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a character enchanter that specializes in mind control and fuckery, I think would be a bollywog, the frog people, or least a variant of them, like if they are licked or make skin to skin contact, the other will basically be tripping balls
Thanks guys, I was just looking for compare and contrast media regarding enchantment casters, and which class was the best at employing enchantment magics. Thanks you for your well delivered input!
On why Bless and Bane are enchantment spells. One reasoning I have is that it is more like hypnosis, you hit that 1d4 better (or worse for bane) because you BELIEVE you do. Something like Jin-e from Rurouni Kenshin. That's just my theory though.
Its just as vile as necromancy, and in my setting its just as policed as necromancers. Beware the Order of Magi and their enforcers, the swords of Merlin, Basically magical cops. The punishment for manipulating the will of another is death, no due process, your too dangerous to be taken alive.
3 minutes in and I've decided to make next BBEG an enchanter. The Purple Man in Jessica Jones freaked me out more than any other villain I've ever seen.
@@Nir7r0us0xide For real! After he put those kids in the closet and had the parents serve him dinner, I had to take a break from the show for a few months.
You know, my first reaction was "oh i'm sure i've seen more evil and disquieting villains..." but many dot dot dots later, I'm still coming up blank. Evil Emporer? @$$hole ceo. Alien Queen? creature of instinct. Jason/Michael? basic chaotic evil melee. Pinhead? kinda maybe, but he's really just a singleminded sadist. Jim Jones? eh, not really in the same league. Kilgrave was written pretty incredible, and David Tennant rolled a handful of D20's acting the role. Honestly I would have tried super hard to cast Sam Neil for Kilgrave, but Tennant (to my surprise) absolutely nailed it. Definitely not the most invulnerable, an angry deaf person with a shotgun could End him Rightly. But evil quotient? 11 out of 10.
Bless and Bane made sense to me as enchantment because I saw it as like a morale thing. Like bless fills your teammates with courage and confidence while bane invokes fear and uncertainty in your foes
Getting to the crux of how magic is used in a campaign: Enchanter: Takes control of a character, turns them against the party. Necromancer: Kills a character, reanimates them, turns them against the party.
I love antipathy. It's my favorite spell thematically mainly because in a very long running 3.5 game my 16th level wizard had just gone through a whole adventure in the Far Realm filled with Lovecraftian horrors so after that whole arc i picked up Antipathy. From then on every time we stopped for the night somewhere and i put up my mansion I'd sit outside on a tiny stool and cast antipathy set to evil outsiders. One time I did it in a castle that we were staying in close to our rooms, but the people there strongly discouraged magic. So I sat in a closet and cast the spell. The party was like "dude you're gonna get us killed" and I was just like "I dare them to stop me. I ain't getting snuck up on." It was just a good spell to express some character changes and to flex a little.
Or at least Enchantment Remastered. I keep hearing about all these cool things Bards can do, only then I look at the spell descriptions and go ehh, yeah, no.
Oh man, I just had an idea! Picture the following: The governing body in a large city suspects that there is a murderous cult operating within the city but to what end isn't known, which brings the party in to investigate. The initial premise, depending on the player group's boundaries, can be a murder cult or some sort of ritual to bring forth a death aspect using mass murder. Every new moon, for the past five months, the city has woken to a scene of carnage, with bodies found stabbed, bludgeoned, sliced up. and even trampled to death. Each time however, there has been survivors, but all have been found unresponsive, an empty husk with soulless eyes but somehow, no form of magic can restore the mind of the survivors, who seem deaf and mute, lost to whatever evil magic the ritual has wrought. The party arrives the day after the most recent event, and piecing together the various clues and information revealed over the course of the weeks until the next new moon, find the site of the next event, an abandoned square in the old town slums. That night, the party sets up, lying in wait. Out of the darkness, as if on cue, townsfolk start to gather at the edge of the faintly-lit square. Men and women, young and old, some in nightclothes, others dressed, street urchins, even the merchant who sold goods to the party is there, carrying a large bag. They gather around and wordlessly pass around things being pulled from the bag. The party sees glints of steel lit softly by gas lanterns as they lie in wait, watching to see what happens. As though a formation in a regiment, the group lines up, four to each row, and begin to march away from the party's position, perfectly in time with each other. The formation reaches the center of the square, suddenly heel turning with a sharp snap, two columns pivoting to the left and the others to the right, continuing their silent march, splitting into two sets of two rows marching away from each other. They stop and heel turn perfectly, all in unison, each half of the group lined up up perfectly into pairs facing the other half of the group. After a breathless moment, one of the innermost townsfolk steps forward, a young woman with dagger in hand, and stops. After a few moments, the party sees a young boy from the opposite group move forward across the square. It seems as though this ritual is some sort of sacrificial combat at first, the woman and boy facing each other, stone-faced and silent. But then, an older woman with a hammer, moves forward, seemingly headed toward the exit, only to suddenly pivot on their heel, facing toward the young boy's group. In the light of the square, the party realizes that she is one of the regents of the city. A few tense moments pass. Just what kind of ritual is this? The young man that was next to the boy, seems to waver, stepping forward slightly, as though unsure. He steps back, remaining in place, as another man, the carpenter's apprentice, steps forward instead. Suddenly, the regent wordlessly charges toward the young man, hammer being brought to bear. He doesn't react as the hammer swings toward his face, striking his head full force with a sickening crack and he crumples to the ground, the regent towering over him, expression flat and lifeless. The urchin that stood behind the boy swiftly steps forward and slashes the regent's throat and she falls as well, bleeding from the fatal wound. ---- The villain behind this scenario would actually be a pair of twins with a mind control power on the level of Killgrave and an obsession with beating each other at chess. The previous five events were all games that ended in a draw and the games will continue until there is a victor or the party defeats them. I'm imagining two very cold and logical lawful evil humanoids, but they could also be monstrous as well. The scenario is also generic enough to be dropped into any dark fantasy campaign as well and has all sorts of adventure hooks leading into and out of it. It helps to be familiar with the rules of chess and the movement of pieces at least. I tried being vague with the number of townsfolk, but astute players will notice that the number of victims and survivors always equals 32. There should always be a minimum of three survivors for the previous five games but there can be more. I also tried to be descriptive of their movement but not so descriptive that it's obvious I'm describing two sets of two rows of eight, one in front of the other. As an aside, The moves the townsfolk made in the story above is the Bishop's Opening, a bit of flavor and a clue for players familiar with chess. Thanks for the inspiration guys! You've definitely earned a sub from me for sure!
