D&D: Thanks to a New Feat “You Just Activated My Trap Card” is Now a Thing
Now you too can shout “you just activated my trap card” before flipping a single card around and ruining someone’s day.
While the physical release of the Deck of Many Things set may have been delayed, the Book of Many Things (the standalone book which is available digitally on November 14th), is still speeding on ahead towards its release. And at present, the digital edition is the only way to get just the book. And inside the Book of Many Things, you’ll find a new feat that lets you live out your Yu-Gi-Oh dreams.
That’s right. It’s about to get a lot more insufferable because once you hit 4th level and take the new Cartomancer feat, you can activate your trap card, bringing the ancient meme to life once more. But thanks to the feat, that may not be the only meme you can dream of. Let’s take a look at what it does.
Cartomancer—It Ain’t Gambit, But It’ll Do
Like every new book in the last release wave, the Book of Many Things features a number of player options. But none of them are new lineages or new subclasses. The majority of D&D’s new player options (for now, perhaps this will change with the 2024 Edition) consist of special feats. And that’s true here, where the Cartomancer feat is one way you can unlock the heart of the cards.
The feat requires that you be both 4th level and have the Spellcasting Feature. So magic users only, though you could easily dip into a class to snag spellcasting if you wanted. But the feat is primarily beneficial to Spellcasters. Cartomancer gives you two abilities, one of which is completely useless, but it doesn’t matter because the other ability is why you take the feat:
Card Tricks, which lets you learn and cast Prestidigitation to create “illusions that duplicate the effects of STAGE MAGIC”. When you use Prestidigitation to do closeup magic, you can hide the verbal and somatic components of the spell, so no one will know you’re casting spell instead of using a sleight of hand to pull a quarter out of someone’s ear. This feels like a waste of an ability, it’s not even to conceal the normal uses of Prestidigitation, just the illusions that you could do with normal Stage Magic.
Hidden Ace, on the other hand, is sure to lead to much more fun. With this, you can load a card up with a single spell from your class’s spell list. It has to be a spell you can cast with a single action, and it has to be a level for which you have spell slots. Note that you only have to have the spell slots, not that you’re spending them.
Once you imbue the card, you have eight hours to use it, which you do by flourishing it and using a bonus action to cast the spell within. So not only do you get effectively an extra slot of whatever level you’re able to cast, you also can change a spell with a casting time of 1 action to a Bonus Action. Which leaves you plenty of time to say “You just activated my Trap Card.” Once per long rest, sure, but that’s still frightfully good.
This and more await in the Book of Many Things!
