Honestly, if a player casts Conjure Animals, and bring their own statblocks and has a macro for all their attacks on the ready and they are quick with their turns, Id let them pick their creatures. Because i know they put in the effort to make my job easier. And if its in person, bonus points if they bring their own minis.
I can see this as a reasonable option for players, though NOT for Conjure Woodland Beings because *(cringe)* *(shudder)* Pixies with Polymorph. One option to ameliorate but not solve the problem of having to roll initiative for 8 additional creatures would be to allow them to roll initiative as a group. That way, at least they all go at once, even if not on the spellcaster's turn.
My DM allowed me to do exactly this, I'm playing a Sheperd Druid and have the statblocks and macros already pre-written, even have a macro for multiple creatures attacking at once. DM took that over "random creatures" and never looked back.
I tend to go 50/50, or, "Ben 10 drama style". Most of the time, I just let the druid get what they want. Every so often I throw a wrench in it, so there's improvization. Your plan involved snakes, well, you got alligators now. I also have a house rule of: "If your summoned creature waits for your order for over ten seconds, it gets annoyed and does whatever it wants, and usually just tries to attack something to vent its frustrating work conditions", so that helps. And shorting the druid on CR rating is just dirty. Funny, but dirty. I tend to only do that if the summon is part of a social encounter and they roll low for what they are trying. i.e: I am the wise king of the forest, behold my power and my twin mighty companions! *rolls a 2*, and those are two chickens. Bluff away, Wisdom caster.
The whole idea of the DM chosing the creatures - and even screwing you over on the CR - is ridiculous anyways. So, I am a caster that's closely connected to nature, yet I have no idea what beast I will summon this time. Completely stupid.
Heres how you fix the pixie problem. Have them show up shocked and half dressed, flip out on the player for sloppy casting grammar, cast faerie fire on the party, poly the bbegs henchmen into winged trex, and dip out in all directions only occasionally giggling as 3 angry flying dental traumas teach the player why you dont make demands of fey, you ask and hope they dont keep a tab. Then on have 8 pixies show up, poly themselves into snakes... Snakes spelling out a message to the party... It says "Run Fool!" Or even worse... The last faerie falls for the tall "charming" halfling and starts stalking him as various wildlife. It says they summon em, it doesnt say they gotta like it or wanna have their spells burned. If nothing else go naruto style pacts on them. Make them collect those options by befriending, bargaining, or intimidating members of that species/race. Maybe some offer aid as a reward for the quest or sidequest. Others have their own agendas... But simple and common will be how they have to start. Want a wolf pack to come to your aid? Better share your rations with the injured wolf. Be keepin those language, healer, and animal chat spells prepared. never know when calming that angry blink dog that stole your backpack might net you a new bond to employ. The pixies tho, they really hate the wannabe cassanovas tho, try bribing them with clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics.. the poly aint free.
Wow. Can't believe you put tidal wave as red. The damage is okay. But the prone condition is very nice. You can knock down flying creature, give advantage to melee attacks, or possibly split up enemies by knocking then prone. The range is also very nice. I almost always prep this on a druid and consistently get good value from it.
My Necromancer gets Tidal Wave instead of Fireball, because he has a bit of a water theme going on the side. He'd rather douse fires than cause them. If I can find Fireball in the environment, I'll gladly have him copy it into his spellbook and make good use of it, but Tidal Wave is more important to him.
This was really good. I really liked the examples you used to show the uses of plant growth. I think it would be really useful to do some more videos sometime showing actual examples of the tactical uses of various spells, abilities, etc, that you recommend. That could either be just an example you create to best show off the tactical applications, but I'd really love to see a short video of actual play uses, because those are more dynamic. But anyway, that's just my thoughts, I'm looking forward to the rest of this series and your ranking series, and anything else you put out.
Plant growth as a genie warlock. Catapult the vessel full of plants then cast when you pop out unharmed as it shatters as a held action. Your garden just overgrew the dungeon in lovely thick flowers and the enemies are welding in place.
One thing about call lightning is, druids have acces to druidcraft, wich can predict the weather, so you can just cast druidcraft at the beginning of the day and then prepare either call lightning or moonbeam based on the result youre given
39:17 im not sure the text there "plant growth" is even referring to the spell Plant Growth. i think it just means regular, dense plant growth that the party might happen to run into. They even specify "such as thickets and undergrowth", and i think they specified that in order to steer away from the spell Plant Growth. I think if they were referencing the spell Plant Growth, they would've written "caused by the spell Plant Growth".
