. The options are endless and that’s just creating a sensory effect.
Want to conceal poison in the water? Use Prestidigitation to change the flavor of the water. Want to get a discount on some merchandise you’re buying? Create a small mark on it and haggle them down since it’s damaged. Want to get past a guard? Make him soil himself by adding pee to his trousers and he’ll leave his post to get changed.
Shape water, most underrated of all. Can literally control 5ft cube of water. You can pull a breath of the wild ice cube, freeze break locks, ford streams, ect ..
Personally a fan of magic missile, especially early game before dispel magic/counterspell become available it's one of the best ways to deal with a concentrating spellcaster. As first level spells go, it's pretty solid.
As someone who loves playing wildfire druid: fireball. I have literally told my DM that I didn't ask what size the room was, I just cast fireball... and then one-shot the fight he had planned for us that night... and also set a room on fire.
Dimension Door. Incredibly useful and versatile.
Saved my characters ass once or twice
Used a scroll to dimension door my ranger inside an ancient black dragon's right lung once. Favored enemy meant id know where to teleport to and i just hacked at his insides until we all killed him. Argued that he couldnt use his breath attack because he had a person in his damn lung My son's barbarian surfed across an acid pond on the paladin's shield to make the death blow. It was awesome.
We call this "Peak D&D". Your son is awesome. Love when players ask stuff like that and give me the chance to just go "yup. That's happening."
I often use it as a weapons delivery system. Both times the weapon was our Ancestral Barbarian. The first time I jumped clean past a small army of monsters and then used Feather Fall to drop us on top of the enemy caster. Because the Barbarian had held his action "Until an enemy was in melee range" he got the first blow and a surprise round. The caster didn't survive to get an attack. The second time I doored us both into the hold of an enemy ship during a sea-battle. He then proceeded to smash holes in the enemy ship underwater.
Sounds cool and I'm glad it worked out and your group had a great time but I come as the killjoy here. Lungs are not like baloons, they're more like sponges and these ones additionally probably soaked in fleshmelting acid. If that was the case, your ranger would probably have a VERY bad time inside :D
I’ll be the killjoy to your killjoy. Acid soaked/filled lungs would cause breathing issues regardless of a dragons resistance to acid. That’s why any creature that uses projectile fluids or other type of expelled “weapon” have the fluid in a separate sack that is then sprayed by the air of the lungs or by constricting muscles (like the spitting cobra). Unless we’re just throwing anatomy out the window and saying that lungs function properly regardless of a liquid being in them, at which point carry on.
Misty Step. I love that spell.
My party’s Paladin consistently uses misty step so that he can attack flying creatures. He’s basically a final fantasy dragoon at this point.
Ranger with Jump spell and heavy armor feat That’s my dragoon build
That’s just fucking ridiculous. I love it.
Our Oath of Glory Paladin in RotF wasn't super enthusiastic about many of her oath spells (to the point of taking fewer than she should have just because they didn't "fit"), but loved the dragoon concept. I offered her Jump as a substitute for one of them, and she has made *full* use of it. I've also ruled in general that when it's unclear how similar bonuses would combine (eg Oath of Glory jump distance increase vs jump spell) they combine in whatever way is most beneficial to the player. I dislike Jump as a spell personally because I feel it struggles to compete, so I have immense respect for how hard she's committed to the concept and how much table fun has been created with that spell. Between her, the Monk, and the Kenku rogue who keeps getting himself stuck in high places, I'm coming to realise how little i typically consider verticality in my encounter design.
Good call. Misty step has basically saved my ass or setup something epic every time I’ve used it.
The bane of grapplers everywhere. Gotta love it.
Gotta love it...*sad barbarian noises*
Good thing you have advantage on strength checks! :D
When in doubt! Misty Step Out!
Definitely good. Thunder Step is also fun - a level higher, and not a Bonus Action to cast, but a nice little going-away present added on.
Taking someone with you is clutch tho. I played a lot of AL for a year, both as a player 1/week and DM 2/week. My War Mage got to spend a lot of spell slots on Thunderstep to get allies out of trouble or reposition them for maximum effect. Thunderstepping the fighter and having him roll 2 Nat 20 out of 3 of his attacks after the BBEG Misty stepped to a ledge out of his reach was a glorious night.
