The 5th Edition Spellbook app is a free tool that provides all spells from the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) books, including the Player’s Handbook (PHB), EEC, and SCA books. It allows users to make notes on spells and add their own for free. The app also includes a Combat Cheat Sheet, Combat Reference Sheet, and Player Reference Sheet.
Spells in D&D 5e have levels ranging from 0 to 9, with level 9 spells being almost world-shaping powers. Copying a spell into your spellbook involves reproducing the basic form of the spell and deciphering the unique system of notation used by the wizard who wrote it. The Dungeon Master’s role in spellcasting is crucial in incorporating spells into the campaign’s lore and story.
The 5etools app is designed as an easily-accessible digital reference for products already owned, but users should only access content in accordance with their local laws. The app allows users to list and filter all D&D 5e Spells with several options and can sort the list as needed.
The Pocket Compendium is a useful tool for keeping spell cards and artifact reference sheets all in one place. It is compatible with 5e Spell Cards and comes with 54 blank cards. Once a spell is learned, it is permanently stored in the user’s memory.
In summary, the 5th Edition Spellbook app is a valuable resource for players looking to learn and prepare spells for their role-playing game. It offers a visual reference and helps players understand the rules and types of spells used in the game.
📹 Five Gamebreaking Spells in D&D 5e (and how to handle them)
We take a look at five open-ended — and low-level — spells that commonly cause trouble and headaches at the game table.
Does copying a spell count as casting it again?
The number 706 is referenced. Ten states stipulate that the replication of a spell, activated ability, or triggered ability necessitates the placement of a duplicate on the stack, thereby precluding the casting of the original spell or the activation of the activated ability.
Does anyone use spell components in DND?
D&D spells frequently comprise a combination of verbal, somatic, or material elements. However, players and Dungeon Masters frequently neglect to consider the necessity of material components in commonly utilized spells. This is attributable to the constraints imposed on spellcasting in the event of a character being immobilized or silenced, and the browser’s inability to support cookies.
How does spells known work in D&D?
A spell is a discrete magical effect that shapes the energies that suffuse the multiverse into a specific, limited expression. To use a spell, a spellcaster must have the spell firmly fixed in mind or have access to it in a magic item. Certain classes, like bards and sorcerers, have a limited list of known spells. Spellcasting is a crucial skill in fantasy gaming, and different character classes have unique ways of learning and preparing their spells. A spell is a discrete magical effect that can be unleashed in seconds by carefully plucking at invisible strands of raw magic, pining them in place, and setting them vibrating.
How do warlocks know spells?
The Warlock table presents the number of spell slots and their level, indicating that all slots are of the same level. In order to cast a spell of 1st level or higher, it is necessary to expend a spell slot. All expended slots are restored following either a short or long rest. To illustrate, at the fifth level, two third-level spell slots are available. In order to cast a first-level spell, one slot must be expended and the spell is then cast as a third-level spell.
How do you calculate known spells in D&D?
The formula y=2x+4 can be employed to ascertain the total number of spells a Wizard is privy to, where x represents their Wizard level and y denotes the aggregate number of spells they are aware of, exclusive of any spells incorporated into their book.
Can wizards copy any spell in D&D?
As outlined in the Player’s Handbook, a wizard is able to replicate spells of 1st or higher level, provided they possess the requisite spell slots of that level. To illustrate, a 6th-level wizard would require 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-level slots.
Do cantrips count as spells known?
Cantrips are not associated with recognized or prepared spells and are analogous to the cantrips of other classes. These spells are not leveled and do not consume spell slots.
Can you cast identify on people?
Identification can be performed on an individual, though the process is relatively time-consuming and necessitates continuous contact. It should be noted that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by extensions such as ad blockers, and that not all browsers support cookies.
Can I cast a cantrip twice?
The Illusionist Bracers allow the caster to cast a repeated cantrip as a bonus action, in a manner similar to that of a sorcerer. In the absence of metamagic, the spell may be cast as a bonus action.
How many times can you cast a spell in D&D?
A spell may be cast once per round, or twice on special occasions, provided it is in the spell book. Nevertheless, cantrips may be cast as often as desired, provided that they adhere to the once per round rule. To illustrate, a wizard is able to cast the Fire Bolt spell a number of times equal to the number of rounds in a round, provided that the cows do not return home first.
How many spells can a D&D character know?
There are no restrictions on the number of spells that can be learned or prepared at a given level. Additionally, prepared casters have the option of selecting their spells at the commencement of a long rest. It should be noted, however, that JavaScript may be disabled or blocked by an extension, and that your browser does not support cookies.
📹 Spells and Spellcasting Guide for Dungeons and Dragons 5e
Share this video with new players who are learning how to play a spellcasting class for the first time! Watch us play live Tuesdays …
As always, the Dungeon Master is the final authority on how the rules work in play. This article is our opinion on ways DMs can make good rulings when these spells come up in play, not a handbook for players on how to abuse the rules. We’re curious if there are other potentially “game-breaking” spells you’d like to see us discuss in future articles!
My teacher in school is my DM. Last year my group fought a beholder at the end of the school year. At the beginning of this school year we forgot to level up. So my group then fought and Aboleth, I nearly died along with my other friends. After our victory with no deaths our DM let us level up 2 times since we didn’t level up after our Beholder fight. I took polymorph and the next day my DM hands me the stats and mini of a TREX.
I had a group pull a fast one on me with Suggestion against what was supposed to be a challenging bounty they were supposed to bring in. They’d worn themselves out against the peons in the area, thinking that they’d have to travel another day to catch up to the target- nope, the target was a clever ranger that had been waiting to ambush them. The Bard slaps suggestion down for the second time in the entire campaign. “Come sit by our fire and share in our beer and meat”. Eight hours later the target realies he’s been chilling with the party while they recover from what was supposed to be his advantage. Our Rogue even got the guy to teach him some trapping snares. I can’t even be mad. It was some really clever quick thinking.
Bit of a tip: I once rolled ridiculously high on my character (had 17,17,15,15,13,11). And decided to pick human. I could’ve obviously gone for regular human and round EVERYTHING upwards. but felt it was unsportsmanlike and just took variant and thought “let me just deliberately waste a feat on something that my barbarian will get 0 use out of”. Took find familiar. Vaguely recalled a variant rule for familiars at the back of the Monster manual. Asked the DM, they said “ok” and we tied it into the backstory. I was now a foundling barbarian, raised by a tiny pixie who he managed to bring back from the dead through find familiar. Then the game started and it quickly turned out i’d accidentally made myself some kind of half-warlock with 2 turns in initiative. and while familiars cant attack, they can still cast spells. Pixies know 4th level spells. My level 1 barbarian, had by complete accident, in my attempt at self sabotague, gotten access to spells that would take a full caster 8 levels to get access to.