I quite often cast Tidal Wave with my Druid and it's ok. Is the damage good? No, it's not, but the only other option is Erupting Earth for concentrationless damage AND prone is very good when your best spells are summons that love to have advantage on their attacks.
I've had it as a lvl3 blast spell for a "conjuration spell" focused wizard and the area was usually large enough (in that campaign) but that of course depends if you have a dungeon or large area outdoors encounters, I see how it is small in outdoor areas but we are probably using smaller combat maps in general than Treantmonk. The shape covered a good portion of the encounters and was easier to fit enemies without hitting friends compared to a circular blast. Prone (on a failed save) is a sucky condition and its good vs flying stuff since prone cause things to insta drop to the ground and that will also add a bit of extra fall damage. But yes the damage can be a bit lackluster and there is no upcast scaling.
Maybe you forgot to mention it, but since Meld into Stone lasts for 8 hours, you could very well just make a long rest with it. Probably wouldn't bump up its ranking, but it is one extra niche utility
Erupting Earth: I think any DM would be hard-pressed to say that this 20 ft area of "churned earth" doesn't qualify as "loose earth" for the mold earth cantrip. And because this ground remains this way until cleared, this becomes an out of combat or downtime utility spell along with the mold earth. In areas (or entire underdark campaigns) where mold earth isn't viable, this helps get additional mileage out of a cantrip selection.
Love the tactical use of Aura of Vitality out of combat. Used it between 2 major battles and was able to max everyone out before the level boss. Druid put the Cleric to shame. Hahaha
I've found speak with plants to be a fantastic spell, but it is subject to DM fiat. My dm has made it a point that plants are a lot more useful and friendlier than animals. Animals are mischievous and unreliable whereas trees are wise and such. I've made the trees dance too in social interactions where people want to see a display of my powers, and finally the most important of all is plants can be in areas where animals aren't. Like a potted plant in someone's office. It has helped me gain information that we normally wouldn't have before.
I had a DM that banned all summoning (so no conjure animals, no summon beast or fey), AND played Theater of the Mind with it usually skewed in the enemy's favor so spells like Spike Growth, Plant Growth, or Moonbeam very rarely had any real effect. That was the most miserable experience ever playing a druid.
Summon Fey is amazing. Depending on party make-up, your summon may be the most intelligent or charismatic member of your team. And you can ask it questions or make it talk in your place (assuming you/whoever can speak Sylvan). I recommend having a miniature adventurer's kit prepared for the little gremlin. "Here's your +1 magic short sword, your couple of Good Berries, your caltrops, your ball bearings, your net, your backpack, a rope and grappling hook, a lantern, a few tinder twigs, a couple of flasks of oil, a healing potion, and whatever other magical junk that takes an action to use that I'll never use again (that you can lift). Glad to have you back on the team mate! Do us proud! PS, the Monk is jealous of you".
Druids have 1 3rd Level Blue spell (Conjure Animals) compared to Wizard's 4 Blue spells (Counterspell, Thunderstep, Tiny Hut, Hypnotic Pattern) Druids have 8 3rd Level Green spells (Aura of Vitality, Dispel Magic, Plant Growth, Revivify, Sleet Storm, Summon Fey, Water Breathing, Water Walk) compared to Wizard's 7 Green spells (Dispel Magic, Sleet Storm, Fireball, Fear, Animate Dead, Slow, Water Breathing) An easy to see difference is that Druid spells are not the standard spell you would cast to solve certain combat like Hypnotic Pattern, Slow, Fear and Fireball are, plus Thunderstep and Counterspell are powerhouses to help in combat. Druid highly ranked spells are mostly out of combat healing, utility or require circumstance like plant growth or dispel magic. It just leaves Conjure Animals, Summon Fey and Sleet Storm. This is the issue I was having with playing my Druid after I was tired of Conjure Animals and mass summoning then wasn't really sure what to do while remaining effective, so I am now playing a Wizard.
Tidal Wave could have a niche use of being able to destroy fire elementals outright. From the fire elemental description : "Water Susceptibility. For every 5 feet the elemental moves in water, or for every gallon of water splashed on it, it takes 1 cold damage." A Tidal wave could contain up to about 22,440 gallons of water so as a DM I would rule that any fire elemental caught in it's area would take enough damage to be reduced to 0hp. Thoughts?
Given the dimensions of the spell (30'x10'x10') I'd rule it the same as moving through 10' of water. The elemental would still be surrounded by water though so would take further damage from moving.
The Barlguras could decide to squeeze into the empty 5 ft squares and have their speed only halved in this way. They could all dash and move 40ft in order to close on you. Not very convenient really but at least they are not stuck in place. *Squeezing into a Smaller Space:* A creature can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. Thus, a Large creature can squeeze through a passage that's only 5 feet wide. While squeezing through a space, a creature must spend 1 extra foot for every foot it moves there, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage while it's in the smaller space.
