There's a tactical wrinkle to the Sleep spell that you guys didn't mention: it is one of the very few crowd control effects that doesn't allow a saving throw. As long as the hit points of the target aren't above the threshold, the spell just works (barring charm immunity).
It's super useful in tier 1 of play, but it becomes obsolete pretty fast. Monsters have a lot of HP, upcasting doesn't scale well, and when there's multiple smaller monsters is doesn't affect the ones you probably wanted to.
Im running for 11year old new players with pre gens, 3 games in and the Sorcerer has cast Sleep each combat on a single enemy. 100% effective. Love it.
Yes, but even if it was a save, using your action to just TRY to get rid of the frightened condition mean the affected creature will probably not do much before being killed if it is a martial or an attack roll based caster. Best 1st lvl smite spell IMO.
I really love your cantrips and spells deep dives but can I make a suggestion? Could you put the spell description box underneath you for a longer time or maybe as longer as you are discussing it? It would really help to look at range, casting time, school of magic, etc as you are talking about it. I can’t wait till level 2!
Yeees i agree like when i have some thought or an idea strikes my mind usually end up serching it in 5etools and would be very helpfull to see it in a corner of the screen or something like that
Something that you didn’t notice with wrathful smite is that you make a wisdom CHECK to try and end the effect, NOT a saving throw. Because the creature is frightened, they have disadvantage on the check.
I love Tasha's Hideous Laughter because when I played as a caster, I would make a dad joke/pun in-character as the verbal component and now as a DM I make my players do the same thing. 😂
The best part is, the verbal component doesn’t HAVE to be funny a joke or a pun. I find it almost as funny to have a guard absolutely lose their shit over over a super bland or actively bad joke that makes the party groan. Plus, you could flavor the saving throw at the end of the character’s turns as the caster attempting to keep them laughing, by trying to draw it out or explain the joke. Then, when a target succeeds on a saving throw, you can hav it so they get super offended by the caster’s remarks to snap them out of their laughing fit.
There are few good 1st Level Spells for a Wizard if the DM keeps running you against single entity encounters - Hideous Laughter becomes almost mandatory to do much in these situations. Other classes can get other Spells, so I wouldn't say go out of your way for it, so yeah A rank seems about right.
Never seen people rate Wrathful Smite so low before! Also you two missed that the creature has to use an action to make a Wisdom skill check not a save to end the effect it definitely is an amazing spell
@@mattlockshin4744 & @robertlavallee8358 Yep, I was coming here to say just that. It's not great that they get an initial wisdom save & you need to hit them. It can sometimes be challenging to land. But once you do, they are probably frightened till they are dead or managed to flee fully out of the combat. I played a Conquest Hexadin that used this pretty heavily all the way to War 1 / Pal 16 before the campaign ended. In that entire time, I saw a creature break out of it after it landed once or twice tops. It is by far the stickiest Fear effect in the game.
Monty, discussing Totem Barbarians having Speak With Animals: 'Weeeell, it's just a smidgen of utility of investigation, nobody ever uses it'. Monty, discussing Speak With Animals: 'It's so cool, it's S tier, it's the best spell in the game, it's so good for investigation!' (and by the way, yes, you forgot the totem barbarians when you were listing everyone it was available to!)
What a difference Baldur's Gate 3 makes. In all honesty though, I think Monty is completely right. DMs should be putting the work in to make this an S tier spell, unfortunately up until BG3 came out, most people didn't realize how to do this. Hopefully that will change.
@@aniqueevans1547 larian studio has dozens of animals to talk to with speak with animals and that game came out in 2017-2018. Idk why everyone only thinks of BG3 when so many other video games even by the same game developers showed you how to create better NPCs. This has nothing to do with BG3 and this has everything to do with DMs being low IQ or lazy. Examples have been around WAY BEFORE BG3..... Same people who made BG3 made divinity 2 and they had 2 permanent animals follow you from first 5 minutes of the game until the final 5 minutes of the game and they had dozens and dozens of lines and even quests. BG3 gets way to much praise when Divinity 1 and Divinity 2 has been out forever now with the SAME core rules and mechanics.
