Tier Ranking the First Level Spells in D&D 5e (Part 3)

there are a lot of first level spells in D and D 5 and we are still talking about them my name is Monty Martin and I'm Kelly mlin and we are the dungeon dudes and today we continue tier ranking all the spells in Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition this is part three of the first level spells we are now in high spooky season and this is the perfect time for a dark fantasy one shot or a new campaign and if you're looking for the perfect dark fantasy adventure to set out into next then look no further than this week's sponsor Grim Hollow it's the perfect time to pick up the core books which are in a special bundle for the Halloween season $99 gets you the original campaign guide the players guide and the monster gmar some of which have some very talented dudes which have contributed to these books we did create a few of the subclasses in the players guide for Grim Hollow but the Grim Hollow setting in itself is an incredible Dark Fantasy setting filled with vampires and werewolves and amazing monsters and locations for you to explore the monsters grimoire has some of the finest dark fantasy monsters that you can drop into any campaign as well so whether you're running just a horror onot and looking for great inspiration to put that together for Halloween night or just a bunch of new monsters to add to your regular campaigns the corebook bundle is the perfect chance to pick up this awesome book so make sure to check the links below to get your hands on the core bundle today and now onto this week's episode a quick reminder of how we rank our spells up on screen right now you can see the uh criteria that we use to rank all of our spells s tier are generally spells that everybody who has access to them or might even want to take a feat to get should a tier are really really great choices for the classes that have access to them B tier are great in the right situation C tier might be useful in Niche situations but could also be a waste of grabbing if they never come up in your game and deter you should probably just avoid with that we're going to jump in with one of my favorite spells fairy fire which is available for BS Druids artificers and to some cleric domains as well as Arch Fay warlocks this first level spell you cast on a small area the T The Targets in the area have to make dexterity saving throws and if they fail their saves they are illuminated with ethereal light for the duration giving all your ad allies advantage on attack roles against them one of my favorite features of this spell is that if the target is invisible or turns invisible while the spell is affecting them they are still glowing with the sparkly fairy fire so you can see them and I think that makes this spell a little bit of a sneaky awesome pick it's really useful against targets that can turn invisible or if you think you know where a group of invisible targets are you can drop fairy fire and a bunch of them might show up and allow you to hit them I will say that the only negative that I really have on this spell is that it is rightfully a concentration spell but that also means that as you get to higher level play is a first level concentration spell going to be your choice or might you want to pick a better higher end concentration spell so I find that at lowlevel play fairy fire is one of my favorite spells in the entire game and I almost always pick it but I use it less and less as I get to Mid and high tier point play that said I feel fairy fire still has its place at high levels not only at higher levels of play are you going to be encountering invisible enemies much more often and being able to negate their invisibility with a simple first level spell in an AOE that reveals them to yourself and your allies unlike spells like true sight and see invisibility which only affect one person at a time this is going to illuminate an invisible creature for your entire adventuring party and give everyone advantage on attack roles it's one of the easiest ways to get continual advantage on attack roles for your entire group against multiple enemies by comparison guiding bolt also a first level spell is a one-hot attack that does a bit of damage and gives advantage on the next attack only whereas fairy fire it works with allies who have multiple attacks Fighters love getting set up for it with action surge because they're going to get advantage on every single attack it really is kind of like the marker light or paint the Target on the enemies and because it's an AOE it kind of gives it that that counterbalance to the fact that they do get a saving throw to avoid it initially and that's kind of the most disappointing part about fairy fire is that if you're only using it on one monster and they succeed their save you're kind of like I I do want to mention that Rogues also love this spell because you're just giving them free sneak attack no matter the situ situation it isn't one that you're going to want to use on a single Target which can be rough if you're fighting an invisible dragon or something of that sort but a group of enemies it's going to be very useful against I think I think that even though it loses steam at higher levels it still is a relevant spell that you won't want to get rid of you'll still want to have it packed even at higher levels for those moments that it becomes really really useful for that reason I'm I'm either at an A+ or an S minus I think it's an A+ and here's ultimately why I feel it's an A+ you either want to have fairy fire or bless which generally speaking you look at the classes and the BS and The Druids and the artificers have fairy fire and the clerics and the paladins have bless fairy fire and bless together is an amazing combination and when you have both together that is a go-to highle combin like you can use that at high levels and you will Stomp The Encounter that that you go to especially if you have competent melee or ranged combatants I think that the fact that it does have a saving throw which means that at higher levels enemies with good dexterity saving throws magic resistance or legendary creatures I do actually think that with a legendary monster I would legendary resistance fairy fire it's it's actually worth it to to do so uh and so that element does bring it down a little bit um it gets brought up by the fact that it is an AOE that it has that utility of revealing enemies and again in comparison to bless bless just always works because it's buffing your allies and it's also giving them the advantage on it's also giving them the bonus on saving throws so I think fairy fire is a little less good than bless not by much but enough to bump it down from the absolute s tier um I think case in point if you're a light domain cleric who has both fairy fire and and bless you probably are still going to cast bless as your goto one thing that I do think is interesting I am agreeing with you that fairy fire is an A+ not an S tier but taking Feats that have allowed me access to fairy fire it's usually one of my go-to pickups so I do think that it is one of the best first level spells to pick if you have access to it and if you don't have anything to pick and you are taking a feat then it it might be useful fairy fire does outperform blast for your concentration in those situations where you're getting multiple enemies that have bad dexterity saving throws but that the advantage is going to be more important than the D4 because mathematically advantage on a D20 rooll is like getting a plus five bonus whereas bless is only a D4 so in terms of the accuracy benefit fairy fire brings a bigger boost assuming you don't already have a source of advantage and