D&D 5E Mental prison; power creep, typo or working as intended

ad_hoc · Dec 7, 2017

Bardbarian said:
The Hexblade is good but not as strong as some people think. When you factor in action economy it is not that crazy as it seems. the main benefit is it removes the "MAD penalty" of weapon based warlocks.

That isn't the main benefit. It is far stronger than any other patron for all types of Warlocks.

A Warlock can take Hexblade and not touch a single weapon.

Spell slots are precious. After level 5 Hex just isn't worth it anyway. It takes concentration and one of 2 spell slots. Not Super Hex. And you are barely giving up anything to get it.

The abilities of all the other patrons are minor.

Having a 19 AC is a huge difference from 14 AC. It's not even close. No other patron gives that much power. Look at the other abilities.

All of this against using your action for 1 round frighten. This is an action, not a bonus action, and your argument is that a bonus action costs too much.

The level 6 ability is a super familiar.

What are you comparing these abilities to? Other patrons use bonus actions and reactions for their powers. You are saying that a 50% chance of negating a hit is fluff but being immune to having your mind read isn't? That makes no sense. The former is a very strong mechanical effect. The latter will rarely ever come up in a campaign.

Attack rolls also have a large chance of failure, will you say those are worthless too?

Level 14 is largely inconsequential. The vast majority of campaigns will never get there and the ones that do will end up spending very little total campaign play time there.

ad_hoc · Dec 7, 2017

Bardbarian said:
When it comes to the original question of Mental prison, the damage is similar to disintegrate with the problem that the trigger of the secondary damage can be triggered by the enemy's choice and not the player without the investment of additional actions. in addition Disintegrate has uses on objects while Mental prison does not. If additional conditions need to be met that is a lowering of effecacy of the spell and justifies the additional damage. Keep in mind the target is restrained so cannot move through normal means and requires additional method to move them. During this time they can break the effect before the secondary damage is dealt. I suggest trying the spell in combat before saying it's overpowered just by reading the spell description.

The initial damage is similar but then Mental Prison has very powerful and damaging additional effects.

I suggest you learn more about the game and learn about what is balanced before making posts like these. The extra snark at the end is embarrassing considering how colossally wrong you are.

Bardbarian · Dec 7, 2017

The hexblade abilitites are more course correction than power creep. Unless you short rest every single combat the hext is very limited and even then only on one target per fight. It will not apply to the vast majority of your targets.

As far as the armor proficiency this is a course correction enabling a playstyle that otherwise was not really viable. The melee warlock simply lacked the ability to survive in melee even with the Infernal pact option before. While a ranged warlock can benefit from medium armor they are generally not in melee anyhow unless the party lacks a front line.

The level 6 ability is a CR1 creature that hits for 10 damage. at 22hp +3 thp it will only survie one aoe and only that thanks to its resistances. At level 10 it is a cr 1 creature with 10thp and otherwise unchanged from the level 6 version. at level 6 its kind of neat at level 20 its useless. The life drain is not relevant on monsters.

At level 10 you get a 50% chance of negating a hit, while nice it uses your reaction and only applies to the one target of your curse. any other creature hits you normally. Shield is generally a better option to use. You should be using your reaction to guarantte a negated hit with shield or to Hellish rebuke, the Armor of hexes is a feature that is nice only when you run out of those other options or as a hail mary against a crit.

While frontloaded at level 1 the class drops off severely after that with its main strength being its extended spell list, not the class features. All it achieves is to breath some life into the pact of the blade which it has very blatant intended synergy with. Even then a warlock using Eldritch blast will be easier to play and achieve similar if not better results. Yes the hexblade can use EB but they trade off doing increased damage on one target until level 14 for less useful abilitites from 6-10 and the level 14 abilities on the other warlocks are very good. No save removal from combat and 10d10 damage for example is one of the alternatives.

Hexblade is a lot of hype but it serves its purpose of a viable melee build for a class that otherwise should not be in melee.

Bardbarian · Dec 7, 2017

ad_hoc said:
The initial damage is similar but then Mental Prison has very powerful and damaging additional effects.

I suggest you learn more about the game and learn about what is balanced before making posts like these. The extra snark at the end is embarrassing considering how colossally wrong you are.

Please tell me about your in game experience with this spell and how it was broken. I would love some real play experience to support your "snark". Tell me how 27.5 damage and blind/restrained on a failed save vs. a 6th level spell broke your game? its a strong spell no doubt but anything above 5th level should justify its own existence over just upcasting a lower level spell.

