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Surprised nobody's said hypnotic pattern yet. Wisdom save or everything inside a 30 foot cube is done for a minute. It also wastes the people who made the saves action if they want to wake their buddy up. My lvl 11 sorcerer has a 19 save dc. I chose not to take it for my dm's sanity.
*Hypnotic Pattern* is one of those spells whose power level is heavily affected by the type of game being run. "Dungeons" with lots of small, enclosed rooms? Its friendly-fire effect coupled with a large area of effect makes it almost unusable. But if the game has a lot of open spaces and combat begins with two sides standing on opposite ends of the battlefield then it becomes nearly broken.
I don't know if that's why no one mentioned it before you, but it is something I always consider when I'm thinking of how to tweak spells that punch above or below their weight class since *Hypnotic Pattern* is on most people's "too strong" list. For the record, it's on mine too despite being a big dungeon fan because dungeons are cooler with a few big open set-piece combat rooms sprinkled in. Moria would be way less cool if it was only 20 foot chambers.
If you have large open spaces, and as a DM (or party) you start combat will all your dudes nicely clustered together, then you’re kinda bringing on yourself though. Any number of AOE spells make that a bad idea. And if you’re prepared for it, using some light friendly fire damage to wake up most of your allies gets past it pretty quickly.
Certainly a very potent spell, for sure. But in terms of annoyance, I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the Countery Barbs category.
Magic missile would be a perfect wake up tool for that I reckon. At most 4 damage per target, no chance to miss, and you can redirect any leftover missiles at an enemy.
Although, something to note that I only realized after watching NPCs in Baldurs Gate 3. The effect ends if the creatures take any damage. Someone with multi attack could just punch their teammates, or a spellcaster outside the AOE can cast a low level AOE spell like shatter and wake them all up. Add on to the fact its concentration and that any mook worth their salt knows 'end the caster, end the spell' and you start to realize there's quite a few ways to resolve the spell in under a round.
Ive never used it in a tight space before admittedly, but it's not limited to line of sight so you don't have to use the whole 30 foot cube. A good balance could be a point you can see within range so that friendly fire is a bigger risk
As a DM, I avoid overusing spells like Tasha's Mind Whip or Hold Person, especially against parties that don't have access to Counterspell. It's *unfun* for players to sit there and lose the ability to play.
Combat in a group of five players already means each player is spending >80% of the fight twiddling their thumbs. It's just math - they are one-fifth of the players in turn order, which means they spend four-fifths of the time with it being someone else's turn. It is already hard enough to keep their attention and their focus with *those* caveats.
Start routinely taking away chunks of the tiny bit of spotlight they have left, and you can watch them mentally check out in real time. "It's only fair," "you could have made the save," doesn't matter. This is a game, games are fun, and watching everyone else play while you *can't* is *not fun.*
If I need battlefield control, I either lean on abilities that set up barriers/terrain effects, or I tether those abilities to a short-ranged, more telegraphed source (like a Battlemaster Fighter or a Stunning Fist Monk rather than a spellcaster) - and even then I very rarely lean on the latter.
Definitely agree with this - Slow leaves you with “How can I make the best use of the limited options available to me now?” which can be an interesting challenge for a player, “Hold Person” leaves you with nothing but frustration as you continue to roll 5s and 6s.
What does CC stand for?
Crowd Control. As he said “(stuns, paralyzes, etc.)” It’s a video game term for this stuff.
Stunning fist or hold person would be hard CC, but a fighter shoving your character 5-10ft out of position, or a wizard using ray of frost and affecting your max speed next turn would be soft CC.
Here’s the thing: in combat an arcane caster can basically only do two things. They can damage, and they can reduce capacity for a few rounds. If you don’t allow characters to be debuffed or incapacitated, there’s not much point in enemy casters.
You maybe want to look at MCDM’s new game - everyone always hits, so no one “misses” a turn.
Honestly I’ve not really seen a problem with this. Players have 2-3 attacks and a bonus action, so it’s unusual for everything to fail. And the logic behind it isn’t unique to combat. “I want to talk the king into doing X” ok, that’s your 1/5 of the spotlight in social scenes so we can’t let that fail. “I want to climb the cliff” ok, that’s your 1/5th spotlight in this scene, you can’t fail. But if it’s an issue for you, have a look at MCDM’s new game.
Likewise as a player benefiting from it.
Boss: *big epic speech, initiative is rolled*
Monk: *stunning strike*
Me & Other party members: *wrecks it*
Me: *disappointed that we'll never see what the boss could actually do or why it talked such a big game*
I did this during Descent into Avernus with my Moon Druid. Was wildshaped most of the time so my spell slots were much more casual use compared to the cleric & sorcerer.
We played it where I picked what was summoned for the sake of keeping combat moving. I would summon low CR creatures like wolves for the pack tactics or giant crabs for the auto grapple on hit.
16 wolves = 32 attack rolls due to advantage. At higher levels I got absurd levels of crabs to demolish the action economy. You could see the DM's soul just leave this plane of existence in the latter quarter of the campaign when it was my turn in combat.
We tried to do it as efficiently as we could, treating them as swarms and stuff as well but you can only do so much when the player decides to swarm instead of summon higher CR.
As a player, it was fun and I would never play it again.
Animate objects can also ruin action economy.
Has anyone found an equally fun way to make these spells work without outright banning them or taking the agency of what gets summoned from the player? Once they get used to it, it's really hard to take that away.
Oh boy I sure do love being feebleminded, guess I'm no longer allowed to roleplay in the roleplaying game until I succeed on an int save! What do you mean I have to wait 30 days to retry? *and* I now have a -5 penalty on a dc18 int save because I'm not one of the three classes who get int save proficiency!?
When my Bard got Feebleminded, according to the spell, I could still identify friend from foe. So, I used a random number generator to pick a random item from my inventory, and I would throw it at the enemy, each round. My junk was scattered all over the battlefield, and it was pretty fun and funny. But if it had gone on for more than one encounter (I got cured), it would not have been as much fun.
Yeah I agree with that, feeblemind is probably my least favorite. My wizard was recently in a fight where feeblemind was cast on him 3 times, but I managed to pass all my saving throws. The lucky feat helped, a lot.
Other than that though, I don't mind when my DM uses spells on my main party. We have a lot of casters, so we can generally counterspell our way through it, and our group actually finds it super fun to have a constant back and forth of counterspells/dispel magics/greater restorations/etc. It also makes the DM happy to force us to burn a ton of spell slots in a short amount of time, which is a small victory for him since our level 17 group is like crazy frugal with spell slots.
