D&D 5E Move over Fireball and Spirit Guardians, there is a new best 3rd level spell sheriff in town!

[Tony Vargas]

. May it forever stand as a monument to egregiously careless design.

Have you really considered the entire corpus of Mike Mearls designs?
Have you read the Magic of the Feywild article, for instance...?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

[MENTION=6822731]flametitan[/MENTION]
You want an adventure? You are sitting naked in a dungeon with NO starting equipment and gold. Your execution is scheduled in three hours. Try to find an item to pick the lock of your chains and the cell door if you want to escape. So now that i want this to work, that is why you are not allowed to play any teleport at will class.

Awesome idea. Although you don't need to exclude XGtE to make it happen the way you want: The dungeon is an anti-teleportation zone (including anti-misty stepping, plane shifting, and the like).

 

[Warmaster Horus]

What walks down stairs,
Alone or in pairs,
and makes a kersqunchity sound?
A fork, a torc, a haunch of cooked pork?
You'll know Tiny Servant!

 

[Mistwell]

How to steal the royal jewels without being caught when searched on the way out?

Why, animate them into tiny servants and command them to escape out the barred window and meet you outside while you saunter casually out with the rest of the guests at the party!

Brewing a dangerous poison? That's OK, your tiny servant is immune and can do it for you. In fact, your tiny servant can throw a vial of poison at a foe safely, as they are immune to any splash effect.

Oh my, it has a climb speed! Animate a knife and have it climb up to the chandelier and cut it lose on top of the evil Barron when the Barron is walking below. Who are his men going to blame, the knife itself? In fact, a lot can be done with that climb speed. A 4 strength should be enough to carry a rope up an obstruction and wrap it around something and then toss it down to you.

They weigh very little too, so it shouldn't be hard to send them across a mind-field like terrain without triggering anything and flipping the off-switch.

Let's see, your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15, divided by 2 for being tiny. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry. So that's 4 x 15 = 60/2 = 30 pounds! Muhahahaha! And they can push, drag, or lift twice that, so 60 pounds! Hmmm halflings weigh on average between 40 and 45 pounds, and gnomes weigh on average 40 pounds. Goblins way 35 pounds on average and kobolds 25 pounds. Aha! A Tiny servant can outright carry a Kobold at full 30 feet per move action or 60 feet for a dash! In fact the Tiny Servant can dash them 60 feet on its turn, up a 60 foot cliff (climb speed) and then the Kobold can itself dash another 60 feet on it's turn! Woo, go you speedy naked Kobold!

 

[Ancalagon]

How to steal the royal jewels without being caught when searched on the way out?

Why, animate them into tiny servants and command them to escape out the barred window and meet you outside while you saunter casually out with the rest of the guests at the party!

Brewing a dangerous poison? That's OK, your tiny servant is immune and can do it for you. In fact, your tiny servant can throw a vial of poison at a foe safely, as they are immune to any splash effect.

Oh my, it has a climb speed! Animate a knife and have it climb up to the chandelier and cut it lose on top of the evil Barron when the Barron is walking below. Who are his men going to blame, the knife itself? In fact, a lot can be done with that climb speed. A 4 strength should be enough to carry a rope up an obstruction and wrap it around something and then toss it down to you.

They weigh very little too, so it shouldn't be hard to send them across a mind-field like terrain without triggering anything and flipping the off-switch.

Let's see, your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15, divided by 2 for being tiny. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry. So that's 4 x 15 = 60/2 = 30 pounds! Muhahahaha! And they can push, drag, or lift twice that, so 60 pounds! Hmmm halflings weigh on average between 40 and 45 pounds, and gnomes weigh on average 40 pounds. Goblins way 35 pounds on average and kobolds 25 pounds. Aha! A Tiny servant can outright carry a Kobold at full 30 feet per move action or 60 feet for a dash! In fact the Tiny Servant can dash them 60 feet on its turn, up a 60 foot cliff (climb speed) and then the Kobold can itself dash another 60 feet on it's turn! Woo, go you speedy naked Kobold!

This man understands. I would give XP but I'm out at the moment.

I think that some wizard might get very snobby about their Tiny Servant, animating only the finest of objects. I could see fads. "Animated knife? How quaint. We animate lantern these days - and only the best gnomish make, mind you". Meanwhile some others, isolated in their lonely towers, are animating rocks and buckets and directing plays.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] ROFL and XP, especially for the supersonic Kobold. Let's think about dwarf throwing next and how a tiny servant can contribute.

 

[Valetudo]

I was going to say "but good sir/lady, how can you deny your players *and yourself* the sheer delight of having Tiny Servant in your game?

But then I thought about it. And well... you are right? How could middle earth suddenly have helicopters? Shanara with cell phones? Forgotten Realms with frozen turkey diners? You can't make fundamental changes like that. As a GM, I feel you man/woman, I feel you.

shanara does technically have cellphones.

 

[Valetudo]

I think the real question is, can they sing for beauty?

 

[Ancalagon]

I think the real question is, can they sing for beauty?

Have no fear, bards can still find gainful employment.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using EN World mobile app

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Have no fear, bards can still find gainful employment.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using EN World mobile app

Singing tiny servant (level 5): your tiny servant can speak any language(s) the caster knows, has proficiency in performance, and can give inspiration once per long rest. At higher levels, the number of times the servant can give inspiration increases by one for every level of the spell cast above the 5th level.