D&D 5E Summoning and Binding Demons in 5E

[MonsterEnvy]

So to summarize this 6 months old thread: Planar Binding still has no practical use case?

Because to me Planar Ally isn't a serious suggestion. Why? Because if you get an outsider this way you don't need to bind it, it's already being sent to help you.

Or is there a way to either summon a demon in a way that makes it stay in place for a whole hour, without messing with the Concentration to cast the hour-long Planar Binding spell?

Planar Ally despite the name does not make the outsider summoned friendly towards you so summoning them into a magic circle is a good idea. The other way is Gate and summoning them into a magic circle, and as the above says Conjure Elemental does work with it.


Planar Binding is a very powerful spell. It's not going to be used with out prep however. As at higher caster levels it can allow you take gain control of powerful creatures for a long time. While unlikely to happen a Demon Lord can be forced into service using the spell.

 

[CapnZapp]

Planar Ally despite the name does not make the outsider summoned friendly towards you so summoning them into a magic circle is a good idea. The other way is Gate and summoning them into a magic circle, and as the above says Conjure Elemental does work with it.


Planar Ally is a very powerful spell. It's not going to be used with out prep however. As at higher caster levels it can allow you take gain control of powerful creatures for a long time. While unlikely to happen a Demon Lord can be forced into service using the spell.

Sure, but now you're talking about Planar Ally.

I'm discussing Planar Binding

(And as has been pointed out already: magic circle does not last long enough)

 

[Mistwell]

IMO, this a pure ritual thing. Research, gather resources, draw the circle, speak the Name, hope the circle holds, make a deal or bind the thing or whatever, profit. Each of the 4 first steps takes at least an hour, and requires skill checks, the make a deal step depends on what you're doing.

The material components should vary, and should be expensive.

Yeah that's what I did for my game.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Sure, but now you're talking about Planar Ally.

I'm discussing Planar Binding

(And as has been pointed out already: magic circle does not last long enough)

Fixed I meant to say Binding in my second point.

And Magic Circle does last long enough. Just not at the default duration. It's a third level spell that lasts an hour, each spell level you spend on it above 3rd increases the duration by an hour.

If you try to complain about it not working at the default level for this remember that Magic Circle has two versions, normal and inverted. Inverted keeps a type of creature from leaving the circle while, normal keeps a type of creature from going into it. Magic circle is not just for trapping summoned creatures it's also a defensive spell. The higher level versions on more for keeping an outsider trapped for binding. (Added on with Binding being a 5th level spell, it means you for sure have a 4th level slot to make a 2 hour duration magic circle.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah that's what I did for my game.

Yeah, every time I read a scene in a book about summoning things like that, it is a whole process. One which often takes hours just to prep.

In the Dresden books, he even takes a shower and meditates first, to clear errant magical energies from himself (because magic doesn't like running water), and enhance his mental focus. And then draws the circle, mixes the ingredients, etc. I think at least once, the casting itself took rather a long time, and definitely required a level concentration represented by 5e's Concentration mechanic.

Basically, prep, research, and a skill challenge. Not to mention navigating the actual encounter with an extra-planar being.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Planar binding + glyph of warding. Done and done. You precast the binding into the glyph, then don't even bother summoning until the next day and you've got all your slots back.

Also my earlier post about putting yourself into a leomund's chest doesn't work, because it only works on nonliving matter (boo!), so you'll just have to use a bag of holding instead.

 

[CapnZapp]

Can we all cut to the chase and acknowledge the elephant in the room, please.

The spell used to be phrased well, including explicitly working together with magic circle, including the element of summoning, everything.

It was its own thing, the whole package, a done deal.

Now it's just... user unfriendly (if you feel generous) or unusable (if you don't).

I don't see a problem that needed fixing, and I don't see any improvement.

The spell is a failure. It needs an overhaul.

 

[rexir2]

Can we all cut to the chase and acknowledge the elephant in the room, please.

The spell used to be phrased well, including explicitly working together with magic circle, including the element of summoning, everything.

It was its own thing, the whole package, a done deal.

Now it's just... user unfriendly (if you feel generous) or unusable (if you don't).

I don't see a problem that needed fixing, and I don't see any improvement.

The spell is a failure. It needs an overhaul.

I disagree. When considering how powerful some of the greater demons are, there has to be a balancer to this, which is why the process of doing so is excessively difficult.

Example: A bard has a Marilith bound into service. He/she casts haste on her, and tells her to kill something. Assuming each hit lands, the target would take a theoretical 186+/- DPR. That's about enough damage to kill another Marilith, a 189 HP enemy.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Can we all cut to the chase and acknowledge the elephant in the room, please.

The spell used to be phrased well, including explicitly working together with magic circle, including the element of summoning, everything.

It was its own thing, the whole package, a done deal.

Now it's just... user unfriendly (if you feel generous) or unusable (if you don't).

I don't see a problem that needed fixing, and I don't see any improvement.

The spell is a failure. It needs an overhaul.

The spell is phased fine. It's mentioned as working well with magic circle. (Cast it at a 4th level slot and there is no problem at all.)

It's a very powerful spell that can allow you to force very very powerful creatures to your will for up to a year at 9th level. No concentration or anything required. And you can use it again and again. (Lets say you gate in a balor and Bind him for a week using a higher level spell slot. After a long rest you now have the rest of the week to succeed on casting the 9th level version on it to bind it for a year. Then towards the end of that year you can use it again or reset the bind or simply repeat the process and get another Balor servant. It's costly, but a ton of wizards would love a balor servant.)

It's hard to use because it requires prep and the usage of several other spells, but you get quite a bit of bang for your buck if it gets off.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I disagree. When considering how powerful some of the greater demons are, there has to be a balancer to this, which is why the process of doing so is excessively difficult.

Example: A bard has a Marilith bound into service. He/she casts haste on her, and tells her to kill something. Assuming each hit lands, the target would take a theoretical 186+/- DPR. That's about enough damage to kill another Marilith, a 189 HP enemy.

Don't bother with Haste. It doesn't work on Multiattack.

Besides, why kill the other Marilith? Collect them all!

It's a very powerful spell that can allow you to force very very powerful creatures to your will for up to a year at 9th level. No concentration or anything required. And you can use it again and again. (Lets say you gate in a balor and Bind him for a week using a higher level spell slot. After a long rest you now have the rest of the week to succeed on casting the 9th level version on it to bind it for a year. Then towards the end of that year you can use it again or reset the bind or simply repeat the process and get another Balor servant. It's costly, but a ton of wizards would love a balor servant.)

As pointed out upthread, you can cast the 9th level version into a Glyph of Warding in advance, so you don't need to bother with the intermediate week-long Planar Binding. In fact, you can cast Feeblemind into a Glyph of Warding too in order to minimize his chances of saving against Planar Binding.

Until this thread I hadn't thought seriously about how nasty Glyph of Warding and Symbol can be when you combine them with the Gate spell. One obvious example: plane shift to another plane, inscribe four Glyphs of Warding: Cloudkill and a Wall of Force. Then Gate in Artemis Entreri, who is suddenly encased in a sphere of force filled with toxic gas. Hello, 500d8 of poison damage! Goodbye, Entreri! ;-)