The thing is, crits happen infrequently enough that Silvery Barbs is basically ensuring that nobody in the party almost ever suffers a crit. Sure, the caster could be out of 1st level spell slots or it could be that 1 in 20 situation where the attacker rolls a 20 again, but crits on the party will become so very rare.
I like using Silvery Barbs offensively, myself. One time, a boss could've downed multiple party members with a Cloudkill. My Sorcerer ended up beaning her to force a Concentration save, then make it at technical Disadvantage with Silvery Barbs, she nat 1'd, and the Cloudkill was dispelled.
Crits happen a little to often especially online. Unfortunately most people in party have way to resist crits like barbarian, uncanny dodge, and adamantine armor. Anymore I keep it to make someone fail my spell saves.
I used Silent Image to avoid two guards by putting an image of the empty hallway in front of us. Totally channeled the kremlin scene from Mission Impossible. Then used disguise self to mimic one of those guards moments later.
Tashas Hideous Laughter is my favorite legendary resistance counter, do you become incapacitated and prone or burn a legendary resistance, I find that nearly always the DM will burn that resistance. All it costs you is a first level slot, the spell is good at all levels of play for that reason, also because it does no damage I don't feel bad using it on the commoner or city watch type that I wouldn't want to kill, but I can tell a corny joke and have them in stitches on the ground and not feel like I made an enemy.
@@solar4planeta923 even an ancient dragon can be incapacitated and is not immune to the prone condition so 3 times and they have no legendary resistances left. It works especially well if they are flying.
I have used Tashas Hidous Laughter up until 15th leve in games. The fact that it takes out any create that is smart enough to have a sens of humor, and does that without any actually typed condition a creature could be immune to can be absolutely huge.Creatures can be immune to paralysed (and/orbe non-humanoid and need a 5th level spell) Creature cant be immung to Tashas, as long es they are smart enough. Regarding Wrathful smite: The targets tages an Action to make a wisdom CHECK to shake of the fighten This is a HUGE opportuntiy cost and makes it much harder to shake off, as it can be a) debuffed and b) wisdom save proficiency doesnt help.
Wrathful Smite is one of my favorite spells. What I love most about Tasha's Hideous Laughter is that it will make a spellcaster lose concentration on whatever they're concentrating on. So many of our fights end up being really focused on trying to get a spellcaster to stop concentrating on a spell (especially if it's something like Dominate Person on a party member), and Tasha's Hideous Laughter comes up clutch in those situations.
My favorite use of silent image is silent spell and make an image of a displacer beast, even when they figure out it's an illusion, they are still going to be looking for a real displacer beast which uses an illusion to hunt . It does take some dm buy in like any illusion spell but it makes sense in lore .
I found a surprising use for witchbolt in BG3. The fact that it persists on a specific target was very helpful in the Auntie Ethel fight. I always knew which was the real Auntie Ethel.
it is still ultimately worthless in the fight, because you can just look at the intiative order and see who the real ethel is(she is greyed out after she clones herself), or use magic missile to destroy the clones
Wrathful smite is better than most give it credit for. It is a very sticky spell in that the monster is making a wisdom check not a saving throw to remove the condition which makes it much much harder to get out of. As stated this is fantastic for conquest paladins as it is also a damage bump from their aura that stays on reliably.
My main thing with silvery barbs: probably should be no lower than a 2nd level spell, so you get a couple uses out of it but after 3 uses now you have to decide if you want to spend a 3rd level spell slot on it. The other is it should probably be triggered by witnessing a roll happen, not by knowing it was a failure, so you have to inflict it before you know it you needed it like other features like heightened spell metamagic
I think silvery barbs was too much for a 1st level spell, I'd be more fine with it being a second level spell so that those multiclassing would need to put a bit more investment in getting it.
Certainly it should be triggered before the result is known. Even waiting until you can ‘negate a Crit’ like the Dudes suggest seems inappropriate for a Reaction.
