My daughter’s druid used to keep Locate Plants/Animals prepared to find sources of poison for the assassin played by her big sister. So, it was good for that - so long as they weren’t fighting undead, fiends, etc. 🤷♂️
Yes this!!! Its also good to "stir the pot" and gather intel. We ran into a Cult and needed info on it. We also had a Noble in a town that was a major turd we had to deal with. We used skywrite above the noble's house to insinuate the Cult's messiah was at the noble's house. After the riot, the Lord's evicted the noble, and we were able to follow some leads on the Cult as the sign drew cultists in. Great shenanigans potential with skywrite.
I've been playing the same wildfire druid for almost one year now (if you don't count the small break where she was kidnapped by the enemies) but have loved using these videos as guidance for myself when preparing spells over the last year. Thank you Chris!
Locate anmals or plants isn't red - you ask for a beast you want see for wild shape - you ask for plants to use your herbelism kit - you ask for batle horses and you know the next army - you ask for cats, dogs or cows and you know the next village - you ask for fishes and you know the next river or sea - you ask for bats at day and you know a cave - and so on for a ritual you can take a lot of usefull informations
I’ve seen gust of wind solve hard encounters. We used it on cliffs, where mobility was constrained to passageways and blew numerous people off the sides of the mountains (several per turn). It’s Incredibly powerful in that context, and so should be orange.
Locate Animals or Plant, Quick Story: Playing HotDQ my party was about to follow a caravan that we had access to its manufacturer. I bought a CACTUS on Baldur's Gate that grow on other region and hide it under the caravan Seat. So, there was it... Self made tracking device. Other options are Sleight of Hand the plant on someone pocket(To find it's hideout) or even make you friend carry it for tracking him. Not sure if that is enough to make it Orange(for me it is), but remember maybe the plant isn't the goal but the tool for it.
I've been getting good value from it in the underdark. It has helped us find water by looking for plant life (or fungus, hand waiving that they aren't technically either animals or plants) typically found near water. Also helped find settlements and traveling merchants that we knew had specific domesticated beats. Saved us plenty of time spent fumbling around. Now that I'm level 6 (and a land druid) it feels worth a permanent preparation.
i thought there might be some mention to herbalism but for herbalism and alchemy being in the game, its like they dont exist. There is no system for it (i think) and it doesn't come up. so many nerds heart broken, maybe Treant has herabalism ideas to share with the universe? In which case the spell would be downtime handy.
A funny thing about Animal Messenger is that the animal gibs its way to the target. So if you’re looking for a person or need to get to a place, like, outside a maze. Then the animal will guide you there.
Druid at 2nd level has 3 Blue ratings and 2 Green ratings vs Wizard 2nd level got 2 blue and 5 green, so pretty comparable. Though an issue I am seeing as we all know is just how concentration heavy it can be. Whereas Wizards had great defense spells in Mirror Image and Misty Step. Interesting note that Flaming Sphere on the Wizard video was a Green rating but only Purple here. It was justified because Wizards can add up the damage with cantrips and combo with Booming Blade. But wouldn't mind hearing more about this change.
Healing Word, Healing Spirit, Heat Metal, Aura of Vitality (via Tasha’s). Depending on subclass: Misty Step, combat wildshape (& sometimes the wildshape has bonus actions), use balm of summer court or wildfire spirit, summon or move/use starry form or spirit totem. I dunno, maybe my wizard could find a more effective bonus action than the occasional Misty Step, but it hasn’t happened yet.
If you're worried about initiative order with save-to-escape spells like hold person, you could prepare an action to cast the spell once the target has ended its next turn.
So, in my party's playthrough of Rime of the Frost Maiden, we did find one use for Skywrite that actually ended up being epic: When we find out about Sunblight's endgame, I used it to warn the entirity of Icewind Dale about it, allowing them to all evacuate in time and let us stop his plan with no one dying.
I've used enhanced ability a few times in combat. Mainly because it gives advantage to roll high on a Counterspell/Dispel Magic. I've actually upcast it on 3 PCs because we had a wizard, warlock, and sorcerer. Worked like a charm.
I have been following Chris' spell rankings for a while, and usually I agree on his rankings, but sometimes it becomes apparent to me, that we are playing very different games. Enhance ability is light blue in my games. Encounters are usually few enough that spell casters don't run out of spell slots. But social or stealth checks can be deadly to get wrong. So if anyone reads this, remember that some spells change drastically in value depending on playstyle. And if Chris reads this, first of, hi Chris, you do great work :D and second, do you have a video where you talk about what kind of games you typically play in? Stuff like combats per day, predictability of encounters, the importance of social encounters etc. can obviously influence spell ratings.
i think he would ask how a social check can be "deadly". That's not a regular D&D game. But i agree the spell sounded like a better guidance than i first imagined and i'll look for its uses.
