Overestimated/Underestimated Spells

[shipiaozi]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

[noob]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

Greater invisibility provides more than just bonus rolls: people can not know your location unless you end your move with something that reveals it.
So if you shoot then go in a completely random direction then the opponents will have huge risks to just not know where to attack.
If your opponent can know your position for example through blindsight or smell (both are frequent senses and outsiders often ends up with see invisible or true sight) then yes it is bad.
Animal shapes is indeed strong if you have some way to get a lot of minions in one way or another but without such it falls down in efficiency massively if there is no weak minions to buff(example: no familiars, mounts or summons or henchmen).

Also you are wrong on bless: the sum of the added dice is 7.5 but it is not the same thing as adding a lot to all the rolls of one player so if it is a normal table where all the people are running around doing random stuff and the only one participating is boltdwarf that takes the attack action each turn to shoot more bolts then casting greater invisibility or haste on boltdwarf can be more efficient.


Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (a quiver containing at least one piece of ammunition)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You transmute your quiver so it produces an endless supply of nonmagical ammunition, which seems to leap into your hand when you reach for it.

On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action to make two attacks with a weapon that uses ammunition from the quiver. Each time you make such a ranged attack, your quiver magically replaces the piece of ammunition you used with a similar piece of nonmagical ammunition. Any pieces of ammunition created by this spell disintegrate when the spell ends. If the quiver leaves your possession, the spell ends.
It is rather useful if you get it on anything that is not a ranger and that is low in attack count and that you hate just spamming cantrips.
Ex: shooty bard could cast magical quiver on turn 1 then on subsequent turns shoot 3 arrows per turn instead of the regular amount.
On the ranger itself it is bad: the class that gets it does not benefits from it due to the action cost.

[Cass]

Greater invisibility provides more than just bonus rolls: people can not know your location unless you end your move with something that reveals it.
So if you shoot then go in a completely random direction then the opponents will have huge risks to just not know where to attack.
If your opponent can know your position for example through blindsight or smell (both are frequent senses and outsiders often ends up with see invisible or true sight) then yes it is bad.

I believe that being invisible doesn't inherently mean that you are hidden. Enemies should or could know your general location or even square without special abilities or perception check.

[noob]

I believe that being invisible doesn't inherently mean that you are hidden. Enemies should or could know your general location or even square without special abilities or perception check.

Try following an invisible blur on the battlefield while someone in front of you is bashing you with an axe and tell me "being invisible doesn't inherently mean that you are hidden".

also
An invisible creature is impossible to see without the aid of magic or a Special sense
so you are possibly not hidden but you still can not be seen so they just still can not know your position.
Furthermore they use the term of heavily obscured which again means "can not be seen with normal sight"


The creature’s location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves. suggesting it can not be detected otherwise (unless you have a special sense which most monsters have).

So while walking on something solid(no track left) during a battle(which is something very noisy) you are hard to track despite not hiding.
Yes it might not work in a swamp but even then being distracted by the battle means that it is probably not a sealthing matter but a matter of the opponent trying to keep track of the invisible person(knowing there is one which is guaranteed if the spell was cast mid fight in plain sight)
But the swamp thing is probably redundant with the monsters in it because they are likely to have at least one special sense seeing the place.

[stoutstien]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

Find familiar is very DM/game style dependent. even then I've never heard it called anything lower than a class feature masquerading as a spell.

FF work against targets who are immune to soft or hard CC spells and hard counters invisibility regardless of source.also has no target restrictions regarding sight. E.i you can counter the disadvantage of being blinded with FF.

Command.great spell but the delay until the targets next turn for any effect gives room to counter it.

Tasha summons have an advantage when talking about classes that don't have conjure X on their list and work better in smaller environments. Different tool.

Spirit guardian isn't just damage. It's CC, damage, and tanking. It's also has the best damage type compared to the second worse.

Haste and GI are about mobility. Removing yourself as a target is much more useful than a d4 on a save.bless is an great spell but it's in a completely different area of play.

Swift quiver is a pretty middle of the road as far as weapon buffing spells go. The issue is the ranger is probably the worse class to use it compared to anyone who can snipe it.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.
Your credibility isn't good, given your posting history about melee wizards.


[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure. That depends on the resources available to the players. If you lose a familiar during each encounter, and your DM is stingy with gold at low levels, you waste resources. In a game where there's lots of gold, yeah, you can tell the party to stop for ten minutes after every encounter and summon another one.
Or can you?
FWIW: Find Familiar is not an underestimated spell. It's well established as a very good spell, such that taking magic initiate becomes appealing for that spell alone (one rogues, others)
You are 0 for 1 in dispelling myth.


[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, Nope. Once the enemy is illuminated, your allies attack with advantage. If you are playing as a support, it's a decent choice, particularly when your enemies have the ability to hide or not be seen. Against some enemies, not as necessary.
0 for 2

[Underestimated]Command
No, not underestimated. If you check out the posts on GiTP 5e forums, you'll discover that in ranks in the top five of favorite first level spells. An advantage Dissonant whispers has is that it adds 3d6 psychic. One of the things that I like about command is that I can upcast it and influence more creatures at higher levels. For my casters it is a 'must have' spell.
0 for 3

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons They are a mixed bag. They are also closer to balanced than some of the spells like summoning beasts or woodland beings; as you note, they have situational uses.
1 for 4, not sure who sings the praises of these spells.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? The only short coming is concentration; in play, it's effective, particularly against mobs. Against big bags of hit points? Not great. The speed reduction can make a difference in a battle.
1 for 5.

[Overestimated]Haste
I think it's over sold, personally, unless you need one of your martials to get a burst of attacks/damage - I prefer to cast it on another PC while my caster does something else. It has its moments, though.
2 for 6


Greater Invisibility:
Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves
No, it doesn't. It offers +2.5 and +2.5.

It is very clear
That you don't know what the average of a d4 is.
2 for 7

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver .
No comment, have not seen many uses of this spell.
Push

[Underestimated] Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team. They don't make magical attacks, so resistances and immunities can hamper their damage output. They have low AC. But, you can turn everyone into a giant eagle and they can fly.
Certainly has some uses, but it comes on line at level 15.
What kind of encounters do you expect to have at that level?

Not seeing a lot of myth dispelling here, but you have some useful observations on some of the spells.

[Asmotherion]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

Disagree with most of your list.

Find Familiar: Certainly not underestimated. It's a spell everyone takes.

Faerie Fire: Advantage on all rolls against a boss? Are you kidding me?

Command: You've never seen Wall spells or something? Telekinesis? Fear? Suggestion? It's good, but it's far from the "best control spell".

Spirit Guardians: Speaking of Control spells, this is a gem. The fact it deals damage and can destroy concentration is just icing on the cake.

[Dalinar]

I have read elsewhere on this forum that an upcast Summon Celestial on its own can out-DPR martials to a surprising extent. And with a Simulacrum, you can have two of 'em! (Although that's more Simulacrum being broken than Summons being broken.) In any case, they're at least better designed than "conjure eight snakes and slow combat to a crawl" if not necessarily as powerful.

And I love Command, but judging by the thread I think everyone else does too. Same with FF.

Perhaps lurk a little more to get a better pulse on how this forum's audience actually feels about these spells?

I'd also like to get the crowd's opinion on Fog Cloud, while we're talking about questionably-rated spells. Personally I love it, although it can be a bit clunky to use depending somewhat on your DM. Use it to cancel disadvantage, conceal yourself from sight-requiring spells, Hide in it, bypass OAs if you don't have a better way of doing that like Mobile (you have to be able to see someone to OA them per PHB, everyone in a Fog Cloud is heavily obscured), or set the mood for the Bard's campfire story ;)

[shipiaozi]

Your credibility isn't good, given your posting history about melee wizards.

You could disagree, but disagree doesn't mean "may credibility isn't good".
Wizard and sorcerer should be melee in 99% of cases, only Barbarian and Monk are more likely to be melee than them.




That depends on the resources available to the players. If you lose a familiar during each encounter, and your DM is stingy with gold at low levels, you waste resources. In a game where there's lots of gold, yeah, you can tell the party to stop for ten minutes after every encounter and summon another one.

A common misunderstanding and prove my argument's necessary. People know find familiar is a good spell, but not as good as it should be because they don't send familiar to die. No matter how much gold you have, spend gold to summon familiar is the best method to use them after character get basic equipment.


Nope. Once the enemy is illuminated, your allies attack with advantage. If you are playing as a support, it's a decent choice, particularly when your enemies have the ability to hide or not be seen. Against some enemies, not as necessary.

+4.5AB with save is a pretty bad spell compare with bless(+2.5/2.5 without save) or entangle(+4.5AB/4.5AC with save). What if a damage spell only deal 50% damage of fireball? That's how bad FF is.



No, not underestimated. If you check out the posts on GiTP 5e forums, you'll discover that in ranks in the top five of favorite first level spells. The advantage Dissonant whispers has is that it adds 3d6 psychic. One of the things that I like about command is that I can upcast it and influence more creatures at higher levels. For my casters it is a 'must have' spell.

Dissonant Whispers don't control enemy for 1 turn and usually perform worse.



They are a mixed bag. They are also closer to balanced than some of the spells like summoning beasts or woodland beings; as you note, they have situational uses.
1 for 4, not sure who sings the praises of these spells.

Good to know no one praise these weak spells here, certain play group in China love to praise Tasha Summons/Holy Weapon/Spirit Shroud.



I think it's over sold, personally, unless you need one of your martials to get a burst of attacks/damage - I prefer to cast it on another PC while my caster does something else. It has its moments, though.

One thing I am puzzled is many players called haste "burst of damage", no it's not, it's a large SW that deals damage very slowly, reduce damage in first turn and perform better in long fight.


No, it doesn't. It offers +2.5 and +2.5.
That you don't know what the average of a d4 is.

Three targets, 3*2.5=7.5

[PhantomSoul]

Three targets, 3*2.5=7.5

No. Very much not. Incredibly not. (Especially when you're doing it while selectively choosing values from other spells ignoring their other [main, IMO] benefits...)

[Contrast]

Perhaps lurk a little more to get a better pulse on how this forum's audience actually feels about these spells?

Shipiaozi is a poster with a number of...well lets call them controversial opinions on the relative effectiveness of certain things.

Regarding the OP:

Find Familiar - broadly considered one of the best, if not the best, 1st level spell. I don't think its really possible for this to be underrated.

Faerie Fire - I'd say its probably at the lower end of good spells. It's fine but at low levels your DC sucks and you tend to fight more nimble dex based enemies (a lot of invisible creatures are also more Dex based which is unfortunate) and at high levels you tend to have something better to concentrate on. It's a OK spell that has situational problems in its use.

Command - generally considered one of the best 1st level spells, not sure who you think is underrating this.

Tashas Summons - tend to agree most of these aren't necessarily great. I think the reason a lot of people like them is that they're good enough to be useable and don't have the problems of making combat unfun for everyone else at the table like old summons did. Some are better than others though.

Spirit Guardians - you didn't comment on the most relevant part of Spirit Guardians, the fact that its party safe. If you roll low init as a wizard and the sides have collided, you can't Fireball whereas you can almost always Spirit Guardians as a cleric. I strongly disagree with your assessment on this one. A cleric upcasting Spirit Guardians and then dodging the rest of the combat is often a perfectly viable strategy.

Haste&Greater Invis - Your comparison to Bless is flawed so we'll just ignore that. Haste is overrated because the downside (losing conc losing you a turn) is just too much of a risk. Greater Invis is great but more risky than people realise I think unless you have an encyclopedic memory of what things have blindsense or whatever (and thats obviously metagamey as well). I think both spells are still good but have an invisible asterisk on them that most people forget about.

Swift Quiver - I'm inclined to agree its not that great but mostly only good for making an archer Valor bard in which case its more a thing of enabling a build rather than being OP. Not really sure I've seen people mention it in other contexts to say I'd think its overrrated.

Animal Shapes - I'm dubious all the stars will align to make this as good as you seem to think it'll be. Good luck with that I guess.

[Theodoxus]

Other than coming on late game for the Ranger, I don't understand the lack of love for QoS. it lets the Ranger make 4 attacks a round, 3 levels before a Fighter can. Sure, it uses their BA, but how often are you using your HM? It shouldn't be blown on minions...

[SharkForce]

tasha's summons are popular for convenience and playability, not because people think they're exceptionally powerful.

or, to put it another way: there are groups that don't use the PHB summons because they bog down play. tasha's summoning spells are addressing their concerns, not yours. not everything is about you.

spirit guardians does less than half of the damage of fireball... but it does it per round. so, you know, 2 rounds and it's a fireball that doesn't hit allies that deals a very nice damage type that slows enemies. 3 rounds, which is fairly typical for a combat to reach, and you're ahead of fireball on damage.

bless gives +1d4 to rolls that not everyone is going to make. it is definitely not +7.5, because odds are good that at least one person doesn't care about the attack roll bonus and that AoE attacks will not hit another person. even so, greater invisibility has other benefits, like the fact that many negative effects do not function if an enemy can see you (which is even stronger than +1d4 to saving throws when it works). also, there's the fact that advantage on one key party member's attacks may easily be more relevant than giving +1d4 to a cleric's attack or a wizard's fire bolt. add on to that the likely chance that you're giving that same character extra protection from being attacked and it can be a big deal.

haste is probably overly popular, but it remains an excellent backup plan. it usually works even in situations where nothing else does. that's worth something. that said, if you have the right target it can be very worthwhile (often that will mean a rogue, or someone who has unusually powerful single attacks, like a polymorphed ally or a moon druid).

animal shapes: I don't find myself surrounded by hordes of weak allies at the level when you get the spell. it's certainly strong in the situation where you can use it to create potentially dozens of stronger allies, but I don't see it coming up that often.

[shipiaozi]

Other than coming on late game for the Ranger, I don't understand the lack of love for QoS. it lets the Ranger make 4 attacks a round, 3 levels before a Fighter can. Sure, it uses their BA, but how often are you using your HM? It shouldn't be blown on minions...

With CE and PAM, most dps should being able to attack with bonus action.
QoS is not "4 attacks a round", it “sacrifice one attack to make one extra attack in next turn”

[RogueJK]

Another thing working in Faerie Fire's favor is that it doesn't allow any subsequent saves, like a number of lower level control/debuff spells do. No "enemy can attempt another save on their turn" or "attempt another save each time they take damage". Once it sticks, it's on until the caster ends Concentration. So it's a true AoE "save or suck", with more than one useful effect, available from Level 1. It's one of the better Level 1 Concentration options in the game, for certain casters.

The thing it, it's not that useful to compare it to something like Bless, because very few casters will have the option to choose between Concentrating on Bless or Faerie Fire. Rather, their spell list will include one or the other, with the exception of something like the Twilight or Light Cleric that gets both. Just because it may not be as good of an option for a Twilight/Light Cleric who could cast Bless instead doesn't mean it's not a good choice for something like a Bard or Archfey Warlock or Druid or Artificer who can't cast Bless in the first place. Similarly, it's useless to say that Bless is a better option for a Paladin or Cleric or Divine Soul Sorcerer, since they can't cast Faerie Fire to begin with.

So yes, while Bless is one of the best spells in the game, only a small percentage of casters will have access to it. So there's plenty of room for other non-Bless 1st level Concentration spells to be useful. Different casters will play differently, due to their different spell lists.

[Merudo]

[Underestimated]Find Familiar


Near everyone agrees Find Familiar is one of the best level 1 spell. Not everyone is using their familiar optimally, but that doesn't mean the spell is "underestimated".

Also, losing your familiar repeatedly will set you back a lot of GP at lot at lower levels, meaning you won't be able to afford transcribing spells when you find your first spell book.



[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

Faerie Fire is certainly not horrible, and I have no clue where you get your 50% number from.

A Faerie Fire that lands gives essentially a +5 to attack the target, for the whole party including summons or allies.

Bless gives a +2.5 to three people. For a party of six, that means 1/4 of the effect of Faerie Fire.

I agree Bless is in general a better and more versatile spell but it is not available to Bards and Druids.

As for Entangle it is also quite good, but it targets strength while Faerie Fire targets dexterity. Both have their niche.



[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.


Command is widely seen as one of the best level 1 spells. The big restriction on Command is that you need to know and use the same language as the target.



[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.


I agree Tasha Summons are not really attractive to Druids (exception: Summon Beast), but they are useful for pretty much all other classes.

The big advantage of Tasha summons is that they provide utility and/or long range attacks. Summon Undead for example can summon a ghost that can spy through wall or an archer that can survive every fight for an hour by staying in the back.

The best summon spell for Wizards at tier 2 remains Summon Greater Demon, but it fits a very different role than the Tasha summons.



[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range?


A fireball that hits every round with one spell slot, doing radiant damage, while providing control, without friendly fire, and that upcasts fantastically.



[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.


I do agree somewhat. IMO these two spells are typically not worth casting unless you twin them as a Sorcerer.

Haste is very useful on a Rogue though (it doubles their sneak attack), and Greater Invisibility provides protection against many special abilities, and eliminates opportunity attack.

[Stangler]

Bless is one of the best spells in the game, especially when combined with SS and GWM. Other spells will look worse in comparison. FF combined with bless and crit fishing builds is really good. Or FF and summons combined work well.

Haste is kinda the same but it adds movement and better crit fishing.

SG has no friendly fire and slow movement. Obviously fireball is really good.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

I feel that your opinions on these have been fairly well addressed at this point as "very different" from the norm. I do have a question though, and its a question that continues from your previous threads.

What do you mean when you say "50%" of something? You've said it about feats, spells, even class abilities if I recall... What metrics do you use to gauge how one spell is only half of another spell? Even by your own metric of Bless giving +7.5 to hit (which is in itself a misleading claim) I believe the average of Advantage, which faerie fire grants, is roughly a +5 to hit, so it's at least 66% of Bless. Not that this metric makes sense to begin with.

One thing I want to say as an anecdote as well - Spirit Guardian's actually plays a major role in why our table vets UA much harder than we used to. When it was added to the Paladin's spell list briefly I thought little of it, picked it up because it was already obviously a good choice. I was floored at how effective it was, even beyond what I already expected. My character was already a threat on the battlefield but that extra damage and battlefield control immediately turned into one of your parties most effective ways to deal with swarms of enemies. It kept our caster safe, it let me easily keep control of targets that would attempt to run when combined with the small handful of other control options I had (including Command by the way) and in general made what the DM expected to be somewhat challenging encounters into trivial ones.

Spirit Guardian's is a fantastic spell, so effective on its own that it changed our tables rules to keep it with appropriate opportunity costs when selecting it.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd also like to get the crowd's opinion on Fog Cloud, while we're talking about questionably-rated spells. Personally I love it, Still my favorite first level spell.


You could disagree, but disagree doesn't mean "may credibility isn't good". It's bad due to some of the bizarre assertions that you make.

Dissonant Whispers don't control enemy for 1 turn and usually perform worse. If forces them to flee on a failed save. Learn how it works before you critique it.

Three targets, 3*2.5=7.5
Your credibility is poor due to inane assertions like that.

[Composer99]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.


Coming onto a forum populated by obsessive D&D nerds, where the merits of basically every spell in the game have been discussed at great length (and on many occasions) for years, to say something like this, is surely a prime example of discourtesy.

Not helping matters is the questionable degree to which myths have been dispelled. Looking through your list, it appears that, for basically each and every spell on it, you are either mistaken to some degree or another about the spell's effectiveness (spirit guardians, for instance), or mistaken in thinking the community is over or under-rating that spell (find familiar, for instance).

[DarknessEternal]

Three targets, 3*2.5=7.5

According to your logic, Faerie Fire is then the best spell in the game, since it provides +infinity to hit as an infinite number of attackers gain advantage.

[ecarden]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.


The cost isn't just gold, it's time. If your familiar dies in the first fight of the day, you're stuck waiting for the next short rest to bring it back, even if you've got it prepared (casting time is an hour plus 10 minutes for ritual). Hopefully you will quickly have the resources to have it up every morning (assuming you can find/purchase the required ingredients, which a DM may well limit if you're out in the wild), but beyond that, time is a resource. A third resource which can be difficult to predict/manage is other player/DM patience, which is also a problem with your preferred summons. A wizard is already likely eating two-three times the time of most folks on their turn, getting one or more extra turns a round can get annoying to other players.

It's still a good spell, but (1) not underestimated and (2) not as useful in most games I've played as you're stating. Especially if your RP isn't as someone who is happy to send a tiny compulsorily loyal spirit to its death on an infinite loop for minor tactical advantage.

[da newt]

It would be very helpful to all if you (shipiaozi) explained your assertions in greater detail.

For example: "Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC."

How about explaining what you mean specifically by all of this?

I 'ASSUME' that when you say "Bless give +7.5 attack roll" that you mean that IF Bless is cast w/ a lvl 1 spell slot then it affects 3 PCs, and IF each of those PCs attacks once per round then each PC gains +2.5 to hit, and there are 3 of them so 3*+2.5=+7.5 total. But how does that effect DPR (damage per round) for this party? How does it compare if the PC's have more attacks? Does it provide more DPR against low AC or hi AC foes? etc.

I have no idea what you mean by "Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves" except for the AC bit. This is part of the actual benefits of HASTE: "Until the spell ends, the target’s speed is doubled, it gains a +2 bonus to AC, it has advantage on Dexterity saving throws, and it gains an additional action on each of its turns. That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action." - but you state it 'give +5 attack roll' and '+1 all saves.'

Your assertions are interesting and provide a fresh prospective, but they are very hard to follow the logic in order to see if they provide any useful insight.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

Part of what I have an issue with regarding this list are the numerous comparisons to spells that are on different lists. In those cases it really is apples to oranges. Yes Bless is amazingly good, so good that I've had characters use it as their primary concentration spell into tier 3 (My Light Cleric comes to mind as 3rd levels were generally fireball and not Spirit Gurardians.) Regardless, comparing things like Haste (Wizard/ Sorcerer) and Faerie Fire (Druid/ Bard) is pretty much a moot point for most characters.
Anyway, FF has been taken and use by every character I've DM'd and played when possible, so not sure how it could possibly be underrated.
Faerie Fire has similarities to Entangle, but if you have a melee vs ranged group you need to use Faerie Fire.
Haste, well maybe some players overestimate it, but for our group it is a niche spell which is decent if you build around it, so not rated too high by us.
Spirit Guardians lasts 10 minutes. Strangely this is a spell you didn't compare to bless as they are both cleric concentration spells, but in a single battle I'd take bless most of the time for the hit and save benefit to 3 characters. If you can make SG last 2-3 battles through a dungeon for example it's better... though we have gotten ourselves into trouble a couple of times by damaging critters we weren't supposed to damage in subsequent rooms by doing this. I think some players to take and use this spell too frequently.

[Jon talks a lot]

This list is by no means optimized in any way, as the tag suggests.

[Theodoxus]

With CE and PAM, most dps should being able to attack with bonus action.
QoS is not "4 attacks a round", it “sacrifice one attack to make one extra attack in next turn”

Sorry, meant SQ. And it most certainly is 4 attacks. Attack and Extra Attack, and trading your Bonus Action for another 2 attacks.


"On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action to make two attacks with a weapon that uses ammunition from the quiver."


And what in the ever loving that is holy and good is this garbage tripe about?

Wizard and sorcerer should be melee in 99% of cases, only Barbarian and Monk are more likely to be melee than them.

[MrStabby]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

I agree with some and disagree with some here. Like others I am astonished that you believe that there is a widespread belief that command isn't one of the best level 1 spells in the game.

I think haste is overrated like you do. The downsides are just not worth it to me and the level of competition amongst level 3 spells is very high.

Greater Invisibility on the other hand is generally considered OK, I think. I also think this is about right. It isn't earth shakingly good but for pushing through sharpshooter attacks or similar on a valor bard, for dodging spells that need to see a target. For weaving amongst enemies without attacks of opportunity or just for getting out of dodge when things all go south. It covers a lot of bases for just one spell known.

Swiftquiver... I would say it used to be overrated, but now I don't think many people hold it as a standout spell of the level any longer.

Spirit Guardians... awesome spell. It may not be as good as fireball for damage efficiency but that doesn't mean its bad. Careful positioning and great tactical play (including readied actions and spells) are needed to get the most out of it. Blocking out movement with movement penalties is a crucial part of the spell. Where I think it shines though is its upcasting capability - if you are short of spells known then it basically gives you a good use of level 3, 4 and 5 spell slots. Plus, if you are a Cleric, what else would you be using the slot for?

Faerie Fire... it is actually better at higher levels than lower levels. When your enemies go invisible, when you face high AC enemies, when party members use sharpshooter or great weapon master, when people have more attacks... it just keeps getting better. Yeah, pretty good.




My addition is Confusion.

So confusion seems to be rated as pretty good but not actually worth casting. The kind of spell that gets added to one's repertoire but never really seems to get cast.

I think it is a bit underrated. An area of effect control spell. A spell that can really incapacitate enemies. A spell with no issues round charm or fear immunity. And really it has a pretty cool upcasting as well - going from hitting multiple enemies to hitting loads of them is nice.

The table is not as bad as it looks either. Sure, 9 and 10 suck, there is no getting away from that but the other 80% of results are pretty awesome. Doing nothing on an AoE spell is a massive action economy boost. Randomly attacking a creature within reach is often going to hit their own allies, but even if they attack you it is still a big boost for a wizard or an archer. And on a 1... well here come all the attacks of opportunity and it can take a turn more to dash back into the fight.

Good enough to take a second look at.

[Jon talks a lot]

And what in the ever loving that is holy and good is this garbage tripe about?


Surely it is satire, but somehow it is not.

[MaxWilson]

And what in the ever loving that is holy and good is this garbage tripe about?


A different, controversial thread. Best to leave that discussion on its own thread instead of this one.

[Frogreaver]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

There's 3 considerations with find familiar:

Recast time - your party may not be willing to grant you 10 minutes of downtime after every encounter - and they are not buttholes for not doing so
Recast cost - if you lose a familiar in every encounter then that's alot of gold being eat up early game. Later the gold is negligible and so this consideration mostly goes away - but at the early levels where find familiar is best - it's a real concern.
Logistics of finding/keeping the components - 10gp of charcoal/incense/herbs may not actually be easy to obtain and carry in the quantities you need. Most DM's handwave components and make them easy to find/buy/carry. But if they aren't doing that then things like always resummoning a familiar may not actually be possible.


These are real concerns and any of them can make the familiar an unreliable combat trick. Still great for out of combat though - which is what most people give it an excellent rating for. In games where none of these things are a concern, I would agree that it's underrated.


[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

I almost agree. I wouldn't call it horrible - just not very good. It's kind of middle of the road. Giving a chance to grant advantage on a few creatures just isn't a particularly strong concentration effect - even for a level 1 spell.


[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

Command is great when it works. The problem is the shared language restriction can prevent it from working quite often. It's a great spell to supplement your more general purpose spells. But that to me means it's too situational to be truly underrated.


[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

I'm going to push back on the overestimated assessment here. I've not really see anyone say these spells are 'stronger' than the traditional conjure spells. What I do see is alot of people that wouldn't have otherwise used the other conjure spells due to them bogging down the game or not having control over what was summoned being excited about having some solid summon options without these issues.


[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

Fireball always has 3 big issues.

It's not party friendly
It's often resisted
It doesn't scale particularly well


Spirit Guardians is party friendly, rarely resisted, and scales very well (due to it's damage being dealt multiple rounds) and can last more than 1 encounter. It's one of the very best damage spells in all of 5e. I think people tend to overestimate damage spells though. So it may be overestimated - but if so it's not because its a bad damage spell.


[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

Comparison here is so far off I don't even know how to address it. I think you are wrong in how bad you are equating haste and greater invisibility, but I think you are right that they tend to be a bit overrated. In terms of damage granted - casting bless probably does increase the parties average damage about the same as haste or greater invisibility (depends some on party composition). But Greater Invisibility and Haste also add Defensive and Mobility benefits.

In terms of actual play though, having a single target focused strong buff is probably better as 2 casters could stack haste and greater invisibility on the GWM Fighter with a strong magic weapon resulting in much more damage than could be achieved via bless combined with something else.


[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

It's not a particularly great spell - but that seems to be the consensus. It's one way to turn the bard into a functional archer. I don't really know anyone that values it very highly but it's suitable for that purpose - even if that purpose will never be an optimal use of the slot or spell known.

[Theodoxus]

I'm going to push back on the overestimated assessment here. I've not really see anyone say these spells are 'stronger' than the traditional conjure spells. What I do see is alot of people that wouldn't have otherwise used the other conjure spells due to them bogging down the game or not having control over what was summoned being excited about having some solid summon options without these issues.

100% agreement here. In fact, I'm seriously considering banning the Conjure spells. None of my players have ever used one, fearing the added combat time they would create. I'd probably boost the Summon spells a smidge in compensation. I think they're as weak as they are so as to not overshadow the Conjure spells - they have legitimate differences that solve different problems, so eliminating an entire set would disrupt that balance - hence the need for a small boost in power - but elsewise, I'm happy to cull the spells from my table.

[Ninja Bear]

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

What are the assumptions these rely on?

Haste gives an extra attack rather than advantage or bonus to-hit (which means that it stacks with each of these) and should optimally be cast as a twinned spell (ditto for Greater Invisibility if intending to use it in combat), while it is not possible to double the effect of Bless as a practical measure (party sizes and compositions differ but given a party of ~5 it can be assumed that ~4 might make attack rolls each turn).

Assigning Haste a static value seems to indicate that it has been considered in isolation when much of its value is that it stacks cumulatively with both Bless and advantage in a game where stacking is rare. Bless is also accessible on classes with lesser or no casting abilities (Paladins have it and monks/EKs/etc. often get it via Fey-Touched) so it isn't that the caster needs to choose between using their concentration slot on one or the other.

[micahaphone]

There's 3 considerations with find familiar:

Recast time - your party may not be willing to grant you 10 minutes of downtime after every encounter - and they are not buttholes for not doing so
Recast cost - if you lose a familiar in every encounter then that's alot of gold being eat up early game. Later the gold is negligible and so this consideration mostly goes away - but at the early levels where find familiar is best - it's a real concern.
Logistics of finding/keeping the components - 10gp of charcoal/incense/herbs may not actually be easy to obtain and carry in the quantities you need. Most DM's handwave components and make them easy to find/buy/carry. But if they aren't doing that then things like always resummoning a familiar may not actually be possible.




Find familiar has an hour cast time, so it takes 70 minutes to ritual cast

[Mitchellnotes]

I would add to the analysis for the tasha's summons that you have them listed as a singular item, but it Really depends on the class. Also, no one is saying they are ever the "optimal choice," they just tend to be never a bad choice. Not sure what to do with your concentration in combat? Use a tasha's summon. They'll always have some use, and are a good all-rounder spell. You can't always prepare a full list of silver bullets.

Going back to class breakdown:

Druids and rangers: stick with the conjure spells, there just arent real advantages to tashas (except ease of play)

Cleric: the celestial summons are great

Sorcerer: for the aberrant mind and clockwork who get it for free... why not

Wizards: can be a good choice. The summons wizards get are hard to use in combat since they generally take more than an action. Summon greater demon is probably better, but you'll likely get longer use out of the tashas summon. As a conjurer, i probably would pick up one or two of them (prob shadowspawn and aberration), and i'd grab summon undead on a necromancer. Others i may grab onen depending on the overall group

Warlocks: just....frustrating. capping at level 5 is infuriating cause its just short of 3x attacks

[Eldariel]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

As per usual with your posts, you're conflating curves with flat bonuses. It's very different giving bonus to 3 characters and one and the value of said bonuses depends on party members (getting Bless on 3 characters with 3 attacks on level 5 is huge, giving it to Cleric, Wizard & Bard, not so much). Take this from a math teacher, to get the value of an attack bonus, you count:
(X + Y)Z

Where X is the hit chance without the bonus, Y is the bonus is in question and Z is the average damage the attack deals. This means it's conditional on:
- The base bonus
- The base damage and its bonuses
- Enemy AC

All of which you're ignoring. You're just saying "(X + 2.5)3Y = 7.5" even though "(X + 2.5)3Y = 3XY + 7.5Y". You're just ignoring variables, which makes your whole math not work. There's two degrees of freedom in that equation. If you want to do what you're doing, you need to get average and standard deviation (or absolute deviation or variance) for ACs and attack bonuses. Then you need to plot those in and count it from there. I'll promise you, it's not +7,5 you'll end up with. But it also takes slightly more advanced math.

Also, Haste bonuses are more complex than that: Haste is a damage roll multiplier (alongside a superb kiting tool, which is the role it excels in: this means +infinite AC and saves since enemies can't attack anyone in your team while you kill them). So the equation I just gave you? It multiplies that whole equation meaning it also hinges on every part of that equation. There is again one degree of freedom in the answer for any given attack bonus and AC.

But this isn't the first time we've talked about this, so I doubt the math will suddenly get better after this post.... Just please, don't use bad math to vindicate points. Do the math right first. Then it's valuable. Right now it's just random numbers that look meaningful to you because they are the averages of the dice used, but the value of those averages depends on their environment.