RAW you don't know that the crit is a crit rather than a hit - you only are supposed to know success vs failure, not the rolled number. But that's... not how humans work 😅
Tasha's Hideous Laughter will always be an S-Tier for me, ever since I played through Storm King's Thunder and successfully used it on every dragon we faced, including saving our airship from a dragon attack by making it fall 500 feet to the ground XD
What if witch bolt was basically a line spell you could cast on an ally so that anyone that gets in between the line get zapped. So you could run around clotheslining enemies with this lightning tether 🤔
Despite having used Tasha's Hideous Laughter a lot I never realized that an incapacitated creature cannot concentrate on spells. So being able to potentially take a caster concentrating on a big spell out with a 1st level spell is really good on top of them being prone.
I like the idea of a Necromancer using Unseen Servant the same way it’d use their skeletons and zombies. Flavor wise, it’s like they’re summoning a sort of ghost.
Silvery barbs is X Tier - exiled from my table. Especially since we use spell points, it's way too good. I suspect players wouldn't like it if suddenly a bunch of NPCs started casting it.
@@RLKmedic0315 yes it does lol either way it’s their table, if it works there and people don’t have a problem with it then it’s fine. Our dm never banned it but we never used it, too cheap. And the higher level you are the better it becomes, too much value ina single 1st level REACTION spell.
@@JinJinJinJinJinJinJinJinJinJin Yeah I agree, their are some spells that are fine when used by players but need to be very carefully considered as a DM. Like casting hold person on the barbarian and making them sit out of the whole fight can really suck, but if the party wizard casts hold person on one of the enemies theirs's no problem, and the DM can still have fun playing all the rest of the enemies.
Newer fan, but i was wondering if you were gonna cover the ua 8 monk. Since most people say they fixed it. Would love to see your guys' thoughts on it.
Are we officially not getting this series for higher level spells? Been four months without 2nd level spells Was looking forward to the full series. But maybe it didn't get the feedback they wanted.
@15:00 Silvery Barbs lets you, for the cost of a reaction and a level 1 spell slot, effectively immediately recast a level 9 spell. You cast level 9, they save, you silvery barbs (effectively like casting the spell again). I think that's why some people think it's broken.
This. The spell as a reaction essentially gives you another spell slot on offensive spells or effects. For a level 1 reaction spell slot being able to essentially recast spells is way too powerful It's essentially the same reason they're nerfing the old Twinned Spell metamagic, even though they have 2 different use cases
Not in most cases, I don't think their are many 9th level spells that effect a single creature, and the ones that do are generally not the best ones (like using true polymorph on an enemy which is pretty bad). Most use cases would be, for instance, casting psychic scream on 10 enemies, 4 of them succeed and you make one reroll, potentially adding one more enemy and making the spell a bit more effective.
@@luka2784 Even a 3rd level spell. Any save/suck spell. Who wouldn't trade a level 1 slot for another level 3,4,5+ slot. I'm not saying that *I* wouldn't allow it, I'm just saying that this is the reasoning for saying it's OP/unbalanced.
Speak with animals FTW. I’ve always tried to create memorable moments as a DM when PCs use this. Mercer taught me this and it has served me well creating fun at the table.
@@ZachC-130 if they said it I must have missed it and they must have only said it once (when reading the spell) because they definitely didn't focus on it lol
It would be interesting to hear them talk through, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be without putting specifying situations on it (i.e. best creatures for a cliffside ambush for 3-4th level characters) because I think many of them are even more dependent on the situation and the world than spells. Even that doesn't account for the variety of creatures you might throw into a single encounter I'd check out their video on unique low level monsters if you're starting out with a low level group and want to avoid the obvious picks. They've also got a deadly low level monsters video as well as one for mid levels. You can also look up creatures by CR and just look at stat blocks to find something that fits your vision.
@@V-vision The thing is I've watched those videos and I'm not looking for one monster. I suggested this because I want to know what monster types are the most viable to make a story arc around with. That's the difference.
@@OneWingedAngelsBand Ah ok, my mistake. Personally, I think it's more a matter of what you want to do with your arc and who it's for, but good luck with designing your campaign!
Another tangential thing that makes Silvery Barbs even better is you can get it on basically anyone using the Fey Touched feat, which is itself already a great feat that isn't really gonna cause any problems for the person taking it; it barely slows down progression because it's a half-feat, and gives you free Misty Step, which is also a great spell
I played in a campaign in which I and another player both took Silvery Barbs. In the beginning there was some debate about whether it should be banned or nerfed or something. After a few sessions, we all agreed that it looks much stronger on the paper than in actual gameplay. Yes, it definitely is on the strong side, but it is also definitely not OP or game-breaking or anything like that. For everyone who considered banning this spell at his/her table, I can only say: playtest it first.
