Terrence Beralis's life could be summed up by failure.
After he flunked out of Wizard School, he took up the guisarm to become a magus and journeyed to the Abomination Vaults, accompanied by his alchemy professor, in order to make something of his life. Despite his weak and cowardly nature, he began to learn something of strength in the deepest shadows of the Gauntlight... but people like him could only play at the appearance of a hero for so long.
Now, as the seugathi alchemist pointed at him and uttered his death-bringing words, Terrence saw that the hands of fate had turned inexorably on him and knew that he had finally rolled the losing number. Such peace it gave him. He had long tired of the waiting, the running, the chill of the tomb and the ephemeral grains of hope.
The phantasmal killer came down upon him and cleaved his mind in two, and thus Terrence Beralis was gone.
What he did not know was that unknown forces had greater things in mind for him than mere death... his story was not over yet.
(a dramatic retelling of my first character death in a ttrpg and art to commemorate him. failed two saves against the spell phantasmal killer and the boy was dead. may the gods bless your soul, terry. what an experience. and opportunity for character development :^) )
Fear-inducing magic is relatively common sight in most worlds and inhabitants owe their survival to it. Dragons would be a great deal rarer if they weren’t able to scare off murderous adventurers -- and murderous adventurers would be rarer still if dragons weren’t able to scare them off. It’s rare you see win-win situations develop around dragons, fiends, and anti-paladins, but you take what you can get.
Mages privy to ancient spellcasting methods know that Cause Fear can be easily re-tooled to function as Remove Fear (but only Warlocks/Wizards with a level or more in Cleric are able to do this).
On a different note, there is the saying, “There is little to fear of the monster that frightens you out of its cave, compared to the monster that frightens you in.” Spellcasters who specialize in fear-inducing magic are able to shift what the target is afraid of on the fly. These mages can make you afraid of your companions, your helmet, the bridge you’re standing on, and shuffle you through these fears over the course of seconds!
Although it’s hilarious to watch a Barbarian run in circles in terror, the manifestations of high-level fear spells are far more sobering. When the spells Cause Fear, Fear, Antipathy or Phantasmal Killer are cast at the 9th level, they are re-classified as “Conjuration” spells. An invisible thing is summoned from the plane of negative energy -- completely uncontrollable -- and sustains itself on fear.
For this reason, the Weird spell was invented. Although making a bunch of creatures in a circle really, really scared isn’t that outstanding, it’s ability to mask the scent of mass fear from such unwanted parties is a godsend.
@archhexblade1 replied to your post “Spell: Phantasmal Killer”
It's not a sorcerer spell because no creature innate uses spells like that in the forgotten realms (primary source of lore for 5e) so no bloodline can transfer it. If you're running a homebrew setting where that's not the case then why complain at all?
I see four problems with your reply (three with your argument):
You take issue with the act of complaining. You’re going to have a very foul time on my blog; I do that by default. And I’m not going to be remorseful for being that way, nor will I stop because someone asks. Complaining points out where things fall short, thus giving us the ability to grow; it’s why we have nice things.
“My Grandpappy Screwed a Nymph” Fallacy. Despite a common thread going all the way back to 3.0′s introduction of the class, by canon not every (or even most) Sorcerers draw their power from having non-human DNA in their background. Of the official out-of-playtest material, the only one that is de jure heritage is Draconic.
The fact of the matter is that sorcery has a lot to do with the unique way each sorcerer approaches magic. It can have to do with inheritance, but it doesn’t have to.
The Homebrew Fallacy. The Forgotten Realms may be the source of much lore, but it’s generally been the case in most editions (I can’t really speak for 4th) that lore is optional (as you indicate by mentioning homebrew settings) and largely flexible, especially in the department of what magical abilities creatures have. Generally, what goes into a Monster Manual doesn’t usually dictate what options are available to players (to the point that it made polymorph an ongoing problem in 3rd edition). Further, saying that you can homebrew it is not an adequate defense of a problem with the rules, even if it is a viable solution to a given problem at hand.
The False Assumption about FR Canon. This one is the pièce de résistance because if your argument were correct, then it would be true for every spell included on the spell list -- so you wouldn’t have specific odd spells like darkvision, false life, jump, water walk, and such. However, you could say that those represent something similar to effects which monsters in the Realms can produce, to which I reply that there are loads of psionic monsters (Aboleths, Illithids, Yuan-Ti, etc.) which have mental assault and/or illusion-based powers, which phantasmal killer replicates handily. Further, it would call for certain other spells not currently on the Sorcerer list (like animate dead¹) to be on the list.
But above all, the idea that a canonical monster would have had to have it to be on the Sorcerer list would demand that no monster in the Realms has ever innately cast phantasmal killer.
That’s not true.
Since I do not yet know of a website with a full, easily searchable list of every monster as yet published in 5e, I had to get a bit...archival.
Because the 2nd ed. Monstrous Compendium is online in its entirety, I often go to it in my searches before seeing updated versions. This time, I found the Death Slaad, Minion of Set, and Piscoloth, (I didn’t dig that deeply, either: Google is lovely, if evil), all of which have a presence in the Realms.
