Ten Commonly Mistaken Spells in Dungeons & Dragons 5e

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greetings my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelley McLaughlin and we are the judges welcome to our Channel will recover everything Dungeons & Dragons including advice for players and guides for Dungeon Master's we upload new videos every Thursday so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode spells fill up almost a third of the players Handbook there are hundreds of them in the game of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition and it is very difficult to remember all the nuances and complex rules behind every single individual spell with so many spells this also means that there's a lot of different ways that these spells might work and a lot of room for error within the way that these spells are described a lot of players might misinterpret the way that these spells are written or the way that they're meant and work at the table so today we're gonna talk about 10 commonly mistaken spells in Dungeons & Dragons now we're just going to go through these spells in alphabetical order but we tried to choose spells that are emblematic of common mistakes that are applied across several different spells as well so we're both going to zero in on ones that people get wrong a lot as well as zero in on a few spells that really represent a trend that people get wrong time and time again when interpreting the rules for spells at their table there's a lot to discuss so let's get rolling so the first spell that we're gonna be looking at today is create or destroy water a first-level transmutation spell available to clerics and druids this is a rather innocuous looking spell until you get a crafty player that decides that they want to target a creature with the spell to destroy all the water in their body or create water directly inside their lungs what do you do when a player wants to do this the rule of thumb here is that if a spell doesn't explicitly say that it deals damage then it shouldn't be allowed to deal damage a lot of people try to use real-world logic to try to come up with creative ways to use their spouse if we use logic we can say that a human body is 70% water and therefore I should be able to destroy the water within the human body but when we're dealing with magic we're not really looking at the logistics of real world issues were looking at magic spells so when you read the description of the magic spell you can only really do what is described in the description by allowing somebody to use a spell that doesn't make attacks to cause damage you're actually increasing the power of that spell and giving options to the players that are going to make it harder to run difficult challenges for them at the table we operate on the rule that spells explicitly describe their functions and how they are used in the game they are themselves are exceptions to the rules so making exceptions for spells can set you up for real game balance problems later on however if you do want to embrace player creativity instead of just shutting them down a really good rule of thumb is that if a player wants to use a spell to deal damage that doesn't describe it simply rule that the spell requires either an attack role or a saving throw and it deals about 1d8 points of damage per spell level or maybe if it's really creative and really smart and very difficult to replicate 2d6 points of damage per spell level another option you have here is to look at spells that are close to the same level as the spell that the players trying to cast if they are being really with the idea and they have come up with a way that you as a DM decide well that makes sense that it would do damage look at other spells close to the same level to determine how much damage you think that this spell might do a great example would be somebody deciding to use to spell magic on a living spell I mean this makes sense using to spell magic to take on a magical spell just make sense that it would do something so if we were to look at something like the blight spell as an option we could use the same amount of damage and apply that here what this does is it gives the player the satisfaction of thinking of something creative that does make sense but you as a DM have a template that you can already lean on to determine what is fair and what makes sense in this moment players often also try to get creative with spells such as mage hand and try to find ways to make the mage hand cause chaos or distractions like slapping creatures tying their shoelaces together or poking them in the eyes in a lot of cases I would consider these attacks which the mage hand can't do but again if you do want to embrace this creativity look at what other kin trips and other actions can be performed at will add an ability check or a saving throw or an attack roll of some kind and you're probably going to be okay with that improvisation just because a player came up with a really creative application for a spell but isn't in the rules doesn't necessarily mean that success should be automatic and it should create instant death or blindness or stunning or other effects you can always put it down to the dice set a DC give there a saving throw or put in an attack roll and have it roll some damage instead of it just immediately killing somebody for any Dungeon Master's out there who might allow this sort of creativity at the game another big rule of thumb is to make sure that it's not something that can be recreated every single combat if they use mage hand to do damage in a way that they could recreate every single combat encounter that's different than if you see an opportunity and the player recognizes an opportunity where they can use the spell in an interesting way but it only applies to the surroundings in this combat encounter perhaps using the environment or something nearby that they can use to manipulate the way the spell works if it's something that only works here now in this combat encounter and they won't be able to recreate it next time that is a great opportunity to let their imaginations flourish and really encourage that sort of creative play at your table the next spell that we're gonna be looking at today is an iconic spell it's a second level Eve occasion spell available to sorcerers warlocks and wizards and that is the darkness spell a spell that creates magical darkness that really works more like