My big guess from this is that they probably did not nerf Shield or Web or Hypnotic Pattern or Wall of Force--spells that Treantmonk wanted nerfed. We already know they made changes to the Conjure series (although it sounds like they might have kept or not changed much from the playtest version, so bow down to your Conjure Minor Elementals overlords I guess?) In terms of what they did change, I'm going to assume that they probably did make tweaks to some of the old army building and rules exploiting nonsense from the PHB, so like Planar Binding, Simulacrum, the useage of True Polymorph where you turn a rock into a (EDIT) CR9 friendly creature.

CR9 for *true polymorph*.

Thanks, edited.

I really wished for nerfs to all spells that arbitrarily have a huge, if not outright combat ending, effects, that just have no save at all. And that powerful persistent effects had a concentration requirement in general. Forcecage and Otto's Irresistible Dance are just two pretty egregious examples off the top of my head. Even something like Banishment has two pretty major drawbacks that make it feel less terrible, because you can play around it. Otto's make you nearly useless no matter what, and all but forces you to waste a turn to even be allowed to make a save, and Forcecage basically has no counter. From a GMs perspective, I prefer it when there is some give and take to combat. So while we could all throw around big "you don't get to do anything" spells with no counterplay, the game is a lot more fun where there is always something you can do, or at least had a chance to resist in the first place. Players scrambling to break concentration on an enemy caster, or doing everything to make their own caster hold concentration on that big spell, is far more engaging gameplay for everyone involved.

Don't forget Animate Dead, which is a bit less powerful than the other army-building options but comes online much earlier

Animate Dead just needs to be changed to be more table friendly. It’s not even overpowered, since a fireball just wipes the minions out, but it makes combat such an unbearable slog.

I'd say it's both a slog, and also overpowered. The vast majority of monsters don't have fireball or equivalent AoEs. And even if the DM plays in an adversarial manner and specifically picks/homebrews monsters with AoE, the PC can just choose to use skeletons with bows and spread them far apart.

I support Animate Dead because I love that sort of RTS style of gameplay, especially with or as a DM who uses minion and horde rules, but and big but, I wish they used better tags like the older systems did Basically, a lot of these fun options need a highlight to say 'Your DM may not allow this!' and emphasise that it's for a very niche kind of play. Ironically, 5E used this warning for Feats and not 'have a pet greater angel'

Yeah I'd like to at least have optional tags for stuff like Animate Dead, Planar Binding, and Dream of the Blue Veil (lmao)

I've always said the biggest issue with DnD magic is that at some point a bunch of boss actions and mechanics bled into the player options. The game is full of life-sim adjacent bits like Wards and Knock that a lot of games don't have, as well as these high end tools for transporting armies and such, I assume from the old days you'd have 4 players, their seconds, minions, staff and animals. Tell truth I go as far as to cap casting at 5th level and do the rest as rituals when I want to have an Army Leader campaign

In 'the old days' your characters, especially martial characters, got their own keeps/guildhouses/groves etc. and full on armies and late campaign gameplay was focused around essentially being a kingdom management game for the most part with the characters only coming out for direct fights for threats no army could deal with. Fighters had the largest, best trained overall army, Paladins and Clerics had an elite core to their army but most of it was barely trained peasants filled with religious fervor. Rogues led their Thieves/Assassins guild and would focus on learning information and taking out single, mundane, targets like cult leaders and so on. So every other class bar the Wizard (who was an antisocial loner studying spells in their tower) could do a lot of things that affected the world and the high level Wizard was bought out for when you needed a magical nuke.

Yup. That's also when it makes most sense for the Wizard to spend months to a year binding circles and runes to create an elite core of elementals or demons or the like. They're all tools that have no use or context, especially with Martials losing anything resembling a guild. My big work around for 5E as Long Rest Actions for Martials, where they could organise groups or tend weapons or do hitting bits while the wizard spent 8 Hours prepping and restoring spells, and it worked fairly well

Tbf Dream of the Blue Veil already is DM-controlled, since it can only transport you to a material world you've already been to before, and your DM gets a pretty big say in where your character has or hasn't been to before... It's not like a character can just *claim* to be from Krynn in my FR campaign.

It stops being useful once nonmagic resistance comes into play.

I would just redo summoning design to limit players to one familiar at 1st spell level, one lesser summon at 2nd spell level, and one greater summon at 3rd spell level. The familar attacks with your bonus action, the lesser summon attacks with your action, and the greater summon attacks after your turn (shares initiative, requires concentration). Lesser summons are basic while greater summons get an additional ability. For example the putrid option in Summon Undead has a festering aura. Have the spells be modeled after the tasha's summons where the spells have three options each (maybe one or two more through upcasting, or they gain more abilities) and stats adjust with spell level (or maybe more of player stats). Most importantly just don't utilize CR monsters. This bit is certainly a personal preference but I also like the idea of decreasing the summoner's max health for the summon's duration (-5 for lesser, -10 for greater). Summoners ARE putting out 30-60 hitpoints on the battle field at early levels, they should be giving up something to summon more targets for enemies to hit and be hit by.

That's pretty much exactly what i expect after his video.

What was wrong with Conjure Minor Elementals?

Conjure Minor Elementals.... So you know the spell Spirit Shroud? Adds damage to your attacks. You can upcast it and for every two levels it adds another 1d8? And...in all fairness, Spirit Shroud was kinda mid, had a bit of room to be slightly better. Well, in the playtest, Conjure Minor Elementals was pretty similar to Spirit Shroud, also added damage to every attack you landed, same as Spirit Shroud, but for every spell level it scaled up by 2d8. So you know...4x the scaling of Spirit Shroud. Which is...nutty. If you want to see it in action, there's a OneDnD playtest with Colby, Pack Tactics, and Treantmonk. (Colby's Character is the Monk 5 Druid 10 who uses Conjure Minor Elementals in the third fight). The enemies do have vulnerability to fire due to other shenanigans, but you can watch Colby punching stuff for \~50 damage per punch, and 109 damage on a crit. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JjF07y90A0&t=11070s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JjF07y90A0&t=11070s) So I mean, against enemies who aren't vulnerable to fire, and aren't being crit, it's going to be more like 25-30 damage per punch. But that's still a lot when you are punching 4x per turn.

