As a DM, I don't normally go out of my way to nerf official spells and features, but I think that Rauthoum's Psychic Lance and probably Enervating Breath need to be errata'ed, and here's why:

They impose the incapacitated effect.

Now, that's not normally a problem on their own- lots of spells and features indirectly apply incapacitated and they're fine and balanced: hold person/monster, flesh to stone, etc. But the thing is, all of those impose incapacitated through a secondary effect, such as petrification or paralysis, and there are creatures that, appropriate to their shape and form, are immune to those conditions. Incapacitated itself is only resisted by two official creature statblocks; the Mighty Armor of Leuk-o (an artifact item from Tasha's) and the Warforged Colossus from E:RFTLW.

This means that only two creatures, in the entirety of 5e, have innate immunity to the effect, meaning that regardless of the circumstance, you will always be able to force a saving throw against this incapacitated. If you have a creature which is immune to stunned, paralyzed, petrified, charmed, frightened, or any other "primary" effect that imposes incapacitated from any spell or feature, or even *all of them*, and is even immune to psychic damage, the lance *still* forces a saving throw against incapacitated.

Even creatures that should be logically immune, such as the overwhelming psychic power of an Elder Brain, would not be immune unless they specifically have immunity from the incapacitated condition, which was generally not given to any creatures in the earlier development of D&D, presumably because nothing directly imposed incapacitated so it made sense so that you wouldn't accidentally nerf petrification by giving a creature immunity to the incapacitated condition.

Couple that with the potential for some incredibly high spell save DCs since Tasha's (since the Amulet of the Devout and some of the bardic casting focuses can, as the rules are currently written, stack), you could potentially have a Bard/Cleric with a +8 DC bonus from items (+3 amulet, +2 from Reveler's Concertina, +3 from Rhythm-maker's Drums, all technically RAW) you could have a bard using an unpassable saving throw of Raulothim's Psychic Lance with no recourse for a DM other than just saying it doesn't work. It can turn *any* official monster statblock into a bag of hit points to be burned down.

These effects should be restated so that they apply to a condition to which creatures have reasonable immunity availability, so that we don't have to rule of common sense why an elder brain or star spawn isn't going to be incapacitated by a psychic attack.

I also have some fundamental problems with Rauthoum's and line of effect. There is a purpose for line of effect- I don't think it's engaging to have a party of casters crouch outside the BBEG's castle and spam a save for half psychic spell until his head explodes. While it might be funny for a one shot, it could ruin any attempt at an in depth campaign with interesting combat encounters because, well, it's just so optimal.

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Am I just being a salty, reactionary DM? I haven't had it really matter much in my sessions- we did have one bard spam it, but he used it on trash mobs, so I don't really know if it's as big a problem as it seems looking at it in my "How would I break this?" seat.

There is nothing in the spell that allows it to bypass things like total cover. The name option just means you don't have to see them - so partial cover, obscuring effects like fog and darkness or invisibilty aren't issues. But a target behind a solid wall? Immune to the spell, thanks to total cover. 

Incapacitation isn't something new. There are lower level spells, like Hypnotic Pattern or even 1st level spell Tasha's Hideous Laughter, that already induce this.

I don't see the issues you have with it.

Neat spell thematically, but only reasonable for mechanics and quite balanced. Nice, but not some big deal.

Immunity to Incapacitated has odd effects such as being able to take actions while at zero hit points, which is presumably why they don't hand it out. I wouldn't allow any of the spell save DC items to stack, but perhaps I'm mean.

Bypassing total cover was an explicit benefit of the original UA version of the spell, and I suppose you could make an argument that the wording of the extant version of the spell as published eliminates that, but I know that several of my players would fight me on it because it doesn't require sight and simply refers to range. That is a good point, but not one that is entirely clear from the current wording, especially given the historical version of the spell doing so. However, I suppose a DM concerned about that particular behavior could reference the fact that that language was removed to cancel the exploitative behavior of just camping outside a building and spamming it.

The problem I have with it imposing incapacitated isn't that incapacitated is too powerful for a 4th level spell. Tasha's Hideous Laughter applies it as a first level spell, but this also breaks when the target makes a save (which they can make with advantage every time they take damage, meaning that if you're attacking the creature and it can succeed, it is likely to instead of just being a bag of hit points for the rest of the round), requires the caster's concentration, and a "creature with an Intelligence score of 4 or less isn’t affected" allowing for some creatures to be immune if it makes sense for them to be immune (after all, mindless creatures probably aren't going to laugh). Hypnotic Pattern inflicts charm, and while the creature is charmed they are incapacitated, which means that if you're immune to charm, you can't be incapacitated by it.

