Motivational Speech: You Got This!

Usable By: Bard, Cleric

Spell Level: 3

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 minute

Range: 60 feet

Duration: 1 hour

Components: V

Choose up to five creatures within range that can hear you. For the duration, each affected creature gains 5 temporary hit points and has advantage on Wisdom saving throws. If an affected creature is hit by an attack, it has advantage on the next attack roll it makes. Once an affected creature loses the temporary hit points granted by this spell, the spell ends for that creature.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the temporary hit points increase by 5 for each slot level above 3rd.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

A rousing speech: a trope that rips victory from the jaws of defeat in epic tales throughout history. It provides the last bit of morale everyone needs to stand and fight to the end. In D&D, this isn’t particularly well explored; bards get bardic inspiration, which acts as a pseudo-inspirational speech, but it could just as easily be a snide remark at your buddy's enemy or a little magical lute melody to stir the soul. There’s the Inspiring Leader feat, but everyone may not want it, or even have access to it. As a mechanic, it’d make sense for a character to get some bolstered resolve and mental will from hearing inspirational words before battle; why does this have to be a spell, then?

As a 3rd level spell, you’re getting the HP Aid offers in a worse form alongside advantage on Wisdom saving throws while the temporary hit points last. When you’re hit (even if the temporary hit points are all consumed), you get advantage on one attack roll. That’s a lot of things, but it's hard to say how worth it any of them are on their own. To justify this cast, you really need to want advantage on Wis saves; Aid gives an equal amount max HP, which can refill, for a longer duration. This probably is only lasting a single fight. Advantage on each party member's first attack roll after being hit is neat, and nice to have, but not worth a 3rd level slot. Blindness and other conditions can offer up more advantage rolls than this. Advantage on Wis saves can be a massive deal, especially against save or dies like a banshee’s horrifying visage or a dragon’s frightful presence.

Here’s the problem; any loose hits will take this bonus away. If you’re hit before you’d make the save, the Wis save bonus literally does nothing. Nearly every encounter will involve some form of damage and attack rolls; having the more niche protection dissolved by a common factor majorly detracts from the number of encounters this can even be all at all useful in.

If this was attached to a feat the way Inspiring Leader is I’d be way more for it; honestly this could just be an upgraded version of Inspiring Leader in the next edition. As is, I’d much rather take better defensive utility options or more proactive spells to mitigate specific conditions than this. Spells like Protection from Evil and Good prevent possession and fear entirely; they only affect one creature, sure, but also come with other protective measures, and are way cheaper to use.

If you want to play the motivational speaker and are a cleric or bard without access to a feat, this will do, I guess. I think reflavoring Aid to be a motivational speech is more effective and likely a better option, though. Your spells’ flavor don’t need to be fixed to the words on the page; if you want to be inspirational, have your character speak and act in an inspirational way. You don’t need Motivational Speech.

5e Spells

Motivational Speech: You Got This!