Rexwell · Dec 7, 2017

Okay, lets take it down a notch. I never said anyone's game is going to be irreparably broken with one spell. But:

Disintegrate to me is a bit like Fireball/Lightning Bolt in that they are iconic spells, and intentionally do more damage than typical spells of it's level. So looking at it that way, it's the high bar, not the typical 6th level spell. But even so, a successful save will negate all of it's damage and effects.

Other 6th level spells (save made/failed save):

Otiluke's Freezing Sphere 5d6/10d6 in 60' radius
Sunbeam 3d8/6d8 + blind for one turn; 5' x 60' line, possible to cast new beam each round for duration
Chain Lightning 5d8/10d8 x 3 targets
Circle of Death 4d6/8d6 in 60' radius

Mental Prison is technically 5d10/5d10 +restrained status. But as the movement penalty includes involuntary/forced movement, and this is so easy to inflict (even without the restrained status), it is essentially 5d10/15d10.

In addition, since the target gets NO save after the initial one to break the restrained/extra damage effect, you could stretch this out and keep attacking with advantage (or with spells that target DEX saves) for the entire duration of Mental Prison or until the target decides it's had enough and moves/attacks and triggers the extra 10d10 psychic damage.

So not only is Mental Prison's damage at least as comparable to other 6th level spells, it's rider effect affords great control not unlike Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Banishment or Force cage, except that with Mental Prison the target can continue to be attacked (I guess maybe, maybe not with Force Cage).
Yes, the target can easily end the status/spell but at the cost of 10d10 damage.

So as I mentioned initially, just one of these factors (great damage, unbreakable status effect except through punitive damage, battlefield control) makes for a great spell. Mental Prison has it all. Personally, I feel this makes it unbalanced.

I didn't start this thread to convince anyone, but to see how others viewed the spell.

Bardbarian · Dec 7, 2017

Personally, I view the secondary effect of the spell as either 10d10 or blind/restrained. You will generally not be able to take advantage of both.
I compare the spell to other similar effects.
Irrisistable dance, no save takes an action to try and save.
Hold Monster, save every turn but all attacks turn into critical hits within 5'
Disintegrate take all the damage instantly an move on (Hardest to resist damage type).
Wall of force no save 10 minute time out
Force cage cant escape except with teleport and still need to save.
Maelstrom 6d6 per round for 10 rounds pulled towards center of difficult terrain.

there are many comparable effects in a similar level range. 5-7th and there are pros and cons to each. I certainly think the spell is good but it does not hit more than one target. The secondary has multiple ways of escaping. legendary save, Dispel magic, Dimension door, force a concentration check on the caster. Blindsight, tremorsense, the list goes on. sure some enemies will be trivialized buy this or any other spell on the list. I think in the long run this will fall into the school of spells that some people blow a gasket on when it first is revealed, and yes, spells should be exciting, but in the long run its just another disintegrate which does its job well but hardly changes the lanscape of the game. Its more of a Bob Ross effect where we just add a few happy little trees and everyone smiles.

ad_hoc · Dec 7, 2017

Rexwell said:
Okay, lets take it down a notch. I never said anyone's game is going to be irreparably broken with one spell. But:

It's certainly much more powerful than other damage spells at 6th level. Whether it will break a campaign remains to be seen. I think it is easy enough to just not include it. No loss.

On Hexblade, here is what a more balanced, but still very powerful Hexblade might look like:

1st level - Martial weapons, Cha to hit/dmg

6th level - Medium armour, shields, cast hex 1/long rest

10th level - change to work on hexed creature 1/short rest

14th level - hex at will

Stalker0 · Dec 7, 2017

So for the love of Pete, people stop talking about the hexblade in this thread. Seriously, get out....you are so OT its not even funny.

Back to the OP, it should be noted that the automatic 5d10 psychic damage by itself is already quite good. Its better damage than magic missile (the other auto damage spell), and psychic I would say is close to force in how little resistance you normally have against it.

Second, as an Int save...the chance of getting this on a monster is nigh automatic in many cases. Especially your melee oriented ones where restrained can be a harsh condition.

Even without the movement clause, there are a lot of monsters where your choice is:

1) Stand there and do nothing (because your restrained and can't move into melee).
2) Take 10d6 damage and move on with your life.

A lot of DMs will take option 2 simply because better that the monster does something.

So my assessment is that this spell is clearly top tier for its level for damage. That said, I don't know if its power creep or correction. I have generally found the damage 6th level spells to be lackluster. But it clearly blows disintegrate out of the water.

Coroc · Dec 7, 2017

Psychic even overcomes barbarians DR, it is rare a mob is immune to it.

ad_hoc · Dec 7, 2017

Stalker0 said:
So for the love of Pete, people stop talking about the hexblade in this thread. Seriously, get out....you are so OT its not even funny.

Back to the OP,

You should read the OP before giving orders.