Druid spells ranked: 3rd level spells
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
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• How To Calculate Avera...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:15 aura of vitality (green)
4:39 call lightning (orange)
9:32 conjure animals (blue)
14:10 daylight (red)
15:49 dispel magic (green)
18:16 elemental weapon (orange)
20:41 erupting earth (orange)
22:44 feign death (red)
23:36 flame arrows (red)
24:35 meld into stone (orange)
25:54 plant growth (green)
30:39 protection from energy (orange)
32:03 revivify (green)
34:20 sleet storm (green)
36:37 speak with plants (red)
38:53 summon fey (green)
42:44 tidal wave (red)
44:11 wall of water (orange)
46:08 water breathing (green)
47:20 water walk (green)
49:16 wind curtain (orange)
50:42 wrap up
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Wind Wall: blocks small flying creatures from passing through
Also Wind Wall: *Is only 15ft tall*
@@sharkforce8147 good point
Pixie living in a 17&1/2 foot tall cave: >:)
Honestly, if a player casts Conjure Animals, and bring their own statblocks and has a macro for all their attacks on the ready and they are quick with their turns, Id let them pick their creatures. Because i know they put in the effort to make my job easier. And if its in person, bonus points if they bring their own minis.
I can see this as a reasonable option for players, though NOT for Conjure Woodland Beings because *(cringe)* *(shudder)* Pixies with Polymorph. One option to ameliorate but not solve the problem of having to roll initiative for 8 additional creatures would be to allow them to roll initiative as a group. That way, at least they all go at once, even if not on the spellcaster's turn.
My DM allowed me to do exactly this, I'm playing a Sheperd Druid and have the statblocks and macros already pre-written, even have a macro for multiple creatures attacking at once. DM took that over "random creatures" and never looked back.
I tend to go 50/50, or, "Ben 10 drama style". Most of the time, I just let the druid get what they want. Every so often I throw a wrench in it, so there's improvization. Your plan involved snakes, well, you got alligators now.
I also have a house rule of: "If your summoned creature waits for your order for over ten seconds, it gets annoyed and does whatever it wants, and usually just tries to attack something to vent its frustrating work conditions", so that helps.
And shorting the druid on CR rating is just dirty. Funny, but dirty. I tend to only do that if the summon is part of a social encounter and they roll low for what they are trying.
i.e: I am the wise king of the forest, behold my power and my twin mighty companions! *rolls a 2*, and those are two chickens. Bluff away, Wisdom caster.
The whole idea of the DM chosing the creatures - and even screwing you over on the CR - is ridiculous anyways. So, I am a caster that's closely connected to nature, yet I have no idea what beast I will summon this time. Completely stupid.
Heres how you fix the pixie problem. Have them show up shocked and half dressed, flip out on the player for sloppy casting grammar, cast faerie fire on the party, poly the bbegs henchmen into winged trex, and dip out in all directions only occasionally giggling as 3 angry flying dental traumas teach the player why you dont make demands of fey, you ask and hope they dont keep a tab.
Then on have 8 pixies show up, poly themselves into snakes... Snakes spelling out a message to the party... It says "Run Fool!"
Or even worse... The last faerie falls for the tall "charming" halfling and starts stalking him as various wildlife.
It says they summon em, it doesnt say they gotta like it or wanna have their spells burned. If nothing else go naruto style pacts on them. Make them collect those options by befriending, bargaining, or intimidating members of that species/race. Maybe some offer aid as a reward for the quest or sidequest. Others have their own agendas... But simple and common will be how they have to start. Want a wolf pack to come to your aid? Better share your rations with the injured wolf. Be keepin those language, healer, and animal chat spells prepared. never know when calming that angry blink dog that stole your backpack might net you a new bond to employ. The pixies tho, they really hate the wannabe cassanovas tho, try bribing them with clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics.. the poly aint free.
You just completely blew my mind with the plant growth checkerboard tactic! Holy cow, I never would have even considered that!
Squeezing rules counter this unfortunately.
can have birds or bats scatter seed in the dungeon or cave, hit it with a tidal wave, and plant or spike growth from there.
You can use Druidcraft to predict the weather (at your location) for the next 24h. You could use that to decide whether or not to prepare Call Lightning.
It probably won't make the spell much better, but I just found that connect and wanted to share the possibility.
You could also use it to determine the best time to make a surprise attack on a enemy camp or location using rain or fog for cover to sneak closer. It's really hard to hear anything more than a few feet away during a heavy rain. This could give your group a massive boost to stealth checks if such an event is something you can predict and wait for.
If you could cast the lightning as a bonus action I think it would be so much better
You can also action surge to use it twice. (But I recommend you use it for other spells that deal more damage or can buff/heal
I wish we had a way to make it rain aside from Control Weather. Create or Destroy Water has a drizzle effect, but it doesnmt summon rain clouds
@@Iceblade269 Control weather is a exceptionally powerful and versatile spell. I love it. Your DM could introduce a magic item which did the same thing and recharged over x days. This would keep it from being as good as the 8th level spell. You could also require some kind of ridiculous material component like the bottled wind of an air elemental if it gets too abused.
2 things about call lightning. One if you get the drop on a group of enemies they might not even realize they're in combat with you instead of a bad storm until it's half over. Two is what I like to call the Thunderbird combo. Cast the spell and turn into a giant eagle. Fly up into the cloud, totally obscured. Only dip down to select your lightning spot you can see, and swoop back above the cloud.
