School of Enchantment

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Enchanters desperately want to be Charisma casters. They’re the charlatan in the corner convincing you that there is a poor duchess down on her luck that is desperate for cash and needs to part with this deed as soon as possible. They are negotiators sent to the front lines of a war who, with a subtle wave of the hand and whisper in the ear to the warband leader dispels the entire conflict with a very persuasive argument enhanced by just a bit of charm.

The School of Enchantment takes a bit to deliver on these fantasies, but when you get to the upper-level features, it delivers on them beautifully. You can be the world’s greatest con artist who nobody can ever seem to remember, you can be a force of personality who mixes words and magic to mitigate disaster. On top of that, you can take control over multiple enemies at once, turning the war beasts sent to destroy your party back on their masters. It’s a great time.

This school cares about Enchantment spells; for reference, here’s a full list of Cantrip through 9th-level Wizard spells of this school and the non-wizard options for multiclass considerations.

Wizard Enchantment Spells

Spell Level	Spells
Cantrip	Encode Thoughts, Friends, Mind Sliver
1st	Charm Person, Hideous Laughter, Silvery Barbs, Sleep
2nd	Crown of Madness, Gift of Gab, Hold Person, Jim’s Glowing Coin, Suggestion, Tasha’s Mind Whip
3rd	Catnap, Enemies Abound, Fast Friends, Incite Greed
4th	Charm Monster, Confusion, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance
5th	Dominate Person, Geas, Hold Monster, Modify Memory, Synaptic Static
6th	Mass Suggestion, Irresistible Dance
7th	Power Word Pain
8th	Antipathy/Sympathy, Dominate Monster, Feeblemind, Power Word Stun
9th	Power Word Kill, Psychic Scream

Non-Wizard Enchantment Spells

Spell Level	Spells
Cantrip	Vicious Mockery
1st	Animal Friendship, Bane, Bless, Command, Compelled Duel, Dissonant Whispers, Heroism, Hex
2nd	Animal Messenger, Calm Emotions, Enthrall, Zone of Truth
3rd	Motivational Speech
4th	Compulsion, Dominate Beast
5th	-
6th	-
7th	-
8th	-
9th	-

2nd Level: Enchantment Savant, Hypnotic Gaze

Enchantment Savant provides the same passive benefit many tables opt to ignore entirely in its discount to adding spells to your spell book if they’re Enchantment. If you’re tight on gold, this gives you the incentive to invest in Enchantment spells you can find and copy, but realistically it's a ribbon most groups will immediately forget about. Most players tend to just use the spells they get for free on level-up, and those are more than enough.
Hypnotic Gaze, despite being a charm, doesn’t really work as one during social encounters. Most of the time, it’s a way to lock down a guard while your group sneaks in somewhere to quickly steal something. Finding other ways to use it is genuinely challenging, as it takes your action to use, is limited to things directly next to you, and the effect ends if the creature takes any damage.
Hypothetically you could use this in combat to remove an enemy, but you’re simultaneously removing yourself from the fight unless you’ve got a bonus action effect or summoned thing you're concentrating on. Picking those up to stretch out your resources might be something you consider, but even in the early tiers you’re going to regularly rather be firing off cantrips or taking other actions than this I think.

6th Level: Instinctive Charm

Instinctive Charm provides you a reaction to redirect damage which I just adore. It encourages playing close to enemies and far from allies to get the best chances of redirecting enemy attacks to other enemies. If that ever occurs, it's insanely powerful. What’s more, you can repeat this on a creature that saves until they pass one.
It can be hard to use in a lot of fights, though. Being a wizard with d6 hit dice and no armor proficiency makes it a high-risk ability, especially when you also have to forgo casting Shield to use it when you’re next to multiple enemies. I adore these kinds of powerful incentives.

10th Level: Split Enchantment

Split Enchantment might be one of the most busted features ever printed. Functionally, this duplicates every single target enchantment spell you cast, which is doing a lot more than just doubling your spell resources. You’re getting twice the casts at once, which equates to additional actions at once and an additional concentration effect up at once.
Enchantment spells that are absolutely insane to duplicate include Hideous Laughter, Tasha’s Mind Whip, Hold Person, Suggestion, Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, Otto’s Irresistible Dance, Dominate Monster, and Feeblemind.

14th Level: Alter Memories

Alter Memories rounds out the School of Enchantment with a spicy enhancement to your charm effects. This is kind of the first major social enhancement you get to your enchantments, but my god is it a meaningful one. Modify Memory is an incredible spell for navigating complex social environments and slipping in and out of places unnoticed with all the intel you need. Making all of your spells at minimum not be recognized as charms is fantastic. Stacking on top of that each being able to remove hours of memory from targets has so much potential.
It’s mainly limited to social navigation, making it fairly niche at this tier, but definitely a top end fantasy I want on the charlatan enchanter conning their way through life.

All Together

What I really love about the School of Enchantment is each feature is exciting. Hypnotic Gaze is the weakest of the bunch, as it’s just difficult to get a ton out of an effect that asks you to commit multiple actions to it, but everything beyond that is exciting and pretty powerful. Instinctive Charm rewards risky positioning, but can have uses as long as you’re standing next to an ally, Split Enchantment over doubles how powerful the majority of your combative charms are, and Alter Memories closes things out with a bulk empowerment to your charming effects that deliver the fantasy an enchanter is looking for.

I adore the School of Enchantment; if you’re in the market to lead the social encounters and love save or die effects like Dominate Person and Hold Monster, this is the school for you.

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