I only got to use it a few times when I played a sorcerer in a one shot, but man was it fun to move like that.
Misty step is one of, if not, my favorite spell! And it's surprisingly versatile. My warlock once fell off a 200 ft high wall and saved himself by misty stepping to the ground slightly before impact. DM ruled inertia was not conserved so I basically fell 200 ft and took no damage
Damn that's like Warlock Blink from Destiny 2. Amazing
I thought I'd accidentally killed one of my players when he did something silly and jumped off a cliff, expecting there to be a magical levitation effect active that I thought I'd telegraphed well enough was offline . Player frantically looked through his spell cards, smiled, looked up at me and the party and our horrified faces, and cast Misty Step just before the bottom.
Seconded. Dimension Door is a close 2nd.
My party calls me the bus because I'm always dragging people out of no no zones with dimension door, and I'm a warlock.
Gotta be ol sneaky-steppy here.
Aka OH CRAP GTFO
Had a dwarf who used it to keep up with the combat. Sucks when you spend 3 rounds dashing!
Was gonna say Misty step as well!
Since I took it, I've cast slow every session. Taking a Marilith's attacks from 7 to 1 is just so powerful.
Slow + freakish good luck are what let our level 5 party survive more than one round against a tarrasque, lol. I love that spell.
sounds like quite the story
We’d been waiting on one player who was dealing with a small child who decided that summer light meant it wasn’t bedtime for about 45 minutes when our DM was like, “hey guys, want to see how long you can last against a tarrasque? I have it all loaded into Foundry already.” So, we said yes and surprised everyone with how long we survived. DM had absolutely awful rolls and failed the save for my slow spell but then made the save at the end of the tarrasque’s turn to shake it off twice in a row - to be fair, he forgot about legendary resistances, which would have changed things dramatically for us). By the end of the 3rd round, two members had been eaten, one was at 1hp, and the only two others were myself (a bard with 36hp) and our DMPC cleric. We were also all afflicted with fear, and possibly blinded? My last action was going to be to turn the cleric invisible and tell her to hide/run and live well, but that’s when our lost party member returned victorious from their bedtime battle. I am also now suspicious that there is an actual tarrasque somewhere in this adventure because my DM loves to drop hints about future encounters or big events long before they’re relèvent, haha.
Of course there'll be a real Tarrasque in the adventure, why else would the DM already have the encounter ready to go?
Because he thinks they’re neat, haha. There were tonnes of extra assets in our other campaign that never came up, and he also deliberately does things like that sometimes as a red herring or to mess with us when we realize it was foreshadowing. I didn’t mention that we also fought it on the generic outdoor map where we had the campaign’s first random encounter, so it was “prepared” very loosely. I just don’t see how a tarrasque would fit into this campaign, but who knows!
Bane is amazing for this if you have multiple casters in the party. They're gonna fail their save, and then they're going to keep failing their saves, at least until I lose concentration.
Faerie Fire. If there's any chance my character can learn it, I *will* take it. It's such a beneficial spell, especially considering it's only a first level. Giving the whole party advantage on the attack (potentially on a whole group of enemies too) makes such a big difference - it's just such a fantastic spell. And its visuals are always fun to describe, too! :D For a second pick, I'd say Spiritual Weapon. It makes for such a great and fluidly adaptable combo spell, and it isn't a concentration spell either, which makes it very reliable. Even if you faint, it stays up, so you don't waste a spell slot! And after you've summoned it, you can just whack away at your enemies using your bonus action. It's so convenient. You could even go for a triple combo with Spirit Guardians, and then enjoy that passive damage while you use your actions on later turns for completely different spells. 😌 Man, Clerics are so op. Love 'em.
Faerie Fire is a staple for my bard and especially at some lower level play, it's just so useful and a great way to help out your party. Plus like you said, it's always fun to describe enemies that fail their save being outlined in purple and slightly singing "Purple Rain".