Now _this_ is pod racing!
Yeah, not only is there a bunch of tactical uses for it, he even mentioned the better saving throw and also lightning fun. Who wouldn't want to command an entire fucking storm system for ten minutes with just a third level spell?
I'm currently reading "Finding the Mother Tree" a book about the social life of trees. My druid game is about to level up between your videos and learning irl.
One admittedly situational use of Tidal Wave, is that it knocks creatures prone at range. Namely, knocking flying creatures out of the sky, which usually results in them splatting on the ground, and suddenly the damage it does isn't so bad. But you also have Sleet Storm, so.
Sleet storm does hinder your allies though. It makes it much harder to jump on top of the downed opponent and grapple them for instance.
You have become one of my favourite youtube creators specific to tabletop gaming. Your insights peppered with pragmaticism and humour are always appreciated. Thank you for your efforts, and please know your future content is eagerly anticipated here! (You're Canadian, too, which helps with the likeability. I'm in NB!) ;)
Wow, thank you!
Notes on rivivify vs raise dead:
Jesus christ Peter just died. No matter - we'll just sleep here, next to his corpse while singing kumbaya and raise his corpse from the dead as a ghoul in the morning,
he'll be fine.
The Con save of moonbeam next to the Dex of call lightning is going to make a bigger difference than the damage type in almost all circumstances.
Save type for half-on-save spells is actually not that important. It does make a difference, especially if you take proficiency with a save into account, but the impact is far lower than you'd probably intuit.
Damage type makes a bigger difference than save type, especially if your target may be immune to one of the damage types in question.
@@theuncalledfor Yeah, naw. With the way enemy Con scales, call lightning is effective in a wider range of combats for longer in the druid's career. It also cannot be used against the party by grapple-capable enemies the way moonbeam can.
Also, moonbeam is single target. Storm hits all adjacent squares to the target.
@@arcane45
Moonbeam is AoE, you chicken nugget. 5ft radius, 40ft tall cylinder effect that you can move as an Action on subsequent turns. It's pretty damn good for a second level spell.
I don't know what you're confusing it with, or if you somehow mistook "radius" for "diameter", to somehow think this was single-target.
@@arcane45 The AoEs are identical. Five foot radius around a point.
we had a sorcerer in our party who took tidal wave, and i have to say from experience with it, the specific shape of tidal wave makes it _much_ easier to avoid friendly fire with than something like a fireball. you can almost always catch multiple enemies in a line even if they're mixed up in combat with your allies.
i'm not sure if that makes it a _good_ spell, but having seen it cast pretty regularly, it's a much better spell to have when your allies are all clumped up with your enemies than fireball or erupting earth are. well, unless you're an evocation wizard. but compared to the other blast spells on the druid list i think it does pretty good just cause it's so much easier to avoid friendly fire with.
I was so looking forward to this, particularly for plant growth, and WOW. I didn't think about the chess-style effect for large or bigger enemies. That's so sweet! Nice work as always, Chris!
I love Plant Growth and I also had my character casting Speak with Plants so often our DM made Kelp a hive mind creature called Charlie the Help Kelp.
Daylight did come up in a homebrew campaign I'm running w/ some friends featuring creatures that are sunlight sensitive. I decided to house rule that daylight would in fact trigger the sensitivity. Needless to say it made the spell a whole lot better than just a magical darkness remover. A little sad they didn't write it so that it does trigger the sensitivity without begging the DM to house rule it.
Yes, if it was actually defined as sunlight, then it has a lot more uses.
I didn't realize Daylight doesn't upcast by RAW. In my campaigns I treat Daylight upcast dispels any Darkness of equal or lower level.
@@sharkforce8147 All spells can be cast with higher level slots, which is not the same as upcasting.
@@brettmajeske3525 A bit late to reply, but while it doesn't upcast to dispel higher levels of Darkness, the reverse is also true. This means that if both are cast at say, 4th level, neither can dispel the other.
But since Darkness only blocks out nonmagical light while dispelling magical light "from a spell of 2nd level or lower", any magical light that doesn't get dispelled will succesfully shine through even magical darkness even if it might not dispel the darkness either.
Call Lightning is also really good if you're playing ToA, you'll be outside for a lot of the levels where you'll be using it, and it's constantly raining and stormy, so you'll get that extra 1d10 more often than not.
I've seen speak with plants used really well. The area moves with you as the target is self, allowing you to use the options better than I expected.
Lot more plants in an area than animals too, and covers a large area so much better tracking than an animal or 4 could help with.
I was really surprised seeing it in use.
You can have the terrain effect follow you, slowing down pursuers in a chase. Just used it to that effect last week
"I cast average wave at the beach" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Idk, total wave seems really good. Your hitting 12 squares in total if you facing many enemies this also brings them to prone which is huge in battle.
I think the point about being able to hand the summoned Fey a magic weapon is important. Eventually something like a +1 shortsword will become trivial. You might even be able to give it a +2 weapon at some point, or even better.
On top of that, the chance to hit scales, so the summoned fey will eventually have +12 or better to hit, conjure animals will be stuck on their +4 or +5.
Conjure Animals is powerful because it provides a large number of bodies between you and the enemy, not because it can attack good.
"Oh, but AoE's!" I hear some people say. Well, spread them out! Don't make them an easy target! Mix them into enemy ranks! Your enemies will waste a spell slot and an Action to damage _themselves_ just to get rid of your swarm, that's a win for you!