I remember one time when we were running over a field with some rocks and sporadic trees (kinda like when the hobbits are hunted by that white orc Azog on the horses and wolves, except less trees, more open). Our druid was shifted into a crow and told to kaw once for things of notice, and kaw 2 times for danger. Suddenly the crow kawed twice, so we quickly looked around, and a fast angry gryphon slammed into the side of a horse one of us was riding on (the dragonborn sorcerer who spent the entire combat trying to get his stuck leg out from under the horse but failed until the end of the battle). While we fought the gryphon on the ground the druid crow was skydiving towards us to help. Eventually the gryphon got a bit hurt, turned around and slapped me to the ground with it’s wing and used the ground and me as a sprinting board to lead into the air to get airborne. Suddenly the gryphon and the crow was on collision course. Now… if they were to collide.. what damage would the tiny crow to towards the lion sized gryphon, not much, but it kept diving straight towards the gryphon. Right before colliding they started to go through the books looking for casting times and stuff. Suddenly the crow in midair turned into a huge brown bear seconds before slamming into the VERY confused gryphon. They tumbled around in the air, the bear managed to get ontop, and they slammed into the group. Our DM just shut the book and said “I’m not even going to count damage for that… the gryphon is feathers and paste now.
My favorite instance of using Suggestion to cheese an encounter was when I was playing as a Fierna Tiefling (Who got a once per day use of Suggestion) in Curse of Strahd. After we’d ransacked Baba Lysaga’s hut, she came back just as we were leaving with all of her stuff and started combat with us. When my turn came around I used Suggestion with the command “Uh…Strahd sent us…Go bother him!”. She immediately took off for Strahd’s castle to have some words with him and we beat feet as far away from that hut as possible. Strahd was very annoyed the next time we saw him…
The way I dmed polymorph, and my player turned into a nat and flew inside the bad guys head: He grew back into himself, and exploded out the bad guys head. The catch? HE blew up as well. A mixture of blood, guts, and brains from BOTH of them splattered everywhere. He was mad and demanded to know why. I told him, it’s conceivable that you could do that. But think about the toll on your body? Your suddenly turning into a human inside a tight area, and so your body is being forced together. And thus, this causes your body to crush itself as it expands. Splattering both of you Side note to all the people who are upset that I killed a player, the party had multiple was to bring people back from the dead. Come on guys, our job is to make the story and game memorable. What’s more memorable? Being told “no”, or having things blow up in your face so badly that it leads to you being splattered all over the place? Boohoo, he died, he was mad at first but then later on was laughing about it. And you know what, that’s one of his favorite player stories to tell. I consider that, proof of my job being a success.
Conjure Animals, using 8 Elks. With their Charge ability (2d6) combined with the Ram attack (1d6+3) against a single target. Thats a potential of 24d6+24 damage if all the Elks hit, (which some will not) and most likely the target is knocked prone, for a 3rd level spell. They obey verbal commands issues by you on their own Initiative no action required by you. This specific attack/spell combo has become known as the Jumaniji Stampede in more than one of my campaigns
“You look really thirsty. Here, drink this tea I brewed up. It’ll make you feel better.” – Wizard *Hands bad guy a potion of fireball.” Also, don’t use polymorph to unshrink inside of someone. Use a troll finger for that. Just burn or boil the rest of the troll in acid so it will regenerate from the finger. You really can renact that scene from all the Aliens movies.
My favorite use of Suggestion was from my halfling enchanter. We we’re traveling with the Red Wizards along the Sword Coast (HoTDQ). I had a small cart that my character Gob would sleep in. Right before bed, I’d spend an hour casting Glyph of Warding on the door handle, putting Suggestion in it. The trigger was if a creature is attempting to enter my cart with hostile intentions, then they would be suggested to walk back the way we came, for the next 8 hours. Walking overnight would cause exhaustion, and I’d be 16 hours away by the time they would wake up from their long rest.
A few things: – I would argue that suggesting someone walk north for 8 hours would seem strange and unreasonable. That’s my personal ruling on that particular one. – I like the Arcane Eye usage, but after revealing the dungeon, I would then cover it up again after the Arcane Eye leaves. That way, the wizard has the information but has to rely on his memory to recreate it with the party in real-time. It might even be cool to have the rest of the party leave the room while you reveal the map, thereby forcing him to relay all the information from memory to the rest of the party. That’s a great RP opportunity and I think most players would actually appreciate that element of realism.
My favorite usage of phantasmal force: a bard convinced a dragon mother, that morged her dead baby, that her baby was in fact still there. That’s the only time me as a dungeon master actually needed to make a five minute break to think about what to do next. In the end I just made the dragon lady ignore the adventures and curl up around her percieved baby. Then the adventurers argued until the spell ended and had to fight a really enraged bronze dragon. Needless to say they got killed and saw the “bad ending” of that oneshot. Because that dragon was actually good and they doomed the whole town by weakening her in combat. (I wouldn’t do a TPK in a campaign, but at the final boss of a oneshot I think it’s okay…)
I actually had a really interesting Suggestion story the other day. Succubus got caught after trying to sacrifice the local magic shop owner and we started getting our asses handed to us by her and her hellhound and imps. After failing a suggestion (she rolled a nat 18 on the save) and trying again and using inspiration to force her to reroll her nat 17 save, I managed to convince her to go back to her home plane, as she had nothing left to gain here (she thought the sacrifice was done). She did, and after stabilizing and saving the magic shop owner, we set a crazy trap outside the portal-mirror involving a bear trap, the snare spell, a duct-taped-to-the-wall +1 scythe (halberd stat block), and a few vials of holy water. She died instantly to the trap after the 8 hours of suggestion wore off… but then the big angry devil she brought with her stepped through because she obviously would bring friends since we pretty much ruined her whole plan. Ended up being a fun fight with the big demon, but suggestion was huge in letting us reset the fight and take out a key opponent to deal with later.
Suggestion is powerful, but don’t forget Mass Suggestion. I convinced a group of guards to simply go home instead of fighting us. My party was weak from combat after retrieving a mcguffin for a noble and long story short he ended up double crossing us and sent a group of elite guards to ‘arrest’ us. So before combat started, I addressed the guards with this simple suggestion, “If you don’t want to be here, go home.” Fight won with no bloodshed. Which is good because if we did fight them it would ruin our reputation in the city we were in.