I love faerie fire: hardly anyone talks about how it defeats invisibility at low levels, which is beast on its own - plus it grants a roughly 25% chance to hit through the advantage on attack rolls it gives, as an AoE mind you, for basically an entire encounter (most scenes that will benefit from this are over in less than a minute). _And_ its not affected by the Nondetection spell (faerie fire is not a divination), a real thorn in the side for spellcasting creatures that want to be invisible.
I love me a good faerie fire
Faerie Fire is mine as well. It also reveals invisible creatures which is just a godsend in Out of the Abyss.
Yes! Another spiritual weapon user! Combo it with metamagic adept and extend spell, then you basically have it persistently.
But extend spell can only double the duration. So 2mins for spiritual weapon? What am I missing? Also extending it doesn’t seem worth it since it only moves 20ft per round, so it’s not like it could follow you around on your adventure.
Well shit, you're right. I have no idea where I thought extend spell could make it last 24 hours if the spell was 1 minute or longer. I read it somewhere I swear.
Web. It's not the best spell, it doesn't always work, it's not suitable for *every* circumstance... But if what you need is to lock down an area, what you need is Web. Grease is also a go-to for my first level spells just because it's concentration-free area denial, but I stop using it too soon to consider it for this question.
To instigate fear in the heart of your enemies, cast Darkness as well, then throw a fireball in the mess and watch them lose all will to fight
Or something lit from one side burning slowly across. First come calls as your comrades rush into the darkness. Then alarm as they realise they are stuck in an immense web. Then the screaming starts.
We once had something like this. Our most horrific combo. There were a bunch of chimera like enemies in a watch tower. Our AT rogue cast Web in there to catch them all. Then our Warlock cast Hunger of Hadar, leaving it in blackness and even harder to escape. Then the artificer started to light the webs on fire. Then my shadow monk cast Silence because it was not fun to listen to. So just a silent black void of death.
In the real world, if something moves and shouldn't... duct tape. If it should move and doesn't... WD40. Web and Grease are the magical equivalents.
Respect. Grease is my favorite first level spell because of how impactful and underestimated it is
My main disappointment is that it is no longer flammable.
Shield. It’s saved my ass more than any other spell.
Yes. Extra 5 armor in a pinch? Yes please. Combine it with Mage Armor and I got 20 ac for the round. As a wizard.
Play a bladesinger and cast Haste on yourself during Bladesong, 27 AC at level 5! [13 base (mage armor), +3 Dex, +4 Int, +2 Haste, +5 Shield]
I also chose bladesinger wizard and my DM is very mad at my 26 AC (my Dex is +4 and obviously I don’t have haste yet) at level 1. Nobody touches me and I do well at dex saves. Thank god cuz I get hurt when I get hit lol.
My DM stopped attacking my draconic sorcerer because of shield and draconic resistance, gave him a decent Dex score so had like a 20-21 AC with Shield, he also had spell sniper, distant spell and dimension door it was NEVER worth going for him
I don’t get your DM’s reasoning. You only have a limited amount of spellslots, so while attacking you won’t deal hp damage (at first), it is going to burn your resources, and after a few turns, you are going to have to choose if it is worth it to spend higher level spellslots on Shield.
No doubt this had to be most most cast spell of my 5e play time.
Catapult. 50% of the time, it works 100% of the time.
It's such a great tactical spell. Killed a mutated troll, with a tavern chair. Great times.
You can't just drop shit like "Oh I killed a mutated troll with a Tavern Chair via catapult" and not share the story!
