Making color spray more interesting.

[Snig]

Hey guys so it's common knowledge that color spray is widely considered as similar yet inferior to sleep. They both use the same mechanics, however on conscious is a much more debilitating effect than blindness and last much longer. Color spray tries to make up for this with a larger amount of hit dice affected but false flat with the 15 ft cone limitation. I've made what I think is a fun and more interesting option which I've taken inspiration from the level for confusion spell. Let me know what you guys think and if you consider any tweaks that may be needed that would be great.

So basically it acts identical to the default color spray spell however each creature affected rolls a d8 and suffers from one of the following effects based on the number rolled.

1-2 = Charmed for 1 min (or until something harms it)
3-6 = blinded for one round (same as regular spell)
7-8 unconscious for 1 minute (same as sleep spell)

Thoughts?

[Kane0]

With that it looks like it has 50% chance to be exactly as it was before (as you describe), 25% chance to be as good as sleep and 25% chance to be worse (charmed does nothing on its own during a fight)

[MoiMagnus]

I think "Casting time: Bonus Action" would give it enough of a niche to be interesting.

[Mastikator]

Color spray works on PCs with fey ancestry and sleep immunity like elves and warforged. When designing an NPC and choosing between sleep or color spray, choose color spray.

Also as a DM have the PCs fight creatures with fey ancestry or sleep immunity if sleep dominates too much.

As a player you're living in the DM's world, if sleep is always 100% better then always choose it. It's up to the DM to decide if this (lack of) choice is a problem.

A third thing to consider with sleep vs color spray is that it only takes an action (from another creature) or any amount of damage to disrupt sleep, color spray has no such limitation, blindness is a very potent debuff, even if it only lasts 1 round it will basically stop a number of creatures from delivering attacks while also making them very easy targets.

If you do consider that color spray is categorically inferior then I suggest raising it to 2 rounds, that's already twice as good.

[Kane0]

I think "Casting time: Bonus Action" would give it enough of a niche to be interesting.

Ooh yes, simple and effective.

[JLandan]

I think "Casting time: Bonus Action" would give it enough of a niche to be interesting.

Best tweak of this spell I've seen.

[Snig]

So bonus action sounds like a great and simple change, however it's not quite what I was looking for. As far as balance goes, do you guys see any issue with my initial change? Would there be any changes you'd make to possibly compete better with sleep? Maybe change the charm to another debuff? I like the random status effect to it. Kind of reminds me of earlier additions.

[Kane0]

So bonus action sounds like a great and simple change, however it's not quite what I was looking for. As far as balance goes, do you guys see any issue with my initial change? Would there be any changes you'd make to possibly compete better with sleep? Maybe change the charm to another debuff? I like the random status effect to it. Kind of reminds me of earlier additions.

Yeah its basically still not as good as sleep from what you proposed, and arguably not actually an improvement given the chance of charm

[Rynjin]

You could revert it back to previous edition effects.


A vivid cone of clashing colors springs forth from your hand, causing creatures to become stunned, perhaps also blinded, and possibly knocking them unconscious. Each creature within the cone is affected according to its HD.

2 HD or less: The creature is unconscious, blinded, and stunned for 2d4 rounds, then blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, and then stunned for 1 round. (Only living creatures are knocked unconscious.)

3 or 4 HD: The creature is blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, then stunned for 1 round.

5 or more HD: The creature is stunned for 1 round.

Sightless creatures are not affected by color spray.

It was widely considered one of the most effective 1st level spells before 5e.

[Kane0]

Or convert to CR like Polymorph and increase with upcasting