The fact that it provides sample creatures for Conjure Animals and the fact that it does not explicitly say that the GM gets to choose, only that they HAVE the stat blocks, I would think that the player always gets to choose. The spell is just broken and until there is a reprint that changes the wording of the spell to say the player has ZERO agency in what is summoned it will continue to be run this way, just like Booming/Green-Flame Blade. And before anyone argues, it literally says in the first portion of the spell "Choose one of the following:" and lists what you can pick. Any other spell that says something similar it is the player's choice. If it said "Choose the challenge rating for the summoned beasts, your GM will decide which beasts are summoned" that would be different.
Plant growth is even better for me because my DM ruled that, even in a dungeon, there's still some residual plants SOMEWHERE arouns there (moss or small blades of grass or anything) and that, as long as there's any plant In the radius, it works for the full radius. It's a bit weird up to interpretation if the affected square needs a plant in it or not so I think this worke?
actually speak with plants is quite good if you interpret the 1st line differently. For 10 minutes, you continue to imbue plants within 30ft around you with.... which means this is similar to plant growth but you can carry along with you for 10 minutes. It can be like i am following a trail and i keep asking different plants i meet to show me the way whenever i lose the trail or i am being chased by creatures but i ask all plant i pass by to hinder the ones chasing me. I have had it on my UA CFV ranger and it has been quite useful in circumstances.
Plant Growth isn’t talked about enough and I really think you need to revisit this spell. For example, could a druid bring a potted plant into a dungeon and then use the spell? Would a single plant grow to cover a 100’ radius area? If not, would it only cover 1 square or more? What about a 5’ x 5’ patch of grass? What happens when the spell is cast on an Assassin Vine or some other dangerous plant? Finally, in your example with the Balgura, I just want to point out that they could always squeeze into the spaces between plants for only difficult terrain instead of 4x movement…
Ironically Call Lightning is a lot better when used by other classes. Tempest Cleric gets to maximize the damage and push people around with it every turn. A Sorcerer that gets access to the spell somehow (Izzet Engineet background or multiclassing) also makes good use of it by Quickening Call Lightning and then using their action to call lightning again, which makes it 6d10 damage, 33 on average, which is better than Fireball's 28 average damage.
28 minutes in on the Balgura stat block they can jump 40', thus clearing the plant growth. so possibly a poor choice of large size example monster, but I get it, just being picky! So they move 10" costing 40' and then jump as a dash option clearing another 40', 50' in total. Oh and a certain irony they can cast Entangle back at ya!
Moonbeam can be finicky, to do damage twice a target has to be moved into it so you'd have to place the area nearby an enemy and hope an ally knocks them inside but if that forced movement fails the enemy won't get the damage from moving in or from starting there. It's risky enough that I wouldn't count on it most of the time but it depends on the combat environment and enemies. I'd probably prepare Moonbeam on a indoor/underground day, but Call Lightning instead on an outdoors day.
48:05 My friend, I can tell you've never lived in a place with deep snow lmao there's a reason people invented snowshoes. Let me tell you, deep snow is difficult terrain at best and often requires an athletic check to traverse
for Erupting Earth I just read it as if it creates a 20ft cube of earth, like a 20 by 20 by 20 hill is now where you cast the spell. Its so bad otherwise, how could it not be that way. Seriously though, I think it might be meant that way, and the language could be interpreted both ways, it lacks the "if there is no room above then X" clause but alot of 5e effects leave circumstances like that up to the DM. And why else would you have the "1 min to clear by hand" clause if it didn't cause blockages? There is the 20ft cube area as well, but I don't know if they are very consistent with their area types in the first place. Now I really don't know
I think Elemental weapon can be used like this Hold an action to cast wild shape as a bonus action release the spell targetting one natural weapon in your stat block Its a lil bit of a boost to wild shape but its super minimum :( I once casted speak with plant to let the plants hide bodies and squeeze them dry XD
I'm sad Tidal Wave isn't better. And I know tweaking spells gets done all the time at tables but I find that clunky, and it is such a cool image for a lackluster effect
Comparing Tidal wave to Fireball is a bit unfair. This spell is actually more akin to a lightning bolt. The damage of a lightning bolt is leagues above Tidal Wave. But The point of origin and the Total Range are quit even for these two spells. And there are times where lightning bolt is more space efficient that unleashing a fireball in a inside space. Tidal wave actually keeps up quite well with is ability to add a absolutely nasty debuff should they fail that dex save. Falling prone while in close combat with the barbarian or Paladin is a really bad day for any NPC. And it has the added benefit of having the absolutely best damage type of the Entire game. Magical Blugeoning damage, because of the shear amount of creatures in the game that are vulnerable to it. That damage has the most creatures in the entire game vulnerable to it. And for a 3rd lvl spell is fills the roll to tight space blast rather effectively.