Why is this less liked If you did this in a modern or near modern setting the players might find ear pieces in each of the victims ears as that is how these twins command the people
I recall a time, long ago, when Enchantment was also the go-to school for the creation of magical items. Certainly, every school had some kind of skill in it, but if you wanted a custom +5 Longsword, you went to the local Enchantress. Maybe a bit of that should be brought back. I'm also on board with the idea that realizing you've been enchanted shouldn't be obvious. Party members notice you're acting funny, and the spellcasters make some kind of skill test to diagnose the issue and recognize it as some kind of charm. Maybe if you're a spellcaster shaking off the effects of an enchantment, you can self-diagnose, but your average fighter just isn't gonna really know what just happened.
Another great use for catnap is convincing the town guards you're going to bless them, then they willingly will allow you to perform magic on them and you get a good sleep spell off.
Hey guys, this is awesome! I've long believed that enchanters were the most evil people in D&D, and I really appreciate you guys taking an honest run at this. With regards to the "weakness" of enchantment magic, I have a couple comments. 1 - maybe it's only in combat that that the "once-a-round saves" happen. Like, when life and death are literally on the line, then they get a saving throw. In social situations, maybe it lasts a day, or even a month, provided you don't put them in severely straining situations. 2 - maybe even in combat, minions don't get saves. Taking a goblin away from the beholder doesn't do that much, but it might help the party if they can get a minute to do some interrogation on the goblin, turn the goblin to disrupt the minions, etc.
I love watching you guys I recently discovered your channel about a month ago and I've already binge watched every single episode you guys are awesome thank you so much for what you do.
I didn't notice until now (probably my sixth or seventh time watching) that in the intro Pruitt was prompting Jim with his voice AND by double clicking the pen: Verbal and Somatic.
I feel like enchantment magic is kind of the starting point of how for example dragon age conceptualized its mages. When someone can change your mind, possibly without you knowing it, how can you trust them? I like the idea of a pacifist task force of enchanters dedicated to law and order that seek to end conflict through any means necessary except lethal ones and a populace that doesn't quite trust it.
I've always asked my DM if instead of a free save every turn we instead had to give up our turn/actions for an opportunity to try to save again. Reduces the neutering a LOT without breaking the game.
I adore you guys and your content. I do wonder if you guys have considered doing a class video on Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter. I know you focus on official stuff but many people love and use this class so I think it would be a dope video. Anyways keep up the good work.
I mean at that point it's barely homebrew anymore/ D&DBeyond event advertised when they added it and everything. I consider it alike to UA articles. Endorsed, but not official.
Mostly why not. A lot of people enjoy the class, and a lot of people enjoy WebDM, and they're mostly the same people. Also let's be honest, putting Mercer in the title is the best way to rack a shit ton of views. I mean I don't care, they could make a video about the different types of inks used in the PHB and I'd watch it anyway.
The way that I think of Charm Person wearing off is that you just suddenly stop feeling like you like them and realize that you don’t like them, and so the only reasonable suspicion for most people is that they must have been charmed. It’s like after caffeine wears off and you just suddenly feel lethargic.
Totally took advantage of the black friday sale and WEBDM5 promo. Purchased the entire bundle. Thanks for putting the word out about the product line Web DM.
You guys were talking about how bless/bane/etc might be enchantment and it had me thinking that it could work thematically with what you mentioned earlier if they were sort of mini-psionics where there was a sort of psionic-augmentation going on(?) I remember reading a book set in the forgotten realms where a psion did something like that to a warrior he wanted to win in a duel.
But what would Hypno-Toad's Motivation be? Enslave a thousand people, so they go out and collect a ton of insects. Gather a bunch of female toads for breeding. Turn farmland back into swamps.
Happy Thanksgiving guys! And thank you for this video I've been stuck between conjuration school and enchantment school for my bugbear wizard! I now believe enchantment is the way to go. Thank you again.
Wormtongue definitely wasn't charismatic, but his enchantments were effectively wielded from a dark corner as he crouched and simpered in the shadows. Just an example for you.
I'm playing a tiefling warlock, pact with the great old one/master manipulator build. boy was it tough early on going more for flavor of character than the damage dealer. But it's turned out a really satisfying experience, my role playing game gained huge bounds. I went with a mix of enchantments and the terror aspect of my pact boons. Capped off at level 20 with the ultimate in mental twisting fun power word kill, literally killing someone with a mere word.
