Hey! So I'm currently working on a homebrew merfolk race that I'm about to playtest in a game soon and one of the abilities (of the specific subrace I'm going to use) involves them having access to a homebrew spell I made to sort of mimic the mythical siren song basically. The version I'm using is one I'm not entirely satisfied with, but it is the one that ultimately the DM and I agreed upon after some back and forth. However, I do want to get some outside opinions and clarifications on certain things (I am still new to DnD so I'm not amazingly knowledgeable of rules and mechanics yet lol).
But the version I originally was hoping for was one where the spell causes 1d6 of psychic damage before causing the charmed condition because I felt it would be very fitting of a siren song to do psychic damage because in the legends they can mentally damage you before drawing you to your death essentially. If the wisdom saving throw succeeded then it would only cause half damage and the charmed/control would not take effect.
Now the argument being given to me is that damage negates the condition. However, because of this I did a lot of reading through the specific rules of conditions and research on many different enchantment spells that included the charmed condition. From what I've gathered is that technically, according to the rules that I've seen (maybe I'm missing something though), Charmed duration is determined solely by the effect that caused it (aka the spell decides the rules). So I understand that using the spell "Charm Person" would mean damage ending the condition because that's what the spell itself says. But in a spell like Enthrall it never actually mentions damage ending the spell. Just says it ends if the caster is incapacitated or cannot speak (or if the target can no longer hear it). And what I want is for this spell to work more like Dissonant Whispers meets Enthrall (but less damage lol), but I don't know if that's possible.
I do want to mention however that I'm not asking this for like "backup" to steamroll the DM. I'm just asking for future possible versions. I am happy with what me and the DM agreed upon even if it's not perfectly what I had in mind from the start. I'm just curious to see if it would be legal so to say for a version that I eventually put out to the public to try out if they wish to.
The issue for me with causing 1d6 psychic damage is:
This damage is strong enough to kill an adult humanoid - 99% of people in the game world are commoners, so they have a 50% chance to just drop dead from 1d6 damage.
Secondly, the charmed means that the people around you are friendly to you, but they are not dominated or under your control, nor does it make them stupid (although it does seem to cause them not to question why they suddenly feel this way). They will all see that when the song began, the commoners around them died. They will see that their party members are in pain (more pain than a dagger to the chest), clearly inflicted by the song. Immediately, their only plausible reaction would be to stop the song from taking place. They might do this anyway for other reasons.
So I'd say no to the damage.
I don't think that the spell quite achieves the Siren effect that you're looking for (and with just 30 foot range, how does it affect creatures out at sea on a ship?). I'd suggest that instead it ought to cause up to 3 creatures within earshot (300 ft) to be filled with a desire to spend all of their movement moving towards the siren.
Hmm definitely see the downside to that lol. And I definitely see your point about needing a further range to give it a better siren effect. And honestly charmed isn’t 100% what i was wanting but it seemed to be the closest to what I wanted which was essentially compelling a target to move toward the caster and unable to leave the effected area for the duration of the spell.
Switching to something more along the lines of your suggestion would it be 3 creatures of the caster’s choice or 3 random creatures? And in the case of a targeted attack without the potential for accidentally killing commoners would damage then be okay, or still no?
I suppose to be clear about what I’m picturing is Dissonant Whispers but the compulsion is to run toward the ‘siren song’ rather than away.
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Hey! So I'm currently working on a homebrew merfolk race that I'm about to playtest in a game soon and one of the abilities (of the specific subrace I'm going to use) involves them having access to a homebrew spell I made to sort of mimic the mythical siren song basically. The version I'm using is one I'm not entirely satisfied with, but it is the one that ultimately the DM and I agreed upon after some back and forth. However, I do want to get some outside opinions and clarifications on certain things (I am still new to DnD so I'm not amazingly knowledgeable of rules and mechanics yet lol).
Thrall of the Tides (The current version being used)
But the version I originally was hoping for was one where the spell causes 1d6 of psychic damage before causing the charmed condition because I felt it would be very fitting of a siren song to do psychic damage because in the legends they can mentally damage you before drawing you to your death essentially. If the wisdom saving throw succeeded then it would only cause half damage and the charmed/control would not take effect.
Now the argument being given to me is that damage negates the condition. However, because of this I did a lot of reading through the specific rules of conditions and research on many different enchantment spells that included the charmed condition. From what I've gathered is that technically, according to the rules that I've seen (maybe I'm missing something though), Charmed duration is determined solely by the effect that caused it (aka the spell decides the rules). So I understand that using the spell "Charm Person" would mean damage ending the condition because that's what the spell itself says. But in a spell like Enthrall it never actually mentions damage ending the spell. Just says it ends if the caster is incapacitated or cannot speak (or if the target can no longer hear it). And what I want is for this spell to work more like Dissonant Whispers meets Enthrall (but less damage lol), but I don't know if that's possible.
I do want to mention however that I'm not asking this for like "backup" to steamroll the DM. I'm just asking for future possible versions. I am happy with what me and the DM agreed upon even if it's not perfectly what I had in mind from the start. I'm just curious to see if it would be legal so to say for a version that I eventually put out to the public to try out if they wish to.
Thanks <3
The issue for me with causing 1d6 psychic damage is:
This damage is strong enough to kill an adult humanoid - 99% of people in the game world are commoners, so they have a 50% chance to just drop dead from 1d6 damage.
Secondly, the charmed means that the people around you are friendly to you, but they are not dominated or under your control, nor does it make them stupid (although it does seem to cause them not to question why they suddenly feel this way). They will all see that when the song began, the commoners around them died. They will see that their party members are in pain (more pain than a dagger to the chest), clearly inflicted by the song. Immediately, their only plausible reaction would be to stop the song from taking place. They might do this anyway for other reasons.
So I'd say no to the damage.
I don't think that the spell quite achieves the Siren effect that you're looking for (and with just 30 foot range, how does it affect creatures out at sea on a ship?). I'd suggest that instead it ought to cause up to 3 creatures within earshot (300 ft) to be filled with a desire to spend all of their movement moving towards the siren.
Hmm definitely see the downside to that lol. And I definitely see your point about needing a further range to give it a better siren effect. And honestly charmed isn’t 100% what i was wanting but it seemed to be the closest to what I wanted which was essentially compelling a target to move toward the caster and unable to leave the effected area for the duration of the spell.
Switching to something more along the lines of your suggestion would it be 3 creatures of the caster’s choice or 3 random creatures? And in the case of a targeted attack without the potential for accidentally killing commoners would damage then be okay, or still no?
I suppose to be clear about what I’m picturing is Dissonant Whispers but the compulsion is to run toward the ‘siren song’ rather than away.