Prerequisite: 9th level
You can cast Jump at will, without expending a spell slot.
Otherworldly Leap: Look Before You Leap
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Silent Image, a 1st level spell at will with Misty Visions: no prerequisite. False Life, a 1st level spell at will with Fiendish Vigor: no prerequisite. Speak with Animals and Detect Magic, two 1st level ritual spells, two more at will abilities for warlocks, no prerequisites here! Jump, one of the least used 1st level spells in the game? Sorry, that’d be too powerful to get at will at 2nd level; better lock it behind a 9th level prerequisite!
Otherworldly Leap has so much potential. This could be an exceptional warlock option for the early tier to offer some fun, engaging, otherworldly exploration. Without the prerequisites, before everyone is getting access to flight and teleportation nonsense, Jump could open up your barbarians and fighters to make massive long jumps (massive being three times their strength score, normally about 45 feet), and high jumps up to 15 to 20 feet (3+Strength mod, multiplied by 3). These both still require a 10 ft. run up prior, and spending your action dashing, otherwise you don’t have the movement to clear the distance. This isn’t game changing by any stretch, this isn’t wildly powerful: it's neat. It's fun. It's perfectly in line with other exploration tools at this tier, it's why Jump is a 1st level spell. Casters have a very difficult time justifying spend spell slots on this early, making it actually getting cast a rare occurrence; turn it to an at will ability and all of a sudden you’re enabling epic chase scenes and crazy moments where a barbarian literally leaps twenty feet up to grab onto the dragon and climb onto its back without consuming the precious spell slots you need for damage or powerful concentration effects.
All of this is super fun and exciting up until you get better tools than it, and that happens WAY before 9th level. Fly is a 3rd level spell that offers a 60 ft. fly speed to whoever wants it. Misty Step is a 30 ft. teleport to get you exactly where you want to be, regardless of strength score. By 9th level, you’re getting access to 5th level spells like Passwall, Telekinesis, Tree Stride, and Far Step, and while I’m not crazy about any one of those, all of them are going to be able to do far more than Jump ever can. Jump just triples a creature's jumping distance. That’s not a 9th level kind of ability. It's a 1st level kind of ability.
Otherworldly Leap looks even sillier when you think about it in context to more recent additions to the game like Owlkin and Aaracockra. Flight is way better than tripling a jumping distance; that’s something a lot of games have no issue with whatsoever. I’ll never quite understand why Jump at will is so much more powerful than Silent Image or Disguise Self that it justifies a character needing to be EIGHT LEVELS HIGHER to get it. By that stage, you probably don’t care to take it. Ascendant Step, an at will 2nd level flight option, is also a 9th level prerequisite, and I don’t rave about Ascendant Step: it's just kind of nifty. For the same prerequisite and invocation, you could get a 1st level effect in the same general lane when it comes to exploration. I can’t fathom it being a close consideration. Otherworldly Leap, with no prerequisite, is a sweet invocation I’d recommend any table try out. Making somebody wait till 9th level just guts the majority of the fun there is to be had here, as the game has moved past the point where Jump can be awesome.
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