[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

Someone hasn't done their homework on how to use Shapechange and True Polymorph, it sounds like. Already the fact that True Polymorph can get you an infinite amount of Wraiths (by turning an ally into Atropal) forever makes it way, way better than any amount of Animal Shapes, and Shapechange has plenty of minionmancy in conjunction with absurd combat boosts too. They put Wish and Foresight to shame (well, Wish is competitive if the class lacks Simulacrum/Clone/etc. on their spell list, Foresight is not). That said, this is an 8th level spell so let's discuss it as such.

Animal Shapes is a fine spell but unfortunately it comes so late that immunity to nonmagical weapons is getting pretty common as is flight (there are no good CR 3-4 flying beasts) meaning it occurs at a tactically at an inopportune time. Getting a ton of beasts is great in this edition but Tier 4 isn't the place for them unless you're a Shepherd and even there it's much less overpowered than on any earlier Tier. Which is not to say AS is a bad spell: when it works, it can be really good. But it's not as good as you make it out to be due to game mechanical considerations at that point.

Don't forget that casting Animal Shapes means you aren't casting Conjure Animals or Conjure Woodland Beings. So concentrating on Animal Shapes costs you 24 raptors or pixies or whatever. It doesn't make AS never worth it, but it is a significant opportunity cost especially with the "Large or smaller"-restriction (one of the better uses of summons on this level is to get grapplers). Though being able to change shapes with an action lets you get creative with e.g. a horde of Queztalcoatluses turning something Large and Heavy and bodyslamming onto enemies.

[Jon talks a lot]

I just spent the past 4 hours reading this guys post history, and whoo boy is it wack.

I have a strong feeling this thread is going to turn out like so many others by Ship, where he refuses to change his mind and then stops responding in the thread, only to make the same claim in another thread. He will then go on to say that he was never disproven.

Rinse. Recycle. Repeat.

I will no longer participate in this thread. It won't change anything.

[shipiaozi]

I feel that your opinions on these have been fairly well addressed at this point as "very different" from the norm. I do have a question though, and its a question that continues from your previous threads.

What do you mean when you say "50%" of something? You've said it about feats, spells, even class abilities if I recall... What metrics do you use to gauge how one spell is only half of another spell? Even by your own metric of Bless giving +7.5 to hit (which is in itself a misleading claim) I believe the average of Advantage, which faerie fire grants, is roughly a +5 to hit, so it's at least 66% of Bless. Not that this metric makes sense to begin with.

One thing I want to say as an anecdote as well - Spirit Guardian's actually plays a major role in why our table vets UA much harder than we used to. When it was added to the Paladin's spell list briefly I thought little of it, picked it up because it was already obviously a good choice. I was floored at how effective it was, even beyond what I already expected. My character was already a threat on the battlefield but that extra damage and battlefield control immediately turned into one of your parties most effective ways to deal with swarms of enemies. It kept our caster safe, it let me easily keep control of targets that would attempt to run when combined with the small handful of other control options I had (including Command by the way) and in general made what the DM expected to be somewhat challenging encounters into trivial ones.

Spirit Guardian's is a fantastic spell, so effective on its own that it changed our tables rules to keep it with appropriate opportunity costs when selecting it.

Every feat, spells, class ability, trait or other effects could be transform into an int to compare. There might be difficulty to do so but the idea should be the central part of any optimization.

Bless give +2.5 AB and +2.5 all saves, FF give +4.5 AB if hit, roughly +2.5 AB on average and lacks the saves part. Compare with entangle, FF lacks the AB reduce and movement reduce effect.
AOEs are great against swarms of enemies, but SG is much, much worse than real AOE spell like Fireball or Lightning Strike, it's a weak spell with worse delayed damage and little extra effect(small movement reduce).


What are the assumptions these rely on?

Haste gives an extra attack rather than advantage or bonus to-hit (which means that it stacks with each of these) and should optimally be cast as a twinned spell (ditto for Greater Invisibility if intending to use it in combat), while it is not possible to double the effect of Bless as a practical measure (party sizes and compositions differ but given a party of ~5 it can be assumed that ~4 might make attack rolls each turn).

Assigning Haste a static value seems to indicate that it has been considered in isolation when much of its value is that it stacks cumulatively with both Bless and advantage in a game where stacking is rare. Bless is also accessible on classes with lesser or no casting abilities (Paladins have it and monks/EKs/etc. often get it via Fey-Touched) so it isn't that the caster needs to choose between using their concentration slot on one or the other.

Extra attack could be compare with bonus to hit, for example, when a character could attack 3 times per turn and have 60% chance to hit, one extra attack is very close to +4 attack roll.
Haste/GI are quite bad, Twinned haste/GI is decent and have effect on par with lv1-2 bless.


As per usual with your posts, you're conflating curves with flat bonuses.

You need to transform all effects into one int to compare them, not argue about special build or encounter.
"Which one is better in 5e, +1 attack roll or +1 damage?" I would try to define an average hit rate and previous damage to calculate a result to answer the question. Maybe the result is 1 damage = 0.724 damage increase per attack and 1 attack roll = 0.655 damage increase per attack so the first is about 10% better, while your ideas give no meaningful result and can't help optimization.


Someone hasn't done their homework on how to use Shapechange and True Polymorph, it sounds like. Already the fact that True Polymorph can get you an infinite amount of Wraiths (by turning an ally into Atropal) forever makes it way, way better than any amount of Animal Shapes, and Shapechange has plenty of minionmancy in conjunction with absurd combat boosts too. They put Wish and Foresight to shame (well, Wish is competitive if the class lacks Simulacrum/Clone/etc. on their spell list, Foresight is not). That said, this is an 8th level spell so let's discuss it as such.

Animal Shapes is a fine spell but unfortunately it comes so late that immunity to nonmagical weapons is getting pretty common as is flight (there are no good CR 3-4 flying beasts) meaning it occurs at a tactically at an inopportune time. Getting a ton of beasts is great in this edition but Tier 4 isn't the place for them unless you're a Shepherd and even there it's much less overpowered than on any earlier Tier. Which is not to say AS is a bad spell: when it works, it can be really good. But it's not as good as you make it out to be due to game mechanical considerations at that point.

Don't forget that casting Animal Shapes means you aren't casting Conjure Animals or Conjure Woodland Beings. So concentrating on Animal Shapes costs you 24 raptors or pixies or whatever. It doesn't make AS never worth it, but it is a significant opportunity cost especially with the "Large or smaller"-restriction (one of the better uses of summons on this level is to get grapplers). Though being able to change shapes with an action lets you get creative with e.g. a horde of Queztalcoatluses turning something Large and Heavy and bodyslamming onto enemies.

In real adventure, "infinite Wariths" are hard to do like "100 zombies of necromancer". Normally TP's best use is to create a CR9 minion for 1 hour, and usually perform worse than Foresight in combat.
If you read MM, you would find Non-magicial weapon resistence is extremely rare even in high levels, like magic weapon from monsters.

For three best lv8-9 spells:
Wish works best if enemy is weak, the spell could save a lot of gold which is very unique.
Foresight perform well in adventure full of combat, much better than SC or TP in most cases and could be better than animal shape when face at least 4-6 combats per day.
Animal Shape is the best spell to fight difficult combat

[Thunderous Mojo]

I find Bless to be overrated, for clerics. While Bless is a fine spell, the fact that it requires a cleric's Concentration, can mean that when the straits are dire, the cleric's Concentration is better served on some other effect.

Bless is a great spell for a Paladin to use.

I also think Bane is underrated as a spell.

[Hael]

Every feat, spells, class ability, trait or other effects could be transform into an int to compare. There might be difficulty to do so but the idea should be the central part of any optimization.
.

No.. Thats not how math, analytics and optimization works. You almost never can create a single number that expresses value that can be compared like what you’re trying to do.

For instance faerie fire reveals invisible creatures. One of those might be carrying a doomsday device that is set to explode that detonates the multiverse. Marginal utility of faerie fire over all other spells discussed in that situation by any reasonable metric? Infinity.

What you should be worrying about is the following. Given the use of this spell and resource, how often does it lead to a successful adventuring day where success is defined a priori. (For instance metrics might include how much damage you did as a percentage of the party, how few casualties you took, how much gold or goals were achieved etc).

Spirit guardians for instance can lead to enormous disparities in damage dealt. The last run I was on included a 5th lvl cleric and a 5th lvl wizard. The former used sg, the latter got off a fireball. The difference was the former has sg active for multiple fights against hordes and had total damage numbers that exceeded the rest of the party combined (including a raging barbarian with gwm). So viewed as a whole, sg was worth far more. Of course that doesn’t really capture reality either, since it’s only one run, where die rolled a certain way. You would need to repeat the counterfactual simulation millions of time to ascertain real value.

But just putting out of context numbers like that is an example of GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.

[Avonar]

Boy there's some real whack maths going on here that I don't think confirm to any logical system. I won't go over the common points, just add this as a prime example of the strangeness:

Greater Invisibility

You have somehow broken this down into a flat attack and AC boost and apparently you believe that's all it's good for. Which is nonsense.

Where have you taken into account how it makes a spellcaster uncounterable by anything without Blindsight?
Where have you taken into account how it might mean that some enemies simply will not attack you due to not seeing you? That's not an AC boost, that's pretty much immunity.
Where have you taken into account how for most enemies it makes you immune to opportunity attacks, which require you to see the creature that leaves your reach?


There's nothing wrong with giving an opinion on spells you think are overvalued or undervalued of course, but if you're going to do so then you should try and provide evidence instead of making up numbers that miss the point by a mile.

[Eldariel]

Every feat, spells, class ability, trait or other effects could be transform into an int to compare. There might be difficulty to do so but the idea should be the central part of any optimization.

Bless give +2.5 AB and +2.5 all saves, FF give +4.5 AB if hit, roughly +2.5 AB on average and lacks the saves part. Compare with entangle, FF lacks the AB reduce and movement reduce effect.
AOEs are great against swarms of enemies, but SG is much, much worse than real AOE spell like Fireball or Lightning Strike, it's a weak spell with worse delayed damage and little extra effect(small movement reduce).

Extra attack could be compare with bonus to hit, for example, when a character could attack 3 times per turn and have 60% chance to hit, one extra attack is very close to +4 attack roll.
Haste/GI are quite bad, Twinned haste/GI is decent and have effect on par with lv1-2 bless.

You need to transform all effects into one int to compare them, not argue about special build or encounter.
"Which one is better in 5e, +1 attack roll or +1 damage?" I would try to define an average hit rate and previous damage to calculate a result to answer the question. Maybe the result is 1 damage = 0.724 damage increase per attack and 1 attack roll = 0.655 damage increase per attack so the first is about 10% better, while your ideas give no meaningful result and can't help optimization.

But the problem is, the way you're doing it is not mathematically valid. The integer means nothing. You aren't converting them to integers, there's no conversion taking place. You're taking a part of an equation out of the equation and throwing it next to others without quantifying it, getting a random number with no explanatory power. If you go through the process of getting the probability curves for every CR and the values you get on average with given values, then you're actually solving something but as it stands, you aren't getting real numbers at all. Those numbers are useless, because their value is purely contextual and you're using them without context.

[shipiaozi]

But the problem is, the way you're doing it is not mathematically valid. The integer means nothing. You aren't converting them to integers, there's no conversion taking place. You're taking a part of an equation out of the equation and throwing it next to others without quantifying it, getting a random number with no explanatory power. If you go through the process of getting the probability curves for every CR and the values you get on average with given values, then you're actually solving something but as it stands, you aren't getting real numbers at all. Those numbers are useless, because their value is purely contextual and you're using them without context.

One don't need to consider "special condition" like sneak attack/massive AC or whatever other factors when discussing "Which one is better in 5e, +1 weapon attack roll or +1 weapon damage?" after the average AC and weapon damage is estimated.

One usually don't need to consider trivial advantages or disadvantages like "GI can't give advantage when it already have advantage" or "GI let you hide" etc, most times these effects are quite small and would offset each other.

[follacchioso]

I believe that being invisible doesn't inherently mean that you are hidden. Enemies should or could know your general location or even square without special abilities or perception check.Greater Invisibility is also an excellent defensive spell. Have a look at the Spell List and take note of the ones that target "creatures that you can see within range". There are many spells that cannot target invisible creatures. Some examples: Magic Missile, Hold Person, Power Word Kill, Finger of Death, Bane, and so on. Greater Invisibility will make you an invalid target for most than half of the harmful spells in 5E.

[Protolisk]

One don't need to consider "special condition" like sneak attack/massive AC or whatever other factors when discussing "Which one is better in 5e, +1 weapon attack roll or +1 weapon damage?" after the average AC and weapon damage is estimated.

One usually don't need to consider trivial advantages or disadvantages like "GI can't give advantage when it already have advantage" or "GI let you hide" etc, most times these effects are quite small and would offset each other.

No, but without actual context using the numbers, the question of "+1 attack or +1 damage" is insanely hard to analyze. Reason being, what are the required AC to hit? If the game typically has most characters with an AC of 5, for example, then the +1 to hit os almost meaningless because an AC of 5 is hit by anyone level 1 or higher as long as they have a 16 in a score. So it would literally be meaningless.

This is an extreme example, but its part of what people in this thread are saying: without the actual context of calculating the average AC of enemies and actually describing the effects of what a spell can do, then the math behind your responses don't make any sense. It has been done before, which is why people now say yes, a +1 to attack rolls is better than a +1 to damage in most cases, because the math has been thoroughly explained. Your numbers, as much as they may make sense to you, are not thoroughly explained, so it just confuses people.

For example, in your assertion that Bless grants a +7.5 on attack rolls: this is factually untrue. If you cast Bless on a fighter, who used to be able to add 5 to a roll of a d20, then their range of results is 6 to 25. If Bless was cast, the range does NOT get an average of 7.5. You could never, EVER, get a roll of 30, for example, even though 25 + 7 should equal 32. But this quite literally can NEVER happen. If you had three such fighters and cast bless so each were affected, NONE OF THEM can still reach a roll of 30 with bless, let alone 32: therefore, Bless DOES NOT grant +7.5 to attack rolls. These numbers do not make sense to be quantified this way.

This is what people are saying about your math not making any sense. There are attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and any can be at advantage or disadvantage, or modifiers like Bless or Bane can change the numbers around.

But the odd assertions of thing that have no mathematical basis that has been thoroughly explained, like Haste granting a +1 to saves, has yet to be explained. You seem to act that it DOES add saves, but people don't see this benefit, however you obtained it. So people are bringing up the fact that with invisibility granted by Greater Invisibilty spell, you get virtually infinite AC because a target that doesn't know your square on the battlefield, regardless of their typical stats, cannot hit you, so GI grants a arbitrarily high AC that cannot be beaten. This has some logical grounds, while Haste giving +1 to saves still makes no sense. If the reason it does so is because it gives advantage on Dex saves, this is still wrong, as it never boosts Stength, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma saves. So it does not give +1 to saves, because 5 saves are completely unaffected. So the best way to write how Haste benefits saves is not that it adds +1 to all saves, but instead tell it like it is: it grants advantage to Dexrerity saves only. This is a phrase that makes sense to 100% of all people knowledgeable about 5th edition, whereas the +1 to saves makes sense to mostly just you, as to everyone else that phrase means something drastically different.

Sorry, on my phone, so please forgive typos. I hope the message is easy enough to understand, though.

[Hael]

The point is context matters in 5e. You cant just throw numbers around willy nilly and claim they are true in generality.

Take haste vs bless. Forget the effect on saves and movement and just look at raw dpr.
an unoptimized lvl 20 fighter with a spear has to hit 11 against ac19 at say 1d10 + 5 and 1d4 +5 (from pam/gwm) will have a dpr of about 45. Bless makes the dpr 55 and haste makes it 53. bless is clearly better dpr, even without taking into account the other two members that benefit.

A lvl 20 rogue with sneak attack and bb (without the rider) has a dpr of about 41.. bless makes that 48. Haste makes the dpr 82!! if two other rogues were blessed, their combined dpr increase would still be less than what that single blessed rogue is outputing.

Again, two different situations with very different math outcomes. Does haste suck for a rogue? Absolutely not. Does haste suck for a monk that gets an extra attack and the necessary movement to potentially land a stunning blow against something with legendary resistance? No!

[Valmark]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.

Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.
There are multiple rule errors or generally bad advice in here.

Find Familiar: Sending the familiar to its death is just a loss. You don't need the familiar to die to use it to be useful- the fact that it isn't a big cost doesn't mean it isn't.
Keep in mind also that it takes at least an hour to cast it (without ritual, otherwise more) and lastly... Some players actually like their familiar and don't treat it as an expendable minion.
But regardless, is widely known to be one of the best spells.

Uhm... Faerie Fire is completely different from Entangle and Bless. Different save, different effects, different uses, tipically different lists.

Command has some clear limitations, this before considering something like the fact that a Wall of Force (random example) could shut down many more enemies then Command without a save.
And even then Command is also considered to be one of the best spells.

Tasha's summons have completely different roles when compared to the multi-summoning spells, and also figure special abilities.
In addition it's also false that they deal less damage period- the Conjure spells tipically have far less accuracy, as such their damage decreases steeply against higher ACs.

Spirit Guardians has better damage type, no friendly fire debuffs and deals damage over time- which means that eventually it'll beat out Fireball (assuming the enemies don't die earlier, of course).
Takes three turns to beat a Fireball if you don't upcast. Spirit Guardians scales much better since the improved damage is applied repeatedly.

Haste gives +2 AC and then... Completely different stuff from what you're claiming. Read the spell before deciding if it's under or overrated.
Greater Invisibility has, among other stuff, the added advantage of making you immune to sight effects- as a rapid example you could cast spells without being counterspelled.

Swift Quiver gives two bonus attacks and is online by the second round. Again, read the spell.

Animal Shapes is good for utility but unless you have lots of minions to transform it's nearly useless for damage. Assuming you can even hurt the enemy due to non-magical attacks.
And it takes an 8 level slot. That is a LOT for a caster.

I have read elsewhere on this forum that an upcast Summon Celestial on its own can out-DPR martials to a surprising extent. And with a Simulacrum, you can have two of 'em! (Although that's more Simulacrum being broken than Summons being broken.) In any case, they're at least better designed than "conjure eight snakes and slow combat to a crawl" if not necessarily as powerful.

I'd also like to get the crowd's opinion on Fog Cloud, while we're talking about questionably-rated spells. Personally I love it, although it can be a bit clunky to use depending somewhat on your DM. Use it to cancel disadvantage, conceal yourself from sight-requiring spells, Hide in it, bypass OAs if you don't have a better way of doing that like Mobile (you have to be able to see someone to OA them per PHB, everyone in a Fog Cloud is heavily obscured), or set the mood for the Bard's campfire story ;)
About Summon Celestial it also has utility features, so it's even better.

Fog Cloud I only ever heard good things about it- cheap and effective way to block sight.

The only time it was inadvisable was for a warlock confronting Fog Cloud and Darkness. Aside from the obvious combo since Fog Cloud automatically upcasts on a warlock it becomes progressively hard to position.

You could disagree, but disagree doesn't mean "may credibility isn't good".
Wizard and sorcerer should be melee in 99% of cases, only Barbarian and Monk are more likely to be melee than them.

A common misunderstanding and prove my argument's necessary. People know find familiar is a good spell, but not as good as it should be because they don't send familiar to die. No matter how much gold you have, spend gold to summon familiar is the best method to use them after character get basic equipment.

+4.5AB with save is a pretty bad spell compare with bless(+2.5/2.5 without save) or entangle(+4.5AB/4.5AC with save). What if a damage spell only deal 50% damage of fireball? That's how bad FF is.

Dissonant Whispers don't control enemy for 1 turn and usually perform worse.

Good to know no one praise these weak spells here, certain play group in China love to praise Tasha Summons/Holy Weapon/Spirit Shroud.

One thing I am puzzled is many players called haste "burst of damage", no it's not, it's a large SW that deals damage very slowly, reduce damage in first turn and perform better in long fight.

Yes but if everybody disagrees and you make mistakes then credibility drops. Remember that your wizard build had actual errors that meant it couldn't even be played.

Again, making your familiar die doesn't accomplish anything but a loss. If you can't use it without the familiar dying it doesn't mean it's the best way to use it.

Faerie Fire though boosts all the attackers unlike Bless and Entangle is a spell you use for entirely different purposes and targets.

Read Dissonant Whispers before talking about it- same save, deals damage (half on save), makes the enemy run away.

The fact that they aren't considered the best doesn't mean they are weak spells.

Reduces damage only if the alternative dealt more damage.

With CE and PAM, most dps should being able to attack with bonus action.
QoS is not "4 attacks a round", it “sacrifice one attack to make one extra attack in next turn”
Are you comparing Swift Quiver to feats that require specific playstiles? That's... That makes no sense.

It's like saying that Great Weapon Master is bad because you can't use it with a shield. It's an entirely different fighting style.



And what in the ever loving that is holy and good is this garbage tripe about?

Nothing because that wizard build was actually illegal (the first thing that comes to mind was that it multiclassed cleric without having 13 Wisdom).

Every feat, spells, class ability, trait or other effects could be transform into an int to compare. There might be difficulty to do so but the idea should be the central part of any optimization.

Bless give +2.5 AB and +2.5 all saves, FF give +4.5 AB if hit, roughly +2.5 AB on average and lacks the saves part. Compare with entangle, FF lacks the AB reduce and movement reduce effect.
AOEs are great against swarms of enemies, but SG is much, much worse than real AOE spell like Fireball or Lightning Strike, it's a weak spell with worse delayed damage and little extra effect(small movement reduce).

Extra attack could be compare with bonus to hit, for example, when a character could attack 3 times per turn and have 60% chance to hit, one extra attack is very close to +4 attack roll.
Haste/GI are quite bad, Twinned haste/GI is decent and have effect on par with lv1-2 bless.

You need to transform all effects into one int to compare them, not argue about special build or encounter.
"Which one is better in 5e, +1 attack roll or +1 damage?" I would try to define an average hit rate and previous damage to calculate a result to answer the question. Maybe the result is 1 damage = 0.724 damage increase per attack and 1 attack roll = 0.655 damage increase per attack so the first is about 10% better, while your ideas give no meaningful result and can't help optimization.

In real adventure, "infinite Wariths" are hard to do like "100 zombies of necromancer". Normally TP's best use is to create a CR9 minion for 1 hour, and usually perform worse than Foresight in combat.
If you read MM, you would find Non-magicial weapon resistence is extremely rare even in high levels, like magic weapon from monsters.
You claim that everything can be turned into an integer and yet there is no accounting for Faerie Fire revealing invisibility or Haste giving a free Dash or Disengage or whatever other example.

I find Bless to be overrated, for clerics. While Bless is a fine spell, the fact that it requires a cleric's Concentration, can mean that when the straits are dire, the cleric's Concentration is better served on some other effect.

Bless [U]is a great spell for a Paladin to use.

I also think Bane is underrated as a spell.
Why Bane is underrated? Genuely curious. It's a Bless that works on enemies but requires a save- it's hard to justify it next to Bless (assuming the party makes good use of Bless in the first place).

One don't need to consider "special condition" like sneak attack/massive AC or whatever other factors when discussing "Which one is better in 5e, +1 weapon attack roll or +1 weapon damage?" after the average AC and weapon damage is estimated.

One usually don't need to consider trivial advantages or disadvantages like "GI can't give advantage when it already have advantage" or "GI let you hide" etc, most times these effects are quite small and would offset each other.
And yet, those effects exist. If you don't consider them you're going to get all your evalutions wrong.

[Eldariel]

One don't need to consider "special condition" like sneak attack/massive AC or whatever other factors when discussing "Which one is better in 5e, +1 weapon attack roll or +1 weapon damage?" after the average AC and weapon damage is estimated.

One usually don't need to consider trivial advantages or disadvantages like "GI can't give advantage when it already have advantage" or "GI let you hide" etc, most times these effects are quite small and would offset each other.

On the contrary, special conditions are what makes or breaks many of these abilities since you can plan around them. Like for example, Sneak Attack makes +1 to attack way better than +1 to damage. OTOH e.g. Bless and Archery style make damage bonuses preferable to damage bonuses in most cases. It's very character dependent.

This is why Bless has a huge variance in value. Let me present two parties to you:

Peace Cleric/Lore Bard/Diviner Wizard/Shepherd Druid. Bless is relevant for Cleric and Druid's summons. That's it. Druid summons are individually weak though strong in hordes so mostly, Bless is just a save buffer that gives Cleric bonus on attacks with Spiritual Weapon and maybe on cantrip hits (cantrip hits for Wizard too, of course). This is a thoroughly weak party for Bless, though Bless is good enough that it can still be worth having (especially once the Summon spells begin cropping in). You don't get 7.5 points of offensive value here; you don't even get 5 in vast majority of the cases. You get maybe 1.5 points of value, depending on the enemy (obviously it's better against high AC low mobility enemies durable enough to take many hits like Hobgoblin Warlords than low AC high mobility enemies that go down fast like e.g. Wolves). But against average opposition, it's gonna be pretty whatever and you're much more likely to drop Spirit Guardians or whatever and reap those repeat saves out of a single 3rd level slot.

OTOH you have another party:
Arcana Cleric
Battlemaster Fighter (CBE + SS)
Bladesinger Wizard (TWFing)
Zealot Barbarian (PAM + GWM)

Bring on the level 2 Bless. This party is looking at 3 attacks each on level 6 aside from the Cleric, who's still very likely to be getting two each and then an extra one from reaction every now and then. So the amount of benefit this party reaps from Bless offensively compared to the last party on level 6 (5 for the Fighter when Action Surging), not counting damage (to which this party has sizable bonuses in Spirit Shroud, BBx2, SS, GWM, maneuvers), are pretty massive (not all attacks are equal but in this case, we're talking ~11 attacks vs. ~2 so very crude math could put it at 5x benefits).

Of course, once we consider the damage considerations: the other party has the Cleric Spiritual Weaponing and the Wizard maybe Chill Touching for a total of 2d8 and 1d8+4ish damage, while this party has the Fighter potentially using maneuvers, the Arcana Cleric fairly likely to use BB + Spiritual weapon, the Bladesinger with Spirit Shroud + BB, the Zealot with Rage and GWM on top of fairly similar base damage (1d6+3-4 for the TWFers; 1d6+0 for the BS but with Spirit Shroud applying to that, it's still 1d6+1d8). We could make an argument that the second party actually has higher average damage per hit too. So the difference is potentially even more than 5 times. Of course, the exact difference depends on AC; the archer gets the least except against extremely high ACs since hit boosters get iteratively less valuable (though Sharpshooter can turn this phenomenon around as can GWM for the Barb in spite of Reckless Attack), while the Bladesinger, who probably can't afford to pump their attack stat, gets the most (attack stat boosts are the most valuable when your hit bonus is low in relation to the AC).

Of course, it also matters what they are attacking, but still, the latter party is going to benefit of Bless way more than the former party. Though even the latter party isn't gonna care for Bless against low AC easy to hit targets like Berserker or whatever very much: the relative gain when enemy AC is already near your hit bonus is just pretty minimal. Advantage is worth way more (doubles your crit chance and actually gives you more when you already hit on a low roll with the optimal point being around 10) but if you're fighting some Hobgoblin Warlords or Will-O'-Wisps or Quicklings or whatever, you'll probably want Bless more than Advantage.


So saying Bless is worth 7,5 offensively is totally meaningless. Over an average campaign, Bless might be worth ~+1,5 for the first party and ~+15 for the second party on average. However, what's more useful is the encounter-per-encounter consideration: you can only cast one Concentration spell per encounter generally so cast the best one.

The best won't be Bless for nearly all of them: when you're looking at high AC tough-to-crack targets, Bless is great but with hordes of weak things you might very well want Spirit Guardians, with high threat kiters like Dragons you'll definitely look at Summon Celestial once you unlock that and with casters in cramped quarters, you'll be well-advised to consider Silence. This type of evaluation is much more useful since it can guide the decision-making process inside encounters. Now if you want to assess the spells for a campaign level evaluation or class-vs-class comparison, you need to chart out likely encounters for a given level range and start from there. You won't get usable numbers otherwise. Like I said, plain integers dissociated from their context are useless.


EDIT: Bane vs. Bless - as I stated, the value of hit bonuses or penalties is highly conditional depending on target ACs and damage and HP. PCs generally have high armor making Bane great when it can cut over 50% of the target's remaining damage away when the target would normally hit on ~17-20 and now is basically critfishing. Also, bonus to saves is generally weaker than penalty to saves, since bonus to saves is contingent on random enemy using save-or-X while penalty to saves just requires that your party actively chooses to use save-or-X.

Bane is a great pick against "multiattacking advantageous low attack bonus" types in particular (e.g. Velociraptor is a superb example of a creature completely shut down by Bane though it's weak enough that targeting it with a spell is questionable; Manticore is another good one) but just in general, a great pick since it's one of the few ways to hit Cha-saves, which are really bad on many nasty brutes (like Beasts and such). Also, you often have multiple Blessers and it doesn't stack while Bless and Bane stack just fine.

[MrStabby]

You claim that everything can be turned into an integer and yet there is no accounting for Faerie Fire revealing invisibility or Haste giving a free Dash or Disengage or whatever other example.

Why Bane is underrated? Genuely curious. It's a Bless that works on enemies but requires a save- it's hard to justify it next to Bless (assuming the party makes good use of Bless in the first place).

And yet, those effects exist. If you don't consider them you're going to get all your evalutions wrong.

Well just because everything can be turned into an integer doesn't mean the resulting integer is meaningful. Taking an input, multiplying it by 2, adding 7, throwing the result away and picking a random number is still a process but it isn't a useful one.



As for bane... it is soemtimes marginally useful. Not as good as bless generally but if you are facing hard hitting enemies with rubbish attack rolls it can be good. If you have a party heavy on effects that need a save but not making attack rolls then it is good. NowI would probably never want to use a spell known on it, but for a cleric who can take it as a prepared spell for the day if they anticipate facing encounters where it is useful it is better. It is good in the context of knowing what you face, your party composition and being able to swap it in.

If you have a DM that likes to use PC style building for NPCs, then things like sharpshooter enemies really get screwed by this spell.

[Chaos Jackal]

You could disagree, but disagree doesn't mean "may credibility isn't good".

It does in your case. Because you have a single thing going on about you. In a forum where people are divided over nearly everything, from Champion effectiveness to javelins interacting with Dueling, you manage to make everyone agree you're wrong. Impressive alright, but not the kind of credentials you want when making such outrageous claims.

You might be the greatest D&D player of all time, an ignored genius whose greatness will be recognized postmortem, and everyone here and elsewhere, in the forums where you come from and are also widely considered wrong, will eat their tongues and talk about how far ahead of your time you were. But I heavily doubt it. Your "math" isn't math, it's a bunch of random arithmetic with no relation to reality. Your claims and assertions are either baseless or so poorly supported you end up contradicting yourself when talking about them. Your comparisons are irrelevant. You seem to have failed to properly read the mechanics you're judging quite often. You are factually incorrect about most of your "wisdom", and where facts aren't available or definitive theory and experience are overwhelmingly against you.

In this latest iteration of your unique D&D vision you claim that find familiar is underrated (underutilized maybe, underrated definitely not) that faerie fire is overrated (wrong, nobody said it's the best spell in the game, but it's both good and useful), that command is underrated (people actually think it's great most of the time), that TCE summons are overrated (at least you have a point there when saying that PHB summons are generally better, but that's something most people realized quickly, and you ignore a lot of what the spells are actually about), that spirit guardians is overrated (factually wrong), that swift quiver is overrated (no, not really) and that animal shapes is the new black (except it has severe weaknesses and constraints holding it back).

You actually do have a point about haste and greater invisibility being overrated at times, but your reasoning is non-existent (no, your numbers mean nothing because they represent nothing).

So, overall, you're right in only two, maybe three, of your calls, and even then you're right for all the wrong reasons. I don't know if you're doing this for laughs, trying to see how many people you'll trigger, or if you actually believe you are somehow the only person in the world who understands D&D 5e, but you need to radically alter your view of the game if you want anything you say to be viewed with any degree of acceptance.

Stop spreading misinformation about things you obviously do not understand.

[borg286]

[Underestimated] Levitate: on an ally it is Nearly a sure way to get them out of harm's way. On an light (ie. non-huge and some large) enemy with a crappy ranged attack it is a save or die, as you pelt them to death when you've cleaned up the rest of their team. On a sorcerer with twin you can save 2 allies, pick your most vulnerable ally and most threatening light enemy, or just try to levitate 2 enemies.

I've checked over monsters and most often if they don't have spells all they have for ranged attacks are javelins. If you start the encounter asking roughly how many they have it sort of locks the DM into a limit on how many rounds they'll have a crappy ranged attack.

[nickl_2000]

This one is likely going to be controversial...

[OVERESTIMATED] Guidance: Don't get me wrong, guidance is a great spell and if ever given the option I will always take it. However, I think it is considered better than it is by people purely because it require concentration. Sure it's great on a Druid, but they have so many long term concentration spells that have a better use.

