When the Feeblemind wears off after 30 days and you become twice sentient.... do that 100 more times and you've got yourself a backstory worth a divine ascension
@@jacobmiller5510 There was a time, once, when I was but a mere donkey. A humble dray beast, hastily scrawled into a character's starting inventory, overlooked by the DM until the first time the party left town. I know not if I even had a past before that, how simple I was. But, that was a tale from the old world. This new world, under my reign, has no need for stories like that. Forgive this old ass for feeling nostalgic. Now, I have prepared a gathering of the greatest clerics across the land to commune with you all. And offer our terms.
Note that because of transmute rock's 40ft cube size. It's very possible to hit both the ground and ceiling in one casting of the spell. So you can get both effects depending on the terrain. Since by the reading of the spell, there isn't much benefit on casting this on anything but the surface of the floor.
Hmm, I mean it does turn to mud? could you use to to try and for example break thru a floor? or perhaps what happens if you cast it on the foundations of a tower? I guess the limiting factor is if you have to see all of the 40ft area or only a part of it?
True enough, I was talking about the area control aspect in my post. For the saving throw/restraining condition, it doesn't matter if you turned 5ft of floor into mud or 40ft. In terms of utility for removing rock, turning more floor into mud might be valuable.
@@Melorific The most broken combo. Transmute 40 feet of rock beneath you into mud, then Prestigidation to clean it. Or, if you're a stickler for the rules, also carry a pile of towels or other cloth in a barrel, throw it in, clean the mud off the cloth, then throw it back in. Repeat until you have violated the laws of thermodynamics to a 40 foot cube of silica and other trace elements, while also making everyone taste purple and hear David Bowie in their ear.
The spell specifies that you choose "an area" of stone. I think it's fair to rule that unless it is continuous through a pillar or wall, you can't target both the ceiling and the floor because that would be two areas.
A note about Mass Cure Wounds: it's actually one of the rare healing spells that can target a creature that you cannot see nor touch. Super situational, but useful to know I think!
I'll add a point to the reincarnate spell : you can use it if the character/NPC died of old age. it doesn't come often, but sometimes it comes. i'm use to treaten PC to reincarnate them if they die... they do try to avoid punches with that kind of motivation :p (i don't even need to prepare it to make it work) i'll rate it orange and a dash of purple :p
Regarding Tree Stride-- with Tasha's now any spell caster who doesn't have good options for teleportation can gain Misty Step through Fey Touched, and it's an amazing feat. Build your character with 17 as your main ability score. At level 4 get Fey Touched. You functionally gain an extra 1st and 2nd level spell slot, plus Misty Step as a spell, plus another 1st level spell of your choice from the appropriate schools, such as Bless. As a cherry on top, now your main ability score is 18. Fey Touched in my opinion is already better than Magic Initiate, and you get an ability score bump to boot.
I'm having great fun roleplaying a trickster fae with a dreams druid eladrin with said feat. It's unnessasarily redundant from an optimization perspective, but it's been super fun being the "lord of shortcuts".
Re: Planar Binding: As a DM, I think I would rule that if you summon a concentration-based creature (you know what I mean) into a Magic Circle that potentially prevents it from leaving even by extraplanar magic, it would have to make the Charisma save to disappear once you drop concentration. Of course, you would have to cast Magic Circle at a higher level in order to facilitate the casting time of Planar Binding.
I would put mass cure wounds as green not for the spell, but for the druid using. We are probably the last one spending in combat, and can simply bring back everyone
Insect Plague does have one advantage: it's one of the few ways to create difficult terrain for FLYING creatures. Most Druid difficult terrain spells are on the ground and don't effect flying creatures. Insect Plague provides that option.
Just a quick point about conjure elementals. I realize that this is a Druid spell analysis, regardless of subclass. It may be worth noting, however, that conjure elementals doesn't benefit from shepherd druids mighty summoner or guardian spirit.
I think difficult terrain is often underestimated with Druids. In any situation where Plant Growth is in play, difficult terrain can be a death sentence. If you are caught in Plant Growth plus insect plague - good luck!
