5E

Stunning based on Saving Throw seems pretty good.

I hate this design.

It's basically a spell with an encounter duration if you fail the first check and no way to get out the effect.

Unless legendary actions can give you an out?

Caster supremacy is still there, it's just that it isn't as crazy as it was in 3.5

Technically I'm not sure if bonus actions or reactions are covered either. The difference between it and the 3.5 version is that since it's concentration the caster both risks it ending if they're attacked and they can't use any other concentration spells without this one ending
It's mostly just really good if there aren't a bunch of monsters still running around like what the OP was describing, or if there's only one that's a serious threat. There's a few other spells like that (hold person comes to mind)

Yes, you were lied to. All 5e did was make martials as good as casters in combat. Casters are still objectively superior out of combat, and have more options in combat, which can define encounters.

I would say they mostly excel higher level or if you have higher encounters per short rest/fewer per day than recommended, lower level you can definitely run out of slots with 6-8 combats, but of course few runs it that way. I do about half that, max 4 encounters a day in dangerous areas, but I also make short rests 5 minutes so other classes get big buffs from that. Rogues are the only ones that really suffer from it with no core short or long rest abilities, but otherwise it's worked out fine.

It's just actions, like when surprised or paralyzed you can still use bonus actions. It's not stunning, just taking the action, but for a hydra that's about enough. It has a load of hp and the save is at the start of its turn, but still pretty good.

your DM just fudged the saves so you could defeat the monster that would ultimately result in total party wipe out due to poor encounter design. bestow curse is nothing special

IMO half-elf is the best hands-down if you're doing anything with a focus on CHA, even with Vhuman permitted. VHuman allows for "neater" ideas out-of-the-box, but ehh

>but I also make short rests 5 minutes so other classes get big buffs from that.
jesus christ
I was tempted to do this but then I noticed that'd lead to the warlock slinging high-powered spells around all fucking day, and god knows what other shenanigans

It makes 2 saves before anything happens, doing nothing if it succeeds those. If it doesn't, it loses its action (still has bonus action, reaction(s), legendary actions, movement, and other features that don't require an action) for 1 turn. If it then fails the save again next turn, it loses it then as well, and so on. So unless it fails 5 saving throws in a row, it will be at most your action and a 3rd level spell slot for two of its actions. It's also range: touch which is really bad when you want to use it on a big monster, you're a caster, and it has a fair chance of doing literally nothing, and it requires concentration so you can't keep up any buffs.

Casters are good, especially with 1 encounter a day, but this isn't an especially OP example, and I would think the rogue or whoever got through all the hp it has before the spell ended, was also a large part of managing to win there.

>warlock
They already get it higher level, I've only used the rules in a low-magic setting so I didn't tweak the warlock at all, but I'd probably make them still require at least a 30 minute ritual thing to recharge.

You got close enough to the hydra to cast it without just getting absolutely ruined by the hydra first?

Warlocks most definitely do not get the ability to refresh all of their 5th-level spells every 5 minutes at high level by default.
Do you mean their relatively few at-will invocations, or Eldritch Master (once/long rest), or what?

Legendary Actions are an out and Concentration is a pretty nasty thing for casters to juggle.

Ah it's once per long rest, still similar in that it effectively makes you able to take an extra short rest /day, but yeah not as powerful as that for many combats a day. For the houserule though, I'll just tweak it as I go along and I think it's needed to balance out the OPness of long rest abilities when you have few battles, raging every combat at level 3 is much stronger than raging at most every second combat, and spells of course.

Mob tactics rule 5e. If you reverse the scenario, and make it one powerful as fuck cleric vs a party of a druid and a few low level fights, that fight can be shut down instantly by casting Heat Metal on the Cleric Armor.

Or if you want to reverse it from the martial/caster side, if it was one cleric with bestow curse vs 4 rogues, that spell would last exactly 1/4th of a round before the cleric loses concentration from having 3 Attacks on him per turn, effectively shutting him down.

The problem is that OP's DM didn't realize that 5e is structured around having every boss flanked with minions and tried to make a solo encounter out of something without legendary actions, and got shut down from it. Even with just 4 champion fighters, that Hydra would have been killed in less than 3 rounds, and the only reason it's not 1 and 1/2 is because it regains HP when it grows back heads.

OP is just retarded and saw "Hey I ended an encounter with magic" when he should have seen "Hey we ended an encounter against a 4v1 scenario."

Nothing to see in this thread. Move along.

My party of 5 level 3s killed a hydra, it's not the hardest monster in the book.