So, the school of Enchantment has some real problems in NWN that make it frequently feel very underpowered and a gimmick specialization compared to the other spell schools (with the exception maybe of Divination, but that's the most useful school in RP at least). I was talking earlier to Legofsalmon/Hoppy about this earlier, and we decided to post a thread about it.
There's a host of issues that set Enchantment back:
- The inability for mobs to follow you through transitions. Easily the biggest issue, especially since it costs valuable 9th level spell slots for Dominate Monster (and anything you might use to buff the creature), the inability to bring mobs with you across zones really hampers the ability of the school to function well, especially in non-circle-grinding parties. Compare this to summons, which have been fixed to be able to follow you through in-zone transitions (and always followed through out-of-zone transitions). Even transmutation can bring things with you, through petrification mechanics.
- Massively overinflated saves on BG. This is an issue that affects all casters (see this post from Hoihe which goes into the issues more), but particularly hurts Enchantment as a school that is entirely built around DC spells. This especially hurts Hold spells, which give a new save every round.
- Yellow-named mobs can't be dominated at all.
- Short durations. Enchantment durations were massively cut back in NWN. In NWN, they're round per level (or even round per 2 or 3 levels), or 60 seconds per 2 levels in the case of Dominate Monster. In pnp, Charm Person, the one with the lowest duration, is 1 hour/level. Charm Monster and Dominate Person spells are 1 day/level. Dominate Monster is permanent in pnp. Summon spells were already changed to 60 seconds/level (despite this being massively longer than pnp versions of the spells), so I feel Enchantment spells could maybe get similar treatment.
- Some Enchantment spells can have poor visual distinction, making it unclear when an enemy is affected by them. Sleep spells, for example, can bug out and have the enemy stand up instead of lie down, and the graphic effects can sometimes vanish or not appear.
- Illusion, Transmutation, and Conjuration end up being better crowd control schools than Enchantment, due to spells like solipsism, flesh to stone, grease, and storm of vengeance.
- Not being able to properly Dominate players, rendering Enchantment somewhat nerfed in pvp. Probably not something that can be fixed, though. (unless you were to do something like spawn a simulacrum while simultaneously hiding the original character. That's probably out of the scope of this post though)
- Mindblank largely defeats any Enchantment spell. This is an accepted vulnerability of the school and not something that I feel needs changing, but it is still an example of an issue affected Enchanters.
I feel Enchantment needs a quality-of-life update like the summoning and polymorphing systems have already received. These would include mechanics to allow bringing dominated mobs with you through transitions and maybe increased durations for enchantment spells, though I understand that due to mobs being as powerful as they are, that can be a reason to leave lower durations for enchantment spells (the low level enchantment spells should still be brought up to the same duration of Dominate Monster at least, though). In addition, maybe more clear visual indications for when a mob is dazed, charmed, or asleep (like a zzz icon above a mob's head, similar to confusion). Changing mob saves is a much bigger issue and outside the scope of a QoL update, so that's not expected, but it is something that's been discussed before and would benefit a lot of character types if it was ever implemented.
In line of how these buffs have gone before, here's also a suggestion for how to improve Enchantment spell focus feats: Give a feat that you can take if you have SF Enchantment that makes it so a mob that fails its save against Enchantment spell has to make it again with a +5 bonus to its save, and/or add an additional bonus from enchantment SFs where if a mob fails its save it is still afflicted by debuffs (which get stronger/longer as you have more spell focus feats). Both of these examples are inspired by feats available in pnp.
On mob transitions: Yes, if this was enabled, this can be used to drag mobs to other players, then intentionally or unintentionally unleash it on them. But A) Petrification already allows this. You can drop a petrified creature on people, then unpetrify it, B) Heck you can just throw a meteor storm on people if you were that interested in screwing with people, C) Most laws of the land and server rules already ban bringing monstrous creatures/using harmful magic on people in settlements or intentionally griefing/pvping people, D) Heck, just make dominate function like a simulacrum except the original creature is despawned and the new dominated monster created in its place, so it unsummons completely when dismissed/when you rest. This negates the enchantment theme of your dominated creature turning on you when the effect fades, but better that than not being able to bring them through transitions.
