Shatter kills people in D&d 5E! - Advanced Guide to Shatter 

Next week is an important video! Half on a save and what it mathematically means. It will change the way people view blasting in general. Another thing, don't cast shatter on single targets like I show in the video! I was very lazy with that screenshot and just wanted to show how big it was. Sorry.

Video Summary: "Shatter is a damage spell that deals damage."

Player: Hey GM, I up-cast shatter on that group on the balcony. GM: Okay... They all save. Player: Shame the same can't be said of the floor. GM: ...

I find Shatter to be one of those spells I'm never not happy to have with my tempest cleric - upcast it to third level, use channel divinity to automatically max damage to 32. It also works great if you need to blast a portcullis off while dealing damage to the enemies hiding behind it!

I kinda miss "Welcome to Pack Tactics where everyone gets advantage" I feel like it is a unique point of your channel. Most optimisation channels focus on builds and making your singular character more powerful which can take away fun from others if you are the only one doing it. You, on the other hand, put a lot of care into analyzing how to optimize as a party and how you as a player can make everyone more powerful as a whole. I like that. It is easier for DMs to balance around and makes for a more fun experiance for everyone. It's what drew me to your channel. Thank you for your hard work and the amazing videos. Please keep it up! You're great!

Every time I see the Shatter spell, one memory comes to mind. I think it was the first time I had seen it cast; it was in my first campaign, and we had just hit 13th level. Our eldritch knight took Shatter. We were on a board a moderately sized sailing ship, guarding a necromancer (who seemed good or at least neutral) and his basically commoner assistants, who were all very nice people, as they transported an artifact that the necromancer had to have within his sights personally; he wouldn't trust anyone else with it. Anyways, one of the important cronies of the BBEG attacked us with his goons at sea. Our eldritch knight and I think our Barbarian went into the deepest hold at the base of the ship, where the artifact was being kept, along with the necromancer and his assistants. The rest of us were spread out on the ship at this time. My wizars was on the deck above the eldritch knight; I had just successfully lured like 20 goons and Hypnotic patterned them. All of them failed. To this day it was one of the most successful castings of a spell I have ever had. We get to the eldritch knight's turn. A few of the goons who hadn't been lured by my wizard had still reached the lowest deck. The EK casts shatter. The DM looks at him, reminds him where he is, and asks him again. The other wizard in the party looks at the EK in confusion and concern (he knew 5e spells better than anyone else at the table). The EK is like "yeah, I just got this spell, they're kind of grouped up on the other side there." "Okay," says the DM. He then describes the casting of the spell, and how it not only does a good number to the goons, but also destroys the bottom hull of the ship, and the boards above the goons, where like 1/3 of my Hypnotic patterned guys just full through into the water. The ship starts sinking. We are at sea. It is at this point that the bad guy leading the boarding of our ship is like "hah! We're leaving, we can salvage the artifact from the ocean once it's sunk and they're all dead" and so as many goons as possible start trying to get back on board their ship as ours sinks faster. I won't get into details, but ultimately my wizard saved the day, actually, using a wall of force to seal the hole. It was my first casting of that spell (my wizard had been out of action since level 8 and had gotten back to the party like two sessions beforehand). The ship was still irreparably damaged and couldn't keep going forever, but we were able to take the time to salvage a large chunk of the ship and create rudimentary bits (like what a horse has) for two whales. Myself and the other wizard used polymorph to provide the whales and we re-upped it using all our remaining slots of 4th and higher. We managed to reach our contact out at sea with his giant ship, the artifact was delivered, and the day was saved. All of this to say: if you're going to use shatter, remember that it destroys things. Don't use it near the hull of the ship you're on.

My DM: "The BBEG has an army of constructs that are destroying the nation." Me: *evil laugh*

I recently cast Shatter in a game as an Artillerist, making it deal 4d8 damage. I hit four targets and rolled 25 for damage. Two saved, two failed. Total damage output: 74 damage. Shatter is good. It's a shame that one of the targets who failed was a teammate.

