I feel like you're drastically underestimating Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound.
1. No concentration, 8 hour duration. Basically a throwback to the ridiculous powers of 3e wizards. The lack of concentration is the really huge deal here (I think people underestimate it because they compare it to concentration spells.) Yes, it's not as versatile as Bigby's Hand. But you get it a level earlier, it does the same damage as long as you can keep an enemy in reach, and it doesn't require concentration or an action, so you can use both. It's not an alarm, it's a fire-and-forget spell that does 4d8 damage a round. For the next eight hours.
2. Does reasonably high damage each turn to an enemy in the 15x15 square it can reach.
3. Damage is selective and won't hurt allies. This makes it an excellent spell to cast into crowded melee situations, especially in close quarters or if you have a grappler.
4. It's invisible, which gives it advantage on most of its attack rolls and means that enemies attacked by it (especially less intelligent ones) won't necessarily understand what's going on. They may try (uselessly) to attack it back, and may simply not realize that they can move away from it. This varies from DM to DM - some DMs have every monster automagically intuit how your spells work. But if enemies react realistically to it, it becomes much more powerful, since its nature and limitations aren't obvious at all.
5. Even if they realize exactly how it works, it's still an incredibly powerful defensive spell. You and two other people can retreat to a corner, and you can cast a hound in the outer point of the square you form; at that point, anyone who wants to melee any of you has to eat a 4d8 hound attack each turn. With no concentration on your part! The hound doesn't occupy its space, so even in an open field, you can protect one person (often yourself) from melee attacks with the hound, provided you can stay still.
6. In hallway fights (provided the hallway is no wider than 15x15), this spell is brutal. Your bruisers form a front line, you cast the hound right in front of them, and now anything that fights them is taking 4d8 damage a round with no further concentration or actions or anything on your part.
7. The eight-hour duration means that you can cast the spell to help in a fight, then take advantage of it afterwards in other ways - you can set up camp after the fight and rely on it to both keep watch and provide additional combat support, for instance, or you can lure enemies to it to use it as a meatgrinder. You can also cast it in advance as part of a trap, ie. lure an enemy down a hallway into it, then make a stand there while the hound savages them. (Its barking is a slight limitation on its trap functionality, but enemies often won't know what the sound means, and even if they do there's often limited things they can do about it.)
Obviously, the spell is strongest in close quarters, and it's best against melee opponents that can be lured into its range (or forced to enter its range if they want to attack), but those are pretty common; no spell is universally useful. And "good against melee or in close quarters" is a pretty broad niche, especially given that it is really, really good in those situations - basically like having an additional invulnerable Bigby's Hand, with no need for concentration or bonus actions, that just does the punch action every turn automatically.
1. No concentration, 8 hour duration. Basically a throwback to the ridiculous powers of 3e wizards. The lack of concentration is the really huge deal here (I think people underestimate it because they compare it to concentration spells.) Yes, it's not as versatile as Bigby's Hand. But you get it a level earlier, it does the same damage as long as you can keep an enemy in reach, and it doesn't require concentration or an action, so you can use both. It's not an alarm, it's a fire-and-forget spell that does 4d8 damage a round. For the next eight hours.
2. Does reasonably high damage each turn to an enemy in the 15x15 square it can reach.
3. Damage is selective and won't hurt allies. This makes it an excellent spell to cast into crowded melee situations, especially in close quarters or if you have a grappler.
4. It's invisible, which gives it advantage on most of its attack rolls and means that enemies attacked by it (especially less intelligent ones) won't necessarily understand what's going on. They may try (uselessly) to attack it back, and may simply not realize that they can move away from it. This varies from DM to DM - some DMs have every monster automagically intuit how your spells work. But if enemies react realistically to it, it becomes much more powerful, since its nature and limitations aren't obvious at all.
5. Even if they realize exactly how it works, it's still an incredibly powerful defensive spell. You and two other people can retreat to a corner, and you can cast a hound in the outer point of the square you form; at that point, anyone who wants to melee any of you has to eat a 4d8 hound attack each turn. With no concentration on your part! The hound doesn't occupy its space, so even in an open field, you can protect one person (often yourself) from melee attacks with the hound, provided you can stay still.
6. In hallway fights (provided the hallway is no wider than 15x15), this spell is brutal. Your bruisers form a front line, you cast the hound right in front of them, and now anything that fights them is taking 4d8 damage a round with no further concentration or actions or anything on your part.
7. The eight-hour duration means that you can cast the spell to help in a fight, then take advantage of it afterwards in other ways - you can set up camp after the fight and rely on it to both keep watch and provide additional combat support, for instance, or you can lure enemies to it to use it as a meatgrinder. You can also cast it in advance as part of a trap, ie. lure an enemy down a hallway into it, then make a stand there while the hound savages them. (Its barking is a slight limitation on its trap functionality, but enemies often won't know what the sound means, and even if they do there's often limited things they can do about it.)
Obviously, the spell is strongest in close quarters, and it's best against melee opponents that can be lured into its range (or forced to enter its range if they want to attack), but those are pretty common; no spell is universally useful. And "good against melee or in close quarters" is a pretty broad niche, especially given that it is really, really good in those situations - basically like having an additional invulnerable Bigby's Hand, with no need for concentration or bonus actions, that just does the punch action every turn automatically.
Last edited:
