I've been tinkering with some ideas for a sorcerer subclass that is a distant cousin to the Clockwork Soul but with slightly different aesthetics & mechanics. I'm mostly focusing on having PCs using it in higher levels (11-20) or having very high-level NPCs (or boss encounters) with this.
The name is the Cosmic Mind and is themed around understanding / tapping into the fabric of the universe (pulling at the threads of reality, utilizing knowledge of the structuring of planes). The focus is less on being "imbued" by power and more on an "able to see the Matrix" mentality, where the knowledge of how everything works awakens something within that allows you to pull on everything else's strings. The mechanics have an emphasis on using your knowledge of the nature of magic to do things that should not normally be possible for any kind of spellweilder. This builds off the notion that metamagic is already boosting your spells in certain ways. The aesthetic flavor is a bit flexible but leans towards the iridescent, sometimes geometric, raw arcane, "weaving" of mana vibes. The types of magic this sorcerer would use have a lot of overlap with Dunamancy, if you are familiar with that from Critical Role.
Cosmic Spells:
Your mind's awareness of the fundamental structure of the cosmos makes the nature of certain spells obvious to you. When you reach certain levels, you gain one spell known of your choice from the list below (only one per row) and can cast them without material components. These spells count as sorcerer spells, but do not count against the number of sorcerer spells you know. Whenever you gain a level in sorcerer, you can change one of the spells known from this list so long as your new choice is another spell from this list that is of the same level.
Level
Spell Choices
1
Identify, Magnify Gravity, Silvery Barbs
3
Vortex Warp, Fortune's Favor, Warp Sense
5
Counterspell, Haste, Slow
7
Dimension Door, Gravity Sinkhole, Gate Seal
9
Circle of Power, Creation, Teleportation Circle
11
Gravity Fissure, Scatter, Arcane Gate
13
Reverse Gravity, Teleport, Plane Shift
15
Dark Star, Demiplane, Reality Break
17
Gate, Ravenous Void, Time Stop
Level 1: Reality Flicker
When you see that a strike towards you is about to land true, you can focus on your precise coordinates within the vastness of space and shift them slightly out of desperation. When an attack roll success against you, you can use your reaction to make it fail, then teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet (if one exists). This feature cannot be used if you are grappled, restrained or incapacitated. If the teleport takes you out of the melee range of an opponent, they do not get an opportunity attack.
You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier.
Level 6: Mana Guided Strike
Tapping into your connection to magic allows you to sense the coordinates of your opponents within the cosmos with greater precision and lock in on them with your attacks.
Whenever you cast a cantrip or use a metamagic option on a spell that requires an attack roll, you can spend an extra sorcerer point to give yourself advantage on that attack roll. If you have disadvantage on the attack roll, you can use 1 sorcerer point to make it a regular roll or 2 to make it with advantage. If you are using twinned-spell, this effect applies to both targets for the same sorcerer point cost.
Level 14: Mind of Many Weaves
Your ability to see and keep track of the weaves of magic around you is skilled enough that you can keep track of an unnaturally large number of them at the same time. You can concentrate on multiple spells simultaneously (as many as your proficiency bonus). Whenever you need to make a concentration check after taking damage, you make one roll for all of your concentration spells and if you fail all of them end immediately. When making a concentration check, the DC is increased by 2 for each spell you are concentrating on after the first spell. For example if you are concentrating on 3 spells and take 1 point of damage, the DC is 14 instead of 10 and if you take 40 points of damage the DC is 24 instead of 20. If you unwillingly lose concentration while concentrating on multiple spells at once, you gain a point of exhaustion for each spell you were concentrating on past the first spell.
Whenever you cast a concentration spell while one or more are active, you can choose to have one of your active concentration spells fade as the new one is cast. Otherwise, you can only end one concentration spell per turn.
Level 18: Magic Melder
Your understanding of the core nature of magic is strong enough that you can pool together the energies of yourself and other spellcasters, combing the flows of magic. As an action, you can reach out with your magic to up to three other spellcasters to take part in a magical meld. Each individual you reach out to must be within 30 feet of you and you must be able to see them. Each individual knows that you are doing so and the amount of power you would draw from them, and can instantly consent or refuse to be part of the meld. For each person in the meld, you take one spell slot of your choice (along with one of your own spell slots) to be part of the meld. The level you take can be different from each person, but each of them knows the level you would take when they are choosing to participate or not. If an individual does not currently have an available spell slot of that level (or higher) that they are willing to have taken, it is the same as if they refuse to take part in the meld. If a higher spell slot is taken, it still acts as if it was the spell slot level that was requested.
