Hold Person: Not as Romantic as It Sounds

Usable By: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 2

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 90 feet

Duration: Concentration up to 1 minute

Components: V, S, M (a small, straight piece of iron)

Choose a humanoid that you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be paralyzed for the duration. At the end of each of its turns, the target can make another Wisdom saving throw. On a success, the spell ends on the target.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you can target one additional humanoid for each slot level above 2nd. The humanoids must be within 30 feet of each other when you target them.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Being paraylzed in 5th edition is basically a death sentence. While paralyzed, a creature is incapactitated (meaning it can’t take actions or reactions), can’t move, can’t speak, automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws, grants advantage to attacks against them, and turns all hits they take from creatures within 5 feet into CRITICAL hits. It takes just a round or two of paralysis to completely decimate creatures with massive CRs, even with just a party of fourth or fifth level characters.

Hold Person is paralysis save or die for humanoids. Need to massacre a single bandit leader? Hold him and watch your paladin and rogue instantly destroy him. That’s basically it. At all tiers of play, against humanoid creatures, Hold Person will functionally incapacitate a creature and double all the damage you’re friends would dish out. The fact that it’s attached to a 2nd level spell can lead to some major hiccups for your DM to figure out, especially if they intended for some main villains to be humanoids. Knowing that it only costs one second level spell slot to burn a legendary resistance or otherwise completely demolish an encounter can be a major hiccup to work around.

Up-casting also radically improves its flexibility. Save or dies are always frustrating to me as if the creature immediately passes the save, the spell does nothing. As more targets get added, the odds of the spell doing nothing go down majorly with each subsequent target. Short of 8th and 9th level spells, you’ll be hard pressed to find a spell that can lock down four or five crucial creatures in a single cast while also making them crit food for your barbarian, monk, and fighter. Hold Person can be something you’ll gladly throw out with a 5th level slot, and be pretty happy if just two of the four creatures fail the save.

Still, it does just affect humanoids. The higher tier of play you get, the more likely you’ll be seeing monsters with types stretching beyond the bounds of humanity. A lot of undead were once humanoid threats, but lose the typing and get around the spell. Shapeshifters, devils, dragons, and aberrations all are common higher tier threats, and use minions of similar types to do their bidding. Some games will get to a point where you’re fighting next to no humanoids; still, for only costing a second level slot, it isn’t a huge burden to have prepared just in case.

Hold Person is a great little silver bullet against humanoids; I just don’t like the feeling of using save or dies. Against players, this is one of the most frustrating effects you can have happen to you, so if you’re a DM out there I’d highly recommend never using this kind of spell against the party. As a player, if you’re cool with the potential outcome of literally nothing happening after spending a spell slot, the up-side of a successful Hold Person can reshape encounters, and probably easily fits onto your character sheets.

5e Spells

Hold Person: Not as Romantic as It Sounds