Have a player who seems enamored with this spell ... as in, it's damn near the ONLY thing he does in combat. It rarely works (he arranged his stats to be 'decent at anything' without realizing this really makes him 'bad at everything'); all his stats range from 13-15. But the damage sucks, the save isn't hard to make, so there were basically rounds after rounds where he was accomplishing nothing ...
I'm considering buffing the damage at the very least. What's everybody else's opinion of this spell? I know it's just a cantrip, but it really seems like garbage.
I for one love Vicious Mockery. It's got great roleplay potential, a damage type that is very rarely resisted, and a bonus effect of giving something disadvantage on it's next attack. This is great, since the low Wisdom save monsters are likely to be beefy attackers, whereas high Wisdom save monsters (who you don't want to target with this spell) are more likely to use save-based effects.
Considering the range, damage type (Psychic) and bonus effect, I don't think that it needs an increase to damage. The issue here is that your player is likely using it with a low save DC, so all cantrips with a saving throw will seem less than ideal, as the save is so low, and nothing happens on a successful save.
The player should invest in their spellcasting ability if they want better use of it, and specifically use the spell against enemies that are of the beefier/big-and-dumb varieties for the best chance of making them fail a Wisdom saving throw.
As someone who is a big fan of support characters Vicious Mockery is fab spell at early levels where enemies usually only have one attack. But it doesn’t scale all that well, but in general no spell cantrips do. In general bards tend not to do much damage and instead they can act as tremendous support mitigating damage by removing enemies from the combat.
One thing to note is that the bard has one of the best spell lists especially at early levels with the first level spells Faerie Fire and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, second level spells Heat Metal and Suggestion and Fear and Hypnotic Pattern at third. The problem with all of these is that they are concentration and maintaining that concentration is usually more important dealing damage.
I also have to echo MellieDM’s comments suggesting that your player might want to look at increasing their Charisma to improve their spell DC.
Personally when I ran my glamour bard I would cast my big concentration spell at the beginning of combat and then use Minor Illusion to create areas of cover that our rogue and I could hide behind, or Vicious Mockery if any of the creatures looked a bit dumb.
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Personally, I'm not a huge fan of saving throw spells, but this is largely psychological. There's not a tremendous difference between "I need to roll to succeed" vs "You need to roll to fail," but it definitely feels worse (to me) when enemies save against your spells.
In any case, Vicious Mockery is fine. If your player has a 15 in Charisma, then the saving throw for it will be 12 for the first few levels. That's not great, but many enemies will have a less than 50% chance of saving against that.
The damage is slightly lower than, for example, Frostbite, but it forces disadvantage on the next attack roll, which will include spell attack rolls. Frostbite only does it against weapon attacks.
Granted, this is one of the few Bardic cantrips that can cause damage, so it might seem underwhelming compared to Toll the Dead or Fire Bolt. If you're that concerned with it, you might consider giving your bard access to Shillelagh, and let him use it to bash creatures over the head with a lute.
Like most cantrips viscous mockery has it's role that is situational. One of the enjoyable parts of being a hard is adapting to different situations and not seeing every problem as a nail and your character as a hammer. If needed introduce an NPC Bard to give examples for your PC to follow with creative spell use for a couple of sessions, it might inspire them with new ideas without the potentially insulting conversation.
Consider mixing viscous mockery with bane or other spells/abilities that lower saving chance. In select fights against does that hit hard only once, it can be rather useful at protecting the other party members who can't take the dodge action. The main value of the spell is not that it does damage under most situations.
Instead of buffing the spell, maybe offer the player the opportunity to re-stat their character? Especially if it's still a very low level character, or early in the campaign, that might be way more effective overall. Chat with the player and see what they say! If they love using that spell but are also quietly sad it doesn't work as well, moving around some ability scores could help get them the RP they want without having to homebrew anything, and will actually help the character overall. But they might tell you that failing is half the fun they are having and be happy to leave it alone! They might find the effort of earning the ability score increase to make their spells more effective to be the rewarding part.
