Spells Missing from the World

[sir_argo]

I'm interested in suggestions for new spells. Specifically, I've noticed two categories of spells that appear to be missing from the world.

Let's face it, there's a lot of magic in a D&D world. Spellcasters are plentiful. Every single town of even moderate size will have numerous individuals who are capable of casting spells. If you go to a major city, I'll bet there is a wizard's guild with a dozen members or more, and that doesn't even count the number of wizards who aren't members. Beyond that, you have clerics at every temple, and who knows how many bards, paladins, arcane tricksters, etc. Let's face it... spellcasters are not rare in D&D. In this environment, magic would be used for far more than just adventuring. It would be also be used to augment some of the more mundane activities that help run a town.

I put these missing spells into two categories.

The first category is magic used by businesses. We can find some examples of spells that would have business use, such as Heat Metal (useful in a smithy), Create Food and Water (useful for a tavern), Unseen Servant (useful in many businesses), Mending (obvious uses), etc. But that list is pretty darn small. I've gone through the spell lists and there is surprisingly little that is of general use by a population. Where's the spell that protects crops from disease and/or pestilence? Where's the spell that assists women giving birth, alleviating the associated pain and easing the process? Where's the spell that preserves foodstuffs for long-term storage? All one has to do is go down a list of gods, check their sphere of influence, and there should be some sort of minor spell that they provide to their clerics that is of practical use.

Then we have the second category. Not sure what to call this one, so I'll just describe it. As is, populations are virtually defenseless against magic. Let me give the extreme example first. A 17th level wizard can cast Improved Invisibility, Nondetection, Teleport into town, cast Meteor Swarm, and then Teleport out. There are simple ways to block divination, so there is literally nothing a town can do to prevent this. An arcane trickster could cast the same, Improved Invisibility and Nondetection, and just stroll into any shop in town and steal with impunity. Assassinating someone is as easy as having a handful of wizards all cast max-slot magic missile at a dignitary and then Teleporting out before the city guard can move in. The utter vulnerability of general populations should result in society being almost impossible. One 17th level evil wizard could wreak havok in an entire kingdom and there's just nothing you can do about it. In this magic world of D&D, it just seems there should be some spells that would provide a level of protection against this.

Now, part of the reason I bring this up is because I used to play in another game system (RuneQuest), and these spells were covered. There were spells to bless crops, assist with pregnancy, peacefully butcher livestock, etc. There was a spell that would ward a marketplace against anyone entering with ill intent. There was also a spell, I believe called, Reconstruction that would replay events from the past so that you could "see" what had happened. It was used to investigate crimes by literally replaying the events like a 3D movie.

What kind of new spells could or should be added to the game that would primarily be used by businesses in a D&D world?

What kind of new spells could or should be added to give populations tools to deal with crime and attacks on the general population?



I have my own proposals for the later category, and I wouldn't mind suggestions for an appropriate level for these spells

Ward Marketplace
?-level enchantment (ritual)

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S, M (a gold piece, which is consumed by the spell)
Duration: 8 hours

You create a magical zone that guards your wares from theft in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point of your choice within range. Until the spell ends, you are subtly aware of the location of all objects that were present in the area of effect, but not on a creature including yourself, at the time the spell was cast. Any object removed from the area of effect begins emitting a sound of your choice that is clearly audible within 120'. This sound persists for the duration of the spell or until you stop the sound as an action.

As an action, you can remove the ward's protection from an object. This is done, most likely, when you sell the item.


Reconstruction
?-level illusion

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M (500gp pearl, which the spell consumes)
Duration: 10 minutes

When you cast this spell, you state a moment in time within the last week. You create an illusion that replays the events that occurred within a 30-foot-radius of your choice within the spell's range. The illusion consists of two sensory types of your choice, most likely sight and sound. The illusion includes any creatures or objects that were invisible but it does not make them visible. A creature will only see these invisible parts of the illusion if the creature can see invisible creatures or objects.

You can replay events from farther back in time by either adding more pearls or increasing their value. Each individual pearl must have a value of 500gp or greater. For every additional 500gp in pearls, you can replay events from a week farther back in time.

[Shadow_in_the_Mist]

On the lack of "hedge magic" spells... on the one hand, you're right in that it makes sense they exist. On the other hand, why would the PHB waste space on them?

Let's get something out in the open: D&D's basic assumption is that when you play the game, either you're playing the role of an epic hero in a high fantasy world, or else you're a money-grubbing mercenary raiding dungeon complexes in pursuit of filthy lucre. In neither type of game is "Ease Birth" or "Store Food" a spell likely to cross your radar.

There's only so much space in the PHB. Why spend precious page space detailing minor spells that no adventuring PC is ever in any plausible situation going to waste their time on? You can always say that such spells exist in the background, but professional adventurers don't move in the circles where they need to spend the time and effort to learn such magic. Particularly in 5e, you can easily handwave the use of such spells as being covered by a successful Arcana check, rather than spending valuable spell slots on such niche and specialized spells.