that's where again again bless picks up its mileage from because bless will stack with Advantage whereas fairy fire is just providing it so again it's not a clearcut cut decision and there is an argument for saying that fairy fire deserves to be in the S tier I hear you if you if if you feel it I'm kind of torn over it but overall I feel like bless is much more of a fire and forget sort of thing and fairy Fire's saving throw is the is the thing that knocks it out of the stier next up we come to false life which is Skip with which is Avail which is available for which is available for Sorcerers Wizards artificers some uh some clerics and some uh warlocks skip it and um let's let's discuss what what it does you use your action to gain 1 D4 plus4 temporary hit points um yeah I think it could be useful yeah it's just skipp it yeah but like is it's not a trap it's not a well okay let's let's let's talk about it okay is it a trap aren't there some classes that do get like false life okay a bolster to their false 1 D4 plus four damage is going to spare you from like one solid hit you know what else is going to spare you from one solid hit from a goblin but multiple goblins Shield Sorcerers and wizards both have access to Shield you know what also is going to spare you from one solid hit from a goblin burning hands or absorb elements or any damaging spell that kills multiple goblins you could only use the spell on yourself uh false life would be much more useful if you could cast it on someone else I think because then it would be a bit of an actual buff um but it it it just really doesn't offer a lot of value for the first level spell slot that you spend on it in terms of the defensive options and and in the direct comparison to to Shield at like what is going to spare you more damage Shield as a single cast spell is a reaction so it's there when you need it it its AC buff will apply to multiple attacks Shield at low levels of play can spare you from tons of damage whereas it won't spare whereas false life will just absorb one solid hit and you had to cast it beforehand yeah it's a d yeah I I just think it I just can't see any situation it's really cool when you have some way of casting false Life for free yeah um it's really cool also when there there's even the maybe a necromancer wizard might want to cast it to get the benefit of casting a necromancy spell um but as a spell that you have to spend a spell slot on don't yeah ju ju and it's immediately superseded by so many of the other effects in the game that Grant you temporary hit points like inspiring leader or or anything else I just I just skip it next up we come to feather fall available for BS Sorcerers Wizards and artificers this spell allows you to uh cast it as a reaction if you are falling and then you are falling softly like a feather more explicitly you don't have to cast it on yourself and you get to choose up to five people who are falling so in a recent game of our own Jill's character Veo cast feather fall on a fall falling Ally who is falling from a very very tall tree to escape a dragon featherfall is one of those spells that every time it gets cast it saves a character's life it's it's interesting because on one hand it feels like a niche spell because it's not often that you need to catch yourself or players falling from a tall building or tree but when it happens it's the most important spell in the whole game and especially when you are shooting a video with a player who almost every one of their characters who has died in your campaign died because falling was in some way shape or form involved in the situation it really starts to feel like it's a much more useful spell at preventing death okay not to mention let's talk about the other implications of this spell yeah it saves people's lives but also if you're like doing a heist in a castle and the McGuffin is in the tallest tower and how do we get out after we get the McGuffin you jump out the window and cast featherfall and fall to safety featherfall is a great escape tactic as well as a life-saving tool which means that I I think I think it's actually raised up the niche situations become more apparent when you think of all the elevations that can happen in your D and D games and all the ways that being able to fall from nearly any height safely can actually benefit an entire party indeed it kind of makes you think of all the ways if you play a DX Human Revolution and use the Icarus Landing system that was the most useful upgrade in the whole game yeah it it came up a surprising amount and there's so many times where like the party is like well we have to get past this Cliff or we have to go down the mountain afterwards or and or we we've just all got a bunch of flying mounts and we want parachutes so I think that featherfall is one of the spells that it rises in value once flight becomes something that is in your party and it's also something that is I think that the the Veo tactic that we saw in our game of it's very often that the wizard who has the fly spell is the one also with featherfall and it's worth pointing out that a lot of the time if you're a wizard and you're flying and something happens to your fly spell like like your concentration gets broken or you're stunned or incapacitated or whatever you're falling and now you're in a situation where you can't take reactions to save yourself with featherfall so featherfall is very valuable on a car on like more than one character to really enhance its usefulness as an insurance spell and it becomes more useful the more flight is happening in in your party as just a way of preventing instant death so I think that for myself I would say featherfall is soundly in the B tier because it becomes s tier in the right situation and the right situation happens to be the more flying is in your party the more s tier and must have featherfall is because the more likely it is that some sort of falling related disaster is going to kill you I agree with the B tier ranking um some of my reasons that I want to throw in there is that not every DM uses elevation as much as we do there's a lot of elevation in our games there's a lot of different areas that we're playing on there are a lot of cliffs Bridges and all of that sort of stuff when we play D and D so featherfall becomes more uh apparent and an easy pickup in a campaign that uses a lot of elevation but if you find that your DM has a lot of flat battlefields which can happen in a lot of gaming tables featherfall might not be as useful of a pickup I still think that that b basically says hey hey it might be worth looking at and in a lot of campaigns it's going to have those situations where it saves lives next up we come to find familiar the powerful spell available take it yeah yeah we did a whole video on find familiar if you want to see our video where we literally only talk about this spell it's right up over there and um just take it yeah just as if you're a wizard just take it um if you get the ritual Caster feet take it why okay so the answer is why summoning a companion aside from the amazing role playing value of having your favorite pet that you can love and take care that you can love and hold and take care of and talk with and be your best friend because you're socially awkward and it's easier to form relationships and attachments with animals than it is to people that's why I take it um find familiar has so much utility in the game because of the fact that you can command the famili to deliver spells touch spells for you you can have the familiar be a scout by especially by having it turn into innocuous creature because your familiar doesn't have to always be a cat you can change your cat into a rat or into