Mending: The Fix is In
Usable By: Artificer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard
Spell Level: 0 (cantrip)
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V, S, M (two lodestones)
This spell repairs a single break or tear in an object you touch, such as a broken chain link, two halves of a broken key, a torn cloak, or a leaking wineskin. As long as the break or tear is no larger than 1 foot in any dimension, you mend it, leaving no trace of the former damage.
This spell can physically repair a magic item or construct, but the spell can’t restore magic to such an object.
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
There’s a bunch of character archetypes dedicated to crafts: the weathered blacksmith with rough hands hiding a soft heart, the eccentric tinkerer dedicated to creating masterpieces that definitely WON’T explode, the leatherworking hunter, etc. For those characters who want to build and fix things, I feel like Mending SHOULD be a slam dunk. All the words seem like they should be applicable; adventurers are constantly breaking things. It's part of the job. Yet in all the games I’ve played in, ran, or watched, I have never once seen somebody cast Mending meaningfully. If it's cast at all, it's for flavor, and probably could be replaced by artisan’s tools.
I think the core issue with Mending is a lot of the character types that would want it can already fix most things they’d want to fix. A blacksmith could repair a chain manually, given the time. Mending does only take a minute to cast, but sometimes you don’t have a minute, and when you do, would you also have ten minutes or an hour to fix the broken object? There seem to be surprisingly few instances where fixing a broken lock or repairing ripped rope actually comes up, and when it does there seems to always be other ways around the problem that make Mending obsolete.
I have been burned by Mending before, but that won’t stop me from trying. I think this spell does something neat; I just haven’t figured it out yet, surely. Maybe YOU can be the one to get a ton of great use out of it! I wouldn’t keep your hopes up, though.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
