Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 13th episode of our first level spell series. Today we’re going to be checking out one of the most wordy first level spells out there and to be quite honest very much a value pack.
Today we’re gonna be checking about the best ceremony dnd 5e spell one of the most iconic holy spells out there. Usable by the cleric and paladin which isn’t too surprising if you think about it logically and it is found in the xanathar’s guide to everything highly recommend if you haven’t gotten it already tons of good stuff in there. Let’s take a look at the mechanics here.
Table of Contents
Mechanics
- Level: 1st
- Casting Time: 1 Hour (Ritual)
- Range/Area: Touch
- Components: V, S, M
- Duration: Instantaneous
- School: Abjuration
- Attack/Save: None
- Damage/Effect: Buff
So your cast time is a lengthy one hour. It can be ritual casted for an extra 10 minutes. So i’d probably recommend doing that. I wouldn’t really imagine a whole lot of reasons to burn a spell slot to do this. The range is touch, the duration is instantaneous and there’s a couple effects to it if you can tell already.
- Atonement: Would let you change a creatures alignment back to whatever was originally.
- Bless water: lets you make holy water.
- Coming of age: Lets a creature or humanoid creature add 1d4 to ability checks. That’s only usable once by the way.
- Dedication: Add 1d4 to saving throws. Same requirements and can only be used once as well.
- Funeral Rite: For 7 days a corpse can’t be turned undead with the exception of a wish. Which is pretty cool.
- Wedding: Which in my opinion is the coolest for 7 days 2 willing humanoids are married. While they are within 30 ft of each other they gain +2 AC.
The compoents are the holy trinity somatic, verbal and material. If you’re curious about that material component it’s 25 gold worth of powdered silver and the spell does consume it. The shcool is abjuration. Which i found to be a little bit surprising. I mean it is more of a divine spell but i mean whatever right. That being said, let’s take a look at the full description, this is going to be a wordy one.
Description
You perform a special religious ceremony that is infused with magic. When you cast the spell, choose one of the following rites, the target of which must be within 10 feet of you throughout the casting.
Atonement. You touch one willing creature whose alignment has changed, and you make a DC 20 Wisdom (Insight) check. On a successful check, you restore the target to its original alignment.
Bless Water. You touch one vial of water and cause it to become holy water.
Coming of Age. You touch one humanoid who is a young adult. For the next 24 hours, whenever the target makes an ability check, it can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the ability check. A creature can benefit from this rite only once.
Dedication. You touch one humanoid who wishes to be dedicated to your god’s service. For the next 24 hours, whenever the target makes a saving throw, it can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the save. A creature can benefit from this rite only once.
Funeral Rite. You touch one corpse, and for the next 7 days, the target can’t become undead by any means short of a wish spell.
Wedding. You touch adult humanoids willing to be bonded together in marriage. For the next 7 days, each target gains a +2 bonus to AC while they are within 30 feet of each other. A creature can benefit from this rite again only if widowed.
* – (25 gp worth of powdered silver, which the spell consumes)
It’s a wordy spell man! There are a lot of things going on there. It kind of embodies all that is like a classic cleric you know or at least a classic priest right! So i think that’s kind of what the spell is meant to do. That being said, let’s take a look at some alternative uses here.
Alternative Uses
So as you could imagine this is highly effective against vampires, essentially anyone who you need to succeed and become friends with in addition to any ally who could benefit from a +2 to AC, +4 to save or +4 to any ability checks as well and i’m sure in large encounters that is, that is ideal.
I mean could you imagine during the whole party +2 AC bonus just for a boss fight. I’m imagining there would be some rolepaly problems. After that, that would result but i really do think it’s beneficial. Not to mention that +2 to AC is easily exploitable. I once ran a character named forge he actually recently died due to questionable DM related choices but i can understand why.
He would essentially abuse his position of power to find young women who were essentially condemned to death and he would offer them atonement so long as they married him and served him for a little bit of time and then at the end of 7 days he would set them free and by set free he would kill them. Luckily though they all ended up dying before that. I mean you get the gist it could easily be kind of manipulated.
Conclusion
That being said, if you guys have any crazy stories involving ceremony or any alternative uses of your own eyes along with everyone else would really like to hear them in the comments beneath and yeah have a great day guys and as always happy casting.