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2015-11-14, 01:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
Remember that levitate can be used on an enemy as well. If they fail their save they are suspended in midair and a sitting duck. The flexibility to use on yourself, an ally or against an opponent leads me to think the current black rating is correct. It is a versatile spell. Also when the spell ends or you lose concentration the target floats down instead of falling like with fly. That is important if you are levitating and something bad happens.
But I agree that fly is better. That is why it's blue.Last edited by Ogre Mage; 2015-11-14 at 01:51 AM.
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2015-11-14, 02:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
I just wanted to mention I recently started playing a sorcerer with careful spell (the first time I have played the class in any edition) so I find this discussion very useful.
I was wondering about Quickened Spell. Conventional wisdom is that this is an essential pick and for gishes and blaster sorcerers it certainly is. But for more of a control-oriented sorcerer like myself it seems ... solid but perhaps not essential. So I didn't take it. Is there is something that I am missing?
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2015-11-14, 02:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
quicken is obviously less valuable to a control sorcerer, but still has some value. for starters, being able to burst when you need to (and sometimes you will probably need to) is obviously not a bad thing, even if you don't mean for that to be your primary role. for another thing, there are a few spells that combine well with quicken because they give you a standard action that is *not* casting a spell, in particular, sunbeam gives you an AoE blind, eyebite gives you a targeted effect of your choice, investiture of ice gives you an AoE slow and a zone of difficult terrain to use with it, investiture of stone gives you an AoE prone (which combines well with careful spell again), and investiture of wind gives you an AoE push (which can also combo well with careful, depending). watery sphere also gives you a potentially useful action (depending on whether you've filled the sphere or not). there are a few others as well. the main point is that quicken prevents you from casting another spell in the same round other than a cantrip, but activating a sunbeam or moving a dust devil is *not* casting a spell. so go right ahead and quicken a spell of your choice in the same round that you activate sunbeam. or, for that matter, quicken sunbeam, and then activate it with your regular action too (nothing limits you to using it once per turn).
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2015-11-14, 08:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
We will continue to disagree on this. I have made my feelings known.
To add to Ogre Mage's comments, when Levitate becomes available, you can't pick fly.
It is not a unique effect. Greater Invisibility has the same effect, but much better. That's why it is blue.
That is entirely up to the DM, and as such is outside the scope of this guide.
Sharkforce nails it. Quickened spell can free up a lot of actions that are not casting a spell, and so many controller spells in the Sorcerer list rely on using an action. Quickened allows you to continue casting spells while simultaneously controlling the major effects that you've put into play.Last edited by EvilAnagram; 2015-11-14 at 08:46 AM.
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2015-11-14, 10:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
There is a world of difference between what you can do in 2 minutes with a shovel and two minutes with Mold earth. The latter is going to give you a 5ft deep ditch with a five foot pile of earth behind it that's 60 ft long. Or double depth/height and 30ft long. A shovel won't even give you a 5 ft pit.
Mage Hand is situational because its ability to affect the world around you in any meaningful way is incredibly limited. Your ability to pick up something from a short distance away will have very little effect on anything that happens in the game. There are certainly going to be situations in which it will be important to the way a game continues, but those are few and far between.
I feel like you're playing 5e mostly as a series of battles, and building a sorcerer guide based on that. for example, rating message as purple (typically means low or limited situational use). The situations in which message can be useful are common enough in average campaigns that aren't heavy combat focus to rate it black. Your heavy focus on twinned spell metamagic seems to indicate the same. Rating everything that's non-combat as 'situational' also shows your game style you're writing a guide to. You implied as much in your introduction by taking about blasty with utility, but you really need to just outright state that it's a guide for making heavily combat-focused sorcerers, not a general sorcerer guide. That'll cut down on the number of counter augments you're going to get.
Edit: made my post less antagonistic, and more pointing out what I see as the source of disagreement.Last edited by Tanarii; 2015-11-14 at 10:44 AM.
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2015-11-14, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
I'm not disputing that you can do more with Mold Earth than you can with a shovel in a time crunch, I'm disputing the notion that you will ever find yourself in a situation in which you have the forewarning to prepare for a pitched battle, no natural defenses to use to your advantage, and enough time to prepare with Mold Earth, but not enough time to grab a few shovels. Or rather, I think you might, but not more than once.
Why are people acting like I don't like Mage Hand? I love Mage Hand. My Transmuter uses it all the time, but it's still situational. It does not make him more effective at influencing the world around him on a regular basis. It's useful once every two or three sessions, and it's a lot of fun, but it's still only situationally useful.
Message is a perfectly good spell. I think it's black on an Arcane Trickster since you can speak to the party while you scout. It's okay for a Sorcerer, but it's not one of the standouts. Again, you're acting like purple is a bad rating. It isn't. It just means it's not going to be one of the spells you rely on regularly.
Here are some non-combat spells I've rated, with the rating they had as of your post. I have since revised Friends and Disguise Self.