_Meld Into Stone_ has sufficient duration to squeeze a long rest in, protected by being perfectly hidden inside the stone... assuming you have enough time to ritually cast it on each member of your party, and also assuming that's useful to you.
It is pretty fantastic for infiltrations. As part of a "standard adventuring day," though, it's hard to use.
It's a worse Tiny Hut, other than the possible stealth/surprise angle, but you can't cast it on other party members so it's very limited.
@@wyattweber9983 It's range is "touch," not "self."
I agree that it is _usually_ less useful than other ways of skinning the same cat (if you even want to), but it does have a niche use which is pretty handy in its niche case (which you can often see coming).
@@Philistine47 Its range is Touch because _the stone_ is the target, not the person entering the stone. Otherwise the description would say "The target steps into a stone object", not "You step into a stone object".
Speak With Plants. It can be AMAZING, although highly DM dependent. "Plants might be able to perform other tasks on your behalf...they can freely move tendrils and stalks". You can potentially have trees attack (awakened tree stat block) vines grapple. Personally I would require a persuasion check and depending on the result the plants may offer to take a more active role in combat by attacking/grappling/etc. If your DM is cool with this kind of thing, speak with plants become a very attractive non-concentration spell in the right circumstances.
I used this to have trees and plants to attack and restrain enemies.
When I first read "Call Lightning" I was shocked that it wasn't a bonus action every round after casting for each lightning strike.
It's a good house rule, if the Druid doesn't cast another spell in a turn, it gets a bonus action to call lightning.
Makes it a bit more flexible, makes certain druids work really well with it, and the area requirement, I feel, is usually more than enough limitation.
This was really good. I really liked the examples you used to show the uses of plant growth. I think it would be really useful to do some more videos sometime showing actual examples of the tactical uses of various spells, abilities, etc, that you recommend. That could either be just an example you create to best show off the tactical applications, but I'd really love to see a short video of actual play uses, because those are more dynamic. But anyway, that's just my thoughts, I'm looking forward to the rest of this series and your ranking series, and anything else you put out.
While Plant Growths limitation is very real, I'd remind a DM that said it doesn't work that a "plant" by definition includes mosses and shrubs. So if you're a Druid, pay attention to your DMs descriptions, ask questions, and pick up a book on botany haha
DM: "It's a natural, stone, cavern floor"
Druid: "So, you're saying that this is a massive, open field of moss and lichen?"
If you take the Druidcraft cantrip, you can predict the weather for the next 24 hours, and use that to determine whether you should prepare call lightning. If Druidcraft predicts a storm, you'll be guaranteed the extra damage
Wind curtain is actually a way to slay a vampire as seen in Critical Role Campaign 1.
The vampire can't get back to their grave when in mist form.
That was indeed surprisingly clever tactic :)
Plant Growth and difficult terrain do stack, but it doesn't double the effect (I.e. 1 foot doesn't cost 8 feet). Difficult terrain has two sets of rules, one under Movement (you move at half speed), and one under the Combat section. Combat is the pertinent section in this scenario: "Combat rarely takes place in bare rooms or on featureless plains. Boulder--strewn caverns, briar-- choked forests, treacherous staircases-the setting of a typical fight contains Difficult Terrain.
Every foot of Movement in Difficult Terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as Difficult Terrain."
So if each foot costs 4 feet because of Plant Growth, and each foot costs 1 additional foot because of Plant Growth, then 1 foot moved costs 5 feet of your movement.
Just a point of clarity, as I always see the one get confused.
And if you're lucky you cast Plant Growth as a Circle of the Land - Druid above Level 6, because "Land's Stride" lets you ignore your own freshly overgrown plants, since : "You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them [...]"^^
So many possible shenanigans :-)
26:43 Difficult terrain doesn't double the penalty, only increases it from 4x to 5x.
29:44 If you arrange the plants like this, the barlguras could 'squeeze into a smaller space' to pass between the plants using only 2x movement instead of 4x. Then at the end of their movement, they can decide to just stop squeezing, so their attacks don't have disadvantage.
Source?
Also if the squeezing thing is going on, next time im just going to cast it so that only the party can squeeze through the area
Wow. Can't believe you put tidal wave as red. The damage is okay. But the prone condition is very nice. You can knock down flying creature, give advantage to melee attacks, or possibly split up enemies by knocking then prone.
The range is also very nice. I almost always prep this on a druid and consistently get good value from it.
My Necromancer gets Tidal Wave instead of Fireball, because he has a bit of a water theme going on the side. He'd rather douse fires than cause them.
If I can find Fireball in the environment, I'll gladly have him copy it into his spellbook and make good use of it, but Tidal Wave is more important to him.
@@theuncalledfor ok
Keep doing what you do!
Kind of hurts to hear just how bad Call Lightening is. I always thought of it as the Druid aoe spell.
The issue with Conjure Animals is that the spell specifically states you summon X beasts of CR 2/X or lower, so there is nothing stopping your DM from choosing X CR 0 beasts.
Even if they do pick a CR 2/X beast, there is nothing stopping them from choosing a beast that is utterly useless in the current environment: i.e. a fish above water or any non-aquatic animal below water.