[UNDERESTIMATED] Longstrider: Maybe this was just me who underestimated it until recently. I ran into a situation where I had level 2 spells slots, but not level 2 spells due to multiclassing and I upcast Longstrider before some clear upcoming combat. It was amazing giving the tank 10 extra feet of mobility, it made a gigantic difference in combat.

[micahaphone]

This one is likely going to be controversial...

[OVERESTIMATED] Guidance: Don't get me wrong, guidance is a great spell and if ever given the option I will always take it. However, I think it is considered better than it is by people purely because it require concentration. Sure it's great on a Druid, but they have so many long term concentration spells that have a better use.


What cleric spells are long term concentration? I usually think of Guidance as an out of combat spell, and I can't think of what a cleric would be concentrating on out of combat.

[nickl_2000]

What cleric spells are long term concentration? I usually think of Guidance as an out of combat spell, and I can't think of what a cleric would be concentrating on out of combat.

Detect X
Any Ritual Casting
Shield of Faith
Enhance Ability
Holy Weapon
Summon X
Conjure X


I think the most common would be enhance ability out of combat. That being said, I have used it as a Druid in game rather than a Cleric so it may have a completely different feel for the Cleric. So, you are very likely right.

[Sorinth]

Maybe it's all the recent threads on kiting enemies but I'll put out Plant Growth as one of the more underrated spells. It's a huge area, creates double difficult terrain, and is not concentration.

[RogueJK]

[Underestimated] Levitate: on an ally it is Nearly a sure way to get them out of harm's way. On an light (ie. non-huge and some large) enemy with a crappy ranged attack it is a save or die, as you pelt them to death when you've cleaned up the rest of their team. On a sorcerer with twin you can save 2 allies, pick your most vulnerable ally and most threatening light enemy, or just try to levitate 2 enemies.

I've checked over monsters and most often if they don't have spells all they have for ranged attacks are javelins. If you start the encounter asking roughly how many they have it sort of locks the DM into a limit on how many rounds they'll have a crappy ranged attack.


I have a love/hate relationship with Levitate. It's a spell that sounds like a good all-arounder in theory, but in my experience can be frustrating to utilize in practice. When it comes online at 3rd level, it's potentially handy, but in it quickly loses its luster.

As an exploration tool, it's not nearly as useful as something like Fly or Spider Climb. The slow ascending/descending and lack of horizontal movement makes it less useful than either of those other options in various situations.

It does have some additional utility as a save-or-suck offensive spell, and I like that it's "one and done" with no subsequent saves. But most melee enemies will tend to have a decent CON anyway. So it can be hard to get it to stick, especially in Tier 1 when your spell DC isn't the greatest. Plus you quickly end up with better things to spend your Concentration in combat on.

Altogether, I think it's sometimes worth taking for a brief window (like Levels 3 and 4), but it typically ends up being swapped out rather quickly for something else.


Maybe it's all the recent threads on kiting enemies but I'll put out Plant Growth as one of the more underrated spells. It's a huge area, creates double difficult terrain, and is not concentration.

Agreed. Similarly, while it's perhaps a bit less "underrated" than Plant Growth, Sleet Storm tends to get overlooked at times. Probably since it doesn't do actual damage. Large 40' radius, difficult terrain, prone for further movement limitation, heavy obscurement, and forced Concentration saves. It's a great option to break up large packs of enemies into more manageable chunks, and is especially useful to drop on top of enemy spellcasters who either need to Concentrate and/or who need to see their targets.

(However, it's a Concentration spell, unlike Plant Growth.)

[Eldariel]

This one is likely going to be controversial...

[OVERESTIMATED] Guidance: Don't get me wrong, guidance is a great spell and if ever given the option I will always take it. However, I think it is considered better than it is by people purely because it require concentration. Sure it's great on a Druid, but they have so many long term concentration spells that have a better use.

[UNDERESTIMATED] Longstrider: Maybe this was just me who underestimated it until recently. I ran into a situation where I had level 2 spells slots, but not level 2 spells due to multiclassing and I upcast Longstrider before some clear upcoming combat. It was amazing giving the tank 10 extra feet of mobility, it made a gigantic difference in combat.

Yeah, Longstrider is a spell that doesn't get enough love in most discussions (and mobility in general), but many guides do rate it as a "solid roleplayer", which is about where it belongs. When you can use it, it just opens up a significant number of tactical options and since in this edition engaging and escaping boil down to "who's faster", it can even just mean enemies will not escape to warn their allies/mount a bigger raid/whatever. Of course, it's also a bit deceptive as a "1st" level spell - while it is indeed 1st level, it's rarely a spell to cast on low levels. On high levels though, it can make all the difference specifically because it's a non-Concentration speed buff and speed is always relevant.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Maybe it's all the recent threads on kiting enemies but I'll put out Plant Growth as one of the more underrated spells. It's a huge area, creates double difficult terrain, and is not concentration.

The only time I've seen ranged kiting work wonders was when one of the PCs got off a Plant Growth that almost completely shut down the mass of mostly-melee enemies. There were a couple close enough to the edge that they could engage, but the rest were sitting ducks not even able to make it to cover. And that wasn't even a very ranged-focused party--not one had SS or CBE.

[micahaphone]

My one gripe with Plant Growth is that it's a 100 ft radius, that area is colossal. It's impossible to place that in a shaped or deliberate way, I hope you have no allies that are trying to move through that area, or won't have to go through it later.

Because it's instantaneous and the plants themselves are nonmagical, you can't dispel the effect, I hope you brought a lawnmower with you.

EDIT: Thanks to Sorinth, I just reread the spell and the line "You can exclude one or more areas of any size within the spell's area from being affected" removes my complaints. I owe my players an apology.

[nickl_2000]

My one gripe with Plant Growth is that it's a 100 ft radius, that area is colossal. It's impossible to place that in a shaped or deliberate way, I hope you have no allies that are trying to move through that area, or won't have to go through it later.

Because it's instantaneous and the plants themselves are nonmagical, you can't dispel the effect, I hope you brought a lawnmower with you.

Been there, done that. Actually used this for city defenses when preparing for a Giant attack on a town. I was a week of prep and my Druid completely surrounded the city with dense foliage, and workers from the city cut paths to create a choke point. It was really, really effective.

[KorvinStarmast]

Coming onto a forum populated by obsessive D&D nerds, where the merits of basically every spell in the game have been discussed at great length (and on many occasions) for years, to say something like this, is surely a prime example of discourtesy. Or hubris.

According to your logic, Faerie Fire is then the best spell in the game, since it provides +infinity to hit as an infinite number of attackers gain advantage. *snort*

Part of what I have an issue with regarding this list are the numerous comparisons to spells that are on different lists. In those cases it really is apples to oranges. Yes Bless is amazingly good, so good that I've had characters use it as their primary concentration spell into tier 3 *nods* At higher levels, the + to saves can be very handy, though there are other spells or features that can be stronger at higher levels.

100% agreement here. In fact, I'm seriously considering banning the Conjure spells. I have a DM who worked with me to make a short list of "this is what are the standard beasts" and we agreed "no swarms of 16 beasts" and it works fantasticall. I usually call up two dire wolves, or two giant octopi if we are in the water. Easier for him and for me.

While Bless is a fine spell, the fact that it requires a cleric's Concentration, can mean that when the straits are dire, the cleric's Concentration is better served on some other effect.
True. As with any spell, context matters. When you need to banish that demon, you cast banishment

I also think Bane is underrated as a spell. Amen.

Boy there's some real whack maths going on here that I don't think confirm to any logical system. concur

The point is context matters in 5e. ~ snip ~
Again, two different situations with very different math outcomes. Does haste suck for a rogue? Absolutely not. Does haste suck for a monk that gets an extra attack and the necessary movement to potentially land a stunning blow against something with legendary resistance? No! Great post, great illustration.
It does in your case. Because you have a single thing going on about you. In a forum where people are divided over nearly everything, from Champion effectiveness to javelins interacting with Dueling, you manage to make everyone agree you're wrong. *Coffee out of the nose*
My mistake not to put the cup down as I read this thread.

Stop spreading misinformation about things you obviously do not understand. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.

[cookieface]

I have a love/hate relationship with Levitate. It's a spell that sounds like a good all-arounder in theory, but in my experience can be frustrating to utilize in practice. When it comes online at 3rd level, it's potentially handy, but in it quickly loses its luster.

As an exploration tool, it's not nearly as useful as something like Fly or Spider Climb. The slow ascending/descending and lack of horizontal movement makes it less useful than either of those other options in various situations.

It does have some additional utility as a save-or-suck offensive spell, and I like that it's "one and done" with no subsequent saves. But most melee enemies will tend to have a decent CON anyway. So it can be hard to get it to stick, especially in Tier 1 when your spell DC isn't the greatest. Plus you quickly end up with better things to spend your Concentration in combat on.

Altogether, I think it's sometimes worth taking for a brief window (like Levels 3 and 4), but it typically ends up being swapped out rather quickly for something else.

It makes Air Genasi very fun to play in tier one, as they can utilize it from the get-go. Personal favorite usage: Levitate a small party member, then drag them around like a balloon if you need to escape quickly. (Other uses include keeping it Ready to act like a makeshift Feather Fall, or lifting a melee attacking enemy so that it can no longer reach you while dealing with other creatures, or -- my favorite use -- Hold Person but still allows your target to talk for negotiation/interrogation purposes.)

[Sorinth]

My one gripe with Plant Growth is that it's a 100 ft radius, that area is colossal. It's impossible to place that in a shaped or deliberate way, I hope you have no allies that are trying to move through that area, or won't have to go through it later.

Because it's instantaneous and the plants themselves are nonmagical, you can't dispel the effect, I hope you brought a lawnmower with you.

When you cast the spell you can exclude areas of any shape/size. So you can actually create a path for you and your allies if you want.

[MrStabby]

This one is likely going to be controversial...

[OVERESTIMATED] Guidance: Don't get me wrong, guidance is a great spell and if ever given the option I will always take it. However, I think it is considered better than it is by people purely because it require concentration. Sure it's great on a Druid, but they have so many long term concentration spells that have a better use.

[UNDERESTIMATED] Longstrider: Maybe this was just me who underestimated it until recently. I ran into a situation where I had level 2 spells slots, but not level 2 spells due to multiclassing and I upcast Longstrider before some clear upcoming combat. It was amazing giving the tank 10 extra feet of mobility, it made a gigantic difference in combat.

Oh good shout on guidance. I mean its still good, just not as awesome as often assumed.


Maybe it's all the recent threads on kiting enemies but I'll put out Plant Growth as one of the more underrated spells. It's a huge area, creates double difficult terrain, and is not concentration.

This is another spell listed as underrated, but I had thought was widely thought of as being very highly regarded? Either way, an awesome spell.




[Underestimated] Levitate: on an ally it is Nearly a sure way to get them out of harm's way. On an light (ie. non-huge and some large) enemy with a crappy ranged attack it is a save or die, as you pelt them to death when you've cleaned up the rest of their team. On a sorcerer with twin you can save 2 allies, pick your most vulnerable ally and most threatening light enemy, or just try to levitate 2 enemies.

I've checked over monsters and most often if they don't have spells all they have for ranged attacks are javelins. If you start the encounter asking roughly how many they have it sort of locks the DM into a limit on how many rounds they'll have a crappy ranged attack.

I have always found levitate to be less good than it looks. It looks like a cheap control spell but I find a Con save is pretty easy to make much of the time and most enemies either pack a ranged attack OR are very well placed to pass the save. It is also, in most encounters, not enough to protect you from counterattacks so your concentration is still likely to go down (unlike say wall of force or hypnotic pattern that are high impact enough that they also protect you from harm).




Agreed. Similarly, while it's perhaps a bit less "underrated" than Plant Growth, Sleet Storm tends to get overlooked at times. Probably since it doesn't do actual damage. Large 40' radius, difficult terrain, prone for further movement limitation, heavy obscurement, and forced Concentration saves. It's a great option to break up large packs of enemies into more manageable chunks, and is especially useful to drop on top of enemy spellcasters who either need to Concentrate and/or who need to see their targets.

(However, it's a Concentration spell, unlike Plant Growth.)

So sleet storm is good... but I put it into the bucket of spells that are good but just out-competed by all the really, really good level 3 spells. If you are a druid - is it better than conjure animals/Plant growth? If you are a sorcerer/wizard is it better than fireball, hypnotic pattern, fear, counterspell, dispel magic etc.? I have a lot of sympathy - I can keep listing the awesome stuff about this spell (concentration save that is actually tough to pass - though for many fireball would do the same, obscurement with no save, difficult terrain with no save), but I just never find it quite good enough.

[micahaphone]

When you cast the spell you can exclude areas of any shape/size. So you can actually create a path for you and your allies if you want.

... I owe my players an apology, they cast Plant Growth in a trade depot built in a hollowed out stalagtite, so almost everything was slowed down, creating a hectic situation during a tense diplomacy effort. and neither me nor my players noticed that very important detail in the spell description.

[Snails]

Spirit Guardians - you didn't comment on the most relevant part of Spirit Guardians, the fact that its party safe. If you roll low init as a wizard and the sides have collided, you can't Fireball whereas you can almost always Spirit Guardians as a cleric. I strongly disagree with your assessment on this one. A cleric upcasting Spirit Guardians and then dodging the rest of the combat is often a perfectly viable strategy.

That is a very good point. Spirit Guardians may or may not be the first choice spell, but it may be super efficient if my cleric rolls a very low initiative and finds the battlefield to be a confusing mess by the time his turn arrives.

I have been feeling that Spirit Guardians is overrated. But my experience may be skewed because I am playing a Tempest Cleric. Even in confusing fights I can usually employ Destructive Wrath + upcast Shatter to leave a pair of enemies teetering and easily finished off by my teammates.

[Snails]

I find Bless to be overrated, for clerics. While Bless is a fine spell, the fact that it requires a cleric's Concentration, can mean that when the straits are dire, the cleric's Concentration is better served on some other effect.

Bless is a great spell for a Paladin to use.

I also think Bane is underrated as a spell.

It is true that Bless is often not the best spell for a given encounter. However, it is almost always a very good choice that comes at an attractively affordable resource cost. The effect is not spectacular, but simply makes other PCs more reliable. It feels like a sure thing.

Bless is popular because it is a safe choice that you are unlikely to regret casting in a confusing situation. In contrast, it is not unusual to cast Spiritual Weapon or Spirit Guardians or Hold Person and regret burning that spell slot for that combat.

[MrStabby]

That is a very good point. Spirit Guardians may or may not be the first choice spell, but it may be super efficient if my cleric rolls a very low initiative and finds the battlefield to be a confusing mess by the time his turn arrives.

I have been feeling that Spirit Guardians is overrated. But my experience may be skewed because I am playing a Tempest Cleric. Even in confusing fights I can usually employ Destructive Wrath + upcast Shatter to leave a pair of enemies teetering and easily finished off by my teammates.


It is true that Bless is often not the best spell for a given encounter. However, it is almost always a very good choice that comes at an attractively affordable resource cost. The effect is not spectacular, but simply makes other PCs more reliable. It feels like a sure thing.

Bless is popular because it is a safe choice that you are unlikely to regret casting in a confusing situation. In contrast, it is not unusual to cast Spiritual Weapon or Spirit Guardians or Hold Person and regret burning that spell slot for that combat.

I think these two posts go hand in hand.

Spirit Guardians is great, but fireball can do much of the same in less time and without concentration. Shatter is a bit less efficient but is still good. Concentration limits the cleric hard.

But most clerics don't get blasting spells. SG is good enough though but the opportunity cost of forgoing bless is steep.

If bless were not so good, SG would look better. As it is, I still rate it as one of the best cleric spells.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

It is true that Bless is often not the best spell for a given encounter. However, it is almost always a very good choice that comes at an attractively affordable resource cost. The effect is not spectacular, but simply makes other PCs more reliable. It feels like a sure thing.

Bless is popular because it is a safe choice that you are unlikely to regret casting in a confusing situation. In contrast, it is not unusual to cast Spiritual Weapon or Spirit Guardians or Hold Person and regret burning that spell slot for that combat.

I had a player with a Cleric 1/ Wizard 14ish come out of a fight with Tiamat saying basically that; with all the options he had, he would have been just better off upcasting Bless on the 5 characters for the encounter rather than what he tried (can't remember what at the moment). That was in a party with 3 martials who were making numerous attacks per round though. The sheer number of saves the party had to make in that battle was a factor too.
It's pretty hard for me to read spell X is overrated when the point of comparison is Bless.

[Pex]

I had a player with a Cleric 1/ Wizard 14ish come out of a fight with Tiamat saying basically that; with all the options he had, he would have been just better off upcasting Bless on the 5 characters for the encounter rather than what he tried (can't remember what at the moment). That was in a party with 3 martials who were making numerous attacks per round though. The sheer number of saves the party had to make in that battle was a factor too.
It's pretty hard for me to read spell X is overrated when the point of comparison is Bless.

Even a good spell can be the best spell ever when the situation is right. Bless is wonderful against foes who force a lot of saving throws or at least force saves you cannot afford to miss. When fighting a beholder or mindflayer, Bless can be crucial. Other times a different spell is the best spell ever. Playing a Cleric I had cast Bane against a Hydra, one creature but multple heads meant multiple attacks all at -1d4 to hit. The party suffered hardly a scratch. It is a feature of spellcasting in general for the right spell at the right time to win the day. That does not make a spell that was of no use in one combat never to be the best spell ever in another combat. Playing an Artificer in a different campaign no one complained I had cast Fairie Fire when we were battling Invisible Stalkers.

[shipiaozi]

No, but without actual context using the numbers, the question of "+1 attack or +1 damage" is insanely hard to analyze. Reason being, what are the required AC to hit? If the game typically has most characters with an AC of 5, for example, then the +1 to hit os almost meaningless because an AC of 5 is hit by anyone level 1 or higher as long as they have a 16 in a score. So it would literally be meaningless.

This is an extreme example, but its part of what people in this thread are saying: without the actual context of calculating the average AC of enemies and actually describing the effects of what a spell can do, then the math behind your responses don't make any sense. It has been done before, which is why people now say yes, a +1 to attack rolls is better than a +1 to damage in most cases, because the math has been thoroughly explained. Your numbers, as much as they may make sense to you, are not thoroughly explained, so it just confuses people.

For example, in your assertion that Bless grants a +7.5 on attack rolls: this is factually untrue. If you cast Bless on a fighter, who used to be able to add 5 to a roll of a d20, then their range of results is 6 to 25. If Bless was cast, the range does NOT get an average of 7.5. You could never, EVER, get a roll of 30, for example, even though 25 + 7 should equal 32. But this quite literally can NEVER happen. If you had three such fighters and cast bless so each were affected, NONE OF THEM can still reach a roll of 30 with bless, let alone 32: therefore, Bless DOES NOT grant +7.5 to attack rolls. These numbers do not make sense to be quantified this way.

This is what people are saying about your math not making any sense. There are attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and any can be at advantage or disadvantage, or modifiers like Bless or Bane can change the numbers around.

But the odd assertions of thing that have no mathematical basis that has been thoroughly explained, like Haste granting a +1 to saves, has yet to be explained. You seem to act that it DOES add saves, but people don't see this benefit, however you obtained it. So people are bringing up the fact that with invisibility granted by Greater Invisibilty spell, you get virtually infinite AC because a target that doesn't know your square on the battlefield, regardless of their typical stats, cannot hit you, so GI grants a arbitrarily high AC that cannot be beaten. This has some logical grounds, while Haste giving +1 to saves still makes no sense. If the reason it does so is because it gives advantage on Dex saves, this is still wrong, as it never boosts Stength, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma saves. So it does not give +1 to saves, because 5 saves are completely unaffected. So the best way to write how Haste benefits saves is not that it adds +1 to all saves, but instead tell it like it is: it grants advantage to Dexrerity saves only. This is a phrase that makes sense to 100% of all people knowledgeable about 5th edition, whereas the +1 to saves makes sense to mostly just you, as to everyone else that phrase means something drastically different.

Sorry, on my phone, so please forgive typos. I hope the message is easy enough to understand, though.

"+1 damage vs +1 attack roll" is a realistic question and quite easy to answer. Tasha has a Fighting Style feat which is attack roll+2 or damage roll+2 in most cases. They need to compete with +2STR/DEX feat. One don't need to argue with any special condition from AC5 to AC15 to AC25, he should consider average AC and damage to decide how good the feat is.

Given some examples, to compare bless and haste we could transform bless into a single target spell to make the comparison easier. For haste, I decide on average a dps attack 3 times per turn with 60% chance to hit, so one extra attack = +4 attack roll, wis save > con save > dex save > all other saves combined so I estimate +4.5 dex save roughly equals to +1 all save. The idea is simple: transform different effects to simliar effect to compare them, that's the central idea of my optimazition. I don't think any argument with any special condition are justify as reasons to estimate any effect, nor should any "difference" could be a reason to stop comparison.




Find Familiar: Sending the familiar to its death is just a loss. You don't need the familiar to die to use it to be useful- the fact that it isn't a big cost doesn't mean it isn't.
Keep in mind also that it takes at least an hour to cast it (without ritual, otherwise more) and lastly... Some players actually like their familiar and don't treat it as an expendable minion.
But regardless, is widely known to be one of the best spells.
Again, making your familiar die doesn't accomplish anything but a loss. If you can't use it without the familiar dying it doesn't mean it's the best way to use it.


Familiar is easy to die when send to help/DB, too many players afraid their familiar get killed and don't use them in combat.
BTW, use familiar to absorb one attack is not a bad choice, that's how cheap familiar in 5e.



Swift Quiver gives two bonus attacks and is online by the second round. Again, read the spell.[QUOTE=Valmark;25041039]

Swift Quiver need bonus action to cast, so you lost 1 attack in turn 1, turn 2 is just get back the attack caster lost in turn 2, only in turn 3+ you get 1 more attack per turn.


[QUOTE=Valmark;25041039]
Uhm... Faerie Fire is completely different from Entangle and Bless. Different save, different effects, different uses, tipically different lists.

Command has some clear limitations, this before considering something like the fact that a Wall of Force (random example) could shut down many more enemies then Command without a save.
And even then Command is also considered to be one of the best spells.

Tasha's summons have completely different roles when compared to the multi-summoning spells, and also figure special abilities.
In addition it's also false that they deal less damage period- the Conjure spells tipically have far less accuracy, as such their damage decreases steeply against higher ACs.

Spirit Guardians has better damage type, no friendly fire debuffs and deals damage over time- which means that eventually it'll beat out Fireball (assuming the enemies don't die earlier, of course).
Takes three turns to beat a Fireball if you don't upcast. Spirit Guardians scales much better since the improved damage is applied repeatedly.

Haste gives +2 AC and then... Completely different stuff from what you're claiming. Read the spell before deciding if it's under or overrated.
Greater Invisibility has, among other stuff, the added advantage of making you immune to sight effects- as a rapid example you could cast spells without being counterspelled.

Animal Shapes is good for utility but unless you have lots of minions to transform it's nearly useless for damage. Assuming you can even hurt the enemy due to non-magical attacks.
And it takes an 8 level slot. That is a LOT for a caster.

Faerie Fire though boosts all the attackers unlike Bless and Entangle is a spell you use for entirely different purposes and targets.

You claim that everything can be turned into an integer and yet there is no accounting for Faerie Fire revealing invisibility or Haste giving a free Dash or Disengage or whatever other example.


You make same mistakes again and again in one post.
Ofc spells are "different", but "different" doesn't mean they can't being compared. Extra attack could transform into +attack roll, extra hp or any other effect to compare, a easy example is +4-5
Are you honest think "different save" "immune to sight effects" or other trival difference could greatly change the overall value of a spell? These endless tiny advantages or disadvantages should be ignored to make us focus on core of comparison.

[Valmark]

"+1 damage vs +1 attack roll" is a realistic question and quite easy to answer. Tasha has a Fighting Style feat which is attack roll+2 or damage roll+2 in most cases. They need to compete with +2STR/DEX feat. One don't need to argue with any special condition from AC5 to AC15 to AC25, he should consider average AC and damage to decide how good the feat is.

Given some examples, to compare bless and haste we could transform bless into a single target spell to make the comparison easier. For haste, I decide on average a dps attack 3 times per turn with 60% chance to hit, so one extra attack = +4 attack roll, wis save > con save > dex save > all other saves combined so I estimate +4.5 dex save roughly equals to +1 all save. The idea is simple: transform different effects to simliar effect to compare them, that's the central idea of my optimazition. I don't think any argument with any special condition are justify as reasons to estimate any effect, nor should any "difference" could be a reason to stop comparison.

The problem with this optimization is that it completely discards anything that isn't numbers, then also turns numbers in different ones without a real sense (at least none that you explained).

It basically ensures you'll have a wrong view of stuff- and if a new player comes around and doesn't know what's what they risk having their fun ruined because they follow your advice and do stuff thinking it'll work as you say. Otherwise it'd be fine, everybody's got their opinions.



Familiar is easy to die when send to help/DB, too many players afraid their familiar get killed and don't use them in combat.
BTW, use familiar to absorb one attack is not a bad choice, that's how cheap familiar in 5e.

Swift Quiver need bonus action to cast, so you lost 1 attack in turn 1, turn 2 is just get back the attack caster lost in turn 2, only in turn 3+ you get 1 more attack per turn.

You make same mistakes again and again in one post.
Ofc spells are "different", but "different" doesn't mean they can't being compared. Extra attack could transform into +attack roll, extra hp or any other effect to compare, a easy example is +4-5
Are you honest think "different save" "immune to sight effects" or other trival difference could greatly change the overall value of a spell? These endless tiny advantages or disadvantages should be ignored to make us focus on core of comparison.

It's cheap only if it absorbs an attack (if it's an AoE it's just a loss) and only if you have enough money to not care.
And, you know, you could just learn how to use it without making it die.

You only lose an attack if you have a bonus action attack already, which means having specific feats or class features.

No, an extra attack can't be rapresented as a bonus to attack rolls. They are intrinsecally different- if only because a bonus to attack rolls doesn't mean you can actually hit twice.

No, because they change a lot. Having an Int save instead of Dex save (for example) is going to make the spell stronger against loads of more enemies. Or having to avoid allies vs having an AoE that doesn't harm allies.

[Eldariel]

"+1 damage vs +1 attack roll" is a realistic question and quite easy to answer. Tasha has a Fighting Style feat which is attack roll+2 or damage roll+2 in most cases. They need to compete with +2STR/DEX feat. One don't need to argue with any special condition from AC5 to AC15 to AC25, he should consider average AC and damage to decide how good the feat is.

This is an appeal to authority fallacy. You assume WotC has done their balancing right in equating +2 to attack rolls to +2 to damage, which is generally not the case (hit bonus is better up until very extreme cases). Indeed, this is one of the reason bows are so much better than other attacking options, because the +2 to attack bonus amounts to close to +4 to damage with Sharpshooter. It's generally the case that you can't take "1 feat = 1 ASI" or any assumptions behind the system at face value since many of those are asymmetric: there are differences in value between the options.

[Protolisk]

"+1 damage vs +1 attack roll" is a realistic question and quite easy to answer. Tasha has a Fighting Style feat which is attack roll+2 or damage roll+2 in most cases. They need to compete with +2STR/DEX feat. One don't need to argue with any special condition from AC5 to AC15 to AC25, he should consider average AC and damage to decide how good the feat is.

Given some examples, to compare bless and haste we could transform bless into a single target spell to make the comparison easier. For haste, I decide on average a dps attack 3 times per turn with 60% chance to hit, so one extra attack = +4 attack roll, wis save > con save > dex save > all other saves combined so I estimate +4.5 dex save roughly equals to +1 all save. The idea is simple: transform different effects to simliar effect to compare them, that's the central idea of my optimazition. I don't think any argument with any special condition are justify as reasons to estimate any effect, nor should any "difference" could be a reason to stop comparison.

Well, yes, average AC does indeed help, but that's exactly the context we are trying to talk about. However, misconstruing what spells actually do, and getting faulty ideas from them, is going to result in faulty conclusions.

For instance, even at low levels, you could face an Ogre one battle, and a Quickling the next. Their CRs are close, and both may be fought at fairly low levels, so one could compare them. One has low AC and abysmal Dexterity, but a high amount of health and Constitution. The other has insane Dexterity granting a much higher AC, and Evasion features with attacks at disadvantage against them except in specific circumstances, but their health is abysmal to compensate. You would not fight these two the same way, and thus the spells you use are different. That is what people mean by saves being different. You will hardly ever catch a Quickling with a Dex save at a low level, and even if you do you might do very little, while using Dex saves against an Ogre is the best idea because its really hard for them to escape it. And the reverse is true for Constitution saves, as that is the Quicklings relative weak point but Ogres will barely feel it.

To try and equate all saves as the same and try to average it all out is to be reductive to the point of absurdity. They are all saves, yes, but certain spells will work better against different creatures because of the difference in those saves.

Imagine you are a farmer, and you have horses, cows, dogs, and chickens. You want to make good fences to keep them in. You find that a short wire fence keeps chickens in astoundingly well and for a great price, so you start to think "Wow, this fence holds in this animal really well! I should probably use it for all my animals since its such a great fence." Then, once you build multiple enclosures for your other animals with the same style of fence, you find that your horses just walked over them, the cows tore the wire down, and the dogs dug under them. Such a fence really only worked for a single scenario. Just because one tool was a great idea for one circumstance, does not mean it was a good idea for all other circumstances.

To bring it back, just because a spell provides a great bonus to one save, does not mean that it provides a good bonus for all others. This is why your "Advantage on Dexterity saves can be equivalent to +1 to all saves" is a faulty conclusion, as it is too abstracted to have any meaning.

So when you ask:


Are you honest think "different save" "immune to sight effects" or other trival difference could greatly change the overall value of a spell? These endless tiny advantages or disadvantages should be ignored to make us focus on core of comparison.

Then the only answer is undoubtedly yes, the differences is what makes the spells have different use cases, and that they should not be ignored or abstracted down to a single numerical value.

I could try to refute every assertion you make extensively, but that is the crux of it: most of your assertions come across as far too reductive to extract any real value out of them. Other forum-goers pointed out similar issues, and I could try and tell you Bless already can function as a single target spell (it's just a 1d4 on attacks and saves, which doesn't average out to +7.5. You can choose one target or more, but to treat one small bonus to three targets as the exact same as triple the bonus to one target is too reductive to analyze sufficiently) or that multiple attacks do not translate to a bonus on attack rolls (in fact, they compound one another, which means they are synergistic, not simply additive. At best, you would try and multiply, or use exponential functions) but I'll stop there. I do like some of the conclusions you come to, but the reasoning for them is not something I can agree with and I wouldn't try to optimize based on your logic.

[noob]

Well, yes, average AC does indeed help, but that's exactly the context we are trying to talk about. However, misconstruing what spells actually do, and getting faulty ideas from them, is going to result in faulty conclusions.

For instance, even at low levels, you could face an Ogre one battle, and a Quickling the next. Their CRs are close, and both may be fought at fairly low levels, so one could compare them. One has low AC and abysmal Dexterity, but a high amount of health and Constitution. The other has insane Dexterity granting a much higher AC, and Evasion features with attacks at disadvantage against them except in specific circumstances, but their health is abysmal to compensate. You would not fight these two the same way, and thus the spells you use are different. That is what people mean by saves being different. You will hardly ever catch a Quickling with a Dex save at a low level, and even if you do you might do very little, while using Dex saves against an Ogre is the best idea because its really hard for them to escape it. And the reverse is true for Constitution saves, as that is the Quicklings relative weak point but Ogres will barely feel it.

To try and equate all saves as the same and try to average it all out is to be reductive to the point of absurdity. They are all saves, yes, but certain spells will work better against different creatures because of the difference in those saves.

Imagine you are a farmer, and you have horses, cows, dogs, and chickens. You want to make good fences to keep them in. You find that a short wire fence keeps chickens in astoundingly well and for a great price, so you start to think "Wow, this fence holds in this animal really well! I should probably use it for all my animals since its such a great fence." Then, once you build multiple enclosures for your other animals with the same style of fence, you find that your horses just walked over them, the cows tore the wire down, and the dogs dug under them. Such a fence really only worked for a single scenario. Just because one tool was a great idea for one circumstance, does not mean it was a good idea for all other circumstances.

To bring it back, just because a spell provides a great bonus to one save, does not mean that it provides a good bonus for all others. This is why your "Advantage on Dexterity saves can be equivalent to +1 to all saves" is a faulty conclusion, as it is too abstracted to have any meaning.

So when you ask:


Then the only answer is undoubtedly yes, the differences is what makes the spells have different use cases, and that they should not be ignored or abstracted down to a single numerical value.

I could try to refute every assertion you make extensively, but that is the crux of it: most of your assertions come across as far too reductive to extract any real value out of them. Other forum-goers pointed out similar issues, and I could try and tell you Bless already can function as a single target spell (it's just a 1d4 on attacks and saves, which doesn't average out to +7.5. You can choose one target or more, but to treat one small bonus to three targets as the exact same as triple the bonus to one target is too reductive to analyze sufficiently) or that multiple attacks do not translate to a bonus on attack rolls (in fact, they compound one another, which means they are synergistic, not simply additive. At best, you would try and multiply, or use exponential functions) but I'll stop there. I do like some of the conclusions you come to, but the reasoning for them is not something I can agree with and I wouldn't try to optimize based on your logic.