Thanks for saying so. I consider it setting specific, so have effectively banned it if we're not playing Strixhaven, but that was because it seems so meta to me, not related to anything the characters would experience. But it sounds like a lot of people like using it as a support spell and I do like teamwork a lot.
Sleep needs to be higher. When you get it at Lvl. 1, its simply able to wipe put half of the adventure party. It takes and action to wake a slept ally. At level 1, getting slept cast ON your party is rough... Speaking from experience.
The cheering when I use silvery barbs against an enemy who are critting against a squishy party member... and I give the advantage to our rogue, who can use it to sneak attack... it is really nice :)
Just want to say : i loved that serie of videos. It took me awhile, but i just completed the entire thing. I know it must have required a tremendous amount of work, but i'm still hoping you'll find the motivation to cover 2nd and 3rd level spells as well : those are the most interesting choices in my opinion. (higher level spells lead to more obvious choices IMHO)
I love the idea of witch bolt, and homebrewed a small fix in the hopes that it can scale better: upcasting witch bolt increases all damage by 1d12 (both initial and sustained), and it also increases the reach of the spell by 10 feet. I haven't tested it yet, but I really want the spell to be better.
Imo the best way to use witchbolt is to quicken spell use your action for the extra damage that way even if they move out of range you've already gotten the initial damage and a second d12
Silvery Barbs potentially competes with Shield, so that's another tradeoff to consider. I love Zephyr Strike. We were exploring Phandalin for the first time when the Bard got into trouble with the Redbrands and got knocked down. Surrounded and too far away to just move in, my (melee) ranger used Zephyr Strike to zoom up to him and basicly hiraishingiri the Redbrand leader along the way.
Speak with animals is an S-tier spell if you use it on crows/ravens. They are highly inteligent, recognize faces, and can be easily bribed with nuts or shiny pebbles. They may not recognize "the king" but they recognize "the man with the shiny hat" and/or "the loud metal men" that escort him. Not to mention... what city doesn't have some form of corvid? (The underdark and other planes)
Floating Disk has great utility in moving bodies. Sometimes thats a drunk person who you need to tell you where he found the magical doodad in the forest - pop him on the disk and play hot and cold in the forest. Sometimes thats a stealth mission where you need those guards quickly moving without leaving you vulnerable. Sometimes its a petrified little girl who you really want to not get damaged while taking her to the swamp witch that can cure the petrification. The other thing is, lets be honest - Strength is a dump stat for near everyone that is not a Barbarian. If you keep track of equipment and weight, especially if you go Cleric dips for medium armor and shields, that weight can become an issue. Sure, maybe you have a DM who cannot be fussed with that and first quest rewards you with a Bag of Holding. Maybe they don't. Floating Disk for 500lbs (about 226kg) really alleviates that issue - as a ritual. Definitely B for me.
My Gloomstalker Battlemaster's name is Zephyr Wintersting. I didn't even know the spell existed when I named her. Having Zephyr cast Zephyr Strike is always a blast!
Another nice thing about Silent Image is that you can cast Minor Illusion alongside it to create sounds, since the cantrip doesn’t require concentration.
Zephyr Strike is a true sleeper pick of a spell, it gets overshadowed most of the time by Hunters Mark but a player leveraging it in the right way is almost impossible to stop. The mileage that you are able to get out of this spell from every single effect is amazing. I have this on a Paladin I'm playing and last fight we had the Wizard went down to the boss who then came right in front of me. I had Zephyr Strike already running though, so I got to just walk around her and go straight to the Wizard and Revivify them without any risk. To me, Zephyr Strike is an S Tier spell because its functionality and flavor are so perfect that I go out of my way to get it.
My rogue went out of his way to multiclass to get Zephyr Strike. Before that, I was always relying on steady aim + sneak attack + sharpshooter for damage, and when an enemy got up in my face I became useless (if I stay there I have disadvantage, if I disengage I can't get advantage, and as a squishy rogue I often couldn't afford to move away without disengaging; so all in all, I had no way to do sneak attack or to reliably land a shot with sharpshooter). Zephyr Strike turns out to be the perfect solution for that kind of situation.