Yeah, seems like they wanted it to be strong. Either 1d8 per level or 2d8 every two levels, but beefed it and did 2d8 per level

It scaled 4x as quickly as comparable spells like spirit shroud and shadow blade (2d8 per spell level vs 1d8 per two levels).

... What could have possibly possessed them to think a spell scaling at double speed was healthy?

¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯

A lot of the stuff in the UAs have given that feeling. And I mean, to be fair to the designers here, the point of the UAs was to try a few things to see people's reaction to it. A lot of stuff got instantly rolled back for being too stupid, but the whole idea was to see what people's responses were. Given how many bad ideas were in these playtests, as someone who has GMd every single UA during all this, i am almost tempted to say that they might have deliberately added something incredibly stupid to every one, just to see how the feedback addressed it.

As much as I hate seeing the discussions, I at least get *why* someone would want the changes to Shield, Hypnotic Pattern and Wall of Force. I've against my will seen why people don't like each spell, from the multiclass issues of Shield, the instant encounter enders of Wall of Force and Hypnotic Pattern. But Web is a new one. It seems really mundane in comparison I guess? Like what's so special about Web that it needs nerfs? It seems pretty easy to break out of and if you have a bit of fire then you're automatically free minus some fire damage.

>But Web is a new one. It seems really mundane in comparison I guess? The issue is that Web is 2nd level spell, and it does a bit too much for a 2nd level spell. I'm not sure what level it should be (I've heard some people claim 4th). But 2nd is just nutty for what you get. DEX save is very good on a crippling status, cause it tends to be one of the weaker save for a lot of higher CR monsters (lots of giants and such among higher CR monsters). They need to spend an action to break out of it (and they can spend their action and fail to break out). Forced movement can push enemies back into the web every round and they have to make the save again and break out again. So like...something simple like a Telekinetic or an Eldritch Blast+Repelling Blast can be very difficult for some enemies to break out of. Alternatively, they could choose to not break out, accept the negative status, but the status is relatively rough--you have advantage to hit them, they have disadvantage to hit you, and they can't move. It's not that these kinds of effects are unreasonable on a spell, there's a 4th level spell Evards Black Tentacles which is nearly identical to Web (same area, same condition, easier to break out of, but with the upsides that it can't be nulled out by fire, and adds a little bit of damage to the area) and Evard's Black Tentacles is considered a pretty solid 4th level spell. It's just that the combination of parameters is really strong for a 2nd level spell.

Alright wasn't expecting the detailed writeup. Now that you have made mention of it I can see the argument. While I would say pushing is a bit on the rare side (and it was barring warlocks and other specific abilities) they have made it easier to push people around now with Masteries and the rest of the things. Then I looked it up a bit more and that's when I realized that Web is likely one of those legacy spells that go unchanged (like how the designers know that Fireball is overtunned but they don't care) because outside of 4th edition, which I can't figure out the math behind it, cleric and something called a Hishnashaper for 2nd edition, Web has been a second level spell across all editions. For cleric and Hishnashaper it was 3rd level (I think) and in 4e it was 5th level for wizards. Though I don't know if that was by *class* level and not actual spell level. Again I can see where the argument lies in Web as a spell.

4E powers go by class level, so it being 5th level means wizards get it when they reach 5th level.

Makes sense when you put it like that. Thanks for clarifying.

Yeah, I think 3rd-4th level sounds about right

Unfortunately they've decided to leave it at 2nd level. No spells are changing their levels.

Web requires an action to break free, while other comparable spells allow you to repeat the save. And with Push now in the game it becomes stupidly powerful.

Unlike "comparable" spells, it doesn't take effect until the start of turn. Things that allow a free save and impose a condition take effect immediately. Web is a great spell, but you usually get mixed results. It's relatively easy to escape. Dexterous things usually dodge, strong things can usually get out, things that are neither can probably shenanigan out. A lot of the time getting out isn't even required. Push is going to give it a boost, but that's true for most of these kind of persistent map effect spells.

Web is the second step into martial-caster divide in 5e (Sleep at L1-2 was the first). The spell instantly reshapes an encounter to your benefit. You can use it semi regularly from 3rd level to 20th. When you are in Tier 3 and 4 it lets you conserve the big hitter spells on less dangerous encounters. "A bit of fire damage" is actually reasonably difficult for many enemies you'd use web against to muster. If you suspect they have access, cast a different spell. If your DM makes every encounter have access: consider, you permanently altered his encounter prep with a second level spell. Unironically the best 2nd level spell period and could arguably hang against Hypnotic Pattern / Fear in 3rd. The web doesnt stop being a hazard the first time you save. The big burly dude of the party can continually force enemies to deal with it or interact with it. Web has more in common with Wall of Force than it does Hypnotic Pattern. Both spells instantly reshape the field; Wall does so with no-save, but is 5th level. Reshape reality + the battlefield to your will. The only difference between a Sorcerer and a God is scope.

I don't know the specific complaint but I would assume because unlike other similar spells (ie Entangle) enemies can become cc'd if they fail a roll on subsequent turns? It's definitely a stronger spell but I don't know that I'd consider it a game breaking one.

I would be astounded if *shield* wasn't nerfed, but they probably missed some of the other spells.

The problem with Shield is that it's nice when you get it, but becomes a problem with armor dips. A Wizard with Mage Armor casting Shield isn't that big a deal. When they have medium armor and a shield, and multiple lvl 1 spell slots, Shield quickly becomes a problem. Now, they could implement any of the following: - Only blocks one attack (this means it scales poorly against Multiattack, but it also means it's useless against mobs - Can't be used while wearing a Shield - Can't be used while wearing Armor

I think nerfing the armor dip is another way to go about it. Make it so you can only cast cantrips and first level spells from a class that doesn’t give you armor proficiency while wearing medium or heavy armor.

I agree! I sort of like the theme of shield in 5e. The actual problem is how easy it is to get armor proficiency as a wizard. This is why arcane spell failure in 3.X was in my opinion a good thing, although it could of course be simplified by simply preventing arcane spells from being cast while wearing armor (or spells up to a certain level, or spells with somatic components) instead of being a failure probability. Perhaps a bit unrelated to this, I also think that many spells and abilities that scale with level should do so with the relevant class level, not character level. This would somewhat reduce the frontloadedness of some classes (warlock for example) and in general reduce the effectiveness of a lot of multiclass builds.

