Foresight: The Future Looks Bleak
Usable By: Bard, Druid, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: 9
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Duration: 8 hours
Components: V, S, M (A hummingbird feather)
You touch a willing creature and bestow a limited ability to see into the immediate future. For the duration, the target can’t be surprised and has advantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. Additionally, other creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls against the target for the duration.
This spell immediately ends if you cast it again before its duration ends.
Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
9th level spells are competing with Wish, which frankly is unfair. Outside of Time Stop, the others just aren’t on the same playing field, and some are outclassed by the more top end 8th level options. Then you have Foresight, which is closer to a 5th level spell’s power.
Everything about Foresight feels like it should be good, then just ends up being meh. Advantage offers around a comparative +3 bonus with some upsides in critting more often; Is +3 to everything worth a 9th level slot?
What’s more, it isn’t actually advantage on everything, it is advantage on things you wouldn’t already have advantage on. The Help action makes most skill checks default to having advantage out of combat with cooperative parties, and a lot of groups will find play patterns where either using the prone condition or magical effects can turn advantage on to the bulk of attacks. Advantage on saving throws is nice, but with so many reactive options like Counterspell, fighter’s indomitable and rogue’s evasion, ultimately having advantage on the saves is just nice. It's not amazing, it's just fine.
Preventative options like Protection from Evil and Good can even outshine this; they offer immunity to effects, not advantage on saves against effects. Yes, they tend to cover niches, but 17th level full casters have more options than they often know what to do with, and can cover a tremendous amount of conditional protection without dedicating that many resources.
With 9th level spells you have to be breaking the rules of the game for the effect to be worth it. Time Stop gives you extra turns, Wish is every 8th level or lower spell plus literally any effect you can dream of, True Polymorph lets you permanently transform whoever or whatever you want into anything else. Advantage on rolls is comparatively garbage when stacked against these heavy hitters.
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