Five Gamebreaking Spells in D&D 5e (and how to handle them)

in the realms of Dungeons and Dragons magic can tear the world itself asunder but more often than not it just causes arguments at the game table we're looking at five game breaking spells in D&D 5e and how to handle them greetings my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelly McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes and today we're taking a look at five spells that we think might be game breaking in Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition how often is this happened at your game table a player says that they are casting a spell which has never been seen before at your table the dungeon master quickly flips through the pages of the players handbook and their eyes widen in horror at what the spell can do it will completely shut down the encounter or perhaps even derail the narrative entirely it's a game breaking spell now we're not looking at high level spells here because pretty much every spell that's seventh eighth and ninth level could be listed as game breaking but what we want to focus on are some of the lower level spells that when you actually read the rules text you go oh man there's a lot of possibilities here that can really change the way the game is working yeah and that's why it's worth thinking about these spells in advance because the truth of the matter is is that none of them are so powerful in our opinions that they actually need to be removed from the game or banned from your table but they do require a clear understanding of exactly what the rules say that the spells are capable of doing and a little bit of preparedness on the part of the dungeon master and the players so that you all know what to expect when these spells happen in your game so let's get casting so the first spell that we are going to look at today is phantasmal force fantazmo force is a second level illusion spell and if you're following along it's on page 264 of your players handbook it has a casting time of 1 action and it lasts for 1 minute requiring the casters concentration this really unique spell has a lot of open-ended effects you choose a target that you can see within 60 feet of you and you create an illusionary phantasm in their mind that only they can see if they fail an intelligent saving through the phantasm can be no larger than 10 feet on any given side and it lasts as long as you concentrate on it it can really be anything of your imagination and this is prompted some very creative players to come up with lots of different ideas for what this spell could create in the mind of the creature that it is afflicted by it one of the most potent elements of this spell is that the creature rationalizes any illogical consistencies that come from interacting with the phantasm so that it continues to believe that it's real in fact the only way a creature can break out of the spell once it's in effect is by spending its action to make an intelligence investigation check against your spell saving throw DC you don't have to to go very far to realize that this is a very difficult spell to escape from once it's your afflicted by it but what it can actually cause is subject to a lot of interpretation the example used in the description just to highlight what you said is creating a bridge across a chasm and if a character decides to try to cross that bridge and they fall they will just chalk it up to I must have slipped a wind must have blown me off and they will climb up and potentially try crossing that bridge again you can create anything you could imagine with this phantasm but there's a few really important things to keep in mind that many players and Dungeon Master's forget phantasmal force like many illusion spells can actually not be changed once the illusion is in effect that is a specific ability that the spell needs to say or you need to be a wizard illusionist of high enough level to have the ability to change your illusions once you've declared what the phantasmal force is it just goes off on its program sequence so for all your wizard Zout they're hoping to cast this spell and then manipulate it from turn to turn you're not going to be able to do that once you've set out those commands that's it speaking of being able to manipulate the image the image that you create the phantasm is actually created in a point in space in the creatures mind and it's locked in that space nothing in the spell description indicates that once you create the illusory phantasm then it can actually move around from the space that it's been created so bear that in mind when you're creating these images if you want to create an image that is of something that might follow the target creature around or actually be on its person it seems to imply that it can't be moved around after it's in place it also says within the rule that you can create a creature that can attack and harm an opponent however given the rules that there's no movement that means that if your enemy decides to move away from that creature that creature is just gonna stand there and stare at them because it can't actually move around or do further attacks unless the enemies within five feet of it this is the key indicator that the the phantasm created by phantasmal force cannot move because the spell specifically calls out the fact that the creature has to be within five feet of the phantasm to be able to be damaged by it I've run into many players that have looked at Fantasma force and their immediate impulse is to create some sort of illusion like a set of chains or a bucket or something that will restrain or blind the creature it's up to you as a dungeon master if the spell can do this however I recommend exercising caution with interpretations of the spell that let it behave like much more powerful spells phantasmal force isn't hold person it's not hold monster or my favorite example is it's not like the sixth level spell mental prison from Zanna thar's guide to everything if the player is looking to create an effect that will restrain a creature or will blind them or prevent them from acting in some way I feel that phantasmal force isn't the spell that should be used to accomplish that and that rather the player should be looking for a spell that has a more hard description that does that effect what I think phantasmal force is great for is to impose some sort of momentary advantage