I love the idea that Enchantment is the real Evil school. I've been planning out a necromancy wizard who was trained by an evil wizard and after the evil wizard gets killed, my character vows to only use magic for good, except for that one school which is pure evil: Enchantment. and he never casts something from that school ever.
@@WebDM I have Nintendo, a spanish channel of two women creating gummy bears and a trailer for a smartphone game. I have absolutely no history with any of these topics. And I get only 5 recommendations (none of which are more videos of you guys) instead of a whole list like usual. Very strange.
Been planning a guild artisan wizard for a while now with really high charisma that studies the enchantment school from what he learns trading on the road for a while now and this helped a lot to make him come to life in my mind. Thanks
Been playing since 2nd ed and only recently got into 5th. You guys have really inspired me a lot. Especially when it comes to flavoring the character as it were.
5e really has made enchantment magic feel kind of toothless. Enemies simply get too many saving throws and autoatically know they have been enchanted which just gives it too many downsides. As for Geas, what I have always done with it to adjust the spell is that every day that a person does not obey the task they are given, they lose 1 constitution and the loss is incurable until the geas is removed. I just like the idea that you can resist if you want, and even go out on a quest to try and remove it if you want, but you will be slowly withering away with nothing you can do about it.
"Bless" - in our own world, perceived reality has been shown to have literal effects from illness to wounds appearing on people, to confidence stopping someone from being unsure and making a mistake.
I homebrewed an alternate version of the Enchantment school wizard abilities to focus around altering dreams of creatures. So your either able to haunt enemies with nightmares or give allies good dreams. Definitely more narrative focused but like the idea of school having different approaches, "you manipulate them when they're awake, I manipulate them while they sleep."
Enchantment can mess your mind up for the rest of your life. Necromancy can mess up your soul for the rest of eternity. Which is kind of a big deal, in a place where souls are known to exist.
"this is just a charm effect" "now you affect more than one person" "now you do it longer" You just described the Mythras sorcery magic system :) Should be easily enough to port over to D&D 5E if you want.
I really do like the idea of a villain like the “Purple Man”. He is not a physically threatening character, but has such a charisma that he is surrounded by some of the most powerful beings possible.
WebDM is by far my favorite UA-cam D&D channel. You guys are great! Jim's audio was really off on this video though. Sometimes I could barely hear him and sometimes he was too loud.
Something I just thought about: you could arguably do a thing where mooks don't get to constantly make saves for some of these spells, and it's only more significant adversaries or targets who have the ability to continually make saves (including PCs). This could be a way of making those spells (and potentially others) more potent while having a built in measure for keeping them from being too good where it matters. The DM would have to determine what constitutes a mook, but at least in my head I think it would be an easy distinction to make.
I like to think that the way The Force would work in our world is basically an Enchantment that makes some random passerby bring you the thing at which you're gesturing.
I designed a political villain for my campaign. Hes a decently powerful necromancer, but his true power comes from his title and mind control spells. I made this viable by simply giving him modify memory - if he charms someone, he can just modify their memory of the event. If the target would have been charmed in the first place, pretty reasonable they would fail the modify memory save. This allowed me to have him be a very successful manipulator in the narrative. He never needs to charm the actual PCs, since he can always charm and enchant NPCs to speak contrary to what the heroes say or make the poor villagers set themselves up for his crimes. Add in things like alter self, sleep, major image, and greater invis and hes a super gross villain. You can probably beat the snot out of him, but you might end up in jail after or just wake up in an odd place with fuzzy memories of drunkenness.
One of the villains I know similar to this is Heartbreaker from Web Series Worm. His ability is to imbue devotion to him in anyone he looks at. So, it could be interesting to have a shadow war between Hearbreaker and Killgrave because depending on who is near is if sound or sight will destroy you.
In my homebrew campaign, I have a rule that anyone (player or NPC) who casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter must tell a D&D appropriate pun (the worse the better) for which they deliver the setup Before the save is rolled, and after the roll, they deliver the Punchline and we see the results. In this case the pun is a verbal component of the spell. My players seem to enjoy it.
Don't know if you'll read this but here's how I like to think of the ability scores... As two sets of three, one measures power(str, int), one that describes how well you wield that power( dex, Cha), and how well you resist others power (con, Wis). This doesn't work in the mechanics of DnD, but I feel it's a good guideline.
I always described Crown of Madness as being a spectral crown that only the caster could see. It has been used in my game to start many bar fights/distractions.
At the moment i started playing tiefling wizard who is son of succuby and is enchantment wizard. I think that it really makes sence for him. Problem is that my character is chaotic good and hes verry strong moral compas. Its fun trying to balance the essence of enchantment wizard with morally good teenager half demon who has good charisma and inteligence. I played only few games with this character but im already in love with him. I see it that he is more hoping to help his friends with enchantment and against enchantment magic.
Calm Emotions is one of my favorite spells for preventing combat (though I've had to convince the DM sometimes to let it work on non-humanoids). Confusion is a fun spell, more so because it works on creatures immune to being charmed. Synaptic Static is an encounter-winner in the right situation, considering it's an Intelligence save which many creatures may not be able to save against during the 1 minute debuff, on top of it being, as mentioned, a psychic fireball PLUS a stronger, concentration-less Bane.
Teammate asks what Tasha's Hideous Laughter looks like on a target? Refer them to Tom Hank's character in the Money Pit movie where the tub falls through the floor and shatters. That right there is a perfect connection.