As for the lack of magical defenses... that's a flaw with every edition apart from 4th and Eberron; all these high-tier spells are statted, but the game wants to present a fairly generic neo-Medieval Europe presentation, so it has to handwave them into the background.

[Ninja_Prawn]

why would the PHB waste space on them?

D&D's basic assumption is that when you play the game, either you're playing the role of an epic hero in a high fantasy world

There's only so much space in the PHB. Why spend precious page space detailing minor spells that no adventuring PC is ever in any plausible situation going to waste their time on?

Totally agreed. Plus, as homebrewers, the gaps in the PHB are actually a blessing for us!

Ninja_Prawn's Collected Spells (https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5ii4j22vebleu7/Spells%20with%20Lists.pdf?dl=0) (not quite exhaustive)

Blasts from the Past (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/06/blast-from-past-spells.html)
Blue Magic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19927737&postcount=34)
Chronomancy (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2016/01/chronomancy-spells.html)
Fey Spells (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/03/fey-spells.html)
GitP Regulars as Spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479518-GitP-Regulars-as-Spells)
Low-Level Necromancy (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/02/necromancy-spells.html)
Power Word Spells (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/07/power-word-spells.html)

And that's not including the spells I've written for our paid content (Waste, Tundra, Weird West, Dark Matter, Complete Witch, the Shugenja class)...

[JackPhoenix]

You're also starting with the wrong assumption: spellcasters, especially high-level spellcasters, are supposed to be rare in most of the settings. PC classes are for PCs and maybe few exceptional villains, not general population. Vast majority od temples doesn't have clerics on staff, they may have Priests NPCs if they are very lucky, and some commoner with proficiency in Religion and perhaps other skills favored by the church in question most of the time.

Even in Eberron, where magic is "common" (and most villages still don't have their own spellcasters), it's low-level magic, magic items, and dragonmark abilities... spellcasters over, say, 5th level are extremely rare. Why defend people against Meteor Swarm/Teleport attacks, when there are about two people on the continent able to pull it off, and both of them have better things to do? It's like having fallout shelter under every house, because nukes exist. (Actually, if we go by 3.5e stats and give them Wizard levels same as they had, neither Erandis Vol nor Mordain the Fleshweaver are able to pull that one off, because neither has spell slots for 2 Teleports...we're talking about two most powerful wizards (evil or otherwise) on the whole main continent, and neither is level 20!)

[Unoriginal]

I apologize in advance for sounding like a rude jerk, but:



Let's face it, there's a lot of magic in a D&D world.

True, but I don't see why we'd have to "let's face it".


Spellcasters are plentiful.

Wrong. It's at best setting-dependent, and there is nothing in the books suggesting that.



Every single town of even moderate size will have numerous individuals who are capable of casting spells.

Again, setting dependent, and not universal. Even when it is technically true, it's because species like the elves and gnomes have access to some low-level spells.



If you go to a major city, I'll bet there is a wizard's guild with a dozen members or more, and that doesn't even count the number of wizards who aren't members.

Again, setting dependent, and plenty of setting don't confirm that.




Beyond that, you have clerics at every temple

No.

Here you're just contradicting the game:


Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods' will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms. In some cities, priesthood amounts to a political office, viewed as a stepping stone to higher positions of authority and involving no communion with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.

It's rare to be the chosen one of a god.


Let's face it... spellcasters are not rare in D&D.

There is nothing to face, this assertion is not universal nor supported by the books.

Spellcasters are generally uncommon. Powerful spellcasters are rare.


Like the PHB says:



People who are able to cast spells don't fall into the category of ordinary hirelings. lt might be possible to find someone willing to cast a spell in exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no established pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the desired spell, the harder it is to find someone who can cast il and the more it costs. Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level, such as cure wounds or identify, is easy enough in a city or town, and might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces (plus the cost of any expensive material components). Finding someone able and willing to cast a higher-level spell might involve traveling to a large city, perhaps one with a university or prominent temple. Once found, the spellcaster might ask for a service instead of payment-the kind of service that only adventurers can provide, such as retrieving a rare item from a dangerous locale or traversing a monster infested wilderness to deliver something important to a distant settlement.




In this environment, magic would be used for far more than just adventuring. It would be also be used to augment some of the more mundane activities that help run a town.

No, there is no reason that it'd be the case.

D&D magic is limited in use, by who can practice it, and by how expensive it is. While a spellcaster might help the town, it would certainly not be in mundane activities unless the city is incredibly rich.

To say nothing of the fact that most spellcasters would simply lack the capacity to do so. D&D's magic has some pretty hard limit in its scope.