Mass cure wounds has kinda become my favourite spell, just because my dm made the decision to hand a staff of healing to me, a grave cleric, at level 2. The fighter rather liked me that day when I healed him from 0 to full in one spell alongside like half the party
It's strange, but by 9th level, the Druid can feel like a pretty ok'ish backup blaster. The fact that they've got so many concentration spells/summons reinforces this. If you want, you can spend 4 of your 12-14 potential prepared spell slots on Ice Knife, Tidal Wave, Ice Storm and Cone of Cold, and you've got a nice mixture of AoE instants to add to any of your damage-over-time/ summons/ lockdown spells. Ice Knife is an ok'ish mini-AoE but with too many saves, Tidal Wave can be between 1" in size to 30long'x10'x10' and prones enemies, Ice Storm difficult terrains and cylinder targets, and Cone of Cold crushes many mooks, all for ok'ish types of damage. Druids seem to specialise in Cold and Bludgeoning damage, which makes Elemental Adept (Cold) as a feat slightly better (there's only 29 creatures in total immune to Cold damage, and none to magical bludgeoning that I know of). Amazing targeting versatility, and spell slot sustain, due to the wide spread of these spells too. It's a nice little toolkit, and can combo with subclass auto-preps, wildshape uses, and a menagerie of concentration spells so that you still do pretty good DPR, just not with any individual spell (or bit of a spell).
An interesting aside on Reincarnate, if your game allows the spell Widogast's Vault of Amber from Critical Role, you can make some fun interactions between severed fingers encased in amber, Magic Mouth, and Reincarnate (either by an NPC or stored in a Ring of Spell Storing), effectively creating a respawn mechanic.
Can confirm that transmute rock is an amazing spell. I can't believe it doesn't require concentration, probably one of the most overlooked spells in the game.
I love this series, especially because it reflects how your views of these spells have evolved over time. However, I think mass cure wounds is orange, maybe even red. It's very weak for its level, and the healing is unreliable. In fact, it's not better than mass healing word, as anything you heal with it will probably drop after one hit anyway. Mass cure wounds is only good on a life cleric.
Druids don’t have access to Mass Healing Word. So in a situation where you need a one round mass heal this is the Druid’s best option (that I can think of anyways).
I like this guide, but vil mention a good experience with Maelstrom. It allowed an easy win for my 9th lvl party vs a CR5, CR7, 3xCR1/2. Admittedly this was a small win.
This is a pretty rough level for comparing Druids to Wizards as all the best Druid spells ranked here are on the Wizard's list. We see 1 Blue and 2 Green spells and Transmute Rock was ranked Green and Conjure Elemental was ranked Purple for Wizards. And worse those spells are often eclipsed by better options (Wall of Force vs Wall of Stone or Animate Objects vs Conjure Elemental) For comparison, Wizards have 2 Blue fifth levels spells (Wall of Force, Animate Objects) and 6 Green fifth level spells (Rary's Telepathic Bond, Synaptic Static, Bigby's Hand, Wall of Stone, Telekinesis, Transmute Rock), with a note that Conjure Elemental is only Green for Conjurers and Danse Macabre is only Blue for Necromancers - both were ranked Purple for other Wizards. Treantmonk, do you think Conjure Elemental is just generally Green for all Wizards now or just for Druids? Also is the reason Transmute Rock is rated higher for Druids because of how heavy concentration spell list is?
@@TreantmonksTemple I definitely agree, Wizards are awesome and hard to ever compete with! This series definitely proves that the Druid spell list much more than just Conjure Animals.
Tree Stride would be significantly better if you could bring your party with you. I've always wanted to use it because its such a cool idea. I mean, maybe you could use it in combat as it only takes an action to cast, and allows you to basically disappear inside trees if you're playing outdoors in a forest or something. You could use it when you're low hp to get away from the enemy?
I think if your as either variant human or CL reincarnate has a pretty good chance to actually improve your character. Or just be a sidegrade where you lose +1 to your primary attribute but gain other useful features. In the case where you are gimped like the 30% chance a two weapon fighter could be switched to halfling or gnome you could have that be a whole character arc for them as they search for a way to restore their body etc. So I personally think reincarnate while not super powerful is still very cool and fun.