The biggest gripe I have about Enchantment and Charm effects is the GOO Warlock's subclass capstone. You "Create Thrall" but the only benefit it grants (aside from the neat telepathy) is the Charmed condition which gives Advantage on persuading it while the ability name strongly suggests that it should be more like a Dominate XYZ spell.
I've always wanted to play a character that introduces themselves to the party as something else "I'm a human rogue" but then as the adventure goes on something seems very off about them, being a bit sneaky and not performing rogue tasks well, or entirely TOO well, then it turns out they were an Enchanter using magic to mimic the rogues ability the whole time, and enchantment magic to mask their true identity and motives. Was going to either go Enchanter or Trickery Cleric, be interesting to see how long it would take the other players to clock it!! (Immediatly I imagine haha!)
In regards for a hypno toad like character, you could take inspiration from the Gitrog monster from Magic the Gathering. Wizards came out with a whole short story based on it. It is pretty good dungeons and dragons fodder.
Also if you go with the theme that magic comes from drawing energies of the multiverse you could say that necromancer (if it is evil comes from Orcus and the Abyss where enchantment to also make it an evil school of magic come from the nine hells. From what I can tell they do a lot of manipulating in the nine hells.
There's a great enchanter antagonist in the season 2 episode of agents of shield. Watch the episode where Skye/Daisy learns to control her super powers from her mother and then she gets told about "Bahrain" as May relives her memories of the event. The episode might even be titled Bahrain.
Thinking about the enchanter, I am inclined toward the enchanter wizard being the one who is the psychologist: they understand the minds and mannerisms of people -- and can manipulate those
I imagine crown of madness as looking like the movie Hell Boy when he grows his horns back towards the end and gets that fiery crown and acts kind of ensorcelled.
Around the 44 minute mark, you ask why Otto's Irresistible Dance doesn't impose levels of exhaustion. While I do agree that, for a 6th level spell, this particular spell seems a bit weak, it's worth mentioning that exhaustion is powerfully crippling and scales sporadically. One level of it is like casting Hex or Bestow Curse, but more versatile, and removing a single level of it requires a 4th level spell (Greater Restoration). Giving players the power to impose it, especially multiple times within one casting of a spell, would make this spell one of the most powerful in the game. At best, as a DM, I would allow that most enemies might have 1 level of exhaustion after a full minute of dancing if I were to apply no other improvements to this spell. At that point, it seems like a worthy 6th level spell.
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a character enchanter that specializes in mind control and fuckery, I think would be a bollywog, the frog people, or least a variant of them, like if they are licked or make skin to skin contact, the other will basically be tripping balls
Ah man, i was hoping you'd mention Power Word Pain, very cool spell but in reality has so little bite.
Thanks guys, I was just looking for compare and contrast media regarding enchantment casters, and which class was the best at employing enchantment magics. Thanks you for your well delivered input!
On why Bless and Bane are enchantment spells.
One reasoning I have is that it is more like hypnosis, you hit that 1d4 better (or worse for bane) because you BELIEVE you do.
Something like Jin-e from Rurouni Kenshin.
That's just my theory though.
Why does necromancy get a bad rap while enchantment doesn't raise any suspicion? An enchantment told you so.
Enchantment is the most evil school of magi- *suggestion* Enchantment is great! It's the necromancers that are the evil ones!
Because the enchanters invited anyone who disliked them to talk things out in person and they all went away a changed person
It’s better than Cats
Its just as vile as necromancy, and in my setting its just as policed as necromancers. Beware the Order of Magi and their enforcers, the swords of Merlin, Basically magical cops. The punishment for manipulating the will of another is death, no due process, your too dangerous to be taken alive.
Love the reference to neuro-linguistic programming with the pen! Reminds me of “would you kindly”! Thanks for all the work y’all do!!
Nuada Silverhand What is that from? I know I've heard it before but I can't remember where?
@@Licjr S'from Bioshock.
Glad I wasn't the only one who got it.
3 minutes in and I've decided to make next BBEG an enchanter. The Purple Man in Jessica Jones freaked me out more than any other villain I've ever seen.
Kilgrave is an awesome villain!
Seems like he's fit better into a Mutants and Masterminds game better.
@@Nir7r0us0xide For real! After he put those kids in the closet and had the parents serve him dinner, I had to take a break from the show for a few months.
You know, my first reaction was "oh i'm sure i've seen more evil and disquieting villains..." but many dot dot dots later, I'm still coming up blank. Evil Emporer? @$$hole ceo. Alien Queen? creature of instinct. Jason/Michael? basic chaotic evil melee. Pinhead? kinda maybe, but he's really just a singleminded sadist. Jim Jones? eh, not really in the same league.
Kilgrave was written pretty incredible, and David Tennant rolled a handful of D20's acting the role. Honestly I would have tried super hard to cast Sam Neil for Kilgrave, but Tennant (to my surprise) absolutely nailed it. Definitely not the most invulnerable, an angry deaf person with a shotgun could End him Rightly. But evil quotient? 11 out of 10.
Bless and Bane made sense to me as enchantment because I saw it as like a morale thing. Like bless fills your teammates with courage and confidence while bane invokes fear and uncertainty in your foes
“It’s just a corpse! Who cares what you did with it?!”
Well when compared to doing things to living beings he has a point
It’s comedy gold!
Getting to the crux of how magic is used in a campaign:
Enchanter: Takes control of a character, turns them against the party.
Necromancer: Kills a character, reanimates them, turns them against the party.
