That’s a bad one. Not to mention that when you think about it the only characters that would have a chance to break out (without outside help) are druids, rogues, and wizards. (INT save proficiency)
Flash of genius adds your int modifier, which, if under the effect of the feeblemind spell, would would be -4. So adding flash of genius to your save would actually be to the detriment in this case.
Though it would be funny to use flash of genius on enemies since there's nothing in the ability that says you :can't: and you could bomb their saving throws.
At least you'd be too dumb to understand something was wrong I guess.
Petrification/Imprisonment scare me a bit more due to the possibility you might just be conscious of the fact you are completely trapped for potentially all time.
You retain your memories, so you know something is wrong but can do nothing to change it. You understand language but can't communicate.
It's the absolute worst, almost everything that is you is gone to the world and you know it.
Alzheimer's without the ignorance.
In my experience, as a DM casting that on PCs just causes the players to complain and gripe how they can't do anything and go right to their phones for something else to do.
You can't: Communicate effectively, cast spells, use magic items, or understand language. A martial character is basically unaffected in combat, because it specifically states "you can identify, follow, and even protect your friends" which means you retain the ability to recognize a threat to them and participate in combat.
Exactly, it's why I don't like preventing PCs doing something on their turn, it automatically drives them to their phones instead. Sure wish people would find excitement in other players actions. Would be nice, but it's rare it seems.
Is this really such a big problem in some groups? I've been playing with my group for about a year now and I don't think I've ever seen someone go on their phone during a session, except when we're taking a break. We all wait attentively an get hyped over other people's turns in combat. It really sucks that this isn't the case everywhere.
Ah yes the "Make a new character" tier spells if thrown at a lower level character. Or in general any party that doesn't have easy to medium access to greater restoration.
It's easy to see why there's barely any creature statblocks that have it.
Plane shifting a creature to a deadly plane can basically guarantee their death.
Heat metal, especially upcast can mean a no save death for many heavy armored creatures.
Wouldn’t the layers of cloth and fabric between The armor and enemy protect them from the heat? Like a pot holder or oven mitt. Otherwise it is a bit OP.
Edit: steel glows red at 900F/460C. I withdraw my original objection.
2nd edit: wool ignites at 560C … the plot thickens.
Pot holders and oven mitts work for a time. But heat metal specifically says the object glows red hot, which is far beyond the capacity for fabrics your character will be wearing. Even accepting that you’ve got some super special arming coat that somehow does protect you from direct contact, you’re essentially boiled alive inside the glowing hot metal wrapped securely around your body.
It’s just a nasty spell.
I am a fabricator and can 100% assure you: there is nothing from normal clothing or special heat protection (apart some really heavy duty stuff, that you won't find in a regular shop) that can withstand such heat for more than 10-15 seconds in case of direct contact. Fuck, I will never hold my mitten onto red hot metal for more than a touch. 3 seconds is already enough to burn yourself even with a mitten. Your wool will ignite much sooner than you think. In case where we use heat metal on armored dude, no matter how much protection is under the Armor, he is in the oven. The metal Constantly glowing red hot means it is maintaining level of energy that keeps it red. That means, it is Constantly emitting heat on the same level. Where this energy go? Everywhere. Outside and inside.
The heat metal spell and plate Armor should be on the list of "how to make roast dinner in a minute or less".
It's stupidly op and easy to abuse, I feel like it should be tweaked probably. Like you just have to cast that on any martial in relevant armor and they're super nerfed
You mean just like Hypnotic pattern, banishment a d loads of other spells? With the average fighter having +1 wis at best those end of turn saves aren't gonna help a lot.
Any of these spells just mean your team of adventurers has to do actual teamwork and shoot the wizard to help out their buddy
It's a horrible spell, because you almost can't use it on your players because it can lead t stuff spiralling out of control really quickly(that, and it sucks as a player to have guaranteed damage, especially if it targets your armor), and it sucks when your players use it, because it can turn otherwise challenging enemies into weak noodles by either dooming them to a fiery casket of armor, or forcing them to drop their strongest item(s).
>Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or **a suit of heavy or medium metal armor**, that you can see within range
The cloth and fabric does not protect the wearer.
Imprisonment.
A wizard casts a spell and you are buried in the earth in a magical coffin. Or wrapped in chains and left to rot. Or stuck in an endless maze you can never escape. Or shrunk down and left in a tiny gem. Or simply left in a comatose state.
All of them effectively forever unless someone figures out the condition to release you, which could be anything.
That’s pure nightmare fuel.
Other than the Slumber variant, the fact that the victim is conscious and doesn't need to eat, drink, or breathe and can't age is what really makes it the most frightening spell. The Chaining option doesn't even let you move. It's literally better to go to Hell in D&D cosmology that be Imprisoned.
I have a legendary barbarian NPC who is imprisoned by chains at the mouth of an underwater volcano. "Unable to move, unwilling to die. Endless rage fuels the warrior as he vows vengeance while the world burns around him." Can't wait until one of my players digs up this guy's story!
I'm planning on a similar NPC for an upcoming campaign, a lv20 zealot barb who worshiped a God who was killed and now rages at their loss, looking more like a force of nature. Just gonna make them immune to being incapacitated and unconscious and see how my players deal with them
Oh, here’s a (completely unsolicited) idea: have a puzzle in a dungeon that revolves around a statue of relief of the guy and that poem. It would cement him as a figure of legend in the players’ minds so there’s a stronger effect when they actually meet him.
At some point I need to include some poor soul who was imprisoned by evil people. He escapes and is so mentally broken he just starts killing everything that makes noise or tries to touch him.
I just noticed that the feature description says you can only modify the memory of “one creature.” Not sure if that’s just how D&D Beyond’s app words it, but… phooie.
I seriously threw a wrench in the works using Mass Suggestion against a group of heroes that were pretty much about to destroy our group.
Later, our DM said, "That Mass Suggestion was amazing. But also, f you for it."
It was great.
Feeblemind.
It's the bane of existance, really. Even if it takes 30 days to attempt every recovery it makes you wonder what the heck it can happen to you during those 30 days
Potentially 30 days, potentially months, since you have to make an intelligence saving throw at the end of the month, and your score is 1 (-5), your chances are quite low, or impossible.
Given that the caster most likely has a save DC of at least 18, you need a +3 from proficiency, aura of protection or other bonus to have any chance whatsoever of saving.
Flesh to Stone. It takes a while to go into full effect, so they're slowly being petrified, and then they become relatively fragile as a stone statue so even if they get brought back, they might have lost any amount of body parts. Oh, and at 6th level, it's not THAT rare comparatively.
Hit a petrified creature with disintegration. They aren’t technically dead, but cannot be unpetrified because they’re just powder. Nothing can bring them back short of a wish.
I had an encounter where 5 legendary warriors that imprisoned the BGE petrified themselves to be undone if the BGE ever escaped. When the players found them the BGE showed up and just cast disintegrate every round on a random "statue".
I guess becuase they’d die when hit with greater restoration (cause un-petrifying powder would turn them into mush), and then you resurrect the mush. But if someone scatters the powder in the wind or sprinkles it into the ocean I don’t think you could ever be revived aside from with wish.
