Enchantment Magic in 5e Dungeons & Dragons - Web DM 

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Why does necromancy get a bad rap while enchantment doesn't raise any suspicion? An enchantment told you so.

3 minutes in and I've decided to make next BBEG an enchanter. The Purple Man in Jessica Jones freaked me out more than any other villain I've ever seen.

“It’s just a corpse! Who cares what you did with it?!”

Love the reference to neuro-linguistic programming with the pen! Reminds me of “would you kindly”! Thanks for all the work y’all do!!

WHAT IS A DUNGEON!? -smashes glass- A miserable little pile of secrets.

Bless and Bane made sense to me as enchantment because I saw it as like a morale thing. Like bless fills your teammates with courage and confidence while bane invokes fear and uncertainty in your foes

49 mins of webDM?! Oh boy! *grabs popcorn and wizards hat*

So they've finally explained why I keep watching their videos.

Jim showcasing The Deck Of Many looks like a Zee Bashew animation. We the audience demand a crossover episode

Another great use for catnap is convincing the town guards you're going to bless them, then they willingly will allow you to perform magic on them and you get a good sleep spell off.

Oh man, I just had an idea! Picture the following: The governing body in a large city suspects that there is a murderous cult operating within the city but to what end isn't known, which brings the party in to investigate. The initial premise, depending on the player group's boundaries, can be a murder cult or some sort of ritual to bring forth a death aspect using mass murder. Every new moon, for the past five months, the city has woken to a scene of carnage, with bodies found stabbed, bludgeoned, sliced up. and even trampled to death. Each time however, there has been survivors, but all have been found unresponsive, an empty husk with soulless eyes but somehow, no form of magic can restore the mind of the survivors, who seem deaf and mute, lost to whatever evil magic the ritual has wrought. The party arrives the day after the most recent event, and piecing together the various clues and information revealed over the course of the weeks until the next new moon, find the site of the next event, an abandoned square in the old town slums. That night, the party sets up, lying in wait. Out of the darkness, as if on cue, townsfolk start to gather at the edge of the faintly-lit square. Men and women, young and old, some in nightclothes, others dressed, street urchins, even the merchant who sold goods to the party is there, carrying a large bag. They gather around and wordlessly pass around things being pulled from the bag. The party sees glints of steel lit softly by gas lanterns as they lie in wait, watching to see what happens. As though a formation in a regiment, the group lines up, four to each row, and begin to march away from the party's position, perfectly in time with each other. The formation reaches the center of the square, suddenly heel turning with a sharp snap, two columns pivoting to the left and the others to the right, continuing their silent march, splitting into two sets of two rows marching away from each other. They stop and heel turn perfectly, all in unison, each half of the group lined up up perfectly into pairs facing the other half of the group. After a breathless moment, one of the innermost townsfolk steps forward, a young woman with dagger in hand, and stops. After a few moments, the party sees a young boy from the opposite group move forward across the square. It seems as though this ritual is some sort of sacrificial combat at first, the woman and boy facing each other, stone-faced and silent. But then, an older woman with a hammer, moves forward, seemingly headed toward the exit, only to suddenly pivot on their heel, facing toward the young boy's group. In the light of the square, the party realizes that she is one of the regents of the city. A few tense moments pass. Just what kind of ritual is this? The young man that was next to the boy, seems to waver, stepping forward slightly, as though unsure. He steps back, remaining in place, as another man, the carpenter's apprentice, steps forward instead. Suddenly, the regent wordlessly charges toward the young man, hammer being brought to bear. He doesn't react as the hammer swings toward his face, striking his head full force with a sickening crack and he crumples to the ground, the regent towering over him, expression flat and lifeless. The urchin that stood behind the boy swiftly steps forward and slashes the regent's throat and she falls as well, bleeding from the fatal wound. ---- The villain behind this scenario would actually be a pair of twins with a mind control power on the level of Killgrave and an obsession with beating each other at chess. The previous five events were all games that ended in a draw and the games will continue until there is a victor or the party defeats them. I'm imagining two very cold and logical lawful evil humanoids, but they could also be monstrous as well. The scenario is also generic enough to be dropped into any dark fantasy campaign as well and has all sorts of adventure hooks leading into and out of it. It helps to be familiar with the rules of chess and the movement of pieces at least. I tried being vague with the number of townsfolk, but astute players will notice that the number of victims and survivors always equals 32. There should always be a minimum of three survivors for the previous five games but there can be more. I also tried to be descriptive of their movement but not so descriptive that it's obvious I'm describing two sets of two rows of eight, one in front of the other. As an aside, The moves the townsfolk made in the story above is the Bishop's Opening, a bit of flavor and a clue for players familiar with chess. Thanks for the inspiration guys! You've definitely earned a sub from me for sure!