That is probably too complex a rule.

It’s not much more complicated than the other multiclassing rules (spell slots, for example). And multiclassing is an optional feature for a reason.

> Now, they could implement any of the following: > > > > - Only blocks one attack (this means it scales poorly against Multiattack, but it also means it's useless against mobs > > - Can't be used while wearing a Shield > > - Can't be used while wearing Armor Why would you jump to "only blocks one attack" when "until end of the turn" is right there?

That kind of works, though it still might make it way too good against solo enemies. It scales well against Multiattack, but doesn't scale well against mobs. Shield is alright when you get it, since you're sacrificing one of your few spell slots for an extra round of survivability. When you start having an abundance of slots, it's a lot better, since you can afford to sacrifice a low level slot. Where it's problematic is when it's combined with armor dips, making them more defensive than they should be for such a low level slot. Your suggestion means that they probably survive an extra round, unless the Mage is surrounded by several enemies (vs one big dude). I actually think that's too strong for a level 1 slot, and would honestly rather it just not allow armor. For stuff like Eldritch Knight, I'd just say they get an ability to use Magic to up their defenses.

I think a simpler option would be to set your AC to a specific number, like 18 or 20 or whatever playtest shows is the correct number.

Agree. Your first bullet point would put it in line with almost every other defensive option.

I get Web and Hypnotic Pattern, but Shield? Like, it's powerful, yeah, but what's actually wrong with it? It doesn't eat encounters like most of the shit wizards can get up to, and there are a lot of ways to hurt a PC who can spike their AC.

>Shield? Like, it's powerful, yeah, but what's actually wrong with it? The shield spell is arguably the #1 contributor to the martial/caster divide at higher levels. To be clear, when you don't have a lot of spell slots (so a low level caster, or a martial with a small dip) shield is not that attractive. A level 1 Sorcerer would usually rather cast Sleep than cast Shield. Similarly, a martial who has a few spell slots from some random multiclass is probably going to use those spell slots on...not sleep obviously, but maybe hunter's mark or bless or something. But higher level casters are a different story--higher level casters usually don't want to concentrate on 1st level spells. Based on 20th level play sessions I've watched, it's rare for a 20th level full caster to concentrate on anything below a 5th level spell. This frees them up to cast Shield a double digit number of times in a day, which is fairly close to a permanent +5 to AC. So basically, assuming a caster gets medium armor and shield proficiency, they are effectively working with 24 AC before magic items. (17 AC from medium armor, +2 from a magic shield, +5 from the shield spell). Whereas martials are typically working with more like 17-18 AC. This is a 6-7 AC gap. Now, personally, in an ideal world I'd like to see martials have higher AC than casters; that's not going to happen of course. But martials having a fairly consistent 6-7 AC less than casters at higher levels is a scenario that existed in high level 5e and ideally would not be repeated in this edition. >and there are a lot of ways to hurt a PC who can spike their AC. But why put yourself into this position where you have to use workarounds? Yeah, there's encounter design ways around shield, but there are encounter design ways around all the good spells. If you look at recently designed high level 5e modules, they tend to work around all the overtuned spells... * Enemies immune to charm and fear (stopping spells like hypnotic pattern) * Enemies with teleport (so that they can escape forecage and wall of force) * They often have immunity or resistance to non-magical BPS (so that they don't get clowned on by conjure animals and animate objects). * They make it very obnoxious to get through their saves--often high saves plus legendary resistances. * And of course, they've got ways to get past high AC. The problem with enemy design like this is that it's very limiting. Did you as a DM want the big bad to be an angry barbarian type? Well that won't work. Better come up with a different villain who can teleport so that the wizard doesn't just plop them in a wall of force. Yeah, you can work wonders with encounter design. I can design encounters in 5e where wizards will suck and fighters will rule. But...that's a band-aid. A fresh edition is a good time to address root issues so that encounter design doesn't need to do the heavy lifting.

> So basically, assuming a caster gets medium armor and shield proficiency, they are effectively working with 24 AC before magic items. (17 AC from medium armor, +2 from a magic shield, +5 from the shield spell). Whereas martials are typically working with more like 17-18 AC. This is a 6-7 AC gap. That's a pretty wild assumption that your "caster with medium armor and shield proficiency" (aka, Clerics and some martially-inclined specs like Valor Bard) has a +2 shiield while your example martial doesn't have plate + shield.

He misspoke when he said magic shield. It's just a normal shield, that gives you normal shield ac, to get to 24.

>That's a pretty wild assumption that your "caster with medium armor and shield proficiency" (aka, Clerics and some martially-inclined specs like Valor Bard) No it's not a wild assumption. You can either take a 1 level dip like basically every optimiser did 5e when building a caster character, which doesn't even slow down the number and level of spell slots you get if you dip a full caster. Alternatively, the playtests also offered a 1st level feat to cover this (lightly armored in the playtest gave medium armor and shield proficiency) although we don't know yet if that made it through unchanged. You could do this with heavy armor on a full caster pretty easily as well with a 1 level dip, but those builds not usually preferred by optimisers, mostly because casters would usually prefer to have high DEX to boost their initiative and DEX saving throws over having 1 more AC with high STR. >while your example martial doesn't have plate + shield. Shields were not ideal for most martials in 5e (most, they worked pretty good on Paladins with a hexblade dip). But for most 5e martials shield and one handed builds were a large loss of damage (whereas wearing a shield did not noticeably lower the spellcasting ability of a spellcaster). Maybe shield martial builds will be better builds in the new version? I don't know the new books very well yet. But there's definitely one aspect where shield builds are worse than they were in the 2014 books, which is that you can no longer get a bonus action attack by using a shield and spear build and taking polearm master.

Those spells are iconic and fun, who cares what treantmonk wants when he primarily posts min/max non-utility high dps builds only

>who cares what treantmonk wants when he primarily posts min/max non-utility high dps builds only So...I take it you have zero idea who Treantmonk is? (If there's a build archetype Treantmonk is famous for, it's wizard builds where he doesn't even take fireball cause he wants to take more utility spells instead).

