Spells too useless to prepare or learn

[Yora]

There are a good number of spells that seem so weak that I can't see why you wouldn't prepare or learn something else instead.

But I am still very new at 5th edition and have not seen most spells in action yet. Which ones do you consider so useless that there's no reason for them appearing on any spell lists?

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm gonna say the spell that everyone is thinking:

True Strike.

Costs an action and Concentration, explicitly says it has to be used for an attack on your next turn, and can only be cast on a target within 30 feet of you.

It does a good job of screwing everyone who ever thought of trying to use it. Arcane Tricksters are about as close as it gets to having a use for it by forcing Advantage for Sneak Attack, and they can get the same effect from their Hand as a Bonus Action at the same range for an attack on their current turn. So even if they DO use it for a minor gain, they are basically out of a cantrip once they hit the mid levels. The only other example I can think of is some kind of Wizard/Sorcerer who's launching an attack spell on the following turn, but they lose Concentration on anything they had before and they have to be within 30 feet of the target (relatively close range at high levels) in order to cast True Strike.

[Wildarm]

Witch Bolt is pretty much useless. Does a whopping single point more on average than a firebolt and the enemy can easily break the spell on their turn. It doesn't even scale on the continuous damage where it might be marginally useful against a grappled opponent. If a player of mine really wants to use it, I typically house rule it to only requires a bonus action to maintain and the range is 60' to break it. Full cover still does. Enemies can still break it easily enough but at least they have to waste an action to dash out of range.

[Man_Over_Game]

Witch Bolt is pretty much useless. Does a whopping single point more on average than a firebolt and the enemy can easily break the spell on their turn. It doesn't even scale on the continuous damage where it might be marginally useful against a grappled opponent. If a player of mine really wants to use it, I typically house rule it to only requires a bonus action to maintain and the range is 60' to break it. Full cover still does. Enemies can still break it easily enough but at least they have to waste an action to dash out of range.

You can Twin Witch Bolt and shock both targets, or you can use Fighter's Action Surge (Eldritch Knight, maybe?) to zap the target twice in the same turn. It's not a big deal, but it is a rare feature that you don't see until Sunbeam.

[JoeJ]

I'm gonna say the spell that everyone is thinking:

True Strike.

Costs an action and Concentration, explicitly says it has to be used for an attack on your next turn, and can only be cast on a target within 30 feet of you.

It does a good job of screwing everyone who ever thought of trying to use it. Arcane Tricksters are about as close as it gets to having a use for it by forcing Advantage for Sneak Attack, and they can get the same effect from their Hand as a Bonus Action at the same range for an attack on their current turn. So even if they DO use it for a minor gain, they are basically out of a cantrip once they hit the mid levels. The only other example I can think of is some kind of Wizard/Sorcerer who's launching an attack spell on the following turn, but they lose Concentration on anything they had before and they have to be within 30 feet of the target (relatively close range at high levels) in order to cast True Strike.

True Strike is useful if, for some reason, you can't effectively attack this round but expect that you will next round (maybe because you can't move far enough to reach the enemy and have no ranged attacks), or if you want to use some kind of special ammunition that you have only a limited number of. So not completely useless, but still pretty niche.

[Wildarm]

You can Twin Witch Bolt and shock both targets, or you can use Fighter's Action Surge (Eldritch Knight, maybe?) to zap the target twice in the same turn. It's not a big deal, but it is a rare feature that you don't see until Sunbeam.

Doubling(or quadrupling) down on spending more resources to prop up a bad spell is not a good idea. Better to just twin or action surge good spells. Or even firebolt for pretty much the same effect without using spell slots.

[Wildarm]

True Strike is useful if, for some reason, you can't effectively attack this round but expect that you will next round (maybe because you can't move far enough to reach the enemy and have no ranged attacks), or if you want to use some kind of special ammunition that you have only a limited number of. So not completely useless, but still pretty niche.

I've always felt True Strike should be a bonus action to cast but you can't take the attack action or cast a spell this round.

Spend a round preparing or moving, cast true strike at the end as you narrow your focus.

Still only marginally useful but handy if you are using a consumable or giving the help action.

Other option would be:

True Strike
Bonus action

The next attack roll you make before the end of your next turn has disadvantage. The following attack roll you make before the end of your next turn has advantage.

Sort of a break down their defenses for the first attack and then go for the jugular on it for the 2nd one.

[Spellbreaker26]

There's generally lots of really garbage cantrips. This is primarily because there's loads of competition for cantrips, at-will stuff is very important and you don't get a lot of choice especially at low levels.

Stuff like dancing lights (concentration and light is nearly strictly better) and resistance (how many times are you aware beforehand that you're going to be taking a saving throw?); then there are the merely subpar options like blade ward (just disengage) and the majority of attack cantrips that can be blocked by saving throws (exception is Sacred Flame before XGE, because it was the only offensive cleric cantrip, and Toll the Dead for having great damage and a good type).

[Sigreid]

I've always felt True Strike should be a bonus action to cast but you can't take the attack action or cast a spell this round.

Spend a round preparing or moving, cast true strike at the end as you narrow your focus.

Still only marginally useful but handy if you are using a consumable or giving the help action.

Other option would be:

True Strike
Bonus action

The next attack roll you make before the end of your next turn has disadvantage. The following attack roll you make before the end of your next turn has advantage.

Sort of a break down their defenses for the first attack and then go for the jugular on it for the 2nd one.

It should work like the blade cantrips where the attack that delivers it is part of casting the spell.

[No brains]

I don't quite think Augury is up to snuff with other future-telling spells, whatever people may think of them as a whole.

Forecasting 30 minutes in the future when travel times are measured in hours doesn't help you find the right way to go when lost. In other situations, it's generally just better to prep a 2nd level spell that will actually remedy a situation, rather than vaguely tell you if a situation would need remedy.

Best use I can think of for it is to train new players to prepare better. Augury will tell you that you should have prepared a different spell this morning, and at best that's a lens to focus hindsight.

[Griswold]

I've been trying to figure out why someone would ever want to cast Illusory Script, Feign Death, and Dream for several editions now. They might maybe be useful for the DM as a plot device, but even then it's kind of a stretch.

[Rukelnikov]

I got use out of True Strike in levels 5-9, I had a Ring of the Ram which I always used exclusively for the 6d10 attack, since I didn't wanna miss this attack I would quicken True Strike and next round prop the ring, it was a killer move :P

[Sigreid]

I've been trying to figure out why someone would ever want to cast Illusory Script, Feign Death, and Dream for several editions now. They might maybe be useful for the DM as a plot device, but even then it's kind of a stretch.

They're purely for screwing with people.

[sithlordnergal]

Snilloc's Snowball Swarm, its a 2nd level spell that does 3d6 Cold damage in a 5ft radius, and enemies can make a dex save for half. The only two things it has going for it are the cold damage and the fact it has a 90ft range. Outside of that, every other spell is better. For example:

Shatter has a larger area of effect, deals 3d8, harms objects, and does Thunder damage which fewer things resist. Meanwhile Burning Hands does the same damage in a larger area for a first level slot, and the only downside is a worse damage type.

---

Magic Weapon is pretty terrible too. Its okay if you are in an adventure with no magical items...but even then so many classes find ways to get past magic resistance that it isn't really needed. Off the top of my head:

- Devotion Paladin can do it with Channel Divinity

- Monks just have magic fists, and Kensai weapons automatically become magical

- Warlocks have tons of ways to get magic weapons like Pact of the Blade, an invocation, Pact of the Tome can take Shillelagh

- Forge Cleric can make one weapon magical

- Druids have Shillelagh

- Wizards, Sorcerers, and Bards can use cantrips

Really, the only ones who need the spell are Barbarians, Fighters, Rangers, and Rogues, and I am fairly sure Rangers can get magic weapons

[BigPixie]

Witch bolt + Plant growth could be fun although subpar, the DM could rule that the lightning lit the plants on fire for more fun. There are better options for this, but the recurring witch bolt damage would be spicy.

[Rukelnikov]

I've been trying to figure out why someone would ever want to cast Illusory Script, Feign Death, and Dream for several editions now. They might maybe be useful for the DM as a plot device, but even then it's kind of a stretch.

DREAM?!?! Dream is completely OP! Haunt your quarry all the time!

Illusory Script I used a lot in a campaign where I was basically behind enemy lines and sending reports back to HQ, It was 3.x I had Knowledge(cryptography) and added a layer of Illusory Script/Nystul's on top of it just to be safe(r?)

Feign Death I admit to never having used, but can understand it being a thing, coupled with contingency it may be very useful to... fake one's death...

[Man_Over_Game]

They're purely for screwing with people.

I've used Illusory Script as a player before. I used it to leave instructions to my Harper handler in broad daylight that nobody else could see.

Feign Death does well when combined with Contingency as a last-ditch effort to stay alive.

Additionally, many bad guys run away from some kind of teleportation effect, and it wouldn't be hard to gather some of their blood/hair for a use of Dream. They use Short and Long Rests just like you do, and preventing the BBEG from being allowed to recharge his spells after a hard combat at the cost of a level 5 spell slot is good value.

[BigPixie]

Magic Weapon is pretty terrible too. Its okay if you are in an adventure with no magical items...but even then so many classes find ways to get past magic resistance that it isn't really needed. Off the top of my head:

- Devotion Paladin can do it with Channel Divinity

- Monks just have magic fists, and Kensai weapons automatically become magical

- Warlocks have tons of ways to get magic weapons like Pact of the Blade, an invocation, Pact of the Tome can take Shillelagh

- Forge Cleric can make one weapon magical

- Druids have Shillelagh

- Wizards, Sorcerers, and Bards can use cantrips

Really, the only ones who need the spell are Barbarians, Fighters, Rangers, and Rogues, and I am fairly sure Rangers can get magic weapons

Now Spiritual weapon on the other hand.

[JoeJ]

DREAM?!?! Dream is completely OP! Haunt your quarry all the time!

Illusory Script I used a lot in a campaign where I was basically behind enemy lines and sending reports back to HQ, It was 3.x I had Knowledge(cryptography) and added a layer of Illusory Script/Nystul's on top of it just to be safe(r?)

Feign Death I admit to never having used, but can understand it being a thing, coupled with contingency it may be very useful to... fake one's death...

Dream is useful if you're on a mission to gather intelligence. You can use the benign form to report back whatever you find out. It's like Sending, but without the word limit and you can shape the dream environment to convey pictures too.

[Darkstar952]

I've been trying to figure out why someone would ever want to cast Illusory Script, Feign Death, and Dream for several editions now. They might maybe be useful for the DM as a plot device, but even then it's kind of a stretch.

I can give you a great one for Dream. My players used it on a beholder, causing it to create another beholder that it then fought. The players then took on the surviving wounded beholder. worth learning just for this, certainly not, worth using from a scroll, certainly.

[Yora]

I don't see why any warlock would ever learn enthrall.

