Greater Invisibility takes all of those elements, boils down the window to use them to just a minute, but drops the remaining conditions that keep Invisibility in check.
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Regenerate 5e
Few damaging elements are permanent; limb loss or other major maiming elements pop up rarely as being permanently damaged can feel terrible. Regenerate, then, exists as a solution to a problem most games will never face, and lands itself where most healing spells land: stuck forever in the book and never being worth your time.
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Fear 5e
Fear is a baller 3rd level spell that’s often outshone by Fireball and the other all-star 3rd level spells. Bards probably get the most out of it, as their 3rd level options aren’t quite as robust as Sorcerers and Wizards, and without scaling its very difficult for warlocks to justify even considering this.
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Counterspell 5e
Counterspell often dictates how the game can be played in its entirety. It feels like a release valve that mitigates all magic, regardless of how powerful, for a 3rd level spell slot, and something DMs feel they have to start leaning on heavily to sculpt encounters that can meaningfully challenge all members of upper tier encounters.
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Commune 5e
Be prepared to hear a lot of "uncertains" if you're asking about things unrelated to their realm. How you phrase each question is critical to the spells function; "if we walk this way, will we get home?" might result in a yes, but could require you circling the world a few thousand times to actually get to where you want to go.
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Scorching Ray 5e
Scorching Ray is a damaging fire spell. The three separate attack rolls give you a decent amount of control and choice with it, but like most low level damaging spells, this is something you’ll never up-cast because higher level spells do way more damage for the slot.
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Symbol 5e
Traps: a DMs best tool for instantaneous, unseen, unjustified death. Long into D&D’s history have traps been at the forefront of dungeoneering. Symbol, like Glyph of Warding, moves that power to the players, and does so in a moderately compelling way.
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Fire Shield 5e
Fire Shield is an oddity of a spell. It's a 10 minute duration rebuking effect that punishes enemies for hitting you with 2d8 fire or cold damage, which is pretty nifty. Outside of subclasses, this is a wizard exclusive, and leaves me wondering what wizard builds actually want to cast this?
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Animal Messenger 5e
While it may be cool to deliver sensitive information via talking squirrel, you’re putting an awful lot of faith in that squirrel. The spell doesn’t make it smarter or anything. It only allows it to verbally deliver a specific short message one way.
In fact, Animal Messenger might actually make the squirrel dumber. Animals tend to be wary of danger and will often seek a place to hide when predators come sniffing around. The target of this spell, however, is single-minded in purpose, moving straight toward the location you sent it to without regard for its own safety. This could make it more likely to be eaten. That sucks for the creature, but it also sucks for you, because your message won’t be delivered.
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Aid 5e
Aid is one of those spells that is at its worst when you get it, and get substantially better as your resource pool expands. It will very often feel “free” to burn two or three lower level slots when you’re playing with 7th+ level slots, especially with features like harness divine power added in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
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Acid Arrow 5e
Acid Arrow WANTS to be Magic Missile. It's using d4s. It always does a bit of damage. It's got a solid range. The reality of it though is Acid Arrow is just terrible. Really awful stuff.
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Healing Word 5e
If the intended goal is to get somebody up from zero, there isn’t any compelling reason to use Cure Wounds over Healing Word. Healing word can happen from up to 60 feet away; if you’re targeting a creature that’s unconscious, you now don’t need to approach whatever has attempted to murder them.
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Reverse Gravity 5e
Beyond the beautiful catastrophe you impose on the DM when casting, when prepared for, Reverse Gravity can thrash enemies, be a get out of jail free card, and warp some problems in wild ways. Weaponizing fall damage is a tried and true strategy for the munchkins out there looking to make as big numbers as possible, and with a well placed wall spell conjured a hundred feet up, you’re looking at inflicting 10d6 falling damage both ways.
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Animal Shapes 5e
To grasp how game warping Animal Shapes can be you need to understand the scope of its effect. On a battlemap, creatures within 30 feet of you make up a total of 168 spaces just on the ground. When you add on familiars and small or smaller creatures you can easily transform over **200** creatures. You could literally transform them into three of every printed beast in the base rules that qualifies. If you start adding lots of flying allies like Pixies, these numbers balloon to absurd territories.