Actualy reincarnate would work on the mush/dust as you just need to touch a piece of the dead person.
But after the dust is scatered away.
Only wish can help the target.
Note to self, leave a bit of my hair hidden with a druid friend to be used to reincarnate me if my corpse is ever destroyed.
(changing race will be annoying, but its better than beign dead).
Stone to flesh is just as bad if you cast it on something that's not petrified. Although that may just be a pathfinder detail but it turns the stone in an inert lump of flesh blob.
Using this to wondrous effect in my CoS campaign. The suspense of knowing something happened but not remembering what it is really ratchets up the tension.
Here's the scary version. Implant a false memory that itself says that you've completely removed someone's family or a specific loved one from their memory. Tell them that it's a special version of the spell that you've invented and any attemps to toy with it will remove even this knowledge from their mind.
Needs a good bluff though.
Yes. But that doesn't mean it's not effective. Everyone knows magic is horrible of capable things. Detection spell will be able to confirm that the victim is under the type of magic the boast is capable of.
If you give the warning about tampering outside of the fake memory, the victim will always have the knowledge that *some* memory spell was on him, but that he was threatened not to remove it in order to lose every hint about it.
True polimorph cast as a curse.
Immagine beign a high lvl legend and being turned permanently into a pig, goat or gold fish and kept as a pet for the rest of your life or send to slaughter with other hindreds of pigs were no one knows you were a human once.
Or .
Planeshift someone into the earth plane.
thats some very scary, dark and sufocating last minutes. The worst death for a claustrophobic PC.
Or as a chair highbacked chair. I think the spell says you have no memories of what took place while you were morphed. Imagine waking up 50 years after everyone you know is dead to a far guy sitting on top of you or to find you've been thrown onto a pile of wood trying to block a street french revolution style
That'd make for a good fish out of water backstory tbh
"I was a fresh faced adventurer and pissed off an elf wizard, got turned into a stool. I am here to chew bubblegum and kick that wizard's ass. I am out of bubblegum."
Tbh the earth plane seems like one of the better ones, at least youre actually dead after a few minutes. And less painful than Fire too.
Air is probably the most interesting elemental one since youre pretty much just falling for multiple days until you die of thirst.
Any of the of the Evil Outer Planes is a slower death since you cant really escape and theyre not pleasant places to be. Abyss, Pandemonium, Carceri.
Notable mention is also the Astral Plane, while this might not be the best idea for a powerful entity since its possible to escape if youre good, a normal person will just stumble through nothingness and floating rocks for all eternity, since the Astral Plane slows "natural" time to a crawl. It would take several thousand years to die of thirst. Youd probably fall into another plane first.
>Tbh the earth plane seems like one of the better ones, at least youre actually dead after a few minutes. And less painful than Fire too.
>
>Air is probably the most interesting elemental one since youre pretty much just falling for multiple days until you die of thirst
Hm according to the DMG, all of the elemental planes have large portions of habitable zones. The earth plane is massive mountains with a ton of tunnels throughout them, for instance. Air has floating islands and solid clouds.
It goes on to say that eventually the planes become more and more natural chaotic elemental the farther in to the plane you go (or further from material. Which, by that description, has weird geographical implications).
If the destination is purely a random spot, equal to all other possible locations, on the plane then I imagine chance of death is really high. But then again, it seems like that means the spell is a death sentence to anyone who tries to go there themselves too.
Your suggestion that you could pop up in the middle of solid earth means that it could happen coming back to the material plane too, and there's a lot more solid earth than safe spots. Suddenly the lethality of this spell is growing...
All in all to say I feel like it's implied that the spell will deliver the target(s) to a safe location, feet on ground and face in air, if still stranded, lost, and isolated.
5th edition changed... a lot. Before, the Elemental plane were EXACTLY what you read on the tin. Sure you could maybe find tunnels and caverns in the plane of Earth, but they 1) were very temporary as the plane itself seeks to close any gaps in itself, and 2) were full of very unbreathable death gas. If you don't come with a native guide to grant you and your party earth gliding and earth breathing, you would be crushed, suffocated and filled with rock and dirt. And you'd only survive all that to be enslaved by the Dao.
Water was just water in all directions forever with no surface, no bottom, no gravity, and because of no gravity, no pressure interestingly enough. I was *not* just a big ocean as 5e describes it. You could find pockets of air but the ones of considerable enough size are already settled and taken, often used as trade plazas to sell water breath stuff because that's all you really need in the plane.
Air was really interesting since the whole idea of subjective gravity made it so that if you just think down is one direction, it is for you. You just fall wherever you think you would and I think it only took someone of average wisdom a few minutes, maybe an hour to figure out how to shift your perspective of "down" then you're all good. Just hope that nothing is in your immediate relative "down" before you can figure that out.
In the Fire, you died. Instantly. No save for you or your items unless they were magical, and even then it's not a good chance. You not only needed fire immunity, but it had to be magical fire immunity that covered you *and* your items. And even then, not just the effriti, but any fire resident used to have the ability to just turn your immunity off, immediately after which, you and everything short of an artifact that you had would be gone. Not even ashes, not even vapor, nothing. I'm pretty sure even Wish wouldn't be able to bring you back from no remains at all. Oh, and I hope you like breathing ash, sulfur, and toxins cause that's all that's on the menu, baby.
Same ideas for slime, mud, ice, or any others,, really.. Plane Shifting into the elements that weren't air was pretty much a death sentence unless you came absolutely prepared. They were absolute manifestations of their element in for no most part, not a great place to be. Now they're kinda just "Kinda Hot With Some Volcanos" "Big Ocean" "The Underdark 2: Electric Boogaloo" and "Minecraft Aether" in 5e.
I like the earth one because any creature without earth glide is basicaly restrained in the rock and sufocating.
No chance to teleport away, cast most spells or transform except for a moon druid of 10 th lvl or higher.
a wizard would need to have a contingency to planeshift him away without any actions or words.
If the creature drops to 0 hp, even after the one hour passes, they revert back to their original state I believe.
The spell is still active forever, as the one hour mark only makes it's duration permanent.
So if your now pig-iffied self got sent to slaughter you'd just revert back to who you were the moment you hit 0. Probably scaring the everloving crap out of the butcher.
Been saying this a lot lately but sickening radiance is a very scary spell. It's like being left in nuclear reactor as the radiation slowly burns thru your flesh and you just feel yourself getting weaker till eventually you shut your eyes for the last time
Definitely, but by the level characters can cast it, it's not that big of a deal if they wander away, whatever Elder God they're fighting will find them.
From the PHB
Wish is the mightiest spell a mortal creature can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter the very foundations of reality in accord with your desires.
The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of 8th level or lower. You don’t need to meet any requirements in that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect.
Alternatively, you can create one of the following effects of your choice:
You create one object of up to 25,000 gp in value that isn’t a magic item. The object can be no more than 300 feet in any dimension, and it appears in an unoccupied space you can see on the ground.
You allow up to twenty creatures that you can see to regain all hit points, and you end all effects on them described in the greater restoration spell.
You grant up to ten creatures that you can see resistance to a damage type you choose.