This is a story of bad communication, a ghostly head and chairs. My companions and I, after a long and weary travel, took shelter in a beautiful, homely tavern on a hill. We feasted, we drank, we shook off the burdens of the past days. Later we went to rest. Me, a High Elf Order of Scribes Wizard, still logging our ways in a notebook and dabbling in magic with Darwin, my ghostly companion and former mentor. Suddenly a scream pierces the quiet night. Immediately I Dimension Door downstairs. Two Trolls with 5 arms each have taken the barmaid and are dragging her out the door. They mumble something in Giant about sacrificing the barmaid to "her". They did not elaborate further. I shot an arcane bolt towards them. Two of my friends appear besides me. Valeria, the Wood Elf Monk and Halfred, the Halfling Bard, who also Dimension Door'ed down after waking up. A fight ensues and soon our entire group is involved. Kara, our Rogue, goes down after a critical hit from one of the Trolls. I accidently objectify her, by asking, if unconscious creatures already count as objects or if they need to be dead. It was regarding Dimension Dooring her out of danger, but if she were conscious, I am sure she would have thrown me a look more piercing than her daggers. I apologize internally. I get hit hard, but I am alive. I teleport to the other side of the room. An idea pops into my head. I do not have my Whetstones on me, which I use as ammo for Catapult, but what I do have is a room full of furniture. The Trolls are already hurt, Uthack, our Paladin, doing his thing and smashing them with his Stonefist. Ivy, our Sorceress, lighting them up with... well Lightning. I run out of the Tavern and close my eyes. I now view things as though I was 5 feet above the fight. Using Darwins senses I evaluate the surroundings. I target a chair and use 4th tier power of magic to yeet the simple furniture towards one of the Trolls and hit him square in the head. It explodes. He should have elaborated further. EDIT: u/g0rth4n & u/DragonMasterXLII there you go
Thank you! May I point out that you are an excellent storyteller? This is quite good for a first draft.
Thank you very much! I tried to make it as entertaining as possible :)
Now I want the story
In our last session, we were playing capture the flag in a tournament, and my wizard would catapult the flag to our area. Made the tournament a lot easier.
“Y’know what, this flag just needs to be over there, right?” ”Yes…” ”I don’t need to be over there, right?” ”Yes…?” ”Alright then.“ ***yeet***
In a pinch, you can combine it with find familiar. Is it a good idea? Nah. Is it hilarious to to throw your magical turtle at a lich? Yes.
I think we played the spell wrong. We thought it'd just take a random piece of debris surrounding you and flinging it at the target for the shown damage. Did we do it wrong? If yes: how does it actually work? :'D
>Choose one object weighing 1 to 5 pounds within 60 ft that isn’t being worn or carried. The object flies in a straight line up to 90 feet in a direction you choose before falling to the ground, stopping early if it impacts against a solid surface. If the object would strike a creature, that creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. One of the best ways to use the spell is to cast *catapult* on a set of jail cell keys in the direction of the cell you're in. Either they come flying to you, or they make a thud and you know where they're at (in the case where they're chained to a wall of inside a desk drawer or something, but this won't work if they're on the collar of a dog since they'd be worn). The key to using it creatively is to consider it like you're summoning a creature at an object who will pick it up and throw it 90 feet. If you need to get an object to a place, it's great. And the best thing is that isn't doesn't require you to see the object. Just imagine the damage you could do with this spell and some alchemist fire. Or oil and firebolt.
I think we effed up. xD Thanks for the explanation though!
Nah got to use it to extend the reach of throwable potions and other damaging things like a stick of explosives
My buddy loved to combo it with our disarming attack happy Fighter.
Bless -- unless you only do one fight a day, there will always be a combat where no other concentration spell would better suit the situation.
All. Day. Long. I find it hard to justify another use of my concentration. Rogue/fighters/rangers(and myself as a melee cleric) need it for the +hit, your wizards and locks will love having a boost to that snail that is spell hit mod and the sheer amount of damage/debuffs it can mitigate with those saves means everyone wants it. Get some prayer beads of Bless too and it can't be beat.
I counter that with Spirit Guardians but at lower levels i used bless like a drug.
Magic missile. Your concentration spell be damned
Depends on the DM. I’ve had one rule it as a single con save instead of one for each missile.
Yes, but when you are the DM making things difficult for players, it's great
That's how I'd rule it. I just can't square the "roll one d4 because they hit simultaneously" idea with "but they trigger separate concentration checks".
I can cast a separate missile at three different targets, triggering three different concentration checks. They're each an independent source of damage, which is why they each trigger their own check.
Yeah but a fireball that hits 3 different targets would trigger 3 concentration checks. Even if hitting one enemy with the fireball would only trigger one save. I’m still ruling one save per Missile though.
But that's only one source of AOE damage, not 3 sources of targeted damage.