Not to try and upsell control wind its not very good, but the calm winds can potentially be useful in enviormental situations like storms on a ship or a high up area with strong winds that could lead to some deadly situations
Reincarnate is a spell that is much better then most think. First I like to point out the spell does not say the DM must choose from the list but “the GM chooses a form.” That means all the home brews are on the table. If your DM is a sticker it is in the spell so the only dm issues are if the DM’s ideas on it. I honestly think the majority will let you pick a close species and not require a spell roll. Lastly, this spell comes on line at level 9. And while I have always thought this should be a level 4 spell, the fact it is coming on now means that maybe you are okay with the change if you get to choose or the option to choose a species that works better now. All spells of this kind of rebirth should be Orange to my mind. It is better to keep them from dying with a spells to day then packing a spell you can get tomorrow to bring them back.
"The GM rolls a d100 and consults the following table to determine what form the creature takes when restored to life, or the GM chooses a form." This suggests to me that the GM may choose a form from the table.
@@TreantmonksTemple totally but If you are playing in Eberron then that leaves a LOT out. And it does not say from this list. Just “chooses a form”. The reading that says only from this list literally causes trouble in game worlds and campaigns were one or more of those options also does not exist. That reading with missing element then introduces spell failure as an option and that is not a place 5e does well. Thanks for your response and have a great day.
One thing I will say about Reincarnate is if you have a DM that's stingy with material components it's a lot harder to got the singular diamond than it is a bunch of oil and stuff for Reincarnate. Since Raise Dead requires a singular diamond.
Hey, Treantmonk. I am not sure if this is something you do, but I am on my third draft of a homebrew monk subclass that involves mimicking certain spells to give a tankier feel to the class. I call this subclass Way of The Waning Moon. If you'd be interested in reviewing it, just let me know. I know that I would love your feedback.
@Transmute rock to mud - would the ceiling of a cave usually not be inside the same 40ft cube as the ground... and in that case you would get both the falling mud effect as well as the mud-on-the-ground effect? as both the ceiling and the ground can be in the cube as well as something "you can see" at the same time?
Maybe druid was the wrong choice for my current campaign which takes place entirely in the astral sea. A lot of the best druid spells so far have required natural terrain of some kind; plant growth, spike growth, wall of stone, transmute rock... Are there any druid spells that use psychic winds 😅?
I think you’re being too hard on Tree Stride. Yes, it requires trees, so it’s situational in that sense. But it lasts for a minute and you can teleport every round without using your action and without using your bonus action - you use only your movement. So you can cast a spell, then teleport out of range, then use your bonus action on something else, for example. No other teleportation spell lets you do that.
I'm not saying that Insect Plague is a great spell, but in my last campaign my 2nd or 3rd level wizard was hit with it while on a flying broom. It still makes me shudder.
I don't understand why you don't like Geas more. If the creature fails a saving throw, and you can communicate with it, and it's charmed for 30 days, can't you easily convince your new "buddy" to join you for a month? While you can't control their actions, it's still an ally, right?
Depends on the DM. By the rules, all the "charmed" condition means is that (in so many words) the target can't attack you, and you have advantage on Charisma checks interacting with them. Does that mean you can persuade them to join your party? It's totally up to the DM whether a certain Persuasion roll can accomplish that, or whether there's some other way to do it, or whether it's even at all possible. Note that the Charm Person spell specifies that "the charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance", and Charm Monster specifies that "the charmed creature is friendly to you." Geas has no such language. Many DMs will agree that that's what "charmed" always means in their game... but again, that's not what the "charmed" condition does RAW. It'd honestly be entirely reasonable to interpret Geas as basically saying that the target is prohibited from attacking you even though they reallllly hate you for torturing them.
@@dcarrano Oh. My inexperienced, naive Druid is convinced she can get any animal-like creature to "love" her and want to stick around her. Will make for fun role play the first time it backfires in a horrible way...then again, my very green, "acorn" Druid & myself are SO FAR away from level 5 spells, we're at 2nd level, lol! Going to continue playing her innocently & naively as long as I can...🤣🐾🤣🐾🤣🌰🌿 (Of course, you know how they say new players play "idealized" versions of themselves...I'm not sure who will get messed up first by playing with domestic and/or wild animals, me OR my character....🤦❤🐾❤).
Tree stride, a teleportation spell? No, it's a plot spell, to go from one continent to another, instantly. Cut away time and expenses for traveling, and just go. That's one of the ways a high level party goes around.
I think you need to read between the lines of Anti-life shell to conclude this is meant to be a supportive spell you can cast, to envelope you **And Party Members** in a protective shield against living creatures. It doesn't need to specify that it works with party members at the time of casting, they can leave it unsaid because spells do what they say they do. And because casting an aura around yourself isn't forcing a creature through a barrier at that moment. And designers aren't in the practice of telling you what the role of a spell is, tactically. They just describe the mechanics without being unnecessarily long-winded. Edit: I also can't see red for contagion and orange for control winds. The use-case for contagion is you are fighting a dragon, and your party can support you with your attack roll with various features (such as Bardic Inspiration and Bless). The use case for control winds that you highlighted may happen just as often, but I think you're far less likely to have advanced warning for that case. So Control Winds **Is not Prepared**. Whereas if you're going after a dragon, you probably knew 24 hours prior that you were going to tangle with a dragon. So Contagion is prepared. I think if anything it should be red for control winds and orange for contagion.
Conjure elemental is a player choice of Elemental but the DM is the one who has the stats .... I think it was meant to be like this creature that you don't fully control btu it just ask the DM for more work. so all the DM I have seen does make the player control the elemental.
How does a wall of stone suddenly give a creature a movement burst that almost never happen.... super stupid that wall of force works but this doesnt ....
If you could please adjust the language you use when talking about Valda's Spire of Secrets, I think the community would really appreciate it. The way you describe it as a new expansion for 5e sort of seems to imply that it's official content (especially considering you only ever really review/discuss things through an Adventurer's League-friendly lense) and it's simultaneously misleading and disappointing every time I fall for it. Thanks for all you do, Chris!
Reincarnate is best used by NPCs I think. It works well as an explanation for why the bad guys seem to willing to throw themselves at the players and die over and over, they're just going to be brought back anyways. And it lets you do stuff like identifying the bad guys by having them all be missing an ear or a finger or something because that's the body part being used to reincarnate them by whatever is bringing them back. (bbeg wearing a necklace of their followers fingers is also nice imagery)
There is also a situational use for Reincarnate where a plot important NPC dies of old age. Reincarnate doesn't mention death by old age as a limitation, so grandpa Plot Device can come on back to the party.
Contagion can be powerful against bosses with legendary saves that are not immune to the poisoned condition. It's a niche use, but against e.g. dragons, it is really good.
@@dylanba5251I think that in order to cast a spell Through your familiar position must be your turn, so is really hard make the help action and deliver a spell with your familiar on the same turn ( you could Make it casting the spell as a readied action but isn't that good)
Also, you could sneak in, tap the boss with this, and run away until they fail their saves. Even better if you or someone in your party has a way to reduce their chances.
Something interesting to note about Maelstrom is that 5 ft of water is deep enough that you can force small creatures to swim, which combined with the difficult terrain and the generally low strength of small creatures, means that the spell is a certain death sentence for any such creature caught in it. A druid in my party was able to solo a squad of kobold dragonshields this way.
About Transmute rock, its a 40ft cube including 40ft tall, so its very likely if inside a dungeon that you will get both the celling and floor, so sure the celling isnt having the effect, but you should both be turning the celling and the floor to mud so you could get both the damage and the effect. I do agree that if it was only a celling you wouldnt get the ground effects, but unless I am missing you should be able to get both.
If you think of TreeStride as intended as a teleportation spell, everything you said is right. But that is clearly not what the thinking was when it was created. It was designed as a very fast travel option within a forest. Given a forest with a typically homogenous nature (reasonably high percentage of certain type(s) of trees), the Druid can travel a mile over the course of a minute. Not saying this improves its utility very much, but it's a different way to think about when you might use it.
@@pistolshr1mp Good point. I suspect it was conceived thinking about a druid roaming/defending his home forest. Not nearly as useful in a typical party setting.
@@topomusicale5580 Yeah there are definitely a few spells on the Druid spell list that are intended for NPC druids rather than PCs. Tree Stride, Druid Grove, Guardian of Nature, Wrath of Nature makes for excellent flavour and mechanics for an NPC druid defending their forest.
@@gregbowen2477 Ikr? As if it's that hard to look up if you aren't familiar with it. The language of origin is Gaelic, just like Shillelagh, and plenty of people get that one right.
