I don’t like vicious mockery.

It’s a weirdly dissociated mechanic. If you kind of squint at it in the right light, you can almost see an association. Magically enhanced insults so utterly devastating that they can literally kill you with psychic damage seem like a thing you put your thumb on.

But can you actually describe in character what the spell is doing? If a bard casts vicious mockery and kills a dolphin, what actually happens? If you’re targeted by the spell, what does it feel like?

Your mileage may vary, but this is one of those mechanics that, when the players trigger it, I’m completely uncertain how to describe what actually happens. That’s a red flag, in my opinion. (See, also, non-divine guidance.) More often than not, it feels like casting the spell means we all disconnect from the game world for a bit, do some dice stuff, and then reconnect to the game world with no clear description of anything actually happening (except maybe someone keeled over and died).

Alternatively, you’ve got the issue where players feel like they need to improvise the insult they hurl at the target of the spell. (Or, often, the DM will demand it of them.) That, too, seems fine. But, if we can be honest for a moment, how easy do you find it to improvise an insult so withering that someone falling over dead after hearing it seems like a reasonable outcome?

What actually happens most of the time, of course, is a sort of comical mismatch:

Player: I call the dolphin “fish-face”!

DM: This insult overwhelms the dolphin, who instantly dies!

Yes, I understand that the insult has been “laced with subtle enchantments.” But, again, what does that actually look like?

The mechanics of the spell — first introduced in the Player’s Handbook 2 for 4^th Edition before being adapted for the 5^th Edition Player’s Handbook — are also getting more dissociated over time. In 2014, for example, your target had to hear the insults, “though it need not understand” them. (Which kind of raises the question of why it needs to be an insult at all.)

In the 2024 Player’s Handbook, however, this requirement is dropped. The target of the spell is now “one create you can see or hear within range.”

So we’ve gone from insults that drive your foe into a blind rage to a spell where the target doesn’t even need to understand what you’re saying (I guess they can just tell from your tone) to, today, your target standing in a silence spell while unable to see you, but still being completely wrecked by how mean you’re being to them.

Mechanically speaking, though, there’s nothing wrong with “Wisdom save or suffer damage and disadvantage on your attack roll.” It also provides pretty core functionality for bards, so I don’t want to just nix it from my game.

So can we tweak the presentation of vicious mockery to achieve the same or similar mechanical effect without the issues?

ETHEREAL SONATA

With the aid of subtle enchantments, you pitch your voice so that it vibrates through the Ethereal Plane instead of through air. As these ethereal tones resonate with a target you can see and who can hear you, they psychically damage and discombobulate them.

VICIOUS MOCKERY (REDUX)

You utter an epithet from the primal ur-language which was used by the gods to carve the minds of the first sentient races in the multiverse. Infusing the curse with magic, you precisely tune it to a target you can see and who can hear you. On a failed Wisdom saving throw, the target’s mind momentarily rewrites itself, shaking them with the sudden belief that your disparagement is utter truth.

SONIC BARRAGE

Weaving your magic, you tune and focus the perfect pitch of your choice into a killing word directed at a target you can see and who can hear you.

Note: This version would be an evocation cantrip dealing thunder damage instead of psychic damage.

FURTHER READING
Guidance Sucks in 5th Edition

Untested 5th Edition: Streamlined Skills 5E Monster: Likho Review: Call of the Netherdeep – Part 3: This Broken Railroad