Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8478522" data-attributes="member: 6790260">For anyone but a Wizard (or Land Druid that somehow acquires it) it's a 4/day combo of forcing a reroll on an enemy and advantage to yourself.Is it good? Certainly. Probably among the best 1st-level spells for support. Is it an auto-pick? Ehh...I don't think so. For a support-focused caster, sure, it probably is an auto-pick, but so is shield for a combat-focused caster, or fireball for an offense-focused caster. Spells that are auto-picks for certain approaches or playstyles are quite common. We don't call for the removal of healing word simply because it's an auto-pick for anyone wanting to heal in combat. (You do see people call for its removal, to be clear, but the vast majority of the complaints center on the "whack-a-mole healing" bugaboo some folks have, not that every healing-interested Bard, Cleric, and Druid is automatically going to learn/prepare it.)To a blaster, it's of potential utility if you use a lot of save-based spells, but even then I don't see it being so utterly irreplaceable that people would never cast other spells with their first-level slots. Even if they do, is four failed saves a day for the vast majority of characters actually that much of a concern? To battlefield control Wizards it may or may not be useful, depending on whether they're interested more in terrain effects (which may not have saves) or debuffs (which usually do).The Divination Wizard's Portent feature is nearly as good in terms of its potential (a guaranteed result, but must be used before the target roll) and far superior in terms of action economy (taking no action whatsoever, not even a free action), though I admit that Portent does not pull double duty by both buffing and debuffing. Yet while Divination is recognized as a strong school, no one talks about banning Divination or that Portent is some stupidly overpowered thing for forcing enemies to fail their saves or allies to pass their saves or whatever.I also feel like there's some amount of having one's cake and eating it too, here. Much as I absolutely see the "Batman Wizard" as a problem, there is something of an issue with allowing all the many potential uses of the spell simultaneously, when that's not physically possible. You can't have the caster simultaneously holding it in reserve for crit-prevention, farming it to ensure failed saves, and deploying it whenever they like in order to juice up an ally. Yes, each of those use cases could come up in a single day, but if the Wizard's accomplishments via first-level spells are "I forced one enemy to fail a save, saved one ally from a crit, and gave one ally useful Advantage," honestly, that's not that big a deal. It's only things like 18th-level Wizards with infinite uses that might be a problem...and at that point you're already talking about campaigns that can feature wish. Negating crits all day is small potatoes compared to what a max-level spellcaster can do in 5e.So...yeah. I don't see it as being that big a deal. It's definitely powerful, and if that power freaks you out...okay. Change it. Something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">trigger condition is that an enemy attempts an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">impose Disadvantage rather than forcing a reroll and taking the lower of the two</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Secondary target must use the Advantage before the end of their next turn or they lose it (cutting the buff duration by 90%)</li> </ul>This eliminates the "crit prevention" thing (which I think is way overblown, but whatever), the "it stacks with disadvantage!!" anxiety, and the "it's incredibly good support" thing. It's still powerful and still highly desirable, but this steps back from everything the critics say negatively about it other than its quick cast time (which is essentially unchangeable, it must be a reaction to work the way it does).</blockquote>

Verification