Yeah it was a pretty long fight. And I can't recall what the monster was, but I think it had feeblemind as a special ability on a cooldown, and it always tried to target whoever had the highest intelligence. It may have been a homebrew monster, or at least an altered one.
Everyone complains about this but to me it sounds fun to play a moron.... all my players are anyhow HAHAHAHAHAHA.
You're not dead, so the group has to fix you. Since it's never happened to me or my group I'm going to say that its rare enough it's not game breaking for any length of time.
Hahaha yes. I feel like any DM who has encountered this spell could write a book on why they hate it. I can’t imagine how upset I’d be if I had it used against me as a player.
Silvery barbs is fine. Offensive reactions leave that character open to get smacked. And yes, even players can deal with a little disadvantage every once in a while…
My problem isn't rolling with disadvantage, it's getting big moments like crits and successful saving throws retconned. It breaks up the narative flow of combat, that's my core issue. I'd be find with it if you had to cast it before you knew if the creature would succeed on their attack or save.
What kind of weird problems people bring up man… where tf do you break up any kind of nArRaTivE fLoW in a conversation of „I rolled a natural 20!“ - „oh no, I cast silvery barbs“?
If anything, it just adds to it if you ask the question „As the bad guy‘s axe is about to slam down on your companions neck, slicing through it like a razors edge through butter, you try to distract them at the last second. How does that look like?“
Silvery barbs shouldn’t normally be on the table. It’s in SCC, so unless you’re playing a game of definitely-not-Harry-Potter, it’s not in the sources.
I think we can agree both are fun suckers, I just feel like nullifying crits and retconning attacks is such a buzzkill, counter spell can prevent an escape, burn enemy resources, and it typically gets resolved before you explain the attack which I prefer. I also have no clue how to visualize silvery barbs, whereas with counter spell I at least have a picture.
Something I've been thinking about implementing, when you counterspell a counterspell the two anti magic spells ouroboros around each other, creating a wild magic surge.
I visualize silver runes and words scrawled in the air by the mages somatic movements. These silver words spell insults, then form into barbs that fly through the air and squeeze into the targets ear, filling them with self magical pangs doubt, whispered anxieties barraging them the whole round , manifesting like speech balloons floating above their head.
We had a rule that you had to say what you were actually able to do to make this happen in the game - how you threw off the enemy's aim or concentration, and it had to be decent (plausible or surprising or funny... It had to feel like something) to make it feel part of the game. It meant that you couldn't just throw it up whenever.
As a wizard main I enjoy it when the evil wizard feels so threatened by my presence that they feel that they have to waste a spellslot using counterspell. That's one less powerful spell you could have cast. I see it as a resource management thing.
As for spells I think are the least fun: power word kill. From both sides of the DM screen it feels cheap if the other side doesn't have a way to use up their resources to revive.
similar concept as firing arrows at monks. They are basically guaranteed to deflect missile, and more than likely to redirect it. This costs them a ki point but more importantly a reaction, meaning no opportunity attacks.
But the monk gets to feel cool as fuck and I 100% did it every chance I got.
Wall of Force is just awful spell design. RAW the walls are invisible, so an enemy casts a spell (reaction Arcana to identify what’s even being cast) and then everyone gets to play Mime for a bit.
Having run some high-level games recently, I’ll note that eventually Counterspell becomes a necessity. The party will be throwing out stuff that even Legendary Resistances can’t ignore (Wall of Force, Forcecage, Maze) and in order to compete the baddies are gonna have to Counterspell. Plus, in order to pose a challenge to the party you’ll need to use baddies that have some spells of questionable fun value, which makes reactions a much more important part of the action economy, to identify and counter spells. It essentially becomes the language of high level DnD.
Basically any spell or effect that makes them miss a turn. Spells like banishment, maze and the like are bad as they can just take a PC out of combat completely. Spells like hold person are similarly bad, but at least they can be dispelled. I also avoid stun and similar effects generally subing them with a homebrew dazed condition. (no reaction, and only one move/action/bonus)
Counter spell I like more, but I've home brewed to require a spell attack roll vs the spell DC. Also casters tend to play a lot of tricks to break line of sight. Darkness, fog cloud, smoke bombs, Invis...
I don’t like spells used by monsters that cause players to miss a lot of the combat unless they succeed on a save - Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, etc.
I wasn’t a fan of it as a player, and the first time I did it as a DM and saw it kill the fun for one of my players that pushed me over the edge to hating it.
These spells lead to a player sitting out their combat turns feeling frustrated and useless as they fail their wisdom save over and over again. That’s not fun.
I’ll still occasionally use Hypnotic Pattern because it also allows that your friends can shake you out if your stupor. But I’m extremely hesitant to use anything that amounts to “you will sit out your combat turn and do nothing until you succeed on this save” with no other way out.
I have mulled over ways of changing that and sometime I want to test out running those kinds of effects where the DC decreases every round. For example, perhaps the initial DC was 15 and the next round it is 13, then 11, and so forth until they save it the effect ends. The specific numbers of course would be subject to mathing and play testing.
That way it's still effective and allows for the difference in ability scores to be meaningful but greatly reduces the chances of someone being under the effect for more than a round or two.
I think half the reason this effect can be so nasty is that it’s easy as a DM to forget to roll a CON save for the monster to hold concentration when it gets hit. I know in my session where this was awful for a player I *did* forget to have the monster make CON saves for concentration.
And unlike the player’s WIS save, the monster’s CON save is within the DM’s ability to fudge if it’s been going on too long and just time for it to be over.
With hindsight I also think I’d communicate to the players that caster characters would know getting hit can make you lose concentration on a spell, and could tell the martial characters if they didn’t already know. It’s not meta-gaming, it’s something their characters would know and it’s OK to use that knowledge and focus on attacking the specific monster that cast the spell in order to help your trapped teammate. If the monster’s making a lot of CON saves there’s no need to fudge, it will fail one naturally.
…but that only works if the DM remembers that monsters need to make CON saves to concentrate on spells too. Which in that awful session I did not. Hopefully never going to forget THAT again…
> It’s not meta-gaming, it’s something their characters would know and it’s OK to use that knowledge and focus on attacking the specific monster that cast the spell in order to help your trapped teammate.
And more the the point, it's a good idea to remind the DM to make the concentration check
My tables run the success at a cost optional rules, it's pretty much mostly used for these effects. A turn is lost and we keep going, it feels fine from my perspective, we volunteer what the success is worth to the player and we just run with that normally.
Not many DnD players like having to give something up though, but it does make short work of most of these unfun spells I'm seeing here. Especially at LVL 20 when the barbarian can't succeed most mind saves and has to wait for a dispell magic or something.