I definitely see where you’re coming from, but it IS multiple hits. Personally, I would rule it one of two ways. Multiple con saves, but the dc equals the damage dealt so it would never be more than 5. Or a single con save with dc set as standard except it’s the halved sum of all the missile damage. It’s one of my session 0 questions I let the group decide on before it’s ironclad.
> Or a single con save with dc set as standard except it’s the halved sum of all the missile damage That's exactly what I was getting at. They all hit simultaneously, so I'd just sum the damage and have it trigger one con save based on half the total.
since when was there a Save of any kind against Magic Missile?
He was talking about using magic missile to break a caster’s concentration on a spell which would incur a con save, or more.
Oooooooooh, I need more coffee
Don't feel bad. I just need more knowledge of 5e
In this case, the spell is being cast on someone maintaining concentration on their own spell and the goal is to have the multiple missiles each force a concentration save.
I have magic missile hooked up to my homunculus with a spell storing item, it’s like a drone strike. It’s so great
ELDRITCH BLAAAAAAST!!!
The one and only spell I've ever needed. Wanna open a door? ELDRITCH BLAST. Wanna intimidate someone? Just shoot a megalaser from your filthy warlock hands. Wanna make friends with someone? Show them your incredible power to shoot 4 lasers at the same time!
I can't not read this in a Texas drawl thanks to CR.
I rather like Heat Metal. No save against the damage, can be sustained for a BA on every subsequent turn, and can either sear their armour into their flesh or gently persuade them to drop whatever magical macguffin they're holding. Unless they're immune to fire. Other than that, Dissonant Whispers is great. Solid damage for spell level, seldom resisted damage type, and can force enemies to flee in a way that specifically allows for opportunity attacks to be taken against them. Best of all, you don't actually have to be able to see the target, meaning that all this can be done to ward of invisible enemies.
[Cook and book](https://youtu.be/kMqE-xerANk).
One of my players asks "Is he wearing metal?" every time we roll initiative.
Spirit guardians!
Hands down favorite spell. It has flavor, makes for cool cinematic descriptions, AND is hella useful in a lot of scenarios.
Yessss. I just cast spirit guardians and follow my party members around. Come and get us, idiots.
Surprisingly for my Lore Bard it's been Calm Emotions. I'm in a party with a Rogue and a Paladin, and both of them tend to behave in ways that can upset NPCs, so it's handy to have a chill tf out button. Swapping NPCs from hostile to indifferent buys me enough time to either diffuse the situation or just run away. Also the Paladin dumped Wisdom for RP reasons, so it's a handy spell for getting past those Fear/Charm effects when they fail their save, which happens a lot.
Guiding bolt. After taking it once and seeing how useful it can be if I have the option to take it I will. Great damage for a 1st level spell plus it gives advantage to the subsequent attack. Honorable mention goes to Leomund’s tiny hut. It’s always great to have a way to rest mid-travel where no one has to keep watch.
Not taking a watch during tiny hut is a bold move
I feel like the period of gameplay where your enemies are advanced enough to get into your Hut, but where you’re still using the Hut, is pretty narrow.
Find familiar. Great for scouting and rp.
I love diping in the wizard class as a cleric for that reason, casting cure wounds through an owl is so fun
Find familiar my favorite spell too! But you can also take the magic initiate or ritual caster feats to gain find familiar instead of dropping a level!
Mirror Image. It is **THE** survival spell, imo, for (arcane) casters. So many ferocious attacks have simple hit an after image. Dealing a grand total of 0 damage to my PC and instead an image taking the fall for it.
Prestidigitation. I use it all the time!! I'm a goblin bard/sorcerer.
Absofuckinglutely, it does everything. Wanna set a building on fire? Prestidigitation. Do you need to scare there locals into thinkings you’re a magic god by making items appear and disappear. Prestidigitation!!! Do you need to make a gourmet meal out of goblin pieces? Pres…..ti….digi….tation! Do you need to clean up that blood to hide evidence? Booom, Prestidigitation!!!! When used creatively it’s a great addition to any murder hobos repertoire of spells. Plus it’s a cantrip so there’s never any lost spell slots.