a bat or into a mouse if you really want to go for the lulls or into an owl or a raven and it can fly around it can SC Scout locations for you and it can also act on its own initiative in combat and perform the help action and depending on how lenient your DM is it might even be able to use magic items and administer potions I am not such a DM I do not allow familiars to administer magic items and Potions or concentrate on spells but some people do and that makes it even better not only can it do all of that but you also have a telepathic link with your familiar and you can go into your familiar and look through its eyes and and hear through its ears and so it works as a scout but it actually works as you the Caster being a scout through an animal and in that way you can gather information that maybe the animal companion would not normally be able to do but because you can see and hear through it that opens up a lot of of gateways if you're playing a uh pack of the chain warlock which is more Niche but it opens up even more options for the familiar uh which allows you to do some really crazy stuff so in almost every situation The Familiar helps in Exploration social in in some regards s and combat so this is it's an emotional support animal it helps in social situations I mean some people are just like oh can I can I pet your cat and you're like yeah of course and uh there now now you're you get a bonus to your persuasion Advantage um so it's really a first level spell that helps you in every situation in the game yeah and I mean the ability to deliver touch spells is one of those like hidden little things that you don't realize how powerful it is Until you realize how powerful it until you see someone actually do it in your game you're like oh yeah that's a thing I think that the other thing that makes fine familiar such a powerful spell in general is that it is a ritual and it is quite easy to access warlocks can get fine familiar through packs of the chain but they can also get it through the paack of the toome because they can add ritual spells to their toome through all the invocations surrounding that anyone can take the ritual castr feet and get it eldrich Knights and Arcane tricksters can get it because they have access to the wizard spell list of course Wizards have it um you took ritual Caster on your sorcerer to get it and a bunch of other things it because you get fine familiar by taking the ritual cter feet the ritual cter feet would be worth it alone just for fine familiar but then you get all the ritual spellcasting associated with that so it's it's very easy to pick up for anybody it's a very powerful spell It's s tier It's s tier next up we come to fog Cloud available for druid Rangers Sorcerers and wizards so fog cloud is what I would consider an underrated spell fog cloud is basically Darkness except as a first level spell that foils Devil's sight I I do think that you need to be careful with your casting a fog Cloud because it's not necessarily in my opinion used in combat to improve combat it's either used in combat to create an escape rout where you drop F Cloud on your enemies and get out of there smoke bomb yeah or you can use it if you're trying to be stealthy and you're in a situation where the the the place that you need to get to there's no way to get to it without the enemy spotting you and you drop fog cloud and then try to run past them fog Cloud mix to something like pass without Trace I think can be really useful yeah uh there are tactics here it's a tactical spell uh that I think does have a lot of implication anytime that you've seen a smoke bomb used in your favorite movies uh this is smoke bomb with spell yeah it does run into some of those weird interactions because technically speaking if you can't see a Target and your target can't see you you have disadvantage on your attack roll because you can't see the target but the target grants you Advantage because they can't see you thus the advantage and disadvantage negate each other and so in this respect a bunch of people standing in a fog cloud are actually no worse at hitting each other than they would be otherwise so I feel it's important to mention that this mechanical interaction kind of negates both sides of it and so you do have to have a little bit of a stronger DM interpretation of saying No this is blocking line of sight you can't see each other therefore you can't Target each other and so that does run into those certain issues with certain spells that actually require you to have to see the target to be able to Target them and if you also apply that to say rolls and ranged attacks it can make the spell a lot more powerful in that regard otherwise the spell is kind of neutralized in many respects because the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other other out it's worth noting that if you do want to use it aggressively in a way that works because the blind fighting fighting style is is something you can get with a feat you can give yourself blind sight in the fog cloud and now you've got the darkness devil site combo but on a first level spell and a feat it's like way more accessible in a in a weird way and it's weird that the fog Cloud blind fighting fighting thing isn't more prevalent than Darkness devil site because I feel like it's easier to pull off and more accessible to more classes Maybe I'm Wrong on that but it it technically is I I feel like this spell is is a be because it it it has a lot of useful implications but you need to know how you want to use it I and I think the DM interpretation is a factor too yeah um I I I do it wouldn't necessarily be a go-to but I think that it it excels in certain situations and it also excels depending on how your DM rolles the spell next up we come to good Berry for Druids and Rangers you can produce a bunch of berries that uh heal people for one hit point when they eat the berries and you can give them the berries and they eat the berries and they make lovely jam and they have Jam sandwiches and then they feel better and they're also sustained for a day so so this is the spell that single-handedly kills Wilderness survival campaigns yeah anytime that I've tried to run a Wilderness survival campaign and I'm like you will have to fight for rations you will have to scr for food go hunting for your meat and then somebody's like okay I'm going to play a druid and I have a good Berry and then I just rip up my whole exploration notes and go all right never mind you're you're good the healing element of the spell is also one of those underrated elements because it conjures 10 that restore one hit point each which means that it always restores 10 hit points for the first level spell slot so that can actually be a lot of healing if you just give all the berries to someone they are these berries okay no they're good um but they can become great berries I don't know if you noticed this but if you are a life domain cleric the berry the bonus from being life domain applies to every Berry of the good Berry and they actually caught this in balers Gate 3 because if you are a life cleric that cast good Berry in Bal gate gate three you conjure great berries that have extra healing on them um so it might be worth it as your Druid to take one level of Life domain cleric yeah so that you can make great berries because then it becomes is it one just one level gety there yeah cool yeah yeah so then you make great beares yeah and they restore considerably more hit points for a single casting I think it ends up being four hit points per Barry which is 40 hit points for a first level spells slot which kind of kind of good kind of great kind of great kind of great yeah so so I still don't know if this