Why Eyebite is Probably Better Than You Think in D&D 5e

Black eyed necromancies.

How does eyebite work?

Below are the rules for the eyebite spell from the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

Level 6 necromancy

Casting Time: Action
Range: self
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

For the duration, your eyes become an inky void. One creature of your choice within 60 feet of you that you can see must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be affected by one of the following effects of your choice for the duration.

On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can take a Magic action to target another creature but can’t target a creature again if it has succeeded on a save against this casting of the spell.

Asleep. The target has the Unconscious condition. It wakes up if it takes any damage or if another creature takes an action to shake it awake.

Panicked. The target has the Frightened condition. On each of its turns, the Frightened target must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest route available. If the target moves to a space at least 60 feet away from you where it can’t see you, this effect ends.

Sickened. The target has the Poisoned condition.

Available for: Bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard

PHB 2024, p270

Essentially you’re doing the following:

1. Pick a target each turn to take a wisdom saving throw.
2. If they fail, choose to afflict them with the unconscious, frightened or poisoned condition.

Changes from the 2014 version

There are 3 changes to eyebite from the 2014 version:

1. The panicked option no longer includes the phrase “if there is nowhere to move”. This means that even in a locked room, the frightened creature must continue to take the dash action to try and run away from the spellcaster, even if they have nowhere they can run to.
2. Sickened now causes the poisoned condition. Previously it just caused disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. Fundamentally, this means the same thing, but in the old rules, creatures immune to being poisoned could still be affected by this option, now they can’t.
3. The target can’t retake the saving throw when sickened in the 2024 rules (they could in the 2014 version).

This both makes the sickened option more potent, but also more likely to be resisted. But, because you can choose how a target is afflicted, this isn’t overly hard to bypass.

Largely, the versions of the spells work in a very similar way so the below advice can be applied fairly universally.

Why is eyebite so great?

You may be thinking that other spells can do similar things, and have even more potent conditions, and you would be correct to some extent. But there are some elements unique to eyebite that elevate it above other spells:

• You can afflict multiple targets simultaneously with multiple conditions. Yes, hold person can paralyze, but it’s limited to just one target but still occupies your whole concentration. Now you can afflict several targets simultaneously.
• There’s no repeat saving throws. Most spells that cause a condition will allow the target to retake their saving throw at the end of each of their turns. There’s none of that with eyebite. If you fail the first test, you’re stuck with it for the duration (unless the caster fails their concentration saving throw).
• You can target different creatures with different conditions. You can avoid targeting Elves with asleep as they’re immune, and oozes with poisoned as you won’t have much luck there. Instead, you can alter the condition to match the target.
• You only use 1 spell slot to cause multiple magical effects over the course of a whole combat.

Maximising the effects of eyebite

So we know it’s a good spell, but how do we maximise its impact? There’s a few ways we can do this:

• Target different creatures with different effects. Avoid trying to use conditions on creatures that are immune to these things or have advantage on their saving throws.
• Try and cause maximum impact. Poisoned will be less good on a spellcaster who can choose to use saving throw spells instead. But it will be great against a barbarian who will rely on attack rolls.
• Asleep is the most impactful effect. But it’s also the easiest to end.
• Asleep isn’t going to do much against a horde with many minions (as using a minion to wake the sleeping target is very little action sacrifice). But if you use it against a few tougher enemies, even if they wake up the target, they must expend an action to do so.
• And remember that being woken up doesn’t mean you’ve passed the saving throw. These creatures can be targeted again.
• Be careful with panicked. In big fields, this will work well as they must dash 60ft away and not see you to end the condition, but in a dungeon, the enemy could more easily get back into the fray. Having said that, this may still occupy their actions for 2 turns, unless they have long range attacks.
• Protect your spellcaster. The only way to end these effects (other than shaking awake) is to make the spellcaster fail a concentration saving throw. They may quickly become the target of enemy attacks.
• The war caster feat might help here, as might concentration saving throw proficiency and just a generally high constitution. Some spells can aid here too. Protective spells like mage armor and mirror image can protect you too.
• Improve your spell save DC. This will make the wisdom saving throw harder to pass. The obvious way to do this is to increase your spellcasting ability. Magic items can help here too, as can some class features like the sorcerer’s innate sorcery.
• Debuff enemy saving throws. Sorcerers can do this with the heightened spell metamagic option. You can also use spells like bane and mind sliver to do this too.
• A sorcerer can use quickened spell to cast levelled spells that require an action, with just a bonus action on turns after the first turn you’ve cast eyebite. This means you can afflict a creature with eyebite with your magic action, while casting fireball with your bonus action.

How to get eyebite

There are only really 2 ways to get access to eyebite:

1. Be a class with it on their spell list. This includes bards, sorcerers, warlocks and wizards.
2. Cast it from a spell scroll.

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Eyebite is a subtly great spell and a really good option at level 6, especially for characters that want to nullify their enemies, deal out conditions each turn and save on spell slots.

Let me know what you think of eyebite in the comments below.

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