Mind Sliver: Prepare to Have Your Mind Blown
Usable By: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: Cantrip
School: Enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Duration: 1 round
Components: V
You drive a disorienting spike of psychic energy into the mind of one creature you can see within range. The target must succeed on an Intelligence saving throw or take 1d6 psychic damage and subtract 1d4 from the next saving throw it makes before the end of your next turn.
At Higher Levels. This spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach certain levels: 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).
Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Designing cantrips is a challenge. These are intended to replace basic attacks on full casters, and act as tools that scale reasonably well over the entire duration of the game. Most of the options in the PHB end up being cast a handful of times a campaign, or literally every five minutes (cough cough Guidance). Of all cantrips in the PHB, the one that has always stood out to me as a perfect option is Vicious Mockery. It deals a bit of damage, and imposes a penalty on foes that is always good, regardless of how high level you get. There will be times where you do genuinely just want to cast Vicious Mockery for aid, and you don’t often feel bad for needing to fall back on it. Mind Sliver is the evolution of Vicious Mockery, and can help expand out 5e to be more cooperative than ever.
While the damage scaling is pretty poor, that isn’t really the point of the spell. A bit of psychic damage helps contribute towards victory, even if you don’t necessarily NEED the boon it's providing, so you always have some way to contribute. You can find the spell shines when Mind Sliver empowers the next spell that forces a save; it becomes an option you think about using regularly to help out an ally cast something powerful. The spell becomes that niche Vicious Mockery fills, only for setting up splashing save spells instead of defending an ally. It encourages you to plan ahead with a friend; if they’re going to cast their save or die Banishment, you can set them up with Mind Sliver making the act feel like a cooperative moment everyone can high five over.
D&D is supposed to be a cooperative experience yet so few features encourage you to work with your fellow players. We need less cantrips like Toll the Dead and more like Mind Sliver to bring D&D more into the realm of cooperative gaming and out of the dated single player character building experience a lot of the older systems heavily rely on. With Mind Sliver, you can empower nearly all friendly characters. It helps your barbarian grapple, your cleric Banishment, and your wizard Fireball. It gives a helping hand to your friends to come together to make a moment that’s built off of teamwork, not a single player knowing how to make a busted character.
Mind Sliver should be the new norm for design. Spells coming from this point forward all don’t need to be cooperative, but on average, I hope we can see more spells push the game towards a cooperative experience where everyone feels like they contribute to each other's success. I can’t recommend enough taking Mind Sliver if you’re in the market for a supportive damaging cantrip.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