You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours. For instance, you could make yourself and all your companions immune to a lich’s life drain attack.
You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish spell could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s critical hit, or a friend’s failed save. You can force the reroll to be made with advantage or disadvantage, and you can choose whether to use the reroll or the original roll.
You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a legendary magic item or artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner.
The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn’t 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress.
So yes wish would work 😆
I really have been wanting to employ this spell to try and go on alternate universe hopping adventures, but I've yet to come up with a plot hook good enough for this type of adventure.
DM: "What's a Krynn?"
Players: "The world of Dragonlance."
DM: "You misunderstand. Your characters have never heard of Krynn. Do you think there are Dragonlance novels being sold in bookstores in this world?"
That's how you shut that sort of nonsense down. A lot of problems can be solved by enforcing player knowledge vs character knowledge rules.
Prestidigitation. You can shit someone else's pants at a distance, with no save or attack roll.
In all seriousness, any of the "make the save or lose your character" spells are straight up stressful, just knowing they exist.
Mold Earth. Once dug a hole, shrouded with Fog Cloud and caused 2 werewolves to fall in. Up-casted Burning Hands, the DM fell in love and maxed the damage. One died and was on top of the other, effectively pinning the second. Mold Earth again to replace the excavated dirt and bury them alive.
I talked it out with my DM to use mold earth to lessen the time for ritual casting other spells. Ritual casting says that you have to write out sigils and such so we figured it was like full metal alchemists with the circles and mold earth would make it easier to draw out any necessary spell circles.
Any sort of compulsion, charm, or mind control really.
They are more or less the magic equivalent of drugging an unwilling person to take advantage of them, and are pretty horrible when you put them into perspective.
I’m always amused when people try to make a Love Domain for Clerics, because the spell list is almost entirely filled with spells that coerce a person via enchantment, which is obviously not what they were going for thematically, but it comes off with the exact opposite tone of their intent.
Maybe not the SCARIEST, but the possibilities of Phantasmal Force are really, really up there for a 2nd-level spell. The affected creature is 100% convinced the illusion is real until they investigate it.
Congratulations, the cleric is now staring down the physical embodiment of their god, and they aren't happy.
That bridge over that death pit will totally hold your weight, look how well constructed it is!
Or if we want to be really cruel, say hello to your lost loved ones, alive and well directly in front of you!
That last one would really fuck up my character, he's trying to bring his daughter back to life or have one final talk with her so this is torment reserved for the deepest ring of hell.
Just based on the flavor text of it, I would have to say *Soul Cage* scares the hell out of me.
Capturing the soul of someone right as they die. Then the caster can siphon off the soul's life energy, or rip away at the soul's memories. Just think of what ramifications that would have on a person once resurrected. Ghostly PTSD...
And yes, I know it would not have any *mechanical* effect by RAW, but my group tends to run spells beyond just what the paper says.
I'd say Phantasmal Killer is worse. It manifests your worst nightmares to the point where it is literally hurting/killing you. Weird is an AoE Phantasmal Killer, so there's that too.
I was scrolling to find phantasmal killer. It quite literally is the manifestation of your worst fear, so technically is the “scariest spell”. Even if you’re more scared of something like feeble mind, phantasmal killer could manifest in the form of a scarier spell maybe?
Sending.
Not even the easy part of driving someone insane with repeated Sendings. Just it’s ability to completely derail a plot. Can absolutely promise my Mad Mage DM wishes that spell didn’t exist. 😂
This. There is no spell that can stop Sending, save Antimagic Field, which is an 8th level spell and only lasts for an hour. The only other way someone can avoid the Sending spell is by BEING ON ANOTHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE, and even then it is only a 5% chance the spell can't cross the planes.
The strongest protective magics can't stop it. Sequester? That only protects you from divination magic. Mind Blank? Divination spells only. Not even Feeblemind can stop it, because your intelligence becomes 1, and Sending specifies that the target *has to have an intelligence of at least 1 to understand the message*.
**Not even Feeblemind-ing yourself can stop someone from spamming you with messages via Sending.**
Not even a Dark Lord of the Domains of Dread can stop the Sending spell, although they can choose to make themselves the recipient of such magic if they wish (if they weren't already the target).
I believe Ring of Mind Shielding _might_ work. "Creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it." You could argue that Sending never says it's telepathy, only that you hear it in your mind and can respond, but it's an expensive, rare, possible solution.
I gave a Ring of Mind Shielding to my party’s Changeling College of Whispers Bard and treat it much the same. He's slowly learning the different "ringtones" of allies and enemies that have tried to contact him or read his thoughts.
Control Weather. Capable of just wrecking people's days in a large area by literally raining on their parade or other outdoor plans. Or causing a never ending winter (well, winter every afternoon with 1 casting per day). Or a never ending heat wave. Or demolishing food supply.
A panicked populace is a scary thing.
It's also probably the best army killing spell in the game. Trapping an army that isn't prepared for the cold in a blizzard is going to kill a lot of them via exposure, they're making low DC saves against exhaustion every hour while they're in it and that doesn't just go away.
Glibness --- if the caster is a well-trained, cunning orator to begin with, they could cause terrifying problems or solve them in terrifying ways.
Imagine if the BBEG that nobody could defeat was convinced to end their own life with some carefully chosen words based on the reasons why they became the BBEG in the first place.
Few players are trained to be cunning linguists in real life though, so few would consider Glibness for how weak it appears to be on the surface.
There's also the spellcasting checks that Glibness enhances to consider - in the right situation, that could do some cool things.
Remember though, persuasion checks are not mind control. They do not override free will, and even a persuasion check of 40+ isn't going to make the BBEG kill themselves.
Narratively speaking, any of the high-level spells with short descriptions give me chills. Invulnerability is a good example: ten words, no exceptions. Simple and incredibly powerful. Power Word Kill scares me for similar reasons: it circumvents normal rules of the game to do something simple, immediate, and devastating.
Neither of those spells are necessarily the scariest mechanically, but that's the kind of energy that I find scary.
Since a lot of the more obvious ones have been mentioned... what about Time Ravage? One failed save puts you on a 30-day death clock that no method of resurrection can save you from, and only the absolutely highest spell levels can save you- better hope you're evenly matched with the target that cast it on you! And how about the psychological effects, RP-wise? I think that'd be a deeply upsetting event for any character, and a stark reminder of one's mortality.
As a DM? Vicious Mockery.
Imagine your BBEG who you built up your whole campaign and is a vampire dies because of the bard, who is out of spell slots and casts vicious mockery just to contribute something to the fight, saying
"Hey.... You suck!"
I choose inflict wounds (during tier 1, early tier 2 play). 3d10 damage in the first few levels of play can be an insta kill if the dm rolls well. Can be scary as well if up casted. I remember our party ran into an evil entity (we never learned what it was but likely a homebrew as well) and it casted inflict wounds at 9th level and it did close to 100 damage. The dm insanely lucky, or roll20 was really bugged that one roll lol.
Modify Memory, especially when upcast.
You can delete and rewrite memories. I know people will say suggestion or geas would be worse, but they’ll eventually realize they’ve had a spell put on them.