This is why I advocate the use of Summon Beast instead. You choose the stat block so your DM doesn't need to search the monster manual for an appropriate beast, they can't effectively blank it by picking useless creatures, and you always summon one creature so it can't slow down combat nearly as much as Conjure Animals.
If your DM actively sabotages you then I think there are other problems you need to sort out.
This is true, but if you're playing with a GM who is out to screw you over he or she is very likely to succeed in one way or another. It is however a spell you should talk to your GM about. Is it cool if you play a summoner? How you should handle it? How is the summons chosen, who controls them etc.
At my table we made an agreement that I would refrain from summoning 8 creatures, as it was a bit much. So I summon at most 2 creatures, but I get to pick which; we also found it easier if I just control them as it saves my GM some work. We're also thinking of having the upcast increase CR rather than numbers.
So far it works rather fine. It's not as powerful as having a full goonsquad of CR 1/4, but it works fairly well. I add a decent amount of damage and "tanking" to our combats.
@@Bam31415 I'm playing a Shepard druid atm and having 8 creatures isn't a big deal since I use a macro to roll their attacks very quickly.
@@ATMOSK1234 That's a point, but the spell description states OR LOWER. If the "intent" of the spell is that you always get the highest CR beast, then that phrase probably wouldn't be included IMO. And if the prevailing opinion of the spell (Treantmonk nonwithstanding) is it's so good it overshadows every other druid spell, then maybe it shouldn't get the full effect every time it's used?
Using macros I can run 8 creatures faster than some players take to do their turns lol.
42:40 Tidal wave can be good for killing flying creatures, knocking them prone out of the sky can be tons of damage, for something you otherwise probably don't have any good tools for, and maybe your party as well. Also a curious phenomenon, followed by wet dead birds on the ground, what a story!
I recently played a game as an aberrant mind sorc, and I gotta say that some difficult terrain [Hunger of Hadar] + tidal wave definitely swung combat in a super satisfying way for the creatures that fell prone. I could see the coordination/combo of Plant Growth + Tidal Wave could make it circumstantially worthwhile to take, maybe bumping TW up to orange. Particularly being able to arrange the wave on the battlefield to avoid allies and screw with enemies is a nice treat, though the damage certainly isn't incredible for its level.
Thanks for the video TM! Great breakdowns to peruse for whenever I build my next druid :D
Using Druidcraft to set up plant growth is an interesting if niche combo if you need to make an escape and nobody has teleports available. You can make a plant instantly flower so you can carry around a bag of seeds and create your own plant life within the dungeon. Deposing on your DM it could take a while to get enough flowers to make it doable but still, it’s an option
Feign Death has a very important application in RAW only groups: extracting venom / poison out of a Warlock familiar. The rules for poison state that you need to have an incapacitated creature (or dead), and the easiest way to do so is to cast Feign Death on it since it lasts 1h and requires neither concentration, nor a spell slot.
Wow, that is certainly an obscure use haha. I presume you use an Imp for this?
As a DM I have a rolling table for conjure animals for each CR option, higher rolls typically give better creatures
Honestly, as a druid player.. that kind of sucks. There are many times when you want creatures with specific traits for tactical reasons or specific creatures for RP reasons.
E.g. the party needs to cross a dangerous river so you want some big birds to carry them, or something that swims really well.
E.g. the enemy has high AC so you want something with pack tactics or something to strong enough to knock them prone.
E.g. your a werewolf-themed moon druid and want to conjure your wolf pack to help.
Using a 3rd level spell to get some animals that have +3 to hit so will do nothing against a AC 19 devil just sucks.
@@richardwhaler8717
I tend to rule that if there's a specific purpose the animals are summoned for, they at least always get a creature that can fulfill that role in some form, if not always the same way. Getting spiders to cross a river or ravine or something.
General combat, I'm a bit more random when I pick, but I tend to go for like a 50/50 split of the druid getting exactly what they want, and them getting something completely different.
And I very rarely undercut the CR, if I do, it's either for comedic, low-stakes effect, or else if there's a problem with getting a creature to fill a particular utility at that CR, and I always translate the CR if I do that.
You mite mention that the druid can change his spell list over a long rest. Those super situational spells mite be game changers and the hart of a new plan. 😘
The though of rocketing up a snow drift at 60ft a round that just avalanched on you made me chuckle out loud.
Thanks. XD
Also, I hadn't known about the summon fey spell. That's an interesting one, looks like the wrathful one is the best until it can get a full multi-attack with up-casting so it'll always have advantage on its single attack multi-attack XD, then it'll be the charmed effect, with the 5ft darkness cube one being the circumstantial one with blocking line of sight on things.
Animated dead or other instantaneous effects (pretty much all special ones too) are completely unaffected by dispel magic or anti-magic field.
Tidal wave is easier to position than fireball/lighting bolt. It's just a line you can rotate, its easier to place without causing friendly fire. Also it prones, and can be cast above the ground (120 ft in the air), which can bring flying creatures to the ground, and make them take fall damage. I wouldn't call it bad.
I quite often cast Tidal Wave with my Druid and it's ok.
Is the damage good? No, it's not, but the only other option is Erupting Earth for concentrationless damage AND prone is very good when your best spells are summons that love to have advantage on their attacks.
I've had it as a lvl3 blast spell for a "conjuration spell" focused wizard and the area was usually large enough (in that campaign) but that of course depends if you have a dungeon or large area outdoors encounters, I see how it is small in outdoor areas but we are probably using smaller combat maps in general than Treantmonk.