within a close-quarters combat if you're being chased down a hallway by some enemies and you put a pool of lava between you and them that's gonna give you a little bit of time to deal with that situation without having to worry so much about them catching up to you right away same idea goes for escapes if you can you do something to diverge their attention or little things like that rather than focusing on using it as a like encounter ending spell yeah one of my favorite ideas that we discussed was the ability to create a phantasmal door that could not be opened the creature just rationalizing oh this doorknob must be really slippery I can't open it up that seems to me to be a perfectly valid use of the spell and I really like the creative applications for Fantasma force that rely on creating objects in the environment like pits of acid or lava or false bridges and doors that will confuse a creature but not necessarily try to be like this magical force trying to restrain them when in doubt phantasmal force is a spell that I feel that if a player has a specific strategy in mind you should really talk to your dungeon master about it rather than springing on them in the middle of a combat encounter because that can really slow the game down as the two of you argue back and forth about how to interpret the illogical outcomes of fantastical force the second spell that we are looking at today is suggestion suggestion is a second level enchantment spell it's available to bards sorcerers wizards and warlocks alike as well as arcane trickster robes yeah and it can be found on page 279 of the players handbook just as before it is a concentration spell that requires only one action to cast and it lasts for up to eight hours yeah it's pretty incredible it's an all-time favorite of I think both of us yeah I don't I don't know many people who don't love using suggestion the the idea of suggestion is that you can speak a small sentence or two and give an order to a creature and if they fail their wisdom saving throw they then have to execute the commands that were given to them as best as they can but you cannot put them in harm's way yeah you can't give them an unreasonable suggestion one that would for example ask them to themselves on their sword or throw themselves off a cliff or harm a loved one or do something that is against their very nature like asking a king to give up their Kingdom or the big bad evil sorceress to give up her plans for world domination yes but within the text are a lot of things that if you use your imagination you'll find really cool ways to kind of exploit and change the battlefield and the way that things are going in your game this is also a phenomenal spell to use in social situations not necessarily just combat and I think for me personally the use of the suggestion spell is far more potent in a social situation or an exploration scenario then it necessarily is in combat although there's still a lot of options within all of these one of the things will to clarify right away with the suggestion spell is a commonly asked question in sage advice is the verbalization of the suggestion the actual sentence that you speak the verbal component for suggestion it is not it is not so you actually utter a bunch of arcane babble and then say your suggestion they're not combined into one and very often it gets role played this way as a way of kind of being a smooth operator in a social situation where the Bard is uttering some honeyed words and hopes to sneak in a suggestion but again as always the evidence of arcane spell casting will out you that you're doing that so unless you're a sorcerer with the subtle spell matter magic which is a really cool way of casting suggestion other observers will see that you magic somebody up and they might think that you've bewitched them suggestion may not have a place in certain tense social situations because of the verbal component necessary everybody's going to notice the spellcaster speaking the words to cast the spell so if all the town guards are standing there with their hands ready at their swords and see you starting to cast suggestion before even giving the commands they'll notice and they might draw their swords on you that's not to say that they know what spell that you're casting I think that most npcs in the worlds of Dungeons and Dragons are savvy enough to know that if they hear a bunch of arcane mumbo-jumbo and all of a sudden their friend starts acting strangely something might be up what are some useful suggestions maybe you are confronted with the town guard and their captain is in the front ranks and you cast suggestion and say we are not your enemies call your men off maybe you're in the middle of combat you don't want to be fighting somebody and already the spells are starting to get slung around and you cast on the leader of the enemy troops and say hey let's let's talk about this for a moment put down your arms that could be a viable use of the spell I think one of the more problematic ones though is using it suggestion as an interrogation tactic because this one is overwhelmingly effective you simply suggest I don't want to hurt you answer all of my questions truthfully and honestly magic truth serum it's zone of truth and persuasion all in one given the circumstances depending on your relationship to whoever you're interrogating whoever you're trying to ask questions to this is not necessarily an unreasonable request and because the spell lasts for eight hours you can pump somebody for a bunch of questions and get a lot of answers out of them if they know that by revealing this information whoever they work for is will almost certainly kill them that I think that that's a reasonable point where the suggestion spell would simply fail another simple one is if you're confronted with a single enemy just suggesting that they walk north for eight hours see you later one of my favorite ideas is no you can't directly suggest somebody harm themselves but to have them stay put will you climb a cliff and roll a boulder onto them if they don't know the boulders there and they have no idea what you're up to who's to say that's a bad idea I saved this mental image of asking a giant to sit down while you wheel up like a giant crossbow again these things start to get into borderline mind control and I think one of the things to remember with suggestion is that ultimately it