Prerequisite: 5th level
You can cast Bestow Curse once using a warlock spell slot. You can't do so again until you finish a long rest.
Sign of Ill Omen: It’s Not Looking Good
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
It’s a mistake that needs to be made right that Bestow Curse, an iconic witch-y ability that evokes images of wretched hags with eyes of newts and bubbling cauldrons isn’t a warlock spell to begin with. To add insult to injury, they took the already piss poor 3rd level spell and asked warlocks to spend an entire invocation to get the privilege to spend one of their precious few pact magic slots once per long rest on it. This, dear reader, is the warlock class at its worst.
Bestow Curse is, more often than not, a touch ranged Hex light that gives the target a chance to save against the effect entirely. If you’re spending a slot lower than 5th level on it, it eats your concentration. It can be mitigated by a 3rd level preparable cleric spell entirely, Remove Curse, and can’t ever fulfill its late game fantasy of a 9th level permanent curse effect on the class that most closely resembles the typical witch look.
Let me be clear; this spell is terrible. It's one of the worst 3rd level spells in the game should you not come up with incredibly potent and important new curses beyond the spell’s given list. Without them, this spell is a touch ranged version of 1st level spells with better effects in nearly every case. Hex is literally a 1st level spell with a longer duration that you can move around as creatures die that casts at range, offers disadvantage on ability checks of a specified ability, AND forces the creature to take a bonus d6 damage, all without any saving throws being made. Bestow Curse has a lower duration, requires you touch the creature, and gives you roughly half the effects Hex does. Yet it was deemed “too powerful” to get back on short rest, strapped to a terrible invocation mechanic, and deeply disappointed a handful of warlocks who desperately wanted to play the cursing hag fantasy.
Sign of Ill Omen is everything wrong with the warlock class. It's an incredibly inefficient way to do something no other class even wants to do, but if they do decide to, they do it at a far cheaper price. You have no reason to ever take Sign of Ill Omen. It is hot trash. Steaming garbage. The absolute worst of the worst warlock invocations.
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