He forges the God Wizard in the crucible of 3.X and this is the thanks he gets

This is what TM said: ""I was not overly impressed with the job. I was hoping for some major redesign of some outlier spells... they did not do that enough. There are some cases where they have, but not enough in my opinion." Sounds like there were some nerfs, but some spells got missed, and for others the nerfs weren't severe enough.

Timestamp to the part where he discusses spell nerfs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuP-FuwTCQQ&t=1337s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuP-FuwTCQQ&t=1337s)

Thank you

Quite sad to see they didn't decide to go through with properly balancing the spells. I'll be happy if at least shield, simulacrum and magic jar get reined in (out of things we haven't seen yet). But I'm already prepared to be dissapointed.

Upvote for properly using reined instead of reigned like most people do.

i'm sorry

I, for one, embrace the reign of reigned.

literally just give me a nerf to tiny hut! Let it remain as just a nice comfortable campsite, not an invincible bunker that invalidates most night time surprises or issues long resting in dangerous environments

Hitpoints and maybe damage threshold. Party camp gets attacked, and instead of being surprised and killed the party gets to wake up and prepare for a round or two. That's enough to make the spell really fucking good already. And you cast it as a ritual!

Would literally solve everything and still let casters feel good about putting it up. The template is already there with spells like wall of stone/ice that can be attacked and broken through

That's how I've homebrewed the spell. I also made the dome impenetrable both ways to everything but clean air, so not an arcane combat bunker you can fire arrows from. I also clarified that recasting the spell ends the previous casting, but the caster can end the spell now as an action.

Yep, i pretty much run it the same way nowadays.

All force wall type effects should be given hit points and destroyable.

Saw a great suggestion yesterday, where the caster has to make saves (Concentration or Spellcasting Ability) whenever the wall is hit. Could be combined with a damage threshold to keep the number of rolls low. I want an Ancient Dragon to sweep away a Wall of Force after 1-3 tries, but a bunch of wild hogs should despair in front of it.

Thebentire point of force is that it isn't, at that point they may just delete the spell because it is upcasted wall of stone.

True there couldn't possibly be a middle ground where force spells come with a damage threshold or additional resistances over a stone wall, without giving it immunity to everything. Or alternatively make it indestructible, but other unique stipulations. (I like the idea brought up of attacks against it triggering concentration saves, perhaps taking a resisted damage valuw)

Any intelligent enemies in a dangerous environment should be able to deal with *Leomund's Tiny Hut*, though. Just set up an ambush and wait.

That doesn’t really work. The party can snipe them through the hut. Only the caster is restricted to staying in the hut. And as the hut is a ritual, the caster can simply cast it again before the duration ends to keep it up indefinitely. And the enemies cannot see into the hut but the party can see out of it, so they will know the ambush is coming, but their enemies will not know when the party is going to attack. Waiting by a hut for 8 hours in the hope of an ambush is the most foolish thing the enemies can do when they encounter a hut in most situations.

Most of the gotchas that I've heard people say will counter Tiny Hut can be answered with "The adventurers kill their enemies from the safety of the hut." The only real answer is Dispel Magic and outside of some very specific conditions that feels like adversarial DMing to me.

Except for: "Wait outside of sight and attack when they start to depart." Most parties don't post a watch when they've got a hut up and even those that do will have to leave it eventually.

OK.. so wait until the party finishes their long rest and attack? Damn.. you sure tricked them. Also.. you have no idea as an observer if they have seen you or not, as its treated as 1 way viewing. The threat of attack while resting is the fact that you are resting. * You are vulnerable because you are more likely to be surprised, both in the sense of surprise mechanic, and in being unarmored or separated from your equipment or allies. * You are vulnerable because you are recovering, your HP and spell slots are unlikely to be full. Waiting until the adventurers are fully recharged, equipped, and in combat formation means the spell was 100% effective.

Why the hell would a party not post watch while inside a hut? That seems like sheer idiocy. And even then, you can hide leaving a hut with ease. Cast another before the duration expires. Use illusions to mask the hut’s disappearance. Leave from the side the enemies are on. Bush the enemies while they are not paying attention. The party has so many ways to mess with enemies stupid enough to wait close to a hut

False sense of security usually. It only happens up until they're ambushed after sleeping, but it happens with almost every group I've run.

Weird. I’ve never had a group not keep watch. Regardless of the Hut. Maybe because we are all pre 5e players.

Scouting, high Perception, familiars, divination magic, etc. etc. Or it doesn't matter because the party has had a long rest and has all of their resources back. And I've never ever seen a party not set a watch rotation inside a Tiny Hut. It sounds like you're used to very sloppy play.

I think trying to circumvent the hut in general is arguably adversarial dming. There are shelf lives to different hazards in D&D when spellcasters are present. Tiny hut is not a proud nail in this regard. Some examples: • Diseases (Lesser Restoration, 2nd) • Food/Water (Goodberry/Create Water, 1st) • Flight (Fly, 3rd; Levitate, 2nd) • Night Ambush (Tiny Hut, 3rd) • Long Distance Travel (Teleportation Circle, 5th; Teleport, 7th) • Water (Water Breathing, 3rd; Water Walking, 3rd) Part of the issue is not recognizing the tier at which spells obsolete a hazard Part of the issue is the dominance of 5e making it shoehorned into the Everysystem role (5e does not do some campaign types well; Low Magic Fantasy or Gritty Survival Sim, for example) Part of the issue is adversarial DMs not being willing to be denied the ability to railroad the players.

I understand with what you are saying, but I disagree with your assertion it makes the DM adversarial. That is as absurd as saying rolling monster attacks against players is adversarial.

It depends, like most things. If you insist that your players must be vulnerable to ambush while sleeping at all times, forever, that is an adversarial stance. A spell will obsolete it eventually, even if that is functionally Create Demiplane or Teleport. If you disagree that 5th level is too early to obsolete night ambushes then it is more reasonable to argue, but I couldn't see it pushed much higher than 4th level spells. 5th (end of tier 2) would be an absurd take but the absolute limit of a fair push of the spell.

What fo you call advwrsarial DM j mostly call world building. Tiny hut worked that way in universe since the second sundering happened. That ia a lot of times for people facing problems againist it and starting to brainstorming ways around it. Ans the same is true for most spells. And i do not think it is something that should be used just againist the players. It should also be an advice that NPC give to the players.