You are probably only going to have two second level spells in total, unless there is something you like so much that you want to take it instead of a higher level spell later on. Darkness, hold person, invisibility, spider climb, and suggestion all would take priority for me. As would detect thoughts, and calm emotions.

I can see situation where it would be useful to shout "hey, everyone look at me and don't pay attention to other things while my friends are setting up the ambush or steal the thing we came for". But that doesn't justify not taking any of those other spells instead.

Not sure what to make of ray of enfeeblement. Getting a big strong monster to do only half damage with its attacks does have some appeal. But such a monster probably also has really good Constitution saves and for just one round it doesn't seem worth it. And again, for a warlock there are all these other spells you could take instead.

[stoutstien]

Of the top of my head Spells I have never seen used at a table:
Infestation
Witch bolt
Blight
Abi horrid withering
Becon of hope
Most of smite spells
Lem secret chest
Mord sword
Weird

[The Kool]

I don't quite think Augury is up to snuff with other future-telling spells, whatever people may think of them as a whole.

Forecasting 30 minutes in the future when travel times are measured in hours doesn't help you find the right way to go when lost. In other situations, it's generally just better to prep a 2nd level spell that will actually remedy a situation, rather than vaguely tell you if a situation would need remedy.

Best use I can think of for it is to train new players to prepare better. Augury will tell you that you should have prepared a different spell this morning, and at best that's a lens to focus hindsight.

It's mostly useful for knowing when you're about to get in over your head. If you always play perfectly and have all the right things prepared and the DM never throws anything at you that you can't handle, you'll never need it. On the other hand, if you're in a game where you can easily screw yourself over by not being careful, it can be lifesaving to ask if opening this vault or infiltrating this tower is a Bad Idea.

[druid91]

I honestly don't get the problems people have with witchbolt.

[Dungeon-noob]

Here's another one that everyone is forgetting: Legend Lore. Spend a 5th(!) level spell slot to be comperable to what your skill monkey with a knowledge check can do. yeey....... Drawmij's instant summons is far too costly for the moderate utility it provides.

Witch bolt is UP, though the concept is kewl. Jump is so niche as to almost not exist. Soul jar only ever sees use when the DM breaks it out as part of the plot. Ray of sickness and infestation both suck, because poison damage is worthless. Ice storm is has two minor edges in range and a bc element over Fireball, and two major downsides in spell level and sheer damage. It would be inferior if they were the same level, but Ice storm as higher level? BS.

Resistance is pointless, since you'll never get to use it when it is worth using, and it doesn't have the duration or effect to compete with the other actions you have in a situation when it's usefull. Imprison is rarely worth it since it competes with soooo much better stuff that lets you win for good, instead of just procastinating.

Earthbind is basicly only worth it on prepared casters, when they know it'll come up, preferably against flyers. While i've always loved the idea of Guards and Wards, it is so niche and high level it never sees play for 99% of everyone.

Create homunculus is way too high level and cost for what it gives (find familiar was 1st level, and this is better.....how?). I doubt many people have been able to leverage Animal messenger in actual play. Cordon of arrows deals pitiful damage for its level, and does nothing else to make it worthwile. Snare is another spell that just does a skill check, and not even well at that. Gives too many saves, does too little.

Find traps is useless. It doesn't even do what it says on the tin, only if they exist within range, all the actual work falls to skill checks.

There are also a lot of situational spells which only prepared casters or wizards who happen to scribe them extra can affort to have, like water breathing or Heroes feast.

[Dungeon-noob]

I honestly don't get the problems people have with witchbolt.
If you compare it to other 1st level spells, the stuff it has to compete with, then it doesn't hold up. Doesn't do as much damage compared to say Burning hands or Chromatic orb, short range so puts you at risk, and hardly scales. Not to mention it takes several actions to deliver the kind of effect where you can start comparing it to the other spells, when the action economy is the most important part of combat.

[Dualswinger]

Legend Lore has actually gotten quite a bit of use in my campaign since much of the knowledge that revolves around certain concepts is considered "lost" and not held within archives. It's a resource cost option for campaigns where centralised knowledge isn't a presence

[Man_Over_Game]

Legend Lore has actually gotten quite a bit of use in my campaign since much of the knowledge that revolves around certain concepts is considered "lost" and not held within archives. It's a resource cost option for campaigns where centralised knowledge isn't a presence

Legend Lore actually gets better the more you use it, since it gives you more knowledge the more you know about the target.

Combined with the fact that Diviners get spell slots back when they cast Divination spells, they can pretty much spam Legend Lore as often as they want. They could, for example, cast True Sight, Legend Lore, and a level 4 spell with a single spell slot.

[JoeJ]

Here's another one that everyone is forgetting: Legend Lore. Spend a 5th(!) level spell slot to be comperable to what your skill monkey with a knowledge check can do. yeey.

An Intelligence check only lets you remember what you already know. Legend Lore tells you things you didn't know.

[sithlordnergal]

I honestly don't get the problems people have with witchbolt.

There are a few issues with it:

- First, it only does 1d12 Lightning, which is about an average of 6.5. If you manage ti hold concentration it can do 10d12...but that will almost never happen.

- It scales terribly, with just 1d12 per spell level. Ice Knife and Burning Hands scale better. On average, a 2nd level Witchbolt does 1 point more then Snowball Swarm.

- Second, it only has a 30ft range, I will come back to this

- It is a single target concentration spell that takes up your action to use every turn.

- If the target moves out of range or gets into cover, the spell ends. Remember how that spell only has a 30ft range? Welp, that is back. The opponent can just end it by moving 35ft away from you. Your best bet to keep concentration is to have someone grapple the target, paralyze/stun them, or get right in your target's face...as a squishy caster.

- Almost every other 1st level concentration spell and/or damaging spell does more damage/has a better effect

[Man_Over_Game]

There are a few issues with it:

- First, it only does 1d12 Lightning, which is about an average of 6.5. If you manage ti hold concentration it can do 10d12...but that will almost never happen.

- It scales terribly, with just 1d12 per spell level. Ice Knife and Burning Hands scale better. On average, a 2nd level Witchbolt does 1 point more then Snowball Swarm.

- Second, it only has a 30ft range, I will come back to this

- It is a single target concentration spell that takes up your action to use every turn.

- If the target moves out of range or gets into cover, the spell ends. Remember how that spell only has a 30ft range? Welp, that is back. The opponent can just end it by moving 35ft away from you. Your best bet to keep concentration is to have someone grapple the target, paralyze/stun them, or get right in your target's face...as a squishy caster.

- Almost every other concentration spell and/or damaging spell does more damage/has a better effect

Once Witch Bolt is latched on, though, it doesn't require any additional save or hit. Assuming you have a 60% chance to hit with a spell, Witch Bolt is dealing more damage than you would be doing on average.

Rather, consider that Witch Bolt deals an average of 6.5 damage on turn 2 and has a 100% chance to hit, and a cantrip deals 5.5 damage and has a 60% chance. Taking hit chances into place after the first turn, activating Witch Bolt deals 6.5 damage on average where casting the cantrip deals 3.3 damage on average.

When you consider hit chances, Witch Bolt deals about twice as much damage as a low level cantrip after the first turn.

Additionally, an enemy can attempt to move 30 feet away, but most enemies don't have more than 30 movement, and may risk Opportunity Attacks to do so. If you're 10-15 feet away, the enemy will not be able to retreat and attack in the same turn, and will end up losing their ability to participate in combat for the round while you did damage.

Now, Witch Bolt does have too short of a range to be competitive or safe, and 6.5 damage isn't enough for it to be worthwhile, especially after level 5, but it does have some value.

[druid91]

It's a damaging spell that requires an attack roll. Spell sniper boosts that to 60ft range, and if you're a wizard blaster you should have spell sniper.

Most things are not going to be moving out of a sixty foot bubble in a single turn, and in most cases the remainder of your party is going to be up close wailing on it. Meaning any attempted retreat is going to be eating multiple opportunity attacks.

[Rukelnikov]

Once Witch Bolt is latched on, though, it doesn't require any additional save or hit. Assuming you have a 60% chance to hit with a spell, Witch Bolt is dealing more damage than you would be doing on average.

Rather, consider that Witch Bolt deals an average of 6.5 damage on turn 2 and has a 100% chance to hit, and a cantrip deals 5.5 damage and has a 60% chance. Taking hit chances into place after the first turn, activating Witch Bolt deals 6.5 damage on average where casting the cantrip deals 3.3 damage on average.

When you consider hit chances, Witch Bolt deals about twice as much damage as a low level cantrip after the first turn.

Additionally, an enemy can attempt to move 30 feet away, but most enemies don't have more than 30 movement, and may risk Opportunity Attacks to do so. If you're 10-15 feet away, the enemy will not be able to retreat and attack in the same turn, and will end up losing their ability to participate in combat for the round while you did damage.

Now, Witch Bolt does have too short of a range to be competitive or safe, and 6.5 damage isn't enough for it to be worthwhile, especially after level 5, but it does have some value.

Yeah but its initial damage is atrocious 6.5 for a 1st lvl slot, Chromatic Orb deals 13.5 and you can fine tune the element. Assuming that 60% hit chance you would need 3 rounds of auto hit fo it to be better than COrb + Fire Bolt.

Warlocks, though, don't have COrb, so it is the highest damaging spell they can use with their action at lvl 1... Still you get more damage out of Hex if you keep concentration and move it around a bit, and you don't risk missing a precious slot in an attack that may miss.

[Man_Over_Game]

Yeah but its initial damage is atrocious 6.5 for a 1st lvl slot, Chromatic Orb deals 13.5 and you can fine tune the element. Assuming that 60% hit chance you would need 3 rounds of auto hit fo it to be better than COrb + Fire Bolt.

Warlocks, though, don't have COrb, so it is the highest damaging spell they can use with their action at lvl 1... Still you get more damage out of Hex if you keep concentration and move it around a bit, and you don't risk missing a precious slot in an attack that may miss.

Chromatic Orb has a very hefty material cost for a low level character. It's a good spell, but I think part of its "balance" is based around the fact that most level 1-2 characters can't afford to get a diamond that size until the time level 2 spells are available.

[OverLordOcelot]

Forecasting 30 minutes in the future when travel times are measured in hours doesn't help you find the right way to go when lost. In other situations, it's generally just better to prep a 2nd level spell that will actually remedy a situation, rather than vaguely tell you if a situation would need remedy.

That isn't what the spell does though - it gives you a 'weal' or 'woe' answer for an action that you're going to take in the next 30 minutes, it's not limited to just looking at what will happen 30 minutes ahead. It's not good at finding the right way to go when lost, but expecting a 2nd level spell to do the job of a sixth level spell (Find The Path) is always going to lead to disappointment. It's a handy spell for getting a 'is this a bad idea' answer when you're not sure whether to do something specific, and is not intended to be as good as find the path, commune with nature, commune, or other higher level spells. Like any divination spell it's subject to DM interpretation as to whether or not it actually works, but that's not a failing of the spell.