Depending on your player's temperament, point out that Jack of All Trades pretty much makes them decent at everything. A spell slinging bard really wants CHA 16+ to start. In all of the home games I am in, we allow free respecs through 5th level, so as Oboe mentioned, just let them tweak some stats if they want.
When it sticks against big enemies, it feels great.
Unfortunately, re-speccing won't help; that 15 was the highest he rolled and he's not a +Cha race. At least his first ASI will take care of it ...
I play a dwarf wizard in one of my games. Is it optimal? Of course not. Still, starting with a 15 in your casting stat by no means makes your character useless, nor does it prevent fun in playing the character.
I cant speak for the accuracy of the math, but I have been informed that advantage, or rolling twice and choosing the highest is roughly equivalent to a +5 adjustment on a single roll.
If that is accurate (again not sure of it) then anything that can give advantage or disadvantage is incredibly valuable if your party needs to roll to hit. (or doesnt want to be hit)
Even without the maths, preventing a high damage attack opponent from hitting with relative ease against your highest armoured player is valuable. If that ever prevents a crit then it is priceless.
In summation Vicious mockery should be considered a sought after cantrip, even if it dealt no damage and just granted disadvantage. It is not an 'only use this' cantrip due to reasons others have provided, but like frostbite and other lower damage cantrips the rider effect can alter a fight out of all proportion to damage dealt.
In regard to your players character choices, it is an unfortunate situation where they have made themselves less than optimal but that doesnt mean they cant enjoy themselves.(providing the tolerances on the encounters arent so tight the rest of the party cant afford to make up the extra 'weight') When they receive stat points in the future it would be a great time to mention increasing charisma would improve all the spell dc's of a bard and that may ameliorate the problem. Maybe you already have spoken to them, but asking what they imagined the character would be like / become could assist in how you proceed. Regardless, I hope you both have fun and enjoy the game.
It's a terrible spell. Complete waste of action in almost all circumstances. It's down there with flaming arrow for me.
Any particular reason?
WIS save is fairly easy for to many mobs, the damage is pants, and there are other ways to fool around to get advantage/disadvantage. Perhaps at level 1, sure, but I see level 10 campaings with people who have a vast repertoire of spells casting this instead. RP is cool, as long as it's not taken to the extreme. You're better off throwing out a simple Faerie Fire instead, or like, literally any other action almost.
Even for RP purposes, if you're doing this all the time, it loses it's lustre.
Belfast, If those campaigns at level 10 feature bards that havent maxed out their charisma at 20, then the save for the spell will be lower than possible and that will lead to more saves being made by opponents, but at 9th and the +4 proficiency coupled with the +5 for charisma you have a 17 for spell DC. You made a point that many targets can make a wisdom save easily .That is due to the majority of not having any WIS penalties, for those who are at 0 modifier you still have a four out of five chance they will fail the save, unless they have a wisdom modifier to their saves, and of the creatures that do, many arent hunks of weapon dealing death.
In the circumstances that you are dealing with groups of opponents, then fairie fire would be better to gain advantage, both in per target and per round action economy, but that doesnt effect the targets ability to hit you (unless a second caster is adding in a darkness which is a possibility) Vicious Mockery does affect hits incoming, and can make a difference between a crit and hit, or a crit becoming a miss. By 10th level I concede that the multiple attacks of even single monsters make VM less attractive due to it affecting only the first attack.
The next factor to consider is, when you use vicious mockery, if it is successful who will the mocked target be attacking? Disadvantage on an attack against a 21 AC ally is unlikely to hit, a great choice. Unfortunately disadvantage deployed to prevent the AC 14 barbarian gaining another scar is less helpful.