I’m wondering if Erupting Earth would have good synergy with the Crusher feat. The bludgeoning damage is guaranteed, but you can only use the Crusher move once per turn when you hit a creature. If multiple creatures were hit simultaneously, would it be a plausible call that they are all affected by the 5 foot push? If you do get a mass 5 foot push with difficult terrain, this might be good for pushing all the creatures in towards the center of the 20ft diameter. Then, have a sorcerer friend follow up with an area spell maybe.
Technically, an "attack" as defined by the rules has a to hit roll, so technically speaking, erupting earth would not trigger the forced movement of the crusher feat.
Nice video! Just to check, not that it makes a significant difference, but you say Call Lightning only affects 4 squares. If I targeted a square with the effect, and each creature within 5 ft had to make a saving through, wouldn't that affect the square I targeted and each adjacent square - therefor 9 squares? Partially just making sure I'm not doing AoE effects wrong.
Plant growth specifies that it affects "normal plants". I think that Entangle, Wall of Thorns create magical plants, not normal plants. As for grass seed, I would allow it, but you'd need to spend some time prepping the battlefield-- you're not spreading 100 foot radius of grass seed (1256 squares) in a single action! I'd be thinking it'd take about ten minutes to prep at the fastest, and an hour would be more reasonable. (Note that in a strict RAW environment, it may not be necessary. Plants grow. Ground becomes difficult. Two different effects. There is no indication that one is necessary for the other.)
Hi Treantmonk, I’m new to D&D and these videos have been really helpful! Would circle of the shepherd Druid still be the best Druid if I wasn’t going to pick up conjure animals (or any other multi creature summon)? I’m playing in a 6-7 person party so my DM doesn’t like spells that slow combat
Shepard relies on conjure animals, I wouldn't play it if I wasn't casting that spell. New dnd players should play simpler characters in general than druids in my opinion btw, players not knowing how their spells work really slows down the game. Hope you had fun with your shepard druid ^ that one and moon are awesome.
Idk, honestly I feel like as long as you aren't going too deeply into wildshape rules, druids are probably one of the better casters to start with as a new character. I really think that being able to switch out your spells daily takes a lot of the pressure off of newer players, if they took a spell thinking it would be amazing or that it worked differently, and they find out later it's not very useful, they can just switch it out the next day instead of having to ask the DM About letting them switch things around because they messed up. At least that's my opinion.
Their rectum. The spell doesn't specify who chooses, just like with Polymorph. Somehow "the DM has the statistics" became "the DM chooses" in many people's minds. Yet this only goes for Polymorph and not for Conjure Animals, somehow.
As a player, I would take summon fey over conjure animals any day of the week. Scales better, more flavour, predictable as you pointed out vs the randomness of conjure animals. As a DM I would take great pleasure in giving my players the weakest animals possible for conjure animals, lmao.
I'm currently reading "Finding the Mother Tree" a book about the social life of trees. My druid game is about to level up between your videos and learning irl.
You can use Druidcraft to predict the weather (at your location) for the next 24h. You could use that to decide whether or not to prepare Call Lightning. It probably won't make the spell much better, but I just found that connect and wanted to share the possibility.
You could also use it to determine the best time to make a surprise attack on a enemy camp or location using rain or fog for cover to sneak closer. It's really hard to hear anything more than a few feet away during a heavy rain. This could give your group a massive boost to stealth checks if such an event is something you can predict and wait for.
@@Iceblade269 Control weather is a exceptionally powerful and versatile spell. I love it. Your DM could introduce a magic item which did the same thing and recharged over x days. This would keep it from being as good as the 8th level spell. You could also require some kind of ridiculous material component like the bottled wind of an air elemental if it gets too abused.
You have become one of my favourite youtube creators specific to tabletop gaming. Your insights peppered with pragmaticism and humour are always appreciated. Thank you for your efforts, and please know your future content is eagerly anticipated here! (You're Canadian, too, which helps with the likeability. I'm in NB!) ;)
Save type for half-on-save spells is actually not that important. It does make a difference, especially if you take proficiency with a save into account, but the impact is far lower than you'd probably intuit. Damage type makes a bigger difference than save type, especially if your target may be immune to one of the damage types in question.