is like the most amazing spell in the game uh I think it's an A and my reasoning for a is that other than the case that we just said where you're already probably playing a druid and then you picked up a level of Life domain cleric if you were playing a life domain cleric you night you might not want to pick up a level of Druid to get it you might not go out of your way for goodberry you could though I will say with a cleric taking magic initiate Druid to get shalele and goodberry is a pretty solid play so my my my theory is that for the classes that have access to good Berry you should take it for the classes that don't you're probably not but I would allow you to argue against that I'm giving it an a because that's where I stand I I agree I think it's a solid a it is an excellent healing spell it has some great utility it is one of those spells that sort of Del deletes a certain obstacle entirely from the game which is sustenance uh which has both good and bad things the fact that it is a spell that works this way means that good Berry is a spell that gets banned sometimes so if I was running a exploration gritty survival campaign I would ban goodberry but I would make sure all my players knew that well ahead of time that the type of campaign we're playing doesn't allow goodberry cuz that single spell can ruin a concept of a campaign next up we come to grease available for artificers and wizards when you cast grease it conjures a 10ft square of slippery greasy liquid that creatures have to make dexterity saving throws or fall prone whether when the spell is First cast for the first time or when they end their turn in the area or enter the area on on a turn noticeable fact about grease lasts for 1 minute no concentration required now depending on your DM interpretation I am a pretty giving DM and I like to make grease extra flammable uh so I have my players exploit that a lot but that isn't part of the spell that's just the way that I picture grease is it's like cooking grease so you can set it a blaze and we have a lot of fun with that I also have people use the grease spell to literally grease themselves up for when they need to enter into a tunnel or when they need to crawl through the vents like if they want to be the grease scotman like uh like Willie uh and I usually do give advantage on like acrobatics checks when the spell is is used in this way but the traditional way of just using the spell to knock people prone concentration free is great as a DM I have actually been surprisingly undone by the grease spell my players have cast it in a narrow hallway and all of my enemies failed their saving throws and fell right down while the uh characters got either advantage on them or were able to escape I have an artificer in my current game who has grease and I've been surprised by how often they use it to great effect and the grease spell because it doesn't have the concentration requirement but lasts for one minute is a great follow-up spell for a powerful Battlefield control effect of some kind for example this is especially potent if you have the interpretation that the grease spell does not get set on fire you could use Grease beside a wall of fire and I mean mentally my image here is actually Conjuring the wall of fire making the grease spell at the top of stairs and someone slips down the stairs and into the wall of fire which would be an amazing situation if you get get that set up but just using grease on the opposite side of a wall of fire so someone's trying to get through the wall of fire but they slip in the grease and now they're still getting cooked yeah and it and if it is like cooking oil then they're going to get nicely Brown it is also like one of those spells that you because it's concentration free combining it with like a lot of we we did those videos on like spell combinations yeah really anytime that you can set up an AOE that lasts and then drop grease in the middle of it I'm thinking like sickening Radiance and you drop grease in the middle of it so that characters are slipping and falling while getting microwaved uh there's there's there's actually a lot of useful implications and I think grease is an underrated spell a lot of people do talk about it but I I never feel like I hear about it a lot and people being like Oh yeah you should take Grease so I I actually think this is an a tier spell I agree I agree with that I think it combos well with a lot of the other kind of Battlefield control kit and I think that if you have a Caster that is taking a bunch of the powerful concentration Battlefield control Spells at higher levels of play combining Greece with something like Tasha's mind Whip and the telekinetic feet you end up with someone that is really good at moving people around keeping them in a certain area stopping them for moving out of their areas and then you add something like Thunder Wave or telekinetic or Elder blast with forceful blast and you have a really good kit that doesn't necessarily consume the highle spell slots it's just using those first level spells and it's a really good way to bring those lower level spell slots in support of a higher level spell that I think is part of a strategy that I don't I I don't see a lot of players use I see a lot of players they'll they'll go right to oh now that my wall of force or my Fireball is down my now that my wall of force or my Hunger of haar is down I'm just going to go right back to blasting instead of finding more ways to keep that Advantage going and it it does that one thing where you want to stop the enemies from walking out of the battlefield control effect and grease is really good because they might try to walk out but now they're going to slip in the grease they're going to fall prone they lose half their movement to stand up and that makes it much more costly for them to get out which could be the difference of an enemy being affected by a spell for one Turn versus two turns and if you think of that that that in that way like if an enemy is going to be affected by your Battlefield control for one turn and you use a first level spell slot to make them affected by it for two turns you just double the effectiveness of your higher level spell slot and all it cost you was a first level slot next up we come to guiding bolt which is available to all clerics as well as oath of Glory paladins the celestial warlocks and the Stars Druid as well guiding bolt is a simple spell you cast it as an action you shoot a bolt of radiant energy at a Target it does 46 radiant damage and the next attack against that creature has Advantage you can upcast this to do additional damage I used to love this spell then I played balers Gate 3 and Shadow heart continually disappointed me with it she always misses with this every time I cast this with Shadow heart she misses she does but I don't think that's a reason to talk like I don't know why shadowart can't cast guiding bolt but she can't and shadowart get get get your stuff together here okay just just like aim you have a good wisdom score I maxed your wisdom out you should be able to hit with the spell like come on but guiding bolt is for me the really great go-to first level damage spell for clerics yeah it feels right it feels good and it it is a nice 46 is a nice amount of damage well I think the the problem that I've had with guiding bolt is often times guiding bolt kills the Target and you don't want to kill the target with guiding bolt you want them to be alive so you get the advantage on the on the follow-up attack at the same time if I'm going for setting up the advantage on the next attack and oops I killed the target instead I'm still kind of happy because that's one less enemy on the battlefield