I bumped silvery barbs up to 2nd level and have enjoyed it in my games since, not only using it as a dm but my players using it. In my mind it's clear and away better than shield and absorb elements (in most cases) because you have that 60ft range and can do so much, but it's not as good as counterspell. It also makes me happy to see them in a row like that, level 2 didn't have many fun reaction spells that i can recall
Not sure if you can really use Silvery Barbs to negate crits specifically. Unless your GM is one who calls out ‘crit’ when they roll one. I simply say ‘hit’ and then roll damage. And once dmg is announced the reaction opportunity has passed.
Bard Silent image, in the shadows soft flute with sparkles dancing in the moon light, in the sparkles are images of beautiful creatures beckoning you. the night Harker slept outside of the safe room in Castle Dracula his three wives appear.
So the thing about animals not knowing who someone is crows (who by they way live in wild and urban environments) can recognize and remember faces and can even pass on that information to other crows. So potentially you could get an entire murder of crows looking for someone (as long as they know that person beforehand). With that being said crows are probably smart enough to negotiate for a good reward.
25:28 I can't even exaggerate how much I agree with this statement. If the random squirrel you found inside a tree isn't a mafia boss sitting on a throne of acorns, isn't smoking a small rolled leaf or twig and isn't in the most stereotypical italian accent saying "It's nuts or nothing and i'm talking both ones.", than you aren't playing this game right.
The reason I don't allow Silvery Barbs at my table is because, for balance, if the players have it, so do their enemies. Silvery Barbs may feel good for the PCs when used to foil a crit, but it sucks all the fun out of the game when the same is done to them
One surprisingly good usage of witch bolt was CR3 Imogen twinning it as a pseudo upcast during early levels. That said, it’s not terribly difficult to make things serviceable: Scale the automatic damage with upcast and just end the connection, not the spell when broken. While you concentrate on it, you can make another attack roll to reestablish the connection. Incap might be a little too strong, but reducing speed to 0 wouldn’t be. Alternatively, you can extend the range to 60/90 feet so it takes a dash to leave.
Silvery is S not simply becuase the feature is strong but becuase it’s easy to get and becomes a problem in large volume. If u have 4 players and 2 have it that’s 2x the rolls you can stop. This can really shift the battle.
Thank you! The explanations alone are great let alone examples. Used Tasha’s hideous laughter to great effect on a dragon battle. Last spell left, allowed one member to escape its clutches as it was preparing to fly off, allowing our NPC troops to pin it down with large chains, and gave the main team time to focus on an ogre and 3 dark knights. By the time it’s chuckle fit was over, we had dealt with the mid-diff foes, our units had filled the defensive gaps, it had to use its action to escape its bonds and we all took one last hit which finally brought it down. If nothing else I think it’s a good cheap way to burn through legendary resistances; as our DM now knows that if given enough time to prepare, we can come up with a winning combination to prevent any sort of retaliation in the process. Also good for any large enemies with low wisdom. Not sure if there’s a way you could scale it, either by improving the conditional prompts to save, number of targets afflicted, duration, or even making it a “performance” to-hit spell atk.
Since unseen servant doesn’t take concentration and is a ritual cast spell, you can get several servants up at once. The first one washes the dishes, the second works on raking the leaves, etc. or they all work on one more complicated task
12 wizards arange themselves in order around a circle like a clock. They all have tensers disk active. They all stand 40 feet from each other. In initiative order, the one at the top of init sits on the lowest init order disk. Then 2nd in init sits on the disk of #1 init. #3 suts on number 2 disk. Finally, when initiative order gets to the last person, their disk catches up to them, pulling initiative #1 along. Top of initiative, #1 sits there and drags his disk, pulling #2. Repeat for the hour like a merry go round until the spell effect ends
Wrathful Smite after the initial save is an ability check. Which means if you are a Conquest Hexblade you can Wrathful Smite, and attack, then if they’re still frightened the next turn you Hex their Wisdom and they are left with 0 move making their check with disadvantage. Pretty nasty combo for enemies not immune to fear.
