Feedback on homebrewed spells

Hey folks, I have 2 homebrewed spells that I would like some feedback:
- The first one is this one: https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/3334660-dums-backup-aura. I was able to playtest it a little bit in my last campaign, but give me your thoughts
- Second one is just out of the oven: https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/3336389-janoss-tiny-improvement. I did not test this one yet and I have some concerns here and there, would love to hear your ideas as well :)

As a player and DM my main focus is trying to keep the spell balanced and fun at the same time, and it is never easy with spells. But let me know what you think, any feedback is welcome.

They seem fine. I do have one very important question, though. Why does a spell with "improvement" in its name hinder creatures? That feels VERY backwards.

So, I tried to put part of my wizard personality on this, it is indeed (and intended) quite backwards, the idea is "I think you are annoying and I am improving this, so I am less annoyed", so in his perspective, someone that does not shut up is "improved" when they are hit by the Tongue Knot effect, for instance. I tried to put that with the first flavor sentence, but I agree it is a little bit misleading.

Ah. I see. Also, I noticed that the Asymmetric Limbs option gives a creature disadvantage on ALL attack rolls, including spell attacks. You might want to change that.

Nice, good catch, I will make it weapon attacks only, makes sense
edit: done, updated the spell version, ty.

 The first one is fine power-wise. I'd argue it might be a touch underpowered for a 4th level spell. My only critique with it is that the whole "aura" thing feels a little bit off since the aura itself doesn't do anything, it is just a way to mark the range of the spell, the spell could easily be rephrased to remove all reference to the Aura and still function exactly the same.

The second one while very cool - I love, love, love the flavour!!!!! - I think is much too powerful for a 3rd level spell, given the diversity of things it can do it feels most similar to the Eye Bite spell (which sadly I can't link here for you) which is a much higher level spell. Being able to completely cripple any spellcaster on one save from one 3rd level spell is kind of outrageously powerful. Either this needs to be a 6th or 7th level spell or the effects need a hefty rebalance.

That is amazing feedback, thanks!
Some notes from my thoughts:

- The Backup Aura after some playtest indeed felt a little bit underpowered, but it is still useful in its niche of saving someone from a dangerous save with a small bit of support, I was mostly inspired by aura of vitality + flash of genius, it feels 3rd level would be to little of a cost, and the aura aspect is mostly aura of vitality style. So, these were my inspirations, you are spot on in the balancing aspect.

- For Tiny Improvement I have a BUNCH of thoughts lol
- My baseline was Bestow Curse and not Eyebite (given the single save + single target, instead of eyebite that can target multiple targets but have multiple saves)
- I totally agree Tongue Knot is a very tough sell, it is very powerful but I had a super hard time balancing it, while the other 2 effects they feel okaysh for a 3rd level + concentration + single target + CON save.
- Stone Joints is a weaker verson and single target of slow
- Assymetric Limbs is a very similar effect to the Bestow Curse effect that does that same under same conditions
- Now, the elephant in the room: Tongue Knot, I really wanted to balance it, but adding a save each turn would make the spell overly week imo, since it is single target and I would never spend a 3rd level spell slot to, say, use Stone Joints or Assymetric Limbs if they could save right in the next turn. But Tongue Know is different, it is almost useless every combat, except against casters, and it completely shuts down a single caster for the entire combat (while I have concentration at least), but how to balance it and keep the other 2 balanced as well?
I thought about requiring an action + spending x spell slot to roll another save for caster, also thought about allowing saves only for this effect, and also thought about costing an exaustion to get rid of it, but at the end of the day none of them felt really fit for this spell, so I opted to leave as it is and playtest it.

tldr: Tongue Knot is really strong in a very specific case and I couldn't balance it well without a hard nerf in the other 2 effects

tldr: Tongue Knot is really strong in a very specific case and I couldn't balance it well without a hard nerf in the other 2 effects

Just FYI the narrowness vs flexibility of a spell is part of that spell's power. For instance Hold Person is a 2nd level spell and Hold Monster is a 5th level spell despite causing the exact same condition with the same save and same duration because Hold Person is much more narrow in its use case. Giving a spell multiple options with different use cases inherently makes that spell more powerful than an identical spell that only creates one of those options. 

Even without the Tongue Knot option, this spell is significantly more powerful than Bestow Curse, because of the following:

1. Range: Bestow Curse is range of Touch making it MUCH harder to retain concentration on since you must be in the thick of the combat to use it. Whereas your spell has 60 ft range which means it can be safely cast beyond the threat range of the enemies thus making it easy to protect your concentration.
2. Asymmetric Limbs vs Bestow Curse -> Asymmetric Limbs affects all attacks, whereas Bestow Curse affects only attacks that target you this means the cursed enemy can counter the curse simply by attacking one of your party members rather than you. In contrast Asymmetric Limbs can only be countered if the enemy has a saving-throw based damage action instead of attack roll based.
3. Stone Joints vs Bestow Curse (Dodge option) -> Stone joints is guaranteed to have an effect on the first failed save, whereas Bestow Curse requires a second save giving it a 50% chance of doing nothing. While the failure condition of Bestow Curse is worse than the Stone joints effect, it's not that difficult to use the movement restriction from Stone joints to prevent the target enemy from attacking if the enemy only has melee attacks (which is relatively common for enemies you'd be fighting at level 5).