I can't wait for you to discuss Mirage Arcane at length when you reach 7th level spells for druids. Its extremely loose wording is a bit confusing and leaves a lot of room to break gameplay. I just got it two sessions ago and I felt scummy every time I used it. I skipped entire encounters. I disabled a frost giant village by placing them inside a colossal (illusory) adamantine dome for 10 days. I made a mile-long bridge hundreds of feet above all potential threats. At one point, I just stopped using it altogether and decided to try to face whatever the DM threw at us without it. Also, would you mind using a Night Mode addon for your browser, like Dark Reader? It would make watching your videos at night much easier.
If you follow Sage Advice, it not only blocks movement and creates difficult terrain, it outright deals damage. Just in case it wasn't ridiculous enough. So yeah, forget dungeon crawling. You camp out next to the entrance, spend 10 minutes casting this, and turn the entire dungeon into a sea of lava surrounded by adamantine walls, floors, and ceiling. Then you cancel the spell, and walk through the now intact again dungeon to search the liquified remains for magic items. Also obliterates armies of course. To add a further layer of absurdity, 5e has stats for gunpowder barrels and Dynamite sticks.
@@ApprovingSeal the range is Sight so unless you can see the entire dungeon at the moment of casting you can only target the entrance, this spell works really well in open spaces but it's not as broken as it seems
@@ascer1175 Good point, but that still doesn't stop you from targeting the ground above the dungeon, turning it into the bottom of a lava lake. EDIT: Actually no, that doesn't stop it. The range is sight, but the area affected is one mile square. Just like a fireball will hit things beyond its maximum range if you place the origin at the edge of it, Mirage Arcane can still affect terrain even if you can't see it, so long as it's within 1 mile of the origin point.
@@ascer1175 True. That makes it considerably less busted than I thought. Previously I figured it'd be best to ban the spell outright, but now I think it may be salvageable. But it's still way too good for its level. I'd totally consider using this even if it were a 9th level spell. That's not a good sign.
I have to disagree on the Orange color of Greater Restoration… as you said when you need it you need it… in my experience I would add “right now”. Petrification and feeble mind will remove a PC from combat and this is the only way to bring them back into the fight… In my opinion it should be blue preferably with at least two party members having it prepared.
Honestly depends on your game. If you're playing a module and your DM has been throwing a lot of those effects at you then for sure it needs to be a must take. Imo if I were playing a Cleric I'd take it every time - unless of course it came on the Cleric spell list.
I'd rank Maelstrom as orange because it combines well with a number of other spells. This often requires coordination (or 2 levels of fighter for action surge) but the pull effect plus damage on a failed save can be really rough. I've seen it in practice used with spike growth, transmute rock, wall of fire, hunger of hadar, and sickening radiance. Is it expensive? Yes. Can it win a combat as part of a combination? Yes.
In our last session, my, and two other characters where hit with 3-4 levels of exhaustion. (it was the final fight of the currend main quest) I was completely draind of all recources, spellslots, sorcery points, hitdie, everything, went to sleep, after bung a big sack of diamod dust, for our druid to cast over the newxt few days on us, to fasten the recovery. Aaaand then I found out, that the next BBEG has me on his nughty list and casts dream every night to rob my of sleep, so i cant regain my recources... Greater restoration and my Warlock levels is the only thing that keeps me going at the moment... for planar bidning: the Summoner can set the trigger to "the druid turn begins" or "the druid moved 5 ft", wich can happen on the druinds turn directly before it casts planar binding.
While I do agree with most of your comments regarding greater restoration, I think you did not do it justice, the difference between a party with greater restoration and a party without greater restoration is *massive* , so rating it orange seems a bit weird. also, one thing to mention about reincarnate is that it does not care if the creature died of old age, which might matter if you fought a ghost of androsphinx, also it says the DM can roll *or choose* which race you come back as so if the DM is lenient they might just give you the same one.
Reincarnate is potentially a hilarious spell, imagine the provided example of a great weapon master being reincarnated as a gnome: "oh hell no, take 1000 more gold imma kill myself real quick and next body better be bigger"
Crawford, for what it's worth, clearly says a caster can cast planar binding on an elemental he's just summoned. In another sage advice JC says that he'd not screw a player over the timing issue, provided PB is cast when the elemental appears. Is JC ignoring this rule you state, that casting PB also uses your concentration - during the hour it takes to cast it? Where does this rule you state come from in the books, pls? Can a wizard cast Conjure Elemental than cast Planar Binding on the conjured elemental? · D&D Sage AdviceCan a wizard cast Conjure Elemental than cast Planar Binding on the conjured elemental? · D&D Sage Advice (edit, it's not letting me post the link) Only a true jerk DM, imho, would impose the timing issue to screw a player - as JC has said PB is clearly intended, RAI, to work w/ Conj Ele. Yes, they screwed up writing the rules - so what? Please, any DM reading this, don't be a stickler over something like this. There's no dignity in acting this way. I think JC says PB is also intended (RAI) to allow the same caster to conjure an elemental and then bind it. If there really is a "you are concentrating" if casting some spell, then it wouldn't be as big a jerk move, as above, to disallow a caster from PBing the elemental he just conjured. But JC seems to say in Sage Advice it was intended that PB be castable by a caster on an elemental he's just conjured, or at the very least, as a DM, he'd allow this. He may be brain-farting and overlooking a rule - but again, where is this rule, pls, if you happen to know? It hurts my brain to read the PHB, and I don't want to go digging through it.
p. 202: "When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so"
For Planar Binding - regarding your work around, the Druid cannot ready his action to cast Planar Binding. You can only ready a spell with a casting time of one action.
With Geas, I always find it depends on how the DM runs it, if they're just gonna have someone take the damage, then yeah, it's not great, but I find a lot of DM's will treat that as something most creatures want to avoid, and only trigger it if the commands you give are really something they'd fundamentally oppose doing.
Another fun combo: in just a week or two a 9th level Druid could take a muddy riverbed area or something similar and turn a big section of it to stone, which can then be used as the supporting stone for Wall of Stone. A small group of these druids working together could make a whole settlement out of crude stone buildings. Maybe not a great way for players to spend their time but it could make for a cool NPC encounter
So basically there's exactly 2 to 3 good spells per level, never a reason to use anything else, and you're nearly always concentrating until level 5 where you get your first decent non concentration non healing spell? Yeah the druid spell list looks sooooo good.
I don't know I kinda like the idea of awakening a few bears or even a Wolf pack maybe both. Create a forest area where all the animals and plants are alive. The army of nature to combat the army of men. It might be costly but you can get that from the army of men too.
28:30 Heavy obscurement could make insect plague “sting less,” or sting more as the case may be : ) Regardless, enjoyed the insect pun and the great-as-usual content.
Sleet storm has basically the same effect against flying enemies as control winds, slightly bigger area, but shorter (20ft vs 100ft) and dex save vs str save. Most importantly 3rd level slot vs 5th level and a ton of other useful benifits vs basically nothing
One character on my table got Transmute Rock as a scroll and used it to turn the walls around a huge metal gate to mud, bringing the gate down, and also putting mud in the way.
The commentary on Reincarnate was interesting. Unconscious is the absence of conscious thought. Dead is... well, in a fantasy campaign that has entire planes of existence relegated to collecting the souls of the dead, I'd have to consider that the dead are not, in fact, unconscious, and fully capable of making the choice to be reincarnated or not. Sometimes I think that optimization does not strive beyond mechanics, and ignores the meta-mechanics that the game itself makes abundantly clear.
Reincarnate needs more love man. It's such a unique way to bring back a party member and is a cool way to add more role-playing elements to the game rather than "oh I'm alive again, cool" Any DM whose not a complete and total jerk would be willing to find some kind of work around for a character's build being ruined by the race change. I feel like asking the players beforehand if the possibility of reincarnation would be OK with them is more than justified. But I'm to the point where I like the idea of the spell so much, but see it so little used, that I designed my character specifically to think reincarnation is the only morraly correct way to bring back a pc.
So....what happens to creatures that are stuck in the StonetoMud mud if you then dispel it? Say they're already restrained, now are they restrained (presumably at least hip-deep) in the original stone (which may be hard granite, not the soft stone that MudtoStone makes, and therefore have better AC/HP)? Do they get a save to float to the surface as if you'd cast MudtoStone (seems fair and I'd bet JCrawford would rule this way, but the rules don't really say)? Maybe they only get this save if they weren't already restrained? Depending on your DM this could be absolutely brutal!
