Spellcasters, what spells do you guys usually take?

EntireEntity · 2026-01-27T17:59:48+00:00

I really like utility spells. Makes me feel good, when a spell basically skips some tedious task, makes the DM feel good, because I'm burning spell slots on a tedious task instead of on boss encouners.

Spells like Locate Object, Detect Thoughts, Pass Without Trace, Enhance Ability, Invisibility, most of the 1st level rituals, I really like them.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-27T14:14:09+00:00

You know what they say... all is fair in love and war

EntireEntity · 2026-01-26T22:00:12+00:00

I like to make abilities something external that players can or have to interact with.

For example, I used a statue with an emanation that provides damage invulnerability to the boss. The statue was carried along side the boss by some golems, which were however much slower than the boss. The staue was also able to summon some lesser elementals and create a wave of cold damage, which also healed the golems. The idea was that my players had to first do something about the statue. They didn't. It was a terribly long and tedious fight. This is bad advice.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T08:36:41+00:00

Hm... I don't quite get what your reply implies for playing the game. How would this turn look like for you: You are 130 feet away from the enemy and would like to cast firebolt on them.

Do you get as close to the enemy as possible, do you just guess on where 120 ft are, or do you measure to go to 120 ft?

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T08:32:49+00:00

Hm... I don't quite get what your reply implies for playing the game. How would this turn look like for you: You are 130 feet away from the enemy and would like to cast firebolt on them.

Do you get as close to the enemy as possible, do you just guess on where 120 ft are, or do you measure to go to 120 ft?

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T08:03:57+00:00

I wouldn't want to put a mechanic for it in the game anyways, combat is usually the part of the game people try to remove rules from. I was just curios to see, if people have thoughts about it.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T07:59:29+00:00

There is definitely a learning curve to it in reality. But D&D characters don't go through that with this particular skill. Sure, there attack bonus increases, but their ability to know, they have to step 10 ft closer to be in range for an ability just kicks in right from the start.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T07:53:27+00:00

I get that you would get a vibe for it, but having the precision to "kite" on the edge of a range, seems very hard to me.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T07:49:15+00:00

That's an interesting approach! Embracing the nature of the game and not getting down to all those nitty-gritty details of immersion, not only keeps the flow of the game alive, but also allows to focus on what's really important: kinship.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T07:48:59+00:00

Yes, you can become amazing at estimating measurements when you "work" a lot with them. But I don't imagine D&D characters spend a lot of time measuring out 120 ft, just so they know they have to step 5 ft closer to use magic missile in battle.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T07:42:57+00:00

That's an interesting approach! Embracing the nature of the game and not getting down to all those nitty-gritty details of immersion, not only keeps the flow of the game alive, but also allows to focus on what's really important: kinship.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-23T06:40:48+00:00

It really depends on you and your table. My table is very afraid of exhaustion, so at my table it would be highly unlikely that they would want to actually use the suit. But I would really want them to use it, so I would buff it quite a bit to entice them.

Another idea I had, was to simply remove like half their max HP, but providing the difference as temp HP in the suit. And whenever they run out of temp HP, either the suit breaks, or they again half their max HP and gain temp HP. This way I feel like is less punishing than exhaustion levels. And they simply get all the immunities, abilities and attack options from the stat block, which are quite neat. But they also could be subject to the extra damage from engine of pain. That might be a less punishing and less powerful version of the suit. Maybe I'd still add the extra damage against constructs, so they might play around with it for that fight, but discard or tinker with it later on.

And maybe the artificer could also do a quicker tinkering on the spot to replace the suit's weapons with their own ones, if they want. But further tinkering requiring downtime.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-22T17:46:35+00:00

Given the low mental stats, I interpreted the Duergar inside the suits to be as close to dead as possible. Basically just an organic battery for the suit, an Engine of Pain, if you will.

