Five Underrated Spells in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

magic works in subtle and mysterious ways so don't judge a spell book by its cover many of the spells in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition don't look terribly special at first glance but there's a few spells that definitely shouldn't be underestimated and we're gonna talk about why my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelly McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes here on our channel we discuss everything Dungeons & Dragons including guides for players and advice for Dungeon Master's we air new videos every Thursday so please subscribe so that you never miss an episode on today's show we're gonna be taking a look at five spells in D&D 5e which have been really underrated by players and Dungeon Master's alike and I've actually really surprised us with their potency in our own games so let's get casted as always we aren't ranking these spells in any particular order we're just going through them by spell level in alphabetical order and of course there's tons of other spells that are underrated in D&D Fivey we've just picked five to talk about today and we've picked these five spells because time and time again we've seen our friends and fellow players use them and in unique and interesting ways at our own table bending what we thought they were capable of in and out of combat but at first when we first thought of them we were like why would you ever take this spell and then they'd turn it to be completely amazing so with that let's take a look at the first spell we're gonna talk about today and that is aid aid is a second level AB duration spell available to clerics and paladin's and you can find it on page 211 of your players handbook it's not a bad pick up for bards either when you cast aid you choose three creatures that you can see within 30 feet of you those creatures are filled with resolve gaining five additional hit points and their hit point maximum is increased by the same amount of hit points they gained might not seem too special on the surface but then you realize that aid has a duration of eight hours and does not require concentration so that means that aid lasts through short rest and for your entire adventuring day so your hit point maximum is increased by that amount for the entire day yeah and when you up cast aid the three creatures that were targeted gain an extra five hit points per level of the spell increased so if you cast aid using a fifth level spell slot the three creatures you target with it gain 20 hit points and those hit points last through the entire adventuring day if the creature later takes damage they can be healed back up above their regular hit point maximum because the aides spell is giving them a brand new hit point maximum as if their Constitution score had actually been increased so if you've been searching through the pages of the fifth edition players handbook wondering where's the spell that buffs my hit points this is it and I think the misconception here is that when you first read it and you see that it increases your hip points by five my first thought was always well that's gonna be pretty useless at higher level play as soon as things are doing 20 or 30 damage per hit what uses five hit points gonna have but a lot of people don't consider the fact that using these spells at higher spell levels can have a major impact on the game even still casting aid using a fifth level spell slot on a 20th level character is like giving that character a +1 bonus to their Constitution score for the purposes of calculating their hit points those extra hit points can make a really big difference and since they'll be able to continue to have an impact because they can be healed back or regained with a short rest over the course of the adventuring day makes them especially valuable they're not like temporary hit points which once they're gone they're gone forever in fact the aides spell will actually stack with temporary hit points allowing player characters to gain quite a big buffer zone over their regular hit point if you can buy an inspiring leader aid and heroes feast as a round of eleventh level character even with average charisma scores you're looking at about 30 extra hit points added on for whatever combat you encounter that's a big deal yeah I think that these that aid combined with hero's feast protection from poison all these other really subtle buff spells that have those long durations and don't require concentration it's really worth going through the players handbook and looking for these because they can make a really big strategic impact on your play aid is part of a rare class of spells that create a buff that lasts for a very long time without requiring the casters concentration I really like this tactic because this is a proactive approach to your party's defenses spells which increase your AC or grant temporary hit points often don't last for the entire duration of a battle but the aides spell continues to provide a benefit throughout the entire adventuring day one that scales quite nicely and can be combined with a wide range of other awesome effects it's definitely not a spell that you should underestimate the second spell that we're going to be looking at today is enlarged reduce this is a second level transmutation spell available to sorcerers and wizards and it's a very unique spell because it can be cast both on a creature or an object and it has two modes enlarging or reducing so it's a little bit of a Swiss Army knife of the spell because it can be used against an enemy on an ally or as a utility to enlarge or reduce the size of an object the effect lasts for up to one minute and it does require your concentration while enlarge reduce is in effect you can choose an item or object that isn't being worn or carried and if you're targeting an unwilling creature they can make a constitution saving throw to try to negate the effects if the target is a creature everything that it is wearing and carrying is enlarged with it or reduced with it as appropriate when you enlarge a creature or an object it's size doubles in all dimension so it moves from a medium to large large to huge size category and it's weight increases by a factor of eight whereas reducing goes the other