I fell in love with this cute little at-will power in 4e, and ported it over. It's essentially a re-skinned Infestation with less damage, but you get to choose the direction the target moves. It's not very powerful, and I'm considering allowing it to knock the creature prone, but that might be too powerful. What do you think? Maybe random movement + prone?
Version 1
The target must make succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or it takes 1d4 psychic damage and moves 5 feet in a direction of your choice if it can move and its speed is at least 5 feet. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
The spell’s damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).
Version 2
The target must make succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or it takes 1d4 psychic damage, moves 5 feet in a direction of your choice if it can move and its speed is at least 5 feet, and falls prone. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
The spell’s damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).
Version 3
The target must make succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or it takes 1d4 psychic damage, moves 5 feet in a random direction if it can move and its speed is at least 5 feet, and falls prone. Roll a d4 for the direction: 1, north; 2, south; 3, east; or 4, west. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks, and if the direction rolled is blocked, the target doesn’t move.
The spell’s damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).
Knock the 'Prone' out of it. Melee builds would be frothing at the mouths if they saw that cantrip in their fellow caster's repertoire of spells. Otherwise, I do like this; if I can grab a hold of this for my current campaign but I gotta check in with the DM about it. ;)
Edit: I like option 3 without the 'falls prone' part.
Knock the 'Prone' out of it. Melee builds would be frothing at the mouths if they saw that cantrip in their fellow caster's repertoire of spells. Otherwise, I do like this; if I can grab a hold of this for my current campaign but I gotta check in with the DM about it. ;)
Edit: I like option 3 without the 'falls prone' part.
The issue with 3 sans prone is that it's just an objectively weaker version of infestation, swapping the Con save for Int.
Melee combatants with an extra attack/multiattack can replace an attack with a shove that can be used to knock a creature prone. Maybe they fall prone at 1st level and the psychic damage comes in later?
"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Swapping super common and often hard-to-make CON saves for INT saves a fraction of the sorts of creatures one would target with this spell can make is objectively improving it. So is swapping easily resisted poison damage for rarely resisted psychic damage.
I'm not sure what the flavor for this is or what the cantrip is actually doing that it forces movement with psychic damage and an INT save, but I would honestly take a 1d4 psychic damage on an INT save cantrip over Infestation, which is one of the weakest and most pointless cantrips in D&D. If I knew what the in-world manifestation you were building was (did not play 4e, have no idea what their 'Phantom Bolt' is), I could maybe help more?
Good point on the Int save bit. That's why everybody loves the new UA cantrip, right?
I accidentally removed the flavor in an edit. The idea is that the caster is sending an illusion of a missile at the target, which causes the target to jump out of the way.
I loved the idea of an illusionist messing with somebody like this, even in non-combat settings.
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I fell in love with this cute little at-will power in 4e, and ported it over. It's essentially a re-skinned Infestation with less damage, but you get to choose the direction the target moves. It's not very powerful, and I'm considering allowing it to knock the creature prone, but that might be too powerful. What do you think? Maybe random movement + prone?
Version 1
The target must make succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or it takes 1d4 psychic damage and moves 5 feet in a direction of your choice if it can move and its speed is at least 5 feet. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
The spell’s damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).
Version 2
The target must make succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or it takes 1d4 psychic damage, moves 5 feet in a direction of your choice if it can move and its speed is at least 5 feet, and falls prone. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
The spell’s damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).
Version 3
The target must make succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or it takes 1d4 psychic damage, moves 5 feet in a random direction if it can move and its speed is at least 5 feet, and falls prone. Roll a d4 for the direction: 1, north; 2, south; 3, east; or 4, west. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks, and if the direction rolled is blocked, the target doesn’t move.
The spell’s damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).
Knock the 'Prone' out of it. Melee builds would be frothing at the mouths if they saw that cantrip in their fellow caster's repertoire of spells. Otherwise, I do like this; if I can grab a hold of this for my current campaign but I gotta check in with the DM about it. ;)
Edit: I like option 3 without the 'falls prone' part.
The issue with 3 sans prone is that it's just an objectively weaker version of infestation, swapping the Con save for Int.
Melee combatants with an extra attack/multiattack can replace an attack with a shove that can be used to knock a creature prone. Maybe they fall prone at 1st level and the psychic damage comes in later?
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"The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read." - Terry Pratchett
Swapping super common and often hard-to-make CON saves for INT saves a fraction of the sorts of creatures one would target with this spell can make is objectively improving it. So is swapping easily resisted poison damage for rarely resisted psychic damage.
I'm not sure what the flavor for this is or what the cantrip is actually doing that it forces movement with psychic damage and an INT save, but I would honestly take a 1d4 psychic damage on an INT save cantrip over Infestation, which is one of the weakest and most pointless cantrips in D&D. If I knew what the in-world manifestation you were building was (did not play 4e, have no idea what their 'Phantom Bolt' is), I could maybe help more?
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Good point on the Int save bit. That's why everybody loves the new UA cantrip, right?
I accidentally removed the flavor in an edit. The idea is that the caster is sending an illusion of a missile at the target, which causes the target to jump out of the way.
I loved the idea of an illusionist messing with somebody like this, even in non-combat settings.