an inky blot of utter blackness than any sort of natural darkness the darkness fell creates an area of magical darkness that you cannot see through even if you have dark vision so for those of you thinking that you can use the darkness spell to create an area that you can hide inside and then fight all of the enemies with advantage there's only very very specific classes and features that will allow you to do that sort of thing mainly the warlock who has an invocation to allow this or the shadow sorcerer who has an option to cast darkness and use sorcery points so that they can see inside of it but otherwise you're stuck in that darkness just like everybody else I've even seen some players that think that because they got the darkness fell due to a racial feature like teeth wings or dark elves or because they cast the dark dispel themselves they're somehow immune or exempt to the effect of the darkness spell and can see through it but they can't in order to see through an area of magical darkness you need a special class feature these available these are available to some warlocks and shadow sorcerers as well as most Devils in the monster manual creatures with true sight and blind sight can also navigate through an area of Darkness as well the next spell we are looking at today is dispel magic a third level a duration spell available to almost every spell casting class in the game the rules for the spell are relatively simple but can be misconstrued what it boils down to is that this spell dispel magic can only be used to undo effects created by a spell that has been cast not magical abilities dispel magic is a great solution for ending pesky spells cast in combat but you can't use the spell to force a druid out of wild shape or shut down a paladin's aura of protection or in fact you can't even use it to end the effects of a bee holders array that might be persistent these magical effects can't be dispelled by dispel magic because they're not spells it very simply breaks down like this there are abilities and there are spells just because an ability might seem magical or even use a spell slot does not make it a spell dispel magic only works against spells that are cast from the list of spells available in Dungeons and Dragons the next spell that we're looking at today is fireball a third level a vocation spell available to sorcerers and warlocks as well as artillerists artificers pact the fiend warlocks and light domain clerics this is one of my favorite spells in the game but it's also subject to a lot of misconceptions because the spell has changed a lot over the years and over editions of Dungeons and Dragons I still see players that were familiar with prior editions of Dungeons and Dragons to think that fireball in 5th edition causes the deadly blowback effect where if you cast the fireball spell in a constrained space such as a hallway it expands backwards and potentially hits you and your party members even though you're trying to fireball the Cobalts on the other side of the hallway this small misconception has led to a lot of unnecessary total party kills and it just doesn't need to happen in fifth edition rules there's the radius of the fireball effect and it doesn't go beyond that so you don't need to be as worried about casting fireball in a closed in space for fear that you're going to shoot the fire back at you like a gun through a barrel in a hallway yeah the fireball spell is always constrained to a 20-foot radius and if it can't cover things in that radius because it's got to go through a wall it will spread around a corner but it will distort or change its shape just because it can't fill the full extent of its 20-foot radius one thing it will do though is set in animate objects and flammable things on fire so if you are casting fireball in an environment where there are things that will catch you might be in for a little bit of a situation still the next thing we're looking at is green flame blade this is an evocation cantrip available to sorcerers wizards and warlocks although it should be noted that the rules that we're talking about can also be applied to some spells like booming blade these spells were introduced in The Sword Coast adventures guide and they're cool battle mage or fighter mage sort of spells that allow you to make an attack as part of casting the spell the main point of confusion that happens with these spells is that even though you get to make an attack when you cast green flame blade you are not taking the attack action on your turn and therefore other effects such as extra attack or the bonus action attack from say polearm Master or dual wielding don't get triggered because these effects like extra attack and dual wielding require you to take the attack action on your turn to happen so when looking at these types of spells you have to make the choice do you want to cast the spell making one attack along with the spell or would you like to make multiple attacks using the attack action and your other abilities these are the choices that you have when we look at spells like this next up on our commonly mistaken spells is hex a first-level enchantment spell available exclusively to warlocks but often picked up through magical secrets or other means because it is such a fantastic little spell but it does have a few common mistakes people make when using it the main reason why people love hex so much is that it allows you to add extra damage to your melee or spell attacks however it should be noted that this only works if you are making an attack role if you cast a spell that requires a saving throw you do not get to add the hex damage to the damage rolled for that spells effect so this means that the extra damage from hex applies to every beam of the blast that you hit the target with because you're hitting it with multiple attacks every attack with extra attack but it doesn't happen for instance if the creature walks into the area of your hunger of Heydar spell or if you hit it with a fireball or you've created some sort of damaging area of effect or other AoE spell that requires a target to make a saving throw or doesn't even allow it to make it saving throw you have to hit the target with an attack to cause the extra damage now the other part of hacks is that when you cast hacks on an enemy target you get to choose one of their ability scores and they have disadvantage on checks made with that ability score the misconception here is that a