The shape covered a good portion of the encounters and was easier to fit enemies without hitting friends compared to a circular blast.
Prone (on a failed save) is a sucky condition and its good vs flying stuff since prone cause things to insta drop to the ground and that will also add a bit of extra fall damage.
But yes the damage can be a bit lackluster and there is no upcast scaling.
In my experience, Tidal Wave's size makes it easier not to catch my party in it's effect, and makes it pretty useful at the level you pick it up at, and a few beyond, especially since druid's don't have access to spell sculpting or evocation wizard exclusion.
39:17 im not sure the text there "plant growth" is even referring to the spell Plant Growth. i think it just means regular, dense plant growth that the party might happen to run into. They even specify "such as thickets and undergrowth", and i think they specified that in order to steer away from the spell Plant Growth. I think if they were referencing the spell Plant Growth, they would've written "caused by the spell Plant Growth".
Thanks for making this video
Love druids. Thanks for the positive feedback
Wall of Water gives Frost Fingers an actually beneficial function. Truly the powerhouse spell combo you were looking for.
Plant Growth is such an underrated battlefield control spell. Conceptualizing a Clockwork Soul Sorcerer now and I would be tempted to multiclass Archfey Warlock since it would put Plant Growth on the Warlock spell list, and it's a Transmutation spell so it counts for Clockwork Magic... but that's sadly too much of a sacrifice since the multiclass offers very little compared to the other Warlock subclasses like Hexblade (duh), Genie (Dao - Spike Growth, extra damage) or Undead (Death Ward, frequent frighten). Or even the Order Cleric, which has to be the multiclass of choice for Voice of Authority combined with Careful spell shenanigans.
okay, I find this series interesting.
I always thought of druids as "diet cleric". Worse AC, no domain spells, no channel divinity, why would I play a druid over a cleric?
Turns out there may be a reason to do so
Best reason is not having to rely on a dm controlled God for your powers. More freedom in roleplay
Diet cleric!? DIET CLERIC!? Clerics are diet druids, foo'! Moon and shepherd druids smack the bitch out of clerics in combat effectiveness! Dem animals are a furry frenzy of destruction!
@@captainpandabear1422 *laughs in light/twighlight domain cleric*
But seriously both are awesome but for different reasons.
I'm currently playing as a Druid ina party with a Cleric, the Cleric is the one that envy me ngl.
It also helps that after 5th level cleric spells take a nose dive in quality and we are at tier 3.
@@pedrodarosamello64 just playing at t3 is enough to envy you
Correct me if I’m wrong, but IIRC, Tidal Wave is the only concentration-free dexterity save that can knock flying creatures from the sky.
It might be. There are certainly lower level spells that can do it (even a cantrip), but I'm not sure any of them are dex saves.
Right on. Druids don’t get Command or Sapping Sting (kind of a reach to cite that one 🤓), which kinda leaves only Tidal Wave & Sleet Storm. Sometimes I’d rather have an AoE prone effect that doesn’t target the entire mat and occupy my concentration. It’s not a big stretch of the imagination for prone effect of Tidal Wave to add 10d6 falling damage. Circumstantial? Yeah, but it ain’t nothing.
the wildfire druid can really take advantage of those multiheal abilities as well, if you have a wildfire spirit just hanging around they can A-have the spell centred on/cast from the spirit that can hover and B-enhance the spell itself with every casting.
Plant growth has single handedly saved my lvl 13 ranger from a group I joined late that tried to pvp and kill me (long story). Due to the plants being non-magical after they manifest and rangers movement not being impeded by non-magical plants, I was able to escape and get reinforcements. They sent a flame elemental after me and ended up being a bad idea for them because it created a massive wildfire with smokescreens. This WAS inside by the way. Mushrooms, lichens, roots, etc. You have to make a survival or nature check to figure that out but once you do, you have to be strategic.
I was so excited to use Call Lightning in my campaign's big City Seige battle at the end. I was playing a moon druid, and had flavoured my druid as a gnome who had swallowed an elemental gem (thus I used exclusively air+lightning themed spells and the elemental form). However, I'd just hit level 11 and my cantrips were doing competitive damage! I had planned to upcast it, but our plan necessitated a lot of divination magic and a conjure elemental for an invisible stalker to track various doppelgangers and enemy captains, and having a heal spell in the wings as the partys only healer.
I kept waiting to bust the spell out, but my poor concentration saves just made it a bad option at every level. I was determined to use it! And the campaign ended before I got a chance.
Cool to see all the uses for Speak With Plants here in the comments though! Cant wait for my partys ranger to discover it!
On my dwarven druid, I would cast Meld Into Stone right before taking a long rest if I had the spell slot. Lots of laughs at the table, plus he wasn't likely to be ambushed in his sleep
In an underdark campaign, I was able to use Meld Into Stone to escape captivity and then hide while I made my escape.
Plant growth. Moss, alge, lichen, ect are everywhere. In that same underdark campaign DM ruled that the fungi affected by the spell made the surface slick and slimey.
One thing about call lightning is, druids have acces to druidcraft, wich can predict the weather, so you can just cast druidcraft at the beginning of the day and then prepare either call lightning or moonbeam based on the result youre given
Meld to stone is a ritual.. so that right there gives it a lot more reason to prepare... also if you're ever isolated from your party, 8 hours for a long!! Got to be creatkve to use this, but in the campaign it can potentially be an always prepared spell
Also to note, Errupting Earth when updated can be a pretty good damage spell. Not worth it as a 3rd level slot, but especially with limited spell slots, but it's either this or tidal wave for non concentrations spells at level 3
1. If there are a lot of allied summoned creatures, I lean towards letting the player just split them into 2 groups and attack with advantage.
