Base Class: Wizard
The wizard school of enchantment failed to impress me. I’ve made modest changes so this school feels like a more interesting option. Changes I’ve made are marked with bold, purple text. Notes are included to explain my changes.
Enchantment Savant
2nd-Level Feature
The gold and time you must spend to copy an enchantment spell into your spellbook is halved.
Hypnotic Gaze
2nd-Level Feature
Your soft words and enchanting gaze can magically enthrall another creature. As an action, choose one creature that you can see within 10 feet of you. If the target can see or hear you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your wizard spell save DC or suffer a condition from the following list of conditions; the creature's speed also immediately drops to 0. If a condition on the list has a level prerequisite, you must be that level in this class in order to inflict that condition:
- Incapacitated
- Charmed
- Frightened
- Deafened (6th level required)
- Blinded (9th level required)
- Stunned (12th level required)
- Exhausted * (15th level required)
On subsequent turns, you can use your action to maintain this effect, extending the condition's duration until the end of your next turn. On following turns, you may also cause the creature to suffer another condition from the list above, in addition to your previous choices. Exhaustion is the only condition you can choose multiple times, over the course of multiple rounds.
All effects inflicted by this feature end if you ever move more than 20 feet away from the creature. The creature can also repeat its Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC each time it takes damage, on a successful save all effects on it immediately end. Once any effects from this feature end on a creature, you can’t use this feature on that same creature until you finish a long rest. If a creature has legendary resistances it is immune to this feature.
The original feature was forced to work around Charmed Immunity and could only inflict the Charmed condition. The original feature simply failed to stand out; the feature was a worse version of a charm person spell that all schools of wizards can cast.
Therefore, I felt it was necessary to give condition options for this feature. Consequently, now there's more than one way to play an enchantment wizard, which I value as a good thing. For example, maybe you enchant people but don't want to charm them, so fear them instead--or maybe you tire their minds and exhaust them! A lot of Roleplay decisions open up and now this feature stands out from all other enchantment spells.
Also, originally your speed would essentially drop to 0 too since your range was limited to 5 feet; now with an activation range of 10 feet with a 20 feet "leash," the wizard is still introduced to a soft range limit, but this feature, when used, no longer cuts off movement so drastically.
With more conditions, more range, and level scaling, the enchantment wizard's signature feature should just feel a lot more rewarding to use and to invest in--all while keeping the original flavor!
Instinctive Charm
6th-Level Feature
When a creature you can see within 30 feet of you makes an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to divert the attack, provided that another creature is within the attack’s range. The attacker must make a Intelligence saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. On a failed save, the attacker must target a creature of your choice within the creature's attack range, not including you or itself. On success, you can’t use this feature on this same attacker again until you finish a long rest.
You must choose to use this feature before knowing whether the attack hits or misses.
Enchantment spells are overwhelmingly Wisdom based saves. There's nothing wrong with targeting Wisdom, but allowing this key defensive feature target Intelligence punishes the enchantment wizard a lot less for the nature of their enchantment spells. Now if they're struggling with a high Wisdom creature, there's at least a better chance for them to defend themselves in a fight where they could already feel underpowered/countered. For similar reasons I also removed the Charmed immunity hard-counter since that immunity already hard-counters so much--I say let them have this one defensive maneuver.
A second small change I made was where it says "you can't use this feature on this same attacker again..." Originally this feature says "you can't use this feature on the attacker again." It's a small change but for me it makes this feature's rules clearer. Aka: you can use this feature more than once per long rest, but not on a creature who has saved against this effect already. Maybe others will disagree with this wording change but the way I've worded it works better for me.
Split Enchantment
10th-Level Feature
When you cast an enchantment spell of 1st level or higher that targets only one creature, you can have it target a second creature.
Alter Memories
14th-Level Feature
You gain the ability to make creatures unaware of your magical influence; when you cast an enchantment spell on one or more creatures, you can attempt to alter each creature’s understanding so that it's unaware of ever being magically affected by you.
On each turn before the spell expires, you can use your action to try to make one creature, who is currently under the effects of your enchantment spell, forget some of the time it spent enchanted by you. Alternatively, you can also try to force a creature to forget some of the time it will spend enchanted by you. The creature must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw against your wizard spell save DC or lose a number of hours of its memories equal to 1 + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). You can make the creature forget less time, and the amount of time can’t exceed the duration of your enchantment spell.
Not all enchantment spells charm creatures. Many of them do--too many of them--but not all. So after fighting against charmed immunity for 14 levels, I don't want the enchantment wizard to have this final capstone ability also restricted by charmed immunity. So now if you cast the spell Hold Person you can wipe the creature's memory of being paralyzed by you too. This still works with the charmed condition but it's not limited to it!
The second change I made was to all this to affect more than one creature but require you to spend more than one round to do it. And I also wanted players to have the ability to be proactive with this feature. Now the enchantment wizard can proactively wipe a creature's memory,: "you will have no memory of the next 2 hours" versus "forget the last 2 hours." Again this is just for the sake of giving more control to the player over their character while largely maintaining the same effect. I support more players having more options.
The last change was the amount of time you can make a creature forget. Originally the amount of time was limited by the wizard's Charisma modifier. I changed that because wizards really have no other class-based incentive to increase Charisma. After 14 levels, it felt like the expectations of the enchantment wizard suddenly changed and all of a sudden they'd largely lose out on a feature because they didn't know they needed Charisma. Plus, as I've said in other design notes, I don't want players to be forced to play a charismatic enchantment wizard. Changing it to Constitution means this ability is a little more forgiving.
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Posted Jun 6, 2022The save or die scenario is intentional, yes. It would just take 6 rounds and 6 straight, continuous actions.
The DM is meant to have a few outs though: force the wizard more than 20 feet away, force the wizard to use their action on some other action, kill the wizard.
If the wizard has to back up--or is forced to break their own hypnotic leash's range--then even if the wizard has 5/6 levels of exhaustion, all of their levels of exhaustion inflicted by this feature are removed. That could mean 5 turns of wasted actions, oof.
And I'll have to clarify my wording in an updated version but as soon as the wizard doesn't use an action to continue the Hypnotic Gaze, all the status conditions are meant to end too. I wanted this feature to require a constant, turn by turn upkeep cost. Maybe I didn't stress that enough.
Or just kill the wizard. I'd avoid designing fights with just one enemy.
Also, the DM could encourage the other party members to be impatient and attack if that's what their chaotic, impatient characters are prone to due--for another chance to save.
And although strong, it's not meant to be used on BBEGs; creatures with legendary resistances are completely immune to the whole feature.
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Posted May 26, 2022I think this is a perfect adjustment to the subclass, and allows it to be on a level with the better wizard subclasses. It would be nice to be able to make creatures forget they were charmed by you earlier, but if we did that the enchanter could just magic their way through every social obstacle. There are a couple things to note. First, the blinded and deafened conditions would immediately end the hypnotic affect. You might want to replace Deafened with Prone, Blinded with Stunned, and Stunned with Paralyzed. Secondly, the Exhaustion part of the improved hypnotic gaze means that this affect becomes a save or die scenario once the wizard reaches level 15, as the enchanter can deepen the exhaustion levels until the creature dies. Is this intentional? It is a level 15 feature, so I think it can be justified. However, with a feature like that, the Enchanter becomes one of the most powerful spellcasters in the game.