Earthbind: Bring Them Down to Your Level
Usable By: Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: 2
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 300 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Components: V
Choose one creature you can see within range. Yellow strips of magical energy loop around the creature. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or its flying speed (if any) is reduced to 0 feet for the spell’s duration. An airborne creature affected by this spell descends at 60 feet per round until it reaches the ground or the spell ends.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Earthbind is the kind of spell I think should have been in the Player’s Handbook. It serves a noble purpose, and while overall probably not worth taking over the majority of its comparable options, does do something cleanly and easily that you may find yourself in the market for.
The crux of the issue with Earthbind is that spells and abilities that otherwise incapacitate flying creatures often will do what this does. If it's not levitating and you knock it prone, paralyze it, or otherwise stop it from moving, it begins falling.
The main upside though is this spell has no subsequent saves. Should this hit, as long as you maintain concentration, the Earthbind will keep the creature out of the sky. This can be a permanent solution for a 2nd level slot against the dragons in the mid to upper tiers of play, forcing them to either burn legendary resistance on 2nd level spells or potentially lose one of their greatest strategic advantages.
If you're at a stage in the game where you don’t know what you’re coming up against and don’t have an enormous amount of spells, Earthbind isn’t making the cut. Hideous Laughter and Hold Person both have more potent effects against more creatures, as do Blindness/Deafness and other conditional spells. In the middle to upper tiers, or when you know you’re going into a fight where a flying creature will be at the center of the encounter, bringing a grounding effect able to be fired off from three hundred feet out can trivialize a fight that would be built around navigating something terrorizing you from the skies.
Earthbind is simple, yet effective. The higher level you get, the easier this will slot onto your sheet. Sorcerers can struggle to find room on their known spell list for these kinds of niche effects, and warlocks outright should never use Earthbind with their pact magic slots. This isn’t a 5th level effect, and it has zero benefits from being upcast, meaning you will nearly always have more impactful things to do with your available resources. As a wizard this has a low cost, and as a druid this has almost no cost at all. Both those classes can pick up Earthbind when needed, or as a fallback option in the higher tiers to get more out of your lower level slots. In those circumstances, Earthbind is an excellent option. It ages like a fine wine.
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