Amazing Combinations for Forced Movement Shenanigans in Dungeons & Dragons 5e
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We take a look at multiple options for devastating your foes with forced movement shenanigans. We first look at "the Setup": spells to lay down to create a hazard on the battlefield. Then we look at "the Followthrough": Options available to force enemies in to the debilitating situations.
TIME STAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:42 - The Setup
1:57 - Cantrips
2:14 - 1st Level Spells
3:12 - 2nd Level Spells
4:07 - 3rd Level Spells
4:33 - 4th Level Spells
5:47 - 5th Level Spells
6:22 - 6th Level Spells
6:32 - 7th Level Spells
7:02 - 8th Level Spells
7:18 - 9th Level Spells
8:28 - The Followthrough
9:01 - Shove Action
9:35 - Feats
10:59 - Class Features
12:10 - Cantrips
13:45 - Thunderwave
14:08 - Thunderous Smite
14:26 - Gust of Wind
15:07 - Telekinesis & Bigby’s Hand
16:03 - Vortex warp & Scatter
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My group has a running joke that Vortex Warp is my most damaging spell because it drops an enemy right in front of our Vengeance Paladin
Nice. Sounds fun
🤔 Why not drop your paladin right in front of the enemy? No save to worry about in that case!
@@bigdream_dreambig this.
@@bigdream_dreambig Might be because then the vengeance paladin is no longer standing between the wizard and a second enemy ... who is now wielding *both* a spiked club the size of a small car, and a shit-eating grin.
That is beautiful.
Shield master is actually really great on barbarians because a shove is a contested strength check, and a raging barbarian gets advantage on strength checks.
Rune knights are also good for shoves (and grapples) when enlarged.
Savage
Hell yea. And not related to movement effects but the other 2 parts of shield master can work with barbarian Danger Sense, too.
@@michaelondic5884 One of the characters I'm considering for my next campaign is a rune knight with the unarmed fighting style, so that should work pretty well (although the fire rune requires a weapon...).
@@bigdream_dreambig I want to play a duergar rune knight so at level 18 you can grow huge then cast enlarge and become gargantuan
These tactics are a great tool for DM's to use against characters who have those insane AC's to hit.
Or, for a less imaginative solution, front-line troops/thugs/mooks of the BBEG start getting issued fireball wands.
A generous DM would even make it so they're not cursed fireball wands.
Now that actually gives an interesting opportunity to the party. You could collect fireball wands from the fallen enemies, and start cosplaying Rambo in D&D (bandoliers of fireball wands instead of machine gun ammunition).
In other words, "What if the fireball wizard can take a hit?" (in the form of a barbarian with many fireball wands).
@@44R0Ndineverybody gangsta til the battlemaster gets akimbo fireball wands
Love the video, but you fell for the common mistake: Entangle will restrain a creature that's in the area ONLY when you cast the spell. If a creature enters the area later (i.e. get knocked / shoved into it), the only effect it will suffer from is difficult terrain - no restraining takes place at that point.
huh - that's a good point!
Exactly =) And for the sake of forced movement-entangle relationship is also good to know that the restrained condition remains until the target free itself or the spells ends, so even if the target is moved outside the original area of effect it is still restrained \o/
Honestly it's why I feel Web is such a massive upgrade to Entangle, and the reason I swapped Entangle off of my Swarmkeeper once I got Web.
@@receth oooh that could be interesting...
I notice that the channel didn’t acknowledge this comment. That’s really too bad. The Dungeon Dudes are at their best when they’re riffing on tier lists or explaining high-level concepts to new viewers. Builds and strategies just aren’t their strength, and I think they’ve been struggling to produce compelling content for the past several months.
I had a Horizon Walker in my party who had never played D&D before. His solution to fighting a bunch of archers firing down at them from a ridge was to create a bunch of fog around the archers, Misty Step himself up to the cliff, then shove each archer off the cliff one at a time.
The Sentinel feat can be great to keep an enemy in the AOE and has so many other benefits as well. Every time they try to move out, your fighter gets an opportunity attack that can reduce their movement to 0 for the rest of the turn.
A druid wildshaped into a giant spider on a web laid on Spike Growth and covered with darkness is great to have sentinel....... they get free, move, get hit, go to 0 speed, have to save again, if you miss they still take damage.