My 5e experience has been that mitigation is minimal and few players, posters and pundits devote time to it. Yet that makes no sense IF, and I repeat if, you play with the guide plan laid out in the dmg. Even if your mathematics isnt stellar, bounded accuracy, the number of fights, and the average hit bonuses of creatures by cr will mean your heaviest armoured will be hit guaranteed enough times to reduce their hitpoints to 0 several times over. The solution is mitigation. The normalised model for mitigation is 'massive damage kills the target before they kill us' which if in the games you play this happens and it works, VM is irrelevant. This strategy is made easier if you have statistics that are 18 to start with, increasing your hitpoints, possibly AC and damage potential. When you start with standard arrays, the ability to act first, and kill first before damage attrition requires a retreat or T.P.K. has a narrower margin of success. In those circumstances it may not be enough to just fight, but you may be forced to plan, and be sneaky simply to live.
TL:DR, Vicious mockery is a good spell if it converts hits into misses, If this means you use less resources in a fight which you can use later on, and there will be a later on encounter before you regain your LR resources its a great option. However if you dont need to convert those hits to misses because your party can first strike brute kill everything, or you never have to fight more than once or twice a day then VM has, along with SR mechanic based classes been made irrelevant.
I for one link the spell a lot. I am playing a Sword bard 4/ hexblade 1 and was offen having issues of should I attack or use this spell if the tank was getting hit hard. Recently I got a special homebrew item made CHOCKER OF INSULTS.. It allows me to use Viciouse Mockery as a bounse action. Mind you my GM make us Mock people when using the spell and loves it for that reason. Now I am getting into battle and attacking with my wepon and calling them names and stuff. You know in most movie battle they do it so it make it cooler. Mind you I would still do it even if it did no damge as the added chance to make them miss is good by it self if you already are attacking.
I suggest combining it with Bane. That makes it more likely to hit and the combination really makes your enemy look like a bumbling fool when they keep whiffing you. It's how my Swords Bard tanked when our Fighter was missing. Well that, and I multiclassed Hexblade and picked up the Shield spell.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm considering buffing the damage at the very least. What's everybody else's opinion of this spell? I know it's just a cantrip, but it really seems like garbage.
I'll be honest; I like the spell, as I enjoy playing Bards, and it fits flavor-wise. But yeah, even when I can sometimes get a giggle out of my teammates with it, it often FEELS like it's just a waste of time. Had the damage die been a d6, I would have zero complaints, only praise, but that die size just hurts sometimes. And if you play with people who don't find humor to be one of the best parts of playing an RGP, then yeah, even using it to liven things up will only go so far.
I'm not sure increasing the die is the best way to address the fact that it feels weak; that almost feels like making it too good (I could see a d6 Vicious Mockery becoming quite a common pick for Magic Initiate.)
Maybe rework the spell to make it like Eldritch Blast, so he can insult a group of people, each making their own WIS save, and can spread the d4s as he wishes? That seems fair, makes it FEEL stronger when you devote all the die to a single target, and just adds a slight tactical edge that seems to fit flavor-wise too. Hmm. Actually, that seems like it might not be a bad houserule at my own table....
I would just say that, as with everything, the power is entirely in your hands to change the situation. As the GM, you can bump low stats up out of game for any reason, and you don't have to explain yourself. You are not at all beholden to the poor die rolls your player made when creating the character---those were unfortunate, but the player should not have to be saddled with a bad hand for weeks and weeks. I think it even mentions it in the PHB, or some published material.
If you don't want to bump stats artificially, you could have the PC come across magic items that have plusses to those needed stats. A "ring of charisma" with a straight +2 bonus if you want something simple (but admittedly boring). Or you could get creative and give the PC a magical hairstyling gel that does the same (+2 bonus) but forces or at least encourages more role-play. *Cue slow-motion hair toss*
I had a similar problem with VM, and to be honest I've always thought it was a bit of a weak spell even for a cantrip, so I home-brewed a "Jester's Brooch." It increases VM DC by +1, allows CHA modifier to be added to damage, and allows half damage (but no imposed disadvantage effect) on a successful save. It makes it more like a normal save spell with the save-for-half quality and evens out the damage. Plus, who doesn't love +1 to a DC? And honestly, it doesn't break the game at all to bump a 1d4 to a 1d4+CHA.
