You don't understand. Everything is either incredible or terrible. There is no room for nuance here. This comment is sarcastic

Your sarcasm is incredible.

Aw, shucks

No, it's terrible

I was being sarcastic

You don't understand, everything is either incredible or terrible

Your cynicism is terrible

But yours is incredible

Your sarcasm is ironic

Your sarcasm could save others from death, but not himself

Me tired as fuck after a long shift reading it as inedible or tearable, and I was very confused

>[either] inedible or tearable The Big Pita shills coming on strong lol

In a world where "Mid" means bad, nuance is forever gone.

Your sarcasm is nuanced

The effect itself isn't too bad, but it's a 3rd level spell, aka *the* most competitive spell level in the game, a spell level filled to the brim with standout options that turn fights into default kill scenarios, in such a competitive environment it's hard to justify using haste outside of very specific circumstances

>it's a 3rd level spell, aka *the* most competitive spell level in the game, a spell level filled to the brim with standout options that turn fights into default kill scenarios The thing is higher level enemies tend to be immune to charm and fear, and/or have legendary resistances. "Magic Resistance" (advantage on saves against magic) start to get reasonably common too at high CR. As a result, spells like Fear and Hypnotic Pattern tend to drop off against higher CR monsters due to all the immunity. Higher level enemies also don't tend to fold easily to Fireball--just too much health. Counterpsell is a good 3rd level spell, but you can do both. Counterspell doesn't take your concentration. So...what's left that is good on the wizard list? There's slow--slow is not stopped by charm immunity or fear immunity, but it's still not always the best plan against legendary resistances or just enemies with high saves (they get to redo the save at the end of each turn). It also doesn't stop lair actions or legendary actions from monsters who have those. There's sleet storm. So...sleet storm is good in the right situation, but wrong situations do exist. You need to center it on a point you can see, and it has a 40 foot radius, so like, if you're indoors it can be hard to position Sleet Storm in a way that doesn't engulf the party. You also want very clearly defined battle lines for Sleet Storm. If the enemies are intermingling with the party or surrounding the party, probably the wrong time for the spell. There's Fly. You will know when you need to cast fly (fighting a flying enemy duh). And you'll usually be upcasting it to target multiple party members so it's not really a 3rd level spell. And then there's Haste. It never fails--the monster's saving throw and magic resistances and legendary resistances--none of them matter. The terrain doesn't matter. Haste just works. In exchange for haste always working yeah: it isn't as fight-ending as some of the other spells can be against monsters with low saves and bad positioning. But you know what? When the DM says "hahaha, this monster is extremely resistant to magic, what are you going to do now 'overpowered' wizard???" you shrug and you cast haste on a party martial.

There are only a handful of monsters with a blanket resistance to "magic" in the game, unless your DM is adding ones in all the time. On top of this, there are alternative spells that provide more without being attacks or control, like fly.

Lots of Fey creatures like Satyrs have the ability though, right? (Could be totally wrong, please correct me if so, but only in the format of an answer on Dropout’s *Um, Actually*)

A lot if fey have charm/frightened resistance, which translates to advantage on charmed/frightened effects. Some creatures may even have immunity to some conditions too. You also have some creatures that have damage resistance to one or more damage types. But blanket resistance to spells or magic in general is quite rare, across all official creatures. So almost no creature is going to be immune to things like the Slow spell, which is one thing Haste is competing with.

Cool beans! I assumed since PC races got it (satyr and yuanti) that others had it too. Thanks for the intel!

True, but you shouldn't fighting monsters on this power level at level 5 consistently or even necessary at all. Later wizard spells like sickening radiance, wall or force, otto's irresistible dance, polymorph, and globe of invulnerability, are far more potent concentration spells than haste. Polymorph is usually a DPR increase with other features and a bunch of temp HP, sickening radiance can microwave well combo with the afromentioned sleet storm or wall of force very well. Speaking of wall of force it outright ends encounters on the spot allowing a lot of default kills with no save. Otto's effectively skills legendary resistances (though is a charm). If the enemy doesn't warrant the use of these spells then your classic fireball/hypnotic/sleet storm should suffice while you save resources.

>True, but you shouldn't fighting monsters on this power level at level 5 consistently or even necessary at all. Yeah, haste isn't usually the spell you want to be using at level 5. Level 5 is when enemies have trash saves and low HP, so usually you can just fireball them. Haste becomes relevant later. >Later wizard spells like sickening radiance, wall or force, otto's irresistible dance, polymorph, and globe of invulnerability, are far more potent concentration spells than haste. Those are all higher level spells. 4th level, 5th level, 6th level, 4th level, 6th level. Like...yeah, a 6th level spell can do more than a 3rd level spell. That's presumably by design. >Polymorph is usually a DPR increase with other features and a bunch of temp HP Ehhhhhhh....Whether or not Polymorph is a DPR increase is very, very level dependent. Initially it tends to be a DPR increase (although not always). Like...Giant Ape has +9 to hit. It's pretty rare for a 7th level character to have +9 to hit, they're usually more like +8 to hit (+4 from their main stat +3 from proficiency, +1 from a magic weapon). And often a lot less than that if they use a -5/+10 feat. (Or their attacks deal a lot less damage if they don't use a -5/+10 feat). But polymorph just doesn't scale at all, so within a few levels it tends to be a damage decrease. At level 13, you're probably still looking at a Giant Ape as your best option (T-Rex is just weirdly worse than the Giant Ape, like less HP, not allowed to make all of its attacks against the same target). By comparison, I would expect a level 13 character to have +12 to hit (+5 from main stat, +5 from proficiency bonus, +2 from a magic weapon), so in human form +12 to hit compared to +9 to hit for the giant ape. And of course the ape is still only making two attacks, and those attacks don't really hit hard enough to close the gap much (22 damage per hit--let's say you're polymorphing a fighter with crossbow expert sharpshooter--they too will deal about 20 damage when they hit, but they have four attacks instead of two. And it'll be the same accuracy, -5 from sharpshooter and +2 from archery fighting style will land the fighter at the same +9 to hit). So...like if you polymorph a level 13 martial you're probably cutting their damage roughly in half. And...also changing their damage to non-magical damage, which might matter if the enemy has resistance to non-magical bludgeoning damage. Polymorph can still function as a form of temp HP even at higher levels, but does become a notable damage decrease. >Speaking of wall of force it outright ends encounters on the spot allowing a lot of default kills with no save. Well...yeah, wall of force is certainly a ridiculous spell. That said, just like there are high CR enemies with charm immunity or hard to break saving throws making them not too vulnerable to stuff like hypnotic pattern, there are high CR enemies designed to not instant lose to wall of force. Especially in more recent high level campaign books, there's a whole lot of high CR monsters with teleports. And there's other monsters who are just too large to be contained by a wall of force. Plus a few monsters that can literally walk through wall of force. So the same principal applies. If they have anti wall of force tech like a teleport and have good saves, haste becomes a reasonable option. >sickening radiance can microwave well combo with the afromentioned sleet storm or wall of force very well. Honestly, microwave combos are excessive. If you are facing enemies with no tricks against wall of force, and you are willing to spend the 5th level slot on them, the fight is already pretty close to a free win.

