Create Poppet (Spell, 5e+)

[Rerem115]

I had a character concept that really needed a spell like this, so I spent a bit of time tinkering with this. Feedback greatly appreciated!

Create Poppet
2nd level necromancy (ritual)
Wizard, Sorcerer, Artificer, Warlock
Casting time: 1 hour
Range: Touch
Components: S, M (10 gp worth of fine fabrics, which are consumed by the spell)

Using a piece of a creature (such as a lock of hair, drop of blood, shed scale, etc.) as its core, you create a Tiny doll that resembles the creature and weave a connection between them. The doll has an Armor Class of 10, 13 hit points, and resistance to all damage. The doll regains 1 hit point whenever the spell Mending is cast on it, or whenever anyone proficient with Weaver's Tools spends 10 minutes to repair it. Creatures with Truesight can see the connection as a thin line of ethereal thread. This spell fails if the creature is already connected to a doll you created.

While holding a doll with an active connection, the caster can choose to inflict the target with any sound, touch, scent, or taste experienced by the doll. Additionally, whenever the doll takes any amount of damage, the target takes 1 damage of the same type(s). If the doll is destroyed, the target must make Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 3d8 necrotic damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage.

Casting Remove Curse or an equivalent spell on either the target or the doll breaks the connection, as does the destruction of the doll.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the target takes 1 additional damage when the doll is damaged, plus 1d8 necrotic damage when the doll is destroyed for each slot level above 2nd.

[Anymage]

Three things that stand out to me are;
The need for a piece of the target creature (which someone might argue as a cost is not needed for that part it could be ignored with a focus).
In theory with small enough subdivision of a part, or just free access to the victim early on, you could make an arbitrarily large number of dolls and have a bunch of minions all stab at the same time in order to inflict appreciable damage. Limiting it to one doll connected to a person at a time keeps the voodoo doll trope while limiting degenerate cases.
Losing all your unspent HD can be harsh, mitigated only in how HD wind up completely ignored in many groups. 3d8 necrotic, Cha save half, with the option to upcast to increase both the poke damage and the destruction damage already sounds plenty threatening to your average NPC. Wiping out unspent HD is too swingy depending on when it hits and also who (NPCs not having HD and all), so you can work with just a straight damage.

Otherwise looks pretty decent. Second level spells is about right for that level of harassment/threat.

[Rerem115]

I tried to dodge the focus part by having the material components be consumed, but you're right, moving it to the actual effect of the spell would completely forestall that argument.

Fixed, along with cleaning up multiple doll shenanigans and making Warlocks happy!

[MrStabby]

I love the theme and the latest execution seems pretty great. I still imagine there are all sorts of abuses out there, but I cant see them.

The class selection seems odd to me though. It doesn't seem like wizard magic, or even sorcerer magic. It seems much more like a witch or voodoo/witch doctor trope type magic.

I felt that death cleric to be one of the closest matches to a Witch doctor so seems a shame they can't pick it up (though interestingly if you were to re-work it as a cantrip they would, and then it would scale well).

On the witchy side, I have felt that bard is one of the best representations of that trope - lots of debilitating spells, enchantments and the like. Personally I feel bard would be a better fit than wizard.

[Old Harry MTX]

I like that!


At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the target takes 1 additional damage when the doll is damaged, plus 1d8 necrotic damage when the doll is destroyed for each slot level above 2nd.

Just let me do some quick math. If you cast this spell with a 9th level slot you can inflict 13 x 8 = 104 damage when damaging the doll, plus 10d8 when it is destroyed, that's an average of other 45 damage, for a total average of 149 damage. Is it acceptable? Maybe yes, depending mainly on how difficult is to obtain the piece of creature needed to create the doll.

What happens to the creature when you repair the doll? The creatures regain the lost hit points? Otherwise there would be the risk to abuse of a damage/mending loop to inflict a lot of damage!

Finally, does the doll works even if the linked creature is very very far away or in another plane?

[Rerem115]

The class selection seems odd to me though. It doesn't seem like wizard magic, or even sorcerer magic. It seems much more like a witch or voodoo/witch doctor trope type magic.

I originally intended for it to be an Artificer/Warlock spell. But, it felt weird that Necromancers didn't get it, and then I felt like I was discrinating against Sorcerers...

I see what you're getting at with Cleric and Bard—though the latter can just take it anyway if they really want it.


Just let me do some quick math. If you cast this spell with a 9th level slot you can inflict 13 x 8 = 104 damage when damaging the doll, plus 10d8 when it is destroyed, that's an average of other 45 damage, for a total average of 149 damage. Is it acceptable? Maybe yes, depending mainly on how difficult is to obtain the piece of creature needed to create the doll.

That is a sizeable amount of damage. On the other hand, that's with a 9th level spell slot. :smallbiggrin: It's like Metor Swarm, only single target, done over time instead of all at once, and needs a potentially difficult to acquire material component.


What happens to the creature when you repair the doll? The creatures regain the lost hit points? Otherwise there would be the risk to abuse of a damage/mending loop to inflict a lot of damage.

No, Mending only fixes the doll. It's dangerous to let hostle forces get part of your body!

...Or at least that's the fantasy the spell's meant to encourage. Not an immediate lethality, but a harassing pain when they try to sleep, or mocking whispers as they go about their day.


Finally, does the doll works even if the linked creature is very very far away or in another plane?

I, uh, didn't really consider that. At least on raw distance, the answer is yes, it should work. The other plane part, though, hmm...

[Old Harry MTX]

No, Mending only fixes the doll. It's dangerous to let hostle forces get part of your body!

...Or at least that's the fantasy the spell's meant to encourage. Not an immediate lethality, but a harassing pain when they try to sleep, or mocking whispers as they go about their day.

Ok, but let me make an example: I have the doll of a creature made with a level 4 slot. It means that if I inflict 12 damage to the doll I inflict 12 x 3 = 36 damage to the creature. Then I can mend the doll to its maximum and inflict other 12 damage to it, so other 36 to the creature, and so on. Am I right? That's why I think that repairing the doll should heal the linked creature of an amount of hit points equal to the number of hit points mended x (the level of the spellslot - 1), as you do with the damage.