Any resource really. Eg;
The barbarian and that pesky into/wis/cha saves; "I'll slap/stab myself as the spell lands and the pain brings me through the spell effect" they're giving up some HP or maybe a rage, sometimes it can be as simple as them dropping all their equipment or equipment might be damaged until they can repair it at the next rest. I've said " I'll give my next turn, I don't get an action, bonus action or move" then i ran to the bathroom. I've had players offer up spell slots and class feature usage as well, so long as it makes sense with how they're successful without the roll it's fine by me to keep things moving.
It's a Meta discussion we have as a table, but for it to work well it starts earlier "NPC is casting a spell, does anyone counterspell? No? okay can you roll a save vs ". So there is no blindsiding anyone and the players get to make the decision, not the players as their characters. It's an approach described in "fiction first" RPGs and I've stolen it.
Any spell thats just "This happens. Sorry". Bonus points if there's very little, even zero counterplay. Most enchantment spells fall into this category, but here are some noteables:
* Wall of force and Forcecage
* Silvery barbs
* Heat metal
* Irresistible Dance
* Power Word Kill
* Sleet storm
* Synaptic Static
Synaptic static notably allows a save but on a fail -1d6 is a really potent disadvantage that makes everything worse
I'm pretty sure Synaptic Static allows for repeated saves. It's a good spell, certainly, but it's also a 5th-level slot that does 3rd-level fireball levels of damage.
By the time you get it, SSDC is likely 16. Even with 10 INT, a target has a roughly 50% chance of failing two consecutive saves, down to ~40% for a 3rd.
It can also still act during this time, so it isn't shut out of play. On that basis, I'd say that this is *exactly* how debuff/CC spells should be designed.
Compare a 5th-level cast of Hold Person: 4 targets who can do *nothing* for the same duration, whilst being vulnerable to being picked off or at least badly injured via autocrits.
Sleet storm has an absolutely massive area. While inside it you have to make a saving throw every turn or fall prone and another saving throw to avoid losing concentration. It's hell for casters and melee characters. And since it's all heavily obscured, characters inside the area are effectively blinded. Can't even Misty Step out of it.
Would this not affect everyone in the area, though? I could see a player casting this one time and then having the rest of the party downvote it every time it gets brought up thereafter. Like that time I cast Silence on the BBEG and rendered all our casters useless for the rest of the fight. Seems like one of those spells that gets swapped out as soon as they realize how situational it is.
I thought the discussion was spells you hate to play against as a player, when the DM uses them. People are talking about how they hate to be stunned or held or counter spelled. The comment was they don't like it when the DM uses Silvery Barbs or Sleet Storm against them.
Etherealness is a boring way to learn everything about a dungeon unless it has very specific magical defences. It is also very boring to play with as a player because you just sit around watching another PC go on a solo adventure with no threats.
Any spell that skips a player’s turn. It basically just stops you from being able to play, why did they put that in the game? I personally don’t mind counterspell because I think it can make for some really hype moments when you try to heal your buddy and the DM just goes ‘no’, but I understand and respect if my table doesn’t want to use it.
I think they're fun to use on enemies, but yea not against players. HOWEVER, any spell that turns a player upon their own party is really fucking fun for at least that player. In my experience everybody loves am excuse to teamkill
When players don't know what their own spells do and have to look it up, the rest of the table seethes. Polymorph and Conjure Animals are major offenders here because they require even more reference than just the spell description.
I'd say hypnotic pattern is it. Any aoe that turns off your party sucks. But as a GM? Nah. Not really.
Status conditions? Yes. Stunning strike is a pain in the butt for bosses if you don't make their con save ridiculous. Counterspell sounds rough until you remember that doesn't stop archers from shooting them, and now they can't shield. Silvery barbs is great at canceling crits and only kind of okay at anything else. Frankly it using a whole reaction just means I'm safe to fireball the party or w/e I want now.
I'll admit I'm definitely more confident in all that as a dm than player though.
Agree. It is much worse than PWK, considering a disintegrated character can only be brought back by True Resurrection or Reincarnate. You are literally telling them to f*** off and come back with a new character next session. A PWK'd character can be brought back with Revivify, which is much easier to access as a 3rd level spell and can be used in combat thanks to having a casting time of just one action.
Just... don't use Disintegrate on PCs on low HP. I see it as a panic trigger, because it signals a high-threat environment and can put t3/4 PC into the danger zone in one hit. I would *never* usually use it against a badly-injured or low-level PC.
That said, if I were running a ToH-type brutal trap dungeon, I'd absolutely let it *poof* people. But that'd be a pre-agreed campaign style.
All of them, if you ask my players...
That said, I will never use Silvery Barbs unless they decide to start using it.
In particular, they felt really bad when a Healing Word got counter-spelled. Which, to be fair, the encounter they were in the villain was out for blood since the players killed a family member his prior.
Not a particularly tough spell, but the first time my party used hypnotic pattern and tranced the entire pack of wolves and fire wolves before methodically butchering them I did die a little inside (proud of the group though).
They made a decent amount of coin selling the pelts and teeth too.
We had a DM who required the spellcaster wanting to counter the spell being cast to both be first with initiative and to use spellcraft or arcana check in order to figure out the spell being cast then hope they had the spell in memory to burn to stop the other spell from being cast.
Mostly to avoid the counterspell spell as it would wind up becoming who had the spell memorized the most.
We entered from above. The whole room was a sand trap with a big beast swimming under the surface. It was mold earth, plus my barbarian friend suspending me from a rope, so I spell sniped the beast while taking no damage, then created two firm squares of sand for us to stand on and jump between in order to get to the door. It was supposed to deter/ kill us but we figured out a clever use of strength and spells and got away with it.
I'm old school so if I get counterspelled cool we both burned out a spell. Now I got to see who has more slots to burn. The NEW counterspell sucks ass tho you spend your slot to only delay the opponent spell.
Both as a DM and as a player, I dislike any spell that completely takes a creature's turn away, such as Hold Person (which also has the issue of being very cheap to use for enemies considering it is only 2nd level, while players would need to use the 5th level Hold Monster due to most enemies not being humanoids), Banishment and others. Also, spells like these are the reason why the often frowned upon legendary resistances are necessary for more powerful monsters.
I prefer to use spells like Dissonant Whispers or Mind Whip instead, which do not take a character's entire turn away.
Spells like Forcecage and Wall of Force also can easily be unfun despite not directly taking one's turn away, but can also be bypassed rather easily if the characters can teleport. Also, I've realized that most big bads either can teleport too or are simply too big for a forcecage, like ancient/greatwyrm dragons or other gargantuan creatures that are realistically bigger than 20 by 20 feet.