For the Polymorph into enemy, I’d say that it’s very difficult to do mid-combat (enemies won’t sit still and willingly let insects enter them), the polymorphed also takes the HP of the tiny form and is thus easy to kill/stop. DM can just say that the enemy sneezed at the right time and expel player 10ft away. Additionally, if you transform back to full form from inside an enemy body, the DM can rule that the player ALSO takes tremendous damage in the process. Maybe even character death. That will stop most players from trying.
My favorite Suggestion is to tell a character to doff his armor. If it’s wearing heavy armor, that’s 100 rounds to do. During that time, he must spend his action every turn doing just that. And after it’s done, well, he no longer is wearing armor, and if he wants it back, that’s another 10 minutes of putting armor on. Saying “Here, let me hold that for you” and disarming your enemy. Telling a henchmen to introduce the party to the boss saying “We’re here to meet your boss, we have an appointment. Can you bring us to him?”, and then watch as this minion tranquilizes everyone in the compound going like “It’s fine guys! They have an appointment.”
A couple of honorable mentions I’d like to add… Anytime damage doesn’t have a way to be avoided, it can be game breaking. Not necessarily bad, but generating unintended consequences. Green Flame Blade: you have to roll a melee attack against your target. But the adjacent target takes damage with no way to avoid it. You wanna wear down the BBEG with the ultra high AC? GFB can do it, using his minions against him. Cloud of Daggers: it’s only a 5ft cube, but anything in it takes damage. Period. No save. So you can cast it, drag an enemy to it, grapple them there, and every round they take damage no matter what. Again, useful for opponents that are hard to hit. Spike Growth: again, no save damage. If you aren’t present when it is cast, you don’t even get a chance to know there’s anything wrong with the ground. When you try to move across it, it is difficult terrain, and you take damage for every square you move. No save. Just eat it. This is a real killer against an enemy that must close to melee range to hurt you, while you have ranged alternatives. Lastly, the lowly Fog Cloud… aka Darkness. Everyone loves the Darkness spell, but read up on the “heavily obscured” condition. That’s what Darkness does. Except that Fog Cloud does it with a level 1 slot, for a full hour. So you get the area denial benefit for longer, at a lower cost.
Best use of Polymorph I’ve seen was in an encounter where the group was on the sidelines of a major battle just trying to provide support. The wizard polymorphed into an eagle to scout the battlefield and found the enemy general’s tent and spotted the enemy general out in the open perusal the battlefield… without his helmet on. ….then the wizard landed on his head, and polymorphed into a rot grub. The look on the DM’s face as he tore-up the general’s NPC sheet was priceless.
Phantasmal Force is usually called the Looney Toons Spell, for its common use as a cartoonish diversion. Run from your enemy, one party member quickly hides the party using whatever skill they have while the wizard casts Phantasmal Force, creating the image of a dark opening in the wall in front, then watch as the enemy runs head first into a solid wall.
Something you forgot to mention for the first two spells was that they require Concentration. So players can’t cast other Concentration spells without dropping the first one and damage forces con saves to keep them. I mean, Suggestion lasting 8 hours means no other Concentration spells for a good portion of the day. And if the player is hurt in an encounter an hour later and fails their con save, Suggestion will end.
I really struggle with “make the course of action sound reasonable” in Suggestion. It it reasonable for the giant who’s been set to guard this passage to “let us pass and forget we were here”? Can one ever ‘forget’ on cue? If you’re already in combat is it reasonable to have the evil guard captain to “order your men to stand down, and draw us a map to the treasure vault” as you’ve suggested? ‘ Reasonable’ is a frustratingly subjective term.
One other spell that I feel can be really problematic from a DM’s perspective is Reincarnate, not for its use to revive dead PCs and hirelings, but because of how it can change how the DM needs to handle NPCs in the narrative. Reincarnate has a similar time restriction for how long the target has to have been dead for as Ressurection, but is available several levels earlier. The justification for this seems to be that the randomized nature of what the target gets brought back as makes it a much less useful option for bringing PCs back from the dead, but this doesn’t take into account the way this spell can be used to circumvent certain other narrative challenges when used on dead NPCs. The fact that it can bring back any dead creature, even ones that have suffered catastrophic damage, means that DMs are no longer able to present certain narrative scenarios to the party such as them being called on to solve a recent murder (Just reincarnate the victim and have them give their side of the story), or having an enemy threaten their allies (While it’ll suck if we fail to save them, we do have that severed finger Jimmy the Mobster mailed to us an hour ago to reincarnate them with). While it’s not necessarily game breaking, it heavily changes the way the GM needs to run the game a bit earlier than I think was probably intended.
Phantasmal Force can indeed follow the creature around. It notably “takes root in the mind of a creature that you can see within range” with no other limitation of its placement. It has a reach of 5ft and can’t be larger than 10ft, but that doesn’t imply that it could nok follow the target as long as it’s logical for the chosen form such as a dire wolf. Also see Jeremy Crawford’s tweet referred at: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/123685/can-a-creature-made-with-phantasmal-force-move
When it comes to Suggestion, I have a Warlock character who tries to be subtle with the Arcane Words. Like he’ll try and weave the words into the sentence itself. For example, and for the sake of this the actual Arcane Words are actually going to be in all caps. “Now XHUm (pronounced as chum to be subtle), we want to be on our WEI. (way) Now I personally would be in HAI (high) spirits if you gave OS (us) these health potions for free. The incantation was Xhu Wei Hai Os. (Chu-Way-High-Us) and I spoke the spell by actually stating the sentence and sneakily weaving the words into the sentence.
I’m re-watching all of my liked articles starting from the beginning and I’m now about halfway through. This is one of the first articles I watched when I first got introduced to DND and your content helped me learn to love the game. I’ve hosted many sessions and I’ve played in many campaign. Thank you for the great hobby.
Phantasmal force: essentially a concentration DOT spell. It absolutely CAN keep attacking when used as a more standard DOT and is intended as this use, which is why it is restricted to 1D6 damage, which is consistant and even low for the level, as compared to say, heat metal. It has added situational utility. As to your “unopenable door”… the rationalization is not that they must rationalize why the fake door will not open. It is to rationalize why they can’t touch the door and can actually be pushed right through it. Suggestion is intentionally strong. But your description is accurate on this one. It’s a reasonable request like Jedi mind trick… perhaps a bit better with that time limit. Of course others can TELL your victem why it is not reasonable, and if you tell the leader to call of his troops… they are not likely to be unaware that you did that and not nessissarily going to obey the order. They are also not prohibited from informing the leader he is being controlled and thus, can persuade your target to see the request as not rational and harmful to them. There are situations where it works… and those it does not. Divination is definately strong situational magic. In my opinion, that school bonus really makes them op more than their spells themselves though. …animate objects seems superior to woodland beings. My army of carrots and tomatoes is devastating. Keep in mind that your DM and players ALL hate you. This is why I don’t mind that Necromancer is a crappy school of magic.