That's great, but doesn't really prevent them from grabbing a long rest and fully recovering resources. And it's not like they wouldnt be able to see any ambush being set up and being able to prepare their own countermeasures inside. The point isn't that there aren't ways to deal with it, there are obviously, the point is there is zero reason the thing should be impenetrable outside of spellcasters

If it was just a glorified tent it wouldn't be appropriate for a 3rd level spell. Due to backwards compatibility WotC doesn't seem to want to change spell levels for existing spells.

Considering it's a ritual spell it's actual use is closer to a cantrip lol.

I'm not surprised. They're not in the habit of nerfing casters, after all. Walls of Force for everyone! (which of course aren't a problem if you can cast Misty Step)

I hope they're not counting on Forcebreakers as the DM solution when players break encounters with *wall of force* and *forcecage*, it's such a binary solution. Either the enemy has a Forcebreaker and ends a high-level spell with a single attack, not even a full action, or the enemy doesn't and can't do anything about the creation of force in most cases (except try to break the caster's concentration if *wall of force*, which the caster can ensure doesn't happen).

"Have this very specific counter and make my ability useless, otherwise suffer lmao" is one of my least favorite aspects of 5e game design

It's pretty frustrating that they went harder on this design philosophy during the 2024 update...

I was sad to hear that. At least there were some nerfs... I guess. I guess the negative reaction to the few nerfs we saw in the playtest gave them cold feet. I mean, some people were saying that counterspell and conjure animals didn't need nerfs when those were announced. I don't know, I still give the game a fair shot, and as long as it's better, it's worth it to me, but I was hoping for some major nerfs.

I guess I’ll still have to house rule ban some spells in my next campaign which I’m not a fan of since I hate limiting players. But since I have a couple of optimizers among a some much newer players, I don’t want to have them break encounters if some of the overtuned spells still haven’t been reined in. My hope is, at the very least, they hit Shield, Tiny Hut, Wall of Force and Forcecage. They probably didn’t address mass status spells like Web or Hypnotic Pattern though.

The sad truth is that most of the spells listed are appropriate power for the level of slot they use. At times I think some people play 5e because it is the most dominant on the market and not because they genuinely like it. To wit, I am not surprised that they got cold feet because every recent attempt to rein in casters had been met with severe backlash. See: Pathfinder 2e and claims Paizo balanced the fun out of casters (they did, technically, by pushing the exponential takeover spells do into the teen levels) So PF2e casters are miserable from 1-10, and take over the game as scheduled from 11-20. Instead of the steadier progression of PF1e and 2014 5e where theyre mediocre in Tier 1, well-rounded in tier 2, powerful in Tier 3, and gods in Tier 4. Fundamentally, the problem spells create us too ingrained into the system & 4e tried fixing it to massive backlash.

And still it's wild that they still went with the nerfed UA version of Ranger's Hunter's Mark despite how they mentioned how badly it was rated (and same with Paladin Smites, but likely less so).

Where was it confirmed what version of hunters mark made it?

We know it has concentration which is basically the main nerf it got between the first and second Ranger UA

That's not a nerf, that's what we got now.

It's a nerf between two playtest versions

Yeah we'll have to wait and see if they pulled punches or not, and if they did I guess we have to keep nerfing them ourself. I already made some nerfs myself to Shield (+4 AC instead, regular shields are 3 AC too) and Counterspell (no auto-succeed on same level spells), but it would be so much easier if they bite the bullet and do it themselves.

Shield should be +5 AC against one attack, like defensive duelist. Not an entire turn. Counterspell should always succeed on lower level, and always fail on higher level (no checks).

I get Conjure Animals, but why would Counterspell need a nerf?

Because it was far too easy and action economy efficient to just spend a reaction to negate the opponent's action spell. Then you had things like counter spell chains of "Ha, I counterspell your spell of Doom. Ha Ha, I counterspell your counterspell of my spell of doom!" and such. It really was too much bang for the buck.

I like the 1D&D change where you don't lose your spell slot when you're successfully Counterspelled. It becomes a delay instead of a complete shutdown.

That's how i have handled Monster spell interruptions for a while now. Works well; players don't feel as devastated and discouraged for trying but instead try to get the monster out of range or bait another reaction, and try again.

A delay to a monster is a shutdown. In most encounters, they are lopsided in one sides favor by the third turn. The real change is bosses can blank counterspell with legendary resistance. If they fail the save & dont have leg resist, the tempo swing is so massive early in the fight you take it every time. In some cases, the fact you (potentially, we haven't seen final draft) don't even expend the slot if the monster uses a legendary resistance (or naturally makes the save) makes the spell even more powerful because there is never any downside to using it. You either win big on tempo in the encounter, or you expend a single reaction and nothing else. You hit that every single time. It becomes the single most powerful spell in a vacuum because it will always force the binary result.

>In some cases, the fact you (potentially, we haven't seen final draft) don't even expend the slot if the monster uses a legendary resistance (or naturally makes the save) makes the spell even more powerful because there is never any downside to using it. You're misunderstanding here. The Counterspell slot is always expended. If the Counterspell is successful, the countered spell slot is refunded. You could cast Counterspell, the enemy passes their Con save and you're down a Reaction and a 3rd level spell slot with no gain.

oh, people kept saying it was the other way. It is still worth the 3rd slot especially if all you get is forcing a leg resistance. For both sides, really.

Yes, if you can delay the enemy's use of a spell or consume a LR, it's generally worthwhile. The change was made so that an optimized party can't unilaterally shut down a caster enemy with a barrage of Counterspells, but also so when the DM decides to use Counterspell against the party it reduces the "feels bad" moment of losing a high-level spell slot for the day and instead just wastes your turn. It's also an indirect buff to sorcerers and artificers who get Constitution saving throw proficiency natively.

I think this is the most elegant solution to be had beyond removing the spell. Keeps it powerful but smooths pain points on both sides. I think its use as a push for spending a LR is underrated. You almost want to put that monster in the lose-lose situation. They cant afford to give up the tempo of missing a turn but in my experience once the boss is out of LR the encounter has mostly been won. The scuffing four players can do when you have no more legendary resists is murderous. Legendary Resistance as a mechanic is one of the few things 5e unironically did best in the first draft. It keeps the players honest for the first few critical turns without making an insurmountable challenge.