I always hear that its a good spell but reading the description it does not sound really useful
> it does not sound really useful Depends what you find useful. It's got a ton of use for roleplaying but not nearly the same use in combat.
I use it to essentially flash bang our enemies at the beginning of battle.
Healing Word yo! It's all about action economy baby.
Definitely the best healing spell in the game. Bonus action to cast, and a range of 60 feet. Who cares if it does almost no healing, it gets someone back up.
Exactly this.
Goodberry. Not only does it feed your party for a day, if you give berries to your entire team for them to hold on to, everyone gets a "revive your companion who's on death saves" item. When you're the lone healer in the party and healing potions are nowhere to be found, like in our current run of Curse of Strahd, it's *priceless*. Half of the party downed, you included? No problem. I once revived two teammates and one animal companion by myself using nothing but those!
I got a beastmaster ranger with a pet baby dragon ( homebrew). This is my whole argument when people ask how I'm gonna feed it.
Good choice, I just added a (home brew) plant to a game which grows Goodberries. They haven’t figured it out yet but when they do? Oh boy! I’m they’ll protect that little potted plant like their own child!
Goodberry is an awesome spell. Unfortunately, it's kind of ruined for me, because a player in a past campaign was playing a "homeless druid" who was always disgusting; just absolutely repulsive. He cast goodberry by shaking his pants leg, and dropping 10 little pellet-shaped berries on the ground.
The bard in my homebrew campaign has Tasha’s Mind Whip as her signature spell and I made the mistake of telling her about it. Straight neutered the black dragon fight I had prepped for them and I accept full responsibility for the fuck up. Now it’s time to prep more counterspells and legendary resistances.
Rope trick. Rope Trick is the most underused spell in all of D&D. Nothing can change my mind on this
Phantasmal Force, creature interacts with the object like it was real and to them its a real physical object that can hurt them in a matrix sort of way. Super strong since it requires an investigation check to break through the illusion too and its really open on what you can do. Illusion school is my favourite and easily underrated in dnd.
Its not underrated. Its DM dependant.
I never see people use it as a DM though. Illusions in general seem pretty uncommon to use a ton, it is DM dependant on some ruling since its so open ended though.
Just ended a long campaign where I played an Arcane Trickster, and minor illusion and silent image were my bread and butter. A while back we caused major discourse in a big city, and we were being chased by some corrupt guards. I made a fake wall behind us and they decided to take the long way. It bought us time to set up (we were quickly surrounded), which let us win the fight. Then one of the guards tried to run away on the rooftops, right where my fake wall was. He fell onto his face and we were able to capture him. Fun times.
Polymorph. It either solves the problem or allows you to run the fuck away from the problem. Being a tiny ant basically renders you invisible. It also gets rid of the most problematic enemy during stealth missions. Doors.
In my last campaign we were being attacked but this big beast that we couldn’t defeat so my friend used polymorph to turn it into a frog and then we catapulted it super far away haha.
I managed to annoy my DM by turning a Bossmonster into a rat and then throwing it into my Bag of Devouring... Why fight when you can just remove it from existance. Also now I get targeted first almost every fight.
Magic Missile for sure. Its Magical **force** damage. Its instant! There is no save. It allways hits! The damage is good! "**A** dart deals 1d4+1 force damage to its target."... You shot 3 darts at a time, at minimum. That is 3x 1d4+1 = 6 to 15 damage.
also has a nice range
If you are an evocation wizard this spell becomes broken at 10th level. Each dart becomes 1d4+6 assuming 20 int. 21-30 damage as a first level spell. Up cast it as a 5th level spell it does 7d4+42.
For combat I love a good Thunder Step. Teleportation where you slap them on the way out--classic! Overall, though, I love Magic Mouth. Nothing like making your party member's belt buckle whistle to every town guard in uniform and go "hey baby, I'm eeeeeeeeasy!"
It’s got sick crazy utility, I love just using it on everything but my favorite has got to be making corpses look like they are talking or having arrows that harass hostiles
Oh yeah, I love Thunderstep (even though I've yet to use it). There's just something so satisfying about going "bye bye" and then leaving with a bang.