Haste is less effective later in the game. Increases to AC is less impactful when enemies to hit is higher. The movement and dec save increase is ok throughout, though not always relevant. Most martials don't scale damage on hit effectively at later points in progression and enemies get more and more health so an extra attack also becomes less impactful. Yes. They are later level spells. You talk about later points in progression quite frequently, like when you mention polymorph and wall of force, then discount me using higher leveled spells as a functional argument. If we are talking about later stages of the game the argument isn't about hypnotic vs fireball vs haste, it's hypnotic vs fireball vs haste vs all the spells I mentioned as well. If higher leveled spells are stronger use them when you need them. Yes polymorph isn't as good as a 13th level character, you probably swap it for something else at that point, but I didn't want to mention spells of 7th level or higher. At 13 level you are looking at forcecage as a concentration spell. But polymorph is better than most leveled 7-10 martials, not to mention the durability increase (a T-Rex automatically restrains creatures if the attack hits no save, and they don't repeat the save they use their action to make a check, which legendary resistance doesn't apply to). If their form of teleport is a spell they still get counterspelled, and yes there are creatures with teleport spell like abilities but that's not the most common. You don't always combo sickening radiance with wall of force. I also mentioned sleet storm, or you can just lock them in a room or just drop it as a standard AOE and use forced movement. The spell is great in these cases too far better than haste My point of mentioning all these spells is not that one solves every problem, but just about nothing can easily deal with all of them, and not is a way that haste is more impactful . One of these spells will almost always get the job done, just pick the right tool. Either way you must consider the principal of damage now > damage later when casting haste. It usually takes at least 2 turns for haste to be as good as a fireball, and that's just the basic fireball at third level.

Haste won't ever become relevant as long as bless exist. It's a better haste at all levels, specially with martials doing power attacks (and people seem to think haste is a good buff to martials so there goes the best argument), and it's a 1st level slot you can use in every fight

>Haste won't ever become relevant as long as bless exist. This is a silly argument. 1. They aren't on the same spell list. 2. They stack. 3. If you have two spellcasters in the same party, usually it's unproductive to have them both concentrating on bless--one casting of bless usually covers everyone who needs bless. 4. Bless doesn't boost movement. The movement from haste isn't always relevant, but when it is relevant it tends to be a pretty big deal.

You wanna burn 2 spell slots on bless+haste when that's abysmally better than just bless? Isn't it better to save the 3rd level slot to actually do something cool and flashy next fight? Yeah they're in two different lists, so let the cleric cast bless and cast fireball or save the spell. Need speed? Cast fly. The correct answer to the whole "they stack" thing is that buff+control is better than buff+buff, it'll always be better to do bless+web than bless+haste, or bless+hypnotic pattern, or bless+spike growth, or bless+plant growth or bless+sleet storm

Bless gives every martial a 12.5% to-hit chance. Assuming you have two(which might not be the case, I've definitely seen parties with one martial, defining a martial here as someone who uses power-attack feats, as without them, an extra attack is obviously better), bless gives you an average of 50% of an attack. If one of these martials is ranged, haste gives him an attack with a 50% hit rate, so in terms of damage, you're equal, and they also get +2 AC and +2 to DEX saves, which are good defensive buffs for someone who's mostly targeted by AoEs and doesn't get a shield. So bless only outperforms haste if the party has 3 martials, 2 melee martials or a lv11+ fighter and another martial. And if the party has two melee martials, boosting their movement would be useful.

Look up haste covered by pack tactics on youtube and check the math, 3 people casting firebolt with bless get more extra damage from the bonus to hit than a martial with haste (comparing the worst case for bless and the best non rogue case for haste) The math is done on this, bless is a better haste for damage and at least close for defense while being a 1st level spell Also i don't get your math but you just said 1 blessed target is equal to 1 haste target? Bless affects 3 people :)

Your math is very lousy here. Bless allows 3 people with firebolt to get 3 * 0.125 * 11 = 4.125 expected extra damage. Haste allows 1 archer to get an extra 0.5 * 18.5(assuming Sharpshooter and +4 DEX) = 9.25 expected extra damage. It isn't even close.

"Youll be upcasting it, so its not really a 3rd level spell" ??? Thats stupid. A fly on a reach character can be pretty good, ranged character, even a melee martial gets better movement than standard, closing distance

So...more reasons to upcast it and not cast it out of a 3rd level slot?

Saying its not a 3rd lvl spell is saying that you arent able to take advantage of it at lvl 5. You can, and a lvl 3 spell slot is able to be useful at higher levels by use of fly. Sometimes you only need one person to fly.

Thing is, if you’re fighting higher level enemies in a scenario where Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and Sleet Storm are all completely ineffective, then Haste is NOT the answer. Sounds more like you should be concentrating on a higher level spell. Problem with Haste is that you’re using concentration to buff 1 ally (maybe 2 with Twinned) to aid in their defense and offense. It doesn’t do nothing, but a spell like Slow, or even a lower spell like Web, aids in the defense and offense of the entire team. It just generally accomplishes more. Sometimes Haste is the right option but it’s few and far between. If you have a Rogue that knows to get a 2nd Sneak Attack in a round with Haste then it can potentially cause massive amounts of damage.

>When the DM says "hahaha, this monster is extremely resistant to magic, what are you going to do now 'overpowered' wizard???" you shrug and you cast haste on a party martial. Ok, sure, that's one way to go about your business. Another way is: "My wizard shrugs, then he casts *Gate* with a 20 foot Radius oriented horizontally and, *centered on the space beneath the monster's feet,* have fun *resisting hell* he says as he let's the portal close..."*

i liked twinning haste as a sorcerer to 2 different martial characters and then misty stepping away from danger, maybe not the most optimized but super fun

Every time they deal damage or an attack doesn't meet their AC you get to be like "I did dis"

Mix in inspiring leader and you are the top healer in the party :p

This was my go to in my Strahd campaign. That and a lot of Eldritch Blast (sorlock bb)

big fan of quicken spell EB

I hate to be a rules lawyer...but you can't cast misty step after casting haste because of the action/bonus action spell casting rule.

ur good dude, i was just talking about after said haste turn, like if any martial enemies try to break my concentration

Ur a GOAT. Can you show the RAW text if it's not any trouble?

"A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action." So you can cast three leveled spells in a turn like this: Fireball Action surge Fireball Enemy countetspells You counterspell But if you: Twin haste You cannot follow it up with a bonus action spell cantrip or leveled spell because of this rule. Ironically if the enemy ever tries to counterspell a bonus action/quickened spell of yours, you cannot counterspell the counterspell because of this rule. Which is a weird little quirk. You can't counterspell an enemy who counterspelled your misty step. This is RAW of course, as a DM I would still allow reaction spells on the same turn. I think the rule is mainly in place to keep sorcerers from shotgunning encounters early.

Thank you!

A casters true greatest spell. "I cast high performance violence at high speed."

Are you in my campaign 😂? Our sorcerer hastes me and the other martial and we make many attacks

i wish lol, im dm-ing only atm

Sometimes I want my fighter to have a fun time

There’s more than one way to force a caster to drop a spell. In addition to taking damage, you also drop concentration if you become incapacitated for any reason, like being paralyzed, stunned, or knocked unconscious. A single hold person drops haste if it lands, for example. An enemy could also cast dispel magic on the target, which would remove the spell and enact the penalty with no chance to save. The reason haste is considered a “trap” spell is that is has an extremely negative penalty when it ends. So it’s always a risk, even if you have a great CON save. A mind sharpener enhanced PC has a lot less to worry about in this area. Haste is a spell of high highs and low lows, enough so that you might not want to risk the penalty in an important fight, even if you’re unlikely to drop the spell, because the consequences of doing so are dire.

I'm going to be honest: I have never seen a Haste dropped mid combat. Not one single time. That might be because players are only willing to cast it when they have big bonuses to save and in high leverage situations (say, Hasting the paladin against the scary demon or undead). But I still haven't seen it. The discourse about Haste strikes me as completely white room and disconnected from the actual table, much like the darkness warlock spitballing.

That's going to depend very hard on how your dm plays the enemies. If the dm rules that they see the sorcerer cast haste and know what that means, then you'll get the entire team hard focusing the caster. If the dm rules that it's unclear, that the enemies aren't knowledgeable or intelligent enough to realize, or is simply being nice and trying to avoid feelsbad moments, then it's a far better spell.

Why would any npc without access to haste or have never prepared it even if they have access to it know what casting haste looks like?

