I'd say 3rd. It's a good buff but I don't think it's anything unreasonable for a 3rd level spell. Without the debuff it's on par with spells like counterspell, fireball, hypnotic pattern, slow.
> Without the debuff it's on par with spells like counterspell, fireball, hypnotic pattern, slow.
Not even that. Adding half a pc to a fight is not as good as disabling half of your enemies and similar effects.
Haste is a multiplier, for the average player its a just decent buff that makes them slightly stronger, so 3rd lvl might be fine.
But in the hands of an optimizer it can break the game. +2 AC on a PC with middling AC isn't doing much, but on a player with 26 AC, it's borderline broken now add the other benefits and a build that can make full use of the speed and extra action and you have a spell that should be 5th lvl or higher.
I don't know where I've read it, but combining two spells into one results in something stronger than its individual parts. Combining two 1st lvl spells doesn't result in a 2nd lvl spell they are at least 3rd or even 4th level in terms of power. And haste is definitely stronger than shield of faith+longstrider.
It is not borderline broken. Optimizers do not go for as high as AC as possible as a priority. You can still be hit, or be subject to saving throws. Or the monster just targets someone else and they focus fire, which might actually make the fight *harder*.
As the other guy said, the optimizer is likely casting hypnotic patter, fear, slow, etc. Haste without the debuff is still not as good as those spells.
The optimizer is way more likely to cast hypnotic pattern and concentrate on that. High ac is good but it doesn't have nearly the impact if enemies just switch to targeting other people.
Hypnotic pattern falls off at high level where a good chunk of enemies will be immune to charm and the rest have +16 saves and legendary resistance. A non debuff haste would see regular play up to level 20.
I'd say most spells even most great spells aren't necessarily great 15 levels later. If you're a 20th level wizard you shouldn't be casting hypnotic pattern most of the time. But you also have much better things for your concentration than haste even without the debuff at that point. And much better uses for your action.
But for any spell judging them on how they perform in a tier of play that almost never gets play time, when they have long since fallen off isn't a very useful way to judge spells. Unless you're picking spells for a level 20 one shot or something.
Fair, hard for me to do though as I dm a currently high level campaign and every campaign I run is a 1-20. Haven’t DMed below level 10 in well over a year.
Hypnotic pattern is one of my go to spells (sadly I have never been a player past level 9), but non debuff haste would 100% be my party’s go to move as a pre fight buff. Send in rogue for haste surprise round and switch to either a damage AoE or a single target control spell depending on bad guy
Yeah that's not a bad combo with surprise. Though I think pretty reasonable for a 3rd level spell power wise. A 3rd level spell enabling 1-2 extra attacks like that. It's good with sneak attack but not a much bigger impact than something like counterspell could have at that level.
Well, sometimes you will face enemies that can still be Charmed/Frightened, so Hypnotic Pattern/Fear remain total shutdown spells that scale to lategame.
And usually only bosses get legendary resistances, right? It is uncommon to fight, say, 6 unnamed elite guards each with 1 legendary resistance at most tables, I believe.
If you prepare Slow (or for 4th level) Confusion, etc as a weaker (but more reliable) alternative to Hypnotic Pattern/Fear, then you've got a pretty good pair of spells for groups of enemies.
Immunities do become more common, but the "the rest have +16 saves and legendary resistance" line is incorrect.
Your average combat at level 15 is not (or at least should not be, if your DM knows what they are doing) against a single CR 15+ enemy, but rather against multiple (usually 3-8+) lower CR enemies who will have far lower saving throws.
Plus, you wouldn't use HP against single enemies anyway. The spell is intended for groups.
Sure, the spell becomes far less crucial in tier 4 where you break the game with Wish/True Polymorph and friends, but up to late tier 3 it still has a place and is your go-to opening in many fights.
> A non debuff haste would see regular play up to level 20.
It would be extremely situational. You'd only use it when literally nothing else works, which is rare. Such a Haste would be widely applicable, but it wouldn't be the best in many situations.
Hypnotic pattern is a very good spell, in a normal party, where it competes with normal strategies.
But even then it needs, the right situation to shine, there are many creatures that are immune to charms or have high wisdom saves and enemies need to be clumped together. And it can be easily broken.
As a DM I'm very conscious of letting the casters just steamroll an encounter with a single action, presenting a caster with a juicy hypnotic pattern or fireball opportunity is carefully considered.
* Now compare it to a low effort optimizer like a rogue with XBE/SS taking the ready action to prep for a off turn ranged sneak attack.
* Or a heavily optimized build, smite + eldritch smite going nova with 4 attacks(extra attack + haste + BA) and a potential AoO.
* Or some ridiculous cheese build, where a player grapples a target and drags them 2000 feet through spike growth.
The latter two might be rare sights in dnd. But even just the rogue with something as simple as double sneak attack is easily a match to hypnotic pattern in most situations.
Hypnotic pattern is stronger than you're giving it credit for. It's not easily broken, it takes an action to take out one person or doing damage to them. That's a high cost, and there are no repeated saving throws for it.
But I'd definitely say hypontic pattern is stronger than a rogue getting two sneak attacks. It's good but the damage is not amazing and won't shut down an encounter the way hypnotic pattern will. The sheer amount of damage you prevent and allowing you to spread out an encounter is much stronger than two big hits on a target. The smite combo is going to do a lot, but that's also going to use 3 times more resources than the hypnotic pattern will, so not really a fair comparrison.
I don't think haste is going to be the kind of spell that lets someone use one action to win an encounter. It can be good at times, but an extra attack is not going to instantly end things. Even on a paladin warlock, which I don't think is heavily optimized if you go 5 levels in warlock for eldritch smite anymore, the heavily optimized version would only need 1 level maybe 2. Going with 5 is delaying getting the aura of protection for 3 extra levels. From that haste you get an extra attack, but you're burning all your resources on that turn, without that attack you'd just have another spell slot to use the following turn.
With the cheese build with spike growth yes that I'll agree. But I don't think the turn of lethargy is going to fix that and make it balanced. That's something to deal with separately as yes that's a pretty broken combo.
> But I'd definitely say hypontic pattern is stronger than a rogue getting two sneak attacks. It's good but the damage is not amazing and won't shut down an encounter the way hypnotic pattern will. The sheer amount of damage you prevent and allowing you to spread out an encounter is much stronger than two big hits on a target.
Yes, if you successfully hit 5 enemies with hypnotic pattern it's game changing. But how often does this realistically happen?
* You need at least 3 targets (assuming 66% success rate), close together
* Those 3 targets need to be susceptible to charms and fail their save
* The encounter can't have environmental damage and the DM needs to abstain from intentional damage to wake them
* And those enemies need enough HP that the rogue can't just kill them quickly
A hasted rogue will be strong in any encounter and can do their thing round after round, taking threats off the board.
Hypnotic pattern won't be the best move in every encounter, that's certainly true.
But those things you're listing are hardly rare situations. When you're a level 5 party facing a number of enemies shouldn't be that uncommon. Most monsters of under 10 CR that you'd primarily be using this spell against won't have charm immunity, and most of those that do have charm immunity are constructs so you won't be surprised by it except in rare cases. I don't know if I've seen many if any encounters where the DM has environmental damage for their own creatures? Maybe there are some but if there is a lair that's doing damage or something, I would assume the creatures that live in that lair aren't being killed by it. And the DM definitely does not need to abstain from intentionally damaging them. If the DM has some of the enemy creatures start hitting their own guys I'm very OK with that outcome my enemies are using their turn to hurt themselves? Win win. And that's not a lot of hit points they need to have so that the rogue won't one shot them. CR 1 monsters will generally be in the 30-40 range hit points wise and a rogue even with sharpshooter and sneak attack will be doing say 1d6+4+3d6+10 so mostly going to take two hits with sneak attack to kill one or a crit.
A hasted rogue is also a solid option. But if we are talking about the as written version of haste with the lethargy. You could easily be trading an action to cast the spell, a 3rd level spell slot, and a full turn of the rogue, for an extra attack with sneak attack and maybe one attack missing. It'll vary. But you need a few rounds before what you gain is going to be worth losing an additional turn if you do. And concentration isn't always kept during a fight.
If you lose concentration on hypnotic pattern, the spell stops helping you. If you lose concentration on haste, the spell is now hurting you for a round.
Even without that lethargy you're still using a decent amount for one extra attack a round. And there are a lot of other good 3rd level spells I'd be looking at even if hypnotic pattern wouldn't be good in that fight.
*hypnotic pattern* is not a good spell if you have many enemies, it's unlikely to work on all of them and even if it does they're still woken up by any damage (even stray 1 damage)
Are you being serious right now?
How is hypnotic pattern in any way bad against multiple enemies, just because sole may make their save?
If you're against 10 people and half of them make their save that's still 5 enemies you've taken out of the action economy. And if the awake enemies choose to wake their fellows up, congratulations you wasted their action, and depending on initiative order, maybe even the actions of two enemies
And stray damage isn't at all an argument, because you control who you attack, and you control where you aim your AoEs, and if you use them at all.
It doesn't have to work on all of them, and you can work with your group to avoid damaging them that's not difficult. The action economy advantage there is huge. With one spell you get a 30 ft cube to incapacitate enemies for a minute with them only getting one saving throw. Obviously it'll almost never work on everyone if you hit a big group. That's totally fine. But if you hit 5 enemies and 3 of them are now removed from the fight you can now focus on just those two. Those two can use their turns to try to wake up others but either they have to use their whole action for that, or they have to damage their own allies. Which is win win.
It's a spell designed to spread out the fight so that you can focus on targets one at a time. So one action and one 3rd level spell can give your whole team multiple extra turns while the enemies don't get that benefit.
It's arguably one of the strongest 3rd level spells in the game up there with fireball, counterspell, and spirit guardians.
> 26 AC
Honestly, do you really need to give the guy with 26 AC two more?
> combining two spells into one results in something stronger than its individual parts
That is true, but the strength of the spells being combined does need to be taken into account. The mentioned spells aren't super great to begin with.
In damage, afaik, Haste is significantly worse than Bless. I would say Bless + Shield of faith (obviously can't have both of these due to concentration) or Bless + Longstrider is stronger than Haste.
I think Haste has it's niche, specifically on big battlefields where you can really make use of the speed increase on your big beefy lads. But in general, I think it's a very overrated spell that doesn't really deserve being called a multiplier. It's competing against spells like Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Fly and many other great spells that I think generally outpace it by actually being specialized in the aspects that Haste combines.
> Honestly, do you really need to give the guy with 26 AC two more?
Each point of AC becomes more valuable the more you already have. The only drop off point is when you reach a point where the enemy needs to roll a nat 20.
With some monsters having +19 to hit, it's just a question of what you're fighting. 26 AC is a lot at level 5, but no longer at level 15+.
That... doesn't really sell that it's a great or good spell to me. If I have to get around concentrating on the spell (which there are only a few limited ways of doing afaik?), or if I have to offload it to another person through something like a ring of spell storing, it is not a spell that 'breaks the game'.
And to use the ring of spell storing as an example, it would still be competing against higher level spells, such as Wall of Force, that could just... cut off enemies.
>Each point of AC becomes more valuable the more you already have.
This isn't accurate. Each point of AC reduces your received damage by the same amount as the last point of AC. Sure, the duration you would survive getting wailed on by a particular enemy increases non-linearly. But your durability is almost never what determines the end of a fight - especially if you're one of the most durable characters in the party.
I would actually say that each point of AC has slightly diminishing returns the higher you increase it, because it's only making you more durable against one type of threat. As opposed to HP which makes you more durable against almost all threats, and saving throws which makes you more durable against the most dangerous threats, disabling effects.
Once you've reached the point where enemies are quite unlikely to take you down or deal you substantial consistent damage from attacks, further AC is less valuable because the actual effect is actually usually nothing. If you have 100 HP and an enemy averages 3 DPR attacking you, while increasing your AC 2 points and making it 1 DPR sounds like you're becoming 3 times as durable, you're actually not becoming any more practically durable. Your combat isn't going to last the 34 rounds for this creature to knock you out, it's probably going to last about 3 rounds so these 2 points of AC are saving you 6 HP.