@@youtubeseagull I agree, my game is abnormal, but I still think a decent chunk of campaigns are somewhere in between where it would be green. I have found, that pretty much no matter the non-combat situation you are in, this spell helps. Dex for Stealth and Charisma for social comes up a lot, but I have seen constitution to keep the weakest party member traveling just a little longer while under time pressure, wisdom for insight (the bard was confident in their charisma skills already). Basically it helps any non-combat situation where you can spare the spell slot. So if your campaign has few combats in a day, or if it has days without combat, and other days with combat, I think this spell goes at least to green. But if you are walking from one combat to the next, with a couple of skill checks in between, like a dungeon crawl. I think it stays purple, as you often want to keep your concentration on something between combats in that situation.
Barkskin can be used on a different creature. So situationally it could be good, if you have an NPC that would be easy to kill and you need to protect them it can be golden. Haste, mage armor, and shield of faith are all better for that job but it depends on your party make-up.
Funny story about find traps. When I first started playing DND I was a druid. I noticed something and asked my dm if traps were considered objects, and he said they were. I then asked if faerie fire's effect that outlines object could be used to find traps, and he thought about it for a while and said yes. So apparently faerie fire is better at finding traps then find traps
Shouldn't Heat Metal be orange by the criteria that you've defined? I've gone entire adventures without encountering anyone in metal armor, or with a metal-hafted weapon. That suggests that this spell is circumstantial though it's really good to have when you encounter the circumstances in question.
The reason I would say earthbind is at least orange, is that it is a pretty reliable solution to a flying enemy. No repeated saves, and hover won't save you either. To me that is worth an orange.
Barkskib us good early on. Most beast have AC of 10 to 13 so wild shape into a beast with increased AC is OK. I never used it until I was a curcle of land druid combined with wild shape. 😊
I have one thing I disagree with regarding your rankings. I think that Enhance Ability is a fantastic spell that is absolutely useful for combat. Firstly, if you cast it and give your party members Advantage on DEX checks right before you go into combat you give them advantage to their initiative roles which can be essential if you need to keep enemies from running off so need to blitz them. Secondly, if you have a caster that is going to be debuffing enemy casters using counterspell it gives them advantage if you target their primary casting stat. For these two reasons I would consider it a green ranking.
I feel like continuous flame is gonna be used for when you wanna have a permanent Lightsource, how do you think those torches never go out in century old dungeons
About barkskin, come one. Ok, its not very good in general, but to argue that cover is not going to add to the 16 AC because it says AC can't be lower than that... That is just lack of common sense. What it means is that it gives you armor and, since dnd doesn't have any kind of layering amor rule, it doesn't stack with other stuff you are wearing. But there is no reason why a bonus like that from cover wouldn't stack with that. A better way to word it, mechanically, would be: It gives you armor of 16 unless you have better armor. Plus, makes your skill look like bark (that secondary effect might have some roleplay effect).
I haven't yet made it all the way through the video, but I do think there's some rare niche cases where earthbind could be useful. The range is so much farther than featherfall (300 ft vs 60 ft) that you could make the argument for using it to save allies or friendly creatures that've gotten knocked out of the air and aren't near the caster.
Though it's not a reaction cast, so I'm not sure how you would get the chance to cast it in those circumstances. Technically you could ready an action "I cast earthbind on Frank if he falls", but that's not really practical.
I would say the circumstantial use is when your enemy has hover. When an enemy with hover is knocked prone they do not come crashing to the ground. This is the simplest way I know of to keep down a creature with hover.
Cool plants 5e that I could find for locate pants and animals In DMG. More useful if you can work around them or Maybe as a 6th level land Druid ? Razor vine: contact leads to dc 10 saving throw or 1d10 slashing damage Yellow mold dc 15 con save in a 10 foot cube take 2d10 poison damage and become poisoned, while poisoned in this way take 1d10 damage at the start of each of your turns. Brown mold: everyone within 5 feet con save dc 12 4d10 cold damage or half as much on a successful one. Expands 10 feet toward any fire source. All found in the DMG very circumstantial that you could use them but can be very effective if you can. Is that enough to boost it to an orange rating ?