totally agree and and at the end of the day guiding bolt is kind of that great way for your cleric to dump some first level spell slots into encounter when you're already concentrating on something like Spirit guardians or bless you never want to cast guiding bolt before you got your important buff spell down it isn't necessarily going to be the very first spell that you should throw in an encounter that should be bless or Spirit Guardians you should get your spiritual weapon rolling but if you are in the point where you're looking for other ways to contribute to the encounter you want a good damage dealing spell that is BAS based on an attack roll and not a saving throw which does technically make it stronger cuz attack roll spells are not going to be subjected to things like legendary resistance and the fact that monster saving throws just get insanely high and they have magic resistance so you can nail someone for a bunch of damage I don't think I would ever upcast guiding bolt I have a shadow heart and it was it was bad yeah it it'll just make you sad I I do think this is an a tier spell which is to say that if you're a cleric you should probably take it or deeply consider it if you're another class I don't I don't know if you need to go out of your way to get it I think it's a b and the B the reason why is is simply put I I think it is like the third to fifth spell that you're going to want to cast in a combat encounter I would always you're just going to get way more mileage out of something else for that first level slot and you also run into the situation I think with the with the cler is you could cast guiding bolt for your first level slot but you also kind of do want to keep your first level slots open for things like healing word you might want to bring something else to the table so again depending on how aggressive you want to play it might be worth even just leaving those slots uncast to have a just in case thing I mean agree to disagree I think that before you have access to Spirit guardians or spiritual weapon this is actually one of the go-to Spells and when you do it still as useful to keep in Your Arsenal and for that reason I think it's it's a valuable pickup see I disagree I think before you have access to these these spells you definitely don't want to cast spe you definitely don't want to cast guiding bolt because you want to be you you want to use your spell slots for something else anytime I've played a cleric as soon as the combat starts if I'm like have like two three first level spells I always kick things off by hitting a big Target with guiding Bolt setting up my fighter or my rogue for Advantage for a big sneak attack or a few attacks in and I it usually helps take out a big Target on the battlefield quickly I agree that that's a good move I just think that you have to assess is that the best move you could make as the first move in in Combat versus bless or or something else it it it always depends and is that the most valuable use of your spell slots so I I don't think it's like a no-brain necessarily but it's a good spell next up is hail of thorns available for Rangers this spell is a bonus action to cast and it reins a hail of thorns down when you fire your bow at a target the target still takes the regular damage of your attack and then it and all of the targets within 5T of it have to make a dexterity saving throw or take 1 d10 damage I think that this spell is extremely thematic and really cool to imagine the arrow breaking apart into several arrows but is it worth taking so this is one of those spells that makes me go H every time I look at it because there's a bunch of elements of the spell that are really really good but then when you compare it to the go-to spell for Rangers you go oh yeah but that's why I'm not going to take it so hail of thorns is a bonus action to cast and it's a concentration based spell but that means that it's very easy to combo with your attack what happens is you're casting it as a bonus action and the next time you hit with a ranged attack the the Thorns kind of sprout out or or fall down so if you cast the spell and whiff your attack the spell doesn't go away that's why you're concentrating on it and it's giving you straight up extra damage on top of your regular attack and it's a d10 but the Target and the targets around it get the dexterity saving throw and they're still taking half damage on a successful save so you're always going to get a little bit of extra damage out of this even if the target makes their save it's also worth noting that this spell can be upcast adding a d10 each time and so you start to look at the spell and go hey isn't this kind of like smiting with a ranger except as an AOE because you are adding d10s onto the attack R like if you use a fourth level slot for it it's 410 extra damage on the target sure they get a save but they're still gonna take half that damage and it's still added to whatever your attack and if there's anybody beside it you're getting a little bit of Splash damage out of it and you're like actually yeah that's certain to sound pretty good but here's where the problems come in it's a bonus action to cast and it's concentration there's another spell that Rangers really like that's also a bonus action to cast and requires concentration and because of the saving throw the damage always has a chance of being diminished from what it could have been so there are several situations where the amount of dam where on a successful save that d10 it gets really bumped down so this is an interesting spell I think it has a lot of potential I think it's really stronger lower levels of play but I think for me it's like a beit best I I agree that it's a be at best and it's just unfortunate that when I give it a b it's I think that if it weren't for other spells that exist it would be higher but the fact is that there are other spells that exist that make it really really hard to use this spell because you're using it in place of some of the go-tos for Rangers um I think that it is I I don't want to give it any lower than a b though because I think it is a a thematic and cool and useful and impactful spell for everything that it says it's going to do it does and it does it pretty well and I like that it does half damage even if they save it means that no matter what your casting is going to pay off to some regard and it's great against a group of small enemies that are charging at you yeah you have a group of goblins that are crowding around uh about to charge you can take a lot of them out pretty easily yeah and and that's where the situational elements of the spell come to their own in a situation where maybe you want to upcast the spell although you're really not getting a lot out of it if you do compared to some other options you can get a lot of damage now out of the spell but the cost is going to be you could have had another spell that you could be concentrating on that is going to give you more sustained damage over the course of the combat encounter and I think about this spell in the context of we talked about Divine favor and Paladin smiting and this is another instance where like the context of the Paladin class makes Divine favor not as great and the context of the Ranger class makes the spell like middling because if this was one of the only spells that were available to Rangers it would be a go-to but there's other options that are available that are going to compete with this spell and really make you think uh is this really the best use of of my limited numbers of spells known that you also have as a ranger and I think that even though I would give it a b i I think that if I'm looking at all the other options I'm still