I love antipathy. It's my favorite spell thematically mainly because in a very long running 3.5 game my 16th level wizard had just gone through a whole adventure in the Far Realm filled with Lovecraftian horrors so after that whole arc i picked up Antipathy. From then on every time we stopped for the night somewhere and i put up my mansion I'd sit outside on a tiny stool and cast antipathy set to evil outsiders. One time I did it in a castle that we were staying in close to our rooms, but the people there strongly discouraged magic. So I sat in a closet and cast the spell. The party was like "dude you're gonna get us killed" and I was just like "I dare them to stop me. I ain't getting snuck up on." It was just a good spell to express some character changes and to flex a little.

High int, low charisma enchanter: A wizard who read "How to win friends and influence people" By Dale Carnegie, and REALLY took it to heart.

I am thankful for Web DM.

YES!!! 5e Magic Remastered from Web DM. Do it!

I recall a time, long ago, when Enchantment was also the go-to school for the creation of magical items. Certainly, every school had some kind of skill in it, but if you wanted a custom +5 Longsword, you went to the local Enchantress. Maybe a bit of that should be brought back. I'm also on board with the idea that realizing you've been enchanted shouldn't be obvious. Party members notice you're acting funny, and the spellcasters make some kind of skill test to diagnose the issue and recognize it as some kind of charm. Maybe if you're a spellcaster shaking off the effects of an enchantment, you can self-diagnose, but your average fighter just isn't gonna really know what just happened.

I didn't notice until now (probably my sixth or seventh time watching) that in the intro Pruitt was prompting Jim with his voice AND by double clicking the pen: Verbal and Somatic.

I know webdm has had me enchanted for years now...but I keep choosing to fail the save ;)

I was too enchanted by the notification to not watch this video

I really like the concept of charm person only being noticed with a wisdom/perception check against spell save DC.

On Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, you also basically get the Joker toxin to use on people.

Enchanting performance fellows, I was completely mesmerized.

They should have called Friends, "Bamboozle" instead, then everyone would love it.

I've always asked my DM if instead of a free save every turn we instead had to give up our turn/actions for an opportunity to try to save again. Reduces the neutering a LOT without breaking the game.

Why are my recommended videos so weird when I'm watching this channel

Hey guys, this is awesome! I've long believed that enchanters were the most evil people in D&D, and I really appreciate you guys taking an honest run at this. With regards to the "weakness" of enchantment magic, I have a couple comments. 1 - maybe it's only in combat that that the "once-a-round saves" happen. Like, when life and death are literally on the line, then they get a saving throw. In social situations, maybe it lasts a day, or even a month, provided you don't put them in severely straining situations. 2 - maybe even in combat, minions don't get saves. Taking a goblin away from the beholder doesn't do that much, but it might help the party if they can get a minute to do some interrogation on the goblin, turn the goblin to disrupt the minions, etc.

I would love to be a chaotic neutral wizard that focuses in enchantment.

Love how everyone uses 👑 Royal bag as a dice bag.

I feel like enchantment magic is kind of the starting point of how for example dragon age conceptualized its mages. When someone can change your mind, possibly without you knowing it, how can you trust them? I like the idea of a pacifist task force of enchanters dedicated to law and order that seek to end conflict through any means necessary except lethal ones and a populace that doesn't quite trust it.

Maybe with Dominate, make it so the dominated creature needs to take a certain amount of damage before a save is triggered.

Man, that was an awesome vi-ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD !

THE best information show of dnd on the web!

