Dominate Beast: Only as Gross as You Make It

Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer

Spell Level: 4

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Components: V, S

You attempt to beguile a beast that you can see within range. It must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for the duration. If you or creatures that are friendly to you are fighting it, it has advantage on the saving throw.

While the beast is charmed, you have a telepathic link with it as long as the two of you are on the same plane of existence. You can use this telepathic link to issue commands to the creature while you are conscious (no action required), which it does its best to obey. You can specify a simple and general course of action, such as “Attack that creature,” “Run over there,” or “Fetch that object.” If the creature completes the order and doesn’t receive further direction from you, it defends and preserves itself to the best of its ability.

You can use your action to take total and precise control of the target. Until the end of your next turn, the creature takes only the actions you choose, and doesn’t do anything that you don’t allow it to do. During this time, you can also cause the creature to use a reaction, but this requires you to use your own reaction as well.

Each time the target takes damage, it makes a new Wisdom saving throw against the spell. If the saving throw succeeds, the spell ends.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell with a 5th-level spell slot, the duration is concentration, up to 10 minutes. When you use a 6th-level spell slot, the duration is concentration, up to 1 hour. When you use a spell slot of 7th level or higher, the duration is concentration, up to 8 hours.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Beasts are usually lower tier enemies. The bulk of beasts out there are CR 2 or lower; you’re probably going to, at best, be seeing giant elks or cave bears to dominate. As the game progresses, as long as you aren’t going full on Jurassic Park, you’re likely to encounter maybe a giant ape or crocodile. Do you prepare a spell specifically to beat a giant ape or crocodile encounter? No. No you don’t.

Dominate Beast just can’t be good. It isn’t allowed to be. It gives you finite control over any CR beast you come across with a single saving throw. If it were lower level, even just by one or two spell levels, it’d be incredibly powerful in the early tiers and make a lot of scarier beasts entirely obsolete. By 7th level, beast encounters aren’t asking you to spend 4th level slots to best them. You can typically beat up the few hunter sharks or a crash of blood crazed rhinos without needing to burn one of your top level slots. You’d much rather save it for a more impactful moment against an enemy or event that has a larger narrative impact. By 7th level, that likely won’t involve any kind of beast.

To make matters worse, the comparative options are way better than this. Summon Beast, as a 4th level spell, gives you a 40 hit point muli-attacking beast wherever you are, no questions asked. Conjure Animals has a whole suite of possible outcomes that break the game in half because of the CR system and offering you groups of beasts instead of just one option. To rub salt in the wound, both these also have sixty times the duration, meaning you can sometimes leverage their advantages for multiple fights back to back.

Dominate Beast is outclassed by summoning magic and hits a creature type games tend to pull away from in the tier you get it. There isn’t a window in the game where you’ll really be happy to have it; it's just always going to be worse than comparative options at any given tier. This spell really doesn’t need to exist.

5e Spells

Dominate Beast: Only as Gross as You Make It