D&D 5E question on crown of madness movement and bonus actions.

[auburn2]

On crown of madness - "The charmed target must use its action before moving on each of its turns to make a melee attack against a creature other than itself that you mentally choose. The target can act normally on its turn if you choose no creature or if none are within its reach."

So does the charmed creature get to move and take bonus actions of its own choice after it attacks the person of your choosing? If so can it move itself out of melee range and effectively make the spell not function any more?

For example I target a guy in melee with one of my party members with another enemy standing next to him. He fails his save so on his turn I make him attack his ally standing right next to him. For the sake of argument lets say he is dual wielding, can he then use a bonus action to attack the party member (my ally) he is also in melee with? Can he use a bonus to disengage (if he has that ability) and move himself out of the area so he is not standing next to any of his own allies? Can he cast spiritual hammer as a bonus action and start whacking on me on the head every round even as he attacks his ally?

If this is true it would seem that unless the battle is happening in a very cramped area it will usually only be a one round affect with smart adversaries. They will move away from their allies if nothing else.

 

[Chaosmancer]

On crown of madness - "The charmed target must use its action before moving on each of its turns to make a melee attack against a creature other than itself that you mentally choose. The target can act normally on its turn if you choose no creature or if none are within its reach."

So does the charmed creature get to move and take bonus actions of its own choice after it attacks the person of your choosing? If so can it move itself out of melee range and effectively make the spell not function any more?

For example I target a guy in melee with one of my party members with another enemy standing next to him. He fails his save so on his turn I make him attack his ally standing right next to him. For the sake of argument lets say he is dual wielding, can he then use a bonus action to attack the party member (my ally) he is also in melee with? Can he use a bonus to disengage (if he has that ability) and move himself out of the area so he is not standing next to any of his own allies? Can he cast spiritual hammer as a bonus action and start whacking on me on the head every round even as he attacks his ally?

If this is true it would seem that unless the battle is happening in a very cramped area it will usually only be a one round affect with smart adversaries. They will move away from their allies if nothing else.

Yep, though there are a few more subtle things that can happen.

So, the crown action happens before everything else, so the enemy has to take that action first. We recently used this against an enemy wizard, forcing him to stab the rogue with a dagger instead of casting any spells.

You also have to dedicate your action to keeping the spell active, so it is very niche and very likely to do nothing after a round or two, but, well, preventing a cone of cold or fireball was very very nice for us.

 

[auburn2]

Yep, though there are a few more subtle things that can happen.

So, the crown action happens before everything else, so the enemy has to take that action first. We recently used this against an enemy wizard, forcing him to stab the rogue with a dagger instead of casting any spells.

You also have to dedicate your action to keeping the spell active, so it is very niche and very likely to do nothing after a round or two, but, well, preventing a cone of cold or fireball was very very nice for us.

Well that is one good example of how to keep it going.

It made me think of something else though too -who decides what type of melee attack and what weapon is used and if the creature gets multiple attacks does it use the whole attack action on the creature you choose?

For example could you have made the wizard do an unarmed strike instead of using his dagger so your rogue took slightly less damage? Can a fighter with 3 attacks a turn choose to headbutt the ally you direct him to attack and then swing his greatsword at you for two attacks?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'd have to check the spell about how it interacts with mutli-attack. The unarmed strike is a definite (the dagger was important to keep occupied for other reasons)

If the DM is a rules lawyer though, technically, multi-attack is different from extra attack. So a creature who has claw/claw/bite and has to say, headbutt as an attack, would lose their mutliattack and only do a single attack instead. Per RAW, but I think a lot of DMs (myself included) would still make three attacks.