New Spells: Bad Luck Curses
“Oh, I don’t have to kill you. I’ll let fate do that for me.”
Art Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/000fesbra000/art/Shadow-Magic-Deep-Magic-School-659735043
Tabletop Gamers, like many people, know how frustrating a string of really bad luck can be. When you fail, fail, and fail with bad roll after bad roll, it’s hard sometimes to not feel like you’re cursed! Why not turn that feeling on your enemies using a real curse?
From the compendium of forbidden magic and lore, The Impermissicon, comes two new divinations to do just that! They're divinations because both spells involve learning about the future (and thus nudging or even defining fate in the process).When comparing them with other debuff spells like hold monster or flesh to stone, its important to note that both jinx and dire jinx give the target disadvantage on the saving throws to end the spell itself, making it considerably more difficult to remove once the first saving throw's been failed. Of course, since they're curses, they can be removed early by casting remove curse or greater restoration on the target.
Because dire jinx gives the target disadvantage on all saving throws, including those for dire jinx itself, it only requires two successes to end the spell instead of three, because those successes are much harder to come by. With disadvantage, requiring two successes is more like requiring four successes or more, so even at this ratio, the spell is much more difficult to break than flesh to stone, for example.
These spells meet a number of the overall design goals for new spells in D&D Unleashed, such as:
Adding more spells that force a Charisma saving throw
Adding more curse-based spells
Adding more divinations that have a combat function
Adding spells that fill an unfilled narrative niche (in this case, higher-level spells that cause bad luck)
Adding spells that fill a mostly unfilled mechanical niche (in this case, higher-level single-target debuff spells)
We always try to ensure that each new spell serves more than just one purpose when designing, revising, and ultimately adding new spells to D&D Unleashed. If something else in the game already fulfills the goals of the spell in question, we won’t add it. After all, we don’t intend to keep releasing content forever. That means once we’ve filled the necessary unfilled niches, we’ll be done! That will take three entire compendiums, though, so it’ll still be many months before that happens!
I hope all you readers have a good day and roll well in your next session! Unlike today's spells, I wish you the best of luck!
Links: PDF Version | D&D Beyond: Jinx, Dire Jinx
