Hello all, 

my DM and I have been discussing the possibility of creating a homebrew spell. I wanted to create something for my Tome Pact Great OId One Warlock. My idea was to create some sort of Misty Step/Thunder Step hybrid, with just a dash of Evard's Black Tentacles thrown in. My complaints with those two teleportation spells are thus: Misty Step is amazing for Wizards, because it gets you out of sticky situations for a low level spell slot with excellent action economy. However, it has no scaling, the distance is the lowest of all teleportation spells, and you can't take anyone with you. Thunder Step is great, but the action economy is not in it's favor. Here is the write up for the spell that I am contemplating, which I call Void Step. 

"Calling upon the power of the cosmos, a black void opens around you. Stepping through, you teleport 60 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see. If this spell is cast using a 5th level spell slot, you can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed what you can carry. You can also teleport one willing creature of your size or smaller who is carrying gear up to its carrying capacity. The creature must be within 5 feet of you when you cast this spell, and there must be an unoccupied space within 5 feet of your destination space for the creature to appear in; otherwise, the creature is left behind.

Alternatively, you can use an action instead of a bonus action to cast this spell. If you do so, the void envelopes you, and you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see. Immediately after you disappear, squirming, ebony tentacles of entities from the Far Realm fill the space you left behind. Each creature within 10 feet of the space you left must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 4d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. If this spell is cast using a 5th level spell slot, the damage increases to 5d6, and you can transport a object or willing creature with you, as indicated above. 

Whether you cast this spell using an Action or a Bonus Action, only one choice can be made per casting of this spell, for example, you cannot use your Action and your Bonus Action to teleport twice with one casting of this spell."

I thought this was a fair balance between a stronger Misty Step and a weaker Thunder Step, and it also scales with Warlock levels unlike Misty Step. I thought about the void tentacles restraining those who fail their save when you use an action to cast the spell, but I thought that would make it too powerful. Any thoughts on this spell would be greatly appreciated before I turn it into my DM for final approval. Thanks in advance!

Here is a link to the spell in case anyone wants to look more closely at the details: https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/458687-void-step

i like the full action spell, but I think you're trying to do too much with one spell. There's a reason that choice matters, especially to a Warlock with limited spell slots. It's the balancer. That said, this could be a really cool warlock invocation, which may be where this belongs? A no slot use, once per short rest that scales up?

Also, maybe it should be force or necrotic damage?

Just thoughts...

An invocation would be a good idea! I didn't ask my DM about homebrewing invocations. It took a fair amount of convincing to let me throw this spell at him lol. I chose bludgeoning damage because that is the damage caused by Evard's Black Tentacles, and between Misty Step and Thunder Step, that was this spell's primary influence. I know it can do a lot, but I like the flexibility it offers personally. It's a better Misty Step but a worse Thunder Step. As a Warlock, burning a spell slot to only move 30 feet with Misty Step is pretty painful. I essentially designed it like Hex, where it only scales up to a 5th level slot, which is where Warlocks stop scaling anyway. If not for the quarantine I would be testing it at our table every Sunday, and it may turn out to be too much, in which case I will nerf it. Thank you for your input!

You're welcome. Do you use roll20 or otherwise play? It's not as good as in person, bit it'll work.

I think, as you have it, it's a 7th level warlock Invocation, just my $.02 

I do play on Roll20, but the Roll20 campaign is running Curse of Strahd and my tabletop campaign, where my Warlock who created this spell is, runs Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I don't mind waiting until I can test it in person again. My headcanon is that my Warlock created this spell specifically for his use. I will ask my DM about making it an invocation. Out of curiosity, have you homebrewed any spells or invocations yourself?

I'm in the process of role-playing the creation of an Invocation. It's basically involving a role-playing moment between My character and his involvement with the Feywild. It's a form of inexpensive planar shift just to the Feywild and for Feylocks only. It's an Invocation that does use a spell slot, but as you can shift off plane, it is good to get out of really bad situations. Bonus: if an intelligent and willing Feywild being knows you, you two can swap places via the Invocation, like a one person transplanar communication and teleportation. 

Sounds really cool, I like it!

Yeah it's cool. We're actually role-playing the connection now, but neither of us, the character or the NPC who's a cousin, knows whom the other is, yet. Right now, we actually uncontrollably shift every so often when either of us casts Misty Step, Misty escape or similar. But we're working it into the plot.