Once every participant in the meld has had their spell slots pooled together, you can use them to create a combined spell slot and cast a spell from your known spell list with it. Doing so costs a number of your sorcerer points equal to that spell slot level. If the spell is a concentration spell, you and all participants in the meld are concentrating, and if any one of you loses concentration, all of you lose concentration. Losing concentration this way is the same as losing concentration from taking damage, as far as Mind of Many Weaves is concerned.
The level of the combined spell slot depends on the levels taken from the other spellcasters. To create an nth-level spell slot from k participants (including yourself), the spell slots used for the meld must add up to 2n+k. For example, using this feature to cast a 9th-level spell with yourself and 3 other meld participants requires pooling together enough spell slots to add up to 2(9)+4=22 (as well as 9 sorcery points), so you could do so by sacrificing an 8th, 7th, 4th & 3rd level spell slot or a 7th, 5th, 5th and 5th. If you wanted to cast an 8th-level spell with yourself and 2 other meld participants, you could do so with a combined 2(8)+3=19 levels worth of spell slots, which could be achieved by sacrificing a 7th, 6th and 6th level spell slot.
You can use this feature once per long rest.
Justification for some of the choices made:
With the cosmic spells, there is a lot of overlap between the ones at different levels (e.g. a bunch of teleportation-related spells) since the idea is that you can choose which levels you want to take those spells and then take a different type at the other levels (e.g. keep teleportation circle & plane shift for 5 & 7 then use 6 for reverse gravity which is potent crowd control & 8/9 for some NASTY damage dealers). Thematically, I think of this as like how you can sometimes read a word and instantly tell how it is pronounced even if it is complicated and you've never seen it before just because of your understanding of a language. E.g. for the level 13 choices, you can picture in your mind's eye the layout of all the various planes and the connections/walls between them, so the spell to bore a tunnel between them is clear to you.
I know that limiting the selection to 3 per level is not much, but I want to counterweight the fact that some of these are much higher level than similar subclasses provide access to. This design decreases the number of spells known versus the Clockwork Soul or Aberrant mind (especially at lower levels), but makes you some potent options at the character levels when everyone starts becoming broken-good. This adds up to a total of 9 extra spells known at level 17 versus 10 extra known at level 9 for those other subclasses I mentioned, and the relearning options for those other subclasses are huge. Also, having some variety in the god-tier spells you can whip out seems fun (time stop one day, meteor swarm the next).
For Reality Flicker, there it is a little OP to be able to just make an attack miss outright, but shield can basically do the same. The similarities & differences between this & shield are as follows:
Both consume a reaction (so no counterspelling, etc. for the rest of the round).
Shield adds 5 to AC, which may not be enough to stop the attack vs this ensures instant failure.
Shield is up for the rest of the round, whereas Reality Flicker stops ONLY the attack it was triggered on.
Shield comes with immunity to magic missiles, Reality Flicker does not.
Reality Flicker comes with the additional mobility, which may prevent a melee fighter from getting off any remaining attacks on you if they have already used all their movement to get to reach you. Shield can not prevent additional attack attempts from being made.
Shield consumes a spell slot, Reality Flicker just consumes its own charge pool.
You can buy extra shields per long rest by sacrificing sorcery points, no can do with Reality Flicker.
The restrictions of when you cannot use Reality Flicker are a bit harsher than shield; if you are being grappled by one foe you can still avoid being hit by another with shield, but not with Reality Flicker (justification: if you tried to do so you'd have to take the person grappling/restraining you with you, which is too much for you to "tug" on with a simple use of reality manipulation).
Reality Flicker is not a spell, so it can't be counterspelled.
I think all of these pros/cons vs shield make this justifiable even though it can save you spell slots (& a spell known if you want to avoid taking shield bc you have this).
For Mana Guided Strike, I pictured this as the magical equivalent of when Toph from AtLA slams her feet into the ground and you see her sense everyone around her's position through vibrations. Here, the use of metamagic is a brief "plugging into the matrix" moment that allows a measure of advanced targeting. Making it work for cantrips made sense to me since cantrips are supposed to be the types of magic you instinctually know, so tapping into that instinct would have the same "plugging into the matrix" moment. Mechanically, I see this as an inverse to the Heightened Spell metamagic.