lot of people apply this to things like attack rolls or saving throws but that's not the case this only applies to the ability checks and skills related to that ability check that they are rolling at the table it doesn't apply to attack rolls or saving throws a lot of players try to use hex as a debuff to make their spells easier to land but this doesn't work because your spells use saving throws not ability checks one thing that you can do with this spell dole is give a creature disadvantage on their strength ability checks and have one of your allies try to grapple or restrain them which they will now have disadvantage as your fighter tries to barrel down on them and hold them to the ground the next thing we're looking at is actually three spells these three spells have a lot in common but some subtle differences that even Monty and myself have gotten wrong on multiple occasions and that is misty step dimension door and thunder step all three of these spells are popular conjuration spells that allow you to teleport a certain distance the problems that people run into with these spells is confusing how far you can teleport with these spells do you need line-of-sight to your destination and can you bring other creatures along with you when you use these spells so let's clear up which is which in the cases of these spells in the case of misty step or thunder step these require line of sight to your destination you need to be able to see where you're going point to it and say I'm going to teleport over there you need that line of sight in order to get there if it's behind a door or pasta wall sorry but you can't use misty step or thunder step on the other hand with dimension door you don't you can specify a general direction such as 500 feet straight up or 30 feet straight forward and even if you can't see it you still can teleport there when you're taking a step you want to look where you're going but when you're using a door you don't always know what's on the other side this is my easy way of remembering which one of these requires line of sight and which ones don't now when we move on to the other part of these teleportation spells some of them allow you to bring somebody with you in this case if we're looking at thunder step or dimension door you can bring somebody with you when you teleport however missi step will not allow you to do that that is for you and you alone it should also be noted that the ones that do allow you to bring somebody with you the creature that you're bringing cannot be a size larger than you so unfortunately if you're a gnome you may not be able to bring many of the party members with you or for any of you out there who think teleporting around with your horse is a good idea you might not be able to do that either the last mistake that's very easy to make because people get these spells confused is that misty step is cast as a bonus action whereas both thunder step and Dimension Door require one action to cast don't get your wires crossed with these ones because it makes a pretty big difference the next fell we're looking at today is moon beam which is a second-level Eve ocation spell available for Druids and some paladin's there's a few nuances of moon beam that can get a little bit confusing and the same confusion applies to some other spells like web cloud kill or spirit Guardians the main point of confusion with moon beam and spells such as spirit Guardians and even cloud kill and even to another extent web is that these spells create an area that causes damage or an effect to creatures when they enter those areas but the question is when does the effect happen and the answer is it's not when you first create the spell when you create moon beam or spirit Guardians or cloud kill or web the creatures in the area of those spells actually aren't affected by them until they start their turn in the area just because the spells effect has enveloped them doesn't mean that they take damage or have to make a saving throw quite yet if you use your action on your turn to move Moonbeam over top of an enemy this doesn't actually trigger its effects it doesn't count as the enemy entering its space for the first time instead since you moved it over you have to wait until the enemy turn for them to make a save and see if they take the damage from Moonbeam on the flipside if you use a spell like thunder wave or telekinesis or repelling blasts with elders blast to knock a creature that is outside the area of cloud kill or spirit guardians or Moonbeam into the area then they have entered the area of the spell and they do need to make a saving throw immediately or take damage this is actually a great opportunity to implement a lot of teamwork if you have other party members who are great at shoving enemies or grappling them and forcing them into a position or if you have a warlock with something like repelling blast you can actually use teamwork to drop Moonbeam into an area and have the rest of your party just throwing enemies into that area of effect this is a great way to inspire teamwork amongst the party and use multiple abilities to deal more damage on the battlefield so if you move the spells area of effect that doesn't count as the enemy entering the space but if you force an enemy into the space that does if you have any questions about how this actually works we recommend that you consult page 16 of the sage advice compendium before you post anything in the comments about this because we double check that rules resource to make sure that we had this right before we talked about this in our video the next vote we're looking at is actually one of Monti and my favorite spells in the entire game but there's a few things that can be misconstrued with the spell and that is polymorph this is a fourth level transmutation spell available for Bart's druids sorcerer's wizards and trickery domain clerics this spell is also available to warlocks through an invocation polymorph is a brutally complex spell we could talk for an entire episode about all the mistakes people make when they use the spell but we've seen one particular mistake that keeps coming up time and time again and it pertains to how you determine the maximum challenge rating of the creature that you can turn another creature into the challenge rating that you can turn a creature into is not determined by the caster but by the target we see this come up all the time specifically in the example of pixies