I would've preferred less shutdown spells so LRs weren't a necessity. As a caster, it feels bad to know you're going to be spending the first several turns doing "nothing" until you finally end the fight by landing a single spell.

Unless you're an Abjure wizard that made it to level 10, then you lose nothing outside of a reaction.

Casters and DM's playing casters get sad when counterspell just works, so they made it less sad for the receiver and more sad for the counterspeller.

Hopefully they at least fix the spells with zero counterplay like wall of force or Leomund's...

I would like to present dispel magic as a counter play to both these spells. EDIT: Yea the force spells cant be dispelled I read it as wall of fire not wall of force. My B.

Wall of Force is immune to a dispel magic and damage. Disintegrate and breaking Concentration is kind of the only main ways through.

Dispel magic is basically just about the only thing that *can* stop tiny hut, a ritual spell. Very silly.

Tiny hut usually leads to a brutal ambush by a caster and his goons because people dont tend to keep watch with the hut. That only works once though and in my games typically the hut only obfuscates the dumber non magical monsters like trolls and such. Anybody with detect magic can find the hut on their patrols and in a world where the hut is a problem, it is likely that a guard patrol will have some guy with the level 1 ritual to detect magic or even see invisibility, and probably carry a scroll of dispel magic. Tiny hut really isnt a problem in my games. Wall of force is also not really a problem. It only is an instant win against creawtures with zero movement abilities. If a creature can fly or burrow they pretty easily defeat the wall. If they have any magical movement other than etherealness they can beat it. My wizards often have it prepared and they do just instantly win fights against bandits and such, but 9th level wizards probably do instantly win fights against bandits so it doesn't bother me that much.

Sure, if you arbitrarily decide in your world most bad guys carry scrolls of dispel magic it won't be a problem. My issue with the spell is that it shows wotcs complete lack of respect for dungeon masters nor any consideration for how their spells influence the game.

Its not arbitrary to conclude that patrols will have magical capabilities in a magical world that solve yhe problems they run into. I dont know what wall of force did to hurt you, but its not that bad of a spell.

It is a homebrew solution you have constructed to a glaring issue in the core 5th ed rules, that's my problem. (Also you still can't dispel wall of force or forcecage, nor are they the only poorly designed spells in the game.) Compare a better system's version of forcecage - pf2 gives their hit points and just like that a fighter can still participate in combat with high level spellcasters, even if it sucks. Like... these are the kinds of changes we're asking for. It's simple stuff that would make the game a lot more balanced.

scrolls of dispel magic are not homebrew, they are in the core rules. You are given tools as a DM in the core rules to handle these things.

Are you? Does the DMG say anywhere "because some spells can only be countered by other spells, try having enemies carry scrolls or dispel magic so they don't get completely shut down"? I'm not saying you invented the idea of a spell scroll, I'm saying you have created a homebrew change to the setting to account for 5e's bad and anti-dm design.

DMG; pg. 92 Under using classes: equipment. Top right of the page. They carry their armor and weapons and any magical treasure including items they would use against the players.

You have apparently not read one of the spells...

Leomunds Tiny Hut? Wall of Force? Forcecage? Please make changes to these

It's mostly a theory so far but I *think* counterspell changes at least stayed, or a variation of it. Since Abjure's Spell Breaker feature says that if it fails to counter/dispel a spell you don't lose the slot. And given the whole thing about UA counterspell being exactly that it's not wrong to assume it stuck around. Who knows what changes actually went through though. I don't care about this guys thoughts at the moment because he is under contract to not say anything specific. So all he can do is be vague about it and to me that's not worth it.

Umm, I think you have it backwards. The UA counterspell says that if you succeed at countering a spell, the target’s slot is not expended. The abjurer says that if you fail to dispel a spell, your slot isn’t expended.

Nah I got it right. Abjure means that your slot isn't expended if it fails to either dispel or counterspell the target well, spell. I likely just forgot to add the part where base counterspell, or at least the UA version, means that succeed or fail, your slot is still gone while the targets' stays (or at the very least the target gets to use whatever they were planning to use their slot for unimpeded). Unless I'm somehow mixing it up more somehow, I was just basing it off of the breakdown post and what information I could remember. Or I worded it weird, I tend to do that sometimes.

That conclusion doesn’t lead to Counterspell being changed though.  The abjurer ability works just fine regardless of how counterspell works. And since the abilities are not really similar (they are inverse), there is no reason to assume that the UA counterspell made it to 1D&D.

That's fair. It's also all we have to go off on at the moment so that's my point of reference before we can physically *see* the spell changes for ourselves. If its the previous version then fine if its the new version that's fine too. It's also what people have been using in retrospect's when it comes to new paladin smite, since yeah no ones gonna counterspell a smite and even if they did the paladin loses nothing if it does succeed.

Hilarious. This was the big aspect of onednd in thought everyone was excited for. The best way to balance the massive disparity between spellcasters and martials and WOTC blew it.

They chose to buff the martials instead, which is the popular option. Honestly apart from *some* DMs nobody wants casters to be nerfed, players want martials to be buffed. P.S. Like, imagine you're a wizard player in an ongoing campaign, and you migrate over to the new rules, and suddenly the DM says your *wall of force* now requires a saving throw or enemies can just walk through the wall. Like WHAT? This'd turn into an r/rpghorrorstories really quickly.

Definitely an essential change they needed to be made. I don’t mean all spells needed nerfed but there are quite a few that needed balanced. Leomund’s tiny hut is not a fun or interesting spell, straight up. Spells still wield vastly more utility on and off the battlefield. Imo, while buffing the martials was nice the numerical damage is like one of 5 problems with class disparity.

If you buff the power of everything (including enemies), you have changed nothing. All you have done is increase numbers, bloat, and swingy-ness of combat and other challenges.   Ngl, while this is not surprising this is still heartbreaking to me. Instead of letting casters and martials meet in the middle they buffed them both, and it doesn't seem like casters drew the short end of the stick with their increased class power and equal or higher spell power. What a waste. I am tired of cleaning up after WotC's balancing fails...i don't want to nerf or ban spells, but i might have to yet again.   Personal prediction based on TM hinting at his old video: Shield, Spirit Guardians, Fireball, Web, and Hypnotic Pattern will all be completely unchanged. And if Wall of Force and Tiny Hit remain the same i will scream.

