Maze can be seen as pretty underwhelming for an 8th level spell, but for me these are two of the major differences:
There is no saving throw to avoid its effects. The targeted creature is sent into the maze with no possibility to resist. Once there, it's Intelligence saving throws until it escapes, but even after escaping it will have used its action on its turn. Therefore you remove it on your own turn, then it loses its next turn, and keeps missing turns until it saves. So one of the key differences is that Maze always works, but can be ended early.
Secondly, because a natural 20 is not a guaranteed success, any creature with a negative intelligence modifier cannot escape the maze, and will remain there for 10 minutes. It may be unlikely to continue much past 2-4 minutes even for a creature with a +0 intelligence modifier, but an adult white dragon or purple worm cannot escape it. It's also possible for a creature to be unable to beat your DC on Banishment, but charisma scores are often much harder to guage than intelligence.
Maze is therefore much better if you are targeting a single creature: you will always achieve at least 1 turn of banishment. Banishment at 8th level will target 5 creatures - which is great as it means each spell has its own function.
The caveat I’d add to sanvael’s post, which I generally agree with, is if the enemy is from another plane, banishment can one shot them and end the fight. With maze, they’ll come back eventually.
The caveat I’d add to sanvael’s post, which I generally agree with, is if the enemy is from another plane, banishment can one shot them and end the fight. With maze, they’ll come back eventually.
If you're playing at a level where you have a choice of Maze or Banishment, then the creature you just banished can probably plane shift if it originally came from another plane.
So after looking over both spells, I am curious what spell the community thinks is better.
Maze does have a 10 minute duration and requires a DC 20 Int save to escape, which is higher than the max DC - all of these are awesome.
Banishment lasts 1 minute and is a Cha save, a more common save but not very. But it can be upcaste to remove multiple people.
The biggest difference I see is Banishment is a 4th level spell while Maze is 8th.
So, all this in mind, what do you think is the better spell and why?
Maze can be seen as pretty underwhelming for an 8th level spell, but for me these are two of the major differences:
There is no saving throw to avoid its effects. The targeted creature is sent into the maze with no possibility to resist. Once there, it's Intelligence saving throws until it escapes, but even after escaping it will have used its action on its turn. Therefore you remove it on your own turn, then it loses its next turn, and keeps missing turns until it saves. So one of the key differences is that Maze always works, but can be ended early.
Secondly, because a natural 20 is not a guaranteed success, any creature with a negative intelligence modifier cannot escape the maze, and will remain there for 10 minutes. It may be unlikely to continue much past 2-4 minutes even for a creature with a +0 intelligence modifier, but an adult white dragon or purple worm cannot escape it. It's also possible for a creature to be unable to beat your DC on Banishment, but charisma scores are often much harder to guage than intelligence.
Maze is therefore much better if you are targeting a single creature: you will always achieve at least 1 turn of banishment. Banishment at 8th level will target 5 creatures - which is great as it means each spell has its own function.
The caveat I’d add to sanvael’s post, which I generally agree with, is if the enemy is from another plane, banishment can one shot them and end the fight. With maze, they’ll come back eventually.
If you're playing at a level where you have a choice of Maze or Banishment, then the creature you just banished can probably plane shift if it originally came from another plane.