Phantasmal force…i gotta argue on that one. the “spells do what they say they do” rule applies, but it never specifies that it is created in a point in space. it does however, say it creates stimuli. this, in a very loose way, can be used to justify the phantasm moving, as the definition of a stimulus could indeed include visual stimuli created through movement.
Man, polymorph has changed. I remember when it could turn almost any creature into just about anything. Plus, if the target failed their save, they would be stuck for life, and forget their prior existence. This was totally game breaking. Wizard creates a device that contains a copy of their memories, casts polymorph on themselves to become a dragon, intentionally fails their save, then picks up the magic gizmo. Poof, dragon-wizard, possibly a much younger one than before polymorphing.
@Dungeon Dudes Arcane Eye is accessible for Warlocks too. Just have a look on the eldritch invocation ‘Visions of Distant Realms’ on page 111 in PHB. 🙂 Even polymorph is accessible for Warlocks when using ‘Sculptor of Flesh’ invocation, page 111 in PHB again. In my DND group we discuss if the character would have been able to know the beast somehow to polymorph into. If the character might not be able to know a beast then he/she is not able to polymorph into that beast.
In a work campaign we played our white dragon big boss we had to defeat (whom we convinced we were it’s servants- our bard convinced them we were servents and we did feed it meat etc) when finally attacking, my character and another whom both had Phantasmal force doubled down on it- so even when one of us lost concentration, the other still stuck- and we killed it very quickly — much to the DM being upset. This was a (meta) discussion on how to use the trust of the dragon and we planned it way in advance- of which tactically we white boarded out (which non-meta we would of had time to do)– but it worked out great. The double down on the spell made it so even when my character lost concentration, the dragon was still under the affect of the other. While I agree about how this spell might not be used to use chains and restraints, the fact we dubbled down it- the reinforcement and justification required gave our tanks enough time to kill the shit out of it. Also in a comment about a previous article– we had commonly used Tiny Hut to block a door to take a rest in a hostile environment. Our DM Was impressed with how quickly we finished the final battle- and how helpless he was to fight back- we all got rewards for our ingenuity.
So in our campaign, my level 7 Arcane Trickster used detect thoughts on a guy to determine whether or not we could trust him to take us into the city. While I was doing this, another member of the party asked him about the city and caused the guy to draw up a mental map of the city and the areas he’d been to, including the guards’ patrol routes as he often smuggled things past them. This mainly worked because our barbarian was an old soldier and had already asked these questions while I had cast the spell out of earshot thanks to a neat Nat 20 stealth roll. We basically circumvented the need for the NPC to make a saving throw against my spell DC because of this and the DM was happy because he thought we’d be wondering the town for hours before we’d find a map to get around.
24:25 I’d prefer to assume polymorph makes it possible BUT both creatures, both the player and the victim, are exposed to the same molecular stress through sheer compression due to Newton’s third law – action and reaction. In other words, yeah, you can become a living bomb that will expand inside a monster, but you’ll be crushed and die too. You might add that polymorth only affects living creatures, so once the player dies the target stop receiving damage, ultimately limiting the suicide attack damage to the player HP or something along those lines…
A gem i discovered recently is Dragons Breath, which is a second lvl spell. It seems like a pretty mediocre spell on first look, but one of the options is 3d6 poison damage in a 15ft cone. If your a necromancer, toss it on a zombie after the other ones have grappled your enemies, and that last zombie is suddenly a lot more dangerous, cause it breaks down the action economy. (edit) Forgot to mention that all undead are immune to poison damage. That little Cr1/4 zombie that had a poor chance of doing 1d6+1 (only +3 to hit), is now pumping out 3d6 (save for half) in an AoE, AND it doesn’t require you to use your action or bonus action (except the two bonus actions to get this going because of casting time and directing zombies.) because Animate Dead says the zombies will keep doing the last order you gave them if a new order isn’t given. If you don’t even want to worry about the concentration and have an hour of prep, glyph of warding with the spell glyph, and suddenly your doing all this with only a 2nd and 3rd level spell slots. My players are not gonna be happy >:) Bonus Spell: Heat Metal, if cast on someones armor, is guaranteed damage, cause the con save to drop it, doesn’t matter if it takes 10min to take off your plate armor.
one of my favorite encounters was when our party encountered a green dragon. this was our first dragon and we had a major issue and half of us got dropped in the first action by its breath weapon. it then flew 60 feet up. our druid polymorphed it into a fish to make it hit the ground, damage carried over and it was prone. hideous laughter and a brabarian later, we killed our first dragon
I have a story about Polymorph: In CoS, a remnant of a storyline from a player that left before I joined got destroyed by simply casting Polymorph. A giant atop a roc was swooping at us as the party was crossing a bridge over a stereotypical ‘bottomless chasm’. It was coming to kidnap a party member. Like full tilt, full speed dashes and all. Polymorphed the roc into a turtle… which… actually was a running thing with him polymorphing threats in combat or dangerous social situations into turtles… watched both just… fall uncontrollably down. Killed an entire storyline in about 15 seconds. Props to the DM to just run with it and gave us the milestone level for it.
The polymorph spell can be better when combined with the spell Rary’s Telepathic Bond. You could cast the spell before turning your allies into an cat, and still have the psychic link carry over. So now you’ve got a otherwise seemingly harmless cat, that could wanderer around a town, or a camp, without generally expecting to be attack on sight. And the player who’s the cat, can relay everything they see or hear to the others. And of course communicate with the others.
My players found a spell that breaks my style of DMing, which is to take physics into account for spell effects and allow creative spell usage; Enlarge /Reduce. Their signature attack (which I only allowed once), was the “Elephant Gun”. The cleric used his broom of flying to fly the warforged artificer several hundred feet above an enemy fortress, then cast death ward on him. The warforged, who already weighed several hundred pounds, cast enlarge on himself and became kinetic ordnance as he dropped at terminal velocity into the fort. I ruled that the corner of the building he targeted (above the mess hall) was completely demolished, killing most of the enemy soldiers and dealing double max fall damage to him (which didn’t matter because he had death ward).
