Telepathy: Can You Hear Me Now?

Usable By: Wizard

Spell Level: 8

School: Evocation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Unlimited

Duration: 24 hours

Components: V, S, M (a pair of linked silver rings)

You create a telepathic link between yourself and a willing creature with which you are familiar. The creature can be anywhere on the same plane of existence as you. The spell ends if you or the target are no longer on the same plane.

Until the spell ends, you and the target can instantaneously share words, images, sounds, and other sensory messages with one another through the link, and the target recognizes you as the creature it is communicating with. The spell enables a creature with an Intelligence score of at least 1 to understand the meaning of your words and take in the scope of any sensory messages you send to it.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Sending is a spell that lets you send a short message and receive a reply back from somebody basically anywhere. The only caveat is if you’ve managed to find yourself in the nine hells and your ticket out is a wizard on the material plane, five percent of the time, they don’t get the message. You can do this simple trick with a 3rd level spell.

Enter Telepathy: an 8th level version that lets you chat for twenty-four hours with the creature, so long as you are on the same plane of existence. It has the small bonuses of being able to share sensory stuff, but ultimately the question becomes how much do you need to say to somebody on the same plane of existence for it to be worth FIVE extra spell levels?

Telepathy is a spell that attempts to solve problems already solved by lower level spells better. Find Familiar can act in a similar manner, where the caveat is you need to communicate through your familiar, and have physically gotten the familiar to the creature you want to communicate with. For sure these are major drawbacks, but Find Familiar also does a myriad of other useful things, lasts indefinitely, and is a 1st level spell. If you just need to communicate telepathically with somebody as to not share secrets, Message is a cantrip that can send words this way. Telepathic Bond offers telepathic communication between eight creatures for a fifth level slot.

With all these alternatives to telepathic and remote communication, you really need to want Telepathy to communicate with somebody spontaneously and instantaneously on the same plane of existence as you, and want to talk with them for a while. Two 3rd level slots for a couple of Sendings back and forth can usually communicate crucial information with a much lower cost, and has the upside of being cross planar. I just don’t see realistic moments where this is better than that. If you don’t need to respond immediately, even Animal Messenger can communicate over massive distances, and say basically all you’d want to say. All the other reasons you’d want Telepathy, namely telepathic communications with your buddies when you have to split up, gets wildly outshone by features and spells that are far more accessible than this and don’t eat your 8th level slot.

Outside of player use, Telepathy does act as a handy world building tool to help facilitate high-magic settings. Instantaneous long distance communication as an expensive commodity can be particularly useful in intrigue based games where large sums of money are at risk or plans of invasion are unveiled at the last moment. This can be something players have to seek out in the early levels as a tool they otherwise couldn’t have.

Beyond world building though, Telepathy is terrible. This is a 5th level effect for an 8th level slot. It won’t hurt you too badly to stick this in your spellbook to prepare every now and then for convenience over downtime, but thats all you ever would probably do with it. If you want this effect and don’t want to waste the room in your spellbook, try Sending or any other of the prior mentioned effects.

5e Spells

Telepathy: Can You Hear Me Now?