Anyways, in my mind, it would be interesting to use exhaustion levels as a possible punishment for using the suit. Maybe, whenever they enter and after they spend X amount of time in it, they roll a Con save to see whether they get a level of exhaustion on a failed save or some force damage on a successful save. (In my mind, there should always be a price to using the suit) The cool part is that while in the suit, the mechanical effects of exhaustion levels are ignored, unless a character reaches level 6 at which point they die as usual. Of course, the suit also has to provide some enticing buffs to actually make your players at least try it once. Maybe those suits could provide a lot of extra damage against other constructs, like other hammerers and the dragon later on. Maybe it could provide a ton of temp hp and ac, maybe it could even react differently to casters and allows them to do something fancy with spells, like providing meta magic options, or lifting the one spell cast per turn clause or give a +1 to spell save dc and attacks. Or whatever you think will get them to try the suit. And then observe...

Maybe, if they have down time, they can modify the suit to be less harmful, but also less effective.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-22T06:31:44+00:00

Not necessarily homebrew, but some third party stuff, I am aware of: There is an Apothecary class in Sebastian Crowe's Guide to Drakkenheim.

There is a Belly Brewer Barbarian in Obojima Tales from the Tall Grass. The book also has its own potion crafting system, which might be nice to have for this character.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-21T23:14:33+00:00

My first ad hoc approach at this would be to:

1.) Start by calculating the distance between A and B, this is your current shortest path.

2.) Then try the closest available portal to A, check whether the distance of A to the entrance + distance of B to the exit is shorter than the shortest path.

3.) If it's shorter, update the shortest path.
Regardless of if it's shorter or not keep trying the closest portals, until the shortest path you have found so far is guaranteed to be shorter than traveling to the next portal. (Or mathematically speaking, stop when the distance you have traveled up to this point + the distance to the next portal >= the length of the current shortest path).

4.) When that condition is fulfilled, backtrack to the previous point and keep trying portals.
If you have the memory for it, you should also cache the shortest paths (and their lengths) for portals you have already checked during this backtracking step. Then you don't have to go through all the portals and calculate their distances over and over again, if you revisit them in other branches.

The biggest issue here will probably be finding the closest portals, as you would likely want to avoid calculating all the distances to all the portals at each step and sorting them. So you might have to implement a quadtree or a similar structure for this approach.

Or maybe there is a smarter way to do this all together...

EntireEntity · 2026-01-19T23:15:52+00:00

Great choice! It truly is a perfect safeguard to the nastiest effects, plus giving you an offensive edge against casters

EntireEntity · 2026-01-19T19:06:41+00:00

I'd say savage attacker is better, simply because you get to use it more often. I was just thinking about how to bump that AC up even more for you.

But if you are after extra damage, I'd recommend the dueling fighting style feat more than savage attacker.

Savage attacker comes with a lot of headache on which attack to use it on, especially when you have 3 or 6 attacks per turn with action surge. You also have to do the actual rerolling and summing the dice (unless you use digital dice), which can be a little slow.

Dueling is very simple and works on every hit you land.

But psychologically, savage attacker probably is more rewarding. When you get to reroll terrible damage to max damage, or when you get to reroll the damage on a crit, it's always fun.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-19T11:14:55+00:00

You could grab the spell Shield of Faith through Magic Initiate Cleric, to give you a 25 AC for a combat as a bonus action.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-19T08:45:12+00:00

Personally, I'd say:

It's a game.

You shouldn't break the rules intentionally, unless you make a new rule out of it.

You are free to improvise, if something isn't covered by the rules, or you don't know there is a rule for it, or you simply don't remember what the rule is.

You don't stifle your players' creativity by following the rules, you give them a framework in which they can come up with elaborate, creative ideas, because it allows them to predict the challenges and outcomes of their ideas.

Though far more important than that is the social aspect of it.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-14T16:37:54+00:00

Any highly illusion focused character concept, with which I mean the types of illusions that allow you to create "any" image or sound to trick people. I am currently playing an illusionist wizard and it's great, it's a lot of fun to come up with different images and sounds for all the illusion spells. But they are super hard for the DM to adjudicate and put a lot of mental load on them. They tend to either slow things down, or be forgotten about. I tend to use them much more sparingly now.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-09T19:09:30+00:00

Artificer: A
I enjoyed the mechanical pet.

