Study Up on 5E D&D Magic — Enchantment Spells

September 3, 2021

Salutations, nerds! It’s time to comb over Enchantment magic for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and I’ve got to be honest with you, it doesn’t settle particularly well with me. Necromancy always gets the bad rap for being the evil magic for controlling dead bodies and then you’ve got enchanters over there manipulating living people. I have way less of a problem with someone raising my corpse than using me as a puppet while I’m alive. Which isn’t to say I don’t think people should play with this 5E D&D school of magic — characters do evil stuff sometimes. I just want to acknowledge the skeeviness of this before we continue. Of course it also matters how you use enchantment magic. Some uses are going to be worse than others, or better. For instance, there are also a lot of buffs in the enchantment school. Who doesn’t like buffs? Shall we, then?

Arcane tradition — enchantment

You get to hypnotize things early on. They get a Wisdom saving throw but it’s very Scooby-Doo if it works. At 6th level you can send attacks meant for you to other creatures as a reaction, which is pretty cool and also on a cooldown. Reaching 10th level lets you target more than one creature with your enchantments, but let’s take a minute to talk about the School of Enchantment capstone, right?

Alter Memories. Most enchantment spells allow the creature you’ve manipulated to realize it’s happened but the Alter Memories feature allows you to get in there and convince them you haven’t screwed with them or even forget what they did while you had them charmed.

All right, “You never saw me,” can be really good if you just want to pass through somewhere undetected but then again you could also make them do a strip tease or something worse than this. Just because you could doesn’t mean you will though. If you’re only making them unlock doors for you that’s not as bad but still completely disregarding the other character’s agency.

Anyway, it’s something to consider in your worldbuilding. Is enchantment legal and if so to what degree? Are penalties for misusing it any higher than throwing a fireball? If you throw a fireball people know it but if you mind control the monarch into making a law benefitting you there’s a good chance no one does know and this can kill just as many. Just some food for thought.

“Enchantment spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior. Such spells can make enemies see the caster as a friend, force creatures to take a course of action, or even control another creature like a puppet.” — from the 5E D&D Player’s Handbook

10 notable enchantment spells

Antipathy/Sympathy. Attracts or repels a certain kind of creature. If you’re in bat country, you can use this to keep the bats away.
Bane/Bless. These are basically the same spell in reverse of one another. You either add a d4 or subtract a d4 from things you try to do, which has nothing at all to do with getting in someone’s head, just messing with their luck.
Catnap. 10 minute short rest? Yes, please.
Encode Thoughts. This one is my favorite cantrip. You can leave a thought somewhere for someone else to pick up and read, and how cool is that?
Feeblemind. You blast the personality out of a creature and it can only be fixed by greater restoration, heal or wish. Intelligence and Charisma become 1.
Geas. You command a creature to do something and then it has to do so or it takes a crapton of psychic damage, for up to 30 days. And if you cast it at 7th or 8th level it’s a year. And if you cast it at 9th level it just doesn’t end. Big curse energy. Like, secret fairy coming to the castle disguised as an old woman energy.
Mass Suggestion. You get up to 12 creatures to do something reasonable. Like, “Hey, maybe stop attacking us.” This is a good one if you don’t want to have to kill the villagers coming after you with pitch forks.
Power Word Kill. You compel a creature with 100 hit points or fewer to die. No saving throw. Yeah, you read that right. It’s 9th level, but definitely a dick move. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: Cast Power Word Beard instead!]
Power Word Pain. You basically just get into a creature’s head and make it hurt a lot. Torture! Because good people totally do this.
Zone of Truth. If you fail your save you can’t willingly lie in the zone. You’re aware of the spell though and you can talk around the truth all you want. Still, useful if you can tell when someone’s being cagey with you.

5 character concepts for enchantment magic

The Curseweaver. The witch who people make mad at their own peril, and sends them away with a truly spiteful curse on them.
The Inquisitor. It’s pretty easy to make the thing you instruct people to do, “Tell me who your co-conspirators are.” Zone of truth is really good for this concept, too.
The Motivator. You use your enchantment magic to make your friends better at what they do. They had it in them all along — you just help bring it out!
The Puppetmaster. A definitely villainous character who uses their enchantment magic to enthrall others and make them do their bidding. Good for an evil party.
The Savant. Particularly good for a sorcerer, this character isn’t so much directly controlling the actions of others as lashing out with their mind when they’re hurt or scared. They might also reach out and make friends with animals this way. They don’t realize they’re casting anything at all.

Whoo! That was a lot. So, tell me, are you playing a 5E D&D enchantment magic specialist? How are you going about it? Have you got opinions about this? Please, tell me all about it in the comments, connecting with us on Facebook or tweeting us @Nerdarchy. Feel free to comment or tweet me @Pyrosynthesis too. And of course, stay nerdy!

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