The multi-concentration feature is going to be controversial, but I'm really in love with that and it's the part that I want to keep the most (second is having the cosmic spells, though which spells I'm pretty flexible on). There is an amount of risk-reward to it since piling on more concentrations can result in some insanely OP spell combos but makes the metaphorical Jenga-tower of spells more precarious, and increases the probability that even a single point of damage will make it all come crashing down at once. This also means that investment in constitution stat is a bigger deal than normal, and war caster is essentially non-negotiable. Note that once you build up a jenga-tower of concentration spells, it takes several turns to take apart that tower. So say you are in trouble and don't want to suffer the consequences of losing concentration, but you have five concentration spells up: you need four turns to reduce the number of concentrations back to 1 (which is penalty-free for losing concentration).
The super trollish use of this that I can envision (and find delightfully evil) is casting timestop, rolling a 4, casting haste/flight/greater invisibility/silent image (leaving a copy of yourself where you are), flying somewhere else, and ending your timestop with a reverse gravity or dark star. Suddenly in a blink of an eye, you "haven't moved" but have slammed all of your opponents with a massive aoe spell, and once they waste an attack on your duplicate they have no clue where you are (or that you are off the ground), can't counterspell you, and once they do figure out where you are will have a harder time hitting you. However, getting clipped by a big aoe by even a toe will mean a concentration check with dc of at least 18, with FOUR POINTS OF EXAUSTION if you fail. Evil but fun, and certainly has big risks to counterweight such an insanely OP move. But with a combo as OP as the one I mentioned, you don't even need to make any further attacks for a few rounds to do INSANE damage; just moving further away to decrease the risk of getting clipped will make it basically impossible for your opponents (who have NO idea where you are) to end your concentration on the black hole you just opened above their heads. Even with a cartoonishly OP cocktail like this, a single aoe spell with enough radius (or certain mind-based spells that can figure out where you are without seeing you) can ruin you.
For Magic Melder, I love the concept of magically interweaving arcane threads from yourself and others even if they are of different natures because you see them as different "colors of yarn." Even though one thread comes from a holy god of light, another comes from a devil patron, another comes from druidic magic, and another comes from arcane study, you can still weave them together into a beautiful scarf to choke your enemies with. Drawing strength from your spellcasting allies feels interesting to me. On the other side of the coin, if you are facing a powerful boss that has this mechanic and they have spellcasting minions, this makes taking out the minions quickly essential to deprive the boss of an extra high level spell slot. There are also some interesting gameplay choices that can be made to thwart this mechanic, like covertly using a form of mind control on a minion without the boss knowing so when they reach out to the minion for magical help, they are unexpectedly rejected, forcing the magical meld to make do with fewer total spell slots & ruining the chance for a second 9th level spell slot per day. The same could be done in reverse, where an enemy covertly charms one of your allies in such a way that when you try to meld with them, they unexpectedly are unable to even if they have the spell slot that you want them to donate. Mechanically, I see this as an emergency option when you desperately need to use a specific high level spell (like plane shift or teleport), you are the only one in your party that can do so, but you already used that slot.
Again, I am focused on higher level play so I don't mind this being OP so long as it is in the right ways.
What I want feedback on:
All of it, really, but especially the following:
Choice of Cosmic Spells. Are there rows where I overlooked a spell that makes more sense thematically than the 3 I chose? Should I set aside the 3-per-row pattern and have some of the rows have 2 or 4 choices (for example, I'd probably do 2 for 1st-level spells and 4 for 3rd-level spells)?
Changing up the level rules for Cosmic Spells. Instead of requiring 1 per row, what if you can unlearn your choice from one of the rows you have unlocked to learn a 2nd or 3rd spell from another row? E.g. if you don't want a reverse gravity / teleport / plane shift, you can instead take two out of gravity fissue / scatter / arcane gate. Is this a good idea due to the added flexability, or is this too OP due to the combinations of spells you can learn (e.g. knowing all three 9th level options + more learned normally)?
Material components. Is the fact that cosmic spells can be cast w/o them too much?
Uses of reality flicker. The number of times this is available per day seems important given that this is a 1st level feature. Is there a better way to ration the uses of this? E.g. fewer charges, but they come back on a short rest? Alternatively, could I keep it frequently useable (or even increase the number of uses) but add some negative rider on it, like a -2 decrease to your DC until the start of your next turn?
Tuning of Mana Guided Strike. Is having this work on twinned w/o extra sorcerer points too much? Should the sorcerer point costs be tweaked? Should I attach a negative rider like being unable to use metamagic until the end of your next turn, or taking a d4 of damage that is not mitigatable? The idea of the d4 of damage came to me because it would significantly up the risk of using Mind of Many Weaves (thematically this would make sense as "plugging into the matrix" while already multitasking multiple threads of magic would be a stress on the mind).
Naming of Mana Guided Strike. Of all the features, I like this name the least. Any ideas for a better name?
Adjustments to Magic Melder. As I said, I love the imagery of this. However, I feel iffy about the mechanical design & would appreciate ideas for how to tune it. The thought that you can cast multiple 9th-level spells per day is terrifying, but intreaguing (esp since due to cosmic spells, you'll likely know more 9th-level spells than other sorcerers). I don't want to remove that insanity as a possibility, but I need to make it consume enough resources that it's not just an extra 9th-level spell slot. Like I said, the most common use I'm anticipating / would like to encourage is an in-case-of-emergency teleport (with yourself + 2 other spellcasters, this could be done with 6th+6th+5th level slots). I'd also prefer if it was less convoluted, but some amount of convolution is necessary in order to make up for the fact that this is still allowing potentially a second 9th level spell cast per day (did someone say TWO meteor swarms?). One idea I had to keep the 9th level punishing but make a 7th level manegable was to have the formula be that the sum of squares of the spell levels has to be at least the square of the level you are casting, so for a 9th level spell slot you could do 7*7+6*6≥81 or 8*8+4*4+1*1=81 (which is still pretty expensive), but for a 7th level teleport you only need 5*5+5*5≥49 or 5*5+4*4+3*3≥49 which is comparatively manegable since a high level party will likely have a few spellcasters with 5-or-less spell slots available. Alternatively, if someone has a thought for a different mechanic using this "weaving together everyone's yarns into a quilt" idea, I'm all ears :)
Should I add an out-of-combat feature to level 1/6 that plays into the themes of understanding the nature of the planes of reality? For example, when looking at a creature or object for a minute or longer you are able to tell what plane it originated from based on the magical frequency it vibrates at (requires an intelligence check if the creature is affected by an illusion spell, dc depends on spell level). I was also contemplating doing something with arcana checks, e.g. burn a sorcerer point to give yourself expertise on a single arcana check (again like the Toph AtLA analogy)?
Hello,
I've been tinkering with some ideas for a sorcerer subclass that is a distant cousin to the Clockwork Soul but with slightly different aesthetics & mechanics. I'm mostly focusing on having PCs using it in higher levels (11-20) or having very high-level NPCs (or boss encounters) with this.
The name is the Cosmic Mind and is themed around understanding / tapping into the fabric of the universe (pulling at the threads of reality, utilizing knowledge of the structuring of planes). The focus is less on being "imbued" by power and more on an "able to see the Matrix" mentality, where the knowledge of how everything works awakens something within that allows you to pull on everything else's strings. The mechanics have an emphasis on using your knowledge of the nature of magic to do things that should not normally be possible for any kind of spellweilder. This builds off the notion that metamagic is already boosting your spells in certain ways. The aesthetic flavor is a bit flexible but leans towards the iridescent, sometimes geometric, raw arcane, "weaving" of mana vibes. The types of magic this sorcerer would use have a lot of overlap with Dunamancy, if you are familiar with that from Critical Role.
Cosmic Spells:
Your mind's awareness of the fundamental structure of the cosmos makes the nature of certain spells obvious to you. When you reach certain levels, you gain one spell known of your choice from the list below (only one per row) and can cast them without material components. These spells count as sorcerer spells, but do not count against the number of sorcerer spells you know. Whenever you gain a level in sorcerer, you can change one of the spells known from this list so long as your new choice is another spell from this list that is of the same level.
Level 1: Reality Flicker
When you see that a strike towards you is about to land true, you can focus on your precise coordinates within the vastness of space and shift them slightly out of desperation. When an attack roll success against you, you can use your reaction to make it fail, then teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet (if one exists). This feature cannot be used if you are grappled, restrained or incapacitated. If the teleport takes you out of the melee range of an opponent, they do not get an opportunity attack.