Combine that with the Crusher Feat, then not only is the Sentinel stopping them from leaving the AoE, but could potentially knock them right back into it with the same AoO
@@aarons.8161 unfortunately the giant spider only has piercing damage. But it wouldn't be bad for someone outside the web/darkness to have.
Wall of fire is amazing because there is only one direct saving throw at the time of casting. All Other movement interactions with the wall afterwards automatically cause damage with no save.
Don’t forget the Drakewarden’s Drake is str 16 and immune to some elemental effects. Is require some thought but having a dragon pulling someone into a wall of fire or over spiked growth - always fun.
That's really smart
As my Wildfire Druid, I like to have my wildfire spirit fly around the battlefield and thorn whip enemies into different hazards like Wall of Fire, Moonbeam, or even the spirits of their dead teammates that I can then ignite.
For extra grins and giggles, try Conjure Woodland Beings and summon a phalanx of Feys to do your bidding as well. While an individual Pixie is hardly a match for anyone, 24 of them can wreak havoc across the board with their spells. And 48 Boggles can create difficult terrain that can last for an hour and can spread by that amount every turn that the Boggles move and can force an ever-tightening ring around the menacing hordes towards their demise. Enjoy!
Let me go over a few honourable mentions that didn't make it into the video:
1) Booming Blade. Combined with the Crusher feat, you can knock someone away and they can only get back into melee range if they take the secondary damage.
2) Watery Sphere. Up to four medium creatures that fail a save can be picked up and dragged wherever the sphere goes -- like right into a Hunger of Hadar area.
3) Bones of The Earth. Put a horizontal Wall of Force over your enemy. Then cast Bones of The Earth and do the monster mash.
4) Spike Growth. Yeah they mentioned it, but they didn't go over the cheese grater option where you grapple enemies and drag them back and forth over the spikes. Druids could be especially good at this if they can wildshape into a size huge creature and drag medium creatures without being slowed to half speed.
5) Grasping Vine. Put one in the middle of someone else's damage area spell and use it to drag enemies back in.
6) Storm Sphere. This one is only good if you're playing an evoker who can sculpt it around party members. Then the rest of the party can try to keep enemies in the constant damage area without worrying about it themselves.
What a coincidence, in our last play session last week our party encountered a band of kobolds and thugs in a powdered bone factory. It had bone crushers, conveyor belts, moving pistons and gears, dark pits.
My Warlock used Repelling Blast and Thorn Whip (from Pact of the Tome), to push and pull kobolds into the machinery. Gory, cruel, and fun combat encounter!
I think one of my favorite, my wife was playing a bard and carefully got into position on top of a tall look out tower. Used dissonant whispers to get the two guards to start fighting each other and one accidentally pushed the other off a 40 foot drop. While shocked at what he did, she pushed the other guard off. The guards on the ground freaked out as two of their compatriots had just splatted on the ground. So she hid. A group of 5 guards get up to the tower to investigate, so she cast Thunder wave and knocked the majority of them off the tower.
Swarmkeepers get a fun combo if they take the Druidic Warrior fighting style for Thorn Whip. Their Gathered Swarm ability triggers on any attack, including spell attacks. Spike Growth + Thorn Whip + Knockback = 2d6+10d4 damage at level 5.
I was tempted to take the Swarmkeeper Feat, but I had to go with the Fey Wanderer instead. +6 CHA Abilities with only a 12 in Charisma, plus some Proficiencies was too hard to pass up.
@@_Abjuranax_ I had to reread your reply a couple of times to figure out you meant subclass, not feat, cause at first I thought you were comparing it to the Fey Touched feat and I was like "Wait, you can have both" lol
Fey Wanderer is fun too though. But in terms of what this video is talking about, it's hard to beat Swarmkeeper. Honestly I'm just a big fan of Rangers in general, idc what everyone else says.
@@brewdaly1873 I may have gotten them mixed up, but I am a Multi-Class Druid 14, Ranger 5, and Rogue 1. As such, my Ranger abilities are quite limited (2x Attacks +), so I took features that supported my character the best.
Great list and there is a ton to cover. Some spells we have used to good effect has been Levitate, completely immobilizes if they don't have away to get in contact with something. None of these work if the caster can stop the effect or teleport out, so Silence is an absolute go to and is an area of effect as well. As always thank you great stuff.
