Hello magic casters of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 68th episode of our first level spell series. Today we’re gonna be taking a look at speak with animals 5e spell this spell is usable by the bard, druid and ranger class and naturally anyone with access to their spell lists and it is also found in the players handbook. With that being said, let’s take a look at its mechanics.
Table of Contents
Mechanics
- Level: 1st
- Casting Time: 1 Action (Ritual)
- Range/Area: Self
- Components: V, S
- Duration: 10 Minutes
- School: Divination
- Attack/Save: None
- Damage/Effect: Communication (…)
Cast time is the standard one action but it can also be a ritual casted for an additional 10 minutes, so it does not cost a spell slot. The range is self, the duration is an impressive 10 minutes and it is not a concentration spell.
The effect at a glance is as followed: You can converse with beasts. The degree of the communication depends on the beasts intelligence. But at the very least they can give you information about nearby locations, monsters and they have perceived within the past day.
The components are somatic and a verbal. Meaning you have to gesture with one hand and speak forth an incantation. And the school is divination. Very cool stuff there! I really like this spell personally. That being said, let’s take a look at the full description here so we can better flesh this out.
Description
You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration. The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day. You might be able to persuade a beast to perform a small favor for you, at the GM’s discretion.
Very very cool stuff! Needless to say there are quite a few applications to this and in all honesty there is never a shortage of creatures either found in the forest sewers or in an abandoned cave or dungeon there’s creatures essentially everywhere throughout the forgotten realms so this spell has a ton of utility in that regard alone. That being said, let’s take a look at some alternative uses and see if we can’t make it a little bit more useful for the day-to-day player. Don’t miss our dnd 5e items list.
Alternative Uses
First and foremost you could very easily use this to gain favor with a guard dog would probably the best example but there would be many mores and just persuade them to side with you instead of their current masters which more cases than not would be pretty easy, you could also use the information they tell you turn it into some kind of great plan, a master plan and if you are the strategist in your party then i would consider the spell all the mandatory.
You could also use the information to plot your way through in otherwise very difficult to solve dungeon. The ability to know what they have perceived is super super useful, especially if you lock out with the creature and they have something like blind sense for example they’d be able to relay a lot more information to you. Also check out this speak with animals 5e owlbear.
Conclusion
That being said, if you have any cool ideas, alternative uses or stories involving speak with animals spell i’d really like to hear them down in the comment section below and i know everyone else checking would as well. That being said guys, thank you so much for checking out, i really do appreciate it, i hope you all have a wonderful day and as always happy casting. Don’t miss these articles speak with plants 5e | animal friendship 5e | 5e power words | speak with animals 5e monstrosity | speak with animals 5e barbarian |