Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 58th episode of our first level spell series. Today we’re going to be taking a look at one of the most confusingly named spells in the game, a kind of sort of, it’s not confusing if you understand why.
Basically the spell was meant for something else but with 5e and previous editions kind of changed into what it is now so, anyways i’ll explain that later. So today we are going to be taking a look at protection from evil and good. It is usable by the cleric, paladin, warlock and the wizard. It is found in the lovely player’s handbook. So without further ado let’s go and check out its mechanics.
Mechanics
- Level: 1st
- Casting Time: 1 Action
- Range/Area: Touch
- Components: V, S, M *
- Duration: 10 Minutes (Concentration )
- School: Abjuration
- Attack/Save: None
- Damage/Effect: Buff (…)
Your cast time is the standard one action, the range is touch, the duration is an impressive 10 minutes but it is concentration so please note that.
The effect at a glance is as followed: Target is protected against aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. Creatures of those types attack the target with disadvantage. They also cannot charm, frighten or possess the target. Should the target already be charmed, frightened or possessed they have advantage on saving throws regarding it. Which is really really really good!
The components are somatic, material and verbal meaning you have to gesture with one hand. There is a material component and this spell does actually consume materials namely holy water or a powdered silver and iron which the spell consumes so bear that in mind and in verbal component so you speak forth an incantation. The school unsurprisingly is abjuration. Now let’s move on to the full description and kind of flesh this out and talk about it for a little bit.
Description
Until the spell ends, one willing creature you touch is protected against certain types of creatures: aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead.
The protection grants several benefits. Creatures of those types have disadvantage on attack rolls against the target. The target also can’t be charmed, frightened, or possessed by them. If the target is already charmed, frightened, or possessed by such a creature, the target has advantage on any new saving throw against the relevant effect. * – (holy water or powdered silver and iron, which the spell consumes as its material components)
So regarding the material components first and foremost, because of the way it’s worded you can’t use a holy symbol to just cast a spell, you need either the materials themselves or a component pouch. The reason the component pouch works is it doesn’t actually specify the gold value, so you can kind of get away with it that way and i’d probably recommend doing that anyhow.
Something else worth noting is if you notice this spell has absolutely nothing to do with alignment which is why it is so confusingly named 5e kind of took a step away from alignment and i know why wizards did it and it kind of makes sense cuz limiting role play and stuff like that, but by the same token i wish they could change the name of this spell like protection from beyond stuff like that.
Something like that would make a lot more sense. But whatever protection from evil and good has been around for a very long time in the dungeons and dragons mythos so i can see why the name didn’t really change despite the fact that the effect kind of doesn’t relate to it anymore. Rent aside let’s take a look at some alternative uses.
Alternative Uses
So like a lot of other abjuration spells this is incredibly useful and environments where you don’t have access to armor and you’re forced into combat or to give you an advantage in combat, i just really think it’s good so gladiatorial arena is fights of that nature would really really benefit from this.
I would also just cast it on myself if i knew there’s gonna be a fight involving any of those types, so in places like graveyards or just haunted areas in general. There’s a ton of upside to it especially if you know you’re gonna be encountering those creature types quite frequently.
This spell is useful for when you’ve got to deal with a Mindflayer. Or need to drive an Intellect Devourer from a body (check the monster block, I think its a unique interaction). Spared us a mini-boss fight in a campaign, though it nearly took over our Dragonborn until I just used Burning Hands on them both. Can’t make a Dex Save while grappling and the Dragonborn is resistant to fire.
Conclusion
That being said, if you have any cool ideas, alternative uses or stories involving protection vs good and evil 5e please put it down in the comment section beneath, i really appreciate reading them and i know everyone else does as well. Thank you so much guys, i really appreciate your time, i hope you all have a wonderful day and as always happy casting everyone. keed reading these detect evil and good 5e | sanctuary 5e | dispel evil and good 5e |