You just broke my mind with that idea of Spell Mastery on Vortex Warp! Being able to infinitely move your foes and allies around on the battlefield up to 90ft is amazing!
Love videos like this, especially about just tactically playing combat! That's what I live for in d&d!
Hear Hear
Mordekainen's Momentous Meatgrinder: Have a slippery surface in a hallway immediately behind door. People entering the door slip on that surface and forcefully move twice their intended movement in their intended direction. But wait, there's more. (Soldier says Nooooo.) Right behind the slippery area, there's Spike growth or some similar effect. Right after the spikes sits the party having a picnic and watching the BBEG's minions getting shred to pieces while tasting Neverwinter's best wine.
I’m playing a warlock and I just got access to Sickening Radiance. It was incredibly effective last week! I was shocked at how useful it was against a large number of enemies who had to come out of a cave to get to us.
I've used it to solo a remorhaz in a tomb with no damage to my other party members and DM PCs at level 8. Just dropped it and left the room into a too narrow hall.
As a DM I had a similar experience from the warlock in my CoS campaign. Those poor werewolves…
Thank you for the guide, Dudes, and the ideas for various shenanigans :D
La mejor parte del jueves; nuevo vídeo de los Dungeon Dudes, que alegría.
Just made a shield master paladin to play D&D first time in a year. Perfect timing Dudes!
What’s your plan?
5:40 I've personally always interpreted Sickening Radiance as basically being a nuclear-radiation beam. A while back I was playing a Scourge Aasimar Hexblade whom I themed as being pretty much a walking nuclear-reactor/bomb, with nearly all of her spells being either radiant or necrotic-based. We were able to set up the Entangle/Sickening Radiance combo a number of times and it was pretty much always horrifying for whoever we were fighting. Probably the worst one was a bunch of celestials that resisted the radiant damage but not the exhaustion so they just slowly died agonizing deaths over the course of six turns.
ow
Amazing video, surely watched it all already
I've only played one session in which I really got to use my Tank Wizard, but using Lightning Lure to constantly pull enemies across tables, chairs and other enemies was very fun. I can't wait to apply all these tricks as well!
For more early level "forced movement" options, try command flee/approach or Dissonant whispers. The benefit of these two is because these technically aren't forced movement (they are using their action economy to move) they also trigger attacks of opportunity!
So with good positioning if the enemy is running towards the ranger who cast spike growth or web to try to drop concentration, with a bard, warlock, or cleric command/dissonant whispers, you can scare the person AWAY from you and your ranger pal, provoking attacks of opportunity AND pushing them back into the hazards they just tried to run away from.
Warlock with repelling blast and the telekinetic feat + Druid with Spike growth= Chef's kiss
Combine them in a party with a sentinel feat user and the enemies could just give up on movement.
Or a dao genie warlock! They get spike growth, and you can throw on crusher for another 5 feet
@@alastortheradiodemon1817 as someone with a Daolock, very much yes!
Throw on Lance of Lethargy Invocation on top of that. At that point, not only are they in the middle of Spike Growth, but their speed will be reduced too. Then next turn, get your Druid to use Plant Growth on the Spike Growth spell they have down and it suddenly becomes impossible for them to escape without flight since you can just keep pulling them back in with Eldritch Blast and Telekinetic lol 😆
One that I love is Plant Growth and Spike Growth
My Ancients Paladin would whack a Plant Growth down while the Druid did Spike Growth and the best thing about it was that Plant Growth SPECIFICALLY isn't 'Difficult Terrain' and therefore sidesteps the rule they don't stack.
A creature spends 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot moved. (Plant Growth)
Every 5 feet moved is 2d4 damage. (Spike Growth)
By the time they managed to leave the area, they were shredded, and then the Warlock Repelling Blasted them back in.
Great video! I’ve become a big fan of thorn whip. One wrinkle I like is a level 6+ wildfire druid placing their wildfire spirit on the other side of a spike growth. The druid casts thorn whip each round, with the spell originating from the wildfire spirit on alternate rounds, resulting in a push-pull cheese grater for foes within the spikes growth area.