is like a Jedi mind trick it's like a quick command not necessarily something that's going to get them to reevaluate their entire life and give up all their life goals these aren't the droids you're looking for move along reasonable suggestion he didn't say call off all of the stormtroopers in this area and fly back home that would have been too much yeah so remember that suggestion has reasonable limitations to it it does need to be an immediate course of action and when it gets used in game-breaking ways that's often when the suggestion is way way more than what can be simply accomplished and I find that again this is the case where you want to talk about expectations and manage them very very carefully so that the players aren't disappointed when they have a really cool idea for using suggestion only for you as the dungeon master would be like if I let this fly it's gonna snap everything in half that I planned the third spell we're gonna look at today is arcane I love Arcana I know you do why do I love game breaking spells because you've been playing D&D a very long time and you know what they are and how to use them that's true arcane AI is a fourth level divination spell it's available to Wizards exclusively as well as clerics of the knowledge and Arcana domain you can find the full spell description on page 214 of the players handbook it requires only one action to cast and requires your concentration for up to one hour of duration and it creates an invisible eye that has dark vision that you can basically just fly around and scout out places with arcane eye is often used similarly to the way that Wizards will use their familiar to scout a location by perceiving the world through the familiar senses the advantage that arcane eye offers is that it can go at a much further range than your familiar whose only limited to usually a range of about a hundred feet and the fact that the arcane eye is an invisible divination sensor that is only one inch in diameter which enables it to get into spaces that you're familiar would not be able to get to and I could sum up why this fel is so powerful with one little story that happened at our game table when Monty was playing at my table as a wizard they had just gained the ability to cast forth level spells and I presented them with a dungeon that had arts standing in front of it and it was a cave within this cave was a network of passages none of which had doors on them and no creature inside had the ability to see invisible creatures or anything of the sort we were low enough level that there was nothing really powerful within that area but it was a cave jam-packed with treasure rooms and different creatures roaming different hallways and different ways that they could go Montee simply cast arcane I flew it right past the guards and navigated the entire dungeon relaying all the information so that I basically could just hand them the map tell them where everything was and they were able to plan their attack it was still a really fun session but let me tell you as a DM it definitely changed the way I was planning to run that night of course it's possible to circumvent all of this by having a good set of double doors on the front of your dungeon but our key and I should still be something that is in the back of your mind as a dungeon master if you do have a wizard in your party it's a very effective scouting method and even if you're not scouting a dungeon if you're a scouting and above-ground location such as a castle or a prison or any environment with windows where the player can be patient and wait for doors to open and close there's no risk to them until the sensor is detected of course there is a one way to shut the spell down entirely if it is going to be a problem and that is warding the area with a spell like morgen Qaeda's private sanctum or forbidden switch does prevent the arcane eye from entering the warranted area so you do have that option in your back pocket if you need a world building construct for protecting the world also the arcane I does not relay audio interpretations only visual so you can't hear what's going on so there are ways that you can make it so your character can read lips and that might be a cool thing to combine with arcane AI if you really want to be the scout for your party yeah but it's not necessarily the perfect way to eavesdrop on an enemy's plans because again it only can sends back that visual information and I am often surprised at how many people miss this point because I have played at tables where all of a sudden the DM just starts recanting the enemy's plans I'm like uh you realize RK Knight doesn't let you here the other thing to remember the arcane I is that creatures that are protected by spells like mind blank or non detection are invisible to the censor the fourth spell that we are gonna look at today is an all-time favorite of both Monty and I and that is the one the only polymorph polymorph is a fourth level transmutation spell and is found on page 266 of your players handbook it's available to a wide range of classes including the bard the druid the wizard the sorcerer as well as trickery domain clerics making it highly accessible spell and one that's very likely to find its way into many adventuring parties yeah the spell basically lets you turn either a friend or foe into another Beast this is a very specific requirement of the spell the creature that you target which could even be yourself actually it can be transformed into any creature that is a beast and beasts only with a challenge rating equal to either it's character level or its own challenge rating in the case of NPCs and monsters this means that a eight level player character can be transformed into a challenge rating eight beasts such as the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex this also means that you can transform virtually anyone into a harmless bunny rabbit frog slug sheep goat or anything else that your imagination comes up with as long as it's a beast of course because polymorph is so versatile you can target yourself you can target another player character you can target a non-player character or an adversary that you're fighting it can be used in combat it can be used to aid your exploration for instance by transforming into a giant eagle to fly your party across the desert or it can be used offensively in combat as battlefield control or as a