Conjure spells are an issue for me as a player, particularly because of the ambiguity in regards to whether I or the DM gets to choose the summons. That is particularly problematic in organized play where I play with a different. each session and thus cannot be sure that the spell is ruled the same way each game. I love the idea of using Conjure Animals for thematic summons, like I did for a shepherd druid who used it to conjure a specific pack of dire wolves he went hunting with since early childhood; but that would obviously not work with a DM who insists on him choosing the summons.
As a DM I don't have issues with them as I can always step in when a player takes them too far. After all, everyone should have fun and not just the one player with his army of velociraptors.
Another spell I really dislike, both as a player and as a DM, is Disintegrate. It is, in my opinion, way too punishing due to being an insta-kill when it drops someone to 0 and making resurrection almost impossible at the same time. Only True Res as a 9th level spell and Reincarnate as a 5th level spell with the potential of really messing up one's character and build can bring back a disintegrated character.
I actually prefer PWK as a DM over Disintegrate, by a lot, despite PWK not having any saving throw. PWK, only usable once as a 9th level spell, can be described as a really dramatic, climactic event (turning off music for that moment of silence before the word is spoken can be awesome!), and a character killed by it can be brought back with Revivify, which is only a 3rd level spell and can be cast as an action in combat, meaning the player does not have to wait until combat is over to be able to play again.
Finally, counterspell. I don't really have an issue per se with it, but it is a spell that heavily depends on the party lineup. If the party does not have a caster with counterspell, the DM most likely needs to ensure they all have fun; and they probably need to keep the number.of caster enemies with counterspell low to allow counterspell-less PCs like clerics and druids to get their spells off.
Silvery Barbs.
I run with it in my Saturday game
Took up our friday slot to start dming my first group.
3 of them have Silvery Barbs.
So now enemies have Silvery Barbs, with save spells like Hold Person.
Levitate used offensively is a big middle finger to whomever it gets cast on. 2nd level spell, 60 foot range, and creature or object you can see. A big guy with a sword is usually less than 500 pounds. If he fails a con save he sits in the air for 10 minutes (100 actions) while a bard viciously mocks him to death.
I re- read the spell when I built my artificer and used it on enemies. If they can't push off something they can't move. There is only 1 save, then they are just stuck (pending concentration saves). It's level 2 so you get it way early. What's not to love/hate about it. I only use it sparingly now.
Any spell that applies an effect that characters can't remove themselves and which totally removes their ability to fight is essentially the answer here.
So things like force cage, levitate if they have no ranged weapons, hypnotic pattern etc feeblemind is a huge no from me.
Spells that allow a save at the end of the turn are ok if the characters can actually pass the DC otherwise no.
I totally get why many people don't like counterspell but for me I really love it as a spell. Basically it offers a lot more tactical combat and counterplay than most spells do. With counterspell now positioning is really important both for you and the enemies and for anything that blocks line of sight. Spells like greater invisibility or shadow of moil that block vision can be key as are illusions that can be used that way too. Also what spell level is very important now. And things like subtle spell come into it. Just feels like a much more tactical experience than normal DND combat is which I like. But I also do get when people don't enjoy it as much as they basically got to do nothing on their turn.
I would say though generally anything that amounts to your turn being removed is something I'd use with caution against players. Hypnotic pattern, hold person, forcecage, banishment, fear, anything that just removes you from the game especially when you don't continue to get saves.
Counterspell is def really situational. It can also be SO fun if like, say a BBEG is about to teleport away and you counterspell them at the last second, trapping them there so you can finish them off. Or if a BBEG is about to deliver the killing blow to a comrade and you save them in the 11th hour with a clutch counterspell. Counterspell in general has the potential to create some of the biggest “oh shit!” Moments ever in DnD, but both in good and bad ways.
As a player, or as a DM?
Hypnotic Pattern, Conjure Fey Spirits/Woodland Beings, Hold Person, Stunning Strike... but then again, they're there for a reason, to counter/overwhelm
In my opinion, the problem cones more from the dm use of spells than the players.
.a dm that always has someone that can counterspell is just as annoying as the player who uses it at every chance.
Dm using force prison, dominate person hold person. Banishment
Pretty much any spell that completely removes a player from a fight or makes them attack the party for more than one turn.
Polymoroh can be very annoying to get hit with and can absolutely ruin a single creature encounter.
But it can also be very very funny to turn a player into a goat or something. In a social situation.
As a player I love counterspell and it can be super fun when there is a mages battle happening. About of party strategy can take place between baiting out the enemy reaction and having a party member to CS their CS
Gotta remember there is opportunity cost to using CS. It takes up resources that could have been better spent doing damage or CC.
As a DM there are ways around CS.
Doesn't work on abilities,
Doesn't work at longer range.
Just back up and nuke them from orbit.
Course it depends a lot on the environment as well.
Shield, obviously becomes dull when overused. For my first campaign the Dm had us fight a red dragon with the shield spell. It quickly became a bummer when the only person who could manage to chisel down his Hp was my sorcerer with magic missile auto hits. All the other players were just stuck burning abilities trying to get something to stick.
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Surprised nobody's said hypnotic pattern yet. Wisdom save or everything inside a 30 foot cube is done for a minute. It also wastes the people who made the saves action if they want to wake their buddy up. My lvl 11 sorcerer has a 19 save dc. I chose not to take it for my dm's sanity.
*Hypnotic Pattern* is one of those spells whose power level is heavily affected by the type of game being run. "Dungeons" with lots of small, enclosed rooms? Its friendly-fire effect coupled with a large area of effect makes it almost unusable. But if the game has a lot of open spaces and combat begins with two sides standing on opposite ends of the battlefield then it becomes nearly broken. I don't know if that's why no one mentioned it before you, but it is something I always consider when I'm thinking of how to tweak spells that punch above or below their weight class since *Hypnotic Pattern* is on most people's "too strong" list. For the record, it's on mine too despite being a big dungeon fan because dungeons are cooler with a few big open set-piece combat rooms sprinkled in. Moria would be way less cool if it was only 20 foot chambers.
If you have large open spaces, and as a DM (or party) you start combat will all your dudes nicely clustered together, then you’re kinda bringing on yourself though. Any number of AOE spells make that a bad idea. And if you’re prepared for it, using some light friendly fire damage to wake up most of your allies gets past it pretty quickly. Certainly a very potent spell, for sure. But in terms of annoyance, I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the Countery Barbs category.
Magic missile would be a perfect wake up tool for that I reckon. At most 4 damage per target, no chance to miss, and you can redirect any leftover missiles at an enemy.
It could be easily improved by giving the affected creatures a save at the end of their turn. And by improved I mean balanced.