The thing is, Rauthoum's Psychic Lance does not have *any* limit on the incapacitation, which means that there is no circumstance where a creature is not affected other than making the save. While there are a lot of status effects that are applied on a failed save, almost all of them (except invisible, which is written as a condition and nothing is immune to, but the hostile uses of turning a creature invisible are pretty limited anyway) have pages of creatures with immunity. Even Tasha's Hideous Laughter, mentioned earlier, inflicts the prone condition which many creatures are immune to, reducing some of the efficacy of the spell.

Rauthoum's Psychic Lance is already a decent spell. 7d6 damage is not incredible for a 4th level spell, but it can target invisible creatures provided you know their name, and intelligence saving throws tend to be pretty bad. Removing the incapacitated and increasing the damage, or applying the incapacitated via a secondary condition, or even just saying "A creature which is immune to X condition is not incapacitated" would all make this work.

I've had some people say "just give important creatures legendary resistances" or stuff like that, but my concern isn't so much on the mechanics of the effect. If I don't want a creature to be trivialized by Psychic Lance, I can just make sure that the target has a reasonable intelligence saving throw, or that it has an invisibility option and the party doesn't know its name, etc. There are plenty of ways to get around it if I want to metagame against my players, but I don't. I want it to have reasonable resistances. Even just "Creatures with an intelligence score of 4 or lower are unaffected" like Tasha's Hideous Laughter would at least protect mindless undead, which have no reason to be affected by this spell, from being incapacitated. It's a problem of a mechanical effect that has no bearing on whether it "should" work- a creature could be entirely immune to psychic damage, charm, frightened, stunned, paralyzed, petrified, and every other condition that has ever imparted incapacitated, and would still be incapacitated by Rauthoum's Psychic Lance if it fails a save, and that just doesn't make sense to me.

Incapacitated (with a few minor exceptions like Hideous Laughter) has always been treated as a secondary condition, imparted by something else, so almost nothing is immune to it. As a result, it was not added to creatures so that it wouldn't, say, make a creature immune to petrification like a golem also accidentally immune to incapacitated coming from paralysis effects like Hold Monster unless that creature was also immune to paralyzed. Targeting that specifically is particularly powerful, since nothing most players face has any sort of immunity to it. While Hideous Laughter (an effect to which the *same* critique could be leveled, so the "it already exists" argument doesn't necessarily discount the balance concerns) is certainly a precedent, even that spell is much more limited in scope and has much less chance of removing a creature from combat entirely.

I don't think D&D is fun for players or DMs when the entire fight is spent "Okay, I incapacitate the enemy." "Alright, I hit the bag of HP." "Same" "Same" "The creature can't do anything." "I incapacitate the enemy again." I don't mind letting players win encounters, but when a player builds particularly around a particular spell being able to cheese any encounter in the game, it's not fun for me as a DM to run any interesting creatures because they all just end up being AC/HP to burn through (unless they have legendary resistances) and I don't think it's fun for other players who don't get to engage with any of the mechanical complexity of the encounter because all they're doing is tenderizing some meat.

I also want to clarify a detail about incapacitated immunity- while I don't suggest giving it to players (since it does have that actions at zero hit points caveat particularly for players, since they fall unconscious) if you have your creatures die at 0, it has no mechanical difference in the case of being reduced to 0 hit points- a dead creature is dead, and even with incapacitated immunity, they are still unable to take actions. If a creature has death saving throws, and is not immune to the unconscious condition, all the other restrictions apply, and I would say that immunity to incapacitated doesn't necessarily override the more robust restrictions of unconscious in terms of being unable to perceive, move, and speak, which is upheld by the classic Rule of Common Sense- you can't decide to do something when you're unconscious.

You aren't the only DM thinking the spell is overpowered. I was quite frankly shocked it was a 4th level spell. 

Given that the save is a rare one that many monsters will likely bomb, that the damage is also a rare resistance, that its range is 120ft, and that it allows you to target a creature you can't see, it can easily become a fight-nullifier. Just whammy the baddie quick and let your party demolish its HP before it gets to do anything.

A roc, for example, is one of the more terrifying monsters a mid-level party can encounter, ringing in at CR 11. It also has an INT of 7 and no magic resistance or legendary saves. A 7th level wizard with this spell prepped could turn what would be (and should be) a harrowing fight into a cake walk. An 8th level caster could nullify the threat entirely with two successful castings. The same goes for beefy CR 15 monsters like purple worms and young krakens. Heck, even a CR 17 dragon turtle will likely get a huge chunk of its HP obliterated by a level 8 party that has this spell. 

While it's true that many monsters for mid-level parties have legendary resists and advantage against spell saves, if the intention with this spell is to burn legendary resistances...it's just bad design. Because then the spellcaster has expended a really powerful slot for absolutely nothing. "Hey, you burned one of its resistances" is a poor consolation prize.

I don't have the book on dndbeyond, but looking elsewhere it says that it only lasts until the Start of your next turn - and a 7th level wizard only has one 4th level slot, so it isn't going to hold the Roc for long. The target can still move and they get their full AC and no reductions to saving throws while they are incapacitated.

And having a second creature along to distract some of the party also helps.  Single target enemies are never going to survive meeting a normal PC due to the usual action economy.

This is a major overreaction to what is a decent, but not overly crazy, combat spell. At best it locks a creature down until the start of your next turn. That's substantially less impactful than using Banishment to take a major creature out of a fight, or Hold Person or Hold Monster.

Making suggestions about triple stacking magic items that raise spell DC is really trying to force an issue that doesn't exist. Players don't get to choose items that way in a typical campaign, and if they do then it's only because the DM wants them to. If you have to suggest that they'll end up with +8 spell DC to give a 'worst case scenario' it indicates that there isn't really an issue.

Honestly, it seems fine to me. As Cyb3rM1nd pointed out, there are also other spells that induce incapacitation. The fact that is stops the monster from taking actions in balanced out by it's low damage for such a high level spell.

If you really feel like to many monsters are being destroyed by it and it's no longer fun, you can always edit monster statblocks to give them immunity to being incapacitated. This seems more balanced to me than just editing the spell to make it less powerful. In most circumstances it's pretty balanced. 

A few people mentioned that it can take down a powerful creature like a roc or a purple worm. While this is true, that's more a problem with legendary resistance not this spell. There are plenty of other spells that could take them down like that, which is the point of legendary resistances existing. If you want to fix the problem, just give them a few legendary resistances. 

I also agree with Sanvael. This is a good combat spell, but not a broken one. There are situations where it is very good. For instance, when facing a low intelligence monster that is immune to most other conditions. There are times where is is useless, such as when facing a high intelligence monster with resistance (or immunity) to psychic damage. In general, it's a fairly good spell, that has times to shine (like most spells), and times where it is not useful (like most spells). You seemed to be focusing on the situations where it is extremely potent. What makes a broken spell is not the ability to shine in certain situations, but the ability to shine in nearly all situations, which this spells does not qualify for. 

Quote from SquireZed>>

The thing is, Rauthoum's Psychic Lance does not have *any* limit on the incapacitation….

That’s not true, it has two very firm limitations:

1. Any creature that passes its saving throw is off the hook, Scott free (and takes less damage than they would have from fireball to boot).
2. Any create that fails it’s save is only affected for a single round. That’s only 6 seconds. Any monster I throw at them worth worrying about can take anything for 6 seconds, or I wouldn’t have worried about it anyway. Besides, the average life expectancy for a monster in 5e is only 18-30 seconds anyway. So whooped-do if it spends ⅓—⅕ of that time making my players feel good about their characters since that's gonna happen in 12-24 seconds anyway?

In a campaign I am in as a player, a couplefew weeks ago my PC, a 7th level fighter, got whammied hard for an entire encounter with hold person. For round after round (after round after round) I got to do precisely 3 things: record damage, roll 1d20, and say “nope.” As a 7th level fighter my PC coulda taken 7d6 (23) to the dangled bits no problemo, endured a single round stuck in a freeze-frame, and then next turn I coulda had him use Second Wind to recuperate, and Action Surge to retaliate. I wish it had only been Raulothim's Psychic Lance eating a 4th-level spell, shrugging it off, and then whoopin’ an 455 or two would have been fun. Getting “oil canned” by a 1st-level and pecked nearly to death with cantrips was the opposite of of fun. (Trust me. I remember fun, and it wasn’t like dat at all. Nosir.)

As a DM I have experienced the same situation when a meanie-butt PC squeezed an iron bar at my malevolent for several rounds too, but that sucked waaayy fewer eggs. Why? For two reasons:

1. I had other malevolent types to run around and do stuff so that one was actually one fewer to track.
2. If I had absolutely needed to, whenever I was recording damage on that one I could have just ass easily added numbers to both columns at the same time. (Who would know? Not the players, and since they are the audience who “ooh” and “ahh” with delight watching me juggle smoke and mirrors, they’re the only ones who matter.)

Besides, what’s a little incapacitation among friends. 😉

Final point, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, stunned, and unconscious all also impose the incapacitated condition too. How many monsters are immune to or have advantage against all five of those? Even if my monster can’t be grappled, I’m pretty sure most parties can swing around at least 2 of the other 4 and incapacitate them somehow or other. 🤷‍♂️ What’s a DM to do? (And it’s not like the baddies are sposta win anyway.)

PS- I copy/pasted the spell name from you and it broke my tooltip. You spelled it wrong.

Quote from IamSposta>>

…As a 7th level fighter my PC coulda taken 7d6 (28) to the dangled bits no problemo….

Not even half his HP. *pssh*

Just ignore psychic lance for anything with psychic damage immunity. and give adv. on the saving throw to anything with resistance.

There are 6 pages of monsters with psychic damage immunity (~110 monsters) and 5 pages of creatures with psychic resistance (~90).

Bring on the Abberations !! Or take them to a locale with psychic creatures of your own !

Condition immunities are not considered in balance 

Per the DMG 2014. I dont have the 2024 book so I dont know if it changed

Step 18. Condition Immunities

A monster can be immune to one or more debilitating conditions, and these immunities have no bearing on its challenge rating. For descriptions of the various conditions, see the Appendices section of the Player’s Handbook.

As with damage immunities, condition immunities should be intuitive and logical. For example, it makes sense that a stone golem can’t be poisoned, since it’s a construct without a nervous system or internal organs.

If the Dmg is to believed then as far as the dnd creators are concerned it does not matter that very few creatures are immune incapacitated. It is considered simply to change how a players fight an enemy not their actual capacity and they are intended to be easy to guess with players having a high probability of simply knowing them and never interacting with them.

I suspect incapacitation immunity is rare simply because it is so flavorless. It is simultaneously  partial immunity to sleep, charm, being tied up, psychic attacks,  unconsciousness from psychical trauma,  poisoning  or  being teleported to another dimension.

Quote from Solarsyphon >>

Condition immunities are not considered in balance 

Per the DMG 2014. I dont have the 2024 book so I dont know if it changed

 2024 DMG doesn't have meaningful creature creation rules, it just has a list of traits you can modify without changing CR. Condition immunities are not mentioned in that list.

I agree with this, I have some players that are constantly looking for ways to break my game, and this spell is a nightmare 😂

"Balance" doesn't actually exist in DnD (or any collaborative/narrative game), not in the way you would be concerned with in competitive gaming. There is literally NOTHING your players can do that you can't just swat away on a whim. You feel like your players are cheesing the Hell out of a spell and making the game not fun for anyone?  Kick the spell out.  Problem solved.  You don't even need to give a long winded in-game justification; just explain that the game is less fun for all, unless you want to start tossing high INT saves or immunity to INCAP on every creature you run across or something equally strange.  If the only person with an issue is the caster, tough.  Let him retool his list a bit and get back to gaming. 

If you decide to allow the spell without modification (for whatever reason) and don't want to arbitrarily give enemies resistances/immunities that they shouldn't have, there are narrative options too.  Characters known for a given feat get famous on it, and this can work against them.  The greatest archer in the Realms can get messed around by cluttered areas with poor sight lines, high winds, etc.  An enemy who KNOWS that they are going to fight Bing Bong the Archer is probably going to set him up to be at a disadvantage as best as they're able.  This can be done very organically, without handwaving a bunch of impossible stuff into the game. 

For Psy Lance, a Boss enemy hiring loads of stealthy assassin and ranged types with the express mission of "KILL THAT CASTER" is actually a pretty reasonable course of action when the last five encounters have been cheesed by him and his favorite spell. Likewise, using spells or items that give you advantage on INT saving throws when the guy you're fighting is known for using spells that take advantage of low INT saves is very reasonable.  I don't think I've ever had a group go to fight a lich or other caster without Counterspell, Disp Magic, and/or Globe of Invuln at the bare minimum.

I have a very short list of spells that I outright ban from games, and that's #2 on the list (#1 is Silvery Barbs).