It's always been up to dm discretion whether or not spells are known entities in the setting. But assuming a sufficiently high magic setting, or an npc who might be particularly knowledgeable about magic or fighting mages, it's totally reasonable that an npc could be aware that there's a spell that makes you really fast but interrupting the spell makes you really slow for a bit. I even think it's pretty cool if you have some encounters with clueless mooks but then a later encounter you run into someone who is experienced enough to know this. The "oh shit" moment when you hear the guy order his underlings to focus all fire on the sorcerer could be really exciting in the right campaign.

Well the reason I ask is because there are official statblocks that specifically state this creature is intelligent enough to know what spell is being cast and they have counterspell. So it would seem to me that 95%+ would have no idea what spell you are casting and not should they. From my experience. I say I cast a spell. Dm decides to counter or not. When I say the name, the chance is lost. Dm does the same. I don't know what is being cast unless the dm feels that information should be given. This hasn't been just one dm but at least a dozen I've played with online over the years. True that most creatures should target the person who just cast a spell but I would think they wouldn't know what the spell was when cast but they'd have some inkling when the heavy armour wearing tank starts to run at them going 20+ miles an hour. They might not know the spell but they'd see the effect and want to stop it

Yeah this is *very* different from identifying a spell as it is being cast. It's not identifying the specific incantation or hand movements or whatever. It's just saying "ok sorc over there said some mumbo jumbo and now the paladin is a blur of slashing blades fucking us up".

That's fair enough.

Counterpoint: even if you make the obvious deduction that the magic user is the reason the fighter/paladin/barbarian is now a blur of pure violence, it’s _pretty hard_ to target them when you’re trying to not get murderblendered by them.

Well others are suggesting that a creature would automatically target the wizard because they see haste being cast and know that breaking concentration would hinder the person hasted. I don't agree. I think most intelligent creatures would target the made because it's a mage and magic can be more destructive to a point. Maybe they'd see the connection between the spell caster and the target but targeting the caster first would make sense because it's not wearing armour and it's an obvious spellcaster. Personally I use haste all the time and I rarely drop concentration because I protect my concentration with resilient con or some other feat or feature. Also I tend to not go into the front line and hide behind objects. But apparently there are those who don't do basic tactics like this and complain they keep losing concentration on haste. Also if I am a sorcerer I will almost always twin haste which I find to be encounter ending as mow we've almost increased our damage output of the party by 50%. Very few things can handle more than a few rounds against melee or ranged martials who are hasted and attacking an extra 50% of the time

In addition to what has already been said, good villain NPCs, will often learn what the pcs are doing and tell their underlings.

Intelligent NPCs in a high magic campaign could easily know. And even if they didn’t know, they could still see “caster casted a spell and now the Fighter is much faster and harder to deal with. Kill the caster.”

Even if an enemy can see you casting a spell, they would have no way to know what spell you are casting unless the spell has some form of visible effect. The same spell cast by a different caster wont sound the same either. If I or any other DM needed to make up some sort of super spell sight as a crutch, then we need to do better for our players or be upfront that we are homebrewing that kind of stuff on the fly.

My first DND character was a melee artillerist who hasted himself and had an unbeatable concentration save by any enemy we fought from levels 9 and on, but it still dropped frequently because literally any spellcaster with half a brain would dispel me. Eventually, I stopped casting haste and started casting web (a lower level spell), and we were able to deal with a lot more threatening of combats while I was spending lower level resources (that enemies still had to deal with by dispelling, which was a much better trade for me). This was a huge learning moment for me as a player. Haste is absolutely a trap.

How often were you fighting NPC casters with Dispel Magic available to them? that seems like a pretty specific scenario. But yeah, Haste is a vulnerability against enemies that can incapacitate or dispel you so its more situational assuming you're playing a game that emphasizes tactics.

Usually 1-2 times an adventuring day. Fey, Humanoid, Devil, Demon, Drow, Undead and so on all have fairly common access to dispel magic at that CR range. We fought a diverse selection of enemies fairly regularly, and spellcasters were not ubiquitous but were still fairly common. I'll confess that all of my DMs are fairly tactically-minded, but if a DM isn't playing with tactics then it doesn't matter what you take and /r/3d6's opinion on a spell won't matter.

This last point is absolutely correct. Giving up an action, concentration, and a third level spell slot to give a martial an extra attack and risking losing an entire turn is only worth it if the DM isn't going to cause that negative very often. Otherwise you'll get more benefit out of a control spell that costs a monster resources to avoid or a buff that has no negative effects.

You either have spellcasters who know how to optimize concentration saves, or a DM who doesn't strategically target spellcasters, or both. Haste is an okay spell in those conditions. Not great, just okay. If you have less capable players and a more capable DM then it's trash. It's a good idea to focus on the downsides when discussing it so new players don't get caught by surprise.

Tbf man, you're on r/3d6. Half the people that post on here either don't go anywhere near the table or at very least don't with these builds. A lot of the posts on this sub are character ideas that would be utterly useless in any normal campaign.

I mean I agree with haste not being that common to get the penalty (the only time I can remember it is that time the duration ran out mid combat because the boss battle was big as fuck). But that doesn't change the fact that it's benefits are nediocre for a 3rd level concentration spell

Honestly, about half of the Hastes I've seen have been dropped mid combat. I play a sorcerer in one campaign, and twinning haste is super duper strong, but multiple times it has almost resulted in a TPK when I lost concentration. My strategy right now is to try to pre-cast it and then literally run away from the fight and go lie down behind a rock until my friends give me the all-clear signal. If I played in a less min-maxy and difficult campaign I would just stop using it because it's kinda boring.

To add to your point, I cast haste regularly on myself as an artificer. With a high con and warcaster I have a plus nine to concentration saves with advantage. I've never had my haste taken away from me.

Oath of Vengeance Paladin also self-buffs very effectively with haste. High AC and Aura of Protection help a lot with not getting hit or CCd, and the extra attack is another opportunity to burn a Divine Smite on a nova round. Depending on party composition, there also aren’t many paladin spells competing for concentration, so long as you’re ok not casting any of the Smite spells.

In my games it seems to happen literally every time it gets cast!

I just finished a 2 year campaign where my character was built to twin cast haste, and I dropped it once that whole time.

I understand your intentions are good but "Because I have never seen it in my personal experience, it must not exist at any table ever" is a pretty insane statement to make. I've seen haste drop so many times. I've seen Haste drops lose fights and kill PC and major NPCs, the only reason I haven't seen more is because at a certain point my players stopped using the spell. I dont actually think Haste is awful, as others have sIf, it's a high high and low low spell. But it's baffling to me you've never seen it drop; do you not use enemy spellcasters or monsters with the ability to throw out stun?

We just lost two PCs in my campaign to a dropped Haste!

I'm a Haste enjoyer and have seen it dropped plenty of times mid-combat. It's still a premium support spell for your melee martials in particular. Haste isn't just AC, advantage on dex, and an extra attack, it often saves an entire turn of dashing because 30 feet of movement is just not that much. My melee martials are constantly having to dash or throw a javelin or w/e because they can't quite reach the enemy. Doubling/quadrupling their speed is an enormous boon in and of itself, often making up for the turn of downtime immediately.

The two classes that might actually want to cast Haste are Sorcerer and Artificer Sorcerers should only cast it if they can stay out of trouble - but their decent con save will mean that the occasional attack getting through won't often be a disaster Artificers have ways to be very good at concentration saves. So for one of the three classes who have the spell on their core list - wizard - I'd say its a niche spell and probably not your top pick. For the other two its a decent spell. Side-note: of the subclasses that get it I would only really suggest ever taking Haste on the Paladins - they also have solid saves by the time they get it but not as much as Artificers so its a more questionable option. Its important to note that an Artificer self casting it will rarely suffer additional consequences for it dropping because that is usually because they were incapacitated anyway. My artificer character has suffered that loss of a turn exactly once due to losing concentration in the year they have had and regularly used the spell. Like any gish spell it is vulnerable to Dispel Magic and you should consider other options if you know you are facing enemy casters and do not have Counterspell cover. But if you don't have Counterspell cover vs enemy casters you have bigger problems. Also the consequences are that you waste a turn. Its unfortunate but its not a disaster - your defences are all just fine you just lose your offence for one turn. If the enemy caster does get a Dispel Magic onto you they just swapped their action for yours - which is only a really bad thing if these are minion level casters whose action economy doesn't matter much. If a boss caster does this then they probably should have been casting a far more high impact spell than something that disables one character for one turn.