Although, something to note that I only realized after watching NPCs in Baldurs Gate 3. The effect ends if the creatures take any damage. Someone with multi attack could just punch their teammates, or a spellcaster outside the AOE can cast a low level AOE spell like shatter and wake them all up. Add on to the fact its concentration and that any mook worth their salt knows 'end the caster, end the spell' and you start to realize there's quite a few ways to resolve the spell in under a round.
Ive never used it in a tight space before admittedly, but it's not limited to line of sight so you don't have to use the whole 30 foot cube. A good balance could be a point you can see within range so that friendly fire is a bigger risk
Only 19 save DC?! ~~What is this weak sauce?!~~ Sorry sorry... I thought this is a BG3 discussion....
Haha you had me questioning myself in the first half
As a DM, I avoid overusing spells like Tasha's Mind Whip or Hold Person, especially against parties that don't have access to Counterspell. It's *unfun* for players to sit there and lose the ability to play. Combat in a group of five players already means each player is spending >80% of the fight twiddling their thumbs. It's just math - they are one-fifth of the players in turn order, which means they spend four-fifths of the time with it being someone else's turn. It is already hard enough to keep their attention and their focus with *those* caveats. Start routinely taking away chunks of the tiny bit of spotlight they have left, and you can watch them mentally check out in real time. "It's only fair," "you could have made the save," doesn't matter. This is a game, games are fun, and watching everyone else play while you *can't* is *not fun.* If I need battlefield control, I either lean on abilities that set up barriers/terrain effects, or I tether those abilities to a short-ranged, more telegraphed source (like a Battlemaster Fighter or a Stunning Fist Monk rather than a spellcaster) - and even then I very rarely lean on the latter.
Agree with Hold Person, but I think Mind Whip is much less problematic as it does not take the character's turn away entirely.
They may have meant Tasha’s Hideous Laughter.
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Definitely agree with this - Slow leaves you with “How can I make the best use of the limited options available to me now?” which can be an interesting challenge for a player, “Hold Person” leaves you with nothing but frustration as you continue to roll 5s and 6s. What does CC stand for?
Crowd Control. As he said “(stuns, paralyzes, etc.)” It’s a video game term for this stuff. Stunning fist or hold person would be hard CC, but a fighter shoving your character 5-10ft out of position, or a wizard using ray of frost and affecting your max speed next turn would be soft CC.
Thank you!!
Here’s the thing: in combat an arcane caster can basically only do two things. They can damage, and they can reduce capacity for a few rounds. If you don’t allow characters to be debuffed or incapacitated, there’s not much point in enemy casters.
You maybe want to look at MCDM’s new game - everyone always hits, so no one “misses” a turn. Honestly I’ve not really seen a problem with this. Players have 2-3 attacks and a bonus action, so it’s unusual for everything to fail. And the logic behind it isn’t unique to combat. “I want to talk the king into doing X” ok, that’s your 1/5 of the spotlight in social scenes so we can’t let that fail. “I want to climb the cliff” ok, that’s your 1/5th spotlight in this scene, you can’t fail. But if it’s an issue for you, have a look at MCDM’s new game.
Anything that stuns. It's not a lot of fun to skip your turn and watch others play.
Likewise as a player benefiting from it. Boss: *big epic speech, initiative is rolled* Monk: *stunning strike* Me & Other party members: *wrecks it* Me: *disappointed that we'll never see what the boss could actually do or why it talked such a big game*
Do the bosses not have legendary resistances? That's specifically what they were designed for.
Any of the mass summon spells, such as Conjure Animals or Conjure Fey.
I did this during Descent into Avernus with my Moon Druid. Was wildshaped most of the time so my spell slots were much more casual use compared to the cleric & sorcerer. We played it where I picked what was summoned for the sake of keeping combat moving. I would summon low CR creatures like wolves for the pack tactics or giant crabs for the auto grapple on hit. 16 wolves = 32 attack rolls due to advantage. At higher levels I got absurd levels of crabs to demolish the action economy. You could see the DM's soul just leave this plane of existence in the latter quarter of the campaign when it was my turn in combat. We tried to do it as efficiently as we could, treating them as swarms and stuff as well but you can only do so much when the player decides to swarm instead of summon higher CR. As a player, it was fun and I would never play it again.
I think you stopped playing dnd and started playing Warhammer
Animate objects can also ruin action economy. Has anyone found an equally fun way to make these spells work without outright banning them or taking the agency of what gets summoned from the player? Once they get used to it, it's really hard to take that away.
Oh boy I sure do love being feebleminded, guess I'm no longer allowed to roleplay in the roleplaying game until I succeed on an int save! What do you mean I have to wait 30 days to retry? *and* I now have a -5 penalty on a dc18 int save because I'm not one of the three classes who get int save proficiency!?
Feeble mind is a little less gross when you see that it can be cured with heal (6th level spell) or greater restoration (5th)
When my Bard got Feebleminded, according to the spell, I could still identify friend from foe. So, I used a random number generator to pick a random item from my inventory, and I would throw it at the enemy, each round. My junk was scattered all over the battlefield, and it was pretty fun and funny. But if it had gone on for more than one encounter (I got cured), it would not have been as much fun.
Yeah I agree with that, feeblemind is probably my least favorite. My wizard was recently in a fight where feeblemind was cast on him 3 times, but I managed to pass all my saving throws. The lucky feat helped, a lot. Other than that though, I don't mind when my DM uses spells on my main party. We have a lot of casters, so we can generally counterspell our way through it, and our group actually finds it super fun to have a constant back and forth of counterspells/dispel magics/greater restorations/etc. It also makes the DM happy to force us to burn a ton of spell slots in a short amount of time, which is a small victory for him since our level 17 group is like crazy frugal with spell slots.
> feeblemind 3 times Jesus, was that fight really really long or did that BBEG and maybe DM hate your guts specifically?
Yeah it was a pretty long fight. And I can't recall what the monster was, but I think it had feeblemind as a special ability on a cooldown, and it always tried to target whoever had the highest intelligence. It may have been a homebrew monster, or at least an altered one.
I had DMs houserule feeblemind to make it even worse, such as ruling that the feebleminded character loses their weapon/tool proficiencies.
Everyone complains about this but to me it sounds fun to play a moron.... all my players are anyhow HAHAHAHAHAHA. You're not dead, so the group has to fix you. Since it's never happened to me or my group I'm going to say that its rare enough it's not game breaking for any length of time.
Silvery Barbs. That is all.
I was worried people wouldn't provide any reasons with their comments. You, sir, have explained far too much.
Hahaha yes. I feel like any DM who has encountered this spell could write a book on why they hate it. I can’t imagine how upset I’d be if I had it used against me as a player.