My favorite forced movement shenanigan is dragging Grapple/Shove into map features. It isn't limited to spellcasters, but since they tend not to invest too heavily in STR or DEX, it can certainly work on them without having to worry about saving throws.
Great video; thanks for the content dudes!
Perfect timing on this one. The campaign I’m in is beginning this Saturday and I’m going to be a swarmkeeper ranger. I’ve been brainstorming how to leverage the forced movement.
Artillerist's force ballista plus grease is pretty amusing. Especially when the DM decides that grease should be flammable.
There's also the option of "enemies and objects that are pushed into a grease spell should continue on their path until they collide with something substantial".
Depending on the map, that can be deadly (if the map has a lot of pits or cliffs or the like) or comical (if the map is mostly flat, leading to them sliding off into the sunset).
This reminds me of your Tasha's Feats episode... in particular grabbing Crusher for my Monk.
Good video and great ideas. I like seeing the Dudes excited. In one game, one of our showboat characters was loose cannon with movement spells.
We had some enemies tangled in a Web. But the other player used Gust of Wind and pushed them out the other side, which was the opposite of what we wanted. He claimed he was protecting us, but they were nearly no threat.
The freed enemies ran, sounded the alarm, brought many reinforcements, and ruined our raid. The troublesome player was defiant he'd done nothing wrong.
These power and spells can really be a problem if players don't think about what they are doing and are reckless.
Nothing better than a video other than it posting the same day my Dungeons of Drakkenheim arrives!!!
I once made a Homebrew boss for my players in a one shot that was an undead Druid sworn to the forest. It used a mix of lair actions which created stationary hazards, followed by its actions and legendary actions to thorn whip the players into these hazards.
Great video! These tactics really make combat more enjoyable for both martial and casters and really encourage powerful teamwork. Also fun ideas for DMs looking for some unique challenges for players. I would add Evard’s black Tentacles to the list. Pushing enemies into persistent damage, restrain and difficult terrain is very nice. Also, might be worth mentioning effects that reduce movement speed which make escaping the area more difficult in the first place. Plant growth, anything creating difficult terrain, Lance of lethargy, and fathomless warlocks tentacle are all very useful. These effects can also be enhanced by layering spells like silence or darkness which shut down enemies with most teleportation spells. I may be planning a terrifying encounter for my players based on these tactics…
I'm hoping that in an upcoming campaign a friend of mine will be running, I can play a lorehold college necromancer. The idea being to combo Spirit Guardians with Grim Harvest. Visually, the necromancer conjures these undead spirits that fly around in a 15' radius drawing life energy from foes and return that life force to the caster.
casting slow on those enemies that fall prone in the grease is so satisfying as a wizard early on. all you need then is a web on top of them and they're worse off than Frodo in Shelob's lair.
As soon as you mentioned whirlwind I thought of this, and it's pretty mean.
One spellcaster can cast telekinesis on a baddie, and the other spellcaster can cast whirlwind and suck him up, doing the 6d10 damage. The person with telekinesis can then bring him out of the whirlwind and back in, doing another 6d10. The whirlwind only has a 10 ft. radius, and telekinesis can move a creature up to 30ft. per round, so there's enough distance to cover it. Nothing in the spell descriptions say anything that would particularly disqualify this strategy.
These are some of my favorite combos to do.
Crusher is great because it's one of the few "pushing" abilities that has no save. As long as you hit, you can move the enemy.
Put that on a Monk that can make four bludgeoning attacks in one turn and you can punch an enemy 20 feet back every turn.
A Curse of Strahd group I was in that consisted of myself (Paladin), a Barbarian, and a Druid, managed to completely body the vampire spawn in the Vallaki coffin maker's shop at 4th level. The Druid laid down a Spike Growth and then hit the spawn with Thunderwave whenever they made it close to the edge, while the Barbarian and me mostly acted as meat shields to keep them from being able to walk out of the spikes (plus my Paladin, as a Scourge Aasimar, used his Radiant Consumption to turn off the spawns' regen by hitting them with chip radiant damage).
The Repelling Blast invocation for warlocks is my favorite Forced Movement method. Some notes:
1. There's no save. As far as I know, there's no way for the target to prevent the movement if the attack hits.
2. There's no limit on the size of enemies you can move this way.
3. It's not once per turn, but triggers on EVERY hit with Eldritch Blast. (This was mentioned in the video)
4. It's attached to a ranged cantrip so it can be used from a distance without limit.
It's probably the most consistent Forced Movement ability in the game. Most of the other unlimited ones are either melee only, can only be used once on your turn, or involve a saving throw.