In certain circles, it's absolutely DISGUSTING... ;o)
*_NECROPHILIA_*
WHAT IS A DUNGEON!?
-smashes glass-
A miserable little pile of secrets.
49 mins of webDM?! Oh boy! *grabs popcorn and wizards hat*
Quothcraft look up the chronicles of blood ninja. Then, put on your robe and wizard hat.
I love antipathy. It's my favorite spell thematically mainly because in a very long running 3.5 game my 16th level wizard had just gone through a whole adventure in the Far Realm filled with Lovecraftian horrors so after that whole arc i picked up Antipathy. From then on every time we stopped for the night somewhere and i put up my mansion I'd sit outside on a tiny stool and cast antipathy set to evil outsiders. One time I did it in a castle that we were staying in close to our rooms, but the people there strongly discouraged magic. So I sat in a closet and cast the spell. The party was like "dude you're gonna get us killed" and I was just like "I dare them to stop me. I ain't getting snuck up on." It was just a good spell to express some character changes and to flex a little.
YES!!! 5e Magic Remastered from Web DM. Do it!
Let's set up a team and get to work. This could be a fun game design thing.
Or at least Enchantment Remastered. I keep hearing about all these cool things Bards can do, only then I look at the spell descriptions and go ehh, yeah, no.
So they've finally explained why I keep watching their videos.
Zhi Hong Wu and rewatching.
I know webdm has had me enchanted for years now...but I keep choosing to fail the save ;)
Dawwwww
-swish-
Same here web dm has a new video🤤🤤🤤
QUICK! Slide a DM into Web DM's DMs.
smooth !
I am thankful for Web DM.
We're thankful for our fans!!!
Me too, I miss D&D so much. My Christmas wish will be to roll a D20 among friends.
Oh man, I just had an idea!
Picture the following:
The governing body in a large city suspects that there is a murderous cult operating within the city but to what end isn't known, which brings the party in to investigate. The initial premise, depending on the player group's boundaries, can be a murder cult or some sort of ritual to bring forth a death aspect using mass murder.
Every new moon, for the past five months, the city has woken to a scene of carnage, with bodies found stabbed, bludgeoned, sliced up. and even trampled to death. Each time however, there has been survivors, but all have been found unresponsive, an empty husk with soulless eyes but somehow, no form of magic can restore the mind of the survivors, who seem deaf and mute, lost to whatever evil magic the ritual has wrought.
The party arrives the day after the most recent event, and piecing together the various clues and information revealed over the course of the weeks until the next new moon, find the site of the next event, an abandoned square in the old town slums. That night, the party sets up, lying in wait. Out of the darkness, as if on cue, townsfolk start to gather at the edge of the faintly-lit square. Men and women, young and old, some in nightclothes, others dressed, street urchins, even the merchant who sold goods to the party is there, carrying a large bag.
They gather around and wordlessly pass around things being pulled from the bag. The party sees glints of steel lit softly by gas lanterns as they lie in wait, watching to see what happens. As though a formation in a regiment, the group lines up, four to each row, and begin to march away from the party's position, perfectly in time with each other. The formation reaches the center of the square, suddenly heel turning with a sharp snap, two columns pivoting to the left and the others to the right, continuing their silent march, splitting into two sets of two rows marching away from each other. They stop and heel turn perfectly, all in unison, each half of the group lined up up perfectly into pairs facing the other half of the group.
After a breathless moment, one of the innermost townsfolk steps forward, a young woman with dagger in hand, and stops. After a few moments, the party sees a young boy from the opposite group move forward across the square. It seems as though this ritual is some sort of sacrificial combat at first, the woman and boy facing each other, stone-faced and silent. But then, an older woman with a hammer, moves forward, seemingly headed toward the exit, only to suddenly pivot on their heel, facing toward the young boy's group. In the light of the square, the party realizes that she is one of the regents of the city.
A few tense moments pass. Just what kind of ritual is this?
The young man that was next to the boy, seems to waver, stepping forward slightly, as though unsure. He steps back, remaining in place, as another man, the carpenter's apprentice, steps forward instead. Suddenly, the regent wordlessly charges toward the young man, hammer being brought to bear.
He doesn't react as the hammer swings toward his face, striking his head full force with a sickening crack and he crumples to the ground, the regent towering over him, expression flat and lifeless. The urchin that stood behind the boy swiftly steps forward and slashes the regent's throat and she falls as well, bleeding from the fatal wound.
----
The villain behind this scenario would actually be a pair of twins with a mind control power on the level of Killgrave and an obsession with beating each other at chess. The previous five events were all games that ended in a draw and the games will continue until there is a victor or the party defeats them. I'm imagining two very cold and logical lawful evil humanoids, but they could also be monstrous as well. The scenario is also generic enough to be dropped into any dark fantasy campaign as well and has all sorts of adventure hooks leading into and out of it.
It helps to be familiar with the rules of chess and the movement of pieces at least. I tried being vague with the number of townsfolk, but astute players will notice that the number of victims and survivors always equals 32. There should always be a minimum of three survivors for the previous five games but there can be more. I also tried to be descriptive of their movement but not so descriptive that it's obvious I'm describing two sets of two rows of eight, one in front of the other. As an aside, The moves the townsfolk made in the story above is the Bishop's Opening, a bit of flavor and a clue for players familiar with chess.
Thanks for the inspiration guys! You've definitely earned a sub from me for sure!