You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency modifier.
Level 6: Mana Guided Strike
Tapping into your connection to magic allows you to sense the coordinates of your opponents within the cosmos with greater precision and lock in on them with your attacks.
Whenever you cast a cantrip or use a metamagic option on a spell that requires an attack roll, you can spend an extra sorcerer point to give yourself advantage on that attack roll. If you have disadvantage on the attack roll, you can use 1 sorcerer point to make it a regular roll or 2 to make it with advantage. If you are using twinned-spell, this effect applies to both targets for the same sorcerer point cost.
Level 14: Mind of Many Weaves
Your ability to see and keep track of the weaves of magic around you is skilled enough that you can keep track of an unnaturally large number of them at the same time. You can concentrate on multiple spells simultaneously (as many as your proficiency bonus). Whenever you need to make a concentration check after taking damage, you make one roll for all of your concentration spells and if you fail all of them end immediately. When making a concentration check, the DC is increased by 2 for each spell you are concentrating on after the first spell. For example if you are concentrating on 3 spells and take 1 point of damage, the DC is 14 instead of 10 and if you take 40 points of damage the DC is 24 instead of 20. If you unwillingly lose concentration while concentrating on multiple spells at once, you gain a point of exhaustion for each spell you were concentrating on past the first spell.
Whenever you cast a concentration spell while one or more are active, you can choose to have one of your active concentration spells fade as the new one is cast. Otherwise, you can only end one concentration spell per turn.
Level 18: Magic Melder
Your understanding of the core nature of magic is strong enough that you can pool together the energies of yourself and other spellcasters, combing the flows of magic. As an action, you can reach out with your magic to up to three other spellcasters to take part in a magical meld. Each individual you reach out to must be within 30 feet of you and you must be able to see them. Each individual knows that you are doing so and the amount of power you would draw from them, and can instantly consent or refuse to be part of the meld. For each person in the meld, you take one spell slot of your choice (along with one of your own spell slots) to be part of the meld. The level you take can be different from each person, but each of them knows the level you would take when they are choosing to participate or not. If an individual does not currently have an available spell slot of that level (or higher) that they are willing to have taken, it is the same as if they refuse to take part in the meld. If a higher spell slot is taken, it still acts as if it was the spell slot level that was requested.
Once every participant in the meld has had their spell slots pooled together, you can use them to create a combined spell slot and cast a spell from your known spell list with it. Doing so costs a number of your sorcerer points equal to that spell slot level. If the spell is a concentration spell, you and all participants in the meld are concentrating, and if any one of you loses concentration, all of you lose concentration. Losing concentration this way is the same as losing concentration from taking damage, as far as Mind of Many Weaves is concerned.
The level of the combined spell slot depends on the levels taken from the other spellcasters. To create an nth-level spell slot from k participants (including yourself), the spell slots used for the meld must add up to 2n+k. For example, using this feature to cast a 9th-level spell with yourself and 3 other meld participants requires pooling together enough spell slots to add up to 2(9)+4=22 (as well as 9 sorcery points), so you could do so by sacrificing an 8th, 7th, 4th & 3rd level spell slot or a 7th, 5th, 5th and 5th. If you wanted to cast an 8th-level spell with yourself and 2 other meld participants, you could do so with a combined 2(8)+3=19 levels worth of spell slots, which could be achieved by sacrificing a 7th, 6th and 6th level spell slot.
You can use this feature once per long rest.
Justification for some of the choices made:
With the cosmic spells, there is a lot of overlap between the ones at different levels (e.g. a bunch of teleportation-related spells) since the idea is that you can choose which levels you want to take those spells and then take a different type at the other levels (e.g. keep teleportation circle & plane shift for 5 & 7 then use 6 for reverse gravity which is potent crowd control & 8/9 for some NASTY damage dealers). Thematically, I think of this as like how you can sometimes read a word and instantly tell how it is pronounced even if it is complicated and you've never seen it before just because of your understanding of a language. E.g. for the level 13 choices, you can picture in your mind's eye the layout of all the various planes and the connections/walls between them, so the spell to bore a tunnel between them is clear to you.