I've been trying to figure out why someone would ever want to cast Illusory Script, Feign Death, and Dream for several editions now. They might maybe be useful for the DM as a plot device, but even then it's kind of a stretch.

Illusionary Script is good in a situation where you need to send a message that the enemy can't read, and your enemy doesn't have true sight. That's not something that happens in a normal campaign, but I think it's unreasonable that this spell always comes up in 'bad spell' lists. It's really clear from reading the spell what it does, and while it's highly situational, it's not hard to see situations where you'd want this, even if they're not something your campaign/character would likely run into.

[Yora]

What are feign death and meld into stone meant to be used for?

Feign death could be used to smuggle someone past guards, but that's really situational.

Meld into stone could be used to get into a place that is open during the day, hide inside a wall, and come out at night to do your thing. Or use it to hide yourself while running away from pursuers. But only yourself and no allies.
But why is it on the spell list for clerics and druids? That's a rogue stuff. And why is it available as a ritual?

[Rukelnikov]

Chromatic Orb has a very hefty material cost for a low level character.

Its 50 gp, but not consumed, so, yeah, its somewhat costly early one but can be done from the very beggining. Selling part of initial class and background equipment can get you more than the 50 gp needed.

And even then you still got MM which deals more damage and has 100% hit chance.

I like the spell's fluff and how its the best way to get unlimited power, but the mechanics of it make it a bit underwhelming.

[LudicSavant]

There are a good number of spells that seem so weak that I can't see why you wouldn't prepare or learn something else instead.

But I am still very new at 5th edition and have not seen most spells in action yet. Which ones do you consider so useless that there's no reason for them appearing on any spell lists?

Witch Bolt. We've had numerous threads testing the math even for the crazy edge cases people think might salvage it, and it still gets outperformed by other options.

Melf's Acid Arrow. To get an idea of how bad Melf's Acid Arrow is, imagine a world where you severely buffed Acid Arrow so that it automatically hit and did all of its damage in one round... and then realize a Magic Missile cast in that same second level slot would still be better (nearly the same damage, better damage type, greater range, split option, etc).

Enthrall. There's a thread on the first page about it right now.

[Man_Over_Game]

What are feign death and meld into stone meant to be used for?

Feign death could be used to smuggle someone past guards, but that's really situational.

Meld into stone could be used to get into a place that is open during the day, hide inside a wall, and come out at night to do your thing. Or use it to hide yourself while running away from pursuers. But only yourself and no allies.
But why is it on the spell list for clerics and druids? That's a rogue stuff. And why is it available as a ritual?

I could see a Warlock faking his own death, then using Mask of Many Faces to appear like everyone else. Do things while the party is "accounted for", since there is no way the party could have caused the issue in question. It's a pretty clever way of clearing up the party's name of causing problems. "It couldn't have been that one guy, he's dead!"
Alternatively, cast it when an ally stabilizes you with Healing Word and pretend to be dead in the middle of the enemy group. They aren't going to bother poking you while someone else is trying to poke them.
It also causes diseases and such to stand still, which is a good way of delaying some kind of death timer long enough to find a cure.

Meld Into Stone, AKA Smuggle Into Statue.
You can still cast spells on yourself, or use it to safely cast spells without interruption. Cast things like Scrying or Arcane Eye to gather information safely.

[LudicSavant]

Once Witch Bolt is latched on, though, it doesn't require any additional save or hit. Assuming you have a 60% chance to hit with a spell, Witch Bolt is dealing more damage than you would be doing on average.

Rather, consider that Witch Bolt deals an average of 6.5 damage on turn 2 and has a 100% chance to hit, and a cantrip deals 5.5 damage and has a 60% chance. Taking hit chances into place after the first turn, activating Witch Bolt deals 6.5 damage on average where casting the cantrip deals 3.3 damage on average.

When you consider hit chances, Witch Bolt deals about twice as much damage as a low level cantrip after the first turn.

Additionally, an enemy can attempt to move 30 feet away, but most enemies don't have more than 30 movement, and may risk Opportunity Attacks to do so. If you're 10-15 feet away, the enemy will not be able to retreat and attack in the same turn, and will end up losing their ability to participate in combat for the round while you did damage.

Now, Witch Bolt does have too short of a range to be competitive or safe, and 6.5 damage isn't enough for it to be worthwhile, especially after level 5, but it does have some value.

This is incorrect.

When comparing expected DPR for various tools, Witch Bolt's expected DPR is not (hit chance * 6.5) on first round followed by 6.5 on following rounds.

The reason for this is because it has a miss chance, it just spreads the damage for that hit over multiple actions.

Now let's say the chance you hit on round 1 is H, and the chance you have maintained Witch Bolt to the current round is M. In which case the formula for future rounds would be...

The actual expected DPR would be as follows:

Round 1 = H * 6.5

Round 2 = (H*M) * (6.5) + (1-(H*M)) * (average DPR of whatever you'd do if Witch Bolt had failed)

Round 3 = As 2, except M tends to get lower and lower each round.

Basically, Witch Bolt is even worse than one might think, by a significant factor. :vaarsuvius:

[JoeJ]

It also causes diseases and such to stand still, which is a good way of delaying some kind of death timer long enough to find a cure.

That's the use I could see being justification for taking this spell for somebody who's working with the city guard responding to emergencies. That's primarily an NPC role, however.

[Yora]

There aren't a lot of disease to catch.

You could use the spell to keep someone from dying from a poison while you take him to someone to cast protection from poison on him. Which as a cleric or druid, you could do yourself.
Would help if you're a bard or wizard, though. But then, as a bard, why would you give up one of your valuable known spells for it?

So maybe as a wizard. But why would you select it when you prepare your spells?

You can do things with it, but I am not sure in which situation you would anticipate that you need it. It's not something you prepare all the time because it might come handy at some point.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I can give you a great one for Dream. My players used it on a beholder, causing it to create another beholder that it then fought. The players then took on the surviving wounded beholder. worth learning just for this, certainly not, worth using from a scroll, certainly.

Thanks for this. I'm gonna have to try that one.

[Kane0]

Treantmonk already did the hard work on this actually, he's pointed out several spells of each level that are particularly underwhelming. If you're looking to equalize spells that's a good starting point.

True Strike
Witch Bolt
Enthrall
Find Traps
Flame Arrows
Snowball Swarm
Erupting Earth
Feign Death
Vampiric Touch
Blight
Confusion
Elemental Bane
Grasping Vine
Phantasmal Killer
Stoneskin
Tenser's Transformation
Flame Strike
Circle of Death
Prismatic Spray
Mordenkainen's Sword

[Chronos]

Dream is incredible, as a way to attack someone anywhere on the plane so long as you know their name. Yeah, 3d6 damage a night will take a long time to kill someone, but you've got all the time you need, because they'll never be able to rest. And if your table uses levels of exhaustion from going too long without sleeping, you'll probably kill them that way before the psychic damage does.

Illusory Script, as others have said, is a good way to deliver messages to specific individuals. Also keep in mind that both it and Augury are rituals, so don't cost slots (unless for some reason you need to cast them really quickly).

My list, with an explanation for each:

*Arms of Hadar: Low damage compared to, say, Thunderwave, and the rider isn't enough to make up for it.
*Bane: Offers a save to penalize enemies' saves. If my enemies are failing saves, I want them to be taking a significant effect from it, not just being opened up to the possibility of something else. And the effect mirrors Bless, which is always sure to work.
*Charm Person: This one depends a lot on DM interpretation-- Just what does "regards you as a friendly acquaintance" mean? But it can be good if the DM puts a lot of weight on that.
*Cure Wounds: It wouldn't be bad in itself, except that it's competing against better options. If you're a cleric or bard, take Healing Word instead. If you're a druid or a ranger, take Goodberry instead. If you're a paladin, just use your Lay On Hands.
*Detect Evil or Good: Doesn't actually detect evil or good. It detects creature types, most of which are usually pretty unsubtle. OK if you know you need to find a succubus in disguise, or the like, but doesn't come up often.
*Ray of Sickness: The most-resisted damage type, and it doesn't even do very much of it.
*Searing Smite: Compare to Thunderous Smite, which does more damage of a less-resisted type with a more useful rider. If you use smiting spells at all, rather than your Divine Smite class feature.
*Witch Bolt: Just cast any other 1st-level damage spell, and follow up on subsequent rounds with a cantrip. If their AC is low, you're better off with that first spell being Chromatic Orb. If their AC is high, you're better off with Magic Missile.
*Barkskin: You'll usually have some other way to get AC that lasts longer than an hour, doesn't use a spell slot, and doesn't use up your concentration.
*Branding Smite: If your target is visible, it doesn't help, and if your target is invisible, good luck landing it.
*Crown of Madness: The target still controls their movement, so they can force this to do nothing.
*Enthrall: Already covered by others.
*Ray of Enfeeblement: Only useful at all against a fraction of enemies, offers multiple chances to fail, Con saves tend to be high for things that attack with Str, and even if it works perfectly, still leaves them at half effectiveness.
*Rope Trick: Doesn't last long enough to be useful.
*Aura of Vitality: By the time you're casting 3rd-level paladin spells, you have much better healing options, and much better use of your action and bonus actions.
*Bestow Curse: None of the effects are all that powerful, and the duration doesn't matter if you can just kill your target instead.
*Conjure Barrage: Even if you're a ranger who wants a large-area damaging spell, Wind Wall is much better, and has other utility besides.
*Daylight: Is this really enough better than a cantrip to be worth 3rd level?
*Feign Death: Covered by others
*Magic Circle: It takes too long to cast to use in combat, and being immobile means you usually can't cast it before combat.
*Phantom Steed: The big problem is that you only get one, and a party only moves as fast as its slowest member.
*Blight: Not enough better than the old classic Fireball to be worth a higher spell level.
*Ice Storm: Even lower damage, with a more-resisted energy type.
*Mordenkainen's Hound: It's an Alarm spell, that also does a little damage to one target.
*Phantasmal Killer: Multiple saves, easy to be immune to, and all it does is damage.
*Stoneskin: Would be fine, except the component costs so much, and it's useless against anything magic.
*Cone of Cold: Another low damage are-affect spell. The area is very large, but that's seldom useful, and often just means it's easier to catch party members in it.
*Conjure Volley: As a ranger capable of casting 5th-level spells, you have much better options available.
*Flame Strike: Yet another underwhelming damage.
*Arcane Gate: Just what do you use this for?
*Chain Lightning: Just use Lightning Bolt
*Drawmij's Instant Summons: Another one I'm not sure what it's supposed to be for.
*Otiluke's Freezing Sphere: They sure do love their lower-damage Fireballs, don't they?
*Wall of Ice: Wall of Force is more effective and lower level.
*Conjure Celestial: By level 13, a CR 4 summon isn't all that effective.
*Divine Word: By this level, everything has too many HP
*Fire Storm: You get the picture by now.
*Mordenkainen's Sword: Worse in absolutely every way than an upcast Bigby's Hand.
*Resurrection: Why does it matter that the target comes back with full HP, when they still need multiple days to recover?
*Feeblemind: There are lower-level save-or-suck spells that suck at least as much, and are useful against a wider variety of targets.
*Glibness: All that, for an 8th-level spell?
*Telepathy: Again, 8th-level?
*Astral Projection: Worse than Plane Shift, at a higher level.
*Weird: See Phantasmal Killer, except now with a 9th-level slot.

[Pex]

I don't quite think Augury is up to snuff with other future-telling spells, whatever people may think of them as a whole.

Forecasting 30 minutes in the future when travel times are measured in hours doesn't help you find the right way to go when lost. In other situations, it's generally just better to prep a 2nd level spell that will actually remedy a situation, rather than vaguely tell you if a situation would need remedy.

Best use I can think of for it is to train new players to prepare better. Augury will tell you that you should have prepared a different spell this morning, and at best that's a lens to focus hindsight.

You don't use Augury for far future help. You use it for immediate help, for the situation you are currently in and want guidance to which course of action you should take.

[nickl_2000]

I could see a Warlock faking his own death, then using Mask of Many Faces to appear like everyone else. Do things while the party is "accounted for", since there is no way the party could have caused the issue in question. It's a pretty clever way of clearing up the party's name of causing problems. "It couldn't have been that one guy, he's dead!"
Alternatively, cast it when an ally stabilizes you with Healing Word and pretend to be dead in the middle of the enemy group. They aren't going to bother poking you while someone else is trying to poke them.
It also causes diseases and such to stand still, which is a good way of delaying some kind of death timer long enough to find a cure.

Meld Into Stone, AKA Smuggle Into Statue.
You can still cast spells on yourself, or use it to safely cast spells without interruption. Cast things like Scrying or Arcane Eye to gather information safely.

Don't forget that meld into some lasts 8 hours. You can cast it, then take a long rest tucked safely in a rock where no one knows where you are.

[Naanomi]

Skywrite? If it wasn’t a ritual a wizard may get in loot for fun someday, I’d be hard pressed to ever take it as an adventurer

[Aquillion]

Here's another one that everyone is forgetting: Legend Lore. Spend a 5th(!) level spell slot to be comperable to what your skill monkey with a knowledge check can do.This depends a lot on your DM, but I think you're significantly undervaluing it. You don't use Legend Lore instead of a knowledge check; you use it after a knowledge check. It specifically says:


The more information you already have about the thing, the more precise and detailed the information you receive is.

So it axiomatically allows you to get more knowledge than you got from the check.

(Of course, I would advise not telling your DM that you're going to cast Legend Lore until after they've told you what you learned from your knowledge check, or they might just move whatever they want to reveal to behind the Legend Lore result and give you scraps for Knowledge no matter how well you roll. But that's a DM issue.)



Soul jar only ever sees use when the DM breaks it out as part of the plot.Are you kidding? It's incredibly powerful, even broken. Remember that when the game says you copy something's statistics, that means all its abilities except legendary and lair actions. Soul Jar additionally bans class features, but not anything else. And unlike Polymorph, you get all the abilities of your new body on top of retaining your own class features. And its benefits are permanent / indefinite, with no concentration.

The only reason it rarely sees use is because it's so broken that most DMs won't allow players to use it.


While i've always loved the idea of Guards and Wards, it is so niche and high level it never sees play for 99% of everyone.Like Magic Jar, that doesn't make it weak. It's a powerful 24-hour battlefield control spell that doesn't require concentration. The ten-minute casting time is the only real problem, but even just casting it before you sleep can be quite valuable, since you can continue to use the area you enchanted with it as a base to lure enemies into the next day, after getting the spell slot back.

[No brains]

@Chronos: The hidden value for Glibness is that it gives you a good chance at success at all charisma checks, not just lying, persuading, or intimidating. There are a few times when a non-specific charisma check can do some interesting things. Edition drift has changed what those things are, but I think Glibness can still help you control intelligent magic items.

Also is 8th level really too early for what could be auto-success on any charisma check? By that level, a charisma focused character would have a +5 ability modifier and even a +5 proficiency bonus that they might double. If the DM sticks with the idea that DC 30 is supposed to be a cap for things that are almost impossible, a bard with expertise could talk down anyone.


You don't use Augury for far future help. You use it for immediate help, for the situation you are currently in and want guidance to which course of action you should take.

I just find that the ritual casting time and 30-minute forecast are a little too close together to help me. Too long to help with an immediate decision (and make use of the ritual feature) and not long enough to guarantee that a course of action will be helpful. Sure it's Weal for 30 minutes, but an hour later you could feel a strong and Woe.

Sure Augury could tell me one door would be best to open, but Spiritual Weapon or Lesser Restoration can help with any door.

[Naanomi]

@Chronos: The hidden value for Glibness is that it gives you a good chance at success at all charisma checks, not just lying, persuading, or intimidating. There are a few times when a non-specific charisma check can do some interesting things. Edition drift has changed what those things are, but I think Glibness can still help you control intelligent magic items.
If you are a Charisma caster, it helps with some spells that use skill checks as well... Counterspell, Telekinesis

[Pex]

@Chronos: The hidden value for Glibness is that it gives you a good chance at success at all charisma checks, not just lying, persuading, or intimidating. There are a few times when a non-specific charisma check can do some interesting things. Edition drift has changed what those things are, but I think Glibness can still help you control intelligent magic items.

Also is 8th level really too early for what could be auto-success on any charisma check? By that level, a charisma focused character would have a +5 ability modifier and even a +5 proficiency bonus that they might double. If the DM sticks with the idea that DC 30 is supposed to be a cap for things that are almost impossible, a bard with expertise could talk down anyone.



I just find that the ritual casting time and 30-minute forecast are a little too close together to help me. Too long to help with an immediate decision (and make use of the ritual feature) and not long enough to guarantee that a course of action will be helpful. Sure it's Weal for 30 minutes, but an hour later you could feel a strong and Woe.

Sure Augury could tell me one door would be best to open, but Spiritual Weapon or Lesser Restoration can help with any door.

Just because it can be cast as a ritual doesn't mean you have to. If the situation is important enough you need an answer Now then casting the spell is worth the spell slot. Knowing things is as important as killing monsters and buffing. There will never be a spell called Solve The Adventure, so complaining a spell falls short of that is silly if hyperbolic.

[Griswold]

I could see a Warlock faking his own death, then using Mask of Many Faces to appear like everyone else. Do things while the party is "accounted for", since there is no way the party could have caused the issue in question. It's a pretty clever way of clearing up the party's name of causing problems. "It couldn't have been that one guy, he's dead!"

While a clever use, Warlocks get so few spells known would you really want to waste one on such a narrow situational effect? Silent Image would work roughly as well, especially if applied over a corpse.


It also causes diseases and such to stand still, which is a good way of delaying some kind of death timer long enough to find a cure.

Diseases can be cured by Lesser Restoration, which is a lower level spell! Plus, Feign Death only lasts an hour.

[Griswold]

*Rope Trick: Doesn't last long enough to be useful.


I agree with most of your list of hating on bad spells, but Rope Trick allows you to short rest with near impunity.

[Sigreid]

Skywrite? If it wasn’t a ritual a wizard may get in loot for fun someday, I’d be hard pressed to ever take it as an adventurer

This can be quite useful if you are trying to coordinate the actions of groups spread over a fairly significant distance.

[FabulousFizban]

@ chronos

bane is a great spell. in fact, it is the go to 1st level bard spell. most enemies suck at charisma saves, so you are pretty much guaranteed to hit at least one target. it minuses a d4 from saves AND attacks.

what you do is, bane a target, giving them a minus d4 to saves, then start hitting them with vicious mockery. they will likely fail due to bane, now the target has disadvantage and minus d4 on all attacks. they aren’t hitting sh!t.

the combo is useful on big bruisers like trolls or giants.

[JoeJ]

*Magic Circle: It takes too long to cast to use in combat, and being immobile means you usually can't cast it before combat.

Why is it bad that you can't use it in combat? It's pretty clearly not intended to be a combat spell.


*Resurrection: Why does it matter that the target comes back with full HP, when they still need multiple days to recover?

On the plus side, somebody at your table doesn't have to roll up a new character. And needing multiple days of downtime to recover doesn't usually matter.

[OverLordOcelot]

*Searing Smite: Compare to Thunderous Smite, which does more damage of a less-resisted type with a more useful rider. If you use smiting spells at all, rather than your Divine Smite class feature.

If you're able to do some research about the opponents you're likely to face, then this becomes useful. If you're expecting to deal with trolls (or troll variants) or hydras, this spell kills their regeneration ability. You can have another caster use fire spells, but this lets you do the kill yourself. It's a really niche spell though, I agree that a simple smite is better if you're not specifically going up against fire vulnerable creatures.


*Resurrection: Why does it matter that the target comes back with full HP, when they still need multiple days to recover?

The reason to use resurrection over raise dead is that it restores missing body parts. If you can recover a torso or even just a finger, you can resurrect the person regardless of what happens to the rest of the body, while there are a lot of cases where the body will be at least partially destroyed, and raise dead won't work.


*Barkskin: You'll usually have some other way to get AC that lasts longer than an hour, doesn't use a spell slot, and doesn't use up your concentration.

I really think Barkskin was supposed to be more like mage armor, but the concentration really kills it. If it was an 8 hour non-concentration spell you'd actually see a lot of druids wearing just robes with no shield like they tend to do in the art, since they could just cast barkskin and have decent AC.

[Merudo]

*Phantom Steed: The big problem is that you only get one, and a party only moves as fast as its slowest member.


Phantom Steed doesn't require Concentration, so you can cast it continuously as a Ritual while riding. You can easily make enough steeds for the whole group that way.

And, starting combat on top of a horse with 100' speed is very helpful. It has 13hp, so unless you face AoE damage the enemies are likely to waste an attack or two on each mount.

[Yora]

Don't forget that meld into some lasts 8 hours. You can cast it, then take a long rest tucked safely in a rock where no one knows where you are.

But what does the rest of the party do in the meantime?

[JoeJ]

But what does the rest of the party do in the meantime?

Lead the monsters away so that they're not in the room when you step out of the wall.

[nickl_2000]

But what does the rest of the party do in the meantime?

The range is touch and is a ritual. Cast it on everyone and everyone sleeps well.

[Yora]

The target is a surface of stone you can touch. The next at no point mentions any other creatures affected by it other than yourself. All other spells who can be used on other creatures as well mention it explicitly.

[Dungeon-noob]

This depends a lot on your DM, but I think you're significantly undervaluing it. You don't use Legend Lore instead of a knowledge check; you use it after a knowledge check. It specifically says:

So it axiomatically allows you to get more knowledge than you got from the check.

(Of course, I would advise not telling your DM that you're going to cast Legend Lore until after they've told you what you learned from your knowledge check, or they might just move whatever they want to reveal to behind the Legend Lore result and give you scraps for Knowledge no matter how well you roll. But that's a DM issue.)

Are you kidding? It's incredibly powerful, even broken. Remember that when the game says you copy something's statistics, that means all its abilities except legendary and lair actions. Soul Jar additionally bans class features, but not anything else. And unlike Polymorph, you get all the abilities of your new body on top of retaining your own class features. And its benefits are permanent / indefinite, with no concentration.

The only reason it rarely sees use is because it's so broken that most DMs won't allow players to use it.

Like Magic Jar, that doesn't make it weak. It's a powerful 24-hour battlefield control spell that doesn't require concentration. The ten-minute casting time is the only real problem, but even just casting it before you sleep can be quite valuable, since you can continue to use the area you enchanted with it as a base to lure enemies into the next day, after getting the spell slot back.
The thread isn't titled "Spells that are too weak". It is "spells not worth learning/preparing". And by that margin i judged the spells i mentioned. Soul jar is powerfull if used right, but 1. takes a lot of set up to use in a worthwile manner, and is likely going to get the DM to fiat your plans BECAUSE of all the shenenigans. So it sees little use and can't do all the awesome stuff. I prefer a spell that i actually get to cast.

Legend lore is a 5th! level! spell, that is on the same level as a knowledge check. By the time you get this, your history/other knowledge checks will be at +9, so a DC20 roll is fairly doable. Considering LL gives you cryptic information, it's DM fiat whether a target is "legendary" enough for it to work (read, only the BBEG and the Macguffin, and pretty much nothing else), has absolutely no clearly defined yield in terms of how much you learn, and once again is 5th! level, it really, really isn't worth it.

[Chronos]

Quoth Griswold:

I agree with most of your list of hating on bad spells, but Rope Trick allows you to short rest with near impunity.
The biggest danger of a short rest isn't that someone might barge in on you in the middle: You can usually find a spot secure enough for that even without magic. The biggest danger is that the villain's plans have now progressed an hour further without you doing anything to stop them in that hour, and Rope Trick doesn't help with that at all.

Quoth FabulousFizban:

@ chronos

bane is a great spell. in fact, it is the go to 1st level bard spell. most enemies suck at charisma saves, so you are pretty much guaranteed to hit at least one target. it minuses a d4 from saves AND attacks.

what you do is, bane a target, giving them a minus d4 to saves, then start hitting them with vicious mockery. they will likely fail due to bane, now the target has disadvantage and minus d4 on all attacks. they aren’t hitting sh!t.

the combo is useful on big bruisers like trolls or giants.
You know what's an even better combo? Just using Vicious Mockery right from the start. Or Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

Quoth JoeJ:

Why is it bad that you can't use it in combat? It's pretty clearly not intended to be a combat spell.
It's a spell for protecting you from hostile supernatural creatures. When you're facing hostile creatures is kind of the definition of combat.


Oh, and I restricted myself to the bad spells in the PHB, since I was assuming that's what a new player would be using, but I see a lot of folks mentioning splatbook spells. Is this thread interested in those, too? I can pull those up on my spreadsheet, too.

[Bjarkmundur]

Some bad PC spells are actually good villain or NPC spells.

[Spore]

Thunderclap and Thunderwave.

I have both on my bard (who is about to get rebuilt). Con saves are bad targets vs. 70% of huge monsters. Rarely does one stack enough enemies against you to make Thunderwave worthwhile. The loud explosion makes stealth a non-option for the next few minutes.

Plus it's only pushback and a bit of damage, not even the prone condition.

[CantigThimble]

I don't quite think Augury is up to snuff with other future-telling spells, whatever people may think of them as a whole.

Forecasting 30 minutes in the future when travel times are measured in hours doesn't help you find the right way to go when lost. In other situations, it's generally just better to prep a 2nd level spell that will actually remedy a situation, rather than vaguely tell you if a situation would need remedy.

Best use I can think of for it is to train new players to prepare better. Augury will tell you that you should have prepared a different spell this morning, and at best that's a lens to focus hindsight.

Primary use I've seen for augury is "Is this thing that might be a trap actually a trap?" It can basically let you determine whether an area is trapped, an item is cursed, there's an ambush up ahead, if an NPC is about to backstab you etc. etc.

On top of that, the cleric list is actually quite lacking in utility spells and augury is a ritual so you don't even need to spend a spell slot. It's not an amazing spell, but you can usually find at least opportunity per day where it's more helpful than not. I don't think the same can be said of most of the other cleric utility spells which are HIGHLY situational like find traps, locate object or zone of truth.

[Guy Lombard-O]

The thread isn't titled "Spells that are too weak". It is "spells not worth learning/preparing".

Legend lore is a 5th! level! spell, that is on the same level as a knowledge check. By the time you get this, your history/other knowledge checks will be at +9, so a DC20 roll is fairly doable. Considering LL gives you cryptic information, it's DM fiat whether a target is "legendary" enough for it to work (read, only the BBEG and the Macguffin, and pretty much nothing else), has absolutely no clearly defined yield in terms of how much you learn, and once again is 5th! level, it really, really isn't worth it.

I get that it isn't great. And I've never personally used it. But is it so useless that it isn't worth preparing...?

I mean, you're not using it in a dungeon, right? It's the kind of spell you use while you're rummaging though books and scrolls in some library somewhere, trying to find the stuff that isn't in the books. It's like the final step of your research day, before setting out for the dungeon. As a prepared spell, it's fine for the cleric to use whatever spell slot to cast it on a day like this.

So it's just a little situational spell that gives you the final bit of lore the DM wants you to know about the upcoming situation. Great? No. Good? Most likely not. OK? Maybe? Too useless to ever prepare or use? No.

[Particle_Man]

The biggest danger of a short rest isn't that someone might barge in on you in the middle: You can usually find a spot secure enough for that even without magic. The biggest danger is that the villain's plans have now progressed an hour further without you doing anything to stop them in that hour, and Rope Trick doesn't help with that at all.



Campaign dependant. We were in a published elemental themed dungeon where the dm followed the published rules that monsters in the dungeon always came to interrupt short rests. Rope trick would have been nice there.

[Spellbreaker26]

On top of that, the cleric list is actually quite lacking in utility spells and augury is a ritual so you don't even need to spend a spell slot. It's not an amazing spell, but you can usually find at least opportunity per day where it's more helpful than not. I don't think the same can be said of most of the other cleric utility spells which are HIGHLY situational like find traps, locate object or zone of truth.

Find Traps is pretty worthless, Locate Object is surprisingly useful as a low-level tracking spell if you've seen someone you're chasing but you've lost them, just use it to find their boot or something.

But Zone of Truth is actually stellar. Speaking from a DM perspective, it's something you have to plan for the players having because it totally changes the flow of information. That means from a player perspective, it's pretty valuable.

[Rukelnikov]

The thread isn't titled "Spells that are too weak". It is "spells not worth learning/preparing". And by that margin i judged the spells i mentioned. Soul jar is powerfull if used right, but 1. takes a lot of set up to use in a worthwile manner, and is likely going to get the DM to fiat your plans BECAUSE of all the shenenigans. So it sees little use and can't do all the awesome stuff. I prefer a spell that i actually get to cast.

Legend lore is a 5th! level! spell, that is on the same level as a knowledge check. By the time you get this, your history/other knowledge checks will be at +9, so a DC20 roll is fairly doable. Considering LL gives you cryptic information, it's DM fiat whether a target is "legendary" enough for it to work (read, only the BBEG and the Macguffin, and pretty much nothing else), has absolutely no clearly defined yield in terms of how much you learn, and once again is 5th! level, it really, really isn't worth it.

Legend Lore is awesome, coupled with Commune and Contact Other Plane those are some of the main gathering information tools my party uses past lvl 9.

[CantigThimble]

Find Traps is pretty worthless, Locate Object is surprisingly useful as a low-level tracking spell if you've seen someone you're chasing but you've lost them, just use it to find their boot or something.

But Zone of Truth is actually stellar. Speaking from a DM perspective, it's something you have to plan for the players having because it totally changes the flow of information. That means from a player perspective, it's pretty valuable.

Zone of truth is a great spell, but is also highly situational. Usually I'll only prepare it if I already know who I'm going to use it on. If I prepared it every day, many days I would never use it at all and it would be a wasted preparation. As opposed to augury, which will have some minor use pretty much every day.

[Pex]

Interesting thing about situation spells. While it does depend on the spell and my mood, I don't mind preparing a situation spell I happen not to use that game day or even game week. A few spells I like having for just in case. It's better to have the spell and not need it then need the spell and not have it. If I'm playing the class where I have limited spells known then to choose the spell it would have to be really, really, really important, but it doesn't take away the value of a spell if I don't choose it. I take the spell for classes that have more spells prepared and I can switch it out for those occasions I absolutely know I won't need it or other spells are higher priority for that particular adventure arc.

There are spells I would never take or prepare, but a spell being a situation spell is not itself a disqualifier.

[JoeJ]

It's a spell for protecting you from hostile supernatural creatures. When you're facing hostile creatures is kind of the definition of combat.

Facing hostile creatures creates the potential for combat. The spell exists to prevent combat from actually breaking out.

[LudicSavant]

I think Locate Objects is sometimes underrated. I've seen creative players get some pretty good use out of it, especially in "Combat as War" style campaigns where fights are often decided before initiative is rolled.

Not only can Locate Object drastically cut down the time searching for a very specific needle in a haystack (which can occasionally be gamechanging on its own), it can also just detect the presence of a more general type of thing coming within range of you ("Alternatively, the spell can locate the nearest object of a particular kind, such as a certain kind of apparel, jewelry, furniture, tool, or weapon"). So, for example, you can detect the nearest stormtrooper uniform within 1000 feet, no questions asked. You even know its exact location (via triangulation), speed, and direction of movement.

Stealth rolls and illusions and walls aren't going to stop you from knowing that X kind of object is within 1000 feet of you. I've seen this used to good effect to foil assassins, trailing targets undetectably for investigations (you can even plant the tracking object yourself), evade search parties or guard patrols, set up brutal ambushes (complete with a fully pre-buffed party and rigged-up terrain), and the like.

In one particular case, there was a campaign with two rival adventuring parties (at the time, they were level 6). One of the adventuring parties was highly optimized to get surprise, win initiative, and wipe the floor with basically anything in a round. Builds included things like "Deep Stalker Revised Ranger 3 / Assassin Rogue 3," (which often did over 100 damage before an enemy could act, had advantage on stealth and initiative, and couldn't be picked out by darkvision... at level 6).