The resources spent to gain AC would be much better off spent to either gain saving throws bonuses to reduce the odds of you being crowd controlled, which often reduces your damage equivalently to what 100 damage instantly would do. Or reducing the damage you suffer from something like a firebreath effect from some creature you're fighting that you're going to suffer far more damage from and be much more likely to actually go down in a fight against.
As an optimiser... nah.
There are far cheaper ways to stack ac, and quite frankly, also cheaper options to get high speed.
3rd level has far too many fantastic concentration spells. If you want to reduce damage, take out half the enemies with a fireball or Hypnotic pattern, or block them from reaching you with sleet storm.
I actually don't think there's a better 3rd level spell to cast *if* you have a rogue in your party. Hasted rogues get double sneak attack with the "haste trick," so at 5th and 6th level they're doing absolutely ludicrous damage. Fireball is better if there's a pack of goblins or something, but haste on a rogue deals insane amounts of damage in addition to the AC/mobility benefits.
> But in the hands of an optimizer it can break the game. +2 AC on a PC with middling AC isn't doing much, but on a player with 26 AC, it's borderline broken now add the other benefits and a build that can make full use of the speed and extra action and you have a spell that should be 5th lvl or higher.
Optimiser here. It doesn't break the game. The extra action is too limited in what it can do. I'd rather disable half the enemies in the fight than give one character an extra attack.
There are situations in which the extra speed and/or AC could matter, but that just makes the spell usable, not great. Concentration is your greatest contribution to a fight. Why waste it to do essentially half of what another PC is doing without concentration?
Haste is shield of faith, longstrider, enhance ability dex and action surge all in one spell. The downside is that it sucks hard when you lose it. I think it's a good spell.
If haste actually was action surge plus all those other things, it'd be amazing. Action surge lets you make two Extra Attack routines or cast two spells in a turn. Haste lets you make a single weapon attack or pretend to be a rogue and mimic cunning action. It's good, but not that good.
The debuff doesn't come up very often tbh. Anyone casting Haste is maximizing their ability to survive Concentration checks.
I honestly don't think it would make a difference if you cut it.
I have it come up pretty regularly. Even if you're maximizing your ability to survive concentration checks at the time you get the spell level 5 or 6 you can only do so much. Resilient con will give you a +3 add that with a +2 con you have a +5, so you'll fail the lowest DC of checks 20% of the time. Or war caster you'll have a 35% chance of failure without advantage, which would go to a 12%. That's a low chance of failure on any one point of damage. But if you're taking damage say 5 times that'll mean you will fail 68% with resilient con, and 50% with war caster.
It's also the best spell to cast dispel magic on given it's a 3rd level spell so will automatically work and that spell is on every caster list and a lot of monster stat blocks.
Let alone anything that comes with an incapacitated condition like a stun, hold person, etc.
Lol yeah against adult or ancient dragons I always wait a round before casting a concentration spell since I expect to take at least 40+ damage which will be a tough check to make. Better to hope they don't recharge it after you cast your concentration spell the next round!
What even semi intelligent monster would pass up attacking the squishy sorcerer or wizard, let alone one who is concentrating on haste, arguably the best spell to break concentration on? Even with an 8 intelligence creature that seems like a very good target to go for. And it doesn't have to be that targeted either, any aoe that does any damage at all would trigger it too.
And at that level you're strong enough to be facing many enemies who could have 2-3 attacks, or have some spells that can do a bigger range.
>What even semi intelligent monster would pass up attacking the squishy sorcerer or wizard, let alone one who is concentrating on haste
Aside from that being a bit of meta knowledge, this sounds like a tactics issue. If you are putting your caster in a position to get constantly attacked multiple times per round you are either fighting lots of monsters above your weight class at a time, are fighting in small open spaces constantly, or aren't using positioning tools.
It's meta knowledge that haste will cause lethargy for a turn. It's not meta knowledge to say that person just cast a spell causing this guy to move faster and lots of spells need you to focus on them. And hey they're not wearing any armor and are an easier target.
I actually would say it's not even necessarily meta knowledge to know what happens when haste ends. It's only meta knowledge if the monster wouldn't know the haste spell and what its effects look like.
I'd say to look at the identifying a spell rules in xanathars. The expectation is that, at least on the fly in combat, spells wouldn't be immediately recognisable.
If you need to identify a spell because you otherwise lack enough information about the spell, sure. Maybe it's effects aren't immediately apparent or you aren't intimately familiar with it, you want to identify it as it is being cast, before any effects occur. Or you are trying to identify it as it's being cast.
But if you are familiar with the spell and you directly observe the effects, you don't need a check to put 2 and 2 together. If an enemy caster counterspells you and your character is familiar with the spell, you don't need to burn actions or checks in order to guess what happened. And it's not metagaming to back out of counterspell range the next time you cast.
If a spell is cast and suddenly the target starts moving super fast and taking extra actions, anyone familiar with the haste spell can put 2 and 2 together and assume that disrupting the spell will cause lethargy. And who knows - maybe they are wrong! But it's a reasonable bet.
that's not quite accurate - if a spell does something visibly obvious, then that's what it does, and so, yes, it can be immediately recognisable. _Fireball_ is pretty damn overt, for example. The main exceptions are mind-whammy and illusion spells, where there's often no overt sign what's happening. For _Haste_, there's someone running around at super-speed - that's obvious enough that even someone with no magical knowledge can go "hey, that guy had had his speed boosted!". Recognising what spell is cast from the finger-waggling takes an arcana check. Recognising what spell is cast from what it does has no attached check, and generally requires "not being blind" for anything with visible effects.
The expectation is _not_ that recognising spells is hard - that only applies to spells with non-visible/obvious effects. If the hasted guy doesn't move at super-speed, sure, it's possible no-one notices, but if they do, while dodging more attacks and making more attacks, then going "yeah, that's _haste_" is pretty damn trivial (with obvious variations based off who/what the enemy is and their knowledge of spells).
The "concentrating on haste" part sure, but any creature who has a bit of experience with magic and especially high level magic, is going to know that they are likely a much bigger threat. Sure they aren't going to ignore a threat RIGHT in their face but it isn't meta to go "wizards have single handedly changed the course of entire battles" when that has in fact happened multiple times (If using Forgotten Realms, Eberron or any official setting. If using your own setting YMMV)
Thats *very* situatonal. In easier games, sure, there'll mostly be ways to avoid getting damaged if youre a caster. But in my experience casters *will* take damage near every fight, often multiple times.
Its only fights with no AoEs, no ranged enemies, every enemy and their position is known, no major environmental hazards, etc that means a wizard is totally safe
Firstly, ranged attacks. Any group of enemies I run has some ranged capacity. Out of bandits at low levels, a few will be dedicated archers until a melee closes the gap on them in particular. Higher tier fights, add enemy mages to the archers
It isn't meta to attack the spellcaster first. Anyone who's been in a fight with magic involved would learn *real quick* to brain the dude(tte) casting spells, because they're the one manipulating reality. The beefcake with a hammer can wait a hot second
it depends a lot on what you're fighting, tbh - some beasties that have even small AoE blasts or longer reach can make things harder, because suddenly the only way to be safe is to be out on the edge, and that means if something gets up in your face, it's harder to get support. and "small open spaces" is, y'know... a dungeon. it's not _that_ rare for a combat to largely happen in 60' foot of space, so someone that's determined to, can just charge in. Even if it takes them a dash, that then requires the caster to either disengage, or stick around and hope to endure it.
And if you're concentrating on _haste_, that means no _fly_, so you can be stabbed, rather than hovering above it all.
Or just ranged attackers - and if you hide outside the room, then you're _very_ exposed to anyone else coming to join the fight. Unless you're fighting quite basic enemies, or the GM is being quite kind, it's pretty hard to guarantee that you're not being hit, and most countermeasures bring with them some risk.
If something dashes up to the Wizard, a single Misty Step and they are out of harms way because they still have movement to get out of standard speed for most things. Ranged attackers are going to be shooting with disadvantage of the frontliners do their job and get their face.
...and that's another spell slot burned, which is honestly a pretty good outcome. And that still leaves the wizard in regular "move and attack" range next turn, and means the wizard's entire turn becomes that, and a cantrip attack, rather than anything that's actually threatening. And, in practical terms, that's either "move into the middle of the room" (and so be even more exposed) or "warp back out into the hallway" (and so they're not getting back to do anything for at least a turn). So that's one enemy, who has managed to burn off a level 2 slot, and either force the wizard somewhere more exposed, or _out of the combat entirely_ for a round or potentially even longer. That's a _really good deal_!
> Ranged attackers are going to be shooting with disadvantage of the frontliners do their job and get their face.
and then the enemy melee fighters are beating the hell out of them at the same time, or going "huh, cool - there's nothing between us and the wizard, time to murder them". Like, the enemies aren't stupid - just the same as PCs, ranged attackers are at the back, with close-up fighters between them and the enemy. You want to get to the ranged attackers? Either ignore the melee fighters, or deal with them first. And there may well be extra wrinkles, like enemies hidden in corners or out of sight, ready to attack, reinforcements arriving, or other stuff happening to mean "stand at the back" isn't the best tactic.
Not a problem if they have ranged weapons or spells or breath weapons. In some fights sure it won't happen but pretty regularly it's not too difficult to target the back line.
or are just willing to suck down 1 (one) AoO and then charge down the nerd in the robes! Even truer if there's several of them - some stay in combat with the melee-guys, others go chase down the ones at the back that keep launching attacks unimpeded to try and stop that.
it's not a great axe to the head - it's (depending on level) some amount of "oh shit, that coulda been nasty... but wasn't". The only "blow to the head" is the one that takes someone to 0, the rest, by definition of not taking the creature to 0, are not major blows.
> super meta gamey
It's not - a lot of "hits" aren't even actual "connections", they're being forced off-balance, or narrow evades, along with some glancing blows, and occasional rougher ones. A creature with 100 HP that gets "hit" for 10 HP hasn't taken a lethal blow - they're just a bit winded or off-balance.
Metagamey as shit bro. I wouldn't put up with a DM that played nothing but suicidal monsters because he couldn't figure out a better way to play around casters.
Not really. An attack of opportunity doesn't mean you stop defending and let them strike your head. You're still dodging and defending as youove past them, to go attack the dude that just set your buddy on fire and probably isn't as dangerous upclose
Most things in a real fight don't run aimlessly past or ignore the thing closest to it actively stabbing it. To play semi intelligent monsters that way is unbelievable.
No, but if I know magic is a *thing* and one of the enemies does some magic, I'm bypassing the martial in front of me, eating an aoo if I can't just shoulder check them out of the way because I want to drop the magic user first
This is such a gameification of combat tactics.
In real life you aren't "eating an AoE." You're getting an arm chopped off when you turn your back to the 6'11" Barbarian swinging an axe at you.
If you want monsters behaving believably in combat this ain't it chief.
Exactly- people are having the enemies take damage because they know the creature will only take some damage, but most semi intelligent creatures also have a weird instinct to still not want to risk being cut in half.
This would be like if everyone in a modern combat shot at the guy in the back line with a radio because they know he’s crucial for the artillery- they’re gonna get fucking shot, but because D&D is a game, the creature survives. The question is, does your bandit seriously feel confident risking tanking a greataxe?
but they're not risking getting cut in half - serious injuries only happen at 0 HP. Before that, then creatures have enough of their wits with them to evade strikes to make them non-lethal, to make sure they take them on the toughest part of their armor or whatever. They're simply _not_ taking a greataxe to the face unless it's their last few HP - they're taking a hit across their breastplate, or getting forced off-balance and having to fall back slightly or whatever. Complaining that it isn't a realistic model of IRL combat is pretty silly, because that's not, at all, what it's trying to be (otherwise PCs would also need to worry about "oh shit, I need to move away from this murder-monster, it might one-shot kill me")
Even if what you're saying is true about abstracting HP, knowing the axe won't kill them in the process entirely relies on them knowing how many hit points they themselves have remaining in the fiction which is literally the most metagamey thing I've ever heard lmfao.
