Guidance Is A Terrible Spell

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I bet people are thinking, "But wait, Guidance is SO GOOD! I can use it in nearly every situation, it's a cantrip, and it's available to several classes as well as an amulet that let's ANYONE use it! What's not to like?"

Well...all of that.

Guidance is a universally good spell. This is the first mark against it. There shouldn't be any universally good spells (Bless, for example, comes close to being universally good...except that it's only good in combat, and doesn't lower enemy saving throws...but it comes close and is heavily favored over Bane).

Any spell which is universally good becomes nearly mandatory. Since it's universally good, there's almost never a time when you wouldn't want it. There's nothing selective about it. You just always want it.

It requires concentration. Now, I have all kinds of thoughts about concentration in general, but specifically when it comes to this spell, needing concentration when combined with it's universal applicability means that you must dedicate at least one character to not using concentration - at least out of combat. With so many all day spells (Longstrider, Shield of Faith, etc.) to concentrate on, keeping a character's concentration free all the time for a cantrip is sort of a big deal. You can, of course, give the amulet to any character that only needs to concentrate during combat only, but what if you create a party where all members have an all-day concentration spell they need to keep up and you can't keep wasting spell slots renewing it every time you need to cast Guidance (which is all the damn time, since Guidance is, as we established, universally good)? Another solution would be to remove concentration as a requirement from Guidance, since it's just a cantrip anyway and infinitely renewable, the only benefit this has is that it becomes stackable in combat with other bonuses, but I don't believe it's that bad. Shorten it's duration to like 3 turns or something (so you basically use it just before a check, or as a reaction to a roll like you can now), but remove concentration then you don't have to worry about it conflicting with all-day spells.

That only solves the concentration issue though, not the fact that one cantrip is universally good in all situations.

Lately, I've been playing without using it at all, whether it's available to me or not, and instead figuring out ways to just pass checks with other bonuses and without the use of Guidance. I find the game is actually more fun without it. Guidance is, in some ways, very reminiscent of Pathfinder's issue with "pre-buffing" before every battle, except in this case it's "pre-buff" before you go anywhere, as there might be some random perception check or something you stumble across so you want to constantly have this spell up just in case. It becomes a mandatory tedium, in other words. It's not fun or strategic or tactical - it's just something you constantly spam to get the highest result possible and it's universal applicability just means you never want to let it down, except maybe in combat since it has the least amount of use there.

Personally, I'd just get rid of the spell, but I know that there's a whole chorus of voices out there that would hate this, so in this particular case I just practice what I preach - I avoid using it. My games are a lot more fun without Guidance.

[Chillearth]

When I play, I find myself trying to work out if I NEED to cast guidance - if the odds to succeed are tough enough - and the consequence of a failed check bad enough, to warrant it's use. I'm trying to use it as little as possible.

That is a sure sign (to me) it's overpowered. I'm ok with SOME powerful cantrips, for example shilleleagh is always useful to a druid in melee, being better than other weapons they are allowed to use. This though, it just isn't right.

I can live with barrelmancy (which PanDar can't) and shilleleagh and high ground advantage, but Guidance is just WRONG.

[cl656]

Alot of things in this game are too good to use, and i doubt it will change this late in development.

the fighter and rogue are too good for a playable class.
Armored class stat is too good.
Stealth is still too good.
Dexterity is too good.

[Chillearth]

Oprindeligt skrevet af cool-dude:

Alot of things in this game are too good to use, and i doubt it will change this late in development.

the fighter and rogue are too good for a playable class.
Armored class stat is too good.
Stealth is still too good.
Dexterity is too good.

A lot of assertions - no reasoning.

[Hobocop]

Oprindeligt skrevet af cool-dude:

Alot of things in this game are too good to use, and i doubt it will change this late in development.

the fighter and rogue are too good for a playable class.
Armored class stat is too good.
Stealth is still too good.
Dexterity is too good.

At early levels, maybe. That changes quite quickly once spellcasters get their bigger guns and can completely shut down entire combat encounters with a single action and spell slot.

Let the martial characters actually be good at what they do, because they don't have spells, and will never have spells as good as a full caster.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Yeah, casters are still the demi-gods of D&D. All you really need in this game is a Cleric and a Wizard.

[Fendelphi]

I dont think the issue is that big. Early on, you do not have that many concentration spells that you can have active over very long durations, so Guidance can be used more or less whenever you want.
When you get long duration concentration spells that are important for the area(like detect magic, detect Evil and good, Shield of Faith and various summon abilities), dropping concentration just to cast Guidance is not really worth it in most cases.


I guess they could add a restriction to how often you would be able to cast it in a single conversation.
For instance, if a dialogue ends up having 3 checks through a certain branch of choices, you only get to use your "free Guidance" once.
This could technically still be circumvented, if a different character is constantly casting Guidance on you, during the conversation.

Having a character in your party that is able to cast Guidance is certainly a boon.
But it is also a boon to have a character in the party that is able to cast Fireball.
Or a character in the party with a good Charisma score for more consistent dialogue checks.
I dont think it makes any of it "mandatory".