Having varied spells that allows to adapt to the situation is a good thing and it is why a spell that counters invisibility and also adds advantage(faerie fire) can be useful if you were not going to take (or were not going to be able to take) other spells that counters invisibility or why a save or lose spell that targets a con save can still be useful even if you already have an overall superior save or lose spell that also targets an int save.

[Mitchellnotes]

Are you honest think "different save" "immune to sight effects" or other trival difference could greatly change the overall value of a spell? These endless tiny advantages or disadvantages should be ignored to make us focus on core of comparison.

Yes, very much yes. This is why the UA Lore wizard was Horribly broken. Being able to change a spell to target what would clearly be a weak save is insanely powerful. Take good old fireball. Changing fireball to target int, which is often a very bad save for many monsters, makes it incredibly powerful. If you just had synaptic static doing the damage it does at 5th level targeting an int save it would be a decent to good spell. That it also adds strong riders onto the damage elevates it to being an incredibly powerful spell.

Part of the key aspect of a spell is the save it targets. Does it have an effect that is worthwhile for creatures that would typically have poor saves of that nature? For instance, if feeblemind targeted constitution, save that is typically not great for spell casters, it would be extraordinarily good (as it is, it's still pretty good). Being able to shut down a caster targeting a save they are typically poor in would make it an incredible spell. On the other hand, blindness, which is a pretty good spell in that it gives disadvantage, scales pretty well, and doesn't require constitution, isn't deemed as good as it could be as who you want to use it on (typically melee users) are generally going to have good constitution saves (and most things typically don't have bad con saves). Because of this, while it isn't a great spell, it is still pretty good at shutting down certain types of melee/ranged attackers (the fast, agile kind).

You can't ignore how the effects align with the saves that are connected to them to gauge how good an overall spell would be, it is a part of the overall package.

[shipiaozi]

It's cheap only if it absorbs an attack (if it's an AoE it's just a loss) and only if you have enough money to not care.
And, you know, you could just learn how to use it without making it die.

That's why I said most players underestimated Find Familiar and don't use it correctly. The best way to spend gold in 5e is to summon familiar to die if you could. Spend 1500 gold on 150 familiar is even much better than Simulacrum.



No, an extra attack can't be rapresented as a bonus to attack rolls. They are intrinsecally different- if only because a bonus to attack rolls doesn't mean you can actually hit twice.

No, because they change a lot. Having an Int save instead of Dex save (for example) is going to make the spell stronger against loads of more enemies. Or having to avoid allies vs having an AoE that doesn't harm allies.

Extra attack could be represent as a bonus to attack roll, a bonus to AC, extra spell slot or any other effects. That's optimization, one need to choose from different effects and compare them.

You are still make the same mistake again.


This is an appeal to authority fallacy. You assume WotC has done their balancing right in equating +2 to attack rolls to +2 to damage, which is generally not the case (hit bonus is better up until very extreme cases). Indeed, this is one of the reason bows are so much better than other attacking options, because the +2 to attack bonus amounts to close to +4 to damage with Sharpshooter. It's generally the case that you can't take "1 feat = 1 ASI" or any assumptions behind the system at face value since many of those are asymmetric: there are differences in value between the options.

I never assume WotC done balancing right, in fact +1 attack roll is about 10-15%(not 100% lol) better than +1 damage. I use Tasha feats as an example to show "+1 damage vs +1 attack roll" is a realistic problem and anyone could easily calculate a close result by appoint average attack roll and damage roll. 1 ASI is not 1 feat, for example casters' ASI only worth about 0.5 feat and they should not pick ASI in most builds.
BTW, hand crossbow are on par with two-hands PAW or Shield + Staff. You think crossbow is best weapon probably because 1) There are more bad melee builds, such as melee warrior, melee rogue or Paladin 2/Sorcerer X 2)Warrior is the best weapon class and very suitable to be ranged.


Yes, very much yes. This is why the UA Lore wizard was Horribly broken. Being able to change a spell to target what would clearly be a weak save is insanely powerful. Take good old fireball. Changing fireball to target int, which is often a very bad save for many monsters, makes it incredibly powerful. If you just had synaptic static doing the damage it does at 5th level targeting an int save it would be a decent to good spell. That it also adds strong riders onto the damage elevates it to being an incredibly powerful spell.

Part of the key aspect of a spell is the save it targets. Does it have an effect that is worthwhile for creatures that would typically have poor saves of that nature? For instance, if feeblemind targeted constitution, save that is typically not great for spell casters, it would be extraordinarily good (as it is, it's still pretty good). Being able to shut down a caster targeting a save they are typically poor in would make it an incredible spell. On the other hand, blindness, which is a pretty good spell in that it gives disadvantage, scales pretty well, and doesn't require constitution, isn't deemed as good as it could be as who you want to use it on (typically melee users) are generally going to have good constitution saves (and most things typically don't have bad con saves). Because of this, while it isn't a great spell, it is still pretty good at shutting down certain types of melee/ranged attackers (the fast, agile kind).

You can't ignore how the effects align with the saves that are connected to them to gauge how good an overall spell would be, it is a part of the overall package.

First, "different save" is quite different from "choose a save", "different save" only means +1 or +2 DC at best.
Second, UA lore Wizard is among the worst 5 wizard subclass, gain almost nothing before lv14. Their lv2 class ability is a worse version of "free Heightened Spell", with 75%/50% failed rate your "incredibly powerful" fireball deal 21 damage instead of 17.5. I would not call a +1 weapon(15% DPR increase + 5% magic weapon, close to your 20% damage increase) makes weapon attack "incredibly powerful".

[JNAProductions]

Hold Person targeting Strength or Dexterity.

Fail once, and you’re stuck.

Ship, you’ve not made any good arguments for yourself here.

[Vulryn]

snippidy

While some statements (not many though) are true, your argumentation is found lacking.

Made-up numbers without mathematical proof or backup will not convince anyone, my friend.

[cookieface]

(...)the UA Lore wizard was Horribly broken(...)

Holy cow, I had never seen the Lore Wizard before this comment and just looked it up. Was it released as a joke?? Absurdly powerful to change both save AND damage type in the same casting. And then once you get to tier three it practically makes preparing spells moot. Insane subclass.

[Mitchellnotes]

First, "different save" is quite different from "choose a save", "different save" only means +1 or +2 DC at best.
Second, UA lore Wizard is among the worst 5 wizard subclass, gain almost nothing before lv14. Their lv2 class ability is a worse version of "free Heightened Spell", with 75%/50% failed rate your "incredibly powerful" fireball deal 21 damage instead of 17.5. I would not call a +1 weapon(15% DPR increase + 5% magic weapon, close to your 20% damage increase) makes weapon attack "incredibly powerful".

Correct, choosing a save is much better than different save, but, you are wrong in that it means "+1 or +2 DC at best." In fact, way off. Most conventional wisdom with spell selection encourages having spells that target a variety of different saves so that you can effectively "choose a save." Spells that target Int and Cha are the most rare, Dex saves tend to be focused on damage, Con and Wis saves tend to be the most common "save or suck," Str saves are often focused on restraining or are movement focused (with non-damage dex being in there as well). This is why synaptic static is again widely considered very good. Not only are there not many Int save spells, but it is a good spell for what it does with that save. Banishment is also typically considered a good spell because it is hard removal if the creature fails its save, and it is Cha focused which rounds out that aspect.

Of course, the non-save spells are going to be pretty much top tier for the guaranteed effect (wall of force, etc), and you could make an argument that you are better off always going for the guaranteed thing (i like to think of it as the XCom argument), but that is a different conversation than what you are engaging in. How would you "numerically capture" spells that just work? Is that a +3, +5? You really just can't, and again, it goes back to the idea that trying to convert everything into a standard formula just doesn't work well for a dynamic a game as this is.

[nickl_2000]

Holy cow, I had never seen the Lore Wizard before this comment and just looked it up. Was it released as a joke?? Absurdly powerful to change both save AND damage type in the same casting. And then once you get to tier three it practically makes preparing spells moot. Insane subclass.

It was Unearthed Arcana, a test subclass. The unearthed arcana program did it's job in that it never saw print and was disintegrated.

[Valmark]

That's why I said most players underestimated Find Familiar and don't use it correctly. The best way to spend gold in 5e is to summon familiar to die if you could. Spend 1500 gold on 150 familiar is even much better than Simulacrum.

Extra attack could be represent as a bonus to attack roll, a bonus to AC, extra spell slot or any other effects. That's optimization, one need to choose from different effects and compare them.

You are still make the same mistake again.

I never assume WotC done balancing right, in fact +1 attack roll is about 10-15%(not 100% lol) better than +1 damage. I use Tasha feats as an example to show "+1 damage vs +1 attack roll" is a realistic problem and anyone could easily calculate a close result by appoint average attack roll and damage roll. 1 ASI is not 1 feat, for example casters' ASI only worth about 0.5 feat and they should not pick ASI in most builds.
BTW, hand crossbow are on par with two-hands PAW or Shield + Staff. You think crossbow is best weapon probably because 1) There are more bad melee builds, such as melee warrior, melee rogue or Paladin 2/Sorcerer X 2)Warrior is the best weapon class and very suitable to be ranged.

First, "different save" is quite different from "choose a save", "different save" only means +1 or +2 DC at best.
Second, UA lore Wizard is among the worst 5 wizard subclass, gain almost nothing before lv14. Their lv2 class ability is a worse version of "free Heightened Spell", with 75%/50% failed rate your "incredibly powerful" fireball deal 21 damage instead of 17.5. I would not call a +1 weapon(15% DPR increase + 5% magic weapon, close to your 20% damage increase) makes weapon attack "incredibly powerful".

You have yet to say why it's better to make the familiar die then to use it without dying.
The statement about the Simulacrum seems objectively false- aside from the fact that it can do much more then a familiar if you make one of someone capable of ritual casting Find Familiar then you'll have doubled the number of familiars you can have.

Optimization is not "Take something, turn it into something completely different". It's like saying that Greater Restoration gives +100 hp. It does nothing like that.
And you still haven't explained your system to transform things.

Only you mentioned crossbows.

Uhm... Just no about the DCs. Take a small Red Wyrmling- targeting it's Intelligence instead of Constitution is already equivalent to a +5.

[micahaphone]

I'm curious about what quests and dungeons you go into where repeatedly stopping for 70 minutes to recast find familiar is a viable strategy.

I remember reading about casting touch spells through your familiar and being excited to do sneaky high risk casting remotely, but there's not actually that many offensive touch spells that you'd be excited to throw out in combat, worth risking the familiar. Bestow Curse is the most notable I can think of.

Otherwise, risking your familiar in combat only seems worthwhile if you can guarantee the enemy has no AOE, no ranged attackers, or that you're okay absorbing a single hit in exchange for the long cast time.

[PhantomSoul]

This thread (well, threads sharing this OP poster I suppose) never fails to... something. The math and logic are just nonsensical.


Uhm... Just no about the DCs. Take a small Red Wyrmling- targeting it's Intelligence instead of Constitution is already equivalent to a +5.

And that's not even that big... the MEDIAN is that a monster's minimum and maximum bonuses to their saving throws are 6 apart (standard deviation 2.63; mean 5.8). And this difference gets bigger with level, meaning the more options you have the more effectively you can make use of it. There are tons of monsters with a range larger than 10. Sibriex even has a range of 17!

[Ninja Bear]

Extra attack could be compare with bonus to hit, for example, when a character could attack 3 times per turn and have 60% chance to hit, one extra attack is very close to +4 attack roll.
Haste/GI are quite bad, Twinned haste/GI is decent and have effect on par with lv1-2 bless.
So, analogous scenario:
We are comparing two prospective melee characters, each with 10DEX. The first character is given plate armor, and has 18AC. The second is given a shield, and has 12AC. On this basis we conclude that shields are underpowered and overestimated, since the effect of the shield is 1/4 the effect of the plate armor.
Have we made a proper comparison by resolving each of the "plate armor effect" and the "shield effect" to a number before we compare them?

Haste and the various "get advantage" spells should assume bless as a baseline just as the shield user should assume that he has armor as a baseline, since the whole point is that they stack. "Is bless+haste worth two concentration slots, and a L1 and L3 spell" is a different question than "bless or haste" -- looking at the naked haste user is as odd as looking at the naked shield user and saying "this requires you to give up a stronger weapon for less AC, go plate over shield."

[sithlordnergal]

I'm...gonna have to disagree with almost all of these...



[Underestimated]Find Familiar: Too many players still afraid of get familiar killed, in fact familiar should be killed every day or even more than once per day. The extra help action or Dragon's Breath is quite useful in combat, and a wizard who does not send his familiar to death would lost a lot of power in early game. Don't worry about the cost, 10gp per familiar is a better deal than Simulacrum and probably the best way to spend your gold in adventure.

First, this is probably the least underestimated spell in the game. Its basically an entire class feature rolled up into a spell. It can be used for everything from aiding in battle to scouting to taking things. And due to the wording of the spell, you can do some crazy things. For example, you don't need a line of sight when you dismiss and resummon your Familiar. Meaning you could dismiss it as an action, then resummon your familiar on the other side of a door...as an action. You can then scout via looking through your familiar's eyes and such. That said, having it die every day is a bit ineffective, though I can see why a DM would target it.



[Overestimated]Faerie Fire: Horrible spell, the effect is less than 50% of a true good lv1 spell such as Bless or Entangle. Don't waste t1 character's spell slot on Faerie Fire.

100% disagree. Faerie Fire is probably one of the most useful support spells by far. First off, its a spell that effects objects, which is niche but handy. Second, it provides advantage on all attacks against a creature being effected by it. Meaning its a huge boon for Rogues, far more so than Bless, since now you don't have to use your Cunning Action to hide or hope you have an ally next to your target. Finally, it cancels out invisibility, which is exceptionally helpful if your DM likes to use Invisibility a lot and rules that if a creature is invisible then you don't automatically know where they are. Even if they rule that you know where the creature is, the wording of the spell allows you to keep the advantage against the Invisible creature. Now, is it the "best support spell ever"? No, not really...but I don't think Bless fits that either.



[Underestimated]Command: Probably the best control spell in 5e, deals more damage via OA than some damage spell while require no concentration. Don't forget move close to enemy after casting the spell to trigger your own OA.

This is similar to Find Familiar...I've never seen Command be rated as a poor spell. Its generally seen as an excellent control spell, right up there with things like Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Dissonant Whisper.



[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.

I don't think anyone overestimates these spells. Everyone knows Conjure X is by and far stronger than any Summon Spell. The thing is DMs are more willing to allow Tahsa's summons to be used over Conjure X. They also won't nerf the Summon spells like they do with Conjure X.



[Overestimated]Spirit Guardians: Cleric have the worst spell list in game that even their best lv3 spell is quite weak. A delayed fireball with concentration and much worse range? Hopefully Cleric could get some decent spells in new book.

I...feel like you're using Spirit Guardians wrong if you think its over estimated. Its perfect for a frontline character, like Clerics tend to be. It deals a decent amount of damage, causes difficult terrain, its damage types are rarely resisted, and to top it off you can exclude your allies from it. The only real downside is that its Concentration, but even then that's not a huge issue. Toss this spell on a tank and jump into the middle of a group of enemies, and then watch as they start to drop.



[Overestimated]Haste and Greater Invisibility: Bless give +7.5 attack roll and +7.5 all saves, Haste give +5 attack roll, +2 AC and +1 all saves before we consider the risk. Greater Invisibility give +4.5 attack roll and +4.5 AC. It is very clear the lv3 spell and lv4 spell perform worse than bless, they both provide little help for their spell levels.

I think the problem you're having is that you're mixing a static bonus, like what Bless gives, with spells that give a varied bonus. For example, Haste can be more or less effective depending on who you cast it on. Casting Haste on, say, a Wizard, is generally a poor choice. It won't really do much at all for a Wizard. However, toss Haste on a Paladin, and now that Paladin can potentially Smite three times in a turn. If they're a Soradin with Quicken Spell and Booming Blade, they get 4 attacks with it. Soradins are especially deadly with this spell, since they have the potential of dealing 117 damage in a round from dice alone with a Longsword. Sure, it takes all of their resources to do it, but still, that's a huge hit, and something you can't do with Bless.

Same goes for Greater Invisibility. The fact that you can cast and attack with Greater Invisibility makes it an exceptionally strong and versatile defensive spell. Most spells require you to see your target, and being Invisible gives you a ton of advantages. These range from disadvantage on attacks against you and advantage against your targets, to enemies not knowing where you are and being unable to attack you at all.



[Overestimated]Swift Quiver: No idea why some players view this unplayable spell as a good spell. It does nothing until turn 3 and all it did is 1 extra attack per turn.

I have no idea what you're on about. First, the spell starts going to work on turn two. Sure, you can't use it round one...but then that's how most buff spells end up working. After that you're making two extra attacks with your bonus action. Second, you need to reread this spell. It gives you a bonus action attack that lets you attack twice, and you don't need to use the Attack Action to use it. Meaning you can toss it on a Bard, cast some spell, then use your Bonus Action to attack twice. Its also a 5th level spell, so you could toss it into a Ring of Spell Storing, hand it over to a Fighter, Rogue, or Warlock, and watch them go to town with it.



[Underestimated]Animal Shapes: The ultimate summon spell that transform all familiars, mount and summons into CR4. Wish and Foresight are only two lv9 spells that could compete with, Bard should pick this spell as lv18 extra spell in most team.

Sadly this is a spell that looks far stronger than it actually is:

First, it really only works if you have a large group of allies. For example, if you cast Conjure X and have 8 CR 1/4 creatures, you could turn them into 8 CR 4 beasts, or if you have a Necromancer that has a small army of Zombies and Skeletons following you around, or if you have a small army of peasants to use.

Next, this is an 8th level spell. By the time you get this, most creatures you're facing won't really care about a ton of CR 4 beasts. They generally have resistance to non-magical damage, which is what the new beast forms do, immunity to Poison, which is what Beasts usually use to supplement their damage, and usually have an AoE that deals enough damage to kill those CR 4 beasts in 1 to 2 rounds. this is why I feel most classes that make heavy use of the Conjure X or Animate Dead spells fall behind at higher levels.

Sure, you could bring an army of low CR creatures with you...but what use is that army if they all die to an 8th level spell. And that's not conjecture either, that's from personal experience. I once played a Tier 4 AL game where the final fight involved a crop ton of zombies. I'm talking well over 20 zombies, with two Wizards, some special fighters, even a Shield Guardian...My Druid cleared out all the zombies in the room with one Sunburst.

[MaxWilson]

Warlocks: just....frustrating. capping at level 5 is infuriating cause its just short of 3x attacks

On the other hand, level 5 is just perfect for summoning elementals, Vrocks, and Chasmes.


Sadly this is a spell that looks far stronger than it actually is:

First, it really only works if you have a large group of allies. For example, if you cast Conjure X and have 8 CR 1/4 creatures, you could turn them into 8 CR 4 beasts, or if you have a Necromancer that has a small army of Zombies and Skeletons following you around, or if you have a small army of peasants to use.

Next, this is an 8th level spell. By the time you get this, most creatures you're facing won't really care about a ton of CR 4 beasts. They generally have resistance to non-magical damage, which is what the new beast forms do, immunity to Poison, which is what Beasts usually use to supplement their damage, and usually have an AoE that deals enough damage to kill those CR 4 beasts in 1 to 2 rounds. this is why I feel most classes that make heavy use of the Conjure X or Animate Dead spells fall behind at higher levels.

Sure, you could bring an army of low CR creatures with you...but what use is that army if they all die to an 8th level spell. And that's not conjecture either, that's from personal experience. I once played a Tier 4 AL game where the final fight involved a crop ton of zombies. I'm talking well over 20 zombies, with two Wizards, some special fighters, even a Shield Guardian...My Druid cleared out all the zombies in the room with one Sunburst.

You forgot to mention that most CR 4 beasts are Huge and therefore ineligible as Animal Shapes. In practice, Giant Scorpion (CR 3) is about as good as this spell gets. It's quite good, but not as good as it looks on paper.

[quindraco]

I'm curious about what quests and dungeons you go into where repeatedly stopping for 70 minutes to recast find familiar is a viable strategy.

I remember reading about casting touch spells through your familiar and being excited to do sneaky high risk casting remotely, but there's not actually that many offensive touch spells that you'd be excited to throw out in combat, worth risking the familiar. Bestow Curse is the most notable I can think of.

Otherwise, risking your familiar in combat only seems worthwhile if you can guarantee the enemy has no AOE, no ranged attackers, or that you're okay absorbing a single hit in exchange for the long cast time.

I use mine for the Help action, primarily. But I'm an Elf, so if the party is taking a long rest, I guaranteed have time to resummon my familiar. Might be different for filthy non-Elves.

I should also point out that in combat, if it comes up, I put myself between the owl and danger. His job isn't to absorb a single strike, it's being a force multiplier for my bow.

[KorvinStarmast]

Was it released as a joke?? Yes. The company's name is Wizards of the Coast, not Monks of the Coast. :smallwink:


The unearthed arcana program did it's job in that it never saw print and was disintegrated. That it was, with extreme prejudice.
I use mine for the Help action, primarily. {snip} His job isn't to absorb a single strike, it's being a force multiplier for my bow. Yep. Tacticians know how to get the most out of their assets.
Shipiaozi?
Not so much, since they are not a tactician.

[Jon talks a lot]

Yes. The company's name is Wizards of the Coast, not Monks of the Coast. :smallwink:

That it was, with extreme prejudice. Yep. Tacticians know how to get the most out of their assets.
Shipiaozi?
Not so much, since they are not a tactician.

I told myself I wouldn't get involved in this thread again, but amen to that!

[Thunderous Mojo]

Why Bane is underrated? Genuely curious. It's a Bless that works on enemies but requires a save- it's hard to justify it next to Bless (assuming the party makes good use of Bless in the first place).




EDIT: Bane vs. Bless - as I stated, the value of hit bonuses or penalties is highly conditional depending on target ACs and damage and HP. PCs generally have high armor making Bane great when it can cut over 50% of the target's remaining damage away when the target would normally hit on ~17-20 and now is basically critfishing. Also, bonus to saves is generally weaker than penalty to saves, since bonus to saves is contingent on random enemy using save-or-X while penalty to saves just requires that your party actively chooses to use save-or-X.

Bane is a great pick against "multiattacking advantageous low attack bonus" types in particular (e.g. Velociraptor is a superb example of a creature completely shut down by Bane though it's weak enough that targeting it with a spell is questionable; Manticore is another good one) but just in general, a great pick since it's one of the few ways to hit Cha-saves, which are really bad on many nasty brutes (like Beasts and such). Also, you often have multiple Blessers and it doesn't stack while Bless and Bane stack just fine.

Eladriel summed it up, quite, nicely.👍🍻
I also believe the psychological antipathy many people feel about disappointing a peer group, leads players to keep Concentrating on Bless, (especially an Upcast Bless spell), when the optimal course of action would be to stop concentrating and use a different spell to exploit a new vulnerability.

(It is also why more people don't play the Don't Come Line in the Casino game Craps)

People don't seem to have the same hang up with the Bane spell.

Using a 1st level spell to help the Monk land their Stunning Blow on the BBEG, (which then sets up the Wizard's Disintegration spell), and may also put the whammy on two other mook's attack rolls, even if just for a single round...doesn't seem like a waste to many people.

Stopping a Bless spell early just seems wasteful to many players, which allows opportunities to be missed.

[MrStabby]

I am going to throw commune into the list for an underrated spell

I don't think anyone thinks Commune is bad; they just tend to not think of Commune at all.

In the "why play a cleric?" question, this is why level 9 is cool and is a great addition to a level with pretty lacklustre spells.

You get three questions and three answers (which the DM may, at their discretion, chose not to give). This is the opportunity to prepare for the following day, the chance to streamline the plot, to avoid traps and to get the best return from other resources. "is the Princess in another castle?", "are there fire resistant enemies in that castle?", "is there a secret entrance to the castle?", "Is Baron Von Naughtybottom a humanoid?","Was the Barron telling the truth when he said he was not involved with the dissapearance of the princess?" are just simple questions. A DM may allow more complex questions so long as they can be answered by a yes or no answer.

The spell is a ritual so no spell slot required. Indeed of interest is also that you get a cumulative chance of getting no response, not of getting a wrong answer so if you have time you can keep going. Four castings should give you 6 questions a day, which, with a bit of smarts should give you a massive advantage.

[Frogreaver]

Eladriel summed it up, quite, nicely.👍🍻
I also believe the psychological antipathy many people feel about disappointing a peer group, leads players to keep Concentrating on Bless, (especially an Upcast Bless spell), when the optimal course of action would be to stop concentrating and use a different spell to exploit a new vulnerability.

(It is also why more people don't play the Don't Come Line in the Casino game Craps)

People don't seem to have the same hang up with the Bane spell.

Using a 1st level spell to help the Monk land their Stunning Blow on the BBEG, (which then sets up the Wizard's Disintegration spell), and may also put the whammy on two other mook's attack rolls, even if just for a single round...doesn't seem like a waste to many people.

Stopping a Bless spell early just seems wasteful to many players, which allows opportunities to be missed.

I'm still not seeing the case for bane. Even in the case study of landing it (not guaranteed) on low +attack enemies against a party of high AC's - it most likely causes you to go from taking very little damage to nearly no damage. I guess what I'm saying is that the spell tends to have the biggest impact on damage when it's the least important for it to.

On the save front it's not particularly better. You want to say oh, it's going to add +12.5% to my chance of landing X encounter ending spell on the biggest enemy threat - but it's actually much lower than that because you've got to factor in your chance of hitting with bane first. And while I can't fault anything that decreases saves, it really ends up mattering in this type of situation so rarely.

[Eldariel]

I'm still not seeing the case for bane. Even in the case study of landing it (not guaranteed) on low +attack enemies against a party of high AC's - it most likely causes you to go from taking very little damage to nearly no damage. I guess what I'm saying is that the spell tends to have the biggest impact on damage when it's the least important for it to.

On the save front it's not particularly better. You want to say oh, it's going to add +12.5% to my chance of landing X encounter ending spell on the biggest enemy threat - but it's actually much lower than that because you've got to factor in your chance of hitting with bane first. And while I can't fault anything that decreases saves, it really ends up mattering in this type of situation so rarely.

It hits 3 targets from a level 1 slot. Few spells do that. That's great, especially since they can be a fair amount apart and there's no friendly fire. Cha-saves are hard to target: it's a great option for targeting that from a very low level. There are many multiattackers with very high overall damage but relatively low to hit; think Hydras, Manticores, any monstrocities with lots of attacks in general, etc. Those make great targets for Bane. Bless OTOH suffers the inverse problem; there's much less value on hit boosters unless your base hit is relatively low.

And obviously it doesn't add +12,5% to landing your encounter ending spell. 12,5pp on average, but that can be anywhere from 100% improvement to 0% depending on target base save and save DC. This is again why context is important.


So whenever you have 3 heavy physical attackers that need over 10 to hit you, it's very definitely a worthwhile spell and doubly so if you have more AOE save-stuff like Stunning Fists, Hypnotic Patterns, etc. to follow up on. One additional benefit is that a level 1 slot is a very small investment so even if it fails on all 3 (highly unlikely unless you're casting it on high Cha targets) the loss isn't that big.

[Mitchellnotes]

On Bane, like others have said, it is nice that it stacks with bless, but it also stacks with other things. Bane - Synaptic ststic is just painful. While you do need to initially land it, there are not any on going saves. For a level one slot, that's prety good. The issue with bane is that typically the classes that use it can also use bless, and bless is always a for sure thing. If there were more classes that just got bane, it would probably see more use (i wish it was on the warlock spell list instead of needing to use an invocation to get it).

Others have talked through why bless is good and also why bless may not always be the best choice (still only a level 1 slot though, so its still pretty good with that in mind). Im not saying its the best spell ever, just that it has a lot of value for a level 1 slot

[Eldariel]

On Bane, like others have said, it is nice that it stacks with bless, but it also stacks with other things. Bane - Synaptic ststic is just painful. While you do need to initially land it, there are not any on going saves. For a level one slot, that's prety good. The issue with bane is that typically the classes that use it can also use bless, and bless is always a for sure thing. If there were more classes that just got bane, it would probably see more use (i wish it was on the warlock spell list instead of needing to use an invocation to get it).

It's notably on the Bard-list but Bless is not. Also if you have multiple Bless-casters, you only need one.

[Frogreaver]

It hits 3 targets from a level 1 slot. Few spells do that. That's great, especially since they can be a fair amount apart and there's no friendly fire. Cha-saves are hard to target: it's a great option for targeting that from a very low level.

Doesn't really matter what save is targeted or that 3 enemies are targeted if the effect isn't good.

No friendly fire is big though as it gives an option after enemies have engaged (thinking for a bard) as clerics don't have to worry much about friendly fire.


There are many multiattackers with very high overall damage but relatively low to hit; think Hydras, Manticores, any monstrocities with lots of attacks in general, etc. Those make great targets for Bane. Bless OTOH suffers the inverse problem; there's much less value on hit boosters unless your base hit is relatively low.

The difference between -1d4 on a 60% chance to hit and a 40% chance to hit in terms of average damage reduction is 12.5 vs 18.75%. At normal attack and AC values, differences like that just aren't worth making a big deal about.

Likewise for bless the difference between +1d4 on a 60% chance to hit and a 40% chance to hit is 21% vs 31% respectively. It's not enough of a difference to even justify it's citation under normal circumstances IMO.


And obviously it doesn't add +12,5% to landing your encounter ending spell. 12,5pp on average, but that can be anywhere from 100% improvement to 0% depending on target base save and save DC. This is again why context is important.

Obviously it does add +12.5% chance to land. To say otherwise is to not understand how probability works. What you are trying to force into the discussion to call me wrong is conditional probability - given you roll 1 less/more than needed on the d20 then bless/bane turns that into a hit 100% of the time... etc. But conditional probabilities have no bearing on the probability of the non-conditional case and in this instance bringing up the conditionals only serve to muddy the waters.


So whenever you have 3 heavy physical attackers that need over 10 to hit you, it's very definitely a worthwhile spell and doubly so if you have more AOE save-stuff like Stunning Fists, Hypnotic Patterns, etc. to follow up on. One additional benefit is that a level 1 slot is a very small investment so even if it fails on all 3 (highly unlikely unless you're casting it on high Cha targets) the loss isn't that big.

I'm not seeing it. Though I do agree on one point, Bane's only saving grace is that it's a level 1 slot.

[KorvinStarmast]

I also believe the psychological antipathy many people feel about disappointing a peer group, leads players to keep Concentrating on Bless, (especially an Upcast Bless spell), when the optimal course of action would be to stop concentrating and use a different spell to exploit a new vulnerability. Yes, but there's also a spell slot management problem; knowing when to drop bless and apply {something else} is learned I think by a lot of at table play with your group.


People don't seem to have the same hang up with the Bane spell.
I don't see it used that often, but when it is applied I have surprised my team mates: as noted, against monsters with a lot of attacks (Roper!) it's handy.

Using a 1st level spell to help the Monk land their Stunning Blow on the BBEG, (which then sets up the Wizard's Disintegration spell), and may also put the whammy on two other mook's attack rolls, even if just for a single round...doesn't seem like a waste to many people. Yep.

Stopping a Bless spell early just seems wasteful to many players, which allows opportunities to be missed. I think it takes being in a lot of combats to get a feel for 'when's the time to switch'

I told myself I wouldn't get involved in this thread again, but amen to that! Well, the approach used in that family of posts from our dear OP is one I recognize from CRPGs - it's kind of a brute force/DPS approach which for some kinds of games is useful. But it's also based on "I know what's in front of me" which in a CRPG is usually learnable, but with a flesh and blood DM who can layer and time encounter phasing, not as much.

I am going to throw commune into the list for an underrated spell {snip} The spell is a ritual so no spell slot required. yes, handy spell though if one abuses it the DM might get a bit cranky.

I'm still not seeing the case for bane. Multiple enemies with multiattack is the use case I am most familiar with. Lowering saves is a crap shoot, and more of a save or suck moment. Targeting a cha save at low level, in the cases I have seen, tends to be successful more often than not.

Though I do agree on one point, Bane's only saving grace is that it's a level 1 slot. Oh, yeah. And for a bard, keeping a few low level debuff options open is nice; can't always use cutting words/bardic inspiration assets. I have found that as I go up in level, what I actually use my level 1 slots for has really changed. I always have feather fall ready, healing word, but Tasha's got replaced and at level 10, I am not sure if dissonant whispers is carrying its weight anymore.

[Valmark]

Obviously it does add +12.5% chance to land. To say otherwise is to not understand how probability works. What you are trying to force into the discussion to call me wrong is conditional probability - given you roll 1 less/more than needed on the d20 then bless/bane turns that into a hit 100% of the time... etc. But conditional probabilities have no bearing on the probability of the non-conditional case and in this instance bringing up the conditionals only serve to muddy the waters.

