Holy Aura: Kicks Foresight in the Nuts
Usable By: Cleric
Spell Level: 8
School: Abjuration
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Components: V, S, M (A tiny reliquary worth at least 1,000 gp containing a sacred relic, such as a scrap of cloth from a saint’s robe or a piece of parchment from a religious text)
Divine light washes out from you and coalesces in a soft radiance in a 30-foot radius around you. Creatures of your choice in that radius when you cast this spell shed dim light in a 5-foot radius and have advantage on all saving throws, and other creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls against them until the spell ends. In addition, when a fiend or an undead hits an affected creature with a melee attack, the aura flashes with brilliant light. The attacker must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the spell ends.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Foresight is a garbage 9th level spell; advantage on everything just isn’t enough of a game warping effect to justify using a 9th level slot. Holy Aura, despite similarities, is a superb spell for an 8th level slot. It is LEAGUES better than Foresight, which is to say it's a solid option to have.
The meat of the spell is advantage on all saving throws and imposing disadvantage on all attack rolls against any people you can cram within 30 feet of you. The spell requires concentration, but with these two lovely defensive boosts, you can stay comfy knowing you’re likely going to maintain concentration for as long as you need.
Granting advantage to all saving throws is the best part of Foresight. Of all the kinds of rolls you can make, saving throws tend to be the hardest to get advantage on making this effect better than advantage on the other two rolls. Not only does this benefit you, it also grants it to your entire party. Upper tier play relies heavily on condition inflicting saves and high area of effect damage mitigated by abilities like evasion. Granting advantage to the whole group makes these kinds of effects far easier to manage, and keep your entire team going in the face of otherwise certain death.
Without any of the text involving undead, Holy Aura is solid. Now you also get to freely blind waves of undead and fiends, both of which are fairly common upper tier enemies to face. This becomes a spell that is useful in a wide breadth of situations, and just a bit stronger in some niche cases to give it that little something extra higher level spells need. This is high level magic done right.
If you’re looking for some protection for the squad going into that ancient dragon fight or duel with a mind flayer, Holy Aura is a great choice. It isn’t revolutionary, nor is it bending the rules of the world in wacky ways, but it does give a relevant boost to a critical element of game play when it's most needed.
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