The deadly alpha strike party set an ambush, and got TPKed by the rival PCs. Why? Because the rival PCs used Locate Object for something they knew everyone in the rival party had: A holy symbol of the deity they all worshiped. The ambush was completely foiled, and the users of Locate Object set up the entire field to their benefit before springing their trap, complete with stacked buffs from potions and the like. There was no question in anyone's minds that if it had not been for Locate Object, the other party would have been TPKed instead. There was also a fair deal of psychological impact to know that the emblem of their god was what caused their downfall.

[Aquillion]

Locate Object is definitely on the list of "worth having in your spellbook to cast during downtime, not usually worth preparing unless you specifically know you need it."

Note that it can be used for tracking as long as you're familiar with anything the target normally carries.

[Rukelnikov]

Interesting thing about situation spells. While it does depend on the spell and my mood, I don't mind preparing a situation spell I happen not to use that game day or even game week. A few spells I like having for just in case. It's better to have the spell and not need it then need the spell and not have it. If I'm playing the class where I have limited spells known then to choose the spell it would have to be really, really, really important, but it doesn't take away the value of a spell if I don't choose it. I take the spell for classes that have more spells prepared and I can switch it out for those occasions I absolutely know I won't need it or other spells are higher priority for that particular adventure arc.

There are spells I would never take or prepare, but a spell being a situation spell is not itself a disqualifier.

I totally agree with this.

I prepare Feather Fall because I really don't wanna take falling damage today. At the end of the day, did I took falling damage? If the answer is "No" then mission accomplished.

EDIT: This does mean certain spells are more tailored for Wizards than for spell known classes, and I really like that its that way, I like different kinds of spellcasters having different "standard" spells.

[Yora]

Locate Object is definitely on the list of "worth having in your spellbook to cast during downtime, not usually worth preparing unless you specifically know you need it."

Note that it can be used for tracking as long as you're familiar with anything the target normally carries.

1000 feet is just 300m, though. Certainly has its uses, but limited. Which is
completely appropriate for a 2nd level spell.

Downside is, it might be long gone if you first need to switch out your prepared spells. But when you assume a stolen item is being hidden or someone being held prisoner somewhere nearby, that distance will be enough. There would be very few castles you couldn't cover completely with a 300 meter radius.
But even then, it still doesn't tell you a path to get there. I think it's overall a pretty well done spell. Maybe not for a bard though.

[Aquillion]

I totally agree with this.

I prepare Feather Fall because I really don't wanna take falling damage today. At the end of the day, did I took falling damage? If the answer is "No" then mission accomplished.That seems kind of like anti-tiger-rocks logic.

If you take Feather Fall, never use it, and end up getting killed because you're missing a more relevant spell in a climactic encounter, then you screwed up and probably shouldn't have memorized Feather Fall.

[Man_Over_Game]

1000 feet is just 300m, though. Certainly has its uses, but limited. Which is
completely appropriate for a 2nd level spell.

Downside is, it might be long gone if you first need to switch out your prepared spells. But when you assume a stolen item is being hidden or someone being held prisoner somewhere nearby, that distance will be enough. There would be very few castles you couldn't cover completely with a 300 meter radius.
But even then, it still doesn't tell you a path to get there. I think it's overall a pretty well done spell. Maybe not for a bard though.

1000 feet, for anyone who's interested is just under a quarter of a mile. Or about 3 blocks.

So it's probably most relevant in a dungeon or in a crowd. I'd use it to scout for a Bag of Holding amidst a crowd, and then sic my Arcane Trickster on 'em!

[Aquillion]

1000 feet, for anyone who's interested is just under a quarter of a mile. Or about 3 blocks.

So it's probably most relevant in a dungeon or in a crowd. I'd use it to scout for a Bag of Holding amidst a crowd, and then sic my Arcane Trickster on 'em!
It does last ten minutes. While that might not sound like much, if you have a Find Greater Steed mount (either because you're a Bard / Paladin who took it for some reason, or because you're a wizard who got one via a ring of spell storing) you can mount-cast it, then have them fly around at their 90 ft / round flying speed to search for you.

Assuming your DM lets them dash for ten minutes, they can move 18000 feet in ten minutes, and can cover a total area of 20,000 x 1000 feet with the scry (counting the area ahead and behind them at each end), or 10,000 x 2000 feet if they double back.

Heck, if you go on foot, you can still cover 6000 feet in ten minutes, affecting 8000 x 1000 feet. Or you could just... ride a normal mount, come to think of it, although that requires your personal attention.

[LudicSavant]

1000 feet, for anyone who's interested is just under a quarter of a mile. Or about 3 blocks.

So it's probably most relevant in a dungeon or in a crowd. I'd use it to scout for a Bag of Holding amidst a crowd, and then sic my Arcane Trickster on 'em!

If you're in a dungeon, it'll generally cover the entire dungeon. If you're outside a dungeon and just trying to canvas as wide an area as you can, it's worth noting that it's got a 2000 foot diameter and that it's active over a 10 minute duration, during which you can move and continue to detect things... in effect allowing you to canvas a much larger area than one might initially suspect. At one point we did the math on how long it would take to search various size towns or cities and it seemed to be pretty doable.

Edit: Shadowmonk'd.

[JoeJ]

If you're in a dungeon, it'll generally cover the entire dungeon. If you're outside a dungeon and just trying to canvas as wide an area as you can, you it's worth noting that it's got a 2000 foot diameter and that it's active over a 10 minute duration, during which you can move and continue to detect things... in effect allowing you to canvas a much larger area than one might initially suspect.

Edit: Shadowmonk'd.

Which is why the Thieves' Guild knows not to send somebody after an especially big score without first arranging a way to get it out of the city quickly.

[Rukelnikov]

That seems kind of like anti-tiger-rocks logic.

If you take Feather Fall, never use it, and end up getting killed because you're missing a more relevant spell in a climactic encounter, then you screwed up and probably shouldn't have memorized Feather Fall.

It definitely is. The problem with the rock is that if there's ever a tiger around, then the rock didn't fulfill its end of the bargain.

As a Wizard you can be prepared for anything, but not everything at the same time.

Why do you prepare See Invis? To prevent the enemy from getting Adv and you getting Dis, and maybe moving around without being detected.

Was an enemy able to get any of those benefits? If they did, then See Invis didn't fulfil it's end of the bargain, if they don't it did.

[jh12]

That seems kind of like anti-tiger-rocks logic.

If you take Feather Fall, never use it, and end up getting killed because you're missing a more relevant spell in a climactic encounter, then you screwed up and probably shouldn't have memorized Feather Fall.

Or is it like seat belt logic? Really important when you need it, even if it isn't the vast majority of the time.

If you don't take it, and end up getting killed because you get knocked on the narrow bridge leading up to the climactic encounter, did you screw up by not taking it? Maybe. But that really depends on the information available when you are selecting your spells, not after the encounter is over. Captain Hindsight and all that.

[Man_Over_Game]

Or is it like seat belt logic? Really important when you need it, even if it isn't the vast majority of the time.

If you don't take it, and end up getting killed because you get knocked on the narrow bridge leading up to the climactic encounter, did you screw up by not taking it? Maybe. But that really depends on the information available when you are selecting your spells, not after the encounter is over. Captain Hindsight and all that.

Take what's going to keep you alive for the longest amount of time.

You're going to die eventually, so use your judgment to determine what's going to prevent that the best. If you had to choose between Featherfall and Fireball, you bet your ass you're taking Featherfall if you're planning on being on some sky-city or something, because that's what's going to keep you alive for the next few sessions.

[Spellbreaker26]

By all means prepare Feather Fall, but don't do it instead of Fireball.

Fireball should be a core part of your kit.

The way I see it, there are three types of spells:

1. The ones you're going to cast every session for the foreseeable future (I.E. until you level up/get more spells)
2. The ones which are useful in some situations
3. The completely useless ones (which this thread was originally supposed to identify) and the ones where you'll always have time to prepare before using it (like Legend Lore most of the time).

3. can be ignored, even 3.b you can prepare when you need to and don't have to worry about at the beginning of the adventuring day.

1. you should always take; these are generally combat intensive ones.

2. you should use to fill up the rest of your spell group with depending on what you think you're going to need. So you might prepare Feather Fall if you're going to a sky city, but not if you're going to the Mines of Moria, that sort of thing.

But a 2. spell should never replace a 1. spell unless you're absolutely sure that you're going to use it.

[Chronos]

Or, more likely, you keep both Feather Fall and Fireball and give up some other spell instead. Level + int mod is a pretty good number you can have ready at once, and even if some of those choices don't end up being useful, you can still use your slots for other spells that are.

[JackPhoenix]

dancing lights (concentration and light is nearly strictly better)

IMO, it's the opposite. Concentration sucks, true, but I would pick Dancing Lights over Light every time. Sources of light are easy to get... Continual Flame has little opportunity cost for a cleric, as it can be prepared during downtime, any only slightly higher one for a wizard (assuming you can get a scroll somewhere) and you can upcast it to ignore Darkness. And torches, candles and lanterns exists and are pretty cheap.

Dancing Lights can be used at range, moved without having to move or throw physical objects around, give you 4 sources of light instead of one, and can be ended early without using up action. If you look for a (hands-)free torch, Light is a better choice, if you want tool for signaling (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0512.html), distraction (the glowing humanoid figure option works great for that), illuminating places out of your reach or similar shennanigans, Dancing Lights has you covered.

[Aquillion]

IMO, it's the opposite. Concentration sucks, true, but I would pick Dancing Lights over Light every time. Sources of light are easy to get... Continual Flame has little opportunity cost for a cleric, as it can be prepared during downtime, any only slightly higher one for a wizard (assuming you can get a scroll somewhere) and you can upcast it to ignore Darkness. And torches, candles and lanterns exists and are pretty cheap.

Dancing Lights can be used at range, moved without having to move or throw physical objects around, give you 4 sources of light instead of one, and can be ended early without using up action. If you look for a (hands-)free torch, Light is a better choice, if you want tool for signaling (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0512.html), distraction (the glowing humanoid figure option works great for that), illuminating places out of your reach or similar shennanigans, Dancing Lights has you covered.Or you could take Minor Illusion. It doesn't produce light, but light is easy to get anyway. It's much better than either otherwise - when used for sound, you can control it, use it as a distraction, use it to drown out other sounds, and so on; as an image it can do all sorts of things. And it's not concentration, which makes it in one respect better than even Minor and Major Image.

Though this is about useless and not useful spells, I'll grant. Light, Dancing Lights, and of course Minor Illusion all have their own usages.

If you need combat illumination, Light has some use. Continual Flame makes it a bit obsolete just by existing, since it's permanent; but Light does have some applications if you eg. cast it on an object and toss it as a distraction or somesuch - you could theoretically prepare a bunch of Continual Flame objects for that, but you'd have to retrieve them or pay for them, I guess? Not a huge deal. Light isn't great.