Fun story: After I watched this article for the first time, I decided to give my newly-leveled up bard Phantasmal Force and Hypnotic Pattern to see what would come out of it. This also happened to be the week of the final boss battle in one of my game store campaigns. Sooooo… Before the boss showed up, there were maybe 8 flying rafts full of zombies heading toward the town to take out our backup defenses. I threw a Hypnotic Pattern onto the one in front, making it stop for a moment and cause a huge pile-up behind it. Cue lots of falling zombies. Then there was the boss battle itself, against a buffed-up ancient dragon. Our goal wasn’t actually to kill it, but to keep it occupied while a few party members set up a black hole machine that would not only destroy it but prevent any sort of lich-like resurrection. When those party members succeeded, the dragon saw the black hole forming and, understandably, freaked out. My little bard got an idea: Why not use Phantasmal Force to create a forced-perspective image in front of the black hole, making it look like it wasn’t there? The DM ruled that this would require a performance check… no problem, I have expertise and nailed the roll. But the big surprise was the dragon failing the saving throw, ignoring legendary resistance, and falling for it. Yep, I fooled an ancient dragon plus with an imaginary painting.
Facing off with a DM that actively is not wanting you to win…. opens up a whole new view of contemporary thought and a co existence framework never before experienced with people. Well at least as far as I’ve personally experienced anyway. It creates a whole new deal making dynamic that is at the end of the day a thought and psychology exercise that sounds the right amount of challenge I seek to grow from.
I’d also make a consideration for Healing Spirit. RAW, it heals your entire adventuring party for 10d6 (average of 35) for the cost of a level 2 spell and 1 minute of everyone’s time. Compare that to the other more efficient healing spells; Prayer of Healing heals 6 people for a average of 14 (assuming 20 wis) and has a 10-minute cast time. Aura of Vitality heals an average of 70 HP, which for a party of 4 is 17.5, and is a 3rd level spell. This doesn’t even get into how broken you can make Healing Spirit using the RAW. Add one level of Life Cleric and now it’s 10d6 + 40. Have characters form a grapple chain to drag other characters through the healing spirit on their own turn (the spell’s wording says: when you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit’s space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there), now it’s 20d6, or 20d6 + 80 with one level of Life Cleric.
Level 4 party was fighting multiple earth myrmidon, my character is built purely for crowd control, I cast phantasmal force on one to make it believe it’s in a forge, he had me read it and he seemed to determine that as it was centered on him, it stayed on him, he had us make dexterity saving throws as it ran around blindly to avoid being trampled
regarding the ant entering the villains head thing. i’d consider a rule that doing such an act might kill the polymorphed character. the pressure that bursts the villians head is also affecting the polymorphed character, and if there’s enough force there to pop a skull, imagine what it’s doing to those soft organs as the grow, crushing and tearing against each other as they gain mass and structure. bones would break early, being small and weak before they gain enough structural integrity to withstand the force or breaking the skull
The way I handle polymorph is the player does have to have seen the beast before BUT they can research them at a library and that will count. To do this they must go to a big enough city with a library, get in (which often is limited by whatever guild runs the library so they either have to join or gain favor), and then roll an investigation check. So yes it is entirely possible to be a trex if they put in the prep work for it…this way my druid can’t just randomly decide any ol’ creature. I also don’t allow “I saw it once in passing.” They have to have a deep understanding of the beast. This gives a bit of a flair to how it works with RP.
24:25 I just can’t help imagining the player trying to grow larger within said Villain’s head, and then depending on the villain, their skull is probably much stronger than any bones in the player’s body so, while the growing inside the enemy’s head would do severe damage to it and maybe even kill it, the player would be crushed by the fact that the boss’s skull isn’t large enough to accomodate them, and the player ends up as a pasty mess seeping out of the Villain’s skull. Then again, this was also exactly my problem with the Ant-Man Thanos thing people were theorising about with Infinity war.
I think the spells that don’t move are locked to spesific thing or else when you cast it in moving train, boat, carriot….. the illusion just “buff its gone” but question is on what is it connected to? I would allow chains that are connected to him probably because we could then see the limits of the spell xD
So having two wizards or a wizard and a bard or a two headed wizard who can both use and action can use a spell combination of phantasmal force and suggestion to completely break the realm let’s say Phantasmal force is cast on an enemy and say you put a moat of lava around the enemy Now say they use the suggestion You now have a great fear of lava and can feel the heat from the most you see. Or Phantasmal force- the ground crumbles around the enemy leaving the enemy on one coloumn of land Suggestion- you are now inhabilitatingly afraid of heights and falling. Both of these would alow you to take out enemy’s extremely easily. If pulled off correctly.
My DM and party have a house rule on Conjure Woodland Beings: the user can choose what they summon and call up Pixies, but if they order Polymorph, the Pixie ‘chooses’ what they turn the person into. Translation: the DM has control over the options that come and it’s somewhat random to reflect the Pixies being fae and mischief makers. They CAN’T make the party into something that screws them over, it has to be something useful, but it’s more of an ‘in case of emergency break glass’ hail mary at that point. Felt like a good way to keep the core of doing that without allowing it to be gamebreaking.
I broke Conjure animals with my Druid. I cast it and selected 8 1/4CR beasts in all 8 squares around a big bad enemy and just locked that enemy out of the fight, wolves that AOO with trip addition to their attacks just prevented the enemy from ignoring them and moving away and basically forces the enemy to waste a good 4-5 attacks to safely move out of the spot. After realizing how bullshit that was though, in the future I didn’t summon them in melee contact with the enemies, ever again.
Arcane Eye; most tables just let the rest of the group hear the exact same description the DM gives the Wizard (who should be the only one who has that info), but for roleplayers and tables that try to avoid meta, Arcane Eye combined with Minor Illusion cantrips let you visually represent what you see without metagaming or breaking immersion. Since I main Divination Wizards whenever I can (with new groups or people that aren’t tired of me being Div yet), Arcane Eye is my favorite spell in the game. Along with the obvious benefits that come along with remote viewing, one often overlooked aspect of Arcane Eye is how it can synergize with some non-concentration ‘any creature you can see’ spells, or other situational uses like viewing creatures with gaze attacks or Mage Hand-ing objects from remote locations.
if it were up to me on Polymorph, I’d say that you can only Polymorph into a creature that’s as big or smaller as the space the caster is in, and if the caster becomes a smaller creature and go into a smaller area they aren’t able to change back until they’re back in an area that can fit them (I.E. becoming a mouse, going into a mouse hole, and turning back to blow a hole in the wall, they’d be stuck as a mouse until hey left the hole)
From experience, IF the DM doesn’t have hard and fast rules requiring them to let you use a spell in a specific way, then that spell is worthless. Phantasmal Force, Suggestion and Arcane Eye are included specifically in that issue since the DM will always find a way to counteract the spell. It’s a thousand times worse when the DM already knows what spells you have available, which is always. Polymorph and CWB are both amazing spells but even those are often rendered mediocre by DM limitations.