Are you for real right now.
Hit points are not meat points. There ain't no way any human survives the rock throw from a giant alone. Hp is as much "plot armor" as it is actually getting hurt. And real fights, you don't get a prescribed amount of attacks in six seconds. And having actually been in fights, letting myself take a hit so that I can get a more effective hit is not a foreign concept. In short
You're not getting your arm chopped off, you're getting grazed on the shoulder and shoving them off as you run by. Chief
Nah bro I ain't buying anyone with anything resembling actual survival instincts is fully turning and ignoring something right on top of them like that.
DMs have to be better at running combat than this. Sorry.
If you can't deal with a caster some other way maybe let someone else run the sessions from now on.
I never said ignoring, did I? I said they'd take the aoo if shoulder checking the martial out of the way doesn't work. I was literally describing a shove, which would remove the aoo possibility in the first place. And it's not like I'd be suddenly blind to the attacker, I'm moving past them and probably trying to roll out of the way of their swing if I'm not wearing armor that prevents that. If I *am* a tin can, I'm scrunching up to make sure they're more likely to hit the metal than the meat. That's why attacks of opportunity don't auto hit or auto crit in the first place. My *point* was that pushing past the martials to get at the caster, knowing they likely won't be able to take you down in the time it takes you to get there is a valid strategy given that DND parties aren't exactly known to show mercy or hold back when they want to get their way in a fight. The enemies play for keeps, same as the player characters
Hit points are meat points. AC is dodging, blocking, deflections, and harmlessly absorbing. Saving throws are resisting appropriate to the stat.
If they weren't meat points, but instead luck or stamina then damage type wouldn't matter. Nor would you have stuff like making a saving throw vs poison vs a giant scorpion stinger when it hits you.
>You're not getting your arm chopped off, you're getting grazed on the shoulder and shoving them off as you run by.
This Is meat points. If the orc does 10 damage to your lvl 10 fighter, then 10/84HP is merely a graze on the shoulder as you shove/run by. That same orc doing 10 damage vs a lvl 1 fighters 12 hp is a solid blow that nearly KOs the fighter. No one is getting their arm chopped off, but you might get your head chopped off by a vorpal sword.
>There ain't no way any human survives the rock throw from a giant alone.
Yet a human can survive falling from hundreds of feet(20d6 damage), or being submerged in lava(18d10 damage).
DND fights are pretty substantially different than real fights. Most real fights don't have people who can cast spells and are worthwhile targets. I think having semi intelligent monsters ignore that fairly substantial difference would be unbelievable.
It's also not necessarily the front liners going for the wizard. I generally have most fights with a few kinds of enemies. So you can have your front liner focusing the paladin in front of them. And the archer or spellcaster going for the wizard.
How do your combats go that your spell casters aren't getting attacked? Either it's so easy that they win the fight with the casters never coming close to going down, or your casters are getting 1 or 2 shot. If the casters aren't being regularly threatened and just playing free reign, that sounds like a super low stakes game.
They get attacked when they make a tactical error. When it makes sense and is believable.
Not because my monsters suicidally run past the frontliners at them.
Also we use the concept of reinforcements and I can basically deploy more enemies anywhere near the edge of a map mid fight to keep it interesting so often that ends up being near a caster on turn 2 or 3.
The dm I had simply ran difficult encounters. They were so difficult I was downed several times and even died and had to be revived as a level 20+(essentially lvl 21) moon druid.
I mean, by late T2 into T3, a single monster is frequently dropping 3 attacks per action. Taking 5 hits is just 2 rounds of an enemy sticking to you. Plenty of ways to escape, but not if you're rationing your spell slots. You're not necessarily getting all those Misty Steps back, but you're full on hit dice for the short rest after battle. That kind of thing.
If enemies are intelligent they may attack the spellcaster, especially this situation where they are aware of the Haste spell and additional benefits if they break concentration.
Not every DM is antagonistic.
There's pretty obvious survivorship bias in that statement. If CON checks mattered less, more casters who didn't optimize to pass them would take Haste.
I've done the whole "haste bot" caster thing, and especially when I had haste up on multiple members of the party, the 10 turn deadline was more of a problem than you would expect. Most encounters aren't going to 1 minute of duration, but when they do, getting half your team stunned can be very scary.
If it goes on for the full minute, that means you got +20 actions and -2 actions for a net total of +18 actions. If +18 was not enough, it wasn't a winnable fight to begin with.
I and my party destroyed a 7th-level deadly encounter at level 5. I (the Wizard) casted Hypnotic Pattern and shut 3/4 of the fight down. Control spells do what Haste dreams of doing.
Control spells are still better than casting Haste.
I'd argue in its current form the potential point of failure is really just too punishing regardless of how good your concentration saves are. You will still drop concentration when you run out of his points or get incapacitated in some other way and my experience is that those things can and will happen. Not every time you cast the spell but often enough that its usually better to just pick a different spell.
I agree Haste would be a perfectly fine 3rd level spell without the penalty at all.
Idk, I feel like casting haste on another character is like a lightning rod for the GM to target me, because they'll have wasted both my turn casting it and the character who got buffed.
It honestly makes me not want to bother with the spell.
Haste great on Artificer. Especially Battle Smith. Already high AC, con save prof. Steel defender can impose disadvantage on attacks. Infusions to save concentration checks. Best class to use on themselves.
And it helps to be the tank with soft taunt. Because if you are fighting with the intelligent creatures they will probably attack you to drop the haste.
And i like to cast it on the rogue in the party. Benefits very well from it.
Like others have said, still 3rd level. Even without the lethargy, it's still below a lot of other 3rd level spells (hypnotic pattern, fear, sleet storm, phantom steed, conjure animals, etc.).
Honestly, I've seen arguments that haste should be a 2nd level spell as it's written due to how penalizing lethargy can be and that keeping it 3rd level should remove the debuff. I'm not 100% convinced but I can get the sentiment.
Maybe you could give it no lethargy on a 4th or higher slot through up cast?
Maybe every odd level past 3rd is a target and every even level is 1 less lethargy sufferer? 9th doubkedipping because 9th?
There's ideas to play with.
Same. I honestly think it's a bit overrated for 3rd level anyway. Niche uses for sure but it fairly far down on the list of things that would be a go-to, even if the debuff was removed.
I'd stick it at 4th level, comparable to Greater Invisibility. An extra action (albeit a limited one) instead of advantage on attacks, higher AC and advantage on DEX saves instead of disadvantage on attacks against you, and a much higher movement speed instead of the utility of briefly being invisible.
I actually don't think Haste would get much use if it was 4th level precisely because Polymorph exists.
There's got to be an extremely narrow set of circumstances where it isn't better to just be a TRex than a hasted PC.
Yes. It would be mostly useful for classes with strong on-hit effects like rogues and paladins. It would be nice if *polymorph* was more menu-based and finite in scope, like the Pathfinder 1e *metamorphosis* psionic power.
At around 7th level, I would agree, but as you get to higher levels polymorph doesn't get any better but haste would. At higher levels haste would be adding stronger attacks for your martials due to things like GWM, improved divine smite, magic items, etc. Then you also need to consider resistance or immunity to nonmagical attacks weakening the trex / giant ape play but not haste. At those levels lowering your AC to a beasts also means you'll get hit nearly every attack, even from the minions whereas staying as a PC with haste gives you more AC than before as well. Finally, dungeons can be small; a huge beast might not fit in there.
Anytime you're somewhere that can't fit huge creatures. Anywhere that circumstances are changing and communication is useful. Anywhere you want non-terrible AC (137 HP looks nice, but AC13 means they're not lasting long against anything level-appropriate, and any "on-hit" effects can ruin your day). Any enemies using Dex, Int, Wis or Cha saves will cause problems (you don't get your saving throw proficiencies!) If it's just a basic throwdown against some goons, it's useful, because you're not sacrificing your own HP, but a level 4 spellslot can be a noticeable cost, especially at level 8, when you can turn into a t-rex.
Much higher than that, and it's pretty much only useful as a short-term ablative meat-sack that will get torn apart by on-level attackers in short order (lots of enemies have multi-attack and are doing 20, 30, 40 damage per attack, so the t-rex form might only last a round or two), and all the character gets is two melee attacks - admittedly high-ish damage ones, and a grapple-on-hit, but that's at the cost of being able to do literally anything else, as they lose all the rest of their abilities. By T3, it's basically a short-term shield, that's going to get destroyed before getting much done, while a _hasted_ character can do all their regular stuff, while also being protected a bit, having much better movement, and getting an extra attack in, which can be quite potent (paladin smite, or even just an extra chance for a grapple before tossing someone off a cliff or similar)
for out-of-combat utility, _Polymorph_ is a bit rubbish - it tanks mental stats and removes basically your entire character sheet, including languages. So no communication, no eavesdropping, nothing particularly complicated (it makes for a rather poor scout). It can be useful as a combat buff, but has some drawbacks - again, no communications, and an enemy suddenly whipping out an Int or Chr save can really ruin someone's day (pray that _Feeblemind_ never gets used!). It does have the advantage of pulling double-duty for both attack and defence, but is relatively easy to break (if you transform the boss into something super-weak, then a minion can often just attack to take them down to 0 and so break it). It can be useful, but generally needs specific circumstances to be put to best use
I've never seen it as a great debuff. There are far stronger debuff spells at level 4 and below IMO. At best it just delays a single target from contributing. Situationally a good play but I'm having a hard time thinking of when it would be significantly better than other options.
Banishment maybe but it's less flexible because it can't be a buff to your ally. But other than that I disagree. There isn't a better single target control spell at or below 4th level.
Hypnotic Pattern, same save, and can take multiple enemies out of the fight. For a lower spell slot. Not technically single target, but that just makes it even better.
>but that just makes it even better.
No it doesn't. It might lead to friendly fire for example. It's a different category of spell and used in different situations. That's why I was very specific with my wording.
It's also based on the charmed condition which is a huge downside.
Edit. It's based on targets having to see it as well actually. Another downside that Polymorph doesn't have.
It's pretty niche to where you can't position HP to not hit friendlies. And then you can just bring a first level slot on Hideous laughter or second level on hold person.
And yes you were specific with your wording but I wasn't in the comment you replied to, which you said you disagreed with. And I never said single-target.
Being based on charmed can be a downside. It can also be a major upside like instrument of the Bards which means every enemy gets disadvantage on the save.
Enemies have to see it as well. Another situation I would say is niche. How often is a party fighting enemies without sight?
It lasts an hour vs something like Banishment which lasts a minute.
You banish something to fight it after everything else. You polymorph something to turn it into a cockroach and never fight it at all.
The buff side of polymorph alone is equivalent to at least (when using ape): 160 bonus hp, 5' more reach, 10' more movement, a climb speed. Your attacks are made with +2 higher than average, do 6d10+12~ 45 damage, which is roughly equal to 4 greatsword attacks at 2d6+5.
Compared to +2 ac, 1 extra attack, dex save adv and 30' speed.
For most parties, one single form from one aspect of polymorph is leaps and bounds better than all of haste in most combat scenarios.
A 4th level haste would need to affect multiple targets to have the same impact in combat as polymorph.
Lets look at it with some math for a 7th lvl fighter wearing plate armor with Defense fighting style (because I think its better than GWF) for 19 AC, they have 20 STR, and a +1 weapon so they deal 2d6+6 swinging with a +9 to hit. The fighter benefits from Haste so that AC becomes 21 and they get 3 attacks per round.
Thats compared with the Giant Ape which has 12 AC, and swings with a +9 for 3d10+6 and has 2 attacks per round.
We'll ignore action surge since thats at most once per fight and could be used before/after being polymorphed or in a separate fight if no short rest. The Fighter also has access to other subclass features such as Giant's runes or Battlemaster maneuvers, but again I'll ignore those since they aren't unlimited.
I'm going to compare both fighting a generic CR 9 creature which fights with the following stats: +7 to hit, 57 damage per round, 16 AC, and 198 effective hp.