Play around with it. Maybe make a combination of some of these ideas. I know this thread is from a year ago, but things keep evolving and changing over time and I wouldn't be surprised if you came back to this at a later date anyway. Cheers, and have fun! Let us know how it goes!
Vicious Mockery is okay; if you compare it to Frostbite, it does slightly less damage but the save against it is Wisdom, so it's more likely to succeed against more physical opponents, it also does psychic damage which isn't widely resisted except by certain types of creature.
Ultimately they're cantrips, they're not supposed to be super reliable (as they cost nothing), and the main benefit of both is to impose disadvantage on the next enemy attack. It's a decent mainstay cantrip for a Bard if you don't want to spend magical secrets on learning cantrips from other spell lists, but really as you get more spell slots you should be using stuff like Dissonant Whispers for damage and Tasha's Hideous Laughter for incapacitating.
I suggest combining it with Bane. That makes it more likely to hit and the combination really makes your enemy look like a bumbling fool when they keep whiffing you. It's how my Swords Bard tanked when our Fighter was missing. Well that, and I multiclassed Hexblade and picked up the Shield spell.
This. It's an incredible combination. Last night I was playing in a game with just 3 players, we are in some sort of undead filled abandoned monastery catacombs where we got jumped by some giant spiders. My character is a bard/cleric multi and the other 2 are a paladin and a warlock. With shield of faith up I had a 21 ac, the paladin had a 20 ac, the warlock had a 15 ac. In the first round (I had initiative) I cast bane on the spiders, DC 15 - 1 saved with a nat 20 the others failed. They went next and used a web attack, with the bane they missed the Paladin and myself, but hit the warlock. Next round I started to cast VM. At that point even with the lower armour class the spider could not hit the warlock. The spider on me couldn't hit me - well managed to once with a nat 20 on it's attack, but at that point it was already over. The warlock had gotten out of the web and was using EB and the paladin killed the one he was fighting. We killed one each - me only using VM. Bane and then VM is a really effective combination against high ac individuals and pretty darn good at mid level ac too.
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Have a player who seems enamored with this spell ... as in, it's damn near the ONLY thing he does in combat. It rarely works (he arranged his stats to be 'decent at anything' without realizing this really makes him 'bad at everything'); all his stats range from 13-15. But the damage sucks, the save isn't hard to make, so there were basically rounds after rounds where he was accomplishing nothing ...
I'm considering buffing the damage at the very least. What's everybody else's opinion of this spell? I know it's just a cantrip, but it really seems like garbage.
I for one love Vicious Mockery. It's got great roleplay potential, a damage type that is very rarely resisted, and a bonus effect of giving something disadvantage on it's next attack. This is great, since the low Wisdom save monsters are likely to be beefy attackers, whereas high Wisdom save monsters (who you don't want to target with this spell) are more likely to use save-based effects.
Considering the range, damage type (Psychic) and bonus effect, I don't think that it needs an increase to damage. The issue here is that your player is likely using it with a low save DC, so all cantrips with a saving throw will seem less than ideal, as the save is so low, and nothing happens on a successful save.
The player should invest in their spellcasting ability if they want better use of it, and specifically use the spell against enemies that are of the beefier/big-and-dumb varieties for the best chance of making them fail a Wisdom saving throw.
As someone who is a big fan of support characters Vicious Mockery is fab spell at early levels where enemies usually only have one attack. But it doesn’t scale all that well, but in general no spell cantrips do. In general bards tend not to do much damage and instead they can act as tremendous support mitigating damage by removing enemies from the combat.
One thing to note is that the bard has one of the best spell lists especially at early levels with the first level spells Faerie Fire and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, second level spells Heat Metal and Suggestion and Fear and Hypnotic Pattern at third. The problem with all of these is that they are concentration and maintaining that concentration is usually more important dealing damage.