Low level party Encounter lone overleveled mind flayer: Mind flayer desires breakfast: Begin combat with mind flayer: Players roll initive check wizard goes first: WIZARD SAYS CASTING PHANTASMAL FORCE: DM SAYS OKAY OF WHAT? WIZARD SAYS OF A NEOTHELID: Mind runs like all hell: Party lives to kill mind flayer later in game.
one thing I did once was use minor illusion to make myself invisible by creating a wall of illusion that was a reflection of the what was behind it, but without me or the party showing so they saw everything going on through the illusion wall, but the party which the wall filtered out effectively giving a five by five cube of invisibility
I saw an episode of a show called burn notice where the goal was to interrogate and flip someone. During the episode Michael (the MC) was playing the role of another captured prisoner working for the same boss and gained the targets confidence. Imagine the party Rogue in this situation doing something similar but faster because the wizard used suggestions like, “I know that both of you are working together” and “Whichever one of you tells me what I want to know first will be set free.” The suggestion in these sentences isn’t as much do what I want, but believe that you two are on the same side, and if done well can be used to get people to believe things that aren’t true even after suggestion ends.
Polymorph, you have to remember that polymorph is “NOT” wildshape ! while wildshape keeps the intellect wisdom and charisma, you “DO NOT” with polymorph. that means a player who transforms you into a moth or a dog in order to stealthily inspect that base… sorry but that player is becoming a cat, with its own intelligence of 2 which means it doesn’T understand words you say, nor would it comprehend your strategy. the player is a cat, without his own intellect. thats the problem people forget, everything changes, you dont keep your allmighty stats. thus there are lots of things that may happens.
One of my favorite suggestions in combat was something like, “Oh, my; it appears you’ve forgotten something very important. You should go home and get it.” Doesn’t kill anyone (player or opponent), but a failed save effectively removes the target from that combat. As for polymorph, I once had a mad wizard (not evil…just not all there) who liked to sneak around the city at night and polymorph stray cats into dinosaurs, and then leave them to their own devices.
The spell that threw me off as a DM the first time I saw it used in an unexpected way was Enlarge/Reduced. When a Wizard reduced the size of a locked door that was meant to be a major challenge for the rogue it was a DC20 thievery check, and had a series of locks on it. The wizard walked up, and reduced it to small enough it fell off it’s hinges.
Nice show though this is off topic I think that these spells and others point to a system a dm and player should consider. I think the issue is beyond the spells. It is in talking to the DM about what the spells they are choosing are cool with the dm in choice and application. I have always been a fan of the leveling half hour. At the end of a session everyone that wanted to go up a level does so with the dm at the end of a session. The players make choose together talk about where they are going and how they think the campaign is going. The players make the changes and the dm makes notes but nothing is permanent till the next session. This gave DM and player a chance to make adjustments as think about how things would go. You as DM want to think about how badly a player can use things or if they can’t really be effective. Players tend to think of how much power they can milk out of a level up (either narrative or combat). But with a bit of thought about it the DM and players can come back and resolve any possible issues ahead of time.
A really underrated one is silence. Multiple times in our campaign, we were supposed to get information out of a hostile NPC, where the DM would do the “villain monologue” sort of thing. Not knowing this, we just went in and said “hey, this is a small room and that dude lokks magicy. SILENCE!!! It straight up derailed the campaign (Hoard of the Dragon Queen, basically obe of the most railroady campaigns out there), for 2-3 sessions
House rule about killing targets from inside: – First, crawling into someone is very difficult, and in most situations – neraly imposible. It will reqire a series of acrobatics checks, and if a victim is aware of your presence, they can simply yeet you away as an bonus action. – then, you need to make strenght check, and the victim makes strength saving throw. If you win, victim take 10d6 damage, and you take half of it. If you lose, you take 10d6 damage. Then you burst out.
I was expecting Healing Word to be on this list. Getting somebody back up from making death saves as a bonus action from a distance is incredibly powerful. The only downside is that you can’t cast another spell, which is pretty bad for most Bards, but Clerics and high-level Druids tend to have decent combat abilities outside of spells.
Regarding the Polymorph spell, yeah its a fun spell. Ive only had experience with it briefly with my Druid at the time. Between Wild Shape and later Polymorph, all the creature forms were mine. lol Originally, my DM allowed me to use the maximum HP for my Wild Shape forms as most more common beasts are fairly low HP. But then the first fight where I transformed into a T-Rex later on, I became a problem. The players all backed off a bit as I was expected to basically rampage about. I don’t remember off hand now, but the T-Rex maxes out at over 200 HP I think it was. So after far too much effort on the DM’s part to grind me down, I was then healed and kept going. (Admittedly I think we ALL forgot that its a concentration spell) But anyways, after the session my DM was like; “OK I take it back, use the average HP for everything. The T-Rex is too hard to balance when It has over 200 HP to deal with”. Wild Shape lets the Druid maintain its INT/WIS/CHA scores I think it was and its a shame that Polymorph doesn’t. In that battle, we were on an elevated structure high above the ground. The T-Rex’s bite can grapple the enemy if its smaller. It was ruled that I wouldn’t be smart enough to do this, but what I WANTED to do was bite and grapple one of the enemies and then walk it to the edge of the structure and simply let go and watch it fall to its death. Oh well.
Honestly it is important to discuss all of these things with the DM in a long session Zero. Because what i experienced is that players get rightfully and really angry when they spent a whole character build to set something up and then the DM is just like: No. That should have been discussed before the campaign started, not at level 12 when all your carefully hatched plans are ruined. That’s why i always try to create a max level character as well as the starting character, so we can discuss it.
