D&D 5E Silvery Barbs, how would you fix it? Does it need fixing?

[Bolares]

The point of the controller (or "god") wizard is to prevent damage from happening in the first place, to control the monster's ability to even do damage at all. To a silvery barbs player, if your letting your wizard even take a lot of attacks...your doing it wrong.

Okay, I'm reading the thread but had to comment on this before I forget my point, sorry if this was already adressed. This ignores the 60 ft range of SB. If you don't want to be hit, you REALLY don't want to be this close to your enemies every turn. So, you are not really positioning yourself for avoiding damage if you want to use SB effectivelly.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Didn't get this book (or the new spells and monsters separately on Beyond, which is a first), nor do I plan to. It's good to know I avoided some power creep cheese.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Okay, I'm reading the thread but had to comment on this before I forget my point, sorry if this was already adressed. This ignores the 60 ft range of SB. If you don't want to be hit, you REALLY don't want to be this close to your enemies every turn. So, you are not really positioning yourself for avoiding damage if you want to use SB effectivelly.

Yes, but, but, this is the White Room, positioning doesn't exist!

 

[Bolares]

I ultimatelly don't like the spell. I don't think it's that great of a design. But I can't see it being broken in real play unless the campaign is designed around making this spell always it's best.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm thinking of either raising it's level, or breaking it down into several different spells. It has so far seem more usage (and arguably been more effective) than both Absorb Elements combined.

 

[p_johnston]

Okay, I'm reading the thread but had to comment on this before I forget my point, sorry if this was already adressed. This ignores the 60 ft range of SB. If you don't want to be hit, you REALLY don't want to be this close to your enemies every turn. So, you are not really positioning yourself for avoiding damage if you want to use SB effectivelly.

How often do combats happen where people are more then 60 feet away? Because in my group it's fairly rare (maybe 1 in 10 times if that). Hell in dungeons or urban settings getting more than 60 feet away seem like it's going to be actively difficult. (This is an actual question by the way. Might be that my group is weird in how close our combats are)

Speaking from a DM perspective unless the players take pains to set up a fight to start a certain way I'm going to plan on all fights starting with both sides fairly close together (30 to 60 feet) for a couple of reasons.
1) On a battlemap/roll 20 setting up a map that's to big is a pain in the butt.
2) I don't want to end up with several rounds of both sides melee guys charging at each other doing nothing.

Even if the caster ends up moving further than 60 feet away within a couple of rounds that still leaves a few rounds with them in range to use the Silvery Barbs which if anything makes the spell more useful. If they're only going to be in range to cast banishment for 1 turn then landing it is going to become very important.

Also worth noting counterspell is also 60 feet so if there are any other casters in the fight then you probably want to be within that 60 foot range.

 

[p_johnston]

Thank you. I disagree with your conclusion, but it is really nice to see someone on the other side of this argument actually addressing the counterpoints regarding the spell.

Welcome.

Also I'm perfectly willing to say I might be wrong. I haven't played with the spell and probably won't for a long time (combination of me being the main DM and my group currently testing out other systems) so everything I say on it is pure speculation. I really think that this question would be much more useful to ask in 6 months after people have actually had a chance to test the spell out and try and push it's limits.

 

[NotAYakk]

The suggestion here is that the spell is ONLY useful in these very niche cases....which I will disagree with.

The fact that silvery barbs is most useful if the monster will have a very hard time passing a reroll is obvious.... but that doesn't mean its worthless if the save is a bit harder. The real question is: when is silvery barbs "not worth the slot", aka how high a save bonus should the monster have before its not worth the use of the slot.

That happens ... roughly when casting the first spell was not worth the slot.

Or a bit later.

 

[ECMO3]

A wizard has many many more game changers than 6th level spells. Polymorph, banishment, hypnotic pattern, dominate person, hold monster, hold person, hypnotic pattern, heck even a slow spell can cripple a monster reliant on both actions and bonus actions. All of these spells and more can fundamentally change a combat with a single saving throw.

Wizards don't change combats starting at 11th level, they change combats at much much lower a level, and SB just makes that power even stronger.

SB is almost irrelevant to that power. Wizards do that without SB, and Fireball is actually an overtuned 3rd level spell. Also you are going to cut the effective range of many of those spells in half or more to use it. Hypnotic Pattern is a 30 foot cube, but you have to be less than 60 feet from the guy who saved to use this.

It can, theoretically do that. But it is not going to do that often in combat. The majority of times they make the first save, they are going to make the second as well. The times they fail the first save you can't use it.

My Wizard actually got hammered by a lightning bolted tonight because she was foolish and took a ready action to cast a cantrip on an enemy when they emerged from darkness and did not have a ready action for absorb elements.

Play it out. You will see. This is very rarely going to be a game changer in the fashion you envision. Will it ever happen? Sure it will, probably once or twice over a 20-level campaign, maybe a few more times on a battle you were going to win easily anyway. But probably not more that that.

Now being a "game changer" by reversing a crit. Yes, that will happen fairly often.

 

[ECMO3]

Is it better then Shield at defending yourself? no. But it can also defend other members of your party and negate criticals.

Yes and this is pretty awesome.

Is it better then absorb elements at defending yourself? no. But it can also end up halving the damage someone else takes on something like fireball as a side benefit of the spell by giving them advantage.

Only if the save against fireball is the FIRST roll that person makes after you cast it AND if it occurs in the next minute. You do not choose when they get advantage. If he gets hit with a cantrip before the fireball, he uses the advantage on the save against that. If the enemy tries to grapple him he uses the advantage to counter the grapple. If the DM has him roll an ability check with a DC of 5, he uses the advantage on that.

Also keep in mind you can get advantage on an attack roll through a cantrip, or through inspiration or repeatedly with a familiar and in most games with creative intelligent play. You can give 3 people +1d4 on all attacks and all saves for an entire minute with a 1st level spell. Advantage one time, on a roll not of your choosing, is generally worth far less than a 1st level slot. As a matter of fact that is worth less than most cantrips.

Would I burn a first level spell slot and a reaction to
Get a second chance at one of my battle ending spells without having to wait another turn? Yes.
Burn a legendary resistance on a Big Bad? Usually.

Except that opportunity will rarely come up and when it does the majority of the time they will make the save again. This is the weakest use of the spell, especially if you move to within 60 feet just to have the potential oppotunity to do it before you cast the crowd pleaser. The positioning requirement is going to hurt you more often than you are going to manage to flip a save. If you happen to be within 60 feet anyway, with no way to avoid that, then sure. But that is not worth preparing a spell for.

Overall this feels like half a dozen spells jammed together any of which I would consider good. A 1st level spell to have an enemy reroll a save alone would be a very good. A 1st level spell that used my reaction to give an ally advantage on any roll for up to 1 minute without concentration would be decent. A 1st level spell that made an enemy reroll an attack would be ok. Roll them all up and it becomes excellent.

It is a very versatile spell, and that is why it is a good spell. But it is not overpowered. IMO they had to add the advantage in there to bring it up to where other good spells were.