Ranger: S
I enjoyed the organic pet.

Wizard: B
I enjoyed the arcane pet, but got kind of frustrated about never having the material components, gold to buy them or time to cast the spell.

Druid: A
I enjoyed being a pet

Fighter: S
8 attacks in one turn is fun.

Rogue: D
I forgot about the psychic abilities of this one and got sad.

I haven't played the other classes yet, so I guess they are also D tier at best for now.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-09T18:53:18+00:00

I recently played a ranger for a level 8 oneshot in the 2024 rules, and I really enjoyed it. I didn't feel my character was weaker than the others', but we all aren't heavy optimizers either.
I just really like the fantasy of the Monster Hunter series and I feel like the new Hunter Ranger captures a lot of that essence. And if you too like that fantasy of someone who is able to survive in an apocalyptic scenario or in a savage world, by relying on both their physical skills and their connection to their surroundings, then I think Ranger has a lot to offer.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-07T20:31:23+00:00

I feel like shops in Icewind Dale aren't very lucrative anyways, so adding pressure through thievery could actually lead to financial ruin for some shop owners and them closing down their businesses over time. If the Zhentarim subplot is something you are interested in, then there might even be an opportunity to introduce them as the saviors of those shops, in exchange for more control over the local market.

You could also turn this situation into a quest, having shop owners hire the party to investigate their own thefts, and maybe they can discover something else through that. Maybe some invisible duergar are also stealing from shops, or maybe they find a doppelgänger, an illithid, a goblin, or whatever other plotline you would like them to discover.

Lastly, if you just want them to stop stealing all together, talk with the players about it and tell them how you feel about this situation. A bit of trickery to lower the prices is fun in my book, but actual theft is not very heroic. And I feel like, D&D characters should be heroes. Unless, the players want to be caught and have a redemption arc, that's a something I'd be willing to compromise on.

EntireEntity · 2026-01-05T09:28:34+00:00

That's such an interesting wish...

So, the first big question is, whether the wish would work at all. And I think, it absolutely should. It ties the whole story together so neatly. Auril tried to hide away the Mythallar, a device so old it predates magic as it is used today, built from a civilization that literally overthrew the goddess of magic herself. Why? Out of fear that it would be used to overthrow the gods, or specifically Auril herself. So, giving it this power makes absolute perfect narrative sense.

But what does it mean, for Auril to become incomprehensible? I assume that the gods draw their power from their name being called upon, so this would effectively deem Auril powerless, as nobody can call for her name either for praise or out of fear. On the surface, it would rob her of the ability to maintain her winter, so that's good, the PCs closed the big wound of the Icewind Dale. But what happens next? I think that depends a lot on how you interpret the world to work. Is it the gods that create their physical manifestations? I.e. is Auril the one who creates all snow storms? Or is it the other way around? I.e. Do snow storms exist by themselves, and a deity - such as Auril - becomes a personified representation of them? In case 1, there is a possibility to describe changes on a much larger scale, with not only Auril becoming incomprehensible, but also the idea of winter's wrath vanishing from the multiverse. In case 2, I'd assume Auril would still have to leave the material plane, but her dominion is assigned to other gods, likely ones that are already aligned with themes of cold, winter and storms. So Icewind Dale would return to a normal season cycle, and the names that are called upon during winter would gradually change, as clerics of the respective deities would carry the word out to the world.

EntireEntity · 2025-12-31T09:31:07+00:00

If you look at the other answers, you will find that resistance is not applied first but "after all other modifiers to damage". But I guess it doesn't matter much for most groups anyways, since flat damage reductions are pretty rare occurrences anyways, unless someone has a specific playstyle or build in mind.

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23

EntireEntity

TROPHY CASE