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Fabricate 5e
Fabricate at its best is neat, but at its worst it can be worthless for sessions on end. The DM has to work to create problems where the spell can function as part of a solution where other magic fails. It definitely has a home on some character sheets, but if it finds a home on yours, keep your expectations low.
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Conjure Woodland Beings 5e
Some of the conjure spells require a caveat. As written, the caster picks the CR, then the DM picks the monsters that are summoned. This can make the spell a headache for many DMs to manage. I’d highly recommend working with your DM out of game with your expectations from the spell. If you are a DM, I highly discourage you from keeping pixies as a summonable option, because, well…
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Faithful Hound 5e
This spell is a little bit of See Invisibility, a little bit Alarm, and a little bit Spiritual Weapon. In specific combat encounters, you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of it. It doesn’t require concentration, and offers a functional free attack for as long as it's up.
Read MoreEtherealness 5e
This is another spell where its up-casting radically changes its usefulness. Having a single person with Etherealness limits its uses more to information gathering, espionage, and light theft missions. Having three or six people ethereal opens up mass infiltration and ambush set ups. However, Etherealness also runs into the problem of being party size dependent to change how powerful it is.
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Contact Other Plane 5e
Do you know what sucks? Casting a spell that sometimes makes you go insane and take 6d6 psychic damage! Why would you do that? What could be worth forcing yourself to make an Intelligence saving throw with a DC of 15 or face get mentally blasted?
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Mind Sliver 5e
Mind Sliver: Prepare to Have Your Mind Blown
Usable By: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: Cantrip
School: Enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Duration: 1 round
Components: V
You drive a disorienting spike of psychic energy into the mind of one creature you can see within range. The target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or take 1d6 psychic damage and subtract 1d4 from the next saving throw it makes before the end of your next turn.
At Higher Levels. This spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach certain levels: 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).
Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Designing cantrips is a challenge. These are intended to replace basic attacks on full casters, and act as tools that scale reasonably well over the entire duration of the game. Most of the options in the PHB end up being cast a handful of times a campaign, or literally every five minutes (cough cough Guidance). Of all cantrips in the PHB, the one that has always stood out to me as a perfect option is Vicious Mockery. It deals a bit of damage, and imposes a penalty on foes that is always good, regardless of how high level you get. There will be times where you do genuinely just want to cast Vicious Mockery for aid, and you don’t often feel bad for needing to fall back on it. Mind Sliver is the evolution of Vicious Mockery, and can help expand out 5e to be more cooperative than ever.
While the damage scaling is pretty poor, that isn’t really the point of the spell. A bit of psychic damage helps contribute towards victory, even if you don’t necessarily NEED the boon it's providing, so you always have some way to contribute. You can find the spell shines when Mind Sliver empowers the next spell that forces a save; it becomes an option you think about using regularly to help out an ally cast something powerful. The spell becomes that niche Vicious Mockery fills, only for setting up splashing save spells instead of defending an ally. It encourages you to plan ahead with a friend; if they’re going to cast their save or die Banishment, you can set them up with Mind Sliver making the act feel like a cooperative moment everyone can high five over.
D&D is supposed to be a cooperative experience yet so few features encourage you to work with your fellow players. We need less cantrips like Toll the Dead and more like Mind Sliver to bring D&D more into the realm of cooperative gaming and out of the dated single player character building experience a lot of the older systems heavily rely on. With Mind Sliver, you can empower nearly all friendly characters. It helps your barbarian grapple, your cleric Banishment, and your wizard Fireball. It gives a helping hand to your friends to come together to make a moment that’s built off of teamwork, not a single player knowing how to make a busted character.
Mind Sliver should be the new norm for design. Spells coming from this point forward all don’t need to be cooperative, but on average, I hope we can see more spells push the game towards a cooperative experience where everyone feels like they contribute to each other's success. I can’t recommend enough taking Mind Sliver if you’re in the market for a supportive damaging cantrip.
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