mighty buff spell by turning a friendly member of your party into a monstrous creature don't forget it can be also be used for infiltration if you turn yourself into something very small to sneak into hard-to-reach areas this phenomenally versatile spell basically opens up the Druids wild shape to almost everybody one thing to keep in mind when you have a polymorph creatures that they maintain their personality memory and alignment they remember who their friends are and they understand who their foes are even though their intelligence might be greatly diminished by the form of the new beast they take on they can still concentrate on a spell they had in place before becoming the polymorph creature once they are transformed their game statistics are completely replaced by the statistics of the creature they become they lose basically everything you just open up to the monster man manual and choose the stat block and if you cast polymorph on yourself remember that you do have to maintain concentration on that so this also means that if you are hit even in polymorph form you do have to make concentration checks often without the benefit of your higher constitution score or feats like war caster which go away when your polymorphed which is different from when you use wild shape you don't become a feral creature or an npc in control of the DM you're fully in control of your own actions and I believe that there's no way to rule that the intelligence that you possess is a polymorph creature is in any way that much different from a domesticated or trained animal yeah think of it as a well-trained dog follows orders you can give it commands it may not understand your language but dogs are capable of learning simple commands and performing tasks and oftentimes there's guard dogs there's dogs that like have fought in battles just think of it like that and that's basically the baseline for polymorph I feel that if the spell was meant for you to lose control of your character in some way if you were meant to become feral it would probably say that in the description of the spell but lacking that we can only assume that you retain full control of your actions and so the next component of this then is the diverse array of creatures that you can become with polymorph including some which might be campaign setting dependent and I think this is the biggest thing to talk about in your group before someone says I want a polymorph into a t-rex and the dm's like you can't there's no T Rexes in my campaign world yeah and that is the one thing as some people I've heard house rule this idea that you can only pull me morph into a creature that you have seen which then nullifies often the t-rex as an option nowhere in the actual rules of the spell does it say this it just says you can turn into any beast yeah the t-rex is my personal favorite choice but talk to your DM about whether or not they will allow that yeah and even though oftentimes people have a knee-jerk reaction to the polymorph in the end of the t-rex it is admittedly a powerful form it's by no means the most powerful nor the most problematic the challenge rating seven giant eight deals almost as much damage is is almost resilient and doesn't come with the baggage associate that people associate with the t-rex because oftentimes people are like the t-rex is a feral carnivore it's gonna eat your party it only has a low intelligence score well the giant eight is R is an omnivore it has an intelligence of seven so it's a pretty good forum that addresses a lot of those concerns and it might be more common depending on your campaign world for a giant eight to exist than the t-rex again this is all DM dependent so make sure that you do clearly discuss this with your DM about what forms are available if you're gonna have any of these additional restrictions make sure it's on the table so everyone understands that and as for problem solving we mentioned it earlier but the giant eagle is also just a great choice for transportation for basically the entire party if you have a small enough party they can all fit on the giant Eagles back and fly around I feel like polymorph is completely above the curve for a fourth level spell I think if it was a sixth level spell it would still be worth taking I don't think there's ever been a cooler moment than the Barbarian hopping on the t-rex is back and riding into battle against a dragon that's one of the coolest things that I can ever match so it was a really memorable moment sometimes he just gotta go with it so Monty what if I wanted to turn into an ant crawl inside of the villains head and then change back and blow their head up I love this okay so there's a lot of cases in D&D where a spell like polymorph enables you to enter inside another creature and then violently burst forth a lot aliens at least that's the image that players have in their mind and I think that whenever this occurs as a DM your first response can always be no you're magically shunted to the closest available space that can fit your new form and no damage is caused I think that if polymorph were meant to cause such a violent damage dealing capacity in that way I mean I could see it happening it's just the issue with it is that that's such a reproducible strategy yeah right and then you're basically turning polymorph now into power word kill the problems emerge when players try to get spells to do things that are too strong for their individual level that basically turn one spell like polymorph that's an amazing utility spell and now all of a sudden its power word kill no that doesn't work you're safely shunted outside the other creature the last spell we're gonna look at today is conjure woodland beings and this one has some hidden gems in it it does indeed Kadri woodland beings is a fourth level conjuration spell which is available to druids Rangers and is a jaw-droppingly popular pick for bards to choose as their magical secret it's found on page 226 of the players handbook it requires one action to cast and you can concentrate on it for up to one hour you basically summon a bunch of creatures from the Fae and you get to choose the CR rating of the creatures you would like to summon and they show up and they help you out in combat so the most popular question with the conjurer woodland beings spells and many other conjuration spells is does the player get to choose what creatures appear and