polymorphic player characters into let's say a t-rex and we see so many people say well Pixies can't do that they're only a quarter challenge rating but it's not determined by the Pixies it's determined by the character or subject of the spell when you cast polymorph on a creature the maximum challenge rating that that creature can become when you polymorph them is based on their character level or their challenge rating depending on which they have player characters don't have challenge ratings so an eighth level player character can transform into a beast of challenge rating eight or less and a monster that is challenge rating too can be transformed into any beast of challenge rating two or less it's not based on the creatures hit dice it's not based on the level of the spellcaster it is based on the challenge rating or level of the target what they can turn into the last now we're going to look at today is the suggestion spell which is a second level enchantment spell available for bard Sorcerer's warlocks Wizards and knowledge domain clerics the suggestion spell allows you to influence a character by suggesting a course of action for them to take the main mistake that is made here is that the suggestion spell requires a verbal component and this verbal component is actually separate than the string of words that you're putting together as the suggestion so if you are trying to stealthily cast suggestion during a social interaction without anybody noticing that may not work the way you think it will in my campaigns I generally tell my players that the verbal and so mad and material manipulations that go into casting a spell are very recognizable when you move your hands about to make the somatic components arcane runes appear in the air when you speak a verbal spell component your voice takes on a mystical cadence and you have to intonate magical words that even if other creatures don't know what spell it is you're casting it is very obvious that you are casting a spell the simple way to think of this is that if you are allowing verbal and material and somatic components to not have an effect on the social situations and have people not notice them going on you're actually taking away from the core purpose of something like the sorcerer is meta magic for subtle spell having this ability makes the sorcerer able to cast these spells without being noticed so that should mean that in all other instances these components of casting a spell are noticeable I find that in general spell casting is so powerful and so potent that when you also allow spell casters to very easily conceal the fact that they are doing it it can take their schemes and shenanigans to a whole other level if you do enjoy the style of play and you like to make it easy for player characters to conceal the fact that you're casting spells you might want to have them make slate of hand or deception checks to try to hide the fact that they are casting a spell as opposed to the player just saying I'm trying to do this in a sneaky way put a skill check on it and then let the enemies and the other creatures around be able to make perception checks to detect that it is happening doing this means that the players still have a chance to conceal their spell casting but it makes abilities like subtle spells still really really valuable now as we said in the beginning a lot of these spells are easily misconstrued and if you have been getting them wrong don't worry I can guarantee that Monte and I have been getting these wrong at our table from time to time as well there are some of these that we actually through our research have learned I need to pay more attention to the way that that's written and really when we look at the rules especially for spells we should take what it says in the box no more and no less don't start adding in vocabulary into the way of spells described and don't take away from the keywords that are in there if you are having trouble with this try reading the spell description out loud what stands out to you is what you are able to do and what you are not able to do and that should be a good guideline to help you on your way with understanding the nuances and complexities of spells and spell casting in Dungeons and Dragons spells are a wonderful way for player characters to make it feel like they are breaking the rules they are exceptions to the normal way things work in the game and that's part of what makes them so magical it's a little bit easy to make mistakes and go overboard when we're being generous with how we interpret our spells and get things wrong from time to time the biggest thing that we want to make sure of when we are interpreting spells at our table particularly when players get creative or tricky with it is what kind of precedent are you setting for future rules is the ruling you make today going to cause a problem in the future if so you might want to think about that carefully and always be open in your groups to making sure that you revise and discuss the rules for how spells are working if you've misinterpreted a spell and it's causing a problem at your table it's okay to have a discussion about that and say hey let's put a stop to this because things are starting to get a little bit overboard with how we're using the spell and that way your game will stay healthy and fun and involve for everybody involved so this has been a look at ten commonly mistaken spells in Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition tell us about some of your spell misconceptions that you've learned along the way in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the generosity and support of our patreon community if you're enjoying our show please consider supporting us on patreon you can find it by following the links in the description below or at patreon.com slash dungeon underscore dudes don't forget to check out our live play in the worlds of dragon high which airs Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes you can find all the previous episodes right up over here and we have plenty more videos to help you out with the rules for spells and spell casting and D&D 5 eat right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we will see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 163,202

Rating: 4.8996439 out of 5

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: -FQOe_ua1Ts

Length: 26min 42sec (1602 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2020