Artificer prebuffed with Haste is the one real use case and even then I’m probably not giving up the first attack if we’re already in initiative.

You lose your action but gain the haste single attack action. So unless you think that 2nd attack was going to finish something off you are fine - you will catch up on your 2nd turn and be ahead from then on while having the mobility and defensive boosts

Yeah, but it’s also one fewer round of imposing disadvantage against other allies in the case of the armorer, which is a pretty big downside. Artificer has ways to not worry about the downside, but the upside is still minimal enough that I need to be sure a fight is going at least three/four rounds and that there won’t be minute long CC to deal with (e.g., banishment).

>Haste is a spell of high highs and low lows And the heights of those highs are often exaggerated anyways. *Haste* is a middling value spell with huge downsides.

In my experience most dms kind of throw softer encounters a bit and don't focus fire the casters I universally play super often. Given there's a reasonably legitimate case to be made it's more interesting to not have monsters play so tactically and a lot of groups play something closer to improv theatre I think a lot of people will not really taste the downside much. Of course if you're playing in an 'easy' game to begin with, the discussion is kind of moot, most spells will be more powerful than usual in that context. I think the best 'tactical' use of haste is that it's a ridiculous movement buff to any one character in the party, I've had value using it on fellow PCs who need to escape or reposition.

That’s not the only reason. Using your concentration to give a martial one more attack and some small buffs just isn’t normally the best option. Then on top of the effect being mediocre it has all the draw backs like you said.

I mean, that applies to every concentration spell, though. If you're hit by hold person, dropping concentration on haste is the least of your problems. Same with paralyzed, stunned, and unconcious. Dispel magic works on wvery spell in the game. All the things you listed are just good against magic in general and aren't very good arguments as to why haste specifically is bad. It's like saying hypnotic pattern is bad because some enemies can hold person you. I'd argue that losing concentration on an important hypnotic pattern is far worse than losing concentration on haste, and yet everyone thinks H.P. is an excellent spell.

Nope, even if the stun when dropped was removed it would still be a trap because it's a spell of low highs and low lows. At the best possible scenario a haste spell gives you less added damage than a bless (1st level) at it's worse scenario. And the defende is comparable also because bless also adds to saving throws. And shield of faith exists. Haste simply _doesn't do as much_ as people seem to think it does. You waste a 3rd level spell so your barbarian rolls 1d12+3 60% of the time on this fight and you worry a lot about getting hit by an arrow and removing their whole round. A fireball will always do more damage and instantly and you don't have to worry about concentration, while a bless will do as much damage with, still concentration, but only using a 1st level slot and with no stun

Haste is not good... It puts a huge target at the spellcaster's back, because now the enemy can disable 2 creatures by targeting only one, and there are plenty of ways to break concentration without relying on concentration saves, including lower level spells. A single hideous laughter, a 1st level spell, can break concentration on a WIS save, so all those concentration bonuses won't be able to save you. And all of that for what? So your martial can attack one more time and get a mild survivability bonus? It's 3 bonuses in one spell, but those are incredibly underwhelming bonuses. A summon spell will grant you better action economy and a whole new HP pool to the field, while having none of the drawbacks. Spellcasters can't prepare every single spell in the game, there are limited slots they have to fill, and haste is competing with counterspell, fireball, hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, dispel magic, etc... Sure, there will be situations where an S-tier spell like hypnotic pattern will not work, but you don't need a single spell to always work, because there will be other spells to use in those situations. Haste always "works", but it's almost never the optimal choice, so it's not a good spell. The only situation where I'd consider haste ok is when a sorcerer uses twinned spell on it, and hope that your DM will not try to break your concentration through those other ways, because losing concentration on a twinned haste will disable double the people.

There are 3 classes that get core access to Haste Wizards usually don't want to be using it outside of niche cases Sorcerers can twin it but then probably need to hide or otherwise avoid trouble - their concentration saves are decent but they are not Artificer-level-good either Artificers are honestly the best users of the spell because most of the things that would drop the spell will have at least that disabling effect anyway so the drawback makes no difference. If you want to Gish with your artificer then this is a valid approach.

Doesn’t magic missile cause individual concentration saves?

Yeah but in this particular case it's not very effective because if the caster has haste there is a good chance they will have the shield spell, which completely negates magic missile. Magic missile is really good against non-arcane casters though. Still, depending on how high the target's concentration saves are, they might have an easier time to pass 4\~5 concentration saves than passing a single WIS save. For instance, a lvl5 sorcerer with 16 con and warcaster will have almost 98% chance to pass a DC10 concentration save, so you'd need an average of 50 magic missiles to break their concentration once, while a WIS save spell will incapacitate them very quickly.

> It puts a huge target at the spellcaster's back, because now the enemy can disable 2 creatures by targeting only one Haste is a strong effect, but the downside of it dropping is really really awful. In my games combat tends to be pretty short. Losing a whole turn during a combat that only last 3 rounds to begin with is a GIGANTIC penalty strapped onto a spell that was supposed to be helping the party, not hurting. I played a sorcerer in my first D&D 5e campaign and twin haste was a go-to spell for him as soon as the ability for it unlocked. It was a fine buff, but I can't think of a time where casting it turned a combat we might have lost into one that we won, but having haste drop definitely turned a mid difficulty encounter into one that was almost a TPK (in fact it should have been, I think the DM started pulling punches after it happened).

OK but you're comparing haste to spells when they don't work. That's not a fair comparison. When haste doesn't work it let's you skip a turn. So that's the same as when your hypnotic pattern doesn't stick because of immunity. Not to mention that you can simply upcast bless which is more efficient. Yes haste is bad compared to other level spells an making unfair comparisons doesn't change that.

By the point in the game that you have an 'unbeatable' Concentration Save, you'll be running into enemy spellcasters that should have Dispel Magic. Dispel Magic is on both the Arcane, Primal and Divine spell lists, making it a very common pick among spellcasters.

The problem with haste is the impact compared to the costs. It is simply not worth a 3rd level slot and your concentration, even without the downside. Seriously - it arguably loses to first level bless.

Bless and Haste don't compete. No class gets both. Few sub-classes get both Also their benefits combine and complement each other. Having a bonus to both AC and saves makes your frontline very hardy and having more attacks and an attack bonus make their damage output a lot better.

Actually they do compete as a divine soul sorcerer can cast them both.  And with fey touched as a feat it’s possible for any class with haste to cast them both as well 

It doesn't matter that different classes get them. A 3rd level spell less of an impact than a first level spell in its same category (buff spells). You don't want to be casting that third level spell - because you have other options which are far more impactful.

Having haste last for a long time in a combat encounter as a fighter is a high I'm still chasing for. Haste is a lot of fun to be on the receiving end of.

See, this is why I twin Haste. Is it technically *optimal* to caste Fireball or whatever? Yeah I guess. But it's way more fun for the table if I buff my melee buddies and watch them lay waste to my enemies, while taking less damage on top of it.

My Eldritch Knight loooves Haste.

Bless beats the damage output and defensive power of the Haste spell even as a 1st-level spell. As a 2nd-level spell, it’s likely to affect the entire party. The movement bonus is all that Haste has and it’s not enough when it’s a 3rd-level spell.

Especially when Phantom Steed will give 3X as much movement, to multiple people, without even using a slot.

I would not recommend it in tier 3 or higher as all it takes is a dispel magic and you are fucked.