I know that limiting the selection to 3 per level is not much, but I want to counterweight the fact that some of these are much higher level than similar subclasses provide access to. This design decreases the number of spells known versus the Clockwork Soul or Aberrant mind (especially at lower levels), but makes you some potent options at the character levels when everyone starts becoming broken-good. This adds up to a total of 9 extra spells known at level 17 versus 10 extra known at level 9 for those other subclasses I mentioned, and the relearning options for those other subclasses are huge. Also, having some variety in the god-tier spells you can whip out seems fun (time stop one day, meteor swarm the next).
For Reality Flicker, there it is a little OP to be able to just make an attack miss outright, but shield can basically do the same. The similarities & differences between this & shield are as follows:
I think all of these pros/cons vs shield make this justifiable even though it can save you spell slots (& a spell known if you want to avoid taking shield bc you have this).
For Mana Guided Strike, I pictured this as the magical equivalent of when Toph from AtLA slams her feet into the ground and you see her sense everyone around her's position through vibrations. Here, the use of metamagic is a brief "plugging into the matrix" moment that allows a measure of advanced targeting. Making it work for cantrips made sense to me since cantrips are supposed to be the types of magic you instinctually know, so tapping into that instinct would have the same "plugging into the matrix" moment. Mechanically, I see this as an inverse to the Heightened Spell metamagic.
The multi-concentration feature is going to be controversial, but I'm really in love with that and it's the part that I want to keep the most (second is having the cosmic spells, though which spells I'm pretty flexible on). There is an amount of risk-reward to it since piling on more concentrations can result in some insanely OP spell combos but makes the metaphorical Jenga-tower of spells more precarious, and increases the probability that even a single point of damage will make it all come crashing down at once. This also means that investment in constitution stat is a bigger deal than normal, and war caster is essentially non-negotiable. Note that once you build up a jenga-tower of concentration spells, it takes several turns to take apart that tower. So say you are in trouble and don't want to suffer the consequences of losing concentration, but you have five concentration spells up: you need four turns to reduce the number of concentrations back to 1 (which is penalty-free for losing concentration).
The super trollish use of this that I can envision (and find delightfully evil) is casting timestop, rolling a 4, casting haste/flight/greater invisibility/silent image (leaving a copy of yourself where you are), flying somewhere else, and ending your timestop with a reverse gravity or dark star. Suddenly in a blink of an eye, you "haven't moved" but have slammed all of your opponents with a massive aoe spell, and once they waste an attack on your duplicate they have no clue where you are (or that you are off the ground), can't counterspell you, and once they do figure out where you are will have a harder time hitting you. However, getting clipped by a big aoe by even a toe will mean a concentration check with dc of at least 18, with FOUR POINTS OF EXAUSTION if you fail. Evil but fun, and certainly has big risks to counterweight such an insanely OP move. But with a combo as OP as the one I mentioned, you don't even need to make any further attacks for a few rounds to do INSANE damage; just moving further away to decrease the risk of getting clipped will make it basically impossible for your opponents (who have NO idea where you are) to end your concentration on the black hole you just opened above their heads. Even with a cartoonishly OP cocktail like this, a single aoe spell with enough radius (or certain mind-based spells that can figure out where you are without seeing you) can ruin you.
For Magic Melder, I love the concept of magically interweaving arcane threads from yourself and others even if they are of different natures because you see them as different "colors of yarn." Even though one thread comes from a holy god of light, another comes from a devil patron, another comes from druidic magic, and another comes from arcane study, you can still weave them together into a beautiful scarf to choke your enemies with. Drawing strength from your spellcasting allies feels interesting to me. On the other side of the coin, if you are facing a powerful boss that has this mechanic and they have spellcasting minions, this makes taking out the minions quickly essential to deprive the boss of an extra high level spell slot. There are also some interesting gameplay choices that can be made to thwart this mechanic, like covertly using a form of mind control on a minion without the boss knowing so when they reach out to the minion for magical help, they are unexpectedly rejected, forcing the magical meld to make do with fewer total spell slots & ruining the chance for a second 9th level spell slot per day. The same could be done in reverse, where an enemy covertly charms one of your allies in such a way that when you try to meld with them, they unexpectedly are unable to even if they have the spell slot that you want them to donate. Mechanically, I see this as an emergency option when you desperately need to use a specific high level spell (like plane shift or teleport), you are the only one in your party that can do so, but you already used that slot.
Again, I am focused on higher level play so I don't mind this being OP so long as it is in the right ways.
What I want feedback on:
All of it, really, but especially the following: