So you cast dominate monster on a living blade of disaster. This sets a telepathic link which you can communicate through. Tell the blade to relax for a minute while you cast geas at 9 th level for until dispelled effect. Then tell the blade to act as your weapon then tell it you will feed it all it wants. What do you think about the viability of this and as an aside if you charmed a creature do other charm spells you cast on that creature automatically work?
Charm does two things in and of itself. Grant you advantage on social ability checks and make them unable to attack you/target you with harmful abilities.
My understanding is that unless the DM decides to allow it, you cannot willingly fail a saving throw unless a spell or ability specifically mentions that you can. So I'm not sure if you could use dominate monster to command the creature to fail the geas save.
Not only that, but a creature under the Geas spell, can choose not to obey the caster by paying a damage price. What would make this very specific scenario very difficult to maintain.
[...]What do you think about the viability of this and as an aside if you charmed a creature do other charm spells you cast on that creature automatically work?
Absolutely not. You don't get to sacrifice your (at this point virtually useless) level 1 slots casting Charm Person until it sticks so you can guarantee your level 9 Geas works without wasting the level 9 slots if it fails.
I mean, if the DM okays it, and I was a player, I'd be cheering, but it's just too cheap and devalues the scarcity of L9 slots. I might consider it for a natural cast of Geas...maybe grant advantage instead...but not acting as insurance for L9 spells. Even if it were RAW, I'd be overriding that loophole. I'd consider it if you upcast Charm Person to a really valuable spell slot instead...maybe. But Charmed is not going to grant it automatically.
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Sure. I'd allow you to use a willing creature as a weapon. Sounds like an improvised weapon, so no proficiency, you use Strength, and it'll deal 1d4 nonmagical damage.
What dominate monster will do is mean the living blade of disaster doesn't whale on you while you try and cast a spell with a casting time of 1 minute. This is certainly useful, though you can also just knock it unconscious.
I would probably allow it at my table just because the idea ALONE is freaking AWESOME.
I get what everyone is saying about it straining the rules as written, and I'm inclined to agree.
But I also got VERY serious "Elric with Stormbringer" vibes from your post, @sadomsa, and I am HERE for it!
If someone wants a living weapon bent to their will I'd be more than happy to work that into the game...just probably not using these particular circumstances. And dominate monster is an 8th level spell, no need to wait until that late of a level.
This doesn’t actually work. You want dominate monster not just because you can have it sit for a minute but also because it forms a telepathic link between you and the creature. Geas requires the creature to understand you, and while the living blade has decent intelligence it has no languages.
So looking at it again, as written the creature would save for the charm duration only but the other affects of geas would still work while it was charmed. No auto fails but still subjected to geas while under the original charm. An hour for the Charm spells and up to 8 hours with dominate. Since you want the geas for its increased duration you would need to cast it again till you could get it to stick.
Thank you all for the feed back, the original idea came from designing an assassin, whisper bard and using shadow blade. I wanted shadow blade to be permanent but couldn’t figure out how and then went to blade of disaster as a big brother to shadow blade and went from there theory crafting. I wanted to see if you could do it without home brewing an answer or working it out with the dm. I also just realized blade of disaster doesn’t work with sneak attack or psychic blades from the whisper bard. It does work with the assassinate ability though.
What dominate monster will do is mean the living blade of disaster doesn't whale on you while you try and cast a spell with a casting time of 1 minute. This is certainly useful, though you can also just knock it unconscious.
Except you will lose your concentration on dominate monster as soon as your start casting that spell that has a casting time of 1 minute.
What dominate monster will do is mean the living blade of disaster doesn't whale on you while you try and cast a spell with a casting time of 1 minute. This is certainly useful, though you can also just knock it unconscious.
Except you will lose your concentration on dominate monster as soon as your start casting that spell that has a casting time of 1 minute.
Hm. Is concentrating to cast a spell concentrating on a spell? You cannot concentrate on two spells at once, but there isn't a general ban on concentrating on two effects at the same time (I suspect the intent is yes, but I confess to have never noticed that rule before so never thought about it).
When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so. If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don't expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.
So you cast dominate monster on a living blade of disaster. This sets a telepathic link which you can communicate through. Tell the blade to relax for a minute while you cast geas at 9 th level for until dispelled effect. Then tell the blade to act as your weapon then tell it you will feed it all it wants. What do you think about the viability of this and as an aside if you charmed a creature do other charm spells you cast on that creature automatically work?
Charm does two things in and of itself. Grant you advantage on social ability checks and make them unable to attack you/target you with harmful abilities.
My understanding is that unless the DM decides to allow it, you cannot willingly fail a saving throw unless a spell or ability specifically mentions that you can. So I'm not sure if you could use dominate monster to command the creature to fail the geas save.
RAW, there is no way to opt to fail a saving throw. So, the DM would have to house rule that.
Not only that, but a creature under the Geas spell, can choose not to obey the caster by paying a damage price. What would make this very specific scenario very difficult to maintain.
Absolutely not. You don't get to sacrifice your (at this point virtually useless) level 1 slots casting Charm Person until it sticks so you can guarantee your level 9 Geas works without wasting the level 9 slots if it fails.
I mean, if the DM okays it, and I was a player, I'd be cheering, but it's just too cheap and devalues the scarcity of L9 slots. I might consider it for a natural cast of Geas...maybe grant advantage instead...but not acting as insurance for L9 spells. Even if it were RAW, I'd be overriding that loophole. I'd consider it if you upcast Charm Person to a really valuable spell slot instead...maybe. But Charmed is not going to grant it automatically.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Sure. I'd allow you to use a willing creature as a weapon. Sounds like an improvised weapon, so no proficiency, you use Strength, and it'll deal 1d4 nonmagical damage.
What dominate monster will do is mean the living blade of disaster doesn't whale on you while you try and cast a spell with a casting time of 1 minute. This is certainly useful, though you can also just knock it unconscious.
If someone wants a living weapon bent to their will I'd be more than happy to work that into the game...just probably not using these particular circumstances. And dominate monster is an 8th level spell, no need to wait until that late of a level.
I would understand that ruling. But having a purely magical blade that that is a literal planar rift deal non magical damage is amusing.
This doesn’t actually work. You want dominate monster not just because you can have it sit for a minute but also because it forms a telepathic link between you and the creature. Geas requires the creature to understand you, and while the living blade has decent intelligence it has no languages.
So looking at it again, as written the creature would save for the charm duration only but the other affects of geas would still work while it was charmed. No auto fails but still subjected to geas while under the original charm. An hour for the Charm spells and up to 8 hours with dominate. Since you want the geas for its increased duration you would need to cast it again till you could get it to stick.
Thank you all for the feed back, the original idea came from designing an assassin, whisper bard and using shadow blade. I wanted shadow blade to be permanent but couldn’t figure out how and then went to blade of disaster as a big brother to shadow blade and went from there theory crafting. I wanted to see if you could do it without home brewing an answer or working it out with the dm. I also just realized blade of disaster doesn’t work with sneak attack or psychic blades from the whisper bard. It does work with the assassinate ability though.
Except you will lose your concentration on dominate monster as soon as your start casting that spell that has a casting time of 1 minute.
Hm. Is concentrating to cast a spell concentrating on a spell? You cannot concentrate on two spells at once, but there isn't a general ban on concentrating on two effects at the same time (I suspect the intent is yes, but I confess to have never noticed that rule before so never thought about it).
Only the dominate is concentration. You could cast fireball while concentrating on another spell, this is no different just a longer wind up.
Casting a spell with a casting time exceeding one action requires concentrating for the entire casting time.
Huh I have never seen that before. Once again concentration rules suck all the fun out of things.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting#LongerCastingTimes
So as a revised theory craft you would need charm monster, tongues, good social skills and geas. Much harder to actually do but still possible.