way its weight is reduced to 1/8 of normal and it is halved in all dimensions and reduced to a smaller size category as well the spell also effects any weapon attack made by the creature that has been targeted if they are enlarged they get to add a d4 to their weapon attacks damage and if they were reduced that means that they subtracted e4 from the damage an enlarged creature gets advantage on strength ability checks and saving throws but not attacks and a reduced creature gets a disadvantage on those same checks again not disadvantaged on attacks just on ability checks and saving throws so this seems on paper to be a pretty middling buff or debuff spell either getting a little bit of extra weapon damage and some advantage on strength checks or a little bit of reduction new creatures damage output but that's really selling the spell short in terms of the enormous utility that it offers to a group of adventurers the amount of options that you have at your disposal where things could be made easier in puzzles or various situations where making something bigger or smaller could actually have a huge impact on solving the puzzle I think of a scenario where a character who is very dexterous needed to jump across several gaps and do a whole bunch of maneuvers but the whole party needs to actually get across in order for this to work so the sorcerer being not very dexterous or able to jump or move very well actually cast reduce on himself so that he could fit into a backpack and be carried this allowed the dexterous character to put the sorcerer on their back and hop around making all of the acrobatics checks needed to pass this deadly trap area with the sorcerer being safe as well yeah even though the sorcerer might weigh a hundred and sixty pounds well when your weight is reduced to one-eighth of normal it's pretty easy for that strength 10 rogue to pick you up and carry you on their back the other thing that this can be really useful for is all those times where the dungeon masters like you see a statue of solid gold it's ten feet tall and weighs 800 pounds so you'll never be able to get it outside the room and then you cast reduce on it so you can carry it outside the room you'll have to keep casting it repeatedly to carry it out of the dungeon but that does mean that those objects that weigh a lot can be very easily moved by the party that uses reduced to shrink it down in size there's so many different uses for this I'm even thinking of scenarios right now you need to cross a fast flowing river that's ten feet deep and you cast in large on one of your characters so that they grow bigger like your paladin just carrying the party across because now he's like 10 feet tall and can just hold his head above it and walk across the river if you got that 10-foot pole that just is slightly out of reach enlarge it and now it's a 20-foot pole I've seen some players get really creative with this and take a 400-pound Boulder reduce it down to a 40-pound shotput have the Barbarian throw the 40-pound shot and then while it's in midair the spell caster stops concentrating on reduce causing the flying object to now be an impromptu siege weapon similar to that you could also ready in action to cast in large when the Barbarian throws a smaller rock and have that rock turn into a boulder yeah and then there you have another impromptu siege weapon I wonder if you can use in larger reduce on things like vehicles or siege weapons so you could have a siege weapon that's all loaded and ready to fire and enlarge it and then fire the ammunition would that work I don't know that seems to be up to DM interpretation to see how that that should go it seems to be that the magical nature of the spell means that all those things of like the laws of physics and conservation of momentum are probably gonna need to be ignored because it is magic exactly how that plays out though is really up to the DM to decide any character that is a hundred and sixty pounds or less which definitely includes any halfling or gnome can be picked up with mage hand if they're reduced because their weight goes down to about 20 pounds which is enough for the mage hand to lift and then you don't need to take the fly spell you can just float around on your beautiful hand that's funny so could you be a gnome wizard that cast your own mage hand and picks yourself up with your own mage hen and takes you around where you need to get yes enlarge reduce best spell in the game I love it that's so creative and combining that with other spells and effects that seems really fun yeah the next spell that we're going to be looking at is sleet storm which is a third-level conjuration spell well-loved by battlefield controllers but often overlooked by the blasters because it's not fireball the spell is available to druids sorcerers wizards and tempest domain clerics and you can find it on page 276 of The Player's Handbook the spell lasts for one minute requiring your concentration the spell has a range of a hundred and fifty feet and fills a space that is a 20 foot tall cylinder and a 40 foot radius which is a massive 80 foot diameter this spell is huge in terms of the area effects it fills that whole area with sleet ice and snow that make the ground underneath a difficult terrain and visually the entire area is heavily obscured which means that it's filled with a thick fog that prevents creatures from even seeing in front of their faces if a creature enters this for the first time or starts their turn there they have to make a dexterity saving throw or fall prone for those of you following along at home if that creature falls prone at the start of their turn they can still then get up with their movement but they now have to spend half their movement to do so and if they want to continue moving they're in difficult terrain so their movement is half again which means that a creature that falls prone and then gets up is only going to be able to progress about 5 to 7 feet away from where they fell over which means it's very difficult considering the 80 foot diameter of the sleet storm for creatures in the middle of it to get out and in fact because it is difficult terrain even if the creatures don't get out a creature in the middle of the sleet storm with a typical speed of 30 feet it's still gonna take that creature two or three turns