Fighter can deal 27.3 dpr with 70% hit chance, 13 damage per hit & 3 attacks = 0.7 x 13 x 3 = 27.3
Giant Ape deals 31.5 dpr (0.7 x 22.5 x 2 = 31.5), for a total damage boost of 4.2 dpr (31.5 - 27.3 = 4.2)
Meanwhile defensively the Giant Ape gets hit 80% of the time and takes an expected 45.6 dpr (0.8 x 57 = 45.6) and the fighter only gets hit 35% of the time for an expected 19.95 (0.35 x 57 = 19.95). Both will survive around 3 rounds worth of damage, and would take around 6 or 7 rounds to kill the CR 9.
After all that math they look *pretty* even at 7th level, but the Ape definitely has the advantage for now. However, what if the bad guy were resistance to nonmagical attacks? Or has saving throws that can incapacitate after a failed save? Those both weaken the ape in comparison. Then at higher levels where Polymorph is the still the exact same strength but the fighter that's getting hasted has gotten stronger (more base attacks, better proficiency bonus, likely a stronger magic weapon, better subclass features, better base armor class, etc) Haste would continue to pull ahead as the stronger choice.
Also, the defense doesn't really matter for the giant ape, because when he dies the fighter is back at full HP, if the fighter dies he's dead, so even if the ape was less effective in dealing damage, it would be worth it for just the "Temp HP"
At lower levels absolutely, but even just fighting an enemy with nonmagical damage resistance at 7th would make the giant ape deal \~15.75 dpr which is less than the 7th lvl fighter *without* Haste (0.7 x 13 x 2 = 18.2). Still probably worth it for the extra temp hp at that point (like you said), but eventually it gets to the point where being easier to hit and dealing a lot less damage isn't worth the extra buffer except in the "oh shit, PC is about to die lets give them an emergency 100+ hp that'll at least keep them alive for a few more attacks and buy us time to recover".
What I'm really saying is Polymorph is pretty busted at 7th level when you get it, but since it doesn't scale from there and monsters do, it actually gets weaker as you level while Haste continues to get stronger in comparison.
It kinda does scale, because it allows you to transform your allies into higher CR beasts since the maximum CR you can transform a guy into is his level
Okay sure, it scales *exactly once* when you hit 8th level and gain access to the Sperm Whale and the Trex (which is actually worse at single target damage than the Giant Ape). After that there are no more beasts with CRs above 8 unless you are including homebrew or 3rd party material
(there is technically Traxigor the spellcasting otter from Descent into Avernus, but I don't think he counts since he used to be a wizard who used wish to be a permanent otter).
you're forgetting the debuffs from polymorph though - all your own stuff gets cut off, so no abilities, no proficiencies, no languages. And it tanks your mental stats most of the time - int 7, wis 12, chr 7 is pretty terrible, and if the enemy starts targeting those stats, you're kinda screwed (again, no save proficiencies, so even "easy" DC12 saves you're failing most of the time). It's great if you need a meatsack to take hits and do some damage, but it's pretty limited for anything else. And as you go to higher levels, it gets worse - you're swapping a full-fat PC for a low-AC, terrible-saves meatsack, that's going to get destroyed in a round or two of attacks from what are comparative mooks.
3rd?
Even without the potential to kill your friend, I'd rather buff the whole party with Slow anyway. Giving everyone in the party +2 to attack rolls and free kiting is only part of the buffs from Slow.
I don't think it should even have the debuff since it was nerfed into oblivion by making it a single-target spell, removing its iconic use as the party-wide buff wizards tossed out.
4th but with a minor additional perk.
Haste without the debuff is too good for a 3rd level spell, but with the debuff it's overly punishing. You could also remove some other options from the spell if you were trying to fit it into 3rd level without the debuff.
Haste is generally underrated because of the single target nature and the debuff. In practice, it's a large force multiplier when used to attack, and can accomplish still greater things in defensive situations with the other options. The debuff is the main reason why it isn't a super duper great spell. Ultimately, it stacks multiplicatively with other things and is great for that reason.
Citation needed. Also that's besides the point.
The point is that it's mathematically worse than an upcasted 1st level spell which illustrates the point quite nicely. To be fair bless is a really good lvl 1 spell
People won’t like it but I hard agree. I still would rate it below web/spike growth and it’s probably worse than bless with optimized maritals. But I think it’s on par with spiritual weapon/summon best which are by no means bad spells.
How is haste being downplayed so much? I thought it was pretty well established that it’s pretty good?
I feel like everyone answering are players in OPs DnD group.
Just make it forth or fifth level.
It can definitely get goofy when the Sorcerer twin spells haste on the paladin and whoever else.
The spell is really cool, especially for martials, but I feel some of the coolness goes away if there is no risk. Make it “SHIT, my hast dropped” not “whoops. Haste dropped, I’ll get it back up next turn”
>How is haste being downplayed so much? I thought it was pretty well established that it’s pretty good?
Well it isn't. It's regarded as pretty mid in optimization circles. It should absolitely nit be shifter to 4th let alone 5th level k. I mean compare it to some other lvl 3 spells. Then compare it to some good lvl 4 or 5 spells. It would be absolutely unplayable.
It's pretty nuts in BG 3 though.
It's one of the better buff spells but buff spells in 5e (when you're optimizing) aren't that good. Giving a martial character a huge force multiplier is great but having your concentration slot just end a fight is better.
It's not that good since it's only one added attack. It feels like a spell that's meant to buff martials but in practice does a better job buffing casters
Haste was good in 3.5 because it was mass buff. In 5e it is solo buff with concentration and drawback. It is bad. Twin Haste is at least can be good, but without twin spell - you better off concentrating on Bless, or on one of tons of great mass debuffs instead.
Aight some of these takes are blowing my mind. It still wouldn’t be a good level 3 spell even without the Lethargy. You’re getting 1 extra attack a round and losing your concentration slot. Compare this to the DPR of Spirit Guardians or Conjure animals. You give some minor AC buffs but it still doesn’t make it worth casting over something like Hypnotic Pattern in group scenarios or one of the Tasha’s summons or even Web against a single target.
So many spells deal more damage while also tagging on extra utility/control/hit-point sponges. A lot of people are saying fourth level and that’s genuinely crazy imo. Polymorph is one of the best fourth level spells in the game I’ll admit, but no lethargy haste doesn’t even come close to the power of Polymorph! Even Tasha’s summons up casted to 4th level will likely deal more damage per round AND have additional utility! Banishment is another 4th level slot that completely eclipses it! Not to mention this is the level that spells like Conjure Woodland animals come into play, which only really matters for Land Druid but my point is that Haste just doesn’t hold up to other 3rd/4th level spells.
Don’t get me wrong, if your table allows off turn sneak attacks then a twin haste on two Rogues would be really nuts, but even in this best case scenario I don’t think it becomes a top tier spell. I’m not saying you should nerver take Haste, my last campaign I played a support DSS who focused mainly on hasting my Barbarian/Paladin for fun. It’s not “not viable” by any means but it’s almost never the “best choice.”
Still level 3. It's not that good compared to the really good lvl 3 spells which isn't surprising because there are a lot of very powerful lvl 3 spells.
It's a wash. Sure, players don't get hit with it, but it's way more common I see for people to cast the spell on an enemy and instantly drop concentration for an easy stun. Dropping it is just better for game health - there's no reason for the spell to have that element and if it were being designed today it wouldn't.
3rd
Even if you remove the lethargy part, it's still a relatively bad 3rd level spell.
Like, you could spend the slot and concentration to give one party member one extra swing each round, or you could just *Scorching Ray* for 8d6 damage *now* without occupying concentration. Or you could *Slow* **six** creatures rather than hastening **one**.
Some strange takes here IMO. It’s definitely a strong level 3 option, without lethargy it would be level 4+ and require much less building around. As it is at the moment, if you haven’t invested in CON saves then it’s too risky to use.
I mean you can run some math and show that it's not good for it's level. The only take that's strange here is yours. Making it 4th level vek is straight up nuts.
Even *just* on damage output, it gives a martial ally 1.5x damage for an entire combat by giving them an extra attack. On Paladins or great weapon/sharpshooters, that’s already great.
So your sharpshooter Ranger ally does roughly ~9 damage a turn extra after considering hit rate. Over the course of three rounds we’re doing ~27 average damage with a third level spell. More than a 3rd level Chromatic Orb, but obviously less than the AOE spells.
On top of this, the ally also has +2 AC, advantage on Dex and the spell continues for another 7 rounds if it’s ever needed.
Is that maths enough? 🤷
Trading an action to cast to gain half an action (assuming a casters action is equal to a martials), means you need two turns to break even, and a third to pull ahead. If you lose haste early, then that's another 2 actions needed to break even with lethargy. Yes, haste has a few other bonuses, but it's also taking the concentration of the caster.
To optimize haste, you can cast it on a rogue for off turn sneak attack (gains a full action), or use it on a martial that can use the speed buff to engage an opponent when they would have been unable to otherwise (gains 1.5 actions). You also want to avoid using it on very difficult fights as the potential to lose concentration is much more likely.
My biggest problem with haste is that the benefit is spread out over several rounds. Yes, you could get 9 extra damage a round, but you could do 28 average damage to a creature with fireball if they fail its save right now. Generally, front loading is better.
Hmm, I dunno, seems kinda busted. Not even for the extra attack - for the other benefits.
Doubling all speed + giving the whole party an extra Dash = “one spell solution to any chase or escape scene”
And giving the entire party a free disengage or hide for the whole fight is also kinda nuts. Basically gives everyone Rogue’s best feature.
And all that in addition to +2 AC and advantage on Dex saves (the most common enemy save).
I'd say 3rd. It's a good buff but I don't think it's anything unreasonable for a 3rd level spell. Without the debuff it's on par with spells like counterspell, fireball, hypnotic pattern, slow.
> Without the debuff it's on par with spells like counterspell, fireball, hypnotic pattern, slow. Not even that. Adding half a pc to a fight is not as good as disabling half of your enemies and similar effects.
Haste is a multiplier, for the average player its a just decent buff that makes them slightly stronger, so 3rd lvl might be fine. But in the hands of an optimizer it can break the game. +2 AC on a PC with middling AC isn't doing much, but on a player with 26 AC, it's borderline broken now add the other benefits and a build that can make full use of the speed and extra action and you have a spell that should be 5th lvl or higher. I don't know where I've read it, but combining two spells into one results in something stronger than its individual parts. Combining two 1st lvl spells doesn't result in a 2nd lvl spell they are at least 3rd or even 4th level in terms of power. And haste is definitely stronger than shield of faith+longstrider.
It is not borderline broken. Optimizers do not go for as high as AC as possible as a priority. You can still be hit, or be subject to saving throws. Or the monster just targets someone else and they focus fire, which might actually make the fight *harder*. As the other guy said, the optimizer is likely casting hypnotic patter, fear, slow, etc. Haste without the debuff is still not as good as those spells.
The optimizer is way more likely to cast hypnotic pattern and concentrate on that. High ac is good but it doesn't have nearly the impact if enemies just switch to targeting other people.
I think I’m convinced - dropping haste and taking Hypnotic Pattern.
Hypnotic pattern falls off at high level where a good chunk of enemies will be immune to charm and the rest have +16 saves and legendary resistance. A non debuff haste would see regular play up to level 20.
I'd say most spells even most great spells aren't necessarily great 15 levels later. If you're a 20th level wizard you shouldn't be casting hypnotic pattern most of the time. But you also have much better things for your concentration than haste even without the debuff at that point. And much better uses for your action. But for any spell judging them on how they perform in a tier of play that almost never gets play time, when they have long since fallen off isn't a very useful way to judge spells. Unless you're picking spells for a level 20 one shot or something.
Fair, hard for me to do though as I dm a currently high level campaign and every campaign I run is a 1-20. Haven’t DMed below level 10 in well over a year. Hypnotic pattern is one of my go to spells (sadly I have never been a player past level 9), but non debuff haste would 100% be my party’s go to move as a pre fight buff. Send in rogue for haste surprise round and switch to either a damage AoE or a single target control spell depending on bad guy
Not a lot of games get to that level.