@@theuncalledfor Yeah, naw. With the way enemy Con scales, call lightning is effective in a wider range of combats for longer in the druid's career. It also cannot be used against the party by grapple-capable enemies the way moonbeam can.
@@arcane45 Moonbeam is AoE, you chicken nugget. 5ft radius, 40ft tall cylinder effect that you can move as an Action on subsequent turns. It's pretty damn good for a second level spell. I don't know what you're confusing it with, or if you somehow mistook "radius" for "diameter", to somehow think this was single-target.
Notes on rivivify vs raise dead: Jesus christ Peter just died. No matter - we'll just sleep here, next to his corpse while singing kumbaya and raise his corpse from the dead as a ghoul in the morning, he'll be fine.
2 things about call lightning. One if you get the drop on a group of enemies they might not even realize they're in combat with you instead of a bad storm until it's half over. Two is what I like to call the Thunderbird combo. Cast the spell and turn into a giant eagle. Fly up into the cloud, totally obscured. Only dip down to select your lightning spot you can see, and swoop back above the cloud.
Yeah, not only is there a bunch of tactical uses for it, he even mentioned the better saving throw and also lightning fun. Who wouldn't want to command an entire fucking storm system for ten minutes with just a third level spell?
I was so looking forward to this, particularly for plant growth, and WOW. I didn't think about the chess-style effect for large or bigger enemies. That's so sweet! Nice work as always, Chris!
we had a sorcerer in our party who took tidal wave, and i have to say from experience with it, the specific shape of tidal wave makes it _much_ easier to avoid friendly fire with than something like a fireball. you can almost always catch multiple enemies in a line even if they're mixed up in combat with your allies. i'm not sure if that makes it a _good_ spell, but having seen it cast pretty regularly, it's a much better spell to have when your allies are all clumped up with your enemies than fireball or erupting earth are. well, unless you're an evocation wizard. but compared to the other blast spells on the druid list i think it does pretty good just cause it's so much easier to avoid friendly fire with.
One admittedly situational use of Tidal Wave, is that it knocks creatures prone at range. Namely, knocking flying creatures out of the sky, which usually results in them splatting on the ground, and suddenly the damage it does isn't so bad. But you also have Sleet Storm, so.
I think the point about being able to hand the summoned Fey a magic weapon is important. Eventually something like a +1 shortsword will become trivial. You might even be able to give it a +2 weapon at some point, or even better. On top of that, the chance to hit scales, so the summoned fey will eventually have +12 or better to hit, conjure animals will be stuck on their +4 or +5.
Conjure Animals is powerful because it provides a large number of bodies between you and the enemy, not because it can attack good. "Oh, but AoE's!" I hear some people say. Well, spread them out! Don't make them an easy target! Mix them into enemy ranks! Your enemies will waste a spell slot and an Action to damage _themselves_ just to get rid of your swarm, that's a win for you!
While Plant Growths limitation is very real, I'd remind a DM that said it doesn't work that a "plant" by definition includes mosses and shrubs. So if you're a Druid, pay attention to your DMs descriptions, ask questions, and pick up a book on botany haha
Daylight did come up in a homebrew campaign I'm running w/ some friends featuring creatures that are sunlight sensitive. I decided to house rule that daylight would in fact trigger the sensitivity. Needless to say it made the spell a whole lot better than just a magical darkness remover. A little sad they didn't write it so that it does trigger the sensitivity without begging the DM to house rule it.
@@brettmajeske3525 A bit late to reply, but while it doesn't upcast to dispel higher levels of Darkness, the reverse is also true. This means that if both are cast at say, 4th level, neither can dispel the other. But since Darkness only blocks out nonmagical light while dispelling magical light "from a spell of 2nd level or lower", any magical light that doesn't get dispelled will succesfully shine through even magical darkness even if it might not dispel the darkness either.
Call Lightning is also really good if you're playing ToA, you'll be outside for a lot of the levels where you'll be using it, and it's constantly raining and stormy, so you'll get that extra 1d10 more often than not.
_Meld Into Stone_ has sufficient duration to squeeze a long rest in, protected by being perfectly hidden inside the stone... assuming you have enough time to ritually cast it on each member of your party, and also assuming that's useful to you. It is pretty fantastic for infiltrations. As part of a "standard adventuring day," though, it's hard to use.
@@wyattweber9983 It's range is "touch," not "self." I agree that it is _usually_ less useful than other ways of skinning the same cat (if you even want to), but it does have a niche use which is pretty handy in its niche case (which you can often see coming).
@@Philistine47 Its range is Touch because _the stone_ is the target, not the person entering the stone. Otherwise the description would say "The target steps into a stone object", not "You step into a stone object".