Dancing Lights is an excellent distraction at longer ranges than Minor Illusion can offer, and can distract enemies better in the dark. It can also illuminate things at extreme range (longer than normal darkvision). You'll alert any enemies in the process, but if you're hidden you won't necessarily reveal your location, so this isn't always a bad thing if it gets them moving.

Minor Illusion is Minor Illusion and doesn't need defending (it's debatably the best non-damaging cantrip in the game), but provides an audio distraction that can compete with Dancing Light's visual one, while also doing much much more. Of course, it provides no light, but you can use Continual Flame for that without wasting a precious cantrip slot.

[MoleMage]

Locate Object is definitely on the list of "worth having in your spellbook to cast during downtime, not usually worth preparing unless you specifically know you need it."

Note that it can be used for tracking as long as you're familiar with anything the target normally carries.

I had a Diviner wizard who prepared this and after the party got separated once, he whittled custom wooden trinkets for everyone else to stuff in the bottoms of their belt pouches in case he ever needed to find them again. It requires creative thinking (and a bit of knowledge), but I agree that it it is definitely worthwhile, or at least interesting enough to be fun.

[Pex]

That seems kind of like anti-tiger-rocks logic.

If you take Feather Fall, never use it, and end up getting killed because you're missing a more relevant spell in a climactic encounter, then you screwed up and probably shouldn't have memorized Feather Fall.

You don't always know what spell you need. If you know you need a spell you prepare it, but you're not being an idiot for not having a particular spell because you hadn't looked at the DM's notes to know what encounters you'll be facing to prepare the exact spells you need.

[Chronos]

I like Dancing Lights for the ability to move it around and so on, but I've never been convinced that it could make a very effective distraction. You can shape it into a humanoid shape, but a glowing vaguely-humanoid shape isn't going to fool any but the dumbest monsters into thinking it's a real person, especially in a world where there's a common cantrip that does exactly that. Most monsters, when they see that, shouldn't be assuming "There's a person here who for some reason looks all vague and glowy", they'll assume "There's someone here casting Dancing Lights".

[cZak]

You can shape it into a humanoid shape, but a glowing vaguely-humanoid shape isn't going to fool any but the dumbest monsters into thinking it's a real person....

I did this to my players by a pair of thieving gnomes.
PC's totally freaked out, thinking they were facing some elemental creature.

[JackPhoenix]

I like Dancing Lights for the ability to move it around and so on, but I've never been convinced that it could make a very effective distraction. You can shape it into a humanoid shape, but a glowing vaguely-humanoid shape isn't going to fool any but the dumbest monsters into thinking it's a real person, especially in a world where there's a common cantrip that does exactly that. Most monsters, when they see that, shouldn't be assuming "There's a person here who for some reason looks all vague and glowy", they'll assume "There's someone here casting Dancing Lights".

It's transparent and glowy. Now, I've never seen a ghost before, but it looks like a ghost to me. Oh crap, run, this place is haunted! Glowing, floating orbs or light? Are you willing to bet your life it's some prankster instead of a bunch of will-o'-wisps?

Common cantrip? It's setting dependant, but only very small fraction of populace can cast any spells at all, and not everyone out of that fraction have access to Dancing Lights, or choose to pick it instead of things like Prestidigitation (which is all around awesome, and useful for anyone) or combat cantrips.

And "effective distraction" doesn't mean it has to be effective against absolutely everything ever. If you can draw a hungry tiger or T-rex away from you, it's a win. It doesn't even need to be the humanoid option to serve as a distraction. It's got 120' range and you don't need to see it. Make the guards think there's someone behind the corner, or inside that house over there inside the area they are supposed to be guarding. You can use Minor Illusion for similar effect, with sound instead of light, but it's got quarter of Dancing Light's range, meaning whoever is supposed to be distracted by it can propably hear you casting it.

[Spellbreaker26]

You can use Minor Illusion for similar effect, with sound instead of light, but it's got quarter of Dancing Light's range, meaning whoever is supposed to be distracted by it can probably hear you casting it.

No they won't, because Minor Illusion doesn't have a verbal component.

There's a reason it's in the top three cantrips in the entire game. It's silent and seemingly endlessly versatile.

[Chronos]

You'd probably need Dancing Scent to distract a T. rex or a tiger.

[LudicSavant]

It's transparent and glowy. Now, I've never seen a ghost before, but it looks like a ghost to me. Oh crap, run, this place is haunted! Glowing, floating orbs or light? Are you willing to bet your life it's some prankster instead of a bunch of will-o'-wisps?

Common cantrip? It's setting dependant, but only very small fraction of populace can cast any spells at all, and not everyone out of that fraction have access to Dancing Lights, or choose to pick it instead of things like Prestidigitation (which is all around awesome, and useful for anyone) or combat cantrips.

And "effective distraction" doesn't mean it has to be effective against absolutely everything ever. If you can draw a hungry tiger or T-rex away from you, it's a win. It doesn't even need to be the humanoid option to serve as a distraction. It's got 120' range and you don't need to see it. Make the guards think there's someone behind the corner, or inside that house over there inside the area they are supposed to be guarding. You can use Minor Illusion for similar effect, with sound instead of light, but it's got quarter of Dancing Light's range, meaning whoever is supposed to be distracted by it can propably hear you casting it.

A few thoughts:

Unless you're in a setting where nobody knows what a Wizard is, I would expect people to have at least some vague idea of how spells work. It's kind of like how almost nobody owns a tank, but they still know what a tank is. Same goes for grenades, poison gas, riot control gear, artillery, fighter jets, or Will-o'-Wisps, for that matter. Whether they'd recognize that specific ploy is up to the DM to determine, but I wouldn't rule it out.

As for tigers, they're going to be tracking you by smell. Incidentally, tests have actually been done on whether laser pointers would distract big hunting cats; might be something fun to Google up :smallsmile:

Additionally, Minor Illusion doesn't have a Verbal component.

[JoeJ]

Unless you're in a setting where nobody knows what a Wizard is, I would expect people to have at least some vague idea of how spells work. It's kind of like how almost nobody owns a tank, but they still know what a tank is. Same goes for grenades, poison gas, riot control gear, artillery, fighter jets, or Will-o'-Wisps, for that matter.

And in a common magic setting, Dancing Lights would be a standard entertainment spell. That doesn't mean you couldn't distract somebody with it, but you'd need to be clever in how you do it. (Maybe make the target think their favorite bard is on the next block giving an impromptu performance.)

[JackPhoenix]

No they won't, because Minor Illusion doesn't have a verbal component.

Right. I had a brain fart when I was comparing Dancing Lights with Light (which DOES have V component) and somehow confused the components with Minor Illusion. My bad.

[Dalebert]

I wouldn't typically prepare illusory script but my illusionist loves it. For 10 days, he has a document that instantly becomes whatever he needs as he pulls it from his sleeve--a party invitation, an arrest warrant, a continually updated map of the dungeon you're in. I hadn't thought of also casting nystal's so it doesn't radiate magic. Do that for 30 days so it's permanent and you can just recast illusory script on it every 10 days for the ultimate forgery.

[JoeJ]

I wouldn't typically prepare illusory script but my illusionist loves it. For 10 days, he has a document that instantly becomes whatever he needs as he pulls it from his sleeve--a party invitation, an arrest warrant, a continually updated map of the dungeon you're in. I hadn't thought of also casting nystal's so it doesn't radiate magic. Do that for 30 days so it's permanent and you can just recast illusory script on it every 10 days for the ultimate forgery.

From reading that spell, I think you have to decide what the false writing says when you cast it.

[Sigreid]

From reading that spell, I think you have to decide what the false writing says when you cast it.

I believe he's referring to a high level illusionists unique ability to modify their illusions.

[Dalebert]

I believe he's referring to a high level illusionists unique ability to modify their illusions.

Egg Zachary. Malleable Illusions at 6th level.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I've seen people propose the following logic for situational utility spells:

1. Don't take Feather Fall/Water Breathing/Teleport.

2. Let the DM decide whether to kill you off with a long fall/block off half the dungeon with a water obstacle/add a doom clock prohibiting overland travel.

3. Probably not, right?

4. Profitz

[JackPhoenix]

I've seen people propose the following logic for situational utility spells:

1. Don't take Feather Fall/Water Breathing/Teleport.

2. Let the DM decide whether to kill you off with a long fall/block off half the dungeon with a water obstacle/add a doom clock prohibiting overland travel.

3. Probably not, right?

4. Profitz

Well, obviously, if you lack the ability to stop your fall/breathe underwater/teleport, it's bad GMing to make you fall to your death/need to go underwater/need to get halfway across the world instantly. You should stop playing with such a terrible GM, and propably complain on a forum somewhere, so everyone knows how bad s/he is at GMing.

[GreyBlack]

Find Traps doesn't find traps.

[Darkstar952]

I wouldn't typically prepare illusory script but my illusionist loves it. For 10 days, he has a document that instantly becomes whatever he needs as he pulls it from his sleeve--a party invitation, an arrest warrant, a continually updated map of the dungeon you're in. I hadn't thought of also casting nystal's so it doesn't radiate magic. Do that for 30 days so it's permanent and you can just recast illusory script on it every 10 days for the ultimate forgery.

This is a good idea, but you may also need proficiency with forgery kit to pull off a few of them, or have an exemplar of the document you are creating, depending on the level of knowledge the person you are showing the document to. particularly any official documents like arrest warrants.

[noob]

Here's another one that everyone is forgetting: Legend Lore. Spend a 5th(!) level spell slot to be comperable to what your skill monkey with a knowledge check can do. yeey....... Drawmij's instant summons is far too costly for the moderate utility it provides.

Witch bolt is UP, though the concept is kewl. Jump is so niche as to almost not exist. Soul jar only ever sees use when the DM breaks it out as part of the plot. Ray of sickness and infestation both suck, because poison damage is worthless. Ice storm is has two minor edges in range and a bc element over Fireball, and two major downsides in spell level and sheer damage. It would be inferior if they were the same level, but Ice storm as higher level? BS.

Resistance is pointless, since you'll never get to use it when it is worth using, and it doesn't have the duration or effect to compete with the other actions you have in a situation when it's usefull. Imprison is rarely worth it since it competes with soooo much better stuff that lets you win for good, instead of just procastinating.

Earthbind is basicly only worth it on prepared casters, when they know it'll come up, preferably against flyers. While i've always loved the idea of Guards and Wards, it is so niche and high level it never sees play for 99% of everyone.

Create homunculus is way too high level and cost for what it gives (find familiar was 1st level, and this is better.....how?). I doubt many people have been able to leverage Animal messenger in actual play. Cordon of arrows deals pitiful damage for its level, and does nothing else to make it worthwile. Snare is another spell that just does a skill check, and not even well at that. Gives too many saves, does too little.

Find traps is useless. It doesn't even do what it says on the tin, only if they exist within range, all the actual work falls to skill checks.

There are also a lot of situational spells which only prepared casters or wizards who happen to scribe them extra can affort to have, like water breathing or Heroes feast.