not taking it so there's a part of me that goes maybe it's a c maybe it's even a d it's not it's not terrible but there's just so many other spells that you should take with your Ranger before you take this spell healing word is a fantastic spell we've often talked about it as being slightly overrated but that is still it still is an awesome spell it's a first level spell available to BS clerics Druids and The Alchemist artificer you can Target a creature at range as a bonus action and give them 1 D4 plus your spell casting modifier in hit points back it can save a player character from the grips of death at ranged as a bonus action I don't know what else to say about that that's that's awesome yeah this is your go-to save someone's life and bring them back into the battle spell because it is ranged and is only a first level spell slot and is only a bonus action it really has a lot of advantages over cure wounds even though it doesn't heal quite as many hit points it's really only the difference of a D4 versus a d8 which is only two points of healing on average maybe that'll make a difference but very rarely will it if that Target is getting attacked again and you can just healing word them back up like a yo-yo um people have complained about that element of the spell a lot in that a character depending on the initiative order a character can get down the cleric healing words them they get down healing word and they're still attacking and still fighting despite the fact that they're constantly being knocked unconscious and probably ending up with a lot of trauma in that situation but they're still fighting effectively so hey um healing word in in that respect is an atier spell if you can take the spell you should take it um I don't think I have seen a cleric Bard or Druid that hasn't prepared or chosen this as one of their spells known because it is such a no-brainer I have played many bards who knew healing word as a spell and very rarely used it but it is kind of the spell that you want to very rarely have to use but you really want to have it there for when you need it at my table there is a cleric who has healing word and although healing is not something that happens very often at our table the wizard at my table is also notorious for poking things he shouldn't poke and dying relatively quickly in almost every combat encounter uh when I say dying I mean laying on the ground at zero hit points making death saving throws and so the cleric has always packed healing word just to be like oh my God wizard like stop poking things and get them back so that they can run to the back lines and start doing what they're supposed to be doing so we call it the wizard saving spell at my table and the cleric will never stop taking it because it just keeps saving the squishy Wizard and I think that that's valuable I think that it's really really valuable to know that when you have somebody in your party who has healing word the other players at the table feel like they can go and poke the Brushy shambles that are shaking because I wonder what's in there and they can be a little more Reckless with their play style not in a bad way but more in a let's have fun because we know that there's somebody here that if we get reduced to zero has a way to get us back in the fight and I find that having that person in the party just frees people up to be a little less scared of engaging with the game in indeed on the flip side as a game master the strength of healing word does vary depending on how merciful you are a situation that comes up a lot with healing word is the party member is healed back up with in word and now they've got five hit points so a monster with multi-attack comes up to that player character hits them knocks them down to zero but that monster has two more attacks remaining and this is the thing that determines are you a nice merciful DM or are you a ruthless monster because if you're a ruthless monster you've got two multi- attacks that you can now bam bam and that character is dead because they got crit twice and they failed that that's four automatically failed death saves and so I like to remind dungeon Masters that you can do this I like to be the in between DM and use a monster that has two attacks and so the first attack knocks them down and the second attack gives them two failed death saving throws which makes an O crap moment at the table where the players need to do something because there's a 50% chance that that player is going to die on their next turn which feels good um and usually it brings in a response and honestly usually that response is another healing word but then you just do it again and uh yeah it it it does make that emergency at the table so healing word is overrated in the sense that there are actually pretty easy ways to deal with it because it's not a whole lot of hit points but I still think it's an S tier spell because it's it's very very helpful very very useful and can just be that little bit of a safety net for reckless players yeah you just don't want to let players feel like they're too safe because of it um and and doing the the thing where the multi I'm also a DM that I often if I have a monster with multiac I Target and declare the attacks all simultaneously and roll all the attacks together so it happens more often in my games because yes this vicious predator of an animal doesn't really have a concept of moving along to the next person and they're the type of monster that will just tear into somebody and rip their body apart um so your mileage may vary uh as as DMS it is something that some players are like that's unfair that's not cool but uh the flip side of it is that healing word is like super strong and the characters never die so it's s tier but worth the conversation next up we come to halish rebuke available for warlocks and oathbreaker paladins this first level spell is a reaction to cast triggered by when you get damaged you can Target the creature that damaged you cause them to make a dexterity saving throw and they take 2d1 fire damage or or half as much on a successful save you can upcast it doing more damage H shuke is the Warlock reaction spell and as a game master I love putting hell rebuke on my NPCs because it's a great way for the players to get backlash damage but as a player it's an expensive prospect it's a spell slot to you it is out of turn damage but I really don't see it taken and used that often the problem with it so I think that it's a very thematic and wonderful spell and if I was a warlock that had full spell casting capabilities and like five first level spell slots at higher levels then yeah I would use this the way that my sorcerer uses Shield every time I get hit I would just be like you take damage you take damage but that's not the case as a warlock you have one two three spell slots are you really going to use one of them for a reaction spell for 2d1 damage I think that warlocks all of their spells should either be emergency situations or great lasting concentration AOE you shouldn't be relying on a reaction spell to be your bread and butter damage dealing with a warlock it it's a waste of a spell slot unfortunately oathbreaker Paladin actually might be the better place to take this spell yeah um it's it's a little more useful CU you have more spell slots yeah it'd be really cool if there was an invocation that let you use this more often like you could use it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus at will uh then it would be a really cool feature and we should make an invocation that does that um I think it's a c I think it's a c as well and it's really unfortunate because technically I love this spell it's just because of the way warlock