For example, if the main villain maintains her cover for most of the adventure with a hat of disguise, even low-level characters have multiple ways to neutralize that, possibly without even realizing (how many rogues can resist stealing a cool hat?). Give the players opportunities use these spells tempt them with expending all their 4th-level spell slots to dimension door through one room, only to find the boss battle could have benefitted from a 4th-level spell, too.įinally, try not to hinge an entire adventure on a single spell or magic item. But if you sit down to write and realize the fly spell might be an easy button for your adventure, you can design encounters that benefit from fly and others that don't. You want the characters to be able to use the spells they've earned. Now, with these spells, the idea isn't to figure out how to foil each and every one. The point is to avoid being caught by surprise or writing yourself into an easily defeated corner by something like dispel magic. Use the list as a reference, but don't feel you have to memorize or live in fear of everything listed in it. These spells that cover all sorts of circumstances. Most of the spells here are “corner cases,” but you’ll want to keep the purple ones in mind at all times. The purple spells are ones that have an outsized impact at their level bracket. Build your encounters around these spells rather than against them. Remember that you don’t want to outright foil or negate these spells - just consider how you’d respond to them if the players used them. You'll also want to watch out for spells that can trivialize the adventuring environment, such as dimension door or scrying + teleport.īelow is a list of spells, sorted by category, that you want to bear in mind while writing or running a D&D adventure. A few examples include zone of truth, speak with animals, and charm person. Those can have a big impact on mysteries and influencing NPCs. While you won't always be able to predict what spells the players will leverage (even Matt Mercer gets hit by this sometimes), you can minimize nasty surprises by digging into the spell lists and hunting for "problem spells."Ī great place to start is the divination and enchantment spell lists. So what can DMs and adventure writers do about all these terrifying spells? There are a few things! These moments of unexpected triumph can be incredibly fun for the players, but they can catch even the most experienced Dungeon Masters off guard. Or the time Taliesin Jaffe's character in Critical Role managed to sideline an entire naval battle with a good roll on a control water spell. I've heard a few horror stories, including one where a druid used speak with animals and a few pointed questions to uncover the adventure's surprise villain within the first ten minutes. Have you ever had a spell completely derail your entire D&D adventure?
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