Here's some solid spells to counter casters:
- Absorb Elements: Protection against things like Fireball and Cone of Cold.
- Entangle: Make things regret having paper muscles.
- Hold Person: Humanoid caster opponent? Sucks to be them.
- Dispel Magic: Haste and Mage Armor? Not anymore.
- Sleet Storm: Effectively blinds everything in a large area, preventing numerous spells from functioning.
Adding onto this, even just things that obscure vision or stop line of effect from them to you will help greatly. Also, Comboing a burrowing wild shape with a decent concentration spell can make you borderline invulnerable to a lot if spells.
+1 for Sleet storm- it also forces a concentration check on those casters every round and potentially knocks them prone. It’s a fantastic and sometimes overlooked combination of effects.
Even on just the first round it is still a relatively high DC concentration check which can be difficult for casters with only a +2+4 on con save. It also bypasses war caster because it isn't damage
“If a creature starts it turn in the spells area and is concentrating on a spell, the creature must make a successful constitution saving throw against your spell save dc or lose concentration” so no.
Thank you!! I’ve definitely found a love for absorb elements already. Prepped it on a whim one day and it’s been a LIFESAVER.
I didn’t realize sleet storm would block view?
Oh god, that’s genius. It’s one of the few things with a larger area of effect than *Sleet Storm*; pin opponents in place with sleet, then *Plant Growth* to bottle them in the storm zone.
Sleet Storm is the best spell there is for stopping evil cultists mid ritual. Even if you only get a single round of it, it will usually break spell concentration/prevent casting, cause most of them to go prone and blind them for the duration.
If you have to stop a spell caster right now there are few more reliable spells for doing so.
Alternatively fog cloud does basically the same thing but with just a level 1 spell.
The thing about spell casting in general is that basically every spell has a verbal or somatic component, so preventing speech and hand movements shuts down 99% of spells. (This is why its a joke that aggressively making out with a caster shuts them down)
And many spells require the caster to see the target, so anything from fog cloud to wall of stone will prevent them from using those spell.
Sleet storm also forces a concentration save against the spellcaster DC which, at level 6 and assuming point buy with full investing in wis, is higher than the save of any attack that does less than 30 damage
RAW being in a heavily obscured area doesn't blind you. Trying to see something in a heavily obscured area makes you count as blind.
But if you play RAW then fog and shadows of moil are equally good spells for giving you advantage to shoot out of, but one makes no sense!
*Sleet Storm* is huge and devastating. It entirely blocks vision and severely curtails movement in a shockingly large area. Anything without both flight and blindsight is gonna have a real bad time in there.
Worth reminding people that Dispel Magic impacts all the magical spells on a creature, not just one. So, if you can get a lot of value out of a well placed Dispell Magic.
Lots of spells require line of sight. It can be situationally useful to use spells like Fog Cloud or Stoneshape to give yourself visual/physical cover.
A fog cloud on top of an enemy wizard will typically force them to dispell it or move out of it. Otherwise they will stay blind and useless. Use this to get enemy mages out of their comfortable spaces or make them waste an action. If you can bait out a counterspell (and have blaster caster allies), even better.
"It will tomorrow if he isn't mauled to death by the spider and his friends today. POST tsd, you understand. I'll let you roll to intimidate with advantage, though".
or, at higher levels, giant scorpion - two claw attacks, both of which can grapple on hit, and a stinger that forces a con save, is pretty nice! (and if you ever crit with the stinger, that's 10D10 damage! Although it is Moon Druid only)
We were just about 150 feet away from a bunch of casters, one of us cast fog cloud and ran straight into it going past to escape. Yeah, they could have fireballed at the border and hit it partially but we weren't there and it was a nice just over 120ft for dispel magic. We knew they had it as we used it already to block LoS of some archers.
Well you don't forget what the terrain generally looks like in the 15 seconds you've been blinded for, so you aren't really stumbling around in the dark that much.
As a general rule of thumb:
Its safe to assume all spells require verbal and somatic components, not litterally true but most require both and every spell needs atleast 1 of them. This means shutting down speech with silence is the default FU to mages, along with tieing up their hands to prevent somatic components. (Sadly their isn't a non-roleplay way to block somatic components that isn't just general incapacitation)
Additionally many spells require the caster to have line of sight to the point of origin of an AOE effect or to the targets chosen. This means any spell/effect that creates heavily obscured area or total cover is very useful. Fog cloud is probably the cheapest way to do this, wall of stone also works and is a solid barrier.
Spell casters (and everyone else) can't do anything if they have the "incapacitated" condition, your cheapest way to inflict this is hold person on a humanoid, which influcts the paralyzed condition and that is nasty. (Incapacitated, every gets advantage to hit, melee attacks from within 5ft autocrit on a hit)
Spell casters traditionally dump strength because they need Constitution for HP and concentration checks, Dexterity for AC, and whatever mental stat is their casting stat. This makes entangle a fantastic way to root them in place and shut them down. (iirc entangle restrains which is better than a grapple)
And finally ranged attacks have disadvantage if you are within 5ft, so run right up next to a wizard and the things they can do to you change. (Wizards and most casters hate being in melee)
PS: dont stand in standard AoE shapes, mainly clusters and lines.
Also, as a moon druid your wildshapes are simply better than other druids. A perfectly reasonable strategy is to cast barkskin on yourself to get an AC of 16 in wildshape (most early wildshapes have an AC of 10-13, this is a 15-30% swing in chance to hit). This will eat you first turn of combat so cast barkskin before combat if possible. Then turn into your best combat wildshape and charge right up to the enemy and flank them.
Indeed, most mages have disadvantage on using their cantrips in melee range, and don't get attacks of opportunity, and shitty strength, and a bunch of wildshapes and conjured animals have immense speed and the ability to ram and trample an enemy.
E.g. you can conjure four warhorses, which have a 60 feet speed and trampling charge against a strength save.
Not really a spell (that has already been taken care of in other coments), but if you have access to a magic item shop ask for a Mantle of Spell Resistance. You should be able to wear it in most of your wildshapes, but talk about it with the DM just in case..
As a moon druid your best anti wizard approach is just summon something or cast moonbeam/call lighting and wild shape mainly because you'll be in wild shape most of the time.
2 big spells summon wise is conjure animals and summon elemental.
With C.Animals you can summon 8 things to attack forcing a lot of con checks.
With summon elemental you have the earth elemental and with burrow can always be in total cover making them basically immune to all spells... Add to this you can also wild shap into an earth elemental and do the same.
Outside of this dispel magic is solid to have and having support spells to heal/revivify for between combats to help your team not use their resources because you don't need much for a combat 1-2 spells and a wild shape.
So yea, as a moon druid you'll be fine because the class is a power house and a absolute pain to deal with.
Also remember counter spell is 60ft and needs to see you when you summon or cast something.
Your greatest weapon as a moon druid is your wildshape, which is better than every other druid subclass. Your spells on the other hand should be focused on crowd control and limiting enemy casters' ability to cast and maintain spells.
Anything that limits mobility (both positioning and restraint to block somatic elements of spells), forces repeated concentration checks to break spells, or limits vision to affect spell targeting, will make it a nightmare for any caster to target you and your allies. Allowing you to beef up with your wildshape and turn enemy wizards into magic ragou.
Is there any body of water nearby? Pond? Well?
Most wizards are utterly helpless underwater, because they can't do the verbal components of their spells. You have underwater wildshape forms like giant octopus that can grapple them, hence also restraining them against somatic components, you can breathe underwater, and you are stronger. They will simply drown.
If you’re somehow a Circle of the Land (Desert) Druid then the answer is Silence and it’s truly not even close. If not then like, fog cloud or something
Fog cloud kills half their spell list and can be cast from outside counter spell range.
Seriously fog cloud is a underrated spell. They can dispel it of course but then the math goes against them.
Sleet Storm at a distance to cause concentration checks.
Conjure animals again at a distance. But you want the animals close to them to surround them. Even if you use opportunity attacks to grapple and knock prone. That can misty step, but then can't fireball the same turn. Just have the animals dash the next turn to around again. Throw your own spells at them. They only have 1 reaction. Counter or shield.
Absorb elements of that try to fireball you.
Conjure woodland beings for pixies. 8 polymorph or possibly confusion and phantasmal source then just keep your distance.
You could poly yourself even with your own or the pixie slots into a giant ape. 8 pixies is 8 stacks of hp for you and you get decent melee damage. Pixies dispel the mages flight or throw rocks.
Actually fog cloud and your own stronger physical damage with armor and Shillelagh. Or wild shape. Would also work.
Also, just dropping a Conjure Animals surrounding them. Relatively few wizard spells can target enemies in 360 degrees without hurting yourself. Escaping them will typically use up the wizard's spell for the turn, after which you can command them to chase the wizard, putting them back on the same situation.
All in all, it either does chunky damage or the wizard has to spend time and spells taking care of the issue, usually more than you had to put in.
Someone's going to need to come in here and clarify this for me, but does Spike Growth force a concentration check every 5ft of movement through it? Is so a mobile grappler like Giant Constrictor Snake would be great at breaking concentration spells.
The obvious counter to this is Misty Step but you will have at least wasted their levelled spell for a turn just to escape
it does, yes - if you get moved through 4 squares of spike growth, it's not 8d4 damage, it's 2d4/2d4/2d4/2d4. Anything that gets triggered by damage triggers 4 times, because it's 4 instances of damage (I once used this, Giant Scorpion wildshape and dash to force the enemy to take a _lot_ of concentration checks!). Of if the enemy dies on the third move, you can drop them then.
There are a few things you can do that others have highlighted but in general as a non-Counterspell caster going against a Counterspell caster you are going to have a bad time.
Cast your most important spells with a spell slot one level higher, even if they don’t scale. Then a Counterspell is less likely to insta-counter and you at least get a roll.
wild shape and the feet that lets you make an opportunity attacks when someone cast a spell within 5 feat or you, it also then gives them dis adv on con checks to concentrate ion spells
Conjure X and Summon X spells. Multiple attacks on low AC wizard makes for multiple concentration saves, if they move they'll take opportunity attacks or use slots for things like Misty Step. If they target the summons that's spells used against them and not you or the rest of the party.
I have a stupid idea.
“I use mage hand to shove 6 inches of rope into the wizards mouth”
Good luck using the verbal component of your spell when you’ve been gagged.
They will usually have a low STR, see which spells force a STR save. Lot's of water and wind spells seem to. Entangle, Gust of Wind, Dust Devil, Earthbind, Wind Wall, Control Water, Watery Shpere, Control Winds.
Do you have Pass without Trace? Wildshape into something stealthy, sneak up close, turn into something that can grapple them. Giant Scorpion, Giant Constrictor Snake, Giant Octopus.