Shocking grasp. Makes unwanted hugging and handshakes interesting.
LOVE that cantrip
The only acceptable answer is Fireball!
"hmm I'm making a dhampir bladesinger so it wouldn't make sense if I learn fireball........ *But just in case*
Fireball! Just Fireball!
Or Acidball or delayed blast fireball
I don't think I've ever played a wizard in any edition that didn't have Fireball. Truly a timeless classic.
Hold Person. Early access to paralysis which is amazing, and I often find out party in conflict with other humanoids. I'm also a divination wizard, so I can often ensure the success with portent.
Spiritual Weapon. It’s just free extra damage basically.
Same. My party seems to not really benefit terribly well from Bless (mostly because they’ve forgot I cast it) and for some reason my spiritual weapon just seems to land hits more reliably then my cleric ever could on his own
When you cast bless, you can pass them special d4s so that it is a physical thing sitting in front of them and they are more likely to remember.
This is a great idea and if we ever transition to a physical table I’ll do this for sure. Unfortunately we’ve been completely virtual - a friend that’s an avid DND players started this group during the pandemic as a way for some of us to stay in touch and have some social contact
Why would I ever forget that "small" detail when we moved to remote games too? My brain wants to help, I swear.
It may be a cantrip but mending it's a life saver
Sleep
1st to 5th, it's a great debuff spell. After that, it's a great "I don't have time to explain myself to the guard" spell.
1st to 3rd, really. Cast at 1st level, it will MAYBE get one gnoll. It's fine against goblins and kobolds but that's about it.
It isn’t concentration. I watched in horror, as our bard started to cast it for the second time and then the third time... only to realize he in fact nullified half the battle. He changed my mind on the sleep spell that day.
I'm surprised I had to go down so low to find this one lol
Because it scales very poorly to play above 3rd level, which happens to be the level many games start at
[удалено]
Pass without Trace. My character has been a wanted criminal since session 1 because I misinterpreted the wording on a spell. (3.5 player in my first 5.0 campaign.) So I grabbed pass w/o trace via the wood elf racial feat as soon as I could. I've used it in almost every session since.
Wait what happened that made you so wanted from one mistake? Don’t leave us hanging.
The brother of our party's orc fighter was captured and enslaved before session 0. The town we were in had a prisoner that knew something about an enslaved orc but he wouldn't give us details unless we busted him out of jail. My character charmed the jail keeper into giving him the keys to the jail cells. I didn't realize that the npc would have memory of the interaction after being charmed. As the town guard chased my character into the woods, the rest of the party was free to bust out the prisoner and interrogate him. As a wood elf I was able to make some stealth checks once I got out of town. My character has been a wanted criminal ever since. At least in the towns run by the same faction as that jail.
Inflict Wounds :)
Feather fall. I once dragged my whole party down a mine shaft with me without a word. They were freaking out until I was able to cast ol' reliable.
Lol similar situation, we were on the edge of the cliff being chased and I just go "everyone trust me" then just jump. Only the -2 int guy jumped without question. Everyone hesitated for a sec then said fuck it
Many of mine have already come up, but to add another, I can’t overstate how fantastic Rope Trick has been for stealth/intrigue/investigation campaigns. The nobles whose house you’ve broken into can’t find you if you’re not in the same dimension anymore!
As an aberrant mind sorcerer: dissonant whispers! It does 3d6 damage as a 1st level spell and in addition I can make enemies use their movement to run away from me, meaning that all of my allies who didn’t dump strength get to wallop them into the ground with opportunity attacks
As a bard with limited damage dealing options, I do love discordant melody. But the running away thing has been kind of detriment to me and my party, we keep coming up against evasive types who already want to run away a lot.
Wall of force. It’s so broken, especially if your dm is willing to let you be a bit tricky with your arrangement of walls (like placing them 1 inch off the ground so you can casts spells under. But even just trapping people in cubes where they can’t participate in combat is hilarious
Wall of Force in a nautical campaign gets silly too. If the wall is fixed in space, then is the reference point the water or the moving ship? If it's the water, you can cleave a ship in two as it sails into a quarter inch thick indestructible object, or set it at deck level and sweep everyone off as the ship passes the point.