While I still think that Bane isn't very good (although as characters rise in levels the amount of strenght you get from it increases since level 1 slots become harder to use) aside from classes that don't get it over Bless, this I disagree strongly with.

Non-conditional cases don't exist in D&D, or close to that. Any situation has conditions that need to be established before you can gauge something- not doing so leads to that saying about spherical cows or whatever it was. It's no better then shipiaozi's optimization that discards stuff like friendly fire or different saves.

[Frogreaver]

While I still think that Bane isn't very good (although as characters rise in levels the amount of strenght you get from it increases since level 1 slots become harder to use) aside from classes that don't get it over Bless, this I disagree strongly with.

Non-conditional cases don't exist in D&D, or close to that. Any situation has conditions that need to be established before you can gauge something- not doing so leads to that saying about spherical cows or whatever it was. It's no better then shipiaozi's optimization that discards stuff like friendly fire or different saves.

You are going to have to be more explicit because this doesn't make any sense to me. I spoke about conditional probability. Not condition-less cases.

[Valmark]

You are going to have to be more explicit because this doesn't make any sense to me. I spoke about conditional probability. Not condition-less cases.

You did. You said "But conditional probabilities have no bearing on the probability of the non-conditional case and in this instance bringing up the conditionals only serve to muddy the waters".

[Frogreaver]

You did. You said "But conditional probabilities have no bearing on the probability of the non-conditional case and in this instance bringing up the conditionals only serve to muddy the waters".

Sure and in that context the non-conditional case was clearly related to the conditional probability. How else should I have referred to the probability of something when taking away the given condition of the conditional probability?

[Valmark]

Sure and in that context the non-conditional case was clearly related to the conditional probability. How else should I have referred to the probability of something when taking away the given condition of the conditional probability?
...I think I was misunderstood. Here's what I said:

While I still think that Bane isn't very good (although as characters rise in levels the amount of strenght you get from it increases since level 1 slots become harder to use) aside from classes that don't get it over Bless, this I disagree strongly with.

Non-conditional cases don't exist in D&D, or close to that. Any situation has conditions that need to be established before you can gauge something- not doing so leads to that saying about spherical cows or whatever it was. It's no better then shipiaozi's optimization that discards stuff like friendly fire or different saves.

Basically you said that conditional probability doesn't apply to non-conditional cases and I said that non-conditional cases are almost inexistent in D&D- especially 5e. And I say 'almost' because there could be something I can't think of.

So you can't refute conditional probability since you haven't got a non-conditional case- or at least you haven't mentioned one.

[Porcupinata]

The cost isn't just gold, it's time. If your familiar dies in the first fight of the day, you're stuck waiting for the next short rest to bring it back, even if you've got it prepared (casting time is an hour plus 10 minutes for ritual). Hopefully you will quickly have the resources to have it up every morning (assuming you can find/purchase the required ingredients, which a DM may well limit if you're out in the wild), but beyond that, time is a resource. A third resource which can be difficult to predict/manage is other player/DM patience, which is also a problem with your preferred summons. A wizard is already likely eating two-three times the time of most folks on their turn, getting one or more extra turns a round can get annoying to other players.

It's still a good spell, but (1) not underestimated and (2) not as useful in most games I've played as you're stating. Especially if your RP isn't as someone who is happy to send a tiny compulsorily loyal spirit to its death on an infinite loop for minor tactical advantage.

The bolded bit is why I will never be on-board with the whole "familiar as a combat tool" thing.

My familiar is my precious little furbaby and I will protect it from all danger - there's no way I'd ever deliberately send it into a fight!

[Frogreaver]

...I think I was misunderstood. Here's what I said:


Basically you said that conditional probability doesn't apply to non-conditional cases and I said that non-conditional cases are almost inexistent in D&D- especially 5e. And I say 'almost' because there could be something I can't think of.

So you can't refute conditional probability since you haven't got a non-conditional case- or at least you haven't mentioned one.

I may have misunderstood you. Now I think I am the one being misunderstood.

The probability by which bane increases your chances of success is not a conditional probability. I think you are confusing conditional probability with conditions or parameters.

[Jon talks a lot]

The bolded bit is why I will never be on-board with the whole "familiar as a combat tool" thing.

My familiar is my precious little furbaby and I will protect it from all danger - there's no way I'd ever deliberately send it into a fight!

As long as it fits with your character's roleplay, you do you!

[Eldariel]

The difference between -1d4 on a 60% chance to hit and a 40% chance to hit in terms of average damage reduction is 12.5 vs 18.75%. At normal attack and AC values, differences like that just aren't worth making a big deal about.

Likewise for bless the difference between +1d4 on a 60% chance to hit and a 40% chance to hit is 21% vs 31% respectively. It's not enough of a difference to even justify it's citation under normal circumstances IMO.

Obviously it does add +12.5% chance to land. To say otherwise is to not understand how probability works. What you are trying to force into the discussion to call me wrong is conditional probability - given you roll 1 less/more than needed on the d20 then bless/bane turns that into a hit 100% of the time... etc. But conditional probabilities have no bearing on the probability of the non-conditional case and in this instance bringing up the conditionals only serve to muddy the waters.

On phone so no proper reply yet, but to cover the most burning topic:
You're conflating percents with percentage points (http://https://sciencing.com/difference-between-percent-percentage-point-8409115.html) (though you're in good company: it's something I see even docents do sometimes...)

[HX2GPX]

Animal shapes may seem powerful in this scenario on paper, but realistically, no CR 4 beasts using non-magical attacks should be a threat to the bosses you are facing at level 15.

However, I do agree that too many people choose to ignore the negatives of haste when they talk about it. Losing a whole turn is a serious danger, and does weaken the spell considerably, in my opinion at least.

[Frogreaver]

On phone so no proper reply yet, but to cover the most burning topic:
You're conflating percents with percentage points (http://https://sciencing.com/difference-between-percent-percentage-point-8409115.html) (though you're in good company: it's something I see even docents do sometimes...)

Just read up on that terminology. I might be doing something but it’s not that.

[Valmark]

I may have misunderstood you. Now I think I am the one being misunderstood.

The probability by which bane increases your chances of success is not a conditional probability. I think you are confusing conditional probability with conditions or parameters.

I'm not sure what conditions of parameters are, but if I'm confusing those you are too.

Eldariel told you that it's not 12.5% but anywhere from 100% to 0% depending on save bonus and DC- to which you replied that it doesn't matter and that it's a flat 12.5%, which is obviously a lie.

If my DC is 12, for example, and the save bonus is +17, then Bane adds a whopping +0% to the chance of the spell sticking since even rolling a 4 would bring the roll as low as 14, not enough to fail against the DC.

To which you said that conditional probability has nothing to do with it- I've been going along with your terminology. If that isn't conditional probability we were both mistaking it (again, I'm not sure what conditions of parameters are- my guess is that it's about changing the fixed parameters such as save and DC, in which case indeed Eldariel made no mention of conditional probability while we did).

EDIT: Note that by 'lie' I mean that it's wrong, not that you were purposefully lying. I wouldn't imply that. Specifying it because I noticed how the sentence could be misleading (and I'm not trying to insult you).

[Frogreaver]

Jumping to the most important bits




Eldariel told you that it's not 12.5% but anywhere from 100% to 0% depending on save bonus and DC- to which you replied that it doesn't matter and that it's a flat 12.5%, which is obviously a lie.

If my DC is 12, for example, and the save bonus is +17, then Bane adds a whopping +0% to the chance of the spell sticking since even rolling a 4 would bring the roll as low as 14, not enough to fail against the DC.

This example is correct. I misunderstood what he meant as I took it to be about the outcomes of d20 roll itself. Reading it again that was not what he meant.

Though I do wish to add that those kinds of extremes with save DC's and save bonuses are not typical. Most save dcs and save bonuses fall in the range where it does come out to 12.5% (and even more so if you look at actual in-game scenarios as opposed to theoretical white rooms). Personally, I've just never seen the value in bringing up extreme edge cases just to tell someone 'you are wrong' - especially without acknowledgement that in general their point stands.


To which you said that conditional probability has nothing to do with it- I've been going along with your terminology. If that isn't conditional probability we were both mistaking it (again, I'm not sure what conditions of parameters are- my guess is that it's about changing the fixed parameters such as save and DC, in which case indeed Eldariel made no mention of conditional probability while we did).

I think my comments will make more sense to you if consider that I was viewing his comment as about the d20 result.


EDIT: Note that by 'lie' I mean that it's wrong, not that you were purposefully lying. I wouldn't imply that. Specifying it because I noticed how the sentence could be misleading (and I'm not trying to insult you).

No worries.

[MrStabby]

I may have misunderstood you. Now I think I am the one being misunderstood.

The probability by which bane increases your chances of success is not a conditional probability. I think you are confusing conditional probability with conditions or parameters.

I think that every relevant probability is a conditional probability - what is the expected impact.of the spell given that you decided it was a good enough idea to cast it. Those hypothetical outcomes that a spell would have had where you don't cast it don't have a direct impact. Instead you have the cost, not in terms of actions or spell slots but in terms of spells prepared or known.

This is why I think bane is good enough for a cleric but bad for a bard. It is sufficiently niche that the opportunity cost of a spell known is too high, but getting it for free and being able to swap it in on days where it looks good is a much lower cost.

And the expectation of its impact, given that you thought it worth swapping in, is pretty high for a level 1 spell.

[Valmark]

Jumping to the most important bits

This example is correct. I misunderstood what he meant as I took it to be about the outcomes of d20 roll itself. Reading it again that was not what he meant.

Though I do wish to add that those kinds of extremes with save DC's and save bonuses are not typical. Most save dcs and save bonuses fall in the range where it does come out to 12.5% (and even more so if you look at actual in-game scenarios as opposed to theoretical white rooms). Personally, I've just never seen the value in bringing up extreme edge cases just to tell someone 'you are wrong' - especially without acknowledgement that in general their point stands.

I think my comments will make more sense to you if consider that I was viewing his comment as about the d20 result.

No worries.

Yeah, makes sense- in hindsight part of your first reply should have clued me in since it didn't align well logically with Eldariel's reply.

I feel like using extremes as examples is useful to explain one's own point- if you use big numbers it's easier to understand.

In addition there is to say that if you, caster, don't like a 12.5% only boost you can just use Bane when it's not just that.

And there is also the case that while it's 12.5% on average it is presumably applied repeatedly, making it matter a lot more. It's the same principle as for why a +2 strenght is going to count as much more then a 5% increase- it's 5% now, 5% next attack, 5% the attack after this...

Although despite all this there are multiple spells I'd cast before Bane, or spells I'd save 1st level slots for.

[Eldariel]

Doesn't really matter what save is targeted or that 3 enemies are targeted if the effect isn't good.

The value of the effect depends on how many targets are affected and how likely. Having a near guaranteed solid penalty gives much higher expected value than a 50/50 "shut down a single enemy" outside cases that can turn that 50/50 into certainty like Diviner or Chronurgist, or cases where that single enemy is absurdly dangerous or not significantly hampered by Bane (or there aren't enough relevant targets to hit with Bane).


The difference between -1d4 on a 60% chance to hit and a 40% chance to hit in terms of average damage reduction is 12.5 vs 18.75%. At normal attack and AC values, differences like that just aren't worth making a big deal about.

CR1 enemies alone range from like 5 AC [Guardian portrait] to 19 AC [Durnn, a named Hobgoblin in TftYP]. And that's before we account for things like creatures able to cast Shield, many of which would fall in the CR1 range. There's no such thing as "normal AC values" - a very broad range of AC values is represented and it's mostly down to enemy type (armor users like giants and humanoids tend to have comparatively high AC while especially constructs and beasts and such go to the low end).


Just read up on that terminology. I might be doing something but it’s not that.


Obviously it does add +12.5% chance to land.

This is the claim you made. You're saying it adds +12,5% chance to land. This is not the case. Take a target with +0 saves vs. DC 15 save. -1d4 gives them on average -2,5 to the save so they need to roll 17,5 to succeed. In other words, they go from having a 30% chance to make the same to:
100% chance of failing at 15 or lower
75% chance of failing at 16 or lower
50% chance of failing at 17 or lower
25% chance of failing at 18 or lower
0% chance of failing at 19+

This does indeed add up to (15 * 0 + 1 * 0,75 + 1 * 0,5 + 1 * 0,25 + 2 * 1)/20 = 17,5% chance of making the save. However, this is a reduction of (,3-,175)/,3 = 41,66...% (this is how you calculate change in percentage; original value minus new value divided by the original value). In other words the chance to fail the save increased by 41,7%, not by 12,5%. It increased by 12,5pp. In other words, it added 12,5pp to the chance of the spell to succeed, but in percents it added 41,7%.

And you might go "that's semantics", but it's really not; halving enemy damage for example adds the percentual value (not the percentage point value) to the number of rounds it takes for an enemy to kill you. So if without a reduction you could take on 8 enemies, with reduction (if it applied to all of them) you could take on 16 such enemies if the percentual reduction in damage is 50% (which is fully possible in a pp reduction of 12,5%).

[Thunderous Mojo]

I'm not seeing it. Though I do agree on one point, Bane's only saving grace is that it's a level 1 slot.

LoL...but you do "see it"...in the same post where you conclude that "you are not seeing it", you gave a good description of Bane, namely; it is a 1st level spell, that can assess a small penalty to multiple opponents.

You just don't think the Bane Spell is worth it.
Psychologically, people have different rubrics on the valuation of Risk and Reward.
Some like the Bless Spell, precisely because it does this:


and bless is always a for sure thing.

That sense of "always a for sure thing", and the value placed on that aspect, is a key factor in how someone will evaluate the Bless or Bane spells.



I think it takes being in a lot of combats to get a feel for 'when's the time to switch'


I would agree. I also would posit that one needs exposure to certain types of combats. A certain style of challenge may never require one to switch up their tactics, in order to succeed.

Due to the artifacts of bounded accuracy, the marginally utility of the Bless spell is impacted by the increase of the numbers. The 10th level Fighter with a +2 Magic weapon has a +11 to hit. The bonus of the Bless spell, even with it being a "sure thing", isn't making as significant of an impact on Turing misses to hits.

Against low and moderate AC creatures, the Fighter is not likely to miss, and the Bless spell can not mitigate rolling a "1" on an attack roll. The marginal utility of this effect has narrowed.

The effects of the Bane spell, still retain their utility, their value as the narrative stakes rise, and the consequences of failure increases. If the High Corruptor of Cthulhu is a mere round away from unleashing the be-tentacled horror upon the planet, then even a modest penalty is helpful to averting calamity.

I concede this is an extreme example, but as one advances in level, the likelihood of encountering the extreme rises.

[MaxWilson]

CR1 enemies alone range from like 5 AC [Guardian portrait] to 19 AC [Durnn, a named Hobgoblin in TftYP]. And that's before we account for things like creatures able to cast Shield, many of which would fall in the CR1 range. There's no such thing as "normal AC values" - a very broad range of AC values is represented and it's mostly down to enemy type (armor users like giants and humanoids tend to have comparatively high AC while especially constructs and beasts and such go to the low end).

IMO Bane is exactly one of those rare cases where it makes sense to talk about absolute probability, not relative: 12.5% of the time, Bane will change a hit into a miss. Ergo it's straightforward to (roughly, ignoring edge cases) calculate the value of a Bane spell in HP terms: it's 12.5% of an enemy's total potential damage, per round, times the probability of landing the Bane, vs. the opportunity cost.

For example, DC 15 Bane against two Trolls: there's an 80% chance of landing Bane, and each affected Troll saves you 3.6875 damage per round (because (11+11+7.5) * 12.5% = 3.6875 damage prevented per affected troll per round), so casting Bane saves you 5.9 damage per round (while both trolls live) relative to doing nothing. If the combat is only going to last one round, then it would be better to just cast Cure Wounds with that spell slot afterwards. If it's likely to last two or three rounds, Bane looks better, but so does Commanding a Troll to flee: there's a 75% chance of removing a Troll from combat for two rounds while it Dashes, AND getting some opportunity attacks. Is Command saving more HP than Bane? That depends on how often the Troll would hit, i.e. what the party's AC values are.

So, the value of Bane isn't dependent on AC, but the things we want to compare it against often are dependent on AC.

Factoring in the action economy cost (vs. e.g. grappling the Troll while someone else Shoves it prone, or casting a cantrip) or concentration cost is left as an exercise for the reader.


I would agree. I also would posit that one needs exposure to certain types of combats. A certain style of challenge may never require one to switch up their tactics, in order to succeed.

...

The effects of the Bane spell, still retain their utility, their value as the narrative stakes rise, and the consequences of failure increases. If the High Corruptor of Cthulhu is a mere round away from unleashing the be-tentacled horror upon the planet, then even a modest penalty is helpful to averting calamity.

I concede this is an extreme example, but as one advances in level, the likelihood of encountering the extreme rises.

It does depend on exposure to certain types of combats, but I suggest that you're focusing on the wrong type. It's not about enemy AC per se--Bane is (sort of) good against enemies with extremely high damage output, or against whom you are planning to unload a whole lot of valuable spell slots.

If Bless and Bane were the only spells in the game, then you'd definitely want to use Bane against low-Cha glass cannons like Star Spawn Manglers. The tricky thing is... they're not. Bane has to compete with things like Hypnotic Pattern, Command, Slow, and Banishment, and it's a little tricky to predict a priori in which scenarios Bane will be worth it. I suspect stopping Cthulhu isn't one of them, but maybe stopping one of the Low Corrupters of Cthulhu and his two Hounds of Tindalos while saving slots for the big fight later on would qualify.

[KorvinStarmast]

For example, DC 15 Bane against two Trolls: there's an 80% chance of landing Bane, and each affected Troll saves you 3.6875 damage per round, so casting Bane saves you 5.9 damage per round (while both trolls live) relative to doing nothing. Trolls have multi attack. (3 each)

[MaxWilson]

Trolls have multi attack. (3 each)

Yes, I agree. That's how I got my numbers. (11+11+7.5) * 0.125 = 3.6875 damage prevented per affected troll per round. I'll edit the post to clarify, thanks.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

After thinking about it a bit I'll nominate Shield as over-rated. Not because it isn't good, but because of some assumptions I read on a lot of threads. The context often seems to be that this is seen as a resourceless way to simply recalculate AC by 5 points. Reality is that for a lot of gish characters who might benefit from Shield there are 2 basic issues:
1) is the use of a spell slot; for full casters this isn't a huge issue, but for 1/2 and 1/3 casters in tier 2-3, unless the 5 minute adventuring day is a thing, a character is going to pay a price for depending on this. Potentially this will be a trade off of a Smite for a Paladin or re-casting a Familiar for an EK or AT.
2) This uses a reaction, and while again this is probably going to impact gish characters more regularly, it's also a real problem for full casters who might benefit more from something like Counterspell or Absorb Elements more. Eg: you are fighting some demons and a wizard. A chasme demon hits your character with the nasty proboscus for 40 hp. Do you use shield? A similar situation got our Wizard killed a while ago.

[Frogreaver]

IMO Bane is exactly one of those rare cases where it makes sense to talk about absolute probability, not relative: 12.5% of the time, Bane will change a hit into a miss. Ergo it's straightforward to (roughly, ignoring edge cases) calculate the value of a Bane spell in HP terms: it's 12.5% of an enemy's total potential damage, per round, times the probability of landing the Bane, vs. the opportunity cost.

For example, DC 15 Bane against two Trolls: there's an 80% chance of landing Bane, and each affected Troll saves you 3.6875 damage per round (because (11+11+7.5) * 12.5% = 3.6875 damage prevented per affected troll per round), so casting Bane saves you 5.9 damage per round (while both trolls live) relative to doing nothing. If the combat is only going to last one round, then it would be better to just cast Cure Wounds with that spell slot afterwards. If it's likely to last two or three rounds, Bane looks better, but so does Commanding a Troll to flee: there's a 75% chance of removing a Troll from combat for two rounds while it Dashes, AND getting some opportunity attacks. Is Command saving more HP than Bane? That depends on how often the Troll would hit, i.e. what the party's AC values are.

So, the value of Bane isn't dependent on AC, but the things we want to compare it against often are dependent on AC.

Factoring in the action economy cost (vs. e.g. grappling the Troll while someone else Shoves it prone, or casting a cantrip) or concentration cost is left as an exercise for the reader.



It does depend on exposure to certain types of combats, but I suggest that you're focusing on the wrong type. It's not about enemy AC per se--Bane is (sort of) good against enemies with extremely high damage output, or against whom you are planning to unload a whole lot of valuable spell slots.

If Bless and Bane were the only spells in the game, then you'd definitely want to use Bane against low-Cha glass cannons like Star Spawn Manglers. The tricky thing is... they're not. Bane has to compete with things like Hypnotic Pattern, Command, Slow, and Banishment, and it's a little tricky to predict a priori in which scenarios Bane will be worth it. I suspect stopping Cthulhu isn't one of them, but maybe stopping one of the Low Corrupters of Cthulhu and his two Hounds of Tindalos while saving slots for the big fight later on would qualify.

From now on Max you get first shot at speaking for me. When we are in agreement you say what I’m trying to say much more eloquently.

[Eldariel]

IMO Bane is exactly one of those rare cases where it makes sense to talk about absolute probability, not relative: 12.5% of the time, Bane will change a hit into a miss. Ergo it's straightforward to (roughly, ignoring edge cases) calculate the value of a Bane spell in HP terms: it's 12.5% of an enemy's total potential damage, per round, times the probability of landing the Bane, vs. the opportunity cost.

For example, DC 15 Bane against two Trolls: there's an 80% chance of landing Bane, and each affected Troll saves you 3.6875 damage per round, so casting Bane saves you 5.9 damage per round (while both trolls live) relative to doing nothing. If the combat is only going to last one round, then it would be better to just cast Cure Wounds with that spell slot afterwards. If it's likely to last two or three rounds, Bane looks better, but so does Commanding a Troll to flee: there's a 75% chance of removing a Troll from combat for two rounds while it Dashes, AND getting some opportunity attacks. Is Command saving more HP than Bane? That depends on how often the Troll would hit, i.e. what the party's AC values are.

So, the value of Bane isn't dependent on AC, but the things we want to compare it against often are dependent on AC.

Well, there is value to knowing both numbers. The important part is just using them right and keeping straight what you're using them for and keeping both numbers separate with transparency to which you're using and why (this was my sticking point with Frogreaver's post: he claimed to be using one number but was actually using the other).

If you, again, wish to know how whether you'd be able to win a slugfest with three trolls (or how long you could tank them), you absolutely care about the percentual change. It's about 12,5% (not accounting for crits) of enemy's maximum damage. How much that is depends on the number the enemy hits on: if your AC is 15, troll normally hits on an 8 (so 35% misses) and with Bane that would go up to 47,5% miss chance. However, if your AC is 20, troll normally hits on a 12 (so 55% misses) and Bane adds up to 67,5% chance. And then if we have a particularly high AC PC (say, Forge Cleric who cast Shield of Faith or dipped Fighter/took Fighting Initiate for Defense style), so our base AC is 23, the trolls would normally need 16+ to hit (so 75% chance of missing) but Bane would add up to 87,5%. The absolute change is the same but in this case, since we want to know how long we could tank the enemy, we need to calculate the EHP we gain from Bane and to that end we need the percentual values (and HP: let's assume we have a nice round 100 HP for simplicity).

At AC 15 each troll hits us for about 17,6 damage a turn for average damage of 52,8 per turn or about 1,9 turns to getting downed. Bane would make the average damage 15,7ish so three trolls hit for 47,1 so Bane gains the character 0,4 turns (but crucially it's enough that they are much more likely to live three than two turns).

At AC 20 each troll hits us for about 11,1 damage per turn or 33,3 damage per round. This means our expected survival is pretty much exactly 3 rounds. With Bane though, it drops to 9,2 buying us 0,6 turns instead of 0,4 letting us live about 3,6 turns on average.

And at AC 23, we go from 7,2 damage (21,6 from 3 Trolls for 4,6 turns) to 5,3 damage for 15,9 from three for 6,3ish turns (1,7 turns more) and of course, the further we get to making enemies critfish the higher the gains would be except for the fact that 20 is an automatic hit.


So we can trivially state that the character with 23 AC would benefit most from Bane far as fighting the trolls: he gets way more time than anyone else to drop the trolls and thus further buy himself more time to finish the fight without going down. Similarly, any healing applied to him is of course going to be equally more efficient.

This is indeed how armor math works in most MMOs and why armor scaling from games after Brood War has pretty much always been relative instead of absolute (in Brood War you could get armor high enough that enemy attacks dealt 0,5 damage to you if your armor value equaled or exceeded their damage value, which made armor much more valuable against high RoF low damage units like Marines and Zerglings than against high damage low RoF units like Reavers or Sieged tanks, against which it was almost useless except at few relatively incidental break-off points [e.g. Tanks needed 3 shots instead of 2 to finish off enemy tanks at +1 attacks due to their 1 armor but any splash fixed that of course]). With relative scaling, every point of armor is worth the same amount of effective HP: you get +1% (or whatever the game decides on) effective HP per point of armor meaning the absolute reduction grows smaller and smaller as the armor bonus increases. This is probably very familiar to MoBA players too (and games like Warframe use the same system) - HP and armor act as multipliers (as they do in D&D) but instead of having a critical value where one just becomes a ridiculously effective defense, the points are standardised. D&D isn't like that though: in D&D the closer you get to enemy missing on everything but 20, the more value you get out of it (and any extra HP you may get).

Absolute scaling, which would be what we get by ignoring base hit and AC values, would mean ignoring the "critfish horizon" where the value of the penalty begins to get multiplied (well, it begins to take place immediately in fact, but it becomes most apparent at that point). Of course, it's even better on saves where you can actually make saving straight-up impossible since 20 is not an autosuccess on saves.


EDIT: And I know you know this, Max. This is more of an attempt to open up why it matters to the general public, since I figure a large number of people are probably not as math orientated.

EDIT#2: And this is ignoring Advantage and Disadvantage of course. Disadvantage makes high AC way more effective all but negating the chance of autohits, and Advantage makes high AC matter way less (but because it's so strong in this edition, it still matters a lot even against advantage). Get this: the same trolls average 3 damage against our 23 AC guy at Disadvantage with Bane. 3. They would go from needing 6,3 turns to kill him to needing 33 turns to kill him. Their damage drops to a fifth.

By comparison, the 15 AC guy is still taking 8,9ish per Troll even with Bane and Disadvantage for 26,7 DPR so 3,7 turns: only one full turn longer than normally (an increase of 1,4 turns though).

In short: High AC/Bane makes Disadvantage all the more powerful while it's pretty weak with low AC. Advantage makes it far less impactful OTOH.

[Frogreaver]

Well, there is value to knowing both numbers. The important part is just using them right and keeping straight what you're using them for and keeping both numbers separate with transparency to which you're using and why (this was my sticking point with Frogreaver's post: he claimed to be using one number but was actually using the other).

Here's what I actually said


it's going to add +12.5% to my chance of landing X encounter ending spell on the biggest enemy threat - but it's actually much lower than that because you've got to factor in your chance of hitting with bane first. And while I can't fault anything that decreases saves, it really ends up mattering in this type of situation so rarely.

There's nothing wrong with this statement, ie it doesn't do what you claim (*besides the quibbling about 12.5% not being correct for extreme edge cases).

[Valmark]

Here's what I actually said

There's nothing wrong with this statement, ie it doesn't do what you claim (*besides the quibbling about 12.5% not being correct for extreme edge cases).

Yes and no- if I understood correctly what Eldariel is saying right now let's take for example someone who has a 25% chance of success (basically from 16 to 20) against a DC.

Yes, it does remove 12.5% chance of success making it 12.5% (I swear I didn't mean it to be the exact half) but it actually reduced by 50% the chance of the enemy succeeding. It's a lot bigger effect then it looks like.

[Eldariel]

There's nothing wrong with this statement, ie it doesn't do what you claim (*besides the quibbling about 12.5% not being correct for extreme edge cases).

The correct phrasing would still be "it's going to add 12,5pp to my chance..." When you add percents, you add a certain multiplicative percent to something - percents are by nature multiplicative. Percent point is the additive option: you can't really add percents the way you are phrasing here. But of course, that isn't really all that important as long as the subject matter is kept clear. The important part is that the chance of making the save can be 40%-60%-100% less compared to the original while the 12,5pp is the additive change in the probability in most cases (outside of cases where the change causes the results to fall off the dice).


Yes and no- if I understood correctly what Eldariel is saying right now let's take for example someone who has a 25% chance of success (basically from 16 to 20) against a DC.

Yes, it does remove 12.5% chance of success making it 12.5% (I swear I didn't mean it to be the exact half) but it actually reduced by 50% the chance of the enemy succeeding. It's a lot bigger effect then it looks like.

Exactly.

[Frogreaver]

Yes and no- if I understood correctly what Eldariel is saying right now let's take for example someone who has a 25% chance of success (basically from 16 to 20) against a DC.

Yes, it does remove 12.5% chance of success making it 12.5% (I swear I didn't mean it to be the exact half) but it actually reduced by 50% the chance of the enemy succeeding. It's a lot bigger effect then it looks like.

I've always understood the difference there and even cited it in one of my previous posts. It's a bit annoying when the assumption is that you don't understand basic math when you do. The actual issue is that I don't agree that saying "it's going to add +12.5% to my chance of landing X encounter ending spell" implies I'm talking about that kind of percentage calculation instead of what @Eldariel is terming percentage points.

[Valmark]

I've always understood the difference there and even cited it in one of my previous posts. It's a bit annoying when the assumption is that you don't understand basic math when you do. The actual issue is that I don't agree that saying "it's going to add +12.5% to my chance of landing X encounter ending spell" implies I'm talking about that kind of percentage calculation instead of what @Eldariel is terming percentage points.

Isn't Eldariel saying the opposite? Meaning that you are talking about percentage points instead of percents and calling it percent?

(I also wouldn't call this basic math, but let's gloss over that).

[Frogreaver]

The correct phrasing would still be "it's going to add 12,5pp to my chance..."

I disagree. Read on for why.


When you add percents, you add a certain multiplicative percent to something - percents are by nature multiplicative.

My post was referring to probability and in probability you can add probabilities of mutually exclusive events. Those probabilities are typically expressed by what you term percentages. So yes, you can absolutely add certain percentages.

Probability of hitting without Bless = 60%
Probability of hitting due to Bless = 12.5%
Probability of Missing = 27.5%

That is, bless represents a +12.5% increase in your chance to hit. Or we could say that it represents a (12.5/60) = +20.83% increase in your number of hits

*Note how the later metric is defined as an increase in your number of hits (the quantity the probability is measuring) and the other is defined as the increase in your chance to hit (that is the increase in the probability itself).

[Eldariel]

My post was referring to probability and in probability you can add probabilities of mutually exclusive events. Those probabilities are typically expressed by what you term percentages. So yes, you can absolutely add certain percentages.

Probability of hitting without Bless = 60%
Probability of hitting due to Bless = 12.5%
Probability of Missing = 27.5%

That is, bless represents a +12.5% increase in your chance to hit. Or we could say that it represents a (12.5/60) = +20.83% increase in your number of hits

But that's precisely what percentage points are for! I'm certain you understand the difference, but again, the proper phrasing for the first would be +12,5pp chance to hit - that's the absolute change. As a rule of thumb, if it's additive, it's pp. Take this from a math teacher, this isn't a matter of opinion: it's a convention in statistics (just like not marking down "1" as a multiplier before "x" or "+" being assumed unless noted otherwise) and this convention exists precisely for clarity so that everyone would talk about relative and absolute difference the same way and thus be completely transparent in what they mean. I wouldn't have to repeatedly correct my students on this otherwise...

If you add percents, you care about the relative change. This is calculated by multiplying with (100% + X%) where X is the percent added. So if we had a 60% chance of hitting and it increased by 12,5%, you'd get ,6 * (1 + 0,125) = ,6 * 1,125 = ,675 = 67,5% chance to hit. This is what it means to add one percent to another - it's relative. If you add percentage points, we're talking about the absolute distance making it an addition: 60% + 12,5pp = 72,5%.

This is a typical example in textbooks with shares. Assume we own 40% of the shares of a company. We want to become the majority holder. We need slightly over 50% of the shares for absolute majority, let's go with 51% for simplicity. This is 11pp more than what we own, but it's a (51%-40%)/40% = 27,5% in our share ownership. The wording on these has been codified specifically to avoid confusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage#Percentage_increase_and_decrease), though as even Wikipedia notes, unfortunately use is still inconsistent.


The following conventions exist:
"an increase of X" is a percentile comparison to the original (so calculate the difference and divide by the original)
"X percents more/less than Y" is a percentile comparison to Y (so calculate the difference and divide by Y)
"how many percents is X of Y" is of course the simple division (X divided by Y)

These are all terms used for relative probability, ergo they care about the original value and are a comparison of relative change: how much bigger is the new value than the original value for instance. Again, absolute change comes down to percentage points.

TL;DR:
Absolute change (how many percents something changed)? Use percentage points.

Relative change (how many percents of the original the new value is)? Use percents.

