Return "Dreadful Words" mind-affecting immunity
Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2025 10:20 pm
I am very glad for the many changes and improvements to improve Warlocks, but I was disappointed to see that Dreadful Word took an indirect nerf as part of the update.
It used to be that Dreadful Word penetrated: "Protection from Alignment and immunity vs mind affecting type of effects do not inhibit the spell."
You can see this on the old wiki entry here: https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title ... oldid=7155
As part of the Warlock changes, the spell now deals nominal damage (3d6) and has a 10% chance to instantly kill opponents who fail the save. But it no longer pierces Protection from Alignment. In my opinion, this is an unfortunate nerf. Protection from Alignment is a level 1 spell. I believe that some classes receive permanently online Protection from Alignment.
I also believe that starting with very low CR mobs, caster mobs will cast this spell on themselves. To have a Dark invocation be completely neutralized by a level 1 spell significantly decreases its usefulness. Having played a character who used Dreadful Word as his signature spell, I was very disappointed to see this nerf.
As it stands, Dreadful Word is the main offensive Dark invocation (as in not Blast Essence). It's DC was not that high before, as it only had a low "Innate Level", but it still felt a fitting capstone for a DC focused offensive invocation. Trading this out for low damage and a dice-roll save or die is a difficult trade.
I can understand that because of the save-or-maybe-die, having it penetrate Mind Affecting might feel overpowered. I am suggesting to revert the changes to the old version.
I feel bad making a suggestion to revert work that I know someone did to improve the spell, but unfortunately I do not think it is an improvement because Protection from Alignment is simply too commonplace a spell.
Source: Someone who cast the previous version of Dreadful Word 100s of times.
It used to be that Dreadful Word penetrated: "Protection from Alignment and immunity vs mind affecting type of effects do not inhibit the spell."
You can see this on the old wiki entry here: https://wiki.bgtscc.net/index.php?title ... oldid=7155
As part of the Warlock changes, the spell now deals nominal damage (3d6) and has a 10% chance to instantly kill opponents who fail the save. But it no longer pierces Protection from Alignment. In my opinion, this is an unfortunate nerf. Protection from Alignment is a level 1 spell. I believe that some classes receive permanently online Protection from Alignment.
I also believe that starting with very low CR mobs, caster mobs will cast this spell on themselves. To have a Dark invocation be completely neutralized by a level 1 spell significantly decreases its usefulness. Having played a character who used Dreadful Word as his signature spell, I was very disappointed to see this nerf.
As it stands, Dreadful Word is the main offensive Dark invocation (as in not Blast Essence). It's DC was not that high before, as it only had a low "Innate Level", but it still felt a fitting capstone for a DC focused offensive invocation. Trading this out for low damage and a dice-roll save or die is a difficult trade.
I can understand that because of the save-or-maybe-die, having it penetrate Mind Affecting might feel overpowered. I am suggesting to revert the changes to the old version.
I feel bad making a suggestion to revert work that I know someone did to improve the spell, but unfortunately I do not think it is an improvement because Protection from Alignment is simply too commonplace a spell.
Source: Someone who cast the previous version of Dreadful Word 100s of times.