4 velociraptors can (and arguably would) surround a creature, flank it, and attack. They're murder turkeys. It's what they do. They all act on the same initiative, one roll, because I sure as hell am not keeping track of that, or just after the druid to keep it simple. All 4 then hit on a hit, meaning they also all crit on a crit, and miss on a miss. Roll it all as one big hit, add bonus x 4. There is your damage and we don't all suddenly have time to go cook dinner while the summoner works out their turn and plays their spreadsheets.
Saves me (as a DM) having to deal with too many rolls and initiatives to keep track of. Sucks when both groups fail to hit anything, great fun and really memorable if both swarms crit. It's how I make groups of summons easier and hopefully more fun.
2. As for Tidal Wave, it has one use (I know of) that is quite obsucre and effective. I'm fairly sure it does basically instanly kill fire elementals, because of their damage/gallon of water weakness.
3. Wind Wall could protect you from flying swarms. Not really something I see coming up often, but if you know there will be a lot of flying swarms... might be worth trying? Or if you're up against something gassy perhaps? Should also maybe keep a vampire trapped in mist form too.
Still not a spell I'd prepare unless I just wanted to be weird and try weird stuff for fun.
For (1), you could also use the Mob combat rules on DMG pg250, which forgo attack rolls.
@@MetaKaios They are good rules for a DM wanting their players to feel cool standing against a horde. But from a player perspective they are not fun, in my experience.
Casting Animate Objects for a guaranteed 3d4+12 damage to the dragon just feels bad. Doing same for two tries with advantage for a 5d4+20 hit that might crit is, in my experience, a lot more exciting for the player. Especially when the dice are kind and they crit with both attacks for 2x(10d4)+40 and get to feel really powerful!
I used wind wall to make all of an enemies arrows fly out of their quiver and scatter
Regarding dispel magic: the text says “creature, object, or magical effect” conjure animals creates multiple individual creatures, so only one creature would be dispelled. However, entangle and evard’s black tentacles would be considered “magical effects” and thus the area would be dispelled.
Tidal Wave: it's tiny, that's the point. It's *up-to* 30'long x 10'wide x 10'high. You *can* make it as small as a pebble, and it keeps all of its effects. That level of scalable targeting is amazing, even to the point of it not being upcastable. It doesn't blow your concentration either. Have summons up and party members around? Pow! Drop of water drops the big bad!
Got a bit of room to boom? Pow! Double width crappy lightning bolt surges on through!
Annoying mob of flying enemies, flapping around being annoying? Prone those mo'foes out of the air with an aerial geyser (nothing says it has to be on the ground, or near water, or anything like that. It's only the lights-go-out bit that refers to the ground, and even that is 30' away from the edge of the effect, so feel free to send a surge 10' upward down a street if there's multi-storey buildings about). Sometimes the fall damage splats them better than the spell damage!
Need the lights to go out? Do you know how many light-sources this can turn off down a street or at a castle entrance or in a cavern or anywhere near non-darkvision members of the party (both upsides and down to this one). Stealth mode on, or tavern brawl escape, your choice!
It's a great spell to have prepared due to its versatility. It should be called Psionic EMP Blast Surge or something. Tidal Wave gives totally the wrong impression of what the spell actually does.
Goes down chimneys, through windows, over walls, and around corners in dungeons as well. Can you see through a keyhole with your superb perception? Whoosh a Tidal Wave through it if you don't like what you see. I'd knock it up a rank or three just because of that. It it amazingly modifiable with superb targeting, turns the lights out, and doesn't blow your concentration. This is very valuable to Druids. Very!
To be fair, "average wave at the beach" is pretty much exactly what the tide is.
Plant growth as a genie warlock. Catapult the vessel full of plants then cast when you pop out unharmed as it shatters as a held action. Your garden just overgrew the dungeon in lovely thick flowers and the enemies are welding in place.
I think the walking on snow thing is a LotR reference to legolas. As we saw he was so light footed and nimble he walked over the snow as the rest of the party sank into it.
One good use for Feign Death is that it lets you use Planar Binding on creatures you conjure with Metamagic Adept: Extend Spell without needing or having to pay for Magic Circle. And Metamagic Adept is already an OMG good feat.
Love the tactical use of Aura of Vitality out of combat. Used it between 2 major battles and was able to max everyone out before the level boss. Druid put the Cleric to shame. Hahaha
Erupting Earth is seriously underrated, you need to realise EE damage begins to scale better than Fireball after 5th level spell slot.
Tidal Wave can be shaped to avoid friendly fire which can be useful, but more importantly it can knock flying creatures prone. I've seen this take down wyverns and young dragons who then get jumped by melee.
It isn't always great but against flying creatures it can be a great spell.
It's a DEX save. Don't dragons usually get worse DEX as they grow up? So, wouldn't this be _more_ effective against larger dragons?
Moonbeam can be finicky, to do damage twice a target has to be moved into it so you'd have to place the area nearby an enemy and hope an ally knocks them inside but if that forced movement fails the enemy won't get the damage from moving in or from starting there. It's risky enough that I wouldn't count on it most of the time but it depends on the combat environment and enemies. I'd probably prepare Moonbeam on a indoor/underground day, but Call Lightning instead on an outdoors day.
