Unearthed Arcana: Mongrelfolk-like Tieflings and mostly useless Spells

[Wilb]

This is probably the least useful unearthed arcana to date.

The only spell that can see some use (I haven't yet figured if it's worth it) is the Conjure Hezrou one. The remaining ones either require a serial killer caster or sacrificing gems, which aren't infinite and may see better use on some other spells, idk.

Link: https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/07_UA_That_Old_Black_Magic.pdf


PS: large scale war campaigns can go crazy if you cast this spell (Conjure Hezrou) on the enemy resource (food) depot...

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Are you kidding? These look amazing for campaign which use the default rules for magic items. (no buying, no crafting.)
You end up with massive amounts of money and nothing to spend it on.
So you muht as well buy lots of gems and summon demons to solve your next dungeon for you.

[SorO_Lost]

Tieflings have a quite a few racial options now, "Abyssal" cannot use the Winged or other Spell options from Sowrds Coast but they can use the Ability/Appearance options. Like you could do

Ability Score Increase (infernal): Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2.
Age/Alignment/Size/Speed: Same.
Darkvision: Thanks to your infernal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only fifty shades of gray.
Hellish Resistance: You have resistance to fire damage.
Winged: You have bat-like wings sprouting from your shoulder blades. You have a flying speed of 30 feet.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Infernal.

or

Ability Score Increase (feral): Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age/Alignment/Size/Speed: Same.
Appearance:  As Sword Coast.
Darkvision: Thanks to your infernal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only fifty shades of gray.
Abyssal Fortitude: Your hit point maximum increases by half your level (minimum 1).
Abyssal Arcana: Look it's a lot of badly formatted text (one word per line when copy/pasted), just read the PDF.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Abyssal.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

hmm ... or say Abyssal + Feral
would get :  +1 Con , +2 Dex

Abyssal Arcana ... should dip Wiz 1 for a slow
bonus spell fill up of the spellbook.  Or the
Wiz should beg for 1 of these in the party.
I guess it's at least a little juicy, to move the
Spare The Dying cantrip * and Cure Wounds
level 1 spell over to arcane.

{ ... minor early qualifying for 3.5e twinges going off, oops wrong edition ... }
 

Conj Lesser Demons ... brings the nerfed Wiz Conj back up to Druid level

Conj Bar-Igura ... is it a typo or is it real rule, to have a not Concentration based duration ?

Conj the others ... do these interact with the Wiz Conj 10 special ability ??
Personally I'd force a Dex check to spill the blood in a circle ** correctly.

The Cha check (?) Friends or Enhance Ability or Bestow Curse (etc)
is rather an expensive add-on cost to casting these.  And for a very
limited return on investment.  There may have just been a Tweet-rata
about the Rogue 11 ability interacting with all sorts of things, so these
spells' cha check would be included. 
RogAT 11 / Wiz 9 ... doesn't feel all that useful.
RogTh 13 using UMD on a Scroll the Wiz just handed over = better.

*  iirc (idk) They made a ruling about Cantrips in the spellbook, but I ignored that one.
** I vaguely recall a youtube video of a kid peeing off a merry-go-round , and now add demons ...

[Wilb]

Yup, Gorilla demon has no concentration involved, but its still problematic, I believe.

The Hezrou one seems to be the easiest one to fiddle with. It doesn't specify that the food must be an expensive single item, allowing for stuff like invading a castle's pantry, or a military encampment supply stock and cast the spell using other people's food as component...

[SorO_Lost]

The Hezrou one seems to be the easiest one to fiddle with. It doesn't specify that the food must be an expensive single item,

Multiple items appear fine but pay attention to the duration and how often it makes the check, the last DC it'll have is 1,210 which requires 24,200gp worth of food (with an enormous total racking just to get there). Let's face it, you're going to lose control of it within a few round so why bother bribing it at all? It can't target the caster if they hole them selves up in a ring of blood.

Just hide, cast, and relax. If it finds a corpse to eat it finds a corpse to eat, if it doesn't well then it makes one. And if it happens to be in the center of an enemy's camp then that's not really an issue right? 

[linklord231]

The point of using someone else's food isn't to keep control longer, it's to deprive them of their food.  Sneak in to someone's castle, use all their food to summon a demon, then sneak away while they're busy dealing with said demon.  Not only do they have to deal with a demon, but now they're also out of food. 

