All in New Spells
Today from Legends of Prestige and Prowess we have two new abjuration spells modeled after the basic 1st-level shield spell. Shield is one of the most powerful 1st-level spells available to sorcerers and wizards and perhaps one of the most powerful spells relative to its spell level in general. Even though these spells are already at a higher cost than the shield spell due to their higher slot level, they also only grant +4 to AC instead of +5 out of bounded accuracy concerns resulting from being able to grant the shield bonus much more easily to clerics, paladins, fighters, etc. who typically achieve higher ACs than a sorcerer or wizard does.
Today we have a bonus treat: an updated look at phantasmal plunge, which previously appeared in the preview of the Oath of Grief, along with another new spell that will show up with phantasmal plunge on the spell list of the Madness Domain subclass for clerics. And since that subclass will appear in The Impermissicon, so will these two spells! Both these spells also show off the increase in ratio of Intelligence and Charisma saving throw spells in D&D Unleashed.
Shield of Vanity is a nifty little spell that lets paladins, bards, clerics, and even artificers temporarily enchant their shield to be extra bright and shiny, and even a bit more magical! The reflective surface, when pointed at your foes, shows them a grand vision of themselves, encouraging feelings of jealousy and overconfidence that drives them to attack the bearer of the shield. Or maybe they just want it for its shininess!
Though these spells work best for the Arcane Tricksters they were designed for, they can be used to great effect by many other sneaky characters or illusionists of various classes and builds. If you want to force-choke your foes, these spells are for you!
Sift Memory began with a realization that while the existing modify memory spell allowed a caster to change someone's memory even of the distant past, there were no spells that could enable the caster to see the target's memories. The best you could do was prompt them to remember while using detect thoughts, but this has obvious downsides and limitations.
Do you wish that your Illusionist Wizard had more offensive spell options? Would you like to be able to build a sorcerer who only has illusion spells to represent someone with purely illusion-based magic? Today we’re previewing minor Illusion spells intended for combat from The Impermissicon!
Today's spells are intended to be useful to a wide variety of characters but are also explicitly designed to be especially useful for Eldritch Knights and other warrior-mages/gishes.
These three spells are focused on movement and mobility, a common theme for Aeromancers, and share a thematic unity with the fly spell that makes it easy to reconcile retraining. For example, a low-level storm sorcerer may make use of the swoop spell until he is high enough level to cast fly, and then retrain swoop to fly, flavored as the character becoming more skilled at aerial magic.
Sinking Maw resembles the also-5th-level spell maelstrom in some ways, and differs in others. The swirling liquefied ground doesn't deal damage over time, but can be much more confining and harder to escape from than swirling water. If you really want to completely smother your foes beneath the earth and you don't mind hitting only one target, Living Burial at 7th-level is what you're looking for.
Today's spells are Hydromancy spells, which means that they appear on the spell list for the new Hydromancer feat in the compendium, and they thus activate the feat's special abilities. These feats are designed, among other things, to unify thematic concepts that can stretch across multiple damage types, making other forms of conventional specialization (such as damage type synergies) less resonant for these things. Steam spells are a great example, as they deal fire damage but they appear on the Hydromancy spell list (which also contains spells that deal bludgeoning damage, cold damage, and more) and not on the Pyromancy spell list (also new in the compendium), which doesn't necessarily contain every spell that deals the fire damage type.
Stockade Sprouts is an environmental spell that creates temporary trees out of nothing to trap your foes in. Since it lasts up to an hour and only deals damage to targets who struggle, you can use it as the name implies -- a prison. The trees can also be used for cover to hide behind or higher vantages to climb to. Meanwhile, Sun Flower offers a stationary but long-lasting and versatile magical cannon in the form of a spectral flower blasting sunlight.
This particular spell is inspired very directly by the anime Dragon Ball Z, and specifically by the abilities used by our small friend here and our very evil boy, called the Destructo-Disk in the English Dub. This spell will chase your foes down until it hits something, but it won't chase only your foes down. Watch out that your disk doesn't accidentally hit someone you care about... like yourself!
Fist of Flame is intended to be a simple-to-understand single-target damage spell, fitting into the lineage of blight, harm, disintegrate, and finger of death. As an eighth-level spell, fist of flame gets to pack some debuffing power with its damage punch. Blood to Flame is both a new Pyromancy spell and a new Blood spell (what a fun venn-diagram!) you can use to torture your enemies as they die a gruesome death.
These spells do explicitly nonmagical physical damage, which leaves almost as many creatures resistant or immune to them as for fire damage, with fewer vulnerabilities. And that doesn't count temporary spells and effects such as stoneskin or gaseous form. This, combined with their other limitations in terms of needing suitable earth, affords them a bit of extra potential power in other situations.
Drown does exactly what it says, and is designed to be especially dangerous for enemy mages since it targets Strength and prevents most spellcasting by locking off verbal components and sight. Dive is one of many new travel-themed spells in the compendium, along with others such as glide, swoop, burrow, and soar.
The gore spike cantrip offers a Constitution-based alternative to firebolt for simple damage; blood boil is a potent at-will (concentration) debuffing cantrip with short range and minimal damage; and blood extraction is a 3rd-level area spell that damages enemies over time, dealing more damage to bloodied foes, and absorbing the blood of defeated foes for your consumption.
This 9th-level spell shares some features with meteor swarm, such as its ability to deal high damage and its ability to damage objects in a wide area. Both spells will absolutely ruin a city district. However, gravity well is a concentration spell with the distinction of doing very little (just difficult terrain) until you start your next turn after casting.