I haven’t finalized it to try at my table, but I’ve been percolating on some homebrew where when the Wall of Force takes bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage the caster has to make a concentration check as though they’d taken the damage. Upcasting the spell would give it increasing damage resistance.

I love that! Though i'd probably use a saving throw using your spellcasting ability, to link it to the power of your magic.

Also reasonable. I like concentration because it’s already a codified damage-based DC (and I’m into the fantasy of the Wizard bearing the blows as more of a splitting headache than a mental duel) but no reason it couldn’t be an INT save.

I also like it because it lets the wizard build into it more if they really want to.

Right? “Anselm’s forcefield managed to stop a charging Goristro!” is so much more satisfying than “Lol the hallway was only 15x15’ so we cast a Wall of Force and the Goristro was boned!”

I'm not even convinced that's the case. While I agree with the Smite nerf and the removal of -5/+10 features in a vacuum, the spells video and TM reaction together actually are slowly walking back my agreement in my brain Mentally, I was hinging agreeing on these changes with the idea that caster ceilings would come down with the removal of Conjure spells, that hitting Conjure spells would also represent a strike incoming on Animate Objects and other out-of-scale damage sources, and that while the martial/caster divide would still exist, just centered around non-damage-centric stuff like Wall of Force and crazy stuff like Simulacrum... ... That's clearly not what's happening. Instead the relative gap might be bigger depending on the scale and intensity of some of these damage **buffs** and new spell options. I think now losing nova on martial classes isn't really forgivable and that instead it was more appropriate to make -5/+10 a universal power attack mechanic or.... something. Maybe make it a class feature handed out at some point specifically to the classes who innately get the weapon mastery feature. I'm not sure. But this outcome as we have it right now is just kind of annoying, even if its not critical.

This perfectly sums up my issues with the 2024 update we've seen so far. It's going to be intensively home-brewed, or require a ton of GM effort to smoothen the divide from the looks of things. The playtests certainly indicated that this would happen, but we *hoped* proper feedback would help avoid it getting into the final release. But they clearly didn't listen to anything other than the weight of statistical numbers, if the UA videos were anything to go by.

>I think now losing nova on martial classes isn't really forgivable and that instead it was more appropriate to make -5/+10 a universal power attack mechanic or.... something They literally had to make an extremely mediocre subsystem to give SOME cantrip riders to attacks in probably the worst way possible. What makes you think they would actually give a general buff and that they wouldn't give it to gishes too?

I would agree with this, I don't like seeing the gulf widen even if I like the nerfing of the optimizer builds. I think any build that becomes the de-facto best way to do it should be brought down so that we can have better variety of characters without asking players to build suboptimally if they don't want to. But this hinges on spells being done super carefully, you can't take away the highest performing martial features then leave the highest performing casting features (spells, in particular) alone. I don't like how before to be a great barbarian you HAD to take GWM and PM, or to be an effective paladin you had to never cast spells in favor of smite dumps. But if the alternative is that the best barbarian is a wildshaped moon druid and the best fighter is a blade singer then... That's pretty disappointing.

Get your vocal chords warmed up before you do. It's bad to do that kind of voice work cold.

Wish they would nerf Spirit Guardians and give Cleric better spells. Cleric is definitely strong but it’s so boring to cast Bless/Spirit Guardians every fight till you get Conjure/Summon celestial and then you sometimes have variety.

I'm debating between reducing radius (15ft ->10ft), or just nerfing damage. Either has merit, but i personally prefer the radius nerf. Now you need to get closer, and can affect far less spaces.

Since the Spell Mastery feature of the Wizard explicitly requires 1st level spells with a casting time of one action now, I'm guessing that Shield did not get changed. I'm not sure Fireball needed a change, it I don't recall TeantMonk being up in arms about that one, especially since the scaling is not that great. Now if they've bumped the damage of as many spells as they say, there *really* isn't a need to change Fireball. As to the others, yeah, we'll see.

Fireball scaling probably isn't required anymore because they are boosting higher level damage spells (though we don't know the magnitude yet). I've been thinking about Fireball a lot, and i think there are just too many good things about it that don't feel accounted for in the power budget: - Massive AoE that can be perfectly placed every time and the radius of which can be reduced if necessary by placing the sphere higher above the ground - Ignores any cover - Player positioning is irrelevant apart from "don't stand in the center of all enemies" and "be on the same battlemap" - No line of sight required I just don't think this deserves the all these goodies while having the same damage as Lightning Bold (which is a very well designed spell imo). Also the jump in power from something like upcast Burning Hands or Shatter is massive, but that's just a lvl 5 thing i suppose (and partially justified by Extra Attack).

I'm not sure the "spreads around corners" is meant to mean it ignores cover completely, it just makes it easy to implement the area without a lot of calculations. DMs are well within their rights to allow targets a cover bonus to their save. Yes, fireball is a go to spell; however friendly fire is an issue. I don't see people pinpointing the center to such a degree that it is *that* fine tuned to take enemies and not friends. It is easier to use to catch multiple enemies than Lighting Bolt though. I think the scramble to condemn Fireball as this overpowered monstrosity is a bit over done. Heavy min/maxers, like TreantMonk, don't think much of it; especially past the initial level when it comes online. I doubt very much they are going to do away with scaling. In fact, I recall an earlier interview where they talked about making more spells scale and scale better, though maybe that path has been abandoned in the interim.

> Shield, Spirit Guardians, Fireball, Web, and Hypnotic Pattern will all be completely unchanged. Agreed with you on Shield, Spirit Guardians and Fireball, although I'm expecting spiritual weapon to be concentration so that at least stops it and spirit guardians being used at the same time. It will be especially disappointing if shield is unchanged since there are so many ways you could nerf it and still have it be good in the intended use cases. In the playtest we saw a revised wrathful smite that changed the wisdom check as an action to a wisdom save at the end of each turn - I'd be very surprised if web doesn't see a symmetrical change. Personally I'll also be surprised if hypnotic pattern is completely unchanged, it's the poster child for combat ending spells and is complained about a lot. Whether whatever nerf it does get will be enough idk.

I am still hopeful for nerfs/changes to Simulacrum and Forcecage. Those, with Counterspell and Conjure spells, were all that were on my banned list. The Conjure spells will be reinstated, and Counterspell will probably come off, but I’ll want player feedback first. (The primary reason I banned it was to prevent caster players from losing their turns.)