[Frogreaver]

But that's precisely what percentage points are for! I'm certain you understand the difference, but again, the proper phrasing for the first would be +12,5pp chance to hit - that's the absolute change. As a rule of thumb, if it's additive, it's pp. Take this from a math teacher, this isn't a matter of opinion: it's a convention in statistics (just like not marking down "1" as a multiplier before "x" or "+" being assumed unless noted otherwise) and this convention exists precisely for clarity so that everyone would talk about relative and absolute difference the same way and thus be completely transparent in what they mean. I wouldn't have to repeatedly correct my students on this otherwise...

If you add percents, you care about the relative change. This is calculated by multiplying with (100% + X%) where X is the percent added. So if we had a 60% chance of hitting and it increased by 12,5%, you'd get ,6 * (1 + 0,125) = ,6 * 1,125 = ,675 = 67,5% chance to hit. This is what it means to add one percent to another - it's relative. If you add percentage points, we're talking about the absolute distance making it an addition: 60% + 12,5pp = 72,5%.

This is a typical example in textbooks with shares. Assume we own 40% of the shares of a company. We want to become the majority holder. We need slightly over 50% of the shares for absolute majority, let's go with 51% for simplicity. This is 11pp more than what we own, but it's a (51%-40%)/40% = 27,5% in our share ownership. The wording on these has been codified specifically to avoid confusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage#Percentage_increase_and_decrease), though as even Wikipedia notes, unfortunately use is still inconsistent.


The following conventions exist:
"an increase of X" is a percentile comparison to the original (so calculate the difference and divide by the original)
"X percents more/less than Y" is a percentile comparison to Y (so calculate the difference and divide by Y)
"how many percents is X of Y" is of course the simple division (X divided by Y)

These are all terms used for relative probability, ergo they care about the original value and are a comparison of relative change: how much bigger is the new value than the original value for instance. Again, absolute change comes down to percentage points.

TL;DR:
Absolute change (how many percents something changed)? Use percentage points.

Relative change (how many percents of the original the new value is)? Use percents.

Let me try this a different way. If we have 110 and increase it by 20 then we result in 130. This is a non-percentage increase. I'm sure you agree here.

Note: Probability doesn't have to reference percentages at all.

Probability of hitting without Bless = .6
Probability of hitting due to Bless = .125
Probability of Missing = .275

Do you believe there's anything wrong with saying bless represents a +.125 increase in your chance to hit such that your new chance to hit is .725?

Now that we've established this is appropriate based on the increase example of 110 earlier. Let's convert the .125 to a percentage. It becomes 12.5% and not 12.5 percentage points.

Replacing .125 with it's percentage conversion in the above statement we get:
bless represents a +.125 increase in your chance to hit
bless represents a +12.5% increase in your chance to hit

One cannot simply change the units to percentage points in such a percentage conversion. Hopefully this highlights why it's not wrong to do it the way I did. At least think about it, instead of insisting that your convention is the only correct way.

[Eldariel]

I see your point and I symphatise, I really do. But it's the same as ever: the ratings of the party increased from 30% to 38%. That's an increase of 8pp, not 8% even though you could make the exact same argument for using "+8%*" (* This is wrong, don't do this either). It's just a matter of convention: % presents relative increase. It's not a unit in the same sense as e.g. metre or kilogram even though it often behaves similarly. In this case, +12,5% itself is a misnomer: if you're doing the calculation of ",6 + ,125" in the first place, you are adding percentage points, not percents. If you added percents to it, the calculation would again be "(1 + 0,125) * 0,6 = 0,675". Your way of spelling it is perfectly reasonable as is e.g. not marking minuses but marking plusses in front of numbers, but it's against the established convention and creates confusion with absolutely no gain. That's why I'd recommend that you use conventions: there's absolutely nothing to be gained by breaking them for no reason. You aren't really changing the unit: the unit of additive percent change is percent point. There's no such thing as floating 12,5% you add on top of 60% in this case; you add 12,5pp to 60% to get 72,5%.

In short, "my" (universal mathematical) convention is not the only right way to do it. You can do math in a hundred different ways. But it's the convention used by literally the whole world so there has to be huge things to be gained in exchange for the confusion caused by breaching the convention and in this case, I just see no reason to do anything but to follow the convention.

Something like 0^0 is a different matter; the convention that it's undefined doesn't actually hold for many cases and there's something to be gained by going against the convention there. But this...this is not it, there's just nothing to be gained and a lot of confusion to be caused so it seems utterly pointless to me.

[Frogreaver]

I see your point and I symphatise, I really do. But it's the same as ever: the ratings of the party increased from 30% to 38%. That's an increase of 8pp, not 8% even though you could make the exact same argument for using "+8%*" (* This is wrong, don't do this either). It's just a matter of convention: % presents relative increase. It's not a unit in the same sense as e.g. metre or kilogram even though it often behaves similarly. In this case, +12,5% itself is a misnomer: if you're doing the calculation of ",6 + ,125" in the first place, you are adding percentage points, not percents. If you added percents to it, the calculation would again be "(1 + 0,125) * 0,6 = 0,675". Your way of spelling it is perfectly reasonable as is e.g. not marking minuses but marking plusses in front of numbers, but it's against the established convention and creates confusion with absolutely no gain. That's why I'd recommend that you use conventions: there's absolutely nothing to be gained by breaking them for no reason. You aren't really changing the unit: the unit of additive percent change is percent point. There's no such thing as floating 12,5% you add on top of 60% in this case; you add 12,5pp to 60% to get 72,5%.

In short, "my" (universal mathematical) convention is not the only right way to do it. You can do math in a hundred different ways. But it's the convention used by literally the whole world so there has to be huge things to be gained in exchange for the confusion caused by breaching the convention and in this case, I just see no reason to do anything but to follow the convention.

Something like 0^0 is a different matter; the convention that it's undefined doesn't actually hold for many cases and there's something to be gained by going against the convention there. But this...this is not it, there's just nothing to be gained and a lot of confusion to be caused so it seems utterly pointless to me.

I would argue that a convention which doesn't allow simple and clear and correct mathematical steps to produce a correct answer is a bad convention. Whether it's used by the whole world or not. IMO. If fixing that is not a huge thing, then it ought to be.

[Eldariel]

I would argue that a convention which doesn't allow simple and clear and correct mathematical steps to produce a correct answer is a bad convention. Whether it's used by the whole world or not.

But it does. If you write "add 12,5%", you count "(100% + 12,5%) * X", where X is the base percent you're multiplying (or the base value for that matter; as you said it doesn't have to be percents, it can be loan or whatever). If you write "add 12,5pp" you count "(X + 12,5)%" (X has to be percents here of course). The issue with what you're suggesting is that the process already means by another thing, which means we'd have ambiguity if it could also mean this and math must (strive) to be unambiguous. How else would we tell absolute and relative changes in percents apart without having to spell it out each time? You could come up with something to be sure, but one or the other would be equally counterintuitive.

[Frogreaver]

But it does. If you write "add 12,5%", you count "(100% + 12,5%) * X", where X is the base percent you're multiplying (or the base value for that matter; as you said it doesn't have to be percents, it can be loan or whatever). If you write "add 12,5pp" you count "(X + 12,5)%" (X has to be percents here of course).

I understand why the concept was created and that it's an attempt to resolve ambiguity. (On a side note, one thing I haven't been able to find is when this convention began, maybe you know?). Anyways, I've shown you an example of how it breaks down when dealing with non-percentage probabilities that are later converted to percentages. There's a problem when following clear, correct mathematical steps can yield 12.5% and that be incorrect. I think to some degree this is because probabilities are taught as percentages instead of their decimal equivalents. So maybe the convention should change such that when talking about probability we don't talk about percentages any longer. At that point percentages simply and always represent the relative percent increase. Whereas in probability they currently represent something different.


The issue with what you're suggesting is that the process already means by another thing, which means we'd have ambiguity if it could also mean this and math must (strive) to be unambiguous.

I agree it's ambiguous. But sacrificing correctness is also something we strive even harder to avoid in math.


How else would we tell absolute and relative changes in percents apart without having to spell it out each time? You could come up with something to be sure, but one or the other would be equally counterintuitive.

I proposed my solution above, but also I've gotten by just fine before you tried to force your faulty convention on me. Besides being nitpicky you knew my meaning when you first responded by saying it that way was incorrect for wrong terminology. So I don't think it's nearly as difficult as you are making it out.

[Valmark]

I understand why the concept was created and that it's an attempt to resolve ambiguity. (On a side note, one thing I haven't been able to find is when this convention began, maybe you know?). Anyways, I've shown you an example of how it breaks down when dealing with non-percentage probabilities that are later converted to percentages. There's a problem when following clear, correct mathematical steps can yield 12.5% and that be incorrect. I think to some degree this is because probabilities are taught as percentages instead of their decimal equivalents. So maybe the convention should change such that when talking about probability we don't talk about percentages any longer. At that point percentages simply and always represent the relative percent increase. Whereas in probability they currently represent something different.

I agree it's ambiguous. But sacrificing correctness is also something we strive even harder to avoid in math.

I proposed my solution above, but also I've gotten by just fine before you tried to force your faulty convention on me. Besides being nitpicky you knew my meaning when you first responded by saying it that way was incorrect for wrong terminology. So I don't think it's nearly as difficult as you are making it out.

I would like to point out that using the wrong symbol means it's not a clear, correct mathematical step.

To take the previous example you aren't increasing 60% by 12.5% if you add 12.5, you're increasing it by 20.83%.

Just like the older example you used- the one about adding 20 to 110. It adds up to 130 but you haven't increased 110 by 20%, you increased it by 18.18%.

The moment you add "%" where it doesn't go (or without the correct formula) it's the moment when it isn't anymore correct math.

[Frogreaver]

I would like to point out that using the wrong symbol means it's not a clear, correct mathematical step.

To take the previous example you aren't increasing 60% by 12.5% if you add 12.5, you're increasing it by 20.83%.

Just like the older example you used- the one about adding 20 to 110. It adds up to 130 but you haven't increased 110 by 20%, you increased it by 18.18%.

The moment you add "%" where it doesn't go (or without the correct formula) it's the moment when it isn't anymore correct math.

Please convert .125 to a percent.

[JNAProductions]

Language, especially mathematical language, should be clear.

If you use the wrong words, it becomes much less clear. It happens-people goof on communications all the time. But when that happens, you should just correct yourself and offer apology, if need be.

Frogreaver, I don’t think you need to say sorry-no one’s been offended or insulted, far as I can see. But you should use the common nomenclature, not your own version.

[Valmark]

Please convert .125 to a percent.

The fact that 0.125 is equal to 12.5% does not mean that adding it to 60% means you're increasing it by 12.5%.

Seriously, try calculating the 12.5% of 60, you'll see that it isn't 12.5. As such you can't be increasing your 60% by 12.5% if you add 12.5.

You would be increasing it by 12.5% if you added 7.5, because 12.5% of 60 is 7.5.

If you say "I increase X by Y" (where Y is a percentage) it means you're doing "X/100*Y+X", not "X+Y".

[Frogreaver]

Language, especially mathematical language, should be clear.

If you use the wrong words, it becomes much less clear. It happens-people goof on communications all the time. But when that happens, you should just correct yourself and offer apology, if need be.

Frogreaver, I don’t think you need to say sorry-no one’s been offended or insulted, far as I can see. But you should use the common nomenclature, not your own version.

The common nomenclature leads to calling correct results incorrect. So I will not be using it.

[Frogreaver]

The fact that 0.125 is equal to 12.5% does not mean that adding it to 60% means you're increasing it by 12.5%.

Seriously, try calculating the 12.5% of 60, you'll see that it isn't 12.5. As such you can't be increasing your 60% by 12.5% if you add 12.5.

You would be increasing it by 12.5% if you added 7.5, because 12.5% of 60 is 7.5.

If you say "I increase X by Y" (where Y is a percentage) it means you're doing "X/100*Y+X", not "X+Y".

So if .125 equals 12.5% I should be able to replace instances of .125 with 12.5%. Yes?

[MrStabby]

The common nomenclature leads to calling correct results incorrect. So I will not be using it.

The problem with not using common nomenclature is that you also end up with alrentative meanings to words like "correct" or "incorrect".

Communication is built on the basis of commonly understood features of language; feel free to develop your own but don't be surprised when your definitions of "correct" do not match with the rest of the world.

[Darth Credence]

So if .125 equals 12.5% I should be able to replace instances of .125 with 12.5%. Yes?

0.125 does not equal 12.5%. 0.125 is 12.5% of 1, but that is not the same thing. So, no, you cannot just replace instances of 0.125 with 12.5%.

[Frogreaver]

The problem with not using common nomenclature is that you also end up with alrentative meanings to words like "correct" or "incorrect".

Communication is built on the basis of commonly understood features of language; feel free to develop your own but don't be surprised when your definitions of "correct" do not match with the rest of the world.

You all even agree with me all the way up till I do the simple percent conversion.

Bless increases your probability of hitting by .125. No one disagrees here. I correctly convert .125 to 12.5%, something no one disagrees with. It’s only when I go to replace .125 with what it equals that you call call that incorrect. Except in math we are supposed to be able to replace equal things with each other. You really don’t see the problem there?

[MrStabby]

0.125 does not equal 12.5%. 0.125 is 12.5% of 1, but that is not the same thing. So, no, you cannot just replace instances of 0.125 with 12.5%.

Well "per-cent" is just per hundred. So the same ratio is preserved. You don't need the population to be 100 to have a percentage - you can have a percentage of 80 because it is the ratio that matters.

[Frogreaver]

0.125 does not equal 12.5%. 0.125 is 12.5% of 1, but that is not the same thing. So, no, you cannot just replace instances of 0.125 with 12.5%.

In probability you can.

[MrStabby]

You all even agree with me all the way up till I do the simple percent conversion.

Bless increases your probability of hitting by .125. No one disagrees here. It’s only when I correctly convert .125 to 12.5%, something no one disagrees with. It’s only when I go to replace .125 with what it equals that you call call that incorrect. Except in math we are supposed to be able to replace equal things with each other. You really don’t see the problem there?

Which posts are you talking about where I agree or disagree with you? Can you quote? I am confused.

[Frogreaver]

Which posts are you talking about where I agree or disagree with you? Can you quote? I am confused.

If you don’t agree then you are welcome to plainly state that.

[Darth Credence]

Well "per-cent" is just per hundred. So the same ratio is preserved. You don't need the population to be 100 to have a percentage - you can have a percentage of 80 because it is the ratio that matters.

Yes, but that does not mean that 0.125 = 12.5%. It means that you have to know what it is supposed to be a percentage of to convert any number into a percent - 0.125 is only 12.5% if the total is 1. If the toal is 0.5, then 0.125 is 25% of that.


In probability you can.

Not in the way you're trying to do it you can't.

[Frogreaver]

Yes, but that does not mean that 0.125 = 12.5%. It means that you have to know what it is supposed to be a percentage of to convert any number into a percent - 0.125 is only 12.5% if the total is 1. If the toal is 0.5, then 0.125 is 25% of that.



Not in the way you're trying to do it you can't.

In probability .125 = 12.5%. You disagree?

[Darth Credence]

In probability .125 = 12.5%. You disagree?

I disagree with the way you are attempting to use it. In probability, everything has been set up such that it is all between 0 and unity. Because you limit the space to that, then yes, 0.125 is equal to 12.5%. But the space you are dealing with is not limited to the same range, so you cannot just convert in that manner. You are conflating different spaces and different rules and jumbling it all up until it is a mess that doesn't mean anything.

[Thunderous Mojo]

It does depend on exposure to certain types of combats, but I suggest that you're focusing on the wrong type. It's not about enemy AC per se--Bane is (sort of) good against enemies with extremely high damage output, or against whom you are planning to unload a whole lot of valuable spell slots.

If Bless and Bane were the only spells in the game, then you'd definitely want to use Bane against low-Cha glass cannons like Star Spawn Manglers. The tricky thing is... they're not. Bane has to compete with things like Hypnotic Pattern, Command, Slow, and Banishment, and it's a little tricky to predict a priori in which scenarios Bane will be worth it. I suspect stopping Cthulhu isn't one of them, but maybe stopping one of the Low Corrupters of Cthulhu and his two Hounds of Tindalos while saving slots for the big fight later on would qualify.

Oof..I was a bit harried yesterday and was unclear. The malus to attacks, I view as an additive bonus, and a secondary effect. The whole, point with the Corruptor of Cthulhu example, was not to model how best to use the the Bane spell.

Rather, I wanted to demonstrate, that if one is caught flat footed at verge of an apocalypse, if the worst action one could take is to cast Bane, one still might be setting up one of their team mates. Yes, it is an extreme example, but the extreme does have a tinsy, bit of a tendency to happen at high level, from time to time.🃏

Now as a DM, I will admit, I do like that the penalty assessed by the Bane spell does apply to Death Saving Throws.☠️

[Reynaert]

After thinking about it a bit I'll nominate Shield as over-rated. Not because it isn't good, but because of some assumptions I read on a lot of threads. The context often seems to be that this is seen as a resourceless way to simply recalculate AC by 5 points. Reality is that for a lot of gish characters who might benefit from Shield there are 2 basic issues:
1) is the use of a spell slot; for full casters this isn't a huge issue, but for 1/2 and 1/3 casters in tier 2-3, unless the 5 minute adventuring day is a thing, a character is going to pay a price for depending on this. Potentially this will be a trade off of a Smite for a Paladin or re-casting a Familiar for an EK or AT.
2) This uses a reaction, and while again this is probably going to impact gish characters more regularly, it's also a real problem for full casters who might benefit more from something like Counterspell or Absorb Elements more. Eg: you are fighting some demons and a wizard. A chasme demon hits your character with the nasty proboscus for 40 hp. Do you use shield? A similar situation got our Wizard killed a while ago.

3) You need to have a hand free to cast it. Even if you have a Pact Weapon as your focus. So if you're sword+boarding you're sol.

[Segev]

It doesn't lead to correct results being called incorrect; it leads to you using the wrong terms to describe correct results being called incorrect, because the terms you're using mean something other than what you want them to mean.

If common nomenclature says that "white" is the color that paper usually is, and you decide that you're going to call that "orange," you might be correct in the nomenclature that you're using to say that the standard theme for this forum is orange behind black text. People will correct you and say, "No, it's white behind black text." You coming back and saying that you refuse to use the common color nomenclature because it makes your correct (by the nomenclature you have chosen to construct and use) identification be called "incorrect" is not a good argument.

Once you peel back what is meant and everyone realizes that your "orange" is everyone else's "white," people can agree that your meaning is the same and correct, but that doesn't make your nomenclature correct. Pointing out that your nomenclature creates confusion because it means something objectively wrong in the common nomenclature is a true thing for people to point out, and you'd be wise to shift to using the common nomenclature rather than insisting on "orange" meaning the color that paper usually is.


The fact that it seems the way you're justifying your nomenclature relies on logic that doesn't apply to the math, and that this is precisely why the terms "percentage points" vs. "percent increase/decrease" were defined as they were in the common nomenclature, is further reason to suggest you might actually be wrong on the math at some points, and that it's only a matter of time before you make math errors rather than just errors of nomenclature. Maybe not; you might keep it very straight in your head. Even if so, however, insisting on using terminology that is ambiguous isn't conducive to making your points.

And, again, the common nomenclature doesn't make correct results get called "incorrect." It makes correct results labeled with terms that mean something (in the common nomenclature) other than what you intend to convey be called "incorrect." People correcting you on what the common nomenclature says those terms mean are trying to help you express yourself clearly, and insisting on using "orange" to mean what everyone else calls "white" is not useful to anybody, not even you.

[Frogreaver]

I disagree with the way you are attempting to use it. In probability, everything has been set up such that it is all between 0 and unity. Because you limit the space to that, then yes, 0.125 is equal to 12.5%. But the space you are dealing with is not limited to the same range, so you cannot just convert in that manner. You are conflating different spaces and different rules and jumbling it all up until it is a mess that doesn't mean anything.

Then point out where I’m breaking any rules

Steps:
1. Assuming the before bless chance to hit was .6 then the new chance to hit is .725. Correct or no? *excluding any edge cases

2. Bless increases chance to hit by .125. Correct or not? *excluding edge cases

4. Since probabilities of mutually exclusive events must add to 1 then we can turn those into percentages .6 = 60% and .725 = 72.5% and .125 = 12.5%. Correct or not?

5. Replace each probability listed in decimal format above with its percent equivalent. Correct or not?

To show one is doing math incorrectly you need to show what specifically they are doing that is incorrect. Which step or steps above are incorrect?

[cookieface]

Then point out where I’m breaking any rules

Steps:
1. Assuming the before bless chance to hit was .6 then the new chance to hit is .725. Correct or no? *excluding any edge cases

2. Bless increases chance to hit by .125. Correct or not? *excluding edge cases

4. Since probabilities of mutually exclusive events must add to 1 then we can turn those into percentages .6 = 60% and .725 = 72.5% and .125 = 12.5%. Correct or not?

5. Replace each probability listed in decimal format above with its percent equivalent. Correct or not?

To show one is doing math incorrectly you need to show what specifically they are doing that is incorrect. Which step or steps above are incorrect?

Step five. Percentages are NOT numbers as you may be used to them functioning. They are abstractions of per-100 decimals.

Let me give you an example that uses logic similar to yours:

Base assumptions:
- "Two times as likely", written as percentage odds, is 200%.
- "Two times as likely", written as addition, would translate to x + x.

So we have 0.40 odds (or 40%) of doing a thing. If we make it two times as likely to occur, by your logic we can do it two ways:
- 40% (base odds) + 200% (two times as likely)
- 40% (base odds) + 40% (two times as likely)

We get two different results. Clearly there is an issue with this logic.

Transitive, commutative, and reflexive properties are necessary for math to work. A process only working if the reflexive property (decimals equaling percentages) only holds at one point in that process is a flawed process.

[Segev]

Then point out where I’m breaking any rules

Steps:
1. Assuming the before bless chance to hit was .6 then the new chance to hit is .725. Correct or no? *excluding any edge cases

2. Bless increases chance to hit by .125. Correct or not? *excluding edge cases

4. Since probabilities of mutually exclusive events must add to 1 then we can turn those into percentages .6 = 60% and .725 = 72.5% and .125 = 12.5%. Correct or not?

5. Replace each probability listed in decimal format above with its percent equivalent. Correct or not?

To show one is doing math incorrectly you need to show what specifically they are doing that is incorrect. Which step or steps above are incorrect?

As far as you go, none. But the moment you try to say that going from 60% to 72.5% is a 12.5% increase, you're now incorrect. It is a 12.5 percentage point increase, or "an increase of 12.5 percentage points."

While a probability of .125 is equal to a 12.5% chance, an increase in probability by .125 is not an increase in chance by 12.5%.

Let's use a very trivial example: if a contest is to be decided by the flip of a coin, it has a 50% chance of going your way, which is a .5 probability, assuming the coin is fair. If you replace the fair coin with a double-headed coin (and you win on heads), your odds of winning are now 100%, and your probability of winning is now 1. You've increased your probability of winning by .5, but you've increased your chance of winning by 100% (doubling your odds). You've increased your chance of winning by 50 percentage points. But you have NOT increased your chance of winning by 50%.

TL;DR: The error you're making isn't in what I've quoted you as saying, but in the next step where you claim that a 12.5% increase in probability is equal to a .125 in probability, because while a .125 probability equals 12.5% chance, an increase of .125 in probability does not equal an increase by 12.5%. It equals an increase of 12.5 percentage points.

[da newt]

Frog - it depends on how you calculate / quantify the change.

One simple way is to say a 40% chance to miss is 12.5% worse than a 27.5% chance to miss.

Another way to quantify the change is to say that 40% / 27.5 % = 1.4545 so that is a 45.5% change in the chance of missing.

Both are valid, but also require a definition of terms to have true value / meaning.

A simpler example is if you must roll a 20 to hit vs 19 or 20: is this a 5% difference, or a 100% difference? Certainly it is easy to see that if you hit on a 19 or 20 (over a statistically significant number of rolls) you will hit twice as often.

[Reynaert]

As far as you go, none. But the moment you try to say that going from 60% to 72.5% is a 12.5% increase, you're now incorrect. It is a 12.5 percentage point increase, or "an increase of 12.5 percentage points."

While a probability of .125 is equal to a 12.5% chance, an increase in probability by .125 is not an increase in chance by 12.5%.

Let's use a very trivial example: if a contest is to be decided by the flip of a coin, it has a 50% chance of going your way, which is a .5 probability, assuming the coin is fair. If you replace the fair coin with a double-headed coin (and you win on heads), your odds of winning are now 100%, and your probability of winning is now 1. You've increased your probability of winning by .5, but you've increased your chance of winning by 100% (doubling your odds). You've increased your chance of winning by 50 percentage points. But you have NOT increased your chance of winning by 50%.

TL;DR: The error you're making isn't in what I've quoted you as saying, but in the next step where you claim that a 12.5% increase in probability is equal to a .125 in probability, because while a .125 probability equals 12.5% chance, an increase of .125 in probability does not equal an increase by 12.5%. It equals an increase of 12.5 percentage points.

IOW: Step 5 is wrong, because when you replace decimal format probabilities with percentages, you also change the meaning of some of the words.
To be more precise, the meaning of the word 'increases' (as used in point 2) changes when you go from decimal probabilities to percentages.

[Frogreaver]

Step five. Percentages are NOT numbers as you may be used to them functioning. They are abstractions of per-100 decimals.

Let me give you an example that uses logic similar to yours:

Base assumptions:
- "Two times as likely", written as percentage odds, is 200%.
- "Two times as likely", written as addition, would translate to x + x.

So we have 0.40 odds (or 40%) of doing a thing. If we make it two times as likely to occur, by your logic we can do it two ways:
- 40% (base odds) + 200% (two times as likely)
- 40% (base odds) + 40% (two times as likely)

We get two different results. Clearly there is an issue with this logic.

Transitive, commutative, and reflexive properties are necessary for math to work. A process only working when a certain reflexive property (decimals equaling percentages) can only be done at the final step otherwise it breaks the process is a flawed process.

It might help if you Explain why every other time in probability that the decimal version can be converted to its percentage version and why this time is different?

[Segev]

It might help if you Explain why every other time in probability that the decimal version can be converted to its percentage version and why this time is different?


IOW: Step 5 is wrong, because when you replace decimal format probabilities with percentages, you also change the meaning of some of the words.
To be more precise, the meaning of the word 'increases' (as used in point 2) changes when you go from decimal probabilities to percentages.

I know you were probably typing as Reynaert was, but he does answer your question here. I thought I'd post it in this order to help make the answer clear.

[Darth Credence]

Then point out where I’m breaking any rules

Steps:
1. Assuming the before bless chance to hit was .6 then the new chance to hit is .725. Correct or no? *excluding any edge cases

2. Bless increases chance to hit by .125. Correct or not? *excluding edge cases

4. Since probabilities of mutually exclusive events must add to 1 then we can turn those into percentages .6 = 60% and .725 = 72.5% and .125 = 12.5%. Correct or not?

5. Replace each probability listed in decimal format above with its percent equivalent. Correct or not?

To show one is doing math incorrectly you need to show what specifically they are doing that is incorrect. Which step or steps above are incorrect?

1. You can't just exclude edge cases and have it be meaningful if you are talking about probability.

2. See 1

3. Why is there no 3?

4. See 1 and 2, where excluding the edge cases means you are not actually looking at probability which runs from 0 to unity.

5. Incorrect, because you have excluded edge cases.

There you go - you have made a mistake at every step.

[cookieface]

It might help if you Explain why every other time in probability that the decimal version can be converted to its percentage version and why this time is different?

Long story short: You can't every other time. Someone else here gave the example that if you are told that you can increase your odds of winning a coin flip by 0.5 or by 50%, then you would be foolish to pick 50% ... even though generally speaking those two odds are the same.

Even if you could, in mathematics, if a property doesn't hold ONE time, then it does not hold at all.

You are [unknowingly] using percentage points and percentages interchangeably in your arguments, and when it works you are generally speaking about percentage points, you are just putting % after them instead of pp.

[arnin77]

I can’t be bothered to read all this math stuff because it’s so far off the already disputed OP, but it keeps coming up at the top of the threads like bad heartburn.

I think what everyone is trying to tell you is that you don’t add the percentage to a percentage. You multiply.

So a 12.5% increase of 60% is not equal to 72.5% (12.5+60) but instead it should be .125x60=7.5+60=67.5%

I think you’re just missing a step and adding too soon.

No one is disputing that .125 is 12.5%. They are disputing adding .125 to .6 to get .725 and then saying .725 represents a 12.5% increase of 60%.

[chiefwaha]

Long story short: You can't every other time. Someone else here gave the example that if you are told that you can increase your odds of winning a coin flip by 0.5 or by 50%, then you would be foolish to pick 50% ... even though generally speaking those two odds are the same.

Even if you could, in mathematics, if a property doesn't hold ONE time, then it does not hold at all.

You are [unknowingly] using percentage points and percentages interchangeably in your arguments, and when it works you are generally speaking about percentage points, you are just putting % after them instead of pp.

Seriously this is an absolutely fascinating discussion you guys have been having... let me see if I'm understanding this...

Increasing the probability of a coin flip by .5 would make you always win...
But increasing your chances by 50% would make it 75% chance rather?

[Segev]

Seriously this is an absolutely fascinating discussion you guys have been having... let me see if I'm understanding this...

Increasing the probability of a coin flip by .5 would make you always win...
But increasing your chances by 50% would make it 75% chance rather?

Correct, because "increase your chances by 50%" means "multiply the probability by 1.5," not "add .5 to the probability."

[chiefwaha]

Correct, because "increase your chances by 50%" means "multiply the probability by 1.5," not "add .5 to the probability."

Awesome, I love days where I actually learn something new and it clicks. Thanks

[PhantomSoul]

Correct, because "increase your chances by 50%" means "multiply the probability by 1.5," not "add .5 to the probability."

It's why on page 8 of the discussion things move towards log odds!

(I think this is a joke, but I've been enjoying reading this and kinda think that would be a fun turn for my enjoyment of the thread, if for nothing else.)

[tokek]

There are some spells that are still not well understood by most players, so I wrote this guide to dispel some myths.


[Overestimated]Tasha Summons: Tasha Summons are decent spells that fits certain roles, but they are far weaker than CRB summon spells that dominate T2-T3 games. LV4 or lv6 Tasha Summons usually deal about half damage of lv3-5 CRB summon spells, avoid using them if your class have a good alternative.



I am going to speak up in favour of this spell and specifically Summon Fey which is generally regarded as one of the poor ones. The thing is that you summon a creature that has opposable thumbs and language. So a fully capable creature which can do what a humanoid can do.

That is actually very flexible and as they are inherently quite strong in the action economy you can try to leverage that further. They have access to all of the possible actions and require no action from you to direct. If you can't find a use for a little friend who can pick up, carry and use objects while teleporting all over the place then your game is nothing like mine.

Also I have found that used carefully with positioning the charm on the mirthful fey can be pretty effective. Very useful in social situations where you want advantage, very useful against sentient enemies who you want to intimidate into surrendering or spilling the beans on where their friends are after they surrender. You can get a lot of charm spells out of one spell slot with these little friends.

What they are not amazing at is just killing things. Its a utility choice with a little bit of killing power. They reward imaginative play and are perhaps not for number-crunching optimisers.

[cookieface]

Seriously this is an absolutely fascinating discussion you guys have been having... let me see if I'm understanding this...

Increasing the probability of a coin flip by .5 would make you always win...
But increasing your chances by 50% would make it 75% chance rather?

As Segev already said, yes, you are correct.

Here's another fun application of this that comes up A LOT because the general public completely misunderstands statistics:
Let's say you have a 0.1% chance of winning the lottery. Not much! (Still really good as far as lotteries go, but that is besides the point.)
But then, something changes in your favor and now you have a 0.2% chance of winning. Still not that high! And an increase of 0.1% is still really small.
BUT, now consider that going from 0.1% to 0.2% means your odds DOUBLED. Your expected ROI skyrocketed. That's a massive increase, actually.

(My original example was about a disease that had 1% mortality rates, but that seemed too dark to use. But it is still a very common example these day.)

[Frogreaver]

IOW: Step 5 is wrong, because when you replace decimal format probabilities with percentages, you also change the meaning of some of the words.
To be more precise, the meaning of the word 'increases' (as used in point 2) changes when you go from decimal probabilities to percentages.

I at least follow this argument. I disagree with it though - at least in relation to percentage points.

We both agree it’s perfectly fine to increase one probability by another when we are talking their decimal form.

We both agree probabilities can be converted to percentages and talked about the same as their decimal forms except for the case of ‘increase’.

Except increases is a rather ambiguous word already as it’s always been able to refer to absolute increase or relative increase. It’s the difference in saying the S&P 500 increased by 30 points vs the S&P 500 increases by 1%. Context normally implies that a percent means a relative increase but probabilities expressed as percents are not increases or decreases at all and it really doesn’t make sense to exclude probabilities expressed as a percent from following the same rules as everything else - especially when that ambiguity can be managed in other ways. I think percentage points make sense more so when dealing with statistics than they do when dealing probability.

Consider this solution as an example: what if we used a different term for probabilities converted to percentages - say probabilistic percent - as opposed to just - percent.