Quick thing, Wrathful Smite requires concentration to maintain after the initial attack, so you can't Hex it as well, but Frightened effect already applies disadvantage on all ability checks.
@@birubuYes but you don’t get the damage from Hex which is fine because many enemies are so controlled they are effectively dead but unfortunate because they’re not actually dead.
Silvery barbs is OP because it gives everyone heightened spell. One change I have been experimenting with is that if it’s a case of teamwork and another teammate helps you that’s fine, but YOU yourself cannot cast silvery barbs on a creature who succeeds on a saving throw against a spell you cast.
One thing you guys forgot to mention on wrathful smite is that the affected creature rolls a Wisdom check (not saving throw) to get rid of the effect, which it can't get proficiency or expertise from and it rolls with disadvantage because it's frightened, which in my opinion makes wrathful smite the best smite spell by far unless the enemy is immune to the frightened condition. Once it sticks, it's devastating for the enemy.
Silvery Barbs tale. Bard in our party is using the One Dnd playtest College Of Glamour and I'm a Sea Druid. So in addition to forcing monsters to reroll saves against my blasting spells since, and saving us from hard hits, AND granting advantage to one of our attack rolls, Saving throws, or ability checks. The Playtest Glamour bard is allowed to attempt to frighten or charm an enemy within 60 ft of himself whenever he uses an illusion or enchantment spell. So essentially as a reaction to damn near anything he can force a reroll on anything, grant advantage on anything, and attempt to charm or frighten any creature for a level 1 spell slot. Our DM literally was not prepared lmao
Silvery Barbs is really good, but I have seen people use it to negate that crit or to land that control spell and then get bodied by a monster because they couldn't cast shield. Just because it make people make choices to spend a reaction on, makes it an interesting spell in my book.
Sleep = no saving throws This spell is a definite S-tier spell, all you have to do as a player is pay attention and you’ll never miss. If your party has made about X damage and “it’s looking blooded” you should know how much you need to upcast the spell for it to work etc. Myself and another party member have cast this a bazillion times, it’s awesome.
All it takes is a DM that gives good enough descriptions on battle damage frfr. My party was fighting an Oni and it had 37 hit points. My bard cast level 2 sleep and rolled 38, essentially he did 38 damage and ended the combat lmao. The only reason we all stomped him afterwords while he was sleeping to finish him is because we didn't have a way to hold him non-lethaly lol. He did not survive the next onslaught of attacks after getting his turn skipped lmao
The thing about silvery barbs is that it has a meta aspect to it where you always know if a roll failed or succeeded, and that's more problematic than the actual use of the spell
Always... if you have spell slots and haven't used your reaction. Yeah, I'm playing a PBP campaign right now with people who thing everything is metagaming. This makes Shield worse (I have no idea if I'd be hit *without* using it), and would make Silvery Barbs insane. I don't have SB though - my DM would probably hate me for it.
I agree that Tenser's Floating Disk is a C... but one nice use of it is that it's a portable short rest. Let's say that you've had a combat encounter, and the rest of the party wants to keep hiking, but someone (the warlock maybe) really wants a short rest. You can cast the disk, the Warlock sits on it, and since the disk lasts one hour, they can relax and get their rest while the majority of the group keeps on moving.
Sleep has no savings throw and no concentration. That is very powerful especially for a level 1 spell. Upcast it to close a difficult fight as I don't think that even a dragon can resist it.
10th level ranger get hide in plain sight, which is crazy good with snare because of how many snares you can lay down and then just wait with like 40 stealth
Snare is a touch-range spell, but with a familiar could deliver it somewhere (as long as it was somewhere that no one is likely to spot or suspect a small animal dragging a bit of rope). I can picture a character that uses this and Silence to kidnap people on their own doorsteps.
Witch bolt just seems like the devs were asking themselves what spell they can have in place in the event that a low level sorc wants to take twin spell. Maybe home brew Witch Bolt so the target's movement is reduced by 10 feet and they may not take the dash action? I would probably also increase the spell's range and rule it that cover between the caster and the target only negates damage for that round if the caster cannot create a line of sight rather than ending the spell.
