Hypnotic Pattern is AMAZING in D&D 5e! - Advanced guide to Hypnotic Pattern 

That's evil, since other enemies might have to wade through the spike growth to save them

I love doing this or fog cloud/ blindsight against my players. if they are going to use it enemies can as well.

I'm a die-hard Bard fan, and I read this, and I still can't help but think... "yeah... fair lol"

I would probably say the rules for that are similar to a Medusa's/Basilisk's petrifying gaze. In 5e talking is a free action so you can warn the party member that you are about to cast the spell, but in order to avert their eyes it would have to be that party member's turn. I would recommend using the Ready action in preparation to cast the spell after the party member's turn has begun, thereby allowing you to cast Hypnotic Pattern as a reaction after their gaze has been averted. Like you said, a round is six seconds long, so moving, casting spells, talking, etc, is all taking place in a very short timespan. By the time the spell has subsided the paladin wouldn't really know when to open his eyes. So from a rules perspective and my own observation, the PC wouldn't be able to open their eyes until the start of their next turn. It makes sense in my brain, if not being slightly complex.

@@WizardVolovik Um... No... That's not the rules for ready action. According to the rules, you quote: " *When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs* . To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration (explained in chapter 10). *If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect.* For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken." In other words, the spell has been cast, but the spell's effects don't occur until after you release its energy. And according to the additional rules, the spell hasn't yet taken effect yet. So you aren't yet concentrating on the spell. This means you can ready Hypnotic pattern, concentrate on the readied spell, and then release the spell in full once you use your reaction. This breaks no rules, since the spell wasn't released, and didn't need to be concentrated on until after you released it. Nowhere in the rules does it state it is impossible to ready a concentration spell. All it does is that you're literally holding onto the spell's magic until you're _ready_ to release it. Ps and tldr: I suck at explaining if you couldn't tell, but. If you ready a spell, you withhold its effect until your reaction occurs. There is nothing to concentrate on beyond holding the spell until after you've used your reaction.

@@WizardVolovik If your players agree with that interpretation it's fine, but I know of absolutely no-one else who interprets the rule that way and you're likely incorrect in your interpretation. I'm not trying to throw shade or insult you in any way, rule 0 exists for a reason, but I see no reason to limit what players can ready when the ready action is already extremely limited in its use and applications. Furthermore, the rules dictate that you have cast the spell, but the spells effects don't incur until after your reaction. There is nothing to concentrate on until after you've taken your reaction, and if anything, you're already concentrating on that spell. The rules say the spell ends if you concentrate on a different spell, not the same spell. The rules for concentrate state you can't concentrate on two spells at once. But if you're not concentrating on two different spells, then readying is not a problem. (especially since you're preparing to release the spell that very same round)

@@WizardVolovik Except trickery cleric's invoke duplicate is a different effect entirely. Readying is simply concentrating on the same spell, on the same spell effect, not a separate effect or spell. Concentration rules only breaks concentration when concentrating on something else. If you're already concentrating on the same spell, you're not concentrating on a different spell. Therefore it doesn't break any rules to ready a concentration spell. Obviously this is going nowhere, so, if you find that fun, go ahead, I just think you're completely wrong so we'll just agree to disagree.

​@@WizardVolovikif the duration of the spell start counting when you ready the spell, then all instant spells wouldnt work, because that instant have already ended. I don't think it works that way but every DM is free to rule it as he wants if the table is ok with it.

Did you just suffocate the incapacitated victims in earth? Because, damn, that is a creative way to execute helpless enemies. Also incredibly cruel. But effective, for sure.

@@joda7697that’s it exactly, just buried them alive and changed my alignment from neutral to evil. Incredibly fucked, but effective.

Yes, one of my favorite combos used by my aberrant mind controller sorcerer

got this with metamagic adept feat on my Lore bard. Perfect. Then, a few levels later got circle of power as 10th level magical secrets...realised careful spell, circle of power and synaptic static were a sweet combo to avoid friendly fire.

Hell, Hypnotic pattern don't even grant advantage, so attacking can be even worse than shaking.

