Sickening radiance spell - murderfest?

[LVOD]

So I was just reading up on the “Sickening radiance” spell and I noticed it causes exhaustion levels in addition to damage.

So... correct me if I’m wrong, but if you can keep a group of creatures in its area for six turns they die from exhaustion correct? Whats more they’re making their checks at disadvantage after they fail the first one.

Granted, most creatures would already be dead by then from the recurring damage, but thats an awfully sure-fire way to kill a large group of creatures regardless of their power, right?

[Aett_Thorn]

Well, each creature gets a save to take half damage and avoid the exhaustion level each turn. And the exhaustion penalty applies to CHECKS, not SAVES, so they're not making their saves at disadvantage after the first failure.

[Rogerdodger557]

To really make it a murderfest, the caster should be an evoker, with some grapplers holding the targets inside the area.

[Unoriginal]

So I was just reading up on the “Sickening radiance” spell and I noticed it causes exhaustion levels in addition to damage.

So... correct me if I’m wrong, but if you can keep a group of creatures in its area for six turns they die from exhaustion correct? Whats more they’re making their checks at disadvantage after they fail the first one.

Granted, most creatures would already be dead by then from the recurring damage, but thats an awfully sure-fire way to kill a large group of creatures regardless of their power, right?

If you can maintain a large group of creature within an AOE for 6 rounds with them being unable to retaliate stop your spell, avoid the damages and other effects or just leave the AOE, then it's going to be a murderfest no matter which spell you use.

[Naanomi]

It is a great spell for flushing even powerful people out of hiding though for just that reason

[Mikal]

To really make it a murderfest, the caster should be an evoker, with some grapplers holding the targets inside the area.

Make one of the grapplers a cleric with Spirit Guardians to complete it?

[Rogerdodger557]

Make one of the grapplers a cleric with Spirit Guardians to complete it?

Maybe. They could be lucha bards, or really strong rogues.

[Mikal]

Maybe. They could be lucha bards, or really strong rogues.

I was more thinking about adding the Spirit Guardian damage in there, so that, even if they break free and have a crapton of HP to survive the overlapping auras, now they're moving at half speed in case they break free.

[Dudewithknives]

Last campaign our sorcerer loved this spell, I was playing a warlock and would drop Hunger of Hadar in the middle of the sickening radiance and kept repelling blast people into it.


It was solid gold in a narrow area like inside a castle, cave, or courtyard.

Not as great against very fast enemies or in wide open areas.

[LVOD]

After four rounds of exhaustion your max hp is halved as well, so thats ... pretty significant.

If your max hp drops does your current hp drop as well? Do you preserve the damage or the number of hitpoints?

[jaappleton]

You need to somehow Concentrate on Sickening Radiance while have your enemies stay in it. Possibly by being Restrained, or with Fear (They can't run toward you, right?)

Aasimar Paladin of Treachery would work, since they're Resistant to Radiant if they do happen to be in the blast, and their aura prevents enemies from moving while Feared so they HAVE to stay in it. Or Dragonborn with Dragon Fear works equally good.

[Lord8Ball]

Well, the best way for this to work though somewhat expensive is to store sickening radiance in a glyph of warding to remove concentration requirement and then cast wall of force on the only exit to a closed room. I'm not sure you can use a metamagic on the stored spells, but I found nothing saying it doesn't work so try extended if you have it.

[Xethik]

You need to somehow Concentrate on Sickening Radiance while have your enemies stay in it. Possibly by being Restrained, or with Fear (They can't run toward you, right?)

Aasimar Paladin of Treachery would work, since they're Resistant to Radiant if they do happen to be in the blast, and their aura prevents enemies from moving while Feared so they HAVE to stay in it. Or Dragonborn with Dragon Fear works equally good.

Paladin of Conquest, not Treachery. But yeah, that's an interesting idea. Especially if the fear effect in question requires you to be out-of-sight to resave, but I think Sickening Radiance may be overkill in that situation.

[Sirithhyando]

Well, if the targets are of the type that can be affected, then find a way to cast magic circle and put them inside. Of course, cast the magic circle to prevent them from going out of it.
Then you have an hour to have fun with this spell. :smallsmile:

[LeonBH]

If you can maintain a large group of creature within an AOE for 6 rounds with them being unable to retaliate stop your spell, avoid the damages and other effects or just leave the AOE, then it's going to be a murderfest no matter which spell you use.

