Building Thom – Level 8

Level 8 has come, and something awesome has happened.

Remember this post. in which I talked about replacing Thom’s subclass with what was essentially a revised version that more fit the theme and was more consistent with current 5e design standards?

I actually got approval to make the switch. Thom is now a That Which is Beyond warlock. I’m quite happy with the change and can’t wait to make use out of all the features.

With this rebuild, we have a number of changes as outlined in the above-linked post. We’ve lost the Toll the Dead cantrip in favor of Mage Hand, we’ve replaced four leveled spells with ones that better fit our theme or are no longer part of our bonus spell list with ones that are.

Toll the Dead was a cantrip I took specifically to have a high damage cantrip to use if we were ever engaged in melee. We have Mind Sliver for that, or the use of one of our leveled spells to restrain or disorient the target, so now we have the excellent utility offered by Mage Hand.

Darkness was a spell we were never able to make terribly great use of aside from that one time we were able to shoot from it with advantage, but now with better spells to burn our concentration on for single target, it no longer really fits. Dissonant Whispers is gone, as it’s no longer on our spell list, replaced by the near-equivalent Terrifying Visions. Though Summon Aberration was a general Warlock spell, not one exclusive to our spell list, it felt right to replace it with Summon Horror, for the reasons I outlined in the post. Finally, I did make the choice to replace Detect Thoughts with Delve Mind. Though I do lose the ability to read surface thoughts with no save by giving that spell up, I think Delve Mind’s greater array of possible intelligence gathering makes it worthwhile. If need be, I can get it back the next time I gain a new spell.

So with that all in mind, what did I gain at level 8? We get a new spell and a new Feat. For the spell I opted to take another persistent AOE in the form of Sickening Radiance. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ANOTHER concentration persistent AOE? Yes, and it’s one I’ve been greatly looking forward to making use of, because of the sheer debilitation I can inflict on enemies with it, plus it’s a fairly large area I can take control of, AND it counters invisibility. I think it’s a worthwhile tool in my arsenal.

The Feat I’m going to take is Metamagic Adept, and with it I’m going to take Subtle and Careful Spell. Subtle will be helpful for disguising spells on the rare chance I need to hide what I’m doing, but Careful spell is the real reason I grabbed this. And I honestly wouldn’t have done this, were it not based on a conversation I had with my DM.

Careful spell reads as follows.

When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures from the spell’s full force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of those creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw against the spell.

The last line is where the ambiguity comes in, because it says “saving throw”, as in the singular. It’s vague how this works with persistent area spells that require you to make a saving throw every turn. I’ve read just as many opinions on both sides, and I decided it would be worthwhile to see my DM’s thoughts on the matter. He ended up being of the opinion that it works for persistent AOEs because it’s still the same spell, making it an extremely worthwhile pickup for me. One of my key issues I have always had with Thom is the fact that using his many persistent AOEs is challenging because I don’t want to get in the way of my melee allies doing their thing. With Careful Spell, and my DM’s ruling on it, I now have a tool I can use. Both Sickening Radiance and Black Tentacles allow for saving throws to avoid the full damage, although Hunger of Hadar would still damage allies that start their turn in there (nor does it do anything to mitigate the blinding effect or the difficult terrain). Black Tentacles will still be difficult terrain, but since it will also be restraining foes, I’m hoping that won’t be too big of an issue.

So that’s where Thom is at with Level 8! We’ve had a couple of episodes now with this new setup, but we’ll have to see in the future just how we make use of these new features! Until next time!