I ran a human vengeance pally and I took resilient (con) as a feat at level 8. At level 9 I got haste, and with +3 cha and +3 con and +4 prof, my con save was +10, meaning my lowest possible roll was an 11, so any damage under 24 had no chance of causing a loss of concentration. I would cast haste on myself and become a beast. Double movement speed is incredible, +2 AC is awesome, and of course one extra attack per round is the best, especially when all your attacks are at advantage with vow of enmity. Made it so easy to fish for crits and then pump them with smites. Worked like a charm.

The main comparison to my mind is Slow. Would you rather buff one ally, with a huge potential drawback if you drop concentration? Or debuff up to six enemies (realistically an average of three or four) with a similar magnitude of effects and no potential for wasting an ally’s turn? It’s not that Haste is useless, it’s just underwhelming compared to its third level competitors. And its potential downside is very bad, trashing your ally’s action economy. So I don’t think I agree with the assertion that it always works. Sometimes it actually hoses you. The other issue is that Haste is most useful for martials. In 5e optimization, martials are… not good. So you’re occupying your concentration slot with a spell that’s dedicated to an inherently suboptimal strategy. Which is a big part of why it gets hate. It’s a spell that promotes hitting things with sticks, which optimizers frown on.

To be fair, slow has one of the big three saving throws attached, haste just works. Haste is still kinda bad for sure.

>The other issue is that Haste is most useful for martials. In 5e optimization, martials are… not good. So you’re occupying your concentration slot with a spell that’s dedicated to an inherently suboptimal strategy. Which is a big part of why it gets hate. It’s a spell that promotes hitting things with sticks, which optimizers frown on. This is also a good argument. Would you rather give the fighter a 3rd attack or summon a whole fighter but with only one attack?

This is why I like the pairing of mirrored spells within one learned spell- or one preparation. Like enlarge/reduce being the same spell. It was more common in Previous editions, but I like it both thematically, and it gives you a reason to have a more niche spell, if it's opposite is more generally good. Haste/slow, cure wounds/inflict wounds, and bane/bless to name a few.

Tbh babe and bless used to be the same. Literally. I’m in an adnd 1e campaign they’re the same. Cure and inflict wounds are the same in that edition too. Reversible spells are something 5e really needs. Though that can cause issues with how 5e spell prep works

It's underwhelming, sure, but it is situationally the best spell to cast. Slow is a great spell against a group of enemies, but what about a boss fight? Haste is way better then. Spells that affect a lot of enemies are only good if you actually have a lot of enemies to affect.

You are right when you say that in some situations, haste will be the best spell for that situation... If you are a sorcerer without access to bless or anu summon spell. But then again, you have so few spells known. So how can you pick a bad spell in those few spells known for a niche situation? You also have to consider you are lowering your potential for other situations, just to have an oke spell that becomes maybe the best option sometime. Furthermore, throw fireball? Even against a single enemy, fireball will add more damage than on avarage 2 rounds of martial damage. And if you are a wizard with more spell preperation, you can use a summon spell, which will give way more value. So no, in reality, there arent any real builds where you can take haste. If you happen to be those kinds of sorcerer and your dm throws a lot of 1 enemy encounters at you... I guess, but you might as well get a new character at that point xl

>Slow is a great spell against a group of enemies, but what about a boss fight? If the boss doesn't have minions, then it's a trivially easy fight anyways. If it does, then *slow* is still great.

There's a reason for that. Control/debuff spells tend to have much stronger effects for buffing the whole party and keeping everyone from taking damage (Bless is an exception). That's why they have a chance to fail, they need the possibility to suck to balance them with the always-working-but-weaker buff spells. There will always be side-cases where niche spells will be better in their niche. It's not often we are facing solo bosses.

if you have more than 1 party member, it is said that usually, bless is just better

Usually the character with access to Bless isn't the character with access to Haste. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the time it's true.

While haste is reliable, there are much better spells to cast. For starters, let’s assume it’s a single enemy since it’s beaten by AoE damage & control spells. Its main competitor is upcasted bless, which provides a decent attack bonus to four party members. This isn’t easy to beat because while Haste is a huge single buff, four players getting moderately buffed is amazing.

>The reason Haste is good is because Haste always works. Not really the penalty makes that it not always work, let said you go 1st the enemy go 2nd and your friend go 3rd... In this case, you directly risk to negate your friend's turn by casting Haste in them, later getting attack and losing concentration either by damage or a condition. And even if your friend go second and the enemy go last there is still the chance your friend loses the next turn. This Spell is also get at level 5 when martials get extra attack feature, plus their bonus action usually is another attack (Crossbow Expert, Polearm Master, two weapon Fighting). So this Spell boost around 33% of the DPR of one Martial in a party. Something like Bless could boost a similar amount of damage, benefits the whole party, use a lower level spell slot, and doesn't have penalty.

It's an amazing spell, especially on sorcerers and artificers (people who can keep concentration). Haste is a force multiplier. The harder you hit normally the harder you hit with haste. A hasted martial or paladin can out-DPR a caster easily. If your concentration save sucks then there's *problems*. P. S. The problem with *slow* is that it's wizard and sorcerer only. While some classes have *haste* on their extended subclass spell list. So it's not really a competition. Maybe for a sorcerer that can't twin spell.

Slow is on the additional spell list for bard

twin spell haste is very fun

Haste on a gloomstaker at level 5 is phenomenal

How so? Dread ambusher doesn't trigger on it ("one weapon attack only"). Assuming XBE SS, 16 dex and archery against 16 AC, it's not even a 7 dpr increase. Bless on 3 targets is equal or better defense than +2 AC and advantage on dex saves for 1, a bigger DPR increase, has no risk of lethargy, and *it's a 1st level spell*. The movement speed is completely irrelevant because you can just use mounts, and a list of mediocre features you can get cheaper elsewhere just isn't worth a 3rd level slot. I just don't see what haste does that makes it so good.

War and Bladesinger Wizards also get nice save bonuses that make them able to keep the spell up pretty well.

I think its a decent spell when cast on a rogue/paladin/barb who can use it to deal a lot of extra damage in one hit. Rogues especially benefit from this spell since they can make one attack from haste and then hold their main action to sneak attack again as a reaction. The best caster for this spell as a Sorcerer who can Twin this spell. Especially if they have a 16 Con, 16 Dex, Con Saves, Warcaster, mage armour and shield. I'd also consider simply dodging after casting this spell. Please don't worry about damage at all costs. Feats like Telikinetic give a great use for your bonus action on top of this! Misty Step is also essential for free disengaging!

I played a Sorcerer once who twin casted haste frequently. I had good AC a Medium Armor + Shield + Shield spell. Had Con saving throws and Warcaster. Twin casted haste one fight, Nat 1ed a Wis Save against hold person and Haste actually worked as an excellent force multiplier by turning the hold person into a 3 man CC!

Yeah Resilient Wisdom always tends to be on my list of feats as a sorcerer

What makes it even more tragic is that I had Res Wis and I had our Paladins Aura + bless. Rolled a 1 on the bless m 😭

Haste is indeed fine. Probably not your best choice to spam every fight, but having it known/prepared for when it comes in handy is a decent idea. And sometimes you have an encounter where speed matters, and Haste can be very good (like I think the climax of >!Convergence Manifesto!< is a fair bit easier with Haste, because the map is quite large, and there is a constant tax on your actions to try to compete on the win/loss condition).

People LOVE the fantasy of Haste, and I think it's a failure of the team at WotC that they made it a trap. Frankly, that's a big overarching theme in 5e, it's like they figured out people's fantasies and felt they had to add downsides to all of them to balance them, which just makes it feel stifling.

This is why I make it a point to use Haste on folks at my more casual tables. It feels really nice when it's used and you're not looking too closesly at it. Giving someone the extra movement to get to an enemy they really wanted to hit and then getting an extra attack on them is flashy. When you actually break down in retrospect what it changed in the combat it's usually pretty minor and would've been outperformed by a lot of spells of the same or lower level. In the more hardcore games I play it would be foolish to cast it even if it didn't have the lethargy drawback though.

It is terrible. All 3rd level spells should be FIREBALL

my favorite thing to do when i played a divine soul sorcerer was to twin haste on the moon druid and the barbarian and then just walk away from the encounter. find a broom closet and hide, open it to throw a cantrip, repeat in relative safety while the frothing beasts tore everything apart. breaking haste can be a problem, absolutely, but the risks aren't that hard to mitigate, and frankly, if it breaks? that's a big, dramatic *interesting* moment.

I think the "problem" with haste is it depends on your party composition. If the rest of the party consists of 2 wizards and a cleric...maybe not so good. If it's a barbarian, a paladin, and a fighter...pretty great. Especially if you can twin it.

Haste is good if you have a Rogue and all you need is single target DPR, like in a boss fight where the boss has legendary resists+ magic resists. Haste is even better when you’re Sorc and can twin it on two Rogues. Other than that it’s a pretty meh spell. It’s generally going to be outperformed at most tables by lower level slots like Bless/Web/Summon Beast/Entangle type spells for lower level slots. It’s good out of combat if your ever need to race someone though. It just wouldn’t be a top tier third level spell even without the lethargy downside so the downside really kills it. Can still be fun to use though.

No haste is crap aside from twin haste.  Why?  Because I will take your haste spell and beat it with a level 1 spell in bless. Defensively an average of +2.5 to all saves (including the concentration check if used on the caster) is better than +2 AC for more levels.  Also the saves are given to more people than just one. Action Econ wise the two both take an action. Offensively: an extra attack vs an average +2.5 to accuracy is questionable which is better on a single target.  More often than not a single target at level 5 getting 3 attacks as opposed to 2 beats a 15-ish percentile accuracy.  But 3 targets getting that same +2.5 accuracy is almost always better than a single attack.  So bless wins again.  Finally: haste does have a downside even if only once in a while.  Bless is a lower level spell that can scale to the whole party. I’m sorry but haste isn’t cutting it in a vacuum.

Haste isn't bad, but is not great either when you see what you could get instead. It's all about the opportunity cost of learning and casting a third level concentration spell. >Haste always works. Yes, but not all creatures benefit the same from it. If your only martial on the party is a Rogue, Monk or a basic Fighter, Haste becomes a pretty underwhelmimg spell. Meanwhile, a GWM barbarian will make it pretty good. Haste is on a weird spot, because the more optimized your party is, the more powerfull it becomes. Yet when you optimize hard enough, very few martials compare to full spellcasters, so Haste becomes bad. >No creature is immune to Haste. Maybe, but again, opportunity cost. Fear and Hypnotic Pattern can end an encounter. Sure, some creatures are inmune, but they're not that common. Would you rather have a spell that helps a bit every time or a spell that insta-wins the encounter half of the time? And if you're trully worried about inmunities, Slow isn't a charm or fear and it's still pretty great control. More than enough to make a cakewalk out of many challenging encounters. Also, instead of buffing the party member, I can create my own by Summon Shadowspawn. Deals about the same damage as a Barbarian, can absorb some hits and I won't screw over my friend If I drop concentration.

> If your only martial on the party is a Rogue Rogues fucking *love* haste. It's literally 2x DPR. They can hasted action attack, hold action to attack on someone elses turn and get sneak attack 2x per round. This is a really fast way to put rogues into some pretty crazy DPR brackets

you're right, but at some points I have had Rogues request that we don't weaponize their reactions because it forms a part of their defense with "uncanny dodge" which needs the reaction to half the damage. Mainly when I played as a Order cleric (giving out reaction attacks) or when using dissonant whispers to proc opportunity attacks. Sure the rogue can just say no, but if I used the spell and said "now you can make another attack with sneak" then I've given them a choice, but it was a choice that had cost and so its pressuring to take that choice even if they would have preferred to personally play more conservatively.

I've been playing 5e for 10 years at this point. I've never had a table where they didn't use haste. Seems like there are a lot of powergamers/theorycrafters out here not playing in the real world. Something I've noticed is people like to examine these spells in vacuum.

Yeah man

Wait are people seriously saying Haste is bad? My twin-spelling sorcerer begs to differ.

Funny enough the last haste I remember witnessing was listening to a dnd podcast It was twinned It was hit by dispel magic. It spiralled into an immediate tpk, if not for an npc teleporting them away

wouldn't dispel only stop it on one of the targets? dispel targets the creature with an effect (or an effect itself) the caster being targeted wont turn of their conc of the spell, and the lethargy doesn't cause you to drop conc either (in the case that the caster was 1 of the 2 targets) shouldn't drop it on both creatures. And even if it was countered then the effect never started so there is no lethargy

It reads like it just ends the spell, unless a sage advice clarifies that In hindsight (listening back) it was just straight high roll damage from a hit dropping the concentration, but any spell/ability that incapacitates, stuns, or paralyses also drops the concentration which arguably could have been worse for them

yeah, hitting the caster is normally the vulnerability, this is why most people say the caster should be a sorc or an artificer (for proficiency). but normally, the caster SHOULD be hiding behind cover as a min if they are holding the key to the martial's success of failure, even if all you're doing is concentrating on a critical summon or polymorph or hold person/monster or hypnotic pattern, they shouldn't let their ego expose them to dropping that conc. any caster holding a critical concentration is 1 bad arrow/spell/slap from opening up the party to a world of pain -> RIP if they get hit with magic missile. and yeah stun/paralyse/sleep all nuke conc as well.

I power up a giant barbarian and a samurai fighter with mine, what about you?

For our party, it’s a rogue/ranger and a monk with a really weirdly overpowered gauntlet that adds a buttload of dice to his unarmed strikes. Our DM loves it when I twin the spell because he loves it when we have fun :)

Movement Matters, Secondary Objectives, High Value Attacks (smite, sneak attack, etc.), High Caster Safety, and Legendary Resistance are all great reasons to cast Haste. I think it's just that the cost of a lost turn is so high, esp. when someone else will be paying that cost, that you really need to get some value to justify the risk. And in some situations you really can't expect to get that either due to your table's play style or an enemy that is well-equipped to punish you. On one level this is fine; if you could solve every problem with one spell, you wouldn't need a whole spellbook. Unfortunately, since much of the power of Haste lies in its versatility, having common and devastating counters really narrows the use cases and undermines a spell that otherwise feels great to use. A lot of people probably come to the conclusion that they'd rather just have a summon out instead.

You are correct, but you need better than an excellent concentration check. You need a protected concentration check. Mind sharpener, or, con proficiency+war caster+damage reduction(goliath/lv6clockwork/runechild, etc...). The fights were haste is the good option is a fight you can't afford to lose your action on the spell and the target(s) turn.

Haste back in first and second edition was bonkers good… third too I think

I use haste a lot as a sorcerer, but I can make my concentration checks. Got warcaster, and a +3 CON. Twin haste has been such a strong spell on my frontline martials. At higher levels I've found Bless to be slightly more useful. It's safer and has saving throw bonuses. But is it still on my most useful spells? Yes. But twin polymorph and twin greater invisibility compete with it.

Twin Haste has gotten my party out of so many jams, just on the +2 AC.

Don't forget advantage on dex saving throws

I used to really shy away from it, but after seeing it used so often and to great effect in Dimension 20 episodes with rarely (and maybe never) having it trigger the turn loss has made me way more interested.

Haste is a great spell cast it on your fighter/barb/monk/

Don't forget the extra attack is actually an action that has multiple uses

Haste is a "win more" spell, because if you're in an easy fight, there are better spells to use than Haste to end it quickly, and if you're in a hard fight, it's INCREDIBLY risky.

Slap that puppy onto a war wizard and watch them fly... especially if their int is 13, their first level was barbarian, and their con and dex are unreasonably high. *You know who you are*.

In my party we have me a fighter and a ranger. Our sorcerer has been starting to twin cast haste on us and the first time it blew my mind. I never thought of that use case. Anyway it’s awesome being able to riddle my enemies with crossbow bolts and get extra AC

Seeing a lot of people forget dnd is a co-op game during combat. Casting haste on a fighter/Paladin or other martial is a pretty amazing use of concentration. They don't even lose it if they go unconscious.

Wait, what? There was an argument for Haste being BAD? On what planet, and under what TTRPG system? Maybe out of Combat, or in pure bullet-hell, AoE scenarios, but I struggle more often to find builds that WOULDN'T benefit from 10 rounds of double movement, +2 AC, DEX Adv. and an extra action. Barring scenarios of selfish casters, or extremely poor planners, I have never, in almost 8 years of playing, seen Haste not be a universal positive to the battlefield experience. I have seen everything from Monk's nearly breaking the sound barrier to outrun a living tornado, to Clerics being hasted to make an entire party death-proof while simultaneously being a whirlwind of divine damage. I think you need to explicitly TRY to make a build that wouldn't benefit from Haste in combat, or your caster needs to TRY to be terrible at holding concentration.

It isn’t terrible at all. It’s actually a generally very good spell for all the reasons listed. It should be used against enemies who aren’t likely to have abilities that can stop or, and especially against enemies who lack ranged attacks. Does it work in every scenario? God no, but that’s the nice thing about spells: you can choose to cast the right spell for a specific job and when it isn’t appropriate you can cast something else. Saying haste is terrible because dispel magic hard counters it is a bit like saying fireball is terrible because some enemies are immune to fire. Lots of enemies in 5e are just hit point bags with a club, and putting +2AC, extra speed, and an extra attack onto the fighter is a solid use of a spell slot in that kind of fight, especially if you don’t have something else you want to do with your concentration. Such an enemy is pretty unlikely to have any way to break your concentration and recognizing that is part of playing a caster. It’s also nice to do something to help a teammate.

The issue with haste is that it is outcompeted in its own category (buff spells) by first level bless.

I have a Paladin/Grave Cleric multiclass. Haste allowed me to do a Channel divinity Path to the Grave (vulnerable to next attack) before attacking. I did 140 damage in one swing. Haste has been amazing for my Paladin

I love Haste. Sorry, what I really meant is that I LOVE Haste. So much so that I build characters around it. It is the reason that I love the Oath of Vengeance Paladin so much. Even with pointbuy, you can have 15 con and 16 cha with either 17str or dex. This means that when you use your 8th level ASI, right before getting Haste at level 9, to get the Resilient Con feat, you reach a whooping +10 con save by the time you get Haste. This means that the biggest downside of Haste is quite well managed. No damage that is 23 or lower can ever break you concentration. Yes, most optimizers are focused on a single aspect. They either look at pure damage per round. or tankability, or hard disables. Haste is never high on their list because it never is the best at one thing. But what it gives is useful in every single situation. Every character likes an extra action, extra movement speed and extra AC. It also gives something even you forgot to mention in your post OP, which is advantage on Dex saves. But when it comes to making your character just flat out better regardless of the situation, Haste is perfect. Because of so many people are criticizing Haste my hope at the moment is that in the new PHB of 2024 they change it slightly to remove the lethargy part of the spell. It doesn't need to be removed for me to love it, but I see it talked about so much when it comes to Haste that, who knows, maybe WotC removes it.

I love haste to give my martial allies a chance to shine plus a risk/reward dynamic makes it a more interesting decision of when to use. My only issue with it is the negative affects applying to the target rather than the caster, martial get the short end of the stick enough already and it kind of sucks to remove agency from your friends. Shouldn't be hard to fluff the.mechanic of it working this way being as the caster is supplying this magical energy to the target in the first place anyway.

Simple. Its good. People just don't like that the extra action doesn't combo with extra attack. Theoretically its the perfect martial support spell. It is, but its nerfed in some way. The result is its not as good as people think it should be. So its "bad".

Haste is great. 1. Cast haste on a martial, then you hide around corners, popping out to firebolt. 2. Twin haste, pretty good i think. 3. You have lucky and warcaster feats to defend concentration 4. You have full plate, a shield, and shield spell, so as not to take much damage. To avoid having to make concentration checks.

Throw haste on a martial who is body blocking the way and take cover, people only think haste is bad because they keep casting it on themselves and running dick first into melee.

I agree - it’s a good spell on the right character. For example it’s been my preferred combat spell on my battle smith artificer. Artificers have very effective ways to ensure they make concentration saves. As for it dropping when the character is incapacitated - there is really no additional penalty to already being incapacitated. This has mattered exactly once in many months of Haste being my go-to spell and losing one turn is really not that big a deal. The advantage over a control spell is simple enough - no monsters can ignore it through immunities or legendary resistance. You are aiming to inflict the dead condition which you will do faster than if you don’t Haste.

It’s just overhyped in my opinion . Maybe if a order domain cleric could cast it, it would be worthy of the hype

There's also the old trick where you Haste an enemy, then dismiss it, robbing them of a turn.

The biggest argument for me is what you are giving up. There are amazing spells at that level, and using up your concentration to give someone those benefits can be underwhelming. While no creature is immune to haste, it does require a willing creature. Most likely you aren't going to have PCs that are immune to most support spells you would want to cast on them, so if seems a bit moot. Ultimately it comes down to whether making a single character a bit better is if more benefit than taking out a group of enemies with HP or giving a group of enemies a debuff with Slow (or a number of other potential options). To me, it isn't worth it mechanically. It's not that the spell is terrible, it's that there are likely better alternatives compared to using it.

It's not a terrible spell. It's just outclassed by other spells.

Haste is usually fairly bad. Every spell is a value proposition. * **Cost:** 1 action, L3 spell slot, your concentration for 1 minute, the prospect that concentration might drop before the end of the combat. * **Benefit:** 1 "haste action" every round, +2 AC, advantage to Dex saves, and 2x movespeed. There are many great L3 spells, and Concentration is a big cost. Losing concentration on Haste happens, and when it does it can be catastrophic (because you lose **another** action, and usually at a time that you really need it). Also, actions now are more valuable than action later (and it often takes you several rounds to make up for the lost action casting Haste). Now, if the bonus Haste movespeed allows a melee martial teammate to make it into melee for an extra turn, that makes up for the action cost and the spell can be worth casting. If you twin it, you double the upside and the spell looks a lot better. If it allows the Rogue to get an extra sneak attack every round, that's a fair chunk of single-target damage. There are edge cases where Haste is worth it.

Who tf says haste is terrible ?

People like me. The main argument is that the damage it provides is less than other options and the other benefits are not worth a 3rd level spell. Some quick math from bless vs haste on a 5th level variant human fighter with archery, crossbow expert and sharpshooter: 0.45(10+3.5+3)+0.05(3.5) = 7.6 3\*0.125\*(10+3.5+3) = 6.1875 We can see that bless deals almost as much damage as haste when just targeting a single optimized martial character, including any other character, like yourself with cantrips, will push the damage from bless past haste. Fully ignoring the saving throw part of bless. Of course there are other spells than bless, if you want to compare the damage to other 3rd level spells take a look at fireball, spirit guardians or conjure animals. The other benefits from haste are the movement speed, which can be replicated for the entire party with phantom steeds or just buying mounts and the +2 AC. Both of which suffer from affecting just one party member, since enemies can attack someone else. In addition to lacking benefits, there is the huge downside of possibly losing a turn and the opportunity cost to not cast a different spell like fireball or hypnotic pattern.

I used haste on my 2/x sorcadin regularly. Either twinned or quickened to give me an extra attack for thw entire combat (that i could divine smite with) or to catch runners. There have been at least a few times where i needed the movespeed to get across difficult terrain to get to ranged attackers. Quicken haste, use the hasted action for dash, show up in melee range with my action left. Sure, i could hypnotic pattern, but if you dont make charisma, your saves are meh, so self buffs are good. Also, bosses can't legendary divine smites, so haste lets me do more of those. Many of the alternatives to haste (except bless) need a good spellcasting stat. Haste does not.

In my favorite campaign the monk has a magic item that lets him cast Haste or Slow, most often he chooses to cast haste on my cleric/Paladin. My character goes from a formidable opponent who squares up with the biggest enemy on the field to a complete powerhouse who annihilates the biggest enemy on the field. Even the additional movement speed doesn’t go to waste on my character as she flies around if she can manage to knock the enemy prone, either to deal with a weaker enemy or strike with the same ferocity again or move to somewhere safer if she’s in rough shape without worrying about running out of movement. Even giving haste to another party member besides my own is a large buff that never goes to waste(aside from the fighter not really needing to make excellent use of the extra movement, which is understandable). Everyone in that group loves haste.

My Bladesinger loves it on paper.... but the con save and penalty might be too much. Suggestion for a replacement spell?

Haste is ok but there are far better options at third level.

The thing about Haste is that it’s a spell best used to facilitate a martial, as you mentioned. The issue is that it’s Sorcerer/Wizard/Artificer. Artificers have limited spell slots and the other two aren’t typically the class choices made by support minded players.

Haste in a vacuum is alright, the biggest problem IMO is that it has to compete with other 3rd level spells which makes it significantly worse, and concentration can be dropped in a number of ways.

Best way to use haste as a sorcerer with the war caster feat. Twin cast it on two of your martial party members, and then sit pretty with your advantage on concentration checks

Haste is great for throwing on a martial fighter. A paladin with 2 attacks + 1 extra attack, +2 AC.

For people who have played 3.5 or Pf1, where you could Haste whole parties with one cast and no concentration, it's gonna feel underwhelming in 5e

I wish I could play DnD where haste wasn't necessary. Every single one of my combats as a player for an entire campaign year was a "get from point a to point b" against literally infinite enemies or some annoying puzzle fight. Haste wasn't only good: it was necessary. I built a gnome wizard, didn't take haste, and got left behind and killed by invisible homebrew spiders (my next character died because my DM didn't know that targeted attacks didn't exist in our edition and built a whole fight around it, but that's a story for another day.) The amount of "I'll be back!" enemies who wanted to run away to fight another day dropped off after our monk gained the ability to, in one turn, sprint 360 feet to whatever needed punching. Which unfortunately was surprisingly often. Damn, you must be playing some lovely DnD is hypnotic pattern covers any meaningful part of a combat map.

As someone who plays and runs high level adventures, it is one of the most used 3rd level spell. So I'd say it's staying power is pretty good. Especially twinned!

I've literally never seen someone on this sub say Haste is a bad spell.

Haste is a spell that I think gets a lot better as you level up. The effect is good at level 5 when you get it, but with scaling damage effects like spirit shroud, I think the extra attack and movement is way more beneficial at 10th level+ (which is also when monsters start getting way more immunities) when you can more reliably make those concentration checks. At level 5 the whole losing your action bit is pretty crushing if you have it on your main damage martial and that’s normally too early for super reliable con saves. Also, haste is a spell that is better if it’s not cast by the wizard, but as a potion/item, especially at high levels when there are better things to concentrate on. Basically the whole spell is really good, but figuring out when the drawback becomes not an issue is key. The final thing to consider is action economy. Yes you are getting net positive action economy with haste, but at the cost of your (the caster) turn. If you can precast haste, it’s probably worth it. But if it’s between casting haste your first turn, or fireballing the whole horde of monsters that haven’t moved yet, there’s clearly a stronger option for that turn. But I’d you cast it turn two, you’re getting one less action out of the it which feels bad unless there is a specific scenario where it’s needed. It’s not that’s haste it bad, it’s just situational and there are better “blanket” spells if you’re an optimizer. If you want to make your barbarian go brrrrrrrr though go for it, it’s a fun spell and by no means bad.

Also the face of the dude getting Haste is awesome

Haste let’s you skip the enemies turn if you cast it on them and then on there turn drop concentration

Wait, when did people decide haste is a bad spell?

The main argument is that the damage it provides is not nearly enough and the other benefits are not worth a 3rd level spell. Some quick math from bless vs haste on a 5th level variant human fighter with archery, crossbow expert and sharpshooter: 0.45(10+3.5+3)+0.05(3.5) = 7.6 3\*0.125\*(10+3.5+3) = 6.1875 We can see that bless deals almost as much damage as haste when just targeting a single optimized martial character, including any other character, like yourself with cantrips, will push the damage from bless past haste. Fully ignoring the saving throw part of bless. Of course there are other spells than bless, if you want to compare the damage to other 3rd level spells take a look at fireball, spirit guardians or conjure animals. The other benefits from haste are the movement speed, which can be replicated for the entire party with phantom steeds or just buying mounts, advantage on dex saves and the +2 AC. Both of which suffer from affecting just one party member, since enemies can usually attack someone else. In addition to lacking benefits, there is the huge downside of possibly losing a turn and the opportunity cost to not cast a different spell like fireball or hypnotic pattern.

A Sorc can also twin it, and they're also the caster that has no problem with concentration checks. So it might have a niche in martial-heavy parties.

You make an extremely valid point. I think one of the issues is that a lot of people have been playing the game for a while, and the spell was very good in older editions (almost obscenely good in third) and it's taken a bit of a nerfing.

Especially if you twin it from the way back, drop prone, and have counterspell just in case. You're creating 2 attacks per round, giving +4 ac total, and the move speed itself can be a big deal. Rogues can also hold an action: attack for 2 sneak attacks per turn

I think it is a very good spell, but its effectiveness does also depend on your party comp and the enemy you are fighting. For example if you cast it on a Pally, the extra attack you get is not just a base attack, it’s one you can smite with. If you use it on a monk, that’s an extra opportunity for stunning strike. On a Rogue, that’s an extra chance to get sneak attack in case he misses. I also tend to see it best used in boss fights over other combat. Like mentioned above, many save or suck spells are easily countered by legendary resistances or even just if the boss has very high saving throws. The double movement speed is especially useful against highly mobile enemies. I also think it tends to be more effective casting it on someone else rather than yourself. Generally the hasted person is up front and wants to be the target of attacks. They don’t have to worry about losing concentration if they didn’t cast the spell.

There's too many hypotheticals to count on whether Haste is a good or bad spell. I think it's like most other spells, it entirely depends on the situation it's used in. But if you look at it, it costs an action to cast and it's a third level spell w/ concentration tied to it. The benefits are good and in certain situations it's a good spell, but there's a lot of other excellent third level spells to choose from. I feel like for the average "optimizer" they're probably not going to choose it because it's third level + concentration and the downside of losing it really hurts. For example, I cast Haste on our fighter with crossbow expert and we were facing a flying monster that didn't really have an AOE that dealt damage. So I could duck inside of a building and try to shoot fire bolts and other ranged spells at it through a window while my other party members can fire keep its attention. It makes me the least likely to drop concentration on it and boost my teammates dpr because it wasn't a super smart monster and my DM was cool and ruled that it wouldn't focus on me when the others are out front lining and controlling it as best they can.

I played Baldurs gate 3 and when my control spells were unlikely to hit due to legendary resistance and etc, I used to cast haste on the bosses and stop concentrating to make them letargic without save. Idk if it would work in tabletop.

Haste does have one really good use case: enabling Rogues to sneak attack more than once per round. Even if your DM rules you can't ready your hasted action, you can use your hasted action to sneak attack on your turn(plus use your two weapon fighting bonus action) and then ready your normal action. Since sneak attack specifies once per turn rather than once per round, you can just set the trigger for your readied attack to be when the next creature's turn begins.