spellcasting works that it's it's not worth it can I give one instance where it might be CU I've seen this happen hellish rebuke applies whenever you take damage and it is a range of 60 ft and it damages whoever damaged you so let's just say for the sake of argument you are standing on on a battlefield and you end up beside a cleric who cast Spirit Guardians on you and you take damage from the spirit Guardians and you hellish rebuke that cleric that cleric takes damage and now has to make a concentration saving throw versus the damage from H rebuke or their Spirit Guardians goes down so very nce situation when you take damage from a concentration spell you can use hell's rebuke to force the concentration check to potentially end end the spell and in that case it's kind of like a weird counter spell it's not nearly as good as counter spell but I've seen it happen more than once so that might be why it's a not a d and it's a c I also think it its flavor and the the fact that you can take it as an oath breaker raises it a little bit it's not a bad spell it's just bad if you only have two spell slots our next first level spell spell is heroism it's available for bards paladins and several cleric domains as well as the battlesmith artificer heroism is a concentration based spell you target it on another creature and for the duration of the spell that creature can't be frightened and at the start of each of its turns they gain temporary hit points equal to your spellcasting ability modifier this is not a bad little buff okay in a weird way every time I read heroism I think oh that that's a very useful spell and then I never take it and I've never cast it on a single character and I've never seen anybody cast it so it's that it's one of those weird spells that falls for me in the middle ground you read it you go not bad but I just feel like there's always other choices that supersede taking this one that I can't really rank it it's definitely not an A or s for me might be a b but even as a b I've never seen anybody use heroism to great effect I've never really seen anybody use heroism other than a potion of heroism which is something that I award my players that that's what I think but a potion of heroism is funny because a potion of heroism gives you the effect of the bless spell not the heroism spell right so it's not even the same um um but yeah I I don't know I I think this is a b or a c uh probably I I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's a b because it is a good spell it's just it's a be that I've never seen anybody use okay immune to being frightened is strong in the in a circumstance where you have an enemy that is regularly using fear effects yes so in this respect it can be a silver bullet spell to shut down an enemy's powerful ability especially when you cast it on the Barbarian or the fighter who has a bad wisdom saving throw and needs to be attacking the Dragon second point because the temporary hit points are coming back every single round over the spell gets better the longer the spell is in effect because if you're giving say you got an 18 Charisma it's four temporary hit points after five turns that was 20 temporary hit points assuming the target was taking damage every turn so it's potentially a lot of damage absorbed the longer the combat goes generally speaking though as player characters you don't want combat to go that long you want it to be over quickly um and if the combat and so that is kind of I I think using this as a silver bullet to get around someone being frightened is cool and Niche but going into it for hey temporary hit points so I'm preventing less damage I just think again your mileage may vary on that I'm I'm comfortable giving this a B I think that uh there's probably going to be people in our comments saying oh yeah I use heroism it's great and that's awesome and that's why I think it deserves the be just in my playing experience it comes up so little but I still I never read it and go I read it and go and then it's one of those ones that because again there's there's other options that bards and paladins are also characters that are very likely to take inspiring leader which is a lot more temporary hit points to the entire party but it is only once where this keeps repen but but on one character yeah yeah right so I I I ultimately think that for both bards and paladins like I I don't know why as as a Paladin especially because paladins get their own buil-in immunity to fear um I think as a paladin why you would choose this over smiting or casting bless I don't know and as a Bard I just think that there's so many other things that you're going to want to concentrate on even at low levels that I just don't see where you're using this I think it's a c at best uh okay yeah tell tell I I'm going to stick with B because I want the people out there to prove me right and tell me in the comments why heroism is a be I'm I'm taking a chance on I just again for me it's the you cannot consider a spell in a vacuum you have to consider a spell in the constellation of all the other spells that are available to those characters and all the other things that they could be doing it's probably a C I'm just I'm just being hopeful yeah all right bring out some more of the big dogs we got hex uh hex is a first level spell available for warlocks this spell you choose a Target as a bonus action you choose one of their ability scores that they now have disadvantage on ability checks but not saving throws not saving throws that's important yeah uh but then all of your attacks against that Target do uh one6 extra damage pairs really well with warlocks because as you gain levels your Aldrich blast fires more beams each of them doing 1d6 more damage this is kind of the bread and butter combo of the Warlock if you've played a warlock if you've seen memes about warlocks if you've heard somebody mention the word warlock you probably know about the hex Aldrich blast combo the one thing I will say is that like Fair fire which we talked about earlier in this episode hex actually becomes harder to use when you get to higher levels but still relevant I will never get rid of hex yeah but the question becomes more and more is hex the concentration spell I want out and as you get to higher and higher levels it loses the automatic yes to that question and becomes the maybe I still do think though that it is an absolute must have for warlocks hex is very efficient as well because if the target of your hex dies you can spend a bonus action to move it to a new Target and with a duration of an hour that duration also increases as you use it with higher level spell slots so this means that as your warlock you can kind of cast hex once and get a lot out of it and use it on a lot of enemies over the course of multiple encounters over the course of an entire day even if you're not getting a lot of short rest so it's very efficient in that regard and yeah you just can't argue with results it it generates good results but there can be circumstances where hex on one target is not going to be necessarily what you want to do you really want to drop hunger of Hadar and knock enemies into it with forceful blast you really want to use say synaptic static and Then followed up with hex hex is an enchantment spell which means that characters can get access to hex through the Fate touched feet so I think that it is a very strong spell is it an S tier spell for me I think it is s tier and it is that point that you did State about the longevity of the spell what actually opened my eyes to how this spell is still useful at late game play was balers Gate 3 because I cast hex on my first combat encounter at relatively high levels and maintained