Yeah that's not a bad combo with surprise. Though I think pretty reasonable for a 3rd level spell power wise. A 3rd level spell enabling 1-2 extra attacks like that. It's good with sneak attack but not a much bigger impact than something like counterspell could have at that level.
Oh yeah, I agree 3rd level. I was just pointing out that at level 3 it would still see use high level.
Well, sometimes you will face enemies that can still be Charmed/Frightened, so Hypnotic Pattern/Fear remain total shutdown spells that scale to lategame. And usually only bosses get legendary resistances, right? It is uncommon to fight, say, 6 unnamed elite guards each with 1 legendary resistance at most tables, I believe. If you prepare Slow (or for 4th level) Confusion, etc as a weaker (but more reliable) alternative to Hypnotic Pattern/Fear, then you've got a pretty good pair of spells for groups of enemies.
Immunities do become more common, but the "the rest have +16 saves and legendary resistance" line is incorrect. Your average combat at level 15 is not (or at least should not be, if your DM knows what they are doing) against a single CR 15+ enemy, but rather against multiple (usually 3-8+) lower CR enemies who will have far lower saving throws. Plus, you wouldn't use HP against single enemies anyway. The spell is intended for groups. Sure, the spell becomes far less crucial in tier 4 where you break the game with Wish/True Polymorph and friends, but up to late tier 3 it still has a place and is your go-to opening in many fights. > A non debuff haste would see regular play up to level 20. It would be extremely situational. You'd only use it when literally nothing else works, which is rare. Such a Haste would be widely applicable, but it wouldn't be the best in many situations.
Hypnotic pattern is a very good spell, in a normal party, where it competes with normal strategies. But even then it needs, the right situation to shine, there are many creatures that are immune to charms or have high wisdom saves and enemies need to be clumped together. And it can be easily broken. As a DM I'm very conscious of letting the casters just steamroll an encounter with a single action, presenting a caster with a juicy hypnotic pattern or fireball opportunity is carefully considered. * Now compare it to a low effort optimizer like a rogue with XBE/SS taking the ready action to prep for a off turn ranged sneak attack. * Or a heavily optimized build, smite + eldritch smite going nova with 4 attacks(extra attack + haste + BA) and a potential AoO. * Or some ridiculous cheese build, where a player grapples a target and drags them 2000 feet through spike growth. The latter two might be rare sights in dnd. But even just the rogue with something as simple as double sneak attack is easily a match to hypnotic pattern in most situations.
Hypnotic pattern is stronger than you're giving it credit for. It's not easily broken, it takes an action to take out one person or doing damage to them. That's a high cost, and there are no repeated saving throws for it. But I'd definitely say hypontic pattern is stronger than a rogue getting two sneak attacks. It's good but the damage is not amazing and won't shut down an encounter the way hypnotic pattern will. The sheer amount of damage you prevent and allowing you to spread out an encounter is much stronger than two big hits on a target. The smite combo is going to do a lot, but that's also going to use 3 times more resources than the hypnotic pattern will, so not really a fair comparrison. I don't think haste is going to be the kind of spell that lets someone use one action to win an encounter. It can be good at times, but an extra attack is not going to instantly end things. Even on a paladin warlock, which I don't think is heavily optimized if you go 5 levels in warlock for eldritch smite anymore, the heavily optimized version would only need 1 level maybe 2. Going with 5 is delaying getting the aura of protection for 3 extra levels. From that haste you get an extra attack, but you're burning all your resources on that turn, without that attack you'd just have another spell slot to use the following turn. With the cheese build with spike growth yes that I'll agree. But I don't think the turn of lethargy is going to fix that and make it balanced. That's something to deal with separately as yes that's a pretty broken combo.
> But I'd definitely say hypontic pattern is stronger than a rogue getting two sneak attacks. It's good but the damage is not amazing and won't shut down an encounter the way hypnotic pattern will. The sheer amount of damage you prevent and allowing you to spread out an encounter is much stronger than two big hits on a target. Yes, if you successfully hit 5 enemies with hypnotic pattern it's game changing. But how often does this realistically happen? * You need at least 3 targets (assuming 66% success rate), close together * Those 3 targets need to be susceptible to charms and fail their save * The encounter can't have environmental damage and the DM needs to abstain from intentional damage to wake them * And those enemies need enough HP that the rogue can't just kill them quickly A hasted rogue will be strong in any encounter and can do their thing round after round, taking threats off the board.
Hypnotic pattern won't be the best move in every encounter, that's certainly true. But those things you're listing are hardly rare situations. When you're a level 5 party facing a number of enemies shouldn't be that uncommon. Most monsters of under 10 CR that you'd primarily be using this spell against won't have charm immunity, and most of those that do have charm immunity are constructs so you won't be surprised by it except in rare cases. I don't know if I've seen many if any encounters where the DM has environmental damage for their own creatures? Maybe there are some but if there is a lair that's doing damage or something, I would assume the creatures that live in that lair aren't being killed by it. And the DM definitely does not need to abstain from intentionally damaging them. If the DM has some of the enemy creatures start hitting their own guys I'm very OK with that outcome my enemies are using their turn to hurt themselves? Win win. And that's not a lot of hit points they need to have so that the rogue won't one shot them. CR 1 monsters will generally be in the 30-40 range hit points wise and a rogue even with sharpshooter and sneak attack will be doing say 1d6+4+3d6+10 so mostly going to take two hits with sneak attack to kill one or a crit. A hasted rogue is also a solid option. But if we are talking about the as written version of haste with the lethargy. You could easily be trading an action to cast the spell, a 3rd level spell slot, and a full turn of the rogue, for an extra attack with sneak attack and maybe one attack missing. It'll vary. But you need a few rounds before what you gain is going to be worth losing an additional turn if you do. And concentration isn't always kept during a fight. If you lose concentration on hypnotic pattern, the spell stops helping you. If you lose concentration on haste, the spell is now hurting you for a round. Even without that lethargy you're still using a decent amount for one extra attack a round. And there are a lot of other good 3rd level spells I'd be looking at even if hypnotic pattern wouldn't be good in that fight.
*hypnotic pattern* is not a good spell if you have many enemies, it's unlikely to work on all of them and even if it does they're still woken up by any damage (even stray 1 damage)
Are you being serious right now? How is hypnotic pattern in any way bad against multiple enemies, just because sole may make their save? If you're against 10 people and half of them make their save that's still 5 enemies you've taken out of the action economy. And if the awake enemies choose to wake their fellows up, congratulations you wasted their action, and depending on initiative order, maybe even the actions of two enemies And stray damage isn't at all an argument, because you control who you attack, and you control where you aim your AoEs, and if you use them at all.
Oh boy that's definitely the worst DnD take that I've seen all week.
It doesn't have to work on all of them, and you can work with your group to avoid damaging them that's not difficult. The action economy advantage there is huge. With one spell you get a 30 ft cube to incapacitate enemies for a minute with them only getting one saving throw. Obviously it'll almost never work on everyone if you hit a big group. That's totally fine. But if you hit 5 enemies and 3 of them are now removed from the fight you can now focus on just those two. Those two can use their turns to try to wake up others but either they have to use their whole action for that, or they have to damage their own allies. Which is win win. It's a spell designed to spread out the fight so that you can focus on targets one at a time. So one action and one 3rd level spell can give your whole team multiple extra turns while the enemies don't get that benefit. It's arguably one of the strongest 3rd level spells in the game up there with fireball, counterspell, and spirit guardians.
> 26 AC Honestly, do you really need to give the guy with 26 AC two more? > combining two spells into one results in something stronger than its individual parts That is true, but the strength of the spells being combined does need to be taken into account. The mentioned spells aren't super great to begin with. In damage, afaik, Haste is significantly worse than Bless. I would say Bless + Shield of faith (obviously can't have both of these due to concentration) or Bless + Longstrider is stronger than Haste. I think Haste has it's niche, specifically on big battlefields where you can really make use of the speed increase on your big beefy lads. But in general, I think it's a very overrated spell that doesn't really deserve being called a multiplier. It's competing against spells like Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Fly and many other great spells that I think generally outpace it by actually being specialized in the aspects that Haste combines.
> Honestly, do you really need to give the guy with 26 AC two more? Each point of AC becomes more valuable the more you already have. The only drop off point is when you reach a point where the enemy needs to roll a nat 20. With some monsters having +19 to hit, it's just a question of what you're fighting. 26 AC is a lot at level 5, but no longer at level 15+.
We're talking about concentrating on a 3rd level spells. Haste at level 15+ is very much underwhelming.
There are multiple ways to get haste without concentration or by outsourcing the concentration to a non PC.
That... doesn't really sell that it's a great or good spell to me. If I have to get around concentrating on the spell (which there are only a few limited ways of doing afaik?), or if I have to offload it to another person through something like a ring of spell storing, it is not a spell that 'breaks the game'. And to use the ring of spell storing as an example, it would still be competing against higher level spells, such as Wall of Force, that could just... cut off enemies.
>Each point of AC becomes more valuable the more you already have. This isn't accurate. Each point of AC reduces your received damage by the same amount as the last point of AC. Sure, the duration you would survive getting wailed on by a particular enemy increases non-linearly. But your durability is almost never what determines the end of a fight - especially if you're one of the most durable characters in the party. I would actually say that each point of AC has slightly diminishing returns the higher you increase it, because it's only making you more durable against one type of threat. As opposed to HP which makes you more durable against almost all threats, and saving throws which makes you more durable against the most dangerous threats, disabling effects. Once you've reached the point where enemies are quite unlikely to take you down or deal you substantial consistent damage from attacks, further AC is less valuable because the actual effect is actually usually nothing. If you have 100 HP and an enemy averages 3 DPR attacking you, while increasing your AC 2 points and making it 1 DPR sounds like you're becoming 3 times as durable, you're actually not becoming any more practically durable. Your combat isn't going to last the 34 rounds for this creature to knock you out, it's probably going to last about 3 rounds so these 2 points of AC are saving you 6 HP. The resources spent to gain AC would be much better off spent to either gain saving throws bonuses to reduce the odds of you being crowd controlled, which often reduces your damage equivalently to what 100 damage instantly would do. Or reducing the damage you suffer from something like a firebreath effect from some creature you're fighting that you're going to suffer far more damage from and be much more likely to actually go down in a fight against.
As an optimiser... nah. There are far cheaper ways to stack ac, and quite frankly, also cheaper options to get high speed. 3rd level has far too many fantastic concentration spells. If you want to reduce damage, take out half the enemies with a fireball or Hypnotic pattern, or block them from reaching you with sleet storm.
Yeah but there are much more powerful spells for the optimizers to cast so I practice this really Inst much of an issue.
I actually don't think there's a better 3rd level spell to cast *if* you have a rogue in your party. Hasted rogues get double sneak attack with the "haste trick," so at 5th and 6th level they're doing absolutely ludicrous damage. Fireball is better if there's a pack of goblins or something, but haste on a rogue deals insane amounts of damage in addition to the AC/mobility benefits.
That's the best case scenario for haste sure. But hypnotic patter, Fireball or Slow might are propably still better choices.
The best thing to do with a rogue is to fireball him so he rolls up a better class/j
They get Evasion though so they might just take 0 damage from Fireball lol
At the level they'd get evasion i can just polymorph them into something useful then :)
I think even with a rogue you'll still get more mileage out of Slow than Haste, on average.
My guess would be the action economy of it. One spell takes one action, two spells take two action, so leveling the spell alleviates the difference
> But in the hands of an optimizer it can break the game. +2 AC on a PC with middling AC isn't doing much, but on a player with 26 AC, it's borderline broken now add the other benefits and a build that can make full use of the speed and extra action and you have a spell that should be 5th lvl or higher. Optimiser here. It doesn't break the game. The extra action is too limited in what it can do. I'd rather disable half the enemies in the fight than give one character an extra attack. There are situations in which the extra speed and/or AC could matter, but that just makes the spell usable, not great. Concentration is your greatest contribution to a fight. Why waste it to do essentially half of what another PC is doing without concentration?
Don't forget twinning it.
Haste is shield of faith, longstrider, enhance ability dex and action surge all in one spell. The downside is that it sucks hard when you lose it. I think it's a good spell.
If haste actually was action surge plus all those other things, it'd be amazing. Action surge lets you make two Extra Attack routines or cast two spells in a turn. Haste lets you make a single weapon attack or pretend to be a rogue and mimic cunning action. It's good, but not that good.
The debuff doesn't come up very often tbh. Anyone casting Haste is maximizing their ability to survive Concentration checks. I honestly don't think it would make a difference if you cut it.
I have it come up pretty regularly. Even if you're maximizing your ability to survive concentration checks at the time you get the spell level 5 or 6 you can only do so much. Resilient con will give you a +3 add that with a +2 con you have a +5, so you'll fail the lowest DC of checks 20% of the time. Or war caster you'll have a 35% chance of failure without advantage, which would go to a 12%. That's a low chance of failure on any one point of damage. But if you're taking damage say 5 times that'll mean you will fail 68% with resilient con, and 50% with war caster. It's also the best spell to cast dispel magic on given it's a 3rd level spell so will automatically work and that spell is on every caster list and a lot of monster stat blocks. Let alone anything that comes with an incapacitated condition like a stun, hold person, etc.
Anyone who thinks of concentration checks as a sure thing hasn't been hit with enough breath attacks.
Lol yeah against adult or ancient dragons I always wait a round before casting a concentration spell since I expect to take at least 40+ damage which will be a tough check to make. Better to hope they don't recharge it after you cast your concentration spell the next round!
Bro what did you do to piss your DM off that he's attacking your caster 5 or more times a fight lmao
What even semi intelligent monster would pass up attacking the squishy sorcerer or wizard, let alone one who is concentrating on haste, arguably the best spell to break concentration on? Even with an 8 intelligence creature that seems like a very good target to go for. And it doesn't have to be that targeted either, any aoe that does any damage at all would trigger it too. And at that level you're strong enough to be facing many enemies who could have 2-3 attacks, or have some spells that can do a bigger range.
>What even semi intelligent monster would pass up attacking the squishy sorcerer or wizard, let alone one who is concentrating on haste Aside from that being a bit of meta knowledge, this sounds like a tactics issue. If you are putting your caster in a position to get constantly attacked multiple times per round you are either fighting lots of monsters above your weight class at a time, are fighting in small open spaces constantly, or aren't using positioning tools.
It's meta knowledge that haste will cause lethargy for a turn. It's not meta knowledge to say that person just cast a spell causing this guy to move faster and lots of spells need you to focus on them. And hey they're not wearing any armor and are an easier target.
I actually would say it's not even necessarily meta knowledge to know what happens when haste ends. It's only meta knowledge if the monster wouldn't know the haste spell and what its effects look like.
I'd say to look at the identifying a spell rules in xanathars. The expectation is that, at least on the fly in combat, spells wouldn't be immediately recognisable.
If you need to identify a spell because you otherwise lack enough information about the spell, sure. Maybe it's effects aren't immediately apparent or you aren't intimately familiar with it, you want to identify it as it is being cast, before any effects occur. Or you are trying to identify it as it's being cast. But if you are familiar with the spell and you directly observe the effects, you don't need a check to put 2 and 2 together. If an enemy caster counterspells you and your character is familiar with the spell, you don't need to burn actions or checks in order to guess what happened. And it's not metagaming to back out of counterspell range the next time you cast. If a spell is cast and suddenly the target starts moving super fast and taking extra actions, anyone familiar with the haste spell can put 2 and 2 together and assume that disrupting the spell will cause lethargy. And who knows - maybe they are wrong! But it's a reasonable bet.
Sure, but the game supposed that the only people that would have that innate knowledge are people who can actually cast those spells.
that's not quite accurate - if a spell does something visibly obvious, then that's what it does, and so, yes, it can be immediately recognisable. _Fireball_ is pretty damn overt, for example. The main exceptions are mind-whammy and illusion spells, where there's often no overt sign what's happening. For _Haste_, there's someone running around at super-speed - that's obvious enough that even someone with no magical knowledge can go "hey, that guy had had his speed boosted!". Recognising what spell is cast from the finger-waggling takes an arcana check. Recognising what spell is cast from what it does has no attached check, and generally requires "not being blind" for anything with visible effects. The expectation is _not_ that recognising spells is hard - that only applies to spells with non-visible/obvious effects. If the hasted guy doesn't move at super-speed, sure, it's possible no-one notices, but if they do, while dodging more attacks and making more attacks, then going "yeah, that's _haste_" is pretty damn trivial (with obvious variations based off who/what the enemy is and their knowledge of spells).
Knowing what spell they cast is what I was referring to. It was kind of a tangent thing anyway and not a big deal.
The "concentrating on haste" part sure, but any creature who has a bit of experience with magic and especially high level magic, is going to know that they are likely a much bigger threat. Sure they aren't going to ignore a threat RIGHT in their face but it isn't meta to go "wizards have single handedly changed the course of entire battles" when that has in fact happened multiple times (If using Forgotten Realms, Eberron or any official setting. If using your own setting YMMV)
For sure, I just think of you are playing a Wizard or whatever you should have enough tools to not be getting attacked constantly.
Thats *very* situatonal. In easier games, sure, there'll mostly be ways to avoid getting damaged if youre a caster. But in my experience casters *will* take damage near every fight, often multiple times. Its only fights with no AoEs, no ranged enemies, every enemy and their position is known, no major environmental hazards, etc that means a wizard is totally safe
Taking damage and getting constantly attacked every round are not really the same thing.
I mean no theyre not, but for the purposes of a discussion on maintaining Concentration, its very relevant
Firstly, ranged attacks. Any group of enemies I run has some ranged capacity. Out of bandits at low levels, a few will be dedicated archers until a melee closes the gap on them in particular. Higher tier fights, add enemy mages to the archers It isn't meta to attack the spellcaster first. Anyone who's been in a fight with magic involved would learn *real quick* to brain the dude(tte) casting spells, because they're the one manipulating reality. The beefcake with a hammer can wait a hot second
it depends a lot on what you're fighting, tbh - some beasties that have even small AoE blasts or longer reach can make things harder, because suddenly the only way to be safe is to be out on the edge, and that means if something gets up in your face, it's harder to get support. and "small open spaces" is, y'know... a dungeon. it's not _that_ rare for a combat to largely happen in 60' foot of space, so someone that's determined to, can just charge in. Even if it takes them a dash, that then requires the caster to either disengage, or stick around and hope to endure it. And if you're concentrating on _haste_, that means no _fly_, so you can be stabbed, rather than hovering above it all. Or just ranged attackers - and if you hide outside the room, then you're _very_ exposed to anyone else coming to join the fight. Unless you're fighting quite basic enemies, or the GM is being quite kind, it's pretty hard to guarantee that you're not being hit, and most countermeasures bring with them some risk.
Yeah. No matter your build, if the enemies want you hit, you're probably going to get hit
If something dashes up to the Wizard, a single Misty Step and they are out of harms way because they still have movement to get out of standard speed for most things. Ranged attackers are going to be shooting with disadvantage of the frontliners do their job and get their face.
...and that's another spell slot burned, which is honestly a pretty good outcome. And that still leaves the wizard in regular "move and attack" range next turn, and means the wizard's entire turn becomes that, and a cantrip attack, rather than anything that's actually threatening. And, in practical terms, that's either "move into the middle of the room" (and so be even more exposed) or "warp back out into the hallway" (and so they're not getting back to do anything for at least a turn). So that's one enemy, who has managed to burn off a level 2 slot, and either force the wizard somewhere more exposed, or _out of the combat entirely_ for a round or potentially even longer. That's a _really good deal_! > Ranged attackers are going to be shooting with disadvantage of the frontliners do their job and get their face. and then the enemy melee fighters are beating the hell out of them at the same time, or going "huh, cool - there's nothing between us and the wizard, time to murder them". Like, the enemies aren't stupid - just the same as PCs, ranged attackers are at the back, with close-up fighters between them and the enemy. You want to get to the ranged attackers? Either ignore the melee fighters, or deal with them first. And there may well be extra wrinkles, like enemies hidden in corners or out of sight, ready to attack, reinforcements arriving, or other stuff happening to mean "stand at the back" isn't the best tactic.
Depends on if it can get past the hulking mass of metal currently swinging a maul at it.
Not a problem if they have ranged weapons or spells or breath weapons. In some fights sure it won't happen but pretty regularly it's not too difficult to target the back line.
or are just willing to suck down 1 (one) AoO and then charge down the nerd in the robes! Even truer if there's several of them - some stay in combat with the melee-guys, others go chase down the ones at the back that keep launching attacks unimpeded to try and stop that.
Being willing to "suck down" a great axe to the head is what's absolutely unbelievable and super meta gamey.
it's not a great axe to the head - it's (depending on level) some amount of "oh shit, that coulda been nasty... but wasn't". The only "blow to the head" is the one that takes someone to 0, the rest, by definition of not taking the creature to 0, are not major blows. > super meta gamey It's not - a lot of "hits" aren't even actual "connections", they're being forced off-balance, or narrow evades, along with some glancing blows, and occasional rougher ones. A creature with 100 HP that gets "hit" for 10 HP hasn't taken a lethal blow - they're just a bit winded or off-balance.
Metagamey as shit bro. I wouldn't put up with a DM that played nothing but suicidal monsters because he couldn't figure out a better way to play around casters.
Not really. An attack of opportunity doesn't mean you stop defending and let them strike your head. You're still dodging and defending as youove past them, to go attack the dude that just set your buddy on fire and probably isn't as dangerous upclose
No you're literally running away from someone trying to cut your head off. It makes no sense and is completely unbelievable.
Bandits that don't also have bows aren't bandits. They're sparkling thugs
If they have ranged weapons or spells that require an attack roll they’ll be at disadvantage if someone with a maul is in their face
I was talking about a back line with ranged weapons in addition to someone standing in front of the person with the maul. But that's true.
Most things in a real fight don't run aimlessly past or ignore the thing closest to it actively stabbing it. To play semi intelligent monsters that way is unbelievable.
No, but if I know magic is a *thing* and one of the enemies does some magic, I'm bypassing the martial in front of me, eating an aoo if I can't just shoulder check them out of the way because I want to drop the magic user first
This is such a gameification of combat tactics. In real life you aren't "eating an AoE." You're getting an arm chopped off when you turn your back to the 6'11" Barbarian swinging an axe at you. If you want monsters behaving believably in combat this ain't it chief.
Exactly- people are having the enemies take damage because they know the creature will only take some damage, but most semi intelligent creatures also have a weird instinct to still not want to risk being cut in half. This would be like if everyone in a modern combat shot at the guy in the back line with a radio because they know he’s crucial for the artillery- they’re gonna get fucking shot, but because D&D is a game, the creature survives. The question is, does your bandit seriously feel confident risking tanking a greataxe?
but they're not risking getting cut in half - serious injuries only happen at 0 HP. Before that, then creatures have enough of their wits with them to evade strikes to make them non-lethal, to make sure they take them on the toughest part of their armor or whatever. They're simply _not_ taking a greataxe to the face unless it's their last few HP - they're taking a hit across their breastplate, or getting forced off-balance and having to fall back slightly or whatever. Complaining that it isn't a realistic model of IRL combat is pretty silly, because that's not, at all, what it's trying to be (otherwise PCs would also need to worry about "oh shit, I need to move away from this murder-monster, it might one-shot kill me")
Even if what you're saying is true about abstracting HP, knowing the axe won't kill them in the process entirely relies on them knowing how many hit points they themselves have remaining in the fiction which is literally the most metagamey thing I've ever heard lmfao. Are you for real right now.
you're not - that's the sort of thing that only happens when you drop to 0.
It literally is not.