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Fendelphi:

I dont think the issue is that big. Early on, you do not have that many concentration spells that you can have active over very long durations, so Guidance can be used more or less whenever you want.

It's not a huge issue only because we can just ignore the spell and never use it - I already pointed this out in my post, but I wanted to point out why Guidance is a bad spell from a game design standpoint.

It's a Mary Sue spell. It's so useful that it kind of forces players to always use it, in almost all situations. This in itself becomes boring, but the need for concentration just makes it all the more annoying because of it.

I've just started playing all my games without it, but it's always there tempting me. Especially because we get an amulet that gives it to us for free and we can put that on any character that doesn't naturally have anything to concentrate on. I'm worried about the day I create a party though where every character needs to concentrate on an all-day spell and I don't have anyone to cast Guidance - guess I'll just completely stop using it then.

[Hex]

You must be a massive fan of Pathfinder :D

[Lunduke is the Trump of tech]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Louis:

You're right, Guidance is bad design. You always want Guidance when doing whatever check in the game. That means its not a buff, it's a mandatory chore that could be scrapped entirely. The concentration cost is largely meaningless outside of combat and just adds a little extra annoyance.

The argument that it's only good when you see a check coming imo also doesn't change this. In fact it makes it worse since you now have to have it up at all times just to pre empt a possible skill check.

The solution that would work best without pissing off D&D fanboys too much is removing the concentration requirement and having your Cleric auto cast it whenever a check comes up.

yep, i played pathfinder kingmaker and didn't like guidance cantrip neither. It's just a chore to constantly be using it. I always cast it several times on everyone before combat.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

The best spells are always situational. Half the fun of playing a caster is that you have such a large toolkit for all the many different situations you'll find yourself in. You are the Swiss Army Knife or Batman of the group.

Guidance alone is a multitool. It's always good, everywhere. And that's what makes it a bad spell.

[Hobocop]

Cantrips are also worthless in Pathfinder past the very early levels outside of specific PRCs, and one thing Pathfinder definitely doesn't need more of is tedious prebuff stacking.

[Lunduke is the Trump of tech]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hobocop:

Cantrips are also worthless in Pathfinder past the very early levels, and one thing Pathfinder definitely doesn't need more of is tedious prebuff stacking.

I don't think prebuff stacking was such an issue. As you level up they get a longer duration and there are metamagics which extend duration, wands with meta magic. With many spells you can buff 1 time per map, and others 2 times per map. Not so bad. It was just some spells like guidance i didnt like.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Oprindeligt skrevet af When the music ends...:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Hobocop:

Cantrips are also worthless in Pathfinder past the very early levels, and one thing Pathfinder definitely doesn't need more of is tedious prebuff stacking.

I don't think prebuff stacking was such an issue. As you level up they get a longer duration and there are metamagics which extend duration, wands with meta magic. With many spells you can buff 1 time per map, and others 2 times per map. Not so bad. It was just some spells like guidance i didnt like.

The requisite buffing in Pathfinder is literally the reason I quit Kingmaker and never finished it.

Not only is the actual act a load of tedium, but it also railroads you into only playing parties that have a ton of buffs (and debuffs for the enemy). It's a shallow combat system when one strategy (buff or die) is the only viable one.

[Lunduke is the Trump of tech]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Pan Darius Kairos:

Oprindeligt skrevet af When the music ends...:

I don't think prebuff stacking was such an issue. As you level up they get a longer duration and there are metamagics which extend duration, wands with meta magic. With many spells you can buff 1 time per map, and others 2 times per map. Not so bad. It was just some spells like guidance i didnt like.

The requisite buffing in Pathfinder is literally the reason I quit Kingmaker and never finished it.

Not only is the actual act a load of tedium, but it also railroads you into only playing parties that have a ton of buffs (and debuffs for the enemy). It's a shallow combat system when one strategy (buff or die) is the only viable one.

but DnD also have all those buff spells like mirror image etc. Do you not buff in DnD? That means DnD is very easy to play and not a challenge.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Oprindeligt skrevet af When the music ends...:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Pan Darius Kairos:

The requisite buffing in Pathfinder is literally the reason I quit Kingmaker and never finished it.

Not only is the actual act a load of tedium, but it also railroads you into only playing parties that have a ton of buffs (and debuffs for the enemy). It's a shallow combat system when one strategy (buff or die) is the only viable one.

but DnD also have all those buff spells like mirror image etc. Do you not buff in DnD? That means DnD is very easy to play and not a challenge.

The buffs in 5e are fewer - and not completely mandatory. I've only played BG3 (haven't played 5e TT yet), but I can solo almost any class without using a ton of buffs (the most common buff I use is Longstrider). This is partially due to there being a lot of exploits in the game currently, and some of Larian's homebrew, as well as some weaknesses in the code like enemies not being very good at searching for hidden characters...but my overall feeling was that 5e doesn't come anywhere close to being as buff dependent as Pathfinder because it uses the Bounded Accuracy concept in balancing itself.

Bounded Accuracy makes all the difference. It is my favorite addition to D&D since I started playing in the late 80's. The lack of Bounded Accuracy is what I hate about Pathfinder the most.