When spellcasting, their biggest weapon might be to Counterspell you. Try to get them to use their reaction on other things, even Shield. Do you have other spellcasters in your party? Can you polymorph the fighter into a T-rex?
As others have said: hide yourself, obscure yourself, prevent line of sight, force Concentration checks, distract them with summons, familiar, ...
Any spells that create damaging terrain, like Spike Growth. You want to force Concentration checks.
You need to do some guerrilla warfare. They should not see you coming. They will probably not have very high Perception.
Absorb elements, entangle and web, dispel magic in case a party member fails a wisdom save and against charm, fear, confusion. sleet storm for difficult terrain, possibly falling Prone, and making the area heavily obscured and they have to make concentration checks for conc spells.
conjure animals is versatile. 2 giant eagles have 80' fly speed ...have them dive bomb them and fly away on diff directions (wizard only gets ones opportunity attack and probably can't do much with it unless is a warcaster and even then they can only target one of them with a spell). Or you could use that spell for 4 giant wasps (50 speed) for the poison damage vs different targets so they don't get hit in AOE and the poison takes them out...they are paralyzed. Or 8 giant bats (60 speed should be ok to divebomb or you could have some grapple the wizard) which is good if the wizard is invisible, in a fog cloud, etc. Cast it at level 5 instead of 3 for double the animals.
Thank you for some solid conjure animals options!! I just got to try it out for the first time in our last encounter and it worked WONDERS. so looking forward to messing around with it some more!
Glad to help. I mostly used giant eagles and dire wolves (pack tactics and knocking enemies prone). I've also had a lot of fun with summon draconic spirit, wall of fire, and reincarnate (explaining to someone why they have pointy ears now).
What is your subclass? Mine was Stars (level 11).
Circle of the Moon. Currently lvl 6 but our campaign is planned for a full 1-20 so I’m excited to get into higher level play! Yeah I threw 8 wolves out for the pack tactics into a bunch of soldiers and wizards and let them go at it. Summon draconic spirit looks SO BOMB I’ve been eyeing it hard for the future.
Yeah, I used it a few times but it really helped us on a spell jammer salvage mission when we had this giant invisible space seahorse swallowing up a PC and three NPCs and I had two choices, giant bats or draconic spirit. It really had to do with how well I could guess where it was because the D spirit doesn't have that much blindsight. They wound up really close to it and then I hit the monster with Force breath and two claws and it flew away with a PC in its stomach.
draconic spirit is a good package - you get a resistance, the dragon has a _load_ of them, so can last longer than you'd think if most attacks are something other than B/P/S, it's a big, obvious target, and it lasts an hour, so it's useful as a utility spell, to carry people around or whatever. And it's only a single thing, so it's logistically a lot easier than loads of wolves or whatever!
Oh 1000% tracking the health and rolls of 8 creatures plus myself was a lot there’s a reason I’d never dream of DM’ing lmao but yeah I’m really excited to get to try it out!
Of you can get a magic item, staff of swarming insect is really nice it let u see and they dont. But make sure it works for your party, you can always get in and separate different groups for your party to pick off a few while you help hold casters.
I would like to add Watery sphere (4th level) and summon spells but as special note summon Draconic spirit (5th level). Watery sphere lets you restrain and move up to 4 medium creatures they Need a strenght save to avoid the effect or exit the sphere BUT you still chose the square they land or fall when they success the save, you can move the sphere as an action and ram it into more enimies and engulf them too and as a fantastic bonus if they fail the save the are under water so good luck with any verbal components for your spell that would really mess up any normal spellcaster exept a sorcerer with subtle magic, i think that technically you could combo It with plant growth if you toss in the sphere the right kind of seeds.
Now any summon spells Is good to easily pressure a caster in melee range both if you summon one creature or multiple ones, but summon Draconic spirit lets you summon a dragon that has risistance to elements or resistance to basically any other type of non physical damage and when you summon It you get to choose to share one of the resistance the dragon has that Is fantastic if you can see what kind of damage Is going to be dealt mostly, also as a bonus the dragon during his multiattack can breath and deal damage from his list of resistances each round (including psychic and force even if 2d6 Is low damage It will be almost never resisted/immune).
I was looking at watery sphere for that reason! Fortunately with the setting of our campaign none of the enemy magic users are likely to be sorcerers it will be wizards, bards, and artificers so subtle spell isn’t something I’ll have to worry about, and being able to trap multiple wizards at once who aren’t known for their strength saves would be great.
But yeah I’ve been looking even more I to draconic spirit and it really looks like an insane spell
Any tasha's summon Is pretty great, but summon Beast and summon Draconic spirit are the best (summon fey can be stronger than both on the right build against non Flying enemies) in my mind. Simply because they give you access to swimming and Flying creatures with High strenght score (18 and 19) so you can use them as uncontrolled mounts to fly, but also you can easily use them to drag around allies and enemies when needed (as many attempts as they have attacks with a +4 can be enought most of the time if you don't Plan on grapple the strongest in the room). They hold insane utility and can wreack havoc on non Flying enemies pick It up and bring It 30 feet in the air, if he kills the dragon It Will take damage and end up prone and waste a turn if they don't they Will be carried even higher and than dropped down. The funny thing you can start doing this from 3rd level as a druid and arguably the Beast of the air Is much Better for this tactic since it negates AoO
Sleet storm at 3rd is awesome. So is tidal wave to mess up some terrain and stuff. But hear me out for 4th level. Conjure woodland beings. 8 pixies that can cast a number of spells once. 8 x polymorphs will get the wizard at least once right? 8 x dispel magic. 8 x entangle. Etc etc
If they have a focus that's metallic you can cast heat metal on it to make them take damage and have disadvantage if they don't drop it. If they do drop it they can lose access to most spells.
