New Spells: For Strength and Dexterity
“Well what did you think I meant when I said I was a wizard for body empowerment?”
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Balance, Bolster, Enhance Body
Art Credit: http://www.artofmtg.com/art/titans-strength/
Not all magic has to be complicated to be effective. Sometimes the best magic is the kind that strengthens the original tool used for problem-solving: the body itself. Today’s spells are relatively simple effects that focus on empowering and enhancing someone’s Strength or Dexterity using magic, but don’t think that simple means weak or useless! Whether you want to help your wizard or cleric climb up a difficult ledge or you want to help your fighter mop the floor with your enemies using magical steroids, these spells have what you’re looking for.
Balance and Bolster are two new twin cantrips designed to fill a very particular niche. The ability to gain advantage on a particular ability check at-will can be very powerful, so they are limited by their duration and casting time. Barring special abilities like the sorcerer’s Quickened Spell metamagic or the fighter’s Action Surge feature, these spells can’t be used to enhance the effects of an action, like a grapple or a Hide check. However any activity that might not be an action, such as interacting with an object or checks resulting from movement like climbing or swimming, are fair game to enhance with these two spells! Enhance Body is designed to compete directly with greater invisibility when it comes to buffing martial characters. While that spell has more defensive benefits, (since being invisible prevents sight-based spells and effects and gives enemies disadvantage on attacks), this new spell focuses more of its power into offensive bonuses for the target.
Enhance Body is also a great example of the D&D Unleashed philosophy around buff spells, especially spells that buff martial warriors who probably aren’t casting the spell, as described in the About page. We feel that the game is more fun when the incredible magical power granted to high-level spellcasters doesn’t just feel fun for the spellcasters. When strong buff spells are used, both the spellcaster and the target of the buff get to feel powerful and feel like their class features and other abilities are being shown off. As opposed to when a fireball or meteor swarm simply ends an encounter outright without other players getting to shine, these sort of buff spells do the exact opposite and bring more players into the fun of high-level spells, instead of using that power to exclude them.
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Balance, Bolster, Enhance Body