The big lesson to learn here, if something is beginning to be a problem in your group TALK ABOUT IT. If either the GM or the players aren’t having fun, then that will fester and eventually cause things to fall apart, if there’s just one thing that’s causing someone to feel like they can’t contribute (The Wizard is taking the spotlight in a majority of combats by using problematic spells), bring it up to the entire group, see if there’s something everyone can agree on is a fair compromise. Like in our group, we have a friend who loves multiclassing 2 Fighter with Wizard in 5e, can cast two spells in a turn with action surge as well as get heavy armor prof for free (Started high enough level he could get Mithril Full Plate so he didn’t need a Str requirement), we eventually managed to talk with him and he revised his character to a pure wizard when it started to become apparent that it’s borderline broken with him being a flatly superior version of the Fighter Eldritch Knight path and just dropping his max spell level he could cast by 1. But if we had just left it and never brought it up, our current campaign probably would have died when no one could feel like they could compare to 2 fire balls in a turn just outright winning what was meant to be a big epic fight where everyone could contribute. This friend is also the reason I feel Multiclassing should just be tossed in the trashcan in 5e, there was very little balance considerations given to various combinations. Not all combinations are bad, just ends up being an issue specifically with Action Surge, if you want to try to balance it to keep MCing about and making Fighter 2 not such an attractive ‘dip’ like it was in 3.
I think I would rule for the polymorph inside another creature thing, that the party member takes an insane amount of damage such that it basically kills them outright. Maybe say for instance, if an ant has one hit point, you would role the damage, and then multiply it by the quotient of the normal HP of the character and the HP of the creature. i.e. if an ant has 1HP, and your character has 30HP, the act would deal whatever damage you decide to the enemy, and then 30x damage to the player.
I’ve seen many comments of people “shrinking, then inserting themselves into an enemy, then unshrinking.” First off, this was debunked a long time ago, saying that anyone trying this will be safely teleported outside the creature they were inside of. However, one player I had decided they were too good for this. I warned them twice they won’t like what happens, and I won’t take back the ruling either, and they said they still wanted to do it. I sighed then described how their body was crushed to paste within the other creature as their body expanded (in graphic vivid detail,) and then described how their bones and other body parts that didn’t get turned to paste tore apart the enemy they did this to. In short, I allowed them to succeed, but in doing so, they killed themselves, and I refused to take back on it to show if they wanted to say no to a DM ruling, they’ll find things don’t go their way. They were laughing at the time, but when they realized that their character was indeed gone, they apologized and made a new character. Magic has it’s limits, and while it can bend the laws of physics, beware of repercussions for not listening to warnings.
If you’re a good DM, you shouldn’t need to ban ANY spell from the game. If I play a wizard in D&D, I’m playing it to actually use the spells. Removing things that are in the game to be used limits the players creativity, as well as puts constraints on the possibilities of the campaign. A decent DM will find ways to deal with the spell regardless. And if the spell did have the ability to just outright solve something, then instead of banning it or removing it from your campaign, you should instead congratulate your player for using the spell when they did, or having it prepared for use when they did, because it was, essentially, one of the correct answers, or ways to solve a situation/puzzle/encounter/etc.
what my group does for polymorph being used to go inside someone and revert, is make both the polymorphed person and the thing its inside take crushing damage pretty much, which also makes it not work if someone gets swallowed to polymorph the monster into something small so that the person gets shunted magically out of it.
Regarding your comment about the head-exploding concept – Another point to mention to your players is that just as damage would be done to the victim, there is no reason why eaual damage would not be inflicted on the character as well! That being said, sometimes it is wise to shut it down with a “magical limitation” and the result of being shunted out of the creature. In my games, I will often allow something rediculous that pushes the boundaries of rules-common sense once, but just once. As you say, nobody wants the exploding head polymorph combo happening multiple times each session, or with every major villain the group deals with…
I treat suggestion as a “automatic diplomacy success” so you succeeded in something that you would be able to succeed with a diplomacy/intimidation/deception roll… For a 2nd level spell I think it is enough.. otherwise it starts to become mind control “I suggest you to lay down on the ground with your head facing the ground” than the party attacks all at the same tine the probed character…
Hypnotic pattern is damn powerfull: Reason #1: Incapacitation. Functionally, every player at some point gets into an argument with their DM about whether suggestion can be used to incapacitate an enemy by ‘suggesting’ they sit down, shut up, and do nothing. There’s no argument with the pattern. It just works. Reason #2: Focus fire. Some things pass the save. Those things tend to become priority target numero uno if your party has any intelligence whatsoever. When all non-incapacitated enemies are dead, you’ve won the encounter. This often can turn a deadly encounter into an easy one. Reason #3: Long range with cubic AoE that has unique properties. no line of sight required. You can be behind full cover and still cast it. DM: “The wizard counterspells you!” Player: “No, he can’t see me. Punked.” Edit: It’s a 30′ cube. You must see one face of the cube. If you can see the face of the cube above the opponents, or on the far side of them, you can cast it behind full cover. Otherwise, you can still use illusory cover, vis-a-vis minor illusion. Reason #3b: Cube AoE has an added benefit. PHB204 reads: “A cube’s point of origin (one face a point on one face) is not included in the area of effect unless you choose otherwise.” This means you can cast it on top of a line one of your party members…and they will not have to make saving throws. Even without a devotion Paladin ally. You do have to see them to make use of this, though. Edit: It appears to be one square, or possibly a point in space.
Regarding the bug-in-the-ear scenario…I would allow it with the stipulation that the bug is crushed and dies too. If they are willing to die for the cause, so be it. Polymorph can be an certain death spell in many other ways. Polymorph your foe into a giant shark or sea horse…it flops around and dies. Polymorph it into an octopus and eat it for dinner.
There was an old computer game, don’t remember what it was called. However, you were an adventurer and you went into the dungeon to kill the demon prince. The best weapon was a +25 Death Lance. The best spell was the Orb of Annihilation. The Orb would even take out the scenery, not just the monsters. I finally got to the demon prince, thinking that my Death Lance and my Orb would be sufficient to destroy him. However, the prince effortlessly dispelled my Orb every time I cast it. My Death Lance was no more effective. On a whim I cast polymorph and turned the demon prince into a much lower level monster which died instantly on my Death Lance.
I have a question for the DMs out there… When you cast a spell at someone (another magic user), are they somehow aware at what level you cast said spell?? Example: I cast Lightning Bolt at a wizard who has a Staff of the Magi (45 charges). I cast it at 6th level. Does the target wizard know whether or not to absorb that spell, or must they gamble a retribution strike trigger…?
My favorite polymorph in 3.5 (back when it was willing subjects/self only) to use on myself was one that wasn’t specifically listed in the MM, but one that no DM I ever worked with ever had a problem with: an ordinary, average Common Starling. I always talked to the DM before suggesting an animal outside of documentation…but since it’s one of the ten most common birds in the real world, and possesses essentially no unique talents, there was never a problem. It’s commonality, and low desire for edibility, combined with hardly any human animosity toward (unlike pigeons, crows, or seagulls) made it my favorite scout transformation. It was special precisely because there is absolutely nothing special about it.