The only limitations are that it only has 10 feet of movement, and you can't choose the direction except by maneuvering yourself before attacking. Compare that to, say, the Gathered Swarm ability from the Swarmkeeper Ranger that can move the enemy 15 feet in any direction, but can only be used once on your turn and has a Strength saving throw.
Thanks for the tips! Great video, sorry being late to this one. I feel Vortex warp is awesome with sorcerers because of the meta magic either Extended it’s reach or twined it!
In my group the Wizard put down wall of fire and the group were taking turns knocking the enemies into the wall. That bard feeling left out (having low strength) had been looking at his spells for a few rounds and remembering he had bigby's hand, punched the dungeon boss into the wall of fire, getting the kill for the awesome moment award, giving him advantage at the start of the next session
My artificer has routinely levitated enemies in and out of the storm sphere our sorceror has cast or the spirit guardian bubble of the cleric. Also fun when our arcane archer adds grasping arrow the the mix. Just ended a T-Rex encounter at level 5 before it even started. When it was supposed to be a deadly encounter for us.
love this vid! fun ideas to use! my only must have thats not on here is dissonant whispers! two separate campaigns ive been in have ended with someone using dissonant whispers on the bbeg to trigger damage. first time it happened our bard dissonant whispered an aspect of fire through my wiz's entire ice wall (i rolled? i think 45d6 for 150 dmg on that), and the second time our sorlock whispered a pit fiend into three opportunity attacks (the power of friendship!). its one of those spells i always want to have in a party now
Transmute rock is a really great concentration-free effect-not for any debilitating effects, but because enemies’ speed is reduced by FOUR TIMES. Watch them slog through that to the edge, push them back to the middle of the effect, and watch the DM’s face fall.
Love this channel, but one word always gives me shivers “particularly”… IYKNK
Also, anyone else ever thought Marty and Austin John Plays look like they could be brothers?
Shoving is great but grappling can allow movement round after round. It can let you effectively weaponize your movement
Honestly, I just had a TON of fun playing a Swarmkeeper Ranger. Set up the Spike Growth or Web before using the arrows to knock them into the traps. Had a moment where the enemy had to walk through the cheese grater to feel comfortable only for an arrow to shoot them back in. What made it even better was the Wizard picked up Shadowspawn, and when summoned in Despair mode, reducd movement even worse, meaning they were drained of movement before they had a chance to go though difficult terrain.
My favorite continual damage spell is the barbarian. Shove the Enemy’s into him and they come back in pieces.
"I CAST SWORD!"
@@CharlesUrban upcast it to greatsword.
I love utilizing the crusher feat to move people. I had a drummer boy character that had crusher, and I had a ton of fun.
yeah fell in love with telekinetic feat with my aberrant mind sorcerer. Mind Sliver followed up with the push is a decent combo at lower level while waiting for your options to open up.
Idk of i missed it but wraith of nature and thorn whip is a great option. Thanks for the great time an great tips.👍
I think a video about the creative uses for phantasmal force would be amazing! I think the fact that the affected creature believes snd rationalizes the illusion is often overlooked
Incredible resource for the community!
Prismatic Wall in that one-shot was a ton of fun.
I played a graviturgy wizard and went all in on this tactic. It's a lot of fun.
Yay I got my Dungeons of Drakkenheim package today! Thanks dudes!
A very niche and situationally useful forced movement: A totem barbarian at level 14 using the eagle totem option can fly during their turn, equal to their movement speed. If there are any low-flying enemies who are using their airborne status to avoid ground-based AoEs, the barbarian can fly up, grapple them (setting their speed to 0), then instantly end the grapple as a free action (victim then falls due to speed having been 0, unless their flight is magical or they have the ability to hover), then fly back down to a safer height.
As a DM, my party has never considered this concept and I feel it is my duty to teach them. Why waste time showing them this video when I can repeatedly fling them into an Entangle until they grasp the concept. Great info guys! You’ve given me a ton of ideas to use.