the official answer sage advice is no the player gets to choose what challenge rating of category of creatures appear so in the case of conjurer woodland beings your choice as a player is to get one challenge rating to fate creature a pair of challenge rating one creatures for challenge rating one-half creatures or eight challenge rating 1/4 creatures I really like this clarification from sage advice because prior to that there was the assumption that the players got to choose the creatures that showed up which meant that most players were going to choose eight Pixies Pixies can cast fly and polymorph so if you want for flying t-rexes Pixies can do that your army of eight Pixies would show up cast polymorph on the four members of the party then the other four Pixies would cast fly on the T Rexes and you have the most insane Jurassic world gone wrong imaginable it's effectively doubling the number of 4th and 3rd level spell slots that a druid or Ranger can cast and offloading the burden of concentration on all those spells to the Pixies the blink dogs are fantastic combatants the sprites the alternative to the Pixies ya have a ranged attack that causes unconsciousness on a failed saving throughout creatures like the Sea Hag which has a horrific visage that can reduce creatures instantly to zero hit points yeah I mean you only get one Sea Hag so the chances of that are small but imagine just summoning that Sea Hag and having somebody failed or save and oh they're dead yeah so the monsters that you can get with this spell are capable of dealing a lot of damage and offer tremendous utility the thing that the quicklinks deal at time it damaged yeah they just run out and snap snaps out they have such quick movement they can do all of these there's small attacks but they can get a lot of them in the player can certainly express their preference but I do think the army of Pixies is pretty unreasonable but most of the other Fae creatures I don't have a problem with with like for the most part with the other conjurer spells like conjure animals and conjurer elementals I don't find them to be so problematic no I think the only game-breaking aspect is a room of flying t-rexes is literally the most dangerous scenario I can think of yeah everything else within this spell is really really cool but not necessarily going to ruin anything but but this is a case where I do think that if you are a player and you're using smells like conjure woodland beings it's on you to be ready with the monster statistics please don't be the player that reads the spell for the first time and doesn't know what you can summon with it and then now has to spend ten minutes reading all the monster manual entries at the table in the middle of the game deciding what you'd like to conjure up you know when I got Shae into D&D she she took polymorph polymorph as a spell and I actually printed out basically a booklet for her all the things that I recommended her being able to turn into so that when she did want to cast the spell she could just flip through and find the appropriate creature to change into so really with these five spells that we've looked at today we say game breaking but we don't mean that they should be removed from the game or that they are in any way unfair to the game it's just that there's a lot of little hidden secrets in the context of these spells that can be used in very very interesting ways that can really be more effective than a first glance at that spell this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the spells with surprising implications that can catch a DM unprepared if your intent as a player is to abuse the game and its rules as a DM I'm not going to be on your side but if you're gonna come with creativity an open mind and an interest in contributing to a memorable and fun game experience I'm totally willing to work with you on that I think a lot of people like pour through the players handbook and are excited about the ways that they're gonna derail the campaign and to me that that's being a poor sport coming together as a group just acknowledging hey we know these spells have problems we agree as a meta game pact between all of us we're not going to use these spells in these ways but ones that are closer to the spear of the game itself and fostering a positive and creative environment at the end of the day the DM has the final say in how to interpret these rules so when it comes down to it once the DM makes a decision on how these spells are going to be used in the game don't spend 20 minutes arguing with them about it just go with the flow and figure out the best way to move forward yeah the spirit of the rules is far more important than adhering to the letter of the rules especially in these cases where the rules actually are a little bit of a gap yeah the the tax leaves a lot of openings for interpretation which is both the Pro and the con to these spells and that's why we play role-playing games because we want to have creative impetus for awesome role-playing and interesting action-packed sequences and not necessarily the shackles that we have on us in video games where you can't do creative things like these at all so this has been our look at 5 game breaking spells in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition we hope that you feel inspired to find new and unique ways to use these spells at your table and of course we would love to know of any other spells that you might be having trouble with in your games in the comments below we'd love to have a chat and share with you our ideas and feedback but how to deal with some of the other spells and there are many more that create difficult situations in interpretation at the table you can watch Monte and I play D&D live in our new campaign dungeons of dragon hime on twitch TV the campaign airs every Tuesday night at 6 p.m. Eastern Time Callie and I are joined by our good friends Joe and Jill and I'll be running a campaign will there be delving into the ruins of a dangerous ruined fantasy city check it out by following the links right below now we talked a lot about spell casting in this episode so if you want to learn more about spells and spell casting we have an episode on that right up over here and if you want to turn the tables on your players check out our guide to 5 spells for villains here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 1,070,752