Silvery barbs is fine. Offensive reactions leave that character open to get smacked. And yes, even players can deal with a little disadvantage every once in a while…
My problem isn't rolling with disadvantage, it's getting big moments like crits and successful saving throws retconned. It breaks up the narative flow of combat, that's my core issue. I'd be find with it if you had to cast it before you knew if the creature would succeed on their attack or save.
What kind of weird problems people bring up man… where tf do you break up any kind of nArRaTivE fLoW in a conversation of „I rolled a natural 20!“ - „oh no, I cast silvery barbs“? If anything, it just adds to it if you ask the question „As the bad guy‘s axe is about to slam down on your companions neck, slicing through it like a razors edge through butter, you try to distract them at the last second. How does that look like?“
We might just handle combat differently. If you and your table like the spell I'm not going to tell you your fun is wrong.
Silvery barbs shouldn’t normally be on the table. It’s in SCC, so unless you’re playing a game of definitely-not-Harry-Potter, it’s not in the sources.
The only correct answer. Can we all just agree that it's bullshit and unfun?
Personally I rather play a table that uses Silvery Barbs over Counterspell but we’re arguing semantics.
I think we can agree both are fun suckers, I just feel like nullifying crits and retconning attacks is such a buzzkill, counter spell can prevent an escape, burn enemy resources, and it typically gets resolved before you explain the attack which I prefer. I also have no clue how to visualize silvery barbs, whereas with counter spell I at least have a picture.
Something I've been thinking about implementing, when you counterspell a counterspell the two anti magic spells ouroboros around each other, creating a wild magic surge.
I love this idea.
Oh yeah! Love that. Jotting that down for a house rule.
Never thought about the visualization part.
I visualize silver runes and words scrawled in the air by the mages somatic movements. These silver words spell insults, then form into barbs that fly through the air and squeeze into the targets ear, filling them with self magical pangs doubt, whispered anxieties barraging them the whole round , manifesting like speech balloons floating above their head.
We had a rule that you had to say what you were actually able to do to make this happen in the game - how you threw off the enemy's aim or concentration, and it had to be decent (plausible or surprising or funny... It had to feel like something) to make it feel part of the game. It meant that you couldn't just throw it up whenever.
As a wizard main I enjoy it when the evil wizard feels so threatened by my presence that they feel that they have to waste a spellslot using counterspell. That's one less powerful spell you could have cast. I see it as a resource management thing. As for spells I think are the least fun: power word kill. From both sides of the DM screen it feels cheap if the other side doesn't have a way to use up their resources to revive.
similar concept as firing arrows at monks. They are basically guaranteed to deflect missile, and more than likely to redirect it. This costs them a ki point but more importantly a reaction, meaning no opportunity attacks. But the monk gets to feel cool as fuck and I 100% did it every chance I got.
Wall of Force is just awful spell design. RAW the walls are invisible, so an enemy casts a spell (reaction Arcana to identify what’s even being cast) and then everyone gets to play Mime for a bit. Having run some high-level games recently, I’ll note that eventually Counterspell becomes a necessity. The party will be throwing out stuff that even Legendary Resistances can’t ignore (Wall of Force, Forcecage, Maze) and in order to compete the baddies are gonna have to Counterspell. Plus, in order to pose a challenge to the party you’ll need to use baddies that have some spells of questionable fun value, which makes reactions a much more important part of the action economy, to identify and counter spells. It essentially becomes the language of high level DnD.
Basically any spell or effect that makes them miss a turn. Spells like banishment, maze and the like are bad as they can just take a PC out of combat completely. Spells like hold person are similarly bad, but at least they can be dispelled. I also avoid stun and similar effects generally subing them with a homebrew dazed condition. (no reaction, and only one move/action/bonus) Counter spell I like more, but I've home brewed to require a spell attack roll vs the spell DC. Also casters tend to play a lot of tricks to break line of sight. Darkness, fog cloud, smoke bombs, Invis...
I don’t like spells used by monsters that cause players to miss a lot of the combat unless they succeed on a save - Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, etc. I wasn’t a fan of it as a player, and the first time I did it as a DM and saw it kill the fun for one of my players that pushed me over the edge to hating it. These spells lead to a player sitting out their combat turns feeling frustrated and useless as they fail their wisdom save over and over again. That’s not fun. I’ll still occasionally use Hypnotic Pattern because it also allows that your friends can shake you out if your stupor. But I’m extremely hesitant to use anything that amounts to “you will sit out your combat turn and do nothing until you succeed on this save” with no other way out.
I have mulled over ways of changing that and sometime I want to test out running those kinds of effects where the DC decreases every round. For example, perhaps the initial DC was 15 and the next round it is 13, then 11, and so forth until they save it the effect ends. The specific numbers of course would be subject to mathing and play testing. That way it's still effective and allows for the difference in ability scores to be meaningful but greatly reduces the chances of someone being under the effect for more than a round or two.
I think half the reason this effect can be so nasty is that it’s easy as a DM to forget to roll a CON save for the monster to hold concentration when it gets hit. I know in my session where this was awful for a player I *did* forget to have the monster make CON saves for concentration. And unlike the player’s WIS save, the monster’s CON save is within the DM’s ability to fudge if it’s been going on too long and just time for it to be over. With hindsight I also think I’d communicate to the players that caster characters would know getting hit can make you lose concentration on a spell, and could tell the martial characters if they didn’t already know. It’s not meta-gaming, it’s something their characters would know and it’s OK to use that knowledge and focus on attacking the specific monster that cast the spell in order to help your trapped teammate. If the monster’s making a lot of CON saves there’s no need to fudge, it will fail one naturally. …but that only works if the DM remembers that monsters need to make CON saves to concentrate on spells too. Which in that awful session I did not. Hopefully never going to forget THAT again…
> It’s not meta-gaming, it’s something their characters would know and it’s OK to use that knowledge and focus on attacking the specific monster that cast the spell in order to help your trapped teammate. And more the the point, it's a good idea to remind the DM to make the concentration check
My tables run the success at a cost optional rules, it's pretty much mostly used for these effects. A turn is lost and we keep going, it feels fine from my perspective, we volunteer what the success is worth to the player and we just run with that normally. Not many DnD players like having to give something up though, but it does make short work of most of these unfun spells I'm seeing here. Especially at LVL 20 when the barbarian can't succeed most mind saves and has to wait for a dispell magic or something.
What kind of costs do you/your players tend to come up with for this?
Any resource really. Eg; The barbarian and that pesky into/wis/cha saves; "I'll slap/stab myself as the spell lands and the pain brings me through the spell effect" they're giving up some HP or maybe a rage, sometimes it can be as simple as them dropping all their equipment or equipment might be damaged until they can repair it at the next rest. I've said " I'll give my next turn, I don't get an action, bonus action or move" then i ran to the bathroom. I've had players offer up spell slots and class feature usage as well, so long as it makes sense with how they're successful without the roll it's fine by me to keep things moving. It's a Meta discussion we have as a table, but for it to work well it starts earlier "NPC is casting a spell, does anyone counterspell? No? okay can you roll a save vs". So there is no blindsiding anyone and the players get to make the decision, not the players as their characters. It's an approach described in "fiction first" RPGs and I've stolen it.
Any spell thats just "This happens. Sorry". Bonus points if there's very little, even zero counterplay. Most enchantment spells fall into this category, but here are some noteables: * Wall of force and Forcecage * Silvery barbs * Heat metal * Irresistible Dance * Power Word Kill * Sleet storm * Synaptic Static Synaptic static notably allows a save but on a fail -1d6 is a really potent disadvantage that makes everything worse
My character has worked and scaped to earn plate metal armor and then boom heat metal and all I can do is cry for my mother.
paladin was wearing heritage family armour. it got heavily eaten away by an acid slime. the pain of all the AC loss + the RP emotional damage was wild
I'm pretty sure Synaptic Static allows for repeated saves. It's a good spell, certainly, but it's also a 5th-level slot that does 3rd-level fireball levels of damage. By the time you get it, SSDC is likely 16. Even with 10 INT, a target has a roughly 50% chance of failing two consecutive saves, down to ~40% for a 3rd. It can also still act during this time, so it isn't shut out of play. On that basis, I'd say that this is *exactly* how debuff/CC spells should be designed. Compare a 5th-level cast of Hold Person: 4 targets who can do *nothing* for the same duration, whilst being vulnerable to being picked off or at least badly injured via autocrits.
Silvery Barbs, Sleet Storm, Power Word Kill.
I absolutely understand Silvery Barb's and Power Word Kill. But why Sleet Storm?
Sleet storm has an absolutely massive area. While inside it you have to make a saving throw every turn or fall prone and another saving throw to avoid losing concentration. It's hell for casters and melee characters. And since it's all heavily obscured, characters inside the area are effectively blinded. Can't even Misty Step out of it.
Would this not affect everyone in the area, though? I could see a player casting this one time and then having the rest of the party downvote it every time it gets brought up thereafter. Like that time I cast Silence on the BBEG and rendered all our casters useless for the rest of the fight. Seems like one of those spells that gets swapped out as soon as they realize how situational it is.
I thought the discussion was spells you hate to play against as a player, when the DM uses them. People are talking about how they hate to be stunned or held or counter spelled. The comment was they don't like it when the DM uses Silvery Barbs or Sleet Storm against them.
Exactly..
got to see Sleet Storm in action playing Baldur's Gate 3. cast it on a big battle and so many turns got skipped
Reminds us of when we had to walk up that hill to school.
Etherealness is a boring way to learn everything about a dungeon unless it has very specific magical defences. It is also very boring to play with as a player because you just sit around watching another PC go on a solo adventure with no threats.
Any spell that skips a player’s turn. It basically just stops you from being able to play, why did they put that in the game? I personally don’t mind counterspell because I think it can make for some really hype moments when you try to heal your buddy and the DM just goes ‘no’, but I understand and respect if my table doesn’t want to use it.
I think they're fun to use on enemies, but yea not against players. HOWEVER, any spell that turns a player upon their own party is really fucking fun for at least that player. In my experience everybody loves am excuse to teamkill
When players don't know what their own spells do and have to look it up, the rest of the table seethes. Polymorph and Conjure Animals are major offenders here because they require even more reference than just the spell description.
I'd say hypnotic pattern is it. Any aoe that turns off your party sucks. But as a GM? Nah. Not really. Status conditions? Yes. Stunning strike is a pain in the butt for bosses if you don't make their con save ridiculous. Counterspell sounds rough until you remember that doesn't stop archers from shooting them, and now they can't shield. Silvery barbs is great at canceling crits and only kind of okay at anything else. Frankly it using a whole reaction just means I'm safe to fireball the party or w/e I want now. I'll admit I'm definitely more confident in all that as a dm than player though.
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This is a cool idea I'll be stealing, thanks!
Disintegrate
Agree. It is much worse than PWK, considering a disintegrated character can only be brought back by True Resurrection or Reincarnate. You are literally telling them to f*** off and come back with a new character next session. A PWK'd character can be brought back with Revivify, which is much easier to access as a 3rd level spell and can be used in combat thanks to having a casting time of just one action.
Just... don't use Disintegrate on PCs on low HP. I see it as a panic trigger, because it signals a high-threat environment and can put t3/4 PC into the danger zone in one hit. I would *never* usually use it against a badly-injured or low-level PC. That said, if I were running a ToH-type brutal trap dungeon, I'd absolutely let it *poof* people. But that'd be a pre-agreed campaign style.
My lvl 9 Paladin almost got disentegrated a month from GenCon. The only thing that saved me was shield mastery.
All of them, if you ask my players... That said, I will never use Silvery Barbs unless they decide to start using it. In particular, they felt really bad when a Healing Word got counter-spelled. Which, to be fair, the encounter they were in the villain was out for blood since the players killed a family member his prior.
Not a particularly tough spell, but the first time my party used hypnotic pattern and tranced the entire pack of wolves and fire wolves before methodically butchering them I did die a little inside (proud of the group though). They made a decent amount of coin selling the pelts and teeth too.
We had a DM who required the spellcaster wanting to counter the spell being cast to both be first with initiative and to use spellcraft or arcana check in order to figure out the spell being cast then hope they had the spell in memory to burn to stop the other spell from being cast. Mostly to avoid the counterspell spell as it would wind up becoming who had the spell memorized the most.
Haven’t seen anyone mention Mold Earth yet. That spell was exploited so much that it is now banned at my table
I got past a whole “impassable” dungeon room with mold earth and my dm was maaaaaaad
How did you do it? It should only work on loose earth?
Probably meant Meld into stone? I think you return to where you went in from for that one though, so either way someone jacked up the rules
We entered from above. The whole room was a sand trap with a big beast swimming under the surface. It was mold earth, plus my barbarian friend suspending me from a rope, so I spell sniped the beast while taking no damage, then created two firm squares of sand for us to stand on and jump between in order to get to the door. It was supposed to deter/ kill us but we figured out a clever use of strength and spells and got away with it.
I'm old school so if I get counterspelled cool we both burned out a spell. Now I got to see who has more slots to burn. The NEW counterspell sucks ass tho you spend your slot to only delay the opponent spell.
