Dominate Person

Level 5 Enchantment spell available to Bards, Sorcerers, and Wizards. Pick a humanoid, they fail a Wisdom save, and they spend ten turns fighting for you instead of against you. Taking the enemy’s best fighter and pointing it at the enemy is the biggest single swing you can make at this level.

Spell description: Dominate a nearby humanoid. Allies are unaffected. Every time the creature takes damage, it may repeat the Saving Throw against your domination.

Spell properties

• Range: 18m (60ft)
• Duration: 10 turns
• Concentration spell
• Save: WIS save
• Conditions applied: Dominated. The humanoid follows you and fights your enemies for 10 turns. It repeats the save whenever it takes damage.
• Cost: Action + Spell Slot
• Recharge: Per action

Spell upcasting

Casting Dominate Person at higher levels provides no additional benefits.

How to obtain Dominate Person

• Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard at Class level 9
• Trickery Domain and Knowledge Domain Clerics (Domain spell) and The Archfey and The Great Old One Warlocks at Class level 9

Source items: Nymph Cloak, Scroll of Dominate Person

When to cast Dominate Person

Cast it on the enemy who is doing the most damage. Not the boss with legendary resistance, the lieutenant with the big weapon. You remove their attacks from the enemy side and add them to yours, which is worth double what any damage spell would have done.

Humanoid only, which covers most of the named villains, every cultist, drow, gith, and Flaming Fist you will ever fight. Beasts need Dominate Beast, and the aberrations and undead are out.

The Dominated creature is not a summon. It fights on its own and picks its own targets, so it will sometimes do something daft. It still hits enemies, and that is the point.

Every time it takes damage it gets a new save, so tell your party to leave it alone. The enemy will happily hit it for you, and each of those hits is a chance for it to break free. It is Concentration as well, so keep the caster out of the scrum.