I used to always use meld into stone whenever my party members stopped at in inn to sleep.
I would just make myself nice and cozy inside the fireplace mantel instead of coughing up the gold for a room
Summon Fey is amazing. Depending on party make-up, your summon may be the most intelligent or charismatic member of your team. And you can ask it questions or make it talk in your place (assuming you/whoever can speak Sylvan). I recommend having a miniature adventurer's kit prepared for the little gremlin. "Here's your +1 magic short sword, your couple of Good Berries, your caltrops, your ball bearings, your net, your backpack, a rope and grappling hook, a lantern, a few tinder twigs, a couple of flasks of oil, a healing potion, and whatever other magical junk that takes an action to use that I'll never use again (that you can lift). Glad to have you back on the team mate! Do us proud!
PS, the Monk is jealous of you".
Maybe you forgot to mention it, but since Meld into Stone lasts for 8 hours, you could very well just make a long rest with it. Probably wouldn't bump up its ranking, but it is one extra niche utility
Tidal Wave could have a niche use of being able to destroy fire elementals outright.
From the fire elemental description :
"Water Susceptibility. For every 5 feet the elemental moves in water, or for every gallon of water splashed on it, it takes 1 cold damage."
A Tidal wave could contain up to about 22,440 gallons of water so as a DM I would rule that any fire elemental caught in it's area would take enough damage to be reduced to 0hp.
Thoughts?
Given the dimensions of the spell (30'x10'x10') I'd rule it the same as moving through 10' of water. The elemental would still be surrounded by water though so would take further damage from moving.
Awesome
Erupting Earth: I think any DM would be hard-pressed to say that this 20 ft area of "churned earth" doesn't qualify as "loose earth" for the mold earth cantrip. And because this ground remains this way until cleared, this becomes an out of combat or downtime utility spell along with the mold earth.
In areas (or entire underdark campaigns) where mold earth isn't viable, this helps get additional mileage out of a cantrip selection.
Plant growth is even better for me because my DM ruled that, even in a dungeon, there's still some residual plants SOMEWHERE arouns there (moss or small blades of grass or anything) and that, as long as there's any plant In the radius, it works for the full radius.
It's a bit weird up to interpretation if the affected square needs a plant in it or not so I think this worke?
The only reason I'm not preparing call lightning is that all the fights we had so far were outdoors and there was a lot of movement and even though 60 feet radius sounds like a lot, it's really not. I was struggling to shoot with guiding bolt sometimes at the range of 120 feet so did the warlock with eldritch blast.
and the DM (enemies) aren't stupid, they wont just stay under the cloud
Comment on call lightning: As a druid you can druidcraft the weather forecast to see if you're going to get that tasty thunderstorm. My DM has rewarded this twice so far by giving us combat during a storm that I predicted but he has also had 2 storms go by that did not see combat. We had a bit of back and forth, but the final answer was that the RAW is that I can zap any target under the cloud. Now a storm can be made up of many clouds etc etc but basically I could zap a target miles away on the side of a mountain, IF I managed to see it with a high DC perception check. The end result was that the strike split off 3 of the 7 minions of the group that we were chasing and made them tumble down the side of the mountain. That was really helpful once we caught up and went into actual combat since their numbers where already lower.
I was looking forward for this video to see what non-summoming suggestions you have.
Unfortunately, even after watching this, I still can't seem to find good options to choose.
I like entange and spike growth for 1st and 2nd level, but by third level it seems the only good thing to concentrate on is summoning.
Forgetting the benefits of prone, tidal wave should be orange because it insta-kills fire elementals. If you know you'll be battling fire elementals, which is usually hinted at in modules like PotA, this can be a fantastic spell to prepare.
About Speak with Plants, the wording is : "You can also turn terrain caused by plant growth (such as thickets and undergrowth) into ordinary terrain". Note that "plant growth" is not highlighted like "entangle" lower in the text. Therefore, it is not about the spell Plant Growth but actually natural plant growth. Your party is in a forest with thick underbrush that slows your movement. You cast that spell and you can ask the plants to let you go through. I wonder, since the spell's range is "Self", if the effect follows you. Which means that your group could move through a thicket of 2500-3000 ft during 10 minutes, which is about half a mile. I mean, it's Speak with Animals but for plants. It needs an area of effect (30 ft) around you because plants can't move. Therefore the amount of info you could gather would be very limited if you had to question every plant during ten minutes... But it really should be a ritual and it remains situationnal.
In our party we read "Daylight" as a source of sunlight. But our dm is very nice to us, so every comrade trying to attack being next to me rolls with disadvantage and at the time spell was cast - everybody rolled for constitution to not be blinded...
So I am not sure, that i would pick conjure animals xd
48:26 Even if you can walk on lava with the spell, you'd still burn your feet to crisps after a couple of steps. Does it have a built-in mini elemental ward for your feet?
For Sleet Storm - even if you're in a 40 ft room, couldn't you put the center/point of origin in the corner? Thus not filling the entire room?
Conjure animals says you choose what you get, not the DM. It simply says the DM has the stat blocks for the summons, not that the DM chooses what you get
Sage advice or errata made mention that the dm gets to choose for balance reasons.