concentration on it through an entire dungeon yeah because when you're casting with a higher level spell slots the duration increases and as long as that warlock doesn't lose concentration on the spell they're getting plus 1d6 to all of their targets as long as they're being methodical about it they select the targ Target they blast blast blast until it dies move it to the next one blast blast blast until it dies and you just keep doing that in every combat encounter and you're actually doing really good damage as a warlock now on the flip side one of the things that I found with it is that I was playing a sorlock in B G3 and there was a lot of times where I could have cast hex or I could have quickened to spell and cast eldrich blast again and so sometimes you do run into those situations where things are competing for your bonus action and you might be able to get more burst damage by not casting hex again and doing something else with your bonus action this this becomes more of a factor if you're multiclassing with the Warlock and it becomes less of a no-brainer but you're already at the high end of power and hex is still factoring into whatever the build is I do think that there's an argument that hex is only an a um and that you might not necessarily want to go out of your way for it I also think that there's a very strong argument that X is dependent on eldrich blast that's fair and in that regard uh s tier implies that any class should go out of their way to get it but hex but a hex blade can make good use of hex that it's anytime you hit it with an attack not when you hit it with a spell attack or a weapon attack or with elder blast it's anytime you hit with an attack I I do still think that warlocks want this spell but everybody else might not need it um I could see lowering it to an a I'm going to stick with s I'm going to stick with s too because I love it but but I could see the argument for a I also think the utility uh of the debuffing the ability check is seriously underrated and often flies under the radar but in until you see all the spells that actually require ability checks to escape from many illusion spells require an intelligence investigation check to escape from there are many spells that require a strength ability check not a strength saving throw to break out of and so you can debuff an enemy's ability to escape from these Effects by using hex very worthwhile to bear in mind in those sort of situations finishing off today's episode we are looking at the one and only Hunter Mark available for Rangers and oath of Vengeance paladins Hunter Mark is the natural twin of hex so a lot of the same principles apply bonus action to cast D6 extra damage lasts longer depending on the level of the spell slot you're using to cast it with it is worth noting that Hunter's Mark is not hit with an attack it is hit with a weapon attack so in some respects it's a little weaker you also get the advantage on your ability to track the target of your Hunter bark you can kind of follow it longer afterwards but I feel like if you're in a situation where you Hunters marked someone you really wanted them to be dead I I do think that Hunter Mark has a lot of the same benefits as hex and so I don't think we need to give a big speech on how all of those work we just did with hex but I do think that it falls mildly weaker than hex I actually find that more likely again like hex at early levels goto spell you should absolutely take it as you get to higher levels unlike Tex which becomes a maybe it's the right choice maybe there's another concentration spell I think Hunter's Mark actually does fall off and you want to focus on other concentration spells and other features and I think this is actually why hex is the S tier and Hunter's Mark for me is the a yes because I think that if you don't have access to the spell already you're probably going to want to grab hex instead of Hunter mark because I think that hex's secondary effect and the fact that it works on any attack not just weapon attacks kind of gives it the edge but I do think that Hunters Mark is an absolute pickup for Rangers yeah and uh and if you're an oath of Vengeance Paladin it can be really fun as well yeah and I want to kind of close that up by saying that like hex Hunter's Mark and divine favor are all like the Warlock the Paladin the ranger this is all their choose a Target or get extra damage on your attack spells and it's very interesting to see how they all stacked up um because hex is amazing Divine favor much less so I think Divine favor suffers from the fact that it's only a D4 by comparison to the D6 of the others which is only one damage but that adds up because it's applying to every single attack and you see how with things like hex and eldrich blast that D6 across the multiple blasts is really adding up I will also say that the same problem applies with the oath of Vengeance Paladin with Hunter's Mark where I took it on my oath of Vengeance Paladin that I played for the entire campaign and I still would just used my spell slot to Smite most of the time rather than cast Hunter's Mark yeah so it was kind of you do have to weigh that decision with with there and especially if you're playing something like a hex blade where you might have the eldrich Smite you're always going to have to weigh these spells I think it it comes back to that point we made earlier about the sorlock is that do you want the sustained damage over the course of the battle and do you want to have the element that this spell lasts a really long time you know that that's kind of the other knock against Divine favor it only lasts for one minute whereas hex and Hunters Mark they get the increased duration they last for an hour as a Baseline and so you can take those through multiple encounters where you can't take Divine favor through multiple encounters and so ultimately for me I think that there must have spells within their classes but I think that hex hex is the best hex is the best Hunter's Mark is pretty good and Define favor is not worth it yeah the Divine favor is the one that you just want to skip so all of that to say I I'm giving Hunters mark an a yeah me too and uh that kind of that that wraps up this section of first level spells for us um I think that there were a lot of actually really good spells in this episode uh in comparison we gave out a lot of A's and a lot of s's yeah uh and I think we we got to see some of the best first level pickups available for their respective classes yeah the uh H the H's good job H yeah h letter of the day healing word today's episode is brought to you by the letter H should H be like our new SS tier no no uh if you've enjoyed any of these spells or you want to yell at us for the rankings we gave let us know in the comments below the videos on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we do please consider becoming a patron of our show where you can talk to us about our rankings on our Patron only Discord server the links are down in the description below and if you want to see us using a bunch of these spells in an actual play Campaign you can check out our actual play in the worlds of draai which is Tuesday evenings on Twitch you can find all the previous episodes right up over here and hey we got tons of more ranking videos that you can check out if you're doing the YouTube binge all over here please subscribe to our Channel like this video and ring that Bell so that you never miss an episode thanks so much for watching we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 77,386

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: SjHL1pL1X-g

Length: 64min 50sec (3890 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 31 2023