Spell Redesign: Enthrall
Hey folks! I know I said I was (as of recent) focusing on higher level spells so as to provide both a greater diversity of levels redesigned and save myself some freebies. While today’s doesn’t match the former’s purpose (empirically speaking, boy I sure do love redesigning 2nd level spells), it very much knocks out an otherwise difficult entry. When I say “otherwise difficult”, I mean “difficult until the solution manifested in my head all of a sudden”. Additionally, fixing (and boy is this in need of fixing) this particular spell is going to do a whole lot of leg work for fixing other spells at higher levels.
Silent image did some leg work for higher level spells via its reaction rolls, today i’ll rely on enthrall to do the same.
This is less than impressive. Honestly, it’s designed for a different game, one which has reaction rolls, a social system, and more than a few crossovers between mechanics concerning awareness, social acceptance, and combat (oh, and magic on top of all of those). 5E is certainly not that game, but perhaps this spell, once adjusted, could point the world’s greatest roleplaying game in that direction.
Let’s go over my problems with this spell,
The target has disadvantage on perception checks on people except you. This is the only benefit, for reasons.
The spell ends early if you’re unable to speak, despite only affecting creatures in the spell’s initial range (and not new potential targets wandering in).
Creatures fighting you have advantage in the saving throw.
Let’s sum it up; the spell has absolutely no use in combat, seeing as though all it does is inflict disadvantage on perception checks on creatures other than you. If this for some reason is terribly devastating to a homebrew monster (because I can assure you this applies to not one creature found in any official monster manual), the creature(s) can simply incapacitate the spellcaster first, thus ending it early. Outside of combat, it’s not clear what having disadvantage on checks made to perceive other creatures even means.
A single scenario makes sense for this spell: the spellcaster distracts a group of creatures so their buddies can sneak by unnoticed. There isn’t even enough flavor to hook to inspire much in the way of other effects.
To note, I was pleasantly surprised to discover this completely useless, undesigned (and likely unfinished) spell does not require concentration. Great job, WOTC! Rooting for you.
My Version (Better)
Alright, here’s my first stab at enthrall. Already I can tell where this will stick in some folks’ craws, and while I’m sorry for that, I’m not sorry. This is a game where your wizard can solve social conflict by fireballing people to death. A more subtle game of magical cloak-and-dagger isn’t unreasonable and shouldn’t be discouraged by folks refereeing a game, as opposed to railroading characters through tightly gated narrative effects. I’m going to tell you something, and it’s going to hurt, but it’s the truth.
Social mechanics rarely work without the understanding they can and should change your NPCs behavior, up to and including in directions you did not want them to take.
Yes, there are exceptions, and yes, social mechanics can be tuned to occasionally or conditionally fail in this endeavor. This is far easier to pull off in games with dedicated social mechanics, especially when said mechanics are more rigorous. This is for a lot of reasons which will not be explained in a simple thoughtbite, but perhaps this explanation will satisfy:
If a spell to control another creature’s actions directly could end as quickly as the GM said “He decides not to”, the spell is as good as useless.
Yes, a king may say “Sure, I’ll help you with this stuff and not this other stuff my advisors want” in response to an enthrall spell. Yes, this may be inconvenient to your plot. No, tossing away the entirety of a social game, in which certain actions can be expected to reliably change the behavior of other people is not worth preserving your plot. Remember, you don’t know exactly when people should retreat, or when the party should find a friendly face in a dungeon. If you err on the side of your desired plot, NPCs quickly fade to “whatever the GM wants” and cease to exist in some state as interactable entities within the game.
My Version (Even Better)
Alright, having added a tiny additional combat/noncombat use (temporary reprieve from the Charmed condition), I feel comfortable adding an early-end condition. Someone who suspects you’re casting Enthrall on the king for some reason can run over and knock you out, but my wouldn’t that be embarrassing. Not to mention a simple “No I’m not!” might turn the King against whoever attacked the caster. The early-end condition adds a bit of drama to GMs attempting to subvert it, rather than giving any GM with a high-damage npc a pass to ruin this spell. What fun!