D&D 5E 2024 new multi-target spell up casting in 2014

[Nightfly]

Yeah that really is a problem, and similar restrictive wording was removed from Command. Retaining those restrictions from 2014 as "unwritten common sense" seems like an easy homebrew change to better balance these spells in 5.5e

Yeah, I was already peeved about Command. The fact you have to choose from a menu in the 2024 version is doubly bad.

I'm not inflexible -- I admit that sometimes you need to loosen restrictions. If Vicious Mockery only worked on creatures who spoke your language, it might be too narrow to be functional as a cantrip. So okay, sometimes you don't worry about considerations like that. But Tasha's Hideous Laughter was fine the way it was. The fact it didn't work on giant ants is a feature, not a bug. (No pun intended). It made more sense and it was better balanced.

 

[Gadget]

As a slight tangent, what really baffles me about all the new upcasting is that Protection from Energy still does not have an upcast option. Really? I realize that Absorb Elements stole a lot of that spell's thunder when it was introduced, but being able to apply this to multiple people by upcasting seems like a no-brainer.