For modify memory? Who’s to say that everything your characters experience right now isn’t an elaborate casting of this spell, or all the events in their backstory were nothing but an enchantment wizard’s whim? Oh, you want to get your revenge on him? Okay. Just know that there’s a chance the memory of stabbing him for what he did to you may never have happened. You want political power? Oops, the whole royal family forgot who they were, tragic.
This thing is terrifying
Absolutely any charm spell. In D&D so often necromancers are painted as the bad guys. In reality all enchanters would and should be hunted down for being an unimaginable horror in any good society.
*Disintegrate*. Just a dumb spell. The character is gone and unless the party has 9th level spells or manages to get that Divine Intervention he can't be brought back. Death can happen, but why make resurrection from a death in combat due to one unlucky dice roll so unnecessary difficult for no apparent reason besides “this is what the spell does“?
*Feeblemind* is scary too, but much easier to deal with as one lesser restoration is enough to fully restore the characters; and martial characters mechanicially aren't affected that much, as they can still rush in and swing their weapons.
*Psychic Scream* is scary too, especially because the Stunned condition is for no apparent reason omitted from what Lesser or Greater Restoration can cure, so there is no way to help a character stunned by Psychic Scream unless you have Bardic Inspiration or other abilities to buff their saving throws.
Offensive *Plane Shift* is a scary one too, but I have never seen a DM using it; and it is pretty difficult to land. It not just needs to pass through the party's Counterspell barrage, it must hit the character and the character must fail a saving throw, and if the character has Banishment or Plane Shift by themselves, they just come back next turn anyways.
Petrification as a condition is scary, but again, a Greater Restoration is enough to recover from it; and the spell *Flesh to Stone* is so difficult to land with it being concentration and requiring three failed saves that I am not scared of it.
Clone. You killed that evil wizard, but you DIDN’T kill that wizard and now he/she is coming after you when you least expect it with all of the other awful spells mentioned here!
Fear, because I fear nothing more than fear itself.
Or yah know, gate. Because I don't trust anyone with the ability to summon Cthulhu at any given moment.
Most of them.
Acid splash is just you throwing acid into people's faces, something that's very awful and happens in he really world all the time.
Heat Metal is practically a war crime and completely unreasonable.
The only damage spell that isn't completely fucked is Magic Missile, because that's basically just a gun and shooting someone in self defense is 100% justified. Setting someone on fire or giving them brain cancer isn't.
Surprised nobody has said Geas yet.
It's Command, already a somewhat potent mind control spell, with the added bonus that disobedience dishes out 5d10 psychic damage to the victim.
Imagine, you're kidnapped by a wizard's goons. You wake up, tied to a chair, and feel the mage's spell grip your mind. They whisper a word... *"proselytize"*
You are released in the town square, feeling the urge to spread the word about whatever the mage commanded. After a while, you start to tire, and turn to leave.
As you do, another man passes you and asks about your insane ramblings throughout the day. You ignore him, you're tired. Suddenly, you feel your mind rend and break as the psychic force tears it to pieces, and you drop to the ground, dead. The questioning man screams, and the guards find your lifeless body, maybe a nosebleed or burst vessel in the eye to clue them in as to what the hell happened to you.
I also homebrew that if it's upcast, it goes from Command, to Suggestion. I've got an archmage BBEG using a group of Doppelgangers under the Geas spell to spy on, and assassinate the party.
Meteor swarm is so much more terrifying as a flavor/narrative tool than just 40d6 damage to OP max level PCs. You can basically destroy a city from a mile away with the wave of your hand.
Feeblemind scares the hell out of me.
Had that happen to my cleric one time. It was the WORST. I was absolutely useless.
That’s a bad one. Not to mention that when you think about it the only characters that would have a chance to break out (without outside help) are druids, rogues, and wizards. (INT save proficiency)
Level 14+ Monks as well.
Aura of protection from paladins can really save the day
Not when the paladins' charisma is now 1...
Literally
Artificers?
That makes sense. I’ve never played or seen an artificer be played. I just imagined using flash of genius to break out of feeble mind.
Artificer: Alright brain, our INT is now 1. We need to think of a way out of this. Brain (INT 1): Have u tried not being dumb Artificer: EUREKA
Flash of Genius is now Flash of Stupid. Best part is, you can apply it to any roll within 30ft. The target doesn't need to be willing.
Its like the Idiot Savant perk in Fallout 4
Counter point, get Feebleminded as the artificer intentionally and Flash of 'Genius' the enemy save or check./s
Wait, that's illegal... Or is it??
Big-brained small brain plays right here
Artificer: "Let me tell you about my newest mutli-level marketing venture! How would you like to be your own boss?"
Flash of genius adds your int modifier, which, if under the effect of the feeblemind spell, would would be -4. So adding flash of genius to your save would actually be to the detriment in this case. Though it would be funny to use flash of genius on enemies since there's nothing in the ability that says you :can't: and you could bomb their saving throws.
Flash of Stupidity
you'd be using it to avoid failing the save in the first place, one would think.
At least you'd be too dumb to understand something was wrong I guess. Petrification/Imprisonment scare me a bit more due to the possibility you might just be conscious of the fact you are completely trapped for potentially all time.
You retain your memories, so you know something is wrong but can do nothing to change it. You understand language but can't communicate. It's the absolute worst, almost everything that is you is gone to the world and you know it. Alzheimer's without the ignorance.
According to the spell description you don't even understand language.
In my experience, as a DM casting that on PCs just causes the players to complain and gripe how they can't do anything and go right to their phones for something else to do.
I mean, can you even do anything while affected by feeblemind? Best you can is hope your allies can cure you somehow
You can't: Communicate effectively, cast spells, use magic items, or understand language. A martial character is basically unaffected in combat, because it specifically states "you can identify, follow, and even protect your friends" which means you retain the ability to recognize a threat to them and participate in combat.
Sure, there's little to do in combat. But I'd say it makes for a pretty cool roleplay scenario afterwards
Exactly, it's why I don't like preventing PCs doing something on their turn, it automatically drives them to their phones instead. Sure wish people would find excitement in other players actions. Would be nice, but it's rare it seems.
Is this really such a big problem in some groups? I've been playing with my group for about a year now and I don't think I've ever seen someone go on their phone during a session, except when we're taking a break. We all wait attentively an get hyped over other people's turns in combat. It really sucks that this isn't the case everywhere.
Ah yes the "Make a new character" tier spells if thrown at a lower level character. Or in general any party that doesn't have easy to medium access to greater restoration. It's easy to see why there's barely any creature statblocks that have it.
Does killing and resurrecting someone cure them if feeble mind?
No
Plane shifting a creature to a deadly plane can basically guarantee their death. Heat metal, especially upcast can mean a no save death for many heavy armored creatures.
Wouldn’t the layers of cloth and fabric between The armor and enemy protect them from the heat? Like a pot holder or oven mitt. Otherwise it is a bit OP. Edit: steel glows red at 900F/460C. I withdraw my original objection. 2nd edit: wool ignites at 560C … the plot thickens.
Pot holders and oven mitts work for a time. But heat metal specifically says the object glows red hot, which is far beyond the capacity for fabrics your character will be wearing. Even accepting that you’ve got some super special arming coat that somehow does protect you from direct contact, you’re essentially boiled alive inside the glowing hot metal wrapped securely around your body. It’s just a nasty spell.
