Rebalance Series
Attempt to rebalance all spells and cantrips to be more even in power.

• Rebalance - Cantrips
• Rebalance - Level 1 Spells
• Rebalance - Level 2 Spells
• Rebalance - Level 3 Spells
• Rebalance - Level 4 Spells
• Rebalance - Level 5 Spells
• Rebalance - Level 6 Spells
• Rebalance - Class Spells
• Rebalance - Feats
• Rebalance - Racials
• Rebalance - Common Effects
• Rebalance - Nerfs
  

Essential Series
Attempt to add missing pieces to the game.

• Essential Feats
• Essential Armor and Weapons
  

Overview
The goal of this mod is to improve Level 1 Spells that are rarely or never used and make them viable and potentially even competitive choices among the better spells of this rank. Spells that are considered top tier for the spell level will not be nerfed to accomplish this.

Even though I try to keep it balanced, the general power level increases to an extent. Some classes that have a very poor selection of spells will suddenly have a lot of useful spells and that indirectly increases their power, even if these spells aren't more powerful than other spells of the same level. As such you may want to use mods that increase the difficulty.



    
General Changes
There is little general changes as every spell has been treated seperately trying to improve them not just in power but also in a creative way where possible. However, many spells can be improved by merely removing their concentration requirement - adjustments were made to account for the lack of concentration.


Spells that no longer require concentration:

• Bane
• Compelled Duel (also gives advantage against target)
• Divine Favor (increased damage on upcast)
• Ensnaring Strike (no longer uses a bonus action on hit, duration reduced to 3 turns)
• Expeditious Retreat (can be cast on others, upcast can affect multiple targets, duration reduced to 6 turns)
• Heroism (targets limited to used spell slot level)
• Protection from Evil and Good (limited to 1 target)
• Searing Smite (duration reduced to 5 turns, dice size increased to 1d8 (initial damage and burn), now uses hybrid DC)
• Shield of Faith (limited to 1 target)
• Witchbolt (redesigned)
• Wrathful Smite (upcasts deal additional damage and now uses hybrid DC)
  

Spells that are desirable to cancel early kept their concentration as well as spells that are already very powerful (e.g. Bless). The exception is Entangle. Entagle's surface has been reduced to 5 turns from 10 and the concentration requirement was removed - this is sort of a beta test if this is desirable or rather a hindrance.


Color Spray / Sleep
I'm aware sleep isn't particularly unpopular, but this change wouldn't make much sense for only color spray.

• Both spells now have a saving throw (CON for Color Spray, WIS for Sleep)
• They both have seperate health thresholds, higher for color spray
• As example, Level 1 Sleep's threshold is 20 hit points
• Below 10 hit points, enemies always fall asleep, below 20 they have disadvantage on the saving throw, above 30 they have advantage on the saving throw and above 40 they cannot be put to sleep
• Note this is current hit points, not maximum
• This threshold scales with level and is noted accurately in the tooltip (see mod images)
• Sleep now also targets 3 small circles instead of a number of targets
  

Its possible I rework these spells further.


 
Charm Person / Animal Friendship
The Charm condition is extremely underwhelming. It only prevents the target from attacking the caster. It is quite disruptive if used by the enemy but not particularly useful for the player. For dialogue the Friends cantrip does the job much bettter.

In order to make these spells useful I have created a new AI archetype that charmed enemies must follow. The archetype makes enemies prioritize every other action (buffing, healing, debuffing) over attacking, so they will only attack if they have no other options left - simple enemies will still often attack. They still cannot attack their charmer. In addition the targets have disadvantage on attack rolls and INT WIS and CHA saving throws to make follow-up CC easier to hit.

Additionally:

• Duration lowered to 3 turns
• No saving throw
• Level 1 affects 3 targets, increasing by 1 per spell level
  

The spells also still work for dialogue. Animal Friendship can be used on animals up to INT 6.



Ray of Sickness
Damage reduced to 2d6 + 1d6 per level. Chains a lower level ray of sickness to a target within 9m. A level 4 ray of sickness will cause a nearby target to get hit by a level 3 ray of sickness, which causes another target to get hit by a level 2 ray of sickness and so on. Even level 1 will still cause a "level 0" ray of sickness to hit a nearby target for 1d6 poison damage.

May be overtuned (at least with twinned spell metamagic). But its fun - also poison damage is really bad.



Witchbolt
Instead of increasing damage you can now target additional enemies per spell level. Enemies stay tethered to you for 10 turns and you can add as many enemies as you want.

After casting it once you can activate the link for an action, causing damage to all enemies connected to you. The damage from activating the link is based on your character level, not the spell level. It starts at 2d6 and increases every 3 levels up to 5d6 at level 10. Note that this damage can be easily doubled by the wet condition.



Hail of Thorns
Explode radius doubled from 2 to 4. Now is an attack roll primarily and a DEX save secondary, meaning this ability will work with extra attacks. Now also causes bleeding when targets fail the DEX save. Damage unchanged.



Arms of Hadar
A somewhat underrated spell. Simply increased the radius from 3 to 4 and damage from 2d6 to 2d8. Upcasts add 1d8 instead of 1d6.



False Life
As long as the temporary hit points last all damage taken is reduced by 1-6 (based on spell level).



Cure Wounds
Now heals 1d8 + 1.5 * Spellcasting Ability Modifier. Every level adds 1d8 and 0.5 * Spellcasting Ability Modifier. The range has been increased to 3 from 1.5.



Goodberry
Berries now heal 2d4, increasing by 1d4 per level. Each level increases the summoned berry count by 1 and their supply value also increases by 1.



Longstrider / Enhanced Jump
Quality of Life: Longstrider now applies to all allies in a radius, similar to Aid. Enhanced Jump now applies to all allies around the target, given that you are not in combat.



Common Questions
If you ask these questions in the comments I'll not be answering them. You have the ability to write, so you have the ability to read as well. And hopefully the ability to think one step further than just my explanations.

Compatibility


Load Order


Feedback


Work involved
Rebalance - Level 1 Spells took around 30h to make. Its partially because it was my first rebalance mod and I had to get into a few habits, but mainly due to the amount of spells and the scale of some of the reworks - also testing.



Syrchalis' Druid Mod Collection

• Druid Quality of Life - Huge quality of life improvements and bugfixes for druids
• Druid Perfection - Added depth, multi-classing benefits and features for druids
• Druid Wildshape Weapons Armor Gear and Items - Items that work in Wild Shape
• Wildshape Viability - New Spells, Rebalance, Icons and more - Wild Shape overhaul, dozens new spells, specialized Wild Shapes
  

Links
Check out my other mods.

• Immersive Tutorial Chest Spawning and more
  

And also my armors:

• The Real Protecty Sparkswall
• Moonlight Robes for Shadowheart
• Robes and Armor of the Absolute - Nere Z'rell and The Warden