The Minion of Set worked differently in 2nd ed. than in 3rd (it’s in Deities & Demigods, which I happened to have on hand). You might say that supports retconning as a defense of your argument, which is entirely arbitrary. Regardless, I figured the Minion of Set likely hasn’t gotten updated to 5e, so we’ll need to hold onto that thought for the moment.
Since the Piscoloth is in various books, I decided to track down the Death Slaad. (Though it’s in the 3.x Monster Manual, it’s considered Product Identity so isn’t on the SRD; thus, I had to dig out my Monster Manual to check.) It doesn’t have phantasmal killer in 3.5 (no clue about 3.0, not going to dig that deeply). I compared this against the 5e Monster Manual; they don’t have it there, either.
I sighed: I would have to search for Piscoloths.
This is where I pulled out a trick: I turned to this wonderful website called Forgotten Realms Helps, which catalogs FR material from 3rd edition (and other material, which it then notes is non-Realms stuff). I looked up “Piscoloth.” It has phantasmal killer.
Thinking I should check for retcons, I looked at the Forgotten Realms Wiki to see which book Piscoloths appear in now; it doesn’t list them as having yet been published in 5e, even though they were in every numbered edition beforehand. This means one of two things: either they haven’t been published yet (quite plausible) or piscoloths are being retconned out of the setting (but that seems unlikely: why say “these no longer exist” needlessly?).
So, until I can find a nice, tasty, readily searchable repository of literally every published, canonical monster in 5e, again we’re back to until WotC finalizes its psionics origin for Sorcerers, if they ever do, you’ll have to find some other way of getting the spell.
Which goes back to Point #3: homebrew/asking your DM is a viable option (depending on the DM), but not an adequate defense of the rule.
¹ You might argue that that has to do with being a ritualistic spell with a longer casting time, even if you don’t cast it as a ritual. The same is true of teleportation circle, which is on the Sorcerer’s list.
You may be wondering why I’m discussing another non-Sorcerer spell.
Answer: it is one in 3.x and 5e’s spell lists are annoyingly limited. (I mean, why isn’t it a Sorcerer spell? It’s a boom boom spell and they get mostly those -- and it’ll probably be one officially if WotC continues in the direction of its last psionics playtest.)
This spell’s description is unchanged between editions, but its mechanics are vastly different:
5e: As the 3.5 version of mind thrust (1d10 psychic damage per level of the spell slot used, Wis negates), but as a 4th-level DoT (concentration, up to one minute) that also comes with the Frightened status.
If you concentrate for the full duration and the subject doesn’t succeed on any of its saves (initial + one at the end of each of its turns), you could deal 10 x Xd10, where X is the spell slot’s level. That’s a lot more damage.
3.x: An illusion that will kill your target if they fail their save or deal irresistible damage on a success, but with many drawbacks.
What are the drawbacks of the 3.x version?
It’s an Illusion (Phantasm) [Fear, Mind-Affecting]. That’s four pathways for resistance or immunity; resistance or immunity to fear is particularly common and five creature types are immune to mind-affecting effects (Construct, Ooze, Plant, UNDEAD, and Vermin).
One of the spell’s advantages is that it’s a save-or-die spell without the Death descriptor.
Spell Resistance applies.
Because 3.5′s mechanics try to simulate effects (sometimes at the expense of gameplay), the target gets two saves: a Will save to disbelieve an illusion with which it’s interacting (your conjured Freddie Krueger has to touch them) and a Fortitude save against death (the implied heart attack for not disbelieving the illusion).
There aren’t many classes or creatures which don’t have good Fort or Will saves. Most of those are Rogue variants.¹ Otherwise, you’ve got Commoners, Elemental-type creatures (3.5) with the Air or Fire subtypes, many (but not all) Humanoid creatures in 3.5 (but not 3.P), and four splatbook classes.²
If the subject succeeds at disbelieving the Illusion and has telepathy, they can turn the spell back on the caster, who has to make the Will vs. Disbelief save even though they cast the spell in the first place.
You tend to find telepathy on Aberrations, Outsiders (except Celestials, who generally get tongues/Truespeech instead), and specifically psionic creatures of other types, but it’s sprinkled all over: nightshades, pseudodragons (and faerie dragons), and a variety of other creatures have it.
There’s also the helm of telepathy, which the spell specifically mentions.
It’s like with Cait Sith in Final Fantasy VII: I’ve always wanted to play with it, but the risk of accidentally killing myself isn’t one I want to accept.
Conclusion: find a way of taking it in 5e.
¹ Mountebank (Dragon Compendium; a Rogue/Warlock blend), Ninja (both versions, but the Complete Adventurer one gets +2 on Will saves so long as it retains ki points in its ki pool), Psychic Rogue (unlike Lurk or Spellthief, which have good Will saves), regular Rogue, Scout, and Pathfinder Swashbuckler.
² Battle Dancers (Dragon Compendium, a so-so Chaotic Monk), Factotums (Dungeonscape), and some generic Spellcasters and Warriors (Unearthed Arcana). The generic classes choose their good and bad saves, but only the Expert gets two good saves.