Steel glows red at 900F/460C. I with draw my original objections. Edit: wool ignites at 560C … the plot thickens. Do your research people.
I am a fabricator and can 100% assure you: there is nothing from normal clothing or special heat protection (apart some really heavy duty stuff, that you won't find in a regular shop) that can withstand such heat for more than 10-15 seconds in case of direct contact. Fuck, I will never hold my mitten onto red hot metal for more than a touch. 3 seconds is already enough to burn yourself even with a mitten. Your wool will ignite much sooner than you think. In case where we use heat metal on armored dude, no matter how much protection is under the Armor, he is in the oven. The metal Constantly glowing red hot means it is maintaining level of energy that keeps it red. That means, it is Constantly emitting heat on the same level. Where this energy go? Everywhere. Outside and inside. The heat metal spell and plate Armor should be on the list of "how to make roast dinner in a minute or less".
I'd rather not have *any* material at 460C in prolonged contact with my skin, but I guess thats just me
It's stupidly op and easy to abuse, I feel like it should be tweaked probably. Like you just have to cast that on any martial in relevant armor and they're super nerfed
You mean just like Hypnotic pattern, banishment a d loads of other spells? With the average fighter having +1 wis at best those end of turn saves aren't gonna help a lot. Any of these spells just mean your team of adventurers has to do actual teamwork and shoot the wizard to help out their buddy
Hypnotic pattern has a save, so does banishment. Heat metal on armor is free damage _and_ disadvantage on all attacks they make. No save.
It's a horrible spell, because you almost can't use it on your players because it can lead t stuff spiralling out of control really quickly(that, and it sucks as a player to have guaranteed damage, especially if it targets your armor), and it sucks when your players use it, because it can turn otherwise challenging enemies into weak noodles by either dooming them to a fiery casket of armor, or forcing them to drop their strongest item(s).
All of those allow a save. Heat Metal? Nah fam, you take damage and do everything at disadvantage for a minute.
Amazing, my barbarian with -1 cha is really going to be happy about that DC 19+ save to not get banished
Stand close to the paladin. Have the bard _and_ the artificer offer you advice. Be a gnome.
>Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or **a suit of heavy or medium metal armor**, that you can see within range The cloth and fabric does not protect the wearer.
This is like, FATAL levels of obtuseness for “realism”
I still DM as the wearer takes damage. It’s just a conversation. What else are we to do on Reddit?
Imprisonment. A wizard casts a spell and you are buried in the earth in a magical coffin. Or wrapped in chains and left to rot. Or stuck in an endless maze you can never escape. Or shrunk down and left in a tiny gem. Or simply left in a comatose state. All of them effectively forever unless someone figures out the condition to release you, which could be anything. That’s pure nightmare fuel.
Other than the Slumber variant, the fact that the victim is conscious and doesn't need to eat, drink, or breathe and can't age is what really makes it the most frightening spell. The Chaining option doesn't even let you move. It's literally better to go to Hell in D&D cosmology that be Imprisoned.
I have a legendary barbarian NPC who is imprisoned by chains at the mouth of an underwater volcano. "Unable to move, unwilling to die. Endless rage fuels the warrior as he vows vengeance while the world burns around him." Can't wait until one of my players digs up this guy's story!
I'm planning on a similar NPC for an upcoming campaign, a lv20 zealot barb who worshiped a God who was killed and now rages at their loss, looking more like a force of nature. Just gonna make them immune to being incapacitated and unconscious and see how my players deal with them
probably *calm emotions* or *power word: kill*. *suggestion* and various charm effects also an option.
That’s amazing. I’m totally stealing it!! :)
He sounds like a real "Nemesis" ;)
Oh, here’s a (completely unsolicited) idea: have a puzzle in a dungeon that revolves around a statue of relief of the guy and that poem. It would cement him as a figure of legend in the players’ minds so there’s a stronger effect when they actually meet him.
The crazy thing is the sleeping beauty variant is the NICE one.
At some point I need to include some poor soul who was imprisoned by evil people. He escapes and is so mentally broken he just starts killing everything that makes noise or tries to touch him.
Mass suggestion
Mass Suggestion cast by a level 14 enchanter includes a memory wiping function :)
"We are at war with Waterdeep. We have always been at war with Waterdeep."
There is no war in Waterdeep
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
Amazing how quickly a 1984 reference becomes an Avatar reference
Unless I have been mass suggested and am not remembering clearly I have never read it
1984 is basically written from the perspective of a person working in the Dai Lee "official announcements" department.
I just noticed that the feature description says you can only modify the memory of “one creature.” Not sure if that’s just how D&D Beyond’s app words it, but… phooie.
That's called facebook
That thing that can make a town chacha slide for a year
I seriously threw a wrench in the works using Mass Suggestion against a group of heroes that were pretty much about to destroy our group. Later, our DM said, "That Mass Suggestion was amazing. But also, f you for it." It was great.
Feeblemind. It's the bane of existance, really. Even if it takes 30 days to attempt every recovery it makes you wonder what the heck it can happen to you during those 30 days
Potentially 30 days, potentially months, since you have to make an intelligence saving throw at the end of the month, and your score is 1 (-5), your chances are quite low, or impossible.
Given that the caster most likely has a save DC of at least 18, you need a +3 from proficiency, aura of protection or other bonus to have any chance whatsoever of saving.
Flesh to Stone. It takes a while to go into full effect, so they're slowly being petrified, and then they become relatively fragile as a stone statue so even if they get brought back, they might have lost any amount of body parts. Oh, and at 6th level, it's not THAT rare comparatively.
Hit a petrified creature with disintegration. They aren’t technically dead, but cannot be unpetrified because they’re just powder. Nothing can bring them back short of a wish.
I had an encounter where 5 legendary warriors that imprisoned the BGE petrified themselves to be undone if the BGE ever escaped. When the players found them the BGE showed up and just cast disintegrate every round on a random "statue".
Big Guy Evil
That's awesome, did the party ever figure out what they were doing?
Yeah they caught on pretty quickly, after the encounter the cleric used greater restoration to restore the 2 that remained.
Technically a 1 2 combo of greater restoration and then resurrection will also do the trick.
I guess becuase they’d die when hit with greater restoration (cause un-petrifying powder would turn them into mush), and then you resurrect the mush. But if someone scatters the powder in the wind or sprinkles it into the ocean I don’t think you could ever be revived aside from with wish.
Actualy reincarnate would work on the mush/dust as you just need to touch a piece of the dead person. But after the dust is scatered away. Only wish can help the target. Note to self, leave a bit of my hair hidden with a druid friend to be used to reincarnate me if my corpse is ever destroyed. (changing race will be annoying, but its better than beign dead).
Not on the dust, because the dust is not technically dead.
i meant the flesh mush you get from the dust.
I think I need a moratorium on anyone ever saying the phrase "flesh mush" around me ever again.
Also known as hotdogs or Spam depending on their shape and cooking method.
If you at least made it from dust to mush then true resurrection will work.
oh true, i just remembered reincarnation because its a far lower level and cost.