You can see with familiar in meld stone or if you use mislead
I've found speak with plants to be a fantastic spell, but it is subject to DM fiat.
My dm has made it a point that plants are a lot more useful and friendlier than animals. Animals are mischievous and unreliable whereas trees are wise and such. I've made the trees dance too in social interactions where people want to see a display of my powers, and finally the most important of all is plants can be in areas where animals aren't. Like a potted plant in someone's office. It has helped me gain information that we normally wouldn't have before.
My problem is that plants don't have eyes or ears so it's hard to imagine them being able to give good info
When discussing Speak With Plants you mention turning the difficult terrain of plant growth into ordinary terrain as a way of altering the Plant Growth spell. They’re not actually talking about the spell plant growth here, which is why there’s no link in your DND Beyond the spell Plant Growth. They’re talking about the ordinary growth of plants that happens to create difficult terrain.
@@sharkforce8147 because Plant Growth doesn’t actually create difficult terrain. That’s the point of his discussion. He is talking about how Speak with Plants says you can make the difficult terrain created by plant growth normal terrain and that Plant Growth doesn’t actually create difficult terrain. This isn’t an oversight on the part of the designer because they’re not talking about the spell Plant Growth but regular old plant growth.
Q: Since Meld into Stone doesn't require Concentration, can you ritually cast it and then perform a long rest inside the stone?
Why wouldn't you be able to do that? Seems pretty clear to me that you can.
And yeah on Tidal Wave there is "up to 30 feet, up to 10, up to 10" - You can shape it however you want in all three dimensions.
So far for my level 6 druid Summon Beast and Summon Fey are way more consistent than Conjure Animals. That "or lower" part can be brutal. Plus turns are much faster as you said.
Another benefit of summon fey is the darkness blob.. strong defense for the bard or Druid that doesn’t care about hitting things
plant growth+dungeon+handful of seeds+druid craft=success
I think Elemental weapon can be used like this
Hold an action to cast
wild shape as a bonus action
release the spell targetting one natural weapon in your stat block
Its a lil bit of a boost to wild shape but its super minimum :(
I once casted speak with plant to let the plants hide bodies and squeeze them dry XD
Dispel magic should have a stated area if cast on the ground. Like 10 ft radius or somethin.
Speak with plants does have a crazy ability to be used without an action, so the difficult terrain thing is actually mega broken since you can turn it on an off without any restrictions or actions, the peak of this is using it in a bush heavy area where you can remove cover on your turn and allies turn, and then bring it back imediately with no restrictions. Honestly they kinda messed up the wording a bit.
for Erupting Earth I just read it as if it creates a 20ft cube of earth, like a 20 by 20 by 20 hill is now where you cast the spell.
Its so bad otherwise, how could it not be that way.
Seriously though, I think it might be meant that way, and the language could be interpreted both ways, it lacks the "if there is no room above then X" clause but alot of 5e effects leave circumstances like that up to the DM. And why else would you have the "1 min to clear by hand" clause if it didn't cause blockages?
There is the 20ft cube area as well, but I don't know if they are very consistent with their area types in the first place.
Now I really don't know
actually speak with plants is quite good if you interpret the 1st line differently. For 10 minutes, you continue to imbue plants within 30ft around you with.... which means this is similar to plant growth but you can carry along with you for 10 minutes. It can be like i am following a trail and i keep asking different plants i meet to show me the way whenever i lose the trail or i am being chased by creatures but i ask all plant i pass by to hinder the ones chasing me. I have had it on my UA CFV ranger and it has been quite useful in circumstances.
I read on sage advice that spells that affect a creature when they enter or start their turn in the effect, are only affected once (either upon entering or at start of their turn). The reason was forced movement and moving the effect don't count as entering the effect since it's not voluntary. So technically moon beam only hits on the start of a creatures turn if the beam is moved onto them.
Does that affect your analysis of call lightning compared to moon beam?
You’re right about moonbeam not immediately damaging creatures when you move the beam onto them, but the first part of your comment seems to imply that you think creatures don’t take damage when they move into the beam, which is wrong.
Voluntary or not, if a creature enters the area of moonbeam (notice this is distinct from the beam being moved onto them) then they must immediately make a saving throw and take damage. When they start their turn, assuming they are still in the beam, they will take damage again.
The difficulty is, of course, how to force a creature into the area of moonbeam when we have presumably used our action to either cast moonbeam or move it somewhere? There’s a few options. You could have an ally shove/somehow force them into it. You could put it somewhere the enemy will need to get to, and then have some other way of stopping them once they’re there. Or you could take the telekinetic feat and use your bonus action to shove creatures into your moon beam immediately after casting it 5ft away from them. Or be a stars druid/genie warlock multiclass with the crusher feat and use your archer form to accomplish the same this while getting a bit of extra damage in.
I had a DM that banned all summoning (so no conjure animals, no summon beast or fey), AND played Theater of the Mind with it usually skewed in the enemy's favor so spells like Spike Growth, Plant Growth, or Moonbeam very rarely had any real effect. That was the most miserable experience ever playing a druid.
wall of water is much easier to use for imposing disadvantage on ranged attacks, at least down a hallway or something. warding wind deafens yourself and nearby allies, wall of water doesnt.
I would think that having Shillelagh would make Elemental Weapon pretty useless, right? Makes your staff a magic weapon. Increases damage to 1d8. Adds Wis instead of strength or dex to attack and damage rolls. Doesn't use concentration...