I've seen speak with plants used really well. The area moves with you as the target is self, allowing you to use the options better than I expected. Lot more plants in an area than animals too, and covers a large area so much better tracking than an animal or 4 could help with. I was really surprised seeing it in use.
Speak With Plants. It can be AMAZING, although highly DM dependent. "Plants might be able to perform other tasks on your behalf...they can freely move tendrils and stalks". You can potentially have trees attack (awakened tree stat block) vines grapple. Personally I would require a persuasion check and depending on the result the plants may offer to take a more active role in combat by attacking/grappling/etc. If your DM is cool with this kind of thing, speak with plants become a very attractive non-concentration spell in the right circumstances.
okay, I find this series interesting. I always thought of druids as "diet cleric". Worse AC, no domain spells, no channel divinity, why would I play a druid over a cleric? Turns out there may be a reason to do so
Diet cleric!? DIET CLERIC!? Clerics are diet druids, foo'! Moon and shepherd druids smack the bitch out of clerics in combat effectiveness! Dem animals are a furry frenzy of destruction!
I'm currently playing as a Druid ina party with a Cleric, the Cleric is the one that envy me ngl. It also helps that after 5th level cleric spells take a nose dive in quality and we are at tier 3.
The issue with Conjure Animals is that the spell specifically states you summon X beasts of CR 2/X or lower, so there is nothing stopping your DM from choosing X CR 0 beasts. Even if they do pick a CR 2/X beast, there is nothing stopping them from choosing a beast that is utterly useless in the current environment: i.e. a fish above water or any non-aquatic animal below water. This is why I advocate the use of Summon Beast instead. You choose the stat block so your DM doesn't need to search the monster manual for an appropriate beast, they can't effectively blank it by picking useless creatures, and you always summon one creature so it can't slow down combat nearly as much as Conjure Animals.
This is true, but if you're playing with a GM who is out to screw you over he or she is very likely to succeed in one way or another. It is however a spell you should talk to your GM about. Is it cool if you play a summoner? How you should handle it? How is the summons chosen, who controls them etc. At my table we made an agreement that I would refrain from summoning 8 creatures, as it was a bit much. So I summon at most 2 creatures, but I get to pick which; we also found it easier if I just control them as it saves my GM some work. We're also thinking of having the upcast increase CR rather than numbers. So far it works rather fine. It's not as powerful as having a full goonsquad of CR 1/4, but it works fairly well. I add a decent amount of damage and "tanking" to our combats.
@@ATMOSK1234 That's a point, but the spell description states OR LOWER. If the "intent" of the spell is that you always get the highest CR beast, then that phrase probably wouldn't be included IMO. And if the prevailing opinion of the spell (Treantmonk nonwithstanding) is it's so good it overshadows every other druid spell, then maybe it shouldn't get the full effect every time it's used?
If you take the Druidcraft cantrip, you can predict the weather for the next 24 hours, and use that to determine whether you should prepare call lightning. If Druidcraft predicts a storm, you'll be guaranteed the extra damage
Plant Growth and difficult terrain do stack, but it doesn't double the effect (I.e. 1 foot doesn't cost 8 feet). Difficult terrain has two sets of rules, one under Movement (you move at half speed), and one under the Combat section. Combat is the pertinent section in this scenario: "Combat rarely takes place in bare rooms or on featureless plains. Boulder--strewn caverns, briar-- choked forests, treacherous staircases-the setting of a typical fight contains Difficult Terrain. Every foot of Movement in Difficult Terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as Difficult Terrain." So if each foot costs 4 feet because of Plant Growth, and each foot costs 1 additional foot because of Plant Growth, then 1 foot moved costs 5 feet of your movement. Just a point of clarity, as I always see the one get confused.
And if you're lucky you cast Plant Growth as a Circle of the Land - Druid above Level 6, because "Land's Stride" lets you ignore your own freshly overgrown plants, since : "You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them [...]"^^ So many possible shenanigans :-)
26:43 Difficult terrain doesn't double the penalty, only increases it from 4x to 5x. 29:44 If you arrange the plants like this, the barlguras could 'squeeze into a smaller space' to pass between the plants using only 2x movement instead of 4x. Then at the end of their movement, they can decide to just stop squeezing, so their attacks don't have disadvantage.
It's a good house rule, if the Druid doesn't cast another spell in a turn, it gets a bonus action to call lightning. Makes it a bit more flexible, makes certain druids work really well with it, and the area requirement, I feel, is usually more than enough limitation.