Some of these spells are clearly more powerful in the hands of an NPC. Scry for example. My players often wonder how it seems like the Big Bad knows what they're up to. Then they check for invisible items and notice the small globe hanging above them. So paranoia inducing it makes my little DM heart grow two sizes.
Tree stride seems incredibly powerful within a forest. Correct me if I am wrong but it is spend 5 feet of movement to move into a tree, 5 feet to emerge from another tree potentially high up on a branch, cast a spell, then 5 feet in and 5 feet out in another location. This is more powerful for a NPC or lone druid character than in a party, but it does seem situationally strong.
insect plague looks even worse once you realize Fog cloud is a lvl ONE spell and heavily obscures the same area. A pitiful amount of piercing damage and difficult terrain isn't worth downgrading to light obscurement and 4 spell levels higher. lol
Note about the grid rules affecting cone of cold and anti life shell: the grid combat rules is an optional rule, like multi classing, feats, or flanking bonuses. So if you don't play with them, the cone shape/length doesn't change based on its orientation. I feel like a lot of people either forget, or just don't know, that grid combat is an optional rule and just handwave it into any rules discussion as though it was. I realize that most people play with it, but do we do so because we choose it over the alternative, or because its all we know?
With a slight criticism i feel like you dont value the versatility of a spell very highly. Being able to inflict different effects which help in various situations can be considered better than a single spell that does the same thing more efficiently. The fact is that to get those effects you would need to take multiple spells at different levels, instead of just this 1 with slight drawbacks or inefficiencies. Also the way you pronounced Geas slightly hurt me...Irish word pronounced GEE-ASS + i feel like you are missing the point of the spell, it's not meant to be cast in combat its essentially meant to give you a slave that is hurt if it disobeys you.
I’ve been looking forward to this video! Thanks for being such a good resource for D&D. I’ve got a build that I want your opinion on. Is leonin for a conquest paladin as good as varient human? It seems to me that the leonin’s fear ability is better than most feats you could get for human when it comes to conquest paladin.
I don't think there is an argument that Planar Binding requires concentration. The duration is listed as 24 hours and there is no concentration indication as there always is for concentration spells. Also, the arguments about casting time being 1 round off for someone else summoning really wouldn't make much sense given that the spell describes "Typically, the creature is first summoned into the center of an inverted magic circle in order to keep it trapped while this spell is cast.". This implies one round of casting "first".
On the topic of Planar Binding, there are few ways to pull it off without needing to worry about who started casting on whose turn. Summon Greater Demon spell explicitly causes the summoned Demon to persist for 1d6 rounds after you cease concentration. As this is a more specific rule than the general rule that the Demon should disappear at the end of the hour-long duration, so long as the summoner maintains concentration for the whole hour without interruption, and so long as the summoner loses control of the Demon (which is essentially inevitable, as the Demon gets a new save every round!), then the Demon cannot fail to be present for one hour and one round, so the Binder cannot fail to complete the casting of his spell in time. Other than that specific spell, the only other guaranteed way that I am aware of to ensure a conjured creature is present for the proper duration is for a Sorcerer to cast the summoning spell and use the Extend Spell metamagic option on it, extending the duration to 2 hours. The Metamagic Adept feat could be used by non-Sorcerers who want to Bind the summoning spells that the Sorcerer would not have access to. I would not rate the spell purple as-is on the Druid spell list. I would rate it red, for the following reasons: 1. You cannot, yourself, use it to bind any creature. Concentration prevents this. Chronurgy or Ring of Spell-Storing shenanigans might help, but you still need three spells - a summoning spell, this spell, and a magic circle spell - and that's all too much for one spellcaster to muster. 2. It has an expensive material component that is consumed. At 9th level, a thousand gold isn't too big of an expense, generally - but it's noticeable, and could be an opportunity cost for something more useful, like restorative items, or reagents for other, more useful spells like Revivify. 3. It still offers a Charisma saving throw to the creature - and if it succeeds, you have wasted your time, spell slots, and an expensive jewel to accomplish nothing at all. NPCs, however, have none of the worries a PC does. As such, I see Planar Binding as a spell for the DM to use - especially since its long cast time allows it to be used in a dramatic fashion, whether the PCs need to defend a friendly spellcaster for an hour, or assault a dungeon before the nefarious villain at the end completes his spell.
