7
\$\begingroup\$

This is just curiosity, triggered by a comment by @Kirt. I think it may not quite qualify for the main site, so I hope it is fine to post it here.

The original question was about understanding which spells are more difficult or unclear to understand. However, the number of questions does not only depend on how difficult it is to understand the spell.

  • The lower the level, the more people encounter it in play, and then ask about it
  • The better a spell is, the more people tend to play it and have questions about it

So, let's frame this not purely as how confusing those spells are, although that certainly has a big contribution to generating the questions.

\$\endgroup\$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3
\$\begingroup\$

For this I count questions with the tag and tag in which the name of the spell appears, when there is no explicit tag like or , those otherwise.

This obviously may miss some wrongly or incompletely tagged spells, and include some where the actual question is not about the spell, the spell is just mentioned in passing, but given the nature of this, I think there needs to be a tradeoff between time needed to investigate a spell and accuracy here. After all, there are hundreds of spells. Maybe there is a better way to do this systematically for all spells in SEDE?

One issue is that the counts are of course only from a snapshot in time, and we'll not be able to update this that often, so this is a bit of a snapshot as of Summer 2024.

I started with the ones I suspected would be high, and added those covered in the SAC under "specific spells" (marked with a little °). Can you guess another one that makes it above 100 questions?

There seems to be an increased amount of questions for spells that change the how magic or spellcasting works, and for those that transform creatures.

Spell Question Count
Fireball° 239
Shield 193
Darkness° 164
Dispel Magic° 161
Find Familiar° 150
True Polymorph 128
Wish° 127
Invisibility 126
Polymporph° 114
Detect Magic 105
Counterspell° 103
Simulacrum 98
Sleep 96
Glyph of Warding 93
Haste° 87
Booming Blade° 82
Suggestion° 78
Scrying 76
Antimagic Field° 76
Mage Hand 76
Eldritch Blast 73
Hex° 71
Identify° 66
Minor Illusion° 62
Wall of Force 62
Cure Wounds 61
Mirror Image 61
Misty Step° 60
Green-Flame Blade° 59
Tiny Hut 57
Demiplane 57
Sanctuary° 53
Clone 51
Slow° 50
Silence 49
Animate Dead° 46
Unseen Servant° 46
Magic Jar 45
Disintegrate° 44
Mage Armor° 43
Shapechange 43
Guidance 42
Jump° 42
Prestidigitation° 40
Contingency 39
Conjure Animals° 38
Dimension Door 38
Bless° 36
Animate Objects° 34
Moonbeam° 33
Telekinesis° 30
Time Stop 28
Mending 27
Armor of Agathys° 25
Globe of Invulnerability° 23
Rope Trick 23
Magnificent Mansion° 23
Shillelagh° 23
Goodberry° 22
Cloud of Daggers° 21
Planar Binding° 20
Shadow Blade° 20
Resilient Sphere° 20
Conjure Woodland Beings° 18
Power Word Kill° 16
Stinking Cloud° 10
Chill Touch° 9
Hail of Thorns° 9
Guardian of Faith° 8
Hideous Laughter° 8
Compelled Duel° 7
Heroism° 7
Create Homunculus° 6
Barkskin° 6
Heroes' Feast° 2
Storm of Vengeance° 2
Tether Essence° 2
Blinding Smite° 1
\$\endgroup\$
6
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ I expect the reason Fireball is mentioned so much might also be related to it being used as a default example spell, e.g. can I use arcane eye to cast fireball? wherein arcane eye and line of sight vs effect are the confusing mechanics, so this is the Examples Georg of the table. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener
    Commented Jun 15 at 14:30
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ @doppelgreener Yes, definitely. I also suspect that shield is due to mentioning normal shields, in conjunction with the spell in some capacity, and darkeness having questions that just talk about casting spells in dark environments for some reason or the other. Dispel Magic and Find Familiar are likely the two most unclear spells outside of such effects. My top guess would have been TP, but they both edge it out. I was also surprised by the high rank of sleep ... maybe there is also something where people talk about resting and being ambushed, in the context of some spell, not the sleep spell. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Jun 15 at 14:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ This might a noob question, but SEDE stands for "Stackexchange Data Explorer" right? And what is SAC? \$\endgroup\$
    – TreeSpawned
    Commented Jun 15 at 20:30
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ @TreeSpawned Yes, correct. SAC = Sage Advice Compendium \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Jun 15 at 21:40
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ True polymorph may be the most complicated spell, but few people play at high enough levels to worry about it. Find familiar and dispel magic get seen in actual play—leading to questions—a lot more often, is my guess. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Jun 22 at 16:01
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ I'm surprised that Wish and (especially) Simulacrum landed so low in the ranking to be honest, despite them being high level, and thus scarcely played. Mage Hand is also a surprisingly low count. The other top spells do make sense though, thanks for the statistics! \$\endgroup\$
    – Matthieu
    Commented Jun 25 at 7:43

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .