I'm making a quick writeup for a necromancy cantrip, and I'd like some opinions on the mechanics. More importantly, I'd like to make sure the language is concise and avoids unnecessary "word salad" problems. I never like it when I have to read through something 3 or 4 times to understand it because of clunky wording.
You reanimate the corpse of a dead rodent or insect, such as a rat, cockroach, or similarly diminutive creature. The reanimated creature acts on your turn, has 1 hit point, AC 8, a movement speed of 25 feet, and can climb on solid surfaces, but it cannot fly, swim, or borrow. The creature moves silently and can make Dexterity (Stealth) checks with advantage, using your spell ability modifier for the roll. Negative energy constantly leaches from its rapidly deteriorating body, revealing its undead nature to any creature that can see it.
When you cast this spell, you can command the reanimated pest to distract another creature by crawling onto it. Assuming the pest can reach the creature this turn, the targeted creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the next attack against the creature has advantage until the end of your next turn. At the end of your next turn, the reanimated pest falls apart and dissolves, ending the spell.
Until the spell ends, you may whisper commands to the reanimated creature as a free action, and the creature can hear your whispers as long as it is within 60 feet of you and is not subject to a silence effect. The creature will follow the command to the best of its ability, but it is only able to take the dash or dodge actions, and it cannot use or manipulate items. When the spell ends, the creature falls apart and dissolves into a fine dust, consumed by the negative energy used to create it.
You reanimate the corpse of a dead rodent or insect, such as a rat or a cockroach, or similarly diminutive creature. The reanimated creature is undead and uses the rat template for its statistics. It acts on your turn and can climb any solid surface, but it cannot fly, swim, or borrow. The creature moves silently and can make Dexterity (Stealth) checks with advantage, using your spell ability modifier for the roll. Negative energy constantly leaches from its rapidly deteriorating body, revealing its magical, undead nature to any creature that sees it.
Until the spell ends, you may whisper commands to the reanimated creature as a bonus action. The creature can hear your whispers up to 60 feet away and will follow the command to the best of its ability, but it is only able to take the dash, disengage, and dodge actions, and it cannot use or manipulate items. If the spell ends or the creature is destroyed, it falls apart and dissolves into a fine dust, consumed by the negative energy used to create it.
Additionally, you can use a bonus action to command the reanimated pest to distract another creature by crawling onto it. Assuming the pest can reach the creature, the targeted creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the next attack against the creature has advantage until the end of your next turn.
I like it, but some things are unclear. You have a duration of 1 Minute (C), but in the description you mention it falling apart after a Round.
I would raise the AC to 10, and I think adding Disengage action to their list would be appropriate too. But that’s just one person’s opinion, others might think of valid reasons to disagree.
Once you get it polished up and finished, I’ll look forward to adding it to my collection.
I like it, but some things are unclear. You have a duration of 1 Minute (C), but in the description you mention it falling apart after a Round.
Maybe something as simple as just flipping the two paragraphs could help clear that up.
Until the spell ends, you may whisper commands to the reanimated creature as a free action, and the creature can hear your whispers as long as it is within 60 feet of you and is not subject to a silence effect. The creature will follow the command to the best of its ability, but it is only able to take the dash, disengage, and dodge actions, and it cannot use or manipulate items. When the spell ends, the creature falls apart and dissolves into a fine dust, consumed by the negative energy used to create it.
Alternatively, when casting this spell or on your subsequent turns, you can command the reanimated pest to distract another creature by crawling onto it. Assuming the pest can reach the creature, the targeted creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the next attack against the creature has advantage until the end of your next turn. At the end of your next turn, the reanimated pest falls apart and dissolves, ending the spell.
This ability is meant to fall in line with other cantrips to perform similar benefits. It can be done all in 1 action on your turn, with the benefit expiring at the end of your next turn. Trick is, this particular spell involves a dead creature and concentration as its main features. I'm going to go ahead and add the dead creature as the material component so something is lost when doing this, otherwise there's no real justification for the spell to have concentration if its mostly being used as a True Strike alternative, roleplaying opportunities aside.
EDIT: The problem I have with letting the lil' bugger survive this is that it forces an opponent to use an attack to try and destroy the pest if they want to get rid of it. I feel like that edges just past how powerful the cantrip should be. Yeah, you can concentrate for the full minute and simply repeat the same command each turn with the same pest. Mechanically, it's the same effect as just recasting the spell each turn, and it's a bit of a gray area for me. This could also avoid the character just carrying around a bag of cockroaches for material components.
If I were to write this spell, I would change it as follows, mainly for simplification purposes.
Animate Pest
Cantrip; 1 Action; Touch; V, S; Duration: 1 round; Necromancy; DEX Save, range 60 ft.
You summon the ghost of a small rodent or insect. It flies to any target in range that you can see and that creature must make a Dex save, distracting it with it's incorporeal, decayed visage. Undead and constructs automatically make their save. On a failed save, the next attack against the creature has advantage until the end of your next turn. If the save is made or the duration ends, the ghost dis incorporates and returns to the afterlife.
This spell is basically a necromantic themed slight improvement on True Strike. It becomes actually useful because it lets you take an action to give someone ELSE advantage, which a rogue or other high DPR person can take advantage of. I equalized the power by making it useless on undead or constructs, as that seemed thematically relevant.
If I were to write this spell, I would change it as follows, mainly for simplification purposes.
Animate Pest
Cantrip; 1 Action; Touch; V, S; Duration: 1 round; Necromancy; DEX Save, range 60 ft.
You summon the ghost of a small rodent or insect. It flies to any target in range that you can see and that creature must make a Dex save, distracting it with it's incorporeal, decayed visage. Undead and constructs automatically make their save. On a failed save, the next attack against the creature has advantage until the end of your next turn. If the save is made or the duration ends, the ghost dis incorporates and returns to the afterlife.
This spell is basically a necromantic themed slight improvement on True Strike. It becomes actually useful because it lets you take an action to give someone ELSE advantage, which a rogue or other high DPR person can take advantage of. I equalized the power by making it useless on undead or constructs, as that seemed thematically relevant.
While the spell is fully intended to be an alternative to True Strike, this writeup removes the flavor of a minor reanimation trick and its roleplay opportunities. I'm more inclined to just let the pest persist for the full duration and make the ability require a bonus action on the caster's turn to repeat, or something along those lines. It already requires the initial action plus concentration, so using a bonus action to gain advantage for one attack on one target doesn't seem too out of line.
EDIT: I feel like it's important for the spell's flavor that it does create a separate creature that is controlled by you, rather than a be a cosmetic effect for 1 round.
I like the idea behind it, personally I don't think it risks being too overpowered as unlike True Strike an enemy can destroy the creature in addition to breaking your concentration as a means of preventing it, and its a lot less powerful than Find Familiar as you can't see through it, cast through it, and it can't take the full Help.
I do think bonus action command is the right way to go; if you want to keep it as simple as possible I'd trim it down to something like:
You reanimate the corpse of a Tiny pest as an undead creature with the profile for a rat. It does not act independently, and instead when you cast this spell, and as a bonus action in any of your later turns for the duration, you may command it so long as it can hear you. A reanimated pest may move normally, and may only take the Dash, Disengage or Dodge actions. It may also take the Help action to distract a target, though the target may first take a Dexterity saving throw against your spell save DC in order to evade it.
This should distill the essence of what you want to do, with a simple weak profile to use (though you could provide a generic one of your own, similar to [Tooltip Not Found]), its specified as undead, and you command it when you cast the spell and as a bonus action in your turns. Interference with the target is done as a Help action (since this has the effect you want anyway) but with a save against it. The description specifies it as an undead creature so there should be no need to go into further detail on what it is.
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I think I might specifically avoid using the Help in the description to avoid confusion with whether or not the pest can help with other checks, even if I specify it's only for the combat assist. Not only might it take the same amount of description text, but helping lets you pick who gets advantage, whereas cantrips doing something similar don't allow the caster to pick who specifically gets the benefit. It's always written as "the next" whatever, and then it's subject to initiative order and other people's choices.
You reanimate the corpse of a dead rodent or insect, such as a rat or a cockroach, or similarly diminutive creature. The reanimated creature is undead and uses the rat template for its statistics. It acts on your turn and can climb any solid surface, but it cannot fly, swim, or borrow. The creature moves silently and can make Dexterity (Stealth) checks with advantage, using your spell ability modifier for the roll. Negative energy constantly leaches from its rapidly deteriorating body, revealing its magical, undead nature to any creature that sees it.