My most memorable Sleep experience: I was second level, in a watchtower, my Familiar flying overhead... The DM rolled once for a group of goblins to climb the tower and sneak around me and rolled really high (even though there was effectively no cover from the circling owl). So when I was surrounded by 6 goblins, I cast sleep on myself, guessing that they were all low hp, and I would give myself an avenue for escape... They all had higher hp than I did, and the DM said they "could tell I was casting an offensive spell" so slit my throat, even though all that happened is that they snuck up on me, and then I passed out 😝 That was the last session I played with that group 😝
First time I heard of the floating disk spell was in your Drakkenheim campaign, first season I think. River used it to haul some meteoric iron to elder Mr. Crowe, and it turned into Pluto’s new armor. Was smitten with the spell after that.
Kelly had something with using the Unseen Servant as a massage therapist. You actually don't need much force if you know what you're doing and use the proper techniques. In addition, myofascial work requires the lightest of touches, and it can have some pretty big effects. The servant could do a lot of really impactful work with little strength Source: my partner was a medical massage therapist for 7ish years
One of my favorite spells in the game, solely due to how my DM ran it is Speak with Plants! My Australian Harengon Ranger used it several times to talk to a flower at the scene of a murder, and a piece of coral entering the lair of an underwater entity. The flower, having been given an amount of sentience, immediately was thrown into an inescapable existential dread with a high pitched voice, screaming into the void. I loved it so much that I put him in my hat to keep talking to him later 😅 S tier spell
I'd like to hightlinght, in this video, the ending. The "hapiness" of having to cover all 2nd level spells, plus the fact they mentioned how this series was... how they started it all, just discusing things together. It was just sooo wholesome.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter drops someone prone and skips their turn setting up the entire turn for free melee. Even if they succeed on the saving throw they will still be prone since the save is at the end. It targets wisdom which is great for a cheap spell slot I think this is S tier tbh. It enables big Nova on a monster if your party can take advantage of it and negates one of it's turns so people can set up buffs or kill mobs. And as soon as they pass, everyone can jump them with advantage
I think they might be underestimating Floating Disk. If the floor is hazardous (lava, traps, fast flowing water, etc.) then this spell can be used to get the party over them. If you combine it with Levitate and Mage Hand then the party can now fly over those obstacles.
I loved watching this process and was pleasantly surprised to hear Monty give the one caveat use of the witch bolt spell. My last campaign I played a hobgoblin tempest clerc/sorcerer. I took the meta magic feat at some point and did exactly what you said and cast a 9th level witch bolt for maximum damage. Was so much fun doing 216 after twinning it.
I actually just had a game where Wrathful Smite was helpful. We were tasked with killing a young green dragon (we were a level 3 party, so this wasn’t an easy fight). The paladin then landed a Wrathful Smite on the dragon, which bought us the time to retreat. We long rested, and the next day we prepared ourselves better and took the dragon out. (Now that I think about it, Suggestion could’ve done the same thing since we were level 3, but Wrathful Smite got the job done.)
Silvery Barbs could break higher tier games (those that allow you to reach (without multi-classing) level 18) because then any given Wizard in the Party could easily choose to take Silvery Barbs as their "at will" 1st level spell and then...
Another huge problem with Tenser's Floating Disk is if you're in a campaign that doesn't bother with inventory management or encumbrance. It just isn't useful if the DM is letting you carry fifteen axes, seven shields, and an unconscious guard just as a free thing.
You missed hard on wrathful smite. Once the frightened condition is applied, the opponent has to spend an action to make a WIS ABILITY CHECK to break it, not a saving throw. This is important for two reasons: 1) it’s at disadvantage because of the frightened condition, so already the enemy has to choose between attacking at disadvantage with no end in sight or losing their attack to attempt to break it at disadvantage. 2) because it’s a Wisdom CHECK and not a save, the enemy does not get their saving throw proficiency added to the check. It is using raw wisdom and that’s it. That means, if you are lucky enough to frighten the enemy with 11 Wisdom but +6 saving throw proficiency (or have a silvery barbs user)…that enemy is going to have to make their future ability checks at +0 with disadvantage. This makes for a VERY sticky frightened condition for a lvl 1 spell slot AND you get to tack on some extra damage