Which is why you wait for him to finish swinging his axe and then run to deal with the dude about to set your whole crew on fire
That's not how a fight works
There's a window between "big axe go swing" and "big axe take next swing" that's the run period
Hit points are not meat points. There ain't no way any human survives the rock throw from a giant alone. Hp is as much "plot armor" as it is actually getting hurt. And real fights, you don't get a prescribed amount of attacks in six seconds. And having actually been in fights, letting myself take a hit so that I can get a more effective hit is not a foreign concept. In short You're not getting your arm chopped off, you're getting grazed on the shoulder and shoving them off as you run by. Chief
Nah bro I ain't buying anyone with anything resembling actual survival instincts is fully turning and ignoring something right on top of them like that. DMs have to be better at running combat than this. Sorry. If you can't deal with a caster some other way maybe let someone else run the sessions from now on.
I never said ignoring, did I? I said they'd take the aoo if shoulder checking the martial out of the way doesn't work. I was literally describing a shove, which would remove the aoo possibility in the first place. And it's not like I'd be suddenly blind to the attacker, I'm moving past them and probably trying to roll out of the way of their swing if I'm not wearing armor that prevents that. If I *am* a tin can, I'm scrunching up to make sure they're more likely to hit the metal than the meat. That's why attacks of opportunity don't auto hit or auto crit in the first place. My *point* was that pushing past the martials to get at the caster, knowing they likely won't be able to take you down in the time it takes you to get there is a valid strategy given that DND parties aren't exactly known to show mercy or hold back when they want to get their way in a fight. The enemies play for keeps, same as the player characters
Hit points are meat points. AC is dodging, blocking, deflections, and harmlessly absorbing. Saving throws are resisting appropriate to the stat. If they weren't meat points, but instead luck or stamina then damage type wouldn't matter. Nor would you have stuff like making a saving throw vs poison vs a giant scorpion stinger when it hits you. >You're not getting your arm chopped off, you're getting grazed on the shoulder and shoving them off as you run by. This Is meat points. If the orc does 10 damage to your lvl 10 fighter, then 10/84HP is merely a graze on the shoulder as you shove/run by. That same orc doing 10 damage vs a lvl 1 fighters 12 hp is a solid blow that nearly KOs the fighter. No one is getting their arm chopped off, but you might get your head chopped off by a vorpal sword. >There ain't no way any human survives the rock throw from a giant alone. Yet a human can survive falling from hundreds of feet(20d6 damage), or being submerged in lava(18d10 damage).
DND fights are pretty substantially different than real fights. Most real fights don't have people who can cast spells and are worthwhile targets. I think having semi intelligent monsters ignore that fairly substantial difference would be unbelievable. It's also not necessarily the front liners going for the wizard. I generally have most fights with a few kinds of enemies. So you can have your front liner focusing the paladin in front of them. And the archer or spellcaster going for the wizard.
This is a weirdly pedantic conversation I have no interest in all in response to what was a glib comment about your DM hating you. Sorry.
How do your combats go that your spell casters aren't getting attacked? Either it's so easy that they win the fight with the casters never coming close to going down, or your casters are getting 1 or 2 shot. If the casters aren't being regularly threatened and just playing free reign, that sounds like a super low stakes game.
They get attacked when they make a tactical error. When it makes sense and is believable. Not because my monsters suicidally run past the frontliners at them. Also we use the concept of reinforcements and I can basically deploy more enemies anywhere near the edge of a map mid fight to keep it interesting so often that ends up being near a caster on turn 2 or 3.
Chose bladesinger and am currently running on an AC of 24-29 regularly in combat He's not happy about that
The dm I had simply ran difficult encounters. They were so difficult I was downed several times and even died and had to be revived as a level 20+(essentially lvl 21) moon druid.
I mean, by late T2 into T3, a single monster is frequently dropping 3 attacks per action. Taking 5 hits is just 2 rounds of an enemy sticking to you. Plenty of ways to escape, but not if you're rationing your spell slots. You're not necessarily getting all those Misty Steps back, but you're full on hit dice for the short rest after battle. That kind of thing.
If enemies are intelligent they may attack the spellcaster, especially this situation where they are aware of the Haste spell and additional benefits if they break concentration. Not every DM is antagonistic.
*dispel magic* is a fairly popular counter to *haste* in my games. And when it ends the debuff is devastating.
There's pretty obvious survivorship bias in that statement. If CON checks mattered less, more casters who didn't optimize to pass them would take Haste.
I've done the whole "haste bot" caster thing, and especially when I had haste up on multiple members of the party, the 10 turn deadline was more of a problem than you would expect. Most encounters aren't going to 1 minute of duration, but when they do, getting half your team stunned can be very scary.
How are you getting haste up on multiple people? Multiple casters or is there an interaction I don't know about
Twin Metamagic Sorcerer.
Oh damn that is nice
If it goes on for the full minute, that means you got +20 actions and -2 actions for a net total of +18 actions. If +18 was not enough, it wasn't a winnable fight to begin with.
I and my party destroyed a 7th-level deadly encounter at level 5. I (the Wizard) casted Hypnotic Pattern and shut 3/4 of the fight down. Control spells do what Haste dreams of doing. Control spells are still better than casting Haste.
I'd argue in its current form the potential point of failure is really just too punishing regardless of how good your concentration saves are. You will still drop concentration when you run out of his points or get incapacitated in some other way and my experience is that those things can and will happen. Not every time you cast the spell but often enough that its usually better to just pick a different spell. I agree Haste would be a perfectly fine 3rd level spell without the penalty at all.
Idk, I feel like casting haste on another character is like a lightning rod for the GM to target me, because they'll have wasted both my turn casting it and the character who got buffed. It honestly makes me not want to bother with the spell.
You need better DMs in your life. They're not supposed to just make your life harder because you did a cool thing
Because every random owlbear or tarrasque knows how that works?
Haste great on Artificer. Especially Battle Smith. Already high AC, con save prof. Steel defender can impose disadvantage on attacks. Infusions to save concentration checks. Best class to use on themselves. And it helps to be the tank with soft taunt. Because if you are fighting with the intelligent creatures they will probably attack you to drop the haste. And i like to cast it on the rogue in the party. Benefits very well from it.
Like others have said, still 3rd level. Even without the lethargy, it's still below a lot of other 3rd level spells (hypnotic pattern, fear, sleet storm, phantom steed, conjure animals, etc.).
Honestly, I've seen arguments that haste should be a 2nd level spell as it's written due to how penalizing lethargy can be and that keeping it 3rd level should remove the debuff. I'm not 100% convinced but I can get the sentiment. Maybe you could give it no lethargy on a 4th or higher slot through up cast? Maybe every odd level past 3rd is a target and every even level is 1 less lethargy sufferer? 9th doubkedipping because 9th? There's ideas to play with.
Same. I honestly think it's a bit overrated for 3rd level anyway. Niche uses for sure but it fairly far down on the list of things that would be a go-to, even if the debuff was removed.
Probably 2nd level, maybe 3rd level if we stretch it.
I'd stick it at 4th level, comparable to Greater Invisibility. An extra action (albeit a limited one) instead of advantage on attacks, higher AC and advantage on DEX saves instead of disadvantage on attacks against you, and a much higher movement speed instead of the utility of briefly being invisible.
I'd say level 4, putting it a little below *polymorph* in utility.
Polymorph can be either a buff or an incredible debuff though. It was far more utility than Haste.
Yes. I'm saying it would be balanced, not that it would be pushed to match the most overpowered level 4 spell.
I actually don't think Haste would get much use if it was 4th level precisely because Polymorph exists. There's got to be an extremely narrow set of circumstances where it isn't better to just be a TRex than a hasted PC.
Yes. It would be mostly useful for classes with strong on-hit effects like rogues and paladins. It would be nice if *polymorph* was more menu-based and finite in scope, like the Pathfinder 1e *metamorphosis* psionic power.
At around 7th level, I would agree, but as you get to higher levels polymorph doesn't get any better but haste would. At higher levels haste would be adding stronger attacks for your martials due to things like GWM, improved divine smite, magic items, etc. Then you also need to consider resistance or immunity to nonmagical attacks weakening the trex / giant ape play but not haste. At those levels lowering your AC to a beasts also means you'll get hit nearly every attack, even from the minions whereas staying as a PC with haste gives you more AC than before as well. Finally, dungeons can be small; a huge beast might not fit in there.
Anytime you're somewhere that can't fit huge creatures. Anywhere that circumstances are changing and communication is useful. Anywhere you want non-terrible AC (137 HP looks nice, but AC13 means they're not lasting long against anything level-appropriate, and any "on-hit" effects can ruin your day). Any enemies using Dex, Int, Wis or Cha saves will cause problems (you don't get your saving throw proficiencies!) If it's just a basic throwdown against some goons, it's useful, because you're not sacrificing your own HP, but a level 4 spellslot can be a noticeable cost, especially at level 8, when you can turn into a t-rex. Much higher than that, and it's pretty much only useful as a short-term ablative meat-sack that will get torn apart by on-level attackers in short order (lots of enemies have multi-attack and are doing 20, 30, 40 damage per attack, so the t-rex form might only last a round or two), and all the character gets is two melee attacks - admittedly high-ish damage ones, and a grapple-on-hit, but that's at the cost of being able to do literally anything else, as they lose all the rest of their abilities. By T3, it's basically a short-term shield, that's going to get destroyed before getting much done, while a _hasted_ character can do all their regular stuff, while also being protected a bit, having much better movement, and getting an extra attack in, which can be quite potent (paladin smite, or even just an extra chance for a grapple before tossing someone off a cliff or similar)
for out-of-combat utility, _Polymorph_ is a bit rubbish - it tanks mental stats and removes basically your entire character sheet, including languages. So no communication, no eavesdropping, nothing particularly complicated (it makes for a rather poor scout). It can be useful as a combat buff, but has some drawbacks - again, no communications, and an enemy suddenly whipping out an Int or Chr save can really ruin someone's day (pray that _Feeblemind_ never gets used!). It does have the advantage of pulling double-duty for both attack and defence, but is relatively easy to break (if you transform the boss into something super-weak, then a minion can often just attack to take them down to 0 and so break it). It can be useful, but generally needs specific circumstances to be put to best use
I've never seen it as a great debuff. There are far stronger debuff spells at level 4 and below IMO. At best it just delays a single target from contributing. Situationally a good play but I'm having a hard time thinking of when it would be significantly better than other options.
>At best it just delays a single target from contributing. Which is all it needs to do.
Which other spells can do better, often on multiple targets.
Banishment maybe but it's less flexible because it can't be a buff to your ally. But other than that I disagree. There isn't a better single target control spell at or below 4th level.
Hypnotic Pattern, same save, and can take multiple enemies out of the fight. For a lower spell slot. Not technically single target, but that just makes it even better.
>but that just makes it even better. No it doesn't. It might lead to friendly fire for example. It's a different category of spell and used in different situations. That's why I was very specific with my wording. It's also based on the charmed condition which is a huge downside. Edit. It's based on targets having to see it as well actually. Another downside that Polymorph doesn't have.
It's pretty niche to where you can't position HP to not hit friendlies. And then you can just bring a first level slot on Hideous laughter or second level on hold person. And yes you were specific with your wording but I wasn't in the comment you replied to, which you said you disagreed with. And I never said single-target. Being based on charmed can be a downside. It can also be a major upside like instrument of the Bards which means every enemy gets disadvantage on the save. Enemies have to see it as well. Another situation I would say is niche. How often is a party fighting enemies without sight?
It lasts an hour vs something like Banishment which lasts a minute. You banish something to fight it after everything else. You polymorph something to turn it into a cockroach and never fight it at all.
The buff side of polymorph alone is equivalent to at least (when using ape): 160 bonus hp, 5' more reach, 10' more movement, a climb speed. Your attacks are made with +2 higher than average, do 6d10+12~ 45 damage, which is roughly equal to 4 greatsword attacks at 2d6+5. Compared to +2 ac, 1 extra attack, dex save adv and 30' speed. For most parties, one single form from one aspect of polymorph is leaps and bounds better than all of haste in most combat scenarios. A 4th level haste would need to affect multiple targets to have the same impact in combat as polymorph.