I swear the intros just keep getting better and better, don't know how they keep doing it but they find a way.

The way that I think of Charm Person wearing off is that you just suddenly stop feeling like you like them and realize that you don’t like them, and so the only reasonable suspicion for most people is that they must have been charmed. It’s like after caffeine wears off and you just suddenly feel lethargic.

You guys were talking about how bless/bane/etc might be enchantment and it had me thinking that it could work thematically with what you mentioned earlier if they were sort of mini-psionics where there was a sort of psionic-augmentation going on(?) I remember reading a book set in the forgotten realms where a psion did something like that to a warrior he wanted to win in a duel.

Wormtongue definitely wasn't charismatic, but his enchantments were effectively wielded from a dark corner as he crouched and simpered in the shadows. Just an example for you.

I adore you guys and your content. I do wonder if you guys have considered doing a class video on Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter. I know you focus on official stuff but many people love and use this class so I think it would be a dope video. Anyways keep up the good work.

EnChAAANtment!

I love the idea that Enchantment is the real Evil school. I've been planning out a necromancy wizard who was trained by an evil wizard and after the evil wizard gets killed, my character vows to only use magic for good, except for that one school which is pure evil: Enchantment. and he never casts something from that school ever.

I look forward to them doing the rest of the schools of magic. I'm curious what they have to say about Abjuration.

Enchantment can mess your mind up for the rest of your life. Necromancy can mess up your soul for the rest of eternity. Which is kind of a big deal, in a place where souls are known to exist.

I love watching you guys I recently discovered your channel about a month ago and I've already binge watched every single episode you guys are awesome thank you so much for what you do.

"Bless" - in our own world, perceived reality has been shown to have literal effects from illness to wounds appearing on people, to confidence stopping someone from being unsure and making a mistake.

2:38 and on. Gotta love that deadpan "Yeah, dont bring any pets around here."-response.

That's why glamour bards are better enchanters than wizards. Separate issue: Otto's has no initial save. That's part of why it is 8th level.

Love Jim’s ad voice

Enchantment magic: the purple mans favorite school

Totally took advantage of the black friday sale and WEBDM5 promo. Purchased the entire bundle. Thanks for putting the word out about the product line Web DM.

15:49 Up until this point I kept thinking "How have that not mentioned the Purple Man yet?"

I'm playing a tiefling warlock, pact with the great old one/master manipulator build. boy was it tough early on going more for flavor of character than the damage dealer. But it's turned out a really satisfying experience, my role playing game gained huge bounds. I went with a mix of enchantments and the terror aspect of my pact boons. Capped off at level 20 with the ultimate in mental twisting fun power word kill, literally killing someone with a mere word.

Happy Thanksgiving guys! And thank you for this video I've been stuck between conjuration school and enchantment school for my bugbear wizard! I now believe enchantment is the way to go. Thank you again.

I was NOT prepared for the Jimphony of the Night in the thumbnail

Feeblemind might be pretty weak for an 8th lvl spell, but _M A N_ was it awesome af in critical role!!

5e really has made enchantment magic feel kind of toothless. Enemies simply get too many saving throws and autoatically know they have been enchanted which just gives it too many downsides. As for Geas, what I have always done with it to adjust the spell is that every day that a person does not obey the task they are given, they lose 1 constitution and the loss is incurable until the geas is removed. I just like the idea that you can resist if you want, and even go out on a quest to try and remove it if you want, but you will be slowly withering away with nothing you can do about it.

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

"this is just a charm effect" "now you affect more than one person" "now you do it longer" You just described the Mythras sorcery magic system :) Should be easily enough to port over to D&D 5E if you want.

In my homebrew campaign, I have a rule that anyone (player or NPC) who casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter must tell a D&D appropriate pun (the worse the better) for which they deliver the setup Before the save is rolled, and after the roll, they deliver the Punchline and we see the results. In this case the pun is a verbal component of the spell. My players seem to enjoy it.

my favorite school! great discussion (no surprise there). Enemies abound is my fave enchantment spell

Yes, my favorite school! I’ve been waiting for this!

