Is Tasha's Hideous Laughter worth taking? Also, what about Sleep on Tactician?

[aardvarkpepper]

Reading the fextralife wiki, against Tasha's Hideous Laughter, target can make an initial save, another save at end of each of its turns, and another save whenever it takes damage.

It's a first level spell so maybe not much should be expected of it, and it can last up to ten turns, but that's a lot of saves.

Thoughts?

Also, on Tactician, I'm not sure if I like Sleep or not. I feel that it's not going to affect many enemies. Sure, enemies can be beat down until they're in Sleep range, but Sleep isn't permanent, sleeping opponents can be woken with Shove, lasts two turns at most in any event, and since Tactician enemies have a lot of hit points, affecting multiple enemies with Sleep would often mean splitting fire between multiple targets to weaken them.

[2LambBuna]

yes at early levels. the other good bard / goolock level 1 spell is Dissonant Whispers, even though the CC isn't as good (fear), because it does damage even if they resist it. but on a warlock you always want hex as its cheap to reuse and you can debuff their saving throws for your bigger spells so they hit more often.

[FleshyBB]

Per sleep, I don't know what the HP is on tactician, but I think you can upcast it with higher spell slots.

Personally, I liked Hideous Laughter at the start but I'm playing on balanced. Now I use Hold Person and Blind though, my characters are 5 or 6 now.

[AsianGirlLover]

It’s even better with a warlock in your party because you can hex your target to have disadvantage on their saving throws. It’s really a great spell for early game, as denying your opponent their turn is HUGE.

[2LambBuna]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

It’s even better with a warlock in your party because you can hex your target to have disadvantage on their saving throws. It’s really a great spell for early game, as denying your opponent their turn is HUGE.

this, and you can recast hex without spending a spell slot.

[Insanity Factor]

I've gotten out of quite a few problematic fights by giving the hardest hitting enemy the giggles until forcibly calmed down again. Also I find it absolutely hilarious listening to the npc's laugh their arses off, it's very infectious!

[2LambBuna]

Originally posted by FleshyBB:

Per sleep, I don't know what the HP is on tactician, but I think you can upcast it with higher spell slots.

Personally, I liked Hideous Laughter at the start but I'm playing on balanced. Now I use Hold Person and Blind though, my characters are 5 or 6 now.

id have picked dissonant whispers instead of one of those two, because although the CC isn't as good, it's not a save or suck spell, even if they resist it might finish them off

[guppy]

Originally posted by 2LambBuna:

on a warlock you always want hex as its cheap to reuse and you can debuff their saving throws for your bigger spells so they hit more often.

This is wrong, sorry - it only affects skill checks.

It does combo nicely with web since they need a skill check to escape it

[2LambBuna]

Originally posted by guppy:

Originally posted by 2LambBuna:

on a warlock you always want hex as its cheap to reuse and you can debuff their saving throws for your bigger spells so they hit more often.

This is wrong, sorry - it only affects skill checks.

It does combo nicely with web since they need a skill check to escape it

ah so also CON with poison attacks, so they don't resist the latter dot ticks? that's what I've been mainly doing with it?

[guppy]

Originally posted by 2LambBuna:

Originally posted by guppy:

This is wrong, sorry - it only affects skill checks.

It does combo nicely with web since they need a skill check to escape it

ah so also CON with poison attacks, so they don't resist the latter dot ticks? that's what I've been mainly doing with it?

Yeah the main useage is to make them suck at opposed skill checks like grapple ( which isn't in the game ) or make it easier to shove them off a cliff :)

Or you could use -WIS to make it easier to hide since it would impact their perception skill

[SmashingQuasar]

If you want to steamroll Tactician, you need 2 spells: Hold person and Haste. The rest is optional. Overcasted Hold person at level 3 can hold 2 enemies at the same time. You can still act whilst holding a person (#ThanksWotCForConcentrationSpells). The rest of the CC are inferior in my opinion.

[RhodosGuard]

Originally posted by SmashingQuasar:

If you want to steamroll Tactician, you need 2 spells: Hold person and Haste. The rest is optional. Overcasted Hold person at level 3 can hold 2 enemies at the same time. You can still act whilst holding a person (#ThanksWotCForConcentrationSpells). The rest of the CC are inferior in my opinion.

You mean Hold Person and Hold Monster, because you cant Hold Person on anything that isn't humanoid, even if it looks and walks like one (Like Marcus in the Last Light Inn encounter, who is for all intents and purposes a humanoid but the game designated him "Abhorration" so you cant Hold Person him.)

[SmashingQuasar]

Originally posted by RhodosGuard:

Originally posted by SmashingQuasar:

If you want to steamroll Tactician, you need 2 spells: Hold person and Haste. The rest is optional. Overcasted Hold person at level 3 can hold 2 enemies at the same time. You can still act whilst holding a person (#ThanksWotCForConcentrationSpells). The rest of the CC are inferior in my opinion.

You mean Hold Person and Hold Monster, because you cant Hold Person on anything that isn't humanoid, even if it looks and walks like one (Like Marcus in the Last Light Inn encounter, who is for all intents and purposes a humanoid but the game designated him "Abhorration" so you cant Hold Person him.)

Yes, and Larian decided that many humanoids are actually not humanoids. Even then, most NPCs are humanoid so Hold Person remains extremely strong. Hold monster is a level 5 spell but you should pick it for the same reasons.

[ChaosKhan]

I found Laughter to be very useful, but you really want to use it against targets, that have difficulties resisting it, like Ogres or Minotaurs. Against those chunks of raw DPS, CC and HP, it works super well for such a low tier spell. It's basically an instant shutdown and trivialises a lot of otherwise potentially very hard fights.

Sleep isn't horrible, but I found it not useful either. The HP cap is fairly low, so you "grow out" of the spell fairly quickly. I see it be more useful if you intend to play stealth heavy and even then, you probably want to cast it multiple times in the same turn, so you can then proceed to take out the enemies piecemeal without them shoving each other awake immediately and then attacking you with their actions still...

[SmashingQuasar]

In my opinion, prone is a terrible crowd control simply because it only costs movement and does not affect actions. It's way better to use real crowd control than anything than makes the target prone. The simple fact that shove is a bonus action (*shaking my head in disbelief*) that will make the target prone demonstrates how bad of a CC prone is.

[HozzMidnight]

I think it is a very good spell. I used it on the Hag and it only lasted a turn but it still made the flight a lot easier.