Back when my group confronted Oscar Yoren at the Inscrutable Tower he blocken the only exit point that lead to the lower level with a force cage. The floor had holes where people and monsters could fall through. My artificier pushed one of Oscar's zombie ogres down a hole with telekenis. The Ogre was blocked by the force cage and so prohibited from coming up again xD
2 spell casters, one casting reverse gravity, and the other casting whirlwind above the area of reverse gravity, this is a roller coaster!
Another great spell is compelled duel- my level 2 paladin used it against an orc raid leader, then I used my other spell slot to smite and my bonus action to taunt him, even after I lost concentration he focused on me, he also called his soldiers to help him, the rest of the party had time to heal themselves, cause damage from a safe distance and heal me, when I fell unconscious, it was too late for the orcs.
In our campaign we would throw down a spike growth and position ourselves so the enemies were forced to traverse it to reach us. Then they'd get hit with our ready actions, which included our warlock who had repelling blast, crusher, and telekinetic. So they run through taking damage, get hit by us taking damage, get pushed back taking damage, and then have to run a bit more to us taking damage. We called it the cheese grater. Many enemies never got off a single attack.
It's a bit more involved, but a level 6 Tempest Cleric/level 2 Scribes Wizard can just change all their elemental spells to deal Lightning damage so they all qualify for the Tempest feature Thunderous Strikes.
I've done one thing with Telekinesis several times, which is always worth a laugh: seeing someone at the edge of something (such as a cliff or a deep lake while wearing heavy armor) and use telekinesis to push them down to their deaths. One session, I did the trick three times.
Also, I'm not certain if it's actually allowed, but some times I've used it to push my own character ahead while dashing. Those extra 5 feet of movement are awesome.
I believe the number 1 spot belongs to the Dao warlock. At spell level 2, you get spike growth and at level 4 you get sickening radiance. When attack with eldrich blast, you add 2+ hit points to your 1st blast. Take the crusher feat and the telekinetic feat and you are cooking with a blowtorch!
Why would you take the crusher feat as a blaster caster? As a caster after all?
Shtahp, I've already mentioned my Armourer Artificer/Psi Warrior character I want to play on another of your videos. He has the Telekinetic feat, it's a Psi Warrior, and has Lightning Lure. He's all about moving friendly and hostile creatures alike 😁
a couple of spells which i think you guys forgot but are great for this:
1. plant growth-non concen way to reduce movement. stacks with difficult terrain and speed reduction. environment dependent though can be made applicable everywhere with entangle.
2. guardian of faith-non-concen way to deal dmg if you knock them around with a concen spell such as watery sphere, bigby's hand or telekinesis.
3. transmute rock-similar to plant growth but better. environment dependent. cast water walk on your party so they can freely move around in it.
I had a Psi Warrior with crusher and shield master. We usually had several AoE's going on at a time and I was just running around pushing people into things. Some of the most fun i've had.
One of my favorite builds I’ve ever played was a Dao genie warlock with the metamagic adept feat. I had an instance where the party druid cast moonbeam then I used quicken spell to put down spike growth as a bonus action and pushed a target through the spike growth into the moonbeam, and this was all just at level 3
There is a strange energy that must be recognized when you have a 20th level Fighter action surging to shove 8 people into a Prismatic Wall.
Very fun video for anyone interested in the newish Giant Barbarian UA
An Earth Genasi Ancients Paladin, with some levels in Genie Tome Lock, and Crusher, has a huge number of these options built into it with good AC as a good midline Controller. I really love it
Eldritch Smite is a favorite for me. Knock up to a huge size creature prone with no save, plus a ton of extra damage is so good
Yooo that dwarf battle master shield master crusher that you guys mentioned should be a combo build with a sorc or wizard with these spells for D4! Colby!!
I found a few spells that might make your list:
Command?
Compulsion?
The various Dominate spells
Levitate (if the effect is above them)
Suggestion/Mass Suggestion (if they don't see the danger)
Pulse Wave
Ravenous Void
Reality Break
Stinking Cloud
Storm of Vengeance
Storm Sphere
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (can't move out of an affected area)
Tether Essence
Transmute Rock
Tsunami
Wall of Ice?