Why is this less liked
If you did this in a modern or near modern setting the players might find ear pieces in each of the victims ears as that is how these twins command the people
High int, low charisma enchanter:
A wizard who read "How to win friends and influence people" By Dale Carnegie, and REALLY took it to heart.
I recall a time, long ago, when Enchantment was also the go-to school for the creation of magical items. Certainly, every school had some kind of skill in it, but if you wanted a custom +5 Longsword, you went to the local Enchantress. Maybe a bit of that should be brought back.
I'm also on board with the idea that realizing you've been enchanted shouldn't be obvious. Party members notice you're acting funny, and the spellcasters make some kind of skill test to diagnose the issue and recognize it as some kind of charm. Maybe if you're a spellcaster shaking off the effects of an enchantment, you can self-diagnose, but your average fighter just isn't gonna really know what just happened.
Jim showcasing The Deck Of Many looks like a Zee Bashew animation. We the audience demand a crossover episode
ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE
ua-cam.com/video/FARpdhUEvIM/v-deo.html
Another great use for catnap is convincing the town guards you're going to bless them, then they willingly will allow you to perform magic on them and you get a good sleep spell off.
Hey guys, this is awesome! I've long believed that enchanters were the most evil people in D&D, and I really appreciate you guys taking an honest run at this. With regards to the "weakness" of enchantment magic, I have a couple comments. 1 - maybe it's only in combat that that the "once-a-round saves" happen. Like, when life and death are literally on the line, then they get a saving throw. In social situations, maybe it lasts a day, or even a month, provided you don't put them in severely straining situations. 2 - maybe even in combat, minions don't get saves. Taking a goblin away from the beholder doesn't do that much, but it might help the party if they can get a minute to do some interrogation on the goblin, turn the goblin to disrupt the minions, etc.
On Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, you also basically get the Joker toxin to use on people.
I really like the concept of charm person only being noticed with a wisdom/perception check against spell save DC.
I love watching you guys I recently discovered your channel about a month ago and I've already binge watched every single episode you guys are awesome thank you so much for what you do.
Thank you!! Glad you're with us!
Now get on their patreon for that sweet sweet podcast action
And spread the word for that sweet, sweet 150k Special 😘
I swear the intros just keep getting better and better, don't know how they keep doing it but they find a way.
I didn't notice until now (probably my sixth or seventh time watching) that in the intro Pruitt was prompting Jim with his voice AND by double clicking the pen: Verbal and Somatic.
THE best information show of dnd on the web!
Enchanting performance fellows, I was completely mesmerized.
I feel like enchantment magic is kind of the starting point of how for example dragon age conceptualized its mages. When someone can change your mind, possibly without you knowing it, how can you trust them?
I like the idea of a pacifist task force of enchanters dedicated to law and order that seek to end conflict through any means necessary except lethal ones and a populace that doesn't quite trust it.
I was too enchanted by the notification to not watch this video
I've always asked my DM if instead of a free save every turn we instead had to give up our turn/actions for an opportunity to try to save again. Reduces the neutering a LOT without breaking the game.
Love Jim’s ad voice
They should have called Friends, "Bamboozle" instead, then everyone would love it.
I cast “Lil sneaky” on the guard
Love how everyone uses 👑 Royal bag as a dice bag.
I adore you guys and your content. I do wonder if you guys have considered doing a class video on Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter. I know you focus on official stuff but many people love and use this class so I think it would be a dope video. Anyways keep up the good work.
They don't really do homebrew, but it seems right up thier alley.
I mean at that point it's barely homebrew anymore/ D&DBeyond event advertised when they added it and everything. I consider it alike to UA articles. Endorsed, but not official.
@@Gr2enProd it just gets kinda weird with homebrew content. If they are struggling for content sure, but otherwise why?
Mostly why not. A lot of people enjoy the class, and a lot of people enjoy WebDM, and they're mostly the same people. Also let's be honest, putting Mercer in the title is the best way to rack a shit ton of views.
I mean I don't care, they could make a video about the different types of inks used in the PHB and I'd watch it anyway.
The way that I think of Charm Person wearing off is that you just suddenly stop feeling like you like them and realize that you don’t like them, and so the only reasonable suspicion for most people is that they must have been charmed. It’s like after caffeine wears off and you just suddenly feel lethargic.
Totally took advantage of the black friday sale and WEBDM5 promo. Purchased the entire bundle. Thanks for putting the word out about the product line Web DM.
Awesome!!! They're so useful at the table!
You guys were talking about how bless/bane/etc might be enchantment and it had me thinking that it could work thematically with what you mentioned earlier if they were sort of mini-psionics where there was a sort of psionic-augmentation going on(?) I remember reading a book set in the forgotten realms where a psion did something like that to a warrior he wanted to win in a duel.
Man, that was an awesome vi-ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD !
But what would Hypno-Toad's Motivation be? Enslave a thousand people, so they go out and collect a ton of insects. Gather a bunch of female toads for breeding. Turn farmland back into swamps.
I'm making my first wizard and rewatched all your guys school of magic videos. Thank you so much. Gave me alot to think about.
Happy Thanksgiving guys! And thank you for this video I've been stuck between conjuration school and enchantment school for my bugbear wizard! I now believe enchantment is the way to go. Thank you again.
I look forward to them doing the rest of the schools of magic. I'm curious what they have to say about Abjuration.
That's why glamour bards are better enchanters than wizards.
Separate issue: Otto's has no initial save. That's part of why it is 8th level.