You don't *need* a spell focus, it simply works as a replacement for the material components of a spell. Any caster with any semblance of common sense will have a backup component pouch.
Many don't keep both on them. It's just a common oversight. There's also many times I've played where a caster might lose either their focus or pouch, usually this is the players but could happen to an enemy too.
I've done something like a prison scene where the wizard lost all their gear (everyone did) and got some material components for spells in the cell or nearby area (like some webs, etc..) and then managed to find a random focus on their way out before they got their actual gear back.
Also since many enemies only have a pouch or a focus it usually works on them. Read through the items available on most casters in the DMG that don't have inherent spell casting most only have a focus or a pouch. The DM also often describes enemies to build up the encounter and could very likely say something like "you watch as the enemy mage raises a long metallic staff crowned with a gem/crystal/orb etc... and prepares/casts a spell" especially if you're just witnessing it and not in combat yet. It directly gives you information you could use.
Yes this isn't always applicable but almost nothing is in 100% of situations that's part of the game. You could very well cast in this way just for them to drop it and use a component pouch but even that could be useful if the focus is a +1 or something (although I actually don't remember if heat metal would work on a +1 or magical item)
No you’re totally right. And in the homebrew world of our campaign focuses are VERY common and an expected thing of wizards as an indicator of their house so it’s honestly super likely !
now the wizard is surrounded by spikes, he just doesn't move and keeps casting? In my experience spike growth is best against melee opponents. (until the wizard gets grappled, then spike growth kills.)
a wizard that doesn't move is pretty much dead, wiz vs druid, wiz is gonna win, but druids are versatile, heat metal for example, is nasty ,hold person, wizards are generally gonna have shitty wisdom saves, flaming sphere is a free 2d6damage, and wiz boi gonna have bad dex saves, moon beam, calllightning, and remember druids can heal
themselves, wizards cannot
you cast call lightning, then wildshape, while in your animal form you can call lightning on folks, and just spend slot to auto heal yourself,
calling down lightning while in bear form is pretty boss,
To play off this a little bit ... Druid does have some AoE spells that completely bypass Absorb Elements, a main Wizard defensive tool.
Erupting Earth deals bludgeoning damage, thus can't be absorbed, and it's a Dex save which Wizards aren't good at.
Tidal Wave is very similar except it knocks prone, which has the potential to devastate a Wizard riding something like a broom of flying.
Insect Plague is basically a better Erupting Earth that lasts multiple turns.
Sunbeam can't be absorbed, is a Con save, blinds the wizard on a failed save, and can be repeated each turn.
And Bones of the Earth is devastating if the ceiling is 30ft or lower.
Here's some solid spells to counter casters: - Absorb Elements: Protection against things like Fireball and Cone of Cold. - Entangle: Make things regret having paper muscles. - Hold Person: Humanoid caster opponent? Sucks to be them. - Dispel Magic: Haste and Mage Armor? Not anymore. - Sleet Storm: Effectively blinds everything in a large area, preventing numerous spells from functioning.
Adding onto this, even just things that obscure vision or stop line of effect from them to you will help greatly. Also, Comboing a burrowing wild shape with a decent concentration spell can make you borderline invulnerable to a lot if spells.
I had my DM do this to us. Call lightning + wildshape burrow, and we just got zapped until we found cover.
Yeah, it's probably a huge reason why burrowing isn't something they put onto a player race or as part of any class features since wild shape.
+1 for Sleet storm- it also forces a concentration check on those casters every round and potentially knocks them prone. It’s a fantastic and sometimes overlooked combination of effects.
Yeah I had thought of it for the concentration check, but I wasn’t sure based on the text if it was concentration every round or just the first.
Even on just the first round it is still a relatively high DC concentration check which can be difficult for casters with only a +2+4 on con save. It also bypasses war caster because it isn't damage
Every round they take damage. They must beat 1/2 the damage they took or 10, whichever is higher.
Yes! But this is referring to sleet storm which doesn’t deal damage :)
Then it would be 10
No It would be spell save dc per the spell
The spell save is to see if you get the full effects. The concentration check is DC 10, adding your Con modifier
“If a creature starts it turn in the spells area and is concentrating on a spell, the creature must make a successful constitution saving throw against your spell save dc or lose concentration” so no.
Oh shit! You're right my man. Sorry
Thank you!! I’ve definitely found a love for absorb elements already. Prepped it on a whim one day and it’s been a LIFESAVER. I didn’t realize sleet storm would block view?
Sleet Strom makes the area heavily obscured, which causes the Blinded condition to everyone within and anyone targeting something within.
If I recall correctly, *sleet storm* is basically *fog cloud* + *grease* in a one-spell package, right? With a few extras.
Those few extras really fuck with casters though. Blocking sight and forcing a (high) concentration check.
Combine it with a plant growth and it's practically bullying.
Oh god, that’s genius. It’s one of the few things with a larger area of effect than *Sleet Storm*; pin opponents in place with sleet, then *Plant Growth* to bottle them in the storm zone.
Oh great to know! Thank you again
Sleet storm also forces a concentration save when cast
Sleet Storm is the best spell there is for stopping evil cultists mid ritual. Even if you only get a single round of it, it will usually break spell concentration/prevent casting, cause most of them to go prone and blind them for the duration. If you have to stop a spell caster right now there are few more reliable spells for doing so.
"I was gonna summon Dread Lord Orcus, but I had to cancel due to bad weather 😥"
I love how this sounds like a niche usage, but the situation probably comes up multiple times in almost every campaign.
Alternatively fog cloud does basically the same thing but with just a level 1 spell. The thing about spell casting in general is that basically every spell has a verbal or somatic component, so preventing speech and hand movements shuts down 99% of spells. (This is why its a joke that aggressively making out with a caster shuts them down) And many spells require the caster to see the target, so anything from fog cloud to wall of stone will prevent them from using those spell.
Sleet storm also forces a concentration save against the spellcaster DC which, at level 6 and assuming point buy with full investing in wis, is higher than the save of any attack that does less than 30 damage
Yeah my current dc is 17 :)
Concentration isn't based on your DC. It's a flat, well, mostly flat, it's DC is 10 + half of the damage done.
Yes, typically. However sleet storm is against your spell save dc. Typically it’s EITHER 10 OR half the damage. Whichever is higher.
I stand corrected. Fair enough.
The thing about fog cloud is it's insane scaling while up casting, lol 1 is a cloud, lol 9 covers entire town and half the countryside
Not much can see through it either. Blind sight.
RAW being in a heavily obscured area doesn't blind you. Trying to see something in a heavily obscured area makes you count as blind. But if you play RAW then fog and shadows of moil are equally good spells for giving you advantage to shoot out of, but one makes no sense!
*Sleet Storm* is huge and devastating. It entirely blocks vision and severely curtails movement in a shockingly large area. Anything without both flight and blindsight is gonna have a real bad time in there.
It and cure wounds are the only spells i wont unprepared on my artificer in Icewindale
I'd add Fog Cloud to the list. Great for Blinding Casters or putting a barrier between you and them.
Adding onto sleet storm: forces concentration checks at Spell Save DC: this melts concentration harder than Magic Missile.
Worth reminding people that Dispel Magic impacts all the magical spells on a creature, not just one. So, if you can get a lot of value out of a well placed Dispell Magic.
Yeah I noticed that when doing research from the recommendations here! Super useful
Adding to this: Warcaster doesn’t work against Sleet Storm, which adds to the power of it for breaking concentration.
Sleet also absolutely manhandles concentration. Yeah make a dc18 con save fucker, no warcaster doesn’t help here.
Lots of spells require line of sight. It can be situationally useful to use spells like Fog Cloud or Stoneshape to give yourself visual/physical cover. A fog cloud on top of an enemy wizard will typically force them to dispell it or move out of it. Otherwise they will stay blind and useless. Use this to get enemy mages out of their comfortable spaces or make them waste an action. If you can bait out a counterspell (and have blaster caster allies), even better.
Fog cloud, then wild shape into a giant spider and charge in using your blindsight!
Nightmare fuel on the receiving end.
“Hey dm, does mental trauma/ptsd count as psychic damage?”
"It will tomorrow if he isn't mauled to death by the spider and his friends today. POST tsd, you understand. I'll let you roll to intimidate with advantage, though".
or, at higher levels, giant scorpion - two claw attacks, both of which can grapple on hit, and a stinger that forces a con save, is pretty nice! (and if you ever crit with the stinger, that's 10D10 damage! Although it is Moon Druid only)
No my exact thought.
We were just about 150 feet away from a bunch of casters, one of us cast fog cloud and ran straight into it going past to escape. Yeah, they could have fireballed at the border and hit it partially but we weren't there and it was a nice just over 120ft for dispel magic. We knew they had it as we used it already to block LoS of some archers.
Can you move at full speed when vision is obscured?
Yes, until you bump into something or go on difficult terrain
Well you don't forget what the terrain generally looks like in the 15 seconds you've been blinded for, so you aren't really stumbling around in the dark that much.
As a general rule of thumb: Its safe to assume all spells require verbal and somatic components, not litterally true but most require both and every spell needs atleast 1 of them. This means shutting down speech with silence is the default FU to mages, along with tieing up their hands to prevent somatic components. (Sadly their isn't a non-roleplay way to block somatic components that isn't just general incapacitation) Additionally many spells require the caster to have line of sight to the point of origin of an AOE effect or to the targets chosen. This means any spell/effect that creates heavily obscured area or total cover is very useful. Fog cloud is probably the cheapest way to do this, wall of stone also works and is a solid barrier. Spell casters (and everyone else) can't do anything if they have the "incapacitated" condition, your cheapest way to inflict this is hold person on a humanoid, which influcts the paralyzed condition and that is nasty. (Incapacitated, every gets advantage to hit, melee attacks from within 5ft autocrit on a hit) Spell casters traditionally dump strength because they need Constitution for HP and concentration checks, Dexterity for AC, and whatever mental stat is their casting stat. This makes entangle a fantastic way to root them in place and shut them down. (iirc entangle restrains which is better than a grapple) And finally ranged attacks have disadvantage if you are within 5ft, so run right up next to a wizard and the things they can do to you change. (Wizards and most casters hate being in melee) PS: dont stand in standard AoE shapes, mainly clusters and lines. Also, as a moon druid your wildshapes are simply better than other druids. A perfectly reasonable strategy is to cast barkskin on yourself to get an AC of 16 in wildshape (most early wildshapes have an AC of 10-13, this is a 15-30% swing in chance to hit). This will eat you first turn of combat so cast barkskin before combat if possible. Then turn into your best combat wildshape and charge right up to the enemy and flank them.
Indeed, most mages have disadvantage on using their cantrips in melee range, and don't get attacks of opportunity, and shitty strength, and a bunch of wildshapes and conjured animals have immense speed and the ability to ram and trample an enemy. E.g. you can conjure four warhorses, which have a 60 feet speed and trampling charge against a strength save.
Not really a spell (that has already been taken care of in other coments), but if you have access to a magic item shop ask for a Mantle of Spell Resistance. You should be able to wear it in most of your wildshapes, but talk about it with the DM just in case..
Ohh good note! Thank you’
Sleet Storm’s great for shattering concentration so hard you can fill maracas with the remnants.
As a moon druid your best anti wizard approach is just summon something or cast moonbeam/call lighting and wild shape mainly because you'll be in wild shape most of the time. 2 big spells summon wise is conjure animals and summon elemental. With C.Animals you can summon 8 things to attack forcing a lot of con checks. With summon elemental you have the earth elemental and with burrow can always be in total cover making them basically immune to all spells... Add to this you can also wild shap into an earth elemental and do the same. Outside of this dispel magic is solid to have and having support spells to heal/revivify for between combats to help your team not use their resources because you don't need much for a combat 1-2 spells and a wild shape. So yea, as a moon druid you'll be fine because the class is a power house and a absolute pain to deal with. Also remember counter spell is 60ft and needs to see you when you summon or cast something.
Your greatest weapon as a moon druid is your wildshape, which is better than every other druid subclass. Your spells on the other hand should be focused on crowd control and limiting enemy casters' ability to cast and maintain spells. Anything that limits mobility (both positioning and restraint to block somatic elements of spells), forces repeated concentration checks to break spells, or limits vision to affect spell targeting, will make it a nightmare for any caster to target you and your allies. Allowing you to beef up with your wildshape and turn enemy wizards into magic ragou.
You could also pick up the mage slayer feat next time you hit the appropriate level to get a feat
Is there any body of water nearby? Pond? Well? Most wizards are utterly helpless underwater, because they can't do the verbal components of their spells. You have underwater wildshape forms like giant octopus that can grapple them, hence also restraining them against somatic components, you can breathe underwater, and you are stronger. They will simply drown.
There are no rules that say you cannot cast spells underwater, this is homebrew and not applicable
You telling me you can talk underwater? Now name the offensive spells your average wizard has prepped without verbal components
I can absolutely make noises with my mouth underwater, yes. Whats your point? And more importantly, what rules are you citing to back this up?
If you’re somehow a Circle of the Land (Desert) Druid then the answer is Silence and it’s truly not even close. If not then like, fog cloud or something
No silence would def be great but I’m circle of the moon unfortunately haha
If you are able to ever find a giant badger, or something else that can burrow, that’s also a great option.
Non native speaker. I briefly confused badger and beaver, and I was both confused and entertained at the same time.
giant beaver were a thing during the Pleistocene. And they are pretty good at burrowing.
Fog cloud kills half their spell list and can be cast from outside counter spell range. Seriously fog cloud is a underrated spell. They can dispel it of course but then the math goes against them.
Not me as a wizard player reading all these suggestions to know my enemies better
Sleet Storm at a distance to cause concentration checks. Conjure animals again at a distance. But you want the animals close to them to surround them. Even if you use opportunity attacks to grapple and knock prone. That can misty step, but then can't fireball the same turn. Just have the animals dash the next turn to around again. Throw your own spells at them. They only have 1 reaction. Counter or shield. Absorb elements of that try to fireball you. Conjure woodland beings for pixies. 8 polymorph or possibly confusion and phantasmal source then just keep your distance. You could poly yourself even with your own or the pixie slots into a giant ape. 8 pixies is 8 stacks of hp for you and you get decent melee damage. Pixies dispel the mages flight or throw rocks. Actually fog cloud and your own stronger physical damage with armor and Shillelagh. Or wild shape. Would also work.
Faerie Fire is great to have, a lot of arcane spellcasters have invisibility. And it's still effective against non invisible enemies.
Also, just dropping a Conjure Animals surrounding them. Relatively few wizard spells can target enemies in 360 degrees without hurting yourself. Escaping them will typically use up the wizard's spell for the turn, after which you can command them to chase the wizard, putting them back on the same situation. All in all, it either does chunky damage or the wizard has to spend time and spells taking care of the issue, usually more than you had to put in.
Someone's going to need to come in here and clarify this for me, but does Spike Growth force a concentration check every 5ft of movement through it? Is so a mobile grappler like Giant Constrictor Snake would be great at breaking concentration spells. The obvious counter to this is Misty Step but you will have at least wasted their levelled spell for a turn just to escape
it does, yes - if you get moved through 4 squares of spike growth, it's not 8d4 damage, it's 2d4/2d4/2d4/2d4. Anything that gets triggered by damage triggers 4 times, because it's 4 instances of damage (I once used this, Giant Scorpion wildshape and dash to force the enemy to take a _lot_ of concentration checks!). Of if the enemy dies on the third move, you can drop them then.
Ohh that’s interesting. I feel like technically it would? Because it’s a new instance of damage each five feet no?
That's my thinking
There are a few things you can do that others have highlighted but in general as a non-Counterspell caster going against a Counterspell caster you are going to have a bad time.
Cast your most important spells with a spell slot one level higher, even if they don’t scale. Then a Counterspell is less likely to insta-counter and you at least get a roll.
wild shape and the feet that lets you make an opportunity attacks when someone cast a spell within 5 feat or you, it also then gives them dis adv on con checks to concentrate ion spells
Conjure X and Summon X spells. Multiple attacks on low AC wizard makes for multiple concentration saves, if they move they'll take opportunity attacks or use slots for things like Misty Step. If they target the summons that's spells used against them and not you or the rest of the party.
With fog cloud you'd see just how many spells require a line of sight.
Fog cloud. So many spells require sight.
I have a stupid idea. “I use mage hand to shove 6 inches of rope into the wizards mouth” Good luck using the verbal component of your spell when you’ve been gagged.
Most DMs would interpret it as an attack which mage hand can't do
They will usually have a low STR, see which spells force a STR save. Lot's of water and wind spells seem to. Entangle, Gust of Wind, Dust Devil, Earthbind, Wind Wall, Control Water, Watery Shpere, Control Winds. Do you have Pass without Trace? Wildshape into something stealthy, sneak up close, turn into something that can grapple them. Giant Scorpion, Giant Constrictor Snake, Giant Octopus. When spellcasting, their biggest weapon might be to Counterspell you. Try to get them to use their reaction on other things, even Shield. Do you have other spellcasters in your party? Can you polymorph the fighter into a T-rex? As others have said: hide yourself, obscure yourself, prevent line of sight, force Concentration checks, distract them with summons, familiar, ... Any spells that create damaging terrain, like Spike Growth. You want to force Concentration checks. You need to do some guerrilla warfare. They should not see you coming. They will probably not have very high Perception.
Absorb elements, entangle and web, dispel magic in case a party member fails a wisdom save and against charm, fear, confusion. sleet storm for difficult terrain, possibly falling Prone, and making the area heavily obscured and they have to make concentration checks for conc spells. conjure animals is versatile. 2 giant eagles have 80' fly speed ...have them dive bomb them and fly away on diff directions (wizard only gets ones opportunity attack and probably can't do much with it unless is a warcaster and even then they can only target one of them with a spell). Or you could use that spell for 4 giant wasps (50 speed) for the poison damage vs different targets so they don't get hit in AOE and the poison takes them out...they are paralyzed. Or 8 giant bats (60 speed should be ok to divebomb or you could have some grapple the wizard) which is good if the wizard is invisible, in a fog cloud, etc. Cast it at level 5 instead of 3 for double the animals.
Thank you for some solid conjure animals options!! I just got to try it out for the first time in our last encounter and it worked WONDERS. so looking forward to messing around with it some more!
Glad to help. I mostly used giant eagles and dire wolves (pack tactics and knocking enemies prone). I've also had a lot of fun with summon draconic spirit, wall of fire, and reincarnate (explaining to someone why they have pointy ears now). What is your subclass? Mine was Stars (level 11).
Circle of the Moon. Currently lvl 6 but our campaign is planned for a full 1-20 so I’m excited to get into higher level play! Yeah I threw 8 wolves out for the pack tactics into a bunch of soldiers and wizards and let them go at it. Summon draconic spirit looks SO BOMB I’ve been eyeing it hard for the future.
Yeah, I used it a few times but it really helped us on a spell jammer salvage mission when we had this giant invisible space seahorse swallowing up a PC and three NPCs and I had two choices, giant bats or draconic spirit. It really had to do with how well I could guess where it was because the D spirit doesn't have that much blindsight. They wound up really close to it and then I hit the monster with Force breath and two claws and it flew away with a PC in its stomach.
draconic spirit is a good package - you get a resistance, the dragon has a _load_ of them, so can last longer than you'd think if most attacks are something other than B/P/S, it's a big, obvious target, and it lasts an hour, so it's useful as a utility spell, to carry people around or whatever. And it's only a single thing, so it's logistically a lot easier than loads of wolves or whatever!
Oh 1000% tracking the health and rolls of 8 creatures plus myself was a lot there’s a reason I’d never dream of DM’ing lmao but yeah I’m really excited to get to try it out!
You could also get the Mage Slayer feat and get up in the wizard's face as a bear or something.
Of you can get a magic item, staff of swarming insect is really nice it let u see and they dont. But make sure it works for your party, you can always get in and separate different groups for your party to pick off a few while you help hold casters.
I would like to add Watery sphere (4th level) and summon spells but as special note summon Draconic spirit (5th level). Watery sphere lets you restrain and move up to 4 medium creatures they Need a strenght save to avoid the effect or exit the sphere BUT you still chose the square they land or fall when they success the save, you can move the sphere as an action and ram it into more enimies and engulf them too and as a fantastic bonus if they fail the save the are under water so good luck with any verbal components for your spell that would really mess up any normal spellcaster exept a sorcerer with subtle magic, i think that technically you could combo It with plant growth if you toss in the sphere the right kind of seeds. Now any summon spells Is good to easily pressure a caster in melee range both if you summon one creature or multiple ones, but summon Draconic spirit lets you summon a dragon that has risistance to elements or resistance to basically any other type of non physical damage and when you summon It you get to choose to share one of the resistance the dragon has that Is fantastic if you can see what kind of damage Is going to be dealt mostly, also as a bonus the dragon during his multiattack can breath and deal damage from his list of resistances each round (including psychic and force even if 2d6 Is low damage It will be almost never resisted/immune).