Interesting, treantmonk incorrectly said bladeward granted resistance to bludgeoning slashing and piercing in the playtest (it actually granted disadvantage on one attack), and that we could expect little changes from there. Maybe an accidental reveal of the PHB form?

Oh, good. This was my biggest fear regarding these new books.

I'm hoping that spells of level 4 or 5 and below were the focus of the balancing and tuning. Seeing web and shield called out makes me a little worried, but it would make most sense if the spells for half casters and early full casters got the most critical tune up. I could see Treantmonk being upset about the level 6+ spells being unbalanced, but in reality that's unattainable by half casters, and late game levels that many campaigns don't get to in the first place. If fifth level spells and down are tuned with a handful of exceptions, and the big balance issues appear in 6+ level spells, I'd imagine most players wouldn't see issues at their tables. I'd consider that a win and see the reason in the design team focusing on the first half of spell levels. To be fair, there's so many spells and balancing them all simultaneously would be a monumental task and likely strip some of the fun side effects some of them have. Strip it down and simplify it before getting into the mince meat of the extra things spells we love do. Tldr: If 6+ level spells are the issue, I can forgive the design team if they didn't delay the release dealing with balance, since 60% of games won't even encounter the levels to use those spells.

They gotta adjust the 5th level ones tho - those are quite common.

Are they? Most campaigns seem to end before 9th level (pc level) or close to 12-13. If it's unbalanced at that level, there should be some level of design priority to make sure most campaigns work better for the majority of players. If it gets unruly after that, it's probably more for experienced DND players and DMs, putting more agency in the hands of the DM. As far as I understood it, the higher the level campaign, the more DM influence it's supposed to have to balance gameplay. Can't look at a spell like Wish and not expect a decent amount of DM curation. The same should be said with some of those 6+ spells, for no other reason than how rarely those spells get used.

I think most campaigns end at levels 10-12z

JC has said most campaigns end before level 10. Not sure how true that is though

"Not overly impressed" seems like my feelings towards all of this edition lmao

and to have TM of all people saying it who was been extremely undercritical with the awful changes

I get where you're coming from, and Chris is definitely more...let's just say generous than he probably should be

It sounds like Conjure Minor Elementals is in the exact same state as the Playtest and that one spell alone is enough to counter all of the work they have done to improve the martials. They have no hope of being as good in martial combat, as the spellcasters are. That one stupid decision has guaranteed that the martial/caster divide is now the largest it has been since 3.5

If that is the case, then at least martials have until lvl 9 to be relevant (the spell doesn't become truly bonkers until it's upcast).

That does seem reasonable. But in 5e, most martials managed to stay relevant until level 13, so that number dropping to 9 is a pretty big loss for the system.

It would definitely be a horrible change, I was mostly being glib

I'm happy with the changes. I think Jeremy Crawford did a good job as much as he could. And I'm over all satisfied. I go into this not looking for the negatives but what are the positives. So I have more of a positive outlook lol. But as almost a forever cleric and healer. I love the new Buffs on the healing spells. Can't go wrong with being better at what you need to do.

Don’t listen to anyone telling you healers aren’t relevant, and just play the game however makes you happy! My table at least always appreciates getting healed through tough fights.

I got home not too long ago. Cleaned out my vacuum. Cleaned out my washroom. And test it out a new popcorn machine that air heats the popcorn seeds because I've been wanted one of those for a while. And just sat down to charge my phone and I see what you're talking about. I guess no one's allowed to be happy. LOL And the one comment did not read correctly. I said (Almost) a forever cleric 😂 I played a fighter the echo night. I played a ranger the Drake warden. Barbarian path of the wild soul and path of the tree that UA one I got the test. And being a barbarian that can heal a bit and get your allies out of danger what's fun. It sounds like Destiny all over again. I complained about being forced to have to do PVP activities and people tell me to get good. Lol. Now there's a new Mode called Pathfinders where it forces the players to do PVP and then you get a high tear reward at the end. And now everybody's complaining. I really appreciate your kind words. Because we're all supposed to have fun. And it does depend on the game and what classes you play. My friend didn't tell me what he was playing. Because we are all just hired guns. So he was a wizard that kept giving the Barbarian advantage and protection. And I was a tempest cleric doing heavy damage but also being able to heal the barbarian. Sorry for the long comment. At the end of the day if it's not Dungeons and dragon it's destiny. What Dungeons & Dragons they get one shot at this unless they have to reprint books. And they took community opinions. With video games like Destiny they can fix it anytime or adjust things to be more fun. But sometimes they don't. So what Dungeons & Dragons I'm going to enjoy the new book this September and enjoy hearing what the cleric can do. You have a great day.

Thanks friend, you as well! I also got a chance to test out a World Tree Barbarian. Super fun so far. I’m itching to be able to create a full character now, with background, species, etc. using the new PHB. I’ve always tired to play the game by my own lore, and been lucky to have a great group to play with (over twenty years with them!). May you have joy of the new book!

If you were a forever healer cleric you've been wasting your time because healing usually *isn't* needed.

Healing isn't traditionally needed very much because there's not any punishment for yoyo healing in 5e. It's one of the most criticized parts of the game. If that doesn't get fixed up so that yoyo healing is punished, and, thus, actually give a use to healing to keep people up...I'm not sure I have kind words. Certainly some change will have survived playtesting and make it into the final product. But, yes, an extreme focus on healing hasn't been needed in 5e, and buffing healing alone without a change to the rules would be pretty useless. Just looking at spells alone, there's no change to healing that will make it worth it.

the problem with punishing yoyo healing, is that healing when full is still not worth it without signifcant improvements

Punishing yo yo is exactly what 5e needs *another* nerf to melee and have everyone finally kite

Given the minor changes for Wizard and leaning into the idea of spell lists are class features, I'm not that frustrated. I just hope the spells that are still wacky have more clear wording.

Of course. When the Conjure Spells were playtested as some of the most powerful spells in the game, and met with adoration; of course WotC would give us more of that same level of power.

Imagine having a play test which included the reworked spells...

Who?

A YouTuber user by the name of Treantmonk.

Who has been a legend in the character optimization community since 3.0 days.

Somebody give JC a tuxedo and chris a blond wig.