I also have to echo MellieDM’s comments suggesting that your player might want to look at increasing their Charisma to improve their spell DC.
Personally when I ran my glamour bard I would cast my big concentration spell at the beginning of combat and then use Minor Illusion to create areas of cover that our rogue and I could hide behind, or Vicious Mockery if any of the creatures looked a bit dumb.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of saving throw spells, but this is largely psychological. There's not a tremendous difference between "I need to roll to succeed" vs "You need to roll to fail," but it definitely feels worse (to me) when enemies save against your spells.
In any case, Vicious Mockery is fine. If your player has a 15 in Charisma, then the saving throw for it will be 12 for the first few levels. That's not great, but many enemies will have a less than 50% chance of saving against that.
The damage is slightly lower than, for example, Frostbite, but it forces disadvantage on the next attack roll, which will include spell attack rolls. Frostbite only does it against weapon attacks.
Granted, this is one of the few Bardic cantrips that can cause damage, so it might seem underwhelming compared to Toll the Dead or Fire Bolt. If you're that concerned with it, you might consider giving your bard access to Shillelagh, and let him use it to bash creatures over the head with a lute.
Like most cantrips viscous mockery has it's role that is situational. One of the enjoyable parts of being a hard is adapting to different situations and not seeing every problem as a nail and your character as a hammer. If needed introduce an NPC Bard to give examples for your PC to follow with creative spell use for a couple of sessions, it might inspire them with new ideas without the potentially insulting conversation.
Consider mixing viscous mockery with bane or other spells/abilities that lower saving chance. In select fights against does that hit hard only once, it can be rather useful at protecting the other party members who can't take the dodge action. The main value of the spell is not that it does damage under most situations.
Instead of buffing the spell, maybe offer the player the opportunity to re-stat their character? Especially if it's still a very low level character, or early in the campaign, that might be way more effective overall. Chat with the player and see what they say! If they love using that spell but are also quietly sad it doesn't work as well, moving around some ability scores could help get them the RP they want without having to homebrew anything, and will actually help the character overall. But they might tell you that failing is half the fun they are having and be happy to leave it alone! They might find the effort of earning the ability score increase to make their spells more effective to be the rewarding part.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Depending on your player's temperament, point out that Jack of All Trades pretty much makes them decent at everything. A spell slinging bard really wants CHA 16+ to start. In all of the home games I am in, we allow free respecs through 5th level, so as Oboe mentioned, just let them tweak some stats if they want.
When it sticks against big enemies, it feels great.
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Unfortunately, re-speccing won't help; that 15 was the highest he rolled and he's not a +Cha race. At least his first ASI will take care of it ...
I play a dwarf wizard in one of my games. Is it optimal? Of course not. Still, starting with a 15 in your casting stat by no means makes your character useless, nor does it prevent fun in playing the character.
I cant speak for the accuracy of the math, but I have been informed that advantage, or rolling twice and choosing the highest is roughly equivalent to a +5 adjustment on a single roll.
If that is accurate (again not sure of it) then anything that can give advantage or disadvantage is incredibly valuable if your party needs to roll to hit. (or doesnt want to be hit)
Even without the maths, preventing a high damage attack opponent from hitting with relative ease against your highest armoured player is valuable. If that ever prevents a crit then it is priceless.
In summation Vicious mockery should be considered a sought after cantrip, even if it dealt no damage and just granted disadvantage. It is not an 'only use this' cantrip due to reasons others have provided, but like frostbite and other lower damage cantrips the rider effect can alter a fight out of all proportion to damage dealt.
In regard to your players character choices, it is an unfortunate situation where they have made themselves less than optimal but that doesnt mean they cant enjoy themselves.(providing the tolerances on the encounters arent so tight the rest of the party cant afford to make up the extra 'weight') When they receive stat points in the future it would be a great time to mention increasing charisma would improve all the spell dc's of a bard and that may ameliorate the problem. Maybe you already have spoken to them, but asking what they imagined the character would be like / become could assist in how you proceed. Regardless, I hope you both have fun and enjoy the game.