Spoiler: Non-Combat Spells- Light
- Minor Illusion
- Charm Person
- Detect Magic
- Invisibility
- Misty Step
- Spider Climb
- Suggestion
- Feather Fall
- Major Image
- Dimension Door
- Seeming
- Teleportation Circle
- Arcane Gate
- Mass Suggestion
- Move Earth
- True Seeing
- Etherealness
- Teleport
- Gate
It's an optimization guide. Optimization guides tend to focus on combat utility. It's also a general sorcerer guide, and I purposefully included a lot of out-of-combat utility because I tend to run and play games that frequently involve out-of-combat interactions.
And I welcome counter arguments. I'm just not necessarily going to agree with their conclusions, especially when one of the bases of the argument is that a purple rating is somehow bad.Last edited by EvilAnagram; 2015-11-14 at 12:08 PM.
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2015-11-14, 12:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
You aren't using the same standard for purple as most other guides. Purple usually means a situation that doesn't arise often. Not only good in some situations. Is a judgement on the frequency of the situation, not just that it's specific in its use to certain situations.
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2015-11-14, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
I think I was fairly clear in my description of how I rated purple abilities in my very first post. I could try clarifying it, but I've tried to be consistent across my guides in that purple is not a bad rating. It simply means that the spell/ability is either going to be used only occasionally, or its effects will not heavily influence your ability to affect the game.
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2015-11-14, 12:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
Neither of which applies to Mage Hand or Message, unless you're playing a combat-heavy/oriented campaign or character.
What you just described is perfect for Mold Earth in its short-time-available battlefield prep role.Last edited by Tanarii; 2015-11-14 at 12:37 PM.
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2015-11-14, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
They fall under, "its effects will not heavily influence your ability to affect the game." Even in non-combat games, Minor Illusion and Friends will be more useful.
A cantrip whose only use (which, I might add, is a combat use) might come up once in a campaign goes well beyond only being occasionally useful.5e Bard's Guide
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2015-11-14, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
A nitpick, but it's one that we Sorcerer players need to be extra cautious with:
For Pyrotechnics, you suggest a Quickened Create Bonfire with Pyrotechnics. You have to do it the other way round, a quickened spell, once cast, limits you to a Cantrip spell as your action. So, it's Action: Create Bonfire, Quickened bonus action: Pyrotechnics.
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2015-11-14, 04:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
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2015-11-15, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
just noticed something... i have to disagree with your assessment of silent image.
what can you do with it that you can't do with minor illusion?
1) combine it with minor illusion to get both sound and sight effects.
2) cover 27 times the volume
3) create an illusion of a creature
4) create an illusion of "some other visible phenomenon" (offhand, this would probably include, say, fire, which is not an object or a creature per se).
5) move the illusion.
6) use it at double the range.
7) arguably have the image move at all (minor illusion doesn't specify it can't, but silent image and major illusion both make special note of the fact that in addition to being able to move the illusion's location, you can also make the image move appropriate to the change in location, such as making a creature appear to walk).
now, there is *definitely* something to be said for the ability to use minor illusion at-will, plus the fact that minor illusion is only competing with other cantrips whereas silent image is competing with one of your extremely precious 15 spells known. not saying your rating is inherently wrong (though as with most illusions i consider it more situational on DM than what is happening in game), but it is definitely a substantial improvement on minor illusion in a variety of ways.
likewise your comments with major image. it isn't just bigger. it has better range, allows you to combine sound and image 4 times as far away as the silent image/minor illusion combo, and covers an additional two senses (fire is a lot more convincing when it looks, sounds, smells, and feels hot like fire). lastly, at higher levels you can make the image permanent and concentration-free. which means that, for example, you can expend a level 6 slot today to create an illusion of a fog cloud, introduce everyone in your party to the fake fog cloud so they can see through it, and spend your actions for the rest of your life until someone dispels the fog cloud completely to start off every battle with a 20 foot cube of fog that you can see through but your enemies can't until they get close. heck, if you're willing to spend some prep time, you can technically learn the spell at level 11, spend a few weeks of downtime stockpiling major illusions, and then swap the spell out as soon as you hit level 12 and come back for a fresh copy of the illusion if anyone actually does blow a dispel on it (of course, being able to do something is not the same as it being a good idea for you to do that something; your DM may get slightly annoyed if you actually unlearn the spell).
again, neither spell is necessarily an automatic selection for a sorcerer, or even a good selection for a sorcerer most of the time (obviously, if being an illusionist is your goal, you want them, but not necessarily for a typical adventuring sorcerer). extremely limited spells known may even keep these spells rated purple for most campaigns. but those spells are in fact quite an improvement. the only reason i wouldn't put them as dark blue is the extremely crippling spells known limitation WotC felt necessary to impose on sorcerers.
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2015-11-15, 05:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
You make some good points. I don't think I'm going to change the ratings, but I've been clearer about their benefits and the reasoning behind their ratings. Honestly, I love illusion magic, and if Sorcerers didn't have so few spells known I would probably rate them higher.
