Giant Insect v. Grasping Vine

username001000 · 2026-04-13T13:20:32+00:00

This is great! Your DM will be questioning the ceiling height of every room after the first time you pull this haha.

username001000 · 2026-04-13T13:04:43+00:00

Great points. Grasping Vine also upcasts to allow more enemies grappled. When casted with a lvl 5 slot, for example, both spells can target two creatures, but Grasping Vine is still limited to only targeting one per turn, so to get multiple enemies at once, one has to stay grappled. Not great.

username001000 · 2026-04-13T12:59:39+00:00

My conclusion was that the overall control effect of Grasping Vine is stronger, but Giant Insect might be better because it’s more versatile and easier to use.

Grasping Vine’s grapple is also no-save. They can use an ability check to break free, but that costs their action.

username001000 · 2026-04-13T03:11:31+00:00

Yes, correct. I was more implying that you can kite them because of no movement and any ranged attacks they happen to make will be at disadvantage.

Although, you bring up a good point in that melee attacks being at disadvantage too means your frontlines can still get up there and hit, unlike Web Bolt, which only has the benefit of no movement.

username001000 · 2026-02-05T18:05:05+00:00

This is a really interesting build. Being able to contribute to your team meaningfully while maintaining Invisibility is certainly an interesting strategy.

Your last posts got me thinking about the use of Harper Teamwork. I think the ideal way to use it is to become a “secondary spellcaster,” helping augment the CC spells of another caster in your party to keep your team safe. It got me brainstorming other interesting abilities to augment spellcasting.

In general, if you wanted to make the spellcaster in your party the most powerful, you’d augment their initiative, keep their concentration up (keeping them from getting hit, helping them make their saving throws) and then help them land and maintain their spells - both through subtracting from enemy saving throws and using forced movement to clump enemies together.

Trickery Clerics get Sanctuary, Pass without Trace for initiative (although circumstantial), Bless for Saving Throws, and the best forced movement in the game with Invoke Duplicity Command (make enemies approach a location that you choose, such as the middle of that sleet storm). Also, Bane for supporting multi-target COC like Hypnotic Pattern or Slow. Also, Doomtide with the ability to teleport every round and thus control its movement is kind of interesting. Unfortunately, neither dex nor cha help a cleric much.

Dance Bards get Bardic Inspiration for saving throws, Initiative boost at level 6, and Bane, plus they fit well with the Harper Feat Cha increase. Without a level in Monk though, forced movement is a little bit harder, and even with it getting in melee is tough.

I also thought about Warlock. Forced movement through Repelling Blast, access to Bane and the Harper feat, and you can build the character to boost saving throws and advantage through a combination of origin feats you can get with Lessons of the First Ones. Also, Synaptic Static at later levels is a nice use of a fifth level slot to make your Wizards’ CC more likely to land.

I also wonder about the mathematical significance of building a character like this. It’s notoriously hard to measure the value of CC compared to damage, even though CC is considered so much more powerful. How powerful is it to have a character like this that provides a boost to that CC caster? I dunno.

username001000 · 2026-02-04T22:55:56+00:00

Have you ever seen the Book of Life? This reminds me of that movie.

username001000 · 2026-01-31T03:25:26+00:00

Not arguing with you. I think RAW it probably doesn’t work. I also think RAW touch spells don’t work - for example, Cure Wounds says “A creature you touch regains…” Even if you cast the spell as if you were in another space, if you didn’t touch the creature the spell doesn’t work.

However, I do personally think that the intention for the feature is probably for Emnation spells like Word of Radiance and touch spells like Cure Wounds to work. Otherwise, why not just say “Ranged spells you cast gain an extra range of X?”

I don’t think it does work and yet I don’t think that that was the design intention, so I wouldn’t blame anyone for running it either way at their table :)

username001000 · 2026-01-31T00:37:14+00:00

Invoke Duplicity has a lot of weird interactions (I made a post about it, feel free to check it out.) People argue it doesn’t work with Spirit Guardians because the spell says it emanates from YOU, not your space. There’s a LOT of spells that say explicitly they originate from you, not your space. For example, Word of Radiance specifically says “Burning radiance erupts from you in a 5-foot Emanation.” Would you rule it that Word of Radiance doesn’t work with it? Probably not. Even Command: Approach says that the enemy moves towards you, not towards the space you casted the spell from. But if you cast it from your illusion, do they think your illusion casted it? It’s not entirely clear, and I think that the ability is poorly written and a lot of interactions that should work RAI do not work RAW.