[Wilb]

The point of using someone else's food isn't to keep control longer, it's to deprive them of their food.  Sneak in to someone's castle, use all their food to summon a demon, then sneak away while they're busy dealing with said demon.  Not only do they have to deal with a demon, but now they're also out of food.

Bingo, extra demon control is just a plus.

[SorO_Lost]

The point of using someone else's food isn't to keep control longer, it's to deprive them of their food. 

You know what else does that? Every freaking summon spell ever, as it turns out. A lot of creatures in D&D eat food just like you and me.

And some of those summoning spells conjure up creatures that are on FIRE so you can also burn their house down. 

[Wilb]

The point of using someone else's food isn't to keep control longer, it's to deprive them of their food. 

You know what else does that? Every freaking summon spell ever, as it turns out. A lot of creatures in D&D eat food just like you and me.

And some of those summoning spells conjure up creatures that are on FIRE so you can also burn their house down. 

You mean every summon spell has food as a consumed component, in an indeterminate quantity? because this spell can empty a war larder that should feed an army for a month in 6 seconds...

[sambojin]

How much are Goodberries worth? Would it be the same as getting an NPC to cast a lvl 1 spell/10 for each berry? One berry sates hunger all day, but I doubt it'd work in this case.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Heh heh haaa.
 

That's hilarious, you could sate it's hunger for a whole day,
and it wouldn't matter, because it'd keep eating anyway.

or

The value of a goodberry gp wise, is too cheap to matter,
it's hunger would be sated for a whole day, and it won't
care, because it'd keep eating anyway.


OOOOOOOHH  ... a Wiz Illusionist 14 could
make a whole entire region of "food" the Hezrou
would probably not make it's save against.
You never had pizza before in your 3 millenia eh?

[sambojin]

Just get the Illusionist's Transmutationist friend to occasionally use a Philosopher's Stone on it as well.

Young, dumb, and full of something imaginative.....

[Nunkuruji]

I'll welcome additional racial printings anytime, the more examples, the easier to generate new equivalences with precedent.

What defines what is and isn't food - and to what creature does that apply?
Plenty of varieties such a rust monster / oozes that eat non organic material, yea?
What's the worth of a Heroes' Feast, beyond the 1k component? Value of it the value of the spellcasting as a service?
They should have just stuck to damn gems... food... how ridiculous.

[linklord231]

Looking at the rules for material components, it's heavily implied that you have to hold them in your hand when casting the spell for it to work.  So you couldn't use a massive pile of food as the material component; you'd have to use a small, high-value item.  I have no clue what they had in mind for that, since food for an Aristocratic lifestyle (which includes meals from the best restaurants) only costs 2gp per day, but there you go.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Lemme walk that back just a little.
Maybe you could get off the RNG
far enough for it to work, say perhaps
tagging a whole bunch of boosters
onto the Int/Investigate save. 
More likely the Hezrou would win
the save after 10 or so rounds.
Still, it's a little more time of destruction ...


Yeah they did open quite the can of worms
with a component that's nearly undefinable.
 

[Nunkuruji]

Dave Chappelle has us covered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EEhFm7Ua6c

[SorO_Lost]

You mean every summon spell has food as a consumed component, in an indeterminate quantity? because this spell can empty a war larder that should feed an army for a month in 6 seconds...

Are you implying that if you stood outside a castle you somehow have ALL THE FOOD?

I don't even think you could count the bacon behind a 1/4 wooden cabinet door (people don't exactly keep their food in a single mass pile) if you were standing in the kitchen seeing how you still need a hand free to pull a material component out of a pouch that you're actually wearing. But whatevs, I really thought you were turning the demon (devil?) loose just to eat stuff. At least now I understand what you're trying to say *cough*withheldcommentshere*cough*

[Wilb]

You mean every summon spell has food as a consumed component, in an indeterminate quantity? because this spell can empty a war larder that should feed an army for a month in 6 seconds...

Are you implying that if you stood outside a castle you somehow have ALL THE FOOD?

I don't even think you could count the bacon behind a 1/4 wooden cabinet door (people don't exactly keep their food in a single mass pile) if you were standing in the kitchen seeing how you still need a hand free to pull a material component out of a pouch that you're actually wearing. But whatevs, I really thought you were turning the demon (devil?) loose just to eat stuff. At least now I understand what you're trying to say *cough*withheldcommentshere*cough*

Nah, it was more like sneak into the deposit, pile all the stuff together (or at least open the containers and have everything connected by touch) and cast the spell. Unseen servants probably could do this job. Sabotage at its sweetest.