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Chill Touch

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Chill Touch
  • Level: Cantrip
  • School: Necromancy
  • Class: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
  • Casting Time: Action
  • Range: Touch
  • Components: V, S
  • Duration: Instantaneous

Channeling the chill of the grave, make a melee spell attack against a target within reach. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 Necrotic damage, and it can't regain Hit Points until the end of your next turn.

Cantrip Upgrade. The damage increases by 1d10 when you reach levels 5 (2d10), 11 (3d10), and 17 (4d10).

Tactical Usage​

When to Choose Chill Touch:

  • Excellent against enemies with healing abilities or regeneration
  • Strong choice for disrupting enemy healing strategies
  • Valuable for consistent necrotic damage at no spell slot cost
  • Essential for preventing healing during critical moments

Healing Prevention Strategy:

  • Target enemies about to receive healing
  • Use against creatures with regeneration abilities
  • Interrupt enemy clerics or healers during combat
  • Prevent healing potion use by high-priority targets

Damage Scaling:

  • Level 1-4: 1d10 (5.5 average) competitive cantrip damage
  • Level 5-10: 2d10 (11 average) strong scaling
  • Level 11-16: 3d10 (16.5 average) excellent damage
  • Level 17+: 4d10 (22 average) powerful late-game option

Spell Combinations​

Healing Disruption:

  • Counterspell: Prevent healing spells while touch prevents natural healing
  • Hold Person: Guarantee touch attack against paralyzed targets
  • Web: Restrain enemies for easier touch attacks
  • Spiritual Weapon: Additional damage while maintaining healing prevention

Damage Enhancement:

  • Hex: Additional necrotic damage on hits
  • True Strike: Advantage on the spell attack roll
  • Guidance: Enhance spell attack bonus (if applicable)
  • Bless: Additional bonus to spell attack rolls

Material Component Details​

Verbal and Somatic Components:

  • Death Words: Incantations that channel grave energy
  • Grasping Gestures: Movements that reach out with spectral cold
  • No Material Cost: Freely repeatable cantrip
  • Necrotic Focus: Direct channeling of death energy through touch

Roleplay Opportunities:

  • Describe spectral frost forming on fingertips
  • Reference the cold that emanates from beyond the grave
  • Use voice to convey the chill of death itself
  • Emphasize the life-draining nature of the touch

Creator Notes​

Adjudication Guidance:

  • Melee spell attack uses spellcasting ability modifier
  • Touch range requires close proximity to target
  • Healing prevention lasts until end of caster's next turn
  • Affects all forms of hit point recovery including magical and natural

Healing Interaction:

  • Prevents regeneration, fast healing, and similar abilities
  • Blocks healing spells, potions, and magical effects
  • Does not prevent temporary hit points
  • Effect duration covers most immediate healing attempts

Balancing Considerations:

  • Touch range creates tactical risk for fragile casters
  • High damage for cantrip balanced by close-combat requirement
  • Healing prevention provides unique tactical utility
  • Necrotic damage type occasionally resisted

Environmental Interactions​

Necrotic Energy:

  • Touch carries chill of death and grave
  • May create brief frost or cold spots
  • Could affect nearby plants or small creatures
  • Generates aura of death energy detectable by magical senses

Undead Interaction:

  • May heal undead creatures instead of harming them (Creator discretion)
  • Could strengthen connection to negative energy plane
  • Might attract or repel undead in area
  • Demonstrates clear necromantic power use

Social Implications:

  • Obviously necromantic magic may alarm witnesses
  • Some cultures view death magic as evil or taboo
  • Could trigger negative reactions from divine magic users
  • May be illegal or restricted in certain jurisdictions

Common Rulings & Clarifications​

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Does this prevent temporary hit points? A: No, only hit point recovery is prevented, not temporary hit points.

Q: Can the target heal after my next turn ends? A: Yes, the prevention only lasts until the end of your next turn.

Q: Does this work against regeneration abilities? A: Yes, it prevents all forms of hit point recovery.

Q: What happens if I miss the attack? A: No damage and no healing prevention - the spell simply fails.

Alternative Applications​

Anti-Healing Tactics:

  • Regeneration Shutdown: Disable trolls and similar creatures
  • Healing Disruption: Prevent enemy healing during crucial moments
  • Resource Denial: Force enemies to waste healing resources
  • Pressure Maintenance: Keep enemies at low hit points

Creative Problem-Solving:

  • Disable undead creatures vulnerable to positive energy
  • Prevent magical healing from interfering with investigation
  • Create dramatic moments by preventing last-second healing
  • Demonstrate necromantic power for intimidation

Necromantic Cantrips:

  • Toll the Dead: Ranged necrotic damage cantrip
  • Minor Illusion: Utility cantrip alternative
  • Mage Hand: Utility for maintaining distance
  • Prestidigitation: General utility effects

Touch Attack Spells:

  • Shocking Grasp: Lightning damage with different effects
  • Inflict Wounds: Higher-level necrotic touch attack
  • Vampiric Touch: Life-draining touch with healing
  • Contagion: Disease-inflicting touch attack

Healing Prevention:

  • Wounds: Higher-level healing prevention
  • Harm: Major necrotic damage with healing reduction
  • Circle of Death: Area necrotic damage
  • Blight: Plant-focused necrotic damage

Scaling Analysis​

Damage Progression:

  • Tier 1 (Levels 1-4): 5.5 average damage competitive with other cantrips
  • Tier 2 (Levels 5-10): 11 average damage strong scaling
  • Tier 3 (Levels 11-16): 16.5 average damage excellent progression
  • Tier 4 (Levels 17-20): 22 average damage powerful endgame

Tactical Evolution:

  • Early Game: Primary damage source with unique utility
  • Mid Game: Reliable damage with healing disruption focus
  • Late Game: Utility-focused with substantial damage backup

Long-Term Viability:

  • Cantrip nature ensures always-available option
  • Healing prevention never becomes obsolete
  • Damage scaling keeps pace with character progression
  • Essential tool for necromancy-focused characters

Narrative Flavor​

Extended Description: You extend your hand while speaking words that seem to echo from beyond the grave itself. Your fingers become wreathed in spectral frost as you channel the chill of death through your touch. When you make contact, your target feels not just the cold of winter, but the absolute cold of the grave - a chill that reaches into their very life force and creates a temporary connection to the realm of death that prevents their body from healing its wounds.

Sensory Details:

  • Tactile: Bone-deep chill that penetrates beyond skin
  • Visual: Spectral frost and death energy at point of contact
  • Spiritual: Connection to death and negative energy
  • Physical: Numbing cold that inhibits natural healing

Cultural Context: Chill Touch represents the necromancer's ability to channel death energy in its most direct form, creating a temporary bridge between the living world and the realm of death. Different magical traditions may view this as communion with ancestors, mastery over life and death, or dangerous trafficking with dark forces.