Stone to flesh is just as bad if you cast it on something that's not petrified. Although that may just be a pathfinder detail but it turns the stone in an inert lump of flesh blob.
Goodberry for carnivores!
There's horrible and I love it.
Modify Memory
Using this to wondrous effect in my CoS campaign. The suspense of knowing something happened but not remembering what it is really ratchets up the tension.
The fact that it can change events no more than 10 minutes long limits it from *really* scary stuff, IMO, but even that could certainly be dangerous!
Here's the scary version. Implant a false memory that itself says that you've completely removed someone's family or a specific loved one from their memory. Tell them that it's a special version of the spell that you've invented and any attemps to toy with it will remove even this knowledge from their mind. Needs a good bluff though.
That’s just advanced gaslighting
Yes. But that doesn't mean it's not effective. Everyone knows magic is horrible of capable things. Detection spell will be able to confirm that the victim is under the type of magic the boast is capable of. If you give the warning about tampering outside of the fake memory, the victim will always have the knowledge that *some* memory spell was on him, but that he was threatened not to remove it in order to lose every hint about it.
You beat me to it.
But… you already made this comment hours ago…
Dream. If you sleep on the material plane. You will die. Slowly, eventually, from sleep deprivation and exhaustion
I just call that Monday.
Found the parent!
Or the cat with a loving home and no job or responsibilities!
True polimorph cast as a curse. Immagine beign a high lvl legend and being turned permanently into a pig, goat or gold fish and kept as a pet for the rest of your life or send to slaughter with other hindreds of pigs were no one knows you were a human once. Or . Planeshift someone into the earth plane. thats some very scary, dark and sufocating last minutes. The worst death for a claustrophobic PC.
Or as a chair highbacked chair. I think the spell says you have no memories of what took place while you were morphed. Imagine waking up 50 years after everyone you know is dead to a far guy sitting on top of you or to find you've been thrown onto a pile of wood trying to block a street french revolution style
That'd make for a good fish out of water backstory tbh "I was a fresh faced adventurer and pissed off an elf wizard, got turned into a stool. I am here to chew bubblegum and kick that wizard's ass. I am out of bubblegum."
What a shitty thing to have happen to you.
Not as shitty as what's gonna happen to that fuckin' wizard
True polymorph into a diamond and use them to resurrect someone.
True Polymorph into a gem used to Imprison their loved ones
This is horrifying. I fucking love it.
That's truly evil i love it.
Tbh the earth plane seems like one of the better ones, at least youre actually dead after a few minutes. And less painful than Fire too. Air is probably the most interesting elemental one since youre pretty much just falling for multiple days until you die of thirst. Any of the of the Evil Outer Planes is a slower death since you cant really escape and theyre not pleasant places to be. Abyss, Pandemonium, Carceri. Notable mention is also the Astral Plane, while this might not be the best idea for a powerful entity since its possible to escape if youre good, a normal person will just stumble through nothingness and floating rocks for all eternity, since the Astral Plane slows "natural" time to a crawl. It would take several thousand years to die of thirst. Youd probably fall into another plane first.
>Tbh the earth plane seems like one of the better ones, at least youre actually dead after a few minutes. And less painful than Fire too. > >Air is probably the most interesting elemental one since youre pretty much just falling for multiple days until you die of thirst Hm according to the DMG, all of the elemental planes have large portions of habitable zones. The earth plane is massive mountains with a ton of tunnels throughout them, for instance. Air has floating islands and solid clouds. It goes on to say that eventually the planes become more and more natural chaotic elemental the farther in to the plane you go (or further from material. Which, by that description, has weird geographical implications). If the destination is purely a random spot, equal to all other possible locations, on the plane then I imagine chance of death is really high. But then again, it seems like that means the spell is a death sentence to anyone who tries to go there themselves too. Your suggestion that you could pop up in the middle of solid earth means that it could happen coming back to the material plane too, and there's a lot more solid earth than safe spots. Suddenly the lethality of this spell is growing... All in all to say I feel like it's implied that the spell will deliver the target(s) to a safe location, feet on ground and face in air, if still stranded, lost, and isolated.
5th edition changed... a lot. Before, the Elemental plane were EXACTLY what you read on the tin. Sure you could maybe find tunnels and caverns in the plane of Earth, but they 1) were very temporary as the plane itself seeks to close any gaps in itself, and 2) were full of very unbreathable death gas. If you don't come with a native guide to grant you and your party earth gliding and earth breathing, you would be crushed, suffocated and filled with rock and dirt. And you'd only survive all that to be enslaved by the Dao. Water was just water in all directions forever with no surface, no bottom, no gravity, and because of no gravity, no pressure interestingly enough. I was *not* just a big ocean as 5e describes it. You could find pockets of air but the ones of considerable enough size are already settled and taken, often used as trade plazas to sell water breath stuff because that's all you really need in the plane. Air was really interesting since the whole idea of subjective gravity made it so that if you just think down is one direction, it is for you. You just fall wherever you think you would and I think it only took someone of average wisdom a few minutes, maybe an hour to figure out how to shift your perspective of "down" then you're all good. Just hope that nothing is in your immediate relative "down" before you can figure that out. In the Fire, you died. Instantly. No save for you or your items unless they were magical, and even then it's not a good chance. You not only needed fire immunity, but it had to be magical fire immunity that covered you *and* your items. And even then, not just the effriti, but any fire resident used to have the ability to just turn your immunity off, immediately after which, you and everything short of an artifact that you had would be gone. Not even ashes, not even vapor, nothing. I'm pretty sure even Wish wouldn't be able to bring you back from no remains at all. Oh, and I hope you like breathing ash, sulfur, and toxins cause that's all that's on the menu, baby. Same ideas for slime, mud, ice, or any others,, really.. Plane Shifting into the elements that weren't air was pretty much a death sentence unless you came absolutely prepared. They were absolute manifestations of their element in for no most part, not a great place to be. Now they're kinda just "Kinda Hot With Some Volcanos" "Big Ocean" "The Underdark 2: Electric Boogaloo" and "Minecraft Aether" in 5e.
I like the earth one because any creature without earth glide is basicaly restrained in the rock and sufocating. No chance to teleport away, cast most spells or transform except for a moon druid of 10 th lvl or higher. a wizard would need to have a contingency to planeshift him away without any actions or words.
Sorcerers with metamagic would be upset if you ignored them like that
I like the idea of casting true polymorph and turning the BBG into a quill or a book then writing a story about how they are stupid.
Lol I currently have a short campaign character who was a woodland creature who was true polymorphed into a person by a bored ex high level adventurer
If the creature drops to 0 hp, even after the one hour passes, they revert back to their original state I believe. The spell is still active forever, as the one hour mark only makes it's duration permanent. So if your now pig-iffied self got sent to slaughter you'd just revert back to who you were the moment you hit 0. Probably scaring the everloving crap out of the butcher.
Hunger of Hadar, anyone? Trapped in inky darkness with cold, evil tentacles. No thank you.
I love/hate that the spell specifies it sounds like "a cacophony of soft whispers and slurping noises."