to get out even if they don't fall over the entire time this is actually a great battlefield control spell because if you have a group of enemies approaching and you need to strategize or hide or get into a better situation dropping this down where the enemies are just entering on one end and need to pass through the entire spell area that's gonna be a lot of rounds of them slipping and sliding around well you reposition or figure out what you're gonna do next unfortunately it's a little bit difficult to attack them effectively because the area is heavily obscured which means that those creatures can't see you out of it but you also can't see into it so it's difficult to effectively attack although not impossible because you could still lob some fireballs in that area fireballs which incidentally will automatically have their flames extinguished by the sleet storm so does that still work yeah you could still throw a fireball in there it's just that nothing will light on fire anymore the last effect of the sleep storm spell is that spell casters that start their area in the sleet storm that are concentrating on a spell must make a constitution saving throw against your spell save DC otherwise they lose control of the spell and a really really sneaky thing about this is that the sleet storm spell doesn't cause damage which means that spell casters that rely on the war caster feet to gain advantage on their Constitution saving throws they don't get that advantage went against a saving throw prompted by sleep storm because sleep storm isn't causing damage so sleet storm is often overlooked because blasty spell casters see it and they say ooh a sleet storm that I can damage my enemies with then they find out it's not really doing a whole lot of damage there so why take it it's when you realize that it drastically slows down movement through the spell area it can nullify spell casters it's knocking enemies prone and if you have other area of effect abilities or spells that you can toss into that area well your enemies are all mixed up in there it can be a really potent combination to wipe out entire combats then next Val we're gonna be looking at today is Otto Luke's resilient sphere this fourth-level avocational is available to wizards and oath of redemption paladins and you can find it on page 264 of your players handbook and man this is a fun and clean spell when you cast this spell a sphere of shimmering force emerges on a creature or object within 30 feet of you that you select if you choose an unwilling creature they can make a dexterity saving throw to avoid the effect entirely or you can use this spell against an object or a willing creature such as yourself when you have resilient sphere cast on you nothing can affect you nothing not physical objects spell effects or other energy can pass through the barrier in or out the creature that is inside the barrier is effectively immune to all damage that originates from outside the barrier and similarly it cannot cause any damage to anything outside the barrier as well the sphere is weightless and if the creature wants to they can push against the side of it and roll it a half their speed so that they can move like a hamster ball it does cost their action to do this so they will be moving pretty slowly but they can still roll around a little bit in their sphere keep in mind that other creatures can interact with the sphere and pick up the entire sphere if they are capable of lifting that player character or creature or object also if somebody hits the sphere with a disintegrate spell it destroys it immediately OTO Luke's resilient sphere Autolog on Luke Oda Luke Luke tell us in the comments below yeah it is yeah Onix resilient sphere is a very strange spell on paper because effectively it is a personal bubble wall of force I really like the spell at parties but it does mean that if you cast it on yourself you're effectively in Vaughn to all damage while the spell is still in effect so it's a great defensive measure especially in an emergency but because you are now immune to all damage while the bubbles in effect again it only lasts for one minute and you do have to concentrate on it while it's happening there's a lot that you can do with one minute of invulnerability even if you can't damage anybody else for example if you need to escort an important NPC across a battlefield might be a good time to put them in a resilient sphere so that you can roll them across without any issue of them dying just hope that a giant doesn't come along and decide to kick the bubble over the mountains yeah they might not take any damage but now you have to go looking for that NPC could you load somebody in the resilient sphere into a siege weapon and fire them over castle walls I don't see why not actually if you want a good infiltration tactic and somebody has this spell put the rogue in a resilient sphere load them onto a catapult launch them over this castle walls after a minute that will end and they're infiltrated into the castle they might need to be careful on where they land if they land in the middle of the guard that's gonna be a problem but it could work now of course if you needed to capture somebody you could also pass it on them trap them in the sphere pick them up and run away with them yeah and now they're moving at half speed trying to push against the hamster ball and you can just run up and be like now you're coming with us you've only got a minute to get away with them but that might be all you need to successfully pull that off what if you come across a really dangerous hallway that you just feel is trapped what are you gonna do pop somebody into a resilient sphere and they go rolling down the hallway if a trap opens up and they fall into a pool of acid you just kind of pick them back up and find a way to scoop them out that being said with this work - okay here's a question could you use this to walk across lava yeah would it float would you be able to like roll it across a lava stream you don't know I mean it's filled with air because obviously the creature can breathe there so I wonder if it does float if you can use it to like explore underwater and fireman's or even go under lava or whether it floats or sinks it still could be useful because you could either cross the lava river or explore an underwater