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2015-11-17, 12:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
This is about invisibility. I just noticed, greater invisibility has a duration of 1 minute, while invisibility has a duration of 1 hour. So while greater invisibility is better for combat purposes, invisibility is still better (and probably one of the best spells for) for sneaking purposes.
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2015-11-18, 01:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-11-18, 02:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
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2015-11-18, 03:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
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2015-11-18, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
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2015-11-18, 07:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
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2015-11-19, 10:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
I want to point out Crown of Madness lasts for concentration or until save, and you can command the victim to move after their (non) attack.
Crown of Madness saved a party once in LMoP. Orcs heard the party coming, scrum started at the mouth of the cave, and the sorcerer dropped CoM on the ogre at the back of the pack. While the cleric and paladin fought the orcs at the front of the pack, the ogre smashed orcs at the back. After 3 or 4 rounds the ogre made his save, right about the time the paladin and cleric dropped from fighting two rows of orcs with the back ones flinging javelins.
Sorcerer reapplied CoM to the ogre. The remaining 2 orcs were engaged with the monk when the ogre got one of them from behind. The other one ran, and the orc and the ogre played tag while the monk poured potions into the front-line types and got them back on their feet. When the ogre made his save he was about 150' from the party, and took significant damage from ranged weapons before melee resumed.
No CoM, TPK.
In another campaign, Cloud of Daggers saved the party. Door was opened, Gibbering Mouthers started gibbering, and the fighter and the monk! failed their saves and were standing there ineffective while the mouthers moved out of the room. CoD dropped in the doorway and the mouthers because of their general stupidity and the fact they were starving moved right into the cloud, one at a time. Remaining party members poured fire into the mouther at the front while it bit at the drooling fighter and monk.
Fighter went down; the next round the last mouther was going to move onto him and devour him, and an arrow from the ranger dropped it. No CoD, fighter at a minimum lost.Last edited by Shining Wrath; 2015-11-19 at 10:45 AM.
This ... is my signature finishing move!
"It's never good when you make a fiend cringe" - MadGrady
According to some online quiz, I'm a 6th level TN Wizard. They didn't give me full XP for all the monsters I've defeated while daydreaming.
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2015-11-19, 10:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
that isn't how crown of madness works.
you don't have any control over their movement whatsoever. if you did, it would indeed make the spell a whole heck of a lot more useful, and it would be well worth blue or maybe even sky blue for a sorcerer (since you could twin it for impressive results).
the way the spell actually works would be more along the lines of the ogre simply moving away from its allies and then acting normally on each turn (perhaps making non-proficient ranged attacks with thrown rocks or something). the main difference would really be that the orcs aren't getting wrecked by the ogres tbh.
though, with ogres and orcs, there might be some ground to suggest that the orcs would take offence to being attacked and turn on the ogre. the main thing, though, is that the caster has no control whatsoever on your movement. it only allows you to force a melee attack against a target within reach.
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2015-11-19, 11:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
I'm willing to bump up Cloud of Daggers because when you can engineer a bottleneck, it really does perform fairly well. Crown of Madness, however, still seems too limited to me. Maybe getting a single attack in is pretty lame. If the orc had run toward your party instead of away the Ogre still wouldn't have been able to hit him and your back line would have been in trouble.
EDIT: To illustrate my point on CoM, you could have just used Suggestion, which also targets WIS, but doesn't involve repeated saves, and just told the ogre to crush those orcs. He could have used his full turn each round to attack the orcs, whose only recourse would have been to run away or to attack him. You wouldn't have gotten repeated saves, you wouldn't have lost his attack each turn he didn't start next to someone, and you still would have neutralized his threat. You could even have just told him to run away, and he would have. In fact, Crown of Madness is strictly inferior to Suggestion.Last edited by EvilAnagram; 2015-11-19 at 04:04 PM.
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2015-11-19, 03:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
This ... is my signature finishing move!
"It's never good when you make a fiend cringe" - MadGrady
According to some online quiz, I'm a 6th level TN Wizard. They didn't give me full XP for all the monsters I've defeated while daydreaming.
http://easydamus.com/character.html
I am a Ranger Archetype: Gleaming Warden (thx to Ninja Prawn)
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2015-11-19, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
The spell says nothing that grants the caster control over the monster's movement, nor does the errata say anything to that effect. The creature attacks something adjacent to itself (the caster chooses what it attacks), and then it moves on its own volition. If it cannot attack when its turn starts, it acts normally during its turn.
What should have happened was the surviving orc moves away, and the ogre starts attacking the party.5e Bard's Guide
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2015-11-19, 08:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How to Rend Fiends and Immolate People: A Guide to Sorcery
Please make more of these guides! :D with WotC in their infinite cheapness deciding to to delete their forums, all the handbooks now exist solely on my hard drive and only for 4e. :(
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