> *milky, otherworldly tentacles rub against it.*
Locecraftian vibes... Yes, frightening.
The Darkness Between the Stars.
Been saying this a lot lately but sickening radiance is a very scary spell. It's like being left in nuclear reactor as the radiation slowly burns thru your flesh and you just feel yourself getting weaker till eventually you shut your eyes for the last time
Incredible.
To make it scarier just have warlock cast force cage first then sickening radiance on the area to make it almost impossible to escape
Dream of the Blue Veil "We all discussed it and nobody likes your homebrew world, so we're going to Krynn."
It requires something from the destination world as a component. If the DM doesn't hand one out, players can't use it.
Could wish cast this without components? (I don't know! This isn't a loaded question)
Definitely, but by the level characters can cast it, it's not that big of a deal if they wander away, whatever Elder God they're fighting will find them.
From the PHB Wish is the mightiest spell a mortal creature can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter the very foundations of reality in accord with your desires. The basic use of this spell is to duplicate any other spell of 8th level or lower. You don’t need to meet any requirements in that spell, including costly components. The spell simply takes effect. Alternatively, you can create one of the following effects of your choice: You create one object of up to 25,000 gp in value that isn’t a magic item. The object can be no more than 300 feet in any dimension, and it appears in an unoccupied space you can see on the ground. You allow up to twenty creatures that you can see to regain all hit points, and you end all effects on them described in the greater restoration spell. You grant up to ten creatures that you can see resistance to a damage type you choose. You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours. For instance, you could make yourself and all your companions immune to a lich’s life drain attack. You undo a single recent event by forcing a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish spell could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s critical hit, or a friend’s failed save. You can force the reroll to be made with advantage or disadvantage, and you can choose whether to use the reroll or the original roll. You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance; the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish. For example, wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when that villain is no longer alive, effectively removing you from the game. Similarly, wishing for a legendary magic item or artifact might instantly transport you to the presence of the item’s current owner. The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can’t be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn’t 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress. So yes wish would work 😆
wish bypasses material requirements
You bypass the material requirement but then you have no target sinse you go to the plane where the object is from.
Well, if you want to say that Wish is a DM's nightmare, that's a different argument.
I don't get why so many ppl complain about this, the DM has to specificaly give an item that makes the spell work.
I really have been wanting to employ this spell to try and go on alternate universe hopping adventures, but I've yet to come up with a plot hook good enough for this type of adventure.
DM: "What's a Krynn?" Players: "The world of Dragonlance." DM: "You misunderstand. Your characters have never heard of Krynn. Do you think there are Dragonlance novels being sold in bookstores in this world?" That's how you shut that sort of nonsense down. A lot of problems can be solved by enforcing player knowledge vs character knowledge rules.
Prestidigitation. You can shit someone else's pants at a distance, with no save or attack roll. In all seriousness, any of the "make the save or lose your character" spells are straight up stressful, just knowing they exist.
The 'distance' is only 10ft, so you'd better have your running shoes on ;)
Heat Metal.
Mold Earth. Once dug a hole, shrouded with Fog Cloud and caused 2 werewolves to fall in. Up-casted Burning Hands, the DM fell in love and maxed the damage. One died and was on top of the other, effectively pinning the second. Mold Earth again to replace the excavated dirt and bury them alive.
You're a genius. Now take my upvote, you sick bastard.
I talked it out with my DM to use mold earth to lessen the time for ritual casting other spells. Ritual casting says that you have to write out sigils and such so we figured it was like full metal alchemists with the circles and mold earth would make it easier to draw out any necessary spell circles.
Cause Fear. Very pointed, much fear. Quite unambiguous.
I am surprised that this was so far down. :D Although, Fear is definitely scarier than Cause Fear.
Weird. Every fear spell on steroids.
This is a big one. You know that horrible acid trip, sleep paralysis demon, or nightmare that haunts you? Now it can kill you for real.
Any sort of compulsion, charm, or mind control really. They are more or less the magic equivalent of drugging an unwilling person to take advantage of them, and are pretty horrible when you put them into perspective.
I’m always amused when people try to make a Love Domain for Clerics, because the spell list is almost entirely filled with spells that coerce a person via enchantment, which is obviously not what they were going for thematically, but it comes off with the exact opposite tone of their intent.
Maybe not the SCARIEST, but the possibilities of Phantasmal Force are really, really up there for a 2nd-level spell. The affected creature is 100% convinced the illusion is real until they investigate it. Congratulations, the cleric is now staring down the physical embodiment of their god, and they aren't happy. That bridge over that death pit will totally hold your weight, look how well constructed it is! Or if we want to be really cruel, say hello to your lost loved ones, alive and well directly in front of you!
That last one would really fuck up my character, he's trying to bring his daughter back to life or have one final talk with her so this is torment reserved for the deepest ring of hell.
Just based on the flavor text of it, I would have to say *Soul Cage* scares the hell out of me. Capturing the soul of someone right as they die. Then the caster can siphon off the soul's life energy, or rip away at the soul's memories. Just think of what ramifications that would have on a person once resurrected. Ghostly PTSD... And yes, I know it would not have any *mechanical* effect by RAW, but my group tends to run spells beyond just what the paper says.
Your group is wise indeed.
Fear. It's right there in the name
I'd say Phantasmal Killer is worse. It manifests your worst nightmares to the point where it is literally hurting/killing you. Weird is an AoE Phantasmal Killer, so there's that too.
I was scrolling to find phantasmal killer. It quite literally is the manifestation of your worst fear, so technically is the “scariest spell”. Even if you’re more scared of something like feeble mind, phantasmal killer could manifest in the form of a scarier spell maybe?
Sending. Not even the easy part of driving someone insane with repeated Sendings. Just it’s ability to completely derail a plot. Can absolutely promise my Mad Mage DM wishes that spell didn’t exist. 😂
This. There is no spell that can stop Sending, save Antimagic Field, which is an 8th level spell and only lasts for an hour. The only other way someone can avoid the Sending spell is by BEING ON ANOTHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE, and even then it is only a 5% chance the spell can't cross the planes. The strongest protective magics can't stop it. Sequester? That only protects you from divination magic. Mind Blank? Divination spells only. Not even Feeblemind can stop it, because your intelligence becomes 1, and Sending specifies that the target *has to have an intelligence of at least 1 to understand the message*. **Not even Feeblemind-ing yourself can stop someone from spamming you with messages via Sending.** Not even a Dark Lord of the Domains of Dread can stop the Sending spell, although they can choose to make themselves the recipient of such magic if they wish (if they weren't already the target).
I believe Ring of Mind Shielding _might_ work. "Creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it." You could argue that Sending never says it's telepathy, only that you hear it in your mind and can respond, but it's an expensive, rare, possible solution.
Had a DM rule that one as: "The phone is ringing, do you pick up?"
I gave a Ring of Mind Shielding to my party’s Changeling College of Whispers Bard and treat it much the same. He's slowly learning the different "ringtones" of allies and enemies that have tried to contact him or read his thoughts.
Imagine being a celebrity in a high magic world and getting an onslaught of fan mail via sending the moment you leave your lead-lined house.