Yes, this is true, but Sickening Radiance makes doing this simpler.

After their first failed save, they make ability checks with disadvantage. Grapplers and Evard's Black Tentacles and Maximilian's Earthen Grasp get an advantage. Effects that prone creatures become easier to use.

After their second failure, their speed is halved. Throw in difficult terrain via Spirit Guardians to ensure no one can escape. Maybe a Plant Growth as well, which stacks with difficult terrain.

After their third failure, they will make the rest of their saves with disadvantage.

After their fifth failure, they literally can't move anymore. No use trying to escape now.

After their sixth failure, they all die.

[Dudewithknives]

Yes, this is true, but Sickening Radiance makes doing this simpler.

After their first failed save, they make ability checks with disadvantage. Grapplers and Evard's Black Tentacles and Maximilian's Earthen Grasp get an advantage. Effects that prone creatures become easier to use.

After their second failure, their speed is halved. Throw in difficult terrain via Spirit Guardians to ensure no one can escape. Maybe a Plant Growth as well, which stacks with difficult terrain.

After their third failure, they will make the rest of their saves with disadvantage.

After their fifth failure, they literally can't move anymore. No use trying to escape now.

After their sixth failure, they all die.

The issues I have seen is that I have never had a combat in 5e so far that lasted 6 rounds anyway.

[LeonBH]

The issues I have seen is that I have never had a combat in 5e so far that lasted 6 rounds anyway.

I have. In a hack and slash, when the DM is trying to overwhelm the party, combat can get up to 6 rounds easily.

I suppose it's a question of efficiency. Can you pull off a 6 round combat while spending fewer resources? If you have the tactics to pull it off, Sickening Radiance wins out. Else, don't use it.

EDIT: By overwhelm, I mean a budget XP almost twice the Deadly threshold.

[Dudewithknives]

I have. In a hack and slash, when the DM is trying to overwhelm the party, combat can get up to 6 rounds easily.

I suppose it's a question of efficiency. Can you pull off a 6 round combat while spending fewer resources? If you have the tactics to pull it off, Sickening Radiance wins out. Else, don't use it.

EDIT: By overwhelm, I mean a budget XP almost twice the Deadly threshold.

Longest fight our group has been in was when we ran OotA, and honestly the fight only laster as long as it did because one of our players completely misread what Sleet Storm did and everyone fought with disadvantage the whole time, because he thought it was funny and did not stop concentrating on it.

[Mikal]

The issues I have seen is that I have never had a combat in 5e so far that lasted 6 rounds anyway.

So does your DM just have a few guys go wading in to get slaughtered? Any group of characters with any tactics should be able to last 6 rounds.

[Unoriginal]

Yes, this is true, but Sickening Radiance makes doing this simpler.

After their first failed save, they make ability checks with disadvantage. Grapplers and Evard's Black Tentacles and Maximilian's Earthen Grasp get an advantage. Effects that prone creatures become easier to use.

After their second failure, their speed is halved. Throw in difficult terrain via Spirit Guardians to ensure no one can escape. Maybe a Plant Growth as well, which stacks with difficult terrain.

After their third failure, they will make the rest of their saves with disadvantage.

After their fifth failure, they literally can't move anymore. No use trying to escape now.

After their sixth failure, they all die.

I don't call the use of 5 additional spells or of 1 grappler per enemy to be simpler.

It's using a lot of ressources, not to mention how:

a) enemies can still fight and attack, and if they can't escape their grapplers/the spell that keep them in place for several rounds by hitting them, they're probably going to use any ranged option to try and hit whoever they identify as the Radiance's caster, even if it implies throwing their melee weapons as improvised projectiles

b) you can use either more spells to keep the enemies in place, or take one of the few options that'd make the grapplers not be affected by the AoE themselves.

c) in case there are enemies who aren't in the AoE, or who aren't neutralized despite being in it, the whole thing can easily collapse, because you're investing a lot of the party's actions in that combo, which mean it's hard to deal with those who aren't affected

d) this involve a lot of saves to get rolled. The more saves, the more chances to succeed, even with disadvantage and monster stats vs PC spell DC. So it's pretty hard to pull off.

It's not a bad spell or plan to use this spell, true, but it's not great either.

As I said, if you're able to maintain a large group of enemies within an AoE for 6 rounds without them being able to avoid it, end the spell, or escape, it's likely going to be a murderfest. But so is anything that requires you to do something harmful to enemies for 6 rounds without them being able to resist.