That's actually relevant to yesterday's session. We were fighting an aboleth that had mind controlled our paladin and then our bard on a following turn. I used magic missile and split the missiles up to hit each character and the aboleth. It worked quite nicely.

actually this does not work with multiattack (assuming you're talking about an NPC) as an npc cannot replace any of the attacks in their multiattack besides what is specifically listed in the statblock. Sure they could unarmed strike, but they can't do two unarmed strikes in place of their two longswords, unless the multiattack specifically says they can.

@@asdfniofanuiafabuiohui3977 Kind of silly but I see what you mean. My group will probably continue to allow it because it makes martial fights more engaging for us. My point stands for PCs with extra attack, at least.

Team slow for the win(also its more fun for the dm because the enemies can still do something

I always have slow prepared just in case hypnotic pattern doesn't seem to be the right fit. It also make roleplaying the fight way more fun !

Not anytime soon. Sorry. I'll think about it though.

Oh man, I would talk to them in character for them to not do that. I mean if you see your spell being ruined by some team members is normal that you character want to solve that problem.

Aren't vampires immune to charm?

Woah, I never realized the spell doesnt require line of sight. I've always just dropped prone and casted before standing up.

@@aidan7525 Fireball doesn't either. Really good spells as they already are.

I was already excited for this campaign setting but you really sold me with this interpretation!

Not RAW but a DM could rule it as possible (logically it makes sense) . Bad idea i'd say since the spell doesen't need to be any stronger.

It's very rare that the spel alone will end a full encounter by itself. Groups of enemies will have some pass or fail or be divided enough it doesen't hit all of them. Many of the big super strong enemies that could be effected either have LR or high wisdom saves or there is someway for anothercreature to wake them up. DMs just have to be little smarter positioning when players use this spell.

@@marifrit2490 Right, sure, but that encounter-ending cast is what you’re aiming for as a spellcaster. Now every encounter the DM runs needs to check certain boxes to make sure it isn’t immediately ended by this spell. The more spellcasters you have in your party, the more checkboxes your DM has to shove into their encounters. Make sure this, this, this, this, and this never happen, because if they do, the players get a free win. Immediately. And this channel advocates strongly for playing nothing but spellcasters, so clearly Kobold wants to maximize the chances that one of those scenarios actually comes up. And I’m just asking, is that fun? Having something that, given some reasonably common criteria (assuming the DM isn’t being intentional), you just win? I compare it to the Slow spell. Enemies get hit by Slow, and they have a serious debuff. But they don’t lose agency, and there could be plenty of ways a fight with a Slowed enemy could be fun. Even in the scenarios where it is affecting all the enemies, you’re probably still engaging with the encounter. Hypnotic Pattern, you cast and in the best case scenario, the encounter is over. Yay… so fun. Edit: I know I’m really rambling here, but here’s another way to think about it: by taking options this powerful, we’re actually limiting the encounters we experience. Because some types of encounters now simply do not work, as in, the DM cannot run them and hope to challenge the party at all, what we’ve done is just lower the subset of encounters we can have fun with. The reason that happens is because these spells are *so* strong that the DM can’t ignore them. They have to counter them to give the players a reasonable challenge. A healthy game would remove these constraining options so the DM had more room for encounter design. It’s the same result - you weren’t getting your encounter-ender anyways, if the DM was “designing good encounters,” but now the DM isn’t so stressed making sure it doesn’t happen. Because it can’t, and the game’s in a good place.