I was looking at watery sphere for that reason! Fortunately with the setting of our campaign none of the enemy magic users are likely to be sorcerers it will be wizards, bards, and artificers so subtle spell isn’t something I’ll have to worry about, and being able to trap multiple wizards at once who aren’t known for their strength saves would be great. But yeah I’ve been looking even more I to draconic spirit and it really looks like an insane spell
Any tasha's summon Is pretty great, but summon Beast and summon Draconic spirit are the best (summon fey can be stronger than both on the right build against non Flying enemies) in my mind. Simply because they give you access to swimming and Flying creatures with High strenght score (18 and 19) so you can use them as uncontrolled mounts to fly, but also you can easily use them to drag around allies and enemies when needed (as many attempts as they have attacks with a +4 can be enought most of the time if you don't Plan on grapple the strongest in the room). They hold insane utility and can wreack havoc on non Flying enemies pick It up and bring It 30 feet in the air, if he kills the dragon It Will take damage and end up prone and waste a turn if they don't they Will be carried even higher and than dropped down. The funny thing you can start doing this from 3rd level as a druid and arguably the Beast of the air Is much Better for this tactic since it negates AoO
Sleet storm at 3rd is awesome. So is tidal wave to mess up some terrain and stuff. But hear me out for 4th level. Conjure woodland beings. 8 pixies that can cast a number of spells once. 8 x polymorphs will get the wizard at least once right? 8 x dispel magic. 8 x entangle. Etc etc
True!!
If they have a focus that's metallic you can cast heat metal on it to make them take damage and have disadvantage if they don't drop it. If they do drop it they can lose access to most spells.
You don't *need* a spell focus, it simply works as a replacement for the material components of a spell. Any caster with any semblance of common sense will have a backup component pouch.
Many don't keep both on them. It's just a common oversight. There's also many times I've played where a caster might lose either their focus or pouch, usually this is the players but could happen to an enemy too. I've done something like a prison scene where the wizard lost all their gear (everyone did) and got some material components for spells in the cell or nearby area (like some webs, etc..) and then managed to find a random focus on their way out before they got their actual gear back. Also since many enemies only have a pouch or a focus it usually works on them. Read through the items available on most casters in the DMG that don't have inherent spell casting most only have a focus or a pouch. The DM also often describes enemies to build up the encounter and could very likely say something like "you watch as the enemy mage raises a long metallic staff crowned with a gem/crystal/orb etc... and prepares/casts a spell" especially if you're just witnessing it and not in combat yet. It directly gives you information you could use. Yes this isn't always applicable but almost nothing is in 100% of situations that's part of the game. You could very well cast in this way just for them to drop it and use a component pouch but even that could be useful if the focus is a +1 or something (although I actually don't remember if heat metal would work on a +1 or magical item)
No you’re totally right. And in the homebrew world of our campaign focuses are VERY common and an expected thing of wizards as an indicator of their house so it’s honestly super likely !
Insect Swarm/Plague used to be designed for combatting spell casters, but the best it can do now is cause a lapse in concentration.
How has it changed?
In previous editions of the game, those spells would stop spells from being cast.
Unless you have another high-level Druid cast Animal Shapes… Suddenly you have a “swarm” of an unspecified number of Elephants
Silence, can't cast a spell if you can't speak
Not a Druid spell, but thank you!
Spike growth is pretty good against the absolute dogwater AC of most wizards, should help some and has a big enough AOE to be a real problem for a bit
AC is irrelevant for Spike Growth. So, compared to spells with attack rolls, it's better against high AC enemies, not low AC.
Actually if we take into account the Shield spell and subclasses like Bladesinger and Abjuration, Wizards can have deceptively high ACs
spike growth
now the wizard is surrounded by spikes, he just doesn't move and keeps casting? In my experience spike growth is best against melee opponents. (until the wizard gets grappled, then spike growth kills.)
Spike Growth + forced movement = cheese grater.
Jup I played a genie warlock using spike growth and repelling blast. was good.
a wizard that doesn't move is pretty much dead, wiz vs druid, wiz is gonna win, but druids are versatile, heat metal for example, is nasty ,hold person, wizards are generally gonna have shitty wisdom saves, flaming sphere is a free 2d6damage, and wiz boi gonna have bad dex saves, moon beam, calllightning, and remember druids can heal themselves, wizards cannot you cast call lightning, then wildshape, while in your animal form you can call lightning on folks, and just spend slot to auto heal yourself, calling down lightning while in bear form is pretty boss,
Don’t wizards get proficiency in WIS saves? A wizard built for high-level play will want to protect its WIS saves because so many spells target it
Any spell like suggestion or command are good
Tgey normally have a good WIS save?
Also not Druid spells
Fireball because aoe doesn't care about invisibility or mirror image, and a lot of damage to break concentration/kill the low hp total wizard.
For sure! Just not a Druid spell
To play off this a little bit ... Druid does have some AoE spells that completely bypass Absorb Elements, a main Wizard defensive tool. Erupting Earth deals bludgeoning damage, thus can't be absorbed, and it's a Dex save which Wizards aren't good at. Tidal Wave is very similar except it knocks prone, which has the potential to devastate a Wizard riding something like a broom of flying. Insect Plague is basically a better Erupting Earth that lasts multiple turns. Sunbeam can't be absorbed, is a Con save, blinds the wizard on a failed save, and can be repeated each turn. And Bones of the Earth is devastating if the ceiling is 30ft or lower.
Great suggestions thank you!!
Find a feat or magic item that will allow you take an aberration animal form. Then go for beholder. Wizards will be real easy.
Do you know of any off the top of your head?
Nope- it would need to be homebrewed.