It's a terrible spell. Complete waste of action in almost all circumstances. It's down there with flaming arrow for me.
Any particular reason?
WIS save is fairly easy for to many mobs, the damage is pants, and there are other ways to fool around to get advantage/disadvantage. Perhaps at level 1, sure, but I see level 10 campaings with people who have a vast repertoire of spells casting this instead. RP is cool, as long as it's not taken to the extreme. You're better off throwing out a simple Faerie Fire instead, or like, literally any other action almost.
Even for RP purposes, if you're doing this all the time, it loses it's lustre.
Belfast, If those campaigns at level 10 feature bards that havent maxed out their charisma at 20, then the save for the spell will be lower than possible and that will lead to more saves being made by opponents, but at 9th and the +4 proficiency coupled with the +5 for charisma you have a 17 for spell DC. You made a point that many targets can make a wisdom save easily .That is due to the majority of not having any WIS penalties, for those who are at 0 modifier you still have a four out of five chance they will fail the save, unless they have a wisdom modifier to their saves, and of the creatures that do, many arent hunks of weapon dealing death.
In the circumstances that you are dealing with groups of opponents, then fairie fire would be better to gain advantage, both in per target and per round action economy, but that doesnt effect the targets ability to hit you (unless a second caster is adding in a darkness which is a possibility) Vicious Mockery does affect hits incoming, and can make a difference between a crit and hit, or a crit becoming a miss. By 10th level I concede that the multiple attacks of even single monsters make VM less attractive due to it affecting only the first attack.
The next factor to consider is, when you use vicious mockery, if it is successful who will the mocked target be attacking? Disadvantage on an attack against a 21 AC ally is unlikely to hit, a great choice. Unfortunately disadvantage deployed to prevent the AC 14 barbarian gaining another scar is less helpful.
My 5e experience has been that mitigation is minimal and few players, posters and pundits devote time to it. Yet that makes no sense IF, and I repeat if, you play with the guide plan laid out in the dmg. Even if your mathematics isnt stellar, bounded accuracy, the number of fights, and the average hit bonuses of creatures by cr will mean your heaviest armoured will be hit guaranteed enough times to reduce their hitpoints to 0 several times over. The solution is mitigation. The normalised model for mitigation is 'massive damage kills the target before they kill us' which if in the games you play this happens and it works, VM is irrelevant. This strategy is made easier if you have statistics that are 18 to start with, increasing your hitpoints, possibly AC and damage potential. When you start with standard arrays, the ability to act first, and kill first before damage attrition requires a retreat or T.P.K. has a narrower margin of success. In those circumstances it may not be enough to just fight, but you may be forced to plan, and be sneaky simply to live.
TL:DR, Vicious mockery is a good spell if it converts hits into misses, If this means you use less resources in a fight which you can use later on, and there will be a later on encounter before you regain your LR resources its a great option. However if you dont need to convert those hits to misses because your party can first strike brute kill everything, or you never have to fight more than once or twice a day then VM has, along with SR mechanic based classes been made irrelevant.
I for one link the spell a lot. I am playing a Sword bard 4/ hexblade 1 and was offen having issues of should I attack or use this spell if the tank was getting hit hard. Recently I got a special homebrew item made CHOCKER OF INSULTS.. It allows me to use Viciouse Mockery as a bounse action. Mind you my GM make us Mock people when using the spell and loves it for that reason. Now I am getting into battle and attacking with my wepon and calling them names and stuff. You know in most movie battle they do it so it make it cooler. Mind you I would still do it even if it did no damge as the added chance to make them miss is good by it self if you already are attacking.
I spell Goodly.