[LeonBH]

Longest fight our group has been in was when we ran OotA, and honestly the fight only laster as long as it did because one of our players completely misread what Sleet Storm did and everyone fought with disadvantage the whole time, because he thought it was funny and did not stop concentrating on it.

Sounds fun. Do you think Sickening Radiance would have ended that fight in 6 rounds?


I don't call the use of 5 additional spells or of 1 grappler per enemy to be simpler.

It's using a lot of ressources, not to mention how:

a) enemies can still fight and attack, and if they can't escape their grapplers/the spell that keep them in place for several rounds by hitting them, they're probably going to use any ranged option to try and hit whoever they identify as the Radiance's caster, even if it implies throwing their melee weapons as improvised projectiles

b) you can use either more spells to keep the enemies in place, or take one of the few options that'd make the grapplers not be affected by the AoE themselves.

c) in case there are enemies who aren't in the AoE, or who aren't neutralized despite being in it, the whole thing can easily collapse, because you're investing a lot of the party's actions in that combo, which mean it's hard to deal with those who aren't affected

d) this involve a lot of saves to get rolled. The more saves, the more chances to succeed, even with disadvantage and monster stats vs PC spell DC. So it's pretty hard to pull off.

It's not a bad spell or plan to use this spell, true, but it's not great either.

As I said, if you're able to maintain a large group of enemies within an AoE for 6 rounds without them being able to avoid it, end the spell, or escape, it's likely going to be a murderfest. But so is anything that requires you to do something harmful to enemies for 6 rounds without them being able to resist.

They were just examples in my effort to list as many viable options as I could. Besides, you would be using those spells during a regular combat sans Sickening Radiance, anyway.

As I said above, it's a question of do you have the group tactics to make the fight last 6 rounds and spend less resources in the process? If so, Sickening Radiance wins out. Every new round is a free new status effect for everyone in the AoE, after all.

To address your bullet points:

a) very true. It seems like the best time to see if this tactic will work is at round 1. In case of improvised ranged attacks though, I think that's not a high chance to hit due to lack of proficiency bonus on the attack roll.

b) once again, true. You have to admit though, having a raging Barbarian grappling two people in the area is cool. There are sustainable ways to sustain people in that area without Sculpt Spell or Careful Spell: the Resistance cantrip, Bardic Inspiration, his natural Con save proficiency, Rage (to cancel disadvantage even after failing their first ability check)...

c) correct. This is why you'd have to evaluate if Sickening Radiance is worth it before pulling off the combo, and not use it if you don't think you can't sustain it

d) while true, the same problem exists for other AoE spells as well. There's always lots of rolls made for any AoE spell. Of course, Hypnotic Pattern can achieve a similar effect.

[Rickety Stick]

According to Jeremy Crawford, Sculpt Spell is only intended to provide safety the turn the spell is cast https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/07/14/evocation-wizard-casts-storm-sphere-and-uses-sculpt-spell-on-ally-in-effect/. Because of this it could be hard to have grapplers keep the enemies in place if the Dm runs the feature that way, though a grappler barbarian would still be able to grapple pretty well even without protection.

[Mikal]

According to Jeremy Crawford, Sculpt Spell is only intended to provide safety the turn the spell is cast https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/07/14/evocation-wizard-casts-storm-sphere-and-uses-sculpt-spell-on-ally-in-effect/. Because of this it could be hard to have grapplers keep the enemies in place if the Dm runs the feature that way, though a grappler barbarian would still be able to grapple pretty well even without protection.

He also said RAW it works for all the saves, so probably best to use it RAW until/unless errata comes out.
After all, he may have intended it to be X, but that doesn't mean everyone agreed with him.

[Rickety Stick]

He also said RAW it works for all the saves, so probably best to use it RAW until/unless errata comes out.
After all, he may have intended it to be X, but that doesn't mean everyone agreed with him.

That's getting into RAW vs RAI territory, it's probably better to let dm's decide how they want to run it.

[Mikal]

That's getting into RAW vs RAI territory, it's probably better to let dm's decide how they want to run it.

You're the one who recommended using the RAI first to DMs. Just pointing out that the RAI in this case completely goes against the RAW, and no errata has ever been put out for it, so the only person who considered it RAI is the guy posting it.