If you have the metamagic adept feat and a simulacrum you can do it You can have your simulacrum Extended spell summon greater demon(so its 2 hours) You Feeblemind the demon so it has a -5 cha save (and auto fails both the break free and planar binding assuming a save dc of 16 or higher) Planar binding on it Greater restoration to remove the feeble mind. And then have 100% control over a demon for a full year
If insect plague could be moved by the caster it would be a super fun, and pretty good, spell. The way i rule it at my table is that the caster can sacrifice their move action to instead command the insects to move up to thirty feet. One simple change and the spell is suddenly a ton of fun to use.
Tree stride isn't a teleportation spell so much as a fast travel spell within the forest. Or a repeatable dimension door to pop in, cast, get out of Dodge, pop back in and blast again.
This is why I would just let the soul decide it's race and it could be any playable race in that world. You could literally just keep dying and be brought back until you get the race you want anyways.
If your party is wealthy enough, you just keep killing the character over and over until you get the race you want on the Reincarnation table! Instant purple spell! 😂😉
When playing a summoner of any kind the DM needs to be your ally. Find one who is cooperative, encouraging, easily bribed, and lazy enough to just let you tell them what creature you try to summon. In my experience, most DM's like to know beforehand so they can have the stats ready. Or, if they're as "lazy" as me, they let you keep track of the creature(s) and chose what you summon. Because they have enough creatures to run, it's good future DM training for the player to have to run the creature(s) themselves, and they just want you to get to play with whatever creature it was that you wanted to summon because they want you to have fun and live the dream (so long as your dream doesn't take too long and bores everyone else). TL;DR: I am the kind of DM who will let you have your pack of velociraptors, several time a day if you have the slots. I will also come at you with my own packs of velociraptors. It's only fair...
Important note about Conjure Elemental you may not be aware of. You do not lose control if you "lose" concentration. You lose control if your concentration is BROKEN. Things that can BREAK concentration are casting another spell that requires concentration, taking damage, or being incapacitated or killed (PHB Spellcasting rules, under Duration). Ending concentration willingly is not one of these things, and because you can end concentration at any point even during someone else's turn, if you are ever scared that you are about to take a lot of damage for example, you can just decide to stop concentrating on the spell, ending the spell, which causes the elemental to disappear.
One use I can see for Anti-Life Shell is protecting a squishy spell casting party member who has a lot of range attacks and needs their concentration. I also got a Staff of Frost, so Cone of Cold doesn't take a place on my spell list or use a spell slot for me to use, but I do think that's a special case.
For a Circle of Shepherd Druid, I think Geas is much better than you credit it. Because of Speech of the Woods & Sylvan as class features, I'm thinking that charming a new pal (a fey creature or a powerful natural beast), because they CAN automatically understand a Shepherd Druid, can give you a worthy friend and ally for a MONTH. I'd cast it out of combat, and enjoy it's company for a month if it fails it's saving throw. Or am I missing something here, Chris? Heck, I might even be able to gain a few new "friends" for a month if I was camping in the woods several days. Right? And if I'm new in town, trying Geas on the Mayor, Queen, King, Captain of the Guard to potentially charm them for a month seems awesome. Whether or not I want to give direct commands, friends in very high places would be quite amazing.
My Druid has an Awakened Scorpion as a companion (he didn't cast it, he found her already 'Awakened' in one of our sessions) It's great for role play, and in combat I use Giant Insect rather than summoning spells for the most part; having a personal connection to your 'summon' I've found adds a unique layer of rp to the fights
CONGRATS ON BEING AN OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE TANARES RPG CREW!!!!! That makes me so much more excited for the content! I can’t wait to see what you bring to the table!! 💪🏻💪🏻
You can most effectively Gesh a creature against taking any time- or resource-consuming activity that is interrupted by taking damage. For example, you could tell a creature under Gesh to never rest for more than 7 hrs 58 min, zapping it out of any long rest and requiring it to long rest twice as long each day. You could even qualify it to be something like “Rest no more than 7 hours 58 minutes on any day in which you cast a spell” or the like. Using less mood-breaking language, obviously.
