New Spells: Minor Enchantments
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Ego Shock, Excite Emotions
Art Credit: http://www.artofmtg.com/art/anticognition/
When it comes to harming the mind, emotions and identity might be the best target. Changing a creature’s emotions is a great way to trick them into doing what you want without them ever realizing it wasn’t their idea, and breaking down someone’s internal identity is a classic way to cause extreme mental pain. These new enchantment spells from The Impermissicon allow your mental mage to do just that — break into a creature's mind and twist its emotions or its sense of self. They’re perfect for bards, psionic characters, and anyone looking to focus on psychic damage or mind control.
Excite emotions serves as the reverse of the 2nd-level spell calm emotions, allowing the caster to incite feelings within humanoids and drive them to rioting, mourning, giggling, or almost anything else! While calm emotions is resisted with a Charisma saving throw (because Charisma represents the strength of your emotions), this spell is resisted with a Wisdom saving throw (since Wisdom represents the control over your emotions, among other things). While it doesn’t grant as fine-tuned control as spells like suggestion or geas, it does allow you to not only influence crowds, but also to weakly mimic the effects of spells like charm person and fear. This spell allows you to live out your dreams of being a Mistborn-style “Rioter” or a mind-mage of your own design! It was previously shown in a less-refined state as one of the domain spells for the Desire Domain (which has been updated with the new spell text).
Ego shock, on the other hand, can be most directly compared with two other psychic damage cantrips, mind sliver (new in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) and vicious mockery. These spells occupy a range between high damage with minor effects and low damage with major effects. Vicious mockery, the lowest damage cantrip of the three, only deals 1d4 and targets a relatively strong saving throw (Wisdom), but it has the most consistently powerful secondary effect: disadvantage on the target’s next attack, which is potent and useful against almost every kind of monster or enemy. Mind sliver does slightly more damage and targets a much less powerful saving throw (Intelligence), and as a result it carries a secondary effect that, while potent, isn’t always as consistently useful as that of vicious mockery. Ego shock, meanwhile, has the most damage of the three cantrips and targets a generally weak saving throw as well (Charisma), which means that its secondary effect should be the weakest of the three cantrips. Indeed, disadvantage on a mental ability check can be useful (for example, it can help a rogue to hide from a monster’s Perception check, or prevent an enemy from seeing through an illusion using an Investigation check), but it is very rarely as potent or meaningful as penalties to attack rolls or saving throws. This way all three cantrips serve a purpose, and allow casters seeking psychic damage to choose between damage and control. This kind of character-building freedom is perfect for unleashing your game of D&D!
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Ego Shock, Excite Emotions
