Bane: Keep Your Foes on Their Toes

Usable By: Bard, Cleric

Spell Level: 1

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Components: V, S, M (a drop of blood)

Up to three creatures of your choice that you can see within range must make Charisma saving throws. Whenever a target that fails this saving throw makes an attack roll or a saving throw before the spell ends, the target must roll a d4 and subtract the number rolled from the attack roll or saving throw.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 1st.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Bane and Bless are the yin and yang of the low level cleric spells; a support and an anti support, a buff and debuff. Mechanically, Bless is bonus d4s to basically everything to a bunch of friends while Bane is a penalty d4 subtracted from basically everything against a bunch of enemies. If your goal is to play with some fun support options and want to affect the world outside of damage, you can only ever concentrate on one of these two, and it basically always will be better for it to be Bless.

The bonus and penalty each of these apply may appear similar but are world’s apart in usefulness. For starters, Bane is only ever affecting up to three creatures for a 1st level slot. You can’t control the quantity of enemies you’re facing at once nor the frequency of encounters. While adventuring, Bless can always reliably benefit you and up to two more party members. You basically always will have enough creatures to get the full benefits. You can use it to aid in climbing a mountain, searching for clues at a murder scene, and going to fight some baddies. Bane’s use cases are locked to times you’re interacting with enemies.

On top of it having far less use cases, it offering saving throws to those affected makes it less consistent. If you’re getting a net d4 towards victory in either case, why risk it at all when Bless just happens? Both require concentration, both provide an adjustment towards your victory and enemy defeat, and both affect the same quantity of creatures. The only difference in the instance where either would affect a fight is how Bane can sometimes miss.

Beyond it being substantially worse than Bless, Bane also suffers from the issue a lot of dice shifting spells can. For the spell to have been worth the cast, it needs to reliably affect outcomes. It’s changing roughly ten to fifteen percent (minus two or three out of twenty) of outcomes; if you’re only seeing three or four rolls, there’s a real chance it does nothing. If it changes a single outcome from a hit to miss its not really worth the cast; you need this to be affecting basically all creatures and get at least two or three conversions for it to be worth the cast.

This, compiled with the opportunity to miss and such an easy alternative at the ready, just leaves Bane as a spell you don’t really need. There is a fantasy here along the coven witch cursing those who scorned her which is pretty cool, and Bane isn’t so bad that it won’t at least help get you towards that fantasy with some fine enough outcomes, but for the bulk of other characters who are just looking for the potency of effect, Bane probably doesn’t belong on your sheet.

5e Spells

Bane: Keep Your Foes on Their Toes