2:37 First session my group played in Curse of Strahd. We make it to the town of Borovia, and we head to the church. The bishop in there has his son locked in the basement because his son is a Vampirespawn. My bard doesn’t know this and is so angry about the bishop locking his son in the basement of the church he uses Phantasmal Force to create an illusion of Strahd (who we had seen earlier) to terrify the bishop. Scares the bishop so much that he hangs himself right there and then, even as the rest of the party tries to stop him. Certainly one way to start off a campaign.
My favorite experience for phantasmal force is a spinning weightless cube of opaque goo. In order to stand/walk you use 3 senses – sight, inner ear, and proprioception(your ability to feel your shifting weight through your muscles). Opacity blinds you, spinning throws off your inner ear, and being weightless inside a cube of goo means you have no reference point for proprioception. Anyone who fails their wisdom save will flop around on the ground unable to stand for the duration.
I would argue that Phantasmal Force as a binding rope would work to restrain the target, as long as the target doesn’t move. It’s restraining them because they believe they can’t move. Obviously, they can still move and probably moving would force a save, but I feel like as long as the target believes they are restrained, then it should at least somewhat work that way
The most absolutely game breaking low level spell in our current campaign has been our Bard’s 2nd Level Transmutation spell – Heat Metal. roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Heat%20Metal Long story short, it superheats any metal object (think sword/shield/armor) causing anyone touching it to take 2d8 fire damage and have disadvantage every turn they remain in contact with the object. Increases by 1d8 for each higher spell slot used. We encountered a group of cultists with an enslaved minotaur. It had shackles on. Bard used heat metal on them at the beginning of the encounter and it went berserk among the cultists and eventually burned to death without us ever having to deal with it. After that, we bought several pairs of shackles, and whenever we capture a monster/prisoner, we shackled them, and if they try anything – heat metal.
In a one shot, a player cast Suggestion on the final boss. “Go far away” was the suggestion. I failed the save, by one point. The final boss went far away. And yes, it completely stopped the final boss fight. But the glee and happiness of the player, who had been trying to use that spell in various campaigns for years without it working (the bad guy always made the save), was worth it. He was playing a little kobold, and hadn’t had much to do all session, but in that moment he felt so powerful.
This one time I was the DM of a game with my friends, and I created a puzzle that the players has to complete in order to continue on in the story. At the start, my friends was actually trying to solve the puzzle in the dungeon, but then one of them used the spell “Knock” which basically makes it so the user who uses the spell opens a door no matter what! I tried to deny this cause it basically broke the plot that I was creating, but my friends were more experienced in D&D and said that I can’t simply just deny the spell, so I let the spell do its thing and it was just annoying how these types of spells can break the plot so easily. I really want some suggestions on how to deal with these types of players cause I think they get rid of the joy the players are supposed to have, and it makes the DM/GM have a hard time to balance out the gameplay.
One spell I have seen majorly help shut down stuff is confusion, actually! Especially against creatures with wisdom. Actually if your spell save DC is high enough it’s kinda impossible for them to break out of it. One time my party did a level 20 battle royal and I casted it on the barbarian and they were pretty much useless for the entire duration.
I know I am a liitle late, but Guiding Bolt is in my opinion one of (if not the #1) damaging spell in the game, as it is half of a fireball or lightning bolt in radiant damage, and gives advantage on the next attack roll made. While it is only one target instead of aoe, the fact that a character can get a spell that does that much damage at 1st level instead of 5th level for full casters getting 3rd level slots, its busted when combined with rogues and paladins, or anything that trives off advantage
Our campaign has a few abused spells from my heady druid friend. One of which is moonbeam which we used to just decimate whole encampments and the other is destroy water. The DM decided to choose creatures that don’t have blood ever since she used destroy water on the boss in the dungeon of the first session. Kinda game breaking but I thought it was cool how the DM adapted and continued instead of saying no.
I am not going to look at all 1,794 comments (at time of my posting) but just want to say that we are having an issue with the wizard in our group and his Leomund’s Tiny Hut. He basically uses it as a hunter would use a blind – he casts the hut, jumps in and is now invisible to the monsters. He casts fireballs and lightning from the hut, but they cannot tell where the spells are coming from. I just shake my head every time…..
Phantasmal Force: Not like the 6th level spell mental prison Suggestion: Is Zone of Truth and persuasion at the same time. I suggest you take a nap. After you fall asleep I cast Phantasmal Force on you, creating a 10ft room with the walls made of Adamantine / Obdurium / etc. with no light penetrating it for complete darkness. Or go ham with riverine (assuming energy is bright) for your sunlight sensitivity creatures. For fun there is also a lich inside the 10ft cube… You’re free to walk out but only if you know it’s not real… But I have a feeling that lich is going to tickle you to death.
As far as using polymorph to blow something up from inside, it always amazes me how people don’t ever consider the ramifications on the one morphing in this scenario. Ant-man’s body is not as durable as Thanos, so what would probably happen is that ant-man just gets crushed as he tries to grow, and then thanos has to cough up some blood and then he’s fine. If both characters have about equal durability, then both characters would probably be turned to mush during the expansion. There really isn’t a scenario where the person morphing comes out on top here. Best case scenario if I allowed this to happen I would probably make the player automatically take the enemy’s HP in damage. No dice rolls, no saves. It would just deal max HP damage to both characters. So if the player uses this to fight something weaker than them, it was a waste of a spell and a huge amount of damage. If they use it to fight something bigger, well they’re probably dead now too.
In the adventure I’m in now, the villain needed my character’s blood to open a door and obviously my party covered me from all sides to protect me. Then the DM decided to use suggestion on a party member he had already convinced that he was the good guy and made her stab me and run off towards the door. But I shot her in the legs with sacred flame and now she can’t move for a couple of turns so one of us needs to catch up with her and get the knife back before she can move again.
Phantasmal Force: I made it appear as if I were a mage strong enough to create Orbs of Annihilation by making that the force, middle of a hallway, I eventually used this as a powerful defense system in my personal tower that would cast the same kind of spell in any hallway on any creature who entered without having my Arcane Mark somewhere on their body. “Oh shit man, OoA… can’t go this way.” “One over there too!” “Well shit we aren’t getting anywhere, let’s just go.” They leave Was fun to do.