I designed a political villain for my campaign. Hes a decently powerful necromancer, but his true power comes from his title and mind control spells. I made this viable by simply giving him modify memory - if he charms someone, he can just modify their memory of the event. If the target would have been charmed in the first place, pretty reasonable they would fail the modify memory save. This allowed me to have him be a very successful manipulator in the narrative. He never needs to charm the actual PCs, since he can always charm and enchant NPCs to speak contrary to what the heroes say or make the poor villagers set themselves up for his crimes. Add in things like alter self, sleep, major image, and greater invis and hes a super gross villain. You can probably beat the snot out of him, but you might end up in jail after or just wake up in an odd place with fuzzy memories of drunkenness.

I've always wanted to play a character that introduces themselves to the party as something else "I'm a human rogue" but then as the adventure goes on something seems very off about them, being a bit sneaky and not performing rogue tasks well, or entirely TOO well, then it turns out they were an Enchanter using magic to mimic the rogues ability the whole time, and enchantment magic to mask their true identity and motives. Was going to either go Enchanter or Trickery Cleric, be interesting to see how long it would take the other players to clock it!! (Immediatly I imagine haha!)

I'm making my first wizard and rewatched all your guys school of magic videos. Thank you so much. Gave me alot to think about.

Teammate asks what Tasha's Hideous Laughter looks like on a target? Refer them to Tom Hank's character in the Money Pit movie where the tub falls through the floor and shatters. That right there is a perfect connection.

Been planning a guild artisan wizard for a while now with really high charisma that studies the enchantment school from what he learns trading on the road for a while now and this helped a lot to make him come to life in my mind. Thanks

I homebrewed an alternate version of the Enchantment school wizard abilities to focus around altering dreams of creatures. So your either able to haunt enemies with nightmares or give allies good dreams. Definitely more narrative focused but like the idea of school having different approaches, "you manipulate them when they're awake, I manipulate them while they sleep."

Yup. I would read Jim's magic rewrite. Thanks for the vid(s.)

"Its a corpse, who cares what you did with it?" Alright Jim why don't you just have a seat over there...

Your vision or idea of what an enchantment wizard player character is like is pretty different than mine. When I think of an Enchanter I think of someone who has been mistreated, someone who has felt oppressed their whole lives eg. Living under a tyrannical ruler, watching these injustices helpless, or as simple as having overbearing parents and having this magic, knowing that they can take control of the situation whenever they like soothes the anxiety they have developed.

Agreed that Enchantment took a massive hit in 5e. But it's also the first time I've used the geas spell, because it still has the duration.

I really do like the idea of a villain like the “Purple Man”. He is not a physically threatening character, but has such a charisma that he is surrounded by some of the most powerful beings possible.

The screen grab of Dracula and Professor X is amazing. Well done. ...Also, the video was amazing, I don't want to take away from that.

The dancing thing sounds like what witches did at the party in "Hocus Pocus"

ALL HAIL OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, HYPNOTOAD.

In regards for a hypno toad like character, you could take inspiration from the Gitrog monster from Magic the Gathering. Wizards came out with a whole short story based on it. It is pretty good dungeons and dragons fodder.

The biggest gripe I have about Enchantment and Charm effects is the GOO Warlock's subclass capstone. You "Create Thrall" but the only benefit it grants (aside from the neat telepathy) is the Charmed condition which gives Advantage on persuading it while the ability name strongly suggests that it should be more like a Dominate XYZ spell.

Been playing since 2nd ed and only recently got into 5th. You guys have really inspired me a lot. Especially when it comes to flavoring the character as it were.

I like to think that the way The Force would work in our world is basically an Enchantment that makes some random passerby bring you the thing at which you're gesturing.

At the moment i started playing tiefling wizard who is son of succuby and is enchantment wizard. I think that it really makes sence for him. Problem is that my character is chaotic good and hes verry strong moral compas. Its fun trying to balance the essence of enchantment wizard with morally good teenager half demon who has good charisma and inteligence. I played only few games with this character but im already in love with him. I see it that he is more hoping to help his friends with enchantment and against enchantment magic.