Guards and wards is utterly awesome for doing the following things: starting your own windpunk setting, invading a dungeon, defending a place and suggestion shenanigans in court rooms.(like "you will tell as much relevant truth pertaining to the case as possible")

Legends lore does not necessarily gives the same kind of information as a knowledge check so for example the scholarly rogue which never went into a street and always stood in its ivory tower reading books makes a knowledge check on werewolves and finds only the true stuff on werewolves while the caster in its corner which casts legends lore on a bound werewolf finds out that commonly people use potatoes to try to ward themselves from that werewolf and other information that is not scholarly but that is more the kind of stuff from myth and legends.

[Chronos]

Water Breathing isn't just for gating off underwater adventures. To give an example: We were traveling through the Underdark, and knew we would be passing by an underground lake. I know that even in our world, there are a lot of predators who use the tactic of pulling their prey into the water and holding them under until they drown, and I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that in an Underdark lake (probably involving tentacles). Not having Water Breathing doesn't make an encounter like that impossible (since you can just kill the monster), but it does make it a lot more dangerous, so I cast it.

As it happens, we got past the lake without incident, but then later in the same day, we had a non-aquatic encounter next to an underground river that fed that lake. Since we were all capable of breathing water, the cleric was able to use Control Water to flood the entire cavern, trivializing that encounter. Again, we'd have had that encounter either way, but having Water Breathing definitely helped.

[Aquillion]

This is a good idea, but you may also need proficiency with forgery kit to pull off a few of them, or have an exemplar of the document you are creating, depending on the level of knowledge the person you are showing the document to. particularly any official documents like arrest warrants.I don't think you need Forgery Kit proficency (after all, you're not using it.) I'd say you have to roll deception instead.


I've seen people propose the following logic for situational utility spells:

1. Don't take Feather Fall/Water Breathing/Teleport.

2. Let the DM decide whether to kill you off with a long fall/block off half the dungeon with a water obstacle/add a doom clock prohibiting overland travel.

3. Probably not, right?

4. ProfitzOne of these is not like the others, though. Teleport has massive utility, since it effectively lets you access any resources anywhere in 500 miles, as well as serving as the ultimate escape option.

[Yora]

Water breathing is amazing for shortcuts, backdoors, ambushes, and retreats. The GM can certainly create adventures and dungeons where the spell has no practical use, but you can also create dungeons where water adds interesting elements whether the party can water breath or not.

[JackPhoenix]

One of these is not like the others, though. Teleport has massive utility, since it effectively lets you access any resources anywhere in 500 miles, as well as serving as the ultimate escape option.

Assuming you don't mind finding yourself up to 500 miles from where you wanted to go. Or in completely random (but similarily looking) place anywhere on the same plane. Unless there's a permanent teleportation circle or you have stuff from there, even if you're very familiar with the place you want to teleport to, you have 24% chance of ending up who knows where. And it only worse the less familiar you're with the destination.

[Darkstar952]

I don't think you need Forgery Kit proficency (after all, you're not using it.) I'd say you have to roll deception instead.



Although you are not actually using the kit, you are using a lot of the knowledge related to the kit. Knowing where/how seals and marks are placed, the structure and wordage of official documents etc. Thats why I also mentioned not needing the kit prof if you had an exemplar document to effectively copy from.

Deception is more about your ability to lie not how well you can falsify documents, I would personally use proficiency with the kit plus the casting stat of the character. Deception may enable you to talk your way around any discrepancies in the document when people inspect it.

[Ahrimon]

I like Dancing Lights for the ability to move it around and so on, but I've never been convinced that it could make a very effective distraction. You can shape it into a humanoid shape, but a glowing vaguely-humanoid shape isn't going to fool any but the dumbest monsters into thinking it's a real person, especially in a world where there's a common cantrip that does exactly that. Most monsters, when they see that, shouldn't be assuming "There's a person here who for some reason looks all vague and glowy", they'll assume "There's someone here casting Dancing Lights".

I did this to my players by a pair of thieving gnomes.
PC's totally freaked out, thinking they were facing some elemental creature.

I guess players really are the dumbest monsters...

[Ahrimon]

A few thoughts:
Unless you're in a setting where nobody knows what a Wizard is, I would expect people to have at least some vague idea of how spells work. It's kind of like how almost nobody owns a tank, but they still know what a tank is. Same goes for grenades, poison gas, riot control gear, artillery, fighter jets, or Will-o'-Wisps, for that matter. Whether they'd recognize that specific ploy is up to the DM to determine, but I wouldn't rule it out.

You might be surprised how many modern commoners have absolutely no idea what a tank is. Or more accurately, everything is a tank. APCs, mobile artilery, LAVs, etc. All tanks.

So while, even in a world where wizards exist, that doesn't mean that any average person/creature has any idea what specific spells exist or even what sort of effects that there could be. You also have to consider that any world with wizards is probably chock full of supernatural creatures and effects that are deadly. The safe bet is it's it's something you don't want to mess with regardless.

In short, I think you are making some leaps of logic and I disagree. :smallbiggrin:

[Yakmala]

Any spell that requires you to make a successful attack roll and then gives the target a save to ignore the entirety of the effect is going to fail you more often than not and is a strong contender to never prepare.

[noob]

Any spell that requires you to make a successful attack roll and then gives the target a save to ignore the entirety of the effect is going to fail you more often than not and is a strong contender to never prepare.

Would it count if it is a boost or an aoe spell?

[Yakmala]

Would it count if it is a boost or an aoe spell?

Sure, that would improve its value, though I don't know of that many AoE spells that require hit rolls.

Any time an attack roll is needed or a save to ignore roll is allowed, there's a chance you are wasting a spell slot. If a spell both requires an attack roll and allows a save to ignore, the chances that you just wasted your action and a spell slot increase dramatically.

[LudicSavant]

You might be surprised how many modern commoners have absolutely no idea what a tank is. Or more accurately, everything is a tank. APCs, mobile artilery, LAVs, etc. All tanks.

I think that this misses the point. Even if you find a person who calls a mobile artillery or an APC a tank, they probably still have a vague idea of what a tank is. They don't look at an elephant and call it a tank, they look at a heavily armored vehicle of war and call it a tank. The very fact that "tank" is a word in their vocabulary at all indicates that they have been exposed to some conception of a tank.

Also, the relevant demographic for the discussion isn't "every random commoner" it's "people adventurers want to distract and sneak past."


And in a common magic setting, Dancing Lights would be a standard entertainment spell.

Yeah. There are a lot of possible ways that someone could have been exposed to knowledge about a spell even if they can't cast it themselves. I think that this is reflected in the rules: there's a chance of any character being able to recognize a spell (below a certain spell level) with the Intelligence check rules.

[Darc_Vader]

Sure, that would improve its value, though I don't know of that many AoE spells that require hit rolls.

Any time an attack roll is needed or a save to ignore roll is allowed, there's a chance you are wasting a spell slot. If a spell both requires an attack roll and allows a save to ignore, the chances that you just wasted your action and a spell slot increase dramatically.

Ice Knife is kind of like that, it’s an attack roll against the main target, and a separate dex save for anyone within 5ft of them (including the target of the attack). The aoe goes off regardless of the attack hitting though, to be fair.

Edit: Lightning Arrow is another similar one

[Aquillion]

Ice Knife is kind of like that, it’s an attack roll against the main target, and a separate dex save for anyone within 5ft of them (including the target of the attack). The aoe goes off regardless of the attack hitting though, to be fair.

Edit: Lightning Arrow is another similar oneThe last part is a crucial difference. Having both effects be separate changes it from "unusually high chance of doing nothing" to "unusually low chance of doing nothing."

Lightning Arrow also does fairly high damage for a 3rd level spell (the total damage to the primary target is comparable to Fireball, which is the best evocation to the level - lower AOE, less damage to secondary targets, but still pretty good.) And it scales really well when cast at higher levels.

The real problems with that spell are:

1. It requires concentration just to use it at all. This sucks, because even if you cast it and then immediately fire it (which will be the case 99% of the time) you have to drop any other concentration spells. I'd change it to "you can concentrate on it to hold the charge, or take an action to fire it right after casting it without having to concentrate."

2. The attack is a normal attack roll (using Dex, usually) while the save is based on your spellcasting stat (usually Wis), which makes the spell inherently MAD. That's the reality of being a Ranger; it also makes it unappealing to a Bard. This one is hard to fix because it's a Ranger spell, so the obvious option of letting you make the attack as a ranged spell attack probably wouldn't help (most Rangers prioritize Dex over Wisdom.)

I would give anyone in metal armor or in water disadvantage against the save, making up for the fact that the primary users (Rangers) probably don't have a maxed spellcasting stat. Plus, they're learning it late, so the damage is already behind. This is unlikely to break it in the hands of Bards; Lore bards would generally prefer Fireball anyway, while others aren't going to be tempted by a 3rd level spell.

[Darc_Vader]

The last part is a crucial difference. Having both effects be separate changes it from "unusually high chance of doing nothing" to "unusually low chance of doing nothing."

Yeah, that’s fair enough. I’m slightly biased against it because my DM seems to always save against it.


Lightning Arrow also does fairly high damage for a 3rd level spell (the total damage to the primary target is comparable to Fireball, which is the best evocation to the level - lower AOE, less damage to secondary targets, but still pretty good.) And it scales really well when cast at higher levels.

The real problems with that spell are:

1. It requires concentration just to use it at all. This sucks, because even if you cast it and then immediately fire it (which will be the case 99% of the time) you have to drop any other concentration spells. I'd change it to "you can concentrate on it to hold the charge, or take an action to fire it right after casting it without having to concentrate."

2. The attack is a normal attack roll (using Dex, usually) while the save is based on your spellcasting stat (usually Wis), which makes the spell inherently MAD. That's the reality of being a Ranger; it also makes it unappealing to a Bard. This one is hard to fix because it's a Ranger spell, so the obvious option of letting you make the attack as a ranged spell attack probably wouldn't help (most Rangers prioritize Dex over Wisdom.)

I would give anyone in metal armor or in water disadvantage against the save, making up for the fact that the primary users (Rangers) probably don't have a maxed spellcasting stat. Plus, they're learning it late, so the damage is already behind. This is unlikely to break it in the hands of Bards; Lore bards would generally prefer Fireball anyway, while others aren't going to be tempted by a 3rd level spell.

This would at least tempt me to consider it over Hail of Thorns. Lightning Arrow can do from 3d8 (avg. 13.5) to 6d8 (27) to a single target and 2d8 (9) to nearby creatures; Hail of Thorns from the same slot does 4d10 + 5 (27) to a single target on top of any extra effects from the bow and arrows used, and 3d10 (16.5) to nearby. Lightning Arrow only has the advantage when it comes to the size of the AoE, which is not always a good thing, especially when you can’t drop it behind your foes like a Fireball.

ETA: LA does scale better against the main target, but worse for the aoe.