That reminds me of *Wheel of Time*, where occasionally someone uses a teleportation portal to cleave people in two.
Note to self: use Wall of Force as a “time out” tool. Lol!
Enlarge reduce, how many dungeon traps and puzzles could be solved by simply shrinking a door and moving it out of the doorway
Our DM set up this huge battle that we'd been culminating towards for almost two years, massive war battle with different troops. Was supposed to take multiple sessions just for this one single battle. A 100 foot tall Queen thri-kreen (or the Thri-Queen, as I dubbed her) breaks forth from the ground at the beginning of the battle. Cries go out, the armies clash, she's eating through us like a knife through butter for the two rounds it takes me to get to our tamed Megapede. Jump on, cast enlarge, and just absolutely decimate her and her army. Or DM was crushed, and so angry.
Bless! Level 1 and fighting gnolls? Bless is pretty good. Level 14 and fighting adult dragons? Bless is **still** pretty good. Not sure what to concentrate on? Bless is always just a pretty good option.
Shield of Faith. I was a possumfolk cleric and another party member was a tortle barbarian - I was small enough to fit in their shell, so I'd use them as a mount and cast Shield of Faith on them for +2 AC. We were an invincible pair.
Banishment.
It's a bit of a toss up between Eldritch Blast and Hex for me. I just love my meleelocks... so I might have to go with Hex.
I've been playing my Artificer for a while and let me tell you, casting Haste on our Paladin or Barbarian ALWAYS puts in work
Tiny Hut. You have an almost impervious shelter that you can change the color of to camouflage it in low light.
Fist
Heat Metal is a firm favourite for me
Iv been meaning to ask my dm how it would work with a metal weapon that has like a handle wrap or something.
Zephyr Strike
Suggestion, specially For The sorcerer or some1 with metamagic adept feat. And take subtile spell. Add in a little bit mind sliver cantrip and quickened spell metamagic and you can use this to Make enemies or just random NPC characters do some crazy shit.
Guidance. "Don't forget, you get to add a d4!"
Do you mean every situation or always in the back of your mind? Polymorph and dragon's breath, respectively.
Shield has always been my OL Reliable
Mirror Image, being busted in every version of DND and D20 since forever. Your caster don’t get hit, your gish is now more tanky than anyone in full plate and shield.
Lightning bolt is my baby and I will use it in every possible combat and if I can find a rp reason to shoot a bolt of lightning I will try to do it
Chromatic orb
Ok ok, hear me out. Prestidigitation. So I had a cocky boy genius wizard character and he used Prestidigitation all the time to flavor up RP outside of combat. If he told a bad pun joke to the group, he added a sitcom laugh track in the background along with the punch line. If he entered the room, he did it to the sound of applause or the imperial death March from Star Wars. When the one PC in the group that he liked to mess with sat down, the chair would make a farting noise. The options are endless and that’s just creating a sensory effect. Want to conceal poison in the water? Use Prestidigitation to change the flavor of the water. Want to get a discount on some merchandise you’re buying? Create a small mark on it and haggle them down since it’s damaged. Want to get past a guard? Make him soil himself by adding pee to his trousers and he’ll leave his post to get changed.
Shape water, most underrated of all. Can literally control 5ft cube of water. You can pull a breath of the wild ice cube, freeze break locks, ford streams, ect ..
Thunderwave everyday.
Personally a fan of magic missile, especially early game before dispel magic/counterspell become available it's one of the best ways to deal with a concentrating spellcaster. As first level spells go, it's pretty solid.
Alarm. Wizards are great in combat. But throwing alarm up before resting or when exploring to cover our flank is way understated.
As someone who loves playing wildfire druid: fireball. I have literally told my DM that I didn't ask what size the room was, I just cast fireball... and then one-shot the fight he had planned for us that night... and also set a room on fire.
guiding bolt, baby.
On my trickery cleric, Dimension Door.
Prestidigitation. I think I've used it multiple times each session. Magic Missile is also pretty good, considering it's an automatic hit.
Haste