The first category is magic used by businesses. We can find some examples of spells that would have business use, such as Heat Metal (useful in a smithy), Create Food and Water (useful for a tavern), Unseen Servant (useful in many businesses), Mending (obvious uses), etc.

Basically any of those spell would be grossly inefficient to use in a business, compared to the mundane equivalent.



I've gone through the spell lists and there is surprisingly little that is of general use by a population.

Yes, because the general population has no way to access magic.


Where's the spell that protects crops from disease and/or pestilence?

There is no such spell because curing/protecting an individual being from diseases is already pretty difficult, so doing so on a whole area would be waaaay more complicated or require waaaay more power.

To give you an idea, the spell Plant Growth is a level 3 spells, meaning that a very large percent of the population would never met someone capable of casting it, even if it'd be useful for the crops.


Where's the spell that assists women giving birth, alleviating the associated pain and easing the process?

It's called a Potion of Healing, for when the woman is in danger, or an Herbalism's kit for the extreme cases. Otherwise, there is no reason why low-level magic would be capable of helping dull pain on that level.



Where's the spell that preserves foodstuffs for long-term storage?

It'd basically be a waste of a spell when you have salt/pickling/cold/places built to preserve



All one has to do is go down a list of gods, check their sphere of influence, and there should be some sort of minor spell that they provide to their clerics that is of practical use.

Gods have no reason to care about the bread you bake or the like.


HOWEVER: A Cleric of level 10 (which is very high and very, very rare) can try a Divine Intervention to stop things like wide plagues or large natural disasters than can affect hundreds.




Then we have the second category. Not sure what to call this one, so I'll just describe it. As is, populations are virtually defenseless against magic.

Yes. Magic is powerful, the general population isn't.




Let me give the extreme example first. A 17th level wizard can cast Improved Invisibility, Nondetection, Teleport into town, cast Meteor Swarm, and then Teleport out. There are simple ways to block divination, so there is literally nothing a town can do to prevent this.

Indeed, but given that there is maybe two dozens Wizards in the world that reach that kind of power at any given time, if any of them tried that the others would have a vested interest in destroying the culprit (due to the risk said culprit represent and the "I don't want my stuff to be rekt by meteors" moral principle), not to mentions how all the adventurers in the world would rush to defeat a foe that powerful and steal their riches.




An arcane trickster could cast the same, Improved Invisibility and Nondetection, and just stroll into any shop in town and steal with impunity. [/SPOILER]

Yes, because at this point in their career the Arcane Trickster is basically one of the best criminals in the world. A Thief of equivalent level would be just as able to do that kind of thing, usually.


[QUOTE=sir_argo;22212960]Assassinating someone is as easy as having a handful of wizards all cast max-slot magic missile at a dignitary and then Teleporting out before the city guard can move in.
A dignitary that's high enough on the totem pole to warrant that kind of expense would have access to the Shield spell, foiling the assassination.



The utter vulnerability of general populations should result in society being almost impossible.

Why would it be? The general population is also utterly vulnerable against a dragon, or a Beholder, or a lvl 17 Fighter. Why would any of those make society impossible?

Society can survive just fine with powerful, but very, very rare threats.


One 17th level evil wizard could wreak havok in an entire kingdom

Yes, lvl 17 characters are incredibly powerful.



and there's just nothing you can do about it.

Wrong. There is whole adventures written about stopping people that are that powerful and who are wreaking havoc.




In this magic world of D&D, it just seems there should be some spells that would provide a level of protection against this.

The only protection against that kind of powerful being is a bunch of other powerful beings.

Why would inferior magic protect against a lvl 17 caster?



Now, part of the reason I bring this up is because I used to play in another game system (RuneQuest), and these spells were covered. There were spells to bless crops, assist with pregnancy, peacefully butcher livestock, etc. There was a spell that would ward a marketplace against anyone entering with ill intent. There was also a spell, I believe called, Reconstruction that would replay events from the past so that you could "see" what had happened. It was used to investigate crimes by literally replaying the events like a 3D movie.

While it is indeed a valid approach, this is a fundamentally different way of portraying magic than the way D&D does it, and D&D's way is just as valid.

D&D 5e's magic is not easy, it's not mundane, and it's hardly good for day-to-day life.

There is a reason why there is less magic items in this edition than in 3.X, for exemple.



What kind of new spells could or should be added to the game that would primarily be used by businesses in a D&D world?

What kind of new spells could or should be added to give populations tools to deal with crime and attacks on the general population?

None to both, unless you're in a world that's pretty different from the standard 5e one.