Would that not solve the issue while keeping the ‘units’ consistent and allowing us to refer to the probabilities expressed as percentages the same way as everything else?

[Segev]

I at least follow this argument. I disagree with it though - at least in relation to percentage points.

We both agree it’s perfectly fine to increase one probability by another when we are talking their decimal form.

We both agree probabilities can be converted to percentages and talked about the same as their decimal forms except for the case of ‘increase’.

Except increases is a rather ambiguous word already as it’s always been able to refer to absolute increase or relative increase. It’s the difference in saying the S&P 500 increased by 30 points vs the S&P 500 increases by 1%. Context normally implies that a percent means a relative increase but probabilities expressed as percents are not increases or decreases at all and it really doesn’t make sense to exclude probabilities expressed as a percent from following the same rules as everything else - especially when that ambiguity can be managed in other ways. I think percentage points make sense more so when dealing with statistics than they do when dealing probability.

Consider this solution as an example: what if we used a different term for probabilities converted to percentages - say probabilistic percent - as opposed to just - percent.

Would that not solve the issue while keeping the ‘units’ consistent and allowing us to refer to the probabilities expressed as percentages the same way as everything else?
You're reinventing the wheel, here. Talking about percentage points already provides the clarity needed.

[Frogreaver]

You're reinventing the wheel, here. Talking about percentage points already provides the clarity needed.

No. There’s an issue with the units when using percentage points in this context. Starting at 60% to hit and having bless increase to 72.5% to hit - expressing that increase as 12.5 percentage points does away with the unit consistency. That’s a big problem form a math standpoint.

60% chance to hit + 12.5 percentage points = ???

[Segev]

No. There’s an issue with the units when using percentage points in this context. Starting at 60% to hit and having bless increase to 72.5% to hit - expressing that increase as 12.5 percentage points does away with the unit consistency. That’s a big problem form a math standpoint.

60% chance to hit + 12.5 percentage points = ???
A percentage point is a linear unit of percentage. 60% is a percentage, and is 60 percentage points. 60% chance to hit plus 12.5 percentage points is 72.5% chance to hit. By definition of "percentage points."

[Valmark]

No. There’s an issue with the units when using percentage points in this context. Starting at 60% to hit and having bless increase to 72.5% to hit - expressing that increase as 12.5 percentage points does away with the unit consistency. That’s a big problem form a math standpoint.

60% chance to hit + 12.5 percentage points = ???

72.5%. It has been explained plenty- there's no problem from a math standpoint, since math already works like this.

It's not like a change of measuring units isn't a thing that exists- and in addition the change previously proposed is really just changing a name with another, unless I misunderstood something. It's no clearer then using pp.

(Regardless of the fact that agreeing on a change in this thread won't actually change how math works in the world or even just on GitP).

[arnin77]

No. There’s an issue with the units when using percentage points in this context. Starting at 60% to hit and having bless increase to 72.5% to hit - expressing that increase as 12.5 percentage points does away with the unit consistency. That’s a big problem form a math standpoint.

60% chance to hit + 12.5 percentage points = ???

60% + 12.5pp = 72.5%

72.5% is not a 12.5% increase of 60%.

[Frogreaver]

60% + 12.5pp = 72.5%

72.5% is not a 12.5% increase of 60%.

On the first, One cannot add unlike quantities together. That is basic math. One cannot simply add the numbers and ignore the ‘units’ for lack of a better word.

On the 2nd, I agree because that ‘of’ there is an indicator of multiplication. You’ll notice none of my examples used that same formation.

[PhantomSoul]

On the first, One cannot add unlike quantities together. That is basic math. One cannot simply add the numbers and ignore the ‘units’ for lack of a better word.

1 meter + 12 cm = 112 cm

This instance isn't really that different, you just don't show the easy conversion:

60% + 12.5pp = 60pp + 12.5pp = 72.5pp = 72.5%

[Frogreaver]

1 meter + 12 cm = 112 cm

This instance isn't really that different, you just don't show the easy conversion:

60% + 12.5pp = 60pp + 12.5pp = 72.5pp = 72.5%

If that can be done then pp = % and the rest of this discussion is moot. Because anytime I’d have pp I could substitute %. Or out another way - that makes them interchangeable and I’ve been told they are not.

[PhantomSoul]

If that can be done then pp = % and the rest of this discussion is moot. Because anytime I’d have pp I could substitute %. Or out another way - that makes them interchangeable and I’ve been told they are not.

I think of it more like using different bases (you convert each different base separately) or mixing up and using log-laws for non-log things. (Granted, I haven't dealt with these since school [now everything's in log odds or is a final percentage for me], and I didn't do math in English.)

[cookieface]

If that can be done then pp = % and the rest of this discussion is moot. Because anytime I’d have pp I could substitute %. Or out another way - that makes them interchangeable and I’ve been told they are not.

Your mistake here is that "%" is not a symbol for a unit, the same way that "$" or "lbs" are. It is an abstract way of converting decimal odds to a more easily digestible entity.

(Seriously, very little "math" is done in percentages for precisely this reason. Lots of statistics is, though. And statisticians have figured out that "pp" is a more easily communicable way to describe changing percentages. Saying "Our latest polls show a 5% tax hike is okay" can conflate whether it means "105% of the current tax rate" or "5pp more than the current tax rate" ... and hence using "pp" fixes the issue.)

[Valmark]

If that can be done then pp = % and the rest of this discussion is moot. Because anytime I’d have pp I could substitute %. Or out another way - that makes them interchangeable and I’ve been told they are not.

The fact that they can be freely converted to one another doesn't mean that they are used the same way though.

[Frogreaver]

The fact that they can be freely converted to one another doesn't mean that they are used the same way though.

That’s what being able to be converted means...

[arnin77]

On the first, One cannot add unlike quantities together. That is basic math. One cannot simply add the numbers and ignore the ‘units’ for lack of a better word.

On the 2nd, I agree because that ‘of’ there is an indicator of multiplication. You’ll notice none of my examples used that same formation.

So are you saying 60 + 12.5% doesn’t equal 67.5 because they are unlike quantities? Do you think that’s true with 1-1/4 + .5 = 1-3/4?

I’m pretty sure you doing that is what set this whole thing off.

[Valmark]

That’s what being able to be converted means...

No, that depends on the context. Conversion can also mean changing something into something else that is completely different, for example.

[Frogreaver]

No, that depends on the context. Conversion can also mean changing something into something else that is completely different, for example.

Not in math.

[PhantomSoul]

Not in math.

Citation or elaboration?

Being able to convert shows there being a way to convert so maybe you're just playing on how different counts as completely different?

[cookieface]

Not in math.

Pure mathematics doesn't use units. And that is what is being discussed here.

[Segev]

Does anybody in this thread think that, even if we come up with a different nomenclature that is objectively better than any other nomenclature that has ever existed for this purpose, it will spread and become used outside of this thread?

[MaxWilson]

Well, there is value to knowing both numbers. The important part is just using them right and keeping straight what you're using them for and keeping both numbers separate with transparency to which you're using and why (this was my sticking point with Frogreaver's post: he claimed to be using one number but was actually using the other).

If you, again, wish to know how whether you'd be able to win a slugfest with three trolls (or how long you could tank them), you absolutely care about the percentual change. It's about 12,5% (not accounting for crits) of enemy's maximum damage. How much that is depends on the number the enemy hits on *snip* Get this: the same trolls average 3 damage against our 23 AC guy at Disadvantage with Bane. 3. They would go from needing 6,3 turns to kill him to needing 33 turns to kill him. Their damage drops to a fifth.

You're not wrong, it is valuable to know both number, but the final decision still should take the absolute HP savings into account, not just the relative, because resources are involved. Cutting the troll's damage to 1/5 is great if you're considering at-will abilities, like the tradeoff between grapple/proning a troll and beating it to death while it's prone vs. just attacking it normally. But in this case, we're talking about spending a spell slot, so the opportunity cost is other spell slots, e.g. Cure Wounds (which might heal more damage than the Trolls would inflict anyway), or a Command spell in another combat (which might prevent more damage than the trolls would have inflicted).

My math gives me results a little different than yours so I'll quote them: a troll attacking at disadvantage and +7 to hit against AC 23 does 1.89 damage per round, so roughly 3.78 damage if there's no Bane. (Computation method: plug "avg att 23 7d 5d6+12" into https://shiningsword.blob.core.windows.net/public/v0.3/index.html#battle.) Bane will give us an even split between +3/+4/+5/+6, so plug in

avg att 23 6d 5d6+12: 1.22
avg att 23 5d 5d6+12: 0.71
avg att 23 4d 5d6+12: 0.34
avg att 23 3d 5d6+12: 0.12

and average them all: (1.22+0.71+0.34+0.12)/4 = 0.59 per troll, 1.195 damage for two rolls if they're both affected by Bane. Rather than analyze the probability that they're both affected by Bane, at this point we should stop and ask: is saving 2.5 HP per round worth spending a spell slot on?

This is sort of like the above discussion on Shield. Shield is a great spell for emergencies and Deadly fights like the above-mentioned Chasme vs. wizard fight, but IMO it's usually a trap, in the sense that as long as you're going to win the combat anyway, it is often better NOT to shield, and to save those spell points/slots for later, e.g. on Extended Aura of Vitality if you're a paladorc. But IMO it's valid to Shield anyway for roleplaying reasons, even though it's tactically a bad idea, on the basis that getting hit with a giant club or monster tentacle hurts and that cold-bloodedly calculating the optimal value per spell point expended is not something your PC is likely to do when his life is on the line.


Oof..I was a bit harried yesterday and was unclear. The malus to attacks, I view as an additive bonus, and a secondary effect. The whole, point with the Corruptor of Cthulhu example, was not to model how best to use the the Bane spell.

(A) Rather, I wanted to demonstrate, that if one is caught flat footed at verge of an apocalypse, if the worst action one could take is to cast Bane, one still might be setting up one of their team mates. Yes, it is an extreme example, but the extreme does have a tinsy, bit of a tendency to happen at high level, from time to time.🃏

Now as a DM, I will admit, I do like that the penalty assessed by the Bane spell does apply to Death Saving Throws.☠️

(A) Okay, I agree with that. Bane is not a terrible spell for setting up someone else. It shines brightest in the same situations as Portent: high-stakes rolls, like influencing a Necromancer's one chance to Command Undead on a Mummy Lord. (Example drawn from current PbP game.) Interestingly, I believe that Bane would even stack with Portent, perhaps allowing you make use of a Portent roll which otherwise wouldn't be quite low enough for your purposes.

It's niche though, and I think the oft-cited advantage of targeting Cha rolls is overstated: Cha rolls and Wis rolls typically aren't all that far apart, no more than about +2. E.g. 10% of the time Bane will succeed on a Troll where Command would have failed, but Bane's effect is enough weaker (and requires concentration) that I think Command is still likely to be the better spell. (Or Phantasmal Force, if you want to spend a 2nd level slot to give the troll a phantom opponent like a fire elemental to distract it/drive it away.)

[Frogreaver]

Pure mathematics doesn't use units. And that is what is being discussed here.

I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘pure’.


Does anybody in this thread think that, even if we come up with a different nomenclature that is objectively better than any other nomenclature that has ever existed for this purpose, it will spread and become used outside of this thread?

Nope. But this isn’t just a nomenclature issue.

[PhantomSoul]

Does anybody in this thread think that, even if we come up with a different nomenclature that is objectively better than any other nomenclature that has ever existed for this purpose, it will spread and become used outside of this thread?

I didn't think anything on these forums is really expected to catch on, to be honest! (And that includes things that WotC definitely really really should listen to, of course.)

And really, people who deal with percentages already solved that problem with things like log odds (I'm partly just trying to make my prediction true, obviously).

EDIT:


I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘pure’.

So please elaborate! There's no wiki page for "Conversion (Mathematics)" to go on...

[arnin77]

Probability of hitting without Bless = .6
Probability of hitting due to Bless = .125
Probability of Missing = .275

Do you believe there's anything wrong with saying bless represents a +.125 increase in your chance to hit such that your new chance to hit is .725?

Now that we've established this is appropriate based on the increase example of 110 earlier. Let's convert the .125 to a percentage. It becomes 12.5% and not 12.5 percentage points.

Replacing .125 with it's percentage conversion in the above statement we get:
bless represents a +.125 increase in your chance to hit
bless represents a +12.5% increase in your chance to hit

One cannot simply change the units to percentage points in such a percentage conversion. Hopefully this highlights why it's not wrong to do it the way I did. At least think about it, instead of insisting that your convention is the only correct way.

You do it right here. You say probability of hitting without bless is 60%. Then you say bless adds +12.5%.

If your probably to hit without bless is 60% and bless adds 12.5% then your probability to hit with bless is now 67.5%, not 72.5%. That would be adding 20.8%.

If you mean that you have 60% to hit without bless and bless adds 12.5pp then you’d have 72.5% chance to hit with bless.

[Xetheral]

There's a bunch of misleading stuff being said by posters on both sides of the math debate. To clarify:


A "percent" is not a unit of measurement. A percentage is a dimensional dimensionless number (specifically, a ratio with respect to 100).

A "percentage point" is a unit of measurement. It is the unit of the arithmetical difference between two percentages.

x% refers to x/100, and that ratio can be evaluated in decimal format. The reverse is not always true. A given decimal can be meaningfully expressed as a percentage only if that decimal is already being used as a ratio.

[Valmark]

Not in math.
You may have to prove that, since in this thread it has been showed the opposite.

Does anybody in this thread think that, even if we come up with a different nomenclature that is objectively better than any other nomenclature that has ever existed for this purpose, it will spread and become used outside of this thread?
Highly doubt it- mentioned so some posts ago. Wanting to come up with different names for the same things is pointless unless you can somehow convince the whole world to use them (or at least the relevant parts of it).

I didn't think anything on these forums is really expected to catch on, to be honest! (And that includes things that WotC definitely really really should listen to, of course.)

And really, people who deal with percentages already solved that problem with things like log odds (I'm partly just trying to make my prediction true, obviously).

EDIT:

So please elaborate! There's no wiki page for "Conversion (Mathematics)" to go on...

I realize I'm not sure what log odds are? I feel like I should have heard of it, but I think my brain is just confusing it because it knows the two words separately.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

3) You need to have a hand free to cast it. Even if you have a Pact Weapon as your focus. So if you're sword+boarding you're sol.

Yes, that's one that caught out a player of mine who tries to play fast and loose with the rules.

[Frogreaver]

You do it right here. You say probability of hitting without bless is 60%. Then you say bless adds +12.5%.

If your probably to hit without bless is 60% and bless adds 12.5% then your probability to hit with bless is now 67.5%, not 72.5%. That would be adding 20.8%.

If you mean that you have 60% to hit without bless and bless adds 12.5pp then you’d have 72.5% chance to hit with bless.

If I say bless adds +12.5% chance to hit - is that 12.5% a reference to the .125 probability that it’s adding or to a relative percentage increase. It’s still ambiguous. And adding in percentage points only makes things objectively worse - because now I can say things about the exact same quantity in percentage points terms that you are saying is incorrect for saying it in percent terms. That’s the problem. If percentage points and percent really are the same thing then you could use them interchangeably. If you cannot then They are not and combing them by addition is not possible.

[Segev]

Nope. But this isn’t just a nomenclature issue.

It is, though. You now know the terms of art. You feel they are bad, and want to make up new ones and try to get everyone in this thread, at least, to agree with you on using them. But for clarity of communication, the easiest and clearest thing to do is simply to adopt the terms of art.

[cookieface]

I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘pure’.

Again, we are discussing percentages and probabilities, not foreign exchange rates or distance conversions. That is a mathematical process, not economic or scientific. There are only "units" insofar as the abstract "percentage points" are units that have a direct conversion into probabilistic numbers.

Your last several posts are giving me the impression that you are no longer interested in learning why the difference between percentage points and percentages is important. Instead you are questioning everyone else's assertions with bad faith quips that take their words out of context.

Seriously, if you want to learn more about why these differences are important, use Google. Here are two immediate sources that help clarify why we need pp:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage_point
https://www.macroption.com/percentage-point-vs-percent/

It took me all of two minutes to find (and read) those explanations. If you are still in disagreement about their uses, it is important you understand that you will be disagreeing with the entire mathematics community about it. It is not a half-dozen anonymous posters on one message board. You are going against decades (heck, maybe centuries, but so far I have been unable to find the first usage of the term percentage points) of consensus about how best to describe changes in probabilities and percentages.

Like Segev said, if you believe that we could actually change how the language works outside of this thread on this forum, then maybe this would be a useful conversation. As it is unlikely we will be able to do so, I will continue to use pp when it is necessary and I won't be responding any more here.

[MaxWilson]

3) You need to have a hand free to cast it. Even if you have a Pact Weapon as your focus. So if you're sword+boarding you're sol.

That's not that big a deal IMO, since you can't use your reaction for both Shield and opportunity attacks anyway. The requirement for a free hand simply forces you to decide up front whether you're going to end your turn with a weapon in hand (for opportunity attacks and/or Defensive Duelist) or with an empty hand, prepared to Shield.

I agree that it is a restriction and it is nice to get around it via Warcaster, I'm just saying it's not as big of a restriction as it looks on paper, because of reaction economy.


It is, though. You now know the terms of art. You feel they are bad, and want to make up new ones and try to get everyone in this thread, at least, to agree with you on using them. But for clarity of communication, the easiest and clearest thing to do is simply to adopt the terms of art.

I think the easiest thing to do would be to stop talking in abstract terms about %s (relative or absolute) and just talk about absolute numbers, like whether reducing the damage two trolls will inflict on an AC 23 character with a Cloak of Displacement from just under 4 HP per round to just over 1 HP is worth spending an action, your concentration and a 1st level spell slot to achieve. Whether you want to call that a N% reduction or a Y% reduction, making it a concrete example makes it easier to talk about.

[PhantomSoul]

I realize I'm not sure what log odds are? I feel like I should have heard of it, but I think my brain is just confusing it because it knows the two words separately.

Roughly a different way to present percentages that allow you to add or subtract them meaningfully (because log laws make addition equivalent to multiplication and subtraction equivalent to division [in the converted outputs]), so it's what regression uses for instance. Instead of going from 0 to 1 (like decimal representations of percentages) or from 0 to 100 (like... uh... per 100ths-y representations of percentages), you go fom negative infinity to positive infinity in values, but the conversion to the other representations gives an s-shaped curve so that you tend towards the asymptote on each end. If you know of the logistic function, it's just the inverse of that.

I'm a convert (haha) from using them for things like regression (as a tool; I'm neither a mathematician nor a statistitian): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logit

EDIT: It's probably worth adding that thinking log odds is useful is, uh, not an indication that it's not a joke for this thread. Logit values (without converting them) tend to be a lot less easily interpreted for what people tend to want to know (things like hit rates).

[arnin77]

If I say bless adds +12.5% chance to hit - is that 12.5% a reference to the .125 probability that it’s adding or to a relative percentage increase. It’s still ambiguous. And adding in percentage points only makes things objectively worse - because now I can say things about the exact same quantity in percentage points terms that you are saying is incorrect for saying it in percent terms. That’s the problem. If percentage points and percent really are the same thing then you could use them interchangeably. If you cannot then They are not and combing them by addition is not possible.

It’s not ambiguous - you saying bless adds 12.5% to hit is a reference to a percentage increase. It only adds .125 probability to hit depending on what you need to hit. Unless you don’t know what you mean of course.

[Xetheral]

If I say bless adds +12.5% chance to hit - is that 12.5% a reference to the .125 probability that it’s adding or to a relative percentage increase. It’s still ambiguous. And adding in percentage points only makes things objectively worse - because now I can say things about the exact same quantity in percentage points terms that you are saying is incorrect for saying it in percent terms. That’s the problem. If percentage points and percent really are the same thing then you could use them interchangeably. If you cannot then They are not and combing them by addition is not possible.

Percentage points and percent are not the same thing. A percentage is a dimensionless quantity with no units of measurement.

A percentage point is the unit of measurement for an arithmetic difference of two percentages.

Because a percentage point is a unit of measurement for a difference between two percentages, percentages and percentage points can (actually, must) be combined. So: x% - y% = (x-y) percentage points. Equivalently, y% + (x-y) percentage points = x%.

[arnin77]

Also just wondering if this is still a DnD5e post or has it turned into Math5e

[PhantomSoul]

Also just wondering if this is still a DnD5e post or has it turned into Math5e

Speaking of which, it still surprises me that there's no dedicated PF(1/2) section on this site. (Unless I'm just blind, which wouldn't be surprising. It just seems like a spot to creep despite not playing PF haha)

[Frogreaver]

There's a bunch of misleading stuff being said by posters on both sides of the math debate. To clarify:


A "percent" is not a unit of measurement. A percentage is a dimensional number (specifically, a ratio with respect to 100).

A "percentage point" is a unit of measurement. It is the unit of the arithmetical difference between two percentages.

x% refers to x/100, and that ratio can be evaluated in decimal format. The reverse is not always true. A given decimal can be meaningfully expressed as a percentage only if that decimal is already being used as a ratio.

On the first, Percent is similar to an expression of of something in hundredths. It’s closer to the metric prefixes in meaning. Say centimeter. So I agree it’s not an actual unit, but similar in many respects and I don’t have a better word to express those similarities. Maybe that word is dimensional number as you referenced but I’ve never heard that term before.

On the second, We don’t need a unit for arithmetic difference though. I think that’s a big part of the issue. If I ask you the difference in 5 and 11 you don’t respond 6 number points. It’s just 6. And just think how confusing an expression like (11-5)+7 would become if we used number points to express those differences - you would evaluate the parenthesis to (6 number points)+7 = ???. Would the final answer be 13, 13 number points, something else?

On the third, I agree.

[PhantomSoul]

On the first, Percent is just an expression of of something in hundredths. It’s closer to the metric prefixes in meaning. Say centimeter. So I agree it’s not an actual unit, but similar in many respects and I don’t have a better word to express those similarities. Maybe that word is dimensional number as you referenced but I’ve never heard that term before.

On the second, We don’t need a unit for arithmetic difference though. I think that’s a big part of the issue. If I ask you the difference in 5 and 11 you don’t respond 6 number points. It’s just 6. And just think how confusing an expression like (11-5)+7 would become if we used number points to express those differences - you would evaluate the parenthesis to (6 number points)+7 = ???. Would the final answer be 13, 13 number points, something else?

On the third, I agree.

Maybe thinking of it like bases (in math) or like denominators (in math) would help? Not that something being confusing is a good argument that it's wrong or unhelpful, of course!

[Frogreaver]

Maybe thinking of it like bases (in math) or like denominators (in math) would help? Not that something being confusing is a good argument that it's wrong or unhelpful, of course!

None of those things have this same issue. X base 10 + Y base 2 can be computed, but whatever we say about the result is going to be true for any base.

That’s not true with percentage points as I’m told. It’s really about the same as being told I must only use base 2 to answer or be incorrect.

[Xetheral]

On the first, Percent is just an expression of of something in hundredths. It’s closer to the metric prefixes in meaning. Say centimeter. So I agree it’s not an actual unit, but similar in many respects and I don’t have a better word to express those similarities. Maybe that word is dimensional number as you referenced but I’ve never heard that term before.

On the second, We don’t need a unit for arithmetic difference though. I think that’s a big part of the issue. If I ask you the difference in 5 and 11 you don’t respond 6 number points. It’s just 6. And just think how confusing an expression like (11-5)+7 would become if we used number points to express those differences - you would evaluate the parenthesis to (6 number points)+7 = ???. Would the final answer be 13, 13 number points, something else?

On the third, I agree.

I misspoke, the word for a value without a unit of measure is "dimensionless", not dimensional. (Corrected in original post.)

We have a unit for the arithmetic difference between two percentages precisely to avoid the type of confusion as seen in this thread. :) Yes, as a unit for a non-physical dimension it's a little on the unusual side, but it's useful, and has been in use since at least 1600 according to Google N-Grams (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=percentage+points&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=0), although it only started seeing widespread use in the 20th century. (It's possible the really old uses were in a different context, misspellings, bad OCR, or misdated texts. Google N-Grams isn't always the best source. But it does show that the convention has been around for at least a century.)

[Frogreaver]

I misspoke, the word for a value without a unit of measure is "dimensionless", not dimensional. (Corrected in original post.)

We have a unit for the arithmetic difference between two percentages precisely to avoid the type of confusion as seen in this thread. :) Yes, as a unit for a non-physical dimension it's a little on the unusual side, but it's useful, and has been in use since at least 1600 according to Google N-Grams (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=percentage+points&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=0), although it only started seeing widespread use in the 20th century. (It's possible the really old uses were in a different context, misspellings, bad OCR, or misdated texts. Google N-Grams isn't always the best source. But it does show that the convention has been around for at least a century.)

Thanks that’s Interesting on the history.

The thing is - there was no confusion at the start of this thread. The poster knew exactly what I meant and decided to inform me i was incorrect due to not aligning with that terminology.

I understand it’s intent is to remove ambiguity and it does to some degree but it mucks with other more important mathematical concepts IMO. I mentioned before - mathematically speaking what is 60% + 12.5 percentage points and the answer without fail was 72.5%. Making 12.5 pp equivalent to 12.5%. But only when we aren’t talking about the increase from 60% to 72.5%. Essentially if that convention is actually examined it breaks virtually every other mathematical rule and convention out there.

[PhantomSoul]

I mentioned before - mathematically speaking what is 60% + 12.5 percentage points and the answer without fail was 72.5%. Making 12.5 pp equivalent to 12.5%. But only when we aren’t talking about the increase from 60% to 72.5%. Essentially if that convention is actually examined it breaks virtually every other mathematical rule and convention out there.

Except it seems fine for all of math (the system of which it's already part)...? The fact that a proportion changes value based on what it's a proportion of it just expected by virtue of it being a proportion. It's not "only when not talking about an increase from 60% to 72.5%", it's "whenever it's out of 100, since that's what a percentage is a proportion of by default". Exactly why that 1/5 is more when it's 1/5 of a bigger pizza compared to a smaller pizza. Or that value of 25 cents changes when the value of the dollar changes. It's not breaking rules and conventions; it's part of them.

[JNAProductions]

Thanks that’s Interesting on the history.

The thing is - there was no confusion at the start of this thread. The poster knew exactly what I meant and decided to inform me i was incorrect due to not aligning with that terminology.

I understand it’s intent is to remove ambiguity and it does to some degree but it mucks with other more important mathematical concepts IMO. I mentioned before - mathematically speaking what is 60% + 12.5 percentage points and the answer without fail was 72.5%. Making 12.5 pp equivalent to 12.5%. But only when we aren’t talking about the increase from 60% to 72.5%. Essentially if that convention is actually examined it breaks virtually every other mathematical rule and convention out there.

What rule does it break?

[Frogreaver]

Except it seems fine for all of math (the system of which it's already part)...? The fact that a proportion changes value based on what it's a proportion of it just expected by virtue of it being a proportion. It's not "only when not talking about an increase from 60% to 72.5%", it's "whenever it's not out of 100, since that's what a percentage is a proportion of by default". Exactly why that 1/5 is more when it's 1/5 of a bigger pizza compared to a smaller pizza. Or that value of 25 cents changes when the value of the dollar changes. It's not breaking rules and conventions; it's part of them.

That’s not the issue I’m talking about and you should know that by now.


What rule does it break?

That equivalent quantities will be able to have the same operations performed on them despite the form they are in.

As of right now I’m being told there’s no way to perform the additive operation when mutually exclusive probabilities are listed in percent form but that it’s okay to do so when they aren’t.

[kenjigoku]

Snip

My students and their textbook seem to struggle with the difference between the two definitions as well.

[Frogreaver]

My students and their textbook seem to struggle with the difference between the two definitions as well.

Maybe that’s because it’s a terrible convention that only causes more confusion than it prevents. Just a guess.

[Valmark]

Thanks that’s Interesting on the history.

The thing is - there was no confusion at the start of this thread. The poster knew exactly what I meant and decided to inform me i was incorrect due to not aligning with that terminology.

I understand it’s intent is to remove ambiguity and it does to some degree but it mucks with other more important mathematical concepts IMO. I mentioned before - mathematically speaking what is 60% + 12.5 percentage points and the answer without fail was 72.5%. Making 12.5 pp equivalent to 12.5%. But only when we aren’t talking about the increase from 60% to 72.5%. Essentially if that convention is actually examined it breaks virtually every other mathematical rule and convention out there.

But it doesn't break anything if used correctly- and the poster was correcting more then just your terminology. You were originally saying that Bane is a 12.5% increase in the majority of cases- but it's not in said majority of cases.

Indeed, in order to have a 12.5% increase be the same as a 12.5 pp increase you'd need to have 100% starting chance which would make the increase impossible- either you are rolling something that fails on natural 1s/always succeeds on natural 20s (in which case the chance can never reach 100%) or you don't, in which case you can't go above the 100% anyway.

[Frogreaver]

But it doesn't break anything if used correctly- and the poster was correcting more then just your terminology. You were originally saying that Bane is a 12.5% increase in the majority of cases- but it's not in said majority of cases.

Indeed, in order to have a 12.5% increase be the same as a 12.5 pp increase you'd need to have 100% starting chance which would make the increase impossible- either you are rolling something that fails on natural 1s/always succeeds on natural 20s (in which case the chance can never reach 100%) or you don't, in which case you can't go above the 100% anyway.

Apparently it’s so bad that y’all can’t even agree about how it works. Half of you say 12.5 pp = 12.5%. And the other half don’t.

[MaxWilson]

But it doesn't break anything if used correctly- and the poster was correcting more then just your terminology. You were originally saying that Bane is a 12.5% increase in the majority of cases- but it's not in said majority of cases.

Based on the fact that FrogReaver agreed with my post, I believe you misunderstood FrogReaver's point.

Bane reduces damage by 12.5% * [enemy's damage, ignoring to-hit].

A spell like Command or Hypnotic Pattern reduces damage by [enemy's damage, including to-hit].

In order to compare them you need to plug in to-hit values, but there are also spells like Cure Wounds which can be directly compared to Bane's effects, also without computing to-hit.

[Frogreaver]

Based on the fact that FrogReaver agreed with my post, I believe you misunderstood FrogReaver's point.

Bane reduces damage by 12.5% * [enemy's damage, ignoring to-hit].

A spell like Command or Hypnotic Pattern reduces damage by [enemy's damage, including to-hit].

In order to compare them you need to plug in to-hit values, but there are also spells like Cure Wounds which can be directly compared to Bane's effects, also without computing to-hit.

Yes. You summed up my thoughts much better than I did. And you have yet again.

[PhantomSoul]

That’s not the issue I’m talking about and you should know that by now.

Honestly, I'm completely lost on what the problem is at this point, and I've read the now-8 pages.

I get that for you the initial response was terminological rather than conceptual, but it sounds like you mean more than that.

EDIT:


Apparently it’s so bad that y’all can’t even agree about how it works. Half of you say 12.5 pp = 12.5%. And the other half don’t.

The context matters! 12.5% increase from 60% isn't 12.5pp, but that doesn't mean there aren't cases where 12.5% = 12.5pp.


Based on the fact that FrogReaver agreed with my post, I believe you misunderstood FrogReaver's point.

Bane reduces damage by 12.5% * [enemy's damage, ignoring to-hit].

A spell like Command or Hypnotic Pattern reduces damage by [enemy's damage, including to-hit].

In order to compare them you need to plug in to-hit values, but there are also spells like Cure Wounds which can be directly compared to Bane's effects, also without computing to-hit.

I see what you mean here (also ignoring crits, obviously), I think.

[Segev]

Apparently it’s so bad that y’all can’t even agree about how it works. Half of you say 12.5 pp = 12.5%. And the other half don’t.

Please quote people saying both sides of this. My scan of the thread doesn't reveal "half of you people" saying that. I suspect - but am open to being proven wrong - that you're misunderstanding what people are actually saying when you think they're saying that.

For example, you keep telling us that because 60% plus 12 percentage points is 72%, 12 percentage points equals 12% in all cases. This is incorrect. I suspect, if you do find quotes to support your claim that "half of you people" are saying 12.5 pp = 12.5%, the context will reveal that they're not making a universal claim the way you are nor you seem to think they are. But again, I could be wrong. I outline what I suspect so that you can carefully vet your potential quotes to make sure they prove me wrong.

[Frogreaver]

Based on the fact that FrogReaver agreed with my post, I believe you misunderstood FrogReaver's point.

Bane reduces damage by 12.5% * [enemy's damage, ignoring to-hit].

A spell like Command or Hypnotic Pattern reduces damage by [enemy's damage, including to-hit].

In order to compare them you need to plug in to-hit values, but there are also spells like Cure Wounds which can be directly compared to Bane's effects, also without computing to-hit.

Also I wanted to add - and this is something I think it was you that touched on a bit earlier - if you could have finished the encounter without needing to use the spell to win the encounter and without significant uses of other resources then you were likely better off without using that spell at all. This impacts Banes value.

Also, the fact that you have limited control over which pc the damage it prevents is applied also impacts its usefulness. It might be important to prevent 10 damage on the paladin with low hp but preventing that same 10 damage on the monk that’s taken no damage yet isn’t very important.