Wall of Light
Wrath of Nature
A combo I'm planning to pull off with this in mind is Dao Genie, getting access to spike growth and repelling blast/grasp of hadar. Then on top of that with the bludgeoning damage added from the Dao genie you can use the crusher feat for another 5 feet
I feel the undead minions of a Necromancy Wizard, or any other caster who can cast Animate Dead for that matter, can be a great help in not only shoving, but also grappling creatures in an area of effect that kills living things slowly.
Non-magical setup options seem to have been overlooked, but in my experience tend to be a favorite for one of my players (we joke that his character's spell list is her inventory). Here's some I've seen used:
Caltrops
Ballbearings
Hunting trap
Oil flask - esp combined with a source of fire like a torch
Also, class features like desert storm barbarian's aura.
The deadlies5 combo I've seen was hunger if Hadar with wall of fire, turned outward, around it. The enemy was trapped, wondering blind trying to get out, taking cold and acid damage, and then stumble through the wall of fire and get burned. And then shoved back by eldritch blast push and telekinetic shove. Then don't all over again. Trapped a high level caster in there and just shut him down because he couldn't see to do his nastiest spells. Completely trashed the encounter and made me have to rethink all other combats for the campaign.
It's not just spells for the setup - plenty of non magical options too. Lighting fires, hunting traps, caltrops, cliff edges, punji pits and other hazards can all be set up too (obviously dependent on time). Not to mention forced movement can have loads of other benefits with polearms, booming blade, frightened effect (melee enemies effectively can't attack if they can't approach).
i had a lot of fun with eldritch blast and area of effect spells
My last character was a Dao Genie with crusher feat and telekinesis. Spike Growth being on their spell list was huge for the first half of his career.
I reskined telekinetic as airbending for my druid. Great success, very nice.
Using Bigby's Hand to flick enemies into a Prismatic Wall is the equivalent of that one flick attack from Master Hand in Smash Brothers that just sends you off screen
As a fight I grappled and dragged a vampire back into a Dawn spell from our Wizard just to make sure the vampire died. I also died…
Actual game happening recently, I was playing a Battle Master Warforged gladiator with Pushing attack and Crusher. The arena we were in had a bi-directional permanent Gust of Wind type effect going on, so one side of the arena had a strong wind pushing north, and the other side pushed south. My character hit an enemy combatant for 5ft. of Crusher, 15 ft. of Pushing Attack, and 20 ft. of wind from about the center of the arena all the way to the wall. The damage on top of that did not drop the enemy, but that got him down to some small number of hp. I think he decided he did not want to fight any more that day lest he end up flying northbound out of the arena in ballistic fashion.
I once had a game were the party needed to escape. We were low level but Entangle, Grease, and everyone throwing a flask of oil worked wonders. It was amazing how effective it was for that low of level.
Funnily enough, I'd planned an encounter with lots of movement shenanigans for my session tomorrow... funny how that turns out!
Forcecage + Sickening Radiance is a combo a single player can pull off that will melt just about anything like a microwave...if the damage doesn't finish them the exhaustion will. Honorable mention to Hold Person + Heat Metal (2 person combo), paralyzing a knight in their own plate mail oven is absolutely brutal.
My main character is a grappling Lore Bard/Bear Totem Barbarian (Pro wrestler build). This is a great video!
I play a Great Old One warlock and used Evard’s Black Tentacles and Eldritch Blast repelling blast to keep a few druids in winter wolf wild shape in it the spell. And in another fight keeping a tomb tapper at bay with the same combo.
Command also adds a certain penash, as you can't harm someone but web or grease doesn't harm them so you can get them to run or jump into it
Ascendant Dragon Monk/Tempest Cleric multiclass. Make your unarmed strikes lightning damage and have fun. Combine with a single-handed quarterstaff for polearm master/sentinel shenanigans.
The dao warlock also gets spike growth prior to sickening radiance
Warlock's Eldritch Blast with the knockback and draw-in Imbuements is brilliant alongside a wizard.
The spell Dark Star from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is INSANELY good. It's an 8th level spell that creates a huge area of darkness that is silent, acts as difficult terrain, AND does 8d10 force damage per round to creatures, disintegrating anything that is reduced to 0 hit points. If you can get this spell as an evocation wizard....let's just say your party is going to have an easy encounter. Especially if someone has the devil's sight invocation and the party has Rary's Telepathic Bond going.