[Azgeroth]

i agree with you on some aspects, there are spells missing from 5e. anyone remember bigbys foot?

on the general lack of magic from the overall world, 5e is set out as a mid - low magic setting by default, thus the lack of magic weapons untill level 5 and even then only basic +1s

to address this a little more broadly, as others have said the practise of magic is either, so expensive to learn it is the reserve of the rich, and/or requires such an investment that spending your time then as a baker, or an inn keeper, is both financially stupid, and demeaning.

lets look at the other side, high elf has the mending cantrip just for being an elf, if he was also a carpenter, sure, he might use that skill in his craft, but he would still be crafting by hand on a larger scale, if he wasn't a trades person however, is anyone really going to trust/allow him to fix there stuff as both an untrained trades person, and untrained magic practitioner? could he even offer that service reliably with no trade knowledge??

lets say there is a retired cleric, dwarven, who can create all the ale he likes, is a brewery going to stop brewing, and allow this one dwarf to be the sole source of there produce? lets say they do.. there now locked to that one type of ale, brewing new recipes disappears, because they have no manufacturing, which means there no longer competitive, would patrons want to buy magically created produce, as opposed to that farmed/processed/cooked/brewed/crafted by people they know? remember there was/is no industrial revolution in this world, it is a cottage industry model, one guy making a lot of anything cheap upsets alot of people, and economies, that will not fly..

that isnt to say there would be exceptions, the odd occasion where that elf who can mend fixs the wheel of a wagon in a caravan hes traveling on, the same dwarven cleric helping out at a festival to make sure there is enough ale for everyone.

all of this though is simply the standard, you are free to make your own world as magic heavy or industrial as you like.

EDIT :

on the spells you posted, the first is essentially a pairing of alarm, mordenkainen's private sanctum, with some quasi hunters mark/glyph to mark merchandise. its workable, but that enchantment is going to be hella expensive, and it would require each item to be 'glyphed'

the second spell, would that pierce illusions? what if the area had a ward against scrying at the time? this could be incredibly powerful as a player tool. and negate any puzzle simply by looking at the last person who solved it, aswell as allowing the party to imediatebly identify an asailant who you want to reserve for later in the game.

[smcmike]

One, this is all very setting dependent.

Two, even in a high magic setting, a lot of what you are talking about is background. Maybe every farmer blesses his crops with an extensive ritual to protect it from blight, every miner shores up his tunnels with ancient runes, and every good tavern uses incantations against spoilage. These are fluff things that a DM can include in the setting or not, with no actual effect on the campaign.

Heck, even in a low-magic setting, they probably do all those rituals and whatnot, just without much effect.

[sir_argo]

Totally agreed. Plus, as homebrewers, the gaps in the PHB are actually a blessing for us!

Ninja_Prawn's Collected Spells (https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5ii4j22vebleu7/Spells%20with%20Lists.pdf?dl=0) (not quite exhaustive)

Blasts from the Past (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/06/blast-from-past-spells.html)
Blue Magic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19927737&postcount=34)
Chronomancy (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2016/01/chronomancy-spells.html)
Fey Spells (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/03/fey-spells.html)
GitP Regulars as Spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479518-GitP-Regulars-as-Spells)
Low-Level Necromancy (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/02/necromancy-spells.html)
Power Word Spells (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/07/power-word-spells.html)

And that's not including the spells I've written for our paid content (Waste, Tundra, Weird West, Dark Matter, Complete Witch, the Shugenja class)...

Wow. You have quite an extensive list of homebrew spells. I'll be taking a look at the Blue Magic because those spells would be of use in a brothel.

[sir_argo]

...

Feel free to ignore the background if you disagree with my reasons for asking for spell suggestions. You're not obligated to suggest any spells if you don't want to.

[sir_argo]

the second spell, would that pierce illusions? what if the area had a ward against scrying at the time? this could be incredibly powerful as a player tool. and negate any puzzle simply by looking at the last person who solved it, aswell as allowing the party to imediatebly identify an asailant who you want to reserve for later in the game.

I actually wanted to add some more verbiage to the spell, but it was late and I was tired.

Yes, the spell would pierce illusions, or rather it would duplicate up to two sensory effects that had been created by illusions in the original events.

The spell is not in the school of Divination and is not affected by divination blocking magic.

It is intended to be a powerful investigative tool. It would not be a good tool to solve puzzles because you can only look back into recent history. The short reach back in time is intended to restrict its ability to "resolve" events from long, long ago. Also, you would have to know the exact point of time to review. If you were in a dungeon and come across a puzzle room, you will have no idea what date/time in the past to review in order to negate the puzzle.

This spell would allow for easier identification of an assailant. That's actually the primary purpose of the spell. But for the record, I don't see this as necessarily being available to PC's. I picture members of the wizards guild being brought in to a crime scene and casting this spell for the benefit of the town guard. The material component cost would limit its use to only crimes that warrant the expense.

[Unoriginal]

Feel free to ignore the background if you disagree with my reasons for asking for spell suggestions. You're not obligated to suggest any spells if you don't want to.

Well, sorry, I thought you wanted to address what you considered to be a problem, not just spell suggestions.