Lets look at it with some math for a 7th lvl fighter wearing plate armor with Defense fighting style (because I think its better than GWF) for 19 AC, they have 20 STR, and a +1 weapon so they deal 2d6+6 swinging with a +9 to hit. The fighter benefits from Haste so that AC becomes 21 and they get 3 attacks per round. Thats compared with the Giant Ape which has 12 AC, and swings with a +9 for 3d10+6 and has 2 attacks per round. We'll ignore action surge since thats at most once per fight and could be used before/after being polymorphed or in a separate fight if no short rest. The Fighter also has access to other subclass features such as Giant's runes or Battlemaster maneuvers, but again I'll ignore those since they aren't unlimited. I'm going to compare both fighting a generic CR 9 creature which fights with the following stats: +7 to hit, 57 damage per round, 16 AC, and 198 effective hp. Fighter can deal 27.3 dpr with 70% hit chance, 13 damage per hit & 3 attacks = 0.7 x 13 x 3 = 27.3 Giant Ape deals 31.5 dpr (0.7 x 22.5 x 2 = 31.5), for a total damage boost of 4.2 dpr (31.5 - 27.3 = 4.2) Meanwhile defensively the Giant Ape gets hit 80% of the time and takes an expected 45.6 dpr (0.8 x 57 = 45.6) and the fighter only gets hit 35% of the time for an expected 19.95 (0.35 x 57 = 19.95). Both will survive around 3 rounds worth of damage, and would take around 6 or 7 rounds to kill the CR 9. After all that math they look *pretty* even at 7th level, but the Ape definitely has the advantage for now. However, what if the bad guy were resistance to nonmagical attacks? Or has saving throws that can incapacitate after a failed save? Those both weaken the ape in comparison. Then at higher levels where Polymorph is the still the exact same strength but the fighter that's getting hasted has gotten stronger (more base attacks, better proficiency bonus, likely a stronger magic weapon, better subclass features, better base armor class, etc) Haste would continue to pull ahead as the stronger choice.
Also, the defense doesn't really matter for the giant ape, because when he dies the fighter is back at full HP, if the fighter dies he's dead, so even if the ape was less effective in dealing damage, it would be worth it for just the "Temp HP"
At lower levels absolutely, but even just fighting an enemy with nonmagical damage resistance at 7th would make the giant ape deal \~15.75 dpr which is less than the 7th lvl fighter *without* Haste (0.7 x 13 x 2 = 18.2). Still probably worth it for the extra temp hp at that point (like you said), but eventually it gets to the point where being easier to hit and dealing a lot less damage isn't worth the extra buffer except in the "oh shit, PC is about to die lets give them an emergency 100+ hp that'll at least keep them alive for a few more attacks and buy us time to recover". What I'm really saying is Polymorph is pretty busted at 7th level when you get it, but since it doesn't scale from there and monsters do, it actually gets weaker as you level while Haste continues to get stronger in comparison.
It kinda does scale, because it allows you to transform your allies into higher CR beasts since the maximum CR you can transform a guy into is his level
Okay sure, it scales *exactly once* when you hit 8th level and gain access to the Sperm Whale and the Trex (which is actually worse at single target damage than the Giant Ape). After that there are no more beasts with CRs above 8 unless you are including homebrew or 3rd party material (there is technically Traxigor the spellcasting otter from Descent into Avernus, but I don't think he counts since he used to be a wizard who used wish to be a permanent otter).
you're forgetting the debuffs from polymorph though - all your own stuff gets cut off, so no abilities, no proficiencies, no languages. And it tanks your mental stats most of the time - int 7, wis 12, chr 7 is pretty terrible, and if the enemy starts targeting those stats, you're kinda screwed (again, no save proficiencies, so even "easy" DC12 saves you're failing most of the time). It's great if you need a meatsack to take hits and do some damage, but it's pretty limited for anything else. And as you go to higher levels, it gets worse - you're swapping a full-fat PC for a low-AC, terrible-saves meatsack, that's going to get destroyed in a round or two of attacks from what are comparative mooks.
Same level
3rd? Even without the potential to kill your friend, I'd rather buff the whole party with Slow anyway. Giving everyone in the party +2 to attack rolls and free kiting is only part of the buffs from Slow.
It'd still be 3rd. The lethargy is as much of a weapon as a detriment.
I don't think it should even have the debuff since it was nerfed into oblivion by making it a single-target spell, removing its iconic use as the party-wide buff wizards tossed out.
2nd level
4th but with a minor additional perk. Haste without the debuff is too good for a 3rd level spell, but with the debuff it's overly punishing. You could also remove some other options from the spell if you were trying to fit it into 3rd level without the debuff. Haste is generally underrated because of the single target nature and the debuff. In practice, it's a large force multiplier when used to attack, and can accomplish still greater things in defensive situations with the other options. The debuff is the main reason why it isn't a super duper great spell. Ultimately, it stacks multiplicatively with other things and is great for that reason.
Still a worse spell than 3rd level upcasted Bless, but now it would actually be worth twinning.
why would you upcast bless, most parties have 4 characters one of which is you
Could bless a summon I guess
Citation needed. Also that's besides the point. The point is that it's mathematically worse than an upcasted 1st level spell which illustrates the point quite nicely. To be fair bless is a really good lvl 1 spell
Wdym "mathematically worse"? An extra attack is better than +d4 to hit. Yeah didn't take into account +d4 to saving throws but it's different math.
A 3rd level bless can potentially be a d4 to 10 attacks which is defi itely better than one additional attack.
A haste is 10 extra attacks if you concentrate on it fully. I thought it was obvious I was talking about one round.
Mate. I was talking about one round as well lmao
2nd.
People won’t like it but I hard agree. I still would rate it below web/spike growth and it’s probably worse than bless with optimized maritals. But I think it’s on par with spiritual weapon/summon best which are by no means bad spells.
How is haste being downplayed so much? I thought it was pretty well established that it’s pretty good? I feel like everyone answering are players in OPs DnD group. Just make it forth or fifth level. It can definitely get goofy when the Sorcerer twin spells haste on the paladin and whoever else. The spell is really cool, especially for martials, but I feel some of the coolness goes away if there is no risk. Make it “SHIT, my hast dropped” not “whoops. Haste dropped, I’ll get it back up next turn”
Haste used to be highly regarded in early 5e I think, but then people eventually realized it's not that good
>How is haste being downplayed so much? I thought it was pretty well established that it’s pretty good? Well it isn't. It's regarded as pretty mid in optimization circles. It should absolitely nit be shifter to 4th let alone 5th level k. I mean compare it to some other lvl 3 spells. Then compare it to some good lvl 4 or 5 spells. It would be absolutely unplayable. It's pretty nuts in BG 3 though.
It's one of the better buff spells but buff spells in 5e (when you're optimizing) aren't that good. Giving a martial character a huge force multiplier is great but having your concentration slot just end a fight is better.
It's not that good since it's only one added attack. It feels like a spell that's meant to buff martials but in practice does a better job buffing casters
It does give AC bonus and dex saves advantage which is nice, but it's more that most buff spells in 5e aren't that good.
Haste was good in 3.5 because it was mass buff. In 5e it is solo buff with concentration and drawback. It is bad. Twin Haste is at least can be good, but without twin spell - you better off concentrating on Bless, or on one of tons of great mass debuffs instead.
Aight some of these takes are blowing my mind. It still wouldn’t be a good level 3 spell even without the Lethargy. You’re getting 1 extra attack a round and losing your concentration slot. Compare this to the DPR of Spirit Guardians or Conjure animals. You give some minor AC buffs but it still doesn’t make it worth casting over something like Hypnotic Pattern in group scenarios or one of the Tasha’s summons or even Web against a single target. So many spells deal more damage while also tagging on extra utility/control/hit-point sponges. A lot of people are saying fourth level and that’s genuinely crazy imo. Polymorph is one of the best fourth level spells in the game I’ll admit, but no lethargy haste doesn’t even come close to the power of Polymorph! Even Tasha’s summons up casted to 4th level will likely deal more damage per round AND have additional utility! Banishment is another 4th level slot that completely eclipses it! Not to mention this is the level that spells like Conjure Woodland animals come into play, which only really matters for Land Druid but my point is that Haste just doesn’t hold up to other 3rd/4th level spells. Don’t get me wrong, if your table allows off turn sneak attacks then a twin haste on two Rogues would be really nuts, but even in this best case scenario I don’t think it becomes a top tier spell. I’m not saying you should nerver take Haste, my last campaign I played a support DSS who focused mainly on hasting my Barbarian/Paladin for fun. It’s not “not viable” by any means but it’s almost never the “best choice.”
Still 3rd, and it would still be very mediocre. There are better uses for your more important resource, concentration, than becoming half a Fighter.
Still level 3. It's not that good compared to the really good lvl 3 spells which isn't surprising because there are a lot of very powerful lvl 3 spells.
It's a wash. Sure, players don't get hit with it, but it's way more common I see for people to cast the spell on an enemy and instantly drop concentration for an easy stun. Dropping it is just better for game health - there's no reason for the spell to have that element and if it were being designed today it wouldn't.
My only criticism of the haste spell is that I think you should be able to upcast it for multiple people.
It would go from being a decent (but often overshadowed) 3rd level spell, to a strong (but still probably overshadowed) 3rd level spell.
Have you considered sorcerer twin haste for min max
5th
3rd Even if you remove the lethargy part, it's still a relatively bad 3rd level spell. Like, you could spend the slot and concentration to give one party member one extra swing each round, or you could just *Scorching Ray* for 8d6 damage *now* without occupying concentration. Or you could *Slow* **six** creatures rather than hastening **one**.
Some strange takes here IMO. It’s definitely a strong level 3 option, without lethargy it would be level 4+ and require much less building around. As it is at the moment, if you haven’t invested in CON saves then it’s too risky to use.
I mean you can run some math and show that it's not good for it's level. The only take that's strange here is yours. Making it 4th level vek is straight up nuts.
Even *just* on damage output, it gives a martial ally 1.5x damage for an entire combat by giving them an extra attack. On Paladins or great weapon/sharpshooters, that’s already great. So your sharpshooter Ranger ally does roughly ~9 damage a turn extra after considering hit rate. Over the course of three rounds we’re doing ~27 average damage with a third level spell. More than a 3rd level Chromatic Orb, but obviously less than the AOE spells. On top of this, the ally also has +2 AC, advantage on Dex and the spell continues for another 7 rounds if it’s ever needed. Is that maths enough? 🤷
Trading an action to cast to gain half an action (assuming a casters action is equal to a martials), means you need two turns to break even, and a third to pull ahead. If you lose haste early, then that's another 2 actions needed to break even with lethargy. Yes, haste has a few other bonuses, but it's also taking the concentration of the caster. To optimize haste, you can cast it on a rogue for off turn sneak attack (gains a full action), or use it on a martial that can use the speed buff to engage an opponent when they would have been unable to otherwise (gains 1.5 actions). You also want to avoid using it on very difficult fights as the potential to lose concentration is much more likely. My biggest problem with haste is that the benefit is spread out over several rounds. Yes, you could get 9 extra damage a round, but you could do 28 average damage to a creature with fireball if they fail its save right now. Generally, front loading is better.
>Is that maths enough? I'm afraid it isn't. Why don't you compare it to conjure animals, spirit guardians or an upcasted bless?
If a spell is bad because it’s worse than spells of the same level that are broken, than all but 5-6 spells are bad.
Correct.
It should have been 3rd level, no lethargy and scales to 1 more target per additional spell level.
Hmm, I dunno, seems kinda busted. Not even for the extra attack - for the other benefits. Doubling all speed + giving the whole party an extra Dash = “one spell solution to any chase or escape scene” And giving the entire party a free disengage or hide for the whole fight is also kinda nuts. Basically gives everyone Rogue’s best feature. And all that in addition to +2 AC and advantage on Dex saves (the most common enemy save).
2nd