I suggest combining it with Bane. That makes it more likely to hit and the combination really makes your enemy look like a bumbling fool when they keep whiffing you. It's how my Swords Bard tanked when our Fighter was missing. Well that, and I multiclassed Hexblade and picked up the Shield spell.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'll be honest; I like the spell, as I enjoy playing Bards, and it fits flavor-wise. But yeah, even when I can sometimes get a giggle out of my teammates with it, it often FEELS like it's just a waste of time. Had the damage die been a d6, I would have zero complaints, only praise, but that die size just hurts sometimes. And if you play with people who don't find humor to be one of the best parts of playing an RGP, then yeah, even using it to liven things up will only go so far.
I'm not sure increasing the die is the best way to address the fact that it feels weak; that almost feels like making it too good (I could see a d6 Vicious Mockery becoming quite a common pick for Magic Initiate.)
Maybe rework the spell to make it like Eldritch Blast, so he can insult a group of people, each making their own WIS save, and can spread the d4s as he wishes? That seems fair, makes it FEEL stronger when you devote all the die to a single target, and just adds a slight tactical edge that seems to fit flavor-wise too. Hmm. Actually, that seems like it might not be a bad houserule at my own table....
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I would just say that, as with everything, the power is entirely in your hands to change the situation. As the GM, you can bump low stats up out of game for any reason, and you don't have to explain yourself. You are not at all beholden to the poor die rolls your player made when creating the character---those were unfortunate, but the player should not have to be saddled with a bad hand for weeks and weeks. I think it even mentions it in the PHB, or some published material.
If you don't want to bump stats artificially, you could have the PC come across magic items that have plusses to those needed stats. A "ring of charisma" with a straight +2 bonus if you want something simple (but admittedly boring). Or you could get creative and give the PC a magical hairstyling gel that does the same (+2 bonus) but forces or at least encourages more role-play. *Cue slow-motion hair toss*
I had a similar problem with VM, and to be honest I've always thought it was a bit of a weak spell even for a cantrip, so I home-brewed a "Jester's Brooch." It increases VM DC by +1, allows CHA modifier to be added to damage, and allows half damage (but no imposed disadvantage effect) on a successful save. It makes it more like a normal save spell with the save-for-half quality and evens out the damage. Plus, who doesn't love +1 to a DC? And honestly, it doesn't break the game at all to bump a 1d4 to a 1d4+CHA.
Play around with it. Maybe make a combination of some of these ideas. I know this thread is from a year ago, but things keep evolving and changing over time and I wouldn't be surprised if you came back to this at a later date anyway. Cheers, and have fun! Let us know how it goes!
Vicious Mockery is okay; if you compare it to Frostbite, it does slightly less damage but the save against it is Wisdom, so it's more likely to succeed against more physical opponents, it also does psychic damage which isn't widely resisted except by certain types of creature.
Ultimately they're cantrips, they're not supposed to be super reliable (as they cost nothing), and the main benefit of both is to impose disadvantage on the next enemy attack. It's a decent mainstay cantrip for a Bard if you don't want to spend magical secrets on learning cantrips from other spell lists, but really as you get more spell slots you should be using stuff like Dissonant Whispers for damage and Tasha's Hideous Laughter for incapacitating.
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WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
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This. It's an incredible combination. Last night I was playing in a game with just 3 players, we are in some sort of undead filled abandoned monastery catacombs where we got jumped by some giant spiders. My character is a bard/cleric multi and the other 2 are a paladin and a warlock. With shield of faith up I had a 21 ac, the paladin had a 20 ac, the warlock had a 15 ac. In the first round (I had initiative) I cast bane on the spiders, DC 15 - 1 saved with a nat 20 the others failed. They went next and used a web attack, with the bane they missed the Paladin and myself, but hit the warlock. Next round I started to cast VM. At that point even with the lower armour class the spider could not hit the warlock. The spider on me couldn't hit me - well managed to once with a nat 20 on it's attack, but at that point it was already over. The warlock had gotten out of the web and was using EB and the paladin killed the one he was fighting. We killed one each - me only using VM. Bane and then VM is a really effective combination against high ac individuals and pretty darn good at mid level ac too.