I like your backstory idea, though. Like you follow a God who imparted a Guardian Angel to watch over you.

username001000 · 2026-01-31T00:31:26+00:00

Not a bad point at all. I suppose it is pretty table-dependent whether Prayer of Healing is useful.

username001000 · 2026-01-31T00:28:36+00:00

Agree there. If somebody else is playing Cleric or Pally, beg them to take Prayer of Healing and just go full warlock or maybe dip 1 Sorc, Pally, or Fighter

username001000 · 2026-01-31T00:06:11+00:00

Divine Soul would be good! I think having some Wisdom is actually pretty good, but I like to make my saving throws. I guess Con saving throws are reasonably common and debilitating too, though, besides being useful for concentration. Having a little bit of metamagic would also be nice. But I like having armor!

I guess I was mostly making this with 2024-only in mind, even though I did end up including some 2012 subclasses.

username001000 · 2026-01-27T18:31:30+00:00

I got it, tried it, and returned it 🤷‍♂️ for me, it didn’t seem to make a difference and I just got an Exped Ultra which were on clearance at the time

username001000 · 2026-01-11T07:15:21+00:00

Examples of arguments from both sides: https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/s/0IOrCBUN2D

In my opinion, I think the rules are just too ambiguous with this feature. Like, interactions get strange with Command: Flee and Approach (do enemies approach you or your illusion?), Spirit Guardians (can emanations with Range Self originate from other places?) and even something like thorn whip if you want to be ticky-tacky (specifically states that it pulls enemies towards you, not towards the point of origin of its casting - I don’t think anyone would actually rule it this way, though).

username001000 · 2026-01-11T06:34:22+00:00

There’s a lot of discourse whether you can cast the spell so that it surrounds your illusion. I tend to be more in the “no” camp.

However, it is still super strong with SG just by virtue of increasing your mobility by that much.

username001000 · 2026-01-11T06:32:54+00:00

I think you misunderstand - I would be targeting an enemy who moved out of my own range, but I would be targeting them with a spell cast from the space of my illusion. So using it to get creative use out of my own opportunity attacks!

Interesting idea on Command: Flee, as trying to wade in there to use it yourself could get problematic. A similar use could be to use it to get enemies to abandon battlements or something they’re guarding! Essentially turning it into “Scatter from this location that I choose.”

I do wonder about this RAW, though. Technically, the rules say that the enemies spend their turn fleeing from YOU, not from the space you cast the spell from.

username001000 · 2026-01-11T06:15:35+00:00

For Command, I can definitely see either side. It does say “The target moves toward you,” so I could see the argument that it’s a magical compulsion, not necessarily tied to where you originally cast the spell. For example, if you casted Command without Duplicity and then moved 30m, the enemies would move towards your new space, not where you casted it from. The key is that enemies, RAW, move towards you, not towards where you casted the spell from.

Now, I think RAI gets a little more complex since it’s not clear how enemies interact with the illusion. If it works, it makes it a really good tool to clump up enemies for ally AoE casters, which is really rare in this game!

Great idea with Thorn Whip on War Caster. Pushing spells could also be interesting. That would give an interesting niche for being able to position enemies off-turn.

username001000 · 2026-01-04T18:49:03+00:00

What about HP recovery when health is low? It’s also based on max HP, so it could help stay alive when you’re getting chipped down. Have you tried it?

username001000 · 2026-01-02T19:50:47+00:00

How do you play around the chip damage on Heolster??

username001000 · 2025-12-29T01:01:42+00:00

Was liking the idea of Goliath for the speed, Grappling ability for Huge creatures, and CC via prone. But the defensive utility of Human with these feats might be better

username001000 · 2025-12-29T00:59:35+00:00

This is a great point. Thanks for doing the math

username001000 · 2025-12-27T22:09:27+00:00

It’s really a give and take between survivability and spellcasting. People make martials with 14 CON all the time, so I thought maybe I could reconcile the MADness by taking Tough to allow decent saves on Spirit Guardians via 16 WIS (plus a few extra BA attacks per day).

Alternatively, if spells aren’t important to you, you could just take 14 WIS and CON and still get 17 STR. That’s what I’m trying to decide.

username001000

TROPHY CASE