cavern this almost works like water breathing because you can breathe within this yeah yeah a creature inside the sphere isn't suffocating so one of my really favorite things to use with this spell as a wizard is have it be the trigger for my contingency spell so if I'm reduced to half my hit points or damaged or maybe something like that and I'm worried about getting killed my contingency is to cast Auto loot resilience fear on myself as an emergency defensive measure and then you just roll on out of there yes fellow casters roll out so the last spell we're going to look at today is a little bit of an exception normally we try to keep this two spells of fifth level and under but we really wanted to talk about this one today because it is once again blown our minds in a campaign unexpectedly it just came up in our campaign recently and I think nobody at the table realized until we started reading what it could do and we were like whoa this spell is windwalk it is a sixth level transmutation spell available exclusively to druids that you can find on page 288 of your players handbook win walk has a casting time of 1 minute and allows you to target yourself and up to 10 willing creatures to turn into a gaseous form that has a movement speed of 300 feet and resistance to all non magical weapon damage well in this gaseous form the only action you and other creatures are allowed to take is the dash action meaning that you and the other creatures can effectively travel 600 feet in a single round you're flying and in a gaseous form while you're doing so so that makes means you're pretty difficult to see and you can fit into small spaces what's mind-blowing about win walk is that it lasts for up to eight hours meaning this gives you eight hours of having an overall flying speed of roughly 70 miles an hour you're basically an invisible flying car this is tremendously useful because in addition to this rapid overland travel speed well wind walk is in effect creatures can spend one minute to assume their normal form and as long as the spell is still in effect they can later spend another minute to revert back into the cloud form again they're incapacitated while are doing this but what this means is that well the spell is in effect over the course of an entire eight-hour adventuring day you and your adventuring party can turn into gas fly where you need to go turn back into your adventuring forms do what you need to do turn back into gas and go back home now if you want to talk about infiltration tactics if you need to get into a place that's heavily guarded and get to a secret room in the middle of that camp why not just turn the entire party into gas fly on in there manifest into your real forms in the room that you need to be in obtain whatever it is you need to obtain turn back in the gas and fly out now you do have to be a little bit careful with this because the spell does say that you appear as wispy clouds so you might not be completely invisible while you're in a gaseous form but that said you're still pretty difficult to detect and see particularly in dark dungeon environments or areas of mist or cloud or natural environments where such things like mist are common anyways the spell doesn't explicitly say that as a gaseous form you can conform into different shapes although you it's use of that language seems to indicate that you might be able to but it doesn't specify exactly so I do leave that up to the DM to decide just how visible you are well windwalk is in effect and just where you can actually get into but it seems to me like wind walk has a great utility over the course of the day wind walk takes a sixth level spouse lot to cast but actually is pretty worth it for druids to use this considering how much of an impact it can have on an adventurer and every time a druid has cast it I've always forgotten it exists and been like oh man you can use this to just get rate inside this tower or castle or cross a massive distance in a single day in our recent adventure we were imprisoned and we still had the ability to cast spells they had thrown us into a prison cell and we wanted to get to a room at the top of this tower to talk to somebody but there was nobody that was willing to obviously let us out of our cells and let us reach the top of the tower until our druid cast wind walk then we floated through the cell door and just kind of navigated through the whole place and got to where we needed to go this was a really clever moment because the material component for wind walk is only a bit of holy water and some flame which is pretty easy to procure if you have a paladin or cleric in your party and access to a little bit of water in this specific case the holy water was made using the tears of the monk I happened to specify that because of our limited options my character went into the corner and started crying which then prompted our Drude to say oh my gosh can I collect your tears I had I was like sure I guess so and he's like I know and then he turned to the Paladin said can you bless this we had a blast you didn't know where he was going with this and then he was like I now have the material components to cast windwalk and the whole thing blew open it was a little bit of a stretch I think but I loved it in the moment and it was really really cool the party ultimately didn't decide to use it to escape but they could have so this has been a look at five underrated spells in Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition this is not an exhaustive list and if you have any other spells that you think are underrated let us know about them in the comments below if you're enjoying the show and are curious how you can help support our work consider checking us out on patreon you can follow the links in the description below to find out how now also you can check out our live play dungeons of dragon hime which airs Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. Eastern on Twitch you could find all the prior episodes right up over here and we've got many more reviews of all the awesome spells in the Dragons fifth edition in our playlist over 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: 439,132

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: wbbeeBjj5kI

Length: 26min 50sec (1610 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2019