Wormtongue definitely wasn't charismatic, but his enchantments were effectively wielded from a dark corner as he crouched and simpered in the shadows. Just an example for you.
I'm playing a tiefling warlock, pact with the great old one/master manipulator build. boy was it tough early on going more for flavor of character than the damage dealer. But it's turned out a really satisfying experience, my role playing game gained huge bounds. I went with a mix of enchantments and the terror aspect of my pact boons. Capped off at level 20 with the ultimate in mental twisting fun power word kill, literally killing someone with a mere word.
I love the idea that Enchantment is the real Evil school. I've been planning out a necromancy wizard who was trained by an evil wizard and after the evil wizard gets killed, my character vows to only use magic for good, except for that one school which is pure evil: Enchantment. and he never casts something from that school ever.
Seems like this has been done before ;)
Why are my recommended videos so weird when I'm watching this channel
I got talking tom and other weird af children videos.
No idea but interested in what you mean! What videos specifically?
@@WebDM I got recommended three separate Roblox videos and a Minecraft video which is odd because I only watch D&D fantasy lore videos
Stevee Johnson I got similar videos to Steve
@@WebDM I have Nintendo, a spanish channel of two women creating gummy bears and a trailer for a smartphone game. I have absolutely no history with any of these topics. And I get only 5 recommendations (none of which are more videos of you guys) instead of a whole list like usual. Very strange.
Maybe with Dominate, make it so the dominated creature needs to take a certain amount of damage before a save is triggered.
my favorite school! great discussion (no surprise there). Enemies abound is my fave enchantment spell
2:38 and on. Gotta love that deadpan "Yeah, dont bring any pets around here."-response.
Yes, my favorite school! I’ve been waiting for this!
Been planning a guild artisan wizard for a while now with really high charisma that studies the enchantment school from what he learns trading on the road for a while now and this helped a lot to make him come to life in my mind. Thanks
The screen grab of Dracula and Professor X is amazing.
Well done.
...Also, the video was amazing, I don't want to take away from that.
I was NOT prepared for the Jimphony of the Night in the thumbnail
Been playing since 2nd ed and only recently got into 5th. You guys have really inspired me a lot. Especially when it comes to flavoring the character as it were.
I would love to be a chaotic neutral wizard that focuses in enchantment.
5e really has made enchantment magic feel kind of toothless. Enemies simply get too many saving throws and autoatically know they have been enchanted which just gives it too many downsides.
As for Geas, what I have always done with it to adjust the spell is that every day that a person does not obey the task they are given, they lose 1 constitution and the loss is incurable until the geas is removed. I just like the idea that you can resist if you want, and even go out on a quest to try and remove it if you want, but you will be slowly withering away with nothing you can do about it.
"Bless" - in our own world, perceived reality has been shown to have literal effects from illness to wounds appearing on people, to confidence stopping someone from being unsure and making a mistake.
Every time I watch one of your videos I always get a new idea for something! I love it!
I homebrewed an alternate version of the Enchantment school wizard abilities to focus around altering dreams of creatures. So your either able to haunt enemies with nightmares or give allies good dreams. Definitely more narrative focused but like the idea of school having different approaches, "you manipulate them when they're awake, I manipulate them while they sleep."
Enchantment can mess your mind up for the rest of your life.
Necromancy can mess up your soul for the rest of eternity. Which is kind of a big deal, in a place where souls are known to exist.
15:49 Up until this point I kept thinking "How have that not mentioned the Purple Man yet?"
I love WebDM Wednesdays! You guys inspire my RPing (for once I find a new group), as well as possible future DMing.
Thanks Robert!! Let us know when you get in the DM seat!
"this is just a charm effect"
"now you affect more than one person"
"now you do it longer"
You just described the Mythras sorcery magic system :) Should be easily enough to port over to D&D 5E if you want.
Yup. I would read Jim's magic rewrite. Thanks for the vid(s.)
EnChAAANtment!
I get it
One of my favorite things about y'all is the goofy intros. Love you guys.
Enchantment magic: the purple mans favorite school
Really nice presentation I was listening to tonight while watching my fantasy football scores. Nice work gentlemen.
I love the stinger combined with the November pdf that changes healing spell schools.
I really do like the idea of a villain like the “Purple Man”. He is not a physically threatening character, but has such a charisma that he is surrounded by some of the most powerful beings possible.
WebDM is by far my favorite UA-cam D&D channel. You guys are great! Jim's audio was really off on this video though. Sometimes I could barely hear him and sometimes he was too loud.
Something I just thought about: you could arguably do a thing where mooks don't get to constantly make saves for some of these spells, and it's only more significant adversaries or targets who have the ability to continually make saves (including PCs). This could be a way of making those spells (and potentially others) more potent while having a built in measure for keeping them from being too good where it matters. The DM would have to determine what constitutes a mook, but at least in my head I think it would be an easy distinction to make.
I like to think that the way The Force would work in our world is basically an Enchantment that makes some random passerby bring you the thing at which you're gesturing.
I designed a political villain for my campaign. Hes a decently powerful necromancer, but his true power comes from his title and mind control spells. I made this viable by simply giving him modify memory - if he charms someone, he can just modify their memory of the event. If the target would have been charmed in the first place, pretty reasonable they would fail the modify memory save.
This allowed me to have him be a very successful manipulator in the narrative. He never needs to charm the actual PCs, since he can always charm and enchant NPCs to speak contrary to what the heroes say or make the poor villagers set themselves up for his crimes.