Until the spell ends, you may whisper commands to the reanimated creature as a bonus action. The creature can hear your whispers up to 60 feet away and will follow the command to the best of its ability, but it is only able to take the dash, disengage, and dodge actions, and it cannot use or manipulate items. If the spell ends or the creature is destroyed, it falls apart and dissolves into a fine dust, consumed by the negative energy used to create it.
Additionally, you can use a bonus action to command the reanimated pest to distract another creature by crawling onto it. Assuming the pest can reach the creature, the targeted creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the next attack against the creature has advantage until the end of your next turn.
* - (a dead rodent or insect)
Something interesting to note: The material component doesn't have a coin value, so according to RAW it could be substituted with an arcane/divine focus, but the material is "consumed" at the end of the spell. Thoughts?
I'm making a quick writeup for a necromancy cantrip, and I'd like some opinions on the mechanics. More importantly, I'd like to make sure the language is concise and avoids unnecessary "word salad" problems. I never like it when I have to read through something 3 or 4 times to understand it because of clunky wording.
EDIT: Here's the current version of the spell:
I like it, but some things are unclear. You have a duration of 1 Minute (C), but in the description you mention it falling apart after a Round.
I would raise the AC to 10, and I think adding Disengage action to their list would be appropriate too. But that’s just one person’s opinion, others might think of valid reasons to disagree.
Once you get it polished up and finished, I’ll look forward to adding it to my collection.
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Maybe something as simple as just flipping the two paragraphs could help clear that up.
This ability is meant to fall in line with other cantrips to perform similar benefits. It can be done all in 1 action on your turn, with the benefit expiring at the end of your next turn. Trick is, this particular spell involves a dead creature and concentration as its main features. I'm going to go ahead and add the dead creature as the material component so something is lost when doing this, otherwise there's no real justification for the spell to have concentration if its mostly being used as a True Strike alternative, roleplaying opportunities aside.
EDIT: The problem I have with letting the lil' bugger survive this is that it forces an opponent to use an attack to try and destroy the pest if they want to get rid of it. I feel like that edges just past how powerful the cantrip should be. Yeah, you can concentrate for the full minute and simply repeat the same command each turn with the same pest. Mechanically, it's the same effect as just recasting the spell each turn, and it's a bit of a gray area for me. This could also avoid the character just carrying around a bag of cockroaches for material components.
If I were to write this spell, I would change it as follows, mainly for simplification purposes.
This spell is basically a necromantic themed slight improvement on True Strike. It becomes actually useful because it lets you take an action to give someone ELSE advantage, which a rogue or other high DPR person can take advantage of. I equalized the power by making it useless on undead or constructs, as that seemed thematically relevant.
While the spell is fully intended to be an alternative to True Strike, this writeup removes the flavor of a minor reanimation trick and its roleplay opportunities. I'm more inclined to just let the pest persist for the full duration and make the ability require a bonus action on the caster's turn to repeat, or something along those lines. It already requires the initial action plus concentration, so using a bonus action to gain advantage for one attack on one target doesn't seem too out of line.
EDIT: I feel like it's important for the spell's flavor that it does create a separate creature that is controlled by you, rather than a be a cosmetic effect for 1 round.
I like the idea behind it, personally I don't think it risks being too overpowered as unlike True Strike an enemy can destroy the creature in addition to breaking your concentration as a means of preventing it, and its a lot less powerful than Find Familiar as you can't see through it, cast through it, and it can't take the full Help.
I do think bonus action command is the right way to go; if you want to keep it as simple as possible I'd trim it down to something like:
This should distill the essence of what you want to do, with a simple weak profile to use (though you could provide a generic one of your own, similar to [Tooltip Not Found]), its specified as undead, and you command it when you cast the spell and as a bonus action in your turns. Interference with the target is done as a Help action (since this has the effect you want anyway) but with a save against it. The description specifies it as an undead creature so there should be no need to go into further detail on what it is.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I think I might specifically avoid using the Help in the description to avoid confusion with whether or not the pest can help with other checks, even if I specify it's only for the combat assist. Not only might it take the same amount of description text, but helping lets you pick who gets advantage, whereas cantrips doing something similar don't allow the caster to pick who specifically gets the benefit. It's always written as "the next" whatever, and then it's subject to initiative order and other people's choices.
Here's my current version of the spell:
Something interesting to note: The material component doesn't have a coin value, so according to RAW it could be substituted with an arcane/divine focus, but the material is "consumed" at the end of the spell. Thoughts?