All Artillerists remember "Before there was Fireball there was Shatter"- Lv 5-8 Artificer

One understated benefit is that it gives Bards blasting despite blasting not being in their "Color identity". This is a concept that goes back to MtG: Blasting in red is plentiful, so you can judge it more harshly. Blasting in white is rare, so if there is a white blasting spell you grade it more generously because it's the best blasting white can expect.

I once had a Storm/Tempest multiclass in a party invading a city of savant aboleth. From the ground floor of a prison building where captive spellcasters were being held, they somehow determined where on the upper floor the aboleth warden was and he _shattered_ the stone ceiling/2nd floor, dropping it out from the middle of its thralls. It took fall damage, and the minions took too long coming down the ramps and through passages to assist it. Divided the encounter up, easy. They had much higher level spells and powerful tools by that point, but _shatter_ did the trick.

Shatter anyone that tries to take your shiny's. Great video: )

Shatter will normally do a fair bit more damage than binding ice because when you place a 16 square spot on the map you can choose up to 60 feet away you are very likely to hit more creatures than a 6 square spot on the map you must place adjacent to you. Probably twice as many or more. (just a quick correction to your video - you've used a 10' aura around a goblin to show the AoE, but this isn't accurate since that creates a 5x5 area, it should be 4x4)

As a Warlock who did His first team kill and NPC kill at the same time with Shatter... Yes. Shatter kills people.

In a recent encounter I used Shatter on some Ghasts climbing up a stoney caverns ledge from the shore below to attack me and the Warlock. I cast Shatter on them and knocked 2 or 3 of them back into the water by destroying the section of the wall they were climbing on. They used their next turns to climb back up but after taking 12 damage from the shatter each, and fall damage the Ranger and Warlock finished them off before they could reach us again. The spells function of destroying objects gets even cooler if your DM uses those average object HP values in the DMG. I felt cool and smart and powerful, good spell, it kills people.

Shatter sounds like it could break apart buildings too. Simple wood walls for sure, perhaps even light stone walls, along with most doors, tables, the fancy bar of the tavern you are visiting...

I remember when an npc was running away from my tempest cleric and was about to grab a potion to heal himself after opening a chest. My cleric shattered his hopes :D

So in my game yesterday, I found out just how good an upcasted to Lv5 Thunderstep can be, when I glided (I'm a Simic Hybrid wizard with the Manta Wings mutation) into the midst of a group of 7 enemy Spartans, and as soon as I landed in the spot, I cast it, obliterating all but one of them (as well as a Hoplite enemy who just happened to be in the way when the bodies went flying), teleporting like a ninja to the top of a nearby roof. It felt AMAZING! (I know the subject is Shatter... but it's basically the same spell, with added teleportation, since it's Thunder damage, roughly the same ranged area, about the same amount of damage, etc.)

I played a Bard with this spell once, we got betrayed by an npc that was with us and were forced into combat. On the first round I cast this spell instantly killing 3 of the enemies and destroying the table they were using as cover. I love this spell.

"I expect a 55% chance of creatures failing to save". The problem is you're applying a one-size fits all approach. The whole point of having multiple spells that target different saves is to tailor your spells to your target's weak save. Swarms of small enemies like Goblins/Kobolds who are the prime targets for AoE tend to have weaker Con saves anyway. You shouldn't be wasting your AoE on big single-targets.

Also very nice for tempest clerics to take out a group of enemies or one rougher enemy that needs to go down right now.

Depending on what it does to buildings and vehicles, it could be one of the best demolition spells in the game. It'd be context sensitive, but a single level 2 slot dropping an entire guard tower or bridge is massive. I can easily see it backfiring in caves though.

Man, I found your channel recently through shorts and I've been bing watching your channel. I'm not the most adept in numbers crunching but I find your videos really interesting. If you can, please make thematic playlists! It would be very easy to play a bunch while I work on my campaign 😁

SO in my previous campaign, I took this spell upon hitting lvl 3 ( I was playing a wizard). The first encounter after that we got was : a bunch of orcs in a house... We could see through the window... I just cast shatter in the middle of the group orcs, who were preparing to come outside and attack. Half of them badly injured, the other ones also took quite some damage. then the fight started xD Best Spell Ever

I’m always surprised how effective it is vs gargoyles, earth elementals and other tough monsters with good CON saves. The disadvantage rider often makes up the difference at my table.

Shatter can also be great against enemy mages. It out-ranges counterspell and also requires no line of sight, meaning it can be cast at someone from behind cover. This gives Shatter two in-built ways to evade counterspell. It's also capable of stacking multiple con saves for concentration from multiple separate environmental effects caused by just one casting: 1. they take damage, so that's a save. 2. The sound is extremely loud, described as sudden and painfully intense. DMs may give a second concentration check for this. 3. Damaging the floor may cause the caster to lose their footing, requiring another save. 4. Damaging the ceiling or surrounding objects may cause flying/falling debris that warrants yet another save.

If you prepare shatter as a reaction timed to when an enemy looses an arrow you could use shatter to destroy the arrow in flight and negate its attack.

I used this to stop a boat of drug smugglers last Monday. The party are a new department of local law enforcement, and we were to bust some major drug runners before they got a chance to flee the city with a dozen crates filled with inhaled combat stimulants (think Jet from the Fallout games). During the fight, the were able to hold the party off just long enough to load up and we're about to ship off. I immediately cast shatter on the boat, damaging it slightly, but destroying the crates, causing a cloud of thick red dust to encase the crew, who began to rip each other apart! Two shatters later, the ship is laying at the bottom of the river, taking the dozen kobolds with it.

Ahhh, Shatter... A great spell if you want damage now. Especially useful on Bards and Artificer, since you don't have many options for AoE blasting on those classes (up to Level 9 for Bards when they get Synaptic Static and up to Level 9 for Artilerist and Armorer Artificers for Fireball and Lighting Bolt respectfully). I've seen some people claiming that Shatter is even better than Fireball, since it doesn't require line of sight, does a less resisted damage type and has bonuses compared to just raw damage from Fireball. I tend to disagree, but it doesn't change the fact that, if you want to clear the way with a big nuke, Shatter does the job well.

I once played a Cleric in a game where everyone was going on a journey to become gods and used Shatter as not only my secondary form of damage (hurrah Tempest Cleric), but also my way to separating the wheat from the chaff when it came to magic items. For you see, due to the lofty ambitions of the game itself, there were a lot of traps, cursed items, and magic items flying about. If I say were to use shatter on a locked chest, then regardless if it broke or not to the thunder damage I'd get some information. If the chest was just trapped it'd get blown open leaving any magic goodies inside untouched, otherwise if the chest itself was magic then it either meant it was cursed or a magic item in of itself. In the case of the earlier cursed chest I'd know to not let the rogue risk picking it. If magic, then its contents where either mundane and destroyed or would tell me to go find some kind of magical way of opening it. Meaning the DM has some interesting plans for it and I should go exploring. Such a fun spell to play mind games with. lol

Great video, was a bit confused about this spell before. Very useful for the advice!

Had a player in a game that i was DMing that loved this spell on his tempest domain cleric who would use channel divinity on shatter so targets caught in it took the full amount of damage instead of rolling, it definitely delivered some bang for its buck. Funny thing is he started with the idea he was gonna be the party healer and ended up being the tank because dropping groups like flies is some high threat shit to see and the party ranger ended up being the healer since they sat back and sniped with a crossbow and were conservative with spell slots.

Tempest Cleric also gets Shatter, and they can use their channel Divinity feature to maximize the damage. Granted they can only do it a few times a day, but at level 3 you can just delete low level enemies like Bandits even if they save.

This spell is great for it's utility. The blasts down walls, doors, gates, support pillars, furniture, and whatever really. It's not just good for busting in but busting out as well, if your ever in a sticky situation and want to dip just casting shatter on a door or a wall to make an exit is a very valid strategy.

Hey, Pack Tactics. Just wanted to say how much I enjoy your videos. Sometimes I think your analysis is a little too 'white room' but so far I haven't seen you make a mistake and I always get something out of it. Your video on spell scrolls was particularly valuable. I had never really given them much thought but the more I thought about it the more I realized what an underutilized resource they are, especially for casters who rely on the "prepared spell" mechanic. The ability to use your preparation slots on your bread and butter spells while still having those situational spells available when you need them is game changing.

The destruction potential for the spell is pretty substantial... doors, balconies, wagons, boats, etc. This is all pretty situational, of course, but in the right kind of campaign with a DM that rewards creativity that can be great. In my campaign, if someone uses Shatter in an alchemy lab, there WILL be secondary explosions. :D

Excellent video as always.

Whoo! New Pack Tactics! \o/ "Good spell. It kills people." Our bard used Shatter all of once. I even prompted him in-character to use it again, but no. One and done, despite it performing fantastically. I always thought at earlier levels that it was a waste that he didn't utilize it more especially when we were often in AoE situations.

When you think about it; this spell would also be good for breaking non-magical traps. A lot of the more complex mechanical traps would contain multiple fiddly little parts like springs, pulleys, screws, gears, chains, etc.. and you'd probably only need to destroy, damage, or knock a couple of these parts out of alignment to disable the trap.

When I first started playing 5e, I saw Shatter as a little brother to fireball. Just something to tide you over until you could pick up the real artillery spell. That was, until I discovered how it interacts with the enviroment. Of course it relies a bit on the DM, but this spell is effectively your blackpowder keg. Your red barrel. Need to destroy a chariot? Shatter. Need to remove a door? Shatter. Need to collapse a tunnel? Shatter. Trigger an avalanche? Shatter. Damage a ship? Shatter. It's the spell that goes boom, and relatively cheap. I've used it to break portal archways, collapse small bridges, and end ship encounters. It's my favorite tool for changing the conditions of an encounter, and the respectable damage means it's a default pick for me.

I really like this spell for bards as main source of AoE damage, this and dissonant whispers or using magical secrets to learn chromatic orb, depends if you want more damage types or to make enemies move into traps (or making your allies move closer to enemies if they have enough HP to be honest) Also you can use shatter in a caves to drop stalactites on your enemies (you can also drop chandelier and other hanging things), destroy pillars to drop a ceiling or remove a cover your enemies are hiding behind, drop some extented platform like balcony to drop enemies and all other kinds of shenanigans

A way to have some fun is if you know the caster goes before a weapon-wielding monster, as a battle Master disarm them and have the caster Shatter their weapon. What to they do now? You can also take the shove action as an extra Attack or as your action surge effectively increasing the damage of both the spell and the irl psychic damage the dm takes from realizing this is RAW and now they have to find a way for their monster to attack.

I have a white dragonborn fighter that have a magical shield that allow him to use shatter as the bombs of the breath of the wild. The party now were traveling on river to another city in search of info about a sphinx, along the way we found a lot of traps underwater and destroyed boats, it result that there was a group of pirates that attack small ships and then were being attacked by some archers, I decide to go and fight them melee to buy some time so the others could cross tough the river. The plan result well except I discover later that in the other side of the river there was more archers and almost put me down in one turn, the next round I already buy enough time so i decide to retreat back to the boat but not without first use mi action surge and leave them a little explosive gift. I cast shatter in really well located 6 archers and a hobgoblin leader, one explosion later and severed failed saves, every archer got exploded and the hobgoblin unconcious. I just see open mouth how the archers exploded and the rest of the pirate called retreat. After almost destroy and get destroyed i used shatter again to clean the path of the boats we keep goin on our journey.

I love caster classes and seeing all the math is awesome keep it up

I once had a Tempest Cleric that was known as the Shatter Mage. The DM eventually gave him a Warhammer of Shatter as proof of his dedication to Shattering all the time, even if not needed. I named the warhammer 'Door Knocker'.

It also has some utility if used creatively if you are being chased over a iced over lake use shatter to break the ice and send your pursuers into freezing water or if your DM has realistic consequences for jumping through glass windows you can use shatter to break that glass before you jump. Basically any situation that a sound based attack could break something use shatter.

BUT KOBALD!!! You forgot to mention how it breaks things!!!! With a command “ drop” or a disarming battle maneuver, you permanently leave your opponent unarmed. This is much better then stopping them from moving for a turn!!! Binding ice is great on it’s own but you can’t say it’s better when you have a combo ready! Also, it’s material component is mica, you can imbed Mica in the back of your teeth to get the drop on your captors and break out of prisons easy! My characters used this to tremendous effect several times so far. Also it looks really cool

"You get 3 enemies in the Aoe" wrong, you get 6, 3 of them are your friends at the table.

Awesome video! I have a question about your thoughts on AoE damage. You describe the damage of Shatter in terms of the average damage for hitting 3 targets. But, would saying 'that's 30 damage' not be a little reductive, considering how that damage is spread out? Is 30 damage against 3 targets equal in value to 30 damage against a single target, factoring in the value of removing an enemy from the action economy, and the potential waste of damage over their hp?

There’s a spell called shatter in the game “dungeon crawl stone soup” that works very similarly. The big differences are that it’s a level 9 spell, and it covers your entire range of vision. It’s one of my favorite spells in that game, just after another spell that instantly kills the nearest thing to you, whatever it is.

I once played a Storm Sorcerer who loved Shatter. Sometime around 4th or 5th level, a fight included several goblins. One goblin managed to crit on a party member, after a few rounds of none of the goblins hitting anything. The goblins were so happy they all grouped up and high-fived each other. My turn was next. I didn't even upcast Shatter, but I rolled nearly max damage on those goblins who were nice enough to now be next to one another. The DM placed the minis at various points on the map, describing how some of the goblins lost a limb or head. I used the spell in more creative ways against much tougher enemies, but that was my absolute favorite time I cast Shatter.

Tempest Cleric always upcasts Shatter. Big boom

After a lot of his videos (and giving a sub) I created in my head this fear of ever encountering and DM'ing for a player that watches his vids to optimise his/her build damage-wise, it's a nightmare to think about designing a challenge for such people. Non the less crunching numbers and founding a best output for things is hella fun. Have a nice evening

The group I dm for used Shatter to get magic ore out of the ground. I did not even consider that so I told them they could take as much as they could reasonably carry with them (which is not that much if you have just bagpacks)

Shatter is a great spell. One of my go-to spells as a storm sorcerer tbh. Recently in the prelude to a boss fight my party was fighting an Udaak, which is weak to thunder. We'd already chipped away at it some, but an upcast shatter killed it.

I recently played a Tempest Cleric that took Shatter as a spell, my party was sneaking up on a camp of goblins and a few bugbears a large group of which was sitting around a cook fire with stew cooking. So I cast Shatter inside the pot hanging over the fire turning the pot and its contents along with the firewood into shrapnel and that along with the spells dammage kill everyone sitting around it leaving 2 archer goblins and a bugbear left which me and the paladin of the group took care of. Something that was supposed to be a combat challenge for the party turned into a massacre.

One of my absolute favorites on my warlocks

bard with shatter, after the party realizes all the "monsters" in this dungeon are actually crude automatons full of treasure: the same bard, when they reach an enormous stone chest with a lid too heavy to lift, but realize it's a mimic:

I would love to see a video about Fighting Styles and the various tradeoffs.

get glass ball bearings (aka marbles), delay turns to act at the same time as your shatter caster, throw the bag at the enemy, caster casts shatter, instant frag grenade. Other uses include using shatter to break all non reinforced traps in a room, make normal doors explode (inanimate objects dont have saving throws), destroy rickety bridges, destroy climbing ropes, ladders, chairs, and most non-reinforced furniture. non-reinforced objects have like 2-10hp, shatter can instantly solve problems by making non-carried/wielded items explode or break, 3d8 thunder damage is easier to survive than 8d6 fire damage so if you need to break the environment its a better friendly fire choice that doesnt also light the forest/house on fire. Its a good utility spell, not damage heavy, but good utility

Took this for a one shot on my Bard. Enemies were homebrew and made of ink. Fun one-shot. Might come in use in a campaign I'm in using the same character soon.

my player frequently uses shatter to bring down old, ruined buildings and roofs. they tricked a mad spectator into thinking it had failed its job of protecting an object because there was no longer a room that the object was in. they also collapsed part of a roof onto a gnoll priest (ruled that it was a dex save vs spell save dc, 3d8 bludgeoning damage-no increase in power, just a permutation) and then had to run as the entire church started collapsing. shatter’s a fun time.

I think it's a good spell if there are a lot of enemies, it's a large aoe for second level of a difficult damage type to have resistance as you said.Our party is beign sieged by undeads ,it's not a normal fight, we builded defences ,reinforced the doors, explosives and ecc. There are a lot of enemys and I know that in a least a wave they are gonna bring gargoyels which may have depending on the dm the disadvantage. it's usefull for my zel cleric as most of my second level slots for what i prepered are not as important during the fight. Not gonna use it with anything higher than 2 ,but thats ok

Great after disarming someone, as their weapon on the floor is no longer worn or carried

In my humble opinion shatter is one of the most underrated low level spells. I'm happy that this video backs that up

One plus side is that using this on a cavern or indoors can break walls, ceilings stalagmites... or even create an avalanche!!! But also a big downside is the noise factor. On a stealthy mission this spell alerts almost everyone or everything in a huge area.

Destroying objects is cool, a dm could rule it as to having destructive properties against structures. Shatter that door yo

Also would like to add in the detail not discussed by video: demolition of terrain. Consider this situation that was thrown at my party: You have been chasing down an experienced murderer trying to upset the kingdom. You and your party know you have been gaining ground, but the murderer, a powerful caster in their own right, has been using chimeric beasts of their creation to delay you. While you've had to use your high spell slots to continue the chase and carve a path through the chimera, they've been using theirs to slow you further. The king, a sickly youth who recently inherited the throne from their father who died in battle, has fled into their room. By the time you approach, the murderer has slain the king's guard. Seeing you, they move to the door, put up a Wall of Force to block the door and the doorframe, pulls out some chains and locks, and shuts the door. By this point, the highest spell level amongst the party is 4th level, and it's only a single one that a single member has. What do you do? Use Shatter, multiple times if needed, and carve up to a 20' (10' radius is 20' diameter) wide hole into the wall and step through. You may damage some of the king's belongings, but their life is quite possibly more important. In addition, you block the new entrance. They may drop the Wall of Force at any point, but you can still station someone to catch the murderer if they somehow force open the door they locked. They're now cornered, and by delaying you, they're out of magical tricks. They have no choice but to try and kill the king, but you may still be able to stop him. While Binding Ice is perhaps more useful generally, Shatter is a clear winner for creative applications. Because, if it deals damage to objects, maybe you should try and destroy the floor underneath the enemy, or remove the load-bearing pillar's structural integrity, or whatever else you may think of.

If the enemy has any impact fuse explosive, this spell has the added value of asset denial, as payloads now contribute to secondary discharge.

Shatter is great when being cast by an artilerist. Once you get arcane firearm shatter is essentially always upcast since the feature adds an extra d8. I had a DM who was not happy with those RAW😅

I shattered a Driftglobe, and to my DM's discretion, effectively turned it into a holy hand grenade. It was hilarious

Had a friend that plays bard. Shatter was consistently a great dps spell, loud, but with consistent damage at any point early game and came in clutch in a few fights

I love casting shatter to blow home in walls for escape routes or drop enemies from higher elevations

Shatter is awesome. It’s a go to for warlocks. Had a master spy warlock and he always held it in reserve.

I use to love shatter and am upset that it got power crept with a spell that does shatter damage in a bigger area plus a debilitating condition. My favorite use of its ability to damage objects is to collapse unstable grounds and roofs in addition to damaging enemies. That’s it’s main use! Rules for the health of objects are found on 246 of the DMG The health of the environment according to the DMG may surprise you with how low it actually is. A tiny sized sturdy metal object like a sword only has 5 health, and a small like a heavy weapon, or a floor tile only has 10. A mediums 4d8 isn’t a lot more than shatter and a lucky roll of dice will get it but a frail object like a chandelier is sure to fall. a larger 5d10 will take 2 or 3 shatters to break unfortunately but that can still punch a hole in the floor of a second story building if both your bard and wizard use it! , but if it’s fragile the 1d8 and 1d10 of medium and large objects are easy to break. Falling chandeliers, snapped rope, etc You may not bust a hole through a wall but you can collapse a tunnel with poor supports, make a chandelier fall, destroy dirt and sandbag cover the enemy is using. Break a hole in a wooden floor to make an enemy fall through the ceiling or destroy a non magic weapon that after an enemy is disarmed, or potentially all of the above if you want your enemies to have a REALLY bad day. In ADDITION to the damage. Keep an eye out for anything that might break if you use shatter mention it’s when you cast the spell and when you pick up the spell tell the dm to read this part of the DMG! I expect now that rimes binding ice has power crept shatter DMs will be more generous with how easy objects break when shattered since the creative use is the main thing it has going for it when it’s competition does the same damage in a bigger area and adds a condition

just a thought: Disarming strike with Shatter? That would be a fun synergy

I like that it also has utility to damage objects.

If you have excess gold and the Shatter spell, lay a trap for your enemies by putting jugs of alchemist's fire in key locations and then hit them with thunder damage and fire at the same time as the shatter spell destroys they alchemist's fire jugs.

What's your opinion on the light cantrip?

My favorite Bard spell. Love blasting people and their emplacement with it. Destroying buildings, walls, catapult, floors, and all constructs.

Seeing this video just gave me an idea, and now that I've watched the video through I can be sure you haven't said this, but the fact it damages objects can actually be great in combat too! The rules for destroying stuff are that if it's big you break it into individual 10ft. cubes, so this isn't just to destroy a dropped weapon, but destroy the very ground underneath your opponent's feet! Let's assume worst case scenario, you're outside in a field (aka not a balcony inside a building) and you centre your shatter on the ground where it happens to be perfectly contained in the centre of a 2x2 space of these destructible cubes. This is likely considered "resilient", meaning it has 27 hp. Unfortunately the max damage you can do is 24 but upcast to 3rd level and now you have a 3% chance to destroy the ground underneath someone! However, slap this on a lvl 5 Tempest Cleric and pump it with Destructive Wrath to get a 100% chance! Now what does destroying the ground underneath someone do? Well at a *minimum* they fall 10ft., thus they take 1d6 fall damage and land prone, trapping them in a 20x20x10 deep pit for the turn likely! But the best part? This happens regardless of their saving throw against the shatter!

I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but you read spell info in the same tone as chubbyemu's videos and I find it oddly satisfying

It's true greatest use is as intimidation, stop your heel, cast it into the ground, shatter the pavement, then make demands.

Tempest Cleric in my game is absolutely addicted to this spell, so much so that he uses as many of his spell slots and Channel Divinities on it as he can, and then runs out of spell slots for healing the party. It works, don't get me wrong, but he loses a lot of value when he's stuck in Shatter mode. The Sorcerer managed to cast Banishment on the dragon they were fighting, and he spent the one minute giving the Sorcerer and Wizard a single basic healing potion each. He didn't know what to do, since there was nothing to cast Shatter on and the spell would bring the dungeon down on top of them.

At 1:24 you demonstrate the range to be a 5x5 square. More accurately, it should be a 4x4 square, this way, it is "centered on a point", with a 10 ft radius.

Here's a question for GMs. With spells such as Thunderclap or Thunderwave, the spell description clearly states that the effect is audible out to a given distance (although it doesn't do harm outside of its actual AoE). Others, such as Booming Blade and Shatter, make no mention of the thunder damage being audible outside its AoE. Do you take this difference literally, applying RAW and treating the second pair of spells as inaudible to any creature not caught in it, or do you assume this is an oversight and apply consistency and realism, allocating an audibility range appropriate to the damage and/or spell level? If not the latter, do you also say that a Light spell (or indeed a Fireball) is not visible outside of its stated AoE because the spell descriptions make no mention of how many miles away either of these could be spotted from in the open on a clear, dark night?

It's also a good simple damage spell for npc casters who are too low level for fireball. Quick, to-the-point, not overly complicated, easy to describe and does just enough damage that players won't ignore it.

A campaign I ran for a recently had two players who used shatter a lot, a bard and a tempest cleric. Almost every fight one would go off, frequently maximized by the cleric, and frequently upcast. Final fight of the campaign the boss is vulnerable to thunder damage. What spells don't they cast almost the entire fight, shatter or any other thunder spell.

Pact Tactics!? Sounds like I'm getting advantage.

i was once in the under dark and the DM went into great detail while describing the cave area. the party was resting while i was on guard duty and a group of drow slavers showed up. i was a goliath bard with an attitude problem and went to face them alone. i cursed their name and everything they stood for casting shatter on the many stilagtites on the cave ceiling killing all but 2 of the 8 drow. then my character killed the remaining 2 in armed combat. by the time any of the party noticed the commotion i was already returning to camp victorious.

When I make bards, my go-to damage spells are generally Dissonant Whispers and Shatter. I have nearly taken out Wererats by myself with that combo.

As a GM I like to lean into the utility of shatter so I grant it auto vulnerability against objects. It goes from just being ok damaging spell to making the party think up some crazy shenanigans.

Once my party and I were walking into a room where we knew a bunch of enemies were setting up a ambush from behind cover I a wizard a second wizard and our bard strolled in and all cast shatter one afrer the other before the enemies and killed everything in the room almost instantly only a single bugbear surived and was on 1hp promptly surrendering to our paladin after he gave the coldest one liner.

Could an order cleric use their CD to cause enemies to drop weapons then quicken shatter?

what damage spells should you upcast

I like the less cartoony kobold a lot here!

Be me: level 6 Great Old One Pact of the Chain Warlock. Me and the homies are chasing down some orc assassin. His business partner, a manticore appears just in time to stop his orc buddy from being 4v1 to death. Manticore is flying under the cliff of a rocky mountain. I get 21 for initiative when manticore obviously isn’t friendly. I go first. I cast shatter with the center point between the manticore and the cliff. Manticores con save is a 1. RAW doesn’t include spell critical hit damage, that’s up to the DM. DM allows it, to account for falling cliff face. Spell shreds the wings of manticore, he falls, and rocks falls on him. Almost a one shot. DM noticeably saddened by what he thought was going to be a tough fight being so easily won. Fellow DM playing in our campaign “feels bad for him” and his halfing bard character uses cure wounds on the manticore as a friendly gesture to get it on our side. Manticore uses new HP to maul the halfling bard, almost killing him. Point is, shatter works nicely in most cases.

Was once tossed in jail by some guards, stared the jailer right in the face as I subsequently broke the bars and his eardrums.

I know you like the spell casters, how do you feel about way of four elements monk? comparing there spell casting ability to that of a warlock as their a short rest class?

Question, why do you always go for the square radius?