Speaking of Catnap there's one thing people should know and it's that you simply cannot use that spell on elves or half-elves,because magic cannot put them to sleep,no matter how badly they want it to.

A few ways enchantment magic can be influenced by character personality: a scary person who uses pure fear to make people do things for you; a seductive look that makes someone do something out of desire; completely brainwashing someone and them mindlessly following you; being so boisterous that people just like you enough to help you because you're a cool guy. Those were just a few examples.

Thinking about the enchanter, I am inclined toward the enchanter wizard being the one who is the psychologist: they understand the minds and mannerisms of people -- and can manipulate those

I've been thinking about a myconid enchanter who has to keep covered up and out of sight, and their charisma comes from that and how enigmatic they are; 'in a noisy room you, and everyone else, hear a voice that has not been heard at the bar before, strange and strained. There is a moment of sudden silence as all conversation stops, it keeps speaking and suddenly you feel compelled...' or 'breaking out of the shadows a cloaked figure emerges, their jarring immediacy stalls the conversation. They speak...'

Something I just thought about: you could arguably do a thing where mooks don't get to constantly make saves for some of these spells, and it's only more significant adversaries or targets who have the ability to continually make saves (including PCs). This could be a way of making those spells (and potentially others) more potent while having a built in measure for keeping them from being too good where it matters. The DM would have to determine what constitutes a mook, but at least in my head I think it would be an easy distinction to make.

Around the 44 minute mark, you ask why Otto's Irresistible Dance doesn't impose levels of exhaustion. While I do agree that, for a 6th level spell, this particular spell seems a bit weak, it's worth mentioning that exhaustion is powerfully crippling and scales sporadically. One level of it is like casting Hex or Bestow Curse, but more versatile, and removing a single level of it requires a 4th level spell (Greater Restoration). Giving players the power to impose it, especially multiple times within one casting of a spell, would make this spell one of the most powerful in the game. At best, as a DM, I would allow that most enemies might have 1 level of exhaustion after a full minute of dancing if I were to apply no other improvements to this spell. At that point, it seems like a worthy 6th level spell.

Calm Emotions is one of my favorite spells for preventing combat (though I've had to convince the DM sometimes to let it work on non-humanoids). Confusion is a fun spell, more so because it works on creatures immune to being charmed. Synaptic Static is an encounter-winner in the right situation, considering it's an Intelligence save which many creatures may not be able to save against during the 1 minute debuff, on top of it being, as mentioned, a psychic fireball PLUS a stronger, concentration-less Bane.

Enchantment: "go to the middle of the room, lay face down, and fall asleep for an hour" Then y'all wreck 'em...

One of the villains I know similar to this is Heartbreaker from Web Series Worm. His ability is to imbue devotion to him in anyone he looks at. So, it could be interesting to have a shadow war between Hearbreaker and Killgrave because depending on who is near is if sound or sight will destroy you.

One of my favorite things about y'all is the goofy intros. Love you guys.

Don't know if you'll read this but here's how I like to think of the ability scores... As two sets of three, one measures power(str, int), one that describes how well you wield that power( dex, Cha), and how well you resist others power (con, Wis). This doesn't work in the mechanics of DnD, but I feel it's a good guideline.

I've been playing with this idea for a glam bard, this gave me a few ideas, and made me rethink.

Hate it when my soul is stuck in the gym. 43:19

I love WebDM Wednesdays! You guys inspire my RPing (for once I find a new group), as well as possible future DMing.

I always described Crown of Madness as being a spectral crown that only the caster could see. It has been used in my game to start many bar fights/distractions.

I love the stinger combined with the November pdf that changes healing spell schools.

11:42 Yoshikage Kira

Also if you go with the theme that magic comes from drawing energies of the multiverse you could say that necromancer (if it is evil comes from Orcus and the Abyss where enchantment to also make it an evil school of magic come from the nine hells. From what I can tell they do a lot of manipulating in the nine hells.

Every time I watch one of your videos I always get a new idea for something! I love it!

to be fair, crown of madness, it doesn't say or indicate it grows out of the target, just that one is summoned and forms on their head

Really nice presentation I was listening to tonight while watching my fantasy football scores. Nice work gentlemen.