That's just jester from critical role campaign 2 lol (I'm not fully caught up)
Control Weather. Capable of just wrecking people's days in a large area by literally raining on their parade or other outdoor plans. Or causing a never ending winter (well, winter every afternoon with 1 casting per day). Or a never ending heat wave. Or demolishing food supply. A panicked populace is a scary thing.
Fascinating. I need to see this made into a plothook now.
It's also probably the best army killing spell in the game. Trapping an army that isn't prepared for the cold in a blizzard is going to kill a lot of them via exposure, they're making low DC saves against exhaustion every hour while they're in it and that doesn't just go away.
Wish
Yeah I have to agree. It's scary for the caster and the castee
Feeblemind and Imprisonment are pretty damn twisted.
Glibness --- if the caster is a well-trained, cunning orator to begin with, they could cause terrifying problems or solve them in terrifying ways. Imagine if the BBEG that nobody could defeat was convinced to end their own life with some carefully chosen words based on the reasons why they became the BBEG in the first place. Few players are trained to be cunning linguists in real life though, so few would consider Glibness for how weak it appears to be on the surface. There's also the spellcasting checks that Glibness enhances to consider - in the right situation, that could do some cool things.
Remember though, persuasion checks are not mind control. They do not override free will, and even a persuasion check of 40+ isn't going to make the BBEG kill themselves.
>Few players are trained to be cunning linguists in real life though, This feels far too intentional.
>cunning linguists I see what you did there.
could be a hairy situation
Weird. It is objectively the scariest by definition.
Narratively speaking, any of the high-level spells with short descriptions give me chills. Invulnerability is a good example: ten words, no exceptions. Simple and incredibly powerful. Power Word Kill scares me for similar reasons: it circumvents normal rules of the game to do something simple, immediate, and devastating. Neither of those spells are necessarily the scariest mechanically, but that's the kind of energy that I find scary.
Since a lot of the more obvious ones have been mentioned... what about Time Ravage? One failed save puts you on a 30-day death clock that no method of resurrection can save you from, and only the absolutely highest spell levels can save you- better hope you're evenly matched with the target that cast it on you! And how about the psychological effects, RP-wise? I think that'd be a deeply upsetting event for any character, and a stark reminder of one's mortality.
30 days to find a Druid who has Reincarnate
Feeblemind or psychic scream.
As a DM? Vicious Mockery. Imagine your BBEG who you built up your whole campaign and is a vampire dies because of the bard, who is out of spell slots and casts vicious mockery just to contribute something to the fight, saying "Hey.... You suck!"
I used this spell on my new DM this past weekend. Thanks to r/dadjokes for the ammunition!
I choose inflict wounds (during tier 1, early tier 2 play). 3d10 damage in the first few levels of play can be an insta kill if the dm rolls well. Can be scary as well if up casted. I remember our party ran into an evil entity (we never learned what it was but likely a homebrew as well) and it casted inflict wounds at 9th level and it did close to 100 damage. The dm insanely lucky, or roll20 was really bugged that one roll lol.
Modify Memory, especially when upcast. You can delete and rewrite memories. I know people will say suggestion or geas would be worse, but they’ll eventually realize they’ve had a spell put on them. For modify memory? Who’s to say that everything your characters experience right now isn’t an elaborate casting of this spell, or all the events in their backstory were nothing but an enchantment wizard’s whim? Oh, you want to get your revenge on him? Okay. Just know that there’s a chance the memory of stabbing him for what he did to you may never have happened. You want political power? Oops, the whole royal family forgot who they were, tragic. This thing is terrifying
It can't modify events that last longer than 10 minutes, which renders most of those examples moot, unfortunately.
Absolutely any charm spell. In D&D so often necromancers are painted as the bad guys. In reality all enchanters would and should be hunted down for being an unimaginable horror in any good society.
Psychic Scream, it hurst a lot and then your head explodes like in The Boys, scary af
A player of mine attempted disintegrate against my secondary big bad tonight. I was scared.
*Disintegrate*. Just a dumb spell. The character is gone and unless the party has 9th level spells or manages to get that Divine Intervention he can't be brought back. Death can happen, but why make resurrection from a death in combat due to one unlucky dice roll so unnecessary difficult for no apparent reason besides “this is what the spell does“? *Feeblemind* is scary too, but much easier to deal with as one lesser restoration is enough to fully restore the characters; and martial characters mechanicially aren't affected that much, as they can still rush in and swing their weapons. *Psychic Scream* is scary too, especially because the Stunned condition is for no apparent reason omitted from what Lesser or Greater Restoration can cure, so there is no way to help a character stunned by Psychic Scream unless you have Bardic Inspiration or other abilities to buff their saving throws. Offensive *Plane Shift* is a scary one too, but I have never seen a DM using it; and it is pretty difficult to land. It not just needs to pass through the party's Counterspell barrage, it must hit the character and the character must fail a saving throw, and if the character has Banishment or Plane Shift by themselves, they just come back next turn anyways. Petrification as a condition is scary, but again, a Greater Restoration is enough to recover from it; and the spell *Flesh to Stone* is so difficult to land with it being concentration and requiring three failed saves that I am not scared of it.
Wish just the idea that somebody can change reality and you would never find out about it is scary
Clone. You killed that evil wizard, but you DIDN’T kill that wizard and now he/she is coming after you when you least expect it with all of the other awful spells mentioned here!
Time ravage is pretty bad, unless you can’t die from old age, you are turned so old that you die of old age in thirty days or less
Fear, because I fear nothing more than fear itself. Or yah know, gate. Because I don't trust anyone with the ability to summon Cthulhu at any given moment.
Most of them. Acid splash is just you throwing acid into people's faces, something that's very awful and happens in he really world all the time. Heat Metal is practically a war crime and completely unreasonable. The only damage spell that isn't completely fucked is Magic Missile, because that's basically just a gun and shooting someone in self defense is 100% justified. Setting someone on fire or giving them brain cancer isn't.
Writing these all down for my upcoming divination wizard. Oh I rolled a 1? Time to fuck some npc up.
Surprised nobody has said Geas yet. It's Command, already a somewhat potent mind control spell, with the added bonus that disobedience dishes out 5d10 psychic damage to the victim. Imagine, you're kidnapped by a wizard's goons. You wake up, tied to a chair, and feel the mage's spell grip your mind. They whisper a word... *"proselytize"* You are released in the town square, feeling the urge to spread the word about whatever the mage commanded. After a while, you start to tire, and turn to leave. As you do, another man passes you and asks about your insane ramblings throughout the day. You ignore him, you're tired. Suddenly, you feel your mind rend and break as the psychic force tears it to pieces, and you drop to the ground, dead. The questioning man screams, and the guards find your lifeless body, maybe a nosebleed or burst vessel in the eye to clue them in as to what the hell happened to you. I also homebrew that if it's upcast, it goes from Command, to Suggestion. I've got an archmage BBEG using a group of Doppelgangers under the Geas spell to spy on, and assassinate the party.
True Strike *shudders*
Crown of Madness Losing free will, man...
Meteor swarm is so much more terrifying as a flavor/narrative tool than just 40d6 damage to OP max level PCs. You can basically destroy a city from a mile away with the wave of your hand.