EDIT: Well, ok maybe not specifically recommended it. I read a little more into your response, conflating "if DMs run it this way" as "DMs should run it this way". Sorry about that.

[LeonBH]

According to Jeremy Crawford, Sculpt Spell is only intended to provide safety the turn the spell is cast https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/07/14/evocation-wizard-casts-storm-sphere-and-uses-sculpt-spell-on-ally-in-effect/. Because of this it could be hard to have grapplers keep the enemies in place if the Dm runs the feature that way, though a grappler barbarian would still be able to grapple pretty well even without protection.

I think even if the Barbarian only had one turn to auto-save, that would be enough. But Careful Spell would work on all the saves anyway.

[Rickety Stick]

You're the one who recommended using the RAI first to DMs. Just pointing out that the RAI in this case completely goes against the RAW, and no errata has ever been put out for it, so the only person who considered it RAI is the guy posting it.
What i said was that if a dm has read what Jeremy Crawford has written, they might make sculpt spell less beneficial while using sickening radiance. I never said anything about how i think a dm should run the feature.

Edit: Opps xD, Thanks for the apology.

[Mikal]

What i said was that if a dm has read what Jeremy Crwaford has written, they might make sculpt spell less beneficial while using sickening radiance. I never said anything about how i think a dm should run the feature.

Yup. I edited my reply before you posted this. Now you're just being mean about it! (note: he's not being mean about it)

[Tanarii]

If you can maintain a large group of creature within an AOE for 6 rounds with them being unable to retaliate stop your spell, avoid the damages and other effects or just leave the AOE, then it's going to be a murderfest no matter which spell you use.Yeah, that was my first thought too.


The issues I have seen is that I have never had a combat in 5e so far that lasted 6 rounds anyway.Of the top of my head, my norm for Deadly battles is 5-6 rounds. I started tracking it a while ago because of people always claiming 5e D&D combat is so few rounds, so fast. Which it absolutely is for Easy or Medium battles, a Medium battle might go 3 rounds, 4 if it's really tactically complex. I'll see if I can dig up my numbers.

[XmonkTad]

Ah! An exhaustion mage! I was just thinking about one. Sickening radiance is pretty much it for causing exhaustion, so in that sense it's really good. However, it is limited by needing concentration to maintain the exhaustion, rather than giving "real" needs-a-long-rest-to-recover exhaustion.

I would try and see if I could get this on some sort of storm sorc/tempest Cleric that used booming blade to smack people back into the AoE and let them get punished by booming blade again when they try and move out.

[Dudewithknives]

Sounds fun. Do you think Sickening Radiance would have ended that fight in 6 rounds?



They were just examples in my effort to list as many viable options as I could. Besides, you would be using those spells during a regular combat sans Sickening Radiance, anyway.

As I said above, it's a question of do you have the group tactics to make the fight last 6 rounds and spend less resources in the process? If so, Sickening Radiance wins out. Every new round is a free new status effect for everyone in the AoE, after all.

To address your bullet points:

a) very true. It seems like the best time to see if this tactic will work is at round 1. In case of improvised ranged attacks though, I think that's not a high chance to hit due to lack of proficiency bonus on the attack roll.

b) once again, true. You have to admit though, having a raging Barbarian grappling two people in the area is cool. There are sustainable ways to sustain people in that area without Sculpt Spell or Careful Spell: the Resistance cantrip, Bardic Inspiration, his natural Con save proficiency, Rage (to cancel disadvantage even after failing their first ability check)...

c) correct. This is why you'd have to evaluate if Sickening Radiance is worth it before pulling off the combo, and not use it if you don't think you can't sustain it

d) while true, the same problem exists for other AoE spells as well. There's always lots of rolls made for any AoE spell. Of course, Hypnotic Pattern can achieve a similar effect.

Sickening radiance would not have helped much for the one long fight we had because it only lasted that long because of the stupid sleet storm our druid cast, and the fog cloud the enemy put out due to some kind of poison gas machine.

We spent multiple rounds slipping and falling down or missing due to concealment. If our druid had not cast sleep storm the fight would have lasted 3 rounds tops, the enemies were not that tough.

[Malifice]

So does your DM just have a few guys go wading in to get slaughtered? Any group of characters with any tactics should be able to last 6 rounds.

Around 5 rounds have been my experience, in a campaign that has spanned 3 years and run to 20th.

I cleave generally to the Encounter building guidelines in the DMG.