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: RjGCJTi5Ub4

Length: 33min 7sec (1987 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/xenothelm]

Wasn’t there a sage advice in favor of Phantasmal Force’s illusion following the target?

[u/intermedial]

Hi! We're the Dungeon Dudes! We've spent the past year or so explaining the rules of D&D 5e, creating video guides to each of the core classes in D&D 5e, and sharing our tips for DMs.

In this video, we discussed five open-ended — and low-level — spells that commonly cause trouble and headaches at the game table:

• Phantasmal Force (PHB 264) @ 1:33
• Suggestion (PHB 279) @ 7:57
• Arcane Eye (PHB 214) @ 14:06
• Polymorph (PHB 266) @ 18:12
• Conjure Woodland Beings (PHB 226) @ 25:47

In addition to clearing up some rules misconceptions, we’ll discuss how Dungeon Masters might make good rulings when these spells come up in play.

As always, we believe the Dungeon Master is the final authority on how the rules work in play. This video is our opinion on ways DMs can make good rulings when these spells come up in play, not a handbook for players on how to abuse the rules. We're curious how you might handle them yourself!

[u/hokkuhokku]

Nice one, lads. Thank-you.

[u/Rollsomebones]

Non of these are game breaking in the slightest.

[u/TimmyWimmyWooWoo]

I'd watch if the title wasn't so clickbaity.