Every table is different and when we talk about "healthy options" we have to follow with "Health of D&D as a game or health of the player's fun?" Some people want that power fantasy, some don't. Some DMs ban spells like this, others build encounters with these spells in mind. Charmed immunity is common enough to put a wrench in these well laid plans, must have not been that well laid. If we're talking about an upset in the system by repeated use of the same spells from play to play then that still comes down to preference. I personally think less about specific spells and more about the overall spell list for a class. The beautiful thing about wizards is that there are so many subclasses focused on different schools and each subclass identity is defined by features which are intertwined with their spells, which cultivates differences in playstyle. That's excellent! Even if we have the common repeat offenders, you've still got incentive to try different subclasses and play around each of them. That is great for casual play and optimization. The problem with these spells often comes down to how they engage or interact with spells that fill a similar role. Hypnotic Pattern isn't a very niche spell. It overshadows a lot of spells. Is the problem that it is too strong or is the problem that there are too many options that are less effective? Do we need a nerf to hypnotic pattern or a buff to other options? Or, do we need spells and class features to have more unique identities? We can all make suggestions, I know Kobold has before, but it's all theory crafting based on perspective. On another note a big problem in 5e is how they attempted to consolidate the enormous library of options from AD&D. I recently worked with my dad, an old head on the roleplay scene, to prettye over the psionicist class. Some of the psionicist abilities are based on spells from back then, and some of the current spells today used to be exclusive to psionicist. Psionics weren't magic, but the class concept felt like an overly complicated alternative to magic. The most challenging aspect of porting the class over was the overlapping redundancies with magic and even between psionic abilities. So many of the abilities did the same thing, but with different flavor. I had to know where to cut a discipline or science out, where to nerf, where to buff, and where to recognize the importance of some small differences. This is the challenge of reinterpreting someone else's legacy. My dad and I argued a lot over all these aspects, and that's because we had different philosophies on what would be a fair interpretation. If we are talking health of a player's fun then that is so hyper specific and niche that you are really just questioning the identity of someone else's entertainment. Beyond that, "winning the game" doesn't begin or end with combat. The reason the pillars of combat are so massive in 5e is because roleplay is far more open ended and loose formed, whereas combat is restrictive. Surviving a combat is "winning" in the sense that you get to continue playing the game with the same character with your friends. You can optimize a combat far more easily than a social encounter, because the social encounter requires communication and improvised intuition. Casting hypnotic pattern in a crowded market place is a great way to never be allowed in a city ever again, but maybe that's optimal for your character's personal journey. For me the goal is to reach my character's natural conclusion in a story. If I die in a fight then that's the natural conclusion, I win. If I retire from adventuring and become mayor of a small village then I win. The only other condition is that my friend and I have a good time. So yes. I will use whatever tool in my box without guilty conscience or fear of not having fun. I enjoy optimization, but more importantly I enjoy playing pretend with my friends and holding onto that childhood wonderment.

@@benevolentworldexploder5395 I get where you’re coming from, and I agree as far as saying everyone has their own fun. Absolutely. If people truly enjoy the game that Hypnotic Pattern creates, then great. But I don’t think the question is irrelevant. We’re currently thinking about what makes a game healthy and fun right now as OneD&D is being developed. And, moreover, Kobold has a large platform and could recommend things that he has seem make for a better game when talking about such options. No one needs to listen to that opinion, necessarily, but he could provide credence to DM’s struggling with the fact that it’s overpowered and enlighten players that don’t quite see what the game could be if something was changed. I respect Treantmonk massively for doing exactly this. He is very careful not to recommend “theoretical optimization,” or trying to bend the rules. Because he knows that it is a negative playstyle in the experiences he has had. He is open about not liking the Conjure Animals or Darkness/Devil’s Sight playstyles, because he thinks they have a negative effect on the game. He isn’t saying you can’t disagree with him, just that he has an opinion, one that’s reasonably informed, and he thinks the game is better when done a certain way. And that’s very helpful for people to know, I think.

Do you hold the same sentiment for the cleric’s Turn Undead feature?

Gator would be so mad at you if he saw this.

That's the "weakness" of Wizards (almost a non issue but still something), that they can't just spam encounter ending spells on top of their allies. Otherwise those spells would be even stronger than they already are.

@@federicopalacios7439 I play a paladin hexblade sorcerer divine soul I don't know if is better get spirit guardian or something like that... I usually get spirit guardian or fireball or some other level 3 spell with less problem because I'm afraid of hit my allies

You have never seen or tried to cast this spell. If you look up the average creature immune to charm, you'll find that the vast majority of them are high levels. Throughout all of tier 2 and early tier 3 play, this is amazing and you know the obvious monsters to cast this on, like giants, humanoids and monstrosity. Try it. It's a fantastic spell.