Honestly, as a druid player.. that kind of sucks. There are many times when you want creatures with specific traits for tactical reasons or specific creatures for RP reasons. E.g. the party needs to cross a dangerous river so you want some big birds to carry them, or something that swims really well. E.g. the enemy has high AC so you want something with pack tactics or something to strong enough to knock them prone. E.g. your a werewolf-themed moon druid and want to conjure your wolf pack to help. Using a 3rd level spell to get some animals that have +3 to hit so will do nothing against a AC 19 devil just sucks.
@@richardwhaler8717 I tend to rule that if there's a specific purpose the animals are summoned for, they at least always get a creature that can fulfill that role in some form, if not always the same way. Getting spiders to cross a river or ravine or something. General combat, I'm a bit more random when I pick, but I tend to go for like a 50/50 split of the druid getting exactly what they want, and them getting something completely different. And I very rarely undercut the CR, if I do, it's either for comedic, low-stakes effect, or else if there's a problem with getting a creature to fill a particular utility at that CR, and I always translate the CR if I do that.
Right on. Druids don’t get Command or Sapping Sting (kind of a reach to cite that one 🤓), which kinda leaves only Tidal Wave & Sleet Storm. Sometimes I’d rather have an AoE prone effect that doesn’t target the entire mat and occupy my concentration. It’s not a big stretch of the imagination for prone effect of Tidal Wave to add 10d6 falling damage. Circumstantial? Yeah, but it ain’t nothing.
Plant Growth is such an underrated battlefield control spell. Conceptualizing a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer now and I would be tempted to multiclass Archfey Warlock since it would put Plant Growth on the Warlock spell list, and it's a Transmutation spell so it counts for Clockwork Magic... but that's sadly too much of a sacrifice since the multiclass offers very little compared to the other Warlock subclasses like Hexblade (duh), Genie (Dao - Spike Growth, extra damage) or Undead (Death Ward, frequent frighten). Or even the Order Cleric, which has to be the multiclass of choice for Voice of Authority combined with Careful spell shenanigans.
You mite mention that the druid can change his spell list over a long rest. Those super situational spells mite be game changers and the hart of a new plan. 😘
42:40 Tidal wave can be good for killing flying creatures, knocking them prone out of the sky can be tons of damage, for something you otherwise probably don't have any good tools for, and maybe your party as well. Also a curious phenomenon, followed by wet dead birds on the ground, what a story!
The designers at WotC working on DnD aren't very good at their jobs and really need to get over to the MtG side to see how to design rules and mechanics (at least for clarity for what the rule/mechanic does). Why in the world would the rule for Conjure Animals allow the DM to decide that he can give creatures with a CR rating LOWER than that listed? Why empower douche bags to give 1, 2, 4, or 8 CR 0 creatures? It's just dumb. It's also dumb that they can decide to give you 1 CR 1/4 creature if the player chooses the first option. Why give the option to screw the player in any way? Make the spell do specific things and then playtest it.
@Treatmonk You are far more experienced at D&D than I, but I wanted weight in on your confusion with regards to Dispel Magic. I think your confusion stems from Jeremy Crawford's extremely poor choice of wording. The way I interpreted his ruling is that Dispel Magic targets and "dispels" a magic effect that is on one single target. You are not targeting the spell itself, but rather that spell's effect on a single target. Hence his ruling of if one spell is affecting multiple targets, one cast of Dispel Magic can only "dispel" one instance of the spell's effect because you can only target one of that spell's targets. Basically, as I understand it, Dispel Magic targets the target of a magical effect and "dispels" the effect on that specific target as opposed to the source of the effect. Hence why it can only ever target one effect. I think Jeremy Crawford was trying to "sound smart" with his response, but ended up failing at that, confusing people even more. I think the simplest way to think of Dispel Magic is that it can only target a spell's effect and not the spell itself and it can only ever target a single effect target. I believe what you were advocating for was for Dispel Magic to "dispel" the spell itself, which it cannot do. Either that or you're advocating for a Mass Dispel Magic Spell (dispel all effect within X area)? That could be cool, but it might be too strong and that might be why they opted not to make it. Anyway, I hope that all made sense.