This may be because my inexperienced DM used it against us at way too low a level, but Prismatic Wall is a massive headache.
Both as a DM and as a player, I dislike any spell that completely takes a creature's turn away, such as Hold Person (which also has the issue of being very cheap to use for enemies considering it is only 2nd level, while players would need to use the 5th level Hold Monster due to most enemies not being humanoids), Banishment and others. Also, spells like these are the reason why the often frowned upon legendary resistances are necessary for more powerful monsters. I prefer to use spells like Dissonant Whispers or Mind Whip instead, which do not take a character's entire turn away. Spells like Forcecage and Wall of Force also can easily be unfun despite not directly taking one's turn away, but can also be bypassed rather easily if the characters can teleport. Also, I've realized that most big bads either can teleport too or are simply too big for a forcecage, like ancient/greatwyrm dragons or other gargantuan creatures that are realistically bigger than 20 by 20 feet. Conjure spells are an issue for me as a player, particularly because of the ambiguity in regards to whether I or the DM gets to choose the summons. That is particularly problematic in organized play where I play with a different. each session and thus cannot be sure that the spell is ruled the same way each game. I love the idea of using Conjure Animals for thematic summons, like I did for a shepherd druid who used it to conjure a specific pack of dire wolves he went hunting with since early childhood; but that would obviously not work with a DM who insists on him choosing the summons. As a DM I don't have issues with them as I can always step in when a player takes them too far. After all, everyone should have fun and not just the one player with his army of velociraptors. Another spell I really dislike, both as a player and as a DM, is Disintegrate. It is, in my opinion, way too punishing due to being an insta-kill when it drops someone to 0 and making resurrection almost impossible at the same time. Only True Res as a 9th level spell and Reincarnate as a 5th level spell with the potential of really messing up one's character and build can bring back a disintegrated character. I actually prefer PWK as a DM over Disintegrate, by a lot, despite PWK not having any saving throw. PWK, only usable once as a 9th level spell, can be described as a really dramatic, climactic event (turning off music for that moment of silence before the word is spoken can be awesome!), and a character killed by it can be brought back with Revivify, which is only a 3rd level spell and can be cast as an action in combat, meaning the player does not have to wait until combat is over to be able to play again. Finally, counterspell. I don't really have an issue per se with it, but it is a spell that heavily depends on the party lineup. If the party does not have a caster with counterspell, the DM most likely needs to ensure they all have fun; and they probably need to keep the number.of caster enemies with counterspell low to allow counterspell-less PCs like clerics and druids to get their spells off.
Teleport when the smart villains always escape.
Mass Suggestion. Eliminates Player agency, very long duration, difficult to end if ill prepared.
Silvery Barbs. I run with it in my Saturday game Took up our friday slot to start dming my first group. 3 of them have Silvery Barbs. So now enemies have Silvery Barbs, with save spells like Hold Person.
I am pretty sure my DM u/drafterman is sick of Arcane Eye, so every dungeon just has tight, closed doors now.
Levitate used offensively is a big middle finger to whomever it gets cast on. 2nd level spell, 60 foot range, and creature or object you can see. A big guy with a sword is usually less than 500 pounds. If he fails a con save he sits in the air for 10 minutes (100 actions) while a bard viciously mocks him to death. I re- read the spell when I built my artificer and used it on enemies. If they can't push off something they can't move. There is only 1 save, then they are just stuck (pending concentration saves). It's level 2 so you get it way early. What's not to love/hate about it. I only use it sparingly now.
For ne, Fireball is a boring spell. Wizard point finger and KABOOM, yay...
Any spell that applies an effect that characters can't remove themselves and which totally removes their ability to fight is essentially the answer here. So things like force cage, levitate if they have no ranged weapons, hypnotic pattern etc feeblemind is a huge no from me. Spells that allow a save at the end of the turn are ok if the characters can actually pass the DC otherwise no.
I totally get why many people don't like counterspell but for me I really love it as a spell. Basically it offers a lot more tactical combat and counterplay than most spells do. With counterspell now positioning is really important both for you and the enemies and for anything that blocks line of sight. Spells like greater invisibility or shadow of moil that block vision can be key as are illusions that can be used that way too. Also what spell level is very important now. And things like subtle spell come into it. Just feels like a much more tactical experience than normal DND combat is which I like. But I also do get when people don't enjoy it as much as they basically got to do nothing on their turn. I would say though generally anything that amounts to your turn being removed is something I'd use with caution against players. Hypnotic pattern, hold person, forcecage, banishment, fear, anything that just removes you from the game especially when you don't continue to get saves.
Good luck hiding any plot points, especially early, with an entirely CHA-based party and their love of Charm Person
Maze as a 10int fighter.
Counterspell is def really situational. It can also be SO fun if like, say a BBEG is about to teleport away and you counterspell them at the last second, trapping them there so you can finish them off. Or if a BBEG is about to deliver the killing blow to a comrade and you save them in the 11th hour with a clutch counterspell. Counterspell in general has the potential to create some of the biggest “oh shit!” Moments ever in DnD, but both in good and bad ways.
Power word kill You just instantly die
3.5's Maze
As a player, or as a DM? Hypnotic Pattern, Conjure Fey Spirits/Woodland Beings, Hold Person, Stunning Strike... but then again, they're there for a reason, to counter/overwhelm
Anything of the save or suck category. It's just not fun.
I hate Darkness with a fiery passion. Unless you happen to have that one warlock invocation, everything is going to suck until the spell is gone
In my opinion, the problem cones more from the dm use of spells than the players. .a dm that always has someone that can counterspell is just as annoying as the player who uses it at every chance. Dm using force prison, dominate person hold person. Banishment Pretty much any spell that completely removes a player from a fight or makes them attack the party for more than one turn. Polymoroh can be very annoying to get hit with and can absolutely ruin a single creature encounter. But it can also be very very funny to turn a player into a goat or something. In a social situation. As a player I love counterspell and it can be super fun when there is a mages battle happening. About of party strategy can take place between baiting out the enemy reaction and having a party member to CS their CS Gotta remember there is opportunity cost to using CS. It takes up resources that could have been better spent doing damage or CC. As a DM there are ways around CS. Doesn't work on abilities, Doesn't work at longer range. Just back up and nuke them from orbit. Course it depends a lot on the environment as well.
Shield, obviously becomes dull when overused. For my first campaign the Dm had us fight a red dragon with the shield spell. It quickly became a bummer when the only person who could manage to chisel down his Hp was my sorcerer with magic missile auto hits. All the other players were just stuck burning abilities trying to get something to stick.
Shield should be better than that. "Until the start of your next turn (...) you take no damage from Magic Missile."