That went better than expected.

[Aurosman]

This happened last session to my 6 man party of level 6's. I picked up the spell enemies abound when we hit 5th level months ago, and never have been in a position to use it until last session.

We came across 2 frost giants? in the wilderness. I fortunately was the highest on initiative. Used the spell on a giant and succeeded. Other giant moved first, provoked an opportunity attack, then on the other giants turn, went and did massive damage killing the first giant without any of my party even getting close or dealing any damage to it. I knew the spell was good in the right situation, but that changed the entire fight from deadly to easy. My DM even made a note about that spell to not forget it.

Anyone else have any moments when a spell or plan changed the entire battle? Either a good or bad outcome.

[NecessaryWeevil]

A few sessions ago we were trekking through the Maztican jungle. Settle down to camp for the night. Sentry hears a twig snap. Looks up and it turns out we're surrounded by cannibals with poisoned spears and javelins. So far the fights were pretty easy but this looked a bit challenging. I threw out Fog Cloud; our wizard decided this was a great idea and did me one better with his new Ever-Smoking Bottle. The entire battlefield was now heavily obscured. Freed of the need to concentrate on Fog Cloud, I summoned two Giant Spiders...with 10' blindsight. :smallamused:

The chief could only wander around in confusion as his allies were defeated in detail, torn to pieces one by one in the smoke.

[nickl_2000]

This happened last session to my 6 man party of level 6's. I picked up the spell enemies abound when we hit 5th level months ago, and never have been in a position to use it until last session.

We came across 2 frost giants? in the wilderness. I fortunately was the highest on initiative. Used the spell on a giant and succeeded. Other giant moved first, provoked an opportunity attack, then on the other giants turn, went and did massive damage killing the first giant without any of my party even getting close or dealing any damage to it. I knew the spell was good in the right situation, but that changed the entire fight from deadly to easy. My DM even made a note about that spell to not forget it.

Anyone else have any moments when a spell or plan changed the entire battle? Either a good or bad outcome.

One proper spell can change an entire battle from something brutal into something that is easy as pie.

My last Druid character was in combat with 2 casters and about 6 melee NPC. They were grouped together in a room when we walked in, immediate initiative. I got to go first, dropping a confusion that managed to hit every single one of them and they all failed the save. On the first turn, the casters sat twiddling their thumbs and 3 of the melee NPCs attacked the casters. By the third turn we had cleaned up the entire encounter without taking 1 HP of damage.

A few lucky rolls, a good AoE effect spell that landed amazingly and boom we were done.

[TheCleverGuy]

I was running Sunless Citadel, and the party had just reached big goblin warren at the end of the first level. As all the non-combatant goblins started to scream and flee, the hobgoblin boss and his minions in the next room moved into defensive positions for when the party inevitably kicked down the door. The party Light cleric went first, rushed into the middle of the fairly small room and set off her Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn. Everyone in the rooms failed their save and was instantly fried. The boss himself actually survived, but not for long.

I thought I had a good chance of killing at least one party member with that fight, but nope. After that i started using max HP for enemies instead of average.

[sithlordnergal]

It was the end of Tomb of Annihilation, we were preparing to face the final boss. We had gotten a small glimpse into the room that we were gonna fight in, and we realized it was going to be in a room filled with lava. The party was made up of a Paladin, Wizard, Bard, Swashbukler, and myself, a Moon Druid, and we were level 10. We also managed to take a quick short rest before the final fight, during which I had remained in Fire Elemental Form, and the Wizard and I came up with a plan. Now, it should be noted that my DM allowed me to use items like Gauntlets of Ogre Power while in Fire Elemental Form, so I had 19 strength.

As soon as the Short Rest ended, the Wizard cast Fly on me, and then we opened the door. Inside was the final boss, some big evil undead baby thing. We rolled initiative and put my plan into action. I flew up to the boss and began grappling it. One round later, the boss had failed to break free and I was able to do the second part of my plan, and I dragged it into the lava below.

Since it was grappled it couldn't escape, and it was taking massive amounts of fire damage due to the lava. Meanwhile I was perfectly fine due to the Fire Elemental's fire immunity. The DM tried a few things to break free, including giving me Exhaustion to force me to let go. But since Elemental's are immune to Exhaustion, I continued to hole onto it, letting the lava and my own attacks kill it. That boss died in two rounds.

The DM got revenge since killing the undead god summons Acereack...and then I got hit by Power Word Kill.

[HappyDaze]

Our Tempest cleric got whammied by Enemies Abound. He dropped a maximum damage, upcast to level 2 Thunderwave back into the group hitting two other PCs and several NPC hirelings. Then the paladin whacked him with a sword to clear his head. That one spell effectively did massive damage to the party.

[Reynaerde]

We came across 2 frost giantsEnemies Abound is the reason my whisper bard loves giants! You can spot them a mile away and they have very little chance of making the save. Even better: our DM loves playing these low intelligence opponents with actual low intelligence, meaning they tend to get into huge fights that generally don't involve us... 😀

[HappyDaze]

Even better: our DM loves playing these low intelligence opponents with actual low intelligence, meaning they tend to get into huge fights that generally don't involve us... 😀

Frost Giants are Int 9, which is not really that low. There's a fair chance that several PCs (other than Wizards, Artificers, Eldritch Knights, and Arcane Tricksters) have dumped to Int 8. I wonder if such PCs are expected to act with "actual low intelligence" too.

[Reynaerde]

Frost Giants are Int 9, which is not really that low. There's a fair chance that several PCs (other than Wizards, Artificers, Eldritch Knights, and Arcane Tricksters) have dumped to Int 8. I wonder if such PCs are expected to act with "actual low intelligence" too.I agree, the case I was thinking of, though, concerned hill giants.