Add in things like alter self, sleep, major image, and greater invis and hes a super gross villain. You can probably beat the snot out of him, but you might end up in jail after or just wake up in an odd place with fuzzy memories of drunkenness.
Hate it when my soul is stuck in the gym. 43:19
One of the villains I know similar to this is Heartbreaker from Web Series Worm. His ability is to imbue devotion to him in anyone he looks at. So, it could be interesting to have a shadow war between Hearbreaker and Killgrave because depending on who is near is if sound or sight will destroy you.
I've been playing with this idea for a glam bard, this gave me a few ideas, and made me rethink.
In my homebrew campaign, I have a rule that anyone (player or NPC) who casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter must tell a D&D appropriate pun (the worse the better) for which they deliver the setup Before the save is rolled, and after the roll, they deliver the Punchline and we see the results. In this case the pun is a verbal component of the spell. My players seem to enjoy it.
Feeblemind might be pretty weak for an 8th lvl spell, but _M A N_ was it awesome af in critical role!!
Don't know if you'll read this but here's how I like to think of the ability scores... As two sets of three, one measures power(str, int), one that describes how well you wield that power( dex, Cha), and how well you resist others power (con, Wis). This doesn't work in the mechanics of DnD, but I feel it's a good guideline.
I always described Crown of Madness as being a spectral crown that only the caster could see. It has been used in my game to start many bar fights/distractions.
At the moment i started playing tiefling wizard who is son of succuby and is enchantment wizard. I think that it really makes sence for him. Problem is that my character is chaotic good and hes verry strong moral compas. Its fun trying to balance the essence of enchantment wizard with morally good teenager half demon who has good charisma and inteligence. I played only few games with this character but im already in love with him. I see it that he is more hoping to help his friends with enchantment and against enchantment magic.
Calm Emotions is one of my favorite spells for preventing combat (though I've had to convince the DM sometimes to let it work on non-humanoids). Confusion is a fun spell, more so because it works on creatures immune to being charmed. Synaptic Static is an encounter-winner in the right situation, considering it's an Intelligence save which many creatures may not be able to save against during the 1 minute debuff, on top of it being, as mentioned, a psychic fireball PLUS a stronger, concentration-less Bane.
Teammate asks what Tasha's Hideous Laughter looks like on a target? Refer them to Tom Hank's character in the Money Pit movie where the tub falls through the floor and shatters. That right there is a perfect connection.
The biggest gripe I have about Enchantment and Charm effects is the GOO Warlock's subclass capstone. You "Create Thrall" but the only benefit it grants (aside from the neat telepathy) is the Charmed condition which gives Advantage on persuading it while the ability name strongly suggests that it should be more like a Dominate XYZ spell.
I've always wanted to play a character that introduces themselves to the party as something else "I'm a human rogue" but then as the adventure goes on something seems very off about them, being a bit sneaky and not performing rogue tasks well, or entirely TOO well, then it turns out they were an Enchanter using magic to mimic the rogues ability the whole time, and enchantment magic to mask their true identity and motives. Was going to either go Enchanter or Trickery Cleric, be interesting to see how long it would take the other players to clock it!! (Immediatly I imagine haha!)
The dancing thing sounds like what witches did at the party in "Hocus Pocus"
In regards for a hypno toad like character, you could take inspiration from the Gitrog monster from Magic the Gathering. Wizards came out with a whole short story based on it. It is pretty good dungeons and dragons fodder.
Yaaas! The perfect video for my Enchanter in the Greyhawk game I just started.
Also if you go with the theme that magic comes from drawing energies of the multiverse you could say that necromancer (if it is evil comes from Orcus and the Abyss where enchantment to also make it an evil school of magic come from the nine hells. From what I can tell they do a lot of manipulating in the nine hells.
"Its a corpse, who cares what you did with it?" Alright Jim why don't you just have a seat over there...
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
There's a great enchanter antagonist in the season 2 episode of agents of shield. Watch the episode where Skye/Daisy learns to control her super powers from her mother and then she gets told about "Bahrain" as May relives her memories of the event. The episode might even be titled Bahrain.
To slightly punch up stuff like enchantment and Hold Person, I usually rule that the player has disadvantage on all saves after the initial one.
Fave DnD channel by far, guys!
Thanks Rick!
Thinking about the enchanter, I am inclined toward the enchanter wizard being the one who is the psychologist: they understand the minds and mannerisms of people -- and can manipulate those
Oh Man Pruitt, That was an amazing intro.
ALL HAIL OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, HYPNOTOAD.
Agreed that Enchantment took a massive hit in 5e. But it's also the first time I've used the geas spell, because it still has the duration.
I imagine crown of madness as looking like the movie Hell Boy when he grows his horns back towards the end and gets that fiery crown and acts kind of ensorcelled.
Around the 44 minute mark, you ask why Otto's Irresistible Dance doesn't impose levels of exhaustion. While I do agree that, for a 6th level spell, this particular spell seems a bit weak, it's worth mentioning that exhaustion is powerfully crippling and scales sporadically. One level of it is like casting Hex or Bestow Curse, but more versatile, and removing a single level of it requires a 4th level spell (Greater Restoration). Giving players the power to impose it, especially multiple times within one casting of a spell, would make this spell one of the most powerful in the game. At best, as a DM, I would allow that most enemies might have 1 level of exhaustion after a full minute of dancing if I were to apply no other improvements to this spell. At that point, it seems like a worthy 6th level spell.