Level
Cantrip
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
30 ft
Components
S
Duration
Concentration
1 Round
School
Divination
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Foreknowledge
You point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target's defenses. On your next turn, you gain advantage on your first attack roll against the target, provided that this spell hasn't ended.
You don't get advantage with bonus attack on that turn, but you will the next turn if you keep concentrating on it and every round after if that is what you meant.
I was wondering the same thing. Anyone has answers for this?
Its more a description the the actual effect. Its more like you are predicting the movements and knowing where to strike. If it let you know this information it would say so and would not be a Cantrip.
No. That part is simply for flavor. You gain insight on it's defenses which is why you gain advantage in the first place.
Wow, what a fun and useful cantrip for 5th edition. ...
Who made this. Fire them.
Statistically, this is weird. If you get one attack per round, then you spend one round pointing to roll twice in the next round or you roll once per round and still end up rolling twice but with these two rolls you have the possibility of hitting twice...
If you get more than one attack per round, you're giving up 1/2 your attacks to increase your chance to hit on one attack in the second round...
It's just not statistically helpful.
True strike + witch bolt. Otherwise, get outahere.
I mean, if you get a chance to do things before running into combat, then it seems okay for a spellcaster or rogue with range.
After T1, the action economy is just self defeating
"Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target's defenses."
As far as I understand it, this is a [Divination] cantrip and should be used to gather information!
[Investigation] of castle/dungeon/lair defenses (which includes the number of guards, their positions, routes, and traps) with [True Strike] should be much more effective. Very useful if you want to find a secret tunnel that ends in the queen's chamber.
[Insight] enhanced with [True Strike] would reveal the target's mental defenses (such as DC 30 for Seduction roll). Very useful if you want to determine the best teaching/training/learning method and cut the time required for completion.
[Medicine] check regarding skin, muscles, bones, blood, liver would also benefit from it since those are natural defenses of the body. Very useful if you want to craft a Clone from some fresh corpse using [Fabricate] spell (to re-animate it with Shocking Grasp, Religion, Medicine check).
Overall, it's incredibly useful outside of combat.
one possible use for this spell is to get to rogue level 4 and take the magic initiate feat to gain sneak attack every other turn
People say this spell is useless, but they seem to not understand that this is for spells like guiding bolt, witch bolt, or chaos bolt that do nothing if they miss. In cases like that, it’s great.
In case someone reads this later and thinks it's a good idea, it doesn't work. The spell as written specifies that the attack has to be "on your next turn." If it said "your next attack," this would work, but it does actually force you to wait one turn.
As my side note, it seems like you wouldn't be able to cast this outside of combat as a prep spell because the duration is specifically "1 Round." If you're not in combat, there are no rounds, and if you're out of combat, that's technically 6 seconds, which means you cast it and then IMMEDIATELY have to initiate combat.
Can you actually cast this before going into combat? If the duration was "1 minute" or something like that, I could see it, but the duration of the spell is "1 Round." Also, by saying "on your next turn," in the spell description, you could sort of imply that you already had to have taken a turn for you to have a "next" turn. I'd probably allow it just to have some use for this stupid spell.
just in case one basic advantage was too powerful, they made it concentration, only on your next turn, only for yourself and you have to be able to point at the target. Even though the only thing that makes this better than taking the help action is that it's 30f range. and all those things i mentioned makes it worse. This spell is so broken - as in useless. Why don't they fix it already? Then again it makes for a good meme.
Bonus action: worth it
No concentration + next attack on the target: kinda worth it -ish, useful if you know a big spell is coming up or a clutch attack but still very situational.
But something tells me they won't change this spell
The way to make this spell useful would be to replace Advantage with an actual attack roll bonus.
In edition 3.5, True Strike gave you a +20 attack roll bonus to your next attack made before the end of your next turn. I could see how this could be far too powerful for a melee fighter cantrip.
Since it only affects your next round, the primary time you would use this would be to set up a surprise attack while stealthed, since it has no verbal component... but surprise stealth attacks already get advantage.
As it is, it's not completely without use, but it is so highly situational to make it difficult to justify unless role play reasons demand you take it. As it stands now, it's primary uses would be:
a) prior to a fight beginning, you mark a target so that the first round of combat you can have advantage (secretly applying it while issuing a challenge or using it as a warning shot of sorts)
b) if you are a melee character and just can't get in range for a melee attack this turn, it beats doing nothing... drawing a bow or throwing a weapon is not always practical, so may as well mark them up to make your next attack have advantage.
c) if you are trying to conserve spell slots and want to make sure your next spell lands. Obviously the downside is big - you have to be able to make it all the way to the next round without being killed or the creature you are fighting dying... and you still could miss... but at low levels especially, where you only have a couple slots, it could be worthwhile at times to measure twice and cut once.
If you want to homebrew a fix, I would suggest having it use an action, but give a +5 to your next attack roll against that target before the end of your next turn.
An interesting spell, but just not quite where it needs to be to be useful.
Concentration is what really annoys me about this good concept for a cantrip. As a DM, I recommend that you remove concentration for this spell to make it actually useful.
Use this spell then on the following turn use a lv 9 spell. :)
Formulating a "Gunner" feat, Bladesinger Wizard...
By the time they get "Extra Attack", they can cast "True Strike" to get advantage on the attack role, then fire a pistol or revolver as part of the same attack.
For even more shenanigans...add "Elven Accuracy" so that the Bladesinger gets to re-roll the attack.
Edit: Doesn't work; the specific wording still limits the advantage to the NEXT turn.
The Bladesinger still gets to fire-off a shot, if they wish, and then gain the advantage next round, with a bonus to their concentration if they're under the "Bladesong" effect.
Ready this action for if you see an enemy. Then you get advantage on next turn attack.