I agree with Skywrite, tho I'd like to mention a use of Skywrite (or at least the version of Skywrite in that universe) in the game Magium (it's a choose your own adventure story with a lot of the usual magic fantasy elements in it). Essentially there's this super powerful (and very trolly) mage who used the Magium version of Skywrite to write in an ancient language that only the God of Dragons can understand to taunt the said Dragon into attacking (your party, cos the mage is a troll and kind of an antagonist)
I agree about healing spirit. Instead of massively nerfing it, I wish they had either required the caster's reaction or said "once the spirit heals a creature, it cannot heal any creature until the start of your next turn". My only assumption is they were worried about a life cleric taking 3 levels of druid
@@bleddynwolf8463 they don't, you're right, though they don't always ignore it. I'm ok with players abusing things like life domain (though my players rarely do) because then I get to make most fights harder
@@alecwithac69 technically, if you do what is not the current rules, and you know what the current rules are, you are home brewing or using house rules. By the nature of the hobby, though, that is fine and even encouraged
You seem to be saying that, even if the target of Heat Metal succeeds their Constitution save, they still have to drop the heated object or be at disadvantage. It reads to me like, if they succeed at the save, all that happens is that they take the damage. No?
@@TreantmonksTemple Gotcha. I do think it's written in a grammatically ambiguous way, and thus is debatable. I can't find a definitive source on the subject, which is strange considering that this is a popular spell that has been around for seven years. To defend my interpretation... it doesn't make sense to me that failing a Constitution save would make you *un*-able to drop an item that's causing you pain. It would make more sense IMO for a successful Constitution save to mean that you shrugged off or persevered through pain.
@@dcarrano only thing I can think of that would cause it to mean you couldn’t drop it if you fail the save is that it gets seared to the targets hand so they can’t actually let go sense it’s stuck to them which also makes the con save make sense as well.
Hmmmm. Summon Beast... What is it's CR? Here is why I ask - it is a beast. Can it be Wild Shape\ Polymorph\ etc. into? What are the limits of that? Again, no CR - could I polymorph a familiar into it? Can I use poly to make it into, say, a 9th level version of this spell? It just raises so many questions to me. Of course, I don't know anyone who would allow you to use it as a baseline. I probably wouldn't. It is just a thought exercise.
@@sharkforce8147 I would take that. Cast it is a level 9 spell once, and have that as Polymorph of CR 2-9 available. At highest casting: AC 20, 65HP (low, but you have a good AC and possibly flyby attack) and dealing 1d8+13 four times (70 damage if all four hit - pretty well beating out the T-Rex, particularly because of the targeting limit on the T-Rex). And you either have advantage due to pack tactics, or flyby attack (10 less HP though). Not a bad way to spend a 4th level spell slot if you are looking for damage, to be honest.
We are so blessed that Chris is releasing multiple video series around the same time: Subclass ranking, Druid spell ranking, and the bits or builds he releases between. This was another great video, some obvious choices for druids at this level with a lot of circumstantial variety.
I love Animal Messenger, just so much. Not for normal communication options, but to taunt enemies. Work with the rogue or bard or what have you, dress the animals up in tiny costumes, and send them to the enemy general, or irritating Waterdeep bureaucrat, or whatever. Same reason I've used Skywrite, though that has the advantage of not being killed by guard dogs, and letting more people see the insults.
The power of having many people see a message is not to be underestimated. What would a modern day commercials company pay for that? Public shaming, creating crowds, warnings, rumours. But mostly public shaming. Because the world does needs to know about Lord Gormalon's erectile dysfunction.
Spells like Hold Person and Heat Metal really demonstrate how useful it can be for Spell Preparation casters to get advanced intel on what they're up against. If you *know* that you're up against a bunch of wolves, you skip them. If you *know* that you're up against a bunch of armored knights, they become much more worthwhile. Of course, that's what "circumstantial" means, but seriously, scout out your enemy if you can.
I would honestly argue that if the party truly has no idea what they are going up against or what they may find then they have either been thrust into a situation where they know nothing by the DM or they just didn't bother thinking at all. If you are in the forest and you dont believe there is any sort of civilisation nearby, hold person probably wont help, neither will heat metal. But if you are traveling on a pathway or just walking around a town, then the chances that you need these spells increase dramatically. You dont need much information to make that judgment.
My dm would rule if its not wearing metal i could try to lodge a dagger in it and if it has no way of getting the dagger out i could cast heat metal on that
One useful combat application I can think of for Enhance Ability is to cast it on a spellcaster that plans on using Counterspell or Dispel Magic during combat, since that would give them advantage on any rolls they'd need to make for those spells. A situational use obviously, but one with the potential to be clutch in that sort of situation.
It’s also an incredible spell to cast on the stealthy party member who wants to split the party regardless of past experiences. Advantage on stealth helps prevent that character from being discovered. Advantage on acrobatics may help when maneuvering over uneven ground in rooftops or along walls as well as Defending yourself from creatures attempting to grapple you. The slight damage reduction from falling is enough to make sure that most creatures giving chase to you would unwittingly prom themselves if you make use of the vertical drops. Advantage on sleight of hand for lifting objects off or even onto unwary creatures. If you’re caught, you get advantage on your initiative to act before your assailant.
Enhance ability is another major component of getting surprise with Pass without Trace. If you have a paladin or fighter in heavy armour and without stealth. You need to remove their disadvantage to consistently get a high score.
Actually Locate Plants and Animals can come in handy for Druids that just got 7th level casting and want to find a suitable tree for Transport Via Plants.
I adore Continual Flame for it's flavor, especially if your DM is more lax with a character's skills at building things or making use of certain magic items. Does a violet, star-filled torch atop my staff of woodlands help my darkvision equipped Circle of Stars druid? Not really. Do I love the thematic flavor it adds and the idea that I could use my power over the staff to have it's leaves "sheathe" the flame on command when I need to? Very much yes. I could see why many druids might never touch it, but as a certified "downtime lover" it's such a fun spell. Artificers make great use of it though, with their tinkering nature it's easier to argue that you can add a little pot of light to the variant human fighter's helmet that can be toggled with an item interaction. As a side note, THANK YOU for making me realize Moonbeam was a 5-foot *radius*, I've been running it as occupying a single square for no good reason
About Spike Growth, you said the Nature Cleric also gets it but didn't mention the Dao Genie Warlock, which can actually make great use of it with repelling blast + potentially crusher. Just think that's a fun option worth bringing up.
Beast Sense does have one (very niche but very fun) use. Animal Friendship gives you a a willing beast target even if the beast in question is actually not particularly friendly. Speak With Animals allows you to give that friendly Beast instructions: not too complicated, but they don't need to be. Speak With Animals is also a ritual, so if we have the time to invest in this, it takes only a single 1st level spell slot for Animal Friendship. With a willing beast who has been given some basic instructions, what does Beast Sense get you? Well, if the animal you've befriended, convinced to do you a favor, and then turned into a spy camera is, say, Blofield's cat (or at least the D&D equivalent), you have turned an asset with incredible levels of access to some scheming villain into the perfect mole. Bonus points if it is, in fact, a hobgoblin general's pet mole. That's just about the most druid thing I can imagine.
There is one enemy that Earthbind is extremely good against: The Demilich. They have a strength modifier of -5, meaning a high level Druid, and if you're fighting a Demilich, unless your DM is a sadist, you're a high level Druid, you should have a maxed out spellcasting modifier, meaning your DC should be around 16. A Demilich literally cannot resist your Earthbind, it has no walking speed at all. If you hit a Demilich with Earthbind, its only chance of escaping is either burning a Legendary Resistance, or if you're fighting it in its lair, using Anti-Magic Field on you. So, with three second level slots, you can burn all three of its Legendary Resistances if you're not fighting it in its lair. If the rest of your party burns its Legendary Resistances alongside you, then Watery Sphere is pretty much checkmate, as one of the only conditions Demiliches are vulnerable to is Restrained, and like Earthbind, the DC is too high for the Demilich to beat. Highly circumstances, but being that effective against such a high level enemy does score some points in my book.
I got to disagree on earthbind being that bad. I feel like I'm the only one who found out how good earthbind is. It's not always useful and I wouldn't always bring it. But when it's good it the best spell in the game and just wins encounters. There are several creatures in the game in the game with a fly speed and no walking speed. Nearly all of these creatures have terrible strength saves. So when you cast it they get one terrible save and then there stuck for a minute and can't move. Ghost, wraith, flameskull, banshee, will-o-wisp pretty much everything that's an Incorporeal Undead instantly loses to this spell. It' also shuts down Demiliches hard and is so so against beholderkin. All of these creature have immunities to at least some movement stopping condition but none are immune to this. This spell has saved my ass multiple times. If you hear anything about a place being haunted pack this spell. If there's something strange In the neighborhood Who you gonna call? (Earthbind)
The biggest problem with it, which wasn't mentioned here, is that Earthbind becomes increasingly redundant as the party starts to fly themselves. Flight only becomes more common, cheaper, and easier as you level up. And having allies with the ability to fly is just better than taking the ability to fly away from your enemies. If you're fighting harpies or something, at the point where you have access to 2nd level spells but not 3rd, yeah, you'll get some use out of it. But it's only going to get worse, very quickly.
After all your spell guides, I'd love to see a stupid-druid-tricks video, where you tell of some of the sillier or stranger things druids of varying subclasses can do. It'd help show how seemingly simple spells or abilities, that look ok or pretty good, can make you reasonably competitive in DPR terms early on (even non-moons) and have "expanded utility" on top of your already very utilizable base class.
@@Trenell83 I'm primarily a Cleric guy. Only Druid I played was Spores. Those temp hit points so I could cast spells while "wild shaped' was pretty deece.
Regarding flaming sphere: I don’t think Chris is giving flaming sphere adequate credit as a control spell. While it is unlikely that anyone is going to end their turn within five feet of the sphere, that in of itself generates value. Use it to make it hard for the enemy to position in places they need to be to attack the party. In cramped dungeon rooms where viable places for monsters to stand is even more limited the spell is even more valuable.
i think you're right. every campaign has dungeons i would think, every dungeon has hallways, every hallway sucks if it has a flaming sphere in it. Every flaming sphere can be upcast to deal 4d6 when it strikes an enemy, and another 4d6 when the creature is stuck by the sphere, and that's for a minute, and a 4th level slot (upcast for that dmg). So it's much better than fireball in those positions for just one slot higher, not a bad trade off... is pretty good!
@@samuelpierce639 This DUNGEONS and Dragons. The PCs are almost constantly in tight corridors and twenty-five by thirty-five foot rooms. Even with no walls or rooms, D&D combats quickly start looking like a rugby scrim as everyone closes to melee. Once that happens, the Flaming Sphere can be used to force monsters to take attacks of opportunity or fire damage from the sphere.
100% agree on Spiked Growth - the fact that the only save is to notice it and there's no way to half it is ridiculously good. And the fact that you can stack this with Plant Growth? Oh man - that's the jam. And heaven help your enemies if you also have a Nature Cleric casting Thorn Whip and using Grasping Vine and pulling people "back to start" through the spike patch.
@@grantgarbour Step 1: put a plant down in the area you're casting in, or target a spot where a plant already is. Step 2: cast Plant Growth. Step 3: cast and concentrate on Spike Growth. A surprisingly high amount of this can be done before combat, and then boom: 25ft of movement to move 5ft, 2d4 piercing for every 5ft they move through the Spike Growth, and if you pair this with Thorn Whip you can trigger even more spike damage each turn.
Barkskin works well on a Moon druid depending on which beast you transform into. You wildshape as a bonus action so you can cast the spell as your action. Your tanking form at low levels is the brown bear, which has an AC of 11. 16 is a huge improvement over 11. A quick glance over the CR 2 creatures that a Moon druid gains at level 6 shows that only a couple have an AC of 15. It's not a great spell if you choose one of those 2 or so beasts. It is still a useful spell well into the 2d tier of play for a tanking Moon druid tho but not all that useful for a caster druid for the most part. I think this spell should have been rated Orange**. Useable by 1 druid subclass is kind of the definition of circumstantial.
Or you could go offensive with your concentration and kill them faster, relying on the extra hp of your wildshape. It's just a matter of where you fall on the offensive----defensive spectrum. I like flaming sphere for the free extra damage every turn, and the ability to block off so many more squares. I'm a large bear, plus there's a ball of fire. Pick which one you want to walk near....
In my experience, higher AC made me less likely to draw Aggro which I want as a Moon Druid. Whereas a concentration spell that does good damage like Flaming Sphere. Add in Warcaster and Resilient CON ASAP and you really won't be losing it anytime soon.
ya i think you could have flaming sphere up and still be a bear druid, or fog cloud and be a giant spider with tremor sense/blindsight 10 ft., but i can't say bark + bear is a bad idea. I guess its just that as a moon druid you're already broken, so its hard to discuss value for some one that's already easily beating those encounters. So no extra value is being gained by spending the spell slot. And you could summon beast and be the same beast and possibly be mistaken for the other, as well as a summon being better protection than AC 16 .
Honestly at low levels where you are using the bear shapes, the hp bonus from the shapes is more than enough to survive almost any fight. AC is mostly irrelevant. If Barkskin didn't use your concentration absolutely! But generally your better off concentrating on something else while in WS like flaming sphere or Spike Growth or summon beast.
flaming sphere is pretty good if you have someone with sentinel in the party. they have to begin all their turns next to the sphere unless they try to move away, which means taking an AoO which might get them stuck near the sphere anyway
Enlarge/Reduce in combination with Wildshape and Circle Forms is the fastest way to become gargantuan in 5e. That makes it, in and of itself, worth it to me. Being able to threaten 20 squares, at once, is sort of bananas.
the druid in my group actually killed 4 goblins by enlarging our tortle barbarian in a tight dungeon. It was by far the coolest thing that happened until now.
You can use locate plants + goodberry to locate party members. If your DM allows you to choose any small fruit or nut for the goodberry spell, then you can choose extremely rare ones, like cactus fruits, or some other fruits that only grows in other side of the world... Cast goodberry every night before sleep, give 1 fruit to every party member, and you can always locate them.
Last night I used animal messenger in our sea-fairing campaign to contact the captain of a pair of pirate ships about to waylay us. They demanded a toll for sailing their waters. We told them that we had no such coinage to make such a payment and that they could let us pass or we would dismantle their ship board by board. We received a laugh in response, I sent one final message before diving into the sea (Triton druid) "I see you have chosen death then, a pity, may the Bitch Queen feast upon your souls!" and expressed that the bird would promptly vanish after delivering it's message effectively "giving them the bird" as I swam under the waves and climbed the side of their ship to unleash a flaming sphere right in the middle of the deck. Our ships captain, who is also an aquatic race, proceeded to go beneath and tear at the bottom of their ship. She had already disabled the other ships rudder while the rest of that was happening. Having seen a pair of giant sea eels at one of our first destinations in the campaign I was now able to take on their form and did so with the intention of biting at the ship, however when my turn came back around the captain who foolishly laughed at our offer of peace fell into the water trying to escape our Aarakocra paladin. So I did what any giant eel would do and bit him. Our captain unleashed her echo, swam to the captain and mocked him as he sat bleeding in my jaws then swapped places with her echo and opened a sizeable hole in the hull. Next round I bit him again and she grappled him and stopped swimming, her chain mail dragging them both to the depths below. That encounter was apparently supposed to be non-combat, but it's fun to think this was all started because a fool of a pirate didn't take a magical messenger bird seriously.
Objects have ac and HP and most spells don't let you target objects. Flame blade is situationally useful for targeting objects. Like a wizards spell book or a component pouch. Alot of dms won't expect it but it is possible raw.
I like this spell guide, but I think we can talk about Hold Person in a different way that would be more helpful to starting players (and to some experienced players who've never considered what I'm going to say). I worry that the orange ranking is going to discourage people from taking this who should have taken it - IF - the conditions for taking it exist. Whether or not Hold Person is good totally depends on the context of a campaign - on conditions - because HP is great in some campaigns and lousy in others. You're mainly fighting undead - probably horrible - the only humanoids you fight will be an occasional necromancer or perhaps a charmed ally of a monster. You're up against a cult in a mostly urban campaign - wonderful - because you're often fighting humanoids. So that's the first condition re whether or not HP is a good spell to pick: will you fight enough humanoids (humans, orcs, bugbears, drow and so on) for it to be useful? Campaigns where "it just varies - some days no, no humanoids - other days yes, some humanoids"
Locate plants or animals can be a pretty good tracking spell; druidcraft a little rare flower and slip it into someone's pocket, a crate of weapons, a food tray, etc and then you can find out exactly where it goes without spending a spell slot. What really makes this pay off compared to using locate object or locate creature though is that it has a 5 mile range instead of a 1000 ft range, allowing you to track something across an entire city instead of a block or two.
Regarding Summon Beast, depending on the campaign you're in the material components are quite costly: (a feather, tuft of fur, and fish tail inside a gilded acorn worth at least 200 gp). Having a value attached means you can't substitute a druidic focus, a gilded acorn is an unlikely find in a dungeon or in the wild, and at level 3 you may not even have the 200 gp to spend. That was definitely the case for my druid in Rime of the Frostmaiden. I got to level 5 and Conjure Animals before being able to cast Summon Beast once, and now I don't need it. To me that makes it worse than Blue.
That's true for all the summoning spells from Tasha's. But hard disagree that conjure animals makes summon beast unnecessary. Being able to summon with second level spell slots is huge. You have 5 chances to summon at level 5 whereas you only have 2 if you're limited to conjure animals. Also, conjure beast can be used to fly yourself places. Just wild shape into a tiny beast and have a flying summoned beast carry you!
Then again, you probably don't want to give a dragon a strength saving throw if you can avoid it. Might be better off waiting a couple levels until you have more options to make party members fly themselves.
Web or just getting the fighter/barb in range to grapple is just better than Earthbind. The only time Earthbind is good is against creatures with hover in addition to fly. Creatures with hover also tend to have low Strength. Your looking more at ghosts and things like liches and beholders.
You said it yourself, Barkskin could have a niche with Moon Druids. Giving a Brown Bear +5 AC is ridiculous at those early levels. I think it oughta be orange for that reason, as even though it's pretty limited to specifically the Moon Druid, it is very good in that specific situation.
Hey Chris, love all these videos! Can I make a suggestion? In the cases where you say something like "this feature is bad because of X reason", maybe you could give a suggested "homebrew fix"? Not trying to add extra work for you, but just saying something quick like "so at my table, I would change Barkskin from X to Y so it would be more balanced and attractive to use". Anyway, thanks for your efforts making these videos and going into such great detail about each thing you discuss. Cheers
Generally I don't suggest homebrew fixes for things that are too weak. What happens is once you start compiling a big list of homebrew, you end up looking things up constantly during the game. My suggestion is if something is terrible, just don't use it, there are plenty of other options.
Treantmonk did make an entire series of videos about his home brew fixes that I’m constantly lobbying my group to use, including a fix to barkskin, so I definitely wouldn’t ask him to repeat it in new videos going forward lol.
Barkskin maybe the biggest miss of all the Druid spells. My fix is upcasting two levels to get +1, 8 hour duration, and no concentration. Even with those fixes it isn't great.
I think it should be a Medium Armor equivalent in the same way as Mage Armor is Light Armor equivalent. I.e. "Your AC equals 16+Dex (max 2) for the duration". Make it stack with any AC bonuses, like any other armor, and yes, 8 hours and no concentration.
One use me and my party's Artificer found is I'm a Shepard Druid and we realized we could enlarge my summons between the two of us. Do this on Giant Constrictor Snake, and you end up with a kaiju that can restrain anything due to nothing being larger. That could be very useful when combined with Mighty Summoner.
At Levels 3 and 4, my Sea Elf Circle of Stars Druid used Moonbeam (bright starlight!), Spike Growth (multi-colored spiky coral!), Summon Beast (white wolf, snowy owl, dolphin), Enlarge/Reduce (you got this! I saw it in the stars!), and Pass Without Trace (we got this! I saw it in the stars!) very effectively. We're going to reach Level 5 during our next session. I can't wait to hear about 3rd-level spells next week! Perfect timing!
The benefit of healing spirit is it's combat use. Consider healing word, a pretty good spell, that takes a bonus action and heals for 1d4+wis modifier once at range. Upcast, this is now 2d4. versus healing spirit, even with only 4 or 5 heals of 1d6, is going to work out to be a lot better. Plus you can move it. The downside of concentration is a big one, but I use it when I've lost concentration on a spell, and seeing as it's only a bonus action, you still have your action to attack or hide, disengage, and heal everyone up, so that next turn you can cast a different spell. Healing spirit is amazing for getting party members up from downed, especially at low levels.
Big note to locate plants or animal... you can use as scout.. put some herb in the enemy and use this spells, is better then locate objetc or person and fits the theme of druid
locate animals animals and plants can be supper useful because it can be used to detect different types of terrain like detecting cave crickets to find the dragons layer or locating fish to find the river or locating cows to find the nearest farm
I have read that Moon beam "HAVE TO BE MOVED 60" and not up to ...as per description "you can use an action to move the beam 60 feet in any direction". Have that been changed in some errata so you now can choose to move it shorter?
You can use locate animals and plants and search out poisonous plant like night shade venomous animals like snakes and food base plants like apple trees and gather things on your down time
Earthbind can be useful when it comes to fighting beholders, as long as they don't see you tho. Because if they fail their saving throw, they'll be on the ground and the melee fighters and barbarians will have an easier time with them
i had a game where my friend and i were a 2 person party, low/mid level (can't remember) , and to get a roc to land i cast this, it failed, i succeeded, and we jumped on its head and finished it off in a round and a half of beat downs. So i guess sometimes it catches things that don't want to be caught.
Since Druids have proficiency with herbalism kits, I would rate locate animals or plants as orange, because it’s a ritual (so it doesn’t cost anything) and you can locate herbs that you know can make healing potions.
About Spike Growth : I don't see why the pircing damage should be considered being magical damage the spikes are summoned magical but are not explicit defined as magical...
the only good beast sense combo i've seen used was step 1: capture/befriend a bat(animal friendship /speak with animals useful here) . Step 2 beast sense now gives you blindsight 60. that actually might be worth concentration.
If you hold your action, Hold Person can be cast immediately after the target's turn to give the entire party a chance to crit, but save or sucks do feel bad, I agree.
Thank you so much for the stars! You have no idea how irritating it is in some tier lists where the good and awful spells look the same because I can't tell the difference between blue and purple!!
Barkskin would be totally fine as a spell if all you changed was the duration to 8 hours and remove concentration. Sure it is still limited but at low levels lots of characters don't have AC > 16 yet, and if you need to stealth replacing a PCs heavy armour with Barkskin is viable.
I think it would be Nice to see this as a tier list where you can easily overview the rankings of each spell. This would give an idea of how good the second level druid spells are overall :)
>healing spirit >red dog. don't you think you're overreacting just a teensy bit here? Yeah, it's concentration, and the total value of healing you get isn't that amazing (although it is better than litteraly any other spell cast at the same level) but you know the one reason early level healing spells are good, right? To pick up downed allies with. You know the problem with picking up downed allies? They get knocked back down almost immediately. And if you aren't using healing word to pick them back up, you're wasting a turn for it. This is healing word x5 for just one extra spell slot level. Healing word is almost universally considered the best early level healing spell and one of the best level 1 spells in the entire game. The only real point against it is the fact that it's concentration. Outside of that, the amount of value and utility you get out of it is amazing. It absolutely does not deserve to be ranked red, it should be purple at worst.
i could not agree more strongly. red ranking healing spirit makes me question him as being an authority on 5e. aura of vitality isn't available to druids either. absolute trash opinion.
@@p23570 it actually is. Both clerics and druids have it now as of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (though technically its an optional rule.) Though, personally, I feel like that's a little bit of a poor decision designwise. It was formerly a paladin exclusive spell, meaning, as a half-caster, the spell was very good for its level. And I feel like neither the druid or the cleric needed more amazing options. Personally, as a DM, I'd take advantage of the fact that it's an optional rule and not let them have access to it. But it is what it is, and treantmonk assumes most optional rules are going to be the default.
What is your opinion about Heat Metal cast against Warforge? Is the armour incorporated as "part of the body" and therefore can't be seen as the Heat Metal spell is worded or is the armour simply stacked or attached "on top of the body" and therefore visible? What if the Warforge is not wearing armour at all and just using the given +1 to AC as the class feature? Isn't the body of the Warforge still partly metal to begin with?
technically metal could be a pair of silver earrings or a gold ring, so i think you're right. It does seem fair to use it on a warforged, even though i would be very helpful to the warforged as a DM and allow them to douse themselves in someway to take half damage, if possible.
I think it's fine to use Heat Metal on Warforged incorporating metal armor, but I personally wouldn't allow using it on armorless warforged. Even if they have metal in them, it magically meshes with everything else in some way that it is considered a living body and can be healed. I would rule that this sort of magic trumps simple 2-nd lvl spell.
Agree Spike Growth is best. Might even say best spell in game for impact it can have starting at L3. In the right party or character build I would still cast it at L20 even and it would do more damage than any spell I could cast, plus have riders. Grapple and movement is really the best way to use this, combine with haste for 4 times movement or mounted movement or wild shaped Moorbounder, movement buffs ect. But EVEN BETTER is summon spells that can grapple. A conjure animals could amount to ridiculous damage to many targets plus tons of control and action/damage absorption. Even a common sorlock with repelling blast this is adding more damage to them every round than any spell in game by far.
I disagree that Earthbind deserves red. Just as counterspell has prevented many villains from escaping combat via Teleport or Dimension Door, Earthbind is a great spell for preventing a flying enemy from soaring away or gliding too close. While it's a save-or-suck, its low level spell slot cost and incredible range of 300 feet means you have multiple shots at telling a fleeing creature "oh no, you don't." Earthbind works with all sorts of flying creatures, and there are a lot of them, from a wizard's imp spy, all the way to a wounded dragon that decided to live to see another day. You'll notice that a smart DM will use a flying creature's flying speed to its advantage as much as possible, especially in early levels when most parties are not yet capable of flight. While this spell only reduces flying speed to 0 (not walk speed), flying speed for most creatures is usually much faster than their other means of locomotion; once they're forced to land, they're on even grounds with you, so to speak. You may even have an advantage over them if some of your party members are able to fly while it no longer can. Dragons do have high Strength scores, they usually don't have proficiency in STR saves, meaning your odds aren't that bad. I'm not saying Earthbind is a great spell; far from it. It eats up concentration, only lasts for a minute, and if you're the reason a dragon can't fly, you bet it'll be coming after you until it can again. However, for being circumstantially useful, especially in early levels when access to flight is usually still a dream, I think it deserves at least orange. It is an all-or-nothing spell that you can only use in certain situations, but so is counterspell. P.S. I love your videos and greatly appreciate all the effort you put into them. They've become what I listen to during work commute, and many of them helped me better understand D&D combat both as a player and as a DM. If you bothered to read this far, thank you! And please tell me, if you ever find the time, how you'd rule the seemingly infinite uses of Mirage Arcane, because that spell has given me and my DM quite a few headaches! Edit: Spelling
I think gust of wind is orange. If you're in a corridor or tunnel, which is not an uncommon location for a dnd party, it can be amazing, because a lot of push options don't effect multiple creatures. This can keep whole hordes of enemies back as you beat them down, and it has some other circumstantial uses like you talked about.
I think "Sky Write" could be fun outside of combat, during role play. To scare or influence villagers, for example. Very situational. Or during role play, if your character has a terrible sense of direction and gets lost.
you just made me think of a druid that lives in the nearby mountain, and as a favor predicts the weather for surrounding countryside. "Rain tomorrow", "storm approaching".
i think alchemist fire is super low dmg and useless? And ball bearings save is like... 11, pretty much poop. And caltrops maybe useful in a hallway but they better be improved in some way for the level that you're using them. Pretty sure most DM's will say their NPC carefully picks through them, slowing them down a little but otherwise harmless. I think that stuff is for 1st level, and try not to slow down the game too much by fighting for more than they are worth, a few cents. Thx for the great question! X-D
@@youtubeseagull There's no save for Alchemist’s Fire initially, just a hit roll and then they have to waste their action. Obviously this isn't the kind of thing to be using past level 4, but think they can be quite useful before hand.