Bane doesn’t let you choose, whereas healing can compensate for damage where needed or even casting sanctuary for a turn can redirect some of that damage elsewhere with a much higher degree of success - even if that’s less efficient from a total hp loss perspective.

[MaxWilson]

I see what you mean here (also ignoring crits, obviously), I think.

Usually for Bane it's safe to ignore crits during analysis, because Bane won't change them. Only in extreme edge cases does Bane get less damage than predicted, e.g. a creature with +2 to hit, attacking an AC 20 target, will normally hit 3 times in 20, 1 of which will be a crit, and Bane has a good chance to eliminate those normal hits but can't change the crit.

[Valmark]

Apparently it’s so bad that y’all can’t even agree about how it works. Half of you say 12.5 pp = 12.5%. And the other half don’t.
12.5 pp = 12.5% unless you said that it's increasing your chance to hit by 12.5% (i.e. multiplicatively) since that doesn't equal 12.5 pp (unless the base is 100%, because 12.5% of a 100 is 12.5).

That's what everybody (that I saw) have been saying.

Based on the fact that FrogReaver agreed with my post, I believe you misunderstood FrogReaver's point.

Bane reduces damage by 12.5% * [enemy's damage, ignoring to-hit].

A spell like Command or Hypnotic Pattern reduces damage by [enemy's damage, including to-hit].

In order to compare them you need to plug in to-hit values, but there are also spells like Cure Wounds which can be directly compared to Bane's effects, also without computing to-hit.

Which isn't true- Bane is affected by the to-hit, since it's effectivness depends on how big the bonus and the target to hit is.

Frogreaver himself showed previously how the change in hits received was dependant on how many you received normally (and I think Eldariel too, in a different post). Or maybe it was another example, the thing is that the to-hit bonus factored in.

Even without the need to calculate the fact that I (if I was a D&D character) can have a modifier so big or so small that a 1-4 subtraction doesn't do anything should show that Bane cares about the bonus and target number.

[Chaos Jackal]

Apparently it’s so bad that y’all can’t even agree about how it works. Half of you say 12.5 pp = 12.5%. And the other half don’t.

Except no. Not really. You're pretty much the only one claiming that 12.5pp is 12.5%, regardless of context. Even the few that weren't certain have realized it's not the case.

And in regards to your "disagreement" or claiming that it's an issue of terminology... no. It's neither. You don't get to disagree over what % represents, any more than you get to disagree over what + or - represent. It's not a matter of perspective. In its most basic explanation, sticking a % next to a number turns said number into a fraction with the number as a numerator and 100 as the denominator. In the case of 60% that's been mentioned repeatedly, a 12.5% increase is a 12.5/100 increase, or 125/1000, or 1/8. Given that 1/8 of 60 is 7.5, increasing 60% by 12.5% is equivalent to 67.5%, as others have pointed out. 67.5% is obviously not 72.5%.

Unless you're making an entirely new system, what you've been supporting for a while now is flat-out wrong, no ifs or buts. It's not the convention of a single or even multiple posters in GitP. It's what the % means globally. That's not something debatable.

[PhantomSoul]

Usually for Bane it's safe to ignore crits during analysis, because Bane won't change them. Only in extreme edge cases does Bane get less damage than predicted, e.g. a creature with +2 to hit, attacking an AC 20 target, will normally hit 3 times in 20, 1 of which will be a crit, and Bane has a good chance to eliminate those normal hits but can't change the crit.

I was more thinking because crits add to damage, but that only matters if you care about the proportion of incoming damage that's coming in, not when you care at the loss of hit points "negated" by using Bane.

[MaxWilson]

Which isn't true- Bane is affected by the to-hit, since it's effectivness depends on how big the bonus and the target to hit is.

Frogreaver himself showed previously how the change in hits received was dependant on how many you received normally (and I think Eldariel too, in a different post). Or maybe it was another example, the thing is that the to-hit bonus factored in.

Even without the need to calculate the fact that I (if I was a D&D character) can have a modifier so big or so small that a 1-4 subtraction doesn't do anything should show that Bane cares about the bonus and target number.

Having a modifier so big that Bane "falls off the edge of the d20" is uncommon, will essentially never happen in actual play.

Setting that edge case aside, can you explain further what you mean by "Bane is affected by the to-hit, since it's effectivness depends on how big the bonus and the target to hit is"? Do you think it's untrue to say that Bane on a troll prevents (11+11+7.5)*0.125 = 3.6875 damage per round, on average?

[Xetheral]

Thanks that’s Interesting on the history.

The thing is - there was no confusion at the start of this thread. The poster knew exactly what I meant and decided to inform me i was incorrect due to not aligning with that terminology.

I understand it’s intent is to remove ambiguity and it does to some degree but it mucks with other more important mathematical concepts IMO. I mentioned before - mathematically speaking what is 60% + 12.5 percentage points and the answer without fail was 72.5%. Making 12.5 pp equivalent to 12.5%. But only when we aren’t talking about the increase from 60% to 72.5%. Essentially if that convention is actually examined it breaks virtually every other mathematical rule and convention out there.

Yes, 60% + 12.5 percentage points equals 72.5%. No, that doesn't make 12.5 percentage points equivalent to 12.5%. :) The reason is because 12.5 percentage points has units and 12.5% does not. So just like 3 meters isn't equivalent to 3, 12.5 percentage points isn't equivalent to 12.5%, even though when it comes time to do the computation you're going to use the same numerical value for both.

I'm sympathetic to your point about breaking other rules, because it is true that "percentage points" doesn't behave consistently with the physical units studied in dimensional analysis. Just the fact that it's meaningful to sum a dimensionless number like a percentage and a quantity with units like percentage points is a little bizarre. Technically speaking, the equation 60% + 12.5 percentage points = 72.5% lacks dimensional homogeneity, as would be required by dimensional analysis if percentage points was a physical quantity. But since percentage points isn't a physical quantity, percentage points are outside of the scope of dimensional analysis and so the rules of dimensional analysis don't apply. So "percentage points" doesn't actually break any mathematical rules, despite the inconsistencies with how units for physical quantities are treated.

Maybe it would help to think about it linguistically rather than mathematically. When comparing any two values, there is a difference between comparing them proportionately (e.g. as ratios) and absolutely. Normally distinguishing the two cases isn't an issue, but it becomes an issue when one wants to compare two values that are themselves proportions. In this context "percentage points" is just the English word describing the result of comparing those two proportions absolutely, rather than proportionately. We needed some word to refer to that concept, and "percentage points" just happened to be the one that caught on. (Or maybe it's just the one currently in vogue--maybe there was an older term with a similar meaning!) Unfortunately any word filling that need is going to have the same problems of being used a unit of measure that doesn't follow all the rules of dimensional analysis.

Maybe it would have been better if instead English used entirely different ways to unambiguously describe the relationship between ratios that didn't end up requiring something like "percentage points". I imagine (or at least hope) that there are languages out there with much less awkward approaches. But at this point, English is stuck with percentage points when one wants to unambiguously discus the magnitude of the arithmetic difference between two ratios.

Obviously, many people don't follow the convention because they aren't familiar with the terminology. One could choose to deliberately flout the convention when communicating, but that's just like deliberately flouting the rules of grammar: it comes at a cost in both comprehensibility and in potential judgement from those familiar with the convention. (It's arguably harder to get away with flouting "percentage points" than flouting grammar rules, simply because in grammar there is sometimes a choice between competing conventions, particularly between British and American English or dueling style guides. In the case of "percentage points", there's no other competing convention that I'm familiar with, so you'd be on a lonely crusade.)

[Frogreaver]

Except no. Not really. You're pretty much the only one claiming that 12.5pp is 12.5%, regardless of context. Even the few that weren't certain have realized it's not the case.

And in regards to your "disagreement" or claiming that it's an issue of terminology... no. It's neither. You don't get to disagree over what % represents, any more than you get to disagree what + or - represent. It's not a matter of perspective. Sticking a % next to a number turns said number into a fraction with the number as a numerator and 100 as the denominator. In the case of 60% that's been mentioned repeatedly, a 12.5% increase is a 12.5/100 increase, or 125/1000, or 1/8. Given that 1/8 of 60 is 7.5, increasing 60% by 12.5% is equivalent to 67.5%, as others have pointed out. 67.5% is obviously not 72.5%.

Unless you're making an entirely new system, what you've been supporting for a while now is flat-out wrong, no ifs or buts. It's not the convention of a single or even multiple posters in GitP. It's what the % means globally. That's not something debatable.

Probabilities can be expressed as decimals and have expected operations that can be applied for them. One is that you can add the probabilities of mutually exclusive events.

Representing those decimal probabilities to percents cannot affect that ability to add those mutually exclusive probabilities together as doing so would be entail that you’ve fundamentally changed their nature and not just their representation.

So I ask how would you say the following using probabilities percentage representations: the probability of hitting increased by .125 due to bless.

[Valmark]

Having a modifier so big that Bane "falls off the edge of the d20" is uncommon, will essentially never happen in actual play.

Setting that edge case aside, can you explain further what you mean by "Bane is affected by the to-hit, since it's effectivness depends on how big the bonus and the target to hit is"? Do you think it's untrue to say that Bane on a troll prevents (11+11+7.5)*0.125 = 3.6875 damage per round, on average?

Aside from the fact that I don't think we should set edge cases aside in this case... A troll attacking AC 26 at disadvantage (this is actually doable- a Bladesinger with Bladesong active could reach that much and more, and a Greater Invisibility would be enough to give disadvantage) doesn't even have a DPR of 3.6875. I don't think Bane can block damage that isn't there.

Same thing for, say, a troll attacking AC 24 while the target has resistance to the damage- it again wouldn't even reach a DPR of 3.6875. As such I don't think Bane could possibly block that damage- homewever if it was untied from the to-hit bonus and AC and only went off of the damage (like in the formula you used) it would bring damage into the negatives. Which I think we agree isn't possible.

[Frogreaver]

Yes, 60% + 12.5 percentage points equals 72.5%. No, that doesn't make 12.5 percentage points equivalent to 12.5%. :) The reason is because 12.5 percentage points has units and 12.5% does not. So just like 3 meters isn't equivalent to 3, 12.5 percentage points isn't equivalent to 12.5%, even though when it comes time to do the computation you're going to use the same numerical value for both.

I believe it was you that noted that percentage points were a unit and that % was dimensionless. One cannot add dimensionless numbers to numbers with units. It's incorrect to do so. For example you can't do 12 + 5 apples = 17 apples. It's not a correct statement. You elaborate some on this below and so I'll address that there.


I'm sympathetic to your point about breaking other rules, because it is true that "percentage points" doesn't behave consistently with the physical units studied in dimensional analysis. Just the fact that it's meaningful to sum a dimensionless number like a percentage and a quantity with units like percentage points is a little bizarre. Technically speaking, the equation 60% + 12.5 percentage points = 72.5% lacks dimensional homogeneity, as would be required by dimensional analysis if percentage points was a physical quantity. But since percentage points isn't a physical quantity, percentage points are outside of the scope of dimensional analysis and so the rules of dimensional analysis don't apply. So "percentage points" doesn't actually break any mathematical rules, despite the inconsistencies with how units for physical quantities are treated.

First of all, THANK YOU for putting it this way because it's a much better explanation of my issue than I think most are hearing from me.

However, I don't believe you are correct in your assessment that dimensional analysis is only true for 'physical' quantities. It's also true (or at least a similar concept is true) for complex numbers, vectors, algebraic expressions with multiple variables, etc.. One can't simplify 4+3i to 7i for example. It's really rather universal in that regard.


Maybe it would help to think about it linguistically rather than mathematically. When comparing any two values, there is a difference between comparing them proportionately (e.g. as ratios) and absolutely.

See I get that part. In fact my normal method of referring to the difference is relatively and absolutely when I'm explaining the difference to someone. It's not that I struggle with the concept as it seems so many here are trying to address - i get the concept, i get the purpose of 'percentage points' and i still disagree that they are mathematically sensible.


Normally distinguishing the two cases isn't an issue, but it becomes an issue when one wants to compare two values that are themselves proportions. In this context "percentage points" is just the English word describing the result of comparing those two proportions absolutely, rather than proportionately. We needed some word to refer to that concept, and "percentage points" just happened to be the one that caught on. (Or maybe it's just the one currently in vogue--maybe there was an older term with a similar meaning!) Unfortunately any word filling that need is going to have the same problems of being used a unit of measure that doesn't follow all the rules of dimensional analysis.

I agree any word will have similar problems. I don't propose alternate words for that reason. But I did propose one solution that seems to get rid of all the weirdness while leaving us able to distinguish. That solution was simply referring to percentages for probabilities as probabilistic percents. I don't think anyone will use that solution - but it's done to demonstrate such is possible.


Maybe it would have been better if instead English used entirely different ways to unambiguously describe the relationship between ratios that didn't end up requiring something like "percentage points". I imagine (or at least hope) that there are languages out there with much less awkward approaches. But at this point, English is stuck with percentage points when one wants to unambiguously discus the magnitude of the arithmetic difference between two ratios.

I've gotten by explaining the concept of absolute and relative percent increases just fine without ever resorting to percentage points. I really don't think it's that difficult.


Obviously, many people don't follow the convention because they aren't familiar with the terminology. One could choose to deliberately flout the convention when communicating, but that's just like deliberately flouting the rules of grammar: it comes at a cost in both comprehensibility and in potential judgement from those familiar with the convention. (It's arguably harder to get away with flouting "percentage points" than flouting grammar rules, simply because in grammar there is sometimes a choice between competing conventions, particularly between British and American English or dueling style guides. In the case of "percentage points", there's no other competing convention that I'm familiar with, so you'd be on a lonely crusade.)

I don't think so. I think there's a strong case to be made that percentage points either aren't necessary at all or that there are better methods to reach the goal of unambiguity. I really believe the conceptual baggage of percentage points - where they don't behave as they should - really convolutes math and makes it harder to learn.

[Chaos Jackal]

Probabilities can be expressed as decimals and have expected operations that can be applied for them. One is that you can add the probabilities of mutually exclusive events.

Representing those decimal probabilities to percents cannot affect that ability to add those mutually exclusive probabilities together as doing so would be entail that you’ve fundamentally changed their nature and not just their representation.

So I ask how would you say the following using probabilities percentage representations: the probability of hitting increased by .125 due to bless.

If the probability of hitting is increased by .125, or 1/8... what is 1/8 of 60 again? Because it's not 12.5.

Look, you can argue for this all you want. Personally, I can't be bothered about people who don't want to even consider the possibility that they're wrong or that they misunderstood something. You wanna carry on believing that 12.5% and 12.5pp is the same thing, go ahead. All you do is sticking to your mistakes, failing to learn anything, and embarass yourself.

I don't have anything else to say to you. Your improvement is your issue, not mine.

[Frogreaver]

If the probability of hitting is increased by .125, or 1/8... what is 1/8 of 60 again? Because it's not 12.5.


Thanks for another great example of how the people arguing for percentage points are all over the place in their explanations. Just a few pages back your 'allies' (for lack of a better word) were saying that bless did add .125 to the probability to hit. Now you are saying it doesn't.

[PhantomSoul]

I believe it was you that noted that percentage points were a unit and that % was dimensionless. One cannot add dimensionless numbers to numbers with units. It's incorrect to do so. For example you can't do 12 + 5 apples = 17 apples. It's not a correct statement. You elaborate some on this below and so I'll address that there.

First of all, THANK YOU for putting it this way because it's a much better explanation of my issue than I think most are hearing from me.

However, I don't believe you are correct in your assessment that dimensional analysis is only true for 'physical' quantities. It's also true (or at least a similar concept is true) for complex numbers, vectors, algebraic expressions with multiple variables, etc.. One can't simplify 4+3i to 7i for example. It's really rather universal in that regard.

But here the numbers sneakily are of a comparable type; it's more like 12 apples + 15 more of them = 27. 60% + 12.5 more of them = 62.5%. "pp" are like "more percents" and when it's not being added to anything you can infer that it's "more than no percents" which means percents.



I agree any word will have similar problems. I don't propose alternate words for that reason. But I did propose one solution that seems to get rid of all the weirdness while leaving us able to distinguish. That solution was simply referring to percentages for probabilities as probabilistic percents. I don't think anyone will use that solution - but it's done to demonstrate such is possible.

I've gotten by explaining the concept of absolute and relative percent increases just fine without ever resorting to percentage points. I really don't think it's that difficult.

Really, having a different term could be easier, or actually distinguishing it in the place it matters (proportionally increasing by X% vs. additively/numerically increasing by X%, or maybe an absolute increase vs. a proportional increase)... but this thread definitely isn't one where I'd say you get by explaining the concept just fine. (Though really, absolute increases basically never are relevant to me and I think it's usually dumb when they're used for politics, so maybe I'm biased.) But specifying what it's relative to already gets the benefit of absolutes -- e.g. negating damage in 12.5% of attacks ( <-- just a sneaky way of saying 100%), but not negating 12.5% of damage ( <-- because most damage doesn't land, so the damage wasn't based on 100% of attacks unless you say things very differently).


I really believe the conceptual baggage of percentage points - where they don't behave as they should - really convolutes math and makes it harder to learn.

The math doesn't seem to have any problem with it, just like it handles the existence of angles (where we could really just use a function of two distances to give the same value!) or of logarithms (after all, it complicates the math and you then have these laws that don't apply to non-logarithms) or of exponents (pesky laws too!) or of imaginary numbers or fractions or decimals... But it does sound like it might not be taught intuitively enough (and maybe not early enough), and maybe that snowballs. But percentage points really just is a way of saying "more percents" here.

[Valmark]

Thanks for another great example of how the people arguing for percentage points are all over the place in their explanations. Just a few pages back your 'allies' (for lack of a better word) were saying that bless did add .125 to the probability to hit. Now you are saying it doesn't.

Note that "add .125" does not mean "increase by .125". One is X+.125 and the other is X+X*.125.

Like Segev said if you look at the context it's likely there was no confusion even in previous posts.

The contradiction I recall was only the one Xalathar (sorry if I'm misspelling it) explained about measuring units (namely that pp was one but % wasn't). And even then it wasn't actually a contradiction, but rather a correction.

[Frogreaver]

Note that "add .125" does not mean "increase by .125". One is X+.125 and the other is X+X*.125.

Like Segev said if you look at the context it's likely there was no confusion even in previous posts.

The contradiction I recall was only the one Xalathar (sorry if I'm misspelling it) explained about measuring units (namely that pp was one but % wasn't). And even then it wasn't actually a contradiction, but rather a correction.

I guess what I’d ask is: how would you say bless increased the probability of hitting by .125 but instead of using .125 you must use the 12.5% that this probability can be represented by. Can you describe that in words the way I did for the .125 representation above.

Do you actually have an answer?

[Valmark]

I guess what I’d ask is: how would you say bless increased the probability of hitting by .125 but instead of using .125 you must use the 12.5% that this probability can be represented by. Can you describe that in words the way I did for the .125 representation above.

Do you actually have an answer?

Assuming you mean going from 60% to 72.5%: Bless increased the probability of hitting by adding 12.5 pp or by 20.83% (60/100*20.83=12.5).
Well to be fair the calculation isn't exact since the percentage would be a periodical number, I'm rounding to 20.83.

If you mean increasing 60% by 12.5% then it adds 7.5 pp (60/100*12.5=7.5) bringing it up to 67.5%.

[Frogreaver]

Assuming you mean going from 60% to 72.5%: Bless increased the probability of hitting by adding 12.5 pp or by 20.83% (60/100*20.83=12.5).
Well to be fair the calculation isn't exact since the percentage would be a periodical number, I'm rounding to 20.83.

If you mean increasing 60% by 12.5% then it adds 7.5 pp (60/100*12.5=7.5) bringing it up to 67.5%.

Neither are what i asked. I want you to give me a description in words using the 12.5 percent representation of blesses probability to hit such that it’s clear the that 12.5% gets added to your base chance to hit of 60% to bring your total chance of hitting to 72.5%. Are you saying that’s impossible?

[Gignere]

If I say bless adds +12.5% chance to hit - is that 12.5% a reference to the .125 probability that it’s adding or to a relative percentage increase. It’s still ambiguous. And adding in percentage points only makes things objectively worse - because now I can say things about the exact same quantity in percentage points terms that you are saying is incorrect for saying it in percent terms. That’s the problem. If percentage points and percent really are the same thing then you could use them interchangeably. If you cannot then They are not and combing them by addition is not possible.

Take stats 101 or if you took it already you need to read your text book again. You are entirely conflating percent and percentage points. No one with any amount of statistical training would use it the way you suggest.

[Frogreaver]

Take stats 101 or if you took it already you need to read your text book again. You are entirely conflating percent and percentage points. No one with any amount of statistical training would use it the way you suggest.

Appeal to authority is not a strong defense.

[Gignere]

Appeal to authority is not a strong defense.

It’s not appeal to authority I’m telling you to go do your own research. Just go and read any stats 101 text book since you are not going to to trust Wikipedia links so helpfully provided by other posters.

[Frogreaver]

But here the numbers sneakily are of a comparable type; it's more like 12 apples + 15 more of them = 27. 60% + 12.5 more of them = 62.5%. "pp" are like "more percents" and when it's not being added to anything you can infer that it's "more than no percents" which means percents.

While a somewhat better explanation it still leaves us in that odd place because we don't add meters together using 12 meters + 15 meter points = 27 meters. The normal way to show you have X more of a quantity is to label it the same as the previous quantity. Which again - makes this thing not behave like any other thing in math.


Really, having a different term could be easier, or actually distinguishing it in the place it matters (proportionally increasing by X% vs. additively/numerically increasing by X%, or maybe an absolute increase vs. a proportional increase)... but this thread definitely isn't one where I'd say you get by explaining the concept just fine. (Though really, absolute increases basically never are relevant to me and I think it's usually dumb when they're used for politics, so maybe I'm biased.) But specifying what it's relative to already gets the benefit of absolutes -- e.g. negating damage in 12.5% of attacks ( <-- just a sneaky way of saying 100%), but not negating 12.5% of damage ( <-- because most damage doesn't land, so the damage wasn't based on 100% of attacks unless you say things very differently).

Amazing how it's actually not that hard to come up with alternate ways of explaining the concept - none of which require all the nonsense that percentage points require.


The math doesn't seem to have any problem with it, just like it handles the existence of angles (where we could really just use a function of two distances to give the same value!) or of logarithms (after all, it complicates the math and you then have these laws that don't apply to non-logarithms) or of exponents (pesky laws too!) or of imaginary numbers or fractions or decimals... But it does sound like it might not be taught intuitively enough (and maybe not early enough), and maybe that snowballs. But percentage points really just is a way of saying "more percents" here.

Sorry, but when you go out in left field like this to try to discredit my position it actually weakens your position.

[Reynaert]

That's not that big a deal IMO, since you can't use your reaction for both Shield and opportunity attacks anyway. The requirement for a free hand simply forces you to decide up front whether you're going to end your turn with a weapon in hand (for opportunity attacks and/or Defensive Duelist) or with an empty hand, prepared to Shield.

I agree that it is a restriction and it is nice to get around it via Warcaster, I'm just saying it's not as big of a restriction as it looks on paper, because of reaction economy.

AFAIK, you can only have one "free object interaction" on your turn. So AIUI you can either draw your weapon or sheathe it, but not both, and your 'shield-spell' capability is only 'on' every second round.

And drawing and sheathing your sword multiple times is a bit odd... Maybe if you're playing a samurai, it's iaido style? :P

[MaxWilson]

Aside from the fact that I don't think we should set edge cases aside in this case... A troll attacking AC 26 at disadvantage (this is actually doable- a Bladesinger with Bladesong active could reach that much and more, and a Greater Invisibility would be enough to give disadvantage) doesn't even have a DPR of 3.6875. I don't think Bane can block damage that isn't there.

Yes, that's what "falling off the d20" is. Do you think a Dex 20 Int 20 Bladesinger with Mage Armor and a Cloak of Protection +3 (to reach AC 26) or the equivalent is actually going to cast Greater Invisibility against a Troll? If he did, do you you really think anyone would really bother casting Bane against it? Do you really think the Troll would keep attacking the AC 26 Bladesinger instead of switching to an AC 19-21 PC?

In every normal case, like an AC 21 Bladesinger, Bane merely reduces the Troll's to-hit to a minimum of +3, which means you don't fall off the d20, and the 3.6875 figure is accurate. This makes Bane's impact simpler to compute than most spells because you don't need to make assumptions about the target's AC (or even which target the Troll is attacking), except in those edge cases.

Can you explain more about why you think edge cases can't be neglected in this analysis? Are whole parties full of AC 26 (without Shield) PCs so important that you feel compelled to do a whole bunch of extra work computing their frequency, so that you can weight the 3.6875 figure downward to 3.6422 (or whatever) to account for PC AC distributions? I'm not neglecting edge cases because they matter--I'm neglecting them because they are rare, they're a pain to compute, and because they are so rare I don't expect them to materially change the analysis's conclusions.


Same thing for, say, a troll attacking AC 24 while the target has resistance to the damage- it again wouldn't even reach a DPR of 3.6875. As such I don't think Bane could possibly block that damage- homewever if it was untied from the to-hit bonus and AC and only went off of the damage (like in the formula you used) it would bring damage into the negatives. Which I think we agree isn't possible.

A troll attacking AC 24 also falls off the edge of the d20 50% of the time. But the Troll can also switch targets to a non-AC 24 target, and one reason I want to neglect this edge case is so that we don't have to have an argument about how common AC 24 is and whether the Troll would switch targets to a different PC.

================================================== =========


AFAIK, you can only have one "free object interaction" on your turn. So AIUI you can either draw your weapon or sheathe it, but not both, and your 'shield-spell' capability is only 'on' every second round.

And drawing and sheathing your sword multiple times is a bit odd... Maybe if you're playing a samurai, it's iaido style? :P

The actual PHB rule is that you can interact with one object for free on your turn. But you're right that many DMs do restrict it to one interaction with one object, although they don't typically apply that same logic to e.g. spell component pouches (take out the pouch, open it, extract eye of newt, cast Hex, place eye back in pouch, close pouch). YMMV.

Sheathing your sword (in rare, tough fights) in order to keep your hands mostly free for Shield spells doesn't strike me as strange, just cautious.

[Mitchellnotes]

Trying to keep up with all the math, it sounds like there is an argument about whether bane hits diminishing returns? What I'm hearing is that bless is even better when trying to make a save you would otherwise have a lower chance of making because it has a larger proportional increase in terms of when you would make it or pass it.

[Frogreaver]

It’s not appeal to authority I’m telling you to go do your own research. Just go and read any stats 101 text book since you are not going to to trust Wikipedia links so helpfully provided by other posters.

Taken stats 101. Taken the senior level cal based / proof based prob and stat as well. Don't need a refresher. There's somethings you understand what they are trying to do and you hold your nose at and give them the answer the want and move on. Percentage Points is 1 such thing. You seem to be taking the position that I must not understand what they are in order disagree with their use, when I fully understand what they are and still disagree with their use.

Why do you assume people must be uneducated on the topic to disagree with you?

[PhantomSoul]

While a somewhat better explanation it still leaves us in that odd place because we don't add meters together using 12 meters + 15 meter points = 27 meters. The normal way to show you have X more of a quantity is to label it the same as the previous quantity. Which again - makes this thing not behave like any other thing in math.

Amazing how it's actually not that hard to come up with alternate ways of explaining the concept - none of which require all the nonsense that percentage points require.

Well when the actual explanations don't work, a made-up alternative that gets the right outcome seemed like a reasonable possibility for success. (And "12 meters + 15 meter points" isn't really an argument against it, it's just agreement that "meter points" doesn't exist -- because meters aren't proportional in the same way to begin with.)



Sorry, but when you go out in left field like this to try to discredit my position it actually weakens your position.

This wasn't to discredit you (to be honest, I'm still not getting why this is supposed to be a problem for math), it was to show that there's plenty in math that can be confusing or seem to create new rules or have niche interpretations (hell, multiplication for matrices also is "special" and sure that's confusing at first but you get used to multiplication meaning a specific operation for matrices). Percentage points are easier than the comparisons/examples from my perspective -- it's just saying you're changing the raw value ignoring it's a percentage that you're changing.

EDIT:


... when I fully understand what they are and still disagree with their use.
?

TBH, I agree that usually I want the proportional information and don't care about the percentage points. (That includes for Bane and Bless, where obviously assumptions have to be made beyond just simplifying things into average rolls to get 12.5% to begin with.)

[MaxWilson]

Trying to keep up with all the math, it sounds like there is an argument about whether bane hits diminishing returns? What I'm hearing is that bless is even better when trying to make a save you would otherwise have a lower chance of making because it has a larger proportional increase in terms of when you would make it or pass it.

Typically it's useful to look at relative percentages when you're analyzing something that interacts with player decision-making, especially if it doesn't cost resources. E.g. if you can cut your chance of being turned to stone by a Medusa in half, from 40% to 20%, you may be more willing to risk venturing into a Medusa's lair in search of treasure. In this scenario, the difference between 40% vs. 20% is far more important than the difference between 100% and 80%, even though the absolute change in percentage is the exact same.

The Bane penalty isn't large enough to affect decision-making IMO, except in those rare high-stakes corner cases like Planar Binding and Command Undead. You're going to kill the troll either way, so analyzing Bane is just about seeing whether it will save you enough HP to justify the opportunity cost.

[Frogreaver]

Well when the actual explanations don't work, a made-up alternative that gets the right outcome seemed like a reasonable possibility for success. (And "12 meters + 15 meter points" isn't really an argument against it, it's just agreement that "meter points" doesn't exist -- because meters aren't proportional in the same way to begin with.)

It's an illustration of why such 'points' have never been introduced anywhere else in math.



This wasn't to discredit you (to be honest, I'm still not getting why this is supposed to be a problem for math), it was to show that there's plenty in math that can be confusing or seem to create new rules or have niche interpretations (hell, multiplication for matrices also is "special" and sure that's confusing at first but you get used to multiplication meaning a specific operation for matrices). Percentage points are easier than the comparisons/examples from my perspective -- it's just saying you're changing the raw value ignoring it's a percentage that you're changing.

Maybe this will help.

@Xetheral Said:
"I'm sympathetic to your point about breaking other rules, because it is true that "percentage points" doesn't behave consistently with the physical units studied in dimensional analysis. Just the fact that it's meaningful to sum a dimensionless number like a percentage and a quantity with units like percentage points is a little bizarre. Technically speaking, the equation 60% + 12.5 percentage points = 72.5% lacks dimensional homogeneity, as would be required by dimensional analysis if percentage points was a physical quantity. But since percentage points isn't a physical quantity, percentage points are outside of the scope of dimensional analysis and so the rules of dimensional analysis don't apply. So "percentage points" doesn't actually break any mathematical rules, despite the inconsistencies with how units for physical quantities are treated."

I replied:
"First of all, THANK YOU for putting it this way because it's a much better explanation of my issue than I think most are hearing from me.

However, I don't believe you are correct in your assessment that dimensional analysis is only true for 'physical' quantities. It's also true (or at least a similar concept is true) for complex numbers, vectors, algebraic expressions with multiple variables, etc.. One can't simplify 4+3i to 7i for example. It's really rather universal in that regard."

I think that sums up the issue I'm addressing fairly well.

[PhantomSoul]

It's an illustration of why such 'points' have never been introduced anywhere else in math.


...that seems to also illustrate that could be useful for percentages because they lead to a different interpretation...
(Wow, I've actually been reduced to making a statement somewhat in favour of percentage points as a number that's being given outside of their limited use case. That sounds like snark, but I hate percentage points for the most part so this is legitimately a surprise!)

[Valmark]

Neither are what i asked. I want you to give me a description in words using the 12.5 percent representation of blesses probability to hit such that it’s clear the that 12.5% gets added to your base chance to hit of 60% to bring your total chance of hitting to 72.5%. Are you saying that’s impossible?

Bless adds 12.5 percentage points to your 60 percent, bringing it up to 72.5 percent (I'm doing 60+12.5).

Or I could say that Bless increases your 60 percent by 20.83 percent, bringing it up to 72.5 percent (I'm doing 60/100*20.83+60). The absolute increase is of 12.5 percentage points.

Or I could say that it adds 12.5 percent to 60 percent, bringing it up to 72.5 percent (From what I understood this is tecnically not accurate but still comprehensible) but not that it increases by 12.5 percent.

I might be able to keep going but you probably understand it by now- "adding 12.5%" to 60% is the same as "increasing it by 20.83%" but not the same as "increasing it by 12.5%" (which is what started the whole discussion).

[PhantomSoul]

I might be able to keep going but you probably understand it by now- "adding 12.5%" to 60% is the same as "increasing it by 20.83%" but not the same as "increasing it by 12.5%" (which is what started the whole discussion).

To be fair, at least in post 93, Frogreaver did use "add" rather than "increase by" (granted, qualified it with "but it's actually much lower than that because you've got to factor in your chance of hitting with bane first", which I think is what started this, but it's ambiguous between Bane successfully landing and the attack hitting without Bane applying).