Oof extreme disagree with the tidal wave rating. The prone effect is extremly good. This is probably the best dragon killing spell in the game. Their dex suck and when they fall prone they fall out of the sky. Against most flying enemies this spell will destroy them. That alone is orange worthy Even without it putting enemies prone means your melee class can hit them easier and restricts movement. The area being small is not nearly as much of an issue as your making it. You can place the line any way you like and enemies don't tend to be more then 30 feet appart. Not only is it easier to prevent friendly fire but hitting 2-3 enemies is really common with how precise you can place it. This isn't like a line spell that originates from you. I think you are seriously undervallueing it. If i have to fight anything that flies i would pick this spell over fireball 100% of the time
Some of the logic here seems pretty inconsistent. We start with 'the druid spell list has lots of good spells other than Conjure Animals and here's a series of ranking videos to demonstrate this'. Then the actual ranking process involves a lot of 'Elemental Weapon/Erupting Earth are orange because druid doesn't have Magic Weapon/Fireball'. Given that the weakness of the druid spell list versus other casters is precisely what you're trying to debunk, surely a red spell should be a red spell?
On my dwarven druid, I would cast Meld Into Stone right before taking a long rest if I had the spell slot. Lots of laughs at the table, plus he wasn't likely to be ambushed in his sleep
Tidal wave is easier to position than fireball/lighting bolt. It's just a line you can rotate, its easier to place without causing friendly fire. Also it prones, and can be cast above the ground (120 ft in the air), which can bring flying creatures to the ground, and make them take fall damage. I wouldn't call it bad.
Using Druidcraft to set up plant growth is an interesting if niche combo if you need to make an escape and nobody has teleports available. You can make a plant instantly flower so you can carry around a bag of seeds and create your own plant life within the dungeon. Deposing on your DM it could take a while to get enough flowers to make it doable but still, it’s an option
what if you go 10 levels of creation bard(with find steed/find greater steed), 2 levels of wildfire druid 3 levels of battle-smith artificer (with homoculous) and 3 levels of beast master ranger. Then cast feign death on yourself so you are incapacitated and all your pets can activate without the need of your bonus action
@@TreantmonksTemple oh its not a good buld just a world where feign death is useful is one where you take at least 3 bonus action pets (still bad but at least makes the spell useful.)
I thought Call Lightning covered a larger area than Moonbeam? 'Each creature within 5 feet' of each bolt, so 9 squares vs Moonbeams 4... I thought the bigger area plus the Dex save were the main reasons to take Call Lightning over Moonbeam
See now _that_ is a good point. It does say it targets a "point", which could be tile corner node or a tile center, so it's sorta ambiguous, but the nine square interpretation definitely sounds good to me. Do note however, CON and DEX aren't that big of a difference on a half-on-save pure damage spell. Save type is mostly relevant for spells that have debuff effects or all-or-nothing damage, for half-on-save the DPR impact is low.
In my experience, Tidal Wave's size makes it easier not to catch my party in it's effect, and makes it pretty useful at the level you pick it up at, and a few beyond, especially since druid's don't have access to spell sculpting or evocation wizard exclusion.
I recently played a game as an aberrant mind sorc, and I gotta say that some difficult terrain [Hunger of Hadar] + tidal wave definitely swung combat in a super satisfying way for the creatures that fell prone. I could see the coordination/combo of Plant Growth + Tidal Wave could make it circumstantially worthwhile to take, maybe bumping TW up to orange. Particularly being able to arrange the wave on the battlefield to avoid allies and screw with enemies is a nice treat, though the damage certainly isn't incredible for its level. Thanks for the video TM! Great breakdowns to peruse for whenever I build my next druid :D
I was so excited to use Call Lightning in my campaign's big City Seige battle at the end. I was playing a moon druid, and had flavoured my druid as a gnome who had swallowed an elemental gem (thus I used exclusively air+lightning themed spells and the elemental form). However, I'd just hit level 11 and my cantrips were doing competitive damage! I had planned to upcast it, but our plan necessitated a lot of divination magic and a conjure elemental for an invisible stalker to track various doppelgangers and enemy captains, and having a heal spell in the wings as the partys only healer. I kept waiting to bust the spell out, but my poor concentration saves just made it a bad option at every level. I was determined to use it! And the campaign ended before I got a chance. Cool to see all the uses for Speak With Plants here in the comments though! Cant wait for my partys ranger to discover it!
Feign Death has a very important application in RAW only groups: extracting venom / poison out of a Warlock familiar. The rules for poison state that you need to have an incapacitated creature (or dead), and the easiest way to do so is to cast Feign Death on it since it lasts 1h and requires neither concentration, nor a spell slot.
Plant growth has single handedly saved my lvl 13 ranger from a group I joined late that tried to pvp and kill me (long story). Due to the plants being non-magical after they manifest and rangers movement not being impeded by non-magical plants, I was able to escape and get reinforcements. They sent a flame elemental after me and ended up being a bad idea for them because it created a massive wildfire with smokescreens. This WAS inside by the way. Mushrooms, lichens, roots, etc. You have to make a survival or nature check to figure that out but once you do, you have to be strategic.
