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Problem spells

Some spells are challenging to deal with. Tiny Hut and Magnificent Mansion, Teleport, Wish, and others. How do you circumvent these abilities to keep your story and session on track?

Drew Dunn , 13.08.2018, 08:15
Idea status: under consideration

Comments

Quila, 23.08.2018, 07:23
As well as sitting down with players and talking about spells before players take them to make sure (before it is chosen by a player) that what the player thinks that spell can do and what the GM thinks it can do both align.

Spells like Suggestion, Detect Thoughts, ect. get very very hairy at times.
MagathaPai, 28.08.2018, 18:35
One suggestion I saw how to mitigate this was from a youtube show called the animated spellbook: The spell in question was Goodberry, and they suggested making the component consumed by the spell.
Lydia, 21.04.2021, 06:12
First of all it should be noted that it's completely valid to say that certain spells aren't allowed, ref. the "no" video (#94), but if the spell has alreaddy been around and taking it wout would be both retconing and taking stuff from the players, considder what the spells limitations are, and attack them. "Problem spells" are usually spells that are particularily good at overcoming the particular challanges of the DM in question.

Leomund's Tiny Hut, for instance seams pretty op on the surface, an impenetrable dome that prevents all mundane and magical entry while letting creatures you choose pass freely, can be cast as a ritual and lasts 8hours, and is even transperent outwards but opaque inwards? Wow, that is one powerful spell you don't even need to stand guard!. Would have been a shame if an enemy knew dispell magic...

That one is obvious and applies to all, well most anyways, spells, but before adding some more specific advice I'd like to invite you to ask what you mean by problem spell. Is it that it is massively useful? because that's a big part of the fantasy fo being a wizard or bard, it's to be able to provide massively useful magic to the party, and Leomund's tiny hut is really good at making a player feel like their character has something to offer. Is it that it's limiting what kinds of challenges you can throw at the PC's? Wel truth being told, once again, you can still throw the problems at them, they just have a neat solution that doesn't take much work. If you only want to temporarily show them they can't allways rely on the spell, just give them a bunch of children to take care of, say 10, and watch them pretend not to have the spell to save any of the kids from being the one who can't enter, or better still, forget to count and have the kids freak out when the spell fails. alternatively give them anyone with a large size as an ally and have the ally react to them not letting them into the protective sphere, maybe they think it's not about size at all, and that the characters arre being wangrods? Also, if the PCs can use Leomund's Tiny Hut, so can any 5th level spellcster with access to it, meaning they might end up in a fight where the enemy as a dome to hide in. If you're not feeling like finding a counter, just do that and see what they use and just use the same at them.

Another general piece of advice, is to challenge the PC's with a variety of kinds of problems. They picked Leoumund's Tiny Hut, great, they don't have to worry about camping issues, and can make a neat protetive barrieer if they have the chance to prepare for a fight (provided there is a space big enough, I reccomend trying a tiny dungeon sometime just to watch them freak out about how there suddenly are no unoccupied spaces within sight, and not areas large enough for anything, puts the 'crawl' in dungeoncrawl if you know what I mean?) but what about ambushes? what about negotiations? What about when there are hostages, are you gonna hide for most of the fight then? Ultimately Dungeons & Dragons isn't a camping simulator, and if your players are playing it like that, just think about why it is that D&D isn't a camping siulator, and throw your answers at them like a monkey throws excrement. Remind them that the tiny hut is a good spell, but not the only one they need. Below are quick notes on the other examples you mentioned:

Magnificent mansion: Ok so this is not as much a problem in my optionion as it is an oppertunity. If a mansion pops out of no where, anyone who comes across it would have some dramatic reaction. Send a band of low-level adventurers at them to explore the mysterious mansion that just appared and have them see what they used to be, have a traveler ask for refuge from the whether and then roleplay it out, whether the traveler is secretly a theif, an evil mage, a spy from the BBEG, or literally just a random traveler. If you wan't you can have whomever is the local land owner arrive and ask what in the heavens they think they are doing constructing buildings without permission on their land! If it's to powerful, considder inventing some cool narrative where the mansion is actually a real mansion they summon, and suddenly someone else was using the spell and the mansiou appares with a person in it! Or maybe it begins to deterierate and require maintenence since it's the same mansion each time, or maybe rooms start appearing that weren't there before. If a spell gives you trouble, just give it trouble back... or to be more precise make an adventure revolved around it. It's ok to have cool spells as long as players learn to apprecheate them.

Teleport: The spell actually comes with the possability that PCs wind up in the wrong place. Additionally I would rule it such that if an unwilling creature is grappling a PC, they can't be teleported away. Also considder whether it is possible to interfere with it, maybe the BBEG can use some illusion spell like Nystul's magic aura to make the teleport go to the wrong place if they keep coming back to the same one? or if two places match the same description and identity because of Nystul's aura, maybe half the party ends up on the false location and the other half ends up on the right one? THAT would be dramatic af.

Wish: Look, it is a 9th level spell that is supposed to let you wish for something. I struggle to understand how the concept of problem spell can apply at 17th level, given how absurdly powerful everything is at that level. That being said, being able to cast 8th level spells and lower is something they could do by other means, and if you mean the alternative version where you do whatever, there is a chance they can only cast in once, and they need to take breaks in between each time they risk permanently losing it, not to mention that a bit of genie logic can make the spell unusable if you really want to go there.

Other spells: As a general guide, look at the spells limits and attack them, considder how you can make the use of a spell the source for drama rather than a simple solution to a problem, have the bad guys use the same spells against them, and sometimes just let the PCs have the ability to use powerful magic, it's part of the fantasy, and if all else fails, it's ok to say "No, that spell clashes too much with the tone of my game" or "No, that spell provides a far to easy way to overcome a kind of challenge I really like to use in my games" or perhaps "Sure, but I have my own tweeks for that spell to make it fit in my campaign". For the latter I use a thing called Arcane veins, which you need to rest near in order to regain spell slots (like land lines or whatever) and some spells only work over those lines, like teleportation can only move characters from points conected by the veins, sending works the same way, and magically conjured structures can only remain while on the veins. For normal D&D, I